If you enjoy sports betting, but regardless of what you do… you simply cannot manage to win, then perhaps it is time to look for a handicapping service. When selecting the tutoring service that can help you become a winner, there are several criteria to consider. Let’s elaborate.
How should a handicapping service help you?
Given the high number of services that provide expert advice on how to lay a wager, it is perfectly normal to be a bit confused at first. However, the trick to finding the right service that consistently offers you good recommendation is to compare them based on the following standards.
– It should help you become more profitable
With so many handicapping services out there, the pricing and packages available can be slightly confusing at times. While some services charge around $500 for a season subscription, others ask for approximately $4,000 for a season’s worth of picks. Moreover, you can stumble across bettors that provide complicated packages that include picks covering multiple sports over a predetermined period of the season.
When you decide that it is time to seek the advice of a handicapping service, then you need to account for your bankroll, your average bets and your expected profits. For instance, if you normally bet around $10 dollars for a game, then it would not be wise to spend $500 for picks during a season, because you will need to win around 50 bets more than you lost in order to recover your investment.
This is why it is important to do the math and determine whether working with that handicapping service can help your bets be more profitable. In other words, you need to calculate the number of bets you will make, estimate how many you will need to win, establish the difference and transform those numbers into percentages.
Therefore, if you determine that you need to win around 70% of your bets in order to recover your investment and make a little extra, then keep in mind this is impossible and you should reconsider your options. On the other hand, if you establish you have a winning percentage of around 50% after paying for the handicapping services, then you should start looking for a company to help you pick winners at this realistic rate.
– It should have experience handicapping the sports you are interested in betting
Because the competition in this niche is steep, you will find all sorts of handicapping services with various areas of expertise in betting. Furthermore, before signing with a service it is best to verify their experience in the field and check out their background. Without denying that there are many legitimate new businesses with few employees out there, it is important to note that there is a fair chance they will not be able to provide good customer service. Choosing a service with experience in the sports you want to bet on is usually much safer.
In addition to experience, you should also check out the guarantees they offer, as reliable services will always back up their picks one way of the other. To put it simply, while some companies choose to give their clients their money back, others prefer to offer free picks for the next week, month or season based on your initial purchase. However, this approach can be tricky if most of their picks were bad and you constantly lost money.
In order to determine the expertise and experience of a handicapping service, it is advisable to acquire a lower priced package first and test their prowess. Alternatively, you can choose a service that charges a reasonable flat monthly rate and has the option to cancel anything you want with no extra fees.
– It should be able to provide you with timely picks
A trustworthy handicapping service will usually post the picks way in advance before the games, so you have the time to make your bets. In addition, they should not just upload or email you the picks, but instead provide a detailed analysis of how they choose them in a manner that is easy to understand. If you receive the picks Sunday at noon, then you surely will not have enough time at your disposal to review their picks and place the bet. Moreover, without an analysis to back their choices up, you can very well assume that their decision was based on flipping a coin at the last minute.
– It should offer the same picks for all their clients
The handicapping services that do not offer the same picks for all their customers are to be avoided. At this point you might be wondering how you can verify this, considering that the picks will be sent via email to each customer on a weekly basis. It is quite simple actually: a reliable service will make their past picks available for the public on their webpage. Therefore, all you have to do is to compare the results with the picks you receive in your email. Obviously, if the picks match then you will know that the service provides uniform picks. However, if they delay posting the aforementioned data, then that should raise a red flag.
– It should offer free picks
By working with a reputable handicapping service, you can be sure to enjoy free picks offers occasionally, which you can receive via the free email newsletter or directly on their website. If you want to know you can trust the handicapping service, then a good exercise is to compare the free picks they offer with the ones listed on their website. Needless to state that if they match, it is clear that you are working with a trustworthy service. Again, if they are hesitant to make the previous results and picks public, then that should raise suspicions.
– It should be a service you enjoy working with
Last, but not least important you should choose a handicapping service that you enjoy doing business with. Besides offering all of the above features, people who enjoy sports betting prefer services that:
- Send emails and newsletters free of grammar and spelling errors
- The emails should have a professional appearance
- Have a website that is easy to navigate and read
- The website should contain plenty of information about sports betting
- Provide handicapper’s analysis that makes sense to them
- They are prompt to help you with any question you have
- The handicappers have a confident, but not too cocky attitude
- They provide efficient methods and a comprehensible approach to sports betting
How much cash can a handicapping service help you win?
