October 13, 2026·7 min read

How to spot a fake tipster: 7 checks before you pay

Winning screenshots prove nothing. Seven checks you can do in ten minutes, from a public record to closing line value, before you pay any tipster.

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Scroll any social feed and you will find them: screenshots of winning slips, "10 wins in a row", "95% win rate", "VIP group closes tonight". Some tipsters are honest. Many are selling a dream.

This guide gives you seven checks you can do in ten minutes, before you pay anyone for picks. No maths degree needed.

In short

• A real tipster shows every pick, before kick-off, losses included.
• A win rate means nothing without the odds.
• A short record proves nothing: luck can look like skill for months.
• "Guaranteed", "fixed" and "100% sure" are always red flags.

Why there are so many fake tipsters

A tipster who sells subscriptions gets paid whether the picks win or not. A thousand people paying €30 a month is €30,000, win or lose. That is a strong reason to look good rather than be good.

The oldest trick costs nothing. A scammer messages 1,024 people. Half are told "Team A wins", the other half "Team B wins". Whatever happens, 512 people have just seen a winning pick. Next week the scammer splits those 512 in two again, and so on. After five matches, 32 people have seen five wins in a row, and they are ready to pay for the sixth.

That is why the first check matters most.

1. Every pick is public, before kick-off

A real record is posted before the match and stays online afterwards, with the date, the odds and the result. Screenshots of winning slips prove nothing: anyone can show their winners and hide the rest.

Check: can you scroll back three months and see every pick, not just the good ones?

2. The losses are there

Every honest record is full of losses. If you can't find any, someone deleted them.

And a win rate on its own tells you nothing. What matters is the win rate at the odds. At odds of 1.90 you need to win 52.6% of the time just to break even. At 1.30 you need 76.9%.

Check: does the tipster show the odds of every pick, and is the win rate believable at those odds? Over hundreds of picks at around 1.90, winning 55–58% is already very good. "90%" at normal odds is not believable.

3. Profit at odds you could really get

Some tipsters count each win at the best price they found anywhere, hours later, or at odds that were on offer for a minute. Profit should be counted at the odds available when the pick was posted, with the same stake on every pick: one unit each.

Check: is the profit shown in units, one stake per pick, and do the odds look like real bookmaker prices at the time?

4. Enough picks to mean something

Luck is loud in small samples. Take a tipster with no skill at all: every pick a coin flip at odds of 1.90. Over a month of 30 picks, they still finish in profit about four times in ten, and their best months make great screenshots.

Check: judge a record over hundreds of picks, not weeks. A few hot weeks prove nothing.

5. They beat the closing line

This is the best test there is, and almost no tipster shows it. The closing line is the price just before kick-off, when the market knows the most. If a tipster's picks usually get shorter after they post them, the market is agreeing with them. That is closing line value, or CLV, and it shows skill long before profit does.

For example, a pick posted at 2.00 that closes at 1.85 beat the closing line by 8%: 2.00 ÷ 1.85 − 1 = +8.1%.

Check: does the tipster show the closing odds, or a CLV figure? See why CLV is the only metric that matters.

6. No promises they can't keep

These phrases should end the conversation:

• "100% sure", "guaranteed win", "no risk".
• "Fixed match" or "insider info". Match fixing is a crime; nobody really fixing matches sells the result on social media.
• "VIP group closes tonight", "only 3 places left".
• "Win back your losses".
• Payment only in crypto or gift cards, or "send me money and I'll bet it for you".

Football is uncertain. Anyone honest will tell you about losing runs before you pay.

7. A real business, with real reviews

Look for a company name, terms of service, a clear price and a simple way to cancel. Then look for reviews on an independent site such as Trustpilot, not only testimonials on the tipster's own page.

Read the one-, two- and three-star reviews, and how the business answers them. Be wary of a wall of short five-star reviews all posted in the same week.

Check: who runs this, can you cancel in one click, and what do unhappy customers say?

The seven checks on one card

How Kepler measures up

We built Kepler to pass these checks, so here is how to check us:

• Every pick is public. Signals reach the terminal before kick-off, and every published pick goes on the public track record with its price and result, losses included.
• Real odds, flat stakes. Results are counted at one unit per pick, at the price when the pick was published.
• Closing line value. Each pick is compared with the sharp closing price, and the average is on the track record.
• No guarantees. Losing runs happen, and we say so plainly.
• Still young. The record started in August 2026. Judge it as it grows, not on one good month.
• Reviews. We are new on Trustpilot. Anyone who has used Kepler can review us there, good or bad.

For the maths behind good picks, see what is a value bet.

Frequently asked questions

Betting involves risk. No tipster or model can guarantee a profit. Only stake what you can afford to lose, and never chase losses. 18+.