So Unlucky!!!!

Hi,

i have received some emails lately about the issue of luck in betting. Many people say that if they count the results they have been unlucky to lose late in a match , those have been significally more than those they have won.

If you find me in a relaxed situation(a bit rare) i will also tell you that maybe those bets i've lost on dying moments are significally more than those i've won. There is another explanation though. Most people remember those bets they have lost but those they have won they tend to forget. Its a classic physchological think. On my teaching years i remember a classic phrase. When you have given to somebody a bad mark you will listen "This bastard gave me an F!!!" , when you have given a good mark you listen "I took an A!!!". It is clear that the tendency to explain good thinks has to do with us "I TOOK THE A" and when we lose we have the need to give the blame to somebody else "HE GAVE ME A BAD MARK".

The same exactly happens on betting. When we win , we have made a correct prediction. When we lose , luck takes the blame.... Which of us remembers chances that an opponent lost in a bet that we have won? Nobody... Do we remember the chances that our team lost in a match gone nasty? OH YES...

Speculator August 2008...

Hi,

As we have the blog there isn’t any reason to send emails or publish files so the Speculator would be available from the blog.

For a 2nd month we have faced a turbulent situation. Good start, poor middle and an acceptable finish. I say acceptable as the only fact that makes me happy is the positive end of month. I believe this was the worst month since the Group has started. And I say that as now we have a biggest squad on board and when you achieve to make a tiny profit with this team that we do know and rate as excellent there is nothing to be happy about it. Our standards are far higher than they used to be and the profit was certainly far below those standards.

On the other side, the additions of more analysts on the Group have given us a more stable performance but also bigger patches , either positive or negative. We have closed five months on profit in the last six with those two very good months of more than 100 units on plus so the general picture is certainly positive.must live with bad patches, “strange results” as everything is a part of the game.

If we start giving blame to everything else than our bad or incorrect reading of a match then we simply try to blame somebody else for our problem. One of our very good analysts have told me that he was unlucky recently and his results certainly were bad as most of his matches turned around between 85 and 95 min. simply we could say a match that turns in the last 5 min of the game is bad luck. Is It? Or maybe the team that allows the opponent to turn the match has a problem?

Personally, I think there were a big number of bad read bets this month and this is what we will try to fix. The abilities and potential that the Group developed is well known to us and months of less than 50 units of profit are just poor for our standards.

About being patient. That goes to some members. Patience is a virtue in some situations and certainly in betting. As we do wrote many times, the punter or tipster shows on his reaction through bad times and not from his reactions on good times. The same happens with a service, EBIG have proved many times that has strong reactions that follow bad months. We are not the Oracle of Delphi to know when we will win on the other side when you know the people that you work with and their abilities you know that sooner of later the profit will come and your year will also be positive. This is the reason that our customer base stays nearly the same for long-time even if we don’t offer profit-guarantees, cheap memberships or any other type of promises. We just know that we will end up positive in the majority of our months. There could be a small loss occasionally but there are also strong months to cover those bad beats.We do value our work on a certain price each month and this is what we charge. Simple as that.

Till next time...

The question is simple...

What the heck we are doing here?



Anyway, except that we are doing fine... As long as we get older crazy partying at Amnesia , Pascha or Bora Bora is getting a real hazard for us over the thirties... Heart Attacks , etc:)

Back to reality now. I want to write today about the hazards of running a website like EBIG or at least being a tipster. The tipster is like the coach on football , is the escape goat for many... By luck , one person that i know is a member of the group. In a random social event(marriage of a common friend) i heard the guy to say "I have destroyed my sportbook yesterday , i have 5/5"... all well... In an another random event (again those hated marriages) i heard the guy to say , "those assholes EBIG have destroyed me , they have made 0/4 and i lost big money , i ain't going to use them again"

This is certainly funny but it's the whole truth... I win if site or tipster wins , THEY lose if site loses... As somebody said , Victory has many fathers but loss just the coach(or the tipster:))...

The question then is why we like to be tipsters , or why we like to write our opinion for money or not money. From the experience of all those years , i can say that being a punter is one of the most lonely thinks you may do in your life. And yes it could prove hazard... This is a copy from Jimmakos blog that says many on professional gambling or tipping...

Cons of being a professional gambler:

1. Stress.

2. Extreme stress.

3. Stress you couldn't ever imagine of. Ok, you get the idea.

4. Depression. The above apply.

5. Boredom.

6. No social life.

7. Lack of communication and understanding with others (relatives, friends, family, etc.).

8. Misunderstood by the majority of people.

9. Extreme lack of physical exercise.

10. Health problems.

11. Food/Sleep disorders.

12. Get used to bad habits (smoking, drinking, etc.).

13. Be a slave to the money.

14. Be dependent from your work.

15. Be unhappy.

Ok , its a bit overreacting though it is cynically true in the majority of the cons of being a professional gambler. If you add to the above the fact that advising also influences the life and moods of hundreds of others you may understand how much a manager of a tipping service stays under pressure.

So , why somebody should put himself under the umbrella of those hazards? A rhetorical question this one ? or am i wrong? Some thinks you must live to understand...

For the time being we do plan our next summer trip to Ibiza , if we make it till then...

Have a nice afternoon

Another great post...

Hello,

instead of reading me today , just have a look on this excellent post by Matt from the Punt.com blog. Really great stuff from Matt on this one and certainly many of us can project oursfelves on this post...

Enjoy...

ROI or VOLUME?

Hello,

it is sometimes very funny how many interesting people you may meet and get to know from a website. I have recently met a member of EBI-GROUP in Athens going to his vacations in Crete. Mike is a professionals trader, on of the guys that Betfair sends flowers to his birthday :)
We have met in a cafeteria in the center of Athens and talked about many though the base of the conversation was the ROI vs. Volume schools of betting.

