None of them do, unfortunately Asian bookies cater exclusively for sports not racing

Agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that betting on football is more palatable to the psychological wellbeing of beginners (and to this more experienced investor, too, truth be known!). But I would like to add another element to the equation if I may, and that is the issue of practicality.

I have reached the point now where I am finding it increasingly difficult to get my stake onto the tips of the racing services that I follow. The BOG bookmakers are tightening the noose around my gambling neck and it is getting to the point where I am having to seriously reconsider my approach as my pips are squeaked.

If I was “gambling” full time, I would be able to utilise ways around this issue, using pseudo accounts, etc. However, I’m not. From Monday to Friday, I place all my racing bets from my workplace. I have a static IP address at work and I am not able to change it. A couple of bookmakers have closed down my pseudo accounts very quickly and I can only assume that they are able to do this via recognition of the IP address.

I do still have accounts at Bet365, Hills and Ladbrokes with which I have had no problems at all. But looking ahead – as surely all serious investors should continually be doing – I can’t see how this is sustainable. More stress is being placed on these accounts as other BOG bookmaker accounts are rendered useless, meaning more bets have to be placed through the few BOG accounts that remain.

So what to do? One option is to shift the weight of the portfolio more squarely onto the shoulders of the football/sports side of the portfolio. There are many more bookmakers providing prices, BOG is an irrelevance, and even by taking the very best price on offer on each bet, stakes are spread more thinly across many more available accounts. There are also the Asian books that limit accounts less readily. Last season too, I was able to place at least 3 to 5 bets each weekend using cash in betting offices, securing the best available price in the process.

More bets too could be placed at home – most services send their selections through out of normal “office” hours, opening up the potential use of pseudo accounts when necessary.

So all in, I’m wondering if football/sports is the way to go if a keen eye is being kept on the long-term sustainability of our investments. It would be a shame, as there are some top quality racing services out there, but that’s not much good if we can’t get the bets on.

Rowan

There wouldn’t be many tipsters specialising in Irish racing but having done some analysis this past week on Proforms off the shelf Irish system (available with their software) Irish Sunday racing performs better than average over the last 2 and a half years. Brought home in nice style by 3 winners from 8 yesterday at EPs of 8/1 , 3/1 and 13/8!

Re football I wonder does this have to do with the fact that Sunday games tend to be more competitive for TV purposes (especially 2nd half of the year) once contractual obligations to show the “rubbish” teams are out of the way? No evidence whatsoever for that mind.