This year we are running 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 May.

 

Tipster of the Month – May 2021

May was a month of transition in the sporting world as the football season came to an end in Europe, whilst the flat racing season got underway. 

There was also a feeling of the changing of the guard in some European leagues as Inter Milan finally ended Juventus’ nine year winning streak in Serie A whilst Lille completed a huge upset in winning Ligue 1 ahead of the mighty PSG. In England Manchester City regained their Premier League crown in dominant fashion. 

May was capped off by Chelsea winning the Champions League in a dogged 1-0 defeat of Man City in Porto, whilst Villareal pulled off a shock defeat of Man Utd in the Europa League final after an epic penalty shoot-out. 

In the racing world, the month got off to a flying start with the Guineas meeting at Newmarket, where Poetic Flare won the 2,000 Guineas for Jim Bolger and Mother Earth won the 1000 Guineas for trainer Aidan O’Brien with the evergreen Frankie Dettori on board.

In terms of tipping, May was dominated by horse racing tipsters, a number of whom had a cracking month and put the bookies to the sword. Let’s take a look at the best tipsters for the month of May. 

 

4. Loves Racing

One of our top recommended horse racing services is Loves Racing and after a bit of a mixed year so far they got things back on track with a cracking month in May. 

The main selections brought home a profit of 40 points for the month, with the highlight being an 18/1 winner in the shape of Storting at Thirsk. 

Their festival selections also made a profit of 7 points for the month, with Primo Bacio landing the spoils at York’s Dante Festival at odds of 14/1. Loves Racing’s festival selections have now made 285 points profit in total, in addition to the 378 points profit made from their main selections.

An excellent month then and let’s see if they can build on that as the flat racing season really kicks into gear over the coming months.

 

3. Racing Intelligence

Another tipster who had a tricky start to the year but has now got right back into form is the excellent Racing Intelligence. 

After notching a solid profit in April, they went and smashed in over 50 points profit in May, getting back to the kind of bookie-bashing form we’ve come to expect from them over the past couple of years. 

Highlights for the month included a double success on the 17th at Leicester as Bit Of A Quirke won at 13/2 and Dora Penny triumphed at 14/1. There was a fairly steady stream of returns throughout the month with each-way shots and winners aplenty. 

Great to see Racing Intelligence back to their best and well done on an excellent month’s tipping. 

 

2. Flat Flyers

Taking the number two spot for the month is a service we are currently reviewing, from the Back Lucrative stable of betting services.

With the flat season getting going in earnest it was a perfect time for Flat Flyers to show their mettle and that is exactly what it did in May, racking up a hugely impressive 74 points profit. 

There were some big winners throughout the month, including Broken Spear at Chester at 25/1, Primo Bacio at York at 14/1, We Still Believe at Hamilton at 14/1 and The Organiser at York at 12/1.

We have come to expect high quality from Michael at Back Lucrative and that is exactly what he delivered last month. Congratulations to him and his Flat Flyers service for racking up some very healthy profits in May.

 

1. Hanbury Racing

Our apologies to this service for originally missing them off our list for May, but the number one service for the month was Hanbury Racing. 

With an excellent 137 points profit at advised prices, it was a great month for them. The real highlight of the month was 100/1 tip Danilo D’Airy at Warwick on the 8th May, which brought home a big portion of the month’s profits. They also had a 33/1 winner with Dawn Sunrise and a 14/1 winner with I Hope Star though so some impressive picks throughout the month.

As noted in our review update however, they actually made a loss at Betfair SP. That was because Danilo D’Airy went off at a BSP of just 12.53, returning under 14 points profit on the bet. So it looks like you really need access to bookie accounts to make the most of this service – or you did during May in any event. 

With such a huge profit made at advised prices though we think Hanbury Racing is worthy of high praise and to pick up the award of Tipster of the Month for May. 

 

 

 

UPDATE – please note Sorare have made a concerted effort to address the concerns raised in the article below through the introduction of changes announced in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on 6th May 2021. 

You can read more about those changes and our thoughts on them here (see 7th May 2021 update). 

In summary we believe the introduction of the Academy League and Progress Bar will go a long way to addressing our concerns regarding fairness, although we think a little more work is needed on the reward structure and entry requirements.

We look forward to seeing the changes in full and to continue working with Sorare on building the best product possible. 

 

 

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

If you’ve been following our reviews lately you may have noticed we have been getting quite into Sorare, a new global fantasy football game based on digital trading cards. 

