Tested and reviewed by Dave
I’ve been trialing this service for three months. It was making bold claims, and was of interest to me because it was indicating that the profits could be made on the exchanges, as well as with bookies. Let’s just recap the marketing push three months ago.
The Haymaker has produced a strike rate of over 52% throughout an extra-long proofing period of over 2 years, generating a mind-blowing +924 points profit.
That means you’re winning OVER HALF your bets!
And the best part is, there are absolutely no odds-on bets, no lay betting, and all-importantly no long losing runs either.
This service is offered via Lucrative Racing who’ve been around for over a decade, and it’s the first time they’ve EVER been impressed enough to put an external tipster on their books.
Amazingly, they give away £1,000 in cash to their members EVERY SINGLE MONTH – to enter in this month’s draw all you need to do is join their free trial.
And they give all their members an extra-long 12 month performance guarantee, which essentially means if you don’t get the results you want, you can claim a free annual membership!
So, let’s unpick these with the user experience.
I’ve no reason to doubt the validity of the two year results, as Lucrative does have a long term profile in the space.
I had 45 wins, 92 losses and 23 void bets. So that 52% strike rate dropped by nearly half to 33% in the three months after the service went live. If 28% still sounds like a decent strike rate, the nature of the bets is very cautious, with place bets, each ways and ‘insure bets’, which I’ll explain shortly.
So, the claim for 924 points of profit over two years is certainly an inducement if it can be reproduced. We’ve all worked out in our heads our profits going forward. But there are three problems I have with this.
Firstly, the staking is higher than one point staking, and of course profits and losses vary depending on how much we stake. On Cash Master we try to keep staking to a standard one point so that services are comparable. There’s nothing wrong with variable staking depending on the confidence of the selection, but the starting point should be a one point stake and fractions of that, if we are to compare profitability of services. This service stakes between one and four points. So I have taken a four point advised selection as one point, and a one point selection as a quarter point, etc. But even reducing the two year profit to 230 odd points would still be of great interest if reproduced.
The second problem I have with the claimed profits is the stated odds. When I review a service, I want to think that quoted odds are the odds that subscribers have available to them. We’re told the tips are collected at 10 o’clock, six days a week. Although I personally don’t use bookies, a quick look over at Oddschecker tells me that the odds quoted are using the best odds available with one bookie, and the odds quoted are sometimes before or after that 10 o’clock timecheck. When I see suggested odds by services, I want to see those odds available from at least two of the less obscure bookies, plus I want those services to name which bookies they’ve sourced the odds from, which this service doesn’t do. I would add that the odds I found where they differed from the tipster were not always skinnier; sometimes I got better odds, so I’m not suggesting it was devious, just bad practice. Ideally, results would be recorded to quoted odds from named bookies, plus SP results, plus BSP results less commission. However, the nature of some bets from this service (insurebets) would not make this possible, because there is no SP for insurebets or some place bets, nor an equivalent to insurebets on Betfair. I did notice a couple of Rule 4s that weren’t adjusted in the results, also.
The final problem I have with the 924 point profit claim is that past results don’t give an indication of future results, as demonstrated by the first three months of live results.
So, what about the “absolutely no odds-on bets”? Well, it’s true that there weren’t that many, but I did record several odds-on bets, so best not to claim it. This ideology pinpoints what the service is trying to do. If you can find relatively safe bets with a better than evens chance of winning with odds longer than evens, you have an edge. But if the three month live period is anything to go by, that’s harder than it looks.
Finally, the claim “all-importantly, no long losing runs”. How did that go? Well, starting on 23rd September I recorded a 20 horse losing run, not including the voided bets. For me, on low odds selections, that is a long losing run, and although within the bank variability, I’m sure many of those who signed up to the service would have dropped out by then, with all confidence shot.
All this goes to show the sometimes there is a very large gap between the marketing of a service and the user experience of it. I’ve been quite negative so far, but what of the actual results? Well, we had two losing months, and an overall loss in the three months, but there was some vindication in month three which made a profit, and there was some other positive news on the accas, which I’ll come to.
SERVICE DETAILS
Selections are provided on a dedicated web page with tips on most days from Monday to Saturday. In the review period, there were up to three bets in a day. The bet types are win, each way, place bets and insurebets. Insurebets are offered by several bookies, these are win bets at lower odds which return your stake if they fail to win but finish placed. Stakes are advised between one and four points, but for balance with comparable services, I have divided these by four, so my results are based on a quarter of the stakes advised. The service also suggests that when there are more than one bet in a day, you could use small stakes for accumulators and, if three selections, trixies. I have recorded these results as a quarter of a point for the accas, and a tenth of a point for trixies.
As I’ve said, my interest in any horse racing service is how well it performs to Betfair SP. Because insurebets aren’t available on Betfair, I’ve recorded my results for these bet types as one third of the stake to win and two thirds of the stake to place. This gives fairly similar overall results.
RESULTS
TOTAL BETS: 160. WINS 45, LOSSES 92, VOID (INC PLACED INSUREBETS) 23
WIN PERCENTAGE: 33%
PROFIT/LOSS: BOOKIE EARLY PRICES: -8 POINTS (-32 POINTS REPORTED STAKING, SEE ABOVE). BSP LESS 2% COMMISSION: -9 POINTS
ROI: -8%
I ALSO RECORDED THE ACCAS AND TRIXIES, ACCAS TO A QUARTER POINT TRIXIES TO A TENTH POINT AND TAKING THE EACH WAY BETS AS WIN, AND THESE RESULTED IN A PROFIT WHICH WOULD HAVE COVERED THE LOSSES
ACCAS: +13 POINTS; TRIXIES +8 POINTS
CONCLUSION
It’s tough luck that these guys decided to go live in September rather than November. If the service can continue from where it left off in November, it will be running to the expectations provided by the previous two years of proofing. I would also like to see greater clarification of which bookies are being quoted for odds given. It would also be useful for the service to record their results to BSP, taking, as I did, a roughly equivalent bet type for the insurebets.
This was a losing trial, and I am not able to recommend the service based on the results for the period. However, it has shown some promise in November and on the accas, so it doesn’t deserve a fail either, so I have awarded this a NEUTRAL rating.
