A Q and A with Graham Laurie of Cash Master

This month we have had a chat with Graham Laurie from the Cash Master blog.

Hi Graham, and many thanks for joining us this month, first off would you start by telling our readers a little about yourself and your background?

I originally trained as a silversmith and had a successful business selling bespoke pieces around the world via international trade shows. I enjoyed a flutter on the horses too but when eBay started to become popular in the early 2000’s I bought a few horse racing systems on there, intrigued by the sales pages.

They were all, inevitably, terrible. I would buy a system, test it out for a few months and discover it didn’t work. Occasionally, very rarely, I found one that did.

In 2007 I set up Cash Master, really as a way to document my own tests and keep a record of them. It started with just me, buying a system, testing it out and posting the results. Over time, other people reading the posts started asking if I’d tested this system or that system and many offered to help out.

Over the last 12 years there have been something like 45 different people helping out and it’s turned into a bit of a thing. Other review sites have popped up over the years, pretty much copycatting what we do, and that’s cool.

I know a lot of our readers will know you from your Cash Master blog which started out with a heavy horse racing focus but now features a lot of alternate investments as well. Could you tell us how much of your own time and money now goes into these alternate investments as opposed to horse racing and betting activities?

I’m in my fifties now and, as with many people in the second half of their century, I’ve got a bit more disposable income and my time is more valuable to me too (the less there is of something, the more it’s worth!).

So, my focus over the last few years has been weighted towards alternate investments simply because I can generate returns without any time requirement, or very little time requirement. I do still bet on horse racing and football but I use betting bots running on a VPS so the bots do the work for me. I’ve deliberately geared my betting, trading and investment activities so that it requires very little input from me.

The idea is that when I retire (if I ever get fed up doing what I’m doing) I can spend my days doing whatever I like and still generate a good income from these strategies.

How do these alternate investments compare to returns from horse racing and betting activities?

It depends on the investment.

The best investment I ever made was getting into Bitcoin in 2015 where the returns knock everything else out of the water. The profits from that has been invested in various other crypto ventures, most of which then go on to generate equally stunning returns. But that’s an anomaly, a bit like investing Amazon when that started up.

It’s similar to horse racing in that the risk is high but the returns are high too. The difference though is it’s like betting on a horse at 10,000/1 that has an evens chance of winning. The best value bet you’ll ever make.

I’ve also invested in other higher risk business opportunities through an angel investment club. Again, like with horse racing, you put your money in fully prepared to lose it, but when they come in the returns are phenomenal.

Then on the other side of the coin, I invest the vast majority of my funds in ‘relatively’ low risk opportunities like real estate businesses that develop properties for resale. The returns on those range from around 7% to 12% per year, so nothing compared to betting, but absolutely brilliant compared to standard savings plans.

And in between the two I also do a bit of financial trading that takes very little time, a few minutes a month to manage, that generates around 20%-25% per year.

Do you have any reliable alternate investments for the beginner that you recommend?

That entirely depends on what the beginner is looking for, how much they have to invest and what their attitude to risk is.

For me, the higher the risk, the less I invest. So for high risk cryptos I’ll start with a few hundred pounds, for lower risk real estate I’m happy with a few hundred thousand pounds.

What are the pitfalls of these alternate investments, have you had failures as well as successes?

The same as with horse racing. You could lose your investment.

I only ever risk funds I’m prepared to lose and that has stood me in good stead. But, like with horse racing, if you are good at money management you can be out of ‘risk’ and playing with the bookies money soon enough.

So far I have only lost on one investment, a crypto business that went into administration.

I know you hold crypto currencies, do you foresee a day when they will replace what we currently see as real money, what do you think is the future of crypto currencies and is there an easy way for the non expert to get involved?

Not in my lifetime as the banking system still controls everything.

However, I do see crypto’s taking an ever increasing role over the next few years especially with more and more merchants accepting cryptocurrencies as payment. Indeed there are quite a few merchant platforms already accepting them and apps being created to integrate with existing EPOS systems, so merchants can accept not only fiat currency but also crypto’s and even gold as payment, with funds being instantly transformed into whatever currency the merchant prefers.

I think over the next decade we’re going to see some big changes.

What are the risks?

At the moment it’s emerging technology, so still risky. Having said that, the current fiat money system is a ticking time bomb itself. Cash is not backed by anything, printed out of thin air, and relies on ever increasing economic growth just to balance the books.

If everyone decided to withdraw their money from banks today they’d find that they couldn’t because it doesn’t exist.

We saw a shake up in the banking system back in 2007/8 and I think that was just a tremor compared to the quake that is coming. It’s unsustainable. The irony is that detractors of Bitcoin and cryptos complain that it’s ‘money out of thin air’ when they’re happy that the pound in their pocket is safe.

Would you say that you have a “typical” working day, and how would you describe it?

I do have a routine.

I get up around 8:30 and have breakfast. I’ll then read for half an hour. An actual book, no screens, no pads, a real book. Always non fiction (in the morning) and always something that I can learn from and improve my knowledge in some way. I’m currently reading ‘Use Your Head’ by Tony Buzan. A fascinating study of how the mind works and how to use it effectively.

I find that the discipline of reading every morning means I’m always learning and improving no matter how busy I might be.

After that I do a twenty minute meditation (I’m an old hippy at heart).

That tends to take me to about 10am. I’ll start ‘work’ then which invariably means answering a few e-mails, then cracking on with the review site, reading the current reviews and investigating new opportunities.

By 11:30 I stop and will go off to do whatever sport I’m doing that day.

