Systems TOX, STOY and STOZ Reviews

As you may have noticed when you downloaded the Excel sheet with all the analysis for each system, there are no backtested results for the final 3 systems I’m about to review.  I made a conscious decision to get rid of any backtested results for these systems as I changed the criteria midway through the season. I could have gone back through and calculated the backtested results based on the new criteria but the live results the systems had been achieving were nothing like the original backtested results on the original criteria. Therefore, I quickly figured that the backtesting of these systems was worthless.

Without a doubt, these 3 systems have been the most disappointing systems from last season. I didn’t hide the fact (I was actually quite bullish about it which is unlike me!) that these systems would produce a good return last season after I’d built the systems.  The backtesting I carried out on these systems led me to believe that they were very robust and would work very well in a live environment but for whatever reason, the systems didn’t do well last season at all.

Anyway, no point dwelling on one season and I still don’t think they produced anything like their best performance last season.  Definitely can’t follow these systems with confidence next season (I wouldn’t suggest anyone follow them at all as they carry some risk after this season!) but I’ll be very keen to see how they do next season. I’d be amazed if they don’t leave this season’s performance behind……

System TOX

A very poor 4.3% ROI across 279 bets this season.  Only 4 winning months from 9.

Without a doubt, the one shining light on the system this season was the Home bets and a pretty remarkable 30% ROI on Home bets this season. I’d picked up this trend very early on (thankfully for me as I was following these systems!) and therefore, overstaking the Homes helped to ensure I didn’t do much damage as these systems struggled to produce any profit all season.

Aways produced a loss over the season which is disappointing when you consider all the other systems this season. Covering the draw on the Aways would have turned this loss around.  League One and League Two aways counted for a 20pts loss which is a crazy figure really across a small sample of bets.

Last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 30pts and the max drawdown was 18pts this season.  Clearly, the betting bank I suggested last Summer wasn’t worth much as I changed the criteria half way through the season but even so, if anyone was following this system, the bank was never under too much pressure I hope.

A profit of 12pts on a bank of 30pts is a highly respectable ROC of 40%.

Of course, hindsight dictates the proper bank should have been around 45pts.  Even so, a 12pt profit on a bank of 45pts would have been a ROC of 27%. Given I think the system has been rubbish this season (and I honestly mean that), then a 27% ROC isn’t bad!

Going forward, it’s hard to be accurate here as we are basing it on one season.  I’d say 300 bets is the target number next season. I personally think an ROI of 8% should be achievable. That would give a pts profit of 24pts and a ROC of 53%. 

System STOY

An equally poor 3.8% ROI across 281 bets. 5 winning months from 9.

Similar comment to TOX in the sense the Aways were terrible and Homes were good.  Homes made an ROI of 23% on this system. 

Aways in League One and Two were even worse than on TOX! A loss of 28.8pts across 139 games.  It amazes me that the system managed to turn a profit in spite of this.  I can’t believe it can produce such a bad performance on Aways again!

Last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 25pts for this season.  The max drawdown was 19pts this season (gulp!).  That’s as close as I’ve ever come on any system to blowing a betting bank!

The new betting bank will be 50pts!  Anyway, with a profit of 10.7pts on a bank of 25pts, a highly competitive ROC was achieved this season of 43%. Just goes to show what can be achieved in a poor season when you overstake massively (or under capitalise your betting bank in other words!).

Going forward, I’d say 300 bets with a target ROI of 8%.  That’s a target ROC of 48% next season.

System STOZ

This was the best performer of the 3 systems with an ROI of 4.4% across 272 bets this season.  5 winning months from 9 this season.

Great performance by the Home bets again with an ROI of 21% and a small loss on Aways. 

An 18pt loss in League Two from 64 bets again which is as bad as it gets.  Losses were also achieved in the SPL and Championship too.

Last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 45pts for this season. A profit of 12pts means a ROC of 27%.  Interestingly, the system has the best ROI this season but the worst ROC! 

The max drawdown this season was 17pts, so a betting bank of 45pts is about right I think. 

Going forward, I’d say 300 bets a season would be the target with an ROI of 8%.  That would give a target ROC of 53% which would be highly respectable.

Systems 21-31, 6-21-31 and 6-32 Reviews

Before looking at these systems in depth, I expected these reviews to conclude that these 3 systems aren’t worth following and that they have all been disappointing this season.

