Following up the successful 2016 Summer League Campaign, here is our complete report on the 2016-17 Winter League Campaign, based on 18 different top flight leagues.
2016-17 Winter League Profit Curve
We will try to avoid repeating what was said in the summer league article so that it is all new information for you here.
For the sake of completeness, you should still read and digest both reports for a full idea of our strategies and thought processes.
And you will find the current stock of available HDAFU tables via this link.
2016-17 Campaign Report
Measures of Risk
Before beginning to plan any portfolio or placing bets, you will need to review your analyses and rank the systems you have found according to risk exposure based on the values of the upper inflection point odds.
This will allow you to compile a portfolio with a healthy balance of risk, which is essential to the success of any investment plan.
Here is our rough guide:
- Low Risk (Probability 45.00% or more; upper inflection point maximum odds of 2.22)
- Low-medium Risk (Probability 44.99%-35.00%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 2.85)
- Medium Risk (Probability 34.99%-22.50%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 4.44)
- Medium-high Risk (Probability 22.99%-16.00%; upper inflection point maximum odds of 6.25)
- High Risk (Probability 15.99% or less; upper inflection point odds above 6.25)
Discretion is used if a system does not fit these parameters or crosses two or more classifications – In these cases, the harmonic mean odds of all the games in the set is used as the benchmark to guage risk. The Excel formula for a range of odds in cells A1 to A100 would be: =HARMEAN(A1:A100)
Measures of Success
You will also need a definitive framework to be able to judge the final results.
For us, the final results of any league fall into four distinct categories:
- Systems that achieve a six-season-high (i.e. profits larger than any of the previous five seasons). (Over-Achievers).
- Those that make a profit over and above the size of the initial stake (£100 in our case), but fall short of six-season-high results. (Achievers).
- Strategies that break-even or, record a tiny profit or loss up to the size of the initial stake (£100 in our case). (Zero-Sum).
- Leagues that make a loss over and above the size of the initial stake. (Losers).
You can already see that two of these outcomes are favourable, one is neutral, and only one is detrimental.
2016-17 League-by-League Review
Let’s have a brief look at each league to see how our 22 systems fared. (Alphabetically according to the tab codes in the workbook):
1. AUS1 – Austria Bundesliga – Whole Season System
Only eight of 28 bets won, but this was enough to see a profit of £882.00. Hit rate and yield were both below the calculated averages and the resultant profit figure was lower than any of the five previous seasons’ figures.
Result: Achiever
2. BEL1 – Belgium Jupiler League – Whole Season System
Up to, but not including Europa League and Championship Group splits
Both the estimated hit rate (33 out of 97 bets won) and yield figures were surpassed by wide margins, leading to a six-season-high profit figure of £3,108.00.
Result: Over-Achiever
3. CZE1A – Czech Republic 1. Liga – First Half Season System
Up to the 04/12/2016 winter break
Nine out of 22 bets won, and whilst the hit rate and yield both outstripped expectations, the profit figure settled at £1,247.00, the fourth largest in the last six seasons.
Result: Achiever
4. CZE1B – Czech Republic 1. Liga – Second Half Season System
From 18/02/2017 start of the second half of the season
This one suffered its worst result in the last six seasons, but the resultant loss was minimal at -£310.00.
Result: Loser
5. DEN1A – Denmark Superligaen – First Half Season System
This was the only system employed in this league purely because the format of the second half of the 2016-17 season was to change from previous seasons.
Although hit rate and yield were both below estimates, the system still recorded its third highest total for six seasons at £1,238.00.
There were twice as many bets than expected (largely due to the fact that around 40% more games than usual were played in the first half of the season to accommodate the new second half season format).
Result: Achiever
6. ENG1 – England Premier League – Whole Season System
This system suffered the longest losing streak we have ever encountered, almost 14% worse than expected, for a very painful 36 straight losses. (A six-season-low).
However, the situation was mostly recovered by three big winners all carrying odds of over 12.00, for a final loss of just -£32.00.
The last six bets of the season lost, but had only one of these been a winner, this system would have returned a profit. Small margins.
