Betting on football could be viewed as a way to spice up a game you aren’t hugely interested in, whilst some people feel it can make big games even more exciting to watch. It has become a real part of the football ritual for millions of fans. Be it placing a big Saturday acca and crossing your fingers and toes, sticking your weekly flutter on your centre back to score the first goal, or trying to uncover the best value bet of the weekend, having a punt on the football is a regular hobby for so many fans of the sport.
There are so many different approaches you can take towards betting, with all the ones above, as well as the more general issue of quite how seriously you take your bets. Clearly backing your centre back to score first every week is just a bit of fun. It is an investment in your own enjoyment that financially, in the long term, will mean you lose. But in terms of a thrill, once or twice a season might just deliver a huge payout – and a decent financial result in that moment to boot.
On the other hand, many who bet on football love to study the form, check the stats, and consider how the odds relate to the likelihood of an event happening. This equates to looking at the value of a bet and is clearly a far more serious approach. But beating the bookies is incredibly hard for a whole host of reasons. It isn’t impossible, but most punters would be better viewing their bets as a bit of fun, rather than a genuine attempt to be in the black in the long run.
Caution with Tipsters
Many punters like to use tipsters to get their bets and there is nothing wrong with this per se. There are countless tipsters providing betting options via Twitter – or X, as we are just about starting to get used to calling it – as well as on websites and via other social media platforms. These can be a good source of ideas, a way to check your own opinion with that of others, or simply as an easy way to decide what to back without putting any effort in.
What they are not, ever, is a guaranteed way of winning. First, even the very best professional gamblers in the world cannot guarantee that. Genuine pros will lose lots of bets and suffer extended runs where they simply cannot find a winner. This is unavoidable, but they have faith that they are able to keep finding value bets and that eventually, this will pay off and deliver enough wins at big enough prices to compensate – and then some – for their losers.
However, more than that, one has to question why any tipster would give their winners away. If they were so good, surely they would be buying football clubs (like Brighton’s Tony Bloom), not operating @freewinnertipstipstipsguy or whatever social media handle they are going by. Moreover, we would generally say that you should never, ever, pay for betting tips.
Ultimately charging people for access to tips is a far easier and undeniably far more certain way to make money than actually risking making your own bets. Betting tips have their place but if you are paying for them, that outlay needs to be justified and it is a simple fact that 99% of tipsters – at the very least – will not deliver the goods.
Classic comedy from ‘John’. 570 members😂
Let’s just work that out shall we?
570 x £39 = £22,230 a month
12 x £22,230 = £266,760
So @tipsfromstables gets over 266k a year from it’s members😂😂
Take the trial, join after you win loads and then ‘John’ can get his £266k😂 pic.twitter.com/hALh9y0EIG— Tipsters exposed (@Tipstersexpose1) October 4, 2020
Tipsters Not Always What They Seem
You may believe that some tipsters are worth paying for, or that you have found a free service that genuinely does work. Lots of tipsters, both on betting websites and on social media, including Twitter or X, purport to offer proof that they are successful in the long term.
However, online tipsters on X and the like are definitely not always what they seem. Over the years, there have been several examples of “tipsters” (we use the word lightly and charlatans might be far more accurate) doctoring their records in order to appear better than they are. There are various methods of pulling the wool over the eyes of people who might want to subscribe or even pay for betting tips but we implore you not to fall for them.
Just thought I’d bring this back up. The lowest of the lows.
@EliteBettingSyn decided their figures didn’t look good so fiddled them in order to make more profit.
The first screenshot was Aug 2nd, the other Aug 21st.
The difference? Over 2.5K🤦♂️
Sums up the #scammers perfectly. pic.twitter.com/IY5u3PagCn— Tipsters exposed (@Tipstersexpose1) October 16, 2020
Some are simple and outright lying and cheating. For example, a site can list all of the bets they claim to have tipped but this might be totally fabricated, after the event. They can post winners they claim they tipped, but that have been changed, or simply written after the result was known.
It is incredibly easy to mock up screenshots showing winning bets that were simply never placed. Anyone with a fundamental grasp of computing and Photoshop can easily give the impression that they backed a winner at outlandish odds when, in fact, they didn’t.
Only Reveal Their Winning Bets
Alternatively, it is very easy for a so-called tipster to simply bet on every possible outcome but only reveal their winning bets. The bookies’ margin ranges from about 3% to 30%, meaning that the tipster will lose money by backing every option – but not necessarily much. However, if they are then able to show a winning betting slip, that could easily attract tens or hundreds of paying customers to their betting service, more than covering the loss.
There have been a number of betting tipsters who have taken the simpler option of just deleting their losing tips. It is very easy to delete a Tweet so fraudulent “tipsters” can just delete their losers and leave their winners standing. Whilst someone who follows the account might well be aware of this and even have screenshots (as has been the case many times), a newcomer to the feed will simply see a list of winning bets.
Yet again we have Alan for the 2nd time trying to fiddle his figures. 4 horses, 1 winner at 2/1 and @TipsAlanJohnson thinks it’s level for day.
Now where have I seen this sort of thing before? pic.twitter.com/QL7Kes9Ncg— Tipsters exposed (@Tipstersexpose1) December 1, 2020
Caution Recommended
Overall, as said, never, ever pay to receive betting tips and even if you use free ones, treat them with extreme caution and do your own research. In particular, pay attention to claims that seem too good to be true. If you see a list of winning Tweets, question where the losers are. If you see claims of being “X points” or “X per cent”, question that.
There have been several examples of sites and accounts claiming winning runs that simply do not exist, or don’t add up. Ultimately, like much of the Internet, this area of betting is unpoliced and so all and any claims should be treated with extreme caution as there are simply so many ways that claims on X can be easily faked.