SUPER BOWL XXI : DENVER vs. NEW YORK : THE TOUT SHEETS : It Is a Safe Bet They Get Paid First

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The preceding was, of course, a fictional advertisement for a sports handicapping business--more commonly referred to by gamblers and others as a tout or tip sheet.

But it also could serve as a composite advertisement of all the promises of sure things, easy cash and inside information that these services offer every week in publications such as USA Today and Pro Football Weekly to the estimated millions in the United States who wager on professional and college sports.

Do people buy them?

You bet.

In 1981, the National Football League estimated that $50 billion was wagered on pro football in a single season. Three years later, a study by the Drug Enforcement Agency showed that sports gambling is a $70-billion-a-year business.

For the uninitiated, point spreads on football games and other sports are created by a select group of Las Vegas odds-makers and are designed to divide gamblers into equal groups. An ideal line for Sunday’s Super Bowl game, for instance, would have half the wagering on the favored New York Giants, minus 9 points, and half on the underdog Denver Broncos, plus 9.

A gambler must bet $11 to win $10, the extra dollar going to the bookmakers.

Wagering on spectator sports, despite being illegal in every state except Nevada, has become been a major industry. Not surprising, it also has spawned a cottage industry, sports handicapping, which is legal.

There are more than 500 tout services operating throughout the nation, ranging in size from those with one phone and a stat sheet in a spare bedroom to corporations with elaborate computer printouts and handicappers who are minor celebrities.

The information dispensed, most by telephone but some with an accompanying newsletter, isn’t really concerned about which team will win a game. Instead, the handicappers give predictions about whether a favorite will cover the point spread, as well as advice concerning which games are prime for betting and which are best left alone.

Depending on how you feel about gambling, tout services either exploit an activity that can become a compulsion and a sickness, or merely provide the supply for a demand, like any other business.

“Forty million people are doing it,” said Mort Olshan, who runs the Los Angeles-based Gold Sheet newsletter. “I strongly suspect there is something wrong with a law that makes lawbreakers out of 40 million people. . . . It’s like Prohibition in a sense.”

If sports gambling is as pervasive as studies have shown, it is perhaps not surprising that tout services are spread throughout the country. Their headquarters range from Los Angeles to New York, Baltimore to Mobile, Ala., South Bend, Ind., to New Hampshire. Yes, there also is a healthy supply of handicappers in Las Vegas.

Although gambling on sports other than pari-mutuel horse and dog racing, and jai alai, is illegal, there is no law against selling gambling opinions and information on spectator sporting events over the phone or through the mail. Federal authorities, however, periodically monitor many handicapping companies to make sure their services don’t include bookmaking, which is illegal.

“I’ve had the FBI come into my office unannounced and tap my line,” said Larry (The Duke) Dukehart, a nationally known handicapper. “I was scared to death, because they didn’t say what they were doing it for. It was to see if I was getting bookie calls. They asked me if I knew any big bookies. I said, ‘If I knew any, do you think I’d tell you?’ ”

According to a dozen handicappers interviewed for this story, the perception among most law enforcement officials and nonbettors is that there is something wrong with providing a legal service for an activity that is illegal in 49 states.

Detractors have compared tout services to stores selling drug paraphernalia.

“That’s totally ridiculous,” said John Dobbs, a handicapper in suburban Detroit. “No one condones the use of drugs, but we have legalized gambling in some areas like Vegas, New Jersey, Puerto Rico. There’s an Indian reservation in the Upper Peninsula (of Michigan) where they have casino gambling. So someone equating gambling with drugs is not playing with a full deck of cards.”

Those in the sports tout services take themselves and the profession quite seriously. They like to compare themselves to stock prognosticators on Wall Street.

The competitiveness among the handicappers is fierce. If, as studies show, $70 billion is annually wagered on sports, it figures that there are millions to be spent on acquiring tips from the so-called experts.

The industry could be a model for the free enterprise system. Pick up USA Today’s sports section any Friday during football season, and you can choose from a smorgasbord of handicapping services, all offering locks (sure wins), key releases (hottest of the hot tips), bonanza weekends and free sample games.

Dukehart advertises himself as “The Einstein of the Line.” He even has a drawing of old Albert with a caption saying: “I love dese games!”

