Under/Over 2.5 Goal Systems

I’ve decided to take the easy way out with the Under/Over 2.5 goals systems and ultimately, I’m going to have a second shot next season with the same systems as last season. I did intend to rebuild these systems after their poor performance last season but when I look at the results, maybe it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought last season and therefore, I’m going to apply a filter on one of the systems, keep the other system the same, drop the systems with not enough bets and we’re set to go for next season now.  This also ensures that the proofed results from last season are also fairly accurate as I have always said that even if I rebuilt the systems, they would keep the proofed results from last season, regardless of how I chose to improve the systems for next season.

As I’m aware, this is actually the first time I’ve discussed these systems on the blog. Someone asked me very early on last season if I had ever looked at developing a system for this particular market and I gave a really cheeky reply back that I thought anyone doing this was wasting their time. I don’t know why but I’ve never really seen Under/Over goals as anything too different from someone betting on the number of corners in a game or the team to get the first throw in.  Admittedly, this is a very crude way of looking at it and I know there are many punters/traders who use the 2.5 goals market effectively and manage to turn a profit over time

Curiosity got the better of me and we then got into a discussion about how you’d find an edge at this game. Quite quickly, I realised that the conventional thinking of looking at recent games, working out how many times games involving the teams had been over or under 2.5 goals was flawed in the sense that where is the edge from doing this? If everyone can see that two low scoring teams are playing one another and the game is going to be tight, then how do you find an edge in this market?

Similar to my ratings for calculating value in match bets, the answer has to be to find an underlying indicator that others can’t use. By others, I am referring to other punters mainly but of course, I am also referring to the odds compilers as at the end of the day, my system only has to be smarter than the bookies setting the odds. Once I’m on the bets and everyone else then comes around to my way of thinking, it makes no difference to me that the team shortens or drifts as I’m already on the bet.

Clearly, I have a set of ratings which work well for match bets and all I had to do was to try to find a way to get the ratings to find value bets in the Under/Over 2.5 goals market. It was only about a week’s work I think to gather the data, build a value model and develop some systems. I then applied the same methodology as I do with all systems and ended up with 3 systems for Under 2.5 goals and 3 systems for Over 2.5 goals. The systems would filter the bets as we moved down the systems.

Now, I was doing this a few weeks after the season started, so I hadn’t looked at the 2011/12 season at all yet.  So, before releasing the backtested results and proofing the systems live (was done in the SBC forum), all I had to do was check the results last season were in line with previous seasons. 

Errr…well, they weren’t.  The first two months last season were losing months but more importantly, the type of bets thrown up during the backtesting didn’t exactly look like the same bets I was testing for during previous seasons. A quick look at odds portal and historical odds movements and I realised that the markets for these bets wasn’t fully liquidated on a Thursday evening (was like a first show if I’m honest with a high overrorund) and therefore, whilst I may have found an edge at kick-off prices, on a Thursday night, I wasn’t sure any edge was actually there.

So, I took the decision (first time I’ve ever done this which shows the lack of confidence I had in the systems) to not share any backtested results and I said I’d trial the bets in the SBC forum with no showing of the backtested results, so I suggested people see this as a paper trial. I started playing £5 stakes but only on Betfair every Saturday morning (and I’d take any odds available which were often much higher/lower than the Thursday quoted odds) and after seeing the systems do well for a little bit, I increased stakes to £10 just at the time the systems lost a fair bit! (I have a bad habit of increasing stakes on my own systems at the wrong bloody time!)

Anyway, as the season progressed last season, I could see that the results on the systems were nothing like backtesting and not only that, the number of bets thrown up was nothing like backtesting too. The Under system was finding more bets than during backtesting and clearly, it was diluting any profit the system could make. The Over system wasn’t a disaster but again, it was nothing like backtesting.

The other issue was the filtering of the bets as we moved down the systems. Some of the filtering was meaning that I was barely getting any bets thrown up and not only that, the bets that were being filtered out were sometimes the better bets!

Below is a table which shows the results from the systems proofed in the SBC forum last season. The systems are Under/Over 2.5 goal systems but I named them1, 2 and 3 to just confuse everyone! ;)

Overall, 920 bets and a profit of 2.8pts. Hardly a great endorsement of my system building skills for this particular market!

So, when I started looking at this on Sunday night, I had two options.  I rip up the systems and start again (my preferred option) or I take a closer look at the systems to see if there is anything obvious standing out which is causing the poor performance last season.

My issue with starting again is that I would stumble across the identical issues I experienced with this system. I mentioned it when I built the Euro systems but there is a leap of faith in hoping an edge you find at kick-off prices is the same edge that is apparent earlier in the week. There is always risk involved in system building like I do but for the Under/Over system, it is quite big as I found last season. Odds ranges were a big part of the puzzle for the systems and ultimately, prices on a Thursday night weren’t anything like kick-off, so I was basically backing different teams than I wanted to back.

