Value Finder is a long running horse racing tipster service which is provided by tipster John Hewitt. The service is managed by the Betfan group and claims to have had some big winners.
What does the product offer?
Betfan claim that with Value Finder, you can “Get the Edge! Be a Winner!” and that it is “Time to turn passion into profit”. Of course Betfan have always been great at marketing their products, but with proofing for Value Finder going back 12 months, it is much easier to see whether their sales pitch holds any truth. With that in mind, let’s get down to things and have a look in detail.
As a tipster, John Hewitt doesn’t appear to do much wrong. In fact, I would say that “logistically” Value Finder works very much as you would expect. Selections are issued on a near daily basis to subscribers as well as being uploaded to a special member’s area of the website. All that you supposedly have to do is place the relevant bets and profit.
Not surprisingly given the name of Value Finder (and the basis of John Hewitt’s selection process), you don’t tend to get too many selections from the service. In fact, most days where there are is a selection there is just one, and I can’t find any example of a day where there have been more than two selections. These are however usually on horses with long odds with my quick browse through the selections revealing lowest odds of 4.50.
In terms of the numbers side of things, Value Finder follows the usual Betfan staking plan. This involves level stakes of 5 points per bet. I have written a number of times that I am not a fan of this plan and this arguably applies doubly for a service where the focus is on less frequent big wins.
The only other thing that is really left to consider is the strike rate. At the time of writing, this stands at an average of 24.81%. Truth be told, this looks on the low side at an initial glance, however I feel that given the nature of Value Finder as a system, it isn’t really too bad.
How does the product work?
I find it rather unfortunate that John Hewitt doesn’t talk any more about what this selection process for Value Finder entails. Betfan have chosen to talk in the marketing material about how much John Hewitt knows, but this isn’t really expanded on. We are simply told that he had a keen interest in betting from a young age and that over time his knowledge and betting have improved.
All this apparently come together to produce an “exceptional betting edge”. In fact, the sales material for Value Finder continues saying that “it is clear that my knowledge and strategy work”. Personally I am less than convinced by this as I will explore. The truth is that whilst I don’t expect any tipster to give away their entire system, I do expect to receive enough information to make an informed decision. Value Finder does not provide this as far as I am concerned.
What is the initial investment?
There are just two options if you want to subscribe to Value Finder. These are a monthly and a quarterly option which I should point out actually run for 28 days and 90 days respectively. These are charged at £40 and £80 respectively with VAT. It is worth pointing out that because Value Finder is a Betfan product, there is no real money back guarantee in place. That having been said, the team do say that they will review any refund requests although they don’t typically offer them.
What is the rate of return?
Since it launched, Value Finder has generated an overall profit of 515.59 points (keep in mind this is to 5 point stakes). This represents an ROI of 38.25%. These numbers don’t express everything however. On a month by month basis, Value Finder has performed well with John Hewitt generating profit pretty much every month with the exception of a 5 point loss at the start of the tear (nothing in the grand scheme of betting). Week to week however, you can see some rather substantial losses before a win takes Value Finder back into profit.
Conclusion
There are a few things that I feel need to be addressed with Value Finder before I can really start to wrap this up and that is the income that Betfan advertise. There are a number of things here and I will start with the profit and losses. I have pointed out that the weeks are up and down whilst the months have all proven profitable, but it is important to acknowledge how extreme this can be.
Over a period of just a few weeks, Value Finder lost around 120 points. This was recovered in the immediate few weeks, but this pattern does exist elsewhere. The problem that this number represents is that if you start out with a betting bank of 100 points (which is a reasonable figure), then you would have wiped this out in less than a month. If you were to drop to 1 point per bet, your profits would however have been just 103 points over a year.
With this out of the way, it is time to look at Value Finder as a whole. Truthfully, I am not overly impressed. The profit that John Hewitt has managed to eke out in the proofing provided by Value Finder isn’t too bad. There is a profit after all. This brings me to one of the biggest downsides however and that is the question of value for money. I am simply not convinced that this is a tipster service worth £40 per month.
Truth be told, once you take Value Finder out of the light of Betfan’s inflated staking plan, there isn’t a lot that stands out. The profits are decidedly pedestrian and the staking plan I genuinely feel is riskier than it suggests. The fact that John Hewitt has been able to generate profit is ultimately an admirable thing. However, compared to the results of other services that have produced similar profits, I find that it is too expensive. Likewise, compared to products that are priced similarly, I don’t see Value Finder performing.
