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Guide To Con-Men

Who are the true horse racing professionals?

You may have seen adds for sources of horse racing information. Would you like to find out the truth behind the claims?

The unfortunate fact is that there are many so called services who simply can not live up to their own hype. Others more worryingly are out right con men! Visit Con-men to see their secrets exposed!

Are They All Con Men?

Well this is the good part. Amongst the sea of scam merchants there are a handful of hardworking genuine services. These guys spend a lot of time and effort to provide a steady flow of profitable information to their clients.

1. The Multiple Horse Sting

You receive a mail shot, a telephone call or respond to an advert announcing a upcoming "dark horse gamble". A smooth talking salesman tells you that his insider connections have organised a big gamble running next Saturday.

This horse has been specially prepared for months he tells you. It is a certain winner and you would be an absolute fool to miss out on this opportunity. If you agree to bet £50 on his behalf and send him the winnings, he will let you in on his secret information. He explains that ideally he would like to put his own money down. The bookies however will not  accept his bets because he has won so much money off them in the past.

Remember these guys are normally very slick and could easily sell double glazing to someone who lived in a tent. Often they  pad out their sales pitch with little pieces of fact or information such as "We take no chances and will even carry out a blood test on the horse on the morning of the race just to make sure everything is spot on"

Now lets assume that the con man has talked 100 people to each bet £50 on this so called hot horse on his behalf. When the punters call on Saturday to get the information he will have chosen a race with only a few runners or perhaps he will have picked out the first five in the betting forecast in an eight horse race. He will then proceed to give out different horses to the different callers! No matter which horse wins he is guaranteed to make a lot of money.

A slight variation on this is when the so called hot information turns out to be the evens favourite! A quick glance at any newspaper could have told you this was the most likely winner.

Stay Well Clear!

Generally this will arrive in the form of a mail shot through your letter box. A polished sales letter informs you of this great horse tipping service. Just look at how much you could have won last year!

You check out the monthly results and they are very impressive. A huge profit every month. 50% winners at 4-1. You send off one hundred pounds for a series of bets and eagerly await the first race.

After a series of loosing bets it dawns on you that the results given to you were most likely complete fabrication. Too bad your money is gone and you have virtually no chance of seeing it again.

One contact of mine told me of how he joined such a service. After a horrible run of poor selections, out of pocket for both the cost of the tips and the loosing bets he stopped. Imagine his surprise six months later when he received a mail shot from the same source. Checking the results for the period he had joined he saw listed an impressive array of winners and huge profits!

Remember any scamster can easily claim and list a brilliant series of wonderful results. If you get something like this ask them who can independently verify their so called results are true. Beware being given the phone number of a so called happy customer who turns out to be the con man's best mate.

Should you receive such a mailshot whatever you do do not send them any money. Give their details to me. I may have come across them in the past or may be able to check them out for you.

Now I am the first to admit that this is not exactly a con. It is more a bending of the truth by omission of all the facts. It is also the most common deception.

Generally you will see this approach used in teletext adds or adds in the sporting press. Does this look familiar?

"Were you on? We told you this horse would win! Last week our clients collected big with bets such as Red Rum who romped in at 10-1! Black Beauty give the bookies a right bashing when she hacked up at a whopping 6-1! We have a bet for today which our insider contacts say will not be beaten! Ring NOW!"

What the add fails to point out however is that although Red Rum and Black Beauty did oblige they were not the only horses to be given out. A long winded message costing £1.50 per minute waffled on for ages and probably tipped about five or six horses each day. Most likely before you were given the main "dark horse super maximum bet" (always at the end of the message) you had to endure a couple of minutes telling you about the sure thing that would be revealed on the late update line.

Nowhere I am sure did you see any mention in the add about the 90% of the horses given out that didn't win. Nor will you see anything about the long term profitability of the line. Just ask yourself why not.

With subscription services there will be no adds for a while then as soon as a purple patch is hit the add goes in. Brilliant results for last week and "all proofed to the racing press". Please don't be misled by a good burst of results. Demand to see their long term profit figures.

However it is not all doom and gloom as there are several genuine services available. Please note that even the good guys do not win every time and will suffer from the odd bad run of results. Do not confuse this scenario with the underhand tricks I have described in the previous section. Long term the good guys should make profit.

We Need Your Help!

This site aims to protect the punter against the rouges who prey on the gambling community. If you come across anything you consider to be a con man in operation please let me know. Together we can build a database of people to avoid. Your input may help another unsuspecting victim falling into the same trap.

Also if you are considering joining a tipping service, please check it out with us first. We may have come across them in the past. Possibly we could save you a lot of heartache and more inportantly a lot of cash.