⚽️ The In-Play Football Tipster With An Edge From Bet365 & the Betfair Exchange ⚽️

Posted on May 3, 2024May 3, 2024 by Josh P

In the latest tipster review from April’s mega betting magazine! (Issue 141) we continued the ‘football focus’ theme with an introduction to the in-play football tipster that boasts an excellent record over nearly 1000 bets.

Easy to follow with both bookmakers and exchanges, our review of this service has proven to be extremely popular indeed with it being the first in-play tipster we have ever recommended to SBC members.

Especially because in-play betting is viewed very favourably by bookmakers – making it a great way to win without attracting quick account restrictions or closures.

Full details on the service in question and all aspects of what they do is only currently available to SBC Members, Subscribe now to explore the detailed review or read on for some key reasons why it should be of interest to you…

The In-Play Edge

This tipster advises bets in the major in-play markets, concentrating on the 1×2, over/under goal-lines and Asian Handicaps. Their edge comes from the use of data and this marries up perfectly with the experience within their team – the service is run by 4 professional punters!

High liquidity leagues make up a large portion of their action and this is beneficial as bookmakers take lots of bets on these games, especially in-play and there are more layers on the exchanges if you want to take bets there.

As speed is of the essence, they use Telegram to advise each bet to members of their service – which is charged at 40 Euros per month.

The Record

To be as fair as possible, this tipster tracks their bets using Bet365 prices but our review in SBC 141, identified how profitable the service is at various outlets, including the Betfair Exchange:

A 5.38% ROI to bookmaker prices and a 10.15% ROI on exchanges are reasons enough to be impressed, but there are other less obvious benefits to following these selections in:

Bookmakers like these bets. They are associated with ‘recreational’ play and have large in-built margins.
There is no Closing Line Value (CLV), making it hard for bookmakers to track how sharp these bets are (Note – they are very sharp!)
Any checks from the risk department or a trader are likely to be viewed more favourably with these bets on your ‘ledger’.

For those limited solely to exchanges, our analysis shows that around 50% of bets are available at value prices (minus 2% commission) in markets with deep liquidity. To add to this, we have tried placing bets in-play on heavily restricted accounts and have been pleasantly surprised by the amounts we can get on!

Learn More & Subscribe

If you would like to learn more about this service, then our brand new review takes a deep dive into the record and has everything you need to decide whether the service is right for you.

To read that, you will need a SBC Membership – which you will grant you instant access to not only this review but our whole back catalogue of reviews and everything else we provide to members!

As ever, if you have any questions, please get in touch!

📰 SBC Magazine Issue #141: A Football Focus For April! ⚽️

Posted on April 30, 2024April 30, 2024 by Peter Ling

After an extremely busy month at SBC, today we are releasing SBC Magazine Issue #141, which has a strong football betting theme in preparation for the Euros!

Despite a high profile podcast with the CEO of the Gambling Commission, Andrew Rhodes, we have still got plenty of our ‘bread and butter’ content prepared and released in April, with two long-term winning football services put under the SBC review microscope!

We provide a snapshot of what’s inside below. If it sounds like it could be for you, then sign-up for membership to get instant access to SBC 141 and our full back catalogue

Clocking in at 56 pages long, SBC 141 includes:

Analysis on Football Trading Club, the pre-match service that finds value in major markets with both bookmakers and exchanges
A further football tipster review for an in-play service that has major benefits for account longevity (alongside profitability, with exchanges again providing a viable outlet for getting on!)
SBC Member Q & As, with practical advice provided by the SBC team
Two SBC Podcasts, with reflection and reaction to accompany our content

SIGN UP FOR INSTANT ACCESS

To gain instant access SBC Magazine #141 and all of our back catalogue of reviews and reports, you will require SBC Membership. To sign up as a paid SBC member, just click here and follow the registration link.

To have a good look at what SBC Members get, this video introduces changes to the area of the site for those with full subscriptions, providing you with a sneak peak of what is inside!

April: Football Focus at SBC! 📈 First of 2 Tipster Reviews Out Now

Posted on April 15, 2024April 17, 2024 by Peter Ling

For April, we are concentrating on the beautiful game, with two new, in-depth tipster reviews to help SBC Members navigate profitable betting on this sport.

Football is a great betting medium as bookmakers are less wary of it, liquidity is high and there are numerous ways to get on, including soft bookies, sharp books and exchanges.

FOOTBALL TRADING CLUB

The first review of the month covers Football Trading Club, a one-bet-a-day service that focuses on the biggest leagues, with the following bet types being their most regular route to profit:

1×2 markets
Over/Under 2.5 goals
Both Teams To Score (BTTS)
Asian Handicap Betting

Run by an experienced bettor with expertise in the financial markets, this service has built up an enviable record, with a 7.84% ROI marking it out as an outlier in a sport where any figure above 5% is something to boast about.

