FA Cup Glory for Arsenal?

The FA Cup Final is upon us again as the domestic season in England (and most of Europe) comes to a close. Arsenal enter the game as hot favourites as they come up against an indifferent Aston Villa side who are in their first FA Cup Final since their 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in 2000. Arsenal have more experience in this competition, winning last season after going 2-0 down to Hull City early on only to recover and eventually win the game in extra time, thanks to a winning goal from their player of the season, Aaron Ramsey.

Danny Welbeck has already been ruled out of the final due to injury, having not started a game since their semi-final win over Reading. However, with Walcott firing on all cylinders after his first half hat-trick against West Brom last weekend, it'd be a brave man to oppose them come Saturday afternoon.

Oddsportal have this game priced up from more than 50 bookmakers, and the best price for Arsenal to win in 90 minutes currently best priced at 1.57 (with Coral). Coral
Coral

However, Coral have a special offer for new customers for this game, which is a MASSIVE 6/1 for Arsenal to win in 90 minutes. We spoke about value just last week (read that blog post here), and this offer is the epitome of good value. Usually, a 6/1 shot (6.00 in decimal odds) implies that the outcome has a 16.7% chance of success. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or Matthew Benham to see that this is an opportunity to beat the odds. In fact, if you're clever, you could guarantee profit regardless with this offer.


How? Well, open a new Coral account to get £5 on the 6/1 enhanced odds on an Arsenal win in 90. Then use Bet365 to bet +0.50 Asian Handicap (double chance) at odds of 2.60, £5 will do. Here is the outcome if you took this approach:

Arsenal Win = £25 profit (£30 Profit at Coral -£5 Loss at Bet365)
Draw/Villa Win = £3 profit + a £20 free bet at Coral (£8 profit at Bet365 -£5 Loss at Coral)

Profit regardless, who knew that sports betting could be WIN WIN!

Profit from Sports Betting this Summer.

As the football (soccer) season in Europe begins to draw to a close, many people are diverted to the lesser leagues across the world that typically receive a bit less publicity. Brazilian leagues, the MLS in American and other summer leagues can be gold mines when it comes to sports betting, especially if you've got more knowledge than the average Joe.

Here at Tipstrr, we have a diverse set of experts covering sports that will run throughout the summer, here are some worth keeping an eye on:

With most football leagues ending over the summer, Brazilian Football Tips is the place to be if you're still after a football betting fix. His results are very impressive and as the 'main' Brazilian leagues are now under way you will see increased activity (and probably increased profit). The membership packages are great value, starting from as little as £7.50 per month.

SBU Picks are new to the Tipstrr platform, joining after deciding it was the best way to prove themselves as a sports handicapper. They've started very brightly and we think it is set to continue. As they're new, they are offering 50% off all membership packages, making them even better value for those looking to profit on a consistent basis.

Brand new to Tipstrr, these guys have yet to start with us, but based on their web presence, we are confident these are ones to keep your eye on. They already have picks proofed by a third party, but have decided that Tipstrr is a MUST for a serious sports handicapper. They are starting soon, and rumour has it they'll be offering a free trial or promo period to celebrate their collaborating with Tipstrr.

Delorean Sports have been with Tipstrr since the beginning of April 2015. Wth 7 winning weeks out of 8, they are proving to be very popular. Their bets are straight forward, and liquidity is not an issue, even for high rollers betting big money. We've heard nothing but good things from their growing list of clients so far - with many saying that $39.95 for a month makes him the best value handicapper they've ever followed.

A diverse betting portfolio gives Line Moving a great edge. They offer tips in various sports and markets, making them a great team to follow. Having lost just 2/13 in May (at the time of writing), they're proving profitable, and increasingly popular. We predict big things for this site, and that in due course, their popularity will see them move lines in the betting markets.

MD sports is the official home of Miguel da Silva, world renowned sports handicapper who has featured on SportsCapping.com leader-boards for years. Consistent performer who provides picks on all US Sports as well as soccer. A great all round service.

Prices, Numbers and Value

Understanding the numbers in the sports betting arena is absolutely key to becoming a profitable sports bettor. A failure to understand why a bet is worth betting will lead to a losing strategy, and no profit over the course of a few months or years.

Value
Value is subjective, and can be viewed simplistically or with a more complex approach, but ignoring the concept is a disaster waiting to happen. The vast majority of sports bettors bet using gut instinct and emotion, and is why 98% or punters never make any money, and why companies like Paddy Power are reporting record profits. People and companies invest time and money in trying to establish value in sports betting markets, sometimes at great expense. Being able to find value is almost invaluable, as long term, you can almost guarantee profit - if you can guarantee value.

