It’s the age old question that many often ask when it comes to the sometimes thorny issue of using tipsters.
Can tipsters actually be trusted, especially with your hard-earned cash?
Some like to rule them out without hesitation in the belief that they are all scam artists, the likes of whom might sell their granny just to make a few bob.
In many instances, the issue of trust (or a lack of) is justified as tipsters over the years have built up a poor reputation. The problem dates back to the dinosaur age of the phone-line tipster who will tell you they have a big priced ‘cert’ racing in the 3.30 at Newbury…. Only for said ‘cert’ to be odds-on and come absolutely nowhere.
Sadly this practice still goes on and just this week on our private members forum there have been a number of very dodgy looking tipsters discussed (and subsequently dismissed!).
- One such service performed the old trick of promising a 20/1 ‘touch’ before advising a horse that opened at 5/4 in a 5 runner race.
- Whilst another promised ‘one big winner or your money back’ – as long as you stumped up £100 upfront of course.
Policing The Tipster World
These scams will no doubt continue to give tipsters a bad name, until such a time as regulation is introduced. After all, if you tried to set yourself up as a stock market tipster, the Financial Services Authority would be hot on your heels if you weren’t authorised by them first.
For now though, we have to look after ourselves.
Which is where we at the Smart Betting Club can and do help, and although we are always loathed to describe ourselves as the ‘tipster police’ or ombudsman of any kind, we are keen to help the tipping industry clean up its act.
One simple way that we can do this is by ensuring all tipsters have a ‘proofed’ record of their past betting advice. Effectively this means they have developed a past betting record, all of which has been verified by an independent source.
The Proof, The Whole Proof…
Our ultimate goal here at SBC is to ensure as many tipsters as possible have their results openly proofed and independently verified. No more misleading lists of winners only, mixing bets across different services to suit them or woe betide – simply making results up!
After all, if you were a genuine tipster, what do you have to lose by proofing your advice to as many trusted sources as possible? Very little indeed and considering the fact there are a number of free and easy to use proofing sites out there, it will cost a tipster nothing but time.
Here at the Smart Betting Club we provide such a proofing service (for free!) and currently track over 100 different tipsters on an ongoing basis. It takes time to track them, but we have a dedicated team who do this – compiling detailed results spreadsheets to help us sift the wheat from the chaff and work out who actually makes a profit.
Of the hundreds that do proof, they can be broken down as follows:
- 48 of them have been reviewed in depth, about whom we continually update on results via our Tipster Profit Reports.
- 21 of them are listed in our ‘Hall of Fame’, which is our list of top-recommended tipsters, those we believe to offer our members the best chance of making money betting.
What’s more – there isn’t a premium phone line or dodgy odds-on shot in sight either!
So to answer my question, can you trust tipsters? The answer is yes, but make sure they proof their advice to an independent source before you send them your money.
And if anyone promises you a dead cert winner as long as you send them £100 upfront, you know what to do!
Read More In Our Tipster Profit Report
You can read in depth analysis on each of the top tipsters, including our Hall of Fame in our regular Tipster Profit Reports.
The latest is due out on Monday and features results from 48 different tipsters up to the 30th September 2012, plus our unique best buy tables and SBC ratings.
