An Interview with Gary Boswell aka The Boz

An interview with Gary Boswell aka The Boz

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

One thing little known about me is that I spent my first four working years after school as a high flying bank clerk, sat on a million pound till every day. Did foreign currency exchange trading and taught school leavers the rudiments of economics. This bedded me in practices that, twenty years later, would lead to a fascination with exchange betting.

My Dad was a bookie so I learned betting from the shop side and linked it to my banking training and with that kind of moneymaking system in my pocket, why would I need betting systems?

In those days I didn’t.

Banking statistics were my focus until suddenly something weird happened to me. I think it’s called puberty!

We have to ask, what made you make the switch from the world of comic poetry to that of writing on sports betting? It’s a bit of a move isn’t it?

Poetry came along in the initial disguise of Punk Rock.
John Lydon and Sir Cooper Clarke along with a ‘proper’ poet called Adrian Mitchell opened my eyes and created a healthy disrespect for the ‘monied’ world I was training in. The other thing about me and the world at that time was that I started playing chess aged 15 – at the point that a certain genius called Bobby Fischer took on the world and beat it. For 5 or 6 years I harboured the urge to be the next Bobby Fischer and developed a healthy dislike for losing. Something else that stood me in good stead for when my tipping career began.

But first the budding love for language and words allied to a sense of humour that runs strong throughout my family genes and was set seriously alight by Cooper Clarke and Lydon. I borrowed Adrian’s book The Apeman Cometh from Redditch Library and laughed from cover to cover before then reading that it was a poetry book. Up to then poetry had been Coleridge and Shakespeare and falling asleep at my desk in the grammar school sun. Ask me my destiny in those days and I’d have said goalkeeper for Arsenal or Albion not wordsmith. But…

The power of those three poets was strong along with the way that Punk Rock culture was getting through to people of my age at that time. My head was seriously turned. I became interested in radicalism (my pleading bank manager of the time who was charged with rescuing my banking career called me a Radical and I showed my naivety by saying I wasn’t interested in politics!).

I packed in the bank, bought a drum kit and started performing as a punk poet and got myself a place on a creative writing degree. My mother never forgave me!

In answer to your question, I never really switched from comic poetry to writing on sports betting. I always did both.

One of my favourite jobs at Betfair was as poet-in-residence for the 2010 World Cup. I wrote a poem every day of the competition and one good one that has earned me some royalties ever since. My college vacation job was as a board marker (remember them?) in my older brother’s betting shop. It remains the best job I ever had. Like now, I got paid for watching horse-racing. Even in the days of touring as a performing poet (20 years around the globe) I aspired to that. Then it was my come down from the highs of stage performance. Into the bookies for a bet on the 8-15 at Windsor. Perfect way to wind down.

Poetry is less of a professional thing for me these days (young person’s game) but I still tinker. Stage performing I gave up due to developing a common ennui for that. The subsequent loss of income led me to the need to generate more income from writing itself and that led to the focus falling more heavily on sports and betting writing. Old writing school maxim. Write what you know.

What one thing did I know most about? Betting.

Tells all you need to know about me!

Except perhaps for this – being a poet means naturally always being on the lookout for originality – the seeing something everyone else is missing. This isn’t something I consciously apply but I’m aware it is in me and maybe what ultimately drives me. And it’s a useful character trait for a bettor and gambler in the constant fight against the enemy. It benefits to be naturally looking outside the box, to be naturally seeking to go against the flow. That’s me. Awkward bugger! Contrary some call me. Difficult to work with. A natural devil’s advocate. But handy trait in looking for outsiders. I combine that aspect of my nature with the stats and bank training from early in my life. I recognise the importance of research and form. Just not a slave to it. Use it to justify my insights rather than the other way round.

For those of our readers who are unaware of your written word, which sports do you cover in particular and why?

I started regular sports writing in 1998 as a non league football pundit.

Had started taking my eldest son to see Morecambe who were riding high in the Conference at that time. Started seeing ways to make money regularly betting on football and started writing about it seriously for people prepared to pay. Always easier to get folk to pay for sports writing than for your poetry. Sad fact of the world!

