Football Don is a new to market sports betting tipster service which is operated by one Steve Clarke. He claims that his approach to football betting can land you some very large profits.
Introduction to Football Don
I often talk about horse racing betting and how there are a lack of markets you can really take advantage of, although, there is bags of value available which is always good. At the other end of that, you have football. Here there are more markets than you can shake a stick at, but most of them simply don’t carry value. Not unless you want to bet on Harry Kane to score first, Tottenham to win, over 1.5 goals to be scored, and less than 8 corner kicks. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating. But a lot of football tipsters do have to complicate things to get value.
All of this brings me to Football Don. This is a football based tipster service that leans heavily on simple betting markets, yet somehow, has seemingly found a way to identify genuine value. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about 33/1 outsiders romping home. That isn’t what football betting is about. But Steve Clarke makes a big thing about doubling your stakes, and if you can do that with any sort of consistency in football, you’re doing pretty bloody well for yourself.
I do however have some very serious questions about the results. More specifically, about the odds that Steve Clarke claims he is getting with Football Don. There are a few other things that should be called into question as well. But let’s be honest for a moment, when the core premise of a service has a big question mark over it, it casts doubts on everything. Just how problematic is all this? Well, let’s get into it and have a look.
What Does Football Don Offer?
First and foremost, as far as tipster services go, I think that Football Don is one of the simplest football tipster services I Have ever looked at. Something that I absolutely say with no ill intention towards Steve Clarke. If I’m really honest, I think that simplicity, wherever it can be applied, should be lauded in betting. The fact is that fewer moving parts just means that there is less to break.
Now, I want to talk more about this simplicity. But honestly, it is a difficult thing to do in some respects because it is engrained in every single element of the service. As such, I want you to consider it to be a recurring theme throughout this review that will rear its head quite regularly.
So, first things first, let’s talk about the process of Football Don. Something that is interesting to me here is that this is a daily tipster service. This isn’t typically the case when it comes to football tipster services as the vast majority of games take place over the weekends. Here though, Steve Clarke tells us that that they “don’t just rely on the bigger leagues for our profits! We make profit on the international fixtures”.
Now, this doesn’t quite make sense to me. More than anything else, that is because from what I’ve seen, Football Don just isn’t really daily. But also, international football is often why domestic club football is put on hold. And it happens over a full week. So, that doesn’t quite add up. It isn’t like it happens on the days when league football isn’t being played.
Moving on from that (for now anyway), let’s talk about what you can expect when you sign up to Football Don. As is pretty much industry standard at this point, Steve Clarke issues his selections directly via email. These land on the morning of a game (with at least 5 hours before kick off), and frankly, contain about the bare minimum in term of actual information. Basically, just enough to know what you are betting on.
Outside of that, what Steve Clarke basically says is get on with the job of placing the bets with your bookie. Something that, in theory, makes sense. Because after all, Football Don is all about placing bets base around certain odds. Therefore, it stands to reason that you should be able to place them with any bookmaker, right?
Absolutely not. Looking at some of the historic bets and the (admittedly small amount of) bets that I’ve seen… Well, it is very difficult to actually get close to the odds that you should be. This has an impact on a huge number of elements, but I will come to that. What it is an example of though is the blatant fact that the simplicity of Football Don is a bit farcical.
Fortunately, you don’t tend to have too many bets on a given day. This means that, at the very least, if you are following Football Don you can seek out the best odds. It probably goes without saying that I would strongly recommend doing this wherever you can.
With all of that out of the way, I believe that it is worth just touching on a few points pertaining to the numbers. Firstly, Steve Clarke recommends using a percentile based approach to staking (something that is at odds with his own betting apparently). With all bets advised at 1% of your bank, this is pretty sustainable. Especially because it appears you aren’t dealing with more than a couple of bets each day. It does however mean that recovery can be a problem. Especially at the odds involved.
Finally, I want to mention the strike rate, or rather, the lack thereof. This is really important in my eyes because of that staking plan. For example, using level stakes, a 50% strike rate would break even (if you can get those 2.0 plus odds). But if you lose, you have to recover more money, so you need more than this. Something that Steve Clarke seems to completely skip over with Football Don.
How Does Football Don Work?
In theory, the core idea of Football Don is a sound enough one. You find games where there are decent odds available that allow you to double your money. It all sounds like nice round numbers and it appears to add up nicely. But as I’ve just mentioned, it doesn’t actually work out like that if you have any sort of loss or losing streak.
