Advice

How To Make A Profit From Tipsters

There are many people who struggle to make a profit from tipsters. Usually this is blamed on the tipster for not providing the profits, and there is no doubt that there are a lot of tipsters out there who should not be tipping. However, punters also have themselves to blame a lot of the time.

I have purposefully stayed away from talking about whether a tipster is profitable or not yet, because this is one of the shortcomings of a lot of punters. The expectations of some punters for a tipster is a long way from what is actually possible and this can be the cause of the punter failing to make a profit as often as it is the fault of the tipster.

The purpose of today’s post is to try and clear up some of the confusion, help you to set realistic expectations and actually make a profit by using tipsters.

When you join a tipping service you have to bring a lot more to the table than the tipster does. Assuming the tipster is profitable, then they are going to provide you with selections that they are making a profit on already. What they can’t give you is the mindset, bankroll and experience.

Here is what you must bring to the table…

> A bankroll you can afford to lose

> Loyalty for long enough to statistically determine whether they make a profit or not

> An understanding of the mindset required to bet profitably

Let’s go through the steps. I will assume that you have already spent some time doing research into various tipsters, requested historical results and determined one that you believe is honest and profitable. Don’t do this based on figures from one week, you want at least 3 months of results to check.

Before you join these are the things that you MUST consider.

How much bankroll can you afford to lose?

There is no point in joining a tipping service and betting money that you cannot afford to lose. Set aside an amount of money and then add to it 3 months cost of getting the tips. Be honest with yourself, if it is going to make you uncomfortable to lose this money then it is too much. It is very important to be able to not get emotionally involved in losing this money.

How much should you bet on the selections?

Usually a tipster will give you advice on how many units to split your bankroll into. I would strongly suggest that you make this decision on your own! Just because a tipster is comfortable with a certain level of risk, does not mean that you are. Your situation is completely different to a tipster, and they have been making a profit from betting for a lot longer and so have a lot more experience.

Look at all the results and determine the biggest downswing in them. Remember that this is the biggest downswing SO FAR. There can always be a worse one. For comfort I would suggest you double this downswing and make that the minimum amount of units you use in your betting. For example if the biggest downswing was 25 units, then the minimum amount of units I would split my bankroll into is 50 units.

Now divide your bankroll (which you decided above) by the amount of units your bankroll will be made of. e.g. if your bankroll is £500 and you have a 50 unit bankroll then you would be betting £10 per bet. Are you comfortable with this amount? Are you going to want to be betting more? Can you continue to follow the selections if you lose 50% or 60% of your bankroll?

If you are not happy with any of these questions then you need to re-assess your bankroll.

How much are you expecting to make?

If you are expecting to start with £500 and be making a full time income then I would suggest you stop betting now. This is just not possible. Your expectations must be realistic. If, over a three month or longer period of time, selections are making more than 10% return on investment, then you are doing well.

Starting with a £500 bankroll and placing £10 bets, this means that if our tipster is giving us 3 selections a day we are betting around £900 per month. If we are making £90 or more profit per month then we should be happy. Anything above this should be considered a bonus.

This is a realistic expectation. After all you will be doubling your investment every six months, do you know any other way of doing that?

Expectations is one of the biggest downfalls for the majority of punters. They are expecting to hit 10/1 or higher winners every day. This will not happen.

Are your prepared to try the tipster for a decent period of time?

Statistically, trying a tipping service for any period of time less than 3 months is not worth it. You will not have had enough information to actually determine whether or not the selections are profitable.

All tips go through upswings and downswings. The length of time these last can vary. By quitting a service after a few weeks you are only getting enough information to determine how the downswing was performing without knowing whether the upswing is going to cover your losses and bring in enough profit.

THREE MONTH TIPSTER PROFIT GRAPH

Tipster-Graph

The image above shows what happens to most punters joining a tipping service. They join at the beginning of a downswing. After a few weeks they decide the selections aren’t profitable and so quite the service. However they haven’t given the tipster enough time to recover.

As you can see betting goes in cycles. Although this is a very uniform example, any tipster profit/loss graph will contain ups and downs. You have to go through enough of these cycles to be able to determine if the profit cycles outweigh the loss cycles.

Are you prepared to lose the majority of your bets?