Mike has a simple theory as a trader , ROI is not important as long as it is positive , the big importance on his play is the Volume. And his reasoning is simple.

"Man, i have made a volume of 22 million pounds last year , my ROI was 1.25% and my total profit was some hundreds of thousands of pounds. Who gives a shit about the ROI? As long as it is positive i know that i will win"

adding

"ROI makes you look good but it is just a number , money come from volume. It's like having a beautiful girl next to you, to pay her drinks but some other to enjoy the crop" LOL

The other side , the ROI followers say the simple but true , i have a ROI of 30%-40% i know that i risk small to win big. Let's do the math...

One of those big ROI hitters has a bank of 2000 euros and his level stakes are 60 euros per bet. Let's say he does make 10 bet per week , that is 600 euros with a ROI% of 30% it is 180 euros profit per week. He needs 11 weeks to double his bank.

One of those that say volume makes the difference now plays 60 euros per bet with a ROI of 9% and 50 bets per week. His profit would be 270 euros per week and his bank will double in seven and a half weeks.

The above example is very simple and there are many variations to it like the stake size (Some use a % of bank instead of flat stakes) and bad spells , etc... Though the result is clear , the volume guy reach his target far easier than a ROI guy. As i wrote in one of my previous posts some services do take an advantage of this flaw posting tips with dream-odds in order to look good on services. On the other side Mike made his statement and his statement was correct , find me 5 or 10 tipsters with a ROI 5-10% and you make me happy on the pocket , find me one super tipster with ROI close to 30-40% and you make happy on the looks but not that happy on the pocket...

Have a nice weekend....

ps. For Dr. Tsouts. Doctor , there is a service called Secret Betting Club and they do rate services. I have some objections on their system though they are fair in general so you may wish to give a try to them. They have a forum as well where punters offer their opinions and that may prove useful.

Safe-heaven or Safe-Hell?

Hello,

i will quote one phrase from a returning member of our service in order to build my post for today:

"Hello Guys ,
i have enrolled to www.xxxxx-xxxx.com service after your bad run in the begining of the year. Now i'm on huge problem , the service have collapsed lately and actually i've lost the good run of EBIG but also i'm -50 units down from them. What you advice ? how i may recover my losses?
Rgs, XXXXXX"

The post has nothing to do with the classic "i'm better than the others" , it has to do with the collapses that many times services do face. And when the experience of people managing those services is not that big , then a collapse could turn from a minor or normal miss(at the end of the day we don't have contract with profit) to a big collapse that actually destroys the whole bank of the punter.

The title of the post could be easily "Why tipping services do fail?" but this ain't the reality as some services do fail but other manage to comeback and give more than before passing those nasty experiences.

I believe we have to split tipping services into two different categories.

A. Person based services
B. Team based services

Even we have always exceptions that verify the rule, services based into a single person are by far the most dangerous IMO. One person , even if it is super good has always to face bad runs. And that happens usually in services based on horses that many times are one-man shows. I've seen recently many examples of Laying-Something.com services that after big wins have just collapsed , and when i mean collapsed , i mean losing profits of months for old members or losing big for new ones. Laying is a trendy material in our days but as most of those services do lay horses and do lay them in prices higher than 5.0 , 6.0 or even 10.00 the damage done by 5 or 6 misses are huge. As the competition is large on this field , especially in the UK , the tipster tries to run and return from the hell but most of the times it gets burned and with him , his members.
The same happens for one-person classic football , sports services. One person can't win always so for various reasons and not always due to bad luck or just coincidence a service could easily collapse.

The second type of tipping service, the one with more people looks the safest but sometimes could be also a big trap. The theory of volume(i will describe it in a latter post) says that is better to have on your books many good punters than a very good punters. Many good punters with a ROI around 10% is virtually impossible to have all toghether a bad spell or bad run. That allows you to bet large volumes and even without a 20% or 30% ROI to bank good money as quantity-wise there is always plus on amounts and sometimes bigger plus.As i said before , there is always a danger of a combined loss or many team members and then the loss is always bigger in amounts.

The question is how we can avoid those bad patches , services , etc. Personally , not being a horse lover but also not being a lay lover i haven't ever used racing services. On the other side i have closely studied other football betting services. In the vast majority of cases and when a really bad spell appeared we had two outcomes. The service recorded a huge profit and dissapeared or the service have changed owner and reappeared. I don't talk about a situational one month bad spell , i mean about a really nasty spell of 2 or 3 months in minuses.

In reality there isn't any answer , on the other side , there are signs of panic betting from a tipster. And panic betting leads to even higher losses in the majority of times. How we find out a panic betting attempt?

1. When you follow a tipster that gives a normal amount of bets(e.g 50-60 per month) and on his bad months you see 100-120 that shows exactly a first sign of panic or an attempt to catch up with loss.
2. A tipster that usually has previews or analysis and starts to cut those previews to just one paragraph or no previews at all from one page previews. That also gives us a sign that something has changed.
3. Tipsters with no analysis you are just out on the blue. I heard situations that succefull services changed owners , nobody was informed and the results were purely chaotic.
4. Dramatic increase on stakes. Another classic example of a service near to collapse. When you see a loser to raise stakes it shouts "Jump off the train or cry"

Many more do exist , but those four are surely most important concerning avoidance of bad patches or near-collapsing services. My personal opinion is that the most dangerous of all are single-person , no analysis services. Those look like a lottery as we don't know when , how and why those tips go online but we also don't know when a tipster changes or shuts his job down by transfering his website. As i said some could be succefull but always the exception verifies the rule.

Have a nice weekend...

The purity of profit...

