Following up the successful 2016 Summer League Campaign, here is our complete report on the 2016-17 Winter League Campaign, based on 18 different top flight leagues.
2016-17 Winter League Profit Curve
We will try to avoid repeating what was said in the summer league article so that it is all new information for you here.
For the sake of completeness, you should still read and digest both reports for a full idea of our strategies and thought processes.
And you will find the current stock of available HDAFU tables via this link.
2016-17 Campaign Report
Measures of Risk
Before beginning to plan any portfolio or placing bets, you will need to review your analyses and rank the systems you have found according to risk exposure based on the values of the upper inflection point odds.
This will allow you to compile a portfolio with a healthy balance of risk, which is essential to the success of any investment plan.
Here is our rough guide:
- Low Risk (Probability 45.00% or more; upper inflection point maximum odds of 2.22)
- Low-medium Risk (Probability 44.99%-35.00%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 2.85)
- Medium Risk (Probability 34.99%-22.50%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 4.44)
- Medium-high Risk (Probability 22.99%-16.00%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 6.25)
- High Risk (Probability 15.99% or less; upper inflection point odds above 6.25)
Discretion is used if a system does not fit these parameters or crosses two or more classifications – In these cases, the harmonic mean odds of all the games in the set is used as the benchmark to guage risk. The Excel formula for a range of odds in cells A1 to A100 would be: =HARMEAN(A1:A100)
Measures of Success
You will also need a definitive framework to be able to judge the final results.
For us, the final results of any league fall into four distinct categories:
- Systems that achieve a six-season-high (i.e. profits larger than any of the previous five seasons). (Over-Achievers).
- Those that make a profit over and above the size of the initial stake (£100 in our case), but fall short of six-season-high results. (Achievers).
- Strategies that break-even or, record a tiny profit or loss up to the size of the initial stake (£100 in our case). (Zero-Sum).
- Leagues that make a loss over and above the size of the initial stake. (Losers).
You can already see that two of these outcomes are favourable, one is neutral, and only one is detrimental.
2016-17 League-by-League Review
Let’s have a brief look at each league to see how our 22 systems fared. (Alphabetically according to the tab codes in the workbook):
1. AUS1 – Austria Bundesliga – Whole Season System
Only eight of 28 bets won, but this was enough to see a profit of £882.00. Hit rate and yield were both below the calculated averages and the resultant profit figure was lower than any of the five previous seasons’ figures.
Result: Achiever
2. BEL1 – Belgium Jupiler League – Whole Season System
Up to, but not including Europa League and Championship Group splits
Both the estimated hit rate (33 out of 97 bets won) and yield figures were surpassed by wide margins, leading to a six-season-high profit figure of £3,108.00.
Result: Over-Achiever
3. CZE1A – Czech Republic 1. Liga – First Half Season System
Up to the 04/12/2016 winter break
Nine out of 22 bets won, and whilst the hit rate and yield both outstripped expectations, the profit figure settled at £1,247.00, the fourth largest in the last six seasons.
Result: Achiever
4. CZE1B – Czech Republic 1. Liga – Second Half Season System
From 18/02/2017 start of the second half of the season
This one suffered its worst result in the last six seasons, but the resultant loss was minimal at -£310.00.
Result: Loser
5. DEN1A – Denmark Superligaen – First Half Season System
This was the only system employed in this league purely because the format of the second half of the 2016-17 season was to change from previous seasons.
Although hit rate and yield were both below estimates, the system still recorded its third highest total for six seasons at £1,238.00.
There were twice as many bets than expected (largely due to the fact that around 40% more games than usual were played in the first half of the season to accommodate the new second half season format).
Result: Achiever
6. ENG1 – England Premier League – Whole Season System
This system suffered the longest losing streak we have ever encountered, almost 14% worse than expected, for a very painful 36 straight losses. (A six-season-low).
However, the situation was mostly recovered by three big winners all carrying odds of over 12.00, for a final loss of just -£32.00.
The last six bets of the season lost, but had only one of these been a winner, this system would have returned a profit. Small margins.
