Best tipsters on Tipstrr

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The critical tests

Test 1: Skill and Expertise. Only those tipsters showing strong evidence of skill and expertise made it through. Applying the t-test,  cut the list from 30 down to 11.

Test 2: Short Losing Runs.  Tipsters had to have shorter losing runs and consequently need a smaller Betting Bank. Calculating their Estimated Longest Losing Run reduced the list to 9.

Test 3: Long-term Success. Tipsters needed to show consistent profits over a longer period of time. This final test left 5 tipsters standing.

Here’s how it played out.

Tipstrr’s top 30 tipsters

The table below shows key performance indicators for the top 30 tipsters on Tipstrr at the beginning of April 2019. You can get this list through their Discover menu option. Some of the figures in the table have been rounded for ease of reading.

This is Tipstrr’s ranking from 1 to 30 and its difficult to see a pattern or gauge how Tipstrr ranks their tipsters.

You can see some very high ROIs and some very low tips/week. Both of these things have an effect on making more profit so it’s important to bear these in mind.

There are also some extremely high average odds and low Strike Rates. The optional reading at the end of this post attempts to shed some light on this.

Tipster skill and expertise

The statistics t-test can be used to determine how likely it is that the ROI the tipster has achieved is the result of chance, as opposed to the tipster’s skill or anything else.

The t-test calculates a t-score which can be converted into a more meaningful probability (p-value). And if this probability (p-value) is low enough we might conclude that the tipster is a good one.

The lower the p-value the better and in general:

• a p-value below 5% gives moderate evidence that the ROI is not the result of chance alone
• a p-value below 1% could be considered strong evidence the ROI is not the result of chance alone and
• a p-value under 0.1% is very strong evidence the ROI is not the result of chance alone

To pass this first test the tipster must show at least strong evidence that their ROI is not just due to luck, not the result of chance alone. This means their p-value must be less than 1%.

The t-test works most accurately with level stakes and thankfully there’s a Level Stakes button on the tipster’s stats page which can give you these figures. The ROI using level stakes can be dramatically different from the ROI based on the tipsters recommended stakes as you will see.

I collated all the level-stakes-ROI for all 30 tipsters and fed them into the t-test to calculate the p-scores.

11 tipsters passed this test. 19 failed. Two failed quite spectacularly with p-scores of 46% and 49% suggesting its as likely as not that their results are just pure luck.

Seven tipsters out of the 11 have p-scores suggesting very strong evidence their ROI is not the result of chance alone.

Some other interesting observations. Tipsters FootballLord and WIthTheFlowOU would perform significantly better using level stakes instead of their own staking system.

Conversely, following the recommended stakes on tips from Racino, ROIal Picks and Insider Betting is having real benefits.

Sports insider, HODL! and Better Bettor, who all pass this critical p-score test have equivalent ROI and level-stakes-ROI figures.
HODL! recommended stakes range from 4 points to 10 points with 80% of his tips being 8 points whereas Better Bettor and Sports Insider both operate level stakes 99% of the time.

On the face of it, it might be tempting simply to follow FootballLord using level stakes – 121% ROI is hard to resist – but there’s a little bit more useful analysis we can do.

Short Losing runs and Small Betting Banks

Knowing the Strike Rate (aka Win Rate) of a tipster you can use statistics to calculate the Estimated Longest Losing Run (ELLR) of losing tips or bets.

I don’t know anyone who likes long losing runs even if it does eventually produce a profit.  You need deep pockets and a steady nerve to survive long losing runs.  The longer your losing run is the bigger the betting bank you need to see it through to the good times again.

The table below shows the potential longest losing runs to expect over the next 12 months for each of the 11 qualifiers.

The ELLR is calculated from the tipsters Strike Rate together with the number of tips already made and the number of tips they are due to make over the next 12 months based on their average tips per week.

Looking at tipster Top Rated Value sitting at the bottom of the table below. He has a Strike Rate of 19%. This translates to an Estimated Longest Losing Run of 37 losing bets in a row.  His average stake is 9 points per bet. If you were betting even at only £1 per point that equates to losing £333 in just over 1 week. That’s got to be hard to stomach.

