It has been down hill all the way in my Wizard of Big Odds review with not a winning month throughout.
I lost another £448 in the third month of my trial to £10 stakes and 76.5% of bank has been lost.
Out of 202 bets, only 18 won or placed, which was a strike rate of just 8.9%.
Below are my stats for the final month and the whole trial.
| The Wizard of Big Odds – Update Three | Advised Prices | Price taken | Betfair SP |
| Profit (£) | (£ 434.00) | (£ 448.00) | (£ 440.65) |
| Profit (pts) | (43.4) | (44.8) | (44.1) |
| New Bank | £ 331.00 | £ 352.00 | £ 420.65 |
| % Bank Growth | -77.93% | -76.53% | -71.96% |
| Winning Bets | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Total Bets | 63 | 63 | 63 |
| Strike Rate | 7.94% | 7.94% | 7.94% |
| ROI | -70.00% | -72.26% | -71.07% |
| The Wizard of Big Odds – Whole Trial | Advised Prices | Price taken | Betfair SP |
| Profit (£) | (£ 1,169.00) | (£ 1,148.00) | (£ 1,079.35) |
| Profit (pts) | (116.9) | (114.8) | (107.9) |
| New Bank | £ 331.00 | £ 352.00 | £ 420.65 |
| % Bank Growth | -77.93% | -76.53% | -71.96% |
| Winning Bets | 18 | 18 | 18 |
| Total Bets | 202 | 202 | 202 |
| Strike Rate | 8.91% | 8.91% | 8.91% |
| ROI | -56.47% | -55.46% | -52.14% |
Click here to view my results log.
Summary
With the tipster losing money in all three months of my trial, it's a clear cut decision to fail this service.
Although the service bets at big odds and things could rapidly change with a few winning bets, I personally would not feel comfortable carrying on with less than a quarter of my starting bank left to bet with.
Update Two: 14th August 2020
It has been another rotten month for The Wizard of Big Odds and I have now lost almost half of my bank.
The service lost a staggering £401 this month. Added to the £299 lost last month, that makes it £700 lost altogether.
Out of the 58 tips, there were just 3 winners and 1 place.
| The Wizard of Big Odds – Update Two | Advised Prices | Price taken | Betfair SP |
| Profit (£) | (£ 406.00) | (£ 401.00) | (£ 418.30) |
| Profit (pts) | (40.6) | (40.1) | (41.8) |
| New Bank | £ 765.00 | £ 800.00 | £ 861.30 |
| % Bank Growth | -49.00% | -46.67% | -42.58% |
| Winning Bets | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Total Bets | 58 | 58 | 58 |
| Strike Rate | 6.90% | 6.90% | 6.90% |
| ROI | -65.48% | -64.68% | -67.47% |
Click here to view my results log.
Summary
I am certainly not holding out much hope for this service now, but I will continue my trial for another month to see if they can turn things around.
Update One: 13th July 2020
The Wizard of Big Odds has had a shocker of a month and I have already lost £299.00 to £10 stakes in my trial.
That's almost 20% of my bank gone in one month, which I have to say, leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable with the service.
I'm aware that there will be more volatility as many of the tips are priced at double figure odds. They key is to try to keep a level head and ride it out.
| The Wizard of Big Odds – Update One | Advised Prices | Price taken | Betfair SP |
| Profit (£) | (£ 329.00) | (£ 299.00) | (£ 220.40) |
| Profit (pts) | (32.9) | (29.9) | (22.0) |
| New Bank | £ 1,171.00 | £ 1,201.00 | £ 1,279.60 |
| % Bank Growth | -21.93% | -19.93% | -14.69% |
| Winning Bets | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Total Bets | 81 | 81 | 81 |
| Strike Rate | 11.11% | 11.11% | 11.11% |
| ROI | -39.64% | -36.02% | -26.55% |
Click here to view my results log.
Summary
Not the best of starts, but hopefully month two will bring some more positive results.
I will be back with an update in August.
Introduction: 13th June 2020
Tipster's Empire say that bringing The Wizard of Big Odds on board was "quite possibly the easiest decision" that they have ever made.
Since he began tipping on the platform, he claims to have accumulated a profit of £4,205 to £10 stakes.
Statistics to date:
- £4,205 profit to £10 stakes
- £180 monthly profit
- 30.5% ROI
- 14% strike rate
The Wizard is said to never shy away from a big price, rarely betting on short priced horses. He believes there is far more value to be found at the other end of the scale.
Although he considers himself a talented form student, he feels that watching races and having good instinct is even more critical.
He put his instincts and knowledge to good use when he bought his first racehorse, C'est No Mour, for the bargain price of 13,000 guineas. The horse went on to win over £31,000 in prize money at Ascot!
Due to being so successful in his betting career, he was one of the original Betfair 500 who were hit with the premium charge. Not only that, he was restricted at both online and high street bookmakers. Finding it difficult to place bets these days, he decided to launch his own tipping service.
