Perfect Racing is a new horse racing tipster service that is being offered through the Tipster TV arm of the Betfan group. Selections come courtesy of a tipster Chris Chadwick.
What does the product offer?
The headline for Perfect Racing says far more about the intent of Chris Chadwick than anything else could, simply stating “How To Spank The Bookie & WIN At The Races!”. Whilst I am used to rather bold marketing from within the Betfan group, this is definitely one of their stronger statements and as a result, I feel that I am forced to approach Perfect Racing with a more critical eye than I would perhaps normally apply. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
As a service, Perfect Racing does very little that is new (although this doesn’t have to be a bad thing). All selections are issued by Chris Chadwick on a near daily basis with Perfect Racing tips sent out via email as well as being uploaded to a members area. The bets themselves are very straight forward to follow as well with Perfect Racing advising almost exclusively win bets, although on occasion there may be the odd each way. Chris Chadwick’s focus for Perfect Racing is on UK based racing and as such all bets are on domestic races.
One area in which Perfect Racing doesn’t appear to be as consistent as some tipster services is in the volume of selections. Some days there is just a single bet to place, and yet the next day you can be placing as many as eight bets. This isn’t necessarily something that is inherently wrong if you were using a smaller staking plan however Perfect Racing does use a rather high value staking plan, as I will explore.
With everything that I have discussed so far out of the way, it is time to start looking at the numbers side of Perfect Racing for, and for a change, it is the numbers that I have a problem with. Chris Chadwick has opted to follow the usual Betfan approach of staking 5 points on each bet, a staking plan I have never hidden my disdain for. This is combined with an average striker rate of just 27%. These are numbers that I simply can’t reconcile as being positives.
How does the product work?
As is often the case with Tipster TV and other Betfan related products, Perfect Racing does a marvellous job of telling us the selection process without actually providing any real insight. Tipster TV claims that at the core of Perfect Racing is a “portfolio of no less than five systems”. All of these have supposedly been developed by Chris Chadwick and each is supposedly profitable in its own right,
For the purposes of Perfect Racing however, it is only when a horse is identified by at least three of these different systems before Chris Chadwick will issue it. This bothers me as with no idea of what the selection criteria is for these systems (even some basic information would be reassuring), there is no knowing if three systems are generating selections for the right reasons, i.e. that a horse actually has a genuine chance of winning (something I feel I am justified in questioning given the strike rate).
What is the initial investment?
Tipster TV offer two different options for those who wish to subscriber to Perfect Racing. The first of these is a monthly membership (which actually runs for 28 days, meaning 13 payments per year) and a quarterly membership (which actually runs for 90 days). These are priced at £44 and £88 respectively meaning a free “month” with the quarterly subscription. It is also of note that at the time of writing, there is an offer popping up on the Perfect Racing sales page that offers you a month of tips for just £22.
In terms of any money back guarantee, as Tipster TV are a part of the Betfan group, this means that there isn’t really anything on offer in this regard. In the terms and conditions, Betfan actually state that thy don’t typically offer any refunds on purchases. They do however say that they will review any requests and if they feel it is appropriate, offer a refund.
What is the rate of return?
Since the service launched in October of 2016, Perfect Racing has gone on to make an overall profit of 360.16 points. This is also on the back of no losing months, all of which are impressive results. There is however one aspect of the results for Perfect Racing that I find to be rather concerning and that is the fact that almost every month has seen the profits in the red at some point. One would hope that Chris Chadwick can continue his track record of pulling them into profit, but it seems to me that this does represent rather significant risk.
Conclusion
Tipster TV and the Betfan group put out an incredible number of different products and tipsters each year and the results are invariably mixed. Perfect Racing feels like a fantastic example of this to me with the service seeming, initially, to be a solid offering. The profits are strong for the time period that it has been operational and this could be all that I take away from Perfect Racing and chalk it up as a win.
Unfortunately, I’m not entirely convinced that this is the case. The trend of results dipping into the red is a worrying one and I am not certain that Chris Chadwick can keep pulling the service up forever. A big part of this concern is that there is a clear and strong focus on value here with Perfect Racing having some very big winners. The problem with this is that when big wins don’t come, it can be very costly to keep up with a tipster, especially at 5 points per bet. When you consider that the average strike rate of Perfect Racing is as low as it is, these big priced winners are going to be relied upon more and more.
With all of this in mind, I don’t think that I’d personally look to Perfect Racing given the spectrum of tipster services which are available. I don’t think it’s an inherently bad service, however I do feel that there are some pretty strong flaws. Whilst these are being handled at the moment (and rightly so given the costs involved), there is nothing to me that really indicates a long term ability to manage this.
Whilst some people will be happy with the fact that Perfect Racing is making money here and now, I like to think much bigger. On this broader scope, I don’t really see a lot about Perfect Racing to recommend unfortunately.
