The Best Bookmakers, Betting Exchanges & Bet Brokers / 2018 Updated Guide Out Now

 

Discover the best up-and-coming places to bet with the 2018 ‘ Betting Exchange, Bookmaker & Bet Broker Guide ’ – available now to all SBC members

Tackling 6 of the best firms my team and I have used and examined – the guide avoids all the usual bookies you already know about and focuses on the lesser-known places that the professionals use.

Alongside the detailed analysis and recommendations, you can also read exclusive interviewswith all 6 firms on what they offer.

They might not be household names or bombard you with adverts every time you watch sport on TV, but what they do offer you is the chance to get better value odds on your bets.

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All 6 firms also welcome winners as they make their profit either based on betting turnover or the commission they charge you on each bet. So whether you win (or lose) they will never ban you from their service – unlike so many of the ‘major firms’.

Offering solutions for punters on all sports including but not limited to Horse Racing, Football, Golf, Tennis and all major US Sports like NBA or NFL, this guide will help show you the best firms to bet with to make long-term sustainable profits.

You can access your copy of the 2018 Betting Exchange, Bookmaker & Bet Broker Guide with a Smart Betting Club membership.

If you have any questions on the guide or Smart Betting Club membership, you can contact me directly via pete@smartbettingclub.com

Best Regards,
Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor

Pete_HeadShot_SMall

6 Tips For Following Racing Tipsters On Betting Exchanges

It is common knowledge these days that if making money betting on horse racing, you will at some point encounter difficulty with either your stakes being restricted or your bookmaker account being closed.

There is hope that this may change in the future with the discussions surrounding a minimum bet law, which are certainly gaining traction in 2018.

Yet until such a time as bookies either agree or are compelled to lay all punters a decent bet, one of the most popular places to bet without issue are the betting exchanges.

So, to help you understand more on how to maximise this, I have put together this updated guide featuring 6 tips for following racing tipsters on betting exchanges…

1) UNDERSTAND WHEN MONEY HITS THE RACING EXCHANGE MARKETS

As an exchange-only racing punter, it’s important to understand that the vast majority of money only starts to flow into most racing markets approximately 10 to 15 minutes before the off.

(I say most as there are some obvious exceptions such as at Cheltenham or other big race meetings, which will see larger sums traded earlier)

To showcase this, compare the amount of money traded on Betfair for each of these 5 races that took place on a pretty standard Monday afternoon’s racing.

I simply noted down the amount of money traded at 3 time points: 21 minutes, 11 minutes and 1 minute before the off for each of the 5 races, which you can see below:

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Without exception, the most trading took place in the 11 minutes before each race started.

Take the 4.30pm race as one example – at 4.19pm, there was £60,925 traded yet come 4.29pm, this had jumped to £495,057.

Within 10 minutes an extra £434,132 had been traded – 87% of the entire market!

The knock-on effect of this is two-fold.

Firstly, it’s an understanding that most of the trading takes place during this time and when your exchange bet is most likely to be matched.

Secondly, it’s the knowledge that prior to the final 10 minutes, it is harder to get your racing bet accepted, especially if it’s based on advice coming from a popular tipster.

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2) CONSIDER BETFAIR SP TIPSTERS

One of the simplest angles to make a profit on the exchanges is by following tipsters that make a profit at Betfair SP (after commission of course!).

They offer the easiest, most simple approach as once a tip comes in – you simply place the bet, stick in your stake at Betfair and walk away.

Although the number of profitable Betfair SP tipsters is growing, it’s a fairly small pool to choose from currently.

One profitable Betfair SP tipster I rate highly is the free ‘place laying’ tipster providing their advice for free to SBC members currently. The tipster is called ‘The Accountant’.

Simply put, he recommends you lay their horses NOT to finish in the place money in any given race. That is not to finish in the first 2, 3 or 4 of a race depending on the number of runners.

Over the course of more than 800 lays and risking no more than 3% of your betting bank on any advised price lay, this tipster has grown a bank of £1000 to in excess of £2,500.

This is after 5% Betfair commission has been deducted from each profitable lay.

Providing one simple angle for those of you after a simple exchange tipster for you to follow.

3) DON’T BET IF THE VALUE HAS GONE

One of the most fundamentally important points to consider when betting is that of obtaining value.

All successful punting is based on the concept of value betting and the idea that the odds for any particular bet are priced in your favour.

Therefore, the odds you take on a bet really matter.

If you can get 5/1 on a horse that should be 4/1, then you have a strong value bet.

Yet if the same tipped up horse at 4/1 is only available at 3/1 – the opposite applies.

If you constantly are taking too short a price on a horse, you will lose money.

Which is why it’s important to ONLY bet if the value is still there.

Many good tipsters recognise this and put up minimum value odds to make you aware of where the value cut-off point actually lies. They recognise that a tip might see market support and if it does, you know where to draw the line.

If restricted to exchange betting, look out for this and stick to the minimum value thresholds – they are there for a reason and they will guide you as to the prices to take.

And whatever you do – never place a bet if the value has gone.

