mathare's gamblog

[MattR]

Interesting Mat. Like you say the probable reduction could be gradual.


Just checked the 4 seasons I have saved on my hard disk and interestingly both home and away teams are averaging more to date this season. Not sure what betting use that would have anyway, asian handicaps perhaps, but I guess it's kind of what you'd expect to see given the higher % of home wins. Would imagine that would translate across most leagues.

2009/10 1.75-1.25
2008/09 1.40-1.08
2007/08 1.53-1.10
2006/07 1.45-1.00

[mathare]

15th October 2009
I've been feeling a bit rough the past few days so haven't had time to analyse the Championship under/over data till now. But here are the findings anyway, and it's nowhere near as promising as for the lower divisions.

There are two systems of interest, one of which I have selected despite the fact that in it's basic form it doesn't produce a profit when settled to average odds. So why have I picked out a system that makes a loss? Because when you settle the bets to maximum odds it produces over 60pts of profit so there must be something in it. Bearing in mind that the odds I expect to get will lie somewhere between the average odds and the maximum odds and there ought to be a profit in the system but how much remains to be seen. So let's take a look at this system in a little more detail.

System 2a (10) is a system for backing over 2.5 goals, unlike the lower league systems which were all unders. As I said it makes a loss (-13.75pts) to average odds in it's raw form with a ROI of -2.00% but to maximum odds we see a profit of 62.38pts with a ROI of 6.18% - much better. Average that out and we're looking at something like 25pts over four and a bit seasons which is only something like 6pts a season, less than I was after from a system but still not too bad I suppose. Anyway, the raw system isn't the best form for this system - filters can be added to cut out some of the losing bets and improve the profit levels to -11.75 (-1.87% ROI) for average odds and 69.95 (8.72%) for maximum odds. That increases the midway profit to something like 30pts with an approximate ROI of around 3.5%. That's maybe 7pts a season which is getting a bit better. The system will produce around 150 bets a season too I reckon, on average. Unfortunately though the seasonal breakdown doesn't look too good. The graphs don't show this very clearly at all but the best years for this system seem to have passed with this season (09-10) and last (08-09) being pretty much breakeven and all the profits coming in the first three years. Because of that I want to monitor this one to see how it goes and as such is will be paper traded live on the forum until the end of the season as I simply don't trust the figures to be reliable enough to add it to my portfolio before that point.

The other Championship system, 4a (30), is again an overs system. In terms of profit there is little to choose between the system when settled to average odds and the maximum odds version with both producing 15-20pts of profit but when we use maximum odds we nearly half the ROI indicating we're picking a lot more losing bets. Indeed the SR for the max odds system is 4% lower than that of the average odds version. But it doesn't make sense not to take the best odds on offer so clearly we need to add some filters here to improve the basic system. When we do that things look better, increasing the profit of the max odds to 50.79pts (8.56% ROI) while to average odds we have a profit of 19.49pts (9.28% ROI). Fewer bets with this one but we might still squeak somewhere around 80 or so each season. Again, not really up to the standards I was looking for from a football system but the profits are there or thereabouts again averaging around 8pts a season if we assume the odds will be midway between the average and maximum odds I have recorded. As with the previous system the seasonal breakdown indicates the early years (05-06, 06-07 and 07-08) were best but the downward trend observed earlier isn't quite as pronounced here. Even so, this is another one to paper trade on the forum till the end of the season where the trends will hopefully start to shine through a bit better and I can decide how to proceed with this system.

I have attached the graphs again, blue is the average odds line and red the max odds line as always.

Things are certainly progressing with these systems and I will be starting a new thread on the forum with any qualifiers for this weekend as and when I pluck them out, which will probably be tomorrow when the odds are out.

[mathare]

15th October 2009 (part two)
As I thought a few days back, there is nothing doing with the Premiership for under/over systems. I have just looked at the data again, in more depth than I did a week or so back and in a more systematic manner and the systems just aren't profitable to average odds and only produce a few points profit each season to maximum odds. I reckon the odds compilers have got these markets sewn up pretty tightly and there isn't much value to be had most of the time. I think the lower leagues are where it's at for profitable football systems, at least for under/over 2.5 goals anyway

[mathare]

16th October 2009
I have now set up a thread in the English football betting area of the forum to hold the system qualifiers for the various under/over 2.5 goals systems I have found over the past week or so. You'll be able to follow the progress of these systems in that thread.

