The Bet Maximiser is a new to market horse racing tipster service that is operated by one Richard Harvey. He claims that his approach to betting can produce massive profits.
Introduction to The Bet Maximiser
I think that it’s quite reasonable to say that if you are betting, you should always be looking to maximise your profit potential. But one of the biggest questions if you take this seriously is how do you go about doing this? Because in my experience, anything that can help to improve the profit potential of your bets also carries additional risk. As such, it really does become an incredibly fine balancing act. And one of the more common approaches I see is using accas.
This is all very important to keep in mind because the subject of today’s review leans into this theory incredibly hard. You see, the way that The Bet Maximiser… well, maximises its bets is by taking advantage of a rather niche bet type. Richard Harvey utilises one of the more… complex accumulators. If these bets come in, then they will undoubtedly produce some massive profits. But without a shadow of a doubt, the key word in all of that statement is IF. Because this is a service that I simply don’t believe you will be winning much, if at all.
I’ll be honest here. There is clearly strong potential (as I’ll discuss) for profit with The Bet Maximiser. But this is also a service that, if I’m really realistic seems to carry a lot of potential to spiral downwards. It seems inevitable that without Richard Harvey having a really hot system in place, costs will ultimately mount quite quickly. Something that is ultimately rather dismissed as a concern with a promise of “long term profit”. Can this actually be delivered though? Let’s find out.
What Does The Bet Maximiser Offer?
I think that it’s fair to say that on a very fundamental level, The Bet Maximiser is an incredibly straightforward tipster service. Whilst there are certainly elements of what Richard Harvey is doing that stand out, the core of it all is exactly what I would expect to see from a tipster service of this nature. Of course, simplicity isn’t something that is inherently bad in the tipping world.
One of the main reasons that I always say this is because it makes for a much more manageable service. With something like The Bet Maximiser, you know what you’re going to get. Because there isn’t a huge amount of variance in terms of how everything is managed, the overall experience remains very consistent. Which is of course great. So long as that experience is a positive one.
In the case of The Bet Maximiser all of this means that you are dealing with near daily tips. I say this because first and foremost, Richard Harvey is very keen to highlight that he only actually bets Monday through Friday (a curious point that I want to come back to a little later on). On top of that, we are also told that there are some days where there are no selections available. When this is the case, we can expect an email notifying us of that fact.
Whilst we’re talking about emails, let’s touch on the management side of things. As is the case for pretty much any modern tipster service, Richard Harvey sends out selections directly via email. Something that should be applauded is the fact that they typically arrive the evening before racing. Usually before 11pm. This means that if you’re following The Bet Maximiser, you have plenty of time to try and get the best possible value.
This is something that you will inevitably want to do. You see, whilst I haven’t mentioned it explicitly, The Bet Maximiser is a service that is focused around betting on Canadian bets. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this bet type, it brings together 5 selections into combinations of doubles, trebles, four folds, and a five fold acca.
Obviously, these have huge potential. But you aren’t going to win all that often either. Especially when you actually start to look at the kind of odds on the individual horses when it comes to The Bet Maximiser. Whilst Richard Harvey isn’t looking at backing 100/1 outsiders, you are still dealing with odds that are quite frequently in double figures. This means that you really have to be trying to make every win count.
Unfortunately, with something like The Bet Maximiser, there is no easy way to do this. Odds comparison sites don’t really tend to provide much insight for the more exotic accas. You could simply go off who offers the best odds on the five fold, but that is a crude solution at best. Realistically, the best thing you can do to help yourself is bet with a BOG bookie where possible.
Now, as you might expect, you are effectively only placing one bet per day with The Bet Maximiser which is of course The Canadian. But this is made up of 26 smaller bets. Richard Harvey advises that you are betting £1 on each of the individual bets bringing your betting total up to £26 per day. That isn’t a bank breaking amount, but it isn’t insignificant either.
What is really frustrating about it in my mind is that there isn’t actually advice on what sort of bank you need. It’s easy to look at £26 per bet and see this as affordable, but this is a service that simply doesn’t make money all that often. Even in Richard Harvey’s “proofing” he is able to show just 12 profitable days out of 66 days of betting. That is a best case scenario. This means that you have to plan for quite significant drawdowns.
This also allows us to calculate a strike rate for profitable bets. Based off this period, we would be looking at around 18% for The Bet Maximiser. That is a pretty good looking number all things considered. But the truth is that from what I’ve seen of Richard Harvey’s selections so far, you can ultimately expect to see much lower than this, adding to that concern about a betting bank.
How Does The Bet Maximiser Work?
As is so often the way with services like The Bet Maximiser, a lot is made here about the bet type and how that impacts… well, everything really. Richard Harvey talks about things like how just 2 selections need to win to make a profit, about how you aren’t actually betting a lot, but the profit potential is absolutely massive (I’ll coming back to this shortly). Almost all of the focus in the sales material is about the bet type.
The problem that I have is that it doesn’t ultimately mean much. Like I often find myself saying, a type of bet is not a betting system (or some variation of the sentiment). What matters much more is the selection process. Let’s not forget that what Richard Harvey is doing with The Bet Maximiser is identifying 5 quite long shot selections pretty much 5 days a week. That is a hell of a thing to find.
