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Kayode Makinde@Mkm_world · Aug 15, 2026

We spent months tracking 5,467 bets from Nigeria's biggest sports betting influencers. The bets were worth ~$4.8…

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Summary

Researchers tracked 5,467 bets worth $4.8M from Nigeria's top betting influencers and found that following their tips results in significant losses—a -38% average ROI for followers despite the influencers promoting only winning slips on social media. The data reveals survivorship bias, poor win rates (10.39% overall), and a perverse incentive structure where platforms pay affiliates based on betting volume regardless of whether bets win or lose.

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  1. #1

    We spent months tracking 5,467 bets from Nigeria's biggest sports betting influencers. The bets were worth ~$4.8 million. We wanted to answer a simple question: If you followed their bets exactly, would you make money? The answer is no.🧵👇 With: @thimmie_onas @temiladeoluwaaa

  2. #2

    @Mrbankstips has 2M followers on X; the most-followed betting tipster on the platform, globally. @LouieDi13 and @bossolamilekan1 add another 2.1M between them. Additionally, 700k+ subscribers on Telegram. Combined reach: 4.7M people watching win-slip screenshots roll in.

  3. #3

    If you follow betting influencers, you mostly see this: 🏅 Winning slips 🚀 Huge odds 💥 Massive payouts 💰 Luxury lifestyles What you don't see are the losses that never make it onto your timeline. That's classic survivorship bias. So we decided to track the losses too.

  4. #4

    Our method: Extracted full Telegram message history from each channel since inception, cross-checked against Stake.com's public bet-verification URLs (stake, odds, payout). Result: 5,467 pre-match bets, ~$4.8M in tracked stakes (~₦7.4B)

  5. #5

    Here's the first number that shocked us: 10.39% That's the combined win rate across all 5,467 bets. Roughly 1 in every 10 bets won. @mrbanks — 6% (1 in 17) @louiedi13 — 10% @bossolamilekan1 — 24% But that is not the whole story. Because win rate ≠ profitability.

  6. #6

    The real number that matters: capital lost: 🔻 Banks: -26.6%🔻 Louie: -20.8% 🔻 BOM: -9.3% 🔻 Overall: -25.2% 💰 Total staked: ~$4.8M 💰 Total returned: ~$3.6M 📉 Net capital loss: 25.24% All three lost money on their own promoted stakes. None were profitable.

  7. #7

    Now the number that hits hardest: what happens to a FOLLOWER who stakes the same amount on every tip: Banks: -43% | Louie: -30% | BOM: -29% Overall: -38.27% ROI Put in ₦100,000 following these tips → walk away with ~₦62,000.

  8. #8

    Does it matter which of the 3 you follow? We ran an ANOVA test to check. p = 0.1246 → no statistically significant difference between them. Whichever one your timeline pushes you toward, the math ends the same way.

  9. #9

    Then we looked at the odds. We split bets into: 🟢 Low: <10x 🟡 Medium: 10–100x 🔴 High: >100x The high-odds bets were brutal. Followers chasing >100x odds lost an average of 74% of their initial stake. The bigger the advertised payout, the more money disappeared.

  10. #10

    We also asked: Can better money management save you? We tested 4 staking strategies: • Flat • Inverse • Square Root • Fixed Return Every single one still lost money. The best strategy just loses slower.

  11. #11

    Here's the part that matters most: platforms pay affiliates on wagering VOLUME, not on whether tips win. The more you bet, the more the tipster earns, regardless of outcome. Most followers have no idea this is the incentive structure behind the "expert" they trust.

  12. #12

    We're not saying "never bet." We're saying: the data does not support following influencers as an income strategy. 5,467 bets, $4.8M tracked, and the story doesn't change. Full paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.08251 We'd love to hear what you think. @thimmie_onas @temiladeoluwaaa