I have considered applying the same lines of thought as I used on the English leagues to the Conference and the Scottish leagues as at least a few of the big bookies have priced up these markets it seems but I'm not sure I am up to any of that today. It can wait till the weekend or early next week.

[John]

Have been following this thread with a lot of interest Mat, as I really the idea of football systems, more-so at the minute than horse racing systems due to my greater interest in football. Plus I think there are less parameters in football to fiddle with when creating systems. You don't have as much stuff to tinker with.*

I'll be watching your footy systems to see how you're doing.

*Note the very technical language of this post.

[mathare]

Thanks for the interest John. There are fewer parameters in most of the football markets I'd say, at least fewer important parameters. With a horse it's not clear (to me at least) how much weighting one should give the weight, jockey, trainer, ground etc when trying to assess how a horse will perform in a given race. Plus a football team is playing one other team so the possible results are fewer compared to a race that will have a field of around 10 runners or so. Football teams also have a lot more 'events' than a racehorse. A horse generally runs only a few times a season whereas a football team will play around 40-50 games giving you much more data to work with. The one thing football lacks compared to horse racing though is an SP, I really miss that. But there are mroe markets for football so more opportunities to look for value while still keeping things pretty simple.

[John]

I've had a bit of a thought with regard to your under/over system ideas as well. As it's a very simple idea of mine, chances are you will have probably tried it out already. But how does backing under 2.5 goals fair with teams playing each other in the bottom half of a league? Or even reducing it further and say the bottom quarter of a league? Teams in the bottom half who play each other doesn't always produce a very exciting game, and by the same token they sometimes/frequently (trying to choose my words carefully here...) have fewer goals in them.

First thing's first though are the exceptions to the rules you have to deal with. Let's suppose Pos. 14 (H) plays Pos. 22 (A) one could argue that Pos. 14 would win the match. This could still be a dodgy qualifying bet though, since Pos. 14 could be a much stronger team/in a good run of form, compared to the team sat in Pos. 22. They could win 3 or 4-0. So you could rule this out of your criteria. However, if Pos. 22 are the home team (against Pos. 14 (A)) one could again argue that the teams are in closer proximity ability-wise to each other so there's more chance of a deadlock. So then this could be a more justifiable betting proposition.

But just going back to my initial point, let's say Pos. 17 play Pos. 18, one could argue there'd be very few goals. Assuming that both teams are in poor form, morale is low, neither team are really setting out to win the game. 0-0, 1-0, 1-1 could easily be a very likely scoreline.

A (possible) drawback for this is that there would be less matches to bet on. Not really a drawback, depends how you look at it I guess... plus you would also have to investigate previous meetings between clubs A and B and how they've performed against each other in the past. You could use a percentage rule here whereby supposing they've both met 10 times previously: if 5 or more of those matches resulted in the scoreline total being <2.5 goals then it could qualify as a bet.

My English is rubbish today but I hope I've made clear what I mean.

[mathare]

I've had a bit of a thought with regard to your under/over system ideas as well. As it's a very simple idea of mine, chances are you will have probably tried it out already. But how does backing under 2.5 goals fair with teams playing each other in the bottom half of a league? Or even reducing it further and say the bottom quarter of a league? Teams in the bottom half who play each other doesn't always produce a very exciting game, and by the same token they sometimes/frequently (trying to choose my words carefully here...) have fewer goals in them.

First off I'm not sure I agree with your hypothesis here (are the teams down in the depths of the league because of poor attack or poor defence? If the latter there could be a lot of goals if both sides have a tendency to concede too easily) but then it's an idea that could be tested, but for the fact it involves a lot of work.

How do you know a team is in the bottom half/quarter of the league? To automate the back-testing of this you need to effectively calculate a league table after each set of matches, compute a position for each team and then match them up according to your criteria. Way too complicated for the systems I am looking at right now.

First thing's first though are the exceptions to the rules you have to deal with.

