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NOTE: This article has been reproduced from previous editions of the Pointspread Encyclopedia Volume 1, with only minor revisions. It was last published in the 1994 edition of the Encyclopedia and is reprinted below verbatim as it appeared in that 1994 book. The thoughts remain essentially the same. We added some thoughts on the '900 number' phenomenon when we last published this article as a chapter in the 1994 Pointspread Encyclopedia and reprint those as well. We think these thoughts and insights are worth reading so that you will gain a better appreciation and understanding of just what's out there in 'tout land' and how we think Logical Approach is differentiated from these so called 'quick buck' artists. We welcome your feedback.
Perhaps no industry has sprung up as rapidly in recent years as has the Sports Service industry (with the one possible exception of investment advisory services). Wagering on sporting events has gained favor in many areas and is not viewed with the disdain it once was. Not that you'll see legalized sports betting in many states soon, but we firmly believe that as state and local governments seek ways to raise revenues they'll give serious consideration to 'user taxes' imposed on those who take part in an activity. Gambling is a perfect candidate since it is already a wide spread activity in the underground and, many would argue, no one stands to bear the losses of wagering other than the one who invests.
As with any new and growing industry there is a mad rush to get in on the action. Many Sports Services have entered the business just within the past couple of years. Many more will debut in 1994. Although for the most part the majority are good, honest, hard working outfits there are others that are quite the opposite. Because the Sports Service industry is not regulated, the potential user of such services has very little, if anything, on which to base a decision on whether to purchase a Service's selections. There are no federally required Annual Reports or any other type of document other than the catchy advertisements Services will place in various sporting publications. Often these ads cite outrageous claims of incredibly high rates of success. And while these claims may not be out and out lies, they are more often a case of unspoken deception. For example, a Service which went 4-1 during one weekend last October had 80% winners for that weekend. It is true when that Service advertises that he had 80% winners in 1993. He did. But what is not included is the fact that the 80% was for a single weekend. The ad leads you to believe that the 80% was for the entire season! Not a blatant lie but rather a half truth -- a clear case of misleading advertising and a form of deception.
Much has been written about both the good and the bad but very little has been written about what a Sports Service is and what they should expect to provide to their customers and what their customers should realistically expect of them. What follows is a brief discussion of Sports Services in general and how they should be viewed, evaluated and utilized.
When you pay a Sports Service you should look at your payment as nothing more than a payment for services rendered in putting forth time, energy and effort in doing the work that you do not have the time to do on your own, or choose not to do. You should not view a Sports Service's fees as payments for winning selections. In a real sense you are hiring a Sports Service as a consultant to advise you. In many ways a Sports Service is like a stock broker, only the payment scheme is different. With a broker you pay a commission on each and every trade executed for your account, regardless of whether the stock goes up or down. You pay to get in (when you buy a stock) and you pay when you get out (when you sell). With a Sports Service you pay your 'brokerage commission' up front. With most Services this represents a fee for an entire season or a specific time span of games (a week, a month. etc.). When you average out the number of selections you receive from a typical Sports Service your cost is actually quite nominal on a 'per transaction' basis. For example, if a Service has 200 selections over the course of a football season and charges you $750 for that service, your cost is just $3.75 per selection. And that cost is a constant cost in that it doesn't vary according to the amount you wager unlike a broker where the actual dollars of commission increase as the dollar amount you invest increases.
If you are a $100 player then your 200 wagers risk a total of $22,000 (200 times $110) at a cost of $750, or a 'commission' of 3.4%. If you hit just 50% winners and go 100-100, your loss is $1,000 on your $22,000 investment in addition to the $750 fee. The $1,000 loss represents a 4.5% loss on your amount at risk so that your total cost has been $1,750 or 8.0%. That is equivalent to an investment of 100 shares of stock purchased at $15 per share and has now dropped to $13.75 per share. That's the down side. On the up side a winning percentage of just 54% recoups your $750 investment (the fee paid to the Sports Service) as your record is 108-92. Anything above 55% is pure profit. At 57% your net profit is $1,190 or 5.4%. At 60% your net profit balloons to $2,450 or 11%. At 62% your net profit is $3,290 or 15% while at 65% your record of 130-65 produces a net profit of $4,550 or 21% -- and a return of over 6 times your $750 cost to take the Service! It's all a matter of basic math that needs to be understood by both player and Service. Which leads to another point.