Result: Zero-Sum
7. FRA1 – France Ligue 1 – Whole Season System
Hit rate and yield were both below par, but the league turned in a steady performance for a profit of £1,634.00, ranked fifth largest in the last six seasons.
Result: Achiever
8. FRA2 – France Ligue 2 – Whole Season System
The same story as France Ligue 1, but with a profit of £2,801.00, for its third largest profit figure in six seasons.
This one was unusual for a much higher number of bets than expected. (215 vs. 119 estimate – Profit was at £2,523.00 after 119 bets).
Result: Achiever
9. GER1A – Germany Bundesliga 1 – First Half Season System
Up to 21/12/2016 winter break
Another below par system, but one that still achieved a profit of £1,098.00. (Fourth largest in six seasons).
Result: Achiever
10. GER1B – Germany Bundesliga 1 – Second Half Season System
From 20/01/2017 start of the second half of the season
The very rare inclusion of a system with two non-profitable seasons (the oldest two) in the previous five.
It featured one more bet than expected, which won, to total one more winner than expected. Hit rate and yield both exceeded estimates for a profit of £1,294.00. (Fourth largest in six seasons).
Result: Achiever
11. GRE1 – Greece Super League – Whole Season System
The hit rate here was almost 8% below estimate and resulted in the worst performance for six seasons, and a loss of -£819.00.
Result: Loser
You had a 2000 € bankroll at a bet size of 100 playing 18 leagues/systems? So 5% stake per bet? Isn’t that to optimistic?
Hello Dennis,
I think the 2,000 unit starting bank figure you are referring to is from the staking plan simulation, which is part of the Winter League Campaign spreadsheet.
Please note that this part of the spreadsheet is only a simulation, and the 2,000 unit starting bank shown there is an arbitrary figure just to demonstrate the ratchet and stop-loss trigger points, and to introduce people to the subject of managing effective staking plans.
But, in any case, with our experience of running these systems and seeing losing streaks tempered by the ‘portfolio effect’, 5% is not an unreasonable sum, especially if you are prepared to reduce it or manage it with a stop loss mechanism if things do not go well initially.
If you do implement a stop loss strategy, then you must also use a ratchet when things are going well.
Our actual bank balance was in fact different to the simulation (it was whatever we had in our accounts at the time), but we would still use a virtual figure, in this case 2,000 units, on which to base our triggers. In other words, a benchmark for performance going forwards.
I hope this makes sense and thanks for your question.
TimmyP,
Just wanted to reply to you and give you a snipped of the experience I had had with the portfolio style of betting. Perhaps like yourself, this is my first time running this kind of thing, but so far results have been good for.
The first thing I would say is that I modelled my portfolio closely on the one that the article/workbook on this website described – as i wanted to get the balance right.
Of all the systems that I had selected, betting began with just 2 systems to begin with, Russian premier league (favorite) and Poland Ekstraklasa (Underdog). Then in the last 2 weeks Belgium, France ligue 1/2, Czech Liga and Portugal Primeira liga have joined in. There will be more systems coming live for me in the next 2 weeks also.
Out of respect for RW and soccer widow I won’t say exactly what the systems are so as to not give away content of the tables, but results for me have been positive. I’m only betting £50 per game since this my first time doing this.
In total since betting commenced I have placed 44 bets; 21 wins and 23 losses, 47.73% hit rate and £839.60 in profit. Yield is 38.16%
So for me, I feel I have done better than expected and things may slow down for me sometime soon.
For you, TimmyP, I hope things pick up as more leagues come in to play. I don’t suppose any of our portfolios will be the same, so it’s hard to directly compare results at any stage.
Anyway the point of this reply is to say that it seems possible to emulate RW and Soccerwidow’s very successful campaigns. Keep faith in your method and all the very best to you for the rest of the football season.
Simon,
That’s very kind of you to make the effort and spend your time encouraging Tim and others like him, no doubt.
Glad to hear things are going well for you. Don’t forget to put the brakes on with a stop loss when you hit the doldrums, and accelerate with a ratchet when you have a following wind!