The best thing to do is start simple and look at filters (exceptions) after that. But the basic system itself ought to look reasonable before considering tweaks to it.

[John]

If both teams' defences are poor though, it doesn't automatically mean that their attack is going to be good. It all depends if the poor defence is a comparison to the attack or not, or whether the forwards are just as bad as the defenders.

My point about back-testing the scorelines was less geared to their league positions at the time, and more geared towards the sum of the scorelines. If 7 from 10 matches between Teams A and B resulted in less than 2.5 goals being scored, then that alone could be a good enough qualifier for a bet without even taking their respective league positions at the time into consideration.

But then as you say, that'd be more like you using your opinion and not adhering to a set of rules which takes it away from a system and starts to turn it into a method.

[MattR]

Don't want to hijack your thread Mat, so just a quick one here

John, why don't you test that on the forum, the basic idea of under 2.5 for all games between the bottom (half or quarter you decide) of the league. Take it from the current league position. I would suggest waiting at least 6-8 games into the season, so now's a good time to start. On the face of it there's some merit to it as a weak defence could be the fact of playing the better teams although a weak attack could be down to the same reason

[John]

Certainly an idea that I'd like to test at some point Matt, but I don't know if I have time at the moment to do it. I'll see...

I'm not sure which league(s) to go for either. On assumption, the lower league teams would be more profitable because the teams are a lot poorer. But then it's proportional/relative to two bottom Premiership/Championship teams playing against each other.

[mathare]

21st October 2009
It's been a while since I had anything to say in here. I haven't got that much to say today but I thought I ought to make another entry anyway.

The under/over systems have started up now and had their first few games. It was a fairly inauspicious start to the live paper trade but there is plenty of time to turn it round. And of course it's not real money that is being lost - that's the whole point of a paper trade. I'm confident that things will pick up in time as the work that has gone into these systems stands up to scrutiny. I am confident that they will come good despite a losing opener. There will be no big winners to boost the numbers though as under/over bets are for prices at or around evens so it will be a steady climb back to profitability I should imagine.

I have taken a few days off from the football systems to let my brain (and body) recover somewhat. In fact I have dug my PS2 out the loft, bought Gran Turismo 4 second-hand and have been playing that. Awesome game. I enjoyed GT3 but didn't realise how much better GT4 was!

Today I am back to gambling related activities though. I have started to realise recently that the spreadsheet that I use to record all my bets in could do so much more for me than it does already so I have set about updating it to get this information out of it. When discussing results on the forum it is much easier to talk about things in terms of points won or lost rather than actual cash amounts as everyone stakes differently so one of the things I have set about doing is working on getting the spreadsheet to output that kind of data in a nice format to make posting my results easier. It's complicated slightly by the fact that sometimes I don't get the full stake matched when using the exchanges. If my system stake is £10 and I only get £8 matched on a 2/1 winner then I have only won 1.6pts not 2pts and I need to have that reflected in my data. I'm getting there but I need to work out how best to display this data in the current structure of my workbook. I am also looking at simplifying some of the sheets I have in there and combining some of them to reduce the overall number as a few of them are so similar in structure that they could easily be combined. None of this really matters to anyone other than me of course but that's what I am up to. Plus it's keep my brain active and concentrating on gambling matters. I hope that once I am armed with the information I desire I can better decide whether anything should be dropped from my portfolio.

[John]

I haven't got that much to say today but I thought I ought to make another entry anyway.

And you still manage to write 500 words... :D

I have dug my PS2 out the loft, bought Gran Turismo 4 second-hand and have been playing that. Awesome game. I enjoyed GT3 but didn't realise how much better GT4 was!

I love car racing games; GT4 is awesome, I'll agree with you there. Have you played 5? I don't have a console, in fact I've never owned one and the pleasure I get out of playing on other people's (consoles, that is) makes me think I should perhaps buy my own.

[mathare]

I love car racing games; GT4 is awesome, I'll agree with you there. Have you played 5? I don't have a console, in fact I've never owned one and the pleasure I get out of playing on other people's (consoles, that is) makes me think I should perhaps buy my own.

