A fake tipster sells the look of a winning record instead of the record itself: screenshots of collects, claims that tips cannot miss, strike rates with no prices and pressure to pay now. The quickest test is to ask for every tip since the record began, with its time and its price. A real tipster can hand that over; a fake one changes the subject.
Some sellers who fit this picture pick the odd winner, and some run outright tipster scams. Either way, each red flag below costs money in a way you can measure.
Screenshots instead of a full record
A screenshot shows one bet. It can be edited, and even a genuine slip says nothing about the bets around it, so a feed of collects is a selection, not a record.
The split list shows how a seller can produce a spotless run without picking anything.
Example: Illustrative numbers. A seller with 1,024 contacts splits them into four groups and sends each group a different runner in the same race, then repeats the trick with whichever group got the winner.
| Race | Contacts still in play | How they are split | Who has seen only winners |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,024 | 4 groups of 256, a different runner each | 256, if one of the four runners wins |
| 2 | 256 | 4 groups of 64 | 64 |
| 3 | 64 | 4 groups of 16 | 16 |
The 16 people left have seen three winners from three, from a seller who sent 12 different tips and picked nothing. The other 1,008 saw a loser and hear nothing more. The screenshots those 16 receive are genuine, and they prove nothing. It is survivorship bias built on purpose.
What to ask for instead is the full list, with times, prices, stakes and results, losers included. How to check a tipster record walks through recounting one.
Certainty claims, huge strike rates and urgency
Three kinds of claim ask you to skip the checking.
Certainty words come first: a lock, a tip that cannot miss, inside information, a subscription said to pay for itself. No selection is certain, and a seller who says otherwise is telling you how they sell, not how they pick.
Huge strike rates come next. A strike rate means little without the prices, and very high ones at middling prices describe returns that would make betting the tips far more valuable than selling them. With illustrative claims:
| Claimed strike rate | Average winning price | Return per $1 staked = strike rate x price | Break-even strike rate = 1 / price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 78% | $2.60 | 0.78 x 2.60 = 2.03, a yield of about +103% | 38.5% |
| 64% | $3.30 | 0.64 x 3.30 = 2.11, a yield of about +111% | 30.3% |
| 52% | $4.50 | 0.52 x 4.50 = 2.34, a yield of +134% | 22.2% |
Each of these would more than double the money staked, on average across the tips. Before you pay, ask why a seller with that record sells tips rather than betting them, and ask for the list that produced it.
Urgency is the third: a countdown timer, "three places left", a price that rises at midnight, or a pitch to win back last weekend's losses. Pressure exists to stop you checking. A pitch aimed at punters who are behind is the worst of these, because chasing losses raises the amount at risk without improving the odds.
Risk: Betting involves risk. No tipster removes it, and paying for tips to win back losses only adds a fee to the losses. See responsible gambling for limits and support.
Hidden affiliate deals
A tip that always arrives with the same bookmaker's link may have a second payer. Some deals reward the referrer once for each account opened, others with a cut of what referred customers lose, and on that second kind a tipster's best months can be the followers' worst. The signs are every tip linking to one bookmaker, a push to join through a link, and no plain statement of who pays.
Deals of that kind meet a new rule on 1 January 2027. From that day, the 2026 reform of the Interactive Gambling Act bars licensed wagering providers from paying or offering commissions tied to customer activity, which ACMA describes as a ban covering staff and affiliates. Affiliate tipsters explained sets out the deal types and how to check a link.
Deleted losing tips and moving goalposts
A record can be bent without a single fake winner:
- Losing posts deleted or edited after the result. Gaps in post numbering, or a subscriber who joined earlier and remembers otherwise, give it away.
- A loser relabelled as a void or a "no bet".
- Stakes raised on winners after the event.
- The measure changing: strike rate one month, units won the next, profit on a "bank" after that.
- The window changing: the last 30 days, the last quarter, the best run since a new method.
- The channel or brand restarting after a bad run, so the old record disappears.
