The Perfect Punter / Perfect Punter / 01 August 2009 / Leave a comment

For the next year or so betting.betfair.com football columnist and previewer Dave Farrar will be embarking on a journey of betting discovery and penning his thoughts every week on this very site. But what's this journey all about?

"Between now and next summer, I’ll be trying to build the perfect punter. I’ll talk to anyone I need to: psychologists, big and small names in sport, in politics, in the arts, to faith healers, nutritionists, card players, money-men, and of course to those who are already as close to perfect as can be: pro punters who do it for a living, who play the game properly."

During the 2006 World Cup, I was commissioned by the Sportsman newspaper to write a series of betting articles on the tournament. The idea was that I, as an inexperienced and decidedly average punter, would use my knowledge of world football to turn £10,000 into £100,000 and live happily ever after.

The concept started to go wrong when The Sportsman photographer made me look camp, fat and smug, a gambling hybrid of Robert Key and Christopher Biggins. Then, a series of miscommunications in the newspaper's editorial department led to one of the many shiny cheeked buffoons in positions of power at the Sportsman calling my column "Diary of a Pro Punter." Apparently he wanted to have a Pro Punter's Diary in the paper and my column was a new one, therefore it fit the bill.

The fact that I'm not a pro punter, would never describe myself as a pro punter, hadn't met a pro punter, and started my first column with the line "Now, I'm no pro punter, but....." seemed to escape him. Never mind, he had his box ticked, a page had been filled (largely with my face) and I looked like a total git. Job done, the paper folded months later, shiny cheeks went back to polishing his silver spoons.

With the 2010 World Cup on the horizon, I want to give myself the time to approach it all properly, and so I'm going to punting school. I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired of losing, of knowing a lot but never knowing enough, of digesting strategies and forgetting them when it matters most, and of talking a good game and then playing like a fool.

Forgive the violin strings and cheap melodrama, but gambling can be like a soap opera, and I'm going to have a go at ironing out the plot twists and really making it work. Punters are bombarded with so much advice, on this website and in many other places, and nagging away at me is the feeling that with the right amount of knowledge of both sport and punting, and with a healthy dose of discipline, there has to be a way for us to educate ourselves to profit. Some of you will read this and think that you already do that, and some of you won't want to even try, but for the rest of us there's much to find out.

Between now and next summer, I'll be trying to build the perfect punter. I'll talk to anyone I need to: psychologists, big and small names in sport, in politics, in the arts, to faith healers, nutritionists, card players, money-men, and of course to those who are already as close to perfect as can be: pro punters who do it for a living, who play the game properly. I'll take on board all of the knowledge that comes my way, and so by the start of the World Cup 2010, I'll be in as good a punting shape as I've ever been, and ready to have another crack at that pipedream of a £10,000 to a £100,000 challenge, without the burden of ignorance, naivete, and an entirely inappropriate byline.

I'll never make it perfect, nowhere near, and if you don't get the irony of the title of this enterprise, then look away now, but I'll do my best, and we'll have some fun along the way. Everyone, both punters good and bad as well as those who are new to this, is welcome along for the ride. Don't expect the subject matter to be entirely gambling based, and to exclude you if you don't know what "back and lay" means. I'll be learning all kinds of lessons about many different subjects, and rather than convert you to gambling, or make you punt more, the honest purpose of all of this is to make us all better at it.

The first port of call is this column, which will appear on betting.betfair.com every Wednesday, and will stay under the "Perfect Punter" banner as an easily reachable archive, and the second is to follow Perfect Punter on Twitter. Go to twitter.com/perfectpunter and sign up to receive updates.

There won't be a deluge of tips, but anything that I hear from the people that I speak to will be thrown your way, and you can do with it what you will. Next week the adventure starts in the biggest Sportsbook in the world, at the Hilton in Las Vegas, and I hope that it ends with us all counting our winnings after the World Cup Final next summer. Not perfect maybe, but as close as we can make it.