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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

1 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Content page: Introduction Hall of fame Example Reviews Educational Articles Betting Mindset Client Comments

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

WELCOME

Hello and welcome to this special free sampler edition of the Secret Betting Club newsletters. The full Secret Betting Club service is a monthly e-newsletter with updates on our findings, new services and access to our highly active discussion forum. This special free sample of our service combines full details on what we offer as a service as well as free articles from past editions of our newsletters. About us: We are professional gamblers who put our own money on the line in our quest to make regular profits from sports and financial markets. 3 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

We started the club because we realised it was something that could have saved us a lot of time and money as we sorted out the wheat from the chaff ourselves. By joining the club you’ll automatically have an edge over thousands of punters still scratching around for consistent profits. We do not offer tips or any advice whatsoever via Secret Betting Club. Our service primariliy is to uncover and recommend who actually makes a profit.

What our service can do for YOU!: We will help you make money by revealing the services that consistently make money. We reveal the services we use regularly after extensive testing and evaluation in our Hall of Fame. We will also save you money by revealing the services we would not touch with a barge pole. Free stuff - It’s not only information on paid-for services that we have uncovered. There are also tons and tons of stuff out there, which are all free. Now these generally are kept pretty hush-hush (why tell someone else they will only impact on your profits). However we won’t make any friends doing this but we also list regularly updated software and services that are free (Indeed some are as good if not better) Software - Computers were invented to make our life easier – so where possible we like to use them. We’ll reveal the software we use to make our betting even more profitable. Money management - A famous financial trader was once asked what his 3 top rules were for making money – he said “money management, money management and money management”. We’ll give you the tips and techniques you need to make a living from the services we recommend. Hall of fame - Our Hall of fame is made up of services and methods we have been using day in day out for years. These are our bread and butter profit makers that we put the majority of our bank on. It is these Hall of fame services that we advise all members should follow to make the £100 a day we 4 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

guarantee you can make. Each Hall of fame entry has been fully vetted and approved to generate profits and we heartily recommend you take a good look at each one with a view to joining. Recommended services – Our recommended services section contains those that we have taken a good look at but for one reason or another have decided not to include in our Hall of fame. Every month we continue to track those recommended services, to give you updates on performance, new aspects of the service and anything else that draws our attention. Guinea pigs - Heard of a new service you’re not sure about? Let us know, we try it out with our own money so you don’t have to. Perhaps you would like to recommend a service that you yourself follow and feel that the S.B.C would do well to cover. Bad Experience Of A Service? - Unfortunately in the world of tipsters this is an all-to-common problem. However if you would like us to do some research and even an expose on any particular service then do contact us. We are not afraid to write the truth and by doing so hope we can save our members their hard earned cash. The worst gain inclusion into our Hall of shame and we pull no punches! Guest Columnists – We regularly feature guest columnists from the world of betting with high-profile authors such as Peter Webb from Bet Angel software. Peter is a much in-demand personal speaker and respected betting industry figure but he took the time out to write a number of in-depth articles especially for our members. Other recent articles have included details from a SBC member who is now making £50,000 a year from betting income with only 2 years prior betting experience…showing how anyone can do the same. Winning Mind Set - Each month we’ll cover the psychology of winning consistently. We’ll provide hints, tips and insights to help you become a professional gambler. If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in particular let us know. Join Secret Betting Club’s annual membership Each member that joins currently receives a full discount of membership down from our usual fee of £99 for 12 months. Currently you can now join for only £69 for a full 12 month period. 5 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

This enables you to receive a full 12 months worth of newsletters from the Secret Betting Club and access to our very popular members only forum. As an extra added bonus, all members receive our full back catalogue of newsletters for absolutely nothing! Our monthly newsletters are absolutely jam-packed full of reviews, guides, columns, information, recommendations, staking advice, betting advice, betting psychology and much more besides. We leave no stone unturned in our quest to be the ultimate and only betting resource you will ever need. Join our full service here: http://www.secretbettingclub.com/ Forum: We have an extremely busy and popular betting forum that we believe to be the best of its kind of the Internet. If you want to know about a tipster, system or share experiences with others it is the place to post. Unlike other forums, ours is informative, friendly and exclusive to members only so you are always conversing with like-minded people. We have many betting professionals now posting on the forum and indepth discussions on what we are all in this for….making money betting. It is an invaluable resource for all Secret Betting Club members. You can see how active our exclusive forum is here (click on Secret Betting Club from the list of forums): http://www.laytheodds.com/forum

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Betting Broadcast: Podcasts Website address: http://www.bettingbroadcast.com Here at the Secret Betting Club we also produce a number of free betting podcasts for you to listen to. Betting Broadcast at http://www.bettingbroadcast.com has been developed as a central location for all our audio communication from us here at the Secret Betting Club. You can listen to the latest podcasts as well as previous editions either by streaming them over the Internet or by downloading to your computer. To date we have published 12 podcasts, all of which are between around 10 and 15 minutes long. In addition at the Betting Broadcast site you can also listen to the hour-long interview podcast special that SBC editor Mike Bishop did with professional gambler Matt Watson and a 2nd interview with Mike Marsland from Big Mike Betting. All podcasts come in MP3 format, which ensures they are the smallest file size possible without compromising quality. What is a Podcast? A podcast is simply a short audio recording that you can stream over the Internet or download to your computer. In our case each recording is often no longer than 15 minutes long and most Internet connections should be able to download it in 20 minutes maximum. Alternatively you can ‘stream’ the Podcast so it plays directly off the Internet, meaning you do not have to download it.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Racing Proofing: Website address: http://www.racingproofing.com The Racing Proofing website continues to build each month with new additions being brought into the tipster ranking leagues. Already it is becoming a very useful resource with currently 27 different advisory services listed and ranked, with the ability to view detailed performance in a downloadable spreadsheet file format. The Racing Proofing website is manually updated and every bet double-checked for accuracy, availability of odds to ensure that results that are listed are as accurate as possible. If you come across a racing tipster that is not verifying their results to a trusted transparent source, do send them onto us here at www.racingproofing.com as quite simply there is no excuse for ANY service not to proof. Hopefully Racing Proofing will also help weed out even further those lessdesirable services who give this industry a bad name. Racing Proofing is regularly updated every 10 to 14 days so keep checking back to see the latest progress for each tipster. New Link Directory Another new section of the Racing Proofing website is the link directory available at http://www.racingproofing.com/links/ This unlike other link directories will list only high quality websites, therefore making it your one-stop location for all your betting and tipster resources and links. As time goes by expect more quality additions to the directory, however already there are multiple sections dedicated to all the tipsters, resources, systems, software, ratings & sports betting sites you maybe interested in. If you believe we should add a link to a racing website you feel should be added to the link directory, please do email us at [email protected]

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

FRIDAY FREEBIE: EASY MONEY EVERY WEEKEND If you are interested in making some free extra cash each weekend then look no further than our Friday Freebie. Every Friday we study the latest Bookmaker & Casino bonuses to create risk free cash making opportunities for you!. There's no form to study, no dodgy tipsters, just make some quick bets and make some easy money just in time for the weekend. We send each Friday Freebie directly to your email address, so if you want to sign up to receive these please visit http://www.racingproofing.com/fridayfreebie/index.html

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

2. HALL OF FAME

Guide: We write a full in-depth review of each Hall of fame entry looking at all the facts and figures as sampled by ourselves. Each month we also run updates on performance so members can see how for themselves the progress.

SBC ratings: 10 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

We summarise different factors using a star system for each. 0 stars is the lowest and 5 stars is the best. The aim is for you to get a feel for a service in one glance, for example a service might have great returns, but also be high risk. Returns: This refers to the profit potential. Risk: This refers to the risk to your money. 5 stars means a very low risk, 1 star means high risk. Cost: This refers to the cost of the service. 5 stars mean this is a very cheap or free service. Transparency: This refers to the service’s integrity or the fact that there are some potential discrepancies. Suggested portfolio weighting: We’ve borrowed this from stock market terminology. You don’t need a portfolio of gambling activities for this to be relevant, this rating is to be used as a guide to how much to stake on this service. Factors such as the length of operation and its risk profile go into this score. N.B. 5 stars doesn’t mean you should put all your money on this activity, the score is to give you an idea of the suggested weighting. Overall: A summary of all the above. Rating: Again we’ve borrowed these ratings from stock market parlance. Here’s a short explanation of the terms we’ll be using. Please note these ratings may change month to month. Strong buy – An excellent service we strongly recommend. This service might actually be free so you may not have to buy anything, but we use ‘buy’ as an indication that its well worth you investing your time and or money in this offering. Buy – A good service we recommend, but not quite as strongly as a ‘strong buy’ Hold – A decent service. Still worth you’re time, but not quite as strong as a ‘buy’ Speculative buy – Speculative buy. Potentially very good, but there may be some answered questions and or some known risk factors. Sell – Stop your involvement with this activity. Reduce – Keep using this service or system but reduce your exposure and stakes. Neutral/ Watch list – difficult to come to a firm conclusion, not something to avoid for definite, but neither is it definitely something to get involved with. Avoid – Avoid this service or system. Staking

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

In addition, we provided some example staking plans. In most circumstances we’ve suggested a cautious bank. Higher returns may be possible using a higher risk bank. Where we state “100 point bank” this means that your stake per point should be 1/100th or 1% of the total amount you are allocating to that service. For example if you have £1000 and we suggest a 50 point bank, you divide £1000 by 50 to get £20 per point. The suggestion starting bank in £’s an indication only and should be modified to suit your individual circumstances.

