Footy Star – Profits Opposing The Recreational Punter!

Footy Star has developed into one of the more established football betting services available through SBC, building an impressive record from thousands of bets dating back to 2022.

The strategy is unusual. Rather than following the recreational preference for goals, Footy Star predominantly looks to profit from matches in which both teams will NOT score.

And there is now a substantial body of results behind it.

After initially joining SBC as a Free Tipster in June 2024, Footy Star produced 137.52 points profit from 822 bets at an ROI of 16.72% through to February 2025.

That performance led to the launch of the Premium Service.

Crucially, the profits did not stop there.

Footy Star has continued to win since becoming a Premium Tipster, extending a record that now dates back more than four years.

Across the full record, the service has produced 446.42 points profit at an ROI of 11.42% from 3,909 bets.

That combination of longevity, volume and double digit ROI is what makes Footy Star particularly interesting. We are no longer assessing a promising strategy on the back of a few hundred bets. There are now thousands of selections with which to judge its performance.

There is, however, an important practical consideration before joining.

Click here to view the subscription options and to join the service.

You Need Access To Soft Bookmakers

Footy Star is primarily designed for bettors who have access to traditional soft bookmakers.

The historical results are recorded using the advised prices available with bookmakers such as Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, William Hill, BetVictor and Unibet.

This matters.

Footy Star’s edge frequently comes from identifying prices at these bookmakers that Gianluca’s models consider too big. Consequently, having access to a good selection of soft bookmaker accounts, and particularly Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook, can make a significant difference to your ability to replicate the published results.

If your betting is restricted entirely to exchanges, brokers and sharper bookmakers, Footy Star may therefore not be the right service for you.

You may sometimes find equivalent or even bigger prices elsewhere, but followers should not assume this will always be the case.

Before subscribing, we strongly recommend considering the bookmaker accounts you currently have available. Good soft bookmaker access gives you the best opportunity of following Footy Star as intended and achieving prices comparable with those behind its established record.

Footy Star’s BTTS Edge

Football bettors generally like goals. Markets such as Both Teams To Score, Over 2.5 Goals and combinations involving goals and match results attract considerable recreational interest.

Footy Star approaches these markets from the opposite direction.

Its most common selection is Both Teams To Score: No, looking for matches where the available odds underestimate the probability of at least one team failing to score.

It is an approach, Gianluca, the brains behind Footy Star has been developing for several years, using statistical models to identify discrepancies between his estimated probabilities and the prices available with bookmakers.

What originally caught our attention was the theory behind the strategy.

What matters considerably more today is that the theory has subsequently been tested across thousands of real bets.

Where Does The Value Come From?

The foundation of Footy Star is value rather than simply attempting to predict the most likely outcome of a match. Gianluca uses historical data and statistical modelling to estimate probabilities and then compares those figures with the prices offered by bookmakers.

A particularly interesting part of his approach concerns the relationship between what he describes as primary markets and derived markets.

His research suggests that certain secondary football markets can sometimes contain pricing inconsistencies created by the way bookmakers derive one set of odds from another.

It is these discrepancies that Footy Star attempts to identify.

The service has evolved considerably since Gianluca first began producing selections in 2021. Earlier versions involved considerably more bets at a lower ROI. Further filtering eventually produced the more selective Footy Star strategy that followers know today.

Gianluca continues to research new markets and modelling techniques, but the core Footy Star approach remains the strategy with the strongest established record.

That record now stretches across more than 3,900 bets, giving us considerably more evidence with which to assess the strategy than when we first reviewed it in 2025.

The Record

When Footy Star originally became a Premium service in February 2025, one of the attractions was that it already had a meaningful historical record.  There is now considerably more evidence.

Footy Star’s tracked results date back to May 2022, alongside its period as a Free SBC Tipster and its subsequent Premium results.

The headline figures now stand at:

• 3,909 bets advised
• 446.42 points profit
• 11.42% ROI
• Average odds of 2.76

For a service betting at average odds considerably above evens, maintaining a double digit ROI across almost 4,000 selections is an impressive achievement.

Just as importantly, the record now covers several seasons and different stages of the football calendar rather than relying upon one exceptional period of results.

Soft Bookmaker Access Is Important

This is one area where we think prospective subscribers need to be particularly clear about what they are buying. Footy Star is a soft bookmaker focused service.

Selections are normally issued alongside the best available prices at mainstream bookmakers, with Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook regularly among the firms offering the recommended odds. William Hill, BetVictor, Unibet and others also feature.

The published performance is therefore based upon prices that were genuinely available with these bookmakers when selections were advised.

For someone with a healthy collection of unrestricted soft bookmaker accounts, that can be a major attraction. You have multiple places to search for the advised price and potentially the opportunity to beat it.

For someone who has lost most of their soft bookmaker access, the proposition is different.

Sharp bookmakers, exchanges and brokers can sometimes offer competitive or superior prices, particularly on larger leagues with good liquidity. However, they cannot be relied upon to replicate every Footy Star recommendation at the advised price.

We therefore regard access to soft bookmakers as an important requirement for getting the most from Footy Star.

Ideally, followers should have several usable accounts available, with Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook particularly useful given how regularly competitive prices appear there.

