Best Horse Racing Tipsters
By the MyHorseBets team · Updated · 5 min read
The best horse racing tipster is not the one with the most impressive sales page or the luckiest last month. It is the one with a long, honest record of profit at prices you could actually have got. This guide shows where to find tipsters’ records that someone else has checked, and how to judge any tipster yourself, free or paid.
We don’t run a tipping service and we don’t rank tipsters on our own opinion. Instead we give you the checks to run.
Where to find independent tipster records
- Newspaper tipsters. The Racing Post Press Challenge records every national newspaper tipster’s selections at £1 level stakes at starting price through the year, with each tipster’s strike rate and profit or loss. Because the selections are printed before racing, nobody can edit them afterwards.
- Community leaderboards. OLBG shows each member’s tipping profile and record, which lets you see who has done well over a long period rather than a lucky week.
- Paid services. Here the record is usually published by the seller. That isn’t worthless, but it needs the checks below.
Six checks for any horse racing tipster
1. How long is the record?
A tipster who has had 30 bets has told you almost nothing. Luck dominates small samples. Look for hundreds of bets over at least a year, across different seasons and types of racing.
2. Was every tip recorded before the race?
The record should include every selection, winners and losers, timestamped before the off. A results page that only shows winners, or “selected highlights”, is a sales tool, not a record. The strongest proof is a record kept by a third party or published in a way that can’t be changed later, such as a newspaper or a public leaderboard.
3. Strike rate or ROI?
Strike rate is the share of bets that win. ROI (return on investment) is profit divided by everything staked. ROI is what pays you. A tipster backing short-priced favourites can have a strike rate above 40% and still lose money, while a tipster backing big prices can win only one bet in seven and be in profit.
To check whether a strike rate is good enough, compare it with the average odds. At decimal odds of 5.0 (4/1), a tipster needs to win more than 20% of bets just to break even. Our odds calculator gives the break-even strike rate for any price.
4. Could you get the prices?
Ask what price each result is calculated at. Best price across every bookmaker, at the moment the tip went out, flatters a record. Starting price, or a price available a few minutes after the tip was sent, is more realistic, especially for a service with many subscribers all backing the same horse.
5. How bad were the losing runs?
Long losing runs are normal, even for a profitable tipster. Over 500 bets, the typical longest losing run is longer than most people expect. These figures come from our own simulation of 500 bets at each strike rate:
| Strike rate | Typical longest losing run in 500 bets |
|---|---|
| 50% | 8 bets |
| 33% | 13 bets |
| 25% | 18 bets |
| 15% | 28 bets |
| 10% | 40 bets |
If a seller claims “no long losing runs” with a strike rate of 25% or lower, ask how many bets the record covers. And size your bank so that a run like this doesn’t knock you out.
6. Is the staking sensible?
Good tipsters advise level stakes or small, clear point sizes, and a bank of perhaps 100 points. Be wary of staking plans that increase stakes after a loss to “win it back”. They turn an ordinary losing run into a large loss.
Check a tipster’s results yourself
Take a month of a tipster’s published selections and settle them at your own stake in our bet calculator, or in the each way calculator for each way tips. Add up the total staked and the total returned, and work out the ROI. If your figure is very different from the seller’s, find out why before you subscribe.
Paid tipsters we link to
These are the paid services we currently link to, described from each seller’s own sales page. We haven’t verified their figures. Each one has been through the checks above only as far as its sales page allows, so run them yourself before you pay.
For US racing, Mike Lane’s HorsePlayerHaven sells a handicapping method and picks for North American tracks: see our guide to the best horse racing handicappers.
For more on paid services and whether a subscription can pay for itself, see professional horse racing tips. For free sources, see free horse racing tips, and for every tips guide in one place, the best horse racing tips page.
Betting always carries a risk of loss and no tipster, system or staking plan can guarantee a profit. Only stake what you can afford to lose, and set a budget before you start. Gambling responsibly.
Frequently asked questions
It changes from year to year. For newspaper tipsters, the Racing Post Press Challenge shows who is in profit this year at £1 level stakes. For any other tipster, judge them on a long, complete record rather than a claim.
It depends on the odds. A tipster backing horses at around 4/1 needs to win more than 20% of bets to break even, while one backing favourites near evens needs more than 50%. Our odds calculator works out the break-even rate for any price.
Look for every bet, winners and losers, recorded before each race, ideally by a third party. Settle a sample of the tips yourself at starting price and compare your figure with the seller's.