Hall of fame guide: Any service in our Hall Of Fame section has been fully proofed by us as a genuine, professional and above all profitable service. We make assessments based on first hand experience that we have made a profit using them and that we see no obvious reason why these profits won’t continue in the short to medium term. However we cannot guarantee that these services will show a profit every month or that they will continue to show profits in the future. Sometimes, for whatever reason even genuine services come off the boil and no longer warrant inclusion the Hall of Fame. We make a recommendation based on the past on the expectation that performance will continue into the future. There is the old adage in the stock market that the past is no guarantee to future performance, which in the grand scheme of things is very true. That said we would rather put money on something that has performed in the past than something that hasn’t. We have now extended the amount of services in the Hall of Fame, but have highlighted where caution should be taken due to factors such as the service not having been around for too long. Services outside the hall of fame is still on the ‘watch list’ i.e. we might recommend it, but haven’t had sufficient experience of it to provide a full recommendation that comes with Hall of Fame entry. These services have potential but require a little more testing, so therefore should be used with small stakes at first. When we review a service please check whether we place it in the Hall of Fame or not. There are a number of factors behind the decision to put something in the HOF, 3rd party proofing and practicality of profits being significant. 12 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

We are not suggesting you join all the services in the HOF. Our aim is to present you with a short list for you to pick and choose from to suit your individual circumstances.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Sample Update: Each month we update on the progress on the services we have previously reviewed and recommended. Easy Betting is one of our long standing Hall of Fame entries. 1. PH Sports Betting Service Name: PH Sports Betting Website: No website. Contact via email address: [email protected] A private Sports Betting service that focuses mostly on multiple bets for Tennis, Snooker, Football & Darts. Fairly low numbers of bets each month so the workload in terms of following is relatively small. Returns are good over the very long-term so only a service for the patient and disciplined amongst you. Update: Again excellent returns on offer from Paul Hale and his long running service. Around a 15 pt profit to date this month which follows on nicely from his superb performance over recent times. We most apologise as we entered the wrong rating on the service last month and we very much have PH sports down as a Buy rating. Certainly one to follow over the long-term and with 6 years of historical performance, this gives great confidence that Paul knows exactly what he is doing. Money Saving Offer: Paul is offering preferential terms on the cost of membership especially for SBC members. You can join up as an SBC member for 1 month for £67-50 (10% discount), 3 months for £157 (15% discount) and 12 months for £396 (20% discount). Only SBC members can get details of how to apply though. SBC ratings: Returns: Risk: Cost:

1/2

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Transparency: Suggested portfolio weighting: Overall: Patience: 12 months Rating: Buy Level staking: Suggested starting bank: 150 point bank E.g. £4,000 bank/ £26.67 per point. Returns since inception: 1143 (£30,483 @£26.67 per point) Returns 12 month rolling average: 145 points (£3867 @£26.67 per point) Returns this issue: 15 points Worst month: -49 points Best month: 90 points ROI: 13%.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Sample Full Reviews: REVIEW: The Insider Mr X & Bet Bank Alerts Service Name: The Insider Mr X Websites: http://www.shopatoxonpress.com/INSOP/ - The Insider Mr X http://www.betbankalerts.co.uk/ - Bet Bank Alerts http://www.shopatoxonpress.com/xcircle/ - X Circle The Insider Mr X service comes from the highly respectable Oxfordshire Press, which houses a number of publications that we’ve been taking a look at over the past couple of months. We’ve listed a number of websites above because they are related but separate services. The Insider Mr X service consists of a monthly publication with weekly tips via email. Bet Bank Alerts are from the same source as the Insider publication, but alerts are sent via SMS. The X circle is a limited offer that combines Insider X, Bet bank alerts and two other Oxfordshire press tipping publications which we’ll come to later. It’s worth making you aware of this because the price is a lifetime offer (i.e. a one off payment). For the purposes of this review, we’ll just be covering The Insider product and Bet Bank Alerts. However, it is worth noting that X circle could be the cheapest in the long run (see costs at end of article). The Insider Mr X The Insider Mr X has been around since 2002 and has developed a strong following, especially after they picked the winners of last years Rugby world cup final. The promo blurb sets out that Mr X is “no betting genius with a miracle system that means you win 100% of the time”. Mr X (whoever he may be) is a former odds compiler with the bookmakers which means his aim is to spot pricing errors leading to value bets. Long term readers will be aware that this is in our opinion, the only way to make this game pay. The headline annual returns are realistic as we’ll come on to in more detail and there are some eye catching big individual winners. Not least, picking Australia to beat England 5-0 in the last ashes, which (unfortunately for us being cricket fans) produced a huge return.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

The Insider product is made up of two main services. The main offering is the monthly Insider magazine delivered to your door. Many people might now be wondering how a tipping service can send tips out via the post when events are happening all the time and odds move so quickly. The answer is that the majority of The Insider’s tips are Ante post. For the uninitiated, this means that tips are made on bets that may not close for months, sometimes even years. Ante post betting can offer highly attractive odds because of the unknown variables involved over such a lengthy period. Depending on the bookmaker if your selection doesn’t even make it to the event in question you could lose before a ball is kicked/ hit in anger. For example you could back Lewis Hamilton to win the 2008 championship as soon as the last season finished only to find he decided to ditch F1 in favour a pop career with his new girlfriend from the Pussycat dolls. Ok not likely to happen, but you get the idea. In fact Mr X made a great bet on Hamilton to win Sports personality of the year the moment he won his first race. He didn’t win, but the Each Way bet still produced a profit. Due to the fact that Serena Williams could sustain a career stopping injury and blow your bet, anti post betting often offers very attractive odds compared to those just before the event when all the available information is fully priced into the odds. The Ante post bets might run the next month or in the case of one bet, potentially not expire until 2013! This is a rare exception though, with the maximum length of an ante post bet being 9-12 months with most of them being 1-3 months. The Ante post bets certainly align The Insider with its stated intentions of being a sports investment service. As with traditional financial investments, you make you bet (as purchasing any stock really is) and wait to see what happens over the coming months. Sports, entertainment and even politics. Here at SBC we’re always banging on about the benefit of spreading your risk across different sports. Again, similar to the financial markets, you wouldn’t just focus on one or two shares for your retirement planning, the volatility might ensure you never make it that far! By spreading your sports betting across different sports you help nullify the impact of weird results due to the weather, UK horse racing last year for example. 17 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Well The Insider certainly spreads his net far and wide looking for a bet. The bulk of tips (and profits so it seems) come from the main sports of rugby union, rugby league, football, tennis and cricket. Indeed during the 05-06 season, Rugby and football bets brought in 44 and 33 bets respectively. We’ve seen the performance from the last three years six nations and profits have been very good indeed. However, there are certainly some interesting contributions from other sports such as F1 and even the MOBO awards! Here are some choice bets from their past performance that caught our eye. *Which Soap will receive the most viewers on Christmas Day 2007 – 2 points on Coronation Stree at 4/6 (Lost unfortunately) *NewZealand to win the 2007 rugby world cup at 4/7 8 points – Lost *South Africa to win the 2008 rugby world cup at 10/1 1 point – Won *Everrton to win the premier league 2008 + 33 points at 15/1 1 point EW – Won MOBO awards 2008 best UK female Amy White house evens – Won And the very long term one David Cameron to step down as Tory leader before 2013 4/5 Paddy Power. Things are going well for Cameron at the moment, so unfortunately it looks as though there won’t be quick result on this one. The Insider Email service. The Insider email service provides Ante post tips, but mainly those with a short term expiry. Most of the bets are for the weekend ahead and are consequently delivered on a Friday with ample time for you to place the bet. As most of these are for a few days time, the tips are the more traditional match bets. Here’s a recent email bet for example: Email sent May 9th, bet finished 11th May. Championship play off final: Watford v Hull, under 2.5 goals. 1 points @ 4/6 Results for the Insider service It’s quite hard to determine year on year returns for 2007 and 2008 with some Ante post bets from last year still open even now. However, here are the returns since launch in 2002. 18 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

