Exponential Returns

I don't consider myself to be a gambler. I know gamblers. I'm not one of them!

Gamblers are forever chasing the big win and they sometimes get the big win. However, they fail to realise that they have spent a fortune backing losers prior to their win. Of course, when they do win, they like to demonstrate how clever they have been by buying everyone in their vicinity a drink and immediately losing their money once again.

I repeat... I am not one of them!

I have a job, a family, a mortgage and a savings account. In the UK, I can reasonably expect to get ~5% on my savings account and I feel quite smug at the end of the year when the bank credit my account with a few extra pennies (after they have given a fair whack of those pennies to the tax man, of course).

Finding a way to make my money earn more than ~5% is a reasonably worthwhile cause. The housing market, the stock market or the bookmakers are all options. To be fair, I do invest in the traditional markets - housing and stock. But the bookmakers is quite exciting.

Under Bookie Beater rules, a £10 pot results in a £2.50 bet on a top drawer football team playing at home at odds of ~1/5. A win moves the pot to £10.50 or, in other words, I've just earned 5% interest on my investment inside 90 minutes.

19 similar bets (a quarter of the pot after each bet) would move me to ~£25. Another 19, ~£64. Another 19, ~£161. Another 19, ~£408.

In theory, after 1 year's gambling at a rate of just 2 bets a week, I could've moved my £10 pot to ~£1,600, Of course, that is assuming that my 104 bets were all correct! I'm quite sure, however, that I would be hard pressed to find a bank that can offer such a spectacular return!

Of course, my recent 29 match unbeaten run must come to an end soon (and it could well be this weekend's Porto bet that does the trick). I've never put a run of 104 games together. But even allowing for the odd slip-up, I'm fairly sure that the returns offered by the high street banks can be bettered - significantly.

Anyway, it only takes 6 winning bets to turn a profit regardless of the outcome of your next bet. 6 wins, and you are playing with someone else's money!