Place Doubles is a seemingly new to market horse racing tipster service which is operated by one Ross Booth. He claims that his approach to betting allows for some very strong profits.
Introduction to Place Doubles
I am not a risk averse person. However, I am also the kind of person who only likes to take risks that are carefully calculated. Sometimes, I miss out on things because of this, but I also know how much money it has saved me from losing as well. All of this means that when a tipster comes along who seems to favour (at least somewhat) mitigating risk, I like to pay attention. Because in my opinion, the reason most people fall off when it comes to tipping is simply overextending their approach.
This brings me to today’s review subject, Place Doubles. And if I’m completely honest, it is a very interesting one. Because the whole premise here seems to be about minimising risk, all whilst still allowing you to actually get some value. Now, this isn’t something that Ross Booth says outright, but that is very much the vibe here. I mean, even the headline for Place Doubles says “PROFIT DOESN’T MEAN PICKING WINNERS!”. And do you know what? That is absolutely right. I’ve seen plenty of services manage this before.
Combine that philosophy with some decent looking numbers, and you have a real winner with Place Doubles, right? Wrap the review up, let’s go home, etc. But actually, I have some very real concerns about all of this. Without going into too much detail at this early point, there is a lot of “back end” elements of Ross Booth’s service that just don’t quite sit right. I will come to all of this, but first, let’s get into it and have a look at the system itself.
What Does Place Doubles Offer?
As far as tipster services go, Place Doubles is a very simple and straight forward affair. This isn’t a criticism at all, I actually consider it to be very welcome when you look at some of the services that are out there. Now, this is something that I don’t think is entirely a coincidence. Not to get too tinfoil hat about it all, but I think that there are some very deliberate choices by Ross Booth that are designed to carry mass appeal.
So, what does all of this mean you are actually getting? Well, let’s start with the logistics. First things first, Ross Booth only actually runs Place Doubles on a Monday through Saturday basis. This, we are told, allows him (and you if you follow the service) to take Sundays off. What is interesting to me here though is that you are still getting guaranteed tips, 6 times a week. In theory, not a bad thing. But as I will explore later, there are some caveats to this.
The management element of Place Doubles is pretty much exactly what you would expect. Selections are sent out to you directly via email, however, they are sent out rather late. Something that Ross Booth attributes to the fact that place markets don’t tend to open until later in the day. This means receiving selections between 10am and 11am, something that can make things difficult for some.
Now, let’s talk bets. As you would expect from the name of the service, Place Doubles is concerned with… well, backing place doubles. To be completely fair to Ross Booth, this is something that I don’t believe I have really seen before. And frankly, I don’t think it’s the worst idea on paper. Whilst there can be bags of value in horse racing, backing long shots is still ultimately backing long shots.
Meanwhile, backing favourites (or near favourites) to place on a double basis means that you’re betting on two likely events occurring, rather than one unlikely one. Something that should, in theory, increase your strike rate drastically. Unfortunately, this isn’t something that you can really verify because Ross Booth very much keeps his hands close to his chest.
Building off the back of this, as you would expect from backing near favourites, the overall odds don’t tend to be particularly high. This applies to both the horses that you are backing, as well as the overall returns on the doubles. The best case scenario for an individual bet comes in at about 6.5/1. But generally speaking, you are looking at around 4/1 and often less.
And with all of that, I want to pick back up a thread I touched upon earlier. As I mentioned, Ross Booth tips 6 days per week. However, he is also tipping between 1 and 3 doubles on a given day. This means a maximum of 18 bets. Not a massively high volume service by any stretch of the imagination, but it is enough to just compound a few questions that I have.
This only really leaves some of the numbers side of things to talk about. First things first, the stakes. Ross Booth “proofs” Place Doubles to stakes of £25 on each bet. What this really means is that you’re dealing with a simple level staking plan. Something that I welcome given the broader picture here.
Slightly concerning though is the fact that a betting bank of just 60 points is recommended. In theory, this sounds like a lot. It would mean that hypothetically, you’re covered for at least a full 3 weeks of losses and you’d still have a little bit left over. Something that seems reasonable, but there are very few tipsters that I know of that will look to leverage such a small bank.
This applies doubly so in light of that very conspicuous lack of insight into how Place Doubles has performed. Ross Booth is showing bets winning pretty much every other day, but this is based off very limited and somewhat questionable evidence in my opinion. All of which only adds to other problems with Place Doubles.
How Does Place Doubles Work?
By far and away, the biggest problems that exist with Place Doubles are a lack of proofing, a lack of evidence, and a lack of insight into… Well, anything really. All of this is hugely concerning to me for a number of reasons that I will explore a little later on, because they really are big issues.
