The fallacy of Bet Alechmist
-
Seeing Matt endorse a tipster for Cheltenham and Aintree really surprised me – he put his reputation on the line with this one, and I unfortunately think it’s tarnished the blog. I hope Matt doesn’t make the same mistake again. The troubling part is obviously that Matt will have received money from referring people to use the tipster, and for all intents and purposes he’s “sold” the product to some people on this site. They have ended up paying for the privilege of losing money though, essentially. I’m fairly sure a lot of us hit winners more than Bet Alchemist does! And we’re not trying to win a lot of the time..
I fully appreciate what a great job Matt does, although I don’t feel too guilty calling him out on this because the Smarkets ‘endorsement’ or whatever it is, isn’t exactly spoken about. Matt must drum up a lot of business for them, so you’d think he’d see some money there. The Smarkets endorsement along with the money Matt makes from general bookmaker referrals means that Matt should quite rightly be called out on these things.
I’d love a response on this from Matt, because he’s generally quite open to criticism, but I do think in this case he has to admit that he makes money from referrals and perhaps his endorsement was a little naive, even if he’d convinced himself it was a sure-fire money maker.
+0April 16, 2017 at 10:12 am
-
-
New to matched betting?
My Matched Betting Academy is the best place to get started. Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.
Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.
Did I miss a thread somewhere? Have people lost money? How much, over how long?
I’m not interestsed in tipster services so I’ve no dog in this fight, but in the interest of balance it would be good to know the numbers if anyone’s been following Bet Alchemist.
+0
I understand the sentiment of your post @jameslegg97 but tipster services should always be viewed as a long term proposition. Like jimmy, I have not signed up and have no desire to so I have no idea whether this tipster has been on a losing streak since Matt advertised his services, not that it really matters as per long term view point above.
I guess you must have signed up @jameslegg97, to be in a position to say what you have said? If so what has your experience been?
Ultimately this is Matt’s site and it is a great, FREE resource to help people get into MB. I think that we, the forumites, have probably helped him out a little since he opened the forums (i.e. find a lot of the offers for him to turn into blog posts) but you have to concede that it is his site to run how he likes and he owes none of us anything. Nobody is forcing anyone to click those affiliate links or to subscribe to the services Matt posts about.
Edit – if you really want/expect a response from Matt on this then you should “report” your post so that it gets his attention.
+0Nope, I didn’t sign up and had no intention to.
I saw a few comments, particularly Peter’s: https://matchedbettingblog.com/miscellaneous/bet-alchemist-cash-in-on-festivals/#comments
And felt a bit irked. Sure, you can talk about long-term and such, but long-term is how long? Matched bettors do not stick around forever, for the most part.
Yes this site is ‘free’, but Matt is making money out of it. The money he makes is certainly not going on server costs, judging by the forum speed! Furthermore, I think we need credit too as users – I’ve posted a lot of offers and I get absolutely nothing back from it. Matt posts offers and he will make referral money etc. And I mean no disrespect to Matt with any of this – I just think people shouldn’t forget this is a money-maker for him, and people should feel free to criticise as such.
My understanding of Bet Alchemist’s results are that he was a number of ‘points’ down over the festivals. I.e. made a loss. Matt’s posted were clearly aimed at enticing people in for those festivals..
+0Close the door on your way out.
+0I signed up,I did the first race day at Cheltenham and bet all the daily selections,and I made 11 points thanks to two 12/1 winners.
I never bet on the next 2 days,but did tge selections on day 4(gold cup day)and lost about 3.4 points(which I wiped out with free bet profit etc).
So I quit while ahead basically,the rest of Cheltenham after day 1 was losing days,and I believe every day at Aintree lost too.
Me I covered the subs and some nice profit,I have cancelled though.
+0Cheers for the constructive response bbobb.
The Bet Alchemist site itself looks like a terrible ebook/scheme/whatever sales website. Surprising anyone goes for it.
+0
I agree. I thought it was a mistake taking that direction and against what the blog stands for. Matched betting is not about gambling.
The way I see tipping services is that there are 100’s of them. It’s like predicting the toss of a coin. Toss it once and 50 out of 100 tippers will be right, twice and 25 tippers right, three times and 12 tippers will be right…. five times and 3 tippers will be right.
But look at it the other way round and you have 3 tippers that have predicted 5 tosses in a row – that’s a 500% return on investment. And framing it like that it creates the myth that those 3 tipsters were good.
