the "outstanding contribution to tipping" award + Pinnacle on their way back to the UK market

I'm proud to announce that I've just won the SBC "outstanding contribution to tipping" award, which is a "lifetime achievement honour chosen by the SBC team" (along with being voted the third best sports tipster in 2016 by the SBC members, but now I'm just bragging). To quote the SBC team,

"the SBC ‘Lifetime Achievement’ honour is designed to recognize those who have provided outstanding services to punters through tipping and is chosen by the Secret Betting Club team. This year’s very worthy award recipient is the football tipster, Skeeve, who since 2006 has been posting his lower-league football tips to great acclaim. Making a profit over the course of 1 football season is difficult enough but to do it over 10 consecutive seasons as Skeeve has done is a phenomenal achievement. Over the lifetime of his service, Skeeve has posted just under 1500 tips and made 674 points profit at 12.2% Return on Investment. It is not just his profit but the quality of customer service and his odds-settlement policy that also deserves merit as Skeeve has always played extremely fair by his members. Ensuring that you can often match, if not beat the advised profits he records on his website – a huge deal when you consider today’s betting markets and how they react to sharp money. Skeeve is well on course to enjoy his 11th consecutive profitable season and we can’t think of a worthier recipient for this honour. Here is to another decade of profit!"

2017 RESULTS SO FAR:

17 picks

44 points staked

+5.11 points profit

11.6% ROI

8.5% ROC

2016 RESULTS:

49 picks

121 points staked

+19.49 points profit

16.1% ROI

32.4% ROC

LAST THREE YEARS (MARCH 2014 - FEBRUARY 2017):

172 picks

511 points staked

+66.37 points profit

12.9% ROI

97.7% ROC

Anonymous posted a comment about Pinnacle and their continued absence from the UK market. I hope he's satisfied with my answer and I also hope Joseph Buchdahl isn't wrong about Pinnacle returning to the UK market as soon as next month!

Last but not least, congrats to Cassini - one of, if not THE, best bloggers around - on his 2259th blog post. It's not a typo - that's 2259 (update: 2261) blog posts.

closing/kick-off odds (part one)

I'm horrible, I know - I've promised an article on closing/kick-off odds more than a month ago and now I'm going to split it into more than one part? Unbelievable. Unfortunately, as always at this time of year, there's plenty of something I like to call the "actual work", which means I have to try and keep the blog alive (among other things) in my so-called spare time - and you can't buy spare time.

Anyway, for starters, here's what Joseph Buchdahl wrote about the closing odds in one of his educational articles for Pinnacle:

Closing odds reflect the largest amount of information about matches, and the maximum number of opinions being expressed through wagering on that information, and hence are most likely to be the most efficient.

I don't think there's many, if any, who'd say that beating the closing odds at Pinnacle in the long run isn't an obvious sign of a good tipster - possibly not the only sign, but a well obvious sign. In that light, I've decided to take a closer look at the closing/kick-off odds for my official picks in the last six campaigns (starting with the 2010/11 season, which is when I've started to record all odds with a significant delay in the official stats and compare the pre-mail odds, recorded odds and the closing odds, and ending with the 2015/16 season - I'll write more about the current season as soon as it ends in May), along with the so-called "pre-mail" odds (those available before I send the pick, but at an extremely fixed moment in time, which I'll write more about in the next article, and days after those juicy opening odds which would - in all fairness - return the biggest theoretical profit by far, but at severe limits and odds movements in practice) and the so-called "recorded" odds (those recorded with a fair delay, when they're usually at their worst - I've experimented with various delays, never shorter than sixty seconds, in recording the odds since the 2010/11 season until I've settled with a sixty-second delay at the beginning of last season, which ensures that everyone who can take the bet straight away, at an extremely fixed moment in time, is able to beat the so-called "official" results).