Unfortunately, what we aren’t told is how exactly how he is achieving this. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t really anything that is said about the selection process. The closest that you actually get to insight into this is a claim that horses are selected that “will make us a GOOD RETURN” and that there is a “tried and tested strategy”, but that could refer as much to the bet type as the selection process.
As a final aside, it is worth noting that whilst this lack of insight into a selection process is very problematic, there isn’t really much in the way of supporting evidence either. Let’s not forget that there isn’t really proofing for The Bet Maximiser at all. The closest that you come to this are the betting slips that are provided, except… well, I’m not exactly sold on their credibility as “proof” of anything.
What is the Initial Investment?
If you want to sign up for The Bet Maximiser, there are two different options available. The first of these is a monthly offering for which Richard Harvey is asking £30 (plus VAT) for access for a month. Alternatively, and representing slightly better value is a 4 month subscription. This is priced at £90 (plus VAT), effectively meaning a free month of bets.
Whichever option you choose, it is worth noting that The Bet Maximiser does come with a full 30 day money back guarantee. Something that is at least mentioned in the sales material, and somewhat prominently. This is backed up by the fact that Richard Harvey is selling access to the service through Clickbank. They are generally pretty good at honouring this sort of thing so there isn’t much to be concerned about there.
What is the Rate of Return?
The big deal when it comes to The Bet Maximiser is the profit potential. Or at least, the claimed profit potential. In the headline for the sales page Richard Harvey makes reference to making £23,340 profit from a single £26 bet. Building on this, what we’re shown a little later on is that you’re supposedly looking at is £46,679 in 66 days of betting (about 3 months). That is a truly incredible claim.
What I don’t think happens though is context being provided for just how extraordinary that actually is. This means that you’ve seen a return of 1,795 times you stake. If you turned that into a “points profit” (something I am loathe to do given the lack of insight into a betting bank and the various ways you can measure “a point”), that would mean that The Bet Maximiser has made more in 3 months than a solid tipster might see in a decade.
Conclusion for The Bet Maximiser
There is no denying the appeal of something like The Bet Maximiser. Theoretically minimal investment, and the returns potential is just massive. But I can’t help but feel when I look at things like this that the operative word there is potential. You see, potential is a wonderful word. If I play the Euro Millions Lotto, I can potentially become a millionaire many times over. Of course, the chances of that happening are almost one in 140,000,000. But potentially…
This brings me to The Bet Maximiser. Because this is a service that can potentially see returns of tens of thousands of pound. But this ultimately ends up with returns of a little more than 23,300/1. Let’s be realistic for a minute. That would mean that for that to hit (using some crude math), you’re looking at almost 90 years of betting. What are the odds that Richard Harvey has very conveniently hit this recently. You know, before the service has launched…
Anyway, let’s just put that to one side for a minute and look at all of the other issues. There remains the fact that Richard Harvey doesn’t actually demonstrate any real understanding of why he’s picking the bets that he is. To reiterate, there is nothing of substance stated. The closest that I think we come to insight into the betting process is being told that The Bet Maximiser doesn’t bet on the weekends because “selections are poor”. But what does that even mean?
The truth is that without any actual context for… well, anything with The Bet Maximiser, this is all just nonsense words. Sure, it might sound impressive if you don’t know what you’re looking at. But I know of plenty of tipsters that do well over the weekend. Whilst it might be tougher sometimes, to say selections are pretty poor seems a bit of a stretch.
Then there is the fact that what little evidence that is provided for The Bet Maximiser is all retrospective. Richard Harvey’s supposed bets all took place before the launch. Since then, there have been no wins of significance. Something that is rather telling to me. Especially because they are presented (as these things always are) in very questionable Betfair betting slips.
The reason these are questionable is simply because I see them on so many tipster services that are, if I’m generous, of dubious quality. As such, I’m always loathe to see this sort of thing as genuine. Furthermore, it also stands out to me that there are just a handful of bets that have supposedly won. As such, even if you take Richard Harvey’s claims as gospel., there remain questions about just how much betting may have been done to achieve that result.
Here’s the thing. In my mind, even the best things about The Bet Maximiser are things that I am highly sceptical of. There isn’t really anything that I look at here and find myself thinking “Yes, that is comprehensive and beyond doubt”. Which is of course a problem for any tipster service. But adding to all of this is the simple fact that this really isn’t cheap.
£30 per month might not sound bad. It’s certainly at the lower end of what I’d say is the “average” cost of a tipster service. But that would be for a tipster service that is verified. That can demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that it can deliver. For something like The Bet Maximiser to even be worth a very long punt, it’d need to be at least half this price. But it isn’t.
With all of this in mind, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I would say that this is one that is probably worth a miss. The fact of the matter is that even if the claimed results for The Bet Maximiser were genuine and above board (which I’m not convinced they are), the chances of them being replicated at any point in the immediate future is incredibly unlikely. And if I’m really realistic, you’ll probably find Richard Harvey shuts this down before a big win ever lands.
