ITV Racing Tips Review Carl Nicholson

ITV Racing Tips is a new to market horse racing tipster service which is operated by Carl Nicholson. As the name suggests, the service provides tips for races that feature on ITV Racing Tips.

Introduction to ITV Racing Tips

There are a lot of different ways that you an choose to partake in horse racing. Some people love to be at the event. For others, it is all about the money. In fact, I have known people who have no actual interest, but like to bet on horse racing with a sole view to make money. For a number of people though, it is a Saturday afternoon with a brew and a biscuit.

It is this latter group that ITV Racing Tips is aimed at, and it does a very good job of being appealing. The service exclusively provides tips for races that you will be able to watch, it is inexpensive, and, if you believe the results, Carl Nicholson has also been able to guide the service to a consistent profit.

With a lack of tipster services on the market that are aimed at more casual punters, there is a potentially wide market for ITV Racing Tips. Ultimately though, it has to be able to stand up to scrutiny and actually be profitable, as well as just being a decent idea.  

What Does ITV Racing Tips Offer?

As you would probably expect from a tipster service which focuses exclusively on ITV’s racing coverage, ITV Racing Tips isn’t a tipster service that you will be taking advantage of on a daily basis. In fact, selections are generally only issued on a weekly basis, or when there are certain larger events (for example, June had full coverage of Royal Ascot).

Looking at ITV Racing Tips from the view of a casual punter, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it helps to keep the volume of tips manageable and the costs affordable. It also means that you can watch every race from the comfort of your own couch, providing a decent afternoon in.

Logistically, as you would expect, selections are emailed directly to subscribers. What is interesting to me however is that they are sent the evening before racing. This has a profound effect on the income potential of your betting as you are able to get the best possible prices (although as always, a bookmaker that offers BOG is your best bet).

There are a range of odds that you will be betting on which to be far to Carl Nicholson does demonstrate a decent mix of consistent smaller wins, and the occasional big win. Once again, these factors are well suited for somebody who is more interested in the entertainment side of horse racing betting.

Now, I have talked ITV Racing Tips up as being something that is a good option for the casual punter, and I stand by this. With that having been said though, ITV Racing Tips is not necessarily simplistic. There are a fair number of complex elements that are involved, and as such, a reasonable knowledge of betting is required.

For example, starting with those bets, the types of bets that are advised are hugely varied. On a given day, you will be advised to back horses as win bets and each way, all of which is fair enough. Horses are advised as a Nap and a Next Best for each race, however, so you have to be able to separate those and understand what you are backing.

Carl Nicholson is keen however to encourage subscribers to back their selections into multiples. Now it is important to factor in that this isn’t technically an element of ITV Racing Tips, so much as a casual suggestion. I do however feel like that reasoning for this is to allow the marketing opportunity to talk about how you could have had massive wins. Personally, I am a bit sceptical of this element.

I want to return now to the point that you will receive a bet for each race that ITV are showing on a given day. In the grand scheme of things, ITV Racing Tips isn’t a particularly high volume tipster service. This is mostly down to the fact that you aren’t betting every day. On a day by day basis, it can be common to back as many as 7 bets on a given day.

This can of course also start to add up when you look at the staking that is involved. It is all rather eclectic, but ultimately, you may well end up staking 2 points on a bet. This means that for Cheltenham, to use a more extreme example, you would have ended up staking 31.5 points.

This doesn’t necessarily sound like a lot of money to stake, and if you are a professional bettor, then it isn’t. But given that Carl Nicholson recommends a betting bank of just 50 points, I think that is quite a substantial number to bet over a few days.

Finally, I want to touch on the strike rate for ITV Racing Tips. Carl Nicholson’s proofing claims that this stands at a tad over 50% which is a hell of a number. It is worth noting however that the proofing only runs up to the end of June.

How Does ITV Racing Tips Work?

