Horse Racing Results 19 March – 31 July 2014
This is the first update on how I have done over the first 4 and a bit months since I started following Horse racing tipsters. I have decided to update the results once a month, so you can expect the next update on September 1st.
I have decided to keep the names of these services private for a few reason. Firstly I don’t want you rushing into any of these services before I know for sure they will make you a profit long term. Horse racing is a very different beast to sports betting. With such high average odds, it takes many thousands of bets to see a statistically significant number. Also I’m not sure what impact a large number of new bettors would have on the prices. If you do a bit of research you can easily figure out the services I am using. Once I decide not to continue following a service I will also name it and the reasons why I stopped following.
I will talk about each service in much more detail over the coming years, but for now here is a rundown of each service.
Smartform
This is the standard that every other service now has to stand up to. It was the first service I joined and was by far the best service I have seen. While the results in the end were nothing to write home about, the way the service was run, the odds quoted, and just how easy it was to follow has really spoiled me for any other service. Sadly Daniel ended the service last week for personal reasons and I will do a full write up on why this service is the one I will compare all other services to. There is also an unofficial SF column which was me using his ratings in the final few week to place my own bets.
FL
I actually quit this service a month ago after testing it for 3 months. No odds are given when emails are sent, just some basic rules on whether to back it for a win or a place. Then when I compared the odds I received to the recorded odds I saw a massive discrepancy. I asked a few times how I should be following the service, if I should be betting early, late, BOB or any other way. The reply was that it didn’t really matter, it would even out over the long term. This did not instill me with great confidence as if there is one thing I have learnt, it is that getting the best possible odds is one of the most important aspects of making a profit. After talking with a member who has been with them over a year and being told that long term he is in profit simply betting BOB, I have decided to give them another go and make it as easy as possible on myself by betting just BOB.
Dominic Bernie
Dom is a famous figure in betting and Betfair had hired him to put up his weekly picks. I followed for a month and then I guess Betfair or Dom ended the relationship.
Trialfiles
A service that I only followed for a week. It’s a free service and apparently has done quite well. No odds to take are given and no recording is done that I could see. As I have recently joined a similar paid service, I have stopped following this one for now as the workload was too much.
CTS
Follows the same principles as the Trialfiles service and has been running for about 18 months. Another that does not give suggested odds, but you can use the bet size to figure out what they feel the right odds should be. Not a great start and I will need to continue comparing my odds to their recorded odds to see if this is profitable, or just another case of recording unattainable odds.
BDM
A very new service that gives out ratings but no staking plan. I have learnt a fair bit over the past 4 months and have created my own calculator and staking plan for the service. Early results are pleasing.
RB
This is another ratings service, but with an sms service for punters who want a simple way to follow. The sms service is the RB column and the RB Unofficial column is my use of the ratings. I like and dislike this service. It is a hell of a lot of hard work, that’s why I like it. It is really only for people who have time to keep an eye on the races and constantly check odds. The owner makes a big deal of how fair the service is, but the odds recording in my opinion is not fair at all. The recording is based on the SMS service, but the quoted odds are always the best early price, or the best late price on Betfair. Long term the ROI stands at close to 15% for the sms service, but you need to take 5-10% of this to get a realistic figure. The sms service helped at the start when I had no idea what I was doing, but I see myself using them less and less and moving to using the ratings and my own judgment. As you can see, the official results are shocking, while my own bets are going very well (sadly betting much lower). I have spoken to the owner of the service on the phone a number of times and he is always very forthright with me, he is also happy to chat for quite a while.
That’s all the services I have or currently follow, I am looking at adding one other, but for the next few months that will be it. I will do full reviews of each tipster over the coming months and go into detail about past results, odds recording, service price, customer service and so on. I will also break down my banks and unit size for each service.
The results for each service are below. These services are all extremely expensive and the monthly fees have not been added to my results. I will eventually start adding them as a 1 time losing bet each month.
Stats
Total bet amount: $411,443.00
Profit/Loss: $(963.42)
POT: -0.23%
Bets
Bets Placed: 1075
Won: 199
Lost: 848
Refunded: 28
Winning %: 18.5%
| Tipster | Wagers | Net Profit | Return | Wins | Bets | Win % | Monthly P/L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smartform | $111,959.00 | $7,420.00 | 6.6% | 35 | 129 | 27.1% | $7,420.00 |
| FL | $43,501.00 | $(1,137.50) | -2.6% | 27 | 112 | 24.1% | $(1,137.50) |
| Dominic Bernie | $9,226.00 | $450.00 | 4.9% | 10 | 49 | 20.4% | $450.00 |
| Unofficial SF | $8,674.00 | $(3,854.00) | -44.4% | 3 | 46 | 6.5% | $(3,854.00) |
| Trialfiles | $4,160.00 | $(1,333.00) | -32.0% | 5 | 32 | 15.6% | $(1,333.00) |
| CTS | $28,437.00 | $(4,070.12) | -14.3% | 17 | 87 | 19.5% | $(4,070.12) |
| BDM | $14,020.00 | $3,741.25 | 26.7% | 8 | 40 | 20.0% | $3,741.25 |
| RB | $164,636.00 | $(18,584.55) | -11.3% | 60 | 419 | 14.3% | $(18,584.55) |
| RB Unofficial | $26,830.00 | $16,404.50 | 61.1% | 34 | 133 | 25.6% | $16,404.50 |
Dom Beirne has been a regular contributor for Betfair only for the prime carnivals. Hopefully he’ll be back for the Melbourne spring carnival.
Lets hope so.
I guess I did a terrible job of keeping the names hidden. I can’t confirm nor deny that.
:o) – TBF with them, I didn’t follow long enough to see if it was always the case with the odds. Know they offer an NRL model too and prices recorded on that are more than fair, as believe only use 2 bookmakers to take prices from. Far less turnover on that than the horses though so wouldn’t make the difference that it would if they are obtaining better odds on every horse going around!
I believe just after I quit, they went on an amazing run. Always happens. Throughout this Horse racing experiment, I will try and make these guys all change the way they record odds, I guess with my eye them now, they might actually listen.
Heard The Trial Files are good too, but they fail to produce a record so it’s all hearsay to me. I see endless RT’s from them on Twitter when they win but some days they send out way too many picks and it’s days like that I wonder how many have won and lost.
When they produce a pick by pick record I’ll decide for myself if they are worth following again.
Yep, I think they are not sure what avenue to go down, either a tipster service or a writeup service for publication.
Steve, I think that your comment about betting with ratings is spot on. It is the best way to bet in my experience but you do need to be at your computer which most people couldn’t be bothered doing. The owner of RBL used to be at Champion Picks and does know his stuff. I made money when he was with CP but these days I don’t have the time to be monitoring markets all day.
Dom Beirne is definitely worth following.
Yep, I heard ED used to work for them. I believe the service is good, but have issues with odds recording, and it’s not good enough to say “well everyone does it”. A standard needs to be set.
Hi
I follow 3 aus horse racing services 2 of them it is almost impossible to get odds worse than they record (and bet placement takes less than 5 minutes for them both put together). I have consistently acheived in excess of 5% better roi with one and 10%(just short of double profit last month) with the other. So there are services that are fair.
The third i originally quit because of their recording methods (the worst i have ever seen without being complete lies). They are no w a little better but still not good enough and my profit is in excess of 10% less than theirs.
Hey Wah,
wow, I better start looking. I think because I have just started, I am only looking at the bigger services that have been around for a while. I guess these guys have got their marketing right and have a strong brand so don’t care about recording fair odds. They just want the mugs who have no idea what value is and want a few bets on the weekend.