Welcome to the Honest Betting Reviews news section. Here you can find the latest news and information on the betting industry, betting systems and tipsters.

Tipster of the Month – March

We recently started a new feature here at Honest Betting Reviews – our “Tipster of the Month” award.

This is where we look at the top tipsters – both those we have reviewed in the past and those we are currently reviewing – to see who’s performed most strongly over the last month.

It’s a chance to find out who is in form and has been giving the bookies a good hiding over the last month and to note any stand-out performances.

Now it’s time to look at the top tipsters from March – a few days later than planned due to being quite busy over the Easter weekend so apologies for that. 

 

Tipster of the Month – March 2021

March is the month that incorporates Cheltenham of course so it’s a big month for betting. We also had the Players Championship in golf and the footy season hotted up with Champions League and Europa League fixtures. 

With Spring in the air, the sun coming out and the end of lockdown in sight, it also felt a slightly more positive month in general than the tough winter months we have all had to endure recently. 

Some tipsters clearly had those positive vibes as they took the bookies to the cleaners last month. Let’s get on to looking at the top three tipsters for March then. 

 

3. Super Sports Capper

In third position we have a relative new kid on the block and one we are currently reviewing – the Super Sports Capper. This is a tipster that bets in a variety of sports including basketball, football, tennis and NFL. They tip in quite niche markets like players to score above a number of points or have a certain number of shots on target.

Their approach worked really well in March, with a profit of 40 points made over the month. Quite a lot of that gain came from the NBA but there was also some footy and tennis profits too. 

A very good month with a high strike rate to boot, so well done to the Super Sports Capper for their efforts in March.

You can check out the Super Sports Capper here.

 

2. Bookie Insiders Football Tips

This is a service we finished reviewing in February and it received a clear PASSED rating after delivering 41 points profit during our trial. 

In March things got even better though, with a superb 23 points profit being landed by their tipster Neil. Football is notoriously difficult to make a profit in and we know a lot of tipsters who struggle to make a 23 points in a year, so to have made that much in a month is highly commendable. 

That would equate to £1150 profit at £50/point stakes and bear in mind that is betting on top European leagues and competitions, which are usually a graveyard for tipsters. 

So excellent stuff from Neil, picking up where he left off at the end of our review.

You can check out Bookie Insiders Football Tips here.

 

1. The Outside Edge

Taking the top slot for a second month in a row though is the formidable Outside Edge. Last month they scooped our award after notching up an impressive 41 points profit, with winners at 11/1, 10/1 and 7/1 across a very successful month’s tipping.

Well if that was good they only went and hit it out the park in March, with a massive 64 points profit made. That included a profit of 38 points at Cheltenham, where they landed a 25/1 winner in the shape of Heaven Help Us and a 17/2 winner in Put The Kettle On.  

We know a number of you have been enjoying these winners from the messages we’ve been getting so congrats if you’ve been on. The service is now over 200 points up for our trial which is pretty incredible and they’re already 6 points up for April so the winners just keep on coming!

Great stuff from this tipster and well done to them for picking up our Tipster of the Month award for the second month in a row. 

You can check out The Outside Edge here.

 

 

 

April Is Always A Big Month In Racing

April is one of the biggest months of the year in horse racing with the Grand National taking place, but also the National Hunt season drawing to a close and we start to see some of the leading flat horses make their reappearance.

Here are some tips and guidance for the month which will hopefully stand you in good stead with your betting.

Grand National

The Grand National is the most famous steeplechase in the world. It’s the one race that attracts attention to the sport like no other. The weights for the race are published two months prior to the race so there is plenty of time to study the runners.

In recent years, the horses at the top end of the weights have fared much better. This suggests Santini has a good chance in 2021. He is 16.5 in the 2021 Cheltenham Festival betting for the Gold Cup, which says a lot about his class.

Unfortunately, we will not see Tiger Roll this year in the race. The recent Cross Country winner was pulled out of the contest he has won twice due to a disagreement over the weight he has been handed. Who knows, maybe he will have another shot at the Aintree feature in 2022.

Fresh Horses

In the final month of the National Hunt season, it is worth looking out for horses who haven’t had long campaigns. They tend to be much fresher and perform better than those who have been on the go since October.

These horses may be those who have picked up injuries and have been forced to miss races or they could be from trainers who have been smart with their schedules. Some horses don’t perform well at Cheltenham so they bypass the meeting for the Punchestown Festival or Aintree.

Cheltenham takes so much out of some participants, particularly the staying races such as the National Hunt Challenge Cup over 4m. It can be hard for those who were in contention at the end of that marathon contest to bounce back into action so soon.

Study Two-Year-Old Form

The British Classics come very early into the Flat season so there is no time like the present to study all the leading two-year-old races from last year to find a shortlist for the 2000 and 1000 Guineas.

 

There are three two-year-old races for the colts at the back end of the season which are the most important. They are the Dewhurst Stakes, Middle Park Stakes and Vertem Futurity Trophy. The latter was won last year by the Irish horse Mac Swiney.

