Recommended stake in units — and why it matters more than it seems

Next to some tips there is a number between 1 and 10 — how many units the tiptoper recommends putting on that tip, relative to their other tips. A unit is not an amount of money; each person decides what it is worth to them, so the same recommendation works whether you bet small or large.

Why this is not decoration: take two tips at the same odds, 2.00, one won and one lost. Without units that is a wash — zero. But if the loss was on one unit and the win on 8, the return is +78%. And if it is the other way round — a win on one and a loss on 8 — the return is −78%. Identical results, completely opposite picture.

This is really the skill that separates someone who guesses right sometimes from someone who makes money: not being right more often, but knowing when to back yourself. A tiptoper who can tell “I think so” from “I am sure about this one” comes out ahead even with a middling win rate.

The obvious question: what stops someone recommending 10 on everything? The answer is in how the return is computed — its denominator is total units staked, not the number of tips. Recommending 10 across the board returns exactly the same percentage as recommending 1 across the board. Units only matter when they genuinely distinguish one tip from another.

In practice: when you see a high unit count, that is a statement — and the statement is recorded. If the tip fails, the hit to the tiptoper's ranking is exactly as large. That is what makes this number information rather than marketing.