The Lay Men is a new combination tipster service from Stark Industries that provides subscribers with selections for both football and horse racing lay bets.
What does the product offer?
The Lay Men takes a somewhat interesting approach to lay betting by deciding to look at multiple disciplines. In this particular case, Stark Industries say that The Lay Men focuses on low liability bets which is “where the value is”.
As it is a lay betting opportunity, using The Lay Men will require an account with a betting exchange of which Betfair is probably the most well known and therefore has the largest markets.
In terms of what you can expect from The Lay Men as a service, it is a relatively low volume service that rarely exceeds 4 bets per day. Stark Industries say that all selections that come from The Lay Men are usually favourites or second favourites in the event of horse racing whilst their football bets “already have a 66% chance of winning”.
The fact is that most of the football bets are what I would call common sense options. There is no published strike rate however as you would expect from any lay betting service, The Lay Men doesn’t lose too often.
How does the product work?
There is unfortunately (and perhaps not all that surprisingly) very little information provided on what the selection process is. All that they really have to say is that The Lay Men “eat sleep and breathe lay betting”.
This is rather disappointing however as I would have like to have had some insight into the betting process for reasons that I will explore below.
What is the initial investment?
Stark Investors offer three different types of subscription for The Lay Men. These are a monthly subscription, a quarterly subscription and an annual subscription.
These sell for £49, £99 and £279 respectively. There is no mention of any money back guarantee which I would take to mean that there isn’t anything like this on offer.
What is the rate of return?
In the first quarter, The Lay Men made a total profit of just over £10,000. It is worth keeping in mind that this is based on staking to make a £100 profit (before Betfair’s 5%).
Conclusion
As far as lay betting services go, I don’t believe that The Lay Men really puts a foot wrong, at least so far. The losses can be a little extreme however they aren’t consistent enough to necessarily be a worry.
The biggest question that I have about The Lay Men is whether or not it can be considered value for money. The fact is that at £49 per month, the service is at the high end in terms of what tipster services cost.
This combined with the fact that using the recommended staking plan, losses can reach almost £500. This means that a few of these in a row can massively impact your betting bank which if you are starting out is a problem. With The Lay Men still being in its infancy this remains a very real possibility.
With all this in mind, The Lay Men isn’t really something that I would invest in however I can see how there is some appeal.
