Trackside Steve is a newly launched horse racing tipster service which is being operated by the Betfan group. Selections come courtesy of the eponymous Steven and have produced a very respectable profit over the last 12 months.
Introduction to Trackside Steve
Betfan were very keen to promote Trackside Steve and based off their emails, it was easy to see why. Their newest tipster has been proofing with them for 12 months and over that time has shown some consistent bank growth. I wanted to see something different to the approach here. Something that could really get me excited.
After all, a whole year of proofing suggests that a patient and measured approach is in place. I hate to harp on about marketing in these segments but Betfan are notorious for taking a good string of results and blowing it up. 100 points over 3 months quickly becomes £50,000, so when I saw £3,500 per month used in the headlines I was a little dubious. But having had a cursory glance, Trackside Steve could well be the service to deliver.
What Does Trackside Steve Offer?
With that rather lengthy introduction out of the way, I am rather keen to get down to business. First things first, what can you expect from the service? Logistically, Trackside Steve is exactly what you have come to expect from the Betfan group. Selections are issued on pretty much a daily basis and these are sent to subscribers, directly via email.
As well as this, tips are uploaded to a member’s area on the Betfan website. This usually happens on the day of the racing, however Trackside Steve does give you ample time to place bets etc.
The bets themselves are actually rather selective which is one of the things that jumped out at me about Trackside Steve. Most days see just one or two bets with the occasional day having three selections. These are a combination of win and each way, however I do believe that you will see more of the former than the latter. Trackside Steve also looks at a decent variety of odds with examples ranging from 2.0 going as high as double digits on the odd occasion.
Numbers wise, I want to talk about the staking plan. Products from Betfan typically follow a pattern of staking 5 points on each bet however Trackside Steve slightly undoes this. There is a 1-5 point scale with Steve advising higher stakes the surer he is. Unfortunately, the lower end of this scale seems to be rather under utilised and you can generally expect between 3 and 5 points to be recommended. This naturally has an impact on the income potential as well although I will discuss this in greater detail below.
This only really leaves the strike rate left to discuss. I have touched upon range that exists in the odds that Steve advises for Trackside Steve customers. In the main, you are looking at middling odds and as such, I was expecting the strike rate for Trackside Steve to be somewhat disappointing. Instead, it stands at a very respectable figure of 36.41%.
When you consider that this has been maintained over a 12 month period, it does start to look at little more stand out in my opinion.
How Does Trackside Steve Work?
There is actually a fair amount of information given on how Steve makes selections for Trackside Steve. How willing you are to believe them is of course a different question. Betfan say that he is “ loaded with contacts, experience and goes out of his way to actually talk with the owners, trainers and stable staff.
He visits the gallops and watches the horses train. He ultimately wants to see first hand the form of a horse, to get behind its character”. This information has supposedly been collated for a number of years and is now the basis of all selections.
I think that there is something to be said for some cynicism here. I don’t doubt that there is some truth to the claims, but there isn’t anything that I would consider evidence to back them up either.
What is the Initial Investment?
Trackside Steve is available on a monthly subscription and a quarterly one. It is important to note that the monthly subscription is actually every 28 days which means that you will end up paying 13 times for the service. With this said, the “monthly” subscription cost is £40.
Alternatively you can get slightly better value for money by signing up on a quarterly basis at a cost of £88. I should also mention that at the time of writing, you can take advantage of an offer which allows you to sign up for the first month at £20 after which the price goes up to the normal monthly fee.
As is the case with anything from within the Betfan group, there is no real money back guarantee in place for Trackside Steve unfortunately. It is however probably worth pointing out however that the team do say that they review all refund requests.
What is the Rate of Return?
Over the last 12 months Trackside Steve has produced a profit of 405.15 points at the time of writing. This is a very respectable number, even if it may have been boosted somewhat by the staking plan. More impressive is the ROI which Betfan show as 23.17% based off BOG.
Conclusion on Trackside Steve
I don’t often associate the services that have been launched through Betfan with the word consistency. I generally see their products as large spikes and then plateaus where they live and die on the back of a few points. Trackside Steve however is a sterling example of what a consistent service should look like. This is one of the best things that the service has going for it, as I will get to.
So the results are good, but I do feel that they need to be placed into some kind of context. This comes mostly from the stakes that are involved. Whilst there is definitely a range to these, I think that it is probably reasonable to assume that the average stakes are around 3 points per bet (truthfully, I suspect that the number may be higher than this).
This means that effectively, you could divide the results that Trackside Steve has produced by 3 to get an accurate points portrayal using level stakes. These results are less strong, but they are still decent.
The fact of the matter however is that Steve has achieved points profit with Trackside Steve. If you can match the stakes that are required, I believe that this is one of the stronger tipster services to come to market for a while.
I know that if Betfan say they have proofed Trackside Steve for 12 months, this is a close approximation of what has happened and as such, there is little reason to doubt the results. Combine this with a reasonably enough price (Trackside Steve could be a little cheaper, but I think that about anything that I’m considering paying for) and I think that this has strong potential to be a winner.
The only possible concern surrounds the fact that Betfan products have a bit of a track record of burning out once going live. Looking at the results to date, this seems unlikely but it is worth mentioning. Put all of this together and I am inclined to tentatively say that Trackside Steve is worth your consideration.