Looking at the ROC figures on the first two systems, I think it opens my eyes somewhat to what is possible here and maybe I’ve been a little bit guilty of concentrating too much on the 6 combined systems on the established systems.  It will be interesting in a few days as I’ll pull together a summary of all the system reviews and I’m sure there will be some very interesting results when you put the results side by side for each system.

Anyway, here’s the next 3 new systems from last season.

Enjoy!

System 21-31

By far the most interesting aspect of this system was the sheer number of bets this season! Historically, the system had averaged less than 200 bets a season and yet, this season, the system had 406 bets! Of course, the reason for this is the fact I increased the number of bets on system 21 this season enormously and many of these ended up appearing on system 31 too.

The overall return for the season 9.2% ended doesn’t look bad at face value considering it’s over a large number of bets but the point of cross referring systems 21 and 31 was to hopefully improve the performance of each individual system. 

System 21 ended up with an ROI of 10.5% before any interference from system 31, so ultimately, by cross referring system 21 with 31, I’ve actually weakened system 21! It had the desired effect of improving the return on system 31 from a lowly ROI of 3.8%, so I guess it’s not all bad. The question for this system would be does it add anything to system 21? Based on the first season, the answer is probably know but I don’t want to draw too many conclusions from one season.

A large loss in League Two on this system but Homes were as bad as Aways in this league on this system.  The monthly results were decent for this system and 6 winning months from 9 is better than many systems.

I think the P&L graph is interesting in the sense the system took a long time to make any decent profits this season but it wasn’t doing much damage when things weren’t going its way. Aways made a 10% return and Homes made a 6.2% return.

Overall, I think this system suffers from the fact there are better systems and of course, one of the systems making up this system is a better system in its own right.  However, I wouldn’t knock a 9.2% ROI over a season and I think it was probably a tough season for this system. Would like to see it do better next season.

Last Summer, I suggested a bank of 65pts. A profit of 37.3pts means a ROC of 57%.  May not have been the best season for this particular system but a ROC of 57% during a below average season shows the potential this system has I think!

The max drawdown remains 25pts and therefore, I would think a 65pt bank is plenty. 21pts was the max drawdown last season.  I would expect 400 bets a season and a ROI of 6% seems like a realistic target.  That would give a target ROC of 37%. This is probably conservative based on the fact the ROI this season was over 9%.

System 6-21-31

Again, the big change here is the number of bets in the first live season. Historically, the system had averaged 155 bets but this season, it had 360 bets! Simply, some of the changes I applied to systems 6 and 21 before the start of this season ultimately meant I captured much more bets that appeared on system 31. Hence, the backtested results aren’t really an indication of the performance of this system going forward.

Anyway, an ROI of 9.1% on this system and very similar comments to system 21-31. Cross referring it with system 6 just reduced the number of bets and didn’t really add anything to the profitability at all.

League Two was dreadful again, the system had 6 winning months from 9 and Aways did better than Homes.

The P&L graph looks very much like system 21-31 but interestingly, the max drawdown is a little bit lower which means that cross referring systems 21-31 with system 6 did reduce the volatility a tiny bit. Should come through in the betting bank hopefully and ROC figures.

Last summer, I suggested a bank of 45pts.  The max drawdown then was 16pts. A profit this season of 32.6pts means a ROC of 72% was achieved this season.  I think this is one of the best ROCs this season!

The max drawdown is now 21pts, so I would suggest a betting bank of 55pts to be on the safe side given the higher number of bets now too.

An ROI target of 7% is achievable I hope (should be slightly better than 21-31) and therefore, across 350 bets, an achievable ROC of 45% should be the target for next season.

System 6-32

Historically, the average number of bets on this system was 197 per season and this season, there were 197 bets too. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities ended with previous seasons!

Given system 6 had an OK season and given 32 had a good season, you would hope 6-32 would do Ok but unfortunately, it struggled if I’m honest. A return of 3% across 197 bets is poor and given the underlying performance of 6 and 32, you would have expected much better here.

4 winning months from 9, losses in half of the leagues, a lowly return from Homes and Aways and a rollercoaster of a P&L graph sum up this system this season.

