An email I received from one member following last weekend's football fixed odds results (w/e 02 February 2008) has highlighted the fact that a lot of you are letting a small fortune slip through your fingers!

This relatively new member emailed me to express his delight at getting a return of £490 from our double result forecasts (to £1 stakes). He went on to say that we were all only minutes away from a profit of £2,400.

Well the fact is, the minimum return anyone should have got last weekend was £607.50 (to £1 stakes). And, had Birmingham not conceded a goal a minute from time against Derby, the minimum return would have been £3,200!

When I pointed this out to the member, he readily admitted he's a bit of a lazy punter and tends to place all his bets with Bet 365. But he has now made a late New Year's resolution to shop around for the best odds!

Every single one of you should follow his lead because the difference it will make to your profits by the end of the year will be phenomenal!

To make it as easy as possible for you, links to the bookmakers providing the best overall odds for each category of forecasts will be included in all our emails.

In recent years all our profits have been calculated at Ladbrokes odds. This was for two reasons. The first was because, of all the high street firms, they offered the best minimum odds of 7/2 on our double result forecasts. As long standing members will remember, the best minimum odds for this bet used to be 4/1 with Coral. But when the bookmakers finally cut the odds for this bet,  Ladbrokes provided the best overall value.

The second reason was, in the days before Internet betting became popular, most of our members placed their bets in their local high street shop. Therefore, for simplicities sake, we calculated all our bets at Ladbrokes odds rather than recommend that all members visit several shops to place each different bet.

However, from now on, all our profits will be based on the odds provided by the bookmaker offering the best overall odds as recommended in our emails. After all, unlike in the old days when you had to be super fit to dash from one bookmaker to the next, it's not exactly hard work to click on a few different websites!

Where the bookmaker offering the best odds is a relatively unknown or foreign firm, such as Expekt who are offering the best odds this weekend on a lot of our bets, our profits will be based on the second best odds provider. Although there is certainly nothing wrong with betting with Expekt or other such firms, I do appreciate that a lot of members will be reluctant to open an account so, to be as fair as possible, all our profits will be based on odds offered by well known bookmakers.

To highlight the difference placing your bets with different bookmakers will make to your overall profits, just take a look at these examples from this weekend's forecasts. (w/e 09 February 2008)

All examples are based on £1 stakes and assume all forecasts win.

Best 6 Homes
Best Return: £139.51 with Expekt
Worst Return: £102.84 with Ladbrokes

Best 5 Homes
Best Return: £114.80 with Expekt
Worst Return: £95.04 with Sky Bet

Double Result Forecasts
Best Return: £3,445.31 with Blue Square
Worst Return: £2,522.00 with BoyleSports

Trebles
Best Return: £10.25 with Expekt
Worst Return: £9.26 with Ladbrokes

I'm sure you will agree that, with the huge potential difference to your overall profits from the best to the worst bookmaker, it's well worth making the monumental effort to move your mouse and click on the correct link!

If you have any questions or comments then please don't hesitate to contact me personally.

Kind regards,
Dave
Syndicate Administrator