NRL Expert Tips: Who Actually Tips Well? We Track Them All
Every week, footy media publishes expert tips - Immortals, premiership winners, veteran journos. Almost nobody goes back and checks who was right. We do. This page tracks the major published tipsters round by round and grades them against our AI model's record, which is itself graded publicly every week.
Where the expert tips come from
These are the regularly published expert tipping sources we track in 2026. All of them publish picks before each round, which is what makes grading possible:
| Source | Who tips | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney Morning Herald | League writers panel | Weekly expert tips grid, every game |
| ESPN Australia | NRL desk | Weekly tips with "sure thing" and "upset chance" calls |
| Nine / Wide World of Sports | Andrew Johns, Brad Fittler and panel | TV and online tips segments each round |
| Fox League | Commentary team panel | Round tips grid |
| The Roar | Expert columnists + crowd | Weekly expert tips article |
| Zero Tackle | Staff panel | Round-by-round tipping article |
| 7NEWS (Webby & Gilly) | Queensland news duo | Weekly video tips |
| TippingEdge AI model | 53-feature ML ensemble | Weekly probabilities, every game, publicly graded |
The scoreboard
From Round 16 (19-22 June 2026) we grade every published expert pick each Monday and update the running table below. Sources that do not publish written picks for a round are marked as no-tip for that round rather than guessed. Our model's full pick-by-pick history is already live on the accuracy tracker.
| Tipster | Rounds graded | Correct | Strike rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| TippingEdge AI model | 2026 season to R14 | 83/108 | 76.9% (retroactively graded - see methodology) |
| Expert grading begins Round 16 - first scoreboard update Monday 22 June 2026. Bookmark this page. | |||
Why expert tips cluster around 55-60%
It is not that experts know nothing - it is that almost everyone, expert or not, tips close to the market favourite in most games. Since NRL favourites win roughly 60-65% of matches, nearly every tipster lands in the same band. What separates a useful tipster from noise is the handful of games per round where they diverge from the market - and that is exactly where published accountability matters and almost never exists.
The other structural problem: experts tip winners, not prices. A 55% tipster who only ever picks $1.30 favourites is losing you money; a 55% tipster finding $2.20 underdogs is printing it. That is why our weekly tips publish a probability for every game rather than just a pick - so you can compare it against the price, not just the result. The value checker does that comparison in two fields.
How we grade
One point per correct head-to-head pick, graded against the official result. No part marks, no retrospective edits, draws void. Where an outlet publishes multiple experts we grade the panel consensus (majority pick) plus the best and worst individual where the data allows. Our own model is held to a harsher standard than any pundit: every pick, every round, archived with its probability on the tracker.
More from TippingEdge
FAQ
Who is the most accurate NRL tipster?
Nobody can answer that honestly without published, graded records - which is the gap this page exists to fill. From Round 16 2026 the scoreboard above tracks every major published expert source. Our model's record is already public: 76.9% on the 2026 tracker, 63% across walk-forward holdout seasons.
Where can I find the SMH expert tips?
The Sydney Morning Herald publishes its experts' tips grid on smh.com.au each week (subscription may be required). We grade their published picks here after each round.
Are AI tips better than expert tips?
A well-built model has two real advantages: it is consistent (no mate-tipping, no narrative bias) and it outputs probabilities you can compare to prices. Whether it beats any individual expert is an empirical question - which is why we grade both and publish the results.
What were Andrew Johns' tips this week?
Johns and Fittler share their picks on Nine's coverage and Wide World of Sports each round. We do not republish them, but their graded record appears in the scoreboard as rounds are completed.