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4) RECOGNISE YOU WILL WIN SOME, LOSE SOME

Mindful of the need to take a value price, if exchange betting you must accept that sometimes you will miss out on a bet if the odds are too low.

Yet on the flipside, you might also get BETTER odds on other bets when the odds drift.

Whilst on occasions, you might miss out on a winning bet because you can’t get the right odds, on other occasions you will enjoy a bigger payout through this strategy.

If and when this happens, remember the logic behind it all and try to be as phlegmatic as possible.

All gamblers HATE missing out on winning bets, especially if they feel they should have been on it, yet they very rarely remember the times they missed out on a bet that lost.

My suggestion here is to consider keeping a record of each occasion you miss out on a bet (both winners and losers) or get a greater value price than you might have originally. Through this, you can track the ups and downs and see at a glance exactly how you have fared overall.

5) DON’T WORRY ABOUT DRIFTERS

Flowing on from this last point – don’t also get too bogged down by the idea that a ‘drifter’ (a horse whose odds get bigger as the race draws nearer) is no longer worth backing.

Racing pundits like to bang on about horses being weak or friendless in a market, yet the reality is they have no idea if this market move is significant or not. They are often just filling airtime.

If market support was so telling – everyone would simply lump on a horse at the first sign of it being backed in. Market support is no guarantee a horse is a ‘good thing’.

Unless there is clear evidence a horse has something wrong with it before a race, don’t be unperturbed by backing a ‘drifting’ bet.

Look at it instead as a chance to get better value. If you can get 10/1 about a tip advised as value at 6/1 earlier in the day – take it!

After all, unless the horse in question has a major problem – if a tipster you trust said that 6/1 is a value price, then 10/1 will represent a massive increase.

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6) CAN’T GET MATCHED STRAIGHT AWAY? PUT IN A REQUEST

If you can’t get on a bet earlier in the day at a value price, you might also like to consider putting in a request to get matched on the exchanges later on that day.

There are two ways you can do this – requesting a price pre-race and also in-play.

Pre-race betting is easy – you set the odds you want to take and put the request into the market to hopefully be matched. If come the start of the race it isn’t matched, the bet is cancelled.

Putting a bet in the in-play market is different as it ensures the bet will also remain available throughout the race as it takes place.

When doing this, it’s important to be aware that you will ALWAYS be matched in-play on any bet that loses the race BUT there is no guarantee you will be matched on a winner.

Therefore, you do have to approach in-play betting with caution and it is best when used in conjunction with watching a race live and an understanding of racing in general.

You also might only want to leave a bet to be matched in-play, when the odds pre-race are very close to those you wish to take OR perhaps risking only half stakes.

Equally if you have a good knowledge of racing, you might want to make judgements based on the competitiveness of each race, the merits of each horse (does it prefer setting the pace or being a backmarker) and the distance run.

MORE HELP EXCHANGE ONLY BETTING

I do hope over the course of this article, I have helped provide some answers to questions you might have about betting on the exchanges.

Here at the Smart Betting Club we have a burgeoning members section devoted to exchange-only betting.

Within this exchange section you can read our detailed reviews and analysis of a handful of profitable betting exchange-friendly tipsters.

Ideal for those of you either unable to bet with bookmakers or simply looking to bet on the exchanges as much as possible.

So, if you are you looking for a solution to help you turn a profit using the betting exchanges (or indeed the Asian football betting markets), you might like to consider a Smart Betting Club membership.

Join The Smart Betting Club.

Anatomy of a profitable tipster: 5 KEY pointers to find a genuine tipping expert

 

I recently released the 2nd review from SBC’s 2018 Best Tipster Guide, focusing in great detail on one of the very best tipsters my review team and I have ever had the pleasure to examine.

But exactly what is it that the SBC review team (and therefore you) should look for in a tipster?

And what qualities does a tipster have for us to enter it into our Best Tipster Guide?

To help answer these questions, today I want to explore the anatomy of a profitable tipster with 5 KEY pointers for you to consider when weighing up whether a tipping service is for you or not.

To help, I will be using this latest Best Tipster Guide expert as a reference point and tackling topics like staking plans, profit levels, exchange backing, odds availability & much more besides…

Here then is my 5 point guide to finding a genuine tipping expert...

1) Long-term, consistent & realistic profit

Just like football managers, tipsters live and die based upon the results they achieve. If they don’t make a simple profit for you (over and above the cost of joining) then there really is no point to them.

Once there is a profit to view, then its also important that it is both relatively consistently achieved and realistic. You would be amazed at how many ‘profitable tipsters’ are nothing of the sort on this front.

For example – I recently explored a tipster with on the face of it a profitable record from over 800 bets, yet by digging into their results I found this record was massively skewed by a 200/1 winner. The profits from that 1 bet aside, the service had made a combined loss from the other 799 bets!

Contrasting with this, our Best Tipster Guide (BTG) expert has a consistent, long-term record with a profit from each season active. Some seasons higher, some lower but each profitable and an average seasonal profit of around 45 points.

