Jeff Haney debunks claims of ‘scamdicappers,’ who try to fleece sports bettors looking for an edge

By Jeff Haney (contact)

Friday, Jan. 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

As the premier single-day sports betting event of the year, the Super Bowl generates an annual last-ditch advertising blitz by football “scamdicappers” — touts who sell their worthless sports predictions to suckers with credit card numbers.

A sure sign of a scamdicapper is a claim that he owns a long-term record of making picks against the point spread of 60 percent, 70 percent or higher.

If you’re tempted to believe such nonsense, consider a public challenge just put forth by Fezzik, the one-name professional gambler from Las Vegas.

Fezzik says he is willing to bet anyone up to $100,000 that he or she cannot pick NFL winners against the point spread at a rate of 57 percent or better.

The basis for the person-to-person wager, according to Fezzik, would be the challenger’s performance in next season’s Las Vegas Hilton “SuperContest,” in which entrants select five NFL games a week against the spread for 17 weeks. A record of 49-36 in 85 selections would meet the 57 percent threshold in the contest, which carries a $1,500 entry fee.

“Anyone who claims he has an expectation of hitting 60 percent against widely available (betting) lines going forward is flat-out wrong,” said Fezzik, who estimates 55 percent is the best record that even a pro sports bettor can expect to achieve. “Against certain prop bets, or against overnight lines with small limits, it might be possible, but not in a sport like the NFL.”

The winner of this season’s Hilton contest hit 65 percent. Although that’s a wonderful accomplishment and a $205,200 score for the winner, Fezzik said, it doesn’t prove anything except that in a field of 300-plus contestants, a few can be expected to exceed 60 percent.

Fezzik opted to go public with his challenge not only because he believes he has “the best of it” — meaning he’d be favored to win such a bet — but also to expose as frauds touts who make outrageous claims about their records.

“If anyone takes me up on it, I guarantee I’ll have people practically begging to get a piece of the action — on my side of the bet,” Fezzik said.

Irish revenge?

College basketball bettors should circle Saturday, Feb. 9, on their calendars for a classic revenge spot in the Big East, local sports handicapper Matty Baiungo reports.

Notre Dame lost to Marquette, 92-66, on Jan. 12 as an underdog of just 6 1/2 points. The 26-point loss, which came in Notre Dame’s first true road game of the season (the Irish played Georgia Tech in the Virgin Islands), was Notre Dame’s most lopsided defeat in its 109-game series against Marquette, according to Baiungo. It also came after 10 consecutive straight-up victories.

Notre Dame (13-4 straight up, 7-7 against the point spread) has since cruised past Cincinnati at home and lost to Georgetown on the road. The rematch against Marquette at the Joyce Center will air on ESPN.

Accountability corner

(In which accurate predictions made in past columns are righteously praised, and the ugly details of inaccurate predictions are rehashed.)

Sports handicapper Joe D’Amico went 1-1 in two bowl game selections. He recorded a winner with Kansas, which won outright as an underdog against Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, and a loser with Ohio State, which failed to cover the point spread in its loss to LSU in the BSC title game.

D’Amico (online at allamericansports.info) has been contributing football picks to the Sun periodically this season, compiling a record of 15-10 (60 percent) against the spread.

My recommendation to bet that the first score of a Colts-Chargers playoff game would be a touchdown was a winner.

The betting line on that prop was minus-185 (risk $1.85 to win $1), however. So either (a) I should be credited with just .54 of a win, or (b) I should have been prepared to take 1.85 losses if the bet went down in flames. Otherwise you’re practicing the kind of sloppy and misleading record-keeping in which bets on heavy favorites are simply counted as a single win or a single loss. Taken to its (not so) logical extreme, this could result in a handicapper playing nothing but minus-200 baseball favorites, for example, and hitting 60 percent winners yet losing a ton of money.