2012/13 Season Review Part Two - Systems 6-21,6-22,7-21,7-22,8-21,8-22

In many ways, this is the most important season review I’ll write. The majority of members with the service follow at least one, if not multiples, of these systems and therefore, it’s important that anyone following the service reads this review. 

Over the first 3 seasons, these 6 combined systems have also been the systems that have been proofed and reported on by the Secret Betting Club and ultimately, it is these systems that have been responsible for the various awards the service has won over the last couple of seasons.  Going forward, I hope the service will no longer be judged on the performance of 6 systems considering there are a whole host of profitable systems for people to follow but these systems are always likely to underpin the service to an extent.

This is the 3rd season that these systems have been live and all results in this review are live results. I will no longer be discussing the backtested results from 2006/7 to 2009/10 and if people are interested in these, they will find the results in the historical results section on the blog.

For any new readers, these systems are obviously combined systems from the other 5 systems 6,7,8,21 and 22. Hence, 6-21 means a team that appears on system 6 and 21.

Season 2012/13 Performance

At various points this season, it looked like these systems were going to struggle to create much profit at all and from being in a loss making position at the end of Jan-13, it’s amazing that they have managed to scrape through a poor season with a profit of 113.8pts!

Similar to the first systems I reviewed, if you stand back and look at these results, you have to be pleased. Yes, it’s maybe not been as good as the first two seasons but another 100pts over a season isn’t bad at all.

6-21 is the system which underpins these systems and a profit of 7.6% from 563 bets is a decent return. I think the same comment goes for 6-22 which managed to improve the 7.6% ROI to 11.4%.

7-21 also did a good job of improving on the performance of 6-21 and 8-21 did likewise. 8-21 actually had an exceptional year if I’m honest and managed to turn a profit of 8.8% on 7-21 into a profit of 21.3%. That is exactly the way the systems were meant to work and as you’ll see on the long-term results, it works well.

It maybe feels slightly harsh saying this but the two biggest disappointments this season were 7-22 and 8-22. As always, it needs to be looked at in context and 7-22 achieved an ROI of 9.8% and 8-22 achieved an ROI of 10%, so it wasn’t a disaster of a season but considering 6-22 had an ROI of 11.4%, it is disappointing that the next two systems in the pyramid couldn’t improve upon this return.

I think for long-term followers of these systems, I’m sure they’ll have a similar view to me that this season was anything but a vintage season for these systems whereas for anyone who was new last season, maybe they’ll see this season as a really good season. I think a lot of this game is about expectations and over the first two seasons, these 6 systems in particular built up a very high level of expectation and for whatever reason last season, they couldn’t quite reach the expectation levels.

I think the interesting thing is that going forward, there won’t be quite so much pressure on these systems hopefully. Given the fact that there are now multiple systems which have returns almost as good as these, that should mean the weight of expectation is spread around and therefore, I expect many people to have less weight on these systems in their portfolios going forward.

Overall then, a profit of 113.8pts from 1,168 bets in a very tough season is a good return and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking about what the return would have been if the systems had a decent first half of the season…oh, wait a minute, that would have been like the last two seasons!

All Live Results (last 3 seasons)

I think the thing that jumps out to me looking at this is the trend we see with the ROI and the systems. You can see how filtering the bets works and the ROI improves as we move up from 6-21 to 7-21 to 8-22 and the same is true where 8-22 beats 7-22 and 6-22. To complete the perfect trend, 6-22 beats 6-21, 7-22 beats 7-21 and 8-22 beats 8-21. When I started out 3 years ago, I sort of hoped that this trend would be apparent and it’s amazing that after 3,000 bets, this trend is very clear.

Although the overall ROI has taken a hit after the lower ROI this season, I think an overall ROI of 13.3% from 3,160 bets is highly acceptable. 419.5pts profit over 3 seasons is something I would have bitten someone else’s hand off for 3 years ago, so I think it’s a nice start to the service.

I think the ROC figures are all very well good and you can see why so many of these systems are included in portfolios of subscribers.

System 6-21 leads the way with an ROC of 95.4% last season which gives an ROC of 273.9% across the first 3 seasons. To make circa. 90% ROC each season for 3 seasons in a row is great going and probably puts this system up there with the best betting systems in the market.

In terms of ROC, 7-21 has now overtaken 7-22 after last season but both have an overall ROC of around 175% after 3 seasons. 7-21 achieved 41.2% last season whereas 7-22 only achieved 26.1% in a poor season.

The other 3 systems all have a similar long-term ROC in the region of 135%. 8-21 performed best lasts season with an ROC of 51.6%.

I personally think that any tipster system with a long-term record of achieving 40%+ ROC per season is worth serious consideration and all 6 of these systems fall into this category. System 6-21 looks worth following and a lot of the same comments apply to 6-21 as apply to 21.  I think the choice people have is to include system 21 or 6-21 in their portfolio and these systems should form a good base on which to build the remainder of the portfolio.

Similar as I said regarding system 21, I wouldn’t put anyone off just following system 6-21 in isolation if someone wants one system to follow next season.

