A Q & A with Steve Brown of GoalProfits.com
Hi Steve, first up can you tell us a little about yourself, what sparked your interest in football?
I was born and raised in Bournemouth. It was a great place to grow up with the beach on one side and the New Forest on the other. After leaving college I needed a job, found that my local BP filling station was looking for a cashier and stayed with the company for fifteen years!
Having worked my way up the corporate ladder, I ended up in BP/Safeway Head Office. However, when Morrison’s took Safeway over I left the company. It got to the point at which I felt that work controlled my life and that wasn’t a fun place to be. The final straw was when I ran a project which saved the company more than £100,000 per year and received a bonus of £200 (before tax).
Working harder so that a big company makes more money was not what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life. I started trading on eBay, buying at auctions and then selling for (hopefully!) a profit. I made some huge profits doing that but it was quite boring work. I started trading on Betfair for a bit of fun, caught the bug, blew a bank, started over and gradually learned how it’s done properly.
Nowadays, my work is extremely rewarding. If I spend an hour researching a number of fixtures and pick out a solid winner, the sense of satisfaction is immense. Even better than that though is the buzz I get from avoiding a losing trade. Spotting a red flag, having the discipline to stay out and then seeing my judgement vindicated is very addictive!
My early memories of football involve my local team, AFC Bournemouth. I remember watching Harry Redknapp’s team beat Manchester United 2-0 in the FA Cup back in 1984, then get promoted in 1987. I have had a season ticket ever since and it has been rough going! Points deductions, administrations, relegations, but now a season (or maybe two?) in the Premier League. Perhaps it’s a reward for the loyal fans who have had to endure so many dark days.
Is there one thing that you can say you enjoy most about the sport? Why?
I love the fact that football is so unpredictable. As a trader, of course, I prefer teams to perform consistently as it makes life far easier, but as a fan I get excited at kick-off because you never know what is about to happen.
Back in 2004 I was working for BP/Safeway in London. It got to 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon and I had a mountain of work to get through, but Bournemouth were at home to Wrexham that evening. In order to see the match I’d have to work late for the rest of the week, but I decided to make the trip. With Wrexham challenging for the playoffs I was hopeful of scraping a point, but we ended up winning 6-0. Even more special was James Hayter’s 140 second hat trick. Imagine if I’d sat in the office and missed that!
What about the amount of money involved in the sport these days, do you feel that the sums players are paid are justifiable?
That’s a difficult one.
If a team is willing to pay £100k per week to a player, he’s not going to turn it down – I wouldn’t! Even in the Premier League there is a huge divide between the top teams and all the others which isn’t necessarily healthy from a competition point of view, but I don’t think it will change.
Those who run the FA, UEFA, FIFA, etc. are making a lot of money so there is no incentive for them to put any restrictions in place.
I’d like to see ‘B’ teams in England. It works well in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. and would allow the top teams to develop young English talent. Young players learn far more from playing fully competitive matches against older professionals, so let’s get them playing!
If you could change one thing about the game what would it be and why?
With my trading hat on, I’d scrap international football.
I make my living from league fixtures in which both teams have settled form, so international breaks drive me nuts! I find it far more difficult to trade Germany v France than I do Arsenal v Spurs. And something like Spain v San Marino? Forget it!
Do you have any advice you can give people who may be thinking about or just starting out on the football trading path? Are there any pitfalls that they should be aware of?
The key to trading is discipline. Sorry to be boring, but it is!
It’s far more important to avoid a loser than it is to hit a winner. That’s opposite to how most new traders think and it certainly takes some getting used to.
Trading more matches does not mean making more profit, trading only the very strongest matches means more profit.
Far too many new traders get excited and find themselves involved in a number of average trades, when going for just the best one yields more profit long-term.
A trade is an investment, it is not for entertainment on a Saturday afternoon (though it is fun!).
I advise all new traders to do their research before play starts, jot down their trading plan for the day and stick to it. In-play trading is exciting, but it’s also the best way to blow a bank. All that excitement means that discipline is easily lost and losses are chased. Be boring and make money.
It gets frustrating when someone emails me to say that they don’t have time to trade. It’s usually because they are trying to trade all sorts of matches when they should be getting involved with just a handful. They’ll find time to watch EastEnders, yet most trades only require a few minutes here and there. You get out what you put in!
Do you yourself always look to trade, or are there times when an outright bet is the way to go? How do you decide between the two scenarios?
I rarely straight bet, I just don’t see the point of taking on any more risk than is necessary.
I certainly get involved with value bets at valuefootballbetting.com but I trade them.
If I have Arsenal to beat Chelsea and the Gunners go 1-0 up, I can remove my liability and still have most of the profit intact. From there, I can sit back and relax knowing that I can’t possibly make a loss. Sometimes I’ll wait, especially if stats favour 2-0, but I can’t imagine any scenario in which I would wait until the full-time whistle.
