Introducing RP Recommends, our bookmaker advice service

RP Recommends was launched in 2024 to provide punters with objective and trustworthy advice about the best place to place bets. Our goal is to help you spend less time wondering where the best odds and offers are, while maximising the value and enjoyment you get from your betting.

We want to be the leading authority on betting advice, providing recommendations that you can trust and rely upon. As part of that, it's important that we are upfront about how our business operates. Like many other publishers, we receive some revenue from affiliate activity, so when you follow a recommendation and place a bet or open a betting account, we might earn money from it.

However, we only recommend bookmakers on the basis that they're the best to place bets for the given purpose, bookmakers have no influence on our recommendations, and we always adhere to our most important rule: we'll never post a recommendation that our experts wouldn't follow themselves.

Why you should trust us

Our experts have decades of betting experience between them and are obsessed with finding value. They're the type of punters who have a dozen betting accounts, who compare the odds on every bet, who always scrutinise place terms and special offers to maximise value, and who spend the day before the Cheltenham Festival poring over all the offers to work out the best way to play their bets.

We're also proud of our reputation at the Racing Post as an essential source of advice and information for bettors. There's no incentive for us to give you anything but the best advice, because unlike some other websites that profess to offer this sort of information our business is based on your trust and loyalty, not search rankings or short-termism. We've been in business since 1986 and have many readers who have been with us from day one – that wouldn't be the case if we didn't provide reliable, high quality information.

How we make our recommendations

Our experts understand the underlying arithmetic of what makes for a value proposition. This will be the main driving force of which accounts, offers and bets make it into our 'recommended' list. To ensure our team is consistent in their recommendations, they will all follow certain guidelines:

Content will be driven by audience demand and the availability of offers. This means you're more likely to see RP Recommends around the biggest fixtures such as the Cheltenham Festival, Grand National and Royal Ascot.
Recommendations are made only on bookmakers that our writers have used and been satisfied with.
We understand that not all punters can 'get on' with all firms. Our writers have been on the wrong end of restrictions by bookmakers too. But we also know experiences are not consistent. Many of us will have had losing accounts restricted, while winning ones remain open. As such, in this regard firms will be judged as objectively as possible using an evidence-based approach.

How we flag our recommendations

Our recommendations will be prominently flagged within live editorial content and always feature an image containing the trusted RP Recommends stamp, so you know which of the best bookmaker offers are being recommended by our experts.

You can expect to find featured RP Recommends promotions in news and tipping content on the Racing Post website and on our mobile app, highlighting the best bookmaker offers and enhancements within the context of the article you are reading.

We'll also be publishing standalone RP Recommends articles, highlighting topics like the best incentives for Lucky 15 and multiples punters and each-way backers, as well as assessing wider bookmaker issues such as account restrictions and affordability checks.

The trusted stamp is what differentiates RP Recommends against generic bookmaker advertising, which you'll also find alongside our regular digital content.

RP Recommends: read the full series

Meet the RP Recommends team

Paul Kealy (top left)

Paul Kealy joined the Racing Post while it was in its infancy and worked his way from being a copy-taker to a sports tipster before serving as the paper's betting editor between 2001 and 2019. A two-time winner of the Racing Post naps competition, Paul remains one of British racing's most respected tipsters and a vocal champion for bettors.

Keith Melrose (bottom left)

Keith Melrose has been the Racing Post's betting editor since February 2019 and has spent his near 20-year career in the fields of form and betting. In 2021 Keith was nominated for the HWPA's specialist writer of the year award, with submissions that included a punter's guide to finding the optimum stake for any bet using the Kelly criterion.

Tom Park (centre)

Tom Park has been at the Racing Post for more than 10 years. He has recently finished a four-year stint as editor of the Racing Post Weekender and is also editor of The Big Jump Off, Cheltenham Ultimate Guide and the Racing Post Betting Guide, a book published in 2019. Tom is a regular contributor to the Racing Post tipping team and used to write the Ante-Post Focus column.

Robbie Wilders (bottom right)

Robbie Wilders started with the Racing Post in 2018 and joined the tipping team in early 2022. He specialises in ante-post betting and is best known for writing the popular Ante-Postman email, a free weekly column that aims to unearth early value for readers and is already moving markets.

Graeme Rodway (top right)

Graeme Rodway is a longstanding member of the Racing Post tipping team. He first tipped a winner in 2008, he has twice finished in the top three in the Flat version of the national naps competition and is a recognisable face from appearances on Racing Post YouTube and former TV channel At The Races (now Sky Sports Racing). G-Rod continues to be a mainstay of the Racing Post's betting output as he enters his 19th year with the company.

Tom KerrEditor

Keith MelroseBetting editor

Published on 23 April 2024inRP Recommends

Last updated 11:00, 23 April 2024

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