Road Game?
I am traveling for a week. I hope to get some betting in during this time, but I don't think I'll get to make any blog updates. I'll post any highs and lows when I return.
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June 29, 2006
June 28, 2006
Finally! A Bust Out!
The rollover for the 50% initial deposit bonus at IslandCasino's Sportsbook is 7X. At just about 5X I finally busted out of that darn thing. My first bustout in a couple of weeks, too. There's nothing wrong with that book, in fact I rather like them, but I have been getting a bit frustrated at the lack of bustouts of late. Too few, and they adversely impact my earn rate.
I met the rollover at BetJamaica, too, and I was going to cash out of there, but this morning I saw some even up lines vs Pinnacle, so I bet them, figuring if they went the way of Pinnacle I would not need to cash out at all. Its like a "cashout freeroll". 
Interesting conversation with BetJamaica a few days ago. I set up an affiliate account before I set up a player account. Strangely my affiliate account also seemed to double as a player account. A few affiliate payments were getting deposited in it, too. I spoke to CS and what I came away with was that my affiliate account could be used as a player account.
Last week I deposited in that account, but did not get credited with a bonus. I called CS again after a few hours to inquire about it and was told, "That's your affiliate account, you don't have a player account." "Why would I make a deposit to my affiliate account?" I asked. Ms. CS couldn't explain it, and transferred me to the manager.
Mr. Manager explained that I would need a player account, that he would set me up with one, transfer my deposit to it and credit the bonus. An hour later I had a player account, but he had transferred my affiliate money to it, not my deposit, and there was no bonus. I called back. After a few more minutes with Mr Manager he seemed to understand what I was telling him. He asked if I wanted to keep the affiliate money in my player acount or move it back to my affiliate account. I asked which was easier, and he explained that it was "Easier to move back to the affiliate account because after the first of the month they would need to move it to my "master" account anyways."
"Wait, I'm getting a third account?" I asked.
"Yes."
"That seems like a very complex system," I said.
"Not really," was the reply.
Whatever! So now I have a player account, an affiliate account that acts as a hold for weekly affiliate commission payments, and a "Master" account from which I should be able to cash out those commissions every month.
I have not yet run into another sportsbook that manages in such a fashion. It all seems to work for them, but I am glad I don't have to balance their books! I can also report that they were very friendly and helpful, and I really like BetJamaica. One of the biggest benefits for me is that MLB lines are already posted by 5:00 a.m., so I can possibly get some bets in vs Pinney before I go to work in the morning. That should help improve my bet volume and hopefully enhance my earn rate.
June 26, 2006
Patience Lacking
I'll never feel bad for Pinnacle again. I was having a touch of guilt a few weeks ago as I was winning everything in sight at Pinnacle. I busted bonus after bonus at other books in just a bet or two into Pinnacle. Well now that shoe is on the other foot. In the past 5 days or so I have cycled almost my entire roll through Pinnacle, losing nearly every bet. My roll is now distributed among WagerWeb where my WR is met, Island and BetJamaica, where my WR is not yet met.
Yesterday I grew impatient looking for good lines. With no money in Pinacle I was looking at comparisons amonst the other three books wher I have money on account. I took a couple with 7 and 8 point gaps, hoping to bust someplace, but I just ended up with more churn. I also took a $20 loss for no reason other than I was just getting frustrated with the low amount of activity. I must be more patient. It's just hard finding lines among consensus books with 20 to 30 cent ML spreads.
I found what may be the blemish on WagerWeb's greatness as a chasing vehicle: Cashing out. The max cashout to Neteller was $1,000. It would not accept my cashout request on the internet for more than $1,000. I received a pop-up notice to that effect each time I tried. Seems to be their policy. There's nothing I've seen about a charge for additional cashouts, so hopefully in a few days I will have all my money out of there. Hopefully I will still qualify for a redeposit bonus in the future as well. I like that book.
June 25, 2006
Churning Ain't Earning
I should know better than to open my yap. Ever since predicting my earn rate would escalate, it has plummeted! Why? Fast bustouts are few and far between for the past few weeks. Churning through 5X and 7X rollover requirements is not the path to the higher earn rate I saw on the horizon a few weeks ago.
It's not costing me money, but I have opened my small loss toleration to about 5% to guarantee that I would be able to find a decent number of bets. The thinking was this would allow me to plow through bonuses faster. But, if I cycle 4 bets at -5% each, I've eaten up a 20% bonus trying to clear it. This has led me to throttle down on my loss toleration as I get farther into the rollover on a book without busting out of it.
I have also stopped trying to evenly split the loss between books. I now eat the whole loss when the bet goes toward the book I prefer. That way I have no loss if my roll at a book I was hoping to bust starts growing instead of shrinking toward bustout as I'd prefer.
