Nick is the name of the guy behind this interesting and result-producing email-based lay tipping service offered under Betkudos, who have a good reputation.

Lay Bet Profits (the plural ‘s’ is very important to differentiate the service form the similarly titled Lay Bet Profit) sends daily tips (normally arriving by 10.30 a.m.) via email (and the tips are also available on the members’ section of the website) for lay betting.

Wisely for lay betting – limiting your liability should the lay bet actually be a losing bet (when the horse wins its race) – the tips have a maximum price of 8.0 at Betfair starting prices.

Historically, the service shows an impressive 80% strike rate and it was with this stat floating around in our minds that we took advantage of the 7-day trial period for just £7.

Obviously a trial needs to be longer than that, and after a week the subscription costs rise to £90 a quarter, which is a fair and affordable £22.50 a month (plus VAT).

There is no money-back guarantee, but the £1 a day trial offer is a worthy one. Upon joining, you’ll soon be impressed with the professionalism and the high caliber of the welcome email.

Emails containing the tips arrive promptly and with daily regularity. They’re structured well and with clarity. A 400-point bank is advised, as well as a staking plan of 20 points per selection, which takes into account liability, ensuring that you will not lose any more than 5% of your bank, should the bet be a money-losing one.

The risk-limitation is an obvious bonus to this service.

The emails give away a little of the selection methodology, with some reasoning given to why a certain horse is considered a good tip. All clues point to the selection process being related to trainer details.

We initially intended to do the usual 8-week trial period with Lay Bet Profits, but some days there are no bets, some days the tips didn’t qualify at the time of the race, and most days where there are bets, there is usually only one tip offered. This meant that it took a while to build up a decent amount of results to look at.

In the sales-patter for Lay Bet Profits, it says: ‘There are two main things that can ruin your chances of making money laying horses: Betting on a horse that you know nothing or little about, and greed. When you lay horses its not uncommon to go on long winning runs for 20, 30, 40+ races…. but it only takes a few winners and its all undone.’

Perhaps this very true statement about laying horses is the reason for there being so few qualifying bets. But, it’s good to know that Nick operates with this ethos in mind, and combined with the liability-limiting staking plan, it makes the system a very low-risk one.

Nick also states: ‘The way to succeed when it comes to laying horses is to find a quality information source for your horse racing lays, and to be selective with the odds that you lay. If the odds to lay are too high and you feel uncomfortable then give that selection a miss and wait for the next.’

After three months trialing Lay Bet Profits, there were only 64 runners, with 48 winning bets, which gives a 75% strike rate. This looks impressive, but after a very impressive start which saw the bank profit to 39 points, it then took a dramatic nose-dive over the course of a few weeks (which saw losing runs happen twice), so that the lowest ebb had the bank at MINUS 37 points.

Toward the end of the trial, a string of winning lay bets meant that a lot of that red was made up so that the bank stood at just a few points below.

So, after a very promising start, profit was not forthcoming – BUT I wouldn’t write off Lay Bet Profits just yet. We monitored the performance since, and if we’d have continued we would have seen a profit by the end of another month.

However, the subscription cost for such a time is £90, and the profit barely covers that.

So, we’re on the fence a bit. It’s a good lay system, but it hasn’t produced the expected or desired results.