Result: Zero-Sum
7. FRA1 – France Ligue 1 – Whole Season System
Hit rate and yield were both below par, but the league turned in a steady performance for a profit of £1,634.00, ranked fifth largest in the last six seasons.
Result: Achiever
8. FRA2 – France Ligue 2 – Whole Season System
The same story as France Ligue 1, but with a profit of £2,801.00, for its third largest profit figure in six seasons.
This one was unusual for a much higher number of bets than expected. (215 vs. 119 estimate – Profit was at £2,523.00 after 119 bets).
Result: Achiever
9. GER1A – Germany Bundesliga 1 – First Half Season System
Up to 21/12/2016 winter break
Another below par system, but one that still achieved a profit of £1,098.00. (Fourth largest in six seasons).
Result: Achiever
10. GER1B – Germany Bundesliga 1 – Second Half Season System
From 20/01/2017 start of the second half of the season
The very rare inclusion of a system with two non-profitable seasons (the oldest two) in the previous five.
It featured one more bet than expected, which won, to total one more winner than expected. Hit rate and yield both exceeded estimates for a profit of £1,294.00. (Fourth largest in six seasons).
Result: Achiever
11. GRE1 – Greece Super League – Whole Season System
The hit rate here was almost 8% below estimate and resulted in the worst performance for six seasons, and a loss of -£819.00.
Result: Loser
hi
Points H/R % Exp H/R %
Austria -1.55 21.43% 27.08%
Belgium -0.56 40.00% 53.05%
Czech -2.50 20.00% 32.79%
Denmark -7.64 18.75% 38.95%
England -6.00 0.00% 17.83%
France 1 5.36 57.14% 49.01%
France 2 -10.82 15.00% 37.00%
Germany 4.85 36.36% 27.02%
Greece -2.24 40.00% 62.53%
Italy -3.00 0.00% 51.40%
Netherlands -4.40 11.11% 28.35%
Poland 4.00 21.05% 27.32%
Russia 0.33 55.56% 61.88%
Scotland 2.71 58.33% 53.10%
Spain 3.25 40.00% 32.84%
Switzerland -4.00 33.33% 53.17%
Turkey 1.29 50.00% 48.48%
(H/R=Hit rate)
As shown above, Denmark, England and France 2 are letting me down badly which account for just over 24 points down.Only 7 out of 17 in credit at the moment and I’m 21 points down in total. Most systems are just 1 or 2 results away from being in profit in these early days.
I know everyone will have different inflection points but I would imagine the systems chosen will be mostly similar. Anyone having similar issues with a some of their choices?
Hi timmyp,
the last two weeks have been quite disappointing in almost everything, with most of the best looking systems having long series of losses. Ligue 2 was very bad with draws (only one draw in two weeks), same as Netherlands, a very promising system with a very bad start that hopefully will recover on the way. Austria, same story, very promising yet disappointing so far. Poland, started with huge profits, now facing a very long negative streak. England bad start as well, with my underdogs struggling greatly, with 1 on 12 bets won. Bad first week in Italy as well, with many favourites losing their games. Slightly recovered on the last week. So far i have been on a loss for this and the last week, losing a chunk of the profits i made previously. On the 18th of August my profits touched the 14,000 euro mark. I am now sitting on little more than 9,000 profit after this very bad betting weeks. Thanks to the stop loss strategy i saved a portion of my profit and i could still endure more weeks of bad “luck” (i hope it will not be the case though). Yesterday 7 out of 10 of my last bets won, showing maybe an end to this catastrophic negative period.
My confidence in the system i chose never wavered not even for one second, even on the thoughest losing streaks. I did my homeworks before investing the money, i fully understood the concept behind it and i am now fully prepared to enjoy the final outcome tham i am sure will be worth all the emotional rollercoaster. I am sure that if you chose the right system with the right balance, and invested a sufficient amount of money in the strategy, nothing can go wrong. In the long run, the math will take over, so don’t worry.
By the way, my current hit rate is 31.79% versus a forecasted hit rate of 38.48%. Not amazing, but the sinergy is doing a perfect job on keep the system strong.
Stay positive and confident, and good luck for your season!