The saving grace is probably the graph since the beginning of the backtested results and you can see periods of 300 bets with no profits being made, so to go 197 bets with only a small profit is no disaster. It just looks like a disaster when you compare it to my other systems!

It also suffered a nasty drawdown this season of 23pts which will impact on the future betting bank and ROC achievable, so this system may be limited going forward.

Last Summer, I suggested a bank of 45pts.  A profit of 6pts means a ROC of 13% was achieved. 

Going forward, I’d have to say a bank of 50pts may be best. A target ROI of 8% across 200 bets.  Would give a target ROC of 32%. 

I would suggest that this system isn’t one that is followed going forward by subscribers.  Quite simply, the 8% ROI target may be outside the reach of this system based on what we saw this season! We’ll see what happens though.

Systems 31-33 Reviews

Below are the first 3 reviews of the new systems from last season. As I said on a recent post, these will be shorter in nature since it's the first season for these and for most systems, I don't have enough results to draw any meaningful conclusions. 

System 31

A slightly disappointing first season for the new 3^rd rating algorithm this season although quite early on, I thought it was going to be a disaster.  An ROI of 3.8% across 671 bets is about the minimum I’d accept over a season I think over such a large number of bets though, so it wasn’t a disaster.

The P&L graph this season is a bit of a rollercoaster. Before the season had barely started, the system was -20pts after 60 bets.  It then recovered to break-even by around the 150 bet mark. A period of stability then appeared with nothing happening over the next 300 bets! It then won 20pts quickly and lost them just as quickly!

So, break-even across the first 500 bets and I was wondering why the hell I bothered with building a 3^rd algorithm.  Out of nowhere basically, a profit of 50pts across the next 50 bets and at that stage, it was running with an ROI of about 8% and I thought this was highly acceptable.  Unfortunately, a poor run struck again and it lost 25pts before stabilising and finishing the season on a profit of just over 25pts.

The AH returns struggled all season. After a poor start, it was basically 500pts before AH0.25 and AH0.5 got level on the season.  Interestingly, both ended the season with returns not too far behind betting outright, so it’s a difficult one to fathom!

A quick look at the results by League and you can see a very nasty 25pt loss in League Two this season. Drill down deeper and nearly 23pts was lost on League Two aways. That alone accounts for much of the underperformance this season.

Only 3 winning months from 9 just about sums up how much the system struggled this season. However, when it gets it right, it can produce some excellent returns in a short space of time I think. It just doesn’t get it right too often!

Homes and Aways produced very similar returns over the season, but way down on what was hoped for before the season started.

With no live data last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 70pts.  A profit this season of 25.7pts means a ROC of 36.7%.  Not what I was hoping for but when you think about it rationally, it’s not a disaster over the course of the season.

The max drawdown this season was actually lower than historically, so I think 70pts is probably about right. Although backtested results aren’t useful in the sense of setting target returns, for historical drawdowns, I’ve always liked the fact they help you set a betting bank which isn’t just finger in the air!

Ok, going forward, 70pts bank, probably looking at 650 bets a season and a 5% ROI as a target.  That will give a target 46% ROC. Not bad I think considering I’ve called it a rubbish system all season!

System 32

The test for this system is whether it improves the performance of system 31. We can definitely say it has!  An ROI of 11.1% on this system across 222 bets is actually a very good performance and it’s the most pleasing performance of all the new systems I think.

The system started the season poorly but soon recovered and went on a quite amazing run. It then lost form for a long time, made small losses over a large number of bets and then bounced back a little at the end of the season!

Interestingly, not sure how it managed it but this is maybe one of the first systems I think I’ve looked at who made a profit on League One and League Two aways this season. Not just that, it actually made a good profit on both types of bets.

System 31 had 28 winners from 127 away bets in League Two. System 32 has had 16 winners from 52 bets. The other 75 bets that system 32 didn’t like only produced 12 winners. Quite amazing really! 

5 losing months in 9 months though shows the turbulent nature of the system on a month by month basis and interestingly, this was apparent in the backtested results too. Aways produced a return of 12.1% with Homes producing 8.5%. Homes tend to not do great during backtesting anyway, so 8.5% isn’t bad on this system.

The AH returns on this system weren’t bad too with a 6.6% return coming from backing all bets AH0.5.