After ten years as a non league football betting writer, which coincided with the invention of the internet and the betting exchanges and made earning a freelance writing living pretty easy, I switched to my actual preferred sports of horse racing (National Hunt in particular).

And women’s tennis. My heart has always beat in synch with the thundering sound of horses hooves but I also have a lifelong admiration for tennis as the sport that has championed feminism from the outset and given equal status to professional women players (with the odd nudge from Billie-Jean and Venus along the way).

The move to tennis writing got me a nomination for SJA betting writer of the year in 2009 after I tipped the outsider winner of the French Open on Betfair.com for whom I was writing at the time. On a shortlist of five I was 250/1 outsider in the betting and I came fourth! My greatest ever victory literary or otherwise!

The winner was Steve Palmer and the joint runners up were Derek McGovern and Kevin Pullein. Three more different writers you could not imagine and then there was me! I have always felt it colours you which of those four writers you choose to read. I know that for making money, it should be Pullein every time. His record is exemplary and everything he ever says makes sense but the one I would always choose to read is McGovern. He makes me laugh. Priceless commodity.

The only one of those four writers I wouldn’t read is Palmer. Not a tipster I recommend. Me? I ain’t the best (I’m 4th!) but I’m ok and I openly admit I always did like reading my own stuff even if only to try to make it better all the time. Constantly editing……

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

No typical day really. Not a novelist so freed from the daily discipline there required. As a poet at heart I can follow the muse. I always write when I feel like it. That is often early mornings. I also always get motivated to write to deadlines. As with this piece. Give me a deadline and I’ll meet it. But some ‘working’ days now are me sat watching racing all day and having a bet or three. The life I always worked to achieve!

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?

Now here’s a question I have given long consideration to!

The tipping world has of course always been a fraught one with bookmakers constantly wrestling for control of it (a situation theoretically eased when Betfair came along but ultimately not as radically changed as we would have perhaps hoped) and the lack of regulation meaning a lot of charlatans and fraudsters to be found. Met a few of them when I worked for two years as writer-in-residence at HMP Risley! How I learned the things you shouldn’t do as a tipster!

It’s the epitome of the free market which is what is both exciting and scary about the tipping world. It is a bit of a jungle with the two extremes of perceived successful tipping – the deluded get rich quick/easy money brigade versus the make me a quid a year and I’ll call you a professional tipster anoraks with every shade of other successful tipping criteria in between making it hard to categorise and even harder to market to.

It is easy to lie and make soundbites work for you – seeing how so many of your initial customers are after the holy grail of money without effort. But lies always catch up with you in the end and I’ve found that the only way is honesty and decency and I’ve always been a tell it how it is guy anyway which is maybe why I’ve lasted. Tipsters do tend to come and go.

Fickle folk aren’t worth much in my book. Longevity is the yardstick for me. And guaranteed profit. Not much else defines success in my book but is that what the majority of the public aspire to? The cynic in me suggests that the easy money brigade still represents the majority but my time at the Betting School has tempered that somewhat. There reality does tend to rear its head on a daily basis.

Dreams still exist and are sometimes realised but not at the cost of education. Because of it more like. That’s a healthy state for a tipping world in my eyes. Feet on the ground. Graft visible. Hard work championed and celebrated. Solid principles to my eyes.

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.?

Er yeh!

Betting seriously in my blood. Not per se though. And not all forms of betting. Poker and casinos don’t attract. Nor bingo! I like betting horses ultimately. And women’s tennis. Reflects my two passions in life. Some say betting in markets you are emotionally detached from is the best way but that is not me. I do it because I enjoy it. So maybe I don’t make as much as the emotionally detached. That perhaps is true. But you’ll remember that I also come from rebelling against banking training and Punk Rock. Money ain’t everything and it sure as hell ain’t the road to happiness. Get the balance and the priorities right. Psychology again the most important aspect of it all.

I specialise in playing markets from both ends. Picking losers and winners in the same market. Better at the former so my success only really started when the exchanges came along and allowed the public to lay. Would have been more successful earlier had I followed my Dad and brother into bookmaking I hear you say. True but it seemed too much like banking to me at the time. Was too busy being a poet then!