It is easy to follow, it concentrates on liquid markets and is exchange friendly, making it a great low-variance service to add to any portfolio.

Best of all, there is a SBC member only discount available on the cost of joining Football Trading Club!

SIGN UP FOR ACCESS

Our review of ‘FTC’ is out now and for instant access you will need a SBC Subscription.

Inside the review PDF, you will find a detailed 16-page report that includes everything that you will need to assess the service, including:

P & L performance
Odds movement analysis
Monte Carlo Simulations
Drawdown analysis
Our conclusions and recommendations
50% discount

So, if you are considering a football service in the coming months, now is the perfect time to sign up.

We have a 2nd Football Tipster review lined up to showcase later this April – making it as a real month for football bettors interested in finding profitable tipsters to follow

Sign up options to join us at SBC are available to view here and as ever, if you have any questions, please get in touch!

3 months in – how exactly has my football coupons strategy fared? 📈 📈 📈

Posted on November 16, 2021November 17, 2021 by Peter Ling

Back in August this year, I penned a very detailed SBC review exploring a uniquely profitable strategy for betting on football in bookmaker shops.

The strategy was put forward by a 3rd party betting service, which offered a unique tool to help quickly identify the best football bets to back each week – those which had ‘smart money’ following them in.

Alongside my review of the service in question and the strategy itself, I also explored their own record since 2017, where they had made over £60k at 25% ROI following it in person.

All told it was a very detailed review – more of which you can read about here.

Fast Forward 3 Months…

So impressed and convinced was I by this strategy that I upped my following of it this season with the small team that I work with – placing real money bets in real bookmaker shops on the football sides it identified as value.

Including with bookmakers I am unable to get more than 50p down online.

The great news is that performance has been excellent so far with a profit of £12,615.32 at 45% ROI from 143 bets placed since the end of April at mainly 2 different bookmakers. £12,382.34 of that profit has come in 136 bets placed since August 2021 alone.”

And this is backed up up by the results of those from the service offering this strategy themselves, which over the course of 114 bets since August is up 28% ROI and an actual profit of £5152.78.

Our results are different as it very much depends on how often and exactly when you visit the bookmakers to place the bets.

The good news is that both of us are in profit, although being honest, there is every likelihood that my own results are over-performing a little and that in time my 47% ROI might reduce to closer to between 25% and 30% ROI.

Not that I am complaining about over performance!

Yet what is clear is that this strategy continues to deliver and if yet to check it out and intrigued by the idea of betting in person in bookmaker shops, then I urge you to do so.

It is also needless to say a wonderful solution for those of you who like me are banned or restricted from betting online for winning.

Read The Article In Full.

You can read my full article on this strategy and the service behind it in SBC Issue 124, which is available the instant you become a paid-up member of the Smart Betting Club.

Inside this article you can find everything you need to make it work including advice on bet placement, the bookies to use, how and when to bet and even tactics for getting bookmaker shop staff onside!

Subscribe Now To The Smart Betting Club

New season – 2 football tipsters with nearly 3000 points profits between them

Posted on August 4, 2021August 4, 2021 by Peter Ling

The new football season is fast approaching with all of the major European football leagues kicking off very soon indeed.

That means it’s time to start thinking about your football betting strategy and how you’re going to turn a profit in the coming campaign.

To celebrate the new season we’ve released our latest SBC magazine (Issue 123) which shows you how you can bet and win on football by using SBC recommended tipsters.

The magazine explores 2 tipsters who have been profiting in the football markets for many years, both recording ROI’s well over 5%.

Their long term records and healthy ROI’s are seriously impressive when taking into account how difficult it is to profit in the ultra competitive football markets.

Plus the fact they are both putting up tips you can back with Pinnacle Sports – a bookmaker that welcomes winners! (And if you don’t have a Pinnacle account, you can often get these tips on with many other firms).

Independent and in-depth tipster analysis

In SBC 123 we show you exactly how you can profit in the football betting markets by following these 2 experts.

The tipster reviews in the magazine take a deep dive into…

The former bookmaker using his expertise to generate a 6.78% ROI since 2013 across major football markets including the Champions League, Premier League & International Football.
The Spanish Football expert with a 5%+ ROI from almost 2,000 bets sourced from the Spanish leagues.
How both services are beating the sharp bookies, a sure sign of a great service
How you can really scale up your profits with ‘progressive reinvestment’.

It’s tipster reviews like this that can really improve your betting due to their detailed nature. We leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding quality experts for you to follow!

And because SBC is 100% independent, you know if we say a tipster is good, it is because it really is!

To read more about both of these services, subscribe to the Smart Betting Club and gain instant access to our detailed reviews.

Best regards,
Peter Ling

P.S. One of the tipsters is offering a 20% discount for the new football season. That’s a saving of over £100!

