I have come to the end of my three month trial of The Shortlist from Lucrative Racing.
It's a service which claims to be able to produce great results even with just an exchange account, so I was excited to get a trial underway.
For a horse to make it on to the daily shortlist there were three requirements:
- The horse had to be a strong contender in its race with the ability to win
- The available odds had to be higher than the actual chance of it winning the race
- The estimated Betfair SP also had to be higher than the chance of it winning
I have tracked just over 800 bets in three months at both the prices available and Betfair SP, which I feel should be more than enough to judge the performance of the service. Unfortunately both the banks I set up to test the service have taken a big hit and have both dropped by more than 60%.
In total I recorded a £672.62 loss at available prices and £636.61 at Betfair SP using £5.00 per point.
Each day there were around 10 selections posted to the member's area and they were to be backed as a 1 point win if the odds were under 5.00 and as 0.5 each way at over 5.00.
Below are some more detailed stats for month three and the whole trial.
The Shortlist – Update Three | Price taken | Betfair SP |
Profit (£) | (£ 215.01) | (£ 259.18) |
Profit (pts) | (43.0) | (51.8) |
New Bank | £ 327.38 | £ 363.39 |
% Bank Growth | -67.26% | -63.66% |
Winning Bets | 91 | 94 |
Total Bets | 307 | 307 |
Strike Rate | 29.64% | 30.62% |
ROI | -7.93% | -9.56% |
The Shortlist – Whole Trial | Price taken | Betfair SP |
Profit (£) | (£ 672.62) | (£ 636.61) |
Profit (pts) | (134.5) | (127.3) |
New Bank | £ 327.38 | £ 363.39 |
% Bank Growth | -67.26% | -63.66% |
Winning Bets | 241 | 240 |
Total Bets | 809 | 809 |
Strike Rate | 29.79% | 29.67% |
ROI | -9.62% | -9.10% |
Click here to view my full results log.
Summary
I have given The Shortlist a good run but it has failed to perform and I don't feel it is worth spending any more time on it. I will carry on with my goal to find services that can deliver a profit using just Betfair, so watch this space.
Click here to check out The Shortlist.
Update Two: 5th October 2018
It's been a profitable month for The Shortlist, although it has been very close with a mere £7.68 added to the pot.
After a disappointing start to my trial, I am still down by £457.61 to £5 stakes and it feels like it's going to be quite a task to claw it back. It's certainly possible though, as this is a high volume service with 502 bets recorded already.
The Shortlist – Update Two | Price taken | Betfair SP |
Profit (£) | £ 7.68 | (£ 49.20) |
Profit (pts) | 1.5 | (9.8) |
New Bank | £ 542.39 | £ 622.57 |
% Bank Growth | -45.76% | -37.74% |
Winning Bets | 79 | 78 |
Total Bets | 246 | 246 |
Strike Rate | 32.11% | 31.71% |
ROI | 0.36% | -2.33% |
Click here to view my full results log.
Summary
I'm going to carry this trial on for another month to see if there will be any sort of recovery, but I have to say that I am not brimming with confidence.
I'll be back next month with an update but in the meantime, click here to check out The Shortlist.
Update One: 5th September 2018
I'm not always keen on services that send out a large number of bets each day.
For one thing it takes more time to place bets and keep track of the results, but the other reason is that I can't feel as confident that the selections have been as thoroughly researched as when there are just a couple of bets a day.
In the case of The Shortlist, it hasn't worked out well as I have lost nearly half of my starting bank in one month after backing just over 250 horses.
I am £465.29 in the red, based on stakes of £5 per point.
The Shortlist – Update One | Price taken | Betfair SP |
Profit (£) | (£ 465.29) | (£ 328.23) |
Profit (pts) | (93.1) | (65.6) |
New Bank | £ 534.71 | £ 671.77 |
% Bank Growth | -46.53% | -32.82% |
Winning Bets | 71 | 68 |
Total Bets | 256 | 256 |
Strike Rate | 27.73% | 26.56% |
ROI | -21.44% | -15.13% |
Click here to view my full results log for month one.
Summary
I can't help but feel disappointed with how this trial has started as I am always trying to find services that are profitable using Betfair alone.
Things could get better in month two but after getting off on the wrong foot, it feels like it's going to be a battle to get on track again.
I’ll be back next month with more results, but in the meantime take a look at The Shortlist here.
