The Editor...
Mike Holden is one of the leading football betting tipsters in the UK.
He is a 32-year-old freelance journalist from Manchester who graduated with a degree in Journalism from the University of Central Lancashire in 2005.
Over the past four years, he has produced many ground-breaking features on betting and football analysis for sportinglife.com but he is perhaps best known as the tipster responsible for the hugely successful Net Gains premium football service on Bettingzone.co.uk.
Since June 2006, his tips have consistently yielded a profit in excess of 20 per cent on turnover and anyone who has followed his advice on Net Gains to split £100 unit stakes over the past 18 months would now be in profit to the tune of more than £15,000.
Mike has consistently profited from his football betting activities over the past seven or eight years but he remains extremely passionate in his desire to meet the highest standards and continually improve his technique.
His methods for beating the bookmaker and profiting on betting markets are heavily influenced by the latest developments in psychology and business management, while he also harbours a passion for the use of statistics in analysing how and when football matches are won and lost.
He is a huge admirer of football managers at all levels of the game and a keen student of the ever-developing methods they use in order to get the best out of their teams.
Mike is also an avid Manchester City fan who has followed the club home and away for the past 25 years.
He has watched his team play at more than 100 different venues, visiting 78 of the current 92 English league grounds.
Despite City's current status as a Premiership club, he maintains that his most enjoyable period following the club was between 1999 and 2002 when the team spent the majority of its time in the Football League.
It was during this spell that he began to notice many of the trends and sequences in the outcome of matches that still fuel his instincts today.
His all-time favourite match following City was at Ewood Park in May 2000 when a 4-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers on the final day of the season secured promotion back to the Premiership after an absence of four years.
City haven't played in the Football League since winning the title under Kevin Keegan in 2002, but Mike's obsession with the English game outside of the top flight has flourished ever since and continues to do so.
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