This is going to be my last post until the new year, and at the end of the year I like to look back over the past year and decide what I’m going to do in the new year.
It’s a process that I’ve always found has made a big difference to me. I think of the new year as a time to re-evaluate what’s working, what isn’t and put plans in place for the next year.
So how does this work?
Check Your Betting System Stats
You want to start by checking these stats for each of your betting systems or strategies:
Wins
Losses
Bets
Profit
Strike Rate
ROI
Time
Notice the last check we’re doing… Time. This is the average time you spend per day to find the selections, and we’re going to use it a little bit later. It can just be an estimate but it’s important you do it per betting system or strategy.
Once you’ve done that you can start to…
Analyse What Is Working
It’s very easy to become attached to your betting systems and strategies. You spend a great deal of time working on them and it can be hard to let them go even when we know in our hearts they aren’t working.
And that’s completely normal!
When you’ve spent hours developing something it’s tough to admit that it just isn’t working. And of course, as bettors we have to be careful we don’t stop using a strategy that hasn’t been running long enough to actually let us know whether it’s likely to work or not.
Here’s how I do it…
Any system that has had less than 100 winners will automatically be kept and used in the new year. We need at least 100 winners to have any kind of statistically significant information about how well it performs.
Next I remove any system that has made a -5% ROI loss or greater to SP. If you’re making more than a -5% loss to SP then, in my experience, you’re usually too far away from break-even at SP to be able to make significant profits from it.
We are now left with some profitable and some not so profitable systems…
Any of these that are making 5% or more ROI move to the pile of “keep using and don’t change”.
If something isn’t broken then we don’t want to try and fix it and a 5% ROI on turnover is a very good return.
Which leaves us with those that are making less than 5% ROI.
And with these we want to start by checking…
How Long Does It Take To Use
This is where the average Time you wrote down earlier comes into it’s own. Write down how much time you are able to spend each day on finding selections.
Next look at each of the strategies you have that are making less than 5% ROI and compare how much of your time they’re currently taking to find selections.
If you have one hour available to find selections each day but you have one strategy making -3% ROI taking thirty minutes to find selections for then… you can probably make the decision to bin that strategy. In order to refine this approach from making -3% to making 5% or more you are going to need to invest a lot of time in refining the process. If it’s already taking you thirty minutes to find selections, the probability is that it’s going to take more time once you’ve refined it. As you only have an hour to spend then it’s not going to fit in with your lifestyle. If it doesn’t fit in with your lifestyle then you’ll try and rush the process which means you’ll make mistakes and so it will lose you money.
Making a profit from your betting is as much about making sure that your approaches comfortably fit within your lifestyle as it is about finding profitable bets. You should never underestimate this effect.
You’ll find that you are able to remove a few more of these strategies and you should now be left with two types of strategy:
- Betting systems and strategies that are already making you profits
- Betting systems and strategies that need work but have potential
Plan Your Development
Once you have these two groups it’s now possible to plan your development of the strategies. This development should only be done in the time that you have spare after you have found selections for the service that makes a profit. You’re going to use that average Time you wrote down earlier again for this.
Add up all the time it takes you to find selections for all the strategies that are profitable and you’re going to continue using.
Next take the total time you have available each day, which you wrote down earlier.
Finally subtract from this total time the time it takes to find your selections each day and what is left is how much time you’re going to spend on development.
For example…
You have one hour a day to spend on your betting.
It takes you twenty minutes to find selections for your existing profitable strategies.
That leaves forty minutes of time that you can allocate to developing your strategies that show promise.
Only focus on one of those strategies at a time, aim to build them to a 5% ROI or higher and then look at the next.
Using this plan you will remove the betting systems or strategies that don’t look to have any likelihood of being able to be made profitable in the timeframe you have available.
You will be focusing your time first on those which are already making you a profit and then you have a structured approach on how to continue to develop the ones that have potential.
Put this into action before the new year and you’ll be ready to go January.
Have a great Christmas and New Year. I wish you many happy returns and look forward to seeing you in January.