In the fillies’ division, the Fillies’ Mile and Cheveley Park Stakes are the two races that should be notable when it comes to form ahead of the 1000 Guineas. Horses who have run well in those two contests have gone on to be n contention at Newmarket in the spring.

Enjoy all the action next month as there really is something for everybody on the horse racing calendar.

 

 

 

Cheltenham 2021 – Day Three Diary

I am tracking my results from this year’s Cheltenham festival here on the blog and the first two days went very well, with a profit made on both days.

On to day three then and there were some cracking races on the card today.

Just a reminder that I am using a twofold strategy this week, which is:

1. To use all the bookies offers, brought together via Profit Maximiser; and

2. Use two of my favourite tipsters – Quentin Franks Racing and the Bet Alchemist – to find the best bets for Cheltenham. Both have excellent records at the festival so I am following their tips for the week.

By combining the above two together, this should give me a good chance of beating the bookies this week.

So how did this strategy get on today? Let’s have a look below.

 

Day Three Results

After a good start on the first two days with a profit of £60, I was hoping to continue the progress today.

So here are my results from Thursday at Cheltenham – it was a bit of a role reversal for the tipsters with the Bet Alchemist finally joining the party today. My stakes were £20 per point once again.

 

1.55 – Pertemps Network Final

With no bets in the first race from either tipster things got going in the 1.55 with two tips from the Bet Alchemist. Both of the selections placed – with The Bosses Oscar second and Dandy Meg seventh – which provided a payout for me using Skybet although with other bookies paying just six places it might not have been for everyone.

Profit/Loss from Race: +£27

 

2.30 – Ryanair Chase

Just the one bet in this race and that came from the Bet Alchemist, but sadly it was pulled up so no return. 

Profit/Loss from Race: -£20

 

3.05 – Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle

Quentin had two ante-post tips in the race. One was a non-runner, so depending on when you backed it you might have got your stake back, whilst his other tip Paisley Park finished third. 

Profit/Loss from Race: -£50

 

3.40 – Paddy Power Plate Handicap

No bets from Quentin on this one but two from the Bet Alchemist, with one placing at 13/2 in the form of Farclas whilst the other selection Happy Diva finished down the field.  

Profit/Loss from Race: -£18

 

4.15 – Mares Novices Hurdle

The Bet Alchemist then followed it up with their first winner of the week in the next race with Telmesomethinggirl absolutely romping home for Rachael Blackmore at 13/2.

Profit/Loss from Race: +£84

 

4.50 – Kim Muir Challenge Cup Handicap Chase

The Bet Alchemist had two more selections in this race and they both finished in the places, wrapping up a much better day for him. 

Profit/Loss from Race: +£35

 

TOTAL PROFIT/LOSS FROM THE DAY: +£58

So a decent day in the end with more profit made, which you can’t complain about really.

The festival wraps up tomorrow with the feature race being the Gold Cup, so let’s hope for more of the same and to finish off a profitable week in style.

Enjoy the last day of the festival though wherever you are and I hope you’ve had a good week too. 

 

 

Cheltenham 2021 – Plan of Action

It’s nearly upon us – yes tomorrow is the start of the Cheltenham Festival!

It’s Dan here and my plan for Cheltenham is pretty much the same as the last few years – which made me a very nice £504 profit last year and £711 profit the year before, as chronicled in my betting diaries.

My approach will be:

1. Take advantage of all the bookies’ offers and bonuses this week.

There are some fantastic offers this week with extra places, money back and free bets being thrown around by the bookies like confetti. I will be using Profit Maximiser to see each day’s offers and make sure I use them to extract the most profit possible.

2. Use some top tipsters.

I will be using two of my favourite tipsters – Quentin Franks Racing and the Bet Alchemist – to find the best bets for Cheltenham. Both have excellent records at the festival so I will be following their tips for the week.

By combining the above two together, this should give me a great chance of beating the bookies at Cheltenham.

The bookies’ offers alone can add up to hundreds of pounds if done correctly, so used in conjunction with some shrewd betting advice then it should be a winning formula.

Anyway, just thought I would share my plans for the week with you. Will keep you posted on how it goes in my Cheltenham betting diary!

 

 

 

Lost bet man frustrated laptop

The Sorry Story of Football Index and What it Means for Other Platforms

Anyone involved with Football Index will no doubt have seen the news announced on Friday night and reported in the Guardian yesterday. 

Sadly the once-very promising platform announced it was in financial difficulty and was having to cut dividends by what appears to be over 60%. Customers’ portfolio values crashed overnight and are now only worth a fraction of what they were previously.

This is obviously very disappointing news and was greeted with understandable anger across social media.

Below we take a look at what we think this means not just for Football Index but the other new trading/betting/investing platforms that have sprung up recently. Was this just a case of a badly managed platform or is the business model fundamentally flawed? What can we – and these other platforms – learn from what happened at Football Index? We will take a look at these questions and other issues that come out of this sorry turn of events.