Now, there is a way around it I hear you cry. All I need to do is lift the prices on a Saturday at 2pm, plug them in my model and we’re off and running again surely? Well, maybe aye, maybe naw. I backtested last season with the kick-off prices and it was a rubbish season compared to previous seasons (about 8% ROI), so yes, it would maybe fix it a little but then again, do I fancy giving up my Saturday afternoon running footie models for an 8% return? Well, no.

So, I sort of decided quite quickly that my best chance of doing something was to look at the performance of the 6 systems from last season and decide if there is anything I can do to improve them.

Well, for starters, I need to bin the idea of filtering these systems. I don’t have enough bets on systems Under 1 and Over 1 at the moment and if I am going to filter these further, then systems 2 and 3 are already useless and will only get less useful as reduce the bets.  Therefore, in the same way that UK system 9,10,23,24 and 25 went, the Under/Over 2.5 systems 2 and 3 will be consigned to system heaven. A system with less than 100 bets is no good to me (unless it’s a combined system producing massive ROIs) and therefore, going forward, we will only have a single Under and Over 2.5 goal system.

Right, let’s consider the Over system first as it’s nice and easy.  Here’s the results for this system before it went live last season:

If I add the results from last season to the system, we now get this table:

Now, I gave this system a lot of stick last season and if I’m honest, I was maybe getting carried away with the fact the backtested returns looked as good as some of my other systems and I jumped to the conclusion that I may have uncovered a system on a new market that could give me an ROI of 15% (which I believe is very good in a market with such low average odds).  However, it ended up with an ROI of 6.3% last season.  As I’ve already said, all these bets were proofed in the SBC forum last season.

Is there anything wrong with a 6.3% return?  Well, I guess not and therefore, I think it’s better that I leave this system as it is, let it roll on another season and see what happens next season.  If we find last season was just a tougher season, then the 6.3% may increase but if we find it was a good season last season and it’s a rubbish system, the 6.3% return will decline.

Here’s the overall P&L and drawdowns graph for the Over system:

As for setting targets going forward, I’m not sure this is worth very much as I wouldn’t trust this system too much but I’ll give it a go!

I would expect we’ll see around 275 bets next season. Based on this season, I would hope we could get an ROI of around 6% again next season although I expect it will be in the range of -3% to +10% looking at the volatility this season.

So, that gives us a pts profit target of 16.5pts for next season.

Based on the drawdown graph, the max drawdown is 16pts.  Hence, using the same idea as the other systems, I’d say a bank of 40pts should be adequate but given the average odds on the system are 2.08, it seems a big bank! Then again, I don’t really trust the system, so I’d rather have a bigger bank than a smaller bank.

The target ROC then becomes 41%.  I’d think this is fair and if the system can repeat last season (which in all honesty, was rubbish), then I’ll be happy.

That leaves us with the Under system to look at then.  Here’s the backtested results for this system before it went live:

A nice set of results but here’s what happens when last season is added in?

The first thing to point out is that although the system has done rubbish, similar to my other losing system last season (system 33), it is hardly a disaster. A loss of 2.4pts across 355 bets isn’t good but then again, I’ve seen plenty of systems perform worse than this one in a live environment, so I’m not going to beat myself up about having a poor system.

So, what do we do? Well, as I’ve already said, the issue is that the type of team I’m backing isn’t the same live as when I’m seeing them during backtesting and the first place to look at is the performance by odds.  Lucky I started with this as it meant I didn’t need to go much further but it is usually the case you look at everything else first and then stumble across the answer last!

Anyway, if I strip out the bets at odds of lower than 2.00 last season and the previous seasons, it gives me the following results:

Now, the first point to make here is that I know that I am lowering the ROI overall by ignoring bets under 2.00. However, the intention here is to get something that looks reasonable when the system has went live and maybe it’s luck or maybe it’s something within the ratings but there are a helluva lot more bets at odds against last season than previous seasons and whereas good profits could be made historically backing odds on (better profits than backing at odds against), it hasn’t happened last season.

Secondly, last season, when I was backing these Under bets myself, I felt much, much more comfortable backing unders at odds against (e.g. going against the consensus) than backing at odds on as I felt like many of the odds on bets were just so obvious, I couldn’t see how an edge was apparent there.  It’s a bit of a leap but I would be willing to bet that most of the Unders I was backing at last season were put in too short by the bookies on the Thursday evening and would have drifted considerably until kick-off. I’m not saying that backing odds on isn’t profitable but when the Under is put in at odds on a Thursday evening by the bookies, I’m not sure this is the same odds on selection I’d have seen during backtesting.

Thirdly, this is called backfitting something to the absolute max! I sort of believe there is a fundamental flaw on this system that kicked in before last season anyway (can see it in 2010/11 above for bets at 2.00+) and the bet number looked strange before last season, so I suspect there is maybe something underlying causing this.

