We all like to think that we’re capable of picking a winner when we put our minds to it. Why else would we bother signing into our favourite betting site or walking into the local bookmakers? Sure ‘being in it to win it‘ alone can be fun as it’s good to get involved, but one too many losers in a row and even the most patient of us starts to get a tad cheesed off.
With the aim of finding a winner in mind, we again all have our own approache. Some study form closely, or look to see how fellow stablemates have performed. Others go by the look of a horse, or an indefinable feeling they get that has paid dividends in the past. Others have a favourite tipster that they follow, either in a newspaper or online – many a punter follows tips by tipster in the Sun, Racing Post and the like. Perhaps a slightly more modern approach to acquiring horse racing tips though, is by following those tipsters we deem to be ‘in the know‘ on Twitter.
With Twitter tips I tend to find that the first step to getting to the gold is to know what to look out for and what to avoid. Some on Twitter just pump out retweeted tip after tip from others accounts in a bid to get eyeballs on their Twitter page. For them it can be less about picking a winner and more about just being seen, so steer clear! Second hand retweeted tips aren’t likely to see you to your fortune, after all, even if they win, how many people saw them before you and what impact did that have on the betting odds?
Some choose to specialise, and this can break down in a number of ways. One successful horse racing Twitter tipster I know of concentrates solely on two year olds over the flat, others opt for only picking outsider selections. This of course isn’t everyone’s preference though, as many of us enjoy placing a bet at all kinds of odds, both over the flat and hurdles.
Another key indicator of quality can be the follower count. If an account has only a handful of followers (and is possibly following several times that) it may be the case that people ‘aren’t buying what they’re selling’ so to speak. A 5 or 10 to 1 distribution of ‘followers’ to ‘following’ is about right I’d say, as this suggests the account owner is piquing the interests of many! A good example of this is well known Racing Tips & News Twitter account, they post dozens of tips daily and have a large base of eagle eyed followers waiting to view their latest selections.
Of course with a Twitter account it’s possible to follow any number of tipsters but hopefully some of the little hints and tips above will mean you’re on the way to a few winners and cutting out some of the noise!