Hello ,

i have returned from vacation , now Galata is going on his 2nd!!! summer holiday... What to say , some people are just lucky. I know that many of you also going to some nice place and i wish you all to have fun. FYI , Galata goes to Tinos Island , another very beatifull island of Kyklades.

Anyway , for us here at home there is normal life so i will comment on a subject concerning services and the reality of the results they show. This is a reply for members that ask me in a daily basis for services we do recommend.

Having studied some verification services and the way they operate i could say that some flaws exist and should be stated. In order to look good on those sites you may do just two simple things:

1. Open the site and start posting many many bets daily (i will explain that latter)
2. The bets verified to odds but what about limits?

I have seen verified tips from MMA fighting with 2 euro limit available in just 1-2 sportbooks , combos that can be played in 2-3 sportbooks with joke limits and some bets in Hockey (some exotic euro league) where the limit could reach 10 euros before the bet is locked!!! I will not say that this is a mistake of verification services , not at all , they do their job in a very proffesional way and they are obliged to accept bets like those as not all punters that join services play hundreds or thousands of euros. On the other side , those bets that are actually Unplayable do count in results of tipping services. And those results usually do make difference as they are some hockey draws , some big combo winners or an outsider in Karate that wins. And those results do make a service look good in numbers but in reality the purity of those profits and the real ROI% is far smaller than the actual one making difference on our pockets and bank accounts.

The second has to do with formulas. Sports-Tipsters is an excellent site in terms of information and i'm a big fan of the book published by Joe , if you haven't read that you should do , is a must read. On the other side , i believe there is a flaw on the formula that calculates the performance of tipsters. I'm personally again the logic of Robustness that is :

"The "robustnesss" of a betting record is a consequence of both yield (or rather strike rate) and bet number. A record may have a good yield, but if it is based on only a few bets, a punter cannot be confident that it really reflects the tipster's skill. On the other hand, a record of 250 bets and only a 5% yield can be considered to be more robust because the tipster's ability has been tested over and over again. "

My opinion is that many times this could be a negative instead of positive stat to count. I give you one very simple example on how you may cheat easily against this criteria. Let's say you open a service and every day you give 10 tips. Tennis , football , basket , etc... Every month you should have 300 bets , after 3 months you should have 900 bets and very easily somebody with 900 - 1000 bets into 3 months time could be considered as Robust. But is really a robust service?

I personally have a different opinion. Numbers don't lie for sure though i think some other ingredients should be calculated concerning Robustness. Those are :

Recovery after bad streaks and Period of time online. Number of bets are certainly important but in my opinion a service that is online 2 or 3 years shows robustness instead of a service online 3 or 5 months. Also how the service reacts on bad runs? Did the service managed to return the loss and re-create profit ? Did the service collapsed? There are some good examples of Super-Services charging thousand of dollars per month that just collapsed after a bad month.

Is the price and the bet achievable? That couldn't be counted as everybody has a different volume of money per bet. But what is the value of a service when you can achieve only a % of the adviced odds or you can't achieve it at all?

Those two are the key areas you must consider along with the previous results as always. And this is what i consider purity of profit or robustness.

Hope you all have good additional selections...

The Originals

Hi,

back to work in fullspeed and even if betting doesn't stop we do prepare for the full season that follows summer. As i wrote many times , we consider the Group as a living organism , the management of the group remains the same for 20 months but as it is normal we have people that participate in the group and those change.

On the other side , i do consider and see our early days partners on a different way as some of them have played important part that lead us to be one of the most respected services of the market.

One of the Originals of EBI-GROUP is Bet-Manavis that stayed with us from the begining and since January of 2008. Then he decided to take a break and start his own freelance bussiness , now he is back and again a full member of the team.

We wish him good luck on his new spell at EBI-GROUP

Miltiades / Galata

Vacation to Paros Island

Hello,

it was much needed and finally happened. I was out for a five days vacation in the island of Paros. Born myself in another island , i'm too sceptic when i take the boat to other islands. A bit of an alien feeling this one. Though i must say that Paros is a beautifull island but most important of all i did understood why so many people like Kyklades and those tiny islands for their vacation.

Most of us work and live in large cities like Athens , Madrid , Rome , etc... To drive from place A to B seems like a tale from Hercules. Big traffic jams , hours of driving and much stress. Paros as most of the islands of Kyklades are small , from A to B you need maximum thirty minutes drive, the beach is 2-3 minutes walk , everything is within reach. When in a large city we are able to work and drive back , in Paros you may do many more and still have time in hand...

This is what i consider quality of life...

Some tips for those planning to visit...

Avoid Naoussa , too crowdy and expensive... Paroikia is quiet , cheap and just 20 minutes by car to Naoussa where the nightlife takes place.

Have your dinner at Glafkos in Naoussa, super food!!!

Take your laptop and use Municipalitie's of Paros Wifi Free Internet Access to check the analysis by EBI-GROUP

Don't take your laptop:)

Instead of a car hire a gourouna bike!!!

If you have been in Paros or you don't plan to go there , then go to Chios , its much better and you may meet by accident some tipster of EBI-GROUP!!!

Places to be...

















Santa Maria















Kolymbithres















Golden Beach












Krios

As you see there are many but also more to places to visit. Highly recommended!!!

Talking about legends...

Goodmorning,

Many people say that Greece taking Euro 2004 was a massive upset. Yes it was... though in my memories always stay this mythical European Championship of 1987 , a cup that every summer comes into my memory. Maybe because the opponent was a monster like USSR , let's say it was a David vs Goliath thing...

I'm not a fan of basketball , i really get bored watching matches as the creativity is certainly smaller than this of football. On the other side , some basketball players was just a bless to watch. In the European Championship of 1987 two legends of the sport in Europe had put their signature. The mythical Nick Gallis , a guy that many said that defeated gravity and Drazen Petrovic , one big talent that died some years later on a car accident... Both have been artists of the sport and maybe in NBA some players are also myths but is really different to take a whole country on your back and move it to a better tomorrow... Enjoy...