Anyway, a lot of this is hypothesis as you can imagine and I’ve no real love for these Under/Over 2.5 goal systems myself (I won’t be following next season after my exploits last season), so I'm not going to worry too much.

So, looking at the table above then, this becomes the historical results for this Under system.

I would expect 200 bets next season and I think we should aim for an ROI of 5% based on the last two seasons.  This gives a pts profit target of 10pts.

The max drawdown has been 17pts. I would again think a bank of 40pts is probably enough. Even though there are no odds on bets in the sample now, the average odds are only slightly higher than the Over system at 2.10.

So, a ROC target of 25% for this system.  Doesn’t really look great if I’m honest and this system is going to take pretty low ranking amongst my portfolio of systems next season. If the guy producing the bets isn’t following the system, not sure there is much mileage in anyone else doing so but someone might fancy a shot at these Under/Over systems. What I would say is that they are very easy to follow (took me 10 mins a week) and if you think there is an edge here, then if you have a lot of Asian bookmaker accounts (I just used best odds on odds portal last season), then you can probably generate a profit next season. Betfair is the other option and although I made a small loss last season on these systems, that was to do with my staking plan more than anything else. A break-even result would have been fairer but as usual, the gambling Gods are never fair!

Here’s the results by month from last season so you can see what would have happened if you had been following both systems last season. Hardly a smooth journey and I think these systems probably aren’t for the faint hearted.

That’s another job done.  Next job is to build the 4^th UK rating algorithm which will be another DNB algorithm.  I’ll be back in a few days with an update of how it’s going.

Updated Performance Summary

Here’s the updated summary performance for all systems after the Euro systems have been added in. You can also download the spreadsheet here:

http://bit.ly/TFA-PerformanceSummary

I think before we start drawing any conclusions from the above table now that I’ve added the Euro systems, we need to keep the following things in mind:

• Any system with no live results is unproven, regardless of how good the backfitting may have been and how good the backtesting has gone.  1 season of live results is worth 100 seasons backtested results. Remember this!

• The number of bets for the Euro systems is based on backtested results. Again, the UK systems had a vastly different number of bets when they went live compared to what I saw during backtesting.

• The average odds are from the backtested results for the Euro systems. As I’ve seen when the UK systems went live, the same type of bets thrown up live may have wildly different odds compared to the odds used at kick-off during backtesting. Please keep this in mind.

• The setting of betting banks has been done using historical drawdowns. For the Euro systems, this is based on backtested results. Hence, I wouldn’t trust these drawdowns at all.  With no live results, it gives us something to go on which is better than nothing but only just better!

• The target ROI and ROC for the Euro systems is based on the relationship between backtested results and live results I’ve seen on the equivalent UK systems.  Whether or not this is valid, I’ve absolutely no idea! Hence, I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on target ROI and ROC on the Euro systems.

• If given a choice to follow a system with live bets and a system with no bets, always choose the system with live bets as you can have no regrets if the system performs poorly. If you follow a new system and it loses whilst a proven system makes a profit, you are in danger of looking like a fool!

OK, that’s enough caveats. I just feel like I need to keep stating these sorts of things to keep people’s minds focussed on what it is we are doing here. I don’t want people dumping the Uk systems since the Euro systems look better on paper.  Lots of things look great on paper in life but never look too good in real life!

I think some of the key points that come out from this are ultimately why I hope the Euro systems end up being better than the UK systems! 

For a start, the Euro systems have more bets that appear on the higher combined systems and therefore, whereas the UK systems struggled with ROC for systems 6-22+, the Euro systems have no such problems.  Hence, the Euro systems may give us an opportunity to achieve a high ROI whilst at the time achieving a high ROC. In my humble opinion, this is the Holy Grail.

As well as the higher bet number, the drawdowns are also lower on the Euro systems. Of course, this is because they have no live results, so I very much doubt we’ve seen the worst of these systems (99.9% sure we haven’t) but at least there is the potential for these systems to never have the sort of losing run the UK systems have witnessed when they went live.  


As time goes on, the likelihood of the Euro systems having a nightmare drawdown increases and which is why setting betting banks based on drawdowns isn’t ideal but at the moment, the UK systems are scarred from what happened in the second half of their first season. There are no scars on the Euro systems yet!

In a similar vein, we have probably already realised the potential of the UK systems. At the moment, the Euro systems potential is still untapped and that makes them more exciting than the UK systems in my eyes.  That can all change quite quickly I suspect if they start next season badly.

The one big question that hangs over the Euro systems is how will they perform in a live environment? At the moment, your guess is as good as mines and although I have a track record of building profitable football systems, we’re into a different set of leagues now, more liquid markets and how things go is anyone’s guess. 

