The Power of Four by Eddie Lloyd (Race Advisor)
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!
Books Coming Soon
There are many books on betting covering a very wide variety of aspects. Some are available in printed form, some as e-books and some in both formats.
We want to make the best available to you through PunterPort but first need to find the right source(s) of supply to offer the best service to you.
Advanced Cymatic Trader
Advanced Cymatic Trader is a full-featured software trading tool which until earlier this month was free to use. On 10th November the developer announced that it would no longer be free from the following day!
It really does have a long list of very useful features including a demo mode so that you can try out your strategies without risking real cash.
I tried this software briefly and found it relatively easy to use – after watching the online tutorials – for something so powerful.
Unfortunately, after updating to a later version of the software, the program would not run at all, crashed before even logging in, and could not be closed even with Windows Task Manager.
The fact that I had difficulties does not necessarily mean that you will so if you want a powerful trading tool for Betfair click here for full details and to download the software.
E Racing Network
I returned from a recent holiday to find a series of emails hyping up the launch of the Elite Racing Network. This seemed to change its name part way through the launch to the E Racing Network or ERN for short. The emails contained links to some cringe-worthy videos about this new wonder service. After seeing the first few minutes of the videos and learning very little I lost patience so decided to wait for the launch date.
As is common with such launches there was the usual encouragement to sign up to an “Early Bird” list to “queue jump” and get a “ridiculously low” price – so I did.
On launch day at 9.00 am I received an email inviting me to grab one of the 100 “early bird” spaces. So I thought I would click on the link in the email to see if I could find out what was on offer. Each attempt was met with a “Page not found” error!
At 10.30am I received another email urging me to hurry as there were only 67 spaces left. But still the website is down. Then an hour later another email – only 37 spaces left – now only 32 spaces left …
So how come everyone else seems to have been able to access the website but me?
At 12 noon another email to say the service is now open to all – not just the early bird registrants.
At 7.00 pm ERN finally acknowledge they have a problem.
Late the following afternoon an email to say that they have 76 early bird spaces left. Does that mean that they were telling porkies the previous day when hardly anyone could get through to the website and yet they had only 67, then 37, then 32 spaces left?
I’m still not clear what the service is exactly but it appears to be a selection of horse racing systems (some proven and some on test) plus the option of a betting bot to place the bets if you want. The person behind it seems to be the same person behind Grey Horse Bot and this service appears to be an enhancement of the Grey Horse Bot package.
Pricing for the early bird members was not my idea of “ridiculously low”. To get the best monthly rate you needed to sign up for a year at £297 up front. Or you could go for 6 months at £197 or 3 months (minimum) at £127 which works out at over £42 per month.
But, despite the failings of the launch, the lack of any sort of trial (other than £127 for 3 months) and the possible customer service issues (see our review of Grey Horse Bot here) there looked the possibility that there could be something good here.
Now, PunterPort does not carry out many product reviews (especially for me-too tipsters) but when something different comes along we are happy to put in the time, especially when punters are being asked for £127 to try the service.
So we invited ERN to submit a copy for review. They declined!
So with no review to go on, no free trial and no mention of a money back guarantee it looks like one to steer well clear of.
P.S. Shortly after refusing our review, ERN offered a 31 day trial for £47 but say this is for a very limited period.
If anyone has tried ERN we would be very interested to hear your comments using our contact form.
Please note that ERN are still using the term Elite Racing Network in some of the promotional materials but we understand that there is no connection to the Elite Racing System(s), Elite Racing Club or any other similarly named entities.
Stop At A Winner Bot – Update
I promised to update this review if I found a strategy that worked.
Well, it’s a bit early to be certain but the strategy I am now following known as Strategy 1b on the Stop At A Winner Bot website is showing some progress.
I started following this strategy at in the last week of April. A steady profit was made for several days but then on the first day of May a stop loss was hit and the resulting heavy loss more than wiped out that profit. More alarmingly, the “official” results on the website did not show a loss for that day. That is not to say that the results are being manipulated but merely that there will be some minor differences in timing of bet placement that can make all of the difference. In a few vital seconds between the time of my bet placement compared with the “official” bet (and perhaps your bet) a number of things could happen:-
- The previous bet result may be settled. (This is needed before the next bet can be placed because of the recovery staking plan.)
