Picking the perfect tipster depends on many things. What’s your appetite for risk? How much personal time do you want to commit? What about Strike Rate, Return on Investment, Betting Bank size and handling long losing runs? Here are some things you might want to consider before deciding on your tipster.
Tipster should fit your style
What kind of bettor are you? Are you cautious? A thrill seeker? Impatient? Do you tend to feel anxious or stressed when you don’t win for a long time?
You should understand yourself and find a tipster who fits with your style and approach to betting.
Steady Eddie
Are you looking for Steady Eddie?
He gives you acceptable profits with short losing runs. Your bank will likely increase steadily over time in an unspectacular way. If you miss one or two of Eddie’s winning tips that’s no big deal – there’ll be more winners along soon.
Roller-coaster Ricky
How about Roller-coaster Ricky?
He’ll give you the same profit as Eddie but he’ll also give you the ride-of-your-life getting there. Crazy loads of winners on the bounce and then 10 losing days on the trot that wipes out half your bank. If you miss some of Ricky’s winning tips you might pick up again on one of winning runs if you’re lucky. But you might just as easily pick up again on one of his losing runs. That’s a double downer – and it’ll be a while before you feel good about things again.
Periodic Pete
Or maybe Periodic Pete?
Long, long runs of losers – days maybe weeks – loser after loser – you’ll feel like you’re just throwing your money down a drain – but then he hits – and when he hits – he hits big. And you can relax – you’re in profit again. But you can never opt out. You can never miss a bet. You can’t afford to miss that big winner.
Ready to Commit?
No matter who you choose, Eddie, Ricky or Pete, you have to commit. And you have to commit long term.
You can’t dip-in and out. If you were really lucky you might just dip-in and catch most of the winning streaks but just as likely you’ll dip in just as a losing streak is starting.
Which Sport?
Do you need to understand the sport the tipster covers or are you happy just to blindly place the bets on a sport you know little or nothing about? And will you be able to blindly place those bets?
What happens if you’re a knowledgeable football fan and your football tipster says bet £100 at 25/1 on Wigan to beat Manchester City (currently runaway leaders of the English Premier League) in the F.A. cup? Would you place that bet? And what if you didn’t and it won? N.B. On the 19th Feb’18 Wigan, at odds of 25/1, beat Man City 1-0 in the F.A. Cup.
Information Provided
How much information do you need about the tip?
Some tipsters simply provide you with their selection, the date and time of the event and the odds available at the time and for many people, this is enough. Some tipsters however also provide a detailed analysis of why they’re recommending a selection and this can be reassuring for some.
Subscription Cost
Tipsters subscriptions costs are wide-ranging. Some charge £10 per month. Others charge £50 a month or you can get better value for maybe £450 for the year. This price often reflects how well-established a tipster is and, of course, the results they have produced over a period.
Depending on your budget, you may well want to consider cost in respect to profit, ROI and strike-rate, though don’t forget you can sometimes trial a tipster for a short period of time for very little money. But that period of time is probably going to be too short to allow you to make a meaningful decision about sticking with them.
Remember, tipster subscription costs come out of any profit you make so you need to add this to your betting bank to know what your “start-up” cost is going to be.
Can I get the odds?
This is a key question.
The financial performance figures you see for the tipster, how much profit they’ve made and what their ROI is are based on the odds they have managed to get when they post their tips. And those odds are probably going to be the biggest odds available from a range of bookmakers.
We know odds change all the time so the big question is can you get the same odds as the tipster when you come to place the actual bet?
If the odds you get are regularly less than the tipsters odds then your profit is going to be less than the tipster’s figure.
And your profit is going to be even less again because you’ve had to pay the tipster subscription.
How many bets do I need to do each day?
How much personal time will you need to commit to placing bets?
Some tipsters pump out 20 to 30 tips every day- others just the one. The more bets you need to place every day the more time you’ll need to dedicate to that process either on your PC or phone or whatever device you use.
When would I need to place the bets?
All good tipsters will provide their selections well in advance along with the odds available at that time. Does your tipster put their tips out at midnight when you’re fast asleep in bed? And what has happened to those odds when you get to place that bet at 8 a.m. the next morning? That horse tipped at 12/1 has shortened to 5/1 because everyone else got there before you?
