If I don’t have a bet every day, how will I know whether or not I’m in the middle of a winning streak?

Inveterate (adj): 1 long established, esp. so as to be deep-rooted. 2 (prenominal) confirmed in a habit or practice, esp. a bad one. [from inveterare to make old]

Disaster. A month on and I’m still winning. If it carries on like this, Rotter may have to pack up his keyboard and walk off into the sunset. It was never meant to be like this. The whole premise of this column is to give you lot a bit of a break from all the smart-arse experts by entertaining you with the musings of one H.Rotter esq, average Joe Punter and loser par excellence.

This hasn’t been too difficult up until now – after all, Rotter’s speciality is finding losers by the bucketful. I’m blessed with all the failings of the spectacularly bad punter – rashness, impulsiveness, poor judgement. You name a bad habit and I’ve got it.

But something very strange has happened. Rotter’s started winning. Regular readers of InsideEdge will recall last month’s detailed account of how the losing streak ended with a decent-priced winner at Lingfield. Confidence has now returned with a vengeance and with it the decisiveness needed to survive in the constant struggle to stay ahead of Mr L.Broke and Mr W.Hill.

And to think that not too long ago – in the gloomy shadow cast by the cloud of despair that was hovering over Rotter Mansions – yours truly was even contemplating giving up altogether. However, while looking for inspiration on the internet one day, I came across a fantastic quote from a similarly afflicted American gambler.

This guy related the tale of his dear wife who refused to stop nagging him about his daily calls to his bookie. Tired of her incessant whining, he turned to her and, with impeccable punter’s logic, said: ‘If I don’t have a bet every day, how will I know whether or not I’m in the middle of a winning streak?’ That seemed to shut her up for a while.

You have to admire the sentiment, and it was a quote that stuck in my head for days. I realised that far from giving up for a while, I had to carry on. Only a punter could understand this. I mean, do you think Warren Buffett downs tools when he picks a bum stock? Does David Beckham stop taking free kicks simply because he keeps hitting the bar? Of course not.

Right up to a recent holiday in the Med, where punting would be a non-runner, Rotter kept hitting the bullseye. So it was with some trepidation that I woke up the day after we returned from our ten days of sunshine. Would my winning streak have ended? Had the spell been broken? Was it back to gloom and misery?

There was only one thing for it – a good lunch to fortify the soul while browsing the form for the afternoon’s activity. Blazing sunshine, a hearty repast and several glasses of claret set everything up beautifully. The nap of the day as far as I could see was an Ed Dunlop-trained filly, in a listed race, who duly obliged at a very reasonable 5/4. Then I took 11/4 about a Godolphin debutant, who also strolled home. Then I bumped into my old mate Placepot Pete, who you may recall is a good mucker of mine whose speciality is the Tote Placepot. We decided to try our luck on the roulette machine and, guess what? The second spin hit my number (which is two, since you ask) and we walked away with a nifty each.

Retiring to the bar (we were both a little worse for wear by this time), we caught up on the gossip and he regaled me with some splendid punting anecdotes, most of them involving near misses of epic proportions.

As is usual when we get together, the talk turned to the mysteries of the Placepot. I brought up the subject since I had come within a neck of landing a huge payout a couple of weeks before. All my lines were winning ones, with all my selections finishing in the frame right up to the fifth leg, when my selections missed out in a blanket finish by a slither.

Mistaken identity

He then told me of the time a few years back when he came home to his good wife after a particularly long lunch. It hadn’t been a good day for his car business or for his Placepotting.

It was at a time when he was completely obsessed by the bet. He’d won big a few times, but that was some years before and he hadn’t stopped trying since. The BBC news was on and Peter was desperately squinting through the boozy fog trying to concentrate on the screen. He sat bolt upright in disbelief as the newsreader announced that eight Placepotters had been arrested by police in Greece. ‘Placepotters?’ he asked his wife, with all the sobriety he could muster. ‘Didn’t know they had the Placepot in Greece.’

‘You plonker,’ replied his long-suffering wife, ‘They’ve arrested eight plane-spotters!’

At first he was embarrassed and flustered, but that soon turned to hilarity as he and his wife collapsed in a heap of laughter, unable to believe what he had just said. It was a great story to end a truly enjoyable day.