Don’s Showtime is a new to market horse racing tipster service that is provided through the Betfan Group. Despite considerable fanfare, the service seems to have had a rocky start.
Introduction to Don’s Showtime
What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in the marketing department of some of the tipster stables that are out there. Sometimes, things just don’t seem to come together at all. You see, not too long ago, something landed on my desk that arrived with a boom. Or perhaps that should be a pop. Champagne bottle emojis and massive bags of cash surrounded hype telling me to “CASH IN ON THE DON… NOW!”. Which is a very interesting point. Because immediately after receiving those emails would have probably been the only time you could have cashed in.
Today I am reviewing a service that is quite unlike anything that I have ever seen. You see… Don’s Showtime is recently launched and just hasn’t got out of the gates at all. It is frankly quite concerning, and importantly to me, massively at odds with the marketing that I have received. Why is this important? Well, companies like Betfan will always do their best to sell a product irrespective of how it is performing. And sometimes, it can be interesting to see the lengths they will go to avoid painting an accurate picture.
Honestly, if you were to unquestioningly look at the marketing for Don’s Showtime, you would think that you were on to a bona fide winner. The way that the sales material refers to the service is almost as though it is something revolutionary. A breakthrough in betting. What Betfan don’t mention however is that this is also a service that has managed to absolutely eat through money like nothing I have ever seen. All of which begs the question, is there any merit here? Let’s find out.
What Does Don’s Showtime Offer?
Honestly, it is very easy to look at something like Don’s Showtime as it is and simply decide that you’re going to rinse the service. It’s easy point scoring and as I will explore properly once the results come around, that is at least somewhat justified. But I always aim to be fair, and as such, I am curious to look at what Betfan actually have on their hands here.
One of the things that really stood out to me when I first looked at Don’s Showtime (when it was first marketed to me) was the tone that the tipster behind the service takes. He appears to be a consummate professional (which he should be, as I will explore). The talk is about selective betting and picking better quality races on Saturdays.
This isn’t unique in the tipster world, but it is always welcome. What you end up with instead is a service that is advising anywhere from 15-20 tips per week. Whilst this is still a manageable amount, it is undoubtedly contrary to the philosophy that is used to market Don’s Showtime. Furthermore, betting takes place on a near daily basis.
In terms of how these bets are managed, well, Betfan have been in this game for as long as I can remember. They are arguably the single most prolific publisher of tipsters that I have looked at (that aren’t a complete con). As such, I think that it’s probably pretty fair to say that they have an understanding of how to manage a tipster service that is close to unparalleled.
Of course, this means that you receive selections from Don’s Showtime directly to your email each day they are available. Standard fare for this sort of thing. Alternatively, you can opt to log in to a member’s area and view tips there. For my money, your best bet is to use the Betfan app. This gets tips delivered directly to your phone where they’re harder to miss. It also seems to be the fastest option too.
Something that I do like about Don’s Showtime is that you get a decent amount of information with the bets that you are placing. Betfan mention that the tipster behind the service provides reasoning on each bet given and what they think will happen with the horse next. In theory, this is all well and good.
In terms of the bets that you will actually be placing, Don’s Showtime favours a mix of each way and simple back to win bets. This makes perfect sense given the quite significant range of odds that actually crop up here.
A look at the proofing that Betfan provide shows that one day, you might be backing a horse to win at less than evens, the next, you’re backing an outsider on an each way basis at 50/1. There doesn’t however seem to be much rhyme or reason to this though. With that in mind, if at all possible, I would probably want to use an odds comparison site if I were going to follow Don’s Showtime (a decision that is also driven by the results).
One area that I think is a very genuine cause for concern is in terms of the stakes. It almost feels like a running gag at this point that Betfan means big stakes, and that is true with Don’s Showtime too. The majority off bets are ultimately advised at 5 points per bet. This regularly drops as low as 3 points per bet, and on a very rare occasion, will be a 2 point bet.
As you might imagine, this adds up very quickly with the volume of bets that Don’s Showtime is based around. And that can contribute to some really quite significant drawdown. For some context on how this all adds up, even with winners, January closed at a loss of almost 130 points off 84 bets.
You might think that this would mean Don’s Showtime having a terrible strike rate. It doesn’t though. In actual fact, by my calculations, at the time of writing, it should come in at about 30%. This ultimately speaks to which of the bets are actually winning though, and unfortunately, it isn’t those big bets all that often.
How Does Don’s Showtime Work?
According to Betfan, the tipster who is behind Don’s Showtime is a seasoned professional. He is a Pro Gambler “who earned a huge and loyal following for landing big gambles and making big profits. He was also not shy in reminding Bookies, Punters and other Tipsters of that fact!” (oh how the mighty have fallen). They then go on to say how before Don’s Showtime he was famous for big priced against the tide gambles.
What is interesting to me is that this claim seems at least somewhat contrary to the proofing that yy provide. Now, don’t get me wrong, they make it very difficult to break down the data and analyse it, but it is definitely there. For some context, at the time of writing this, March has had 35 bets at odds of 4/1 or lower. That hardly paints Don’s Showtime as a service that is looking at big gambles. In fact, there have been just 9 bets that come in at double digits.