It was only the adverts on TV for GT on the PSP that made me think about getting my PS2 out. I bought the GT3 edition so the console came bundled with GT3. I had planned on just playing that (GT3) but I can't find it - I may have traded it in years back when I used to play my PS2. So I ordered GT4 from Amazon marketplace instead. It was less than a fiver with postage so I was happy to pay that. And it's amazing. The B-Spec mode is an ace feature; it's like having the Stig driving for you.

Never played GT5, nope. Never even played on a PS3, or an XBox. And I've only played a Wii once or twice. I'm not a big gamer as I don't have the co-ordination to use the controllers that well. I have to use digital acceleration/brake on GT4 as I can't get that right in analog mode although I use analog steering. But things like Grand Theft Auto etc are beyond me as you need to use most of the buttons at once for some of it and I can't do that. Similarly I can't use keyboard and mouse together for PC games

[John]

I must start using Amazon Marketplace more, you can pick up some great bargains as you rightly have done. I'm in a similar situation to you as far as modern consoles go. I've only played on a PS3 a handful of times round a friend's house. Mainly FIFA 2009 [which is so realistic it's unreal] and some sort of boxing game which I kicked his ass at... you're repeatedly pressing buttons and trying combinations in boxing games and it's quite exhausting to play... achy hands!

I can't say I suffer from the mouse/keyboard combinations you mentioned. An example of this being playing Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2, both great war games where you use the keyboard to run/strafe and the mouse to pan around. It does take some getting used to though.

[mathare]

Y'see I can't play those footy games as I can't master any of the moves. I can't switch players, tackle, get the ball and then drop my shoulder to beat a man before putting a cross in and getting the striker's head on it. It takes way more coordination than I have so I end up fouling the opposition and when I do get the ball I kind of run at the other side and get tackled really easily so resort to longshots that never go anywhere near the goal. I don't have the deft touch required. I'm better with simple controls like point and click games such as Championship Manager, although I haven't played that for years now.

[scoobydoo]

Y'see I can't play those footy games as I can't master any of the moves. I can't switch players, tackle, get the ball and then drop my shoulder to beat a man before putting a cross in and getting the striker's head on it.

It sounds like I need to play you instead of the computer then Mat! :D

[John]

Y'see I can't play those footy games as I can't master any of the moves. I can't switch players, tackle, get the ball and then drop my shoulder to beat a man before putting a cross in and getting the striker's head on it. It takes way more coordination than I have so I end up fouling the opposition and when I do get the ball I kind of run at the other side and get tackled really easily so resort to longshots that never go anywhere near the goal. I don't have the deft touch required.

Does that remind you of any current managerless football teams?

[mathare]

Saturday 24th October 2009
Since I last made a proper entry in this gamblog I have spent some time tidying up and reformatting my betting records. I now have all profits calculated in both cash terms and a number of points. What's more my stats macros now pull out the profits in points too so I know how many points profit I made on any system, in any given month, in a particular year etc. I have also cross-checked all my stats figures to make sure they add up properly and I am pleased to say they do. This has put me in a very positive mindset. I've not finished the work I wanted to do on this spreadsheet but the work I have done so far has put me in a good position to add in the other features I had planned, which is nice. I think the new structure is much better too and am feeling very positive about many things now, despite recent downturns in my general wellbeing (but I don't want to dwell on that here).

Depending on how I feel over the next couple of days I should be able to finish off the improvements I had planned and will then be able to get much more meaningful information out of my spreadsheet, and get it easily too. Maybe some of that will find it's way in here as I will be able to analyse my portfolio much more readily.

Hopefully, once all that is done, I will find the self control to continue with some other projects I have been working on from time to time, one of which is very exciting but I don't want to reveal too much at this stage as it's still embryonic and will take quite a while to reach the stage where I am happy to announce any details.

[mathare]

Saturday 24th October 2009 (part two)
Nothing definite here but after an initial glance I'd say W2W lays and the Nine Or Less system will soon be dropped from my portfolio. The lays have been terrible recently and I have never really got the bank off the ground so it's a prime candidate to be dropped. Nothing official yet though but watch this space

[mathare]

25th October 2009
After yesterday's disastrous performance on the W2W lays, this one system accounting for around two-thirds of my loss on the lays, I have set about analysing the data to decide whether or not the system deserves a place in my portfolio. Have the recent results been a 'one off' as it were or are they a sign of a significant downturn and I should cut my losses and run? I have done much of this analysis manually but this is the sort of thing I want my spreadsheet to be able to produce automatically (well, at the push of a button) and I am well on my way towards that with the new structure but I haven't written all the code yet and I wanted to get this particular system checked out.

