SpreadJacker is a brand new service offered by Matt Houghton of Betting Rant fame and Agora Lifestyles. It aims to provide spread betting tips which come courtesy of a tipster, Adam Cheng.
What does the product offer?
In many ways with SpreadJacker, Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng have broken new ground in bringing spread betting to a more “general public”. As such the headline was always going to be an interesting ne to read and ultimately Agora Lifestyles deliver. I was definitely intrigued when I read “How Barcelona’s WORST Player Could Land You Your Biggest Win Ever”. I am always game for finding new and interesting things so with that in mind, I am quite excited to tackle SpreadJacker.
SpreadJacker is being promoted by Matt Houghton and Agora Lifestyles in the same style that frequent readers will be familiar with by now. This is a combination of vague notion and promises of substantial earnings. On paper this looks great but there is a history of not delivering on these. So with claims of easy and big money in my heart, let’s get into the details of what is on offer.
At its core, SpreadJacker is a tipster service. This is something that I feel needs to be very firmly stated as the sales material really paints a much broader picture in terms of what you get. The tips themselves are not necessarily offered on a daily basis, however on any given day where they are available subscribers will receive a text from Adam Cheng. Once you receive this text all that you have to do is log into a member’s area where the details are waiting.
As well as the selections, SpreadJacker also comes with a complete user guide. Due to the nature of spread betting and a lot of people’s unfamiliarity with it, this strikes me as a very important addition. The guide covers a number of topics which range from how points are calculated based off a game to how winning and losing works. This latter part is key with SpreadJacker.
In terms of numbers, there is unfortunately very little information made available. Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng say that when calculating your betting bank however, you should start with the amount that you wish to bet and multiply it by 100. Whilst this is generally standard practice for calculating a betting bank, it works much differently with SpreadJacker.
In terms of a strike rate, over 30 bets which were proofed to Matt Houghton, he says that 75% of these were successful. Interestingly, he doesn’t provide said proofing for this, however I am certain that this isn’t something that would be lied about.
How does the product work?
SpreadJacker is a spread betting product. This is a method of betting which is derived from a method of financial trading. I could go into a lot of detail on spread betting however I do believe that Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng explain it well enough in the sales material. Basically, when you bet on a “spread” you are betting that an event will either over achieve or under achieve against an agreed middle. For example in the financial world, you might cover the spread on the Euro being worth more against the pound than the day before. For every point more, you earn a point profit however this also works the other way. This can mean that for every point you are wrong, you lose a point.
SpreadJacker is focussed on football spread betting, more specifically individual player ratings. These are judged by Opta, a football statistics company. Points are awarded for things like passing, shooting, scoring and assisting. The more or less a player does, the higher or lower their score. The primary idea behind SpreadJacker is that by applying spread betting to these numbers, users can make a lot of money off a single bet and in a way that the bookies can’t manipulate (this latter part feeling like nought more than lazy marketing).
What is the initial investment?
The question of how much you pay for SpreadJacker is a real kicker because it is not cheap. I know that Agora Lifestyles have a history of releasing expensive products but this genuinely takes it to a new level for me. Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng want £250 per quarter in order to receive selections for SpreadJacker although this is only if you set up a direct debit. If you pay directly by card it will cost you £275 per quarter!. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that this means £1,000 over the course of a year. This does however come with a 30 day money back guarantee should you find that SpreadJacker isn’t for you, and to credit Agora Lifestyles they are usually pretty good in this regard.
What is the rate of return?
I mentioned earlier that SpreadJacker was proofed over 30 days and during this period a profit of 411 points was made. Being reasonably familiar with spread betting I can believe this figure. There is absolutely no guarantee however that you will get close to this number again. In fact, in the proofing Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng are both keen to point out that there is huge loss potential with SpreadJacker.
Conclusion
As a product, I think that SpreadJacker isn’t a bad offering. I would however say that it is a very polarising service for me. This is mostly down to the extreme swings that you can encounter with spread betting. It is simply far too easy to lose money with this method. Especially when you are betting on football I the way that Matt Houghton and Adam Cheng advise.
In fact, the sales material for SpreadJacker talks a hell of a lot about the risks involved, even pointing out that if a player gets taken off injured or doesn’t play, you could lose a massive amount if players get taken off. Whilst Matt Houghton is happy to talk about how right Adam Cheng gets things, all that it takes is a few bad selections and your betting bank can be absolutely decimated.
There is also the question of value or money. SpreadJacker is being sold for as much as £1,100 over the course of the year. With no average annual profits, it is difficult to see how much you would have to stake in order to simply cover your subscription costs. And don’t forget that the nature of spread betting means that the more you stake, the more you stand to lose. Honestly, I just don’t see any value on offer here.
Truthfully, SpreadJacker would have to be very good for me to consider it worth it at £1,100 per year. As it stands, I don’t think it is anywhere near that. Factor in the fact that you are paying this extreme amount of money for something that inherently carries such a high risk and I would personally be inclined to give it a very wide berth.