All the best for now.
Hello again Tim,
Yes, sometimes the start of a campaign is a little slow going until all the leagues have commenced and the number of bets per week rises, especially if you are starting off your first campaign and don’t yet have the optimum level of synergy to benefit from.
But I would say that it is way too early to make a judgment on the Winter Leagues yet bearing in mind that most of them haven’t started. If you are worried at this stage of the season, I would suggest cutting back your stakes with a stop loss mechanism (as explained in this article) until things pick up again.
Or stopping altogether until all the big leagues join in next week. Paper test in the meantime.
I can’t comment on your personal situation as I am sure no two portfolios are alike, but from our perspective, we are running a large portfolio containing concurrent Summer and Winter Leagues, which is doing fine.
As I have said so many times before, portfolio betting is a numbers game – the larger your number of value bets in a round, the better the performance will be.
Tim, I hope this gives you the reassurance you were looking for. Keep reading all of the HDAFU Tables articles until you are totally sure you are doing the right thing. Keep an eye especially on the comments sections as these contain a lot of detail and tips not necessarily included in the articles.
Fingers crossed for you.
hi RW
how are you doing at the start of this winter league? I’m struggling with results so far, and was just wondering if its the same for you.
Hello again Tony,
Well, we had no problem flying under the radar at stakes of this level, and none of the bets were placed with Betfair.
We are fans of multi-bookmaker platforms such as Vodds, which give access to Pinnacle, SBOBET, and other sharp Asian bookies, where turnover is appreciated and accounts are never closed or limited. We also utilise individual accounts with 5Dimes, BetVictor, Bet365, Smarkets, and a few others.
The hit rate is usually around 35% on the mixed portfolios we employ, so the bookmakers do see the benefit from us of a lot of losing bets during the course of the year. And not all of the profits get booked against any single account – the final tally is spread around nicely, with the minimum of withdrawals (if any) made from the bookmaker accounts.
The exchange and the multi-platforms are where the withdrawals happen.
No, we didn’t get involved in the match you mention, but then again, the only second division league we cover is France 2. Too much statistical noise in the lower divisions with higher turnovers of teams.
Hope all is well with you and thanks once again for your contribution.
RW,
In preparation for the winter leagues campaign I set myself up with accounts at places like smarkets and vodds, in addition to other existing accounts I had already.
One thing I certainly don’t want to happen is to be restricted at the traditional bookmakers if winnings build up. As if that happens, it puts a spanner in the works so to speak.
So I’m very interested to learn a little about the movement of money from a traditional book to the exchange for withdrawal purposes.
In your opinion what would be the most effective/efficient way to move the money?
I get the principle that you just want to look like a casual punter to the bookmaker and thus fly under the radar. I’m not experienced at all with “matched betting” and would hate to lose hard earned winnings by making a mistake!
Are there any simple methods you use to get your winnings from bookmaker to exchange that you could share please?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Simon,
Firstly, as you have Smarkets and Vodds, I would imagine the majority of your bets are likely to be with these accounts, with less activity on your other accounts.
Sadly, the only effective and realistic way of transferring money from bookmaker to exchange/multi-platform is via matched betting. It’s a fairly easy procedure once you get your head around it, but like everything worthwhile having, it is a skill that needs to be learned.
I appreciate your apprehension, but can only say that you should never be afraid of learning new skills. There are plenty of sites on the Net which teach this skill. As ever, paper test it until you thoroughly understand the concept.
With matched betting, the trick is to understand how the market moves and to be able to anticipate odds movements. The aim is to make enough of an arbitrage to cover the exchange commission rate, so that no money is lost in the transaction. If using a multi-bookmaker platform such as Vodds, this is not an issue.
Of course, if you’re not fussy, or don’t have the time for precision, you can always decide to surrender a little profit, whichever side of the bet comes in.
Look for bets that have uneven chances – e.g. 40% (2.50 odds) – 60% (1.67 odds) and aim to place the smaller percentage bet with the bookmaker. Of course, not every bet will go your way – some back bets will ultimately win, and therefore increase your bookmaker balance rather than reducing it. But if you always aim to back the smaller percentage bet (not the smaller odds) with the bookie, then in the long-run you will end up transferring your balances.