Anyway, that’s me done with the Euro systems. I’ve not really looked at the systems myself if I’m honest about what systems I’ll follow and what stakes I’ll play. The reason for this is that in a few weeks when I come to discussing what systems people want to follow next season and helping them make decisions, I don’t want my own thinking to influence the decisions that others make. Once everyone is set up with their own portfolio next season, I’ll give mines some thought and decide what I’m doing.  Hence, my mind will be totally clear as I start discussing potential portfolios for others next season. 

OK, I think that’s the next chapter closed on the blog.  Two big pieces of work left this Summer and then I can start thinking about next season.

I need to build the 4^th UK algorithm (not even started it yet) and I want to look at the Under/Over 2.5 goal systems I proofed last season in the SBC forum and see what I can do with them.  I’ll probably look at the Under/Over systems first as it’s an easier job and it’s maybe a week’s work at max. It will take 1-2 weeks to do the 4^th algorithm I think.

Be back in a few days hopefully with an update on the Over/Under systems.

Preview of System E3-E7

Well, I’m glad that's done! I’m not sure how many words have appeared on this blog since the season ended but boy, have I been busy. I reckon it’s the 40^th post since the season ended which was about 5 weeks ago!

This is the last preview of the Euro systems for next season. I’m quite pleased that I’ve managed to build the systems, pull the analysis document together, review the ratings and then review all systems individually within a 4-5 week spell.  Of course, that was after reviewing the UK systems after the season ended. A helluva lot of work in a short space of time but hopefully it will prove worth it next season for all of us following.

Right, here goes, the last system. Tried to keep it short and sweet!

System E3-E7

First thing to point out is the bet number. Similar to what I’ve said with the UK systems but a system with less than 100 bets a season can’t be trusted going forward in my opinion. I sort of let 7-22, 8-21 and 8-22 off the hook as they at least have shown they can produce a profit over a small bet number in a live environment but I have my reservations about this Euro system.  I’d love to be proved wrong and I’d love to see this system produce some sort of amazing return next season.  We’ll see what happens though.

The results by season are stunning and 36.9% overall is the highest of all the Euro systems. The three backtested seasons have an ROI of 32.8%. The best we’ve seen on any system too.

Although France is the worst league, it has actually been profitable for the last two seasons. It did have a losing season back in 2008/9 season though.

41 winning months from 50 which is better than I thought it would be I think. Many months have less than 10 bets and manage to scrape a profit, so a bit of luck involved I suspect!   The average winning month is only 8.1pts with a losing month costing 2.9pts on average.

Similar to system E2-E7, I take great comfort from the Home returns on this system. A return of 32.4% across Homes gives the system the steady returns I think as the strike rate is 55.1% for Homes, so they steady the ship at times when the Aways are winning or losing bigger amounts.

Last season showed a 29.2% return for Aways and 29.1% return for Homes.  I’ve noticed here that France has the worst performance for Homes and Aways. The more I see returns for the French league, the less I like the league. An overall return of 11.6% for AH0.5 bets in France shows where the issue lies in that league. Too many draws!

The German league had 5 bets last season for Aways and hit 5 losers. A poor season but it shows what can happen over a small sample of bets!

The P&L graph looks very good with not too many large drawdowns that I can see. This is reflected in the drawdown graph where the max drawdown is only 10pts. I would suggest a betting bank of 25pts would be adequate here.

So, we are expecting 90 bets next season. 

System 8-22 had a full ROI of 37.4% across four seasons and a measly 34.6% across the backtested seasons. When live, the system has achieved a return of 27.5%.  Basically, live results are 80% of the backtested results.

The backtested results on this Euro system are 32.8%.  Hence, we’re looking at a target ROI of 26%! Again, I think it’s mad to aiming for this sort of return as a target.  Let’s call it 20% (and even that’s a bit crazy IMO as a target!).

20% return across 90 bets gives a profit of 18pts.  A bank of 25pts would mean a ROC target of 72%.

OK, that’s me done.  The next post should be a copy of the performance table for all the systems and I’ll probably make it available to download so you can keep a copy and analyse it yourself!

Phew…. I can enjoy the weekend now.

Preview of System E3-E6

Similar to when I was doing the system reviews straight after the UK season ended, doing the combined Euro previews is proving difficult in the sense of not repeating myself! I’ve already pointed out the trends on earlier systems for the system below (either system E3, E6, E1-E6 or E2-E6), so it’s difficult to write much more. If I have to look at French Away returns again, I’ll pull my hair out and I don’t have much left to work with!

Nearly there though and only one more to go after the one below. I’m actually looking forward to populating the performance summary table for all the Euro systems and seeing how they look compared to one another and compared to the UK systems too.  Looking forward to doing that but need to write one more review……

Here’s the second last one anyway.

System E3-E6

The season by season results are interesting and I think it’s the biggest variance I’ve seen on the annual results on any of the Euro systems.  The best season is 55.9% (2010/11 obviously!) and the worst seasons are two of the three backtested seasons with a lowly return of 13.9% and 15.1%. 

Before we worry too much, the other backtested season has a return of 41.6% which will bring up the overall backtested returns by a fair bit!

