How to Check a Tipster's Record: Seven Checks Before You Follow Anyone
Forecast Record holds 166,108 predictions from 619 football tipsters and prediction sources and keeps those recorded before kick-off apart from history restored later (as of , source: our own index). Here are the seven checks we apply to every record, written so you can apply them yourself to any tipster.
1. Was the pick public before kick-off?
A pick only matters if it was public before the match started, and someone other than the tipster can prove the time. Screenshots can be edited, posts deleted, and messages in private groups are hidden from anyone outside.
Proof of time, from strongest to weakest: a pick submitted to an independent service before kick-off; a copy saved by an independent service (like a public web archive) before kick-off; the platform's own timestamp on a post or video. A date typed by the author is weakest, as pages are easily updated later.
2. Do you see every pick, or only the winners?
A record only means something if it includes every pick: the losers, the voids and the ones the tipster would rather forget. Compare what they published day by day with what they now show as their record. Missing losers, a record starting conveniently after a bad run, or picks vanishing from a channel are common ways to improve a record after the fact.
On Forecast Record, a pick we recorded stays in the record. If the author deletes it later, it stays with a note saying so.
3. Could anyone actually get that price?
A return depends on the odds, and the odds a tipster quotes might only have been available for minutes, at one bookmaker, for a small stake. Check if the stated price matched the market price when the pick was published. A return built on the tipster's own prices, rather than the market price at the time, is a weaker record.
We price every live pick at the median bookmaker price when we first recorded it. We show the tipster's own price separately if they gave one.
4. Is the sample big enough to mean anything?
Short records are mostly luck. Under a simple model in which no pick has an edge, 100 picks at average odds 2.00 return +10.0% or more with probability 18.4% — about 1 in 5.4 such records, by luck alone. Count settled picks and different matches, not weeks of activity, and look for the uncertainty range next to the number. A long, steady record says more than a short, spectacular one. The Luck or skill? calculator shows how unusual any record would be if no pick had an edge.
5. What was the stake?
Profit quoted in “units” depends on how much each unit is worth. Tipsters who change their unit size, or claim larger stakes on winners after the match, can turn a flat record into a profitable one on paper. Ask for the stake of every pick before kick-off, or measure everything at a level stake, as we do: 100 points per pick.
6. Warning signs
Be careful with any tipster who:
- promises certain wins or a fixed monthly profit;
- sells “fixed match” information or claims inside knowledge of results;
- asks for payment in private messages or in crypto before showing a full record;
- moves people from football picks to casino or crash-game signals;
- shows only screenshots of winning bet slips;
- has no record older than a few weeks, or several channels that publish opposite picks on the same match.
None of these proves anything on its own, but each is a reason to ask for an independent record before paying anyone.
7. Look for an independent record
The simplest check is a record kept by someone the tipster does not control. Search for them in our Check a tipster tool. If we track the record, you will see every pick we recorded, when we recorded it, its return at the market price, and how sure we are about the time. If they are missing, you can ask us to start on the same page, with no email or account needed.
How we count is in our methodology. Every change to a published number is in our corrections log.
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