I am just experiencing a form of negative variance in this sportsbook chasing game. The Gambling Gods must enjoy the irony of me having proclaimed my earn rate was about to increase. I should have learned from poker that they listen to everything one says, and to keep my yap shut!
June 21, 2006
Poised For Greatness?
Contrary to my prediction of just over two weeks ago, things have not moved up a notch as far as my earn rate at sportsbook chasing yet. I think I am still poised to push over the $300/week mark, but it's more likely to be $600 one week and $100 the next.
It seems to be all about "bust out rate". The speed at which you can bust out of a bonus. If you are doing it in one bet, your earn rate will be high. If you end up having to meet the wagering requirement and then cash out, your earn rate will be lower. I have been meeting the wagering requirement too often lately. When the pendulum swings the other way, I'll be killing it.
It also doesn't help that I can't make any bets until I get home from work. I could probably log in and place bets from my work PC, but I think my boss would not be amused if he knew I was doing this. Not worth the risk. I could probably get twice as many bets in during the MLB season if I could get to the afternoon game lines during the week. Boo-friggity-hoo, right?
I got my cashout from ActionBets in less than a day, but they charged me $30 for it. I am sure it says someplace in the fine print that they are going to do that, but I find it irritating nonetheless. They are a good book, but nit-picky crap like that just means they will be getting less of my business than they otherwise would have. It costs them in the long run to be cheap bastards on a cashout like that.
June 17, 2006
Not Much Action Lately
I can't lose at ActionBets, it seems. I'm on a 6-0 run there, and I am going to have to cash out from there again in order to free up some 'roll for other exploits. I smacked down WagerWeb for another 15% this week, and busted it all in two bets. Always love doing that.
I have to find another book to play, though. That bottomless 15% at WagerWeb is nice, but I can pick up some 20 or 25% bonuses elsewhere, and do a little better. Is it time for Players Superbook again, perhaps? I think I'll hold of on that. They are not answering any of my affiliate questions, and it doesn't speak well for the site itself if they are not taking care of affiliates.
June 13, 2006
I Have Returned
I really didn't go anywhere, but I have had out of town guests for the past 5 days and have had very little time to get on a computer lately to pursue my online passions. Everyone is gone now, and my office is no longer a guest room, so I am back in my chair and once again master of my domain!
I had a some action at ActionBets during the past few days. I have found them to be a good book to bet against WagerWeb. The only issue I had with ActionBets is that they have a 7 day hold after you deposit until you can withdraw. Not too, bad, but still annoying. I busted a large chunk (almost half) of my roll into them either via WagerWeb or LinesMaker, and I wanted it back out! I sent them a request for a withdrawal and received a reply that I had not met the 7 day hold requirements. Then it listed the date I would be able to request the cashout and also explained that since they don't process payouts over the weekend I'd have to wait until Monday. Well, the dates they sent me were all screwed up - as in they sent me dates that did not correspond to days in June. I sent them a terse reply with some ascerbic wit about how their response made no sense. I received a very nice reply with corrected dates. I then had a very pleasant e-mail exchange with the CS manager at ActionBets, and all was good. Monday I requested my cashout and received it about 2 hours later. I'll be using ActionBets again. Their lines are a decent Pinnacle substitute if you're just looking to 'get close' on the lines to clear some bonus in a hurry.
For today and tomorrow I think I am going to focus on WagerWeb vs Pinnacle. I busted quite a few favorites at Piannacle into dogs that won at Linesmaker the past few days. Pinnacle can't possibly hate me if I bust some WagerWeb money into them this week. They are profiting from my action.
I did make one dumb mistake last weekend that cost me $200. I had a promotional bonus of $200 at Bodog. In a hurry, I bet the wrong team at Bodog. I looked around for a good covering bet, and couldn't find one anywhere I had money on account. I was going to take a $30 loss on the $200 anywhere I went. I decided just to let it ride, adn see if that team could win. They were only a slight dog at -110. I was neither lucky or smart, and now I am out $200. Grrrr.
June 07, 2006
When Will They Learn?
I busted a bunch of Pinnacle money into ActionBets this past weekend. I had met the wagering requirment so I requested a cashout on Monday. I was notified Tuesday that there is a 7-day waiting period from deposit to cashout. I had deposited on Saturday, so I was going to have to wait a few more days and then request the cashout again.
Or I could reload at WagerWeb and see if I could bet it out.
Actionbets probably shouldn't offer a line on the Rangers that's so close to evens on what WagerWeb was offering on the Royals. (The Royals being on track to be the worst team in the history of baseball.) Another thing they shouldn't do is make the default setting be "to win" vice "to risk". Because I only meant to bet $1,000 to win $500, but I ended up betting $2,000 to win $1,000. That led to a brief scramble at Pinancle to get that bet fully covered - I hadn't deposited enough at WagerWeb.
