Buying a horse
How horse sale scams work
The classic fake listing uses photos copied from a real advert. The price is well below the market, and the seller has a reason not to meet: a move abroad, a family death, a military posting. They ask for a deposit to "hold" the horse, then for transport or quarantine fees, often billed by a fake shipping company. The horse never arrives, because it never belonged to the seller.
Real horses are sold dishonestly too: painkillers or sedatives before the viewing, or papers that belong to a different animal.
Price far below the market
A well-bred, well-schooled horse at a fraction of its value is the bait.
No viewing, deposit first
The seller refuses a visit or a live video call but wants money by wire transfer, gift cards or crypto. None of these can be reversed.
Transport and "release" fees
After the deposit, new fees appear from a shipper, an insurer or a customs agent.
How to check a horse seller
- Search the photos. Run a reverse image search on every photo. Stolen pictures often turn up in an older advert under another name.
- See the horse live. Visit, or ask for a live video call where the seller says your name and today's date next to the horse.
- Confirm ownership with the registry. Check the registered name, registration number and microchip number with the breed registry, for example The Jockey Club for Thoroughbreds or the American Quarter Horse Association. In England, Scotland and Wales every horse must have a passport and a microchip by law, and the microchip number must match the passport.
- Book your own vet. Choose the pre-purchase vet yourself, and ask for a blood sample that can be tested for painkillers and sedatives.
- Pay safely and get it in writing. Use a written bill of sale that names the horse, its identifiers and the price. Do not wire money to someone you have not met. If a seller suggests an escrow service, find that company yourself.
Paying for tips
How racing tipster scams work
No one can guarantee the result of a horse race. Services that promise "guaranteed winners" or "fixed races" are selling a story.
The best-known trick needs no knowledge of racing. A tout splits a mailing list into groups and sends each group a different horse in the same race. One group always gets the winner. The next day the tout tips only that group, split again. After a few races, a small group has seen a perfect run and is ready to pay. Quieter tricks: results posted after the race, losers deleted, and profits claimed at early prices almost no one could take.
How to check a tipster
- Ask for every tip. You need a complete list with date, race, horse, stake and odds, recorded before each race.
- Demand independent proofing. A third party, not the tipster, should log each tip before the off.
- Use prices you could get. Recalculate the record at starting price or a price you could really have taken.
- Look at the sample size. Twenty winners prove nothing. Judge only on several hundred tips.
- Do the maths. Put the numbers into the checker below. A real edge shows as level-stakes profit well above what luck would give, after the fee.
Free tool
Tipster Record Checker
Enter a tipster's claimed record to get the strike rate, the level-stakes profit and ROI, the break-even strike rate, and how far the result sits from pure luck. It runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
Method: level stakes, decimal odds (5/1 = 6.0). Profit = winners × odds × stake − tips × stake. Break-even strike rate = 1 ÷ average odds. The luck test compares the winners with a binomial model where each tip wins just often enough to break even, in standard deviations; under 2 is easily luck. One average for the odds is an approximation. Educational tool, not betting advice.
FAQ
Common questions
Can a racing tipster guarantee winners?
No. No one can guarantee the result of a horse race. Promised winners or fixed races are signs of a scam.
How many tips do I need to judge a tipster?
Several hundred at minimum, all recorded before each race at prices you could have taken. Over a few dozen bets, luck easily fakes skill.
Where do I report a horse or tipster scam?
In the US, report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). In the UK, report to Report Fraud, the City of London Police service that replaced Action Fraud in December 2025. Tell your bank at once.