P.P.S The other tipster is available FREE of charge to SBC members for the rest of 2021…

Professional punter insight on what it takes to win football betting – One expert speaks

Posted on August 9, 2019August 19, 2019 by Peter Ling

Tuesday saw the release of our 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide – featuring our take on 16 of the very best football tipsters to follow this season.

Designed to help you find genuine, proven experts to follow in this season – its the perfect antidote to all the ‘predictions’ written by ex professional footballers or journalists with no background or experience in what it takes to make a profit football betting.

Playing football is one thing – betting on it another thing entirely!

One man who does know how to make a profit football betting is the very highly rated expert – Greg Gordon, who since 2006 has run a very profitable tipping service advising bets across a range of major English, Scottish & European leagues.

Greg was one of the experts featured within our 2019/20 Football Tipster Guide and alongside our detailed analysis on his performance, we also grilled him on the current state of play football betting as he saw it.

As a peek behind the curtain on what you can expect to find in the 2019/20 Football Tipster Guide, in this article you can read his interview in full.

We asked him about his performance last season, his thoughts on modern day football betting, the bookmakers & exchanges he uses PLUS his top advice for aspiring football punters.

As Greg also outlines, Smart Betting Club members can save a whopping £100 on the cost of joining his expert service – all thanks to our independent punter-first setup, where you pocket savings not us!

Sign-up for the Smart Betting Club.

Interview With Greg Gordon – As Taken From The 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide

SBC: Can you talk us through your tipping performance during the 2018/19 season and what you achieved overall?

Greg: At the end of each season, I always go back to first principles and I look at the season as a whole, before breaking it down into its constituent parts and its particular themes.

The first thing I’d say is that I am always happy to take a profit.

A profit of 20+ points is respectable enough. So is an ROI of 5.28%. With fees of £275 (with the £100 SBC discount applied) a return of £2,000 for an outlay of £275 is not to be sniffed at when compared to other places you could put your money for 10 months.

So big picture is OK. Not as good as last season, where I made a 44.37pts profit at an ROI of 14.84% – but not bad by any means.

Last season, your return would have been £4437 for the £275 outlay and adding the last 2 seasons together, that’s a £6437 profit for a £550 outlay.

Adding the last 2 seasons together, that’s a £6437 profit for a £550 outlay.

During the 18/19 season, we were prisoners of where the results fell and that is basically an occupational hazard in any betting endeavour.

Those that joined in the second half of the season will have had poor results and perhaps even a negative impression of the service. But the season as a whole was good, just as the previous seven seasons have been good.

Over the past 7 seasons I have averaged a profit of 31 points each season at a ROI of between 7 and 8%. Some seasons this figure is slightly higher and some slightly lower but I take strength from the fact my advice consistently beats the bookmaker.

Over the past 7 seasons I have averaged a profit of 31 points each season at a ROI of between 7 and 8%

It is what keeps me going on the days when things go wrong and equally I never go overboard on those great days where everything we touch turns to gold, which seems to happen at least once or twice every season.

And this is the nub of things for anyone betting seriously:

In a short run of bets, such as a half season or a few months you often get an extreme run of positive or negative results and I am sure that’s what happened for me this season more than usual.

When things went well in the first half of the season they went extremely well – with a lot of results falling our way, late in games. Latterly, when we’ve had a bad day or a bad run, the bit of counterbalancing luck you’d expect has deserted us.

At the time it doesn’t seem significant – three bad days a season.

But if you take say just five losing football bets and turn them into winners over a run of say, 100 bets you’d see quite a different picture and the effect of small margins for error, really running for you in individual games.

If you extrapolate that out, then -15pts or +15pts over 300 bets could typically be turned into a -15pts to a +20pts, a swing of as much as 35pts.

I’ve tried to mitigate against that potential for volatility by having more bets this season. It hasn’t worked out like I’d have hoped, largely because there’s been less goals around than I’d expect in the second half of the season. What I’ll need to ponder is, ‘is that likely to be an ongoing trend or is it just a quirk of a particular run of games?’

I look at 2019’s results and I don’t think there’s a deeper meaning to them than the variance of a small sample, based on my experience over the last 12 years. And I also know that to look or invent reasons for a run of results in retrospect, when you are dealing with a small sample size, can lead you down a false trail. I am wary of doing that.

SBC: Were there any notable highlights or challenges faced last season which stand out?

Greg: Starting with a negative: In a football sense there’s been a lot less late goals than I’d normally expect in the leagues I bet in, over the last two quarters of this season.

There’s been a lot less late goals than I’d normally expect in the leagues I bet in

That could be a function of a few things – players mentality, teams’ instructions and a fear of conceding overriding a desire to go and take risks to score that winning goal.

