FRT Gold Review

It seems a long time ago since I started testing FRT Gold.

I wrote my opening article back in July and was very enthusiastic about what I expected to see from this professional-looking service.

Then — how often does this happen with a new system? — there followed an almighty anti-climax. Month #1 was poor and month #2 was mediocre.

Really, I was losing the motivation to keep going.

Then, finally, came month #3, and glory be, profits!

We even crept into the black for the trial as a whole (well, if you ignored results at Betfair SP, that is).

So, did the final month see us move further into profit?

Indeed it did. The trial has finished on a high.

Month #4 was easily the most profitable period, with the service performing particularly well at Betfair SP:

Adding the final month’s profits to the brought forward totals from the first quarter produces a net profit for the trial as a whole:

I have also been tracking the multiples selections for the length of the trial, but they’ve been an unmitigated disaster, as you can see:

However, I’ve been consistently advising against following the multiple selections and have long since discounted them in my overall assessment of the service. They’re really little more lottery ticket gambling.

You can download the results log for the whole trial  by clicking here.

This has been a very strange trial…

We struggled to make any headway at all in the first two months and only started making real progress in the final few weeks. The tipster even grumbled in the summer that we were experiencing, “without doubt, our worst run in the 3 years of FRT Gold“. So to finish in the black after so much gloom and doom feels something of a surprise.

Similarly, Betfair SP performance lagged behind bookie betting for a very long time. And yet suddenly, in the final furlong, it zoomed ahead and finished as the most profitable way to play these selections.

There was also the conundrum of the multiple bets which were hopeless throughout. One thing I can say with confidence is that they should definitely be ignored. I even admitted to “scepticism” about them in month #1 when they were briefly delivering profit.

Summary

So, do we award a Pass or a Neutral rating overall?

Well, in spite of all my reservations, I’m going with a Pass.

We have finished with reasonable, if unsensational profits. And that’s in spite of (apparently) enduring the “worst run” in the service’s history.

Additionally, it does appear that I managed to arrange my holiday at the end of October for just the wrong week. For on the 31st October, the daily tips email exclaimed, “Well. What about that for a day? 3 winners out of 4 and somewhere around 40 points profit for the day.”  

You can imagine how I felt about that one.

In addition to the profits themselves, the service is extremely professionally run. Members receive tips emails, a private Facebook and Twitter feed, full web access and selections sent directly to their phones.

There are other member benefits too: a monthly printed magazine delivered to your door, free entry to FRT Gold race days and the chance to win Cheltenham Gold Cup tickets.

So I’m sticking to the Pass mark, as I think this is a service that can deliver over the long term, and will look after you whilst it does so. However, please avoid the multiples!

If you’d like to get involved with FRT, you can do so here.

Lucy

Update: 21st October 2016

I can’t ever remember being more disappointed about a new trial than I was about FRT Gold.

If you look at my original trial introduction you’ll see I was very excited about this product.

It looked so professional and claimed a really promising track record. Surely it was a service that was destined to deliver?

Sadly though, the first month of my trial was hopeless.

It didn’t help that the tipster kept publishing doom-laden updates about this being the worst downturn in living memory.

Nope, I wasn’t consoled at all. It was just plain disappointing and I struggled to plod on.

Fortunately though, things did pick up quite a bit last time.

But we were still in the red overall and over halfway to our 200 bet finishing line.

So… we still needed a serious recovery if we were going to finish in the black.

Read on to find out whether we got one….

It’s been another decent month, leaving us (just) in the black for the trial as a whole.

This may not sound much of an achievement but it does, in fact, represent quite a turnaround from where we’d got to by the end of the first month.

The top-level performance statistics for month #3 make for a very pleasant read indeed:

Adding these numbers to the those for the previous two months leaves us with a small profit for the whole trial – assuming we ignore the net loss at Betfair, of course:

I consider this outcome to be a draw.  Winning £40 at the bookies and losing £40 at Betfair is about as close to a level outcome as a trial gets.

