3rd March 2001 - issue 2

Hardly a week goes by without me receiving an invitation to subscribe to a betting service, of some description, either offering an infallible system or a series of hot tips. In the past these have always ended up in the bin. A quick look at the mathematics involved and you'll see why. Any successful tipster has had to achieve the following:

1. Overcome the bookies overround. On soccer win/draw/lose bets this is typically about 13%.

2. Until the recent advent of tax free internet betting they would have to overcome the taxman, who takes 9% of all winnings.

3. Give the punter a profit margin that is going to justify the costs of subscribing to the service.

A successful gambler or tipster has to be able to identify bets where the likelihood of the outcome is greater than that indicated by the odds. In the above example, you would need to find bets where the value exceeded the odds by one third, ie spot bets offered at 6-1 which should really be 4-1 or less. To out-think the bookie and the market to this degree on a consistent basis is a very tall order . If you genuinely had this ability would you really go to the huge expense, trouble and risk of mailling tens of thousands of people in the hope that some of them might send you £20 or £50 for everything you know? I doubt it, which is what has held me back in the past.

However, as I have said time and again the tax free and bookie free betting revolution has changed everything and I believe now is the time to review the role of tipsters. Suddenly there is no tax to pay and the bookie's overround has been replaced by 5% commission. Any tipster who was even breaking even in the past will now be making profits for his followers who use his tips to bet on Betfair or flutter.

The record this year of the Backhander illustrates how tax free betting and bookie free betting has made it possible for tipsters to offer advice that can be used to make genuine profits for their customers. The Backhander has shown a profit based on the outcome of his bets at Bookie's odds. Imagine the profits you would have made had you backed his selections on bookie free betting sites at enhanced odds such as those I got on the Liverpool match.

I am sure that the Backhander's record is far from unique, and there are many online tipsters who are able to offer a similarly valuable service. The great thing about the internet is that it has given would be tipsters the potential to reach an unlimited audience without the trouble, expense and risk of running a very expensive mailing campaign. This means that they can sell their tips very reasonably or even offer them free of charge in the hope that it will attract visitors to their site. With the growth of bookie free betting, the use of mainstream bookies as a reference point for odds will become less and less useful. Punters will look elsewhere for their edge, and there can be little doubt that tipping services will become more valued than ever before. I predict that the really successful tipsters will have massive followings which will guarantee huge visitor numbers to their web sites. They will become the superstars of the internet betting scene, and their predictions will help to set the markets.