Similar experiences here, plus another three weeks where one round broke even and two lost heavily. I’m starting to bother a little bit though I know a lot about variances from playing poker and backgammon, My summer leagues portfolio went pretty well until summer but is also going down slightly for the last four weeks.
I made some stats with the odds, just comparing expected nominell hit rate (converting odds into probability) with current hit rate. It looks like all bets from 1.6 – 2.2 are running as expected, 2.21 – 2.4 is way below average, 2.61 – 3.00 is avg., 3.01 – 3.60 again ways below avg. 3.61 – 5.00 is avg. again, and all above 5.01 is running badly.
This fits to the current statistics of several leagues, France 2 probably with a historical low draw rate and some other leagues also with a very bumpy start in the first 5 to 8 rounds.
In the summer league portfolio I’m suffering from Norway and Brasil which is not unexpected if you carefully read the article from Right Winger regarding last years results.
For me, after a cracking start, and very healthy profits (23 points) after 4 weeks, I have had 5 straight losing weeks, where almost every betting day has been losing or break even at best. So, to not have had a winning day in 5 weeks is very tough on the patience and morale….and now I’m running at a loss of about 6 points of profit, with 2 games pending this evening.
The France Ligue 2 draw system is performing terribly right now, with 13 straight losses in the odds range I have chosen. That losing streak is higher than the longest losing streak occurring over the last 5 years.
In addition to that, the Netherlands draw system has seen 2 draws for me in 17 games.
Those 2 systems added together account for where most of my losses have come from.
To date I hadn’t been increasing stakes when winning, or reducing them whilst in the losing streaks. The reason being this is the first time that I have run a portfolio and wanted to keep things simple, plus a flat staking strategy should be fine given the evidence at hand to show the betting strategy is sound and profitable.
I think now after these 5 losing weeks, it would be stupid not to cut back the stakes a little at least until this method shows me it can win again. So I think I will just use Zero profit/loss as my trigger point and then reduce stakes by the 5% chunks based on what I actually am in deficit this week, then proceed from there.
This is certainly a test of discipline, patience and resolve…but I will plug away and see what happens!
Hi Simon,
I checked my Summer campaign and it was not an easy ride either. It was a bumpy ride from the start. Balance was in little profit and loss twice for about 2 weeks each period, 2 months in total. And then the “fifth” period had negative balance for 6 weeks – I was going down for 3 weeks and it took next 3 weeks to return from -1000 to positive balance again. Since then the curve rose pretty steeply with brief struggles and I didn’t have negative balance since the start of June. Before that, my strategy struggled for 3,5 months. The portfolio balance is not the best – most of strategies are medium risk, but there is not much of a season left and it should still make some money.
My Winter league campaign has a better risk balance, but its obvious, me and some of us will need patience again. My highest balance was 3660 units. I lost 4000 units since. But when I think about frustrating time with winter leagues, I ask myself one question: had my balance been 10000, 20000 before i lost those 4000, would I worry about it? And the answer is no. So I’m not worried there is something wrong with my strategy, because there isn’t, the only thing that is annoying is those 2 months so far were a waste of time regarding profitability, but from the other side, I gained some experience and this is good.
Jo,
Just following up on your last reply now that this round of games is almost over. I have to say that right now I’m feeling very disheartened with the way things are going – bearing in mind this is the first time I have run something as detailed and complex as a portfolio style of betting – and not for the want of trying. I have been diligent with bet placement and making sure I take only bets that fit that system, and that qualifying bets are not missed. So at my end I am doing everything in my power to make this a success. Sadly, results are not just going my way.
At the end of week 4, I had accrued 23.72 points of profit. But from that point on I have suffered 6 straight losing weeks and now am running at a loss of 17.63 points. That’s a swing of just over 40 points – pretty hefty and crushing loss.
So yes, at this point I am feeling quite soul destroyed, as what started out so promisingly has fast become something to be concerned about in terms of its actual profitability. Will it actually make a profit?!
As mentioned previously I have 23 systems overall, 13 systems running now; 4 of which are whole season, and 9 half season. 5 of the 13 are making a small profit. 1 is making a very good profit – Poland underdog system. Yet the remaining 6 are losing, and losing heavily.