The final. 40 points scored against USSR. Cops do also cheer sometimes:)



Drajen...



The final points...

Livebetting , tool or catastrophy?

Hello,

some problems with our web hosting(i will write about it in a latter time) kept me out from blogging though still there is small time left.

Today the subject is Livebetting or In-Running as it is called in Asia. For some a tool for others a sentence. I was with a master agent of a big Asian sportbook last weekend and we had a talk on how asians see this product as they call it...

The guy have amazed me when he told me that after the opening of Asia Markets to European livebetting was the life-line that most sportbooks needed to stay on market. Pointbet , a well known sportbook for many years and the first opened to Europeans have bankrupted as they have failed to offer livebetting to customers.

The reason is very simple for the master agent. Livebetting keeps the punter on his PC and online for many hours. Some of his customers are 18-20 hours online in order to bet events from 2nd division of Chile to Portuguese u19 games. And there is the where the sportbook takes the situation in hand. When somebody that usually puts his money on one or two events could easily bet on live at 30 , 40 even 60 events daily. Events that has no idea what is the color or the condition of the teams that he bets by just opening a page with results and statistics(if those exist) and place bets.

This is sportbook paradise , the vig is always in his favour and the lack of information makes it even easier. So instead of slowly eating those 2-5% vigs now they have a Thanks Giving dinner daily from those punters that feel the rush so sooner or later the credit is crunched.

This is the sportbook view of the subject. Say it something like a supermarket logic. You go to supermarket to buy a watermellon , and you end up buying a plastic doll , condoms , the cashier and the store manager:)

As we speak , i see that now IBC offers the super prestigious event of "Ireland Munster Senior Cup" for livebetting where Munster Cup is :

"The Munster Senior Cup is a provincial soccer tournament played among senior soccer clubs from Munster in the Republic of Ireland. The competition is run by the Munster Football Association, which is affiliated to the Football Association of Ireland."

Let's see a proffesional punter's view on the matter.

My friend , have virtually stopped betting pre-live odds(except some serious info and some under totals) and now he is totally focused on livebetting. His method haven't changed at all and he is simply bying better prices on live market or sometimes covers some of his bets to ensure capital.

He also told me that in minor tournaments catches the plane or the car and visit the stadium placing bets inside the ground. And that is his biggest profit maker for sometime as the live odds operator could easily make a mistake and somebody with information and news of the last minute could easily give him the edge.

He also talked to me about his early live-betting days. When he lost nearly 30.000 euros in just one evening having himself catched-up by the adrenaline rush and the big number of games in livemarket.

So, Tool or Catastrophy? As one of my Proffesors once told me in the University , you may buy a bike and make your life easier but you also can go and kill yourself with it. Simply , there are two sides on the coin , we can always choose the one the one that favours us...

Have a nice midweek...

Libertadores 2008 Final

Another great match , another great comeback from Fluminense, 2nd time as the first was against Boca but finally the Cup goes to LDU. I believe it was well worth as the 4-2 of first game was a magic image and Liga have lost incredible chances to sentence it.



The highlight of the evening is the way that goalkeeper of Liga managed to make it even more difficult for Fluminense players.

Show me a recovered punter and i will show you a good punter

Hello,

we had some days to write a post though the problems with the operation of the website just took too long and gave us a strong slap on the face and consumed most of our time.

This post i wish to dedicate to one person that is with us for sometime , a person behind the scenes but as much(if not more) valuable member of the Group. Proffesor Sergei have started with us longtime ago and his role is mainly to manage the vip section of the website but also cool up thinks in very good or very bad times. He is actually the person that evaluates the statistic character of every single tip. And when i talk about statistics , i talk about serious numbers , serious calculations , power ratings and generally stuff that only some well educated people like Sergino possess.

We wish to thank you all Proffesor...

I opened my post about Sergei as he told me yesterday something that amazed me. I wasn't in the best mood as this month was on plus but not on the levels we all wished to have. To go from +130 and +120 to +35 ain't the best , though Sergei told me that this was maybe better month than a +100 month.

And the reason was that we have managed to recover from negatives for three times and instead of letting it go we have manage to turn it in plus. "Show me a recovered punter and i will show you a winning punter" he said...

How much right he is. And how difficult it is to escape three losing series within one month. I guess you may project a similar situation on your betting career. Think about it...

Don't forget to have a look on our newest Copa Libertadores Finals album. I have cheated there as i have also included one of the goals i always like to see. The amazing foul shot of Rene Higuita against River Plate...

Have a nice evening.


----------------
Now playing: Bellini - Samba De Janeiro (Samba De Euro mix)
via FoxyTunes

How much?

Good morning , i hope all you may have a good Sunday...

i will like to comment today on some questions i've received from some guys and worth an answer.

First , the comment of Albert that wrote:

"now i have a possible subject for your blog:
What do you do when you are almost 100% certain about the outcome of a match but the market offers around 1,35 - 1,6. to which degree would you follow your instict and how much would you bet relative to your net worth asuming the depth in the market is there to not lower the odds substantially. /albert"

Well , Albert , i have given a short answer to your question. But i will extend it a bit. My opinion is that bettor must have a certain plan the same way that an investor has. I'm a very big fan of Flat Staking or a variation of it the double flat staking method which has some basic rules:

1. A bet is worth to be taken or not
2. If a bet worth taken then it worths the same money and is equal with other bets
3. In some special conditions , we may do give a double stake to a bet but mathematically speaking this comes closer to this 90-100% certainly of expecting an outcome.
4. The only sure think in life is death so the only think that i can be 100% sure is my death and nothing else.

