Euro Systems Season Review 2014/15

I think the only systems I’ve been looking forward to reviewing this Summer have been the Euro systems. Before we get onto last season’s results, it’s worth recalling the history of these systems over the 3 seasons so far.

The first season was season 2012/13 for the Euro systems. I decided I wanted to branch out into the European leagues for a couple of reasons. The obvious reason is for additional diversification and I didn’t want to put all my eggs into one basket when it came to the UK leagues. I was also acutely aware a few years ago that my edge would be eroded as I started to lose bookmaker accounts and therefore, with liquidity becoming a little bit of an issue, branching out into European leagues seemed like a good move.

When the systems went live though, it was clear there wasn’t much of an edge. Although the results were not a disaster, given the Home bias that was apparent in the Euro leagues, launching systems with 70%+ of bets being Away bets was never going to work I think. Here’s the results for season 1:

Although not a disaster of a season, a 4.4% loss across all systems and the fact that both rating algorithms lost 4.5% and 9.3% respectively meant that I made the decision that I needed to start again and basically scrap these ratings completely. My main concern was the Away bias within the systems and when I built the systems, the intention was to match the UK methodology which obviously has an Away bias within the ratings. Considering the Home bias in the Euro leagues, I was basically fighting against the underlying results and therefore, I realised I had no edge with these ratings.

I spent the Summer of 2013 building a brand new set of rating algorithms for the Euro leagues and corrected the Home and Away bias. Here’s the results for the first season of these new ratings:

All 11 systems were profitable, both rating algorithms were profitable and the combined systems did pretty well overall. Of course, it would take more than one good season to wipe out the losses and memories of the first season but overall, it was a step in the right direction at least.

So, that brings us onto last season’s results. Going into the season, I think many (including myself) still had reservations about these systems and even though I appreciated the ease of which I can place the bets and achieve better than the advised prices, I didn’t go overboard with my stakes on these bets last season. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I really wish I’d gone to town on these systems now, especially given the UK results! 

Here’s the results for last season:

10 of the 11 systems were profitable, the overall results of all systems was very good but more importantly, both algorithms did very well. 6.8% and 8.2% respectively for profits of the algorithms is very good and therefore, it’s hard to not be impressed by these results.

The filtering between system E2 and E3 was rubbish and this impacted E3-E6 and E3-E7 but overall, it is hard to be too critical.

E1-E6 and E1-E7 had exceptional years and really managed to build on the profits from the first year these ratings were live (second season of Euro bets).

If we look at the last two seasons when these rating algorithms were live, here’s the combined results:

Although it’s still early days and my comments are similar to the UK Draw systems, these results are pretty good. Both algorithms look solid, the combined systems look solid, especially E1-E6 and E1-E7 and I think as we go into the 3^rd season with these algorithms, there is going to be an element of expectation now.

I think having written the UK Draws and Euro systems reviews now, it’s safe to say that as TFA goes into its 6^th live service, it is no longer predominantly a service specialising in the UK leagues for outright bets. It has systems with great potential for UK Draws and we have the Euro bets with a couple of seasons of proven results behind them. This isn’t a bad place to be in.

For the record, here’s the results for the first 3 seasons which are not really meaningful when looking forward but of course, this is the proofed results for these Euro systems:

Even with the very poor first season included, these Euro system returns are starting to stack up I think. Roll on next season!