So, first things first, let’s talk the lack of insight. And by this, I mean what kind of selection process is being leveraged here. At the end of the day, the way Ross Booth is betting means that he is picking out as many as 6 horses per day. Potentially 36 horses, week in, week out. All of this with no real information on why those horses are being picked. Frankly, that worries me. I don’t want a step by step breakdown, but some idea of the process would be nice.
With that out of the way, let’s talk evidence. Because I am sure that Ross Booth would say that showing a number of winning betting slips is clear evidence of his service working. In theory, he would be correct. However, I can’t help but be a little bit sceptical about these. Especially because there is a very distinct lack of context for them, and really, a very small data sample.
This brings me on to the proofing element. Something that is an interesting thing. You see, this isn’t Ross Booth’s first time out with this product. In actual fact, a service by the same name, albeit with a slightly different structure, was available all the way back in 2017. This means that presuming Place Doubles is all above board, there should be coming on for 4 years of evidence backing everything up. The fact that it isn’t provided is somewhat concerning to me.
What is the Initial Investment?
If you want to sign up to Place Doubles, there is just one option available. This is a monthly subscription which is generously offered at a cost of £10 (plus VAT) for your first 30 days. Once this has elapsed, the price increases to £20 per month (again, plus VAT). That doesn’t seem to bad really, but even here, there are concerns with Place Doubles.
You see, the service is being sold through Clickbank. For those who aren’t aware, they generally tend to offer a money back guarantee on pretty much all products that they process payment for. In the case of Place Doubles, this is a 60 day money back guarantee. A fact that Ross Booth fails to mention and is instead left to the small print on the actual sales processing page. This could be accidental, but I am not certain that it is.
What is the Rate of Return?
Ross Booth is keen to tell you “[he] hate those tipster sites where they tell you what making all this money will mean for your life, you know the ones, with the pictures of sports cars, mansions and boats on them”. Unfortunately, what he also fails to do is tell you how much you can actually expect to see in terms of profit from Place Doubles.
Now, there is an implication that this will likely be a decent amount of money. In just 2 days, he was supposedly able to make some 9.5 points of profit. Between the 18th of January and the 25th, he was supposedly able to see profit of 20.8 points. A figure that is probably more in line with what I would expect to see from a decent tipster in a month. However, again, there isn’t really context for these. As such, the numbers are pretty much meaningless.
Conclusion for Place Doubles
I don’t think that I’ve really tried to hide the fact so far that there are genuine concerns surrounding Place Doubles. And these aren’t unfounded. As I said earlier, all of this is based around those “back end” things that most people don’t really consider. And honestly, why would you? It isn’t necessarily like you should have to question everything that anybody says. Even on the internet!
So, let’s start talking about these concerns. Firstly, let’s address the fact that this isn’t Place Doubles’s first time out of the gate. I may have missed it first time round, but there is a copy of the website archived. Same logo, same design, even the same copy. The only thing that has changed is the strategy.
Now, in theory, this shouldn’t be a problem. I know plenty of tipsters who move about, change management and platform, it happens. But what we are looking at here is a complete absence. In that period of time however, the vendor who is ultimately selling Place Doubles through Clickbank has released six different products in the same period. All under different names of product, and tipster.
That is a pretty substantial red flag in my book. Had Place Doubles simply disappeared for a while, there are plenty of legitimate things that could explain this absence. But I can’t really see any reason why there would be all those different products in that window of time.
Moving on from that, I always consider to be a bit of a concern when a tipster fails to mention the money back guarantee that Clickbank offer. Now here’s the thing, I am aware that it is open to exploitation, and there are people out there who do that. Generally speaking though, I am of the opinion that if you’re putting out a genuine product that works, you have no reason to expect people to claim said refund.
I feel like all of this very reasonably justifies the position of concern that I have with Place Doubles, but it isn’t the end either. Because even if you want to offer the benefit of doubt for all of this, there still remains the fact that you are coming into Place Doubles very much blind. No proofing, no explanation of selections, not even any context for how much money you may be able to make here. In my mind, that should be the bare minimum.
So, aside from all of that questionable back end stuff, what you have is a tipster service in which you are expected to take the word of the one person who is guaranteed to profit that it all works and is above board. Based off an idea that, admittedly, sounds like a good one on paper. The issue with this being that you can make anything sound good on paper.
Keeping all of this in mind, even with a very small cost to get off the ground, I don’t think that I’d look to recommend Place Doubles. In my eyes, Ross Booth does absolutely nothing to justify it, provides no evidence, nothing. In fact, I can’t remember the last time that I have looked at a product that it is so riddled with holes, and that says a lot given how much stuff I look at.
