Work Rider is a horse racing tipster service which is offered as a part of the Value Rater stable of tipsters. It claims to provide top tips from “The most well connected men in the business”.
What does the product offer?
There are a lot of different services that I have looked at before now which claim to have connections with inside information. In fact, if I am honest, I am so used to seeing this claim (often with no evidence) that I treat it with a dose of cynicism. This is because it is almost always tacked on. For example, a products sales page may well read a little bit like this:
Tipster Name has been involved in betting for 20 years and they’ve developed various systems in this time and blah blah blah. They have also made friends and contacts within the industry. Men in the know. And when these contacts talk, Tipster Name will listen.
Of course, it is difficult to take this sort of thing seriously. There is nothing to back it up, the claims are vague and a contact within the industry can mean anything. Somebody could well argue that I am a contact within the industry.
Now what does all of this have to do with anything? Well, Work Rider is one of the only tipster services which I immediately recall having looked at which claims to be based exclusively on this principle. This could of course be crap, and there are reasons that it could be, but I don’t believe that Value Rater would go so all in on the claim if there wasn’t some truth to it. This is interesting and represents a service which may well be unique in the current tipster market.
Work Rider as a service is actually a rather interesting thing to look at. It does not appear to follow any real pattern which I believe to be a good thing (at least in this case). Selections are somewhat sparse and whilst there can be a few a day, you will frankly do well to get more than 3 or 4 on the bounce. When selections are available, these are sent out directly to Work Rider subscribers via email however Value Rater do also have a special member’s area too which is the recommended way of receiving bets. These are usually available on the day of racing, at the latest by 11.30.
This brings me onto the bets themselves. The majority of bets that are advised through Work Rider are straight forward win bets, however, there are also a decent number of each way bets advised too. Not surprisingly, these are on horses that have much longer odds. On this topic, Work Rider does provide a decent range, something which does fit with the modus operandi of a service with inside information. As an example of how varied these odds can be, there were odds of 16/1 on one bet, only for the next to be 11/10.
There is a staking plan in place for Work Rider which is a level affair. This is a good thing. Less good however is the fact that Value Rater appear to have proofed the service to 5 points per bet (with each way bets set at 2.5). This can be a very risky approach which I am not a fan of. I will however discuss this in greater detail below.
Whilst there is inherently some risk, the strike rate paints a pretty decent picture of where Work Rider is up to. Purely in terms of win bets, Work Rider produced a strike rate of 35%. Factor in place bets, none runners and races which were abandoned and you are looking at a strike rate which averages out at just over 45%. These are undoubtedly strong results.
How does the product work?
I have already talked at some length about the fact that Work Rider is ran on what is supposedly inside information. I could probably talk more about how Value Rater claim that the service is linked to top UK stables and is “involved in the planning and setting up of many big gambles”. The fact of the matter is however, that there is very little in the way of direct evidence to back this up. With that having been said, I believe that there is some evidence that makes me believe that Work Rider is genuine in this regard and I will explore this in detail below.
What is the initial investment?
Value Rater have made two options available for those who want to subscribe to Work Rider. The first of these is a monthly option which is priced at £40 per month (£48 once you factor in VAT). Unlike some tipster services, this seems to be based on calendar months. For increased value, you can also sign up to Work Rider on a quarterly basis which costs £79.99 per quarter (£96 once you factor in VAT).
Whilst Value Rater do not offer any money back guarantee on their products, at the time of writing there is a trial offer for Work Rider available. This means that you can get your first month for just £7 after which the costs revert to the normal rate. It is worth pointing out that this is supposedly a limited time offer only however.
What is the rate of return?
Proofing for Work Rider has been running since December 2016. Since then it has generated an overall profit of 488.93 points which at a glance looks like a very strong result. There are however some factors that I believe need to be considered when looking at this number. The first is that this is based around 5 point stakes. If you use 1 point stakes, Work Rider has made just 97.78 points. This is important to highlight as I believe that using high points with a level staking is a method that is often employed simply to inflate profits. What is harder to ignore is the ROI for the service which stands at a respectable 27.91%.
Conclusion
First of all, I want to discuss why it is that I think that Work Rider is genuine in its claim to having inside information. The first thing is the scarcity of bets. It has been almost 15 months since Work Rider has launched and in that time there has been less than one bet per day on average. This mean that either Value Rater have thought long and hard about how to play their bets or Work Rider is the real deal.
There is one other thing that makes me believe Work Rider is genuine and that is the range in terms of odds. A tipster who relies on inside information has to jump on every bet that comes their way. Services that I have questioned the claim on seem to follow patterns of only backing ridiculously long odds or favourites. It makes much more sense that anybody with someone on the inside would receive information on all possibilities, not just ones that fit their betting philosophy.
This is not the be all and end all however. The fact that Work Rider may well be genuine does not necessarily make it a good service. This is a much more nuanced question. There are a few positives to be had. The ROI is actually pretty decent. If you are staking enough money, I can see how Work Rider would prove reasonably profitable for you. Furthermore, in a world where there are so many questionable tipsters on the market, the fact that Work Rider is clearly genuine is a huge boon.
There are also some strong negatives as far as I am concerned. The fact that the results have been inflated concerns me if I am honest. Using 5 point stakes, you would average 32.6 points per month. A fine number I believer. If you are using level stakes, you are talking about 6.51 points. Ultimately (and I have already mentioned this), how much you can afford to bet will dictate whether or not Work Rider works for you. It is worth keeping in mind that you would need to be betting a simple £10 on each selections (ignoring points for a minute) would mean £17 profit per month once you had paid your subs. £50 stakes would mean a profit of £278.
All of this raises the question of whether or not Work Rider represents value for money. The honest answer to this is, it depends on how much you can afford to bet. Unfortunately, I believe that when you are answering like this, it demonstrates that there is an inherent lack of value. The fact of the matter is this. Whilst Work Rider can make you a reasonable enough monthly profit, there are products out there which fundamentally do the same thing for less.
With all of this on the table, I am not certain that I can recommend Work Rider. This isn’t necessarily because it is a bad service. In fact, based off the results to date I am inclined to say that it is pretty far from it. The problem ultimately stems from how much you have to invest in order to see decent returns. If you can afford to stake £50 plus per bet though, I do think that you will do well enough off Work Rider.