If you aim to make arbitrage on every transaction through shrewd use of odds movements, then this pays for your time in performing the transactions.
For me, it’s a nice challenge – I enjoy doing it because at the end of the day it is purely a housekeeping exercise, which I receive a reward (the arbs) for performing. The frustration of seeing bookmaker balances build-up unintentionally is tempered by the fact that the bottom line is still increasing.
Do your matched betting in small chunks. Choose even-figured stakes with the bookie (i.e. a flat figure of say £100, rather than say £101.23). Do it only on the premier leagues in different countries. If you start using obscure fixtures for this exercise, you’ll get picked up quicker.
Lastly, try and get both sides of the bet placed before the event goes live. You really don’t want to be exposed in-play waiting for a price to drop before you place the second bet – Sod’s law always seems to operate when the game goes against you, and the price you are looking for slides further and further out of reach.
My advice is to attend to the matched betting side of the book-keeping once your campaign has finished. You’ll then hopefully have sufficient funds in exchange or multi-platform accounts to lever out the bookmaker account money. You don’t want to leave yourself short of funds during the campaign with money tied-up in non-portfolio bets.
I hope this all helps!
RW,
Thanks for the reply and advice.
Interestingly enough, although I do find Pinnacles odds to be streets ahead of most other bookmakers, they only seem to be bettered by one book – that’s Marathonbet when underdogs are concerned. So I find myself with most of my winnings now sitting in marathonbet, with vodds a close 2nd.
I think I will paper test the matched betting side of things and perhaps try and get a little bit out of marathon bet and into smarkets/vodds as I go along.
Hello again Simon,
I am assuming that you are accessing Pinnacle through Vodds?
Yes, both Pinnacle and Marathonbet are low margin bookmakers. In other words, they carry less overround than most bookies, a consequence of which, is higher prices to the customer (and higher popularity).
Their idea is to increase turnover in this fashion, which offsets the fact that their profit margins are smaller than most bookies.
Because they have to work harder for their money, their prices adjust far more often than other, higher overround bookies. The juggling act they have to perform to maintain a balanced portfolio is therefore more precise than others – it has to be.
But their strategy has to cap the prices on the underdogs – because of the reduced overround they don’t want a huge influx of money on the favourites. This is why you will often see Pinnacle and Marathonbet offering better prices than most on the underdog and the draw – they effectively lead with these prices and then dip in and out of the market with occasional best price on the favourites to maintain balance.
Good luck with the matched betting. I remember my first ever effort years ago. Instead of making a profit out of a free bet, I ended up with no profit at all on either side of the bet – a zero sum game! Sometimes, you have to learn the hard way! 🙂
First of all,well done!
And I know you are now expecting a but.
But I’m going to be slightly negative.
Isn’t it quite unlikely that most people would be able to bet £100 stakes 1000 times a year without either not getting the price on betfair or getting restricted or even banned by bookies?
I dont know if that’s the case because I dont bet on 90 minute markets but going by what I’ve read online I suspect that it isn’t easy to make £20,000 from betting such markets without problems.
Also,may I ask whether you had Frej to draw or win at Sirius in late October 2016?
Hi again
Just something that occurred to me when placing bets over the weekend, and I wondered if it was something you had ever looked into…
When using a back the draw system, I feel much more comfortable backing the draw when the two teams are relatively well matched than I do when there is a strong favourite at home. Even though both matches might fall into the odds range, it would seem likely that the former would have more chance of actually ending in a draw than the latter – I often wonder if the odds for the draw aren’t just a balancing figure?
Anyway, this led me to wondering whether you had ever given any consideration to HO/AO quotients when considering systems that back the draw? Its something I was thinking about looking into with my current systems to see if there’s anything in it…
Hello Scott,
Bookmakers rely to a huge extent on the psychology of punters who (wrongly) believe that lower priced favourites have a better chance of winning all the time. As a result, favourites are usually under-priced because the majority of punters want to bet on them. People are by very nature risk-averse. Give someone the choice of a 1.20 favourite or an underdog at 8.00, and nine-out-of-ten punters will opt for the favourite.