I believe in general terms that the punter is aware of just a few of the hundreds of variables that could lead a team to a result. E.g. we may have some good preview on match , may know some factors as the referee trend , stats , form , etc... but there are dozen more variables that we don't know. For example , if a player was rejected sex by his wife and he is a bit down in phsychology , if some players wish to send the coach away (this is a long process of usually 3-4 matches that conclude to a 1-4 or 1-5 loss at home) and many many more. Theoritically speaking , all those variables together are added in order to create a percentage of estimation always on our mind.

As i know that i have only one fraction of those variables available i know that is impossible to reach a 90 or 100% on my estimation for an outcome. Ok, there are some exceptions. But always and as i told you some unknown variables could easily lead a "fixed" match in the opposite outcome.

So , my opinion is that having the arsenal of information that i do have i give a GO or NO GO situation to an outcome and i take this bet on a flat stake. When my confidence is significally higher i may take a double stake but this is all. This is my own approach , wrong or right , this is where i have been lead after some years.


This is a question Mike. Concerns more Greek readers but at the end of the case is still applied to everybody.

"More than 50 or 60 people now say they have been with George Paraskevas on his old site. In reality how many people have been there?"

Well, let's say that in your early twenties you have used to go in the gym , you had money , good looks and a nice car. You have been the king of the ladies. Now in your forties you have no money , no nice car , and you are 20+ kilos and women avoid you like rotten fish.

I'm really tired with this. Some people that trying to cash on a job they had 5 or 10 yrs ago. So you may have been with George Paraskevas 2, 5 , 8 or 10 yrs ago , in the best betting website of the world then but this is the past. And in betting what you have been doing 2 ,3 or 10 years ago has nothing to do with what you are right now. Some people , just use this strange argument in order to sell themselves now but in reality those that do follow this tactic just try to hide their fall and deterioration.

It seems funny nowdays , this argument sounds like some guys that show you a girl and say "i was with her 10 years ago" OR "i was a big player" , so what? if you have been a good player on the past that means you are still today?

In my eyes this is just a pure , un-ethical and dirty way of exploiting a dead man's memory for their own profit and shows clearly how rotten the market and those people are in Greece. On the other side it shows that this man even after his loss is still infuences people and that shows how great he was on this.

Let the man REST IN PEACE!!! Please...

Good Afternoon

News or "News" ?

Hello,

sometimes i feel like writing about the excellent job people of the site do concerning the way they inform members. Maybe this example concerns the Group but in reality it's applied to other websites or information sources.

Many old school tipsters - journalists - etc say that news play an important role to the education of the punter as those help the punter to decide his own , to evolve his betting style and in general create his own way and that tips are just a temporary solution as the punter just copies the desicion of somebody else. But is this the real case? what is the difference of news and previews of a tip? how we can say that preview of a tip couldn't be far more important than two pages of info considered as a new?

I read the preview of the match written by Galata yesterday, and how we moved me to bet on Euro 2008 even if i said that i will not take a single bet.... let's have a look...

"here’s huge problem in Turkish centre backs. Gokhan Zan, the only true back, is more gifted on headers but rather slow on grass and in my opinion he needs the game of his life to stop Klose. The other back, Mehmet Topal, is really a defensive midfielder, not so tall and totally inexperienced in this position at this level. "

then

"Plus totally unstable goalie Rustu, who was never good when it came to clear a phase inside his area. He’s good in blocking shots from outside, but he will have problem for sure with tall Germans in set pieces."

then

"Even if loses with a vast score tonight, Terim will see nobody to blame him. Knowing his best choise players remaining are up front (extremely clever striker Semih Senturk, Hamit Altintop and Gokdeniz Karadeniz with a badly wounded pride, as he was starring in Russian championship but see little time in this tournament because of outstanding Arda Turan and a light injury), we think that Turkey will have their chances to score, especially when they have a centre back duo of slow dinosaurs and Jens Lehman at goal who plays only with experience."

Now look on the video and she how the goals were scored...



Who cares if player X or player Y is away? does this matter? you will have read thousands of those useless news articles by specialists or masters of writing but the real news could always be found under 2 or 3 short paragraphs. That matters... I don't have an idea who is Topal , no idea who is Zan but the person who writes and knows gave me the chance to know why those players have an important role and why those players make the writer decide on the bet... The other just read that this player is out and the other player is in... So what?

Tmr i will return with the Theorem of the Frog

Deep Sea Diving

A well knonw theorem on stock markets is the one of the frog but i changed some basic principles so i rename it Deep Sea Diving Experience. As most stock market and financial theorems apply to betting , well , with some alterations i really liked this one and i wish to pass it through.

The theorem should be applied to crisis management and the way that bad streaks can be faced carefully. As i wrote in a previous blog and i guess you all have seen in the past , there is a big possibilty of a very long and painfull bad streak. Imagine that you had a bank of 100.000 and you have lost 80.000. What happens then?

An inexperienced punter will add more risk and will end up losing the whole bank sooner or later. In the frog theorem the investor is compared with the diver (or frogman) as deeper as he goes the more time he needs to return back to surface.

Actually , the bigest problem of the punter , always IMO is not how we is going to gain some winning knowledge , the problem is how we will do face those deep crisis on his betting career. Many say money management is essential and surely it is but a crisis is imminent and must be expected , if the crisis could be fought with a good manner then success seems the one-way road for the punter.

Going on the theorem , the rule says that when you are close to bankrupcy , the one wrong step brings the other. And that happens because when we lose the 80% of our bank we still act as we have the 100% and not 20% meaning that our stakes and risk stay on the levels of a 100.000 bank and not 20.000 bank after the bad streak. I have been a big supporter of the flat staking technique , for me you either wish to follow a bet or not so this 1/10 scale is uselless as on my eyes every bet is worth or not worth to be taken.

