whats your biggest leak

Betting too small in some odds-on situations.

bathroom tap.

baseball a close second.

I'm pretty sure NFL is my biggest leak as it's on late on a Sunday when I've had a few. I have a decent model for it but just always end up all in at the slightest opportunity. That said, I've been very lucky this year with some lumpy bets.

On the other hand, football in running has been rotten for me this year, particularly towards the end. I generally market make in running on televised games and find I'm getting picked off more and more by astute match readers. So much so that I may well give it a miss next year.

bayes - what's you're perspective on the recent hoovering some have been reporting? has it hit you much?

Not redding up quick enough.
Not betting big enough when I know a price is wrong.

but by leak i really meant things you actually lose on.

I also answered "Not betting big enough..." because I think that's a big leak in some situations. I genuinely don't think I have a leak where I lose on things. I lose on the horses but the money is tiny and rare and it's entertainment when I do it. I also don't do very well at 50 over cricket, but given that I win on tests and T20 I consider betting on ODIs to be essential learning.

In terms of randomly giving cash away, I really don't think I do it. I lost quite a bit on virtual racing while working out some of the factors, but again, I knew the amount I was willing to use to test stuff out (because it's not entirely random and I managed to prove that to myself) and it turned out someone's bot was better than me at the game, so I gave it up.

Maybe getting excessively frustrated with forum idiots and spammers could be a leak as I should be busy doing data entry during that time.

viva:

I have been hit by hoovering on football, and tbf betfair take it very seriously and usually do something about it. I only do tv games, and only if I have a feed that is at least as good as the delay. Very easy to test btw. My losses are not due to hoovering, even on free kicks etc, as I get out of the way quickly. My losses are due to either variance or some very good match readers. As I said earlier, I'm unlikely to find out which because I am fairly certain I'm out of the market for now.

lori, you are often on thedarts forum , have you managed to make the world champs 1st round pay this year.

sickoflayinwinners

I had a decent first week on the darts, although I did have two huge losses. Care to guess which two?

I'm off on holiday tomorrow, so will be missing for the rest of the tournament.

Football for me.

Been operating a system for 8 month now whereas i bet at 1pt,2pts,3pts or 4pts depending how confident i am in the bet. Been betting across a wide range of sports yet still trying to be disciplined and selective. All results have been recorded and analyzed (sad i know but its proved usefull in identifying my areas of strength.

Football is the one where ive struggled to make a profit. My theory on this is that there is way too much football going on , especially at weekends to be able to see through it all and find that one great bet. By its nature, football is also a game where a team can dominate for the entire match and still not win, the bounce of a ball can screw you up, ect. Long term football markets are safer imo.

My best sports are Boxing and Golf (also my biggest sporting passions in life-probably no coincidence then). Between June 2010 and mid December i had a 73% strike rate at Boxing and 70% on Golf (mainly 72 hole matches).

At £100 per point it works out at just over £6K profit for these two sports but ive given some back with the football. Small to some on here but a very nice steady secondary income. For me you have to find a sport that you know as much about or more than the bookie. I dont feel i can do this with football.

In the new year ill be exclusivelly betting on Boxing and Golf only (means i dont have to do as much study too as football is very time consumming.) I do think there is some mileage though in the Both to score football market though. Backing a double in this market pays minimum 9/4 (baldy freds) so your looking at +2.25 points for every win. My records seem to suggest i can achieve a better than 50% strike rate with these so i should profit here. we will see.

Good luck to everyone in 2011.

Going to concentrate

maybe bad example with the ball bounce. What i meant was that with football you can get a team that dominates massivelly but only draw, i.e an inspired goalkeeping performance or a ref awarding a contriversial penalty. Ive been undone many many times yet my selection has dominated and by bad luck not managed to win. This is my experience of it and i think its because football is a reletivelly low scoring sport so a goal is a 'big thing'.

I know that can be said of other sports and some might not see my reasoning but its my thoughts anyway. I find golf tends to follow form a little more-players act on certain courses ect, you can identify players who are either in form or out of form. Very few golfers actually go from playing like a dog one week to shooting low 60's the next. They generally improve their game over a number of weeks. The 72 hole matches are good because players tend to play how you expect them over the 4 days, i.e a lucky round likelly to be 'levelled' out by the player returning to their  current 'form' in the other rounds. I rarelly play the 2/3 ball coupons for this reason.

I also got hoovered a while back, after a penalty decision, and betfair refunded me.

'Errors related to technological failures and simple mistakes (of which I keep a spreadsheet).'

Same here, threw away a hefty sum recently trying to centre a ladder but clicked 2mm to the right and ended up submitting a lay, problem made worse by the fact I double clicked, painful but it will go away to preventing further errors

I only trade a sport when im confident I can make it pay over time, any other sport my stakes are tiny in comparison