 

What It Means for Football Index

There is no beating around the bush on this, the future for Football Index (we will use FI for short in the remainder of the article) looks very bleak. First and foremost because this course of action has utterly destroyed their reputation and any trust they had left with the FI community. The depth of feeling on Twitter is extremely strong – and understandably so. With the media now reporting what has happened, negative reviews on Trust Pilot and so on their reputation is in tatters and it will be very tough to attract new users in such an environment.

Secondly because they must be in a very sorry financial position to have cut dividends by as much as they did – which from analyses by informed commentators appears to amount to over 60% in real terms. A 20-30% cut we could have understood and would have perhaps been palatable. But this is a whopping reduction and can only be interpreted as a signal that they simply cannot afford to pay out any more this.

Thirdly, and perhaps fatally, because doing this actually destroys their own business model. FI’s primary source of revenue is through the minting of shares. Now they will only be able to mint shares at a fraction of the price they were minting them at previously – so a huge loss of revenue. It also very much reduces the possibility that they could raise dividends again in the future, certainly to the level they have been up until now, because it could mean they end up having to pay out more in dividends than they have made on minting the share. Football Index may hope of course this is only temporary and would affect a small number of shares, but for the reasons above any form of recovery seems unlikely. 

It also means the other source of revenue for FI – commissions on the trading of shares – will be greatly reduced. So it really begs the question of how much longer they can keep going with very little revenue coming in. 

In our view the best hope now is for a buyout, a complete rebrand and restructure and much more competent new owners who can set up a sustainable business model – but more on that below.

Other than that we would say the best hope for customers is that the Gambling Commission step in and force FI to refund whatever is left of customers’ net deposits – although sadly we would amazed given the statements FI have made if this amounts to more than 20-30%, if anything at all. Again we will look at the issue of net deposits and the “prize pool” of platforms like FI further below however.

 

What Should Customers of Football Index Do Now?

There is no doubt that the behaviour of Football Index management has been shocking. We would recommend reading this post by Football MDJ, a respected member of the community who doesn’t mince her words about the wrongdoings of FI.

We also think it is worth recognising Betfair trader and YouTube personality Caan Berry at this point, who warned of some of the risks of FI in a YouTube video just a few months ago, something he got a lot of stick for but has very much been vindicated about now. We wonder how many of those who attacked him will now be apologising to him…

In any event, we believe it is certainly worth customers contacting the Gambling Commission and asking them to investigate what has happened. There have been what appear to been misleading statements made by FI, most notably an announcement five months ago stating they had never been in a better financial position.

We have also seen discussions on social media of involving lawyers under a class action lawsuit. Whilst we are not legal experts and cannot comment on any potential criminality that may have occurred, we think it is worth at least asking for a legal opinion on this and seeing if there is a case to be made. 

As we say we are not experts in such matters so we will leave it to the authorities such as the Gambling Commission and possibly the courts to determine any repercussions here.

In terms of the platform itself, it goes without saying that we would not recommend anyone deposit more funds now. Existing customers could sell their existing holdings but would have to take a very large loss in most cases, so will have to decide for themselves if this is something they wish to do. 

 

What Went Wrong – Was This Always Doomed to Fail?

One of the main issues we have been pondering since the announcement was made is whether what has happened was simply the result of an inept management and a series of missteps or whether Football Index’s business model was fundamentally flawed from the start.

FI clearly made some huge missteps including most obviously:

  • Introducing a new system for trading shares (called “order books”) without properly beta testing it or ensuring there would be enough liquidity to support it;
  • Relatedly – issuing shares on far too many footballers so that liquidity was spread too thin;
  • Promising things that were never delivered like Nasdaq integration, expansion into new countries and the introduction of major liquidity providers;
  • A series of PR own-goals that affected trust with their customer base;
  • And increasing dividends when it now seems clear they did not have funds to sustainably support them in the long term and may have been relying on bringing in new customers to do so.

However, as bad these errors were (and they were!) we want to delve more deeply into FI’s business model to see whether in more competent hands this could have succeeded.

This is important not just for any potential takeover/new version of FI, but for the array of new football-related trading platforms that have arisen in the last few years such as Footstock, Sorare (which we have featured just recently on this site) and SportStack.

The answer is complex but we think it is essential to explore the long-term viability of these platforms to ascertain if they have a chance of surviving long-term and becoming a genuine alternative to the bookies. 

 

The Football Index Model – Fixed Dividends Based on Fluctuating Share Prices

The Football Index business model was founded on the idea that they could mint “virtual shares” in footballers and then pay dividends on these shares based on players’ performances and media attention. The idea was that those dividends would always be just a fraction of the price the share was minted at, thus meaning FI would always have enough money to pay dividends out. 