Given that the service mostly advises bets at higher odds and has a fairly low strike rate, I imagine it won't suit everyone, but personally I am feeling really good about this one!
He has shown an excellent track record over the past two years with Tipster's Empire, so I'm hoping for a similar performance during my trial.
I will be back in a month's time with my first report.
Apologies for resurrecting this review but thought people might be interested to learn that TE and the Wizard have now parted company. Hardly surprising after a massive 187 point loss over the last 14 months. Yet it doesn’t seem that long ago that TE were bigging him up as the greatest tipster that ever drew breath.
No worries Paul, thank you for letting me know. I have marked it as “No longer available”.
As Brian says: “A service that is bigged up when the winning runs appear, but over time simply fails to deliver”. They sent out an email on Saturday afternoon boasting of “over 30 points profit today”. No mention of the fact that anyone joining on June 1st when racing recommenced would still be a massive 104 points down (18.9 points per month on average).
They even exaggerated the profit on the day by conveniently ignoring the one that lost meaning that the true profit was actually 28.8 points and not the 30+ as claimed.
The problem with Tipsters Empire and many tipping service is that it is all smoke and mirrors. With TE the main issue is over marketing and spurious claims. They seem to have a revolving door of tipsters who were the best and most professional in the industry – what happened to The Architect, Jakblak, The Snout, DG Tips, IAM Football to name a few – all as professional and honest as they come according to TE.
If Tipsters Empire are that professional and transparent then include the results to BSP on your website. They have done this in the past but had a change of mind. I wonder why, could it be that those individuals who couldn’t get on at the “advised prices” or didn’t have access to BOG ended up losing money?
If TE publish their results to BSP for all tipsters then they can truly claim full transparency in my opinion and good luck to them. Of course they won’t do that as their tipsters are no better than the average punter.
I am not sure what Clive’s point is as a semi pro gambler as one must question, why are you following tipsters if you are that good? You have followed JPW for ten years? Really, how long has James Walsh been in business? According to his website since 2008, companies house had a different view, and by admission on his own website he has only been keeping records since September 2015. Enough said i think.
Hi Richard, I’ll answer a few of your comments the best I can and add a bit. Firstly, a brief outline of what I do myself starting with what defines a pro punter / semi pro punter. I define a pro punter as someone who makes his sole living from betting and has no other income. I say I am a semi-pro punter as I receive a pension, so gambling is not my sole income. I am betting in the region of around £10 grand a month, made up of between 200-250 bets per month, so rarely 3 figure stakes. The intention is to make £1 grand a month. It may very well be you see things differently as I go racing with a pro punter who will only have 12-20 bets per year and has done very well for over 30 years. However, whilst I may not hit £1 grand a month regularly and even have the occasional losing month it is a long time since I had a losing year and am always in excess of £6 grand per year in profit. I also wish I was that good to do my sole thing and probably could. However, I enjoy what I do and as long as it keeps making me money I’m happy, otherwise I wouldn’t bet.
I use a variety of sources for my information primarily but not in any order Racing Post, Sporting Life, Geegeez, Horse Race Base, Timeform, Betfair and Raceform amongst other publications for general information and form reading to determine my selections.
I also subscribe to 5 tipsters mainly for a different perspective that I may have overlooked, plus it gives me a break and fortunately my portfolio of tipsters are mainly doing well.
Tipsters Empire operate in a similar way to tipsters under the banner of other operations such Betting School, Punthub, Smart Betting Club to name a few operations who have their own portfolio of tipsters who come and go. I’m not going to get into a debate about JPW but I can assure you I have been involved with him for over 10 years and Tipsters Empire somewhat less.
I suspect you must have had a poor experience with Tipsters Empire as you appear somewhat cynical,, a shame if you have, but I find them as professional as any, however I ignore the waffle and as Amy points out the Wizard is on a disastrous run and will undoubtedly take a break, enforced or otherwise, in due course. You also seem very familiar with an operation that you claim to be all ‘smoke and mirrors’ which is a little surprising. But you have to take any tipsters as you find them warts and all. There were reasons why some of their tipsters left but just taking one, DG set up by himself, initially very successfully but is currently going through a poor spell so I believe. As for the way they record their results that is up to them and us as punters to interpret. Though I agree with you entirely that results should always be recorded at BSP as that is indisputable even if it does show less of a return. Occasionally I will better their advised odds and sometimes get less but rarely are there big differences, the power of Betfair is amazing when used properly and I am still learning.
I am very happy with the way they operate otherwise I would not stay with them. If you can recommend any tipster’s I would be more than happy to take a look as you can never stop learning. I enjoy seeing other people’s perspective.
I’ll precis my thoughts from a much longer article I have written giving my thoughts as a semi-pro punter who manages to top-up his pension by betting. It is based on what I expect from a tipster or those who report on tipsters.