This is something we would strongly encourage you to assess before subscribing, rather than joining and discovering afterwards that your available bookmaker accounts make the service difficult to follow.

SBC Review: From Promising Service To Established Record

We first carried out a detailed analysis of Footy Star when the Premium Service launched in February 2025.

At that stage we were particularly interested in whether the historical results were statistically convincing, whether subscribers could realistically obtain the quoted prices and how the service might perform through inevitable losing periods.

Our analysis found several encouraging characteristics, including consistency across different months, a sizeable historical sample and the possibility of using alternative staking approaches to manage variance.

We now have something we did not have when that original review was published: another substantial period of live results.

Footy Star has continued operating and producing profits since its Premium launch, adding considerably more bets to an already sizeable record.

That strengthens the case for viewing Footy Star as an established betting service rather than an emerging one.

The practical caveat remains bookmaker access.

For bettors with good soft bookmaker availability, Footy Star offers an unusual strategy, thousands of bets of evidence and a long standing record of identifying value in football goals markets.

For bettors without that bookmaker access, we would suggest considering carefully whether you can realistically obtain the prices required before subscribing.

Subscribe Now – Only Available Via SBC

You can subscribe now to Footy Star with the following options:

SBC Member Rates

To take advantage of these discounted prices, an active membership to the Smart Betting Club is required.

• 1 month subscription @ £40 + VAT
• 3 month subscription @ £105 + VAT
• 6 month subscription @ £175 + VAT
• 12 month subscription @ £289 + VAT (Best Value long-term)

Normal Rates

• 1 month subscription @ £45 + VAT
• 3 month subscription @ £120 + VAT
• 6 month subscription @ £205 + VAT
• 12 month subscription @ £329 + VAT

SBC Member Discounted Rates Links

If you hold an SBC membership, login with your username/password and return to this page to discover the discounted payment links.

If you are not an SBC member and wish to join to access these savings, Subscribe to SBC now and then return to this page to access the discounted links.

SBC Non-Member Rates 

If you don’t hold an active Smart Betting Club membership, you can join via the following payment links:

12 Month recurring* subscription – £329 + VAT per year
Click Here To Subscribe Now!

6 month recurring* subscription – £205 + VAT per 6 months
Click Here To Subscribe Now!

3 month recurring* subscription – £120 + VAT per 3 months
Click Here To Subscribe Now!

1 month recurring* subscription – £45 + VAT per month
Click Here To Subscribe Now!

*Please note that all membership payments are taken on an automatic recurring basis. You can cancel the recurring payments at anytime or simply ask us to do this on your behalf at any point. 

Service Nuts and Bolts

About: Footy Star focuses on the goals markets in football leagues from across the world. ‘BTTS – No’ is by far their most common bet as they look to find games where (at least) one team does NOT score.

Method of Bet Supply: Tips are sent out via Telegram in the following format:

Fixture: Latvia>Virsliga>Riga FC – RFS
Betfair @2.3
PaddyPower @2.25
Betway @2.25

Here you can see the country, league and game, as well as the main ‘soft bookmakers’ offering the best current odds. By searching around in the betting market, you will often find better odds – especially with sharp bookmakers, exchanges and bet brokers.

Bet Timing: What time and day are bets sent? Tips are delivered between 9pm and 11pm (UK time). During weekends with a large number of available fixtures, sometimes tips arrive later than 11pm (especially on Friday and Saturday nights).

Bet Type: Most bets advised are for BTTS – No. Other bet types are employed but they are normally a derivation of this strategy (opposing goals).

Bookmakers: Footy Star is primarily intended to be followed using soft bookmakers. Tips are issued with the best available prices from major firms, with Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook particularly useful accounts to have available.

The historical results are measured against these advised soft bookmaker prices, so access to a reasonable selection of these accounts is important if you want to replicate the service’s recorded performance as closely as possible.

Prices may sometimes be matched or beaten through sharp bookmakers, exchanges or brokers, particularly on higher profile competitions. However, followers should not rely on these outlets alone. If you have very limited soft bookmaker access, we recommend taking this into consideration before subscribing.

Number of Bets: Around 80 tips can be expected in a busy month, with quieter months normally seeing between 30 and 40 selections sent out to followers. Saturdays and Sundays see the vast majority of the action.

Staking: A flat staking plan has been employed by Footy Star so far and this is how we will be measuring performance going forward. If you would like to adopt a more blended staking plan (e.g. based on the odds), then initial analysis from the bare data suggests that this would still perform excellently whilst improving Return On Capital (ROC). This is covered in SBC Magazine #149.

Betting Bank Advice: We recommend starting with a 100-points bank.

Gianluca has also asked to include his advice around staking, which is as follows:

1. Decide your starting stake and say that it is equal to 1 point. Start with 100-points bank.

2. Keep betting the same stake until your bank reaches 150 points. Do not change the stake if the bank decreases.

3. Once your bank reaches 150 points, put 50 points aside: this is your reserve bank and pretend it does not exist unless you are in trouble. Your new bank starts again at 100 points.

4. Never go below your starting stake. But from now on, if the bank increases, you can increase the stake as well (dividing your current bank by 100).

5. Every X months, if the bank has increased remember to withdraw some money for you to spend as you prefer!