There are many betting tipster services out there promising amazing results. Simply pay them a subscription fee and you’ll be able to enjoy the same success! So, should you do it?
This post is to show you some of the tricks that tipsters use to entice you to pay out for their tips and explain how to spot them.
Tipster Tricks
The tipster industry is unregulated and tricky to negotiate especially for beginners. It can be easy to get caught up in the promises of making substantial and fairly easy money. Unfortunately, there are many people who do and end up wasting their hard-earned cash. They are effectively conned by the ‘tipsters’. Here are some of the better-known methods:
Multiple Selection Tipsters
We’ll start with one of the oldest and hopefully well-known tricks. The tipster who gives different tips to different people.
Derren Brown‘s Channel 4 programme ”The System” exposed this method.
How it works: a ‘tipster’ sets up a service that offers free tips at first and then asks for payment for the next tips if these are successful. This tipster sends out his free tips to a number of people. But he sends different tips to different people. He makes sure that 50% of the tips will win, and 50% will lose. He then asks those people who won to pay for the next tip. The cost will already be covered by the money they won so why wouldn’t they? He then does the same thing again. Different tips to different people. 50% will win 50% will lose. And so it goes on.
Even starting with a small group of 32 people. 16 will win with the free tip. The ‘tipster’ takes money from those 16 winners for the next tip. 8 of those 16 will win with the second tip. The ‘tipster’ takes money from those 8 winners for the 3rd tip. 4 of those 8 will win and the tipster will take money from … well, you see what’s happening. The ‘tipster’ is taking money all along the process. But eventually, the number of subscribers dries up. So what does he do?. He starts the scam all over again with a different group of people.
Lying Tipsters
Unfortunately, there are some tipsters who invent their history. They simply make it up. They might be advertising they ‘made £50,000 in the last 6 months!!!’ but there’s absolutely no actual evidence to back it up. This type of tipster might be promising an amazing high winning percentage. Amazing winning percentages are there to sucker you in. Don’t get me wrong high winning percentages are possible but usually they come from huge odds-on favourites. Remember, high winning percentages at very low odds does not guarantee a profit. The best gamblers in the world enjoy small edges which win in the long run.
Data Manipulating Tipsters
Data manipulating tipsters have a more clever approach than simply just lying. They will tell the truth about their results but they’ll make these results look much better than they actually are. They will advertise their successes but hide their failures. They get you focused on their “9 wins from 11 last week!” but never mention the string of 23 losers before that. What they are saying is not a lie but it is very misleading. They may never get a winning streak like that again.
Tipster sites can have a group of tipsters that they actively promote. You’ll get emails and see ads highlighting that one or two of them are currently “red hot”. Of course, they are. All tipsters have their ups and downs. There’s always going to be one of them whos going through a purple patch. Again all this isn’t lying but what’s happening with the rest of the group? Are they losing all the profits the “red hot” ones are making?
High-Cost Tipsters
Having a steep subscription cost for tips is sometimes also used by “liars” and “data manipulators”. It’s working on the principle that people believe “you get what you pay for”. It can’t be any good if its free. And it must be really good if it costs so much. And just look … they win 98% of the time.
I’ve seen some sites charging €100, €200, €300 for just 1 tip.
But if it loses you get the next tip free! Phew! that’s OK then. For a moment I thought I was being scammed.
What Makes a Genuinely Good Tipster?
The first thing you should look for is a genuinely good ‘long term’ record. When I say long term, I’m talking at least two hundred selections over many months particularly in the change-over of the sports seasons. I’ll explain a little more.
Most football happens during the Autumn/Winter/Spring months with a break during the Summer. Summer football means different leagues, different countries, different standards. Does the tipster stay successful during these different periods?
Similarly, for UK horse racing, there are transitions from flat racing to jumps around May and October. Looking at his past results does he look like a flat specialist or a jumps specialist? Or has he stayed pretty consistent during the cross-overs?
I’ve written a post How to Find Your Perfect Tipster which covers this topic in more detail.
Betting Tips – Overview
The betting tipster industry is unregulated and has something of a bad reputation. Unfortunately, this reputation is entirely justified in most cases. Many tipster services and tipster sites are run by people who have no interest in or real knowledge of the betting markets. Their sole purpose is to make money by conning people.
Fortunately, there are some good tipsters out there. Having found a good tipster, you should stick with them and give them time to prove themselves. Success will be measured in months and years, not days or weeks.