Netherlands draw system is running at 2 wins out of 22 (9% hit rate) for a loss of 11 points. Projected hit rate is 27.5%
Spain underdog system is running at 4 wins from 27 (14.8% hit rate) for a loss of 10.5 points. Projected hit rate is 27.66%
France Ligue 2 draw system is running at 7 wins from 32 (21.88% hit rate for a loss of 10.5 points. Projected hit rate is 39.42%
Turkey favourite system is also running at a loss, 7 wins from 21 for 33.33%, and a loss of 6 points. Projected hit rate is 49.16%
Another couple are running at minor losses.
So, all in all, I am seeing 3 systems that have raked in profits over the last 5 years that are all failing big time early on, which is decimating the overall picture.
Initially, my view was to just bet 1% (1 point) which to me is £50, and not adjust it up or down. The reason being that a solid betting strategy should succeed by betting flat stakes and not become a loser if a stop loss or ratchet isn’t employed. I understand that by not using a ratchet I may not make as much profit, but for this being my first time at this, I want to just keep everything as simple as possible.
The thing is though, the option is there to throw in the towel and cut my losses. The determined part of me wants to plug away at it. It would be awful if I threw in the towel only to go on a winning streak over many weeks. However, I’m confused as to whether I should now cut back on the stakes a bit, or stick at the current level. If I recalculated on 1% of bankroll for each stake I would be betting £40 (rounded down a touch) rather than £50. I did run a simulation (on a sheet I made myself) to see where my stakes would be had I employed a stop loss, and although it makes little difference to the amount lost in total, the stakes should now be around £40.
The thing is, I think to myself, 6 losing weeks in a row, surely a winning week is around the corner?! Can things get any worse than the measly 25% hit rate for the portfolio over the last 2 weeks?! It could of course be the case that the losing streak continues, and betting smaller stakes would keep me in the game longer. But….and it’s a big but, the longer the losing streak goes on for, the less time each system has to recover, as time is ticking away in terms of the winter break being the cut off for the 1st half systems. And also, if I cut back stakes, then it takes me longer to make back the losses.
Anyway, sorry for rambling on, but my conviction with staying the course is wavering a little and as such am in a quandary as how to best proceed!
Any advice on moving forward would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Hi Simon,
i am in a position similar to yours. I had an amazing profit in the first month of the system, after which everything started to collapse, and i went negative. I stopped the system at a 10 unit loss, and i will tell you why. I tried to analyze what was going bad with the actual system. Infact, it was not a matter of “waiting the next good run” anymore because the swings caused by this negative weeks were far too big to be considered healty and normal. So from my point of view, the system have already failed. One thing i know is i cant doubt of the attendibility of the tables. And i can blame the leagues for showing an incredible amount of deviation from the mean. But then i realized one important thing. The balance of my portfolio was off. I was realizing all my losses are coming from medium and higher systems. I realized that i don’t have enough low risk systems to fight the losing streaks that are killing me. I have to depend on this kind of odds to survive and that is just not healty. So i took a step back, unplugged the faulty system and i am currently working on my 2.0 portfolio, implementing all that i have already experienced on my skin. Now i am building my portfoliolio around the best low risk system i can find, and not the other way around. I understand the concept of balancing the portfolio a bit better and now i can really feel the imbalance from the systems. When i will finish my new portfolio (hopefully before the start of the next betting week) i will take it from there. All this to say, sometimes is good to take a step back and try to improve what is causing you problems. If a portfolio is suffering from medium/high odds negative streaks, counter-balancing it with more low risk system can save your profits.
Good luck and stay positive!
Sad to report same here… I had an incredibly, incredibly disappointing week, with absolutely all of my 12 systems accumulating heavy losses. All in all, I lost more than 20 stakes (points) last week! All my winnings from the previous two successful weeks are out of the window. This is very dishearting and perhaps someone can shed some light on why this can be happening. I have almost 10% lower overall hitrate than the projected one (29 vs 38 percent) and cannot endure another destructive week like the last one. How is it even possible that all of the systems enter prolonged losing streaks at the same time???
Hi All,
Some feedback on my experience thus far. My portfolio consists of 22 systems; 4 of which are whole season, and 18 1st half/2nd half. This means I have 13 systems currently in play.