Staking plans are sensible but not a personal strength of mine. Again, I do best when following the muse! Everybody’s discipline is different. Just so long as you have some! Wreckless or thoughtless gambling is what leads to losing. That and fun betting. When the fun stops, START! My absolute maxim for taking your betting seriously i.e. learning how to win.

Loss retrieval systems I don’t really do. Chasing losses is always a danger to be guarded against. Discipline and sticking to your proven methods is how I believe you deal with losing and losing streaks. Battening the hatches. Getting your head down. Battling your way back to profit is what I believe in. Have worked hard in recent years on my annual cycle approach to ensure the year starts with winning and builds thereon. Did a few painful years as a private tipster when it was late April/May before I was showing a profit. Learned how to sidestep that now. Been an important educational lesson for me.

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

Profitability is the maker and the breaker in betting and tipping.

Get greedy and you are certain to come a cropper.

Under cook and you can be accused of lacking nerve. The one thing most important to keep in mind is the old Nevison adage. Do your homework. Form your opinion of the winner in any given market. Then check whether you are being offered value on that option. The fluctuating odds we deal with these days means you get a lot of variable in that alone and timing is important here as it is in comedy. But if the value is brilliant, increase your stake. If it’s moderate, act moderately. If there is no value, don’t bet.

That ultimately is the way to increased profitability.

So long as you can pick winners or know someone who can! Which brings me to the nubbin of should people follow tipsters?

Ultimately my gut says no. I have followed tipsters in the past and now I am one. But if profitability is the goal, the best advice of all is hard work and don’t pay someone else to do it! Do it yourself. I see my tipping as a teaching tool and my best customers as those who go off and do their own thing after watching me at work for a while. This might not be what this magazine wants to hear but it is something I felt which has been reinforced by working with The Betting School.

You can learn from good tipsters is my thing. I learned from Braddock and Nevison and these days the likes of Hardman and Hugh Taylor. Still teaching me. I try to pass my skills on and encourage others to develop their own. Ultimately your personality will determine what kind of gambler you are and whether or not you’ll be successful. My flighty poet nature has both strengths and weaknesses to it. I play to the former and am always working on the latter. That’s how it is. Whatever else you do, never blame anyone else when you lose. You lost because you placed the bet!

What systems do you personally champion?

The one’s I devised myself are my favourites! Especially when they are working! Systems are important but consistency and solid psychology more so. Get your head right about your gambling and success will follow.

What do you consider to be the highlight of your sporting experiences to date? How do they compare with your literary prize moments?

Best tip given was Richard Johnson at 13/8 to win the NH jockeys championship the year AP retired. I advised my only ever 100 point stake bet. I advise betting to £100 per point and aim at approx. 100 points profit per annual cycle. So also my biggest bet ever! Not, however, my biggest win. That, as always, came from multiples betting. I still specialise in going through the card at Fontwell. Last strike though was 2013.

Had a lean few years with that approach.

My Literary prize moments don’t compare. Youngest living poet in the BBC’s Comic Verse anthology in 1997 was good – the poetry X factor voted for by the public – was a good feeling.

But I’m not into competition in poetry (or art generally). Two sides of my ying and yang. Competition is everything in betting and chess. Doesn’t belong in poetry. The great satisfaction in my poetry career is a wry smile from an audience who get what I’m saying. In sport it’s spine tingling yahay as the fancied outsider lands. I’m a roarer at such times. On the terraces at the Albion as a kid set that in me. Nothing like shouting a Cyrille Regis thunderbolt into the net!

What does The Boz do to relax and unwind at the end of a hard week?

I used to have a bet but trained myself out of that! Don’t really do relax anyway. Prefer sleep!

Work weekends. Like my work. Sitting watching racing.

Who wouldn’t?

Gary Boswell runs a daily electronic tipping sheet for serious investors and has shown a profit every year of its existence since 1999. For more information on the Bozmail, contact garyboswell@hotmail.com. Two weeks free trial always available.

We had another chat with Gary in early 2020, you can read that here – Gary Boswell Update