The Insider 2002 - 2007 Year one (2002): Total staked: 136 Total return: 152.34 Total profit: 16.34 (ROI 12%) Year two (2003): Total staked: 299 Total return: 343.84 Total profit: 44.84 (ROI 15%) Year three (2004): Total staked: 262 Total return: 317 Total profit: 55 (ROI 21%) Year four (2005): Total staked: 286.77 Total return: 349.56 Total profit: 63.09 (ROI 22%) Year five (2006): Total staked: 251.48 Total return: 349.56 Total profit: 98.08 (ROI 39%) Year six (2007): Total staked: 294.51 Total return: 342.19 Total profit: 47.68 (18.03% ROI) (30 points still ‘open’) The average ROI for the last five complete years stands at a healthy 22% with an average annual haul of 55 point. These figures put The Insider in the same ball park as The Oracle and Scottish Football, which to us is certainly a compliment as we have great respect for both of those services. 2008 so far is below par with a return of around -6 points, but with over half 19 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

the bets still open as Ante post selections, there’s still a lot to play for. These vary from bets on Euro 2008 to bets on SPOTY (Sports personality of the year). Looking through the bets, there is a fair mix of short to medium priced bets with a few higher priced bets thrown into the mix. The Insider advises that you follow each and every bet to ensure an overall profit and from what we’ve seen, this is very true. The Insider advises you that you have a bank of 250 points, which seems a sensible sized bank. £1,000 with 250 points would mean a stake of £4 per point. Multiply this by the average annual profits of 55 and this provides a profit of £220 on average per season. With the bank size suggested, it is evident therefore that you’re going to need a bank in excess of £1,000 if you hope to make a profit over and above subscription costs, which to be fair are not too onerous at £270 in comparison to other services. To stand a good chance of making a profit over subscription fees you’d need an account in the region of £5,000. If you have less than this, 250 pts does seem to be extremely safe with the worst month we’ve seen being -12 points in July 07. The best month brought in 31 points in April 07 after a 33/1 EW bet on Djokovic to win the Australian open came in. For someone with a smaller bank then a bank size of 150 points could be risked by the look of it, but ideally it would be larger. BetBank Alerts Bet Bank Alerts is a sister service for The Insider with more short term bets. These tips are sent to your mobile phone via SMS with all the details you need to place the bets. The bets are similar to those given by the Insider publication and there is occasionally some overlap though this is rare. Most of the bets are on regular sports unlike The Insider. There is a good mix of Ante post bets but there are an equal number of bets that will settle in the next few days. There are usually between 10 and 30 bets each month depending on the time of year and forthcoming tournaments. As with The Insider you get the impression that Mr X’s real love is rugby as evidenced by the number of bets on the six nations compared to the number of bets on Euro 2008. This may also be a factor of the ‘mistakes’ bookmakers made in the odds compiled for the event. Whatever the reason, it was certainly a good event for Mr X with around 20 points from February alone with a mix of individual match bets and some Ante post bets such as Wales to be the top try scoring team at 6/1. There have also been a number of successful spread bets which we’ll cover in short while. The majority of the bets seem to be at odds of around evens with a lesser but substantial number of larger bets at 5/1 and above. These larger bets are 20 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

usually Ante post each way such as tipping a certain player to win the French open. Here is an example bet: BB. Rugby League. 1 point Harlequins (minus 2 pts) to beat Hull at 10/11 with Corals or 4/5 with Bet365. MAP 4/5. As you can see all the information is provided in the text for you to place the bet including the MAP which stands for Minimum Advised Price. This is useful because quite often the headline prices can go very quickly, especially if just one bookmaker is quoted. Bet Bank Alerts has a heavy following so no doubt the weight of money causes bookmakers to shift their odds very quickly. This unfortunately is the case with virtually any popular service. As ever, it is the quickest that will catch the prices on offer. You will need to ensure you can get to a computer quickly or have the phone number for the advised bookmaker ready. A PDA phone would be an advantage with many bookmakers now operating mobile sites. One draw back is that there is often no warning of when a bet will be coming through which may make it hard for some people to plan in advance to be available to get the advised odds. Most of the time there will be a bet in and around the weekend, with Saturday morning and Friday afternoon a common time, but there is no fixed schedule. Results BBA has results going back to 2005, but we’re told the service operated in a different format then so we don’t have the results of these. Matt Nesbitt from Oxfordshire press kindly forwarded all the bets and results from 2006 to date. 2006: 277.4 points staked, 80.43 points profit, ROI 29% 2007: 251.24 points staked, 43.48 points profit, ROI 17% 2008: 112 points staked, 32 points profit, ROI 29% NB some of the results spreadsheets weren’t fully completed so we had to perform our own estimations on returns. These may be different to the BBA official records. Unlike The Insider, there is no specific advice on the size of bank to use, but from our analysis you could probably get away with a 100 point bank with the worse run we’ve seen to date being 30 points. Depending on the bank you wish 21 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

to risk, it does appear that you’ll need a healthy bank size to make decent returns after subscription fees. If we take 2007 as the ‘norm’ at 43 points that would bring in returns of around £4,300 per year to £100 per point, which again would bring it in line with the excellent Oracle and Scottish Football services. However, with 10 point staking sometimes used, this could mean some bets of £1,000 on a bank of £10,000, which may not be possible depending on the bookmaker. Rummaging through the past returns there are some notable stand out bets. The first has to be the spread bets which may be a novel concept for some. In a nutshell, spread betting involves the bookmaker providing what it thinks will be an average result for an event with a spread around it. This figure might be the number of points a cricket player scores in a game, the number of points a team will score over a season or a value representing the chances of a team wining. For example, a spread betting firm might give you a score of 25 as Alistair Cook’s total runs in an innings. If you think he will score less you will sell this number and get 25 points (25 to 0) X your stake. If you think he will score more runs than this, you will buy this figure and get the difference between the maximum and the purchase price. Say you buy at 25 and he makes 100, you get 65 points X your stake. It’s a little more complex because the spread betting firms add a spread (hence the name) so it wouldn’t be 25 it would be something like 20 to sell and 30 to buy. This spread is where they make their money. As you can see, depending on the bet, unlike traditional fixed odds betting, your losses and gains aren’t known from the start and in some circumstances both your losses and gains could be huge. The first spread bet of note was for Hull to win the Super league in 2006, this spread bet managed to return 10 points, but the real killer spread bet which has made Mr X quite famous is the bet on the 2006 Ashes. Mr X bought Australia to win 5-0 at 24 with the max being 75. Any England cricket fan will unfortunately know what happened next. Mr X sensibly locked in some profit so he didn’t make the maximum available but he still hauled in 42 points from that one bet alone, contributing over half of the profits from that year. Other notable bets, this time not spread bets were on Rugby (again Mr X’s favourite it seems). In a series of heavy bets, Mr X made 29 points in November last year betting that Bath would win the European Challenge cup at 4/1 for 4 points and London Irish to win pool 1 at 5/1 with 4 points.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

You have to conclude that Mr X has a substantial edge over the odds, but don’t expect a smooth equity curve or to be able to miss certain bets, because with so many Ante post bets, you really don’t know where the big winners will come from. Conclusions We like the Insider service and BBA, Mr X clearly has a demonstable edge that is available for members. The Insider service is an interesting one that throws up may different angles, not just the headline bets he gives out. The Ante post nature of The Insider may appeal to those who work full time and want to take a patient approach to their betting. The Bet Bank Alert service compliments the Insider well because it offers more short term opportunities and quicker turnover. We’re not aware of previous results for BBA or The Insider being proofed to any of the usual websites. We’ve no reason to believe Oxfordshire press would fudge results though, particularly as Mr X created quite a stir with his rugby world cup and six nations betting. Relative to similar products, the costs aren’t prohibative with solid money back guarantee from a reputable company. Costs are as follows: The Insider: £67.50 per quarter (£270 per year) 28 day free trial with a three month money back guarantee following this period. Bet Bank Alerts: £29.00 per month (£348 per year) 28 day free trial. X-Circle: £39.75 per month or £399 for the ONE OFF FEE + £15 per quarter admin fee (waived for the first year). Three month money back guarantee period. It’s worth highlighting the benefits of the X circle offer if you are considering joining either service. The £399 is a lifetime fee which means the only cost is £15 per quarter from year two. Given his success with the six nations, at the very least it may be worth gaining access to those picks for the cost of £60 a year. At least 25 points has been made on that event each year for the last three years. The X-circle affords access to both The Insider and Bet Banker Alerts as well as two other publications. The offer only runs until June 14th. There are some caveats (there usually are) that we have to point out. The first being that with an advised bank of 250 points for The Insider, you’ll need a fair 23 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

sized account to make a decent return in real terms after subscription fees. You can reduce the bank to 100 points if you wish, but this is of course raking on more risk. Secondly odds are often advised with single bookmakers so you will have to be quick to get your bets on and match the odds. There is a month free trial available with Insider as well as a three month money back guarantee available across all offerings. If joining we wouldn’t pin your hopes on immediate profits during this period due to the nature of the ante post bets. If you do join, use the trial/ money back period to assess the service’s degree of fit with your practical ability to follow it. If history is anything to go buy, a profit should be made in the long run. Overall though, as long as you are aware of these caveats, we are happy to recommend The Insider and Bet Bank Alerts to our members. 3 Key Pointers: 1. Statistics Spreadsheets provide for our analysis on request. 2. Practicality Of Profits Easy to follow. 3. Customer Service Matt Nesbitt has been a pleasure to deal with. SBC ratings: 1/2 Returns: Risk: Cost: Transparency: Suggested portfolio weighting: Overall: Overall: 12 months Rating: Buy