The weight of money therefore received by the bookmakers on big favourites drives their prices (odds) even further down as they attempt to balance their books. You must therefore appreciate that in order to achieve as much parity as possible, the bookmakers will reduce prices on the favourites to manage/control the extent of risk (liability), and raise prices on the draw and/or the underdog to attract money on these outcomes. Only by performing this juggling act can they achieve as close a balance as possible between the three outcomes. And of course, heavy favourites do not always win. In fact, they win less often than their (often under-priced) odds imply. This is how bookmakers make their margins.
All I can say is don’t fall into the trap of this false-belief system about a shorter price having a better chance than a longer one. Odds prices are purely a measurement of the popularity of the event (odds are driven by public opinion), and often bear no resemblance to the probabilities of the outcomes.
Just about the only time when prices are set according to historical results and statistics, plus some anticipation of what the public will think, is at the very start of the market when bookmakers publish their initial prices.
Stand back and look at the situation from a distance. There are three outcomes: home win, draw, away win. The prize is behind one of these doors. Which door are you going to open? The chance is a basic one-in-three before you begin to take into consideration any extraneous factors affecting the fixture in question.
In answer to your question, both the draw odds and the underdog prices are balancing factors. The economics of the situation in response to human nature says that they have to be. But think again. The home odds are also a balancing factor. Only one of the three outcomes can happen – the money riding on the other two needs to offset the payout on the winning outcome, and hopefully provide a small margin of profit at the same time. The bookmakers can never achieve this on every single match, which is why they employ a huge portfolio of games to bet on each week. An overround of 5% on their entire book of matches per week is enough to create handsome profits during the course of a season, even if they don’t make a profit every week.
The profits to be made from gambling, from either side of the fence (bookie or punter), are a pure numbers game. The larger the portfolio of bets with overround/value on your side, the more exponential the profits are.
Regarding Home Odds/Away Odds quotients, this is something we explain in great detail in our Odds Calculation Course (using the Over/Under ‘X’ Goals market as the example).
There are many ways to skin a cat. Using inflection points and using quotients are just two of them. My advice is to get used to one system and stick with it until you master it. Don’t try and become a ‘Jack of all trades’.
Believe me, the time it takes to try and juggle too many different approaches and get them all finely-tuned at the same time is not worth the effort.
I hope this helps and thanks for the interesting questions!
Hello Soccerwidow!
Firstly, I’d like to thank you sincere for the great job you are making. All the forecasting is really based on fundamental thinking and statistics, and not on enthusiasm, which gives us (the punters) the opportunity to earn money for the long term. I’ve managed to understand the logic base of your system and I would say it’s a quite impressive job.
In the same manner, I would like to ask you some questions regarding the odds that you use for statistics and betting:
1. What odds do you use for historical statistics? Example: football-data.co.uk there is a paragraph that offers statistical information for several leagues. They have odds as: averages of the bookmakers, for different bookmakers apart and closing odds of Pinnacle. What are the best odds to use for identifying the inflection points? Personally I chose the average odds, as I intend to make the bet 1 day before the matches (Please correct me if I’m wrong 🙂 ).
2. When is the best time to place the bets? As I said, for me is optimal to place bets one day before the match starts. But as you know, the odds are moving and sometimes some matches that has been picked up (the odds are in the established range) can go out of the range till the start of the match. In result what is the best time to place the bet and what historical odds should be the base for identifying the inflection points?
As I understand these to elements should have some correlation between them.
Thank you for your support and the great job you are making!!! It really is something interesting and totally different from the information existing on the web.
Hi Andrei,
We do not use football-data.co.uk for odds in connection with the HDAFU system betting tables.
The odds they use are taken at different points in time and do not provide a reliable benchmark (Joseph at Football-data.co.uk has advised me that odds are collected around 6pm on a Friday in advance of weekend/Monday games, and around the same time on a Tuesday for midweek games).