2010/11 - 2015/16 (PRE-MAIL ODDS): +206.35 points profit (11.0% ROI)
2010/11 - 2015/16 (RECORDED ODDS): +157.93 points profit (8.4% ROI)
2010/11 - 2015/16 (CLOSING ODDS): +138.52 points profit (7.4% ROI)

I'll go into more detail in the next article (consider this an intro article to this very interesting topic), but beating the closing odds at Pinnacle in the long run? Check. However, my results based on closing/kick-off odds are now outperforming the results based on recorded odds for the fourth consecutive season (not by far, but still), which is a fairly interesting phenomenon (and another sub-topic I'll write more on in the next article). As I really do record the odds when they're at their worst, it probably isn't as bizarre as it may seem at the first glance, and - as I wrote in the 2016 review - "both the results based on pre-mail odds and the results based on kick-off/closing odds have outperformed the official results in 2016 - in most cases, recorded odds will be a bit shorter than the pre-mail odds and the kick-off/closing odds will be either a bit shorter or a bit longer than the recorded odds (for example, 1.79 - 1.75 - 1.72, which was the case with the (-0.25) Torquay bet on March 5, or 1.72 - 1.65 - 1.69, which was the case with the (0) Cheltenham bet on April 1), but it only takes a few bets to make things more interesting". There were eight cases of significant (10% or more) odds movement between recorded and closing/kick-off odds in 2016. The odds drifted out (at least 10%) in seven of these eight cases and five of those seven bets landed (+4.67 points profit at a 32.2% ROI based on recorded odds; +7.12 points profit at a 49.1% ROI based on closing odds). The only odds-shortening (10% or more) bet landed for a +1.76 point profit based on recorded odds and a +1.2 point profit based on closing odds respectively.

January 2017 review

I still owe you an article on the kick-off/closing odds and I'll be glad to publish it in a few days, but let me get the January 2017 review out of the way first.


OFFICIAL PICKS:

7/1 NL: (-0.75) ALDERSHOT - Southport  (1.98 @SBO) 4 points  FT 2:1 (+1.96)
14/1 NL: (-0.5) WREXHAM - North Ferriby  (1.46 @12bet/Dafabet) 4 points  FT 1:0 (+1.84)
21/1 NL: (-0.75) MACCLESFIELD - Guiseley  (1.71 @Pinnacle) 4 points  FT 1:2 (-4)
21/1 NL: Southport - NORTH FERRIBY  (5.70 @12bet/Dafabet) 1 point  FT 2:4 (+4.70)
28/1 NL: (-0.25) EASTLEIGH - Woking  (1.45 @Pinnacle) 4 points  FT 0:1 (-4)
28/1 NL: Tranmere - DAG & RED  (4.13 @Pinnacle) 1 point  FT 0:2 (+3.13)

6 picks
18 points staked
4-0-2
+3.63 point profit
20.1% ROI
6.0% ROC
(advised bank: 60 points)

A bad mini-run with the four-point asian handicap bets (-8) has been counteracted by a great mini-run with the one-point bets on outsiders (+7.83) and I doubt I'll see many, if any, more weekends with this kind of a scenario (the four-point asian handicap bet fails while the one-point outsider bet lands) in the next thirteen weeks (+play-offs). The bets on outsiders have produced a 391% ROI this month (!) and that's based on recorded odds - the Dag & Red odds have, for some reason, drifted out to 5.14 with Pinnacle by kick-off last weekend. All in all, a very good month - I'd have nothing against a 20% ROI each month, obviously.


UNOFFICIAL LAST-MINUTE PICKS:

21/1 NL: York - (0) BARROW  (1.72 @Pinnacle) 1 point  FT 2:1 (-1)
28/1 NL: (0) BROMLEY - Southport  (1.49 @Pinnacle) 1 point  FT 3:1 (+0.49)

2 picks
2 points staked
1-0-1
-0.51 point loss
-25.5% ROI

A small loss with the unofficial last-minute picks, but there was once again only a couple of bets. There should be more last-minute picks in February.


UNOFFICIAL LONG-TERM PICKS 2016/17 (PENDING):

NL: DAG & RED to be promoted to League Two (6.00 @Marathon) 1 point

The current best price is 5.00 with the likes of Marathon and Will Hill (the bet was advised in mid-September). Unfortunately, these unofficial long-term bets aren't available with the likes of Pinnacle and SBO.