My suspicion is that current coaching fashion and the ‘too many cooks’ culture at most football clubs isn’t helping teams get a consistent, coherent message across to players for the whole season long.

For example, Liverpool take 25+ staff to every away game. In my opinion what can they possibly be adding other than a need to justify their own salaries? The result isn’t good for players that basically need a clear, concise message at all times, and strong sense of who they answer to and what the expectations are for them. Instead, their heads are full of complex, competing messages from a series of ‘expert practitioners’ from various disciplines.

So, what does this mean in terms of football betting? I think in a season of two halves, motivation and demotivation is going to be a key influencer on results and also goals tallies looking ahead. I think we now have to consider how we respond to a season, not as individual games or quarters but as two distinct halves.

So, while I started this answer with a negative, I think there is also a massive opportunity here for punters and tipsters that can look at the calendar in a dynamic, new way.

SBC: Will you be changing your tipping strategy at all for the forthcoming season? If so, what adjustments will you be applying and why?

Greg: For me it is always small changes, tweaks to thinking. The foundations are all solid but what fluctuates are short term results. Mainly, I’ll approach this season with optimism and an open mind. I think being open minded to the need to adapt on the hoof, and also being resolute where you need to be, is the balancing act that every punter has to negotiate.

SBC: Which bookmakers do you recommend for those following your service?

Greg: These days I am almost running a three tier service. For every member I have with a full suite of bookmaker accounts as listed on Oddschecker, I have many more restricted to a few accounts, solely to the exchanges or solely to Asian accounts or a provider such as Mollybet.

I only bet on match results and goals markets these days so the service isn’t restrictive or hard to follow.

It is a broad church service with a common sense approach – whether you bet with bookmakers, exchanges or bet brokers.

Basically it is a broad church service with a common sense approach – whether you bet with bookmakers, exchanges or bet brokers. I’ve set it up so everyone can get the bets on somewhere and in some combination that suits the accounts at their disposal.

SBC: What advice do you have for punters to help them with their football betting this coming season?

Greg: In terms of addressing a bad run, and this is general betting advice for tipster or punter alike, and advice I’ve been given myself: it is a balancing act between maintaining good principles that have stood you in good stead for many years while keeping an open mind to the potential for underlying change in the markets you are betting on.

On an individual level that means going back to first principles with every bet and making sure that you are confident that your thinking is sound and that you are betting to prices where you have an edge. Those are the two things that as a punter you can control – your opinion married to the price on offer. Everything else is ‘on the day’ and especially so in a low scoring game like football.

When the dust has settled and you are looking back over the bets you’ve done, see if there are common mistakes in your thinking, or pitfalls that you regularly fall into. Obviously, these are things that cost you money, that you don’t want to replicate.

I always say that you learn far more from your losers than your winners because winners don’t tend to be evaluated fairly. When we win we assume that skill has played a greater part than luck for the most part. It is easy to be over-critical of a good bet that has lost and to consider the process that got you there to be flawed.

I always say that you learn far more from your losers than your winners because winners don’t tend to be evaluated fairly

I wish there was a series of easy answers I could give you, but I know from past experience that taking care of details and simultaneously working hard on individual bets and the bigger picture is the only way to turn results around and that’s what you should strive to do. It is sore when you lose always, but it is not half as sore when you know that you have done your homework and applied your methods consistently. That’s what generates long term, steady success and that’s what means you’ll come out in front in the end, again and again.

SBC: Do you have any strong ante-post bets or teams/angles/managers to watch for the coming season?

(Note – the following was written on the 30th July and since then, some of the market prices have changed)

Greg: In the antepost markets, I can’t see past Cove Rangers in League Two they have been a popular choice in preseason but I still think there is value in their chances at anything over 5/4 (2.25). They are probably going to go off at around 7/4 (2.75) by the start of the season.

(Greg was correct on the above as before their first game of the season, Cove were 7/4 and are now 11/10 after an impressive start)

As an each way treble of Falkirk to win League One and Dundee United to win The Championship and Cove to win League Two should pay around 13/1 (14.0) and I’d expect all three to be in the frame

Cove have three players on Championship wages in League Two (Park, Masson and Megginson) and the money to back up an assault on the lower leagues above their current level. I can’t see any consistent challenge to their deep pockets over the next 10 months as every other team in their section has had to rebuild from scratch this summer and will take time to gel, even if their recruitment proves to be good. Cove, with a settled team that are used to winning, could be out of sight before the daffodils have bloomed.

SBC: Can you outline the membership options and terms you are offering during the 2019/20 season and any special offers you might have for SBC Members?

Greg: I always offer a £100 discount to SBC members. That takes annual fees of £375 down to £275 for the season up until May 2020.

Factor in the ability to join the Smart Betting Club for just £27.99 and anyone wishing to join my service would be mad to not join you guys first.