Understanding Prices
This sounds basic, but so many punters aren't aware of what the prices they are given actually mean. An example of this came during a debate on twitter a few days ago, where we were told the "no ones gonna put a bet down on a 25% chance lol" after we pointed out that a 3/1 single is as likely to win as a double comprising of two even shots (both instances have odds that imply a 25% chance of success).

A useful thing to understand is what odds represent in terms of percentage chance of success. The easiest to work out is that an evens bet (odds of 2.00) suggests a 50% chance of winning. To work it out, simply divide 1 by the decimal odds then multiply by 100. With the examples of odds of 2.00, divide 1 by 2 to get 0.50. Multiply 0.50 x 100 to get 50 = 50% Here are a few other examples:

1/3 (1.33) = 75.0% chance
1/2 (1.50) = 66.6% chance
3/4 (1.75) = 57.1% chance
5/4 (2.25) = 44.4% chance
2/1 (3.00) = 33.3% chance
5/1 (6.00) = 16.7% chance

By understanding this, you're one step closer to being able to establish what constitutes a value bet.

Bookmaker Prices
The next, and biggest issue is finding value from the odds provided by a bookmaker. Obviously, bookies are 'for profit' businesses, so are looking to make as much money as possible from their customers. To do this, they add a margin on to their odds and balance their books to try and ensure a profit on each market, regardless of outcome.

What do we mean? Well, a quick look at an upcoming game on OddsPortal (we've looked at Arsenal v Sunderland in the Premier League) shows that any given bookmaker only pays out around 92-98% of money taken. This works by them adding what is known as an over-round. Football-Data.co.uk have written a good article about the overround.

The most basic example of this would be a fair coin flip. The odds should be 2.00 that it lands on heads (50%), and 2.00 that it lands on tails (50%). However, at the bookmaker, you would see them apply their overround/margin to provide prices of 1.91. This would suggest each instance has a 52.35% chance of success. The overround would be shown as 104.7%, meaning for every £100 staked, the bookmaker should make £4.70. Overcoming this is a key aspect of becoming a profitable sports bettor - but it is by no means easy, especially when bookmakers pay experts (and pay for expensive technology) to price their events as accurately as possible.

Accumulators
Having established that bookmakers are very often spot on with their pricing, finding bets that offer genuine value can be difficult. So when it comes to finding a good value accumulator with multiple bets, ensuring you've got good value becomes increasingly difficult. Each bet within an accumulator gives the bookmaker an advantage, and just as the odds multiply in an accumulator, so does the bookmaker's advantage.

Using the coin example once more. Imagine there are 5 people, each with a coin, and you bet an accumulator on predicting all 5 coin flips correctly. The price for each is 1.91, so getting all five right would pay at odds of 25.42. A £10 bet would return £244.20 profit, plus your £10 stake.

What should the true odds be? Well each choice you've made has a 50% chance of success, and 50% chances should be priced at 2.00. So 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32.00. £10 should return £310.00 profit plus a £10 stake. The bookmaker has reduced the value of your 5-fold accumulator by £65.80 (21.2%).

The bookmaker odds imply your chance of success is 3.93% (1 in 25.4), but you realistically have just a 3.125% chance of predicting all 5 coin flips (1 in 32).

Top Tipstrrs in 2015 so far (Jan-Apr)

We are now more than 4 months in to 2015, so the guys at Talking Tipsters decided it'd be good to do a "2015 so far" review of the Tipsters on the Tipstrr platform.

We ran a report from our database of thousands and thousands of tips from the growing number of sports handicappers that are using our automated and verified solution. Then we provided this data to Talking Tipsters for them to provide an accurate review of the top services on our platform. You can read what they've said in great detail on their blog. Talking Tipsters have been analysing our Tipstrrs each week and thus far has been impressed with several of our tipsters, and with our aims to make this industry a better/more trustworthy place for sports bettors.

Our Top 10 tipsters, using their advised stakes (0-1 unit, with you able to set the value for a max stake) have been very profitable. Had you joined the top 10 Tipstrr services on 1/1/15 and played every bet until 30/4/15, you'd be up an impressive 62.28 MAX stakes. Put in to monetary terms, a bettor setting their max stake as £100 would have made £6,228.34 with just an average stake of £36.

For those who look to average a £100 stake, they'd have set a max stake to around £275, with a total profit of £17,127.94 for the first four months of 2015. That's some serious profit from 10 tipstrrs (and 3,325 bets).