Last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 50pts based on the max drawdown of 17pts. The max drawdown is only 18pts now, so I think a 50pt bank is sufficient.

A profit this season of 24.6pts meant a ROC of 49%. 

Going forward, a 50pt bank, 225 bets and a ROI target of 10% I think. Gives a ROC target of 45%.  Much in line with system 31 interestingly.

System 33

This carries the distinction of being the first ever losing system I have had over the first two seasons.  11 systems during the first season, 20 systems during the second season and yet, this is the only system that has ever lost over the season!

To keep things in perspective, the system lost 3.9pts across 126 bets.  Yes, it’s annoying to have a losing system over a season but with one or two winners, it would have turned around and scraped a small profit.  In addition, if you look at the table of returns, covering the draw in any way (AH0, AH0.25 or AH0.5) produced  a profit over all bets, so it’s simply the case the system has had a few too many draws this season which ultimately, has ensured it has made a loss.

The fact that system 32 had a profit of 11% across 222 bets and yet, system 33 has taken these 222 bets, picked out 126 of them and made a loss shows the impact that variance can have on a system I think. 

In a way, it’s good to see that a system can lose over a season as it shows what I’m doing isn’t infallible. They call this gambling for a reason. Thankfully, I don’t know anyone who made a loss over the season as no one would surely choose to follow system 33 as their main system given the proofed results of all other systems, so it’s not a disaster that this has happened.

I’m not going to overanalyse 126 bets as I’ll be wasting my time but Homes made a loss of 9.3% and yet, if dutching the draw and the selection (AH0.5), a profit of 15.5% was achieved. A massive swing and clearly, too many of these Home bets finished in a draw.

Small losses were achieved in most leagues and 5 of the 9 months were losing months!

Last Summer, I suggested a betting bank of 40pts. The largest drawdown was 16pts, so even though it was a losing season, the betting bank was never under pressure and the drawdown this season is only just worse that the max historical drawdown, so I don’t think there is anything to change on this system apart from hope there is a bit better luck next season!

So, a loss of 3.9pts and a bank of 40pts means a ROC of -9.8% this season.

Going forward, I’d say a bank of 40pts is adequate. I’d expect around 100 bets and maybe a ROI of 10% is what we should be aiming for (it can’t be any lower than system 32 as it’s meant to be filtering the best bets from system 32!).  That would give a ROC of 25%. 

Given the performance this season, my recommendation would be to NOT follow this system next season. 

24 hours to go.......

A very quick post as it’s late and I’m tired tonight. Spent another few hours on the new Euro football ratings tonight, so they are fully finalised and I’ve started building the first system. :)

I needed a little break away from the system reviews and whereas a sane person would take a day away from the footie, I work on another aspect of the footie! I’m not sure there is a name for this disease I’ve got when it comes to football analysis but whatever it is, I’ve got it I’m sure.

Anyway, the point of the post is to say my next job is to review the 9 new systems from last season. Unlike the previous 11 reviews, these 9 upcoming reviews will be much shorter and I’ll do 3 at a time. I’ll cover 31-33, the 3 new combined systems (6-32,21-31 and 6-21-31) and lastly, I’ll do the 3 similar game models (TOX, STOY and STOZ).  The fact I only have one live season’s data to go on and the fact the live results have been nowhere near as good as the historical results means that I can’t draw any meaningful conclusions at all.  We’ll save any in depth analysis of these systems until after next season.

I also wanted to use this post as a quick warning about the fact the service is filling up pretty quickly and therefore, if there are any blog readers interested in joining for next season, to get the £30 discount, you have to join before tomorrow evening.  You can join using the discount code tfablogdiscount30 http://thefootballanalyst.com/subscriptions-page/

I’ve made it clear since day one the service will stay very exclusive in the sense there won’t be many members. I expect the service will be one of the smallest in the SBC’s Hall of Fame but once the target number of subscribers is met for the season, people will have to join a waiting list for the season after.  May sound a little harsh given I’m only just over 50% full but if I get a run of members joining, then the service may close quite abruptly and I don’t want people complaining to me that they weren’t warned about it.

I also noticed today in the SBC forum that another rival service has gazumped my idea of running a Euro 2012 game for members and is offering a better prize than me! I’ve therefore upped the prizes to £150 for 1^st, £100 for 2^nd and £50 for 3^rd for my game!  Hence, if you are thinking of joining, do it tomorrow to participate in the Euro 2012 game and win your subscription fee back or part of it back!  The offer ends tomorrow evening.

