The British & Irish Lions Tour to South Africa has been a profitable one for me, but things went horribly wrong this past weekend.
Despite predicting on twitter that Rassie Erasmus’s video would see the game slow down to an absolute crawl, I bet that we would get 41 points or more in the game and at the last minute also decided to back the Lions. The points bet was quickly in trouble and missed kicks by both teams didn’t help. The Lions at least led at the break, but with the marginal decisions going their opponent’s way this time they were swept aside by a dominant Bok performance in the second half.
My bank balance had taken a solid hit and while painful it did at least come on the back of a good month and even with a poor weekend to finish, I managed to end July nicely ahead of the bookies. If I look at the patterns of my betting this year though I would be well advised to put my feet up in August and not to have a sports bet at all.
I got the year off to a good start with a profit in January only to give most of that back in February. March was an excellent month, but April was an absolute disaster. I was still nicely up heading into May where the profits flowed freely, only for most of it to be given back to the bookmakers in June. July, as mentioned, saw me turn a good profit so if the pattern continues the signs are not good for August.
With so much great sport on the horizon including the test decider and the Bledisloe Cup this coming weekend, there is little chance that I will sit on the sidelines and I will be tempting fate to see if I can make it 2 profitable months in succession for the first time this year.
Looking at the 3rd test betting, the Springboks have been priced up as favourites at 13/20 to win the match with the draw priced at 22/1 and the British & Irish Lions at 15/10.
I don’t know which way I am leaning but what you can bank on is that I will be firing on all cylinders in an effort to get my August off to a profitable start and break the pattern.
Twitter: @BrentGraham.
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 5 August 2021.
Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register