If you’re not familiar with what Sorare is, we would recommend reading our guide here. 

As we’ve mentioned in our review updates, we love the concept of Sorare and think it has huge potential. They recently raised $50m in Series A funding and have experienced significant growth in users and revenue this year. 

However, at the same time we believe the platform is fundamentally flawed in its current form. 

In short, this is because the game is becoming increasingly “unwinnable” for new users and those on a small budget. 

We have dealt with this in more detail in our review updates where we summarised the issue as follows:-

“Essentially the gap between the top few percent of users (the “big whales”) and the rest is getting wider and wider each week and it’s becoming almost impossible for a new user to compete with them unless they have a massive – and we mean really massive  – budget.

This is because the top users hold all the best cards and totally dominate the fantasy contests. These top cards now cost thousands of Euros each so are simply not affordable for the vast majority of users. 

This is acting like a vicious cycle, because in winning the fantasy contests the big whales also win the best cards as rewards, only serving to increase their advantage further – and so on. 

One user won £9,500 worth of cards this week for example! 

What this is doing is creating a huge gap between that small percentage of users who were either early adopters or have massive budgets (or both) and everyone else. 

So the rest are essentially left fighting for scraps at the bottom end and have little or no hope of ever catching those at the top – unless something changes.”

We feel this is becoming a huge issue for the platform and we know we are not the only ones who feel this, as some of you have contacted us raising the same concern. 

We wanted to delve into this issue in a little more detail to illustrate by way of example just what is happening at the moment. 

Let’s have a look at the gameweek that just passed, Gameweek #161. 

If we look at the results of Global All-Star Division 4, the biggest division on Sorare in terms of the number of entrants, the top 3 placings were as follows:-

1. tecomah – joined Dec 2019, owns 178 rare cards and 38 super-rare cards. Current roster value 32 ETH ~ $92,800
2. EBr777 – joined Sep 2020, owns 124 rare cards and 15 super-rare cards. Current roster value 42 ETH ~ $121,800
3. timshram – joined Jan 2021, owns 129 rare cards and 12 super-rare cards. Current roster value 26 ETH ~ $75,400*

(*data taken from Soraredata.com)

As you can see, these managers all joined before the boom in prices in February 2021 and all have galleries worth substantial amounts of money. 

In coming in the top three in the Global All-Star Division 4, they won a Star rare card (e.g. Kimmich, Neymar, Lukaku, Courtois), which will substantially increase their chances of performing well in future SO5 contests. They also won 0.5 ETH, 0.3 ETH and 0.2 ETH respectively, which they could use to buy more cards if they wish. 

Now this is not to denigrate any of these managers – fair play to them for joining Sorare at an early stage and for doing well on the platform. 

But it does illustrate the point that it is now increasingly difficult for a new user or manager to compete with the likes of these managers unless they have a huge budget. 

Of course occasionally a new or lower-budget manager will do well in the SO5 contests, for example “Wfootballtips” won the Global All-Star Division 4 in the previous gameweek.

They joined the platform in January 2021 – so still before the February boom – but have a more modest gallery than those above with 38 rare cards and 1 super rare, with a roster value of 2.6 ETH, which is roughly $7,500 at today’s prices.

But going through the results, a win like this is unusual and becomes even more so when you move up into the higher divisions – where the rewards are more substantial with super-rares and unique cards being won as prizes and the chances of winning a card are higher in percentage terms. Familiar names like PawelTrader, Spicer and Zuraw tend to dominate proceedings. The latter for example has won over 500 cards in rewards, worth over 391 ETH, or $1m at today’s prices.

 

What’s the Point?

When you have a look at numbers like these, it can leave users wondering “what’s the point” in trying to compete with these managers and indeed we have felt the same ourselves at times. 

Other fantasy games like FanTeam, which we are reviewing at the moment, give each manager a fixed budget to use each week, meaning everyone starts out on an equal footing and it is down to skill, research, knowledge – and of course a little bit of luck – as to who wins each week. 

This just isn’t the case with Sorare and without significant changes to the structure, it will only get worse. That would leave the vast majority of managers a choice of whether to:

1. Just grind it out for the ETH threshold each week (or whatever replaces it) – hardly the most enthralling long-term experience and misses out on a massive potential element of the game;
2. Try and make a profit by trading cards (which is limited at the moment due to a lack of liquidity); or
3. Leave the platform altogether. We know a few of you have considered the latter option and we have to say if we don’t see significant changes to the structure we may do the same. 