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This general consistency is further backed up by the profit graph below that is useful as we can see any spikes (like a 200/1 winner) that might suggest problems.

Beyond a small plateau between the 600 and 700 bet marker, its been generally smooth upward progress for our BTG expert.

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2) A staking plan that works

When a tipster has a profitable strategy, one other simple way they can maximise this is through a staking plan.

The theory here is that you should stake more when there is greater perceived value from a tip and less when the opposite applies.

Once again our BTG expert ticks these boxes and by viewing their staking plan, we can see how the greater the amount staked, the greater the ROI.

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For example, the smaller staked bets (0.25 points) return a 16.8% ROI, whereas the maximum staked bets (1.5 to 2 points) hit a 38.8% ROI.

Proof positive this expert knows where the value lies as the greater you stake, the greater your profit.

3) Odds you can actually get

In today’s modern betting world, we must also be aware of the issues we might suffer in trying to get our bets on.

Bookmakers shift prices very quickly at the smallest sign of shrewd money on a racing bet, especially those placed early away from the big race meetings.

Even if you do manage to obtain a good price for your bet, if it should win and especially if it shortens in price dramatically before the off, you run every chance of suffering a bookmaker account restriction or closure.

Which is why its important to follow a tipster that takes this into consideration. If they are putting up a 33/1 hot racing tip at 6pm the night before racing and not accounting for any price movement should the odds be slashed, its a problem.

Again though, our BTG expert leads the way here with a policy of only tipping in big raceswhen markets are already formed and when you are able to back them easily in shops.

He explains more on his fair policy here:

Whenever I issue a tip now, it is my belief that it is possible for people to back it in bookmaker shops, should they choose to do so.

So, if I issue a tip the day before a race, it will be in races which are generally priced up at that time; whilst those tips issued in the morning, are only issued when shops are open and the horses can be backed within them.

I’ve actually got a few guys in the service who do exactly this (they have no online accounts) – and they achieve around 90% of the prices by backing in shops.

This also means that the prices of all the tips are relatively robust, because the markets have some maturity. Therefore, it should be possible to back the horses at (or close to) the price specified an hour or so later both with bookmakers and on exchanges.

My focus on big races, helps massively in this whole area, because they tend to be competitive fields, and therefore most of the horses get backed.”

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4) Backable on the Exchanges

Leading on from this last point – if you are restricted or shut down by the bookies, then the best route open to you is that of betting exchanges.

Smarkets, Matchbook & Betdaq are all now improving, low commission alternatives to Betfair and offer a genuine route to punters unable to bet with bookies.

Exchanges allow you to win as much as you want and won’t shut you down. They welcome your business, even if you are a winner.

Best of all, our BTG expert is one you can follow on the exchanges with only a 2.6% ROI drop (after exchange commission) from the sample of data we gathered following them with Smarkets.

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So rather than obtaining the 30.1% ROI as seen in my first point, you might instead make 2.6% less = 27.5% ROI. Still a very strong edge.

During the study, bets were generally placed between 9.30 and 10.15am, roughly 45 minutes to 1.5 hours after bet release.The sample size was decent – 508 bets and in short, the results demonstrated that backing these selections on big race days is viable on the Exchanges:

5) Affordable & easy to follow

Last but not least, there are some sensible things any good tipster will think about – namely the price and how and when they supply tips.

The price is right

The cost of any tipster should be reasonable and will allow you to make plenty of profit beyond it. The profit also should be within your reach to make a profit without staking at huge levels.

Our BTG expert charges just £250 for a full NH season and averages around 45 points profit each time out. Even a simple £50 per point strategy would see you make around 10X the cost of joining in an average season.

Time of bet supply

Its important to also have a clear understanding of how many bets are supplied by the tipster and when they are sent on.

If tips come through at random times with no warning then realistically how are you going to be setup to follow them properly? They might send them at 10pm one day and 10am the next. If you need to get on them quickly then you will often miss out on value altogether.

Again, the BTG expert ticks the boxes here as he uses three possible tipping windows: 17.00-18.00 the evening before racing, 8.30-9.30 am, and 11.00-12.00am.

You know therefore when to look out for possible bets and when exactly they might be heading your way.

Thanks For Reading..

Hopefully these 5 key points will help to guide you towards those genuinely profitable tipsters that can help you make money betting.

There are naturally more than just 5 points to consider for every tipster but the 5 above are some of the most important and where many punters are unwittingly caught out.

Reviewing and tracking tipsters is what we do best here at the Smart Betting Club – having been at the heart of the industry since 2006.

For those of you after more information on our service, you can read about our tipster review process here and crucially our 100% independent stance.

More details on the Best Tipster Guide can also be found here.

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Save £45 Right Now

By joining the Smart Betting Club today, you can also save a whopping £45 on the usual cost of a Platinum ‘Pro Punter’ membership (which provides access to the Best Tipster Guide)

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 refund guarantee available after all)

See you on the inside.

Read more on how the Best Tipster Guide can help YOU

Best Regards,

Peter Ling

Smart Betting Club Editor

pete@smartbettingclub.com