The blunt fact is that I am always wary about any betting system that is based around simply betting in a certain way. What I mean by this is Football Don is pinned entirely on the notion that betting at these odds will work for you. Even putting to one side for a second the fact that those odds just aren’t always available, that is only a small part of the picture. Because if Steve Clarke doesn’t have a decent system underpinning it, it doesn’t really mean much.
Now, we are told that Football Don is able to “Find AND qualify trending football selections that ANYONE could exploit”. We are also told that Steve Clarke completely analyses the odds market for “false favourite” factors. These supposedly show where the best odds are. But let’s be honest for a second. None of that really means much of anything. It just sounds like a bunch of words have been brought together that seem appealing. There is nothing there about actually identifying football bets in my opinion.
On top of this, there is a frustrating and concerning lack of evidence surrounding the ability of Football Don to deliver. There is an incredibly dubious screenshot of a betting account. There are also somewhat questionable betting slips provided that seemingly show a number of recent winners. But I can’t help but be sceptical of these too. What is certainly missing is any decent level of proofing that actually demonstrates that Steve Clarke’s selections are profitable long term.
What is the Initial Investment?
If you want to sign up for Football Don, there is only one option available. This is a one time cost of £39 (which seems to be inclusive of VAT) for which you get access for 6 months. In theory, I will admit that this sounds like fantastic value. After all, that is just £6.50 per month. This is certainly significantly less than you would expect to see from most services.
Of note is the fact that Football Don doesn’t come with any real money back guarantee. In and of itself, that isn’t necessarily a problem. It is generally industry standard at this point, and as such, isn’t a criticism. I do however feel like it is something that you probably want to keep in mind.
What is the Rate of Return?
Steve Clarke says that he has made £17,510 profit in 2021. And that is supposedly just one of his bet accounts. That is a bloody big number for just a few months. That would mean a minimum of £4,377.50 per month. And that is including all of April at this point. So, there are some bloody big numbers surrounding Football Don. But I want to put into context just how ridiculously big those numbers are.
You see, in the betting slips that are provided as rather questionable evidence, all bets are backed to £25 stakes. That means that you are looking at 700 points in less than 4 months. Again, being generous and including April, that means 175.1 points of profit per month. This means that Football Don is making as much in a monthly average as some tipsters do in a year. Of course, with no actual proofing, I am highly sceptical of these numbers.
Conclusion for Football Don
On a very fundamental level, I really want to acknowledge the fundamentals of what Football Don is trying to do here. Because really, it comes down to just finding value in football bets. And if you can do this without adding too much in the way of complications to bets… Well, that’s only a winner.
The problem that immediately jumps out at me here however is that important distinction between what Football Don sets out to do as a service, and what it is realistically going to be able to attain. Because whilst there may well be some merit to the core idea, the execution is much less than stellar.
Here’s the thing. If Steve Clarke were advising bets that actually had those attainable odds, then there might be some merit to this. But I am yet to see many bets where you’re getting those odds that can actually make Football Don work. And when this is the core premise of the service, it’s a hard thing to say is worthwhile. At the end of the day, it is hard to look past the fact that because Steve Clarke isn’t really delivering on this… Well, it just makes the service a bit of a let-down.
Building on this, it isn’t even like this is the only area where I think you’ll be let down with Football Don. The fact of the matter is that this is a service that I don’t really see Steve Clarke delivering in any capacity. I certainly don’t buy into the claimed profit which just strikes me as complete rubbish, if I’m honest. I just can’t really see a world in which Football Don is delivering more profit in a few months that most tipster services would make in a few years.
Not only is there, let’s be honest, very reasonable doubt over these claims just by virtue of how Football Don supposedly works. But it isn’t even like Steve Clarke is lining up to provide evidence backing up his claims. What you get is… Minimal at best. It certainly isn’t anything that would do anything to change my mind.
So, probably not surprisingly, I really wouldn’t like to recommend Football Don. Arguably the only saving grace here is the fact that Steve Clarke isn’t really asking a particularly high price for the service. But as I often say, if you aren’t paying a lot for a bad service, you are still paying for a bad service.
With actual proofing and some kind of explanation how he is finding these selections, I might be swayed a little. But unfortunately, even this most simple of stuff is missing. Something that isn’t acceptable for a tipster who claims that their “personal bet process” has been perfected over 3 years. There simply should be something there, rather than the nothing that you actually get.
