A Q & A with Scott Beckman of Tipsters Review
Hi Scott, first up could we ask you to tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Hi, I am from a small town in Cumbria where there isn’t really a great deal to do! As a child I spent the vast majority of my time playing football or wasting my pocket money on the fruit machines at the bowling alley.
Up until last year I spent 10 years working for a local company as a Mechanical Engineer but ever since I was young I always had aspirations to work for myself. After work, I would look at the football and racing that was on that evening and have a few bets, I was certainly what you would call a “mug” punter.
After a while I got fed up losing and admitted defeat with my own bets and wanted something that would give me more of a steady income. I stopped betting on football and started focusing solely on following horse racing tipsters. After a few bad experiences I began to build up a portfolio of services that I could rely on to bring in a second income for a good few years.
Now I work for myself running the Tipsters Review website and do some contracting work for small engineering companies.
Why a review site? What made you decide that this was the business for you and how do you go about ensuring that your reviews are transparent and impartial?
The idea for this particular type of review site came from my own sufferance of following a Tipster service that failed to live up to expectation. Me and a couple of friends decided to sign up to a tipster service after reading about how much money he was making his members and we wanted a piece of the action! Sadly, after a few months it became clear that all the claims of big priced winners and mega profits had been false.
This was not just a rough patch for the tipster, he was basically just a con man lying about results, bragging about winners and covering up his many losers.
Over £1000 out of pocket I wanted to vent my anger and warn off anyone else thinking about singing up to this “tipster”. I was surprised to find that apart from a couple of forums there wasn’t really anywhere to be able to do this. A couple of months later I saw a post on social media about someone else who had also lost a large sum of money following the same service – so I set about creating Tipsters Review.
Making sure that the reviews posted on the site are transparent, unbiased and impartial is the most important factor in the functionality of the website. My web design team built a vigorous spam filter system that assesses numerous factors before allowing a review to be accepted on to the site. (Unique IP addresses, unique emails, timing, targeting, language, content etc.)
Would you tell us a little about the Tipsters Review site? What can it offer potential punters and how does it differ from other services on the market?
The Key difference Tipsters Review has to any other review site is the origin of the reviews. All our reviews come from real punters with real experiences; there are over 2500 reviews on the website from fellow gamblers that we can all relate to.
There are lots of other great review sites out there offering professional opinions but I think the views of punters who have been there and done it are invaluable. It is much like buying a product from Amazon or booking a holiday using Trip Advisor – we all want to know what people with previous experience think of it.
Aside from the reviews another feature that is becoming increasingly popular are the “live 7-day tipster trials” that I started running back in August. Every week we conduct a live 7 day trial on one of the services featured on the website.
In doing this it allows all our members to sample life as a full member to a wide variety of services without paying.
What traits do you think a good tipster of any sport should possess?
Honesty honesty honesty. Without it nothing else they can offer has any real value!
What do you think the average punter is looking for in a tipping service?
Again, even before looking at the profits you need to know how honest and transparent any particular service is. Do they keep full records of tips? Do they proof their selections to other website's? You then need to know if the service is right for you, just because it makes X amount of profit doesn’t mean that it will be a good fit for yourself.
How many tips per day do they send out? What time do they send them out? What staking plan do they use? What size betting bank do they recommend? Don’t be afraid to email the service and ask them questions.
On top of giving you all the information you need, this will also give you an idea of the quality of customer service they offer. There are also other important factors to consider before signing up such as; Do they offer a trial period? Do they have a money back guarantee? What bookmakers do they advise you to bet with? Oh, and of course don’t forget to check them out on Tipsters Review to see what fellow punters think!
Do you like a gamble yourself and if so what approach do you take to your gambling? Are there any services which you would personally recommend?
Due to time restraints I only have the odd “fun” bets these days. I believe that if you’re serious about making money from gambling, you need to commit some good time in doing so!
However, when I was betting more or less full time my approach was always to aim for long term steady profits. After I got over my “mug” punting days I was never one for chasing the “get rich quick” type of bets which may sound a bit boring but ultimately, this minimised risk and provided more of a consistent extra income.
As for recommending a service, I think I will let Tipsters Review do the talking on that one!
What about the bookmakers? Within the gambling industry would you like to see anything changed? There are many criticisms of the bookmakers and there treatment of their customers? Is this something you have an opinion on?
Well they certainly don’t make it easy for anyone wanting to win money do they!
My belief is that it should be enforced upon them to accept a minimum stake from all customers no matter how much they have won or lost.
I have signed numerous petitions in the past supporting this case, fingers crossed in the near future something can be put in place.
Do you have any personal success or highlights in your sporting experiences to date which bring a smile and if so what? The highlight for me has to be launching the Tipsters Review website and seeing the first review come through. It was a great feeling seeing all the ideas and hard work paying off.
In terms of betting highlights, I will never forget the first bet I placed at my local betting shop, £2 on Milan Baros to be top goal scorer in the euros at 50/1 and it came in. Unfortunately this was not a sign of things to come and I have since failed to eclipse a 50/1 winner all these years later!
Do you have any plans to develop the Tipsters Review service further which you can tell us about?
I am always looking to improve the service Tipsters Review offers and it has come a long way since its launch. I do have some very exciting plans for the future but I will be keeping them to myself for the time being 🙂 .
What others interests do you have outside of managing the Tipsters Review site?
Things are very busy in the Tipsters Review house at the moment, we have our second child on the way, due in the summer and we also have a wedding to plan, so there isn’t really anytime for much else other than Sleep!
