IS YOUR HANDICAPPER A PROFESSIONAL OR WANNABE?
-By Doug Knudson
8/27/04

There are several questions you must ask yourself before choosing a handicapper! Are they documented? Whose doing the grading? What's their marketing strategy? What are they saying is a reasonable expectation? Can I afford them? Are they overplaying "short term streaks"?

Let's assume you have determined a need for a professional Sports Handicapping Service and you have now made a "short list" of possible consultants for the coming season. There are 2 types of handicappers who run and operate a Sports Service - Professionals and Wannabe's!

Wannabe's : Most handicappers start here and while a select few mature and grow, most end up in the "extinct" pile unless purchased by a huge marketing magnet. They are the well meaning but clueless bunch who hold to the idea that successful handicapping is achieved through match up analysis and knowledge of a sport and thus directly related to gambling success. I've worked at Sports Books for over a decade and that's the opinion of the "Sports Betting Expert" and it's the type of thinking which buries 95% of the betting public, including the athletes who play the game and behind the scene insiders who knew the game so well they drove themselves to financial ruin with their "Sports Betting Knowledge".

Chet Forte thought of himself quite the handicapper and why shouldn't he? He was one of the most well connected NFL insiders in the history of the game. He was an All American athlete from Columbia, director of ABC's World Wide Sports and Monday Night Football. He was earning nearly a million bucks a year from ABC and considered himself an expert on professional football. He knew the game so well & had ALL the inside info he managed to go 4 million in the hole betting on football, lost his job, his house and his family. He was arrested on tax evasion and died an anonymous death in 1996. Chet Forte may have known a lot about football, but he knew very little about handicapping.

Art Schlicter also knew a lot about football. Enough to quarterback his team to the Rose Bowl and lock himself up as a first round pick in the 1982 NFL draft. Unfortunately, Schlicter didn't know anything about sports handicapping, but he knew enough about football to dig himself a hole 1.6 million dollars! Yeah, Schlicter knew football inside and out and a lot of good it did him.

Unfortunately, many football gamblers & handicappers across the country who continually impress themselves with their own knowledge of the game, simply cannot translate into pointspread success. They cannot grasp the idea that handicapping a pointspread means playing against a number and not a team. They fail to understand how the pointspreads are developed and what their meaning is and refuse to accept the idea that understanding a pointspread is more important than understanding a sport or team. When it comes to picking winners against the spread, being an expert on hidden stats is more significant than being an expert on obvious team statiticts & injuries! Quite often wannabe Sports Service Handicapeers are walking encyclopedias whose sports knowledge would shame Guinness. They have a lot of sound theories which sound convincing but none seem to hold up long term. Every win for these guys confirm there great insight of the game and every loss was a case of "bad luck". They sincerely believe in their handicapping methods & systems, and sincere in their efforts to their customers who hear everything they want if sports and gambling is there passion.

A good indication you are dealing with a wannabe is to ask him how long as he been in busniess and who was his independent monitor! The big problem with wannabe's is they are stuck on sports knowledge but fail to grasp the numbers.

Professional Handicappers : Every successful handicapper is first and foremost an odds maker and a sports fan second. You cannot understand a pointspread if you do not know how to arrive at one. You cannot know which side of the number to take if you do not have a clear idea of what the number should be. You cannot know if there is value or not in a pointspread if you do not first know what the number should have opened at. Every professional Handicapper can tell you what a line should be when any 2 given teams collide.

When a professional handicapper sees a number which doesn't agree with him, it is not the basis for a play, it is merely the basis to begin doing his homework. Why is this line out of wack? What's happening here that I am not aware of? Ever hear of the "Vegas Trap"? Professional Handicappers are pessimistic who question everything. They know that the difference between success and failure is a small percentage.

The #1 question with regards to professional handicappers by skeptics is this; "If he's so good, why does he need to sell picks for a living? If he's as good as he says, he'd be rich and retired!".

For starters, the assumption that they are not rich and retired is a lame one. Certainly Bill Gates does not need to sell computers to put food on the table but he still does. Allen Greenspan needs not concern himself with the Stock Market and George Bush doesn't need to rely on a government paycheck anymore. The notion that accepting a check for services that comes out for the love & passion of the game or greed simply doesn't hold up in a US business capitalist society.

Also; more than anyone, The Professional know's that no matter how solid a play - NOTHING IS A LOCK. An injury to a All-Star type player, bad call by the coach or referee, or a costly turnover is all it takes to sink a Game of the Year play! Most professional handicappers would make your accountant look like Santa Claus. They take small percentages and compound them over and over with great discipline and small risk.

As Always; Good luck