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Backgrounder:

• Sports Monitor is the original consensus service.  Established in 1980, Sports Monitor is the
  oldest, largest and most respected consensus bureau in the nation. We monitor the best
  and most famous high priced handicapping services in the country. Our members receive all the
  plays from these major services just as if they subscribed to them directly. For those of you in
  the market for a professional consensus service, Sports Monitor has no peer in the industry.
  You will find many new consensus services on the internet but you will never encounter any
  that are as reliable as Sports Monitor. Our competitors often dish out incomplete, inaccurate
  and false information. Ultimately, false and late information will cost you money. We remain the
  ONLY consensus service that has won national handicapping contests with our own Executive
  Selections. You can rely on our information to be accurate, and delivered to you earlier than any
  other consensus service. The membership fee for our services may be a bit more than the amateur
  outfits that are getting into the game, but we guarantee you this…If you join us this season, you
  will have your most informed year of all time.
  

 Tell me about Sports Monitor.

• Our members enjoy all the plays that are released by every major sports information service in
  the country. We also release our own “Executive Selections” which are the product of 
  
our team of handicappers and our vast information database. We are the only consensus 
service that has won national handicapping contests while competing against the nation’s 
finest sports services. Our last competition was The Las Vegas Coast Casinos $1,000,000 
"Pick the Pros" contest. More than 70,000 professional and amateur bettors were required
to make selections for every Sunday NFL event. Each contestant was allowed up to five 
entries. Joe Michaels and Greg Allen entered the maximum, five entries each. We had four
entries finish within the top eight places including a third place finish, just two wins behind
the champion who won $300,000. The winner had 177 wins and 65 losses. Our best ticket
was 175-67. From time to time, we publish a copy of the winning check on this website.
Several seasons back, we were invited to partcipate in the "Sports Now" Handicapping
Challenge. The contest was dedicated to professional handicapping services and at the time,
was the largest independant contest of all time. We were proud to have come in first place
while competing againt the finest sports handicapers un the industry.

• This is our 27th year. We remain one of the few services that operates year round. We 
  release information for NFL and College Football, College and NBA Basketball through
  the NBA Finals, NHL Hockey, Arena Football and Major League Baseball. Our Private
  Play Service advises our members on just about every sport in the world. We advise our
  clients about other sporting events such as the PGA Tour, NASCAR, Tennis, Soccer and
  many other sports that are outside the "big three" betting sports. We have won national
  handicapping contests in every major sport. We are proud to have been the first 
  professional handicapping service to have an internet presence. 

• The easiest and most efficient method to enjoy our service is via our web site. Our members
  launch from the MEMBERS ONLY PAGE. Our members are also able to access our
  state-of-the-art voice mail system from any phone in the world. They simply enter their 
  password to hear the taped recording of all the plays. 

• Our members receive the late telephone plays from more than 80 major services across 
  the nation. They also receive our own rated Executive Selections. Our members also have
  access to our Top Service Report and our Five Year Historical Database. Our database is
  the only one of its kind. We break down the sports services with categories such as 
  NFL/College results and  the performance of service’s top plays and games of the year.
  We are the only consensus service that informs their members how the best services have
  performed against the pointspread year-by-year. This tool is essential when deciding on
  which services are the most dependable. You will also be able to consult with our 
  knowledgeable staff for advice on the best way to win with our unique service. 

• There are many very good sports services that have proven to be consistent winners.  
  We know who they are and we buy them for you. It can cost $2000-$5000 to join 
  just one major sports service. When you join a single service, you are usually stuck
  with them for the season. Few services ever succeed in both College and NFL Football.
  Our members enjoy the advice of the best College Football services on Saturday and 
  then turn to the finest NFL handicappers on Sunday. When choosing where to place 
  your wagers, more advice and reliable information gives you a huge advantage. We 
  offer a significant value to our members. Our price is less than the price of just one 
  major service. You'll also have the luxury of knowing what the honest past performances
  of the services actually are. 

• Professionalism. This is what we do and we have done it well for over two decades.
  We have always been the original source for sports service information.  It is a fact 
  that many other sports services actually subscribe to us in order to keep an eye on their
  competitors. Our members can be assured that they will receive all the plays from all 
  the services accurately, completely and more reliably than from any one else. Many
  other people have entered the consensus service industry and most fail within a year.
  Recently, many discount services have appeared on the internet. This new breed is 
  the most dangerous type of service to the consumer. They ask for minimal membership
  fees while claiming to be a professional operation. These outfits routinely post their 
  information as much as 2 hours later than we do.  Nearly all of these are amateurs who
  have a day job elsewhere and show up at game time and then “chase down” information.
  Many of the new breed internet services join our service, log on as our member, and 
  then post our information to their site. We routinely cut off these fly by night entrepreneurs. 

• During the football season, we release our first report on Friday night at 7pm central time.
  This report will have the plays from about 30 major services that release early. This 
  overnight report gets you off to a great head start with your College Football handicapping.
  We resume releasing College Football at 10am central Saturday morning and it takes about
  90 minutes to post all the service’s plays as they open up their phone lines. On NFL Sunday,
  our first report is at 10am central (two hours prior to kickoff) and it takes about 90 minutes
  to assemble the entire roster of services. Most services are reported to our members 90 
  minutes prior to the early kickoffs. 

• Chat and posting forums are becoming increasingly popular to sports bettors. Many forums
  are ripe with people who insist on posting their opinions and even the plays from major sports
  services. We have seen every major handicapping forum and we take time to look in on 
  them from time to time. We are constantly surprised at the reckless dissemination of sports
  service information. These posting forums are routinely visited by people who intentionally
  post the wrong plays that major services released. If you do not know that your source is
  honest and reliable, chances are, it will cost you money. There is an old saying that says, 
  “If you get something