The campaign started well enough and after 4 complete game weeks my profit sat at 23.72 points. Since then it has declined such that it now sits at 3.22 points. There may be another couple of games to bet tomorrow, so that figure may change slightly up or down.
Looking at the systems:
Whole Season: Expected/Actual Hit rate (%) Profit/Loss (points)
Belgium – Home win: 54.97/42.86 -0.46
France Ligue 2: Draw: 39.42/29.43 -5.51
Portugal – Underdog 28.85/42.86 +2.68
Turkey – Favourite: 49.16/35.29 -3.91
1st Half:
England – Draw: 41.13/33.33 +0.55
Czech Republic – Draw: 39.57/30 +1.49
France Ligue 1 – Favourite: 53.46/48 +1.325
Germany – Underdog: 30.71/35 +10.59
Italy – Favourite: 61.67/63.64 +1.66
Netherlands – Draw: 27.51/5.56 -13.45
Poland – Underdog: 29.35/25 +10.35
Russia – Favourite: 61.9/54.55 +0.375
Spain – Underdog: 27.66/20 -2.47
Well, as you can see from the above I have some good performers, some break even performers, small and medium losers (France Ligue 2, Turkey)….and then…..one system that is single handedly wrecking the joint….Netherlands draw system, clicking at just over 5.5% and making a monumental dent in my profits. Part of me wants to just drop that system and move on, but….it’s early days and I’m telling myself, “Surely it must recover from such a low hit rate?!”. In other words, I will trust the analysis and hope for a recovery from that system in the coming weeks. It seems like the top 6-8 teams in the Eridivisie have come out on fire to start the season and are winning every game resulting in very few draws in my odds range.
The expected hit rate for the portfolio as a whole is 44.17%, while the actual hit rate is 34.75%. So 9% under expectations. The last 4 weeks has seen a hit rate of just 30.42%. So really I feel like being in a slump at the moment.
I have flat bet everything for 1 point to date. But also have run the same results through the ratchet/stop loss comparison, and the difference between the profit and loss figures is very small – so wouldn’t have helped me out much. Although next week I may actually lower stakes in line with the comparison just in case another bad week is ahead!
So overall, I am disappointed to have seen my profits pretty much set back to zero, but, after such a poor 4 weeks (which have been pretty horrendous), and to still not have lost any of my initial bankroll, I like to feel that an upturn is not far away and things shall improve….optimism…..we shall see.
Good luck everyone!
Hi Simon,
if you bought winter league campaign you can see that the last 4 weeks were losing weeks. And they can happen at any time, right from the start. Nothing uncommon with your campaign:). In Eredivisie I won 1 bet out of 18 and have similar results to yours. But a high odds win is just a matter of time, just make sure not to miss any bet.
To me it’s also sad, since sometimes I found myself thinking, these 8 and now 9 weeks were waste of time because profits dropped to almost 0, but there is not much we can do. Just keep going and as Right Winger said, statistics will not line up in a nice pattern.
In my Summer league campaign I decided to quit betting 1st half of one league since the strategy also performed poorly – 27% actual hit rate vs 59% predicted average and unpleasantly negative balance after 22 bets. I read about it here that you must continue to the end, however, I decided to quit. I kept simulation betting from 23rd bet and I had a winning streak of 6 bets right after that! I didn’t like to see the strategy failing with real money and then I was getting increasingly frustrated with each winning simulation bet! In the end, the system failed anyway, with a little bit smaller loss than I stopped, so, I didn’t care, but I don’t think I will ever quit any strategy before its finish date. It was a good lesson and emotional roller-coaster.
Jo,
Thanks for the response.
You are right with your comments. It is a shame to see profits dwindle away, but for me its just 230 bets approx. into a 1300 projected bets campaign. So plenty of time for results to swing my way.
I had a look at how the picture would be different if just a couple of draws in the Netherlands system had hit, and the picture is so much better. If an extra win in each of the other underperforming systems had hit, things would be looking very healthy indeed.
So after 4 weeks of poor results, I’m hoping this week sees a change in the pattern and some good results come in and things really start to take off.