- The odds may cross the threshold (e.g. if the odds of the favourite fall below 3.00 then the race is a “no bet”).
- The favourite may change from Horse A to Horse B.
Another stop loss was hit on the 27th May (which did appear in the “official” results as well). Despite this a profit has been made so far.
The bank is up by £89 to date using a £1 per cycle profit target. This represents a ROI of 10%. Whilst some way off the ROI claimed by Winning More, I hope that as time goes on my figure will become closer to Winning More’s. In fact, I would be more than happy if an ROI of 10% could be maintained for a system so simple to implement as Stop At A Winner Bot.
JPW Racing Tipster
JPW Racing is one of the most flexible horse racing tipster services I have come across. It is run by James Walsh.
So many tipsters offer only the options of monthly, quarterly or annual subscriptions. You can easily be forking out £70 or more a month for daily tips. If you struggle to find time to put the bets on during the working week then what a waste of money.
At the time of writing JPW Racing offers plenty of options.
Firstly, if you want a full blown service with daily tips you can subscribe monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.
If you, only want tips at weekends you can take out an annual weekends-only subscription.
If you just need tips for the major events or festivals then JPW Racing even has an annual subscription for a Festivals Special (which includes 13 festivals throughout the year).
For the occasional punter, you can purchase tips for a single festival (Royal Ascot is the next one at the time of writing), a single week, a single weekend, or even a single “Tip of the Day”.
For those who prefer laying horses, there are subscriptions options for everything from a single “Lay of the Day” to a year of lays.
For Scoop 6 fans, JPW Racing have a syndicate option which you can join on an ad-hoc basis, or sign up to a “Scoop 6 Saver” service which targets the Scoop 6 when the pool reaches a certain size.
There is a free 5-day trial to JPW Racing’s regular (not festival) tips. As far as I am aware, there is no need to choose a subscription period and enter payment details to sign up for the free trial – unlike a lot of services out there!
I have personally used JPW Racing for their festival tips which I have found to be very profitable. Of course, a profit cannot be guaranteed on every festival as these are too short a duration to eliminate the effects of a run of bad luck but over the year I have made a decent sum.
I have only used JPW Racing’s regular tips for a 5-day trial. I did not make a profit but then five days is far too short a period to judge.
I can say that I have found the service to be very well run by James. I strongly recommend you take a look at the JPW Racing website to see which subscription option would suit you best.
Make Sure You Get Value
Always take care when you place a bet that you are getting not only the best price (making sure you use an odds comparison site every time you place a bet) but also a price which represents value.
For example, if a horse’s real chance of winning a race is 50/50 then any odds better than evens represent value. Any odds lower than evens are not good value at all – you should avoid the bet. Or check back later, to see if the odds have improved (but make sure you still believe the horse has a 50/50 chance).
That’s why you should be wary of following tips which do not state what price to take. It is amazing how many tipsters flout this rule. Or a tipster will quote an “advised price” which is unobtainable – should you then take the best price you can get a skip it. You need to know what is the lowest price you should consider.
Bear this in mind when you add a tipster to your betting portfolio.
Portfolio Corner at Race Advisor
The highly respected Race Advisor website has a new feature – Portfolio Corner.
Every serious punter should use a portfolio comprising a number of different systems and/or tipsters which complement each other. If one system/tipster is going through a bad patch (which WILL happen) then hopefully the other systems will make up for the loss in the poorly performing one(s).
Portfolio Corner is written by a pro-punter who claims to have 250 systems (mostly micro-systems I suspect). In his first post today he gives details of one of his systems, based on a single trainer which has given an Return on Investment of over 95% to Industry Starting Price and level stakes in the four years 2011 to 2014. There were only 123 qualifying bets in the four years so the total profit works out at an average of under £300 per year to £10 stakes. (This would be increased if using Betfair – and possibly more so if using a Best Odds Guaranteed bookmaker.) Of course, there is no guarantee that the profits will continue in 2015 but it looks promising.