I play badminton twice a week, I practice Krav Maga twice a week and I have a boxing coach once a week. I get back around 1:30 in time for shower and lunch and so tend to get back to work around 2-2:30.

Until a couple of years ago I would then stop around 3:15 for the school run but since my daughter is old enough to do that herself now I work until around 6pm and finish for the day.

What do you think of the world of sports tipping in general and what do you think people are in search of when it comes to their hunt for a successful tipster?

It’s a difficult business to be in I’d say.

There are some really good tipsters but just because they’re good doesn’t mean they are for everyone. People are impatient. Not many bettors have the discipline to stick to a system or service over the long term, and they could be with a tipster for five profitable months and then as soon as that tipster has a bad month or two, they’ll quit and move onto the next shiny thing.

This isn’t a criticism. It’s human nature.

A lot of tipsters are rubbish and you’d be sensible to quit those as soon as you can. The problem is knowing if the tipster is any good or not, and that’s where review sites are very useful. But even then, past performance never guarantees future performance, it’s only a guide.

A tipster can have an astonishing year, everyone jumps on board then he can’t pick a winner for months. I’ve seen this many times over the years.

So the trick is finding the right tipster for the right person.

Do you regularly bet yourself? What style of approach do you take to your betting? What do you think of staking plans, loss retrieval systems etc.?

Yes, I bet every day, but using bots as that takes the effort out but also, more importantly takes the emotion out of it. I only check in the morning how my bets for the previous day went. This isn’t for everyone though.

If you enjoy racing then part of the fun is choosing the horse, betting on it, watching or listening to the race and getting caught up in all the excitement of it.

I have no interest in that any more, I just want to win money from it. It’s the numbers that interest me.

I’m not a fan of recovery staking. It can work well so long as the method you use has a high strike rate and you have built in stop losses, but often a series of losses can set the bank back quite a bit and weeks of profits can be wiped in days. I used to use recovery staking a lot but now I prefer level staking, or ratcheted percent of bank staking.

What attracted you to the world of horse racing and what do you enjoy most about the sport?

It’s the numbers.

You can go down a rabbit hole with the stats available on horse racing and if you’re into that sort of thing you can spend all morning looking at stats and deciding what should be a winner.

And when you hit the winner it’s very satisfying. I used to spend quite some time doing this in the past. I’ve only been to the races a handful of times.

What led you into the world of racing tipsters and what do you feel you can offer racing enthusiasts and punters that other tipsters can’t?

I’m not a tipster.

All I offer is an unbiased view of other tipsters based on hard data. If they’re profitable I’ll say so, if they’re not profitable I’ll say so.
What traits do you think a good racing tipster should possess and what do you think the average punter is looking for from a tipping service?

A good service should be transparent.

One bug bear I have is when a tipster reports profits in points per month, but when you join you find each bet is recommended to 5 point or 10 point stakes. This is essentially massaging the figures.

Either report results as ROI or to 1 point stakes (half a point each way), at least then you can get an idea of what it’s really like. I often see claims of £40,000 profit last year, but when you convert that to 1 point stakes, and £10 bets instead of £200 bets, it turns out to be something like £400 profit.

Even if you do stake £200 per bet, if you can see the figures as they really are it helps you decide if that service is for you.

Consistency is important too. I’d rather be on a service that makes 10 points a month rather than one that makes 50 points one month and loses 40 points the next month.

But that’s me. You might like a rollercoaster ride.

New and old punters alike can struggle to make a success of their betting. If you could give them just one piece of advice to improve their profitability what would it be?

Discipline.

Often bettors start a system or service and it goes well for a while so they increase their stakes quickly, hoping to cash in on the ‘winning run’. Inevitably it’ll hit a losing streak and all previous profits are wiped out and losses accrue. This is just ridiculous. Choose a staking plan and stick to it. If you struggle with discipline, use a bot. It’ll do it all for you and take the greed monster away.

What would you consider to be a highlight of your racing experience to date? Do you have any personal racing / betting experiences which when reflecting back brings a smile, or for that matter any which bring a grimace; you can share with our readers?

I once had £200 on a nag at 20/1. It was a ‘stable gamble’. I don’t usually pay attention to those but this came from a trusted source and I thought what the hell. It won. I can’t even remember what it was called.

I also lost £10K in four days following an automated Forex trading service. That smarted…

What about the gambling industry, is there anything you like to see changed there? Many website forums are full of criticisms of the bookmakers and their treatment of their customers? Is this something you have an opinion on?

I’ve had all my accounts gubbed and I think it’s a shameful practice.

Back in the day bookies used to make a book. They used skill to determine the odds and create the book so that their 1%-3% overround on each race meant they made a profit and punters either won or lost depending on their own luck and skills.

They got greedy and lazy. Their marketing budgets are huge and they’re only interested in getting as many people in and betting as possible. If you show any level of experience, perhaps betting on value horses, you’ll get flagged really quickly and they either restrict your bets to less than a fiver, or close your account completely.

Many of us have had to move over to Betfair, but obviously it’s harder to get value bets on Betfair as the market is genuine and more mature.

What do you do to relax and unwind? What interests have you outside the world of horse racing?

I love live music. I probably go to 15-20 gigs a year and spend a small fortune seeing bands I love, music festivals too.

I also love travel. I travel somewhere new at least three times a year, my record being seven different destinations in one year, including weekend breaks.

The most beautiful place I’ve been to date is Iceland in the winter, to see the Northern Lights. It’s the most astonishingly beautiful landscape that quite literally bought a tear to my eye after climbing a small hill to reveal a glacier frozen in between two mountains.

Second to that would have to be when I drove from Lake Tahoe in California down to Yosemite National Park.