———–

Grab Your Copy of The 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide

You can read more from Greg and 15 other proven football experts inside the 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide with a Smart Betting Club membership.

Providing insight into the experts with a proven history of making money football betting long-term

It also includes details on 2 expert football tipsters providing their advice for free to Smart Betting Club members this season.

For those of you interested in other sports and how to turn a profit from them – you can also read detailed examinations, reviews and ratings on the best tipsters across the likes of Horse Racing, Tennis, Golf, NBA, NFL, Darts & much more as well.

Sign-up now to gain instant access to this guide and the entire Smart Betting Club service on the best tipsters across all sports.

Best Regards

Peter Ling

Smart Betting Club Owner and Founder

Gear up for the new season with the 2019/20 Football Tipster Guide

Posted on August 6, 2019August 9, 2019 by Peter Ling

The new season upon us and to help you find the best football tipsters, you must check out our fantastic new 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide.

It features our take on 16 of the very best football tipsters we have uncovered over the past 13 years with updated ratings, rankings and recommendations on the best experts for you to follow this season.

Highlighting the experts with a proven history of making money for those shrewd enough to follow their football tips.

You can also read detailed interviews with many of these top tipsters including their strategies for the coming season and their tips and advice on how to make a profit football betting.

It also includes details on 2 expert football tipsters providing their advice for free to Smart Betting Club members this season.

Sign-up now to gain instant access to this guide (and the entire SBC back catalogue)

Significant & Exclusive Tipster Discounts

Inside the 2019/20 Season Football Tipster Guide you can also read details on several significant discounts available on the cost of these tipsters – exclusively available to SBC members.

You can often save more than the cost of a Smart Betting Club membership by taking up these discounts!

Exclusive SBC member savings include:

£100 off the cost of a season with the ‘Hall of Fame’ Scottish football expert;
30% off your first purchase of any Pyckio.com football tipster;
25% off the cost of a top-rated acca and free bets loophole tipster;
£21 off the cost of joining another long-running profitable football service;
150 Euros off the cost of a season with a non-league football guru.
5% off 2 different betting exchange laying services

Full details on these savings (and many others) are available to you with a Smart Betting Club membership.

The Best Tipsters On ALL Sports

If you want to know about the best football tipsters (Plus Horse Racing, Tennis, Golf, NBA, NFL, Darts & many other sports) then a Smart Betting Club membership will be right up your street.

Best of all, you can now sign-up totally risk-free thanks to our money back guarantee, which ensures if you find our service not for you, then you can get a full refund.

Meaning you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from joining our exclusive club!

Subscribe NOW to the Smart Betting Club and gain instant access

Best Regards

Peter Ling

Smart Betting Club Owner and Founder

Expert tipsters speak: Football betting tips this season & beyond

Posted on August 13, 2018August 21, 2019 by

Last week saw the release of SBC’s new season Football Tipster Guide, featuring reviews, recommendations and detailed insight into 14 of the best football tipping experts we have uncovered over the years.

Inside the guide you can also read our interviews with several of the expert tipsters, where we grilled them not only on their performance but also for their advice on what it takes to make a profit betting.

Based on some of the answers given, I have put together this neat snapshot on some of the key points raised by this gang of experts.

In no particular order then – here are some of the expert tips for profiting on football this season and beyond…

Use Expected Goals Wisely…

Expected Goals (xG) have started to come into mainstream football conversation recently, but it’s important to know how best to use them – especially from a betting perspective.

Bear in mind that bookies and syndicates alike have been using xG for years, so on its own, using it to choose your bets is no silver bullet strategy. Mike Holden of Fox Punter had these wise words to share on xG:

“Don’t get too fixated by ‘expected goals’. It’s a helpful metric to get a feel for how a team has been performing relative to recent results but no two models are the same and making a random website your primary tool isn’t going to give you any sort of discernible edge on the market.

The big syndicates are using xG models so much more advanced than anything you will find available publicly, and their money one week will shape the market the next. If you think you’ve found an angle due to some xG quirk you’ve casually spotted, you might simply be at the mercy of an inadequate model.

By all means keep abreast of shot data and xG values, just like older punters would have kept abreast of the league tables or form guides in a bygone era. But turning shot data into a profitable system is more about the algorithm you put it through rather than the actual data itself.”

Use Social Media

One bit of modern technology you can use is Social Media as a means of gathering information to help you with your bets, as Brodders explained:

“You can never have enough information. Obviously that’s readily available for the big European leagues but trawl through Twitter and other Social Media to get info on players and teams news which may not be factored in by bookies having to offer prices a few days in advance.”

It’s not just Twitter either, but message boards and fans forums, especially at lower league level or in unfashionable leagues abroad, can be a helpful tool.

Bookies know everything there is to know about team news when Man City play Liverpool, but could they say the same for Arbroath vs Clyde?