What are realistic expectations for a Sports Service? We've all read of Sports Services claiming 70%, 80% or more winners. And while they might be true, it's usually a case of going 4-1 (80%) over a very short period of time, taken out of context of their entire season. You're not going to make much money playing just a handful of games. It a basic mathematical precept that states that as the number of plays increases the greater the tendency for the results to hover around the average, i.e. at or near the 50% level. Put another way, would you prefer to win 80% over 20 plays or 65% over 100 plays? The answer is clear. Over 20 plays 80% translates to a record of 16-4 which is a net of plus 11.6 units once the 10% 'vig' is figured in. 65% over 100 plays is a record of 65-35 and represents a net gain of 26.5 units after the vig - an improvement more than double despite a 15 point drop in winning percentage! It's just mathematics, friends.
Okay. So what about these expectations. Realistically, over the course of several seasons, even a 57% winning percentage will produce a return of almost 10% before considering the fee charged by the Service. As stated earlier, that fee becomes a smaller and smaller percentage cost as the number of plays increases. Consider a year-round Sports Service that has baseball, basketball and football services and charges $500 per season, or a total of $1,500. Let's further assume that the Service releases 1,000 plays per calendar year (120 football, 250 basketball, 630 baseball) and that the money line in baseball is converted to an equivalent 'line wager' percentage of 57%. Your record will be 570-430. At $100 per wager and at 10% vig your profit will be $9,700. Subtract your fees of $1,500 paid to the Sports Service and you've still netted over $8,000. If you're a full time player making $1,000 wagers that's an income of over $80,000 per year by just hitting 57%! That adds up nicely over three or four years and is even more magnificent should that winning percentage go up to 60% (which is realistically achievable but should not be routinely expected or taken for granted). At 60% the $100 player will net $14,500 per year after fees and the $1,000 player nets over $150,000! Not all too bad for such modest yet realistic expectations.
The lesson in all this is to not be greedy and to develop a disciplined method of both handicapping and playing those selections. Don't judge a Sports Service on the basis of a bad weekend or a bad month (or one great short term effort, for that matter). Recall that 57% is a return of about 10%. A 60% winning percentage is a return of 16%. And if you only wager on football that return is for just four or five months! A Service that starts 1-10 needs to go just 56-33 to end up at 57%. That's only 63% the rest of the way to overcome a 1-9 start for 100 plays. Very achievable.
It's difficult to separate the honest handicappers from the dishonest but there are several things you can do to insure that you are dealing with one of the honest services. First, give the service a call and inquire as to what factors they consider important in handicapping. Don't let them recite their 75% winning percentages over the past five years or how they have won dozens of contests. You're interested in how hard they will be working for you. By understanding how they approach their profession you will get a better idea of how 'classy' an operation you'll be dealing with should you sign up. Also, is the person you speak with more interested in signing you up than in answering your questions? Does he give you a song and dance routine and promise you the sky if you'll just try the service for a month or so? Remember, this is a business and the Sports Service operator is entitled to make a profit, but he must also be willing to spend the time and expend the energy in making a potential customer fell confident in his service -- even if that potential customer opts not to sign on. If the person you speak with at the Service is willing to spend some time on the phone with you discussing handicapping thoughts and gives you satisfactory answers to your questions you can be fairly certain that you're dealing with an honest service. The dishonest ones won't take the time to discuss the hard handicapping facts with you -- they're interested in making as many sales per hour as they can (it's a volume business to them and not a service business). But by the same token don't expect to spend an hour on the phone with a Service, exchanging thoughts and other matters. The most precious resource a Sports Service has is time -- and that time must be used wisely during the football season. Over 75 games and other propositions must be evaluated each week and the more time the Service is able to devote to the actual handicapping, the better the results are likely to be. Remember, it's a balance between the Service wanting to attract and retain your business and their obligation to their current clients to do the best job possible.
