Calcio Tips specialises in over/under football betting tips, offering a pay-per-tip or monthly subscription. A loss-insurance is offered for the former, with 2 free tips after a loss and 1 free tip after a handicap tie. For the latter, the next month is free if the hit-rate is below 67%. Verified by Sports-Tipsters from the 31st October 2013.
Sports-Tipsters final comments:
Sports-Tipsters chose to end verification on the 25th March 2014 when a forwarded e-mail from Calcio Tips was received explaining to one of their customers, asking for an explanation about the recent bad form, that they were taking a rest to evaluate things in view of the fact that since the departure of their leading analyst on 5th December 2013, they had been struggling. Sports-Tipsters opinion is that all of this, in addition to the closing verified record of -4.87% from 129 picks with average odds of 1.92, is evidence of a service that shouldn't be charging $300 per month, and shouldn't be making the bold claims it does on its website.
The likelihood (please note not certainty) is that Calcio Tips is yet another service set up by someone who thought he knew how to forecast the number of goals in a football game but for whom the Goddess Fortuna had other ideas. Of course just 129 picks is not a suitable sample size to definitively be sure of this tipster's lack of skill (technically no sample size is) but suspending the service in response to a customer complaint is not a proven method for changing losing tips into winning ones. Either the tipster has a real forecasting ability, in which case the recent poor run of form is just down to bad luck and requires no suspension at all, or the tipster has no forecasting ability, in which case he shouldn't be selling tips in the first place.
Undeniably Calcio Tips would wish to refer people to their much longer record dating back to November 2012 for which strike rates in the months to October 2013 (when verification began) were much higher, averageing 70%, compared to 52% since Sport-Tipsters has been proofing the service. Unfortunately, unverified tips are totally irrelevant in the context of arguing a case for a forecasting ability. If they are genuine (and there is not way of telling) then it is only down to the survivorship bias that the tipster has asked for his tips to be verified in the first place. Other over/under tipsters who do not have 70% strike rates never make it to Sports-Tipsters. For this reaoson the only performance that matters is the verified one.
Furthermore, the idea that results have been poor since the leading tipster left is clearly just an example of hindsight bias. Had the results been good, such an observation would never have been made. Since they have been, it's an easy excuse to fall back on. Why didn't Calcio Tips tell their membership about this at the time? The likeihood is that the results have been poor because the law of large numbers is starting to take its toll on a tipster that has no forecasting ability. Hoping that there will be an improvement next month, and contemplating the idea of introducing some Asian handicap tips into the mix as well when thusfar the speciality has allegedly been the over/under market, is in Sports-Tipsters' opinion evidence of someone who believes that to be true too. Sports tipping is about selling skill, not luck; luck is free of charge to everyone. No-one needs to pay $300 per months for that.
