Football Betting

Sports Handicappers - Touts or Louts

Football season is upon us. Thousands of sports bettors are ready to bite the bullet and join the marketplace for the first time. If you're one of them, you might even be thinking about signing up with a tout service. Make sure you think very, very carefully about it.

Top Rated Football Handicappers
Get guaranteed winning picks from monitored professional handicappers.....
Click Here To Start Winning

Did you see last year's flick Two for the Money? You should, and not just to see Al Pacino doing what only Al Pacino can do. The story's abysmal, but the fictional tout service Pacino's character owns and operates is pretty close to way a lot of handicapping services work. Especially the 900 number based pick services. One of the service's "experts" uses computer-generated trends to lure in prospective bettors. Another makes the kind of impassioned appeals that are favored by telemarketers preying on senior citizens. But the former college hotshot quarterback (played by Matthew McConaughey) trumps them all because he actually knows a thing or two about football.

If you're looking for a tout service, you'll want one that employs more McConaugheys and fewer of everyone else. That's where the Internet comes to the rescue. Any tout worth his salt (and your money) publishes columns that reveal his betting philosophy. If the columns are based on sound football analysis, you may have something. Columns that are little more than a hard sell - "Five-Star Lock of the Millennium!!!" - should be more than enough to scare you away, not sucker you in.

Let's say you've read the tout's columns and you like what you see. The next step is to check out the service itself. The vast majority of these are available on the Web - if you have to dial a 1-900 number to sign up and/or receive tips, forget about it. You'll pay through the teeth, and they'll have your phone number - which they'll use to call you and give you the hard sell. There are some legitimate touts who use 1-900 numbers, but the reward isn't worth the risk. Watch out as well for services with multiple tiers. Paying extra cash to join the "Gold Circle" instead of silver or bronze is a no-no.

In the end, however predatory some of their business practices may be, touts are still in business. There is a lot of competition in the sports gaming world; that competition has prompted many services to provide guarantees on their tips - if you don't win, you don't pay or get credits. That should give you a hint which touts are concerned about providing you good gambling information. Too bad other industries aren't subject to the same competitive market forces.