HANDICAPPERS - SCAMDICAPPERS

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that somebody may be looking" - Henry Louis Mencken

It is also what scamdicappers lack. This lack of conscience is what allows them to print their outrageous claims and legally steal from sports bettors. But someone is watching. Monitors. And the sports betting public - via the internet.

The proliferation of the internet has proven to be a double-edged sword for the scamdicapper. When it first arrived they said, hmmm, looks great, a new, and cheap way for me to reach potential clients (read: suckers). I can start a website, I can invade forums, and I can advertise at sports and gambling websites. They thought it opened a whole new area to them, but it also opened a bit of a Pandora's box too.

In the old days a scamdicapper would take out an ad in a newspaper, post outrageous claims like "Last season I hit at an amazing rate of 137%!!!! My bazillion star plays went 229-1!!! I am ranked number one (by nobody you have ever heard of because I made them up). Call me today!"

When players called to buy picks they found out the ad was a bunch of BS. They lost money on the scammers losing plays AND paid for the privilege. But they were left with little recourse. The only way they could fight back was to take out their own ad, next to the touts, and tell people the truth - that the scammer couldn't pick the winner of a one horse race. But that was expensive and money was something they didn't have a lot of, since they called the scamdicapper because they were losing to begin with and were looking for help, and then proceeded to lose even more money using his picks. So this was not a viable option.

The internet has changed all that. Now, when someone gets ripped off he can go into all the sports forums and talk about his experiences. He can warn others about how much he lost and expose the tout's actual records. It cannot directly combat the ads that scammers use to troll for suckers but it is very efficient for getting the word out.

On-line monitor services have also popped up and are growing in number. This is also hurting the scamdicappers for three reasons. One is that they cannot be monitored, for the simple reason that they stink and they know it. A couple have tried but have seen how detrimental it can be to their business when their real record is seen. The second way it hurts them is legitimate, talented handicappers can be monitored and sports bettors can see their records and know they are legit. And the third reason is when scamdicappers are not monitored it is a dead giveaway that they are hiding something. So by not being monitored it also costs them business.

Of course you have to be careful of monitor services too. It is said that cockroaches could survive a nuclear blast and touts are a lot like cockroaches, they find a way to survive and get by. Some, to answer the "are you monitored?" question, have formed their own monitoring services under aliases. But they don't release information on their picks until AFTER the games have been played. And guess who gets the number one ranking each week? You guessed it - the tout that owns the monitoring service. The other top spots are sold to his fellow snakes/services. Now you have to not only look at a touts background to see if he's legit you also have to check out the monitoring service that ranks him.

So the internet is a good thing because it is an information tool. And the more information bettors have the worse it is for the liars, cheats and hacks of the scamdicapping industry.

Good luck and bet smart…….