1/2

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

REVIEW: Betalay System Name: Betalay Website: http://www.betalay.com/ Betalay has been promoted via a number of websites recently and was a topic of discussion on the SBC member’s forum. We rarely review commercially available systems because 90% of them are worthless. However, we received so many emails about Betalay we felt duty bound to perform our usual due diligence. THE PROMOTION The website makes some massive claims like how they’ve made over £170,000 profit. According to their website, “If you choose to use the system on a daily basis you can expect to generate a tax-free profit of around £2000 per month using £25 stakes, alternatively, if you use the system on Saturdays and Sundays you should produce a tax-free profit of about £470 per month using £25 stakes. These profits have been consistently achieved for more than seven years and can be seen in much greater detail on the results section of this website”. The results break down shows how much has been made every year since inception. The vendors claim that the results are 100% genuine and independently verified, but there is no mention of where this verification takes place. Clicking on the results we’re immediately confronted by a problem. Results are quoted to SP and make no account of commission. Apologies if we sound like a broken record here but if anyone can show us where we can lay without paying commission and get prices that match SP exactly, we’d be all ears (and a lot richer). Quoting returns to SP without commission is a joke, especially now that previous lay prices can now be backtracked via betfair SP. They claim that the results are 100% genuine, genuine perhaps if you were a bookmaker. Betalay claim: “betalay is based upon the data analysis of all horse racing results going back over a decade; and purely because computers have no preconceptions, no prejudice and no emotions the system relies purely on FACTS.” 25 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Ok, the FACTS are that you cannot lay at SP and you must pay commission ranging from 3% to 5%. So we know that the headline returns are 100% unachievable, but there may still be a chance that the system could make a profit if results are exceptionally good. We remember one laying tipster having the audacity to once say, the prices don’t matter as long as you win. That is sheer idiocy, price is everything. Laying is all about achieving a high strike rate and not losing too much when you do lose. THE SYSTEM The system promises to be simple and this at least lives up to the claims. The promotion claims that it will take just one minute to identify selections which is entirely true. The system is simple, ridiculously so. It involves three variables, 1. The number of runners 2. It has to be the third favourite 3. It has to be within the odds criteria. That’s it. Had we received the system in paper format we’d be turning each page over looking for something we’ve missed. Identifying each qualifier is incredibly simple, but that is not the whole story. As the system is so simple, there are sometimes 20-30 qualifiers in one day! If you really wanted to follow the system full time as they claim some people are doing, you would need to be at it all day. You can use a bot, but the suggested bot does involve a £20 per month cost. Before purchasing the manual we had slim hopes of it actually making a profit and after reading manual our expectations dimished further. At no point in the manual do they consider the fact that betfair prices are nearly always higher than SP. When backing at lower prices on betfair there can often be little to choose between the bookie and betfair once commission is taken into account, but the back/ lay spread is such that lay prices are higher than SP on virtually every occasion when you go past three to one and certainly with the range of odds that betalay lay at. Why don’t they make any mention of this in the manual? They either make this omission because they know it will diminish returns and they don’t want to admit it in the manual, or because the manual is aimed at 26 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

complete betfair beginners who would take a while to spot this anomoly. RESULTS One of the reasons we were persuaded to review Betalay is because the system is so simple that its variables can be tested easily using Racing Systems Builder. On the face of it, the results do indeed look good to SP without commission taken into account, but as we know, this is not a real situation. Being generous, if you assume that the odds are just 10% over SP you get the following returns (NB this is for flat betting only, national hunt showed similar results). Month 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 TOTAL

Points

188.45 36.95 125.55 -24 -16.8 -128.6 -14.95 -43.9 175.75 20.7 200.95 79.15 126.3 9.95 -86.15 145.35 104.3 253.1 207.25 150.6 145 112.05 975.6

Bets

ROI

1754 1799 1807 1699 1959 1977 1926 2043 2231 2242 2427 2394 2448 2584 2645 2844 2876 2909

-10.74% 2.05% 6.95% -1.41% -0.86% -6.50% -0.78% -2.15% 7.88% 0.92% 8.28% 3.31% 5.16% 0.39% -3.26% 5.11% 3.63% 8.70%

3363 3616 3738 3144 54425

-6.16% 4.16% 3.88% 3.56% 1.79%

As you can see, it the system does manage to make a profit, but it’s hardly a bed of roses. The system manages a total of 975 points over 21 years at an 27 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

average of 44 points a year. 44 Points a year is quite respectable but the ROI of 1.79% is not. If you consider the time cost of being by your computer all day (including watching the races that nearly qualified) then you have to question their claims that some people are earning their living from the system. You’re not going to get more than £200 on each horse on betfair at the prices they take meaning your max income would be £10,000 a year. Assuming of course it is a wining year unlike 1986 which lost nearly 200 points. This of course all assumes that the prices you can get are just 10% above SP. In fact in our experience, the odds range for the prices advised is on average 20% above SP. When you assume odds were at this level, returns are as follows (inclusive of 5% commission). Month Points Bets ROI 1986 -334.35 1754 -19.06% 1987 -94.85 1799 -5.27% 1988 0.25 1807 0.01% 1989 -153.05 1699 -9.01% 1990 -164.8 1959 -8.41% 1991 -286.85 1977 -14.51% 1992 -160.45 1926 -8.33% 1993 -200.15 2043 -9.80% 1994 22.8 2231 1.02% 1995 -145.05 2242 -6.47% 1996 35.35 2427 1.46% 1997 -93.55 2394 -3.91% 1998 -46.95 2448 -1.92% 1999 -182.6 2584 -7.07% 2000 -291.15 2645 -11.01% 2001 -56.05 2844 -1.97% 2002 -103.25 2876 -3.59% 2003 55.45 2909 1.91% 2004 -475.25 3363 -14.13% 2005 -108.1 3616 -2.99% 2006 -123.45 3738 -3.30% 2007 -114.4 3144 -3.64% TOTAL 3020.45 54425 -5.55% -3000 points, is a fair difference from the claimed £170,000 profit. Even at these levels, you will no doubt experience some good runs. Even a system made up completely at random would do well for a short period. So the 28 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

testimonials placed on the site may indeed be genuine, but we imagine if you were to ask the same people their views a few months down the line, their responses would be entirely different. CONCLUSIONS It’s been a useful exercise to go through Betalay, if just to highlight once again the minefields that newbie bettors must cross when buying a laying system. Quite frankly we’re sadly disappointed by the websites that are promoting this system, particularly those who should know better. To be fair to Betalay, it isn’t the worst system in the world, it doesn’t make a huge loss and there could be some potential to tweak the methodology further. However, at realistic levels it is probable that the system will make a tiny profit at best and a small loss more likely. It is probably as better system to help you spot horses to avoid more than anything else. You might be able to make a profit if you only took the lays that looked as though they would be less than 5% over SP, but it is hard to know just how many horses would qualify – very few in all probability. The fact that Betalay make no mention of horses being over SP in the manual is either a naivety or wilful ignorance on their behalf. When they are claiming that people are making a full time living form the system, both are inexcusable. Betalay? Betaleave 3 Key Pointers: 1. Statistics Useless statistics. 2. Practicality Of Profits Easy to compute the qualifiers, but there are lots of them. 3. Customer Service No dealings with them to date. SBC ratings: Returns: 1/2 Risk: 1/2 Cost: Transparency: 29 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Suggested portfolio weighting: Overall: 1/2 Patience: Don’t bother Rating: Avoid.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

REVIEW: Bet Accelerator System Name: Bet Accelerator Website: http://www.betaccelerator.co.uk/ Bet Accelerator has been receiving a lot of attention recently, including some positive reviews on various ‘independent’ review sites so we thought we would do some rigorous testing to see how the system compared to the claims being made. Last month we were able to backtest Betalay using historical horse racing data and this month we have been able to do the same. It was a more complicated proposition, but thanks to the excellent coding knowledge of one of our members we have been able to accurately recreate every qualifying race for Bet Accelerator going back to 1986. THE PROMOTION The website makes some interesting claims like “Discovery exactly how to win bets every single time…….. This complete system shows you how to start making guaranteed cash online….. And will have you winning regardless of the outcome – For the first time ever”. The most remarkable claim is that laying is more reliable in the long term, FACT. We’re even told that we’ll be shown how to earn more money per lay than the bookmaker. Boy, this system makes a lot of claims, but lets cut through the promotion to summarise what’s on offer. It’s a laying system that makes use of course data that shows which courses are more favourable for favourites and which ones produce lots of losing faves. As with Betalay, when looking at the results we immediately spot a problem. Here’s a selection of results from their website. 09/04/2008

15.10 Sugar Mint

Bath

Won

8/13

10/04/2008

15.20 Ballyvoge

Carlisle

Won

4/11

10/04/2008

20.20 Expensive Art Kempton

Lost

4/5

11/04/2008

18.40 Slam Dunk

Dundalk

Lost

4/5

11/04/2008

18.50 Nawamees

Wolverhampton

Won

4/9

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

11/04/2008

19.20 Spin Again

Wolverhampton

Won

10/11

12/04/2008

14.10 Heaven Sent

Kempton

Won

4/6

13/04/2008

13.50 Woolcombe Folly Newton Abbott

Won

8/11

13/04/2008

15.40 Phar Mai Blue Brighton

Lost

4/5

13/04/2008

16.10 Captain Webb Brighton

Won

4/9

13/04/2008

17.10 Gunnadoit

Won

8/11

17/04/2008

18.50 Truly Fruitful Wolverhampton

Lost

5/6

17/04/2008

19.50 Bridge of Fermoy Wolverhampton

Lost

8/15

17/04/2008

21.20 Always a Rock Wolverhampton

Won

8/13

Brighton

There’s no total, profit & Loss or ROI provided. Not only that, bets are proofed to SP and without commission. Quite frankly with the advent of betfair SP and the ability to view the betfair SP of any horse via http://form.horseracing.betfair.com/, there is absolutely no excuse for proofing at SP. Bookies odds so poor that if you could lay any horse at SP without paying any you would actually make a profit in the long run. Simple as that! The trouble is that we all know that you cannot lay at SP. Always Rock won at Betfair SP of 1.66 against the SP of 1.533, Gunnadoit won at 1.79 not 1.73, Woolcombe Folly won at 1.79 not 1.73 and spin again won at 2.46 against 1.91! There are some massive differences there which will no doubt have a huge difference on your bottom line when you come to actually work the system live.