That will do for now. I’m knackered! Keep an eye out for the remaining system reviews in the next few days.

System 8-22 Review

I suspect that this final combined system review shows how folly it is to set a betting bank based on a one-off historical drawdown. Based on the edge this system has, you would have to say that the drawdown experienced during the first season probably has a very low probability of happening again, never mind being more than twice as bad next time! Therefore, based on the max historical drawdown, you are going to end up with too high a bank and probably too low a ROC. There are ways around it though, you just need to find ways to increase the pts profit that doesn’t increase the drawdowns.  Higher staked homes and AH aways would be the way to do it.

System 8-22

Last Season

System 8 – 160 bets, 9.0% ROI

System 22 – 245 bets, 8.2% ROI

System 8-22 – 94 bets, 26.2% ROI

This Season

System 8 – 94 bets, 10.2% ROI

System 22 – 133 bets, 15.6% ROI

System 8-22 – 40 bets, 30.5% ROI

I hate saying this given the results above but in a way, system 8-22 is a useless system now. Inadvertently, by tightening up each algorithm, I’ve effectively squeezed too many bets out by filtering and by the time you get down to system 8-22, there aren’t enough bets left!

It says it all that it still managed to make a 30.5% ROI this season over only 40 bets but quite simply, you can’t follow a system seriously that has 40 bets a season.  Of course, no matter what portfolio everyone is following, they should probably just add 8-22 to the portfolio as with 40 bets a season, win, lose or draw, the system isn’t going to do much damage in a season and based on results to date, it should make a profit.

497 bets across 6 seasons with an ROI of 34.7% is about as good as it gets but unfortunately, as a standalone system, it’s meaningless now. I’m sure people reading this would be thinking that playing £500 a point and making an ROI of 30% a season from staking £20k a season isn’t a bad idea but the risk that comes with that is huge. You could stake £20k in different ways across the season that reduces the risk and helps to ensure that if things go badly, you don’t end up broke. Of course, if any systems can dodge variance, this is probably it as it is so unique in the way it is built but I just have to think sooner or later, a few bets will lose and that profit will be reduced to zero over a season simply due to variance.

It’s impossible to analyse this system too much as 40 bets isn’t a near big enough sample to draw any conclusions from. The fact the system has managed to have 13 winning months from 17 since it went live is unbelievable given the small bet numbers each month but then again, it is so good at picking out the best bets.

The Homes were unreal on this system this season.  13 winners from 17 bets and an ROI of 48.8%. 15 from 22 last season when it achieved an ROI of 28.2%. 

Aways weren’t bad either with a 17% ROI this season but down on the 25.6% ROI last season.

I think this system is another one of those that is scarred from the bad performance and drawdown in the second half of the first season.

I suggested a betting bank of 40pts based on the drawdown of 16pts. The max drawdown is 17pts now. Based on the fact you only get 50 bets a season now max, 40pts can’t be the right bank for a season.

The profit this season is 12.2pts which means a ROC of 30.5%.  Very low again but can easily be improved by playing higher stakes on Homes.  The highest drawdown for AH0.25 and AH0.5 is less than 5pts, so therefore, if you want to reduce the betting bank and increase the ROC, this would allow you to do this too.

Anyway, going forward then, 30pts bank, 50 bets and a target ROI of 20%. Gives a target ROC of 33%.

System 8-21 Review

I think the theme from the last couple of reviews is the fact the ROC appears to be lower than you would expect given the performance of the system to date. However, in many cases, you either need to be playing higher stakes on Homes or using AH on Aways to get around this lower ROC issue. Of course, ROC isn't everything and if you play a few systems in total and leverage your bank a little, you can increase your ROC overall even though the systems may have lower ROC's independently.

System 8-21

Last Season

System 8 – 160 bets, 9.0% ROI

System 21 – 489 bets, 4.7% ROI

System 8-21 – 128 bets, 15.9% ROI

This Season

System 8 – 94 bets, 10.2% ROI

System 21 – 562 bets, 10.5% ROI

System 8-21 – 80 bets, 17.5% ROI

I like the look of the results above. In a way, system 8 is a great system already but cross referring it with system 21 turns it into something pretty special in my eyes. A 15.9% ROI last season and a 17.5% ROI this season.