Gary Sanders dubs himself “Your life preserver for ’87.”

Walt Michaels, former New York Jet coach who has his own service, asks: “Who knows more than the coach?”

Teddy Land promises to make you “$10,000 in the next two days.”

The peripatetic Mike Warren, who has perhaps the largest subscription service in the country and reputedly one of the most successful in terms of predictions, said he used to advertise in USA Today to supplement his prolific bulk mailing.

“I finally told my advertising people to take me out of there,” Warren said from his Baltimore office. “It doesn’t look good. All the guys in there now are named Tony. You have all these Tonies, and it gives the connotation that it’s all fixed and there is organized crime or something. We need to license all the people. There are millions of them out there, half of them named Tony.”

Indeed, in last Friday’s USA Today, there were advertisements from Tony Montana, Tony Salinas, Tony Cobra Sports and Tony (the Bagman) Smith. All had accompanying photos, so they couldn’t all have been the same Tony, could they?

There is generally animosity among handicappers. Most don’t have much nice to say about one another. But nearly all the comments, good or bad, about competitors are given off the record, partly because many handicappers try to avoid publicity.

“We are serious, dedicated researchers,” Olshan said. “The press is always trying to uncover something evil, illegal or immoral lurking. All we do is research and offer insights into the teams, so you will end up having more information to at least add to your observations of teams.”

Judging from comments by nearly all of the handicappers interviewed for this story, there are practices among some in the industry that are, if not illegal or immoral, at least unethical.

Examples:

--There is the fail-and-switch tactic. This occurs when a company owns more than one service, under different names. If the clientele of Jones Betting Services has not had a good year, subscribers will receive a call from the Smith’s Picks, telling them to drop Jones and join this service. Subscribers are not told, of course, that the same company owns both services.

Said one nationally known handicapper, requesting anonymity: “What happens is, one (service) will blow out a guy in two or three weeks, then the other company calls and says, ‘You’ve been going with him? Forget it. Go with us.’ But it’s owned by the same guys who just looks down his mailing list of failed subscribers. . . . To put it mildly, that’s unethical.” Several major companies own more than one tout service. Jim Feist, based in Las Vegas, is one. But Feist says that his Jim Feist Sports and its sister service, Top Play Sports, employ different handicappers and have different advertising departments. Feist said that they share the same data and information on teams, but they often make different selections.

“If I find someone who has talent and has a small business, I don’t feel, entrepreneurly, there is anything wrong in financially backing that guy. I know of large companies that own several services, but all, to my knowledge, have different handicappers and don’t (double up on clients). I do say that there is something wrong with those with deliberate attempts to give different picks.”

Another handicapper, who mainly works the Midwest, claims that in a few cases, companies give out different picks on the same event, depending upon which section of the nation the call comes from.

“Some guys, not a lot, will just plain cheat,” he said. “They will give out both sides. Like in the Super Bowl, if 500 people call, they’ll give 250 the Giants as the pick, 250 the Broncos. If it’s a money-back guarantee, they can’t lose. They tell them the pick costs $100, and they’ll send back the money from the losers, but keep the rest. They still make money.”

Added another noted handicapper: “Basically, the big guys can’t--and won’t--do that because they are monitored too closely by their clients. It’s the small, mom-and-pop services who do it, but they don’t stay around long.”

--Exchanging customer mailing lists is another practice that sometimes happens in the business.

The thinking is that someone else’s loser could be your new client. Again, this reportedly is done primarily among the smaller services, but sources said a few large handicapping outfits sell their lists to competitors.

“I won’t mention anyone by name, but I know a lot who sell their lists of lapsed subscribers,” said Danny Sheridan, whose tout service uses Mailgrams the day before games. “I would never do that to my subscribers. They’d get calls from all sorts of high-pressure operators at all times of the day and night.

“I tell you how badly other (services) want my lists,” said Sheridan, who also sells his weekly predictions to USA Today. “They’ve tried to bribe people on my staff. It hasn’t worked. My clientele is very exclusive and I promise them no one else will know their identity.”

According to Dobbs, who says he does not trade lists, prices for selling subscribers’ names run from 25 cents to $5 a name. Price depends on the size of the service and the bank account of the client.

