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Inspired by some dodgy dealings I uncovered this week (more about shortly) today I have put together a list of some of the most common dodgy tipster ‘scams’ to watch out for.
Varying from the outright scandalous to the somewhat dubious, it’s a quick rundown of what you as a punter need to be aware of before you join any tipster service.
My thanks must also go to those of you who contributed to this list via our Twitter & Facebook accounts with your own suggestions.
Dodgy Tipster #1 – Selling Other Peoples Tips As Your Own
The ‘inspiration’ for today’s article comes in the form of the very dodgy tipster discovered this week, who is selling off the exact same tips from another genuine expert as their own.
The dodgy tipster (let’s call him Malky Mackay) had seemingly signed up for the genuine experts tips (henceforth known as Vincent Tan), liked what he saw and decided to flog these tips under his own steam.
Malky sent out a suspicious looking email advertising his new site, a member asked us to check it out and so we duly did. Lo and behold, what did we spot? Identical tips as to those we at SBC have received from Vincent Tan for nigh on 12 months!
Now we know Vincent Tan is genuine as we have been performing due diligence on his website, investigating his results and working closely with him in advance of a full SBC review in the near future.
At the moment I can’t reveal too much as its being investigated but it highlights the care you have to take when you get an email out of the blue promising the earth. It might look great but in this instance – there is a very good chance that Malky’s ‘tipping service’ won’t be around too long…
Dodgy Tipster #2 – Social Media Tipsters
As Leon on the SBC Facebook page pointed out, tipsters that only use Social Media for their tips can also be a breeding ground for scams. As he commented “Most Facebook pages/Tipsters have a dozen pages and none keep records of the losers or have a staking system”
He is spot on that we need to be careful here as its all too easy to set up a new Facebook page or Twitter account, put up a bunch of tips and if they win – great, if they lose, just delete it.
This happens regularly especially with bets like accas, which are hugely popular on Social Media. All you need do is simply create 10 accounts on Twitter or Facebook, put up a slightly different version of an acca on each one and boom, one of them will probably come good each weekend.
It’s one reason we only proof or review tipsters who actually have a genuine website (not just a Social Media account) and who have at least 12 months of results to work with.
Dodgy Tipster #3 – Claiming to have ‘Inside Information’
It’s the oldest trick in the book – claim to have ‘inside information’ about tips guaranteed to win and ask for people to stump up the cash in the hope of getting in on the action.
The sad reality is that even if there is an element of people who do get inside info on certain horses to win a race – they are never going to share it with a stranger, no matter how convincing they sound or how much they charge.
In all the years working at SBC, we have discovered not one genuine ‘inside info’ based tipster worth bothering with. They almost exclusively are all-mouth-no-trousers types with one goal – to fleece you of cash.
It’s perhaps best summed up by Davy on Twitter who said in response to my question as to your tipster pet peeves… ” as an ex tipster myself, it’d be the bare faced lies. Saying we were walking the track or quoting our stable insider. All rubbish.” Quite!
Dodgy Tipster #4 – Putting Up Nonsense Prices With Nonsense Bookies
Sliding down the scale of dubious practices are the tipsters who continuously quote odds with bookies that no-one will realistically match.
Even the likes of Pricewise are at it – supplying tips this week quoting stand-out prices with bookies such as Boylesports (rated the worst of all racing bookies by our members last year) and Betway (rated as poorly as 83rd out of 100 top bookies).
Even at the best of times, punters stand little or no chance getting on with Pricewise and its especially the case when using these woeful bookies. Why not simply quote a generally available price? To be fair, its not just Pricewise that indulge in this practice, I see many other tipsters doing it, yet it gets a big black mark from us.
Compare that with some of the top-rated tipsters we monitor here at SBC – some of them will only quote a price if its available with 3 decent bookies or even settle their tip at the best odds available 5 to 10 minutes after they give it out. Best of all, the likes of Boylesports (or Spoilsports as widely known) are nowhere to be seen.
Dodgy Tipster #5 – Advising Silly Stakes & Results Out Of Context
Jonny on Twitter piped up yesterday to say his biggest tipster bugbear were those who quote profits to silly stakes such as 50 or 100 points, simply to make their profits look big. And he is right – its a big problem.
It might make a great headline to say…”We made 1000 pts profit last month” but if you had to risk 100,000 points to make that – well its nothing to shout about at all.
Tipsters that constantly claim results out of context wind us right up because it is so misleading and very often its a sign they are to avoided at all costs.
As a minimum you should expect to see full results stats including number of bets, amount staked, total profit and key calculations such as return on investment and return on capital.
That’s The Bad, How About The Good…
Hopefully the above will give you a good steer on avoiding some dodgy tipster practices and how to avoid getting ripped off.
If however, you are looking for actually bonafide, genuine tipsters then here at SBC we can help you. We work full-time on not only reviewing the best new tipsters, but also tracking the ones that continue to make money betting for SBC members.
And with the release of our very latest Tipster Profit Report, which features our updated ‘Hall of Fame’ ratings on the 20+ highly recommended tipsters we really rate, it’s a great time to get started.
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