The problem here though is that if you have a fixed dividend price – which on the best “gold days” was 28p per share for a top performance (including the “star man” award), but a fluctuating share price, you cannot know what percentage that dividend will actually be of the share price. 

To give one recent example, shares in Gareth Bale had fallen as low as 30p after a slow start to his career back at Spurs. He then turned in a great performance, taking the full dividend award, plus some media dividends on top. Thus there were people on Twitter boasting about how they had made the cost of the share back in one go and you could understand their delight. 

However, on FI’s side this clearly wasn’t good. To counter such an eventuality, previously they had a policy of only minting new shares at or above a player’s all-time high (ATH) price. The problem with this of course is that FI had presented themselves with a converse problem: what happens in a downward market? They would not be able to mint new shares and would be cutting off their major source of income. 

So they scrapped the policy recently and allowed themselves to mint new shares at any price. The issue being however that they were saddled with the first problem again – not knowing how much they would have to issue in dividends as a percentage of the share price and the possibility it could be close to, or over, 100%, which would obviously be unprofitable for them.

So whichever way they ran it, fundamentally this method of providing dividends as a fixed amount (in pence) whilst not knowing what share prices would be, versus as a percentage of something (we will suggest below a prize pool) was setting themselves up for problems. It would work okay in a bull market, and probably even in a stable market, but would surely run into problems in a downmarket, as of course it did.

 

A “Prize Pool” Model is Better

If FI or a similar platform want to pay dividends, perhaps a better model would be to have them as a percentage of a prize pool. So for example rather than having a fixed pence per share model which as we have discussed has some serious issues, they could set it as a percentage of shares minted over a previous period, whether it be day, week, month, or whatever was deemed appropriate. 

So they could say “star man gets 5% of the previous week’s prize pool, top forward gets 3%” and so on. They would obviously have to do the maths to work out what is feasible in terms of the percentages, but the principle would mean they know for sure they can only ever pay out a certain percentage of what they have collected in the previous day, week, month or whatever it is. They would not be in a position of having to pay out a fixed amount even if share prices crashed. In this sense we think a percentage and “prize pool” model is a much better one.  

The drawback of this of course is that there would be fluctuating dividends and at some point those dividends are going to fall compared to a previous period. But users would know that from the outset and would become accustomed to it. It would be the price to pay for having a more sustainable business model that users could believe in.

Ultimately no business can be assured of success whatever model they use but we believe this is a more sound one and we note that platforms like Sorare and Footstock have something more akin to this than FI’s pence-per-share dividend model.

 

Ringfencing Funds is Essential

Even saying all of this, share prices on FI were still high enough in many cases to give the impression that FI would have enough funds to cover dividend payouts under their fixed dividend structure, on the face of it at least. Prices on the top players were over £7 before Friday’s announcement and had been as high as £15 at one point, whilst annual dividend payouts on the top players were still at a level it appeared FI could afford, bearing in mind shares expired after three years.

There were still only a few of the top players who would come close to returning their value in dividends in three years and there were many players who were returning much less than that. And there were some who had returned nothing in dividends – essentially a free ride for FI. After all, there were only a maximum of five players who could win dividends on any given day out of hundreds of players listed on the platform. 

So considering FI were also making money from commission on trades, how on earth could it now be the case – as we are assuming from their statements but would love to be proved wrong about – that they only have a fraction of customer deposits left (if any at all)? 

This leads us onto a key issue with FI and is one we feel is essential to the success of any similar platform and that is that the “prize pool” as it were – which in the case of FI was the money they minted from shares – is ringfenced and only ever used to pay out the prizes (or dividends). 

Leaving aside the morality of it, purely from a cold hard business perspective, if the company starts delving into that pool to fund its operations, marketing, etc then there is a significant risk that the pool will have to be reduced at some stage and customer confidence will collapse.

The company should be in such a position that it can fund its operations from separate income streams. In FI’s case this could have for example been commissions on trading, which was approximately 3% of trading volume. In better days a few months ago FI was seeing trading volume of over £1m per day, meaning income for them of £30,000 per day, so close to £1m per month. In theory that should have been more than enough to fund ongoing operations.

In terms of marketing costs, we would expect in the early days for this to be funded through equity, for example in FI’s case the money they raised on Seedrs and through other angel investors. Then once they have reached a certain size this money can come from their various income streams, but not the prize pool.

But any platform like this has to give its customers full confidence and transparency that it is not going to be using the prize pool to pay for its own costs like salaries etc. That money needs to be ringfenced and untouchable by the business. If Football Index had done this, we expect they would not be in the position they are now of having to radically cut dividends and – as we suspect is the case – having very little (if anything) left of customers’ deposits. 

 

How Other Platforms Can Manage Payouts to Give Users Confidence 

For example a fantasy football-style business could say its fee for entry is £1. If there are 100,000 entries and the company says it will pay out 50% of entry fees as prizes, that means there is a “prize pool” of £50,000 to be paid out. The company cannot touch this money or use it for anything else. 

