Social media is a great way to share opinions, advice and recommendations. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become a popular tools for sports fans to interact with fellow supporters, players and the clubs they love. It has brought sports fans closer than ever before to the action.
Social media is also packed with predictions, sports betting tips and sportsbook bonuses. As well as major gambling firms using Twitter to advertise their services, professional and amateur tipsters also use profiles to promote their profiles. Some tipsters are very popular, helping followers bag profits from football, horse racing, greyhound and other major sports. Others are far less trustworthy, hiding behind fake profiles in an attempt to scam subscribers out of their hard-earned cash.
Following a strong sportsbook tipster service can be an enjoyable experience, but falling into the trap of a scammer’s account could end up costing you more than money. How do you tell the difference? Unfortunately, scammers make it difficult to pick them out from a crowd, but there are tricks you can use to stay safe.
In this article, we have the expert advice of an experienced sports betting professional who explains what to look out for and what to be aware of when deciding to follow a social media tipster. Follow the below points to help stay safe on all major social media platforms.
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Do your research
As with any online profile for any service or even a person, if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. You can investigate more by researching the profile. How many followers do they have? When was the account opened? What type of profiles do they follow and follow them back? This is all basic stuff, but we should never ignore the basics. Common sense plays a huge part in protecting yourself from scammers when using social media.
In most cases, you can spot a rogue profile quite easily. Are they claiming to be professional but struggle with basic grammar and spelling? That would be a red flag for us. Are they a new account? We all have to start somewhere, but that would also put us off following a tipster. Be vigilant and question everything about the page before giving them any attention.
Private message the account and have a casual conversation with the person behind it. You should get a feel for if they are genuine or not. Are they happy to answer your questions and provide evidence of their success, or are they shifty, avoiding giving a straight answer?
Profit/loss
The next thing to look for is a profit and loss column. You want to see past results of their tips. Have they given more winners than losers? Is the page in profit? Celebrating a winning streak is great, but not if it comes on the back of a losing run or the tips have struggled to make a profit due to low prices. Any respected tipster will advertise their profit and loss for the season, or you can ask them for details. You want to see a positive balance, and you want to see evidence of their past tips.
Another thing to look out for is how far back the results go. A winning month is impressive, but we can all do that. As sports bettors, we go through peaks and troughs, runs of profit followed by periods of loss. A professional tipster or a sportsbook account you can trust will know short-term glory isn’t worth much. Any successful bettor wants to finish the year with more cash than they started. You may see a rogue site posting genuine profits from the last two months of the year and promoting it as much as they can to attract new followers. It’s not so great if you dig a little deeper and see those two winning months came on the back of 10 losing months, and the overall profit and loss is negative.
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Never pay for tips
Our last point is never to pay for tips. There are many great subscription services that provide profitable tips, but it’s not for us. Ask yourself why a profile is claiming to be beating the bookies on a regular basis and winning huge sums of cash but require your small monthly subscription. It doesn’t add it.