Make The Most Of The Racing Post’s Top Tipster With This Refined Strategy
Anyone who has tried to follow the country’s leading racing tipsters will no doubt have come across a very common problem…
Seconds after the likes of Andy Holding, Hugh Taylor or Tom Segal release their tips, the prices crash with bookmakers, any small amount of exchange liquidity disappears and getting the quoted price is nigh on impossible.
The records cited by the likes of Oddschecker, At The Races or The Racing Post are therefore ‘fanciful’ at best and to compound this problem, these tipsters have to produce content, with a ‘No Bet Day’ likely to be met with consternation from their bookmaker-sponsored employers.
Despite all of this, for one of these leading tipsters, there is a service that offers a profitable solution…
Pricewise With PCB
That service is Pricewise With PCB – a refined methodology that curates The Racing Post’s Tom Segal’s tips to make profits with both bookmakers AND exchanges, outperforming the star’s selections along the way!
Tom Segal has a stellar reputation as a source of valuable racing information via his Pricewise column yet at times, operating profitably has required filtering, both in terms of reading between the lines for ‘best bets’ and staking optimally to ensure a smoother ride.
Professional bettor Paul Chandler-Burns has been doing this for years (with a large portion of this period including proofing with The SBC) and, with this service, you can too!
Paul analyses Tom Segal’s columns and tips and uses his experience to work out the strength of the tipster’s confidence and whether backing any selection is advisable.
To do this, he:
- Uses a more blended staking strategy to reflect these confidence levels
- Employs each-way/place betting to smooth out variance
- Filters bets using data such as RPRs (Racing Post Ratings) and his own expertise as a professional bettor
All of this helps to refine the service in comparison to what readers of The Racing Post have access to and, as you will see below, the results are quite spectacular.
A more detailed overview of the strategy that PCB uses was outlined in the ‘SBC Pricewise Strategy’ article, which was first published in SBC 122. You can read more about that via this link or, if you are an SBC Member, you can access the full report in the SBC Magazine back catalogue.
To hear from the man himself, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you will find SBC Podcast 32 and Paul Chandler-Burns discussing his service with SBC Editor, Pete Ling.
Results
From February 2021 to May 2023 Pricewise With PCB was a free tipster with here at SBC, meaning that members were able follow Paul Chandler-Burns in every time that Tom Segal had a bet that met the service’s criteria.
From that period up to now, Paul has put 682 bets forward and these selections provided an 5.08% Return On Investment with 62.88 points profit from 1,238 points staked as you can see below:
A bet-by-bet record for this period can be viewed here but some headline statistics from our 2023 deep dive into ‘PWWPCB’ to consider include:
- 14 of the 25 months in this period were profitable, with 11 losing months
- The worst drawdown that the service suffered was -30 points
- Medium-term returns vindicate the less aggressive staking plan employed by Paul Chandler-Burns; annual returns have a low 4.04% range (between 8.42% ROI & 12.46% ROI) and the service has been remarkably consistent since the start of 2021
Performance At The Sharpest Of Lines
A deep dive into the service’s results in May 2023 revealed the extent of the service’s edge by different metrics, including at Betfair Starting Prices (BSPs) and even Industry Starting Prices (ISPs) as you can see in the graphs below:
This performance at BSP is a drop off from advised price returns (9.49% ROI on matched bets vs 11.18% for advised prices) but this difference is only marginal and can be explained by a considerably inferior performance in the place part of each-way bets when compared to bookmaker prices and fractions.
This is a trend that we see consistently in horse racing markets (better win prices and worse place prices) and could be negated by either playing win only, adjusting staking or taking fewer places on Betfair or the other exchanges (please see the SBC Pricewise with PCB review for a more detailed look at exchange performance and the most efficient ways to place bets).
One remarkable set of numbers that came from our in-depth analysis was performance at the Industry Starting Price (or ISP). A 16.19% ROI is actually 5.01 percentage points better than the returns achieved at advised prices.
With a relatively small sample, this could just be variance but a viable explanation for this is a drift back to earlier prices after dramatic contractions (that a column like Tom Segal’s can cause) subside.
Results Compared to Tom Segal’s Pricewise Column
An obvious question that any follower of this service would ask is ‘Why shouldn’t I just follow Tom Segal’s advice in his Pricewise column?’
This is a fair question, but as discussed above, there are some issues with following advice like this without any filtering or adaptation, namely:
- Tom Segal has to produce content for his column; some selections will be stronger than others and ‘reading between the lines’ is a skill that can help to separate out the best bets from those that might best be left
- After the Pricewise column is released prices often crash; having a service to help guide you towards profit with more realistic prices is essential to making Tom Segal’s expertise pay
- Staking in the Pricewise column is very aggressive, meaning that long losing runs are common; having a curated service helps to remedy this, with each way betting and more flexible staking helping to ‘smooth out the ride’ and take bigger risks for more tangible edges whilst leaving marginal bets to one side
As you can see from the table above, Tom Segal has actually had a relatively poor period since the start of 2021, with an overall loss of -9.17% to his advised prices.
Despite this, Pricewise with PCB has made a 12.41% ROI in this time showing how his refined approach can help to maximise Tom Segal’s expertise.
Filtering selections, placing more each-way bets and curation from a professional bettor takes a historically excellent service and makes it better. Pricewise with PCB is a great way to profit from one of the most respected tipsters around!
Learn More About This Service And Paul In This SBC Podcast Episode
Paul Chandler-Burns was the guest in Episode #32 of the SBC podcasts, where he discussed not only his life in betting but also how he filters Tom Segal’s Pricewise tips.
You can listen to this episode now via Apple / Spotify / Google / YouTube and all other major podcast directories (search Smart Betting Club)
Service Nuts And Bolts
About: This is a service that aims to refine and improve the bets put forward by Tom Segal as part of his Pricewise column published in the Racing Post. Tom is a profitable tipster, yet he often has to provide tips to fill column inches and knowing when to take his bets on and when to leave them is important. Equally, a slightly different approach to staking and the type of bets taken (win and each-way) can help smooth out the ride when following Tom in. Paul also puts up some of his own bets when he sees value.
Bet Timing: Bets are always supplied on race day from 9am onwards with regular messages and updates in the Telegram group. Anytime that Tom has a bet, Paul Chandler-Burns will be providing his own thoughts and betting advice.
Bet Type: A mix of bets to be backed to win and each way with occasional double bets thrown in too.
Bookmakers: Bets will be available to take at all major bookmakers and can be taken on the exchange. This angle has made a profit at both SP and Betfair SP previously
Number of Bets: In a normal month, you can expect between 20 and 30 bets. Sometimes more, sometimes less with a lot more to be expected during major race meetings like Cheltenham Festival!
Staking: Staking varies between 0.5 and 2 points.
Betting Banks: We advocate a 100 point bank to begin with for this service.
Subscribe Now – Exclusively To SBC
You can now lock in your membership space to the Pricewise with PCB service and receive all future selections.
Choose from the following 4 options:
1 Months Recurring* Membership @ 50 + VAT per quarter
Click here to sign-up for a 1 month membership
3 Months Recurring* Membership @ £135 + VAT per quarter
Click here to sign-up for a 3 month membership
6 Months Recurring* Membership @ £240 + VAT per quarter
Click here to sign-up for a 6 month membership
12 Months Recurring* Membership @ £360 + VAT per quarter
Click here to sign-up for a 12 month membership
*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.