Should I follow a tipster if I miss a percentage of their betting tips?

sdcs

This is a very common question within the followers of a tipster and the response needs more meditation or analysis than what someone can presuppose.

Moreover, unfortunately, this is a situation that affects most of us. We often miss picks because of our social/work life or for some other factors.

When you arrive to betting bussiness with a certain statistical knowledge, the first thought about this question is that if I miss RANDOM picks, in long term, the yield will be the same as if I had bet all. Not so the benefit in euros, which will be lower because I will have placed low number of bets and, therefore, bet / risk less money. So, in terms of profitability/ yield, we should not worry about missing picks. The statistics guarantee that if the picks that we miss are chosen randomly, they will be equally losers as winners in the long run and, therefore, will be compensated. It may be one month your yield is below the official results but that has the same probability that if what happens is the opposite, and is higher than the official results. In the long run, the yield will converge to the official yield, assuming that we respect stakes and back bets with advised odds.

There are many superstitious players who begin to doubt when they can't place two picks that finally are won by chance : "I miss the winners, I'm a hoodoo", "I did not place it because I was having dinner, it's going to be a sure winner". Are these types of affirmations true and well founded? Or is it just a superstition?

What you have to ask yourself, and where the key is: Are the picks I'm missing randomly selected? Do the picks I'm missing really have the same chance of being losers or winners?

The answer is: it depends on why you are losing them.

If you miss them because you are in a call, in a meeting, or at a meal, the fact that you are on the phone or not is apparently independent of whether a pick can be a winner or a loser. Therefore, you will miss winners and losers in same proportion.

In the other hand, if it turns out that you only place the picks of a sport for whatever reason, it may be that the picks you're missing from the other sport are really the good ones because that tipster is really good at that other sport. You should check that the tipster has a good enough sample in the sport you are following to trust that everything will go well.

Another example: Everyone knows that, in prematch, it is usually easier to make profit that in live, because when the games begin, the odds are somehow adjusted for the money that has been placed before the game. If, for example, the reason you miss picks is because you only place live picks and ignore prematch for whatever reason, something similar to the previous  example may happen to you. The tipster could really be good only in prematch and, although its global numbers are good, it turns out that in live he doesn't make as many profit than in prematch. In this case missing picks could be a problem.

Another case similar to the last is the bettor who follows a tipster and only places the picks available in Asian bookies. Everyone knows that winning in the big leagues in Asia is more difficult than winning bookies like Bet365. Therefore, if you miss the Bet365 picks and only place the Asian ones, you could be missing more good picks than bad picks.

In short, a bettor should think if the reason why he loses picks is really independent to some intrinsic factor to the business. If not, it could be that those picks that are missed are not as many good ones as bad.

In case of not being sure that they are independent, what we advise is to analyze the past results of the tipster eliminating those picks that you couldn't bet for whatever reason. If still eliminating them, a winning sample continues to come out and with a number of picks high enough, go ahead, bet, your yield will be similar if tipster has the same skills in the future. Remember that in the case of an InBetsment tipster you can export the picks to excel and, if you know something minimal about excel, it is easy to do this analysis.

To compensate that the benefit in euros will be less, an alternative is to increase stakes so that the volume wagered is the same as what you would have if you placed all the picks. For example, if you lose 25% of the picks, increase your stakes (if you can) by 25% and the profit and yield will be the same as if you did not miss picks.