In a way, this season’s performance is more impressive going by the fact the 14 bets that appeared on system 8 but didn’t appear on system 21 made a loss of 4.4pts.  May not seem like much but having the power to take a system like system 8 and improve it by applying a simple filter again is pretty impressive stuff I think.

Over 2 seasons, system 8-21 has an ROI 16.5%. Very impressive I think.

The Premiership bets were 6 from 6 on this system this season which is crazy. A profit of 11.3pts from these games.

Losses were achieved in League One, Two and the Championship but nothing major in any of them. Aways were to blame for all 3 losses. Looking back, League Two lost last season too. Fed up saying how bad League Two has been on these systems!

6 winning months from 9 this season and 13 from 18 winning months since the system went live.  

Aways struggled on this system this season. A profit of 1.4% and a loss on all types of AH betting. However, Homes had an ROI of 37.2% and thankfully, Homes had 45% of the bets this season, so Homes effectively saved this system this season.

Interestingly, the P&L graphs aren’t as impressive as some on this system.  The system did great for the first 60 bets, terrible for the next 60 bets, great for the next 60 bets and then no profit for the next 30 bets!

The same is true for the AH graphs although the drawdowns are small, so the bank needed would be low. Even so, it hasn’t produced great profits for AH betting and it was a losing season this season for all types of AH betting.

Seems like a fairly short review for this system but I feel like I don’t want to keep going over old ground and pointing out things that I’ve already pointed out on system 8 or 21.

Last Summer, I suggested a bank of 40pts which was based on a drawdown of 16pts. The max drawdown is now 18pts, so I’d say 40pts look OK and may be a little high given the lower number of bets this season.

A profit this season of 14pts gives a ROC of 35%. Again, fairly low ROC but it could be improved a little by playing higher stakes on Homes I think. The Homes on the high combined systems are so strong and it’s the Aways that bring the volatility to the systems.

Going forward then, I’d say a bank of 40pts is right. Maybe 100 bets a season (was lower this season) and a target ROI of 15%. A target ROC of 37.5%. Not as high as some but could be improved by playing slightly higher stakes on Homes. 

System 7-22 Review

In many ways, I suspect this system review is the most important of them all since it’s the system most subscribers follow. Many have 7/22 as part of their portfolio of systems and many who only follow a single system have chosen to follow system 7/22 in isolation.  I do hope though the previous reviews have shown that TFA is about so much more than just lumping on the very best bets. I’ll obviously summarise the reviews at the end and I’m planning on producing a simple table which tabulates all of the key information for subscribers but hopefully people are starting to see other ways of playing the bets and importantly, they understand that there are many systems which can be used to generate a profit for those following.

Anyway, here’s system 7-22.

System 7-22

I really need to start with comparing the single systems with the combined system.

Last Season

System 7 – 293 bets, 4.9% ROI

System 22 – 245 bets, 8.2% ROI

System 7-22 – 131 bets, 24.9% ROI

This Season

System 7 – 200 bets, 11.4% ROI

System 22 – 133 bets, 15.6% ROI

System 7-22 – 70 bets, 27.7% ROI

So much going on with the underlying systems 7 and 22 here, it’s difficult to fully appreciate what’s happening with system 7-22. A quick recap. System 7 and 22 were both tightened up significantly after a poor season last season.  I say poor but 4.9% and 8.2% isn’t a disaster but anyway, I tweaked things last Summer to try to improve the performance on each system this season.  As I’ve commented on before, any tweaks I make to the single systems ignore any impact on the combined systems. I don’t even look at the combined systems when considering tweaks. In my opinion, if you improve the single system or the base ratings, you improve the combined systems in the long-run. Simple as that really.

This season therefore, we’ve witnessed the expected improvement in 7 and 22 as the systems eliminated some of the poorer bets that appeared during the first season. The impact on system 7-22 is an ROI in line with last season (slightly better though) but a reduction in the number of bets.

Last season, I commented that I thought 131 bets was about as low as you wanted to go for any system over a season and now, we’re down at 70 bets. I personally think 70 bets in a season is NOT enough. It’s only my opinion though and I’ve shared it with others recently and they’ve said they don’t mind only having 70 bets a season, in the belief that they are following the best bets only that my systems generate.

