Jeff Haney on a pair of Wisconsin natives whose paths will meet at a $100,000 crossroads

Friday, Dec. 15, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

What: Leroy's Money Talks $100,000 football handicapping contest

Championship round: Erin Rynning vs. "Doc" Moseman

When: 7 to 9 tonight

Where: Shady Grove Lounge inside the Silverton Hotel

Admission: Free

Sixteen hopefuls entered the biggest invitational football handicapping contest in Las Vegas this season.

Two remain.

Both, weirdly enough, are from Wisconsin.

"It's an all-cheese final," said professional sports handicapper Erin Rynning, a native of Edgerton, Wis., who moved to Las Vegas four years ago, drawn by the myriad sports betting opportunities this city offers.

Rynning will face "Doc" Moseman of Sauk City, Wis., a 35-year veteran of the sports advisory business, tonight in the finale of the Leroy's Money Talks invitational at the Silverton (7 to 9 p.m., KSHP 1400-AM).

A first-place prize of $80,000 is at stake, with $20,000 going to the runner-up. Contestants make seven selections against the point spread from the weekend's slate of football games, although their win-loss record is only incidental: Each pick is "weighted," with the top pick worth $770, the second pick worth $660, down to a $110 selection.

The contestant who wins more money using his hypothetical bankroll advances in the single-elimination, bracket-style format. Tonight's match will determine the contest's champion.

Even though the contest is an invitational, with officials from Leroy's sports books determining the field, each entrant still had to put up a $5,000 entry fee to compete. Leroy's juiced the pot with an additional $20,000, creating an overlay for the participants.

"I'd have confidence in myself at even money against other handicappers, but that extra $20,000 makes it that much more valuable," said Rynning, who also has an entry in the top 20 out of more than 400 in the Las Vegas Hilton "SuperContest," a $1,500 entry fee competition that's open to the public.

Despite their common Wisconsin roots, Rynning does not personally know Moseman, who usually goes by "Doc" in the sports betting world.

Like many longtime bettors, Rynning does recall Doc's celebrated streak of nailing his Big Ten Conference "game of the year" against the spread, season after season. According to Doc - who has been wagering on football since he bet the 1953 Wisconsin-Southern Cal Rose Bowl as a youngster - his service was once successful in predicting its Big Ten game of the year against the spread for 18 consecutive seasons.

"I never met Doc, but he goes back a long way," said Rynning, who started his handicapping service, ER Sports, in 2000 and joined the Sports Memo group (sportsmemo.com) in 2004. "As a teenager, I remember him coming out with that one big game a year.

"I've followed my dream by moving out to Las Vegas, and everything has really progressed since then. But if you had told me eight, 10, 15 years ago that I would be in Las Vegas and going up against Doc in a $100,000 handicapping contest, I would have been like, 'Where do I sign up?' "

Doc has turned a solid profit in each of his three appearances this year in the Money Talks contest, defeating Wayne Peters, Bill "Krackman" Krackomberger and Marc Lawrence on his way to the final.

Rynning acknowledged he got lucky in the first round of the Money Talks contest, when the vagaries of the bracket-style format allowed him to advance past Jorge Gonzalez despite posting a losing record.

"I didn't deserve to win that one," Rynning said.

Since then, Rynning made a profit in beating Alf Musketa and Andy Iskoe to make the championship round.

"In one week, seven games, anything can happen," Rynning said.

Certainly both men in tonight's match will hope to avoid the sort of "bad beat" that befell Iskoe in the 1984 Super Bowl when he bet the total "over" 47 1/2 points. The Raiders beat the Redskins 38-9 (47 points) even though they combined for 44 points through the first three quarters. Even worse, the Redskins missed an extra point after a John Riggins touchdown, keeping the total "under" by a half-point.

Anything can happen.