I’m also tracking performance of FRT’s multiple bets.

I have been quite open throughout that I consider betting on Lucky 15’s and the like at the bookmakers to be a highly dubious strategy so I am not expecting to make any money at all here.

In fact, we haven’t lost quite as much as I’d expected but I am still £60 down with the multiples:

You can download the complete results log for the trial to date (both singles and multiples) by clicking here.

Summary

I’ve passed the 200 bet mark so I should be winding this trial up today and awarding FRT a Neutral rating.

But I keep thinking back to the tipster’s wailing and gnashing of teeth in the summer.

Maybe month #1 really was a complete outlier and therefore wholly unrepresentative of what this service is really about?

And maybe months #2 and #3 have shown me the ‘real’ FRT product?

I’d really like to think so. So I’m going to extend the trial to 300 bets, just to see – and then I’ll wind it up, no matter what.

Honest Injun. 🙂

I’ll be back with my trial conclusion when I get to my revised finishing line.

In the meantime, you can read more about FRT Gold here.

Lucy

Update: 22nd September 2016

I was so excited about being asked to trial FRT Gold.

I’ve explained the full reasons in my trial introduction: but essentially, this extremely professional-looking service looked the part.

My, it even comes with its own monthly magazine!

So, imagine my disappointment when the first month of my trial was little short of a disaster.

The tipster even started issuing doom-laden emails, for example describing August as, “the worst month I can remember”.

Inevitably, I wondered whether or not FRT could bounce back in month #2.

Read on to find out whether it did…

It’s been a bit better, but we’re still in the red overall.

I’m betting at £10 a point, and have added 4.5 points since mid-August.

However, as you can see from the statistics for the single bets over the last month, my bank balance remains stuck at £875 – still £125 shy of the £1,000 I started out with.

Combining these figures with the month #1 numbers is a sobering experience, as it produces negative figures for the trial as a whole, even at the prices advised by the tipster:

I am separately testing FRT’s multiple tips, about which I remain a lot more sceptical – and which, therefore, I am betting on at a measly £1 per point.

Overall, I have lost £22 on multiples betting:

The complete results log for the month #2 single bets is as follows:

You can download the complete results log for the trial to date by clicking here.

Summary

In my last progress report I described the opening period with FRT Gold as as “frustrating“.

I sensed that my timing had just been lousy and that performance would probably return to normal fairly soon.

This month however, I have to admit to feeling, if anything, even more worried.

Month #2 performance  was emphatically not the return to form I’d been hoping for.

Yes, we’ve made a little money, but it’s been mediocre stuff overall.

So here I am, three quarters of the way to my 200 bet finishing line, and still in the red.

I’m going to give FRT one more full calendar month: then return with my trial conclusion in October.

Here’s hoping that my patience is rewarded.

Meanwhile, you can read more about FRT Gold here.

Lucy

Update: 17th August 2016

I was very pleased to get my hands on FRT Gold.

It’s a tipster service with a difference: or rather, a number of differences.

Firstly, it issues tips to a huge audience. The free version of the service is apparently sent to over 100,000 people.

Secondly, it simply feels professional: it even comes with its own monthly magazine.

And thirdly, it goes out of its way to ensure you get your tips. You can pick them up on their website, or by text or email. I’m using all three.

Now, of course, I know what you’re thinking.

All of this is fair enough but… are we making any money yet?

Read on to find out how I got on in month one…

Unfortunately, I’ve lost money in my first month with Free Racing Tips.

Now I must stress that I have just taken my annual summer holiday, when I decided to take a complete fortnight’s break from betting.

So it follows that my results to date really only cover a couple of weeks with the service. However, they still give a sense of how it works.

Essentially, you receive a mix of single and multiple tips, with the latter largely based on the former.

I have decided to track singles and multiples separately, as explained below.

Singles Betting

The singles haven’t gone at all well to date.

