Sports Betting - Inside the Sports Service Industry
If you have been betting on sports for any length of time, you have no doubt run across one of the numerous sports services that are in existence. Some are very good, some aren't so bad, and others should be avoided at all costs.
There are generally three times of sports services. There are those that are honest, hard-working, and produce a good number of winning plays; there are those that are honest, hard-working, but usually don't produce very good results; and there are those that are simply dishonest. Trying to find one in the first category is the key for sports bettors.
The Sports Service Premise
The rationale behind the sports service industry is a good one. Since a sports bettor will seldom have the time required or the know-how to properly handicap all of the games, a sports service will do the work for you, for a fee of course, and give you the information needed to make you a winner. Many sports services equate themselves to stock brokers.
The fees charged by sports services can range anywhere from $50 to $5,000 per season, and bigger doesn't necessarily translate in better. Some of the better sports services around are on the lower side of the pricing scale, while some of those that charge steep fees fail to win even half of their games. How is this possible? The answer lies in the key to the sports service industry - marketing.
Sports Service Marketing
Many years ago I ordered a manual on starting a sports service from a well-known company that specializes in new business ventures. In the manual one of the key points that was stressed was that as much time as possible should be devoted to marketing, with any remaining time spent trying to actually pick the winners of games. While this is no doubt good business sense, it doesn't seem exactly fair to the paying customer, who is paying money for winning picks.
A number of the larger sports services have employees who are in sales, which means they do anything from answer phone calls from perspective customers to calling former clients or clients of another sports service whose name and number was purchased. Years ago, horror stories were common of sports services calling people continually at home and at work, essentially harassing them until they either purchased the service's selections or changed their phone number. Fortunately, that practice seems to have gone by the wayside, or at least diminished in frequency to a large extent.
The main marketing tool for any sports service, however, is its past record, which just so happens to be the one area where the most blatant occurrences of deception occur. There is the widely told tale of one sports service which placed a large ad in a newspaper boasting of its 7-1 record the previous week. The only problem was that because of advertising deadlines, the sports service had to submit its new ad before the prior weekend's games had even been played.
A sports service's past record is no guarantee of how it will fare in the future, it generally is a pretty reliable indicator, particularly if the record encompasses a large number of games. Everybody will have hot and cold streaks, but those services that show long-term profits are pretty good bets to do so once again.