The results by league mirror most systems with Germany and Italy being the strongest and France providing the lowest return.   Similar to many other systems, France is losing last season and made a small return the previous season too.

39 winning months from 50 is lower than the higher volume systems but again, it is driven by variance as some months have fairly low bet numbers.  The average winning month is only 10.2pts whereas the average losing month is 3.7pts.

Last season, Aways lost overall on this system although they never had too many bets! I suspect with the low bet number each season for these Aways bet, the results could be very variable. If I look back a season, the return was 135.7% for these bets. Proves my point I think!

The away returns by league is amazing again with 3 of the 4 leagues having returns of 50%+. The French league lets the system down as expected!

The overall P&L graph is very close to the shape of E2-E6.  The system started badly with no profit for over 100 bets. Things then picked up before one helluva flat spell. I think this is as bad as I’ve seen on any of the combined Euro systems but the system made no profits over 200+ bets.  Nowadays, that would be a full season, so definitely something to bear in mind!

The drawdown graph looks decent with very few high drawdowns. The max drawdown is only 13pts. I would think a bank of around 30pts would be OK here.  I think we’re looking at 110 bets a season going forward.

Right, here’s where it gets interesting and I probably lose some readers!  System 8-21 had a full ROI of 29.1% across four seasons and 27.3% across backtested seasons.  When live, this system has achieved a return of 16.5%. Hence, it has achieved 60% of the backtested retruns.

This Euro system has a full ROI of 33.1% and a backtested ROI of 25.2%.  Hence, the ROI target should be 60% of this figure.  The target ROI is 15%.  Similar to the other recent systems, I’ll reduce this a little to 12%.

110 bets with a target ROI of 12%. This would be a pts profit target of 13pts. Against a bank of 30pts, a return on capital target of 43%.  

Preview of System E2-E7

In many ways, this is probably the Euro system I’ve looked most forward to analysing. Everyone knows that system 7-22 is the favourite UK system of mines and although I wish it had more bets each season, you can’t exactly knock the returns the system has generated over the past two seasons. Therefore, it is my hope that one day (hopefully after next season!), that we consider this Euro system to be a on a par with system 7-22. Let’s see what it looks like.

System E2-E7

Well, the first thing that jumps off the page is on the season by season returns, the lowest season ROI is a measly 25%. Combine this with a decent number of bets each season and you can only say wow!

I quite like the fact the 3 seasons that are affected by backfitting to an extent have exceptional returns but as we look at the other 3 seasons, the returns may not be as spectacular but they are still very high.  The backtested results over the 3 seasons shows a profit of 28%. This is the best we’ve seen on any Euro system thus far.

The other thing I quite like here is the returns from the AH0 betting method.  The 3 backtested seasons have an ROI of 13% if using AH0. If we assume we can improve on this by only using it on Aways and outright on Homes, then I’d expect this return to improve. A quick look at the AH0 returns on Aways shows an ROI of 29.5% and Homes outright has an ROI of 28.1%. Seems like a simple strategy on this system!

The results by league show Germany and Italy as the strongest league with a gap back to Spain and France holding up the tail.  However, the French return of 22.4% isn’t bad!

One thing that isn’t as impressive on this system is the monthly profits.  Only 39 winning months from 50.  I think this is a great advert for variance again and whilst this is the best system we’ve seen so far I think, on a month by month basis, it can easily have a losing month or a spell of losing months. The system has actually had a losing run of 5 months from 9 before, so that shows what can happen!

The Homes return of 28.1% overall is amazing, as is the Aways return of 44.7%.   I particularly like the consistency of the Home bets each season with all 6 seasons between 21% and 33%.

The other consistency aspect I like is the returns by league and split between Homes and Aways. Apart from France being behind on the Away bets, the returns of the Homes and Aways by league is actually very similar.

The P&L graph is interesting and backs up what I was saying about the monthly profits. If you study the graph, you can see very regular spells of 50 bets (at least 3 or 4 of these spells) where the system actually makes no profit.  However, when it does make profits, it seems to make them in little spurts and seems to go on little winning runs.

I think this is also backed up by the drawdown graph.  The highest drawdown to date is only 13pts which is crazy really. The AH0.5 max drawdown is 22pts for comparison!

It makes it quite difficult to set a betting bank. Based on the 13pts, I’d probably say 30pts but considering there are no live results and I expect some people to follow this system, I’d say 40pts is probably safer for this first season.

I think we are looking at 150 bets a season.

If we study system 7-22, the two backtested seasons had an ROI of 28.6%.  Since going live, the system has achieved a return of 25.9%.  Amazing really! So, it has achieved a return which is 90% of the backtested return.

Applying the same methodology on this Euro system, we might expect this system to achieve a return in the region of 25% next season.

If we stick with this, we’d be saying a pts profit target of 37.5pts against a bank of 40pts (which is maybe conservative!).  Hence, we’d be looking to nearly double the betting bank as a target next season.