The window trick needs no deletions at all. With an illustrative year of tips at 60 units of turnover a month:
| Period | Units won or lost | Units staked | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Months 1 to 9 | -9 - 6 + 2 - 11 - 4 + 1 - 7 - 3 - 5 = -42 | 540 | -7.8% |
| Months 10 to 12, the advertised window | +10 + 8 + 6 = +24 | 180 | +13.3% |
| The whole year | -42 + 24 = -18 | 720 | -2.5% |
"Up 24 units in three months" is true, and the year lost 18. Ask for the record from its first day, and compare the yield over the whole period with the window being advertised.
How to spot a fake tipster before you pay
| Red flag | What to ask | A straight answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Screenshots only | Can I have every tip since you started, as a file? | A list with times, prices, stakes and results, losers included |
| A strike rate with no prices | What prices were the winners and losers at? | The advised prices, ideally with the closing price beside each |
| Certainty language | What happened in your worst month? | Losing months shown in the record |
| A countdown or limited places | Can I look at the record and decide next week? | Yes |
| Every tip linked to one bookmaker | Who pays you, and how? | A plain answer, and a disclosure beside the link |
| An "AI" or "secret system" label | What does the method use, and since when has it been tracked? | The inputs, a start date and the full record |
| A record that starts recently | Where is the record from before this one? | The old record, bad months included |
One red flag is a reason to ask; two together are a reason to walk away. Red flags are not proof in either direction: a genuine tipster can post a losing quarter, and a seller with doctored screenshots can still have tipped a real winner. Only the full list settles it. AI-labelled tip services carry their own version of these claims, and AI sports betting shows how to test a prediction against the price.
Mistakes that keep people paying
With illustrative figures:
| Mistake | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Buying the "VIP" tier after a losing run | A second fee on top of the first, which may buy the same tips |
| Raising stakes so the fee looks smaller | At $20 a tip and 40 tips a month, an $80 fee is 80 / 800 = 10% of turnover; doubling stakes to $40 halves that to 5% and doubles the money at risk |
| Following at whatever price is left | A tip advised at $3.00 and taken at $2.70 returns $27 instead of $30 on a $10 winner, and the seller's record never shows the gap |
| Treating a fee refund as a safety net | It returns the subscription, not the stakes lost following the tips |
| Reading testimonials as a record | Testimonials come from the winners the seller chose to quote |
Where to report a tipster scam
- Scamwatch. Report it through Scamwatch's online form; the ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre uses reports to track scams and warn others. Scamwatch also warns about sports "investment" schemes, usually built on bought prediction software or a betting syndicate and sometimes a tipping subscription: it calls them "just another form of gambling", and often outright scams (checked October 2026).
- ACMA. If a tipster sends you to a betting site that is not on ACMA's register of licensed providers, report the site to ACMA, which takes complaints about providers missing from the register. ACMA has also warned influencers that promoting illegal online gambling breaks the law.
- The platform. Report the account through the social media or messaging app's own reporting tools.
- Your bank. If you paid, call your bank or card provider straight away. Sports investment scheme scams lists the full steps if a scheme took your money.
Keep the evidence before you report: screenshots of the posts and the account name, payment receipts and any messages.
Where B337's copy betting fits
Several red flags on this page come down to who writes the record. On B337's copy betting plan, Tipping Pro, no tipster writes it: each feed's figures are calculated by B337 from the tips published through it and how those bets settled, and a screenshot or a spreadsheet plays no part. That makes the record tracked, not audited, rated or recommended, and it is still a record of the past.
If you copy a feed, the bot places a copy of each tip in your own linked bookmaker account at a stake from your settings, unless it would take you past a max liability you have set. It does so only while it is running on your computer, so a tip published while the computer is off, asleep or offline is missed.
Tipping Pro is arranged with the team, the tipster sets the feed's weekly price, shown before checkout, and bets placed through B337 use credits, a per-bet usage charge. Copy betting sits among the betting tools in Australia that deal in selections, and every check on this page applies to it.
Risk: Betting involves risk. Past results are no guarantee of future results, and copying can land at worse prices than the tip, or not at all. Many bookmakers' terms restrict or prohibit automated betting, and any bookmaker can limit your stakes, void your bets or close your account. See responsible gambling for limits and support.
For free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.