They also shouldn't offer such good numbers vs Linesmaker on the Jays/Orioles game. Especially when I still have cash in my Neteller accout, and I can reload there.
Bottom line - if they would have just paid me out when I'd asked, they could've paid me $3350. Now it's $5500.
3 more days until I can request a cashout. I wonder what the lines will read tonight? 
June 05, 2006
A Higher Gear
My sports betting bankroll continues to grow, and I decided on Sunday that it's time to shift gears on my single book approach, and fan out some cash. Time to get that $4K reserve out of Neteller and busy earning for me.
I had reloaded at Actonbets on Saturday and had (unfortunately) won my wager there at +165, so I had a fat wad of cash there to bet out. Sunday I reloaded at WagerWeb for another $1,000, and also at Linesmaker. Six bets later, and I had about $7,000 virtual dollars criss-crossing the internet among 4 books. At the end of the day I had cleared or busted out $320 in bonus money.
There's quite a little paper trail involved when you do that. That is, if you want to be able to know what happened in a week or two. I think I need to develop a more stream-lined system for tracking my sports bets.
Now I need to cash out and reload again. I suspect that may take a day or two, but I also think my earn rate is going to be rising for a while. 
I am not an NBA fan, so when i went looking for 'one last bet', and found an O/U on the NBA game, I jumped on it. I didn't realize that it was for a Thursday night game! So, that $1700 is tied up for a few days, but otherwise, I am cleared hot for another strong showing later this week. Look out!
June 04, 2006
Red Sox, Injuns, PSB, ActionBets, and Linesmaker
Friday night I got a wild hair to chase a $500 +20% reload at Player's Superbook (PSB). I got all $600 in on the Red Sox Moneyline. The Sox trailed the whole game, but scored 2 in the top of the ninth to pull it out, and cha-ching, it's all in Pinnacle! There's a 30-day withdrawal wait at PSB, so busting that in one bet is one of my favorite things to do.
Saturday early I was not finding anything promising in the MLB lines. I opened up the ActionBets lines and found an arb vs Linesmaker. Deposited at Linesmaker and got the bet (and a small bonus based on my action there last month.) Deposited at ActionBets and the darn line moved nine points against me by the time it got credited. I could have guessed this would happen, as arbs don't last long, and the deposit cyle is probably two half-lives of an arb, but I figured it was worth a shot.
I ended up covering the Linesmaker bet at Pinnacle for a small loss that ate the small bonus I had received. No big deal, that money found its way to Pinnacle. I found a suitable match between Actionbets and Pinnacle later that day on the Cleveland runline. But them Injuns opened a can of whoop ass on the Angels, and I'll be looking to find another line at Actionbets on Sunday.
June 02, 2006
June Starts Out Well Enough
I think I have straightened out the confusion with BetJamaica, but I didn't see any decent lines there last night, so I didn't make a deposit. In fact, I didn't find anything I liked anywhere last night and did not make any bets. I had to work late (yes, I do have a day job) and by the time I got home, had dinner, and went for a nice stroll with Mrs Bull, it was nearly 8:00 before I could check the lines. There were two MLB games left, but I couldn't find anything decent among the several books I checked, so I just kept my powder dry for (hopefully) the weekend.
Bodog should just cash me out whenever I ask. Twice now (of the MANY times I have cashed out at Bodog) I have tried to cashout there and have received notice that I have not met the WR. Both of those times I put that money back in play and have more than doubled it while meeting the WR. That costs Bodog lots of money. They cashed me out in less than an hour once I met the WR, though. They're pretty good like that. Now I am wishing I had left my money there, though, and re-deposited. Their lines on the French Tennis Open are pretty good vs Pinnacle - but Bodog frowns on redeposits right after a cashout, so I'll have to take a pass for a week or two.
Wednesday evening I reloaded $400 at WagerWeb for 15%. The Twins came through for me, and I busted it all on a single bet. I have taken to betting on games that are still 2-3% losers for me just to roll it over (or bust it) faster. I place the bets such that if it busts, I'll take a small loss - but it's busted and done. If the bet is won at the book I would have preferred busting, such that it meets rollover, I stay even on the wagers. Thus when I busted my $400 + $60 (bonus) out of WagerWeb, it landed as $52 in profit at Pinnacle (an $8 loss). Had the bet been won at WagerWeb, it would have been for no loss. I am becoming quite convinced this will increase my earn rate.
I am posting my June numbers here (in the right column), and I'll leave the May numbers up in the Poker blog. Come July, the May numbers will come off and the July numbers will go there. That way I'll consistently have 2 months of numbers running. That's as close to organized as I think you'll ever see me get!