How do most people use these sites/organizations? I dont sports bet much but there is a local sports "advice" service that releases several picks a year that are very high caliber, meaning picks that are above and beyond their normal everyday ones. Last saturday they did their biggest pick of the year which they are 9 and 0 on for nine years straight.

Do most sports bettors use a service like this or do you just research on your own?

Ohh and btw, nice forum, I will try to frequent as much as I do Paw

There was a movie about this recently starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaghey. There are companies who sell football picks, and they're called tout services. I've been thinking about starting one myself in fact; I've got a buddy who's going to be posting his pics here. We'll see how well he does long-term. I think you have to be right 52% of the time or so in order to make up for the vig.

I'm not sure how many sports bettors use this kind of service, but it's big business apparently.

__________________
Randy

Oh I think its a huge business. This one near me is on a MAJOR local radio show every friday and they advertise their big picks they have coming up. I believe there is even an "official" service who monitors these "advice givers" and reports on their win rates. I just havent actually pulled the trigger and tried one out. From what I have read there are two major monitors who keep track of the picks and that if you are going to choose a tout service as you have called them, you will want to make sure it is watched by one of these monitors. Interesting stuff

I didn't know about the services that "monitor" the tout services. What a brilliant idea.

__________________
Randy

I actually just watched that movie finally. Two for the Money, great movie I thought!

Back to the discussion about tout services though, here is my question:

In the movie, they charged a percentage if the person won the bet. Does the better just get billed then? How does the tout service ensure they get paid? If the tout service were to actually place the bet for them, then would they be considered a bookie and thus illegal?

Maybe I dont actually understand what a bookie is.

I don't think in real life they get a percentage of the win or loss. They charge flat dollar fees for their picks. A percentage type situation would never work with a tout service because the gambler could always place another bet with another bookie on the same game and not tell the tout service, in order to avoid paying them their commission.

__________________
Randy

Mike McCusker ran something called Tipsters or Gypsters that gave the real performance stats on various tout services. I don't know if it's still around, can't find it on the net.

As soon as he started, not so legit services were trying to bribe him to inflate their performace stats. some of them were known to give out both sides of the same game, that way they could "honestly" say there 5-star picks were 4-0 the previous week.

Randy is right, they get a flat fee beforehand, not a percentage. If they worked on percentages and gave out losers... well, think about it.

Avoid Mike Warren like the plague, for one.