A second way to tell the honest services from the dishonest is to find out how many different services are operated by the same entity. This may be difficult to determine in many instances but if you see the names of six different services using the same Post Office box you have a right to be a bit skeptical. An honest service only needs one name under which to do business. They may offer different programs at different price levels and involvement, but there's no need to have more than one name for an entity.
Finally, be realistic and don't be greedy. Be disciplined. As with the stock market advisors, results in football handicapping can't be subject to guarantees. Nothing is certain except for the Service's obligation to make its best effort to produce winners and under no circumstances is a service to give out more than one side in a game (check those duplicate P. O. boxes -- it's been known to happen). Give a service a fair chance to produce winners for you. Every handicapper has their hot and cold streaks with the uncertainty being when they will occur. The good handicappers are able to achieve consistent winning percentages of between 58% and 62% and over the course of one or more seasons the vast number of plays made with a winning percentage in that range will produce healthy profits.
In summary, Sports Services can provide a valuable service to the wagering public by doing the hours of research most people do not have the time to do for themselves. In selecting a Service attempt to find out whether the Service is more interested in marketing than they are in handicapping and stick with the ones whose main interest is in the handicapping. Speak to a representative or two of the Service, the owner or chief handicapper if at all possible. Ask intelligent questions and expect intelligent answers to those questions. Be realistic in your expectations. Accept about 57% winners over 100 plays. Hope for at least 60% winners based on the number of units at stake. Be thrilled if you can get at least 62% winners and pray that you played the selections if your Service was able to hit 65% over the course of a season. Be disciplined. Give the Service a chance to make money for you. The honest Services usually will since they want your business in future seasons.
At Logical Approach we're proud of the fine reputation we've built up over the past decade. We've been successful with our handicapping materials as well as with our selection Newsletter and Telephone services. We've had our ups and our downs, though mostly ups. But above all we've worked hard to give our customers the best information available and selections based on hard, objective evidence and not on gut feeling or rumor.
We treat handicapping, of all sports, as an evolutionary process. There is always something new to be learned, concepts to be researched, methods to be refined and theories to be developed. We are constantly updating our base of knowledge and through publications such as these books or our Newsletters, we share many of our findings with the public. Our search for the perfect handicapping model shall never end. Through our use of computers we've made great strides in our research. We feel as though we are on the verge of some significant breakthroughs. During the 1994 season we expect to share some of them with our clients. We look forward to your participation and input. Together, we'll find the answers.
Hopefully this book (the Pointspread Encyclopedia) has shown you some of the hard work we put into the handicapping of football. We'd be happy to answer any of your questions about our handicapping Newsletters or Services or about anything else you may have read in this book and wanted a further explanation on. We wish you the best of luck in 1994 and look forward to hearing from you and providing you with good, solid information in the future. Thank you for your kind support of Logical Approach.
The above article has appeared in the last several editions of this book and the thoughts are just as applicable today as when first written. It is true that there are no sure things -- no locks -- in sports. But as you put in more effort and more work you'll see your handicapping make great strides. Nothing comes easy. It really comes down to how much time you have to invest each week in handicapping. Is it worth your time or is it easier to rely on professionals who spend in excess of 60 hours per week devoted to analyzing the games? Only you can answer that question.
The following material was added as an 'addendum' to the above thoughts and also last appeared in the 1994 edition of the Pointspread Encyclopedia, Volume 1 --
Some new thoughts on the 900 number business. 900 numbers have sprung up everywhere. From astrology forecasts to stock market updates to gardening tips to participating in TV or radio polls to ordering catalogs. The 900 craze has been a big business for the past 4 or 5 years. It has attracted enough attention that the government has issued regulations to attempt to regulate the industry but abuses still are evident and continue unabated.
The Sports Service industry has made extensive use of 900 numbers as an alternative to the old fashioned personal services. Instead of a client paying an upfront or periodic fee for selections and calling to get the selections from a live operator or salesperson, all one has to do is call a telephone number and the charges would appear on their telephone bill.