In terms of the other platforms such as Sorare, the money they are receiving at the moment from minting cards is substantial – around $400,000 per day currently, due to the recent explosion of the platform. The amount they are paying out in prizes is only a fraction of this though, as it was established before this explosion when their revenues were much smaller. 

That is good and we hope they learn from FI and do not increase payouts too much. That may sound like a strange thing to say from a user of the platform but we think there is a lesson to be learned here. Only pay out what you can sustainably afford to at current levels and don’t rely on future user growth to be able to pay rewards/dividends. 

At current levels, Sorare could really build a substantial “war chest” of funds from which to pay rewards for a long time to come. That will give users much more confidence in the long term stability of the platform, which in turn should encourage more adoption. It can become a virtuous cycle.  

Sorare have said they would like to keep the payouts at 40% of revenues. We would say they could actually be lower than this, but whatever figure they settle on we would suggest this to them: make it an amount that is sustainable for the long term and then ringfence those funds and do not use them for operations. If possible build up a warchest of a prize pool so even if you have a drop in revenues you can still pay out the same level of rewards for a good period of time.  And give transparency about this, which should be easier given the blockchain and the fact that sites like Soraredata already record daily auction volumes.

Sorare are also in a strong position due to the $50m they recently raised in capital, which they can use to undertake marketing, build an app etc rather than using funds from the sale of cards. Used wisely this could allow them to grow substantially and hopefully not repeat FI’s mistakes.  

The same goes for the other platforms. We haven’t joined Footstock or SportStack or looked into them in any depth so can’t comment on their business models but the same would go for them if they want to succeed and not be tarnished with the same brush as Football Index. Be transparent about how funds are used and don’t give away rewards that are too generous to be affordable without bringing onboard lots of new users.

 

Final Thoughts and What We Can Learn

These are just our initial thoughts on the Football Index debacle and what other platforms can learn from Football Index’s mistakes, apart from just the obvious. No doubt much will be written and probably some very sophisticated analyses will emerge.

And any FI takeover consortium or future FI-style platform will hopefully give these points due consideration and structure any such platform more sustainably in future.

As for us as users, it should be a lesson to us all to be very vigilant about what companies say about their financial health and not to take their word for it. It appears users were lied to and that is appalling if it was the case, but we also need to watch very carefully for any warning signs of trouble. To be fair a few were there and credit to the likes of Caan Berry for pointing them out, despite the stick he got for it.

As ever we always advise people to only risk an amount they can afford to lose on these platforms, just as you would set aside a betting bank for following a tipster or betting system and be prepared to lose it all if there is a really bad losing run. In this case, be prepared to lose it all if the platform goes bust. 

So if you are thinking of putting some money into Sorare, Footstock or anything similar, please do so with your eyes open and consider that you could lose all your funds. And try and withdraw your initial stake as soon as you can, so you are only playing “with the house’s money” as it were. For our part we are going to be even more vigilant about how we scrutinise such platforms, as if we are being frank we probably should have asked harder questions about FI and we apologise for not doing that.

Ultimately this experience should make us all look at anything that pays a generous dividend or passive income stream and say “where is that money coming from?” “can they sustain it?” and “what happens if they stop bringing in new users?” Is the business model sustainable in a “steady-state” mode or does it need to keep on growing to work? These are all important questions and ones we should all ask of any trading/investment opportunity.

At the end of the day, as the old saying goes “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

 

 

 

man celebrates betting win

Tipster of the Month – February

We are starting a new feature here at Honest Betting Reviews – our “Tipster of the Month” award. 

This is where we look at the top tipsters – both those we have reviewed in the past and those we are currently reviewing – to see who has performed most strongly over the last month. 

It’s a chance to find out who is in form and has been giving the bookies a good hiding over the last month and to note any stand-out performances.

This will encompass all sports and disciplines so the competition will be fierce. 

It will be interesting to see as the months go by whether there are any tipsters who consistently appear in the awards, demonstrating their strength over an extended period of time.

So to kick things off we will take a look at the Tipster of the Month for February.

 

Tipster of the Month – February 2021

February is an interesting month from a betting point of view. In horse racing terms, it can be tricky with bad weather interrupting the schedule and many horses being prepared for Cheltenham just being given a run as more of a warm-up than anything else. 

That was very much the case this year with some poor weather across the UK playing havoc with racing’s fixture list. However, thankfully some tipsters managed to overcome all that and still produce an excellent profit, which is good to see. 

In football terms, February is usually a busy month with the Champions League and Europe League returning and races for the title across the European leagues hotting up. That was even more so this year with an incredibly busy schedule due to previous covid interruptions meaning wall-to-wall football, which at least helped footy fans cope with the lockdown. 

Anyway, let’s take a look at the top three tipsters for the month of February:

 

3. MJ Racing

In third spot we have a tipster we have recently finished a review of at the start of February and they smashed it during our trial, making over 100 points profit. 