I started the system with a £200 bank back in November 2008 so it has had just shy of a year. The staking I used is my standard staking plan of 1% fixed stake working in 50p stake increments, rounding down, with a £2 minimum stake. So my initial stake is £2 and remains as such until the bank exceeds £250 at which point the stake increases to £2.50 where it remains till be bank is over £300 when I increase to £3 and so on. My bank peaked at £344.67 on the 11th April this year and reached a low of £117.18 yesterday.

The headline stats are:
1149 bets
983 winning bets
85.55% SR
-£80.82 profit
-25.71pts profit
-0.51% ROI
9.15% overlay

So you'll see my overlay is right where it should be, below 10%, so I am getting decent enough prices on the lays but the SR is just too low to achieve a profit.

I have created graphs of the SR and total profit (in cash and points terms) against time in an attempt to try and spot trends. This is difficult with any SR graph as it takes a while for the SR to settle down to anything like a true figure. That said, the graph does show a peak in the SR around March/April of this year and has fallen away since with a noticeable recent slump at the end of the graph. As one would expect this peak in the SR coincides with a peak on both the profit charts and as the SR drops so does the profit. Of course, these profit graphs are somewhat spiky as is the nature of lay betting but the overall trends are still quite visible and recently they are downwards.

So, has the worm turned for this system or is there a chance it could bounce back? I guess there is always a chance it could bounce back but I honestly don't see it doing so in the short-term based on the performance over the last six months and because of that I think I have to ditch it. As I said previously, I have kept the system going despite the recent rocky run because it adds to my turnover and so helps to reduce my commission but the gain from a slightly reduced commission isn't offset by the losses the system is suffering and so it has to go. My own False Favs system has made enough profit (in cash terms as I started it with a bigger bank) to counter the losses made by this system so overall I haven't lost out in a sense, but I could do without drains on my Betdaq account at present as I am topping that up far more regularly than I am happy with at the minute. I usually maintain quite a small balance in all my bookies and exchange accounts so that any unused balance sits in my account rather than theirs but I am still depositing into Betdaq more than I would like to have to do at present. Dropping this system will hopefully help on that front too.

[mathare]

27th October 2009
Why do I do this to myself? Why do I have to be so curious about various systems and tipping services? I always want to know if a system/service that keeps being plugged is profitable or not as I am always looking to improve the bottom line of my betting portfolio. And is is this curiosity that has put me in the position I am in now - reading through a couple of years of blog entries trying to extract the suggested lays for a lay service I have seen promoted quite heavily recently. I won't name it here as I don't wish to provide free advertising but I do want to know if it is profitable as I have been sent promo literature on it for months now, and not from the usual affiliate sources either. Some of it is from sources I trust, but obviously I don't trust them enough to take their word for it which is why I am manually entering thousands of lays into a spreadsheet for further analysis. And if that wasn't enough the prices given for each lay are just guideline prices - I want to see how profitable (or otherwise) the lays are to Betfair SP which is just creating more work for myself as I will then have to go back through the list of all the lays recording the BSPs too.

At least at the end of all of this (which will take several days) I will have satisfied my curiosity and will know once and for all whether this service that is being promoted so heavily is worth considering or not.

As well as this I am continuing the development of my own betting records spreadsheet. That's going rather nicely and I am really proud of some of the code I have written for it. Soon I expect it to be fully functional and to be able to analyse systems in seconds, automatically producing all the pertinent stats and information as well as creating the sort of graphs I attached when I analysed the W2W lays. Then I can really get a good look at how some of the systems/services I am following are doing...

[mathare]

27th October 2009 (part two)
I'm now wondering if I am wasting my time. I spent an hour or so surfing the web idly earlier, taking a break from monotonous data entry, and found plenty of people with bad things to say about the lay system I am looking into and the people who publish/market it. Hmm.