THE SYSTEM The system itself is fairly simple. It has three main variables. 1. The favourite has to be odds on. 2. The field must have other horses trading within a certain range. 3. The horse has to be running at one of the ‘laying’ courses. 32 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

According to Bet Accelerator, there are certain courses with an extemely high percentage of losing odds on favourites. However, this is in our experience a rather weak variable upon which to base systems. There is no logical reason why a particular favourite will win at one course than another. Difference are to be expected between courses, but this is almost entirely statistical noise. A favourite is a favourite because it is the horse with the shortest price, that’s it. One of the examples given is Cheltenham, which from April 2007 to March 2008 had 7 odds on losers against 6 odds on winners. Great except that is just one year. Anything can happen over one year and if you were to view the results for odds on favourites over a longer period, you will find that there is no real statistial edge to be had. Here’s the results for odds on favourites at Cheltenham for National Hunt Races (we don’t have 2007-2008 data): YEAR

WINS

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

11 13 12 4 10 15 7 7 9 3 4 8 10 5 6 11 0

RUNS STRIKE% 18 24 15 8 16 25 14 10 13 5 8 15 16 11 9 18 0

61.11 54.17 80.00 50.00 62.50 60.00 50.00 70.00 69.23 60.00 50.00 53.33 62.50 45.45 66.67 61.11

LSP 0.37 -2.12 4.77 -1.60 1.08 -1.94 -3.30 2.26 1.08 -0.01 -0.97 -1.82 1.18 -2.52 1.35 -0.28

LSP%

VSP%

2.06 2.04 -8.83 -17.04 31.80 32.23 -20.00 -8.31 6.75 -5.79 -7.76 2.87 -23.57 -16.21 22.60 23.25 8.31 15.57 -0.20 1.83 -12.13 -16.58 -12.13 -7.64 7.38 6.89 -22.91 -31.63 15.00 10.38 -1.56 5.04

____________________________________________________________ 135

225

60.00

-2.47

-1.10

-0.68

33 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

As you can see, over the long haul, the strike rate for odds on favourites only dipped below 50% one year. If you could lay at SP without commission you’d make a profit with faves on this course, but it would only be a negligable one and even just adding commission at 5% is likely to drop this down to break even. From the outset, the logic behind the system appears flawed, but of course we will not rule anything out until we see the results in full. STAKING PLAN It is not really surprising that the advised staking plan turns out to be a loss recovery system, these are ever popular with system vendors because they appear at first glance to produce more profits. As our review of Matt Watson’s system shows, Loss recovery systems can produce good profits, but we would never use one blind. Matt has provided reams of data to back up his method. We get none of this with Bet Accelerator, meaning we are given no proof that applying a stop at a winner method to this system actually works. However, thanks to the excellent work of our member with an expertise in spreadsheets and scripting. We were able to precisely demonstrate what the results actually are historically. RESULTS There are no long-term results available on the website, so we’ve nothing to compare our findings to. We do know they mark results to SP with no commission, which isn’t a good start. Tracking the results took some work because we had to compare two sets of data in order to create a complete set for final analysis. Again we have our member with expertise in this area to thank for this. Using Racing Systems Builder we were able to compile the following results for applying Bet Accelerator to Flat Racing and National Hunt races over 2 decades. All figures below are inclusive of commission at 5%. Flat racing (Since 1986) --------------Bank @ SP: +167 pts Yield @ SP: +5.6% Bank @ SP+5%: +30 pts Yield @ SP+5%: +1.0% 34 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Bank @ SP+10%: -107 pts Yield @ SP+10%: -3.6% National Hunt (Since 1991) ------------------Bank @ SP: +16 pts Yield @ SP: +1.1% Bank @ SP+5%: -54 pts Yield @ SP+5%: -3.7% Bank @ SP+10%: -125 pts Yield @ SP+10%: -8.6% As you can see, to level stakes SP, the system makes a profit, but even to SP, this profit is tiny. 167 points over two decades is hardly going to make you feel that you spent your time well. That is assuming you can get SP prices! But what about the staking plan? There is still a remote possibility that the staking plan could turn things around. We were able to see how results worked out if you applied the staking plan. If you cannot see the colours clearly, the jagged lines are the results following the staking plan and the smoother lines are to level stakes. There are there different jagged lines (Staking plan) and three different smooth lines (level stakes) these represent results to SP, SP+5% and SP+10% respectively. Obviously the best results are obtained to SP. Bet Accelerator on Flat Racing

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Bet Accelerator on National Hunt

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

You can immediately see that the system has a terrible time with national hunt racing and that applying odds over SP has a dramatic effect on long term results. Our expect was able to check his historical betfair data and SP prices between 1.2 and 2 which is the range this system uses and compared to their last posted lay price on Betfair. The average difference is 8.8%. He plugged this back in to the script and regenerated the results – The final graph says it all. Below is the summary data for the projected Betfair prices. Flat Racing --------------Number of selections: 2762 Bank @ Level Stakes: -74 pts Bank @ Advised Stakes: +20 pts Yield: -2.7%

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

National Hunt ------------------Number of selections: 1398 Bank @ Level Stakes: -101 pts Bank @ Advised Stakes: -352 pts Yield: -7.2%

CONCLUSIONS Bet Accelerator again goes to show that nothing should be taken at face value and if there are questions to be asked, they should be explored thoroughly. There are no excuses for not making allowances for betfair’s higher prices and not including commission. The use of a loss recovery staking method is not in itself a terrible thing, but the lack of accompanying statistics is. The best case for Bet Accelerator is to follow the flat bets only and only bet if you can get close to SP. Even then,

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

returns could be less than 20 points a year on average. Considering you have to watch each bet life, this is not a good return on your time. We of course welcome any comments from the vendor to show us where we have gone wrong, but considering there were no past results available on the website we would be interested to see what past analysis if any was performed on this system to prove it works before it was released to the general public. It may indeed have worked well for a couple of years, but using an unresearched loss recovery system is like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. 3 Key Pointers: 4. Statistics Very little 5. Practicality Of Profits Easy to compute but does require live betting. 6. Customer Service No dealings with them to date. SBC ratings: Returns: 1/2 Risk: 1/2 Cost: Transparency: Suggested portfolio weighting: Overall: 1/2 Patience: Don’t bother Rating: Avoid.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

REVIEW: Fairbot Service Name: Fairbot Website: www.binteko.com Fairbot is a piece of Betfair interface software that enhances your Betfair betting at a fraction of the cost of alternatives such as Bet Angel Pro. OUR EXPERIENCE As regular Betfair users, we’re not exactly over the moon with the effects of the latest upgrades on the speed and connectivity of Betfair. Therefore, it is always useful to have an alternative interface available such as Bet Angel free. If you are a more advanced user and like to trade, dutch or other such strategies then you may already be using Bet Angel Pro or Bet IE to enhance your betting. On the other hand you might be interested in trying new strategies but have been put off by the cost of this professional software. This is where Fairbot admirably steps in. Fairbot is an extremely cost effective stripped down version of the more expensive alternatives. Do not get us wrong, Bet Angel Pro is a truly excellent piece of kit. However, for the beginner to intermediate Betfair trader it is definitely on over kill. Apart from a ladder interface Fairbot contains all the features you’ll need to start or continue your Betfair trading. It costs just $99 per year (roughly £55) and comes with a generous 15 day trial period. This is for 15 days of use, not 15 live days so you have a good chance to test the mettle of this software of a decent period. FEATURES Aside from a slicker Betfair experience, there are some nifty tools available to the Fairbot user. 1. Auto Refresh – Not as quick as Bet Angel in our experience, but still more than adequate. If you’re betting on horses just before the off or in play, prices are moving by the millisecond. With Fairbot there’s no need to press refresh because prices can be refreshed every 0.01 seconds automatically. 40 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