This is a tipping duo combining the skills of two professional gamblers, Mark and Jay (hence the “MJ” Racing). 

Since our review ended they have continued to perform very well, notching up 29 points, or £580 profit for the month of February at £20/point stakes. 

Winners during the month included Shannon Bridge at Ascot at 16/1, Fou Diligence at Naas at 14/1, Sheriff Garrett at Catterick at 10/1 and Captain Chaos at Ascot at 10/1 along with a host of other successes during the month. 

A fine effort for February carrying on from where they left off at the end of our review.

You can check out MJ Racing here.

 

2. Quentin Franks Racing

Taking second place is one of our old favourites, the venerable Quentin Franks Racing. 

Still going strong after more than six years as a tipster, Quentin landed yet another profitable month in February to add to his extensive collection.

Racking up 38 points profit, or £760 profit to £20/point stakes, Mr Franks once again put the bookies to the sword.

Highlights for the month included Nortonthorpe Boy at Wolves at 6/1 (a 2pt win bet), Shamarouski at Chelmsford at 14/1 and a succession of other winners throughout the month. Great stuff as ever.

You can check out Quentin Franks Racing here.

 

1. The Outside Edge

Taking top slot as Tipster of the Month for February is a service we are currently reviewing and who is hitting it out of the park, making over 150 points profit for our trial so far and that is The Outside Edge.

This is a horse racing tipster who takes a two-pronged approach, sending two sets of tips each day – the first few tips the evening before to capture value in the markets then a second round of tips in the morning to grab some final value.

It’s an approach that has been working very well, with a profit of 41 points, or £820 profit at £20/point made during the month of February. 

Winners during the month included Starfighter at Newcastle at 11/1, Claud And Goldie at Kelso at 10/1, Multellie at Carlisle at 11/1 and they capped off the month with a winner yesterday from their sole bet at odds of 7/1.

So red-hot form from this tipster and well deserving of the Tipster of the Month award for February. 

You can check out The Outside Edge here.

 

 

 

Members’ Choice Awards – Best Overall Betting Service 2020

So we come towards the end of our awards for this year, as voted for by you, the members of Honest Betting Reviews. There is just one award left to hand out – that of Best Overall Betting Service.

Before we get onto that though, we just want to say it was great to see so much interest this year, with a record number of people voting in the awards. 

We feel these awards are a good opportunity to mark out those services that have performed particularly well, introduced some new innovations and most importantly, hopefully made us all some extra income over the last year. 

In summary then, the winners we have had so far are:-

  • – Best Football Service: Goal Profits
  • – Best Horse Racing Service: Little Acorns
  • – Best (other) Sports Service: Trade on Sports
  • – Best Matched Betting Service: Profit Maximiser
  • – Best Trading Software: Fairbot

Well done to all of those services on their awards. 

What is interesting for us is a few themes have emerged this year, factors that the first three awards (football, horse racing, sports) all have in common:-

  • – Trading services/betting systems, rather than tipsters
  • – All for use on Betfair rather than the bookies
  • – All established, long-running services with proven track records over many years

Perhaps then we are seeing an evolution towards services that can offer their members a way of profiting without using the bookies and where members can use stats, databases and software to develop selections. 

Now don’t get us wrong, there is certainly still a place for high quality tipsters in your portfolio and we use a few ourselves. But it seems punters these days are seeking something beyond the traditional tipster and to a more interactive service where they have a role in finding selections themselves – or at least seeing how the selections are developed. 

And of course it is no surprise that punters are looking for services that can be used purely on Betfair – that is a natural result of the highly unfair restrictions bookies place on customers’ accounts. 

Anyway, those are just some brief reflections on this year’s awards. Now it is time to move on to the final award of Best Overall Betting Service 2020.

Best Overall Betting Service 2020 

So this award is for the best overall service across all categories,  whether that be matched betting, tipsters or trading services and in any sport.

It’s obviously the toughest award to win and the most sought after. 

This year there was a runaway winner of the award, notching up more votes than all the other services put together! 

So whilst we will give honourable mentions to those who notched some support in the voting, including Profit Maximiser, Geegeez and Oddsmonkey, really they were just also-runs in this category when compared to the winner.

Yes this year’s resounding winner was…

Goal Profits!

Yes, yet again this hugely popular football trading service has blown away the competition and picked up yet another award. They must need a separate room in the house for all the awards they’ve won over the years!

Congratulations to the whole GP team on well-deserved recognition for all the hard work they’ve put in over the years.

Here is what Steve from Goal Profits had to say on receiving news of the award:

“Thank you to everyone who voted for Goal Profits!

We love winning awards which are voted for by the public. It’s the ultimate feedback to let us know we’re doing a great job, though we’re always looking to improve even further so expect plenty more new features in 2021.

We’ve completed a few major projects during 2020, including our Team Stats Database which currently contains stats for more than 220,000 historical fixtures. We have also added substitution alerts to our Live Stats Module which are proving a massive hit with members. These alerts tell us when substitutions are made and whether they’re attacking, defensive or like-for-like. It’s a fantastic indicator of team mentality and has already identified some terrific trading opportunities.

