How many people reading this are turning a profit with their betting, I wonder?

Quite a few I’m sure but they will be in the minority. The figure often quoted is about 5% of punters make money on their betting – and far fewer than that make a living from it.

I’m hoping Make Your Betting Pay can improve that percentage. Sounds like a tall order I know but profitable betting is considerably easier than most would have you believe. I’ve been doing it for many years now and I know lots of others who do.

My name is Kieran Ward and I am a 54 year old (as of 2023!) horse racing and betting fanatic. I have been betting for close to 40 years ever since my Uncle took me to the bookies when I was about 11 years old.

What an exciting place that felt to a small boy!

The smoky atmosphere, shouts of triumph and despair, newspapers written in an indecipherable code. I still feel the thrill of the forbidden now. I wasn’t supposed to be there. But there I was watching men win and lose colossal sums of money (or so it seemed to me!)

My first real winner was Aldiniti in the 1981 National and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first for quite a lot of punters my age. I got about 9/1  ( well, my uncle did for me) and my excitement knew no bounds as Bob Champion rode him to victory.

My love of the game was cemented when I started going to a local pub that had a racing mad landlord, when I was about 14. This was when I started getting my first inklings that betting could really be made to pay.

The landlord was a heavy gambler and, to my surprise, he did very well out of it. He was banned from all the local offices and over the next couple of years he used me regularly to place his bets (in exchange for a few free pints and the odd bar snack!).

It was clear that I was collecting quite a bit more for him than I was putting down and he was living rather better than he had any right to as the landlord of a pub in a small, rural town in Oxfordshire.

All of this really piqued my interest and I managed to have some reasonable touches by backing his selections myself.

However, by the time I was 18 or 19 life had taken over and I drifted away from serious betting until my early 30’s when I returned with a vengeance. I was excited by the opportunities offered by tax-free offshore betting followed by the removal of betting tax altogether. Real profitability seemed an awful lot more feasible with the arrival of online betting and exchanges and I really began to take it seriously again.

To cut a long story short, I have managed to turn a profit in each of the last 16 years and went full time at the game about in 2008. It’s been a hard road but I really can make my betting pay now – much to the amazement of my super-sceptical friends and family.

In addition to betting for a living and writing this blog, for the last 10 years I’ve been running  tipping advisory services which (and I’m going to be a big head here!) are among the very best tipster services available.

Those services are The Morning Value Service and Precision Value (a ‘lite version of The Morning Value Service designed for people who don’t like too many bets.)

In 2016 I made a big push to automate my selection processes which resulted in the premium software I sell – The Value Machine. That’s been a massive success since it launched in late 2016 – so much so in fact that access to it it has been, to all intents and purposes, closed to new members for the last 2 and a half years.

You can learn a bit more about my services by following the links but let me just say that The Morning Value Service (my premium service which includes all the others) is one of only a handful of services ever to receive the Hall of Fame accolade from respected betting monitor The Smart Betting Club.

So what is the purpose of this blog, you may ask?

Well. I quite enjoy writing about betting – it helps give me some clarity of thinking around betting. it’s also a big help in maintaining discipline when you have to write about discipline, money management and betting psychology on a regular basis.

There are three main ways of making your betting pay and I have written an in depth article identifying and explaining them here.

Take the time to read that and you’ll be ahead of 90 % of people in understanding the ways in which it is possible to make your betting pay – and yes, even make a living from it.

There are a number of free resources available on  the site which I hope you will enjoy. There is my ‘Professional Betting Guide’ which lays out everything you need to put your betting on a professional footing. You can your hands on that for free simply  by signing up for my newsletter somewhere over to the right hand side of the page there.

I post a daily free horse racing tip  on the site each day (I’ll tell you where I post them on the site  if you sign up for the newsletter!). The selections are taken from one of my premium services and have performed exceptionally well since I introduced them in late 2018. Those bets are currently tracking at in excess of 100 points profit a year – from just one bet a day on selections that are easy to back to decent stakes and at readily available prices.

I’m also a bit of an MMA fanatic and have managed to make my betting pay quite handsomely on it over the last few years. I post my selections on the site anytime I have a bet myself and those bets have also done fantastically well.  When you consider that the risk level with those bets is low, bank requirement is also low and you can get on to very decent stakes with out a problem, MMA bets can add a very decent level of profit to any portfolio.  At current rate, we will  likely double our betting bank on those year on year. I will be developing this element of the site further in the coming months – possibly with some live in play betting which can be very lucrative on MMA.

I also occasionally give my thoughts on the good, the bad and the ugly of the systems, tipsters and services out there in the betting jungle. You’ll find my thoughts on the good ones on the reviews page.

I sometimes use the site  to give my thoughts about the game and have an occasional rant about the things that annoy me! I hope it will be funny and informative because if it is, more of you will read it. I will try and throw in some hints, tricks and systems that might help you in your own battle with the old enemy.

I love the game and I love the fact I can make a living from something I would do for nothing anyway. Don’t get me wrong – it is not easy and there are lots of lows that go along with the highs but nothing beats the thrill of pitting your wits and knowledge against the bookies and coming out on top!

I try to post regularly and I hope you will come along for the ride.

Be lucky

Kieran