Find The Vulnerable Early-Season Favourites…

Although we didn’t see any ‘shocks’ in the Premier League this weekend, one expert feels that value can be had looking for vulnerable favourites across the European leagues in these first few weeks of the season.

An idea put forward by football expert, Motaliz, its logic is based on the fact the World Cup finished just a few weeks ago and many teams have had a disrupted start to proceedings.

“This season comes after the World Cup which means that the transfer market and the set-up of the teams will have a later effect than usual.

This implies that the majority of top teams (the ones that had the most players in the WC) will take some time to gel and click which could generate some early season opportunities for the ones that are able to detect some overpriced favourites.”

The likes of Tottenham & Man Utd might well fall into this category but they came up against an unhappy club in Newcastle and another with its own World Cup related issues (Leicester) last weekend. It’s a strategy I will be keeping an eye over the next few weeks in England and Europe when these big teams face the right opposition.

Tailor Your Betting To You…

Each of us has a different approach to risk. Some of us wouldn’t think twice before bungee jumping, whilst others wouldn’t get within 200 ft of a bungee cable, let alone jump.

And it’s the same when betting as some of us like to back long-shots and can handle losing runs, whilst others need regular winners and a high strike-rate.

Therefore, the way you bet needs to be tailored to your risk as Greg Gordon puts it “You need to be honest with yourself and find a style of betting that suits your temperament and allows you to flourish.”

It’s a strategy he has applied himself to good effect to avoid the pain of losing as he outlined further…

“There’s a lot to be said for a steady graph and betting in a way that minimises losing runs and keeps the heartache to the minimum. It hasn’t been too painful for me over the years and I’ve tried to make it that way, purposefully. You should too.”

Is It Value & Can It Win?

Greg also had some excellent advice on the theory of finding value, as he fears too many punters purely look at this rather than the reality of whether a bet can win or not. As he puts it:

“I don’t have any strictly price call bets anymore. I always want strong football reasons to play – rather than just a bit of theoretical value.

When you price up a bet now ask yourself two questions: 1) Is it a value price? 2) Do I think it can win? If you can’t answer yes to both questions then I’d inclined to pass.”

Some might well disagree with this statement, yet given that Greg continues to fire in the profits, season after season, he is obviously onto something.

SBC is dedicated to finding the best tipster services out there, so as you might imagine, advice on how to do that is at the forefront of some of the advice given such as the following points…

Too Good To Be True?

Non-league tipster, Skeeve bangs a drum I regularly hit, advocating caution that ‘if a tipster’s record looks too good to be true, it’s probably fake’ and that ‘if the selections aren’t proofed to a third party (such as SBC), they’re useless. This betting world is full of crooks and scammers, so please be cautious.’

This is particularly the case with many tipsters on social media where it’s very easy to setup new accounts when the old ones start to hit a losing run. If a tipster is unable to provide proof of their results, then move on.

Ask Lots Of Questions…

Another way to avoid being caught out is to do your due diligence as Stuart from Football Investor points out:

“Do plenty of research before joining a service and don’t be afraid to ask them plenty of questions. There are many factors which could impact upon your likelihood of success following a tipster so it’s better to have this information in advance as mistakes can often prove costly.”

Longevity Matters

The length of time a tipster has been in operation is also key as Mike Lindley of Winabobatoo recommends to ‘find a betting service that you can trust and stick with them. If they’ve been around for a long time, they’re probably still here today because they get things right more often than they get things wrong’

After all – the average age of an SBC Hall of Fame service is over 3 years for a very good reason.

Don’t Quit Too Soon!

Finally, I want to wrap up todays email with some very salient advice from Chris Baier from Wisdom of Crowds who talked about ‘the single biggest mistake punters make’ – over-reacting to bad form and making key decisions based on this.

Chris wrote how he had seen this take place not just in the betting world, but also the financial world stating that:

“I recently saw the records of a very successful US Hedge Fund, that showed over 40% of their lifetime client base had actually lost money while investing with the fund!

This fund had a relatively consistent record of double digit annual gains over decades.”

What was the reason 40% of clients made a loss from this successful fund?

“Bad timing and illogical emotion” whereby those following the hedge fund bought into it when it was doing well and sold when doing poorly.

So instead of letting the markets do their thing and watching it all dispassionately, many of those who posted a loss thought they knew better and took their money out or added more at the wrong time.

I see this all the time when betting as punters flit from one winning service to another, rather than simply choosing a good one and sticking with it. And that ultimately can be very costly!

Grab Your New Season Football Guide

I hope you have enjoyed this small snapshot into the interviews as found within this new season football guide.

You can read all of the interviews in full, alongside detailed write-ups, analysis and ratings on the best tipsters to follow thoughout the guide.

Available to download the instant you join the Smart Betting Club.