Call me a chicken (or a realist) but I don’t want to be setting a minimum target for a system of doubling it’s betting bank. If this system doubles its betting bank next season, I’ll be the happiest punter in the world, so I don’t feel like this should be the minimum target return next season.

I think setting a target of 25% return on any system is just wrong. If this system doesn’t already have enough pressure on it (being the brother of system 7-22), I don’t want to be setting targets that may end up making me look foolish.

So, I’m going to say this system has a target of 15% next season. Across 150 bets, this is a pts profit of 22.5pts. Based on a bank of 40pts, this a ROC target of 56%.  I think a 56% ROC target is a great target to aim for and fingers crossed (and legs and everything else), the system can turn out to be as good as it looks on paper. If that happens, I suspect we’ll all be increasing stakes the season after next on this system! 

Preview of System E2-E6

Only 3 more Euro system reviews to do after this one! Nothing unusual to point out here. Picked up all these observations from previous previews I think.

System E2-E6

I think this system doesn’t look as good as the last system and it’s backed up by the returns. System E1-E7 had an overall ROI of 35.6% whereas this system is only at 26.5%.  The bet number is very similar on both systems, so at first glance, you’d say that this doesn’t look as good a system as E1-E7.  I think it’s driven from the fact that E7 is a much better system than E2 (in a similar way system 22 is much better than system 7 in the UK systems).

The French league lets this system down with a lowly ROI of 13.2%.  The last two seasons have basically been break-even in France.  The other 3 leagues are all very decent every season though.

There are 44 winning months from 50, with an average month winning 12.1pts and a losing month losing 6.2pts.  There is a current winning streak of 16 months at the moment.

Aways for the last two seasons have been unreal with ROIs of 51.5% and 91.7%!  This is driven mainly by the Spanish and German leagues.

Aways in France have only created an ROI of 2.9% whereas AH0.5 has created a return of 29.7% which just shows how many of these games are draws! I expect the draw return in France is massive when the system picks out an Away bet.

The overall P&L graph looks very good with only one noticeable drawdown of any size. A quick look at the drawdown graph shows this is a drawdown of 24pts.

I think we’re looking at an average of 200 bets a season this system. The drawdown of 24pts looks a bit of a one-off and I’d think a bank of around 50pts is probably adequate and may be conservative even.

Using system 7-21 as an indicator, this system had a return for the two fully backtested seasons of 23.3%.  This became a return of 16.9% when live. I think we’re starting to see the power of the combined systems here and why these systems have been so successful. So, the UK system managed to achieve a return that is 72% of the backtested return.

The backtested return here on the Euro system is 22.1%.  Therefore, we’re looking at an ROI target of around 15.8% here!

I’ll reduce that to a return of 12.5% I think to give us a little leeway.

200 bets at 12.5% return gives a profit target of 25pts. At a bank of 50pts, this is a target ROC of 50%.  Seems like a nice target for the first season until we see how the system does live.

Preview of System E1-E7

I think the one thing that strikes me working through this analysis was just the size of the returns. I try my best to not get suckered into thinking about the returns as they don’t mean anything until the system goes live as I keep on reiterating but jeez, if the system can achieve a fraction of these returns live, I’d be over the moon  next season.

System E1-E7

The thing that strikes me looking at the returns by season is the sheer size of the ROI’s.  The 2010/11 season is quite laughable at an ROI of 57.4% but even one of the backtested seasons has an ROI of 39.9% in 2009/10!

The results by league brings this home again with the Italian league having an ROI of 48% overall. Even the lowly French league which is still holding up the rear has an ROI of 28.4%.

There are 44 winning months, 6 losing months.  Average winning month is 15.2pts with the average losing month being a lowly 4pts. The system had been on a winning run of 25 months in a row before the losing month at the end of last season.

The overall returns for Aways on this system is 52.5% which is unbelievable. The Italian league has 66.8% return on Aways and Germany only has a return of 60.5%.  France somehow has a return of 49.6% on Aways which is amazing given they lost last season.

The overall P&L graph has a strange shape to it with a great start and massive growth, a slowdown in growth, a spurt in growth and then a slight slowdown in growth. Importantly, it’s always going up in the main with very few drawdowns of any significance.

The drawdown graph backs this up with a max drawdown of only 19pts.  I’d suggest 50pts as a bank should be OK on this system.

I’d think we’ll see around 225 bets next season.

The overall ROI of 35.6% drops to 28.6% for the backtested seasons.

If we look at system 6-22, this was a full ROI of 34.1%. It dropped to 21.3% for fully backtested results.  Live, the system has produced 13.2%.  Again, over 50% of the backtested results which is a good effort.

We should be looking at an ROI of around 14% on this system then next season with any luck!

Similar to what I did with the last system, I’ll bring that down a little as a target of 14% doesn’t leave much room for improvement! 