This is a quick and easy way for the client to get selections and for the service operator to generate huge revenues by doing little more than just recording a short message with selections.
Are there advantages to 900 numbers? What are the disadvantages? What are the abuses that you, as a potential caller, should be aware of?
At Logical Approach we've used 900 numbers for the past several seasons, but our purpose for the past two seasons has been radically different from that of many other sports services. Most of our service clients sign on with us for a full season. Occassionally potential clients would like to try our service for a week or a month. Administratively it is difficult to handle these short period clients. For one thing, we provide our full season clients with Code Sheets that they can use to get our selections at any time of the day or night. If no one is in the office, the selections are available by Code on a recording. Obviously we can't provide Codes to non-full season subscribers -- otherwise we'd have to change the Codes if people didn't renew for another week or month of service. To alleviate this problem, and still make our selections available to potential clients who want to try us out for a week or two, we can refer them to our 900 number to get the selections. Remember, there are trade offs between the 900 numbers and a personal service.
With a 900 number the cost of a call can vary from $2.00 per minute (some messages could run 5 or 6 minutes before getting to the selections) to a flat per call charge of from $5.00 to $50.00 (or even higher). Consider that for a typical football weekend you might have to make five calls or more to get all the plays (college day games, college night games, pro early games, pro late games and Monday night) and you could be looking at a weekly cost of $50 to $100 or more. When compared to a fee for the old fashioned personal service the cost could be several times as high. But, of course, if you're not pleased with the 900 service selections you don't have to call back. With a regular service you may be tied in for a whole season. In a nutshell, you must consider the balance between paying a one time up front fee for a personal service versus paying on an as-you-go basis for a 900 number. While the personal service may cost more in up front cost, over the course of a season it should generally be much less than the total cost for several 900 calls per weekend. Ultimately it is you, the potential client, who must decide which route to take.
Remember that personal services, especially those such the one we offer at Logical Approach, do offer the advantages of two way communication - there are live people with whom you can speak, discuss, consult, complain, etc. whereas there is no such two way interaction with 900 numbers. If you have a question or complaint, there is no way to contact the 900 service provider. The advantages of 900 numbers are that you remain nameless and faceless to the 900 vendor. But you must weigh the cost of repeated calls to a 900 number and the convenience they offer against the 'personalized' service of a regular sports service and the upfront cost involved.
Perhaps no industry has sprung up as rapidly in recent years as has the Sports Service industry (with the one possible exception of investment advisory services). Wagering on sporting events has gained favor in many areas and is not viewed with the disdain it once was. Not that you'll see legalized sports betting in many states soon, but we firmly believe that as state and local governments seek ways to raise revenues they'll give serious consideration to 'user taxes' imposed on those who take part in an activity. Gambling is a perfect candidate since it is already a wide spread activity in the underground and, many would argue, no one stands to bear the losses of wagering other than the one who invests.
As with any new and growing industry there is a mad rush to get in on the action. Many Sports Services have entered the business just within the past couple of years. Many more will debut in 1994. Although for the most part the majority are good, honest, hard working outfits there are others that are quite the opposite. Because the Sports Service industry is not regulated, the potential user of such services has very little, if anything, on which to base a decision on whether to purchase a Service's selections. There are no federally required Annual Reports or any other type of document other than the catchy advertisements Services will place in various sporting publications. Often these ads cite outrageous claims of incredibly high rates of success. And while these claims may not be out and out lies, they are more often a case of unspoken deception. For example, a Service which went 4-1 during one weekend last October had 80% winners for that weekend. It is true when that Service advertises that he had 80% winners in 1993. He did. But what is not included is the fact that the 80% was for a single weekend. The ad leads you to believe that the 80% was for the entire season! Not a blatant lie but rather a half truth -- a clear case of misleading advertising and a form of deception.
Much has been written about both the good and the bad but very little has been written about what a Sports Service is and what they should expect to provide to their customers and what their customers should realistically expect of them. What follows is a brief discussion of Sports Services in general and how they should be viewed, evaluated and utilized.
