The Season Bet : Part 4

All the results are in!

The season bet is now complete after Real Madrid secured the La Liga title this past Sunday. The Spanish team was one of those picked in my block bet in the latter part of last Summer.

The bet can be ruled a failure. I placed £100.40 in total with 10p a line covered over 502 bets. I returned £78.93 which equates to a loss of £21.47.

Here is a breakdown of what happened and analysis of where I went wrong.

The Winners

Real Madrid, Lyon, PSV, FC Porto and Indianapolis Colts.

The Losers

Celtic, Newcastle United, Bayern Munich and West Bromwich Albion.

Where I went wrong

I shouldn't have been too confident on betting on handicaps in the leagues. I placed a bet on Newcastle to win the Premier League with a thirty-four point head start as well as placing a bet on Celtic to win the Scottish premier League with the exact points they would accrue over the season (other teams in the league would have had the point advantage).

I knew Celtic were going to win the SPL so I shouldn't have been greedy going for the handicap and just made the bet on them to secure the title.

I had a feeling Manchester United were going to win the Premier League or - if not - come second. As my bet was an each-way, it would have worked. In fact, it would have been even more successful as they didn't just finish in second, they won the league. I thought Newcastle were in a position to get a few wins under their belt with Michael Owen's return slated for November at the time I placed the bet. As we are all aware, Owen failed to return until the late days of the season but by then my bet was dead and buried. Ironically, I am thinking that the Magpies will be able to pull this kind of bet off next season but I will not go there ever again!

I am surprised at West Brom and Bayern Munich's seasons but the real reason my bet didn't yield a win was because of my greed in the odds offered on Celtic and Newcastle in the handicap.
That was the downfall of the bet but was a lesson learnt.