If you have ever wondered who checks the tipsters, the answer is mostly nobody. Smart Betting Club is the exception, and they have been at it since 2006.

The thing that makes them worth your attention is the method rather than the ratings. They will not review a tipster until they have tracked them for a year. They want several seasons of results, not a few good months. They split a racing tipster’s record into Flat, jumps and all-weather, because being good at one does not make you good at the others. And they check whether the prices the tipster quoted were actually available at the time.

That last one is the whole ball game. Any tipster can look brilliant if they record the best price that flashed up for eleven seconds on a Tuesday morning. Whether you could back that price is a  different question, and it separates a real record from a nice looking spreadsheet.

They also refuse affiliate money. No commission, no advertising, no paid placements. That matters, because almost every “best tipster” list you will ever read is ranked by who pays the most.

Now the honest bit. You are paying around £168 a year to be told which other people to pay. If you then subscribe to two of their recommendations at £40 a month each, you are £1,128 down before a single bet lands. For a punter having a tenner on a Saturday, that is daft. For somebody genuinely planning to follow tipsters seriously with real money, £168 to avoid one bad £500 subscription is cheap insurance.

Be honest about which of those you are.

Member? Has it actually saved you money? Leave a review below. For me Smart Betting Club are one of the few good guys left in an industry fuelled by greed. No adverts, no affiliate links, no commission from the tipsters they rate. You can see that for yourself on their site, and you cannot say it about many.

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