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A tipster is someone who regularly provides information (tips) on the likely outcomes of sporting events on internet sites or special betting places.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2014) |
A tipster is someone who regularly provides information (tips) on the likely outcomes of sporting events on internet sites or special betting places.
In the past tips were bartered for and traded but nowadays, thanks largely to the Internet and premium rate telephone lines, they are usually exchanged for money, and many tipsters operate websites. Some of them are free and some require subscription.
In the past tipping was mostly associated with horse racing but can apply to any sport that has odds offered on it. The relaxed cultural attitude towards gambling in the UK [1] is increasingly resulting in a gambling element being promoted alongside sport coverage in the media.
A tip in gambling is a bet suggested by a third party who is perceived to be more knowledgeable about that subject than the bookmaker who sets the initial odds. (A bookmaker will vary his odds according to the amount of money wagered, but has to start with a blank book and himself set an initial price to encourage betting.) Thus a tip is not even regarded by the tipster as a certainty but that the bookmaker has set a price too low (or too high) from what the true risk is: it is a form of financial derivative, since the tipster himself risks none of his own money but sells his expert knowledge to others to try to "beat the bookie".
The tipster must overcome the profit margin integrated into sports betting odds by bookmakers trading teams and then also obtain an additional edge to deliver profit over the long term.
Tipsters are sometimes insiders of a particular sport able to provide bettors with information not publicly available. There are other tipsters who provide equally respectable results through analysis of commonly accessible information.
Some tipsters use statistical based estimations about the outcome of a game, and compare this estimation with the bookmaker's odds. If there is a gap between the estimate odds and the bookmakers odds, the tipster is said to identify "value", and a person who bets on such odds when they perceive not a certainty but a "gap in the book" is said to be a "value bettor". When value is found, the tipster is recommending the bettor to place a bet.
A tip that is considered to be a racing certainty, that is, almost completely certain to be true, is also called a nap and tipsters in newspapers will tend to indicate the "nap".
Most National newspapers in the UK employ a tipster or columnist who provides horse racing tips. Rather than pick a tip for each race that occurs on a given day the normal protocol is to provide a Nap and nb selection.
Nap (derived from the card game Napoleon [2] ) indicates this is the tipster's most confident selection of the day.
nb = "Next best" and indicates another selection that the tipster rates highly.
Both types of selections would be counted in calculating the tipsters running profit/loss figure which states how far in profit or loss an individual would be if they had backed every tip with a level stake (£1).
The popular Channel 4 television program The Morning Line , when it was on air up to 2016, previewed weekend horse racing on a Saturday morning culminating in the panel of experts and guests providing their selections for the day. 2017 saw ITV takeover UK horse racing coverage and they have a similar show to what Channel 4 had called "The Opening Show". It airs usually at 9.30am on Saturdays on ITV4 & is presented by Oli Bell. Sky Sports News runs a similar preview segment including expert analysis of the teams and betting odds relating to Premier League football fixtures on a Saturday.
The United Kingdom, morning national Radio 4 Today Program usually includes a couple of racing tips in its short sports section (Garry Richardson is the usual presenter, although others fill in when he is away) but these are not taken too seriously (in fact the tips are supplied by a well-known newspaper tipster): but the program tracks Richardson's performance as a tipster for amusement value: he is usually quite well "down" but just very occasionally is "up" after a correct tip at a long price.
Premium tipping services charge a fee for accessing a tip or tips by telephone, internet or post. The more reputable companies will keep an accurate record of their tipping activities enabling a prospective client to assess their past form and so anticipate potential future performance. There is a lot of scope for less reputable operations to massage these figures or even to fabricate figures in order to attract new customers. In 2008, the Office of Fair Trading state the figure lost to tipster scams each year is between £1 million and £4 million in the UK alone. [3]
Derren Brown's Channel 4 program The System exposed one method by which tipping services operate. By giving out different tips to different people (unknown to each other) in a horse race, one person must win (essentially, a sweepstake). The bettor who won might then assume that they received real insight into the race outcome from the tipster and may then pay for subsequent tips.
Australia has led the way in the emergence of tipping competitions where the object is to win prizes for registering virtual bets. The focus of the majority of these competitions has been Australian rules football but the commonly referred to term for the activity of footy tipping now also covers soccer, Rugby League and Rugby Union. In the UK there are a growing number of such competitions but most relate to the horse racing industry.
In theory, tipping for prizes in a free competition provides a viable alternative to gambling for real. However, many will take the opposite view that it makes gambling more accessible to a wider audience by creating what is perceived to be a safe route in. There is also a lot of scope for gamblers looking to identify good tips using such competitions as an information resource given some competitions publish current tips entered and historical records for the tipsters involved.
Internet forums are increasingly being used as a means to share ideas and information within web communities and many such forums exist in the gambling arena as a means of discussing views on events or simply offering advice and tips. While many in the gambling community view this as a way in which they can earn respect from their peers in an otherwise isolated profession, tipping services also use these areas to attract users to their premium schemes.
While the term gambling is often considered to be confined to sports betting or at least the services offered by a bookmaker, the classification can also be applied to investing in stocks where the gamble relates to a share or commodity price moving in a certain direction. Stock tips, as publicised in the financial sections of the media, are largely directed at the casual investor but their interrelation and interest to the business sector has proven to be controversial. [4]
The increase in spread betting as a financial derivative also blurs the distinction between financial investment and gambling: since in the United Kingdom a win on a bet pays no tax, but another form of investment might require payment of Capital Gains Tax, there may be a financial advantage to "betting".