I’m using three banks of £1,000 each and betting at £10 a point. All three banks are now significantly in arrears:

It’s pretty clear too from the tipster’s email to members on 16th August that matters didn’t improve much whilst I was having my two week break.

He wrote: “Not much more I can say that I haven’t already at the moment. Without doubt our worst run in the 3 years of FRT Gold”.

The complete results log for the singles starts well – then completely collapses:

Multiples Betting

The multiples are positioned as something of a luxury extra in the service, so I have decided to keep them separate from my main performance tracking.

To date, they have done much better than the singles, largely on account of one big winner right at the start.

I am tracking them with a simple £100 bank, and, as something of a sceptic, betting on them at just £1 per point.

The scepticism arises from the poor value you inevitably get by having to put on all bets within the multiple at the same bookmaker.

There are no advised prices and Betfair SP does not apply in the same way.

Results to date are as follows:

You can see the effect of the one big winner by reviewing the complete multiples results log:

Summary

It’s been a frustrating opening period with FRT Gold.

Still, a loss of 17% of my betting bank on the singles hardly represents a disaster. And indeed, if this is as bad as things have got over the course of the last three years – as the tipster’s email claims – then I’d like to think I’m still in for some good times in future.

Let’s hope so anyway.

One other point.

Although I applaud the use of more than one method to issue selections – web, SMS and email – there have been times when the three advices have been inconsistent.

Clearly, this shouldn’t happen, and it’s a bit disappointing that it has done so.

I have found that the emails tend to be the most comprehensive of the three so I am now using them as my ‘master’ version. I have fed back to FRT on this matter and trust that there will be no recurrence in future.

So, in summary, a few if’s and but’s in month #1: but I remain optimistic for the future.

I’ll be back in September with my next update.

In the meantime, you can find out more about FRT Gold here.

Lucy

Introduction: 18th July 2016

I seem to be running out of things to test (yeah, right!).  No, what I mean is: I’m running low on good stuff to test.

There are so few products that really make my heart sing.

You see, inevitably, as time goes by, I get a bit more picky.

I want to see decent tipping of course. But I’m after so much more.

Such as:

• Decent customer service.
• Multiple ways of getting your tips so a winner isn’t lost in your spam folder.
• A demonstrable track record to encourage users to hold the course during drawdowns.

Well, I think I may have found a product that ticks all those boxes, and quite possibly a few more besides.

Welcome then to my new trial of…. FRT Gold!

FRT Gold is the premium, paid-for product from Free Racing Tips.

Now it is quite different from many of the services I test.

Most tipster services turn out to be operated by a single individual.

Or occasionally, they’re hosted by one of the tipster platforms like the Tipster Warehouse: but still, the scale is quite modest.

FRT operates on a different level entirely. They claim to send tips to (wait for it) 120,000 email addresses.

They even publish a (very slick) magazine and offer complimentary entry to racing events over the course of the year.

Fortunately, FRT Gold selections are only sent to a very small subset of those 120,000 subscribers. So there should hopefully be some value left for me. 🙂

The service provides you with an instant mini-portfolio of tipsters with the following names:

• Little Earners
• Next Best
• One Point Singles
• Premium
• Lucky 15

Little Earners is available for free, with occasional complimentary selections also being provided from some of the others.

Tips are issued by a whole range of methods including social media, SMS and good old email. I’m using the last two.

The full range of FRT Gold services is summarised on their website as follows:

Summary

I really like the look and feel of this product. It really is different.

Of course, slick production values and great professionalism are no guarantee of quality. But they do rather suggest that these guys have been around for a while and probably know what they’re doing.

In any event, we will let the results do the talking as ever – so I kicked off the trial yesterday and made a small net profit.

I will aim at around 400 tips in all, which, I gather, should take me around four months.

I’ll be back in August with my first progress report.

Meanwhile, you can read more about FRT Gold here.

Lucy