I guess I understand this point of view and historically, over 6 seasons now, system 7-22 has achieved ROI’s by season of 44.7%, 34.8%, 30.8%, 26.1%, 24.9% and 27.7%.

It’s easy to bang on about variance possibly hitting this system at some point and the system possibly going a full season without any profit (which is my worry deep down) but so far, it hasn’t happened in 6 seasons. I don’t place a great weight of importance on the backtested results for any system that hasn’t recreated the same level of profits in a live environment but 7-22 is one of the systems has created the same level of profits since going live.  Hence, I have no concerns with looking at the results of 6 seasons instead of the last 2 seasons.

A 33% ROI from 737 bets spread across 6 seasons is probably as good as I’ve seen for any betting system I know of and therefore, I sort of understand why people have become so attached to system 7-22.

Should we just mortgage the house and invest everything we own in system 7-22? Well, in my opinion, no. A quick look at the P&L graph and you can see that there have been a couple of spells where nothing was made across 50 bets or so a few times and therefore, with only 70 bets a season now possibly, we’d be struggling to eat if the system hits a flat spot.

The other thing I should mention is the graph of the AH returns. It’s quite funny but the biggest drawdown on this system is using AH0.25 is only 7pts. Assuming we can use a bank of 15pts, this system makes an average of 19pts a season using AH0.25! Last season was the poorest season by far (less draws and more losses when the teams weren’t winning) and the profit was 7.5pts. Hence, a ROC of 50% during a poor season!

Being honest, the results are so good on this system, you can do anything you want and you will make a good profit I suspect!

Looking at the performance by league, it’s the first system I’ve reviewed so far that hasn’t made a loss on League Two Away bets last season. Another stunning statistic and when you think how few winners system 7 and 22 found in this league, combining the systems managed to turn a bad loss on each system into a profit!

5 Premiership bets this season, 4 winners and an ROI of 200%! 10.4pts profit from 5 games isn’t bad I guess.

Only 5 winning months from 8 this season but added to the 7 from 9 last season, its 12 from 17 which isn’t a disaster. The system struggles from the low number of bets in many months.

The ROIs on both Homes and Aways is stunning on this system and I laugh when I see them. A 36.9% ROI last season on Homes was followed up with an ROI of 28.9% this season. The 6 season average is 39.3%, so it was a poorer season this season than usually!

Aways had 22.2% last season and 27.1% this season. Amazing really.

I think the ability of this system to pick out the VERY best bets can be seen by two simple examples. 4 Home bets in League One, 4 winners. 4 Premiership Away bets, 4 winners. Of course, this is small samples and it won’t happen every season like this but it shows what this system is all about. Any bet that appears on system 7-22 is a good bet.

Last season then, I suggested a betting bank of 40pts which was very prudent and based on a drawdown of 16pts. The max drawdown remains 16pts and I’d think a bank of 30pts would be enough going forward on this system, given the edge shown and the lower number of bets.

The profit this season was 19.4pts, so a ROC of 48.5% based on last season’s bank.  I know people played banks of 20pts-30pts this season and the max drawdown was less than 5pts I think, so they didn’t exactly put their bank under pressure at any point.

The other thing I’ve touched on before on this system is that you can play 2pts on Homes without increasing the drawdown or risk. The edge on the Homes is large even though the odds are short and therefore, by doubling the stakes on Homes, you don’t actually need a higher bank and it increases your ROI. Many adopted this idea this season and it worked well. 

The Homes have a strike rate of 70.8% last season, 65.2% this season and 69.6% over 6 seasons. Hence, combined with the fact Aways have a strike rate of 44% and Aways make up 75% of the bets on this system, you can see quickly that Aways give the system the variance.

One thing I’ve touched on before is maybe playing AH on Aways, a slightly higher stake on Homes and I suspect you can get a much better ROC as it will reduce your bank considerably. I’ll be looking at this during the Summer as I’ve mentioned previously.

Going forward then, a betting bank of 30pts, 75 bets and a target ROI of 15%. This gives a conservative ROC target of 37.5%. Doesn’t look great at first glance but very easy to increase this without increasing the underlying risk following this system.