When you pay a Sports Service you should look at your payment as nothing more than a payment for services rendered in putting forth time, energy and effort in doing the work that you do not have the time to do on your own, or choose not to do. You should not view a Sports Service's fees as payments for winning selections. In a real sense you are hiring a Sports Service as a consultant to advise you. In many ways a Sports Service is like a stock broker, only the payment scheme is different. With a broker you pay a commission on each and every trade executed for your account, regardless of whether the stock goes up or down. You pay to get in (when you buy a stock) and you pay when you get out (when you sell). With a Sports Service you pay your 'brokerage commission' up front. With most Services this represents a fee for an entire season or a specific time span of games (a week, a month. etc.). When you average out the number of selections you receive from a typical Sports Service your cost is actually quite nominal on a 'per transaction' basis. For example, if a Service has 200 selections over the course of a football season and charges you $750 for that service, your cost is just $3.75 per selection. And that cost is a constant cost in that it doesn't vary according to the amount you wager unlike a broker where the actual dollars of commission increase as the dollar amount you invest increases.
If you are a $100 player then your 200 wagers risk a total of $22,000 (200 times $110) at a cost of $750, or a 'commission' of 3.4%. If you hit just 50% winners and go 100-100, your loss is $1,000 on your $22,000 investment in addition to the $750 fee. The $1,000 loss represents a 4.5% loss on your amount at risk so that your total cost has been $1,750 or 8.0%. That is equivalent to an investment of 100 shares of stock purchased at $15 per share and has now dropped to $13.75 per share. That's the down side. On the up side a winning percentage of just 54% recoups your $750 investment (the fee paid to the Sports Service) as your record is 108-92. Anything above 55% is pure profit. At 57% your net profit is $1,190 or 5.4%. At 60% your net profit balloons to $2,450 or 11%. At 62% your net profit is $3,290 or 15% while at 65% your record of 130-65 produces a net profit of $4,550 or 21% -- and a return of over 6 times your $750 cost to take the Service! It's all a matter of basic math that needs to be understood by both player and Service. Which leads to another point.
What are realistic expectations for a Sports Service? We've all read of Sports Services claiming 70%, 80% or more winners. And while they might be true, it's usually a case of going 4-1 (80%) over a very short period of time, taken out of context of their entire season. You're not going to make much money playing just a handful of games. It a basic mathematical precept that states that as the number of plays increases the greater the tendency for the results to hover around the average, i.e. at or near the 50% level. Put another way, would you prefer to win 80% over 20 plays or 65% over 100 plays? The answer is clear. Over 20 plays 80% translates to a record of 16-4 which is a net of plus 11.6 units once the 10% 'vig' is figured in. 65% over 100 plays is a record of 65-35 and represents a net gain of 26.5 units after the vig - an improvement more than double despite a 15 point drop in winning percentage! It's just mathematics, friends.
Okay. So what about these expectations. Realistically, over the course of several seasons, even a 57% winning percentage will produce a return of almost 10% before considering the fee charged by the Service. As stated earlier, that fee becomes a smaller and smaller percentage cost as the number of plays increases. Consider a year-round Sports Service that has baseball, basketball and football services and charges $500 per season, or a total of $1,500. Let's further assume that the Service releases 1,000 plays per calendar year (120 football, 250 basketball, 630 baseball) and that the money line in baseball is converted to an equivalent 'line wager' percentage of 57%. Your record will be 570-430. At $100 per wager and at 10% vig your profit will be $9,700. Subtract your fees of $1,500 paid to the Sports Service and you've still netted over $8,000. If you're a full time player making $1,000 wagers that's an income of over $80,000 per year by just hitting 57%! That adds up nicely over three or four years and is even more magnificent should that winning percentage go up to 60% (which is realistically achievable but should not be routinely expected or taken for granted). At 60% the $100 player will net $14,500 per year after fees and the $1,000 player nets over $150,000! Not all too bad for such modest yet realistic expectations.
