We have reached the end of our 18 month trial of Bet Sage and here are the final results:-

 

Profit/Loss:	+169 points
Strike Rate:	34%
Bank Growth:	+169%
ROI:	13%
Average number of bets:	7 bets per week
Cost:	14 day free trial then £33/month or £75/quarter*
VERDICT:	PASSED
Rating:

 

You can view full results here.

*prices correct at time of publication and subject to change

 

Bet Sage – Full Review

 

Bet Sage is a horse racing tipping service hosted on the BetHub platform and came into our review with an impressive long-term record behind it.

That was one of the main reasons we were interested in testing the service. Plenty of tipsters can point to a good few months, but Bet Sage had already demonstrated a track record stretching back several years.

Of course, historical figures are one thing. What really matters to us is what happens when we independently follow the selections ourselves.

And on that score, Bet Sage has performed very well indeed.

By the conclusion of our trial, the service had generated a superb 169 points profit at the advised prices, representing 169% growth on our starting bank.

Perhaps just as importantly, the performance wasn’t reliant on taking unrealistic prices that disappeared immediately after the tips were released.

Although there was a sizeable difference between the advised-price results and Betfair SP, the service still generated 48 points profit at BSP.

That is an important distinction and strengthens the overall case for Bet Sage considerably.

Bet Sage Results

The headline result from our trial was:

+169 points profit

That is an excellent return and represents a substantial increase on the 100-point betting bank we use for these reviews.

The overall ROI was 13%, meaning the service returned approximately 13 points profit for every 100 points staked.

An ROI in that region is very respectable for a horse racing tipster, particularly over an extended period and a large sample of bets.

The 34% strike rate is also solid.

Bet Sage isn’t simply firing out speculative bets at enormous prices and hoping that the occasional big winner rescues the results. A strike rate of around one winner from every three bets makes the service considerably easier to follow psychologically than many big-priced horse racing tipping services.

There will inevitably still be losing runs – that’s unavoidable with horse racing – but the relatively healthy strike rate helps to keep those runs manageable.

An Excellent 169% Bank Growth

One of the best ways of putting the results into perspective is to consider the growth of the betting bank.

We started with our standard 100-point bank.

A profit of 169 points therefore represents 169% bank growth, turning an initial 100-point bank into 269 points.

Obviously, what that means in monetary terms depends entirely on your chosen point size.

For example, someone betting at £5 per point would have made approximately £845 profit, while £10-per-point stakes would equate to around £1,690 profit before subscription costs.

We would always recommend starting cautiously with any new tipping service rather than choosing a large monetary stake immediately, but those figures illustrate the strength of Bet Sage’s performance during our trial.

Betfair SP Results

We have increasingly focused on Betfair SP results in our tipster reviews because they provide a useful indication of how much of a service’s profitability depends on securing the exact advised prices.

Bet Sage produced:

+48 points at Betfair SP

That is considerably lower than the +169 points at advised prices, but it is still a good result in its own right.

There are several reasons why a horse racing service can perform better at advised bookmaker prices than BSP.

Bet Sage sometimes identifies horses before the market moves significantly, meaning the recommended odds can be considerably bigger than the eventual starting price.

The service also uses each-way bets, where enhanced place terms offered by bookmakers can sometimes make the advised bet considerably more attractive than its exchange equivalent.

Nevertheless, the BSP figures are useful because they show that the underlying selections themselves have remained profitable even without securing all the advised prices.

A 48-point BSP profit is therefore a definite positive.

It suggests Bet Sage hasn’t simply produced its headline profit through a handful of prices that followers had little realistic chance of obtaining.

Results By Odds Band

Breaking down the results by odds band, a clear pattern emerges: the longer-priced selections (especially those above 20/1) have delivered a disproportionate share of the profit relative to how little was staked on them, while short-priced favourites (below 5/1) have barely broken even at advised prices.

That’s a fairly common pattern for each-way strategies on outsiders, since a single big-priced winner can swing the whole band.

Results by Win and Each-Way

When looking at results by win bets versus each-way bets, here is how the returns break down:

Each-way bets have contributed the larger slice of the overall profit — about 58% of total returns — despite having slightly less staked on them than Win bets, and a notably higher ROI (17.55% vs 10.59%).

That fits with the earlier finding that longer-odds selections (which tend to be backed each-way for the place safety net) have been the main profit driver.

Price Availability

As with virtually every successful horse racing tipster, we would still recommend placing the bets reasonably soon after receiving them.

Successful selections tend to shorten.

That is particularly true when a tipster has developed a following and subscribers are all trying to back the same horse.

Getting close to the recommended odds will therefore give you the best chance of replicating the official results.

However, the fact that our Betfair SP results still finished 48 points in profit gives us considerably more confidence in the service.

If every bet had simply been taken at BSP, our trial would still have produced a worthwhile profit.

Of course, there is a fairly substantial difference between +48 points and +169 points, so securing the advised prices remains important if you want to maximise your returns.

Having accounts with several bookmakers should help considerably in that regard.

How Many Bets Does Bet Sage Provide?

Bet Sage averaged approximately seven bets per week during our review.

We think that’s a sensible volume.

It works out at roughly one bet per day on average, although naturally the selections won’t be spread evenly across the week.

Some busy racing days may produce several bets, while there may be other days with no selections at all.

For most punters, seven bets per week should be relatively easy to manage.

It doesn’t require you to spend all day monitoring racing markets or constantly checking your phone for dozens of selections.

At the same time, there are enough bets to keep things interesting and allow the service’s edge to play out over a reasonable period.

Strike Rate