I’ll say a target of 10% next season.

That’s a profit target of 22.5pts and an ROC target of 45%.  Again, I’d hope there is more upside than downside here but with no live results, don’t want to be setting targets that can never be met!

Preview of System E1-E6

This is the first preview of a Euro combined system. Similar to the UK systems, I would expect anyone playing these new systems next season to be playing the combined systems rather than the single systems, so these previews now take a step up in terms of importance. However, given I’ve already touched on every single system, they’ll probably take a step down in terms of finding anything new to point out, so I’ll try my best to keep these previews for the combined systems as short as I can!

System E1-E6

The first thing that stands out to me here is the improvement in system E1 and E6.  Similar to the UK systems, it’s clear that cross referring algorithms is likely to be the way to improve the profitability of these systems.  Not too surprising really considering everything I do with system building is built on this premise but it’s definitely a way to improve profits.

The season by season returns look very good, the P&L graph looks good and the drawdowns graph looks decent. Don’t want to jump to conclusions but I’d be disappointed if this system doesn’t end up with a very good target ROC. System 6-21 is the best UK system in terms of ROC, so I would expect a decent ROC to be achieved on this system.

A clear order for the performance by leagues, with Germany being the best, followed by Italy, Spain and then France. Nothing too surprising there really.

One thing that I should point out is that France is profitable last season and interestingly, no league has ever lost over the course of a season. This is definitely something that we didn’t see on the single systems.

44 winning months from 50 so far, average winning month of 17.9pts with a losing month costing 4.9pts on average.

The ROI on the Aways on this system is an incredible 39.5% with only a 27.4% strike rate, so the average odds must be pretty high!

The German Aways return is embarrassingly high with a return of 80.5% and it must be skewed by some big priced Away winners I think. One thing that strikes me with the Away strike rates on this system is how low they are, so the average odds must be 4/1+.  Doesn’t come through in the drawdowns graph though, so I guess that’s why the ROI is so high!

France and Italian Aways were both loss making last season but nothing like the losses we’ve seen on some of the single systems.

Going forward then, I’d expect around 350 bets next season.

The full ROI is 25.4% with the backtested ROI being 21.7%.  If I look at system 6-21, the full ROI was 27.1% with the backtested ROI being 24.2%.  Since going live, the system has achieved an ROI of 10.3%.  Hence, an ROI of around 40% of the backtested results.

Assuming the same here then, we should be looking at an ROI target of around 8%. 

350 bets with an ROI of 8%.  Gives a pts profit target of 28pts. 

The max drawdown is 23pts, so we’d be looking at a bank of around 55pts I think.

Hence, a ROC target of around 50%. I thought this might have been a little better but then again, I think it shows how good a system E7 is that it has a similar target ROC as this combined system!

System E7 Preview

I’m conscious that some blog readers and probably some current subscribers for next season are struggling to keep up with the blog posts at the moment. I don’t want anyone to stress about it though but people need to realise that this is effectively the time when I need to do all this as once the season starts, the chances of me doing analysis like this on the systems is limited. Hence, I need to take the time available this Summer to do this, even though it means very few are able to keep up.

The great thing about a blog is that the information will always be here and can be referred to at any point, so there is no need to try to read all the posts and take it all in at the moment. In addition, I suspect once I populate the systems performance table for all systems, it will help people look at the overall performance of systems and it won’t involve reading lots of blog posts! Once people like the look of a system in that table, they can then read the review or preview of that system. 

The other reason for trying to get all these blog posts written is so that I have more time to look at how we should play next season.  That’s the important bit for us although to do that job properly, I need to do these reviews and previews as it's the groundwork for making good decisions for next season.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the review of E7.

System E7

This is the single system that excites me the most.  It’s funny as I was always attracted to system 8 more than system 22 for the UK systems but for these Euro systems, system E7 looks a much more solid system to me than system E3.

The results by season look very good, with an overall ROI of 26.8% across the 6 seasons but the 3 backtested seasons giving an ROI of 23.9%. This is very decent in my eyes.

I can’t quite put my finger on why but I’m attracted to the fact that the Italian league is the best league here.  I think part of me worries a little about the German league being best on all the other systems to date as it seems to be driven by a crazy ROI on the away bets in Germany.  A quick look here and I can see the Italian Home bets have an ROI of 32.6% historically. This appeals to me much more as the average odds will be much lower and to achieve an ROI of 32.6% on Homes is unreal. 

The other attraction with this system is the French Aways look OK.  They look rubbish on every other system, so this system is doing something with the bets that the other systems can’t and this alone appeals to me I think.

There has been 44 winning months with only 6 losing months on this system. Again, this is better than all the other systems I’ve reviewed so far. The system is on a winning run of 22 months which is unbelievable really.  The average winning month is 16.3pts and the average losing month is only 4.9pts.

