Betting tips: checking the record yourself, with 416 graded picks

By Sharp Signal Labs · October 9, 2026

Betting tips are worth exactly as much as the record that stands behind them, and you can check that record yourself in about ten minutes. You do not need the tipster’s word, a screenshot or a badge. You need three numbers: how many tips were settled, how many won, and the average odds at the moment each tip was posted. With those you can answer the two questions that matter: did the tips beat what the prices already said, and is the sample big enough that the answer is not just luck?

This guide works through those checks on our own record: 416 recommended picks that settled as a win or a loss between September 8 and October 9, 2026 (kickoff dates), all still listed on the public record. Using our own numbers is deliberate. If a method only works on someone else’s tips, it is not a method.

Step 1: Rebuild the record from the tips themselves

Start from the list of tips, not from the summary at the top of the page. Every tip should show four things: the match, the side, the odds when it was posted, and the time it was posted. Count them yourself:

• Wins and losses only. Pushes, voids and refunded bets go in a separate pile. Our 416 leaves out the 6 picks that settled as a push, a void or a half result, which is why the headline count on the record page (all settled picks) is a few higher.
• One tip per match and side. If a tipster posts the moneyline and the spread on the same team, that is really one opinion counted twice. Our record merges these.
• Every loss still visible. If the list has gaps on bad days, the count is already broken and no later step can repair it.

Our recount: 416 picks, 302 wins, 114 losses. That is a 72.6% hit rate.

Step 2: Put the hit rate next to the odds

A hit rate on its own tells you almost nothing, because the odds already contain a hit rate. A price of 1.50 says the outcome happens about 1 ÷ 1.50 = 66.7% of the time. A tipster who only picks 1.20 favourites can hit 80% and still be doing nothing special.

So take the odds of every settled tip, turn each into 1 ÷ odds, and average them. For our 416 picks the average price was 1.53, and the average of 1 ÷ odds was 65.9%. The picks won 72.6%. That gap of 6.7 points is the number worth talking about, not the 72.6% on its own. If you want to convert a single price, the odds calculator does it.

Splitting by price shows where the gap comes from:

The shortest prices hit about as often as the odds said and no more. Most of the record sits between 1.40 and 1.79, and that is where it ran above the prices. The 1.80-and-up row looks spectacular, but it is 20 picks, which brings us to the next step.

Step 3: Ask how far the number can swing by chance

Every hit rate comes with noise. For a record that truly wins about 73% of the time, the usual 95% range from chance alone is roughly 1.96 × √(0.73 × 0.27 ÷ n), where n is the number of picks:

Read the 20-pick row slowly. A tipster with a genuine 73% hit rate can post a 55% stretch or a 90% stretch of 20 tips without anything changing. Anyone showing you a hot run of 20 is showing you noise. The 85% on twenty 1.80-plus picks above sits inside this band too, so it proves very little yet.

What our own record looked like, block by block

The formula is easier to believe when you watch it happen. We sorted the 416 picks by kickoff time and cut them into consecutive blocks:

Same picks, same method, same month. At 10 picks the record looked like anything from a coin flip to perfection. At 100 picks every block sat within 4 points of the others. Daily results swing the same way: of the 23 days with at least five settled picks, the worst was 4–4 (50%, September 24) and the best was 5–0 (September 18).

This is the core of judging betting tips. A short record cannot tell skill from luck, however good it looks. A long one can start to, and it should be compared with the odds, not with 50%.

Red flags arithmetic cannot fix

All three steps assume the list is honest. These problems make the numbers meaningless however carefully you count:

1. Tips posted after kickoff, or with no posting time at all. Without a timestamp nobody can check that the tip came first.
2. Odds missing, or odds that are not available anywhere. A hit rate at prices nobody could take cannot be compared with anything.
3. Records that restart. “Since we relaunched” or “this month only” usually means an earlier stretch was dropped.
4. Wins counted on half results. A quarter-line handicap that wins half is half a win; counting it as a full one quietly inflates the rate.

A check you can copy

1. Export or copy every settled tip with its odds and posting time.
2. Remove pushes and voids; merge duplicate opinions on the same match and side.
3. Hit rate = wins ÷ (wins + losses).
4. Implied rate = average of 1 ÷ odds over the same tips.
5. Gap = hit rate minus implied rate.
6. Compare the gap with the chance swing for that sample size in the table above. A gap smaller than the swing is not evidence of anything yet.

We run the same check on ourselves, logic by logic, on the record page, and each new tip shows its odds and time on the steam picks page before kickoff. Past results describe the past only. Treat any record, ours included, as a sample that can still move.

Sources

• SharpPick public record: recommended picks with kickoff dates September 8 to October 9, 2026, counted October 9, 2026. Wins and losses only; pushes, voids and half results excluded.
• Chance ranges use the normal approximation to the binomial distribution, 1.96 × √(p(1 − p) ÷ n) with p = 0.726.