Top 10 Return on investment: 5.23%

For those who would be unlikely to follow so many bets, following the top 5 Tipstrrs for 2015 would have been less hectic, with just 541 tips during the first four months of the year (around 4.5 bets per day). A bettor with a £100 max bet would have made £2,897,72 following these four tipsters with an average stake of £68. Again, for those looking at making an average bet of £100, would have had a maximum stake of around £146, and a profit of £4,255.34. 

Top 5 Return on Investment: 11.55%

Top 6 based on ROI

1. Brazilian Football Tips - 28.82% (50 bets)
2. AH Picks - 19.2% (55 bets)
3. Delorean Sports - 18.03% (55 bets)
4. Mammoth Bets - 13.63% (105 bets)
5. Terry Tipster - 8.34% (276 bets)
6. Shark Insider - 5.45% (153 bets)

IBAS put Bet365 in their place

Here at Tipstrr we enjoy a bet (not very surprising), and over the past few months, we upped the ante. We deposited with a well known brokerage called Eastbridge, who provided us with Asian prices, as well as using Matchbook and Bet365.

During the first three months of 2015, we placed a lot of bets (around 1,500 in total). In three months, we had staked a good 6 figures across the three accounts we were using. Everything went according to plan, we placed bets at whichever of the three accounts offered the best price, and it was split pretty evenly - with Bet365 getting some bets because Matchbook and Eastbridge didn't offer 100% of what we were betting on (some lower league and other sports).

At the end of the three months we decided to withdraw all of our funds. Eastbridge were excellent, processing our withdrawal instantly and the funds were in our account within 24 hours. Matchbook were similar (although it was fractionally slower). Bet365 was a different story and is where the issues began.

Initially we withdrew our entire Bet365 balance, with no problems (just over £5,000). Then on the final day of our betting experiment we deposited another £360 in anticipation of placing a few more bets. We decided against using our Bet365 account, so the next day we withdrew this £360, but 2 weeks later and it still hadn't arrived. We weren't given any info from Bet365, so we had to approach them ourselves to try and find out where our money was.

In short, they told us that they had held the money because they needed confirmation of ID. Passport and proof of address was promptly sent in via email, but they still weren't happy, and said that it wasn't enough. Perplexed, we asked why they would hold £360 after we had bet so much (in excess of £25,000) over the previous few months. They didn't really give an answer, but insisted they needed a code they had sent - to an OLD address. After making it clear it wasn't possible to obtain this code (sent to an address 180 miles from where we are now located), they said that there is no alternative and that it will have to stay with them.

That was it. £360 held by Bet365 with no way of getting it back. It wasn't even available in the account for us to bet with. It was gone, in the bookmaker's black hole - forever. Obviously, no one would be happy when £360 is taken from you (we think unlawfully). Our only option was to escalate this claim to IBAS, the Independent Betting Adjudication Service and hope that their power would help persuade Bet365 to hand over the funds. Within a week of making the claim with IBAS, we received this email:

So, Bet365 gave us the money back once they realised we had complained, and have since closed the bet365 betting account, which unfortunately means we cant get any screenshots of the activity to further explain the story. However, the aim of this blog was to show that if you are treated unfairly by any bookmaker - raise a dispute with IBAS, who will investigate further and (based on what we've read) will work promptly and endeavour to help the customer.

Don't give in to the bookmakers. #tipstrr

Tipstrr of the Month - April 2015

Welcome to our 'Tipstrr of the Month' awards for April 2015, where we analyse the tips and picks processed via our system to see who takes the trophy for best tipster or best handicapper on our automated and verified platform. Over the last month, we've seen some exceptional performances from a large number of our tipstrrs, meaning competition is hotting up as they all look to earn these coveted awards!

Tipstrr of the Month for April goes to Terry Tipster. With such a strong month from so many tipsters on the Tipstrr platform, this award is particularly special to have won. Here is a quick breakdown of Terry's results:

Tips: 62

Staked: £1,240

Returns: £1,639

Profit: £399

Return on Investment: 32.18%

Average Odds: 2.32

Terry had some great winners throughout April, including Middlesbrough to win at Norwich (odds: 4.44), Stoke to beat Southampton (odds: 3.40) and Arsenal to draw with Chelsea (odds: 3.27)

For the next 7 days, Terry is running a half price membership on all Monthly and Quarterly membership packages - Join Terry Today from £6/month

As already mentioned, Tipstrr saw plenty of good performances. In second place was Mammoth Bets, who managed a return on investment of 23.75% from his 63 tips throughout April.  His average odds were at 2.90, which shows that he offers something different to many tipsters who tend to average around 2.00. Delorean Sports performed very well in their first month on the Tipstrr platform, recording an ROI of 17.6% from 54 picks. AH Picks is also new to Tipstrr, and provided his growing client base with a 16.07% ROI from his 54 picks throughout April. All of these guys are worth keeping a close eye on as their profits continue to grow.

