Chandler: Handicapper’s Tip Was Bogus

“Inside information” about the Atlanta Falcons, cited by a handicapping service to bolster its claims that bettors are paying for solid information that can affect the outcome of games, was completely bogus, the team’s quarterback said Friday.

Quarterback Chris Chandler of the Atlanta Falcons flatly denied an account that had been provided to The Times by Marc Meghrouni, president of a sports handicapping service called the Price Group. The account was part of a special report on handicapping services that was published Friday.

Questioned about the kind of inside information that bettors might pay for, Meghrouni cited an example from the Falcons. He told a Times reporter that his service had been informed that Falcon Coach Dan Reeves held a meeting before a game earlier this season with the team’s offensive line and “was all over them” about the shoddy way it had been protecting Chandler. That, presumably, would make the Falcons a better bet for their next game.

The alleged tip was of particular interest because the Irvine-based Price Group uses former NFL quarterback John Brodie in its ads. Brodie is Chandler’s father-in-law.

Brodie has since severed ties with the group and is suing it for breach of contract, fraud and defamation of character.

The Reeves incident never happened, Chandler said Friday.

“Dan Reeves never had a meeting with the offensive linemen,” Chandler said when contacted at his hotel in La Jolla. The Falcons play the Chargers in San Diego on Sunday.

“They [the handicapping service] are just making up stuff. I have no idea what it’s all about. Any time someone lies and does things they shouldn’t, you never want to see it happen.”

Meghrouni could not be reached for comment Friday on Chandler’s remarks.

Also Friday, two callers to The Times who said they quit the handicapping service, said the service’s pitch that it had inside information on games was not true. One caller said he worked for the service in the late 1980s, the other said he quit recently. Neither wanted to be identified.

“The only information was [one of us turning to the other and saying], ‘Who do you like tonight’?” one former employee said. “They were paying for my pearls of wisdom.”

The second former employee said he quit the service because “I got tired of skimming people out of money.”

He also cited the item in The Times’ story about Price Group handicappers having inside information in the East Carolina-Tulane game Oct. 18 as an example of how it operates.

“They know absolutely nothing,” he said.

As for Chandler, he took issue with the service’s portrayal of Brodie.

“John’s as right a guy as you’ll ever find,” he said. “What I’m hearing is not at all John. I don’t talk to John at all during the season. In the off-season, we golf. I see him about 4-5 times a week in the off-season. I’m here right now [in California] and he’s in Florida qualifying for the seniors’ [golf] tour.”

Chandler had heard a couple of weeks ago that his father-in-law was suing the sports handicapping service, saying: “I didn’t understand the whole thing. I have no knowledge of any of this stuff.”

Brodie said he contacted the NFL to tell them that statements attributed to him on fliers sent to Price Group customers were not his statements. The NFL confirmed Brodie called, but Chandler said no one from the NFL had called him about the Price Group’s involvement with his father-in-law.

Brodie was concerned the mention of Chandler’s name by the Price Group put his son-in-law in a bad light. Asked whether he would consider legal action, Chandler said: “If it was ever brought up, implied I had something to do with it [supplying inside information], then that’s a different story.”

Times staff writer Mike Hiserman contributed to this story.