Reversing a system that backfires

[orientalexpress]

If you create a system that back fires on you and if on average the opposite odds of the best is the same then is it possible to do the reverse of the system and make it profitable ? Does it not make sense ?

Ie you create a lay system that is losing you money, why not turn it into a win system ? Obviously you do this after 200 bets or so.

I have a feeling this wont work but i dont know the answer, can anyone share please ?

thanks

[tophatter]

Its not that easy unfortunatley to reverse a system to make it profitable.

Most laying systems have small ROI%. You also have short odds as you usually have to operate a cut off. That means by inverting it the ROI is also going to be on the smaller side as the odds will be short. Then the law of strike rate comes in and even a sample of 200 bets can have spikes which might take 100 bets to recover lost ground. It could be the system profits on just a handful of bets concentrated in a small period of time although that would tend to more true of a higher ROI win system.

You need to research it back over a period of years unfrotunatley rather than a couple of hundred of bets. If you have been losing on a laying system you have to remember that a couple of horses can cause what feels like a big decrease in your bank. Its important not to let that colour your judgement because you can bet the moment you invert it will be when the tide turns the other way and you lose when you should be winning!

[wb]

Points taken TH...........

but let's take it to its most simple form.......... (and one of the maths guys can correct me on this):



Let's presume there is no commission, and lets presume there is no price difference between the back and lay side.

Using levels (stakes), surely a losing back system would be a winning lay one?

If one were to back all bets and also lay all bets, would it end even?

[tophatter]

In theory maybe but the point I was making is you have to make sure a losing lay system is indeed just that before you start backing them - presumably if it is a system and you were laying them originally then the stats tell you that backing them to level stakes showed a negative ROI? Why else would you have layed them otherwise?

The questions you would have to ask yourself amongst others would be

A) how long has it took you to come to the conclusion a previously negative ROI system has become a positive ROI system?

B) Have you checked back throught the stats that the defeciets and runs that have led you to this conclusion have not happened before?

C) How do you know that this is a spike that the system can not handle if it has not happened before? You have to take the worst case scenario in the past and add some to it.

Im not saying reversing a system is something you should not do but I dont think you can do it overnight. Might be something you can research for a couple of years but if it is a syatem then you will have years of stats behind it and I would be very reluctant to change it due to a short term set of results. Paper trading for a very long time would be order of the day.