To state what is actually said on their site: “Fixtures and betting odds for upcoming games are made available, collected Friday afternoons for weekend fixtures, and on Tuesday afternoons for midweek games”.
We use the highest odds as near to the close of the ante post market as we can find, and Oddsportal is the only site currently providing this.
Many people have asked the same question on the best time to place bets. To save myself from repeating anything, please read the comments above, and also the comments on the Summer League summary. You should find all the answers you are looking for.
Thank you for your kind words and best wishes.
Hi Right Winger,
regarding Ratchet & Stop-loss Simulation I don’t completely understand how ratchet system works. The first trigger +5% is when profits are 1947.00 (cell K1850). The second trigger is +15%, from 105% to 120% at cell I1854 although the profit increase from the last trigger is just 2631.3 units (4578.3-1947). And the next increase at cell I1855 is 15% although profit increase from the last trigger is just 2619 units. As far as I understand in these both cases increase should’ve been 10%, so why it’s 15%?
Hello Jo,
Sorry for the delay in replying – we are currently on holiday for the first time in over four years 🙂
As per the article, the 5% increments are based on whole 000’s profit. There are four whole 000’s in 4,578.30, hence why it is 4 x 5% = 20% increment.
The ratchet triggers are when the profit figure exceeds by at least 1,000 the previous highest profit point.
The first trigger was at 1,947 (containing one whole thousand = +5% increment on original stake). The next trigger was activated at 4,578, the first time 1,947 was exceeded by 1,000 or more. (4,578 contains four whole thousands = +20% increment on original stake).
I hope this is now clear!
What can you say about my new portfolio, I have 28 strategies left, numbers and percentages are:
5 or 17% low, 5 or 17% low-medium, 5 or 17% medium risk, 8 or 28% medium-high risk and 5 or 17% high risk strategies.
Hi Jo,
Looks like a much better balance than your initial effort.
On face value, I would be happy with these numbers.
Happy hunting!
Hi Jo,
Personally, I don’t think it matters a great deal.
The only important thing with the new format in Denmark is not to include any Relegation or Europa League play-off games in your strategy.
Also, expect fewer numbers of games entering your inflection points in the second half of the season as there are fewer ‘league’ games after the winter break now.
Check out our Summer & Winter League Calendar for a full summary of what to include and what not to bet on in each league.
Hi Michael,
I think I have answered this one before to some degree. (Page 2 of this article I believe?).
We were aware that the Danish league format was changing in the second half of the season, hence why we chose to include just a first half season system.
The new first half up to the winter break included straight-forward league matches, just as any other season before. The only difference likely was that there would be more matches encapsulated by our inflection points.
Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the league was no different up to the break than before – just league games during the same part of the year in accordance with the analysis.
Thanks for sharing your Summer League success story – keep in touch and let us know where you end up!
All the best.
Hi Right Winger,
since Danish league had only 1 season in new format, would it be better to skip the 2nd/whole season strategies from betting in the upcoming season?
Hi Soccerwidow
Please could you explain why you went with a system in Denmark despite the 2016/2017 season being the first season after major structural changes?
I would have thought that that was risky in the sense that historical data is now not directly comparable to the new format.
Asking because there’s other leagues with the same problem for the upcoming season, eg Bulgaria / Ukraine.
Been having some good success with a summer leagues system thanks to your work, with roughly £1,200 profit since March.
Thanks
Hi RW – sorry, but I’ve got a question you’ve probably been asked a million times about placement of bets.
I’m currently sorting out getting some money onto Vodds in preparation for the winter season starting, and obviously anticipate being able to access the upper end of the odds range as a result.
My questions are:
1. In terms of bet selection, should I only be placing the bet if the max odds on oddsportal are within my strategy range? I’ve got a summer league campaign running at the minute and I tend to use the upper range as a guide but I always check if the top price looks anomalous – if it does, and if I can access odds within my range, I’ll place the bet. However, I’m never sure if I’m “breaking protocol” here and should be using the top price as the decision point, anomalous or not….I’m conscious there might not be a right answer to this but could you please expand a bit on how you weight your decision on selection.