The problem for us is not just that it is very difficult to envisage ever competing with the top managers, but if that’s the case for the vast majority of new users who join in future, then the platform is going to struggle to grow and its potential may never be realised.

 

What Needs to Change

Sorare are in the process of reviewing the reward structure at the moment and announced an outline of their plans on 15th April in a medium post.

Whilst there were some welcome proposals in there, including helping managers with “progression” in the game, we were not convinced that any of the proposed changes will address the fundamental, structural issue discussed above. The Sorare medium post stated: 

“We are currently developing a new threshold feature that will allow all Managers on the platform to unlock cards by progressing and accumulating points across multiple Game Weeks.”

Whilst this is a good idea in itself, we are not sure it will do anything to address the inequity on the platform. The larger accounts will be able to accumulate points and unlock cards faster than lower-budget managers so this will just widen the gulf between managers, unless there are some restrictions placed on this progression, perhaps based on a starting point of how many rewards already won for example.

In addition, although they announced that the number of cards distributed as rewards will increase, this will be based on the number of matches in a gameweek, not the number of entries. 

So whilst this will be helpful to managers in the short-term in terms of helping them win cards, when the number of users on Sorare increases, we will just be back in the same position we are in now, where only a very small percentage of entrants win prizes in Division 4.

We are surprised Sorare didn’t choose to base the number of cards distributed on the number of gameweek entries, or even on cards in circulation, as we would have thought that would be a more sustainable and manageable model for them too. 

Overall we couldn’t see much evidence in Sorare’s medium post of changes to address the structural gulf between managers on the platform and we were really hoping for some action in that direction. 

However, it is a dynamic platform that is constantly evolving and they are always open to feedback from the community, so we hope there is some scope to address this.

In our most recent update we suggested three possible actions the team could take:

1. Limit use of the top cards – e.g. only one Star Rare/Tier 1 per gameweek
2. Spread rewards around more evenly – e.g. distribute ETH currently given to top 3 to more managers lower down
3. Create new leagues and divisions – with certain criteria to make them winnable for low-medium budget managers.

Having been in touch with the team, it appears they are not inclined to place any “limitations” on the platform. So it looks like the first idea is unlikely to come to fruition at the moment.

In terms of the second, we hope the current review of the reward structure will mean rewards spread more evenly, not just with regard to cards but also monetary rewards. 

It is perhaps the third idea that is the most practical however and would do most to address the current flaws. If there was a separate league with only tier 2/3 cards being eligible to enter, it would give just about any manager the chance to compete for the top places. Taking out the likes of Mbappe, Neymar, Kimmich, Kroos and co would greatly negate the financial advantage the top few percent of managers have and make it much more about skill, levelling the playing field. 

Thus low-middle budget managers could conceivably win top rewards without requiring their tier 2/3 cards to beat the Mbappes and Neymars of this world. They would have a realistic way of moving up the ladder and competing with the top managers. It would also give more value to tier 2/3 cards because they would have much more chance of winning you a prize.

We are not suggesting this should replace the current leagues/divisions but would instead run alongside them. Thus you would not be punishing or “limiting” the top managers who could still compete in the free market that is the current league structure (and of course in the new league as well if they wished). But when the low-mid budget managers had won a few top rewards in the new league they might then feel more inclined to take on the top managers in the current leagues.

 

Conclusion – The Spirit of Égalité

As Sorare is a French company we thought we would end with a tribute to the French motto of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. At the moment there is certainly liberté on Sorare, in terms of freedom to play on the platform and fraternité, with a great community, but not quite so much égalité. 

We hope the team can address this by providing a genuine means for new and lower budget managers to compete with the larger-budget/early adopters. We stress this is not to denigrate the latter in any way and credit to them for taking a chance on the platform early on and doing well on it. 

But to make it an enjoyable experience and one where anyone who joins feels the game is actually winnable – not just on a given gameweek if they get incredibly lucky (in which case perhaps playing the lottery is a better idea) but in the long-term whereby they can compete based on skill and judgement and not their financial firepower or when they happened to join the platform. 

The current gulf is only going to get wider if there aren’t structural changes however and this could prove fatal to the platform. Users will just become frustrated and leave, which we are seeing hints of already. 

We have suggested some changes the team could make to address this issue and we hope they will give these and any other ideas the community puts forward to tackle this serious consideration.