If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain't the kinda pussy to drink it.

Even The Odds celebrated their first birthday as a commercial racing tipping service last month. That means, despite the fact that as a high turnover service they advised as many as 2,059 bets through 2015, they are relatively untested. Certainly compared to the likes of Equine Investments, Winning Racing Tips or even Northern Monkey, they are mere pups. The consequence of this is that to jump in and follow them at this stage represents something of a risk, but as we will see, there are certain elements to the service that make them a risk that might just be worth taking.

They were brought to my attention by an online friend of mine about halfway through last year. They had been proofing to the Racing Proofing site and their results had been superb. Subs were cheap, so I thought I'd take a look, playing with what were token stakes. As I joined they went on a superb run of form, strong enough to encourage even this cynical old dog! But of course, as is often the way, the hot streak was followed by a real slump. It was then that the folk at Even The Odds started talking about changing the way they did things, introducing a strategy of officially advising only the stronger bets and discarding the weaker which had been dragging down the overall performance. Naturally, that got the alarm bells ringing a little, so when I had lost the exact amount I had originally won, I thought it wise to adopt a watching brief.

Even The Odds transitioned to their new strategy and although results stabilised somewhat through the latter part of the year, they never hit the heights they had reached during the first half of 2015. However, a lot of what I saw showed promise.

Using the strategy that Even The Odds now put forward as the best way to follow their selections, 2015 shows the service generating 238.5 points profit at an ROI of 9% with no BOG uplift. So as we can see, a splendid debut year...238.5% ROC to a 100 point bank is highly impressive, and that profit level rises to 285.1% ROC if you're fortunate enough to have access to BOG accounts!

So here is how I'm going to play it. I'm backing the selections again, to very small stakes. All the other services in the portfolio have been around for much longer and have proven themselves as long term profitable. Put it this way, I will be very (unpleasantly) surprised if I'm not following all of them this time next year. I can't say that for Even The Odds. I do believe the service has a lot of potential, enough indeed to justify taking a small but controlled risk on them. But there remains the potential for it to go sour, and as the inimitable Rory Breaker once said in Lock Stock, "If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain't the kinda pussy to drink it." For now, stakes will be kept small. Very small.

Has anybody else experience of the service? Do please use the 'Comments' box if so. Always good to hear from others and get a debate going.

Yesterday's Betting
Even The Odds: Staked 12pts, -4.105pts.
Northern Monkey: Staked 0.5pts, -0.5pts.
PCG (NBA): Staked 3pts, +0.878pts.
PCG (NHL): Staked 2pts, -2pts.