Statistical Significance

As you would expect, all 6 systems appear statistically significant but system 6-21 is similar to system 21 in the sense that it is impossible to think that these results don’t show a substantial edge.

The least significant system is 6-22 and it’s a system I’ve never liked myself. Doesn’t have enough bets and doesn’t have a big enough edge. 8-22 struggles a little due to the low bet volume but the results still look OK.

Targets for 2013/14 Season

As I said with the first review, this section is maybe the most important for subscribers to absorb. Don’t want to keep restating what I said in the earlier post but although there can be no guarantees when it comes to setting targets, it’s important that people make informed decisions around which systems to follow and these targets should allow them to do that.

Firstly, I’m tweaking the betting banks upwards for a few of the systems, thus reducing the target ROC they can achieve going forward but I feel it is necessary after seeing how poor the performance was at times last season.  System 6-22 is seeing the bank increased to 50pts (from 42ps), 7-22 is seeing the bank increased to 40pts from 35pts and 8-22 is seeing the bank increased to 35pts from 32pts. I always like to think my banks are conservative and these betting banks just need increased a little to get back to the same level of comfort I had in the banks before.

In terms of targets, 6-21 is looking at a target of 86% ROC next season. The other 5 systems are pretty well grouped thereafter. System 7-21 has a target of 44% and then the next 4 systems are 38%,36%,34% and 30%. 

Again, I think you can see how important ROC is compared to ROI and the system with the lowest ROI has the highest ROC by a long way. There is a trade-off between ROI and turnover and unfortunately, I think for the 5 highest combined systems here, they don’t quite have enough turnover. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t be followed though and the last thing I want is everyone following 6-21 or system 21 next season and then watching as these couple of systems struggle while all the lower turnover systems have a storming season!

 Detailed Analysis

Performance by Season

I think this really paints a picture that this season was the toughest season by far which I think is what I thought myself. However, part of this is due to the fact the first season was stunning, the second season was great and this season would probably be classed as good.  The bet number was higher this season which probably in a way reduced the quality of the bets but then again, if you look at system 6-21, it has done much better than the first season in terms of points won.

I think the key trend that shines through here is the fact the higher combined systems were nowhere near as good as the first two seasons whereas system 6-21 and 6-22 weren’t much worse than the first two seasons. Interestingly, system 8-21 had its best season so far whereas the other higher combined systems 7-21, 7-22 and 8-22 all had their worst season.

You can get too bogged down looking for trends and I’m happy to move onto next season believing that this season was the worst season so far but then again, the systems were loss making at the end of January. Hence, it could have been a helluva lot worse for a poor season!

Performance by League

A very similar story to the previous sytems where you can see the only issue is League Two. However, League Two is the only league where you can make a much better profit using draw coverage than backing outright and therefore, the selections from this league have really struggled with the draw over the first 3 seasons.  I remember the League Two bets made a small loss the season before last after a really poor first season, so what happened last season?

Performance by League and Season

Well, it was another small loss in League Two again last season. That makes it 3 seasons in a row where losses have been made. Interestingly, the draw wasn’t to blame at all and therefore, it was a really poor season for League Two bets.

On the other hand, Bsq Prem bets had a great season and yet, the same bets had a losing first season, so it shows things can turn around quickly. 

The remainder of the leagues did OK apart from the SPL which had a losing season.

Performance by Home and Away

I find this very interesting. At the average odds and looking at the previous set of single systems, you would have bet good money on the Aways having the highest ROI here but amazingly, the Homes are better than the Aways on the combined systems.

A 17.2% ROI for the Home bets against an ROI of 11.7% for the Away bets is strange given the difference in average odds. To make a 17% ROI from bets with average odds of 2.11 is stunning and if you look at some of the higher combined systems, the Home bets are very strong. All combined systems from 6-22+ have ROI’s in excess of 19% for Home bets.

Interestingly, if you just look at system 6-21, the Away bets have a higher ROI but clearly, the systems are able to filter out the poor Home bets much better than the poor Away bets.

I know one person with the service who only plays Home bets and one thing a lot of subscribers do is play higher stakes on Home bets than Away bets and I think we can see why this works so well.

Performance by Home and Away by League

Similarly to the first set of systems, there are a lot of really strong results here that jump off the page.

It’s again amazing how different the ratings perform for League One and League Two Aways. A 160pts profit with League One Aways is offset by a loss of 116.8pts from League Two Aways! League Two Homes are actually very strong and therefore, if anyone is seriously considering doing something with League Two Aways (e.g. dropping them!), then I’d remember and keep backing the Home bets.

League One Homes and SPL Homes both tread water from not a lot of bets but with the sample sizes being so small, it’s hard to draw conclusions I think.

Similar to what I said at the end of the first season reviews, I’m not against people varying stakes based on some of these trends being shown as long as they don’t go mad! The sample sizes by league are all very small and none are highly statistically significant but sometimes, you have to go with gut feel at times and for me personally, my patience with League Two Aways is wearing thin! I won’t be alone in feeling like this…….