I may redirect my efforts elsewhere, focusing on improving my portfolio with the addition of systems recommended by people I trust and also looking at more ways in which I can add cash to the bottom line myself...

[mathare]

27th October 2009 (part three)
My curiosity is pretty much sated now, which is nice. I have copied out around 1000 bets from a blog and added that to the data I already had for this service (although the provenance of that data is potentially questionable) to give me a picture extending from the end of June 2007 to the present day.

The figures aren't great, I must admit. The SR is 76.43% with 3457 losing selections (winning bets) from 4253. The ROI using the recommended staking plan (fixed stake varying the percentage stake with the odds) is 1.13% and to level stakes is 0.57%. So it's profitable IF the prices they have given for each bet (as guideline prices) are anything like. If the attainable prices are higher then the ROI is obviously reduced. But the main question I wanted to know was whether the profit generated from a £500 starting bank would cover the £500 a year costs for the system. In the two and a bit years I have looked at the system generates a profit of £1066.27 from a £500 starting bank (which is what I would use for a new lay system) and using their guideline prices. As you can see that only just covers two years worth of subscriptions to the service so not the length of time I have data for so we're not covering costs with that starting bank. And that's using the suggested staking plan too, whereas I prefer to use levels, which produced a profit of around £787.

So to cover costs I'd need a larger starting bank, which I am not prepared to do for this service anyway. And in working through today's little exercise I noted a few other points about the service, mainly the lack of professionalism. For example:

• the selections are in a blog rather than on a dedicated website
• days have been missed due to other commitments - for £500 a year I expect the owner of this service to deliver every day except in emergencies
• there are no results to SP/BSP
• no dedicated website - for a £500 a year system I'd expect it to have such a site with a URL reflecting the service name
• it's difficult to find anything official on the web for this service, no SEO considerations
• the profits quoted on their website, which as I say is not easy to find, exclude commission
• analysis is provided for some races but not others due to time commitments indicating this service isn't top priority for whoever runs it
• some horse names are not as per the racecard suggesting they aren't using software that downloads official racecard info

The one thing I wanted to do but haven't is examine the data using BSP. But I don't think it's worth it given it's not sufficiently profitable to their guideline prices.

As I said earlier I won't name the guilty service as it's not fair but I am pleased I have gone through this exercise now. At least I know now what the service is like without having to part with a penny.

[buddhabee]

Mat. I hope you don't mind me butting in, but that £500 system doesn't sound good to me. If I were you I would try something Merlin alluded to here http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/showp...1&postcount=20

I have tried a couple of times with a bank with one lay a day and on both occasions the bank rose very nicely for the 3-4 months I was doing them. The first one I tried started with £70 with a FL of £50. That bank rose to £800. I lost it all after losing my discipline (greed) and tried some really stupid big lays. The second one I started with £1000 with a stake of 2% of the bank. That bank more than doubled before again I lost my discipline and the profit disappeared.

But I proved that strategy can work and I'll try it again sometime.

Pick out one lay from your False Favs for a one-lay-a-day bank. I'm sure that with your discipline you could make it pay. I'd rather try that than hand over £500 a year to someone for lays I could work out for myself. Best of luck for the future whatever you decide.

[mathare]

Mat. I hope you don't mind me butting in, but that £500 system doesn't sound good to me

I don't mind at all :) And I agree that the system doesn't sound good but I am a naturally curious person (which is probably what led me into a career as a software tester - always looking for ways to break software) and wanted to assure myself that it wasn't worth it. I spoke to the guys at the Secret Betting Club about this particular service a few months ago and they were fairly neutral about it but for all the reasons I gave above I am now rather negative on this service. It's simply not value for money.

Pick out one lay from your False Favs for a one-lay-a-day bank. I'm sure that with your discipline you could make it pay.

Fair play to you for making it work previously but I'm not sure of the rationale behind it. If you have a number of quality lays why pick one for a one-a-day system? Why limit yourself to one a day if there are many equally rated lays? I don't have the concept of a ranking when picking my False Favs so it would be very difficult to pick out the most likely loser from that lot for a one-a-day system so why not lay them all as I am doing (quite successfully) at present?