Coming up early in 2021 we will be launching live Telegram/email alerts and an updated version of Team Stats. There will be a number of new features for our Custom Shortlist Pro research tool and Kevin Laverick has some new trading strategies to unveil as well.

Later on in the year, we’ll be celebrating our 10th birthday! We’re planning a huge celebration, especially for all the members who have been with us since the very beginning. It’s no coincidence that so many members stay with us long-term. Kevin, Paul and I work 7 days a week to ensure that everyone is well looked after and that members have all the support they need in order to trade successfully.

Sadly, we’ve not been able to hold any of the live events that were planned for 2020. I was particularly looking forward to visiting Dublin in March and meeting many of our Irish members, but that had to be put on ice. Once it is safe to do so, we’ll arrange more of our free trading workshops.

Goal Profits membership still costs as little as £1 per day and all the new features are included.

Thank you again to everyone who voted for us! We appreciate your support and we look forward to trading with you soon.”

So well done again to Steve and his team and that wraps up our Members Choice Awards for this year. Thanks to everyone who took part and has enjoyed Honest Betting Reviews over the last year. We really do appreciate your feedback, input and suggestions and we are looking forward to introducing some new developments to you in the coming months. 

All that’s left to say is that you can get a 7 day trial of Goal Profits for £1 here if you want to join the throng of happy members!

 

 

 

 

 

matched betting

Members Choice Awards – Best Matched Betting Service 2020

We move on to the next in our series of awards voted for by you the members of Honest Betting Reviews.

This time it is the turn of Best Matched Betting Service 2020 and this was a very close run thing – as it often is in this category.

Matched betting has become very popular over the last few years and it is one of the very few ways of ensuring you can beat the bookies over the long term.

As the bookies have adapted their offers over the years and become wiser to the ways of matched betting however, so the methods used by matched bettors have had to adapt and become more sophisticated. The various matched betting services have had to innovate and improve to stay ahead of the bookies – and each other. 

Anyway, without further ado let’s have a look at how the voting went.

In third place was Profit Accumulator from Sam Stoffel, which has high ratings on Trust Pilot and was also a popular choice with you guys.

Coming in second place and just missing out on top spot was the renowned Oddsmonkey, which made £1,045 in our review of it back in 2017 and has gone from strength to strength since then.

But which service took top slot this year?

Best Matched Betting Service 2020

Well this year’s winner is no stranger to regular followers and also won this award the last two years. It is seemingly immovable atop the rankings of matched betting services.

Yes, the winner is…

Profit Maximiser!

Congratulations to Mike Cruickshank, the developer of Profit Maximiser and generally known as the “doyen of matched betting.”

And in Cristiano Ronaldo like-fashion, that makes it a hat-trick of wins for Profit Maximiser in this category. 

As we say, the voting was very close, with just a couple of percent separating the top two choices. Here is how the voting went:-

  1. 1. Profit Maximiser (32% of the votes)
  2. 2. Oddsmonkey (30%)
  3. 3. Profit Accumulator (14%)

So a tight affair but Profit Maximiser just edged the award this year and gives Mr Cruikshank his third win in a row.

Here is what Mike had to say on receiving news of the award:

“Thanks to all the HBR readers who voted for Profit Maximiser.

2020 was a strange year with various lockdowns effecting sports. But we still found ways around that to keep the profits rolling in month after month.

I also need to thank Profit Maximiser forum users who share offers & strategies. It really helps give a big edge over the bookmakers.”

Well done to Mike on making it three wins in a row and we look forward to seeing what he’s got in store for PM members this year. 

In the meantime you can get a 14 day trial of Profit Maximiser for just £1 here. 

 

 

 

Members’ Choice Awards – Best Horse Racing Service 2020

Next up in our series of the HBR Members’ Choice Awards is the accolade of Best Horse Racing Service 2020.

This is perhaps the premiere category, with the most services in our Winning Systems list coming from the sport of kings.

Horse racing is probably where the most value is to be found in betting and where the most professional gamblers make their money. 

So as expected it was a very competitive category this year and the results were very tight. There were a number of hot contenders who had their fair share of support.

Onto the results then. 

In third place in the contest for Best Horse Racing Service 2020 was the excellent Bet Alchemist. It’s a service we have been following since 2016 and remains the model of consistency, having made over 600 points profit since starting tipping in 2012. 

Taking the runner-up spot was a service that has made a splash since arriving on the scene around 18 months ago and that is RF Racing Tips. With over 260 points profit made since April 2019 at an ROI of 16%, it was a worthy runner-up in our awards, with a particularly strong end to the year.

Best Horse Racing Service 2020

Onto the winner then and the service taking the accolade this time had narrowly missed out previously, finishing second for the last two years. 

So it was perhaps due the win and this year managed to land it. 