The lesson in all this is to not be greedy and to develop a disciplined method of both handicapping and playing those selections. Don't judge a Sports Service on the basis of a bad weekend or a bad month (or one great short term effort, for that matter). Recall that 57% is a return of about 10%. A 60% winning percentage is a return of 16%. And if you only wager on football that return is for just four or five months! A Service that starts 1-10 needs to go just 56-33 to end up at 57%. That's only 63% the rest of the way to overcome a 1-9 start for 100 plays. Very achievable.
It's difficult to separate the honest handicappers from the dishonest but there are several things you can do to insure that you are dealing with one of the honest services. First, give the service a call and inquire as to what factors they consider important in handicapping. Don't let them recite their 75% winning percentages over the past five years or how they have won dozens of contests. You're interested in how hard they will be working for you. By understanding how they approach their profession you will get a better idea of how 'classy' an operation you'll be dealing with should you sign up. Also, is the person you speak with more interested in signing you up than in answering your questions? Does he give you a song and dance routine and promise you the sky if you'll just try the service for a month or so? Remember, this is a business and the Sports Service operator is entitled to make a profit, but he must also be willing to spend the time and expend the energy in making a potential customer fell confident in his service -- even if that potential customer opts not to sign on. If the person you speak with at the Service is willing to spend some time on the phone with you discussing handicapping thoughts and gives you satisfactory answers to your questions you can be fairly certain that you're dealing with an honest service. The dishonest ones won't take the time to discuss the hard handicapping facts with you -- they're interested in making as many sales per hour as they can (it's a volume business to them and not a service business). But by the same token don't expect to spend an hour on the phone with a Service, exchanging thoughts and other matters. The most precious resource a Sports Service has is time -- and that time must be used wisely during the football season. Over 75 games and other propositions must be evaluated each week and the more time the Service is able to devote to the actual handicapping, the better the results are likely to be. Remember, it's a balance between the Service wanting to attract and retain your business and their obligation to their current clients to do the best job possible.
A second way to tell the honest services from the dishonest is to find out how many different services are operated by the same entity. This may be difficult to determine in many instances but if you see the names of six different services using the same Post Office box you have a right to be a bit skeptical. An honest service only needs one name under which to do business. They may offer different programs at different price levels and involvement, but there's no need to have more than one name for an entity.
Finally, be realistic and don't be greedy. Be disciplined. As with the stock market advisors, results in football handicapping can't be subject to guarantees. Nothing is certain except for the Service's obligation to make its best effort to produce winners and under no circumstances is a service to give out more than one side in a game (check those duplicate P. O. boxes -- it's been known to happen). Give a service a fair chance to produce winners for you. Every handicapper has their hot and cold streaks with the uncertainty being when they will occur. The good handicappers are able to achieve consistent winning percentages of between 58% and 62% and over the course of one or more seasons the vast number of plays made with a winning percentage in that range will produce healthy profits.
In summary, Sports Services can provide a valuable service to the wagering public by doing the hours of research most people do not have the time to do for themselves. In selecting a Service attempt to find out whether the Service is more interested in marketing than they are in handicapping and stick with the ones whose main interest is in the handicapping. Speak to a representative or two of the Service, the owner or chief handicapper if at all possible. Ask intelligent questions and expect intelligent answers to those questions. Be realistic in your expectations. Accept about 57% winners over 100 plays. Hope for at least 60% winners based on the number of units at stake. Be thrilled if you can get at least 62% winners and pray that you played the selections if your Service was able to hit 65% over the course of a season. Be disciplined. Give the Service a chance to make money for you. The honest Services usually will since they want your business in future seasons.
At Logical Approach we're proud of the fine reputation we've built up over the past decade. We've been successful with our handicapping materials as well as with our selection Newsletter and Telephone services. We've had our ups and our downs, though mostly ups. But above all we've worked hard to give our customers the best information available and selections based on hard, objective evidence and not on gut feeling or rumor.
We treat handicapping, of all sports, as an evolutionary process. There is always something new to be learned, concepts to be researched, methods to be refined and theories to be developed. We are constantly updating our base of knowledge and through publications such as these books or our Newsletters, we share many of our findings with the public. Our search for the perfect handicapping model shall never end. Through our use of computers we've made great strides in our research. We feel as though we are on the verge of some significant breakthroughs. During the 1994 season we expect to share some of them with our clients. We look forward to your participation and input. Together, we'll find the answers.