So in order to avoid being bankrupt if the bad run continues , we must level our stakes after a very bad run to the new amount of 20.000 and not carry on betting as we have 100.000. That will allow us to take a small breath and recover slowly but with more safety by minimizing the risk of going even deeper. At the end of the day , a very deep dive and a fast return could easily bring a bigger fish but with the same ease could bring us to a near death experience. A diver may recover fast for one or two times but sooner or later he will go to the deep instead of the surface...

Have a nice weekend...

ps. Albert i will try to extend my answer on your subject at a latter entry.

An army of ants...

Hi again.

i like to see that some readers have this bug inside them and do really think about it. That was obvious on the emails i received concerning the way we approach betting. I'm on the scene for more than 15 years. The early days where Coral and Hill where trying to cut off the local british tax(British readers will remember the classic question' You wish to pay the tax now?) by oppening the internet door and Gibraltar licencing , the golden days of Latin American Soccer where the sportbook had no idea and published unimaginable prices on outsiders , the opening of the Asian Markets in the early 2000's and now we are in the days of trading , live-betting and everything is betable.

My experience just taught me one think. The times have changed , the "sport" becomes more and more difficult , maybe some basic rules apply but prices move so fast , news are getting digged out so easily and sportbooks are more aware(BetRadar or HolyRadar). One person is now too difficult to broke through , maybe this person can do well for 1 , 2 or 5 years but time always takes its toll and certainly sooner of later you will enter a bad run. I have counted that in a time window of 10 years it is normal for a good punter to enter have 12 - 18 months of bad run. This could happen partially , e.g. 1 or 2 months per season or sometimes you may enter a bad run of 6-8 months.

There is only 1 way to avoid paying this bad months. By simply creating a cell , a cell of people you trust that you can follow and put your money on their thoughts. By creating this cell you will avoid those bad months or runs and you will be covered. The basic idea we had with my partner Argie was that when we started planning the website.

Maybe is time to do the same , you have a friend that you rate good? Join forces and you will see that plus is getting bigger. You have a friend that you count weaker than you? Help him , make him learn , he may help you on the future (most of the times he doesn't but guys let's be optimistic).

I remember something i've read in a book written by a great Tibetan leader , Saskya Pandita on my University days.

"When many work together for a goal, Great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed By a single colony of ants."

Try to build the colony and kill the cub... But remember we talk about genuine ants :)

Have a nice day...

Rate (also) the preview…

We really should mention some things about previews. As our subscribers know any of EBI-Group bets is posted with a full preview available, explaining accurately the main reasons pushing us to put our money to this and advice it to our service. Some of our subscribers do not even read the preview and follow our bets “blind”, however in our eyes the preview is not useless, but the exact opposite. It’s the main tool we have to support our service and that’s why we strongly advice our clients to read all previews before betting.( Even if we feel proud and more responsible for some people who we have convinced with our work so much, to take our bets without even reading our views).

In our eyes the preview is more serious that the bet itself. The preview is a result of a carefull (sometimes exshausting) news reading procedure, a statistical analysis, plus our experience and hard-tested betting logics. If what we mention in the preview is proven right, then our job is well done. The other things are a matter of luck. And as any punter knows, you cannot deal with luck every time.

The feeling that we analyzed the match in a right way is extremely important for a punter’s psychology, regardless the outcome of the bet. Of course there have been matches where the team adviced by EBI-Group dominated but didn’t win (and some other, unfortunately less, where we got some lucky wins). But the loss looks heavier when you find out that a player you mention as absent plays and scores, or a fine pitch looks like mud after a heavy rain…

For me personally the “preview psychology” is a good trick to overcome the bad days. And in my personal archive I rate differently the matches lost by bad luck or by bad judgment. As I mentioned before, you cannot deal with luck, so you leave it alone as a sleazy factor. Luck comes and goes in circles, you should have mentioned that there’re time periods when you lose everything and others you win everything. What remains in the end is hard work in reading, analyzing and thinking about the matches advised. So even in a bad day I could go to sleep without concern and next day think and play without bad memories from last night, without thinking “to get money back” or advice with poor psychology due to latest results.

So we want EBI-Group to be rated not only for the results, but also for the previews. Of course people do not subscribe to any punter’s service just to read good previews (when given…), but to make money. However the preview is a mirror of a service’s fate. The most well-documented is a bet advised, the most stable the service will be.

Pro or Semi-Pro

Uffff... another weekend ends here and i could say i'm not happy at all about it... As you may understand from the previous phrase you could assume that me , my partner and all the guys here at the site do actually have a normal everyday job.

I decided to write this post as many friends of the site ask as usual if we are proffesionals or not. For me , this term tends to be a very strange one. Do we wish to work for ourselves and make vacation two or three months per year? who doesn't wish that actually... On the other side and judging from some previous occations i have saw in the past years , i could say that turning into a proffesional punter could easily get really nasty for somebody. Personally i saw people that one day had 1 or 2 millions of euros on their bank accounts and then i listen about them in 1 or 1.5 year and i heard that they are in deep , deep troubles. And those examples tend to increase nowdays in a very big number. I talk about people i've met in forums during the half - late nineties and early two thousand , i knew them very well and i felt very happy when i learned that they broke this wall. So what happened to all those guys? The one million question is actually How they may lose 1 or 2 millions of euros?

