Reliving my betting history seemed a good idea at the time

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Unlike more serious gamblers, I don't spend much time wrangling with bookmaker customer services. I have a vague impression, formed by listening to press-room rants, that such interactions are usually fruitless. But the other day I asked my bookie for a list of all the bets I've placed with them and was fairly astonished when they almost immediately did so.

I guess it's pretty easy to provide such things these days. Computers, eh? It's probably all automated. Perhaps some of you regard trawling through your complete betting history as a routine matter, undertaken once a month between reconciling the cheque-book and de-clagging those pipes beneath the sink.

Still, I was impressed that this was possible because I started betting with this particular firm in November 2002 and it seems my total number of bets with them is about to break into five figures. So what they've sent me, while it might these days be a readily manageable piece of electronic data, is a really significant amount of information about what I've been doing with my time.

At first, I was thrilled. I looked forward to diving into it in the way that a normal person might anticipate opening a new book. I set aside an afternoon and bought snacks.

I had a pretty good idea of the net outcome, so I knew where the story was going to end. I was just looking forward to reading about how it got there.

For reasons that perhaps you've guessed, it wasn't anywhere near as much fun as I expected. For one thing, a complete betting record is like an entirely truthful and unbiased biography; in other words, a kind of biography that is never written. 

You remember the clever things you did, or most of them. It was lovely to be see some of those again. But they were heavily outnumbered by uninspired decisions as well as a few that could only be described as cover-your-eyes awful.

Reader, can you believe there was ever a time when El Vaquero was considered a good bet for the Cheltenham Gold Cup? Evidently, I thought so.

I've always known my betting was low strike-rate. That's what happens when, by disposition, your interest is in winners at double-figure odds. If you're sharp enough, you can still hope to make a long-term profit at that end of the market but you will definitely have to endure some droughts along the way.

I've always been able to shrug those off while they were happening. But seeing all those bets on the page, row after row with the damning label 'LOST' next to them, is daunting.

This betting account started with a two-month losing streak, which perhaps makes it sound worse than it was because I only bet on eight races in that time. But I made especially determined assaults on the Thomas Pink Gold Cup, the Hennessy and the Tripleprint Gold Cup and came away empty-handed.

I even had a couple of long-range goes at the Super Bowl and was out in week one of the playoffs. Taken altogether, it must have been demoralising, though I can't recall any such feeling.

Then comes Non So in the Lanzarote and finally there's a WON on the page. I remember trying to keep pace with him as he sprinted up the run-in. That one mattered.

Inevitably, there are lots of bets I'd forgotten, even some good winners. But others evoke memories so strong that it's as if 20 years have melted away. A long list of poker transactions takes me back to a sweltering London flat, cigarette smoke drifting in through the windows much of the time because there was a quiet spot beneath us where kids took their breaks from the local school. 

Betting patterns give you clues about what was going on in your life. Oddly enough, I seem to have stopped paying £100 to enter poker tournaments soon after meeting my future wife. I'm briefly puzzled by a month without any bets, then realise it followed the death of my father.

In short, it can be a bit much. Reliving your betting history is very like reliving your life and there are few of us for whom that would bring unalloyed joy.

But there's a lot to learn (and probably not just about betting). I think it's possible to see mistakes being repeated at intervals in these pages and, although I dare say I'm making different mistakes now to the ones I made during the Blair government, there's hope that this experience will help me to cut out some of my losses.

I recommend it. Sort of.

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