It’s unfortunate that Betfair is not available in some countries; I’d be lost if I couldn’t trade!
We are aware that a referee’s job isn’t the easiest but many are forever being criticised for poor judgement. How could changes to their role ensure that the game is both played and referred fairly?
I have to say, having watched half a season of Premier League football this year, the inconsistency has been extremely frustrating. I know that the game is faster these days which makes a tough job even more difficult, but big teams still get more decisions going their way.
It certainly doesn’t help that there are so many cameras picking up every angle in slow motion while the referee only has one view at full speed, so perhaps they’re no worse than previous seasons.
Within the gambling industry would you like to see anything changed? There are many criticisms of the bookmakers and their treatment of their customers? Is this something you have an opinion on?
Bookies are businesses looking to make a profit, but restricting profitable customers is certainly controversial. A bookie will price up a match, add the over-round and invite customers to make a bet. If the bookie regularly gets prices wrong and a smart punter is able to profit from that, perhaps it’s an indication that the bookie needs to work harder at setting prices correctly!
In an extremely competitive marketplace, bookies have to offer better and better incentives in order to attract business. If they then restrict customers who regularly take advantage of those bonuses, it seems a little like false advertising to me. Either offer the bonus, or don’t.
From betting alone, the only punters making a profit are those who understand value. Bookies make a lot of money from accas, so they want all of those people! However, restricting someone because they’re good at maths is a poor showing. Plenty of our members at valuefootballbetting.com have seen bookie accounts restricted, thankfully we have Betfair.
It was interesting to see the legislation in Australia which prevents bookies from restricting profitable customers. Wouldn’t it be great to see that here in the UK?!
Do you have any personal football highlights that you can share with us either from a betting perspective or on a personal level?
I’ve been very lucky to have followed AFC Bournemouth for so many years. For the majority of that time we were a tiny club and so fans would get to know the players. In fact, I used to live next door to Eddie Howe (now manager) when he was a player! It’s a bit different in the Premier League, though many of the lads from League One are still playing.
My highlight was actually a pre-season friendly in the summer of 2015 when Bournemouth travelled over to Philadelphia to play the Union. I am a huge Philadelphia Eagles (NFL) fan and have visited the city many times, going to watch the Union on a few occasions. I’d met the Union CEO previously and he told me I should email him next time I’m in Philly… so I did! We were very well looked after in a corporate suite and it was fantastic to be able to spend an evening with good friends from both sides of the Atlantic.
Betting-wise, it was a match many years ago at Wycombe Wanderers. Steve Jones had started the season in fine form, banging goals in all over the place. Amazingly, the bookie in the stadium was offering odds of 8/1 on Jonesy to be first scorer and at half- time they ran out of money as most of the away end lined up to collect their winnings!
What interests do you have when you switch off from football?
I love watching NFL, especially in the United States. They really know how to put on an event! Fans turn up eight hours before kick-off, drink beer, grill food and have a party. It’s an incredible experience and there’s rarely trouble between rival fans. We could learn a thing or two over in Europe!
If you weren’t involved in the trading world what would you like to see yourself doing as a profession?
I imagine I’d be working with computers in some way. When Goal Profits first started I didn’t know the first thing about publishing a website, but I have learned a huge amount and have started to really enjoy it. I still don’t know that much though, could do with some lessons!
Are there any future plans for GoalProfits.com you can share with the readers? Anything they should be keeping an eye out for?
We have constantly developed Goal Profits over the past four years and we’re not planning on giving up any time soon. We still have a huge amount on our ‘to do’ list!
2016 will see much more focus on helping those who are new to trading.
Tim went pro towards the end of 2015, having joined us as a relative newcomer to trading, and we want many more to follow him.
Members have told us that they find videos of live trades particularly helpful so we will be providing many more of them. Our Team Statistics software is always improving and the latest addition – score predictions – is performing much better than the main prediction sites which is fantastic!
We are continually reviewing all 28 trading strategies in order to ensure that our members have an edge over everyone else on Betfair, all they need is some discipline and determination. Everything is right there for anyone to make it pro, but we can’t teach tenacity; members have to find that in themselves.
The summer sees Euro 2016, of course, and Kevin is already working on a bespoke trading strategy for the tournament. International football is tricky, but the tournaments do offer better opportunities.
All in all, I’m very excited about the year ahead!
So, will Leicester win the Premier League?
I’d love to see Leicester go all the way!
People were writing Bournemouth off all season on our way to the Championship title, but we plugged away and just about got over the line. It would certainly show the big boys that money isn’t everything.
If not Leicester, then I hope Arsenal can win. I’m a huge admirer of Arsene Wenger and how the Arsenal board have stuck with him. They run the club very well, don’t break the bank in order to buy expensive players and play football the right way.
I’m pretty sure that the title is beyond Bournemouth now…
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