Its important to realise that the tipster’s profit stats will show their winnings based on the the odds at the time they put the tip out. That could be wildly different to the odds you can get and means your profits are unlikely to match those of the tipster.
How much money am I betting each day?
Betting on 20 tips a day at £1 is equivalent to betting on 1 tip a day at £20. But this is where its important to appreciate the difference between Return On Investment (ROI) versus pure profit.
For example, tipster BigProfits shows a profit of £3,000 over the last 6 months. “Wow” you think to yourself “I’ll have some of that”. The thing is you needed to bet £36,000 in bets over that 6 months to make that £3,000 profit. That’s betting £200 a day, Can your betting bank withstand a 5 day losing streak of £1,000?
Tipster BetterROI on the other hand shows a profit of only £500 over those same 6 months. You might think that’s not very much and you might overlook him thinking I could get 6 times much that with BigProfits. That is until you realise an important fact.
That fact is that you only needed to bet £1,000 in bets over the 6 months to make that £500 profit.
That’s about £5.50 bet every day compared to BigProfits £200 a day and a 5 day losing streak would only set your betting bank back about £28 not £1000.
But “I want to make £3,000 in 6 months not £500” I hear you say.
To make that £3,000 profit in 6 months from tipster BetterROI you could Increase your bet amount each day from £5.50 to about £33. Even at £33 bet per day with BetterROI means a 5-day losing streak would cost you only £165. That’s a much easier situation to cope with than the £1000 loss with BigProfits.
Return On Investment (ROI)
Return on Investment (ROI) measures how efficiently an investment is making profit. It measures the return of an investment relative to the cost of the investment.
ROI is one of the best ways to compare the performance of different tipsters. A tipster with a higher ROI will give you a better return on the money you invest.
For example, Tipster A made £200 profit betting on horse racing and Tipster B made £100 profit betting on football. If this was the only information you were given you might assume that Tipster A was the better investment.
But if you then find out that Tipster A had bet £1000 to make his £200 profit and Tipster B had bet £400 to make their £100 profit what does that tell you?
It tells you that
- for every £1 Tipster A bet he made £0.20 profit (£200 / £1000) or 20%
- for every £1 Tipster B bet he made £0.25 profit (£100 / £400) or 25%
Put another way
- If you followed Tipster A using £1000 total in bets you would have made £200 profit
- If you followed Tipster B using £1000 total in bets you would have made £250 profit
Bottom line is Tipster B is generating profit more efficiently.
An ROI of 10% for football tipsters is considered pretty good – they’re typically in the 5% to 20% range.
For horse racing tipsters the ROI can range up to 30%.
Any ROI above 30% should be the topic of a thorough analysis. Have they found the holy grail or did they simply bet big sometimes and get lucky?
Strike Rate (SR)
Another important consideration is the Strike Rate (SR) that a tipster produces. This is the percentage of the selections that are winning bets. What Strike Rate can’t tell you is what the average odds those selections were, so you may want to take a few minutes to check through the individual archives of the tipsters to see check out the types of bets they recommend and the odds of those selections.
Many tipsters and tipster sites will tell you the average odds of a tipster. This is OK but perhaps more important is the average WINNING odds and that is usually hidden in the detail of the tipster’s records. It doesn’t matter what odds his losers are they just lose you money. It’s only the winners that make you money and the bigger those winning odds are the more profit your make.
A high Strike Rate at low odds may produce less profit than a low Strike Rate at higher odds.
Profit
For many punters, profit is the be-all and end-all. But profit isn’t everything, and it’s important that you consider Return On Investment, Strike Rate and Bets Per Month as explained above.
Track Record
You should also consider how long the tipster has been providing his service.
Example:
Tipster NewKidOnTheBlock started 3 months ago and shows a profit of £1000 from 12 tips. A high Strike Rate of 50% and a high ROI of 75%.
Whereas, Tipster OldHand has been providing 1 tip every day over the past 2 years and is showing a profit of £1500 with a lower Strike Rate of 30% and lower ROI of 15%.
Which one are you going to choose?
Your Decision
Remember you are not trying to find the perfect tipster. You are trying to find the perfect tipster for you.
I hope these questions and observations help you some way towards that goal.
