The original Little Acorns system has been around since 2003 and is still going strong. But does it work on US Racing too?
Andrew David decided to test this theory and although there were some differences, he found that the core principles that made Little Acorns work were universal.
The system is a simple lay betting strategy for horse racing on Betfair Exchange, with no bookmaker accounts required.
With some tinkering with the original filters, Andrew worked out the parameters for the system to work with US horse races.
It has been tested since June 2020, and at the time of my review, had reported more than 108 points profit and had only experienced 2 losing months out of a total of 28.
They were only small losses reported too, with -3.5 points in one month and -0.3 points in the other.
During my original review, the system produced a respectable profit over a period of five months. However, some things came to light that meant my results needed revisiting.
Read on for my full Little Acorns International review, or click here to get started with a 30 day risk-free trial.
I already knew that the original Little Acorns system was low risk and provided steady gains, as I had made consistent profits during my eight month review.
I expected Little Acorns International to produce similar results, but as always, I wanted to try it out for myself to be sure.
With Little Acorns International being based on US horse racing, the bets are mostly in the evening for those in the UK, usually from 5.00pm - 12.30am.
All bets are sent out through email, so you don't need to go and manually find bets yourself. The first email is a "heads up" message that tells you the chances of their being a bet in different time brackets, so you know when to look out for an email.
Little Acorns International Review Results
During my five month trial of the service, things had gone well with 38.46 points profit an an ROI of 27.5% for the advised Fibonacci staking plan.
Even at level stakes, which was the lowest risk way to use the system, I recorded 24.06 points profit at an ROI of 25.8%.
Due to the timing of the emails, it was not possible for me to track every selection prior to the race starting. My plan was to record bets at Betfair Starting Price (BSP).
My usual go to for this data is the Timeform website.
Mistakingly, I had thought that the starting odds that Timeform had listed for USA racing was BSP, as with the majority of other races that they display. It turned out that they were actually at Industry Starting Price (ISP).
The ISP is generally lower than the BSP, so this meant that my results were not valid and many of the selections would not have been available to lay at the quoted price.
In light of this, I discovered Betfair's BSP data for the USA racing could be downloaded directly from their website.
I went through all of my original results and replaced the ISP odds with the BSP odds and below you can see the difference this made to my profit.
Key Stats
| Level ISP | Fibonacci ISP | Level BSP | Fibonacci BSP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Bets | 118 | 118 | 87 | 87 |
| Total Stakes (pts) | 93.22 | 139.87 | 80.52 | 126.59 |
| Profit/Loss (pts) | 24.06 | 38.46 | 10.54 | 22.13 |
| Profit/Loss (£10 stakes) | £240.60 | £384.60 | £105.40 | £221.30 |
| Strike Rate | 55.90% | 55.90% | 55.20% | 55.20% |
| ROI | 25.80% | 27.50% | 13.10% | 17.50% |
| Overall Bank Growth | 24.10% | 29.60% | 10.50% | 17.00% |
| Bank (100pt/130pt starting) | 124.06 | 168.46 | 110.54 | 152.13 |
You will see that there were a lot less bets in the BSP results. This is because of the odds criteria that Little Acorns International set in their emails.
They state that all selections must be 1.60 - 2.16 and they are to be bet approximately five minutes before the race start time. Since I was unable to place bets manually due to time zone differences, recording at BSP was the next best approach.
I still recorded a profit using both level stakes and Fibonacci staking plans, but as expected, it was much lower than at ISP.
More concerningly, I also discovered that the official results posted by Andrew David for the service were recorded at ISP, not BSP. When I reached out to him for clarification, his response was:
"Sorry yes I see what you mean. Yes i take the ISP from Betfairs results portal but its not a significant difference? Sometimes I've laid lower than the ISP? So the margin of difference would not make a big difference on results? So we can use BF SP obviously the results cant be 100% accurate as you know as people would be matching at different prices so I have to use some sort of benchmark for results recording. So no matter what route I take I will get questions about my price recordings...
Its hard to strike the happy balance for results recordings as I cant be around for every live race so what I do personally is use BFSP if the price is between 1.50 & 2.30 after I get the alert in the live betting and I then have to go out etc..."
Unfortunately, this discrepancy created a significant difference in results, making it difficult to accurately gauge the long-term performance of the system until they were corrected.
Review Summary
I felt confident going into this review that the system would work, as I had already tested and passed the original system for UK and Irish racing.
Although the filters for US racing may have differed slightly, I expected similar results.
After my original review results, I gave the service a glowing "Pass" rating.
However, after discovering the discrepancy between Industry Starting Price (ISP) and Betfair Starting Price (BSP), I revisited my results to ensure accuracy.
Even after correcting them, whilst I still recorded a profit, the significant difference between ISP and BSP raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of the system.
When reviewing a tipping service, my overall rating considers multiple factors, including whether the official results are transparent and reliable enough to trust beyond my review period.
Given this, I have downgraded my rating to "Neutral."
Hi All,
Andrew David here…First to clear up a few points.
Some have counted the loss as a full unit stake whereas we are laying well below our unit stake on most occasions.
Also using Fibonacci staking is an option and NOT essential! Using Level stake laying and compounding is by far the best option for the risk adverse.
Example; if starting with a £500 bank and Laying £10 on each selection then when you have doubled your bank you can move up to £20 level stake lays as per the staking options in the user manual. This is an ultra safe option and makes good profits and therefore favoured by many of my long term followers.
Further points;
The recent run has brought about our longest losing run since the start of the 50k challenge in September 2023. Indeed that’s our longest losing run since the launch of Little Acorns International in June 2020. However many followers have taken out multiple times their starting bank as I advised on the results page many times.
Again I repeat this makes good profits at Level stake laying so no need to use the recovery staking plan. Many actually operate both Level stake laying and the Fib sequence with a separate bank for each and are doing very well indeed!
You can see the highest stake was £14k on the challenge results page which may not be realistic to get on, therefore, best to withdraw every time you hit 5k profit (6.5k including bank) and start again with £1.5k Stakes.
To obtain 5k profit will result in stakes of around £200-£250 which will be easy to get on spread between Betfair, Betdaq, Matchbook and Smarkets for example with the latter three exchanges charging 2% comm’s, whereas I have deducted 5% and that makes a huge difference overtime. However we will carry on with the challenge to show what this is capable of when compounding.
Any further questions you can email me as per the address in the user manual as I don’t visit review sites regularly. Many thanks…AD
The “Pension Booster” suffered a major failure this week with 9 losses in a row and wiped out 3/4 of the bank. Glad I’m only doing a trial at the moment.