So it doesn’t impress that some tipster made profit 5 years in a row. It’s just bound to happen with so many of them out there.
I think I can come round to thinking that some ppl are restricted at the bookie so can’t get their good bets on. So they tip. But that doesn’t make full sense as they can still bet on the exchange. Besides once they are not betting their own money they lose their focus. They are making money on subscription fees, so collecting them and new sign ups is more important than the accuracy of the tips.
Also, when they dress up the tips going on about form and distance just bores me and it doesn’t really explain why a horse is value at 10/1 but not at 9/1. I mean it doesn’t fully explain why the tipster thinks the horse will win more than 10% of the time or explain why the tipster would believe that the bookie would mis price the horse.
This guy bet alchemist I can believe will make you a long term profit, because I do believe the value in certain ew bets. So I haven’t written him off completely.
Also is it true that he made a loss in 2015 but Matt’s review only lists results starting Dec 2015. I find that a little deceptive.
+0Get regular offer updates, tip and tricks, big offer alerts and more straight to your inbox.
Yeah that’s true FOG
2015 was a losing year for Bet Alchemist,you would have ended the year with a £60.47 loss to £10 stakes.
+0
Its choice whether you sign up to these kind of things but the key point to remember about ALL “tipsters” is that they have no real knowledge of horse racing and are merely guessing at prices that will come in and horses that win/place.
All tipsters are bookmaker affiliates, signed up via a scheme to get referrals for new customers? Why? Because they get paid commission on losing bets. Bet365 for example pay 30% to affiliates for every customer that they have signed up via their referral links on all losing bets. Thats why a tipster such as Bet Alchemist will ensure that you’ll eventually lose because he gets a way bigger payday on that than he would on anything he happens to get lucky on.
I had a way better Cheltenham and a WAY better Aintree than he did but then again, hes losing deliberately.
+0You’ve phrased it much better than me there lads. That’s exactly the feeling I’ve got – that Matt’s blog is not the place to advertise such services. It is gambling, pure and simple. Yes, there can be value, but as John/Mark Corrigan point out time and time again, you need a massive sample to prove you’ve hit on something. And variance is always going to come into play. Bet Alchemist’s stats are not particularly impressive, when you see what he’s charging especially.
I think one of the comments on the original post even said about Bet Alchemist tipping the winner of the Grand National.. but he tipped it on the free tips part of the site, and the paid up members placed his tips according to the paid tips, which both didn’t place (as far as I read..). And yet Bet Alchemist was of course quick to shout out about much success.
As soon as you start chopping up stats and framing things in a certain way, you’re clearly trying to sell something and entice people. Which certainly isn’t what I see the blog as being about.
I think the stuff Matt posts on here is usually great, and he seems to be fairly transparent and open (even saying to use Betfair instead of Smarkets in some cases), but I just think this was either misjudged or a bit of a cheap way for him to earn some extra money (and fair play if so, but we still should call him out on it if so..).
+0
He’s the FACT and not the THICKTION, I am the only tipster I need. Here is my yearly log based on a points system I put together
2013 – 45 points profit
2014 – 18 points profit
2015 – 67 points profit
2016 – 69 points profitApart from an average 2014 i have been getting better and 2017 is going well too. I don’t sell my tips as it would afect the price i get so I simply profit from them big style. Eye Ee the point isn’t a pound and it isn’t a million, but its big bugs still. When I’m making that off my tips why would I want a tenner a month from a set of mugs
+0
I know a tipster that has made people thousands ?
+0Wow Matchedam,very good,lol
+0It may sound cold,but I don’t give about what the you have done “big dog”, I’m only interested in my own profits,I could not give a c–p about what u did tbh dawg,no interest to me
+0I was surprised he blogged this, but he did differentiate it from matched betting and say it might not be for everyone.
I think Chris has generalised ‘all tipsters’, but I’m sceptical of anyone who claims to have a positive return but wishes to sell it rather than use it. As noted above even if you can’t get on at the bookies you can exchanges.
‘Tipsters’ (including our twitter duo here from the 1 tip I saw on the forum) often rely on an outlying evening price to say they took took, which unless they give significant returns after means they have no more edge than Fogs system.
Not sure how much Matt owes us mind even though a lot contribute. He set the forum up and most if not all benefit one way or another, just quite a few try and return it
And no surprises matchedem tried to fit in with the lingo to claim he’s making money+0
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