“A lot of people do it,” Dobbs said. “If that means I’m outside the norm of marketing, then I guess I am.”

--There have been claims of wide-spread false advertising. Or, if not totally false, at least extremely misleading.

This is where the off-the-record accusations really begin to fly.

But first, some background:

Since bettors wager $11 to every $10 the bookmakers put up, a gambler would have to win 52.38% of his bets to make a profit. Outsiders may think it would be easy to be right a little more than half the time, but it is not. In fact, most handicappers would be happy with a 60% overall success rate.

So, when some services advertising 70% to even 90% success rates, it draws a skeptical eye from others in the industry. Some are called liars, and even the most nonvindictive touts say it is remarkable how people can manipulate numbers for their benefit.

Every major handicapper interviewed said that, at one time or another, he has been accused to inflating his success rates in advertisement. But all accuse others of doing the same thing.

Sheridan is one of the most vocal objectors to such tactics, yet he has been accused by some as being one of the leading offenders.

Said Sheridan: “Here’s what some of these guys do: Let’s say you release a publication early in the week where you pick two college and two pro games. Then, let’s say you go 0-4. Then, you also have a midweek newsletter with four college games and two pro highlighted. Let’s say you pick both pro games right but went 0-4 with the colleges. Now, you have your late phone service (the day of the games), where you pick four pro and four college games. Let’s say you go 0-8.

“My records show you went 0-4, 2-4, and 0-4 on these Saturday and Sunday games. Clearly, not a good week of handicapping. But what you might do is run an ad saying that you got 100% of pro games right in our newsletter. Now, that’s accurate. But, darn, they forgot to mention their early predictions. And, darn, they also forgot that late phone service record.

“I’m the only one in the industry with the guts to release just one set of picks per week and let those stand by themselves. I’m not constantly changing and giving different services. The Rockefellers couldn’t afford to stay with most of these sports service, with all the scams they have.”

Is it possible for a handicapper to consistently win 70% to 80% of his overall predictions? Probably not.

“We shoot for 60%,” Tom Scott, who runs the Hot Sheet in South Bend, Ind., said. “I’ve been getting close to that. But these guys who claim 80%? Forget it.”

Said Feist: “It’s possible to hit 100%--over a weekend. But if you tell me you went 50-0, I’ll call you a liar. But if somebody advertises 70% and then specifically tells you it was only 7 out of 10 on a weekend, that’s OK. I once advertised that I had hit 14 straight Monday night opinions (in the 1977-78 season). But I didn’t advertise my less successful picks. Why should guys? They want to make their services the most attractive they can.”

All handicappers say they stand by their selections--some give money-back guarantees--but very few say they gamble on their selections. Of course, since sports gambling is illegal everywhere but Nevada, it isn’t in a handicapper’s best interest to admit publicly that he does gamble.

Feist, however, is based in Las Vegas, so he has no qualms about saying that he backs up his predictions with bucks.

“Credibility is important,” Feist said. “What gave me my credibility? Well, I was a successful player before I got into (handicapping). I feel it gives me an advantage, keeps me sharper and consistently monitoring the line.

“If a stockbroker were to call me and say that the XYZ company is a good investment, but then he tells me that he’s not going to invest himself, I’m going to be a little skeptical.”

Are there more handicappers-gamblers out there than will admit to it?

“If I lived outside Nevada, I’d never tell you I gamble on my picks,” Feist said, laughing.

Added Warren, who works in Baltimore: “There are some things you can’t say over the phone. But I will tell you that I stand by my picks every way I can.”

Odds are, with all the jealousy, in-fighting and off-the-record allegations of shadiness in the industry, the most important question for gamblers seeking guidance has to be: Which service to trust?

Here is a closer look at three of the largest and most popular:

DANNY SHERIDAN SPORTS

Sheridan doesn’t need to advertise every week in USA Today. The newspaper employs his service to provide the odds and predictions for pro and college football and basketball games. Sheridan also adds a few paragraphs of notes and opinions each day.

Although Sheridan’s feature appears in small type on the newspaper’s results page, it is apparently widely read by those in and out of the handicapping business.

