By Tony George www.sportsaudioshows.com  

This has always intrigued me, irritated me, and lumped me into a scenario that I have tried to avoid my entire 15 year career in sports handicapping. I will explain this in detail to further explain my plight to those who think one sports handicapper is just like all the others. I have never claimed to be the all saints savior to the marketplace in sports picks. I have however maintained a solid reputation with honesty and factual reporting, win, lose or draw. Both on-line and a with national radio show (various markets) the profile is high in terms of the brand name "Tony George", so I keep the hype down the results real. It also carries the "guilty by association" label which is part of the territory when it comes to a tout service, although times have changed in the past 10 years, trust me. Not one to look for sympathy here, but lets give this marketplace a fair shake.

I recently was told by a client he had written a nice review about me on a website that "monitors" handicappers for the sake of the public good. I has recently gone 71% in this years NBA playoffs with my plays and bonus plays. A nickel player had a nice tidy profit after investing $149 and wanted to give me some props, and I had no complaints about a pat on the back. I since then I checked out this site, which is to suppose to be the watchdog of sports services and handicappers. What I found was a poorly done website, with dead links and no up to date information, that simply was at the will of ANY consumer to write whatever he wanted about a handicapper. Scary thought huh? When I go 5-1 in football one weekend, and the following weekend go 2-4, but I am 64% ATS overall for the season to date for example, does the guy who went 5-1 write them and tell them I won them 3 dimes that weekend while investing maybe $60 overall? The chances are slim, however the guy that went 2-4 would call me nothing short of a S.O.B. if he found an outlet to vent. I have always maintained to any client, never judge any capper by 1 weekend in football for instance, give them a month to prove their wares or follow them for a month on their website, as mine monitors plays for 5 days running, with write-ups.

I then investigated the site further to see that their approved cappers were nothing short of picks salesman from what I could see. In one month their lead capper in the standings, had placed a whopping 142 plays in a 30 day period, I assume MLB with some NBA Playoff action as well. With the losses at 49 losses out of that number, that is more than 1 loss a day. Nothing about units won or lost, which I assume would be a different story when it comes to moneyline wagering, the wins would not outweigh the amount of money lost or be damn near break even at best. When you put out over 100 plays a month folks, you have no time to accurately handicap games, you simply lump packages and plays together to try and sell picks. With daily sports betting available with MLB, I single out the best bet and wager it daily, and my chances of making you money versus the guy who puts out 150 picks a month is very high, although up front you feel like you are getting more bang for the buck by putting up $40 or $50 for a 4-Pack of plays while I am charging a $20 flat fee for a daily best bet. At the end of the day, it is a different story, so buyer beware!

As I looked at their "approved cappers" and read the reviews about them, I asked myself how could they be approved by these Internet police when almost every review was nothing more than a slam? The words and phrases like , boiler room operator, horrible handicapper, scamdicapper, high prices, Loser, ex-convict, using an alias, do not waste time or money on this clown, harassing, bait and switch scammer, and the list goes on and on. The ones with bad reviews and bad reputations ironically, also were some of the site sponsors. Money like always, buys you a piece of the pie, as you have to give these guys money to submit to be an approved service to begin with. Of course they have their own experts that sell picks on this site, and out of 5 of them, one1of them I had heard of, and he has a deplorable reputation in the business, not just in my eyes, but the reviews on this very site itself! Once again, I am not claiming to be the only guy in this business that is above board, there are many of them, but when you claim to be a watchdog of handicapping services, you might want to read the reviews of the cappers you approve on your site. It makes all of us look bad when your approved cappers that are being policed are getting horrible reviews. What does that make the "non-approved" cappers look like in the consumers eyes? Oh yeah, I am a non-approved capper based on the fact they need $100 out of me to enter the system and be monitored.

It is easy to look down upon an industry that is masked by masses of unethical competitors and hidden by dark headlines. It has been a tough road to niche out a place in handicapping lore as being a decent human being and a results driven guy, since this is not a mainstream profession or a noble craft in many peoples eyes. Documented records and the Internet have weeded out most scammers and high pressure phone tout boiler rooms for the most part, although a few remain and will always be around. All of the people I have on my radio show and website are approved cappers based on long terms results and reputation in my eyes. I guess the true test of any person in the business is in repeat business from clients year and year and day after day, and that comes from winning games consistently, and being honest when you do not. I guess carving out a living for 15 years in this business on many large portals and being aired on the Armed Forces Radio Network for 3 years proves one thing, somebody likes our wares and I must be doing something right. When you are looking to invest this upcoming football season or right now with baseball, give a service or individual a fair shake for 30 days and then form an opinion, because no matter what you may believe with hyped up advertising from many out there, no one wins everyday, that is why it is called gambling folks.