I tried to Google this question and found all sorts of answers ranging from 55%- 95% of people who invest on the stock market lose money. I couldn't find anything accurate or research based to support this which I thought was strange because it cant be hard to report how many people claimed tax losses from shares each year (in Australia this would be easy as everyone has to individually report it) However I think we can safely conclude it is over 50% which is arguably high if you consider the stock market has grown on average 10% per year since day dot!

While researching I also read that 40% of the clients with a highly successful fund making double digit growth, year on year for 10 years lost money. How does that happen? Simple.....40% of people left the fund because they joined during a peak and saw their investment fall and quickly left. The 60% who remained continued to make profit year on year.

So back to the stock market and why do more people lose than win. The simple answer is human nature. We are all sheep and the majority of us are followers. We buy something because other people have bought it and told us how good it is. The followers buy shares when they have already gone up in price. The followers buy shares because someone down the pub told them and didn't do any of their own research. The funny thing is, as followers we often don't sell our shares on the way down because we are scared of making a loss and hang onto them in the hope of the price returning. On the stock market - I have always been a follower!

I'm sure by now you can clearly see where I am heading with Sports betting and my little service SoF. I recently gained an influx of members on the recommendation of SBC, word of mouth, twitter and obviously cracking results. Everyone wanted to buy shares in SoF at their peak performance and then we hit a downturn. However unlike the stock market my new followers quickly left the scene and may not return but it will be an interesting percentage for me to work out come the end of the year. How many of my members lost money despite triple digit bank growth?

Personally I don't know if the saying 'buy low, sell high' applies to tipping services and would be interested to hear people's thoughts that manage portfolios or have tried this in the tipster community as we would certainly be a clev

Who would be a tipster? It can be so so depressing when you have a losing run, which is exactly what we are experiencing now. Those amazing highs of profit after profit and accolation after accolation have you feeling untouchable, and then WHACK, loss after loss and complaint after complaint hits you square in the face.

To be fair I am quite fortunate in having a very educated Membership base and the core have been with me through some amazing highs and they appear to be able to take this roller coaster ride better than most. As a tipster it does also get a little easier. I have experienced down turns before and let me tell you the first one nearly broke me. I had sleepless nights, the shakes and was receiving emails from people saying they had lost 10k, they wanted to kill me or worse still, fu*k my arse! I'm not joking....it was horrific. With each loss I tried even harder to find the perfect tip. I spent longer researching, analysed even more leagues....and kept losing. Members left me like rats leaving a sinking ship. I lost 73% of my membership in a 2 month period! Suddenly I didn't care I was losing and the membership had reduced so much the pressure was off and guess what?...I relaxed went back to my basic principles of selecting tips and we are now where we are today.

Today, we are experiencing another downturn and it is still depressing for me. I haven't received the abuse of previously mentioned but it still effects my mood at home, you don't sleep well especially when games are playing through the night. You are always desperate to get back in front of the computer and do more research or make sure you watch the games. My motivation levels to do jobs around the house or social things with the family just drop but that is getting much better indeed. I think having a child helps here because they are so much more important than a football match. Her smile lights you up and you forget about everything else!

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm taking this blog entry but thought I would give you an insight to how a tipster may feel during a bad run. I'm actually excited about turning this latest episode around which I haven't felt before. Usually, I feel nervous about every tip but this time if feels different because I know if I keep to my criteria and find value we will come out the other side to meet a beautiful rainbow and a pot of gold.