A lot of people end up here, on SoccerBettingStatistics.com, having searched for "Football Tips" or similar phrases. As match predictions aren't currently provided I thought it would be useful to review a tipping service and report back.

I have chosen to review Football Tips Pro, a pay-per-tip service that offers value based tips on the top European leagues. The reasons for choosing this particular service are as follows:

• Simple to follow home/away win selections
• Affordable tips - £1 per tip in batches of 50
• A history of profit
• Quick and friendly response from Gary when I contacted the service.

Here is a brief summary of the service, you can find more at http:///:

Football Tips Pro use cutting edge prediction algorithms to provide regular football tips that, over the last four seasons, have provided yields of 29.0%, 27.8%, 33.1% and 39.1% to level stakes.

The systems look at 10 leagues from across Europe and provide regular tips from the middle of August to the end of May each year. We will only e-mail you with a tip when our systems show that it offers significant value.

So, after getting setup with the service I received some useful signup literature which included information on how the service works, bookmakers and odds, bankroll management and staking plans. I was also sent an excel spreadsheet which was preconfigured to allow me to track my bets with the staking plan of my choice.

Something that is made clear is that you need to follow all of the tips, you will often get tips that you don’t agree with but you need to follow them regardless, the stats say the tipped outcome is more likely than the current odds suggest, which is the basis of this service.

The guide suggests a starting bank of at least £200 so that that you should get a return that outweighs the cost of the service, for testing a chose to start with a modest bank of £100 and a package of 200 tips. At the time of writing I have received 59 tips, 58 of which have been settled.

So how has it worked out so far? Well with each tip (I received via email at about 11am) I was provided with the maximum odds available for the bet and the minimum odds you should place the bet at. I have only had one tip where I wasn’t able to get the minimum required odds, and that was due to me being a little slow off the mark, other than that each tip I have received I was able to get odds in the suggested range, with a couple where I have got odds even better than those advertised.

My bank is currently at £145.51, a 45% increase on my starting bank of £100 and a return on investment of 31% - I have placed bets totalling £142.00. The service has had a success rate of 40%.

So a pretty strong start, based on the costs of the tips and an initial bank of £200 (the suggested minimum) I would be about £50 in profit at present. I followed a staking plan that provides each bet at 1% of the ongoing bank (multiplied by the tip weighting) which keeps risk on the lower side whilst increasing the value of each bet as profit increases.

I was lucky enough to hit a fairly good winning streak right away which gave my bank a bit of a cushion, which was a good thing as about 20 or so bets in I hit a bit of a losing run which absorbed a chunk of my profit. As many of the picks are high odds a service like this is prone to losing runs so I think it’s important to roll with it and keep in mind that it aims to provide long term profitability, not instant wealth.

I will continue to use this service until the end of the season, or until my remaining tips are used up, whichever comes first, then report back again, hopefully with an increasingly healthy bank balance.

Gary has asked me to mention that Football Tips Pro are currently reviewing their pricing plan with the possibility of offering a "tips refund" type policy whereby, if your 50 tips don't turn a reasonable profit then they will offer you a further 50 – nothing set in stone yet so more news on this in a couple of months.

As a side note, I have found Pinnacles odds to be very competitive when placing these bets; if you don't already have an account with them - they are worth considering.