I have been running the First Favourite System from the 1st July to 30th November 2013 inclusive.
Each day an email is sent that gives the daily selection(s) with the target price and availability with certain bookmakers that usually offer BOG prices. It is also possible to login to their website and obtain selections as an alternative to email.
The system author advocates a monthly £1000 start bank that is topped up in the event of losses and profits are withdrawn at the end of each month or as otherwise advised by the author, Mel. Each selection is backed using 10% of the current bank as the recommended staking method. This I was not prepared to follow as £100 bets were too rich for the purpose of this exercise and I adopted a level stake of £10 per selection at or as close to the advised odds. Level staking is without doubt the benchmark staking method that is good for all system evaluations whether just used as a control comparison in conjunction with the recommended method or not. I did also analyse the results with a percentage staking method using 10% of the bank but without the monthly resets advised by Mel.
The evaluation period comprised five months as opposed to the usual three month trial and I decided to do this in order to obtain a better insight and because there were many days when no bet was advised. Over the five months 92 were made, 43 winning with a strike rate = 46.7%.
The official results published on their website for each month covered by this review are as follow:
July – £94.21
August – £355.17
September – (£250.58)
October – (£936.36)
November – £177.33
Total P/L = (£560.23)
Obviously, figures in brackets are losses. My own results using £10 staking basically mirror these whereby level stakes achieved an overall loss of £38.70 and the percentage staking bank ended up with a greater loss of £60.45. Average odds of the winning selections was 2.05 which coupled with the strike rate just doesn’t add up mathematically. This is because many of the selections given are largely odds-on or very close to evens, hardly surprising in view of them being solid favourites. I should add though that the real damage in terms of losses occurred during October where the bank was all but wiped out. This is probably the most difficult time of year for punters when the NH season is starting and the Turf Flat is coming to a close. The results on the website for the first six months do turn the £560.23 loss into a profit but only of approximately £570.
The big issue with many systems is fundamentally in the mathematics and if you are being charged by way of a monthly subscription as opposed to a one-off fee (dependant on the amount) then things just don’t add up and even less so in this case. I firmly believe that Mel is a genuine and honest person who comes across well in the daily emails and maybe this system has worked in the longer term as indicated by including the first six months of results.
However, despite sticking with this system and reviewing it for five months, analysing it with several staking methods and without taking into account the cost of the First Favourite System I cannot, could not and would not use this as part of my own portfolio. The risk/reward ratio is just not comfortable or realistic and this is largely due to the fact that it’s too easy to accumulate big losses quickly that could wipe out the bank. Evidence for this is during the period of review, I experienced a losing sequence of nine yet the longest winning sequence was only four and at an average winning odds of only 2.05. Eleven months have produced a less than £600 profit, this really is not worth the time and effort albeit very little.
My conclusion is that this system is a FAIL.
You can try First Favourite here:
https://www.cash-master.com/FirstFavourite.php