2. TIming is the other question. I’ve tended to look at the odds an hour or so before K-O and made my decision at that point. However, on occasion I’ll have a cheeky look just before K-O and can sometimes see that the odds have shifted markedly and I’m now in a position where I should be placing a bet. Should I ignore this and not place the bet, or is this now deemed an appropriate selection based on the late odds movement?
Thanks again!
Hello Scott,
To answer your questions seriatim:
1) Yes, place the bet in accordance with the highest odds shown in Oddsportal, and yes, it is always a good thing to check for and preclude anomalous odds that haven’t updated for a while.
As previously mentioned, we try and iron out the anomalous odds when putting together the analyses, and for the sake of good order, you should try and do the same when judging whether to place the bet if it is close to the outliers of your odds range.
2) The HDAFU analyses are based on odds as close to the end of the ante post market as we can get them. If towards kick-off you realise that the odds have shifted a bet to within your inflection points then, yes, it is a valid bet to place.
I hope this clarifies.
Hi – thanks for your reply, and apologies for my delayed response to it. All makes perfect sense, thanks again for taking the time and for your excellent website.
Hi Daniel,
As mentioned in the article, the odds splits for the risk analysis are a ‘rough guide’ to get readers thinking about the composition of their portfolios, and to encourage people to balance their portfolios with an even spread of risk.
The classifications stated for our 2016-17 portfolio are based to some degree on discretion (also mentioned as an adjustment factor above), and you will see from the 2016-17 Campaign workbook that some of our systems did indeed cross the thresholds of several odds’ bands.
When this happens, we can never be truly exact but we can say from the start that the majority of the bets will fall into one or another of the odds brackets.
Using the example you mentioned, in a system covering a range as wide as Greece between odds of 2.13-7.40, we know from the outset that there will be more bets at the lower end because it is a home win system. Indeed, the analysis showed the harmonic mean odds for the matches between these inflection points as 2.97, which further validated our decision to classify this system with low-medium status.
The harmonic mean for the 110 bets placed was just over 3.00.
As a reminder, the harmonic mean formula in Excel is =harmean(a1:a10), if the range of odds you are looking at encompasses cells A1 to A10.
Perhaps our readers will come up with better ways of gauging the risk content of their portfolios, but the overarching message we are putting across in this article is that a healthy balance should always be sought.
It’s not an exact science, maths never is, but hopefully we have guided you in the right direction.
Another great question – thanks again!
RW,
I think you did a great job with explaining how you gauge the risk of the system within the context of a portfolio of systems.
When getting the balance in mine as even as I could I relied to an extent on the workbook of your previous campaign to see how you yourself classified a system, taking into account things like the odds range, hit rates, yield, number of bets e.t.c. So it was interesting to see based on these things how you rated your own systems. I then looked at my own systems to see how they looked in terms of risk.
I found the low risk and low-medium risk the easy ones to classify. I look for those systems to have a good length of winning streaks, low length of losing streaks, 50-60%+ hit rates, and of course meeting the 4 of 5 seasons in profit and 10%+ yield. Most of these systems have relatively small odds ranges.
The ones I found a little more difficult to classify were those that had odds range more spread out, like the Greek example you gave. So applying the harmonic mean to it, gives that extra view point that I found helpful to see how risky a system is based on odds the majority of bets placed will be at.
What I had done was analyse each league to identify the systems and then make a spreadsheet that listed each system for whole, 1st half, 2nd half, and show each of the systems features i.e hit rate, zero odds, yield e.t.c
From that I selected those that I felt gave a balance and listed them in order from low risk to high. Applying the harmonic mean odds to each system then showed that the odds increased from low to high, which I think validated that I have my systems in the right sections of the risk profile and have a decent balance.
That’s something I found useful in getting something I was finally happy with.
Now, very much looking forward to the weekend to take things “live”.
Good luck everyone and I wish you all the best for the upcoming season!