Most of those guys told me that simply losed the meaning of the value of money. Let's see an example. Normal people do have a monthly income of 1000 to 3000 euros per month and from this income they pay their mortgage , rent , car loan , food , etc. All punters start to use a fraction of those money in order to bet. Some lose it all (which is the usual) , some stay on their money and some win. The method and way plays no role. Let's assume that one of those guys breaks through and makes some thousands of euros , then all those thousands become hundreds of thousands. And then the person stops to care about his everyday job , as his income is big and he managed to pay his mortgage , loans and make his life far easier. This situation continues for sometime and all are fine... Though our friend starts to bet other's people monthly wages on a single bet , it is normal to lose the real value of money and then the problem starts for our friend. On a bad run he may lose big then he goes for the recovery with even bigger stakes and his bank approaches the zero... when you have lost the real value of money and even if you are close to 0 it is very easy then to bet thousands of euros with the same ease of betting a few hundrends...

Concerning people i know , that was their biggest nightmare. Some of them recovered , some not. This is normal. And here comes the answer to your question. Is it possible to turn Pro? sure!
And why many people don't? I believe that having a normal job or anyway a normal activity (part-time , etc) keeps you on ground. You see and value those money you win and at the end of the day you always have an escape door on a bad time... Imagine somebody that stopped working on his 25 and now he bankrupted on 35 , how we will find a job now? even with a Masters degree the market already should be ages ago...

This is actually a question we all have to answer to ourselves. Some can break the wall and some don't at the end of the day.

ps. I like to see some old "friends" to show interest and comment on the blog. I wonder how they find time to read it after the huge success they had on their new project and those thousands of members followed them:)

When Sport Recife fields the 2nd squad and wins

Hello,

today i will copy/paste a recent post from the blog www.Punt.com , the post is named "All Money is created equal " and certainly lets a big field for thinking. Personally made me think a lot about the way i see thinks. As the experience gets hands on concerning our game , many times we forget about some fundumentals. As an example i will tell you the following. How many times we see a bet and we have our doubts , "Sport Recife goes on the field with 2nd team" , but we still take the bet mechanically. Even a punter with 15-20 years on the field and much money burned could easily fall into the trap. Try to read and decompile this post mirroring it on your own personal experiences and not clearly on the words written on it...


You may not have realised, but we all have a tendency to value money differently in certain situations. Let me begin with a story, this one does the rounds in Las Vegas, judging by the amounts of money involved I do have my doubts about the truth in it, but it does illustrate perfectly one of a few psychological problems we have with money, and it's in a gambling context, even better! It's called, "the legend of the man in the green bathrobe".
"By the third day of their honeymoon in Las Vegas the newlyweds had lost their $1,000 gambling allowance. That night the groom noticed a glowing object on the dresser. Upon closer inspection he realised it was a $5 chip they had saved as a souvenir. The number 17 was flashing on the chip’s face. Taking this as an omen, he put on his green bathrobe and rushed down to the roulette table where, not surprisingly, he bet on number 17. He let his winnings ride and eventually he was worth $7.5 million. Unfortunately the floor manager intervened, claiming the casino didn’t have the money to pay should 17 win again. Not to be deterred, the groom caught a taxi to another casino where he bet all on 17 again, when it hit it was worth $262 million. Needless to say, with such luck he bet again, only to lose it all when the ball fell on 18. Broke and dejected, the groom walked the several miles back to his hotel. ‘Where were you?’ asked his wife. ‘Playing roulette!’ he replied. ‘How did you do?’ ‘Not bad, I lost $5.’ "
This had me laughing when I read it, but then I realised this is exactly the sort of mind set that affects some people, particularly gamblers. Admitedly, no one in their right mind is going to bet $7.5m on 17, let alone $262m! But the point about how he felt he only lost $5 is perfectly apt.
Another illustrative scenario is one where you have two items to buy, one is worth £50, and the other is worth £2000. In both cases, you arrive at a store selling these items to find that they are priced at £75 and £2025, but there are locations 5 minutes drive away which have them at the correct price. Almost everyone would decide to drive 5 minutes to save £25 on the £50 item, a much smaller percentage would do so for the £2000 item. Yet both £25 savings are equated to a 5 minute drive.
Finally one more scene for you, imagine there is an item you've wanted for a very long time, but it's not quite been easily affordable. Let's say this item is £500, and you've seen a deal for one priced at £470. Later on, you are investing in a very big lifestyle purchase, perhaps a car or some expensive equipment, the cost for this is £15000. The dealer selling you this, then takes the opportunity to offer you the item you really wanted earlier as an add-on for an extra £600. Suddenly this doesn't seem like such an expense, you are already spending £15k, you take the opportunity to get something you've wanted for ages whist spending the money, "what's an extra £600 on the top of £15k?".
Each scenario slightly different in psychology, they all have particularly wide ranging importance when looking at how we manage and save our money generally, but they are also brilliantly applicable to gambling and trading. Lets deal with the last one, first.
The first thing that struck me was how easy it is to view money as cheaper the more you spend, and how often I have been affected by it. I have to wonder how often others are struck down by this mentality too. Clearly when we think of this scenario in a gambling context, we are talking about adding to losses, or averaging down a losing position by making the bet even bigger, because we see it as cheap.
It became obvious to me that this is one of the reasons a lot of people go bust or never get anywhere. In fact, the three scenarios together form a big part of whether you will win, win for a while then give it back, or go bust.
If you are losing whilst trading, it's very easy at times to convince yourself to add to your position - if you are already losing £10k, what's another £1000 ? The answer of course is £1000! And that's a lot of money. It's also money that you will potentially have to work many hours to make back. The more hours you work making back 'throw away money', the more pressure it places on you. It defeats many people in the long run. Before you know it, you are simply treading water / money, and that's if you are lucky enough to be fairly strong willed.
Don't add to losing positions. Just because you are losing money, it doesn't make losing more money any cheaper, all money is equal and it's all work. Cut your losing positions, save yourself hours more work, heartache and money.
Lets go back to the man in the green bathrobe. They call this the mentality of playing with 'house money'. Mentally you consider it the casino's money rather than your own, because you 'won' it rather than earned it. In other words, it's not real money. ...It's always real money.
This is a classic example of how people who do well for a while, give it all back many times faster than they made it. All the while justifying their actions by telling themselves that they were 'just playing with the profits', 'it wasn't really my money', 'I started with £100, I still haven't lost that, so I haven't lost anything'... what about the £5,000 you just lost then?
You put this in writing and it looks crazy, but this happens all the time in gambling and trading circles. The forums are littered with stories of 'giving it all back' etc.
Finally, lets look at our second scenario. The one where the amount of effort is worth the same amount of money, but is disguised by the amounts being spent. You have to think and act efficiently to make gambling / trading pay. That tick you gave up in order to get matched, that cost you. That time you crossed the spread, took someone else's offer, that can cost you on many levels in the long run.
I've recently done a lot of work on analysing my activities for the last 15 months. Betfair were kind enough to send me through a detailed spreadsheet with all the matches that I had traded on in that time, my profits and losses and traded volumes etc. The sheer scale of what I had done was quite a surprise, even to me. 1066 matches traded and matched volumes of many £10m's, seeing figures like these made me realise many things,
My edge during that time was a tiny %.
This was the sum of all my actions, good and bad, during many hours of work.
Because of the sums traded, a very small improvement in my actions could result in a massive leap in the amount I could win.
The efficiency of my actions was incredibly important over long periods of time.
Every £ is equal ! I needed to value all money.
All the times where there had been 'throw away money', I had spent days and weeks making it back, had I not thrown it away, the profit column might look very different.
How do you avoid these psychological traps? Three ideas for three scenes.
Avoid the 'house money' mentality, by keeping physical/electronic records of your activity. Avoid accounting for things in your head, if it's in your head alone it is very easy to write off as not being real. This will also help you analyse your actions over longer periods of time.
Withdraw your winnings. Don't keep them in your online accounts, whilst they are there it is much easier to see them as just that - "winnings". It becomes tempting to mentally reassign this money as just profits and not really yours. Take the money back to a designated amount every so often. I know people that do this every day, it's a good idea.
Cut losing trades, don't add to them. Set your limits on size, don't go over them. Evaluate each opportunity and trade them as efficiently as you can - get as many ticks as you can, ask for prices rather than take them. Every action you make over the course of a year makes a difference to your bottom line. Value every £ that you play with as real.