Hopefully this book (the Pointspread Encyclopedia) has shown you some of the hard work we put into the handicapping of football. We'd be happy to answer any of your questions about our handicapping Newsletters or Services or about anything else you may have read in this book and wanted a further explanation on. We wish you the best of luck in 1994 and look forward to hearing from you and providing you with good, solid information in the future. Thank you for your kind support of Logical Approach.
The above article has appeared in the last several editions of this book and the thoughts are just as applicable today as when first written. It is true that there are no sure things -- no locks -- in sports. But as you put in more effort and more work you'll see your handicapping make great strides. Nothing comes easy. It really comes down to how much time you have to invest each week in handicapping. Is it worth your time or is it easier to rely on professionals who spend in excess of 60 hours per week devoted to analyzing the games? Only you can answer that question.
The following material was added as an 'addendum' to the above thoughts and also last appeared in the 1994 edition of the Pointspread Encyclopedia, Volume 1 --
Some new thoughts on the 900 number business. 900 numbers have sprung up everywhere. From astrology forecasts to stock market updates to gardening tips to participating in TV or radio polls to ordering catalogs. The 900 craze has been a big business for the past 4 or 5 years. It has attracted enough attention that the government has issued regulations to attempt to regulate the industry but abuses still are evident and continue unabated.
The Sports Service industry has made extensive use of 900 numbers as an alternative to the old fashioned personal services. Instead of a client paying an upfront or periodic fee for selections and calling to get the selections from a live operator or salesperson, all one has to do is call a telephone number and the charges would appear on their telephone bill.
This is a quick and easy way for the client to get selections and for the service operator to generate huge revenues by doing little more than just recording a short message with selections.
Are there advantages to 900 numbers? What are the disadvantages? What are the abuses that you, as a potential caller, should be aware of?
At Logical Approach we've used 900 numbers for the past several seasons, but our purpose for the past two seasons has been radically different from that of many other sports services. Most of our service clients sign on with us for a full season. Occassionally potential clients would like to try our service for a week or a month. Administratively it is difficult to handle these short period clients. For one thing, we provide our full season clients with Code Sheets that they can use to get our selections at any time of the day or night. If no one is in the office, the selections are available by Code on a recording. Obviously we can't provide Codes to non-full season subscribers -- otherwise we'd have to change the Codes if people didn't renew for another week or month of service. To alleviate this problem, and still make our selections available to potential clients who want to try us out for a week or two, we can refer them to our 900 number to get the selections. Remember, there are trade offs between the 900 numbers and a personal service.
With a 900 number the cost of a call can vary from $2.00 per minute (some messages could run 5 or 6 minutes before getting to the selections) to a flat per call charge of from $5.00 to $50.00 (or even higher). Consider that for a typical football weekend you might have to make five calls or more to get all the plays (college day games, college night games, pro early games, pro late games and Monday night) and you could be looking at a weekly cost of $50 to $100 or more. When compared to a fee for the old fashioned personal service the cost could be several times as high. But, of course, if you're not pleased with the 900 service selections you don't have to call back. With a regular service you may be tied in for a whole season. In a nutshell, you must consider the balance between paying a one time up front fee for a personal service versus paying on an as-you-go basis for a 900 number. While the personal service may cost more in up front cost, over the course of a season it should generally be much less than the total cost for several 900 calls per weekend. Ultimately it is you, the potential client, who must decide which route to take.
Remember that personal services, especially those such the one we offer at Logical Approach, do offer the advantages of two way communication - there are live people with whom you can speak, discuss, consult, complain, etc. whereas there is no such two way interaction with 900 numbers. If you have a question or complaint, there is no way to contact the 900 service provider. The advantages of 900 numbers are that you remain nameless and faceless to the 900 vendor. But you must weigh the cost of repeated calls to a 900 number and the convenience they offer against the 'personalized' service of a regular sports service and the upfront cost involved.
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