A decent week

Not a bad week just gone with a profit of just under four ton made:

That brings the bank for my €1,000 challenge to €1,160.92 which is pleasing enough. The money was made through a combination of my place lays, some back bets and some trading and took in a total of 155 markets.

I'm particularly pleased with my place lays - I'm proofing them to Racing Index and after yesterday, I've now pushed past 100 points profit to a 1 point stake over the space of just under a year. The next best tipster has 23 points profit so it's a pretty darn good performance, if I may say so myself:

Some high points in the week just gone included laying Bespoke Lady at 1/7:

I'd €144 on that (which was only a liability of a score) so it was a nice few quid earned.

While I haven't exactly made any money from it, the next Celtic manager market has been interesting. I got a tip to back Owen Coyle so I backed him at 3.0. Sure enough, his price came in and I layed him off at 1.9. In retrospect, I should have greened up rather than laying with the same stake as it now looks likely that Roy Keane will take over but I still have a no risk bet on Coyle which is grand:

That's the thing about betting or trading the next manager markets: it's not actually about who's going to get the job, it's about predicting how the betting public are going to react to stories. That's how the money is made. I've no hard data to back this up but I reckon a great strategy in these markets is to lay the field around evens or odds on. Rumours abound, fuelled by the media (even more so than the horseracing) and people over react. In the Celtic manager market , for example, Owen Coyle, Henrik Larsson and now Roy Keane have all been odds on. 

As I say, I haven't made any money on it and my free bet is unlikely to come in - but next manager markets are something I might look into more. 

Anyway, I've a busy enough day today with the racing so I'll sign off now. Best of luck with your bets,

Wayne