Initial Outlay

If this project is successful, I want to make a decent return. However, if it all goes wrong, I don’t want to be in danger of losing my house.

I have decided that £100 is a good starting point as I can afford it and the earnings and profit will be easily to calculate.

How I will make the bets

Each bet will be 'to win'. So if the team I choses loses or if the match is a draw, I lose my stake.

I expect most of the bets will be made online with the tax pre-paid, so I should know the amount I will win as soon as I make the bet.

I will try to shop around for the best odds, but ultimately I will stick to the betting sites that I find easiest to use.

The Rules

Last year I bet some very small amounts on a few matches but eventually finished the year with less money. However, it helped me prepare my rules for this year.

Hopefully, if I follow these rules closer I will be more successful.

The rules which I have created are:

1. Only bet on home teams
2. Only bet on home teams who usually win at home
   
3. Only bet on matches where the away team is usually poor away from home
   
4. Don't bet on home teams who may be ‘resting’ players for upcoming matches
5. Only bet on matches which I have a good knowledge of the teams and the league
6. Bet around 10% of my account total on each chosen match
7. Try not to bet on more than 2 matches in a weekend

Hopefully, the rules will ensure that I win virtually every time. But, as the bookmakers know this too, I am going to get very poor odds.

Also, with my 10% rule, if I get a few poor results I may get into trouble very quickly.

Introduction

Once my debts from University were paid off I began paying into a Mini-Cash ISA as it gives a decent rate of interest (5%) and the returns are tax free.

However, 5% per year does not seem like a very good return to me, so I started to look at other ways to increase my return.

Betting on football matches would seem to be a much worse idea than keeping my money safe with a bank, however the returns are larger, if you get the predictions right!

So the ideal situation would be to get a better return than an ISA while only betting on matches which you can be certain of the outcome.

Of course, you cannot ever be certain of a football result, but this can be countered by betting on lots of matches getting them right almost all of the time.