1 Season...380 Games...£434,142.69???
Every year I enter fantasy football leagues based on The Premiership.
Every year I put out a tenner, at the lure of thousands of pounds, only to get nothing back.
Every year I'm ridiculed by mates as I prop up the bottom of our 'super league'.
But not this year, this year will be different...
See I know I'm not alone, every week millions of men spend hours and hours pouring over the weekend results, tinkering with their fantasy teams and trying to cash in on the bargain player who is over-performing for his value.
All to no avail.
All the effort.
All that time.
Time that could be spent doing better things.
But we don't actually want to spend that time on better things.
That's Our time.
Our time with the football.
But wouldn't it be better if all that football came to something.
Now one lucky man,...
actually they're not lucky...they're professional...some sad so-and-so who puts out over £200 on 20-odd teams, each with just one different player, covering all bases to avoid injuries and freak results, so that they end up with 5 strong teams and finally take one through until eventually,...
they win the top prize...
...as much as £250,000!!!!
Actually they pick up a few more grand along the way for weekly and monthly prizes!!!
Well I got to thinking, I take a tenner, enter a fantasy league, a competition based on predicting the football, and lose it.
What if I take the same tenner, and put it into a gambling site, place bets based on predicting the football, and see how long I can last before I lose it?
How long will I last? Will it entertain me for the year?
but then I got thinking...How much could I make?
I mean that so-and-so makes 250 grand on his tenner, his entertainment.
What if my football time paid the same return...or better???
Breaking it down, there are 380 fixtures in the 20 team Premier League.
Obviously I want to make my tenner last past the first Saturday, so I need to bet on certainties.
That means low odds, but they don't pay out do they?
Not on 1 bet they don't, but over 380....now that's a different question.
Now I've dabbled in the odd bit of online gambling before.
Virtually all football is now available on in-play markets.
And as the final whistle approaches the odds get very low.
Like paying out 10p or less to every pound you bet, cause it's really unlikely that the result will change, save those few 'on the final whistle' goals that get scored every season.
oK well at 10p profit there's still some time for that last second goal, but not all games get down to 1p profit, depends how many people are betting on it, so looking in between and not being too greedy what about 3p???
If I aim to make 3% on every game this year. What will that make me?
Well not £10.30 after game one, oh no, the website get their chunk, 5% on all winnings to be precise. That leave puts me at:
Start £10.00
Game 1 £10.29
Game 2 £10.58
Game 3 £10.88
...
We'll skip a few lines here but you can see what's going on
...
Game 10 £13.24 (that's opening weekend)
...
Game 30 £23.23 (still in August)
...
Game 100 £166.12 (this starts to look spookily good right at Halloween)
...
Game 190 £2,083.61 (half way and Boxing day, a Happy New Year on it's way!)
...
Game 300 £45,844.67 (and as April starts, the run-in isn't looking so crucial, unlike the 20 Premiership teams or the thousands of Fantasy managers still in the hunt)
...
Game 379 £422,112.48 (just time enough for one more bet and suddenly 3% is worth more than £12K!!!)
Game 380 £434,142.69
£434,142.69!!!
oK, I'm gonna slip up from time-to-time, I mean those last minute winners and equalisers do happen.
They change the game.
So I can't have all my eggs in one basket each time, else it'll wipe me out.
But if I break it down into rounds of fixtures, so each team plays another game.
Now I have a target I need to make over 10 fixtures to keep me on target for a net 3% (minus the commission remember).
Spread the risk and I'll only lose 10% of my pot when one of those last minute goals comes along.
But even when I lose a few times, even if I lose an unfortunate amount of times and I only bring in a couple of grand by season end, then I'll have still made thousands of pounds!
I've never made anything on fantasy football.
Thousands of pounds.
I could clear my credit cards.
Clear my debts.
Buy a car.
Put a deposit on a house.
Thousands of pounds.
That'd change my life.
That'd change most lives.
Now that is a return on my football time.
So that's the challenge:
1. Make the tenner last the year
as long as we start safe this should be achieveable.
2. Make a small amount of money
even one quid will be more than I've ever won on fantasy football, a couple of hundred quid will pay for all my previous entries.
3. Make a bit of money
it'd be nice to see that my time did something extra for me
4. Make more money than I would playing any fantasy football game
That's the pinnacle of the challenge, to make more than I could playing fantasy football.
The 380 Games Premiership Challenge.