Best Regards,

Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor

Under the microscope: 14 of 2018/19’s best football tipsters

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Peter Ling

The new season is nearly upon us and to help you find the best football tipster(s), you must check out our fantastic new 2018/19 Season Football Tipster Guide!

Inside it features our take on 14 of the very best football tipsters we have uncovered with updated ratings, rankings and recommendations on the best experts for the new season.

You can also read detailed interviews with many of the tipsters including their strategies for the coming season and their tips and advice on how to make a profit football betting.

Tackling tipsters betting across the globe on leagues from Spain to Scotland and Brazil to Belgium, it’s your one-stop-shop for finding the best football betting experts.

Sign-up now to gain instant access (and the entire SBC back catalogue)

Significant SBC Member Discounts

Inside the 2018/19 Season Football Tipster Guide you can also read details on several significant discounts available of the cost of these tipsters – exclusively available to SBC members.

You can often save more than the cost of a Smart Betting Club membership with many of these discounts combined!

The savings include:

£100 off the cost of a season with the ‘Hall of Fame’ Scottish football expert;
15% discount on a top rated South American tipster;
30% discount off your first purchase of any Pyckio.com football tipster;
£1 monthly subscription to an up and coming football ratings tipster;
Up to £40 off the cost of one of the most popular system based tipsters;
A £31.75 discount on the cost of the acca and free bets loophole tipster;
£32 off the cost of joining another long-running ratings based football service;
£25 discount on your first month with another ‘Hall of Fame’ European football tipster;
125 Euros discount on the cost of a season with a non-league football guru.

Full details on these savings (and many others) are available to you with access to the Smart Betting Club website.

Click here to read more on other SBC member only discounts currently available.

“My Net Profit Was In Excess Of £58,000”

“I have just conducted a review of the tipster performance for 2017 and my net profit was in excess of £58,000, the majority of it coming from horse racing.”
Michael – An SBC Member For 5 Years

Read more from Michael on his profits last year

Gain Instant Access & Save Up To £45 On An SBC Membership

If you want to know about the best football tipsters (Plus Horse Racing, Tennis, Golf, NBA, NFL, Darts & many other sports) then subscribe to the Smart Betting Club today and gain instant access to all our expert betting reports.

Best of all if joining the Smart Betting Club today you can also save up to a whopping £45 on the usual cost of membership.

This is because we have slashed the price of joining to ensure as many people as possible have access to our reports, magazines and guides.

We know we can make a difference to your punting – so why not sign-up right away and get started immediately. (There is a 90-day money back guarantee available after all)

Best Regards,
Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor

Why so many football punters suffered ‘away day’ blues last season. 2017/18’s strange stats

Posted on May 29, 2018August 21, 2019 by

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Whilst the 2017/18 football season in England will be remembered for many things – Man City’s 100 points, Wolves domination of the Championship and of course, little Accrington Stanley taking the League 2 title, for those of us that enjoy betting on the beautiful game, it will be remembered for some very different reasons.

Primarily this is down to some strange statistical quirks we saw throughout the top 4 English Leagues during the 2017/18 season. Stats that can teach us plenty about variance, luck and most of all – the patience needed to make a profit football betting.

Patience for many can be a dirty word when betting – especially from those punters not used to handling losing runs (I understand this – they can be tough!) but the reality is it’s something we all most get to grips with if we ever want to make our betting really pay.

It’s easy when you are winning but you find out the most about yourself and your betting when in a bad patch. After all – even the best punters are not immune to having a bad football season as pro punter Rory Campbell admits to in part 1 of these excellent videos.

So, in today’s email I want to showcase with you some strange stats for the English season in 2017/18, why ‘underdog’ backers suffered a huge drop AND just how you could have made a huge profit blind backing away teams.

(Note – all stats are based on the best odds available on the day of each game and at 10 point level stakes. It also runs up to the end of April – I have been unable to get stats on the last set of fixtures in the 3 lower leagues and last 2 fixtures in the Premier League as yet.)

Why Football Betting Last Season (in England) Was So Strange

One of the biggest statistical quirks witnessed during the 2017/18 season for the top 4 English leagues was the form of what I term ‘underdogs’ away from home – those teams priced at 7/4 and above.

This is a particularly important trend as a lot of pro punters and tipsters regularly focus on value away from home, especially at the bigger prices (so 7/4 and above). Therefore, the form of these teams is vital, yet in 2017/18 we saw a major drop in the number of ‘underdog’ away wins.

To set the scene, for the 10 years prior to the 2017/18 season, below I have listed the average performance of away teams priced at 7/4 and over (if blindly backing all away teams at these odds). As with all the stats in this article, all bets are calculated to 10 point level stakes to win.

Away Teams 7/4 & Over 10 Season Total Loss: -3162 points, ROI -2.1%, 24.9% strike rate

Over an average season, we can reasonably expect to post a 316 point loss at -2.1% ROI and to hit a 24.9% strike-rate.

