Columnist Jeff Haney: An oddsmaking Web site handicapped by outrageous grammar and outrageous win claims

Friday, Nov. 18, 2005 | 9:11 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Monday, Friday (gaming) and Wednesday (poker). Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.

A respected professional gambler named Ron Boyles was quoted in this column a couple of months ago referring to sports touts -- guys who sell their predictions to the public -- as "charlatans, snake-oil salesmen and ... lowlife (jerks)."

Except he used a stronger word than jerks.

In an impassioned response, longtime handicapper Doc Moseman of Doc's Sports Service, based in Wisconsin, took exception to those remarks. He said Boyles was painting with too broad a brush, unfairly maligning honest handicappers such as himself, who work hard to turn a profit for their clients.

Doc was correct, of course. Opinions and comments from some of the best, most talented sports handicappers around appear each week in the betting articles in Las Vegas' daily newspapers.

But Boyles had a good point, too. There's an undeniably sleazy aspect to the business.

Take an e-mail I received at my Sun address this week promoting a sports touting outfit from one Anthony Russo Sr., who modestly calls himself "The King of Monday Night Football."

Usually I ignore these kinds of missives, but this one contained so many egregious offenses I couldn't resist skewering, I mean reviewing, it here.

The first two sentences of the e-mail alone are doozies. Mr. Russo Sr. begins by informing us he's "in the middle of won (sic) of those winning streaks ..."

Then he directs us to his Web site: HadicappingExperts.com. Yes, "hadicapping." Not "handicapping."

It's all downhill from there.

Besides the usual pleas for your credit card number (only $39.95 for the winner of the Suns-Grizzlies game!), there are also outrageous grammatical and syntactical errors, as well as strange forays into Middle English, with random words capitalized for no apparent reason: "Now Lets (sic) make some Money."

In short, the promotional copy appears to have been written by subliterate nitwits. Evidently, that's also the target audience. Who else would be impressed that one of the site's touts supposedly was the "2-time Grand Champion Handicapper at Caesers (sic) Challenge."

The name of the Las Vegas casino is spelled Caesars. And there actually was a Caesars Challenge in the 1990s, but it was a TV game show -- and it was a word-scramble game.

Other gems:

"I am the source even the so-called expert's (sic) turn to for a winner."

One tout at the site states that he's a "World Champion Handicapper -- Las Vegas Invitational." Several legitimate events have been called the Las Vegas Invitational, but they involved professional golf, amateur wrestling, dressage or snooker. Not sports handicapping.

Mr. Russo Sr. himself notes that he was "ranked No. 1 by the Las Vegas Handicapping Association for 2002." Hmmm. The prestigious LVHA, huh? In an informal survey of actual Las Vegas gambling figures, none had even heard of such an organization.

Another tout boasts that he was "inducted into the Handicapping Hall of Fame in 1998." As an aficionado of obscure halls of fame, I'm eager to learn more about this particular institution. Does it exist? Where? Was 1998 his first time on the ballot, or was he robbed in the 1997 voting? Most importantly, is Anthony Russo Sr. a member?

The promo also contains the requisite recitals of gaudy winning records that knowledgeable professional bettors and oddsmakers would dismiss as laughably unrealistic.

Mr. Russo Sr. claims he has a record of 50 wins and 22 losses in football betting and that he has started out 18-4 against the point spread in the NBA.

Those amazing records are undocumented, of course. Oh, wait a minute. They are documented -- by the same Web site that's selling the picks. There's a disinterested third party for you.

If you're won of those Gamblers who's wondering weather Guys like this are legit, please, save your money. It's not to late. Lets make no Mistake -- they are not real expert's.

To Mr. Russo Sr. and other hadicappers, er, scamdicappers: Please don't send me anothrer e-mail.

Enough allready.