Introduction: 1st August 2018
It's always good to hear from people that want me to review their betting services.
After all, it takes guts to put yourself under that sort of pressure to perform under a live trial.
So when Michael from Lucrative Racing recently contacted me about The Shortlist, his new horse racing tips service, I was more than happy to try it out.
The Shortlist is first and foremost a horse racing tipping service, providing approximately 10 qualifying bets per day at 10.00am.
What got me really interested is that bets can be placed either using bookmakers, betting exchanges or at Betfair SP.
The results for the first half of 2018 show a profit of 274.83 points profit at Betfair SP, a 15.43% return and a 132% bankroll growth. I think you'll agree that's pretty impressive!
As well as the daily tips, members also get access to several other resources:
- Current Trends - The shortlist broken down into 28 potential trends, allowing members to narrow down their bets further.
- Odds Compiler - Learn how to compile odds like the bookies and find your own value bets with a course of video tutorials and downloads.
- Systems Builder - A set of video guides teaching how to create winning betting systems and how to automate the process.
- Systems Portfolio - A collection of horse racing systems and reports.
The bets are advised to be backed as a straight win if the odds are under 5.0 or as an each-way bet at odds of 5.0 or above.
I have chosen to record results at Betfair and Betfair SP for my trial to keep things simple and I will be following the staking advice of betting 0.5% of the bank for win bets and 1% for each way bets.
To clarify, for me this will be a £1,000 starting bank with £5 win bets and £5 each way bets (total stake of £10).
The service is scheduled to be launched officially at the end of August, but Michael has kindly set up an early access offer for LB&GR readers with the first 7 days costing just £5.
After this, membership costs £45 per month, £95 per quarter, or £295 per year.
I'll be back next month with my first update but in the meantime, click here to start your own trial.
I signed up for another lucrative racing service approx a year ago called the Racing revolution. This included several different strategies which provided tips on a daily basis. There is no doubt that the guy can pick some decent priced winners but they were too few to make any profit. As one strategy performed well another nose dived. All in all there was a substantial loss over the year. To make amends Lucrative racing offered a free trial to the Shortlist service which had shown excellent results in the previous 8 months. unfortunately it has performed dismally ever since. As mentioned in another comment the Shortlist service has been heavily advertised recently. I have received several emails proclaiming the fantastic results of the previous days tips, but sadly this does’nt show the whole picture and does not change the fact that I am still showing a decent loss since following the service. I know a long term view should be taken and I hope for the subscribing members that The Shortlist produces long term results, but I have already given Lucrative racing a long term test and it did not live up to the hype so I’ll be staying clear from now on.
Sorry, I meant Betsender, not Fairbot.
It’s my age.
My main filter being liability.
I can load the selections on Fairbot, with a stop profit/loss.
I’m only looking to win 2.5% of bank per day.
The bank will double in a month with 2.5% compounding.
If it were only that simple.
Hi Johnny
I actually did the same (paper trading only though). Obviously, as the win bets failed so bad, just laying them would have delivered a significant profit, but I don’t like the liability of laying at high odds, especially not when there are so many selections. I found that laying the selections on the Place market would also return a decent profit, but I just feel that laying the selections of a back bet-service is problematic as you never know if they suddenly start to know what they are actually doing so it’s a pretty uncomfortable strategy to go for, I think… I haven’t been continuing the lay-testing for a while, so if it is still valid, I can’t say.
I guess the value (and, ultimately, the faith in the strategy) lies in the correct filters.
I’ve never found Lucrative Racing profitable, although I have to admit I am making a profit laying the selections, with my own filters.
Hi Amy
Yeah, I’m afraid I have been very disappointed with the results so far as well. I signed up a week or two before your trial started, I believe, and as the results were pretty bad from the start, I soon stopped backing the selections and just paper traded. I’m glad I did!
Interestingly enough, a number of services I follow have lately been sending out mails on how good this service is, and while I know there are a lot of affiliate deals made in this business, it’s still disappointing to see so many “serious” services claim that this particular betting service is delivering amazing results, when clearly it isn’t. Annoying!
I have in fact stopped paper trading The Shortlist a couple of weeks ago, as the results were so bad I didn’t bother waste my time (like you say, there are a lot of selections each day, so it takes a while to list them all), but I’ll keep an eye on your updates to see if it picks up. I’d be surprised if it did, to be honest.