Football tipsters are the latest trend on social media — but it can be risky to follow their advice

If you’re a fan of football and have spent any amount of time scrolling X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram, you’ve probably come across countless tipsters flogging their “sure bets” or “VIP tips”. These tipsters are everywhere. And we mean everywhere.

When people see these tipsters post screenshots of their winning bets and the so-called profits they’re reeling in, it can be incredibly tempting to follow them. After all, you don’t have to do anything yourself. You’re just repeating somebody else’s bets.

However, despite how popular social media football tipsters have become, it’s not always a good idea to do this.

Many of these accounts are bookie-sponsored (meaning sports betting sites are paying them to post) while countless others don’t have the special “insight” they claim to.

So, what we’re going to do is take a closer look at the tipster phenomenon and whether you can actually trust them.

What is a Football Tipster?

It’s very simple: a football tipster provides predictions — “tips” — on what they think the outcome of a football event will be. This could be anything, from the winner of an FA Cup final to whether Lamine Yamal will score 2+ goals in a LaLiga game. You then copy their bet, wager your own money, and hope the prediction comes true.

The reason why football tipsters are so popular is because they allow people to bet with more confidence. It’s a mindset of “This individual knows more about football than me, so I’ll copy their bet predictions.” But there’s never any guarantee that these tips will come true, although in many cases they do.

Because you can never 100% trust a tipster, what many of today’s bettors do instead is use tools like the free calculators from BettingTools. These sorts of tools allow you to crunch numbers yourself, compare odds, and find value, so you’re not betting blindly on someone else’s words.

Some people swear by tipsters, though, and continue to rely on them every season, so here’s what they’re all about.

Tipsters Sometimes Get It Right — But They Can Also Get It Wrong

No football tipster on the planet is capable of getting it right 100% of the time.

That’s a fact.

And it’s also the reason why tipsters should be followed with great caution.

Often, the more experienced tipsters — those who’ve been betting on the Premier League, EFL, and other leagues for years — have a habit of making the correct predictions more frequently.

As an example, @Tips_Bible on X recently provided his followers with an accumulator consisting of players he thought would get shown cards in their games:

✅ Yves Bissouma / Rodrigo Bentancur

Wolves vs Tottenham

✅ Lucas Paquetá

Liverpool v West Ham

✅ Sam Morsy

Chelsea v Ipswich

✅ Manuel Ugarte

Newcastle v Man Utd

He staked £30 and won a huge £2,490 in return because the odds were insanely high on the parlay. Anyone who copied his tip would have bagged a similar level of profit, too, so this is an example of when tipsters get it right.

However, tipsters also get it wrong a lot. And when this happens, they’re usually quick to delete their tweets or simply move on fast to provide new predictions, instead. One thing for sure is that it’s very rare for tipsters to apologise for getting it wrong, and they’ll waste no time in covering their tracks if a big bet in particular happens to flop.

You can see this for yourself, too: just visit any popular tipster’s social media pages. They will have tons of screenshots showcasing their biggest wins, but usually zero of their losses. Is it deceptive? Yes — but it doesn’t necessarily mean the tipser isn’t good at what they do.

Some Tipsters Are Sponsored By Bookies — And You Need to Avoid Them

Football betting has completely exploded over the past 10 years. Between 2015 and 2023, the total amount bet on football rose 71%, with more people downloading betting apps than ever before.

Unsurprisingly, this has led to a big increase in the number of football tipsters selling their services, and one of the problems is that many of these “tipsters” are secretly sponsored by bookies.

When you see a faceless tipster account on X or Instagram, there’s now a strong chance that the person behind it is actually being paid by a sportsbook. This has been proven to be the case with quite a lot of popular accounts, such as ‘Boring Milner’ and ‘Andy’s Football Tips’, both of which have worked with Fanwave Digital, a marketing firm paid by Paddy Power Betfair to post betting tips.

Sure, on the surface, these accounts will often present themselves as regular everyday people looking to “beat the bookie”, when (ironically) they’re sponsored by bookies themselves. This is yet again an example of why football tipsters, especially those on social media, should be approached with skepticism if you’re a fan of the game.

Misleading Odds and Made-Up Stats Remain a Problem with Some Tipsters

It’s not just bookie-sponsored tipsters who are a problem.

Some tipsters also post misleading odds, such as odds that are completely made up or ones that have dropped (for instance, if a tipster backs a player to be booked at 5/2 but the odds have dropped to 6/5 by the time they post their tip).

Then there’s the issue of them making up stats about their own success as a tipster. You often see things like “90% success rate over 100 Bets!” or “£10,000 Profit from the past month”, with these claims often supported with zero evidence.

Beware of tipsters who post late, too. This is a very common tactic. Essentially, what they do is copy bets from other tipsters and then post them just before a game starts. The best football tipsters post early, which is something to always remember.

On top of this, a growing number of tipsters will also photoshop bet slips, refuse to show stakes after claiming they’ve made a profit, and more.

In a nutshell, there are some football tipsters out there who have no problem deceiving their audiences, as their main objective is to get as many people as possible to follow and subscribe to their services.

A quick search on X or Reddit will show you countless threads of people complaining about this. They’ll say they’ve been scammed or misled by tipsters, often leaving them in positions where they’ve lost a significant amount of money. And more often than not, there are no repercussions for this, so the tipsters simply rinse and repeat with new audiences.

How to Spot a Good Football Tipster

Despite there being a ton of bad tipsters out there, there are many that are worth following (or at least occasionally listening to if you need a little help with your bets or parlays). Spotting them is easy, too, so here’s what you need to look out for:

Verified account
High follower count (10,000+)
Post full bet slips with stakes and odds
Doesn’t post affiliate links to bookies
Post tips early, not late

It’s not a dealbreaker, but putting a face to an account is also important. When you can see who the person is that’s running a tipster account, it automatically adds a layer of authenticity and trust. Not to mention, tipster accounts with real faces also make it less likely that you’re going to get scammed, which gives most bettors peace of mind.

Popular Football Tipsters On X

X is the main place to find football tipsters. Some of the biggest ones also have their own dedicated websites, but the majority post exclusively on social media. If you’re looking to follow any of them, some of the most popular football tipsters on X right now are @JamesMurphyTips, @TomWhiteTips, @Astro_Tips80, and @surewinx. And if you want to do a deep dive and potentially uncover some lesser-known tipsters, use relevant #FootballTips, #ProTipster, and #PremierLeaguePicks to find them. Plus, the more tipster-related tweets you like, the more you’ll see them in your recommended tab, making new tipsters easier to discover.

Football Tipsters — Worth It or Not?

When it comes to football tipsters, here’s what we recommend: use them occasionally, but be careful. If you’re ever stuck on what bets to place or have a few bonus bets you need to use, there’s nothing wrong with taking tips from a verified and reliable tipster. However, you should always make sure to avoid ones who are sponsored by bookies, don’t post legit evidence of their bets, and continuously make false claims. Once you know how to spot a good tipster from a bad one, it becomes a lot easier.