This is possibly the hardest psychological leap to achieve in profitable betting. Just because you aren’t finding more winners than losers does not mean you aren’t making a profit. We could go into the maths behind this but this is not the place. If there is interest I shall write about that in a separate article.

A tipster with a very high winning strike rate may win 30% of their bets. It is much more usual for a tipster to win between 20% and 25% of their bets.

If a tipster is winning 20% of their bets then they are losing 80% of them! Read that again. If a tipster is winning 20% of their bets then they are LOSING 80% of their bets.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE NOT PROFITABLE

I have put that sentence in capitals because it is one of the most important things you will ever understand. Just because you have lost 10 bets in  a row does not mean that the tipster will not be profitable by the time you have finished your initial 3 months.

Do you realise you are joining a tipster service at the start of a downswing?

Most tipsters advertise when they are doing well. Of course, this is when people want to get their selections. However, by definition, an upswing is followed by a downswing. If you join a tipster when they are advertising an upswing period, then you have also joined them at the start of a downswing.

You need to realise that when you join a tipster you could get a few weeks of bad results. There is nothing you can do about this, it is just how the business works. If you have done your research on the tipster, and followed everything in this post then you have nothing to worry about because you are going to be getting their selections for three months whatever happens.

Above you have some of the biggest reasons that so many punters fail to make a profit from tipsters who are profitable. You must take all of this into account and bring to the table an understanding of how this works.

We all want to make instant profits overnight. Unfortunately it is just a dream. You cannot make money without work and even when using a tipster you still have to work. Your work revolves around understanding how successful betting works, being disciplined in your approach, understanding what return you should expect and not acting on emotions.

Michael Wilding

Michael started the Race Advisor in 2009 to help bettors become long-term profitable. After writing hundreds of articles I started to build software that contained my personal ratings. The Race Advisor has more factors for UK horse racing than any other site, and we pride ourselves on creating tools and strategies that are unique, and allow you to make a long-term profit without the need for tipsters. You can also check out my personal blog or my personal Instagram account.

6 Comments

  1. When I read the websites of people selling tipping services I find that they never factor the cost of the service into their profit calculations and, also, it is often impossible to get the advised prices by the time you read their advice. Using the example you give in “How much are you expecting to make” a 10% return on 90 x £10 bets sounds good but, if it costs £60 a month to subscribe, the net profit is only £30 on £900 staked which sounds much less impressive. Also, if the service averages a 10% profit on total stakes at advised prices and you find that, on average, you can only get 95% of those prices, the return on your £900 staked becomes £940.50 less £60 subscription = a loss of £19.50.

    In most cases I would suspect that the price you place your bet at less the cost of the tip will not be a value price so, in the long term you will not profit.

    Hope that makes sense!

    1. Makes sense and very valid points Brian. It is always important to take into account the cost of a service and make sure that your stake size is going to make it worth subscribing.

  2. I fully agree about the cost of service having to be factored in, if a service is £31.00 per month only £1.00 a day.
    if you would spend £100.00 on a bet per day that is now £101.00 and if you use the exchange add 5% of your winnings.
    These will effect your Profit margin and need to be factored in.

    Some times even BPG are so small, it is not worth the risk to value even a good service that publishes the night before.
    It is a Best horse in the Race call! so it goes favourite from the outset. This becomes a no bet situation depending on your staking and also needs to be factored in to staking on any other tips for that day. So Tipping service’s need very careful vetting and need to give some preamble to why they are advocating that Horse or team.

  3. Whereas in his article Michael makes perfectly valid points, in my experience it is the two points raised by Brian in his reply that are the main reasons why the tipster followig punter is destined to a loss making experience.
    And yes Brian, it makes perfect sense!

  4. A superb article here. I have never subscribed to a tipping service, but have felt the effects of punter unrest when a few of my selections go awry. A punter expects immediate results from anyone that labels themselves a tipster, or offers tips.

    I’m not actually a big fan of the word ‘tipster’ myself, but unfortunately it’s the most familiar term for offering betting advice.

    One of the biggest causes of failure for tipster subscribers is lack of discipline and control of bankroll. Many don’t even have a bankroll, and prefer to just use any available cash. There is obviously absolutely no chance of success when you carry on like this.

    You sum it up perfectly when you say the tipster always gets the blame at first. Some deserve it, but all tipsters have downturns… People just have to accept that.

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