Systems That Profit

Psychic Soccer Profits Review – Final Report

The free trial period has finally ended so it is time to examine the data collected over the last seven weeks. If you have been following my posts, you will know that the result achieved from laying the teams tipped to not win has been a spectacular disappointment. The service started off as an in-play laying service only to transform into a promised in-play automated trading service as the lay results got worse and worse. I will first examine the results of the lay-service as it was originally intended to be and then move on to cover the in-play trading service that it now is.

In-play Laying

Over the course of almost seven weeks, I received a total of 65 in-play tips. Of these, three were retracted shortly after they were sent out because the team to be layed scored a goal shortly after the tip was sent out. Of the remaining 62 lays, 40 resulted in wins giving a success rate of 64.5%. This figure stands out in stark contrast to the 80-90% hit rate that was touted by Psychic Soccer at the start of the trial but is not unexpected if one understands the nature of random events. A long-term average of 80% will contain periods of either low or high hit rates (under and over 80%) and this is what makes up the volatility in the time-series data. For the subscriber, the value in any particular service is its ability to reduce this volatility and, thereby, increase the probability of making a profit for the punter regardless of when he starts using the service.

In this respect, the service offered by Psychic Soccer is obviously deficient for it resulted in a 68.7% loss over seven weeks instead of doubling the bank every month as initially claimed. If we repeat this trial at another time, we might be wildly successful instead for we might get lucky and get in when the hit rate is above the long-term mean.

A few further observations that are pertinent to the usefulness of the service can be gleaned from the data collected. The first is that this system requires a great deal of participation from the user. As long as there is a possibility that a tip might come in, you have to be at your computer to act on it and do so quickly because the odds don’t stay static for long. The window of opportunity is small. In my opinion, this makes it unsuitable for all but the most dedicated of gamblers because the profit potential, if any, does not justify the time cost incurred. Betfair does allow bets to be placed from mobile phones so you could unshackle yourself from the computer if you have a smart phone that also receives email.

Should you decide that you can tolerate being a slave to the computer and your email account, some other aspects of this service become important for you. Over the course of this review, I tracked the time that the tips were sent out and when I received them in my mailbox. The average time that the tips were sent out was the 60th minute of the game but the average time of receipt was the 73rd minute, a difference of 13 minutes. The median times were a little closer at the 64th and 71st minutes respectively. Add in a little delay if you are distracted by something else (you can’t be expected to stare at the screen constantly for a few hours every day!) and you can expect that, on average, you will only be able to act on the tip some 10-15 minutes after it has been sent out. To make matters worse, in 12.7% of cases, the tips were received after the 90th minute, half of these were over the 100 minute mark with one at 222 minutes and another at 556 minutes!

I conclude this section by saying that, in my opinion, there is a high risk of loss should one make use of this service to just lay. Not only is the volatility high, resulting in high risk of entering during a bad patch of selections, the speed of delivery often creates unfavourable conditions for laying, i.e., the odds may move significantly far away from the target odds given.

Hit Rate = 64.5%
P&L = 68.7% loss

Automated In-play Laying with Trade-Out

Let us move on to something with a little more promise. Over the course of the last seven weeks, this service evolved into an automated laying service with the option of trading out when in profit. In theory, if one can trade out every lay in profit then there should never be a loss but it is, of course, not possible to trade out in profit every time. If the team you lay scores a few minutes after you place your bet, the odds might sink below your strike price and stay under that for the rest of the game, resulting in a total loss. Judging from the historical trading data posted on the Psychic Soccer Profits site (I examined the same time-frame as above in the lay only section), one can trade out approximately 59% of the time. Of the remaining 41% that could not be traded out, the bet was won 57.7% of the time, meaning that the hit rate rises to 82.8% from our initial 64.5% above.

What the addition of trading does, therefore, is reduce the volatility in the profit & loss time-series data for the same accuracy of prediction. It trades off profit potential, because you only get half the profit when you trade out, for reduced losses. As a result, if we consider just the 18/1/2010 to 3/3/2010 period, during which I received laying tips, we would have made a small profit of £9.92 even though the data includes what seems like a particularly bad patch of selections, i.e., the actual hit-rate is temporarily running well below the long-term mean. Profits should increase when the prediction hit-rate reverts to mean but your profit will not be as large as if you just let the bet run to the end of each game because you are trading out. To be fair, if we were to use a fully automated bot then we would also have to include the three retractions because the bot would be very quick to place the bets and I would be committed. This would result in a small loss but nothing near a 68.7% destruction of capital!

The other things that I like about this trading service is that it frees you up to do other things. This makes the service acceptable, not only from a tedium point of view but also makes the service useful to people all over the world because they don’t have to be awake at odd hours to place their bets. It also eliminates those time delays described above. I haven’t actually received the laying bot so I am not able to say more about it but from the descriptions given and the data collected, the trading service sounds reasonable. We just have to wait for the pricing information to be released to make a final judgement about the service in its entirety. If you are not prepared to pay for the automation then you could also trade manually.

In summary, it is my opinion that this automated lay with trade-out service is likely to yield a profit (I have not included charges). It is fairly easy to understand and should be very simple to use. I would give the lay-only service by email a miss unless you are a masochist.

Hit Rate = 82.8%
P&L =  0.99% profit (please read the review in full to understand this low number)

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