In terms of how ITV Racing Tips works, there isn’t a whole lot of information that is provided. We are told that Carl Nicholson is “Famous for Big Priced Winners & His Biggest Have Come at the Big TV Meetings”. This all sounds well and good, but you don’t have to be particularly astute to notice that it doesn’t really tell us anything.

What we are told is that “Every Race [is] Analysed”. Once again, I will acknowledge that this sounds great, however, with no context as to what this analysis entails, I can’t really see any value in this statement.

All of this is rather concerning for me. Whilst I have never expected any tipster to give away their selection process, I do think that as a consumer you have a right to know what you are getting into. ITV Racing Tips provides nothing that allows you to make a truly informed decision and that is problematic.

There is potentially an argument to be made that this is mitigated by the proofing which is provided. The fact that said proofing hasn’t been updated for the month of July negates a lot of its worth to me.  

What is the Initial Investment?

At the time of writing this, ITV Racing Tips is being offered with 3 different options for subscribing. The first option is a one time payment for a given day. This is priced at £5 which is a one time payment which is handled directly via Paypal.

Alternatively, Carl Nicholson offers a monthly subscription which is priced at £19.99, or a 6 monthly membership which is priced at £99.99. It is important to note that there is no mention of any money back guarantee for ITV Racing Tips, and as such, I wouldn’t expect that to be in place for any of the offerings that are available.

What is the Rate of Return?

For 2017 and 2018, ITV Racing Tips made a profit of 254.31  points according to Carl Nicholson’s proofing. This is a pretty impressive number given the restrictive nature of the service. As is the ROI which works out at some 25%. Over almost 2 years, these are some pretty consistent results.

For the 2019 horse racing season to date, Carl Nicholson claims that he has made a profit of 98.26 points, which is again, quite a decent number all things considered. The ROI for 2019 is in line with historic results at 26.34%.

Conclusion for ITV Racing Tips

I love the idea of ITV Racing Tips. I have memories of sitting with my Grandad on the occasional Saturday when I was much younger watching horse racing with him (although as I recall, it was Channel 4 way back then). He’d have a few quid on and really, it was just an outlet for him. And that is exactly the kind of person I see when I look at this.

There are plenty of people out there like that and I think that the opportunity to get a bit of an edge on your weekend betting is worth paying for. And looking at those numbers, you would definitely get an edge. A 50% strike rate isn’t something to be sniffed at, even with a number of bets being each way.

It goes without saying that Carl Nicholson has demonstrated a profit in his proofing, and that is the bottom line for most people. Honestly, I’d even go as far as to say that it’s quite an impressive profit given the fact that you aren’t betting on a frequent basis. 127 points per month to £10 stakes would be a nice week away somewhere, and for a modest betting service, that isn’t bad.  

On top of this, if you are looking to subscribe to ITV Racing Tips on a longer basis, you aren’t really paying a lot for ITV Racing Tips. £19 per month isn’t a huge amount of money and if you’re just betting casually, it falls almost exactly where I would look in terms of the pricing. When you factor in the profit, I think that there is a strong argument to be made for Carl Nicholson’s offering representing value for money.

There is only really one element that concerns me slightly in terms of ITV Racing Tips, and that is the involvement of TGH Trading Limited. They have put out a number of different betting services that have ultimately had very mixed results in the long term, often leaning to the negative rather than the positive.

Now, with that having been said, I will say that they don’t necessarily seem to be directly involved outside of marketing, so there is some hope for ITV Racing Tips in that regard.

So, what do I think of ITV Racing Tips? In theory, it’s quite good. I like the idea of receiving tips for races that you can watch from the comfort of your sofa. There are so many tipster services out there that, for want of a better way of describing it, require far too much investment in terms of time and effort. Whilst the payoff may be better than ITV Racing Tips, that isn’t going to suit everybody.

For the right kind of punter, this has very real potential to be a winner. Not just in so much as, you make a bit of extra spending money, but that fact that you can watch all of the races from your own front room. If you take your betting more seriously. If you see it as an investment and a business rather than a bit of fun, your money would be better spent elsewhere.