I eliminated the two tipsters with the highest ELLR leaving us with 9 contenders.

Long-term success

Long-term success is the ability to keep delivering a profitable tipping service without significant deterioration in the quality of tips or long-term profits.

The p-value calculation used in Test 1 takes into account the number of tips produced by a tipster but it does not consider over what period of time those tips were made.

When choosing a tipping service my personal preference is to have at least 6 months of history behind them.

You can see that Better Bettor has a 100% record so far with 8 winning months from 8. Sports Insider has had 7 winning months out of 8.

Daily Stack Build has less than 6 months performance history but, because of his high ROI, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and kept him in.

Bank Growth

Here’s what the comparative performance of each of these tipsters look like since they started on Tipstrr.

HODL! has clearly generated the most profit. His bank growth from starting in July 2018 until January 2019 has been pretty astounding but he suffered a loss in February. Is this the start of a plateau or was February just a glitch? April results will give us a better indication of where this tipster is headed.

Sports Insider (light blue) and The Each Way Racing Algorithm (grey) generated roughly the same profit but how they got there was a little different. Sports Insider’s bank growth has been steady apart from a flat November. EW Racing Algorithm had a worrying three months between November and January but recovered in February and March. Was this downturn linked to the change from flat to jumps seasons? Could this happen again in a couple of months time around May when we switch from jumps to flat? I haven’t dug deep enough into the data to give me any insight here so I’d probably follow EW Racing Algorithm for a couple of months but tread carefully for a few months after that.

Better Bettor (yellow) shows solid consistency. Month after month of profit and only a slight hesitation during February 2019.

Daily Stack Build (dark blue) had a hesitant first two months followed by a great January but since then profits have been relatively small.

The Results

You could make a case for choosing any one of these tipsters but here’s how I eventually ranked them with some comments on my logic.

1 Sports Insider

A p-value of under 0.1% is very strong evidence that a tipster’s ROI is not the result of chance alone. You actually need to go to 6 decimal places to discover Sports Insider’s p-value. That number is 0.000002% – that’s is 50,000 times smaller – clear evidence that this tipster is displaying skill is way beyond strong.

Sports Insider has a healthy 20% ROI combined with an expectation of short losing runs. Producing 7 winning months from 8 is admirable. An average winning month has been a profit of 227 points and that one losing month was a mere -12 points.

2 Better Bettor

Better Bettor has been outstandingly consistent with a 100% record winning 8 months out of 8. The ROI is the lowest of the group but is still a very respectable 14.8% which, coupled with that consistency and the low expected losing runs I’ll take any day of the week.

3 HODL!

Like Sports Insider, HODL! has a great ROI, only 1 losing month out of 8, and a very low p-value indicating skill and expertise. But it is the big number of 24 in the ELLR column – the estimated longest losing run – that places him only in 3rd spot.

4 The Each Way Racing Algorithm

Only one losing month out of 7 but it was a fairly heavy one – minus 129 points – with his average winning months of 274 points. The Each Way Racing Algorithm has the second lowest ROI of the group and the ELLR figure of 15 is beginning to look a little uncomfortable.

5 Daily Stack Build

Although only going for 5 months Daily Stack Build has the highest ROI of this group and has had 4 winning months from 5. The losing month was only minus 24.5 points compared with an average winning month of 102 points. Profit, however, has been a little thin on the ground lately.

Note: Using level stakes would seem to be the way to go with Daily Stack Build. His 28% ROI to recommended stakes rises to 38% ROI with level-stakes. It’s a little early to be really confident with Daily Stack Build but he’s certainly worth watching over the coming months.

Conclusion

There’s a wealth of data and information here, and with different criteria and a different set of priorities, you could easily come up with a different top 5 or better top 10 tipsters.

In a months time or three months time, we could be looking at a very different Top 30 list and a different Top 5. Tipstrr’s Top 30 change on a regular if not daily basis.

But in my opinion, right now, if you only wanted to choose two Tipstrr tipsters then the best-of-the-best tipsters on Tipstrr are Sports Insider and Better Bettor.

But if you have deep pockets and a big betting bank then I would include HODL! in that group as well.

Observations (optional reading)

Observations (optional reading)