[buddhabee]

Keep your current False Fav bank going with all your lays, but open another bank (with some of that £500 they want to take off you!) and just pick out one of them each day to lay in that bank. You'll still have your full quota of lay banks +1.

With a one-lay-a-day bank you'll find the strike rate increasing allowing you to increase the liability with more confidence. :)

[Street cry]

I don't see any benefit in taking one lay from the main batch per day. If all are under the same criteria like Mats false favs there is nothing particularly beneficial about it.

Why would strike rate improve ???

[mathare]

I don't see any benefit in taking one lay from the main batch per day. If all are under the same criteria like Mats false favs there is nothing particularly beneficial about it.

It's not just me then - thanks SC

[mathare]

28th October 2009
I have just about completed the planned updates to my betting record spreadsheet and I must say that I am mightily impressed by what I have been able to get it to do now. And in adding these new features I have cleaned my data up too, which is always good news.

Not that this will mean much to any of you because the format of one's betting records are very much a matter of personal preference and I doubt any of you have yours structured in exactly the same way as I have mine but I want to describe the new features I have added. If nothing more maybe they will inspire some of you to think about your data in more detail and perhaps look at ways of extending your own records to be able to obtain the same information as I now can.

I have my betting records split across a number of sheets. I have one for systems, one for lays, one for sports bets, another for trades, another for spreads etc etc. On each sheet I record the details of each appropriate bet. I wanted a way of quickly analysing a given system or bet type. For example, all the Jumping for Profit system bets I have made or the W2W lays, or all sports bets from a particular tipster. I could always get a list of the bets using the filtering functions in Excel but I also wanted things like the ROI, overlay, longest losing run (LLR) and longest winning run (LWR) and in the case of poker/casino betting to know my win rate. I also wanted to see how these thing change with time so I can more easily review the performance of a system/service. The new VBA code I have written does all this, and more!

I simply select the sheet, system and bookie/exchange combination I am interested in, click a button and a few seconds later I have all the information at my fingertips. On one sheet I have a copy of all the bets with total profit, SR etc calculated after each one. On another sheet I have all the main stats (number of bets, winners, SR, profit, ROI, LLR, LWR, overlay, average odds etc) and graphs for some of these main stats all automatically created for me. Using this I can quickly and easily compare systems, see when systems I have dropped from my portfolio started to go wrong and use that to guide whether I should tighten up my bank barrier settings on other systems, compare my cash and tourney poker win rates and so on. I can compare my ROI at Bet365 with that for William Hill, for example. If I do that for all the backing systems I have since dropped from my portfolio I see my ROI at William Hill is -18.40% while at Bet365 it is -4.07%. I have known for ages that I do MUCH better at Bet365 than William Hill but now I have quantitative evidence of that rather than just raw profit figures. I'm not saying I would turn down a good price at William Hill in favour of a worse one at Bet365 but it reinforces some ideas I already had about which bookies I do best at. I can look at any trends in the SR, ROI etc for the Lay'em system (or any other system). I can see where the bank for any system reached a new high and where it hit new lows. And all this at the push of a button and in a few seconds.

Information can be very powerful in this game. It helps me optimise my portfolio to make sure I get the best out of the good systems and lose as little as possible on the poorer systems.

I have also resurrected and spruced up some old features I had started to write months back. As well as the normal stats breakdown I have for every system on a summary page (separate to that mentioned above) I have a monthly breakdown too so I can see which months of the year are best for me in terms of SR and profit (in cash terms and as a number of points). Plus I now have a daily breakdown of my bets, showing the number of bets, winners, SR and profit on each and every day since I started my betting records over 5 years ago. That is also split into W2W Systems, W2W Lays and Other. As this is the W2W forum it makes sense for me to be able to quickly and easily share with you how I have done on the W2W systems and lays on any given day, plus summarise my other (non-W2W) betting activities. For example, to the end of yesterday I am down 36.70pts on the W2W systems, that includes the eBooks and members' systems that I follow (which is not all of them) by the way. I am down 48.46pts on the W2W lays this month but that includes a period following the main W2W lay system which I have since ditched so that performance should improve.

I am really pleased I have got my records into the state they are now. I feel much better equipped to tackle life as a semi-pro gambler, armed with all the information I could possibly need.