The writer promises to share another of his systems in a few weeks time. If he carries on at that rate we could have his whole portfolio within about fifteen years! But even a few good systems over the year would be a welcome addition to any existing portfolio we may have. So do check out Portfolio Corner on the Race Advisor website.
Race Advisor Video Reviews
Michael Wilding’s Race Advisor website has just started video walk-throughs of betting services.
For the first one Michael has chosen Winning More’s Stop At A Winner Bot. The video is 22 minutes long and shows how to buy, download, install and use the bot.
A video review such as this is very useful in helping you to decide whether it is worth purchasing the bot.
I have already reviewed Stop At A Winner Bot – not a video review but you can see it here.
Bookies’ Customer Service
Why do some bookies struggle to offer the basics of customer service? Take Boylesports for example.
I opened an account with them 7 months ago. At first I placed a few bets with them through their website; some months later I downloaded their iPad app (although it turned out it was their iPhone app that I had – but it didn’t really matter).
Whether I ever got this app to work I cannot remember as I didn’t use Boylesports very often – about two dozen bets in total during the whole 7 months (the majority on football – the rest on horse racing). Whenever I started the app it would just put up a page with the Boylesports logo and the words “Location: United States”. It wouldn’t do anything else – no matter how many times I tried. I tried rebooting the iPad, I tried uninstalling and re-installing the app. This time I made sure I downloaded the iPad (rather than iPhone) app. The message on start-up was marginally more explicit – words to the effect that I could not use the app in the United States. BUT I was in England. No other bookmaker apps were this obstinate.
So I fired off an email to Boylesports asking if they could throw any light on why their app thought I was in the US. I explained that my iPad had never been to the US – it doesn’t get out much! They replied with the statement “Your registration has been flagged by our internal security and there appears to be a mismatch between your country of registration and your IP location …. please provide an explanation for this mismatch”. I re-iterated that my iPad had never been to the US and I hadn’t been there personally for over 15 years but couldn’t tell them why they had a mismatch. Like most other home users, I have a dynamic IP address which my ISP allocates from time to time.
So Boylesports accepted that and said they would get their Security Department to unblock my account BUT no mention of why some goon had seen fit to block my account without first contacting me. Why wait for me to go through the hassle of trying to get the damned app to work thinking that there was some problem at my end?
Five days later, of course the app still did not work – it needed another email to get the account unblocked. All went well for a few weeks until the Punchestown Festival. Then I started having bets declined for no clear reason. An example: £2 each way on an 8/1 shot. Four bets were declined over a two day period but no guidance on what would be accepted – I mean if a £20 liability was too much for them how about £10 (i.e. £1 each way)?
No point in maintaining funds in an account I cannot use so I requested an online withdrawal. The default (or possibly only option – I am not sure) on the iPad app withdrawal form was to my Visa card which I had used to open the account. I would have preferred it in my Paypal account but I couldn’t remember whether I had registered this with Boylesports so Visa would have to do.
Later that day I receive an email from Boylesports stating “Your account has been restricted. This means you can no longer avail of our fon-a-bet service, Horse Racing and Sports promotions. You can still transact via our website or mobile website.”
I replied that I had already withdrawn all funds from my account following the declined bets and the “Location: United States” debacle. Their response was along the lines of “We operate … a series of internal risk management processes … This practice is a common risk management strategy … this is a comprehensive and robust process.” What a load of ******. Obviously it is entirely up to Boylesports if they choose to restrict my account but at least have the decency to tell me in advance rather than after the event; AND make it clear what business of mine they want if any. If they do not want to not accept any bets from me at all – that’s fine just say so instead of saying “you can still transact via our website” then declining £2 bets.
To cap it all, the following day I get an email from Boylesports to say they have cancelled my withdrawal request “as our standard security regulation and for ease of use (joke?)” adding that I need to use Paypal. Well, why show Visa as the default option on the withdrawal form? Other bookmakers make it clear where you can withdraw to.
To be fair to bookies I have to say that I have had very good customer service from Paddy Power. And some bookies I never need to even contact customer services – no reason to. But Boylesports …..