Test System Portfolio Update
After a good few years of posting system selections free for OCP Gold and Platinum members, in late August this year, I took the plunge and started a Tipping Service (www.winningsystems.co.uk). No doubt you will have seen a good few emails promoting it and thankfully, plenty of people signed up and for that I am grateful.
It has been a mixed few months, with a lovely and consistent first 6 weeks, followed by a stop go start to the NH and A/W season. Happily though, we are still well ahead of the game, and we can hopefully all look forward to a profitable 2023 together.
However, it has to be said, in this game, we can never rest on our laurels and especially when it comes to systems, it is important that we continue our research to come up with something new to add to the portfolio or to replace a system that may be at the end of its days.
With that in mind, at the end of September, I had a major review of all of my Proform systems, systems that I have developed over the last decade or so. Many of you will know, I have been a Proform user for a long time, I really can't remember how long, but I would say I first used it perhaps in 2007 or 2008 (or even earlier!)?
It is the cornerstone for all of my betting and systems development, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Anyway, when I set the option to run all of my existing systems (there were a lot!) for the last 5 years, I was surprised how well some had stood the test of time.
I decided to have a clear out of those that had never got past the development stage or had failed my trials and concentrated on the remaining group. I ran them for the previous 12 months and saw some very exciting results.
My focus then was on re-understanding the parameters for each of those with potential and weeding out any that may have been back fitted or had the odd outlier in terms of a single winning bet at very high odds. In the early days, it was very easy to keep amending a system until you saw profitable results and then believe that system was ‘the holy grail'. It never was! So that saw some more removed and then it was a case of selecting a portfolio of systems that complemented each other.
One of my biggest failures as a betting person, is not having a big enough bank or setting my stakes too high for the bank that I have (both amount to the same thing obviously). Then, when losing runs occur, I feel the pressure as I see my bank diminish and I lose confidence. That is really exacerbated when systems have a low strike rate and the lower the strike rate, the longer the losing runs.
So, having some systems that have a high strike rate to hopefully offset those at the lower end was also very important.
A mix across the codes and seasons was also needed for all year round selections and interest.
In the end, I selected 18 systems, and they fall into 5 main groups:
- Ratings (my own and Proform)
- Sires
- Trainers (using PRB)
- In Running Comments
- A/W Pace
The plan then was to use a betting BOT to place my bets, as there could be up to 30 or more per day.
It is a very simple process to download the bets from Proform, into a .csv file and to link that file to The Bet Engine (or any other automated betting tool). That software is connected to Betfair and places the bets automatically.
If all goes well, I hope to let the process run for 12 months, backing each selection at just €1 and to record the results to BSP.
At the end of that year (it started at the beginning of October 2022, so the end of September 2023), I am hoping that based on Profit/ROI/Strike Rate, I will have proved that some of these systems are worthy of adding to the Winning Systems portfolio or setting up as a separate entity for a new BOT group, and based on the data, sensible and different stakes could be used across a portfolio to maximise profits.
After just over 2 months, 12 of the 18 systems have had bets and of those 7 are in profit at this point.
There is a huge difference in profitability so far though, with the worst system at -16 points and the best at +15.
Overall, it is losing, but that is mainly because the very low strike rate systems (less than 6% S/R) have had few or no winners yet, but they still have nearly10 months to rectify that.
One thing is very clear, it is not for the faint hearted.
There are some great spells (90 points profit in 8 successive winning days), but plenty of losing runs over multiple days too. Bank management is absolutely critical!
As always, I am monitoring results at various levels (Race Code, Class, Number of Runners etc.) and one that has really caught my eye at the moment is Price.
At the time of writing (8 December), if only backing selections that are 4/1 or less (5.0 BSP), the returns are excellent:
335 Selections, 124 Winners, 37.01% S/R, 54.29 Points Profit and 16.21% ROI.
Obviously, it is very early days, anything could happen in the next 10 or so months, but I would be very disappointed if something positive did not come out of it.
Watch this space for more updates in the coming months.
Good luck.
Kieran
Note: Kieran posts all the selections from these systems in the On Course Profits Platinum members area each morning. You can upgrade here