While it is true that handicapping services will help you become successful at sports betting, do not forget that you should also implement some rules yourself. Perhaps the most important thing in betting is to be disciplined and know how to take a loss, since you will see plenty of them in this niche. In addition, it is highly advisable that you have money management skills and know when to stop.
The amount of cash you can win with the help of a handicapping service usually depends on the size of your bankroll. A legitimate service will help you increase the bankroll by 5% to 10% each month, so do not expect to make millions of dollars overnight. In addition, if this goal is not achieved, then a reliable service will provide its customers with a full refund, with no questions asked.
The red flags to watch for in a handicapping service
In spite of the fact that their role is to help you earn some extra cash from betting on your favorite sports, it is highly recommended to be wary of services that make promises which seem too-good-to-be-true or that engage in the following practices:
– They guarantee 60% winning
In the eventuality that you come across a service promising a winning percentage of 60% or higher, you should be suspicious! And, if they guarantee a win rate of around 70%, then you should know they are lying. While it is true that they provide you with useful insight, no service is able to help you win this much. If you were to analyze the winning percentages of professional sports bettors, you will see that no service has managed to have more than 62% as a career-best year for all their sports.
– They insist on learning sensitive information about you
If the service you signed up with insists on providing you with their picks over the phone, then this is better to walk away. In general, these services are interested in getting you to spend more and more cash and they will contact you at the most inappropriate moments to try and make a hard sell. Unless they agree to offer you the picks via email or upload them on their website for you to see, you should not do business with them.
You should immediately terminate any business relationship with services that want to know the size of your bankroll or how much you intend to bet. These bettors usually carry a premium that varies from customer to customer, based on their bankroll or the size of the bets. A reliable service will always provide its customers with the same quality services, regardless of whether they are betting $50 or $500 for a game.
– They have several memberships levels for different prices
Handicapping services that offer various membership levels for which they charge different prices should not be trusted. Different membership levels imply that the bettor is giving different sets of picks to their clients for the same games during a similar timeframe. Therefore, it is safe to assume that clients who have selected the costlier membership will automatically get the more accurate picks.
If you are curious about how these services still manage to trick their client into paying more for premium picks, then here is a quick example. First off, they will offer free picks to 100 people that they will split into two groups, each of them being advised to bet on a different team. The next week, they will offer another set of free picks for the previous week’s winner, again splitting the group in two with different picks. Therefore, after two weeks they will have 25 people who have won two times in a row. This exact group will be more tempted to pay for premium picks, due to previous experience.
– They provide special offers that promise you will become rich overnight
You know you cannot trust a handicapping service when they assure you that you can win $80,000 by betting only $5,000 on four games. In this case, they will not bother unless you are willing to risk this huge amount of cash. In addition, you should be wary of services that provide special offers especially when they present you with the “picks of the century” on the third week of the season.
– They claim they have access to insider information
Considering the media coverage for sport events nowadays, you should not fall in the trap of services claiming to have secret inside information that nobody else knows. In all fairness, it is impossible for an athlete to make any move these days without reporters learning about it right away. With newspapers, radio, television and websites providing details about all sports and athletes 24/7, there is no such thing as insider information.
– They offer to sell you their complete handicapping system
It is best to be cautious about handicapping systems that are willing to offer you the “unique” chance of purchasing their entire system. Think of it this way: if the system is unbeatable and guarantees to reel in a lot of cash, why would anyone sell it for a few thousand dollars when it could make millions for him instead? Besides, you have no way of telling whether or not they were the ones that developed the system or if they simply purchased it, just like you are being offered.
– They do not provide proof of their previous successful picks
In case a handicapping service claims that their winning percentage for the previous NFL season was of 60%, then you should be able to verify this information on their website. Moreover, if they state that they managed to make correct picks of 59% halfway of the MLB seasons, then you should be able to see proof of that. Unless they provide you with proof of their incredible picks and the actual results of the game in a clear manner, you should stay away. Legitimate services will not spend time and resources advertising the tremendous success they registered with last week’s picks. Moreover, they will admit when they are wrong.
A final thought
If you are serious about making extra cash from sports betting, then a handicapping service can help you turn this fantasy into reality. However, in order to enjoy your experience and make some money at the same time, you need to shop around and find a service that you can trust. Still, with so many unscrupulous individuals out there, you also need to exert caution and pay attention to red flags indicating suspicious practices.