Tipsters need only give their recommended advised prices and points staked, and depending on the service, reasons for the selection.
Tipsters spreadsheets need only contain race details i.e. date, day, time and course, horse, recommended advised price and points staked. Returns need only show points won or lost at both recommended advised price and BSP and cumulative running profit or loss.
Unlike personnel accounts there is no need to mention any monetary values as they are immaterial. They are only used for unnecessary emphisis. It’s points that count.
Tipsters will always sing their own praises when winning and downplay any losses. It’s human nature. If, as a punter you have done your homework you will ignore it. Read their spreadsheets, which should be updated daily and provide all the information you need.
I know of one tipster who gives his recommended selection and his suggested price. If winning his spreadsheet will only show the best of his suggested price, SP, BSP or BOG price, whichever is the highest.
You get a good insight into the professionalism of the tipster on the style and presentation of their website. Rarely does it contain any useful information other than their fees, spreadsheet and based on number of bets whether this is a service for you.
As this article is based on the Wizard I offer my view on TE operation. I have used TE and their mother operation JPW, as part of my portfolio for about 10 years. I have seen many of their tipsters come and go with varying degrees of success. I find their operation based on the above criteria to be highly professional, upfront and honest. About the best you can get. However, just remember as with the Wizard currently, tipsters have losing spells as well as winning spells. The Wizards style of tipping is prone to long losing runs as shown this year.
The punter has to decide whether to follow a tipster blindly and whether to place a bet or not or when to paper trade.
Based on the above if you criticise a tipster you follow you are really criticising yourself for choosing him in the first place. Tipsters win and lose.
I follow a tipster for a full year but will review whether I bet or not every 3 months.
It works for me else I would not do it.
The Wizard of Big Odds is quite possibly the most overrated, over-hyped service on the market. I fell for the guff and joined at launch on 19 October 2018 and bailed after nine days, having lost 22 points by that stage. I’ll freely admit that I didn’t give the service long enough but the way things were going my entire 150 point bank would have been bankrupt before Christmas and I wasn’t prepared to take that risk.
Since racing recommenced on 1st June the service has lost a massive 116 points. Factor in subs of £160 and it makes you wonder how long it will be before it falls by the wayside like so many other over-hyped TE services.
Hi Paul, the Wizard has been a disaster since the beginning of the year and any profits made from him previously are rapidly being eroded. I do not subscribe to him myself as he failed my trial and he’s not my style of betting, but a colleague of mine plays at £50 a point. He is still in profit overall but stopped betting with him a few months ago having reduced his stakes prior to stopping.
I do play CD and since 1/6 he is claiming +138 points profit. (I can assure you this figure is correct) both my colleague and myself play him at £50 a point. To make 138 points in 3.5 months is exceptional. I hope to see my tipsters make between 60-120 per year and consider that a good return. He is on an exceptional run and long may it continue (he had a +800/1 treble from 3 selections that ran on Saturday if thats your thing) but I am realistic enough to know it will change at some stage. Take a look at TE on Trustpilot. Some interesting reading especially if you go back far enough. I am loath to be to critical whether winning or losing just remember tipsters win and lose and sites like Amy’s help us find those that win.
I have subscribed to a few of the tipsters from the Tipsters Empire stable over the past couple of years including the WOBO and have found that the results do not correlate to the rather self congratulatory marketing.
If the service is that transparent then the figures recored on their spreadsheets should also include the profit to £10 stakes without BOG (as i am sure some individuals have account restrictions) and also to BSP.
In addition, the profit should be recalculated on a monthly basis to include fees, i.e NET profit. This is ignoring the issue as to whether you are able to get on at the advised prices.
I believe that TE did a one stage record the WOBO profit to BSP but have since omitted this from their spreadsheets (i wonder why!)
Any trial of 1-3 month trial may not paint a full picture but this is RESULTS business and results should be viewed over a MAXIMUM of 12 months in my opinion.
If you recalculate the figures to exclude BOG and and account for fees over a rolling 12 month period then the picture would be very different to the endless marketing spiel!
Hey Richard,
I agree with you on this and that is why I never include BOG in my results and I also record BSP results as a comparison to bookmaker prices.
The problem with including monthly fees in with the profit/loss is people may be using different stakes and also some tipsters advise compounding methods.
I generally go for £10 per point in my trials for simplicity. If someone wanted to then work out profit/loss for say, £50 stakes, if I included subscription fees they would have to first add them back on (and they may have changed since the review) before calculating it. I feel it just makes it a bit more confusing that way.
A service that is bigged up when the winning runs appear, but over time simply fails to deliver. Good write-ups, sensible person(s) but hugely inconsistent.
I tried the 28 day trial back in June (2020) and I similarly had bad results. I bailed after 10 days because my betting bank was being hammered by the losses.