For the last 12 years, Sheridan has provided predictions for a price from his home in Mobile, Ala. Unlike most services, which work by phone, newsletters or both, Sheridan sends out a Mailgram to his subscribers the day before games.

He charges $850 for the football season, if you subscribe by Aug. 1. It increases to $1,000 after that. Because he is so well known, Sheridan is one of the few who can demand--and get--payment in advance.

“I offer only one set of picks,” Sheridan said. “I offer just one service. I don’t milk the customers by offering several services, under the guise of late information. If there is so much late information, why even publish something earlier in the week? I’m in a pool of sharks trying to be idealistic about the industry.”

Sheridan, 39, looks upon most other services with disdain. And vice versa.

“I say most of these guys are in the business of picking people’s pockets, not winners,” Sheridan said. “There is a lot of ego in this industry. What the others do is of no concern to me. I just have to be a cut above the rest.

“I have a hell of a forum (USA Today) and I could take advantage of that by taking advantage of the other guys, but I don’t. I have never, ever referred to any other handicapper by name.”

Sheridan’s rise to the upper echelon of his profession happened so quickly that it shocked many in the business. That may be why some have called him a self-promoter rather than a prognosticator.

Before Sheridan went public with his “gift” in 1975, he was a real estate agent and sports fan who used “psychic powers and emotional feels” about teams to predict winners. He became so good locally that he was encouraged to go national.

In 1975, he appeared on the erstwhile “Tomorrow” show with Tom Snyder. Sheridan was asked on the air to give seven football predictions for that Sunday. The next week, he was scheduled to return to the show and the results would be reviewed. Sheridan picked six of seven games correctly.

After that, it was as if he were a prophet. He was featured in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Esquire. He reputedly had an 89.7% success ratio in 1974, almost unheard of in handicapping.

That’s when the backlash began. Perhaps Sheridan’s biggest detractor is Olshan of the Gold Sheet.

In 1977, Olshan wrote a blistering three-part series in his publication, debunking Sheridan’s claims. In one story, Olshan referred to Sheridan as a country slicker, a would-be Clifford Irving, a reincarnated Typhoid Mary and a Bama bamboozler.

To support those claims, Olshan said that no proof existed of Sheridan’s pre-1975 record and that, in a conversation with Sheridan after the 1975 season, Sheridan could not recall the results of games he picked even after the games had been played.

Olshan will not talk about Sheridan for the record, but he still keeps copies of the stories on his desk. Sheridan, meanwhile, says he doesn’t need to explain himself to Olshan or anyone else.

“If this guy is going to write about me, just spell my name right,” Sheridan said. “If the worst thing people say about me is, ‘Sheridan, you can’t even pick your nose,’ then I can sleep nights. . . . When I went on Tom Snyder’s show, I made 19 picks against the spread. I went 17-1-1. Then, Tom asks me for seven best bets. I got six right.”

Sheridan said that, since 1974, he has never dipped below 52.3% (the break-even point). He said his best year was 1979, when he picked 70%, pro and college football games, correctly.

“You know how tough that is?” Sheridan asked. “Most say 60% is great. I was 70%. Documented. The guy who runs the line in Las Vegas told me that was like running a one-minute mile.”

How has Sheridan done in ‘86-’87?

“I started off real strong and nose-dived in the middle,” he said. “But since Christmas, I’ve been at 80%. The most important thing is to be right on the major bowls and the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl. I’ve been accurate so far.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m the best thing running. I’m sure there are other handicappers better than me, probably even guys who aren’t in the business. There are a lot who’ll tell you they’re better than me. But my customers always come back every year.”

THE GOLD SHEET

The Gold Sheet is just what it claims to be. It is gold in color, and it is one sheet--14 7/8 inches by 17 3/8 inches--folded to booklet size with printing on both sides. On the masthead is the proclamation: “The American Sportsman’s Bible.”

This is the 30th anniversary of the Gold Sheet, which was founded by Olshan in Los Angeles in 1956. It has grown in size of operation and circulation since the start. Olshan’s business shares a floor in a West Hollywood office complex with a modeling agency. His office overlooks the Sunset Strip.

The 30th year was not the best for the Gold Sheet. In early October, Olshan wrote a story titled “An Inexact Science,” explaining the tough luck he and his handicappers had experienced. “You cannot lay too much emphasis on the luck factor,” Olshan wrote. “It is estimated by respected handicappers . . . that 50% of all games are influenced by the indeterminateness of Lady Luck.”