2. Potential returns – Before confirming a bet you can see what returns you might expect across different options. 3. Auto staking – Pre-set your backing and laying stakes for every bet. 4. Confirm? – For speed, place you bets directly without waiting for confirmation. 5. Swap – If the odds aren’t at the level you want you can request odds. Using the swap option you can request to lay at the current back price or vice versa with one click. For example New Zealand are trading at 1.13 back 1.14 lay, but you want to back then at 1.14. To request these odds quickly, you simply click swap the click on the lay price of 1.14. 6. Trading – In one click, input back and lay prices offset by a pre-selected amount. 7. Smart trading – A very nifty feature that lets you set your trades to be placed only if the first part has been placed. For example, you wish to back New Zealand at 1.16 and lay at 1.12 for a risk free profit, but the back price is currently 1.15. If using the normal trading method your lay could be matched first which you don’t want. Using smart trading you can set is so your lay will only be placed if the back has been matched first and vice versa. 8. Stop loss – Manually get out of a trade if it is going against you. 9. Green up – Ah greening up, the aim of most traders in a given event. Greening up means you win no matter what the eventual outcome. This might be a small amount, but after placing a back or lay and the price has moved in your favour you will have the opportunity to take a sure profit. With the click of a button you can green up the exact stake required is calculated for you. Now there’s a neat little quirk we’ve noticed. For the small stakes punter greening up is usually not possible because you are required to input amounts lower than the minimum £2 bet. However We’ve noticed that Fairbot lets you place bets as low as pennies when greening up. Perhaps it is a quirk in our version, but it’s certainly worth investigating. 10. Dutching - Back or lay certain selections of the field with one click. E.g. with a couple of clicks you can see what returns/ risk you would get if you backed New Zealand, South Africa and Australia for the World cup with your stakes adjusted for you. Fairbot is a highly recommend tool for the novice and intermediate level Betfair trader. Perfect for someone who wants to experiment, especially with the generous free trial. SBC ratings: 41 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Returns: N/A Risk: N/A Cost: Transparency: N/A Suggested portfolio weighting: N/A Overall: Rating: Strong Buy

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

3. Educational Articles

Education: The Betting world is now absolutely vast and there are many many ways in which people now make a profit. Outright betting, Each Way, Laying, Dutching, Trading, Hedging, Exacta’s, Asian Handicaps, Unders/Overs… I could go on. That way to further our own betting profits it is always worth learning about new techniques that are being applied. The more we can absorb on our professional gambling journey, the greater the chance of success and ultimately profit that can be made.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

We regularly include educational articles in our monthly issues and here is just a sample of what you can expect to receive as a Secret Betting Club member.

i) Each Way Bandit System Many gamblers like the idea of creating their own system, but some don’t know where to start. One time & tested method of betting is known as the Each Way Steal (or Each Way Bandit), which can form the building blocks of a highly profitable betting system. Easy Betting, Winning Racing Tips and Slapdash all use variations of this strategy. THE THEORY Here’s a very brief over view of the methodology. In an event with a short priced favourite, the odds on other selections will be pushed up, particularly if the favourite is odds on. Now if you look at the win and place market, you might see some strange things going on. Each way betting is actually two separate bets, one for a place and one for a win. Bookmakers (In the UK especially) provide a single value for both win and place. Of course the place odds are actually 1/5 or ¼ the win odds, but bookmakers do not generally provide separate win and place figures. Bookmakers are largely obliged therefore to provide odds based on the horse winning, ignoring the place possibility. To cut a long story short, it means that the place part of the each way odds can sometimes get out of kilter with the implied probability of the horse placing and therefore offer value. There are different ways of examining this difference such as looking at the value of the book for both place and win odds, but we’ll use a quicker explanation using Betfair odds. Let’s say a horse has bookmaker’s odds of 11 decimal (10/1) with each way terms of 1/5. This would mean we get odds of 3 (2/1) on the place, i.e. wining 1 point if it places but doesn’t win. We’ll then look at Betfair. The same horse might be trading at 16 (15/1) to win, but just 2.5 to place. The market knows this horse has a fair chase of placing. We’d compare the each way place odds with the Betfair place odds and it’s easy to see we have value in the each way odds with 3 compared to 2.5. That’s the general gist. Look for these value opportunities and build over the long term. If you add other factors such as incorporating laying systems

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

you can start to make consistent returns. The technique can be applied other sports with each way odd such as Formula 1. For more information we highly recommend the excellent Value Horse Method. http://www.valuehorsemethod.com/ Or Paul’s reasonably priced ebook package http://www.bettingebooks.com/easy-money-from-losing-horses.htm Slapdash makes his system freely available on the sports punter thread. Here’s a copy of it to get you started: From http://www.punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22876 My selections are based on two related systems to try to find value in the place part of each-way bets, usually at early prices. The key idea in both cases is to compare the price on the place given by an each-way bet at bookie's odds with the lay price available for the place at Betfair. If, for example, an early price of 8/1 is available in a large handicap, the place odds from an each-way bet will be 3.00. If the place is available to lay on Betfair at 2.50 then I'll say the early price for the place is "20% better than Betfair". Each-way system. Here I'll look at races with a short-priced favourite (odds-on or close to it) or a race with at least eight runners (so three places paid) and short-priced first and second favourites. If another horse in the race has an early price for the place at least 10% better than Betfair, it will be a selection if the early price for a win is close to the Betfair price. If the Betfair win price is much better, this can be compensated for by the place price being a lot more than 10% better than Betfair. Sometimes I'll suggest starting price rather than early prices for these selections: this is a matter of judgement, depending on whether the early price seems particularly generous compared to other bookies or the Betfair win price, the direction the prices on the horse seem to be moving and other factors. Large Handicap Early Price System. Here I'll look at handicaps with at least 16 runners, so four places are paid. ''I will look for horses where an early price for the place is at least 20% better than Betfair and the early price for a win is at least the Betfair win price. I will always take best early price on these.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

ii) Dutching If you are not familiar with the concept of dutching, it is the process of placing more than one bet in a market to create a position in that market that delivers a pre-defined profit. Using dutching you can spread your profit and risk so that you stand a much better chance of placing a winning bet. Dutching is an excellent way to manage your risk and reward in a betting market. Thanks to the way it works it is a flexible way to place a bet and one where you define how much you want to win or lose, not just on one selection but maybe entire parts of the field. While dutching is considered an advanced and complex betting strategy it is becoming increasingly popular thanks to betting exchanges and software, such as Bet Angel, which has completely automated complex dutching calculations and the subsequent placements of bets. With advances in this type software it is now possible to not only pre-set a profit target on a race but also set individual profits for individual runners. This makes Dutching very appealing because you can significantly reduce your exposure in a market while at the same time covering your favoured selection and some outsiders, but you are still able to walk away with a decent reward for your efforts. In its conventional use you could place a ‘dutch’ bet to cover the front three in a horse race. You would decide that you want to win £100 whichever one of those horses went on to win. You are pretty sure one of those three will win but you are uncertain about the ability of a couple others in the race. Using dutching you could cover those as well to ensure you win regardless of which one of three actually win the race. By using this strategy you have covered not only your key selections but also the chance of an upset as well. The process of dutching allows you, when you have found the selections you want, to have a variety of options of how to put your ‘dutch’ bet to use. When dutching you can just use a level stake or you can specify a profit target. The advantage of using a level stake is that you can easily monitor your progress but the downside is that your profit will vary from race to race depending on the strength of the field. With a pre-set profit target you can easily define how much you want to make from a days racing but your betting bank size will have to have a lot of flexibility as your stake will vary quite a bit. The calculations for dutching are pretty complex, as is placing this type of bet; but thanks to betting exchanges and tools like Bet Angel placing ‘dutch’ bets are now quick, simple and easy. It should form part of your over all 46 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

strategy. Decide how much you would like to make, what selections you want to cover and one click places all the bets into the market for you, it couldn’t be simpler! The downside of dutching though is that you will accept a bigger liability if your bet does not come in. Unfortunately that is inevitable, as the profit generated on your selections is a result of you effectively creating a book below 100%. By that we mean that the entire market will be priced at or near 100%, this is because the chance of say, one horse, winning in a field of 10 is 100%, one of those ten will win. When you place a ‘dutch’ bet you spread your profit across your selections and the liability that created this profit is spread amongst the remainder. What you have to do is strike the balance between your winning ‘dutch’ selections and the possibility of the loss coming in. In this example we have placed a bet to cover the front three in the champion’s stakes. If we go ahead and place this bet and one of the first three win and none of the front three go onto win we would win £100, however if one of the first three does not win we would lose £244.

Until now this had created a big problem, netting a profit is fine, but an equal profit on all selections may not work for you in terms of risk and reward neither will the issue of having all your liability spread across the remainder of the field. Netting £100 for the favourite is useful, but the same for an outsider, you will probably want to see more reward for landing an outsider. Also losing £244 on a 70-1 shot may be unlucky but the same 47 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

amount at smaller odds seems negligent. Failing to manage how much money you make and at what odds, will end up with you almost certainly making a loss in the long term. Fortunately a solution is now at hand. Dutching has now taken on new proportions with the advent of new dutching functionality in Bet Angel. It is now possible to ‘dutch’ your selections to a pre-defined profit or loss per selection. This allows you considerable flexibility in terms of profit you expect to gain from your winnings selections or the loss you are willing to bear for your errors.