Many newspapers and other betting journals such as the Racing Post track the leading newspapers' tipsters and see how well their predictions match the actual outcome, by assuming a nominal £1 bet on every tip that the tipster makes, and calculating the theoretical return. Thus, tipsters themselves can be "tipped" as being a good or bad tipster.
Therefore, it is actually possible in theory to bet on whether a tipster's prediction will be correct (rather than bet on the prediction itself).
Tipster is also a term used in the United Kingdom for a person who gives information regarding potential news stories, particularly those involving celebrities, to journalists, often in exchange for cash; or more generally an informant.
Gambling is the wagering of something of value on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration, risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.
Parimutuel betting or pool betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vigorish" are deducted, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets. In some countries it is known as the tote after the totalisator, which calculates and displays bets already made.
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds betting or parimutuel betting.
Fixed-odds betting is a form of gambling where individuals place bets on the outcome of an event, such as sports matches or horse races, at predetermined odds. In fixed-odds betting, the odds are fixed and determined at the time of placing the bet. These odds reflect the likelihood of a particular outcome occurring. If the bettor's prediction is correct, they receive a payout based on the fixed odds. This means that the potential winnings are known at the time of placing the bet, regardless of any changes in the odds leading up to the event.
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
In probability theory, odds provide a measure of the likelihood of a particular outcome. When specific events are equally likely, odds are calculated as the ratio of the number of events that produce that outcome to the number that do not. Odds are commonly used in gambling and statistics.
A betting exchange is a marketplace for customers to bet on the outcome of discrete events. Betting exchanges offer the same opportunities to bet as a bookmaker with a few differences. Gamblers can buy and sell the outcome, and they can trade in real-time throughout the event, either to cut their losses or lock in profit. Bookmaker operators generate revenue by offering less efficient odds. Betting exchanges normally generate revenue by charging a small commission on winning bets.
Vigorish is the fee charged by a bookmaker for accepting a gambler's wager. In American English, it can also refer to the interest owed a loanshark in consideration for credit. The term came to English usage via Yiddish slang which was itself a loanword from Russian.
A betting strategy is a structured approach to gambling, in the attempt to produce a profit. To be successful, the system must change the house edge into a player advantage — which is impossible for pure games of probability with fixed odds, akin to a perpetual motion machine. Betting systems are often predicated on statistical analysis.
Sport Select is a group of sports betting games offered by Canada's lottery corporations. In Quebec, the program is known as Pari sportif; in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, it is known as Pro-Line while in British Columbia, it is known as Sports Action. However, the rules for the games are similar in all provinces. Initially created to offer betting primarily on the North American major professional sports leagues, Sport Select has expanded to offer betting on competitions such as the English Premier League and college sports.
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.
Handicapping, in sport and games, is the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation or other advantage given to different contestants to equalize the chances of winning. The word also applies to the various methods by which the advantage is calculated. In principle, a more experienced participant is disadvantaged, or a less experienced or capable participant is advantaged, in order to make it possible for the less experienced participant to win whilst maintaining fairness. Handicapping is used in scoring many games and competitive sports, including go, shogi, chess, croquet, golf, bowling, polo, basketball, and track and field events. Handicap races are common in clubs which encourage all levels of participants, such as swimming or in cycling clubs and sailing clubs, or which allow participants with a variety of standards of equipment. Often races, contests or tournaments where this practice is competitively employed are known as Handicaps.
In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, a betting shop is a shop away from a racecourse ("off-course") where one can legally place bets in person with a licensed bookmaker. Most shops are part of chains, including William Hill, Ladbrokes, or Coral. In Australia and New Zealand, they are operated by totalisator agencies. In the United States post PASPA, brands like DraftKings, FanDuel and William Hill have a presence. Betting shops include America's Betshop and Betfred.
The Australian and New Zealand punting glossary explains some of the terms, jargon and slang which are commonly used and heard on Australian and New Zealand racecourses, in TABs, on radio, and in the horse racing media. Some terms are peculiar to Australia, such as references to bookmakers, but most are used in both countries.
Betting arbitrage is an example of arbitrage arising on betting markets due to either bookmakers' differing opinions on event outcomes or errors. When conditions allow, by placing one bet per each outcome with different betting companies, the bettor can make a profit regardless of the outcome. Mathematically, arbitrage occurs when there are a set of odds, which represent all mutually exclusive outcomes that cover all state space possibilities of an event, whose implied probabilities add up to less than 1.
In gambling, Dutching is sharing the risk of losing across a number of runners by backing more than one selection in a race or event. One needs to calculate the correct stake to place on each selection so that the return is the same if any of them wins. Although not foolproof, because handicapping is still involved, there have been successful bettors throughout history who have applied this system. This is not to be confused with what constitutes a Dutch book which is when a bookmaker goes overbroke.
The Tote is a British gambling company founded in 1928. It is one of the world’s largest pool betting operators. Its product offering also includes sports betting and online casino. Business operations are led from its headquarters in Wigan.
In gambling parlance, making a book is the practice of laying bets on the various possible outcomes of a single event. The phrase originates from the practice of recording such wagers in a hard-bound ledger and gives the English language the term bookmaker for the person laying the bets and thus 'making the book'.
Zeljko Ranogajec is a businessman and professional gambler from Australia. The London-based Ranogajec is known for horse betting, blackjack and other forms of advantage gambling.
Betting on horse racing or horse betting commonly occurs at many horse races. Modern horse betting started in Great Britain in the early 1600s during the reign of King James I. Gamblers can stake money on the final placement of the horses taking part in a race. Gambling on horses is, however, prohibited at some racetracks. For example, because of a law passed in 1951, betting is illegal in Springdale Race Course, home of the nationally renowned Toronto-Dominion Bank Carolina Cup and Colonial Cup Steeplechase in Camden, South Carolina.