Olshan said that he’s had many more good years than bad with the Gold Sheet. The company prints 25,000 copies of the newsletter a week. Olshan did not reveal subscription figures but said he always has had a healthy business.

In addition to the newsletter, which sells for $5 an issue on newsstands and $65 for a season, Olshan offers a late newsletter called “Confidential Kickoff,” and expanded “Technical Report,” and a late phone service. A season ticket, as his ads say, is $950 a year.

“We don’t sell it with unrealistic expectations,” Olshan said. “We sell it direct and honestly. . . . We think we have the best chance of winning. We’re the most experienced. A lot of these other people are not handicappers. They are marketing people.”

The Gold Sheet employs three handicappers and several researchers. There are stacks of statistics in one room, including figures on how every pro and college team did against the spread in previous years. Olshan also receives press releases from some pro and college teams. “I also read 40 sports pages a day,” he said.

Olshan said that a good handicapper considers statistics, logic and emotions of the teams before making his pick. But Olshan adds that there aren’t a lot of good handicappers around.

“It’s pretty much been infiltrated by marketing people who are probably losers on their own and feel this is a better way to go about it,” he said. “They are jokers. I asked one guy how he picks games and he laughed and said he throws darts.”

MIKE WARREN SPORTS

Mike Warren was in full conversational stride, talking as though he was running out of time on a telephone answering machine.

“Hello, this is the one, the only, the original--da-da, da-da--Mike Warren,” he said, breathily. “Do you know how lucky you are to be speaking with me? Do you?”

Then, there was a pause.

“Geez, aren’t I full of (bleep)?”

That’s what some other handicappers think, but when a reporter told the 42-year-old Brooklyn native that not a single competitor questioned had a good thing to say about him, Warren just laughed.

“You know why?” he asked. “Because I’m the biggest and because I never speak to them. I don’t want to get involved with the shtick and scams they do. You want to know about Mike Warren? I’ll give you my confidential list of subscribers. They’ll tell you how good I am.

“I think it has to be jealousy. I deal with 17,000 customers daily, and they monitor me all the time. If I lie, I’m in trouble. I try hard to keep my nose clean. As far as I know, every claim I make is accurate. My customers are FBI agents and lawyers, respected people.”

Whereas other handicappers are reluctant to talk specifically about profits and the size of their businesses, Warren volunteers it. He claims he grosses $17 million a year. “That’s more than most of the others combined,” he said.

“Our company is the biggest by far,” he said. “Look, I’m just a kid from Brooklyn who’s been doing things my way all my life. One advantage is that I’ve been blessed with a 146 IQ.

“There’s this bookmaker in Baltimore I know, and I was looking for another handicapper to help me because I’ve been swamped. So, I ask the guy, ‘Tell me, who’s the handicapper that has busted you the most.’ He looks at me and says, ‘You, you (bleep). You’re the best.’ ”

Warren, however, will never be accused of being the most humble.

“There is no one else in the business I consider a good handicapper,” Warren said, flatly. “Maybe I’d have the Professor (Ed Horowitz, co-host with Warren of a cable TV handicapping show), if he decided to get sane.

“I want to win. I have such an ego. I’ve always been a good handicapper. It’s a skill I’ve been blessed with.”

Warren publishes a newsletter and offers a phone service. The cost for subscribing to all his services is $5,000. Warren has claimed a 70% success rate in some advertisements. That has been disputed by many competitors.

One thing that can’t be disputed is that Warren is very successful.

“I have an office complex (in Baltimore) called the Warren Building that is so big you could fit the Gold Sheet building inside it,” Warren said. “I have all sorts of statistical data, but I don’t believe in random numbers like the other guys. I never deal in emotion, either. On the dice table, they call me the Ice Man. I handicap like a sponge. I soak up everything.”

Most major handicappers will gather this weekend in Pasadena for the Super Bowl. Warren, Sheridan and Olshan will be among those at the game, but don’t expect them to hold a convention.

“The industry is big enough for all of us,” one handicapper said. “But that doesn’t mean we have to like each other.”