In the example we previously gave you can see that we have dutched the Champion stakes market and are looking for a return of £100 if any of the front three in the field goes on to win. However we think that ‘Notnowcato’ is also not without a chance so we have now included that in our calculations as well but we have adjusted it so we would only lose £50 it if came in. We have now covered the front four in the field which, unless there is a shock, would be the likely result. We have a great chance of a £100 and at worst the most likely result will leave us a small loss. We still carry some liability on the remainder of the field but thanks to our careful analysis, this is a liability we least don’t expect to be called in. Our situation is now that we would win £100 in any of the first three came in and a small loss if ‘Notnowcato’ priced a double the front three comes in. In the final example I have kept the potential loss of £50 on ‘Notnowcato’ but reduced my gain on the front three. This is a prudent bet and it means that my biggest possible loss in this market is reduced significantly but I still have a fantastic chance of picking the winner. In fact, because this was a 48 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

competitive race, I actually traded it, meaning I had no possibility of a loss regardless of who won.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

It’s not just horses where you can put a good dutching strategy to use. This strategy can be used on, soccer, tennis any sport will do. In soccer, the scores, 0-0, 1,-1, 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 0-1, 0-2, 1-2 account for the score in around 67% of the average score in a soccer match. With this in mind I picked on the competitive match of Aston Villa vs Tottenham and dutched all these scores with a profit target of £11. If the match ends in any of those scores I have won! With Aston Villa getting off to a good start this season you could discount the Tottenham win by dutching to zero on the scores that lead to a Tottenham win. Expect a low scoring match? Dutch the low scores but zero out or reduce your loss potential on the higher scores. The number of variations is endless.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

There are some clever things you can do with quality dutching software as well. If you use the automatic betting function you can get the software to ‘hunt’ for opportunities where the book has slipped below 100%. If you back the entire field below 100% and all your bets are matched then you will have performed book arbitrage. Buying a 100% book for less than 100% means free money! Free money because you are able to ‘buy’ a 100% chance for less than 100%. With automated software such as Bet Angel, dutching is a quick and painless process and as such dutching is now very popular on the exchanges. Anybody can now make judgements now on whole fields of runners rather than just one or two where the margin for error is much greater. By excluding weak selections that stand little chance of coming you can turn a useful profit. Also, because you are using a betting exchange, there is no obligation to take the current price, you could easily ask for a better price or maybe even dutch at the current lay price, another way to create a profitable opportunity. 'Dutching' is an excellent way of placing a spread of bets on an event and the great advantage with modern betting tools is the ability to mix and match more than one selection and manage your profit and stake across the entire market and at your own will. Dutching is a powerful betting strategy and one which should always be in any exchange users armoury. 51 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

iii)Why new systems initially lose money This excellent article comes from Paul who runs ‘Lay The Psychic’. Have you noticed that when you purchase a new system or start to use, a new system which you have devised, the first thing it does is to start to lose money? Have you ever wondered why? I decided to apply some of my few remaining brain cells to this problem in order to see what I came up with. I went right back to basics and asked myself some questions. If we invented a new system, when would we decide to implement it? If we decide to purchase a system, when would we decide to buy it? During a bad patch? No! We implement or purchase a system during one of its good patches. Why? Well, who in their right mind would implement or purchase a system during a bad patch? This wouldn’t make sense. Or would it? Again, let’s go right back to basics. There is no such thing as the perfect system. All systems therefore have a strike rate of less than 100%. If you have past records for the system, you can calculate its strike rate. If you can calculate its strike rate, you can calculate the odds of encountering a losing run of a given number of bets. Let’s take this example: 52 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Suppose that the system’s long-term past strike rate is 70%. There is a 75% chance that the system will encounter 4 losing bets in a row. There is a 50% chance that the system will encounter 6 losing bets in a row. There is a 25% chance that the system will encounter 7 losing bets in a row. There is less than a 1% chance that the system will encounter 9 losing bets in a row. This is exactly why systems go through a bad patch. If something can happen, eventually, it will. Therefore, even though there is < 1% chance of encountering 9 losing bets in a row, given enough time, it will happen. OK. That’s losing runs explained. Now let’s go back to our initial questions regarding the point at which we should implement our new system: Generally, we implement systems during winning runs. Why? Because we don’t think that it’s a sensible idea to implement a system during a losing run. Yet, we know that the system is going to lose, eventually. At this point, I am going to upset one or two statisticians and mathematicians. For those of you who are of this ilk, please give me the benefit of the doubt for a few moments. Let me ask you this: When is a losing run most likely to occur? A. Immediately after a long losing run B. Immediately after a long winning run The statisticians and mathematicians amongst you will probably say both or neither. Why? Because, if horse racing is a random event, then past results have no bearing whatsoever on future results. The fact that you just lost the last bet has no affect on the result of your next bet. However, consider this: Horse racing isn’t random. Some horses are much better than others. As such, they win far more often. If horse racing was a random event, then this wouldn’t happen. True, if a race consists of horses that are of equal ability, then, to some extent, the race does have some features which could be described as random. However, the vast majority of races are not like this and certain horses do have more chance of winning than do others. 53 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

As such, provided that a system has exhibited a given strike rate over a sufficiently long period of time, it is reasonable to assume that it will maintain its past strike rate in the future, within a reasonable margin of error. Now, armed with these assumptions, let us ask the question again. When is a losing run most likely to occur? A. After a long losing run B. After a long winning run In my opinion, the answer is B, and here’s my reasoning: Let us consider a system which, over the past few years, has had a strike rate of 80%. The strike rate over the past month has climbed steadily and now stands at 90%. If this short-term trend continues, the strike rate would begin to approach 100%. However, given the past performance of the system, this is unlikely. What is more likely to happen is that the future short-term strike rate of the system will fall well below 80% in order that the overall strike rate is maintained at 80%. In other words, in the immediate future, it is likely that we will have more losing bets than normal. The longer the winning trend continues, the more severe the losing run is likely to be. We may not be in a position to determine precisely when the winning run will end, but the longer the good luck holds, the more likely it becomes that the good luck will run out in the near future. Just when a winning run begins to build is the time when most new systems are either purchased or implemented. This is precisely the point when a system is at its most vulnerable to a run of bad luck. This explains why, when someone purchases a new system or implements one of their own, they quickly become disillusioned with it since there is a tendency for them to go straight into a losing period. I made this very mistake when I began proofing one of my systems with Racing Index. I waited until it was well and truly into a winning run before I made my first submission to Racing Index. Guess what? On the very first day, I had 3 losing bets! What a start, and, what a great advert for a system new to market! Well, that explains why it is, in my opinion, newly implemented systems start off by losing.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

3. Professional Mindset

Professional mindset: Professional gamblers aren’t lucky, they create their own luck. They go through losing runs just like anyone else, but what sets them apart is how they think. In each issue of our newsletter we include at least one article regarding Betting Mindset issues. These series of articles go through the most important steps in making the transition from punter to winner. Below you can see just one example of what members regularly receive.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Pro Betting Pro Betting Common issues surrounding betting profitably We get some emails regarding poor runs of form in the services we recommend and indeed people mentioning services they’ve left only for them to have stellar runs. A recent example was a recommended service which after a bad start to October, we had a number of complaints about. However with a full range of stats to hand we could confidently predict this was not without precedent and statistically nothing to worry about. October suitably recovered to post an overall profit and November has gone very well so far with an ROI of 49% to date. We thought our subscribers would appreciate a full run down of our statistical and mental approach to pro betting. If you ever want to get rich, you can’t hope on salary from your employer. That’s just not the way to get rich. It might be possible in very few cases but other than that it’s as possible as winning a large sum with a lottery. So taking risks is absolutely important. Of course, taking risks means that you can also get burnt, very burnt...but without taking the risks you can’t also achieve too much. The feeling of success is so addictively glorious and equally the feeling of defeat can be extremely demoralizing. When dealing with large sums of money, the winning and losing become even more acutely felt especially if it is perhaps the way out of a job you don’t like, or money that is needed to further your life. It is therefore so so important to distance yourself from performance and learn to just push things to the back of your mind. Perhaps if a lot rests on a horse race don’t watch it and just view the final result. Nothing hurts more than getting beaten in a photo finish when a lot rides on it! Balanced risk taking is the key to long term betting profits. This article spells out how to go about achieving a balanced attitude to risk. Sometimes having a range of services that you are recommended to follow seems pretty straightforward when it comes to betting profitably. However there are still potential pitfalls each individual must be aware of and sometimes overcome when trying to make money betting. 56 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

We have compiled a brief list of strategies that are key to be aware of. Some of these we do for you through our service, some like the mental side you need to learn yourself. STEP 1. Know what you’re getting into. Prior to following any service, be aware of the likely trends of profit and loss. Thus if performance veers off unexpectedly in a way not encountered in the past you will be able to recognise this and respond. Some services can be volatile in its profit and loss, that is to lose £200 one day and then regain £300 the next. Albeit a £100 overall profit over 2 days, but after day one would you still continue?? It should be noted that often you will find that the quicker the profit gained the more volatile the system. When joining a service be aware of historical runs of form, for example see what the longest losing run is, the type of odds supplied and whether you feel realistically you can cope with that. i) Use our 5 key pointers before getting started with any service Use each of the following to decide if a service/ system attractive enough to consider your active involvement with. 1. Statistics Get hold of as many statistics as you can. Especially the strike rate and ROI. Statistics are absolutely key when it comes to having full confidence in any service. We want to see as much information as possible so we can judge any service properly. 2. Long-term Returns The less data you have on a service, or the less they provide you the more caution you should apply. Anyone can get lucky and produce the goods on a short-term basis. However ultimately long-term profits are where any pro gambler looks. 3. R.O.I ROI is a calculation of the profits divided by the number of bets taken to achieve those profits. The higher the ROI the better, this means less bets are required to make profits. However note that a high ROI over a limited number of bets is highly likely to come down and vice versa. A low ROI is not

