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TRIAL OVERVIEW
Quick Summary
Introduction
King of the Picks is a horse racing tipping service from Hugh Doyle, who turned to betting professionally after losing his job as a bartender during the COVID pandemic.
Although it was a completely new career direction, Hugh already had plenty of familiarity with racing. He grew up around both horse and greyhound racing, while his brother later became a jockey.
After building up his own experience as a professional bettor, Hugh launched King of the Picks to share his selections with subscribers.
For this review, I wanted to see whether his results could hold up when followed in real-world betting conditions.
Advertised Stats
Based on £10 stakes
Profit
Strike Rate
ROI
Bank Growth
Putting it to the Test
Hugh’s published results were certainly encouraging, although I had to dig a little deeper to work out some of the key figures for myself.
Based on the results available at the time, King of the Picks had produced an ROI of 8.08% and more than doubled its recommended 200 point betting bank.
For my own trial, I planned to track a few hundred bets before reaching a verdict, giving me a reasonable sample to compare against the advertised performance.
How King of the Picks Works
The service provides horse racing tips, including a mixture of straight win and each-way bets. The advice includes the advised odds, place payouts and stakes that should be used for each bet.
All tips are posted to a member’s area as well as being sent out via email.
- Time of tips: Evening
- Bet volume: Average 40 tips per month
- Advised starting bank: 200 points
Trial Results
I tracked 378 bets over six months for my King of the Picks review.
The results were particularly interesting because there was a sizeable difference between the tipster’s advised figures and the results I was able to record myself.
At the advised odds and place terms, the service made a solid 29.27 points profit. My own results, however, finished with a 28.76 point loss.
The main reason for the difference was the place terms. For my own tracking, I only recorded an advised price and place payout when both were available with at least two bookmakers. I felt this gave a more realistic indication of how accessible the bets would be if a subscriber was unable to use a particular account.
In several cases, horses finished in positions that would have paid under the advised extra-place terms, but not under the terms I could find at two or more bookmakers. That had a significant impact on my final result.
Importantly, the advised odds and place terms were almost always available with at least one bookmaker. So for anyone with access to the relevant accounts, the advertised 29.27 point profit was realistically achievable.
The service failed to make a profit at Betfair Starting Price, which wasn’t particularly surprising given the importance of the place terms. My BSP tracking used the standard Betfair place markets, which generally offered fewer places than the bookmaker bets.
You could potentially improve on this by using Betfair’s alternative place markets, but I kept to the standard markets throughout the trial for consistency.
Away from the results themselves, I was also pleased with the reliability of the service. Hugh generally sent the tips at the expected time, usually around 10:00am or occasionally at 9:00pm the evening before.
Final Verdict
King of the Picks earns a Neutral rating.
The biggest consideration is bookmaker access. The service can perform well when you’re able to take the advised odds and extra-place terms, but results may look very different if those offers aren’t available to you.
For that reason, I wouldn’t class King of the Picks as a service that will suit everyone, although bettors with access to a good range of bookmaker accounts may get considerably more from it.
If you’d like to take a closer look at King of the Picks for yourself, you can find out more here.
APPROVED