With only a -2.1% ROI to overcome, it’s easy to see why this is an area of intense focus, because with the right strategy, a profit is there to be made by filtering out unprofitable away underdogs.

Any strategy is always vulnerable to short-term fluctuations (Yes, I will call a season short-term as it’s not a huge data sample) and 2017/18 was a case in point. This is because backing away underdogs during the 2017/18 season generated the following figures:

Away Teams 7/4 & Over 2017/18 Season Total Loss: -1270 pts, ROI -9.2%, 23.2% strike rate

In short, the average points lost rose by 954 points, the ROI dropped 7.1% and the strike-rate by 1.7%.

Whilst a -2.1% ROI might be overcome, it’s very difficult to turn around a -9.2% ROI into profit if backing away teams 7/4 and over.

There were also clear fluctuations across each of the 4 English leagues as follows for these bets 7/4 and over:

Premier League: -370pts , ROI -14.9%, 17.7% strike rate

Championship: -294pts, ROI -7.7%, 24% strike rate

League One: -121pts, ROI -3.2%, 25.4% strike rate

League Two: -485pts, ROI -13.2%, 23.6% strike rate

League 2 was particularly bad with a -13.2% ROI and to put its specific stats in context, the worst season prior to 17/18 for League 2 was 14/15 with -152 points and -3.6% ROI.

When Backing Away Teams Has Been Profitable

To further back up what a strange season 2017/18 was, those of you blindly backing all away teams under 7/4 will conversely have made a fine profit.

That is because if backing all away teams to win at odds under 2.75 (staking 10 points on each bet) in the Premier League , Championship, League One and Two you would have made a profit of 471 points at 8.5% ROI and hit a 48.9% strike-rate.

It’s not very often than you can blindly back favourites away from home in all those leagues and get a nice profit, yet that is exactly what happened in 17/18.

This trend gets stronger if we drop the Premier League and concentrate on the 3 lower leagues.The profit rises to 531 points and the ROI goes up to 11.7%!

What Can We Do About This?

So with all the strange patterns seen in the 2017/18 season, what are we to do as punters?

The first thing when we see trends like this is to ask if anything has changed to influence a lower strike-rate of winners away from home.

Are away teams less prepared, dealing with longer-travel times or banned from taking away supporters with them for example?

The answer to all of these questions is no. To my mind there is no actual logical reason why all of a sudden, away teams at bigger prices are under-performing.

The reason lies with what is termed Variance, which is something we see over relatively small samples of data.

Variance in its most simple terms is the difference from one data set to the mean. For example, if comparing what we made in one season during 2017/18 to what has been achieved over the past 10 seasons as a whole.

…And when comparing the 17/18 data set from the 10 year average we see plenty of variance at play.

One key reason for this is that football games are in the main tight affairs decided by 1 goal. 1-0 is the most common scoreline historically and even in League 2 this season, 67.31% of all games were decided by 1 goal or less.

The margin for error is therefore very slim and it’s easy to see weird trends like this over a small sample size such as one season.

It’s Your Time In The Game, Not Timing That Matters Most

So there you have it, some strange stats from the 2017/18 season and plenty of food for us football punters.

Ultimately, we can expect to realistically see these away trends change in time and no doubt there will be a season soon when we see the opposite apply – A higher proportion of away winners over 7/4 and a lower number under 7/4.

When exactly this will take place is anyone’s guess (unless you have the ability to predict the future) so we must be patient to wait it out until it does.

As one punting pro put it to me lately – it’s not the timing of when you start betting, but your time in betting that matters most.

Because as long as you have a valid long-term method, you might be unlucky based on when you start and the early results but long-term it will all even out in your favour.

As long as you have the patience to STAY IN and ride out quirky stats like seen above.

Why We Recommend Tipsters With Long-Term Records Only

We apply this long-term logic to the tipsters we review and recommend, preferring to judge tipsters over a deep set of stats, rather than a few months here and there.

Any tipster can pick up a few winners by chance over a few weeks or even months, yet it’s only when they have a definitive edge long-term that we can rely on them to make us money.

It’s why the average length of time a SBC Hall of Fame rated tipster has been going for is over 4 years, because these are the tipsters that have proven themselves profitable long-term.

After all, were we to judge a tipster over a shorter period of time, we might find ourselves recommending tipsters who have an edge simple due to luck, rather than skill.

A football tipster that made a profit by backing away teams under 7/4 last season would be a prime example. Do they have a real edge or were they just lucky given the higher than average proportion of winners at these odds last season? Ultimately, only time will really tell on that front.

So, if you are after long-term, sensible advice on the best tipsters with proven records making money betting, do consider a Smart Betting Club membership.

You can get started instantly with a 90 day anytime money back guarantee to boot.

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