A Tout Sheet That Tried but Couldn’t Win for Losing

Wrong Power, a novel idea for a sports handicapping service by Rich Carusso, of Elmwood Park, Ill., turned out to be a wrong idea.

Carusso, who professes to be a long-time loser when it comes to sports gambling, had an idea to poll chronic losers throughout the nation every week, put their predictions into a computer and then go against the losing consensus.

Before the National Football League season began, Carusso advertised his company, called either Snake Bit or Wrong Power, in USA Today and a few football magazines.

When contacted in early October, Carusso, 33, was optimistic that his company would succeed. Contacted again in early January, Carusso was out of business.

“It was our first year in this type of business, and we just didn’t make no money, no time,” Carusso said. “It was a good idea. But for a sports service to get off the ground it has to, one, get people to call; two, get the money from the people who call; and, three, you got to be right in your predictions.

“We had problems in all three areas. So, I just got out of the business. I thought if I got hundreds of responses and played with the numbers in the computers, it would work. But we had three bad weeks, and people deserted us. They were looking for something for nothing.

“What the pros like (Mike) Warren and those guys do is get the money up front. I couldn’t do that. I wanted to be the most different service around. We were right about 50-50, which wasn’t enough. If I had got another 10% right, I might still be in business.” In a way, Carusso said, he is happy to be out of the sports handicapping business.

“I don’t want people accusing me of being a shyster, which a lot of these services are,” Carusso said. “I’m going back to the gold and jewelry business, something I know about.”