I noticed through reading the £20k campaign of RW/SW that they got off to a flying start and then from halfway through to the end, it was a lot of treading water. By halfway through their campaign they had made more than £20k.
So perhaps for us we will have a volatile start that gets better in the middle phase of the campaign. Time will tell.
But for me, it really is a test of patience and nerve, and trust the stats for the long term!
Hi all,
I arrived a little late to the party and have just completed my third week. The first 2 weeks were tough – 5 points lost in the first week and then 10 points lost in the second. Week 3 has seen me claw back 8 points so feeling more optimistic. For me Ligue 2 has been a disaster thus far. Just 2 wins from 17 bets and 10 points down. Germany and Italy have both given me 6 points profit and are the stand out performers so far.
This is my first season doing this and the whole concept appears sound and I’m enjoying the ride, despite a difficult start. Onwards and Upwards (I hope!).
Hi guys,
Musing here. In the dutch draw system, you might want to have a look at the individual results for some teams the last 5 seasons.
Check out Feyenoord playing at home and AZ and Vitesse playing away.
Cheers.
I have done this with all my systems, although have only excluded the single most unprofitable team in any given system. Feyenoord at home are an absolute no-go for me, and I’ve also taken Bayern Munich out of my Bundesliga system and Bordeaux away from my Ligue 1.
Hi AM075111,
I think Ajax is also the “wrong” team to bet on draw when Ajax is home team. However, once I found it out, I had both teams 3 bets already lost in total. I don’t know again, is it a good idea to quit betting them if I already started. I’m like thinking what if they draw suddenly?
AZ playing away is almost zero sum game, Vitesse is really worth consideration, but again, both teams have little data set as away teams in my opinion. My strategy is 1 half.
Maybe Right Winger has some advice?
Jo,
Check out the conveyor belt comment from rightwinger: https://www.soccerwidow.com/football-gambling/betting-knowledge/betting-advice/20k-in-214-days-winter-league-hdafu-tables/#comment-18844
Hi.
Simples question about the Stake Ratchet & Stop-loss Mechanisms: it is suggested that if you are winning, you should increase +5% after 1000 units won. And if you are loosing, you should decrease -5%, but right after 500 units lost. Is that just to have a more conservative approach towards bankroll management?
Here in soccerwidow, there is another article that indicates a different approach: https://www.soccerwidow.com/football-gambling/betting-knowledge/betting-advice/money-management/how-to-calculate-losing-streaks-optimal-bankroll-sport-betting/
Thanks!
Hello Gabriel,
The staking plans we suggest are not set in stone – they are merely examples of the direction you should be thinking in when understanding the importance of having a double-ended (front and back) system.
The ratchet is there to take advantage of runs of accumulated profits and also acts to increase the value of your bets further, assuming you have value on your side in the first instance.
But the more important consideration is protecting what you have, which is why the stop-loss is suggested at a lower threshold (i.e. 500 instead of 1,000 units) than the ratchet.
Therefore, I wouldn’t say this approach is conservative – we described the staking plan in this article as medium-aggressive – we are not acting totally gung-ho when increasing the stakes, nor are we crying over a little spilt milk when bad runs happen.
The reality is that the stop-loss in this example first activated once a loss of five times the initial 100 unit stake affected results. For the ratchet, the stakes were increased when ten times the initial stake had been won.
Ultimately, the decision is yours as to how ‘conservative’ or adventurous you wish to be with the staking plan, but whatever combination you choose, bear in mind that once profits are in the bank, the first consideration is to get what is effectively ‘free money’ working as hard as possible for you.
If you are going to ratchet the stakes, you must also operate a stop-loss at the same time – never trade on one without the other.
I hope this is of some assistance and thanks for your question.
Hi rightwinger, quick question here.
Oddsportal added Asian Odds to their list of “required” bookmakers.
As far as I can tell, they offer odds from various bookies, including Pinnacle, SboBet and some other asian bookies,
Do you discard this bookie in your line of thinking as well?
Hello again AM0751,
I answered this question a few days ago on the User Guide article. (10 September 2017 at 1:13 pm).
Hopefully, everything there should be self-explanatory.
All the best.