A great month of results from so many Tipstrrs saw impressive profits on many sites, leaving members very happy. One shout-out needed is for Cappin Hard, who could've won this award if he had provided a few more picks, as his 15 picks in April saw a win rate of 66.7% (winning 10/15). As mentioned previously, we need 20 picks throughout a month for a tipster to qualify for this award.

This month's winner is new to the Tipstrr scene, but his experience and quality is already showing. Delorean Sports wins the Best Win % Award, and it's hardly surprising considering he has made a profit every week since joining in early April. His win percentage for the month of April was an impressive 56.6% from 54 picks, and with average odds of 2.08, it's clear to see why his service is becoming so popular.

Unsurprisingly, Terry Tipster features once more having already nabbed Tipstrr of the Month. Terry was just pipped to this award, winning 35/62 tips (56.5%). 

Other good performers include IndySportsPicks (55.4%) and AHpicks (53.7% with average odds of 2.26!!).

The third and final award for April is our Longshot Award, which goes to the tipster who records the winning tip at the highest odds. Last month, MajorK Sports won with a tasty five-fold accumulator with odds of more than 10.00. Well, this month, MajorK wins again, this time with an even tastier five-fold accumulator. This time the odds were 12.84, so with his $100 stake he made $1184 profit from this bet alone! You can check out his overall results here

There were a few other impressive winners on the Tipstrr platform throughout April:

Bet MD Sports won this accumulator at odds of 8.29
The Racing Tipster won a 7.29 treble
and a tipster at Perfect-Bets correctly predicted a 0-0 draw between Monaco and Juventus

Champions League Betting Opportunity

The Champions League Semi Finals are here already as the season draws to a close. Tonight sees Real Madrid travel to Italy to face Juventus who retained their Serie A title this weekend. It'll be a great contest, and we've found a nice way to make it even better for us all - lock in some guaranteed profits.

Bet365 are offering a £50 free in-play bet (risk free) if you bet £50 before the game begins. If your in-play bet loses, you get the £50 stake returned, in cash, ready to withdraw. By being clever, you can really take advantage of this promotion.

It's a straight forward process that simply requires you to follow a simple procedure - and there are two options available - one gets you a £50 bet for the cost of £2. The other allows you to guarantee a profit regardless of outcome, but returns would typically be less. Valid only for UK & Ireland Customers

Option 1 - £50 bet for just £2

1. Get a Bet365 Account HERE
2. Deposit £100 to your Bet365 account if required.
3. Get an account with 188bet if you haven't already
4. Betting Begins!
1. Bet £50 on Over 0.5 goals at 1.08 with BET365
2. Bet £6.35 on 0-0 at odds of 9.00 with 188BET
5. Outcome: if there is a goal, you will lose £2.00, and if the game ends 0-0, you will lose £2.00. However, in return, you have now unlocked a RISK FREE £50 in-play bet for the Juventus v Real Madrid game. 
6. Simply place any £50 bet on an in-play market after the game has begun, and if it loses, you get your cash back. 

So, the above option effectively means that you are getting 20x better odds on the in play bet. You're getting a £50 bet for £2! So you could bet on Ronaldo to score at 2.60, and if he scores, your £2 liability would return £80 profit. That's the same as getting odds of 40 for Ronaldo to score at any time!

Option 2 - Earn £19 or £55 with no hassle

1. Get a Bet365 Account HERE
2. Deposit £100 to your Bet365 account if required.
3. Bet £50 Juventus or Real Madrid Double Chance at 1.38 with Bet365
4. When the game starts, bet £50 on Draw at 3.10 with Bet365
5. If its a draw, you return £155 (+£55), if either team win, you return £119 (+£19)

There is a risk with this method as technically Bet365 are able to cancel free bets for those blatantly taking advantage of this offer. However, to this date, we know of hundreds of people have used this technique successfully with no issues. We suggest backing Real Madrid or Juventus double chance as we think it could be a draw, but basically, use the double chance market to bet against your hunch before the game starts, and bet on your hunch in-play once the game begins. eg. Back Juventus or Draw at 1.40 pre-match, then back Real Madrid to win at 3.00 once the game begins. £120 if Real Madrid don't win (+£20), and £150 if Real Madrid win (+£50)

Advice from Tipstrr: Use option 1 - it's way more fun, the profit is potentially much greater, and it's less risky. Read the Bet365 Terms here