Best “data list” is bank account

Suppose you search for a valuable tipster service to follow. What do you do? Thank God, there’re many choises…

1) You follow your friend’s advice and subscribe to an ultimate… news service, where “the news is everything”, but… all people there care about picks, not news. But, of course, the news compilers-tipsters have not any verified picks list. They just publish their picks whenever they like, with odds they like, they celebrate in case of a temporary win, but they hide in case of losing. And when they keep losing all the time they… invent some winning tips. Someone could possibly say “you know, some days ago, before the Russia-Sweden match, I took Russia to win Euro 2008 @46. And now I’m laying it @19. What a good dealer I am, don’t you think? Oh, sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I was very busy writing news”…

2) You visit a verifying picks service and look for the bests sites in the list. And when you subscribe to the “best” service and wait to gain profit you realize that the picks are untakeable, your mega-tipster with the excellent data survives only by doubles which are offered nowhere, or offered with limits not exceeding 20-30 euros, advising picks with odds found only in his dreams, or (even worse) some of the lost picks don’t appear on his list, just to keep him in winning side…

3) You don’t have money to spend on search for an “amateur” or “semi-professional” or “fully professional” punter publishing picks in Blogabet or other services like that and after a few bets you realize that the deep green in data is existing just because your “friend’s” picks the best odds offered by OddsOddsOdds, regardlees if the bet limit is low, the betting company seems unreliable. Or (even worst) your “friend” decides to change his betting tactics all the time. And of course he doesn’t have to give the slightest explanation on that, it’s a free site…

Conclusion: The best “data list” is your personal bank account. And that’s what you should follow. There’s a lot of dirt in betting business, as everywhere the money seems easy to gain. And we’re not Robin Hood to fight all this mud of lies, but we’re getting more and more annoyed of some cases like these mentioned above. And we know that many of our subscribers have “suffered and learned” from this…

The theory of the recycled market...

For sometime i check many websites , forums , blogs , etc that publish tips. A very strange phenomenon appears to exist. I called it "recycled market" phenomenon. It seems that most of the market's tipsters follow nearly the same blog , sites , paysites and in general they do react as one entity when a play is published from one of those market moving guys. The only that a prosperous tipster or newcomer should do is to find those market movers , change the lines a bit e.g. a -1/4 tip to be changed into -1/2 and start walking the path of glory in the tipster's world.

So where is the good and the bad of this situation. First , when those market mover guys lose , the majority of the market loses and the majority of the sportbooks go to plus. Second , those matches advised on open free forums , blogs , sites , etc go into the basket of public bets. If you meet and talk with proffesional punters , the majority of them will tell you that only a tiny % of their bets concern public bets. Bets that are highly circulated on markets. I wouldn't go directly into the classic "dirty" explanation but let's phase a reality. Before a market mover tipster publishes a bet , the line could be different , as first he played himself , then his close friends , then somebody on a close forum and the final product is that you receive on the free website. A line could be easily changed once or twice before you buy the bet and that certainly puts you under the sportbook's belt. On the other side , big money on a game always increase the danger for the known reasons.

All in all , the majority of the profit made by sportbooks (profit not turnover) is on those 2.5 dead months of the summer....

The conclusion (if there is any) :

The market moves , a new type of tipsters appears , those i call pickers. The picker is the one who doesn't follow leagues , he just follows tipsters and picks which bet is good or not. The question is : Would you trust your money on a person with small or no knowldegde of a league to one of those pickers?

Good Afternoon...