The other thing I like here is the fact the Homes and Aways both had good seasons last season. I saw on other systems Aways struggled last season but not on this system.

Again, the results by league are all very encouraging with profits split between Homes and Aways.

The P&L graph looks very steady, with no great drawdowns but plenty of little quiet spells where not much profit or loss was made. The drawdown graph also looks decent with a max drawdown of 25pts.  I’d suggest a bank of 60pts is probably about right for this system.

So, I would expect 300 bets a season going forward. 

System 22 had a full ROI of 31% but this dropped a fair bit for the two fully backtested seasons. It was only 18%.  When the system has went live, it has created a very impressive return of 10.8%.

Hence, it achieved over 50% of the backtested results. The best by any single system.

Well, without putting my neck on the line too much, I’d say that system E7 looks the best single system for the Euro leagues. Hard to put my finger on it but just looking at the P&L graphs, the drawdown graph and all the P&L tables, I get more confidence than I’ve had from the other Euro systems thus far.

So, the full ROI for this system over the 6 seasons is 26.8%. However, the backtested results for the 3 seasons is 23.9%.  If I assume this system can achieve a 50% of this, the we’re looking at a target ROI of 12% for next season.  I feel a bit bad as I’d definitely take 10% as a minimum on any system, so I’ll stick with a 10% return as a target, knowing it could better this.

300 bets would give a 30pts profit target. A 60pt bank gives a ROC target of 50% for this system.

I think it’s great that the ROC target and ROI targets look best on this system so far. As I say, it’s hard to exactly pinpoint why but I’d be disappointed if this system isn’t the best single system from the 5 Euro systems next season.

Preview of System E6

If anyone had told me a few years ago that I’d be sitting analysing football systems when Royal Ascot takes place today, I would never have believed them! Anyway, it’s true and for the first time in years (I even looked last Summer), I’ve not even looked at a race card for today’s racing. I’m actually impressed at my own dedication and work ethic where the footie is concerned! Here’s the next preview:

System E6

One thing that struck me looking at the results of this system was the sheer number of bets each season. I think we’re looking at 600 bets at least every season on this system compared to only 500 bets on system E1.

It’s slightly strange looking at the results by season as the pattern of results is just strange. I see the blip in 2010/11 as I’d expect and an overall ROI of 31.2% for this season. Aside from this though, the first two seasons which may be impacted by backfitting to an extent only produce a return of 12.5% in total. Easily the lowest returns I’ve seen for 2006/7 and 2007/8 from all systems I’ve built, UK and European systems.

An 18% return last season was only slightly down on the 19% return for the previous season which was fully backtested, so there is an element of consistency in the results for these seasons which gives me a little confidence.

Spain and Germany are the best leagues with France again performing worse than the other 3 countries. France was loss making last season (definitely a common theme of all these Euro previews) but you have to go back to Italy in 2006/7 to find another league that lost over a season.

41 winning months, with 9 losing months although again, the pattern looks a little strange. The system has actually had 16 winning months in a row and only one losing month in the last 26 months amazingly.  Anyone care to bet that it starts next season with a losing month???

Average winning month is 20.5pts and the average losing month is 8pts. Looks to me like you can have some storming months but also some stinking months!

Aways struggled last season with only a return of 4.6% but Homes did great with a return of 24.9%. This followed up a return the previous season of 25.5% on Homes.

The overall Aways in Germany look too good again (as I’ve said on other systems) and an overall ROI of 47.5% is laughable really. Surely will settle at a lower figure as get more German away bets!

French Aways were horrendous last season with only 9 winners in 59 games. They were loss making the previous season too with only 12 winners in 57 games. A 29pt loss over both seasons moves to a 0.4pt loss if using AH0.5 over both seasons, so it’s the same story as on algorithm one I think.

One interesting aspect of the P&L graph is the fact that the flat period came at the start. A period of 400 bets with no profits. Apart from that spell, it looks to be steady growth with the odd blip in the graph.

One blip can be seen on the drawdown graph where the max drawdown has been 42pts. Apart from this blip, the next highest drawdowns are a couple at 31pts.  I’d suggest a bank of 90pts is probably about right on this system going forward although it looks pretty conservative if we consider the 42pts as a blip and the 31pts as being the norm.

I’d expect 600 bets next season looking at the seasonal trends and the fact we had 632 last season.

If I look at system 21, the overall ROI for all 4 seasons before the system went live was 23.1%. The fully backtested ROI was 18.3%. The live ROI has been 7.8%.

The full ROI here is 17.2%, the fully backtested ROI is 16.5%.  I think we can assume the system may achieve an ROI of around 40% of the backtested ROI based on system 21.

This would give an ROI target of 6.6%.  Based on 600 bets, this is a pts profit target of 39.4pts.  Based on a bank of 90pts, a ROC target of 44%.  The highest ROC target so far for the Euro systems but it is driven from the higher bet number on here which gives you the additional turnover to increase the ROC.