Category: Tipsters

Is this the world’s most expensive tipster?

I have not yet come across this online at the time of writing but have received a postal mailshot signed by Eddie Lloyd offering “a truly revolutionary approach that’s going to practically force you to win money!”

Now I am sure that Eddie does a good job in selecting the horses that he tips each day.  But the big issue I have is with the pricing structure for his tips.  This is what Eddie says.

“So here’s what I decided.  I’m going to ask you for just £1 to register and then all you need do is place a £10 bet for me on each of the selections I send you.  If the selection wins, just send me the winnings from the £10 bet, if it doesn’t win you don’t owe me a penny.  That’s how confident I am in providing you winners!”

The mailshot from Eddie contained a web address (on the Race Advisor website) to go to.  I thought this may contain further details but it is merely a registration page to sign up with your credit card details.  By signing up you agree to pay £1.20 (including VAT) to register – not £1 as stated in the mailshot.  But more critically you agree to your card being debited every day there is a winning tip at the rate of £10 times the SP for each and every winner.  There is no mention of VAT on top so hopefully this doesn’t apply but even so let’s look at the figures.

Eddie refers to “every day an average of two that I bet on”.  This implies two tips per day.  You need to put £10 on each for Eddie (because if it wins you will need to pay the profit at SP to Eddie).

So you are forking out £10 on every tip.  If the tip loses you are still £10 down.  The fact that the money doesn’t go to Eddie is neither here nor there – you are still £10 down.  If the tip wins then you will get the £10 stake back from the bookie together with your profit.  So if you have a winner at 2/1 SP, you will have total return of £30 (the £10 stake which you keep and £20 profit which is due to Eddie).

To use Eddie’s stated figures “Over the last six months I’ve … had 68 winning bets” – that’s just over 11 per month.  An average of two tips per day suggests a total of about 60 per month.  So that’s about 49 losers per month at £10 a time.  This implies a total cost to you of £490 per month!

So you will need to make around £500 per month profit just to cover your “subscription”.  What sort of stakes will you need to put on to achieve that.  Well, Eddie does say “Over the last six months I’ve … made a profit of £8,472” but he goes on to say “I now bet to £1,000 stakes”.  So you would certainly need to be betting hundreds of pounds on each tip to be covering the subscription and make a decent return for yourself.

The only possible scope for reducing you costs is if you can improve on the odds.  You only have to pay Eddie at SP odds so if you can actually achieve better odds then you keep the additional profit to offset some of the losing stakes.  But if you are having to bet at these sort of stakes, and if you achieve the 38% return on investment that Eddie claims over the last six months, then you will not be welcomed by most of the bookies offering Best Odds Guaranteed or Early Prices.

I have a lot of respect for the Race Advisor website but this particular offering is one to avoid.  I can only assume that I am on some sort of “Suckers List” to have been sent this mailshot in the first place!