Long before I had even ever heard of the syndicates or knew that there are people out there who successfully gambled for a living, I traveled a long road in my search for winners. After realizing that I sure wasn't going to beat the line-makers with my own opinions, and after getting burned by several scam operators masquerading as handicappers, I decided to turn to the people who are supposed to monitor the services.

Just lately there are some smaller web based monitors springing up, but I’m going to focus on the two longstanding organizations professing to be the Consumer Reports and Watchdogs of the Sports Service Industry. If you've been around at all, you know of whom I speak. I called the bigger of the two operations and ordered year-end reports from someone I'll call “Babe Ruth.” Now keep in mind, I paid for these reports was shocked to see what came in the mail a few weeks later. All I wanted to know was which services had done well and which ones had not. Instead I got pages and pages of incomprehensible mish-mash broken up into a staggering array of categories. 1st half, 2nd Half, college, pro, weekly, monthly, totals, return on investment, money won, big plays, etc. etc. etc.

The biggest insult was that the services were allowed to divide their plays into different groups. What a bunch of baloney. How can these people allow more than one set of games from any given service? Don Wagner alone had eight services. Joe Atkins had Inside Information, Raider, Late Steam, and Early Steam among others. At that time 900 numbers were big so…get a load of this.... services are allowed to have their 900 numbers monitored separately too. In a classic case of the wolf guarding the hen-house, “Babe Ruth” actually had her own 900 number. How sick is that?

As I perused the pages of these reports I had paid good money for, I began to understand that this was but another joke, and that the general public was being played yet again. Why does Consumer Reports accept no advertising money? Because they refuse to compromise the integrity of their results. Where do you think these monitoring services get all of their cash? You guessed it! All of their income is derived from the services they oversee, so they have a direct and I believe conflicting interest in making as many people look good as possible. And that’s just what they do…. ad nauseam. That’s why no complete record is ever printed. That’s the reason for all the categories. Kind of reminds me of S&P handing out AAA ratings to the sub-prime mortgage lenders and default credit swap instruments. While Wall Street was lining their pockets with cash, the credit rating agencies were deaf dumb and blind and sucking the money tit. Same thing the sports monitoring agencies are doing. The way the whole thing is rigged, just about everyone gets to be number one in something, somehow, someway…. even if it’s just for a single week, and that service can proudly climb to any roof-top and scream WE’RE NUMBER ONE!!!! And they do.

There’s another monitoring service out there, I'll call it “Sports Botch” and it used to be run by a cockroach I'll call “Jack Rootbeer.” Guy hated me because I do consensus. Mr. Rootbeer would only tell you which services were in his top ten. He possessed all the social graces of  Artie Lange on a herion bender. Jack refused to post a list of every service he monitored, let alone seasonal results in any sport. If they weren’t doing well, Jack wouldn’t tell you Jack shit. That’s how fiercely he used to protect the people he is supposed to be watching over. Believe it or not, the two companies I've been talking about are actually considered to be the most reputable monitoring services in existence.

What about the ads that claim some audacious record from “The Handicapper’s Report Card” or “The Book of World Records?” These are fake monitors that don't even exist! Some touts even have counterfeit monitors working for them, in the same building, probably in the next office or cubicle. They will verify that 80-20 record for you. They have also seen pigs fly and talked to the Easter Bunny personally. I know of no legitimate company monitoring the sports services industry that will A. accept no money from the services it watches over, B. Allow each service to release only one set of plays per sport. C. Tell you who is being monitored, and give you their record no matter how they are doing. D. Give you a proper accounting of an entire season, instead of chopping everything up into little pieces.

So as far as I’m concerned, there are no legitimate monitors at all. No one to protect us from our protectors. No one to stand up for the little guy. Just more slick marketing and false promises from an industry that shoots crooked and deals from the bottom of the deck.

In 2008 Sports Watch Inc. was purchased my David Rickenbach and from all appearances he seems to doing things the right way. Although still accepting money from the services he monitors… he is listing all records in a concise and understandable way for free on his website, and I applaud him for the honest attempt to clean up a very dirty industry.

Babe Ruth? She was last seen giving Kevin Carr a blowjob in a back alley somewhere… while touting his fake service… fake results and fake plays… as she has continued to do for most of the millennium. It’s a family affair… if you know what I mean.

Jack Rootbeer

“Babe Ruth”