Let us imagine you were a normal guy who had always had an interest in sport and liked to have a bet on a few games each weekend. Being a normal guy, you bet like a normal guy. You would chuck on a few multis, whatever horses name sounded good and maybe a few first try scorer bets. Just like all the other normal guys you lost the same amount, which when playing those sort of bets would be about 10-15%. One weekend while you’re in the pub having a few beers with mates, you hear some loud drunk guy celebrating his win and telling all his mates that this new tipster he just started following is the real deal, not like all the others he has followed and eventually lost him money. No, this guy knows his shit and has made him a fortune in his first week.
This piques your interest as you know you have been losing money betting and wouldn’t mind following an expert and actually making a profit from your betting. Bring on Google, Twitter and Facebook. You begin your search in earnest and in no time have found thousands of services that proclaim to make money week after week. “Fuck me” you think to yourself, I’ve found the holy grail. All I need to do is subscribe and follow these guys and in no time I’ll be able to quit my job and travel the world.
You duly sign up to one or two of the flashiest looking sites and then…. Then you start to lose. WAIT, WHAT? You had seen their website showing all these winners, their twitter and facebook feeds are filled with winning members and images of winning betslips. How can you be the unluckiest guy ever to sign up at the exact time they stop winning? After a few months of losses you try a few more tipsters and you might find one or two that have a few good months, but over time they also lose. Eventually after being on the Tipster merry go round for a year or more you learn how they work and smack yourself for every being so stupid to actually pay these guys. Finally after all this time and the loss of all your entertainment money (and at times even your credit card limit) you finally figured out their dirty little secret…
If you were to base your decisions about tipsters by what is shown to the public these days, you would think the world of sports betting was filled with winners. There are only 100% positive comments posted on social media accounts and the websites only ever show how much you can win. Now that I have been on both sides of the table, as a punter following tipsters for the past 5 years and now running my own tipster service for the past 9 months (conflict much), I have seen the truly awful way the vast majority of Tipsters go about getting new clients.
Recently some tipsters I follow have been going through bad runs and while they like to talk about how “Transparent” and “Honest” they are, it is in these poor runs where you see their true colours. Results not being updated in months, the regular newsletter being stopped, emails not being replied too. It seems the Modus operandi for these guys when on a sustained poor run is to go dark. Just shut up, leave the old results on the website and hope to hell more dumb people join. Only if they start winning again do you than see the website updated and the emails start flooding your inbox again and their dead social media accounts come back to life.
One of the very reasons I started my own tipster service was to show these guys how a fully “transparent” service should be run. Transparent doesn’t mean showing results when they look good and hiding them when on a bad run. Transparent means showing the good and the bad at all times. That is what we do at Dailyprofit and why I receive tweets like this.
@groovinmahoovin i’ve only seen 1 guy with true integrity thats @day25 and his picks site. Jesus level honesty.
— Stephen Rothwell (@lockandcover) March 29, 2015
In the good times (which we have had) and the bad times (currently in one), each week we update the site with the results whether we have had an amazing or a disaster week. There are a few other tipsters (who I follow) who do try and do the right thing, but that number is very small.
Why do I like talking about bad runs?
I actually like (well that’s a stretch). I appreciate when a bad run happens. If you check out my twitter feed, you will see a 50/50 split between positive mentions of dailyprofit and negative mentions. There are a number of reasons I appreciate the bad run. No matter who you follow, there will always be bad runs. It’s part of betting. These bad runs allow me to do a number of things.
- They are teachable moments. I can guide customers through bad runs by explaining why they happen (the maths), how to deal with them (psychology), and how to stay the course (resilience)
- Members who go through a bad run are also better prepared for the next one and deal with each future one with a little more ease.
- They also weed out the bad customers. I’ve found that 10-25% of customers will give your service a few weeks to prove itself. After a poor week they cancel their subscription and move onto the next service. You just can’t help these people and I’d prefer not to have them as a customer.
- They actually get me more customers. That’s right, going out of my way to be honest shows potential new customers that I am the exact opposite to every single other tipster out there, and what is their impression of every other tipster? It’s that they lose.
The Dailyprofit service has now been running for 9 long months. While the Value and Risk-free section of the site continues to make members money, and will do for a very long time, the real gambling side of the service (Sportpunter) has seen some good times and lately some very dark times. From Day 1 (4th July 2014) till yesterday (29th of March 2015) we have advised 619 bets and hit 318 winners. That has resulted in $61,315.00 worth of bets (advised $4,000 bank and 1 unit of $100) for a loss of $70.15 (less than 1 unit) and a negative ROI of 0.1%. The thing is, all members did not join at the start, a vast majority of them joined just before the new year when I was putting prices up. That means they joined at pretty much the peak of the graph below and are down almost 30 units. Mostly due to a very poor NHL run.
I’ll also add that I record at pretty much Pinnacle closing prices (or worse) and most members easily beat the quoted odds. I thought sports betting was a stressful hobby, try being a tipster who cares about their clients. I’ve felt much worse knowing that members are losing money, although I am losing the same percentage but at a 10-30x monetary amount. I know this poor run will end and the graph will also have a run just as high as the current loss has been, but I also make customers aware of the reality of betting and also of how I record my odds. At best the SP part of the service will only ever see a 0-3% ROI long term.
A free 7 day course that will expose these lying Tipsters
I am currently putting together a 7 day course that will be free to all members of this site and the mailing list. I will break down the dodgy tipsters and show you:
- How they make money from you (not just from your subscription costs)
- How they use social media to show only positive reviews
- How quickly and easily they can put together a website and build social proof
- How they can creatively fudge their numbers (better than even the dodgiest accountants)
- A look at some recent real world examples
Not only will I show you in detail how they deceive you, but I will give you a ready made checklist to see which ones you should stay away from (hint: 99% of them). My hope is this course will open your eyes to some things you may have missed and make you look deeper into any tipsters you are currently following. When you follow a tipster, it isn’t just the subscription cost you are paying, it is the much higher potential loss of your betting bank as well.
Remember that at the end of the day it is your money you are spending and it is up to you to do everything you can to make the best financial decisions possible. I will give you as much information as you need to make those decisions and a framework that should see you only invest in the very best tipsters. In turn by starving these other dodgy tipsters of any funds, they will eventually see it is not worth their time and we might just be able to clean up this industry. While that is probably impossible, any changes that we can bring about will be good.
If you want to help change this industry you can do your bit by sharing this article. Share it on your twitter and facebook accounts and any other social media you use.