Yes the winner of the Best Horse Racing Service 2020 was…

Little Acorns!

This is one the longest-running horse racing services out there, having been originally released way back in 2009.

It’s a low-liability laying system that follows a clear set of rules and has been delivering profits every year for over a decade now. We conducted our own review of the service back in 2017 and it came through with flying colours. 

It’s impressive to have stood the test of time in the way Little Acorns has and testament to its popularity that it has won this award after coming second the last two years.

Here are the final rankings then for Best Horse Racing Service 2020:

1. Little Acorns
2. RF Racing Tips
3. Bet Alchemist

So the spoils go to Little Acorns and here is what Andrew David, who designed the system, had to say on receiving news of the award:

“First and foremost I would like to thank all your loyal and sharp readers (of which I know you have many) who voted for Little Acorns and if I could thank every one of them individually I would.

I’m overjoyed that at last punters are now becoming more realistic in their expectations on the gains to be made from gambling, and with the help of quality sites such as yours, are now turning their attention to low risk based systems and services that can offer the patient follower some very worthwhile gains over the long term.

My focus in developing Little Acorns was primarily centred around the end user. In my experience, punters hate losing and dread long losing runs that can see most out of the game before they can reap the rewards of the upturn. Therefore, with Little Acorns I’ve included a few staking options that would suit everyone’s attitude to risk. Some are slightly more progressive than others, but either way you will get the edge as Little Acorns simply exploits the unreliability of horse racing, to lead the end user to a profitable conclusion overall. It also provides a great platform for buyers to further tweak if they so wish in the whole arena of low-risk betting.

Put simply, Little Acorns was born out of my extreme dislike of the highs and lows that come with most forms of betting and if you feel the same then you’re on my wavelength. Also Little Acorns is ideal for those who have been gubbed by their Bookies as we work on the exchanges where that can’t happen!

Finally thanks again to all your readers and I hope to share more ideas with Little Acorns followers as and when they arise.”

So that wraps up the award and well done again to Andrew and his Little Acorns system. We’ll be back soon with the next award in the series.

You can check out Little Acorns for yourself here.

 

 

 

sports pic

Members’ Choice Awards – Best Sports Service 2020

Next up in our series of the HBR Members’ Choice Awards is the accolade of Best (Other) Sports Service 2020. 

This is the turn of those services that either focus on sports other than the “big two” of horse racing and football, or combine a range of sports into one service.

This can include anything from golf to tennis, cricket, NFL, darts and more. So it is quite a wide playing field and this was a competitive category. 

It is often in these more niche services that you find the best value however, so it is a category to keep an eye on.  

But without further ado, let’s have a look at the results. 

In third place was the ever-consistent Premier Greyhound Tips, a service we have been proofing for a full five years now and continues to deliver the goods, with just under 700 points profit made in total. 

In second place was a service that had a phenomenal year and actually just broke the record for the best ever trial by a tipster here at Honest Betting Reviews. That service was the Golf Insider. So well done to them on an excellent 2020 and on the runner-up award in this category.

So now we move on to the winner of the award.

Best (Other) Sports Service 2020

This year’s winner is one of our personal favourite services and is one that has gone from strength to strength over the last year. 

It actually won this award last year so now completes the double. 

Yes the winner of the award of Best (Other) Sports Service is…

 

Trade on Sports!

We recently completed our review of the service and their football Overs Bot made over £5,000 profit for our trial. They also delivered excellent profits on their US sports bets.

They have recently developed a range of new systems that are going great guns and have substantially increased the overall profits for members. In addition they now have an option to automate all the trades (via an extra subscription to BF Bot Manager) for those who want to have it all run on autopilot.  

As we say it’s a personal favourite of ours and a service we follow with our own money, so we are delighted it has won this award for the second year in a row.

So to recap, here are the final results for the award of Best Sports Service 2020:-

  1. 1. Trade on Sports (30% of the votes)
  2. 2. Golf Insider (15%)
  3. 3. Premier Greyhound Tips (8%)

So congratulations to the whole team at TOS on the win. We feel like they are one of the internet’s best kept secrets so it is good to see them getting some credit for their hard work through this award.

Here is what Pete Nordsted from Trade On Sports had to say on receiving news of the award:

“We are delighted to have won this award. We have a very good team at Trade on Sports and many thanks must go to our tech guy, who has worked tirelessly to ensure we are ever evolving. We realise that sitting in front of a screen all day can be demanding and does not suit everybody, and so we now offer automation on most of the strategies.

We believe we are still in an emerging market and that the Game State Application is ground-breaking and we have to thank our members for taking the data analysis to the next level and we are looking forward to a profitable 2021 after a superb 2020.”

Well done again to Pete and his team and that wraps up this year’s award for Best (Other) Sports Service 2020. 

We’ll be back soon with the next award in the series, Best Horse Racing Service. 

In the meantime you can check out Trade On Sports for yourself here.