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

necessarily a bad thing, it may just mean lots of bets to make decent profits. If you like active gambling this might be a good thing for you. 4. Practicality Of Profits How practical will it be for you to use this service? How easy is it to place any advised bets in terms of time, prices available, bookmakers used and so on. 5. Customer Service How good is the service at answering your questions and providing the essential information every gambler needs? We try to provide as much as this for you, but on some occasions you might need to start a service to get answers to some of these questions. In particularly practicality of profits which is why we recommend using absolutely minimum stakes for the first month with any service. Write off your first month as research costs. You might miss out on some short term profits, but we’ve saved a heck of a lot of money in the long run by quickly being able to tell if a service isn’t practical or if their actual results don’t match those claimed. ii) Your staking plan Now you’ve done the exciting bit and examined if the service is going to make you profits in the long run, you need to prepare yourself for the worse. Before you start dreaming about which car you’ll buy with the profits, make sure you know what the worse case scenario is. A high strike rate is not necessarily good and a low strike rate not necessarily bad, it depends on how you intend to use the service. Use the known strike rate to set your staking plan to protect yourself from the worst. You can use our staking calculator here to calculate the maximum expected losing run and therefore what your stakes should be. http://www.secretbettingclub.com/Stake.xls Use this calculation to tally with the biggest draw down period to date. Draw down is basically the biggest period of losses. This is different to the longest losing run because you could have 20 losses, 1 win then 20 losses. Find out what the biggest draw down is, compare this with the losses expected from the longest losing run and pick the largest figure of the two as the basis for your staking plan.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

The only way to beat the system is to play for meaningful stakes, you’ve got to get over the fear of getting hurt. Of course, it all doesn’t mean you should risk everything so that in case of a loss you’d be bankrupt. It’s far from that. It’s the general idea you need to understand and agree with. Once you’ve done your homework as above you should bet amounts that aren’t too big, but enough to slightly worry you and also make you richer. Otherwise you’ll never do anything other than dabble. Choosing the right staking plan is vitally important because having the right amount of money on the line will keep your emotions in check. STEP 2. Take control Beyond a certain point you cannot control events like the performance of your chosen tipsters or systems. However what you can do is set your own rules based around a framework of known past performance. In plain English we mean look at how a service/ system has performed in the past and use this make your own rules on how you will use this information in the future. Set your rules from the start and do not veer from them unless you receive some significant information. Spending a few hours working out the rules you will stick to with your service will reduce stress and ultimately increase profits. Before you create your rules you need to know what you’re getting into. We suggest the following rules: i) Your staking plan Set your staking plan and do not veer from it. If you’re done your homework properly you should be aware of the worst case scenario and not get too concerned if things don’t go your way at first or over excited if they go very well. ii) Milestones for profits When will you take a profit? Will you continue to compound profits indefinitely or take small chunks out at regular intervals? It doesn’t matter which you choose, but choose now. Make a decision now so you don’t have to in the heat of the moment. Believe us we’ve tried and money makes your mind do stupid things. ii) Cut off point. 59 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

The million dollar question! When will you cut the dead wood? Too soon and you risk dropping a service that profitable in the long run, too late and you risk losing a lot of money. We suggest you set this in advance if you can. Hopefully your previous homework on worse case scenario and previous worse runs should influence you decision here. Set a hard cap on your losses or reduction in former profits. There are some other factors you need to consider which are harder to discern. You might need to use your bet-dar to spot something wrong. Things to consider: results no longer updated, change in service, has the brains behind the service left?, do they have a lot of integrity “in the bank”, are there a lot of close losers?, do they respond to emails promptly? STEP 3. Spread the risk – your betting portfolio. You will often read of us referring to your Betting Portfolio in our writing, as it is highly recommended you diversify where you invest your betting bank. This may mean taking an initial bank of investment, for example £2000 and dividing it amongst 4 services with £500 in each, or other mix depending on their risk profile. Services can go up and down as past performance no matter how many years of data you have, can change and sometimes dramatically. It is never wise to put all your eggs in one basket. Some people counter this by saying that by spreading the risk you reduce profits. This can be true and to cut a long explanation short the more consistent a service, the less need there is to spread the risk, the more erratic a service, the greater the need to spread the risk. Have a look at a graph of a service’s performance to get an idea how erratic or steady service might be. If you are going to follow just one service, be extra cautious if that service is an erratic one – your account and mental state could be in for a rollercoaster ride. The best way to spread the risk to bet on unrelated events. If you’re betting in the same areas you’re not really spreading the risk. For example if using many backing services that bet on favourites you might be highly stung by a run of favourites losing. Therefore a high price and low price service might be a better spread.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

STEP 4. Patience It takes many years of patient dedicated effort to become a successful musician, surgeon, engineer, teacher, or expert in any field. Why is it then that many gamblers expect to be successful immediately and without the commitment to spend the time required? We live in a "now" society. When we turn on the TV, radio, dial a number, turn the key in our car we expect immediate results. In our gambling investments we likewise expect a big return in just a few weeks or months. There are three types of people when it comes to patience: the impatient; the passively patient; and rest who are persistently or actively patient. 1. The impatient want instant gratification and sometimes the grass appears greener on the other side. But most often it is not! 2. The passively patient are whatever-will-be-will-be people. Their philosophy is time will take care of everything. The status quo dominates their thoughts. "Don't rock the boat", "don't try anything new till someone has proved it works", "don't take any unnecessary risks"; this illustrates well their attitudes. 3. The persistently patient are a different breed. They reason like this: "Everything takes time, but I'm going to do all I can to shorten the time required without taking undue risks! Persistently patient people know that substantial time and considerable effort are required to achieve anything worthwhile. Persistently patient people are determined to build not only for themselves but also for future generations to follow. Take a few moments to think about which type you are. If you are to become a successful gambler you must learn persistent or active patience. Learning in this business is a never-ending process. Down dips, draw downs and losses are a fact of gambling. These losing periods usually result in most gamblers, throwing in the towel and moving onto the next service. It is the persistently patient who are still around; making some profits, ready to pick up the incredible profits as the service rebounds. As Paul mentioned in his article on systems, it is not a question of if, it's a question of when the next losing run will occur. The actively patient are there to pick up the gains as the service picks up again to record higher gains. He’s also not still hanging on to the service that did so well last year and now is plunging because he has his rules in place. 61 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

CONCLUSION Pro gambling can sound like a contradiction, however it can be done. It takes all of the qualities we’ve mentioned above and of course a bit of luck. However remember – the harder you work, the luckier you get.

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

Client Comments

We have an extremely large community of professional and amateur gamblers who make up our membership base. We pride ourselves on the quality of service that we supply and regularly receive emails in return from members about how much they enjoy our service. This is just a small cross-section of the emails received from satisfied members. Where it says XXXX, we have removed the service's name from the quote....All this information is available to members only..Sorry 63 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

------------Hi Dan just to let you know i joined XXXX and have found them to be a very informative, efficient and reliable service. thanks again G PS XXXX going great guns. ------------Thanks for your help and for introducing me to XXXX fantastic service cheers --------------Hi there, Just reading through your newsletter, and i can definelty recommend the XXXX, been with them for a month now and am very pleased with the service and selections to date. Hopefully this will continue. So i applaude you on this find ! ------------Wow! your already checking the system - that was quick. Glad I joined this club! ------------This ones flying! I've spent so much time and money going through the Racing Index and other tipster proofing sites and have come to the conclusion that even at half the subscription costs of XXXX service they offer absolutely no value whatsoever. ------------As previously commented on by others on this forum I am growing more and more confident with his information as each day passes. I started with a fairly modist £10 per point stake, doubling that on each way bets and feel sufficiently confident to start increasing the £ per point staking in line with the success of his selections. I also appreciate that it is early days but compared with 99.99% of all previous tipsters who have been dodgy to say the least this is looking good. -------------

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Secret Betting Club The good, the bad and the ugly of the tipster world…revealed!!!

The previous figures indicate that the standard is very high indeed. XXXX service should well provide the backbone of anyone's portfolio. ------------Just wanted to say how useful I'm finding the post's on the the forum, and how much I appreciate other members sharing their thoughts and experiences whether they be good or bad about particular services. Open debate is very healthy and if we can perhaps either point one another to what we feel is a service worth a look at or conversely, a service to swerve then everyone wins, which as I mentioned to Admin, is why I joined in the first place. Thanks to everyone who is contributing. Join Secret Betting Club’s annual membership We hope you have enjoyed this sampler issue and it has given you an indication of how we can help you on your pathway to becoming a betting professional. We are confident that following our information we will be able to make you the £100 a day figure we regularly mention. Join our annual membership The full Secret Betting Club service is a monthly e-newsletter with updates on our findings, new services and access to our highly active discussion forum. This special sampler issue gives just a small insight into how we can help you to start your own career as a professional gambler. Join Secret Betting Club’s annual membership Join our full service here: http://www.secretbettingclub.com/

65 All original content is copyright Secret Betting Club 2008 and may not be reproduced without permission.