Nags to Riches Review Agora Lifestyles

Nags to Riches is a brand new horse racing tipster service from Mel Gee. The service is operated through the Agora Lifestyles publishing group who claim some very strong results from the service.

What does Nags to Riches offer?

When it comes to tipster services, I am always looking for something new. Usually this comes in the form of some kind of niche betting market. Because of these expectations, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Agora Lifestyles have started to offer something that fits the bill for of horse racing. At least, if it can deliver on a lot of the promises that are made in the sales material for Nags to Riches, an area where evidence suggests Agora Lifestyles sometime fall short.

Mel Gee opens with the rather bold headline that he has gone “from 30-years of losing bets… to living off my betting profits and owning my own winning racehorse…”.

This is a rather impressive claim and some of my research suggests that Mel Gee may well be an impressive bettor. Unfortunately, most of the sources that paint him as a betting guru are affiliated with Agora Lifestyles or a number of years old. The more recent stuff is very different and as such, I feel that it really opens up Nags to Riches as a service.

So what exactly are you getting with Nags to Riches?

The service is rather interesting in so much as it strips away a lot of the work that is involved with most tipsters. In fact, Mel Gee and Agora Lifestyles refer to his “5-minute Saturday morning secret” and that is pretty much what you can expect. Each Saturday morning, Mel Gee issues his selections to subscribes which will supposedly take just 5 minutes to place each day.

It is worth pointing out however that there is no guarantee that you will receive any bets on a Saturday as well with Mel Gee only liking to send them out when he 100% confident. There will however supposedly be bets over festivals which will boost the numbers across the year.

As is the case so often with Agora Lifestyles, there is a lot of talk in the sales material about how brilliant the service is without actually saying anything. This ends up concerning to me for a number of different reasons that I will get to. Truth be told though, it is something that as a consumer I find very frustrating as we are fed the same thing multiple different ways. At the end of the day you can fry it, mash it or roast it, but a potato is just a potato.

It is my experience with Agora Lifestyles that this method of marketing is usually used when a service isn’t necessarily the most substantial thing.

Keeping on this lack of information, we are not told about any staking plan which when you are making claims in the pounds and pence bracket is very concerning. Talking about £500 profits could mean 50/1 outsiders coming in at a tenner, 5/1 at £100 or £500 at evens. This is a very important thing to consider if you are looking at Nags to Riches as your betting bank will ultimately affect profits and how you pay for your subscription to Nags to Riches.

Unfortunately there is no published strike rate that I can see either which is another point in the negative. Whist researching Nags to Riches and Mel Gee, I noticed that in a recent interview that the man behind the service said that at higher prices, a good strike rate is between 18 and 23%. I would hope that Nags to Riches achieves between these numbers as a minimum however the lack of statement on this (as well as a very distinct lack of proofing) raises some concerns.

How does Nags to Riches work?

Coming back to the marketing that Agora Lifestyles and Mel Gee employ, I am rather perturbed by their use of the term scientific. I am no cynic when it comes to the ability of betting systems etc. and I don’t doubt that the good ones can give you an edge, but to refer to his system as scientific makes it out to be something that it isn’t in my book. I also don’t believe that the statement that you can “rig the racetrack” is close to factual either.

What I do believe is that Mel Gee is a very passionate man when it comes to horse racing. He has put out services before (something I will touch on a little later) and I don’t doubt that he knows his stuff. Unfortunately, as is often the case when it comes to products put out by Agora Lifestyles, the marketing and the resultant expectations can be their own worst enemy in overselling a product.

What is the initial investment?

Whilst I have been a little hard on Nags to Riches so far, I have to say that the pricing is actually pretty reasonable. Mel Gee and Agora Lifestyles want £97 a year to receive selections from Nags to Riches.

This is a one time payment and is definitely a large initial outlay, however it does work out at the cost of a cup of coffee a week (£1.87 if we’re pedantic) and this does come with a number of guarantees. The first is that you have 30 days in which you can claim a refund if you find that Nags to Riches isn’t for you. On top of this, if Nags to Riches hasn’t made you a profit over 12 months, you can get a refund on your subscription cost (it is worth stating that the profit thing is unlikely to include your costs).

What is the rate of return?

There are a lot of numbers thrown around with Nags to Riches. These range from the afore mentioned £500 per week to £890 “in a matter of minutes” or an extra “£210 in your back pocket”. Perhaps the most definitive number that is given is £24,000 per year as potential additional income. It is important to point out however that there is no real context for what has been bet in order to produce these results.

Conclusion on Nags to Riches

I am rather conflicted about Nags to Riches for a number of reasons, however I want to reflect on the pros and cons before posting my verdict. The most apparent problem with Nags to Riches comes from the marketing platform. I have never made any attempt to hide my disdain when it comes to Agora Lifestyles and the fact that they rarely provide any information to create context for their products, especially in terms of the profit potential.

I also feel that it is important to look at Mel Gee, more specifically, his other service. Now looking at that isn’t the purpose of this review however it is also prudent to ignore such things. More specifically, I want to talk about the profits there. More specifically, just under £1,100 to £100 level stakes over 2 years. This isn’t a whole lot of profit to be had given the time scales and also represents just 11 points. Whilst Nags to Riches is a new service, it does bear some thinking about.

One of the big questions that surrounds any service is that of value for money. In theory, I’m inclined to say that there is value to be had with Nags to Riches if you are the right kind of bettor. After all, it is working out at less than £2 per week. Unfortunately, this doesn’t in any way mean that you will receive selections every week. Of course this should be made up for when you factor in the festivals.

With that in mind however, I believe that for the right kind of punter Nags to Riches probably does provide some decent value. Especially when you factor in having 30 days to see how Mel Gee’s selections do for you and the fact if you haven’t made a profit, you will still get your money back for the service.

So, for whom do I believe Nags to Riches would actually work?

Realistically, I think that you would have to be a casual punter looking for a bit of an edge on the weekends (and the bonus of festivals). Put in that light, Nags to Riches looks a little bit more interesting. That having been said, I remain very conscious of the fact that there is nothing which states the income potential behind the service.

On a personal level, I don’t really think that Nags to Riches is something that I would use. There is not enough evidence at all that the service will prove profitable. I certainly don’t believe that it will come close to the claimed profits. In spite of that I do think that the pricing is pretty reasonable, at least, if you don’t already have a tipster service.

At the end of the day, whatever a service claims to offer it should be able to reasonably provide and a large number of Agora Lifestyles products have shown that they simply can’t deliver on this.

Nags to Riches does nothing to make me believe it will change this and that is why despite some positives, I wouldn’t recommend it.