Something that we are told is that in terms of the bigger picture, Don’s Showtime is ultimately based on a combination of form reading and inside information. Whilst I don’t necessarily doubt that the tipster behind this is utilising all of this, it is quite apparent that there are questions about his ability to do much with it. I know that is a harsh comment and a flippant way of phrasing it, but the results here aren’t much to celebrate.
With all of that said, I will say that some credit has to be given to Betfan. Whilst I think that they have definitely tried to obfuscate the information, as I mentioned earlier, there is at least some proofing for Don’s Showtime. Reiterating another earlier point though, it isn’t the easiest thing to navigate. But you can at least get an idea of what you’re getting in to here.
What is the Initial Investment?
If there is one thing that can be said as a positive about Don’s Showtime, it is that it isn’t all that expensive. It isn’t prohibitive, but the entry level is £26 per month, (plus VAT). Something that is worth noting here though is that Betfan don’t count a month as a month. They operate on 28 days being a month, which means you pay that out 13 times a year.
There is only slightly better value to be had in the quarterly subscription too. Betfan are asking £75 (plus VAT) for this, although it is at least billed close to quarterly, running on a 90 day subscription. The best value offering comes from a 6 monthly subscription. At £125 (plus VAT), this is ultimately quite a reasonable seeming offering.
What you have to consider when looking at longer subscriptions though is the fact that Betfan don’t typically offer any sort of money back guarantee on their products. Don’s Showtime is no different in this regard. What they do say however is that they “will review every refund request and if we feel a refund is warranted it shall be granted.”. This just isn’t something you should rely on though.
What is the Rate of Return?
I’ve been trying to dance around it a bit, but it’s time to address the elephant in the room. Don’s Showtime has lot a lot of money. At the time of writing, it’s almost 138 points down. A slight loss on January which closed at 135 points in the red. The only redeeming factor here is February which saw a significant rally of around 90 points. Although, as Betfan show, it was still 45 points down…
Of course, all of this is exacerbated by the high stakes that are used. Don’s Showtime isn’t necessarily 138 points down. It’s probably a bit closer to 35 points if you simply used level stakes of 1 point per bet. But of course, that isn’t really any better. It’s just scaled. The fact is that this is a service that simply isn’t performing and seems to be at drastic odds to the sales page and the emails that I have received from Betfan about this.
Conclusion for Don’s Showtime
This service caught my eye off the back of 2 emails specifically. And I feel like I have to address responsible marketing a little bit here. The first email that I received for Don’s Showtime read as follows:
February is looking like a very decent month for the Gambling Don and his loyal followers!
Up to the 23rd the profits were a cool £4,494.00 (£100 a point bettors) which is some serious cash profit from just minutes of part-time betting on the horses.
Just 3 days later, I received a follow up email that read:
February is coming to an end and it’s looking like a very decent month for the Gambling Don and his loyal followers!
Up to yesterday the profits were a cool £9,964.00 (£100 a point bettors) which is some serious cash from part-time effort betting on the horses.
That looks like a hell of a series of results, and of course, I was incredibly excited about the prospect there. Don’s Showtime was shaping up to have a 100 point month. Of course, I expected inflated stakes and the like because… well, it’s Betfan. But that is still impressive. But they failed to mention the fact that this had last 135 points the month before.
Adding to the problematic nature of this, were you betting to £100 a point, as the emails use to further inflate the results, you’d be down about £13,800. If a tipster service were up that much, we’d be rightly talking about life changing money. The same has to apply the other way. And yet Betfan fail to mention any of it. They also go out of their way not to advertise the proofing for Don’s Showtime on the sales material.
It’s all a bit questionable as a practice. But it does beg the question of how Don’s Showtime launched. I am not privy to what is happening behind the scenes, but I know other tipster stables that won’t launch without significant proofing periods. Maybe this happened here. But it doesn’t seem likely, because I don’t see why you’d put this out with the results.
Here’s the thing, I don’t mean to ruffle any feathers here. I can entirely believe that the tipster behind the service was once the real deal. They may still be. February was a decent month, and if you can see more of that, then Don’s Showtime may be salvageable. But I’m not convinced that you’ll see enough of this to offset the current results if I’m honest.
And then there are other questions too. In the interview with the tipster, Betfan show somebody who is confident in a selective approach and picking the right sort of bets. Instead, Don’s Showtime goes against all of this broader approach. Why? We aren’t given any insight. Is it pressure form the tipster stable? Is it simply really bad luck? It’s hard to tell because the results aren’t ever addressed.
Probably not surprisingly, I really wouldn’t look to recommend Don’s Showtime. At all. I don’t even see this as being something that is worth keeping an eye on if I’m honest. But there are two reasons that I feel this way. Firstly, just the results. They simply aren’t good enough. Whatever the reasoning, you’d have to be mad to recommend a tipster service 138 points in the red.
But more than that, I take a special exception to the mismarketing of this product. Yes, it did have a good run in February. It’s ultimately up to Betfan if they want to capitalise on that fact. Had you signed up off the back of all of that though and bet as the emails suggest (to those £100 stakes), you’d almost be down the cost of a brand new Fiat 500. It’s that substantial.
