The Shortlist Review Lucrative Racing

The Shortlist is a horse racing tipster service which is currently offered through the Lucrative Racing Trust. Selections come courtesy of tipster Michael Carr.

Introduction to The Shortlist

Honestly, it is hard to know quite where to begin with The Shortlist. Not because I think that there is a particularly bad product here, but because Michael Carr and Lucrative Racing Trust in the marketing throw a hell of a lot at you and as such, it is hard to know where a coherent starting point is.

Faced with this difficulty, I am going to twist a headline to suit my purpose. A headline that reads “Frustrated Ex-Gambler Develops Unique Approach To Betting That Will Make You Profitable For Life…”.

Do I believe most of what Lucrative Racing Trust claim here?

Not entirely, but there is an important takeaway for me and that is the reference to being an ex-gambler. This is because Michael Carr’s approach (which I will look at in more detail shortly) is very much based around taking the correct approach to betting. There is a lot to learn here, and so it is that I will dive straight into The Shortlist.

What Does The Shortlist Offer?

There is so much on offer with The Shortlist, to the extent that I could probably turn this into a 3000 word article with little problem. As such, some areas may seem rushed. This isn’t my intent, but I want to cover everything that Michael Carr offers through The Shortlist and still keep things punchy.

This brings me to the core of the service which is actually a pretty straight forward tipster service. Selections are uploaded to a member’s area on the Lucrative Racing Trust website, each morning usually before 10am. All that you have to do is place the bets.

These are massively varied in terms of odds, volume and to a lesser degree the bet types. Michael Carr exclusively advises all of his selections as win or each way bets. These are at odds starting as low as 2.1 and can go as high as 34. The volume of bets is one area of The Shortlist that does concern me.

Without looking too hard at the proofing, I have identified a day which had 24 bets advised on that day. This is a lot for some people to follow, especially when it is not an exceptional occurrence.

In terms of the strike rate, this is an important point for Michael Carr. He says that in his experience with other Lucrative Racing Trust products, people want to win around a third of bets. This is achieved with The Shortlist as the strike rate stands at 36.46%.

This isn’t a massive number, but it is definitely respectable enough in my book. This is backed up by a level staking plan which sees 1 point placed on each bet. This is a bit of a must have in my opinion given the high volume of bets The Shortlist has.

As well as the core tipster service, a big part of The Shortlist is based around the concept of identifying trends within betting in order to maximise profitability. This is included in the form of Current Trends. This can bring down the volume of bets quite significantly.

The Shortlist also comes with access to the Lucrative Racing Trust system portfolio. Finally, there are a number of bonus products which tie into betting, but have little to do with the core service here.

How Does The Shortlist Work?

Honestly, Michael Carr has been around for some time putting out horse racing products (with some mixed reviews). In the case of The Shortlist, there is a lot of talk about how the bookies can get prices wrong, about how horses can be under valued etc. Typical talk from any service which is based around value betting. Truth be told though, Michael Carr tells us a lot about The Shortlist without ever really going too much into detail. We are told the following:

1. The horse is a strong contender in it’s race, and has the ability to win to assuming it performs on the day.
2. The odds currently available are estimated to be higher than the horses actual chance of winning.
3. The estimated Betfair Start Price is also likely to be higher than the horses actual chance of winning.

For my money, this tells us how to win bets. But it doesn’t say a lot about how Michael Carr is actually finding his winners. To me, this is a slightly slicker equivalent of saying that you just have to pick horses that won’t lose. It is disappointing and I would expect more from The Shortlist in this regard.

What is the Initial Investment?

If you want to sign up to The Shortlist there are three different options. The first of these is the ability to sign up on a monthly subscription. This is priced at £39 per month. There is slightly better value to be had by signing up on a quarterly basis at a cost of 99. Finally, you can sign up for the whole year for £299.

At the time of writing, Lucrative Racing Trust also provide an option to trial The Shortlist for a week for just 99p. There is also a 30 day money back guarantee in place. It should be noted however that Michael Carr offers this directly as a vendor which means you would have to deal with him directly.

What is the Rate of Return?

Since Mid-December 2017, The Shortlist has produced an overall profit of 250 points by the end of July based off the proofing provided. On the sales material for The Shortlist, however, the points profit is claimed to be 267.38 points.

Had you compounded staking for the service, Michael Carr claims that you would be looking  at a much more substantial profit of 456.6 points. A respectable enough number that is somewhat tempered by the fact that the ROI for The Shortlist is much lower at just over 12%.

Conclusion on The Shortlist

The tipster market is an interesting one as there is just so much in the way of competition. This makes it rather difficult to stand out from the crowd. Honestly, I have looked at a fair few tipsters before now and I have concluded that whilst they don’t do anything wrong, they also simply aren’t good enough to stand out from the crowd. For my money, The Shortlist falls into this category somewhat.

Everything about it is pretty average to me, with a few exceptions and these are what I want to address. First of all, there is the volume of bets. Using level stakes, you may well be betting a third of your betting bank on a given day.

The truth of the matter is that whilst there is a decent enough strike rate etc. in place, this does create a situation where your betting bank is exposed. Obviously, this can be helped by looking at the trends, but if this is so successful, why isn’t it being applied as standard?

The other thing that puts me off a little bit is a lack of understanding. This very much ties in with the volume of selections. I am not certain how you can justifiably and consistently pick 25-35 horses out on a given day.

Whilst this may well represent a relatively narrow field compared to the number of horses running, it is still suggestive that there may be some loose criteria for selection. Without further information, I do think this does count against The Shortlist a little.

Finally, there is balancing all of this with the costs. I generally think that between £20 and £40 per month is reasonable for a tipster service. The Shortlist is right at the top of this and that makes it a little difficult to find value for money.

Again, I have to reiterate that The Shortlist isn’t a bad service. It has made money over a rather significant period and that is no easy feat. If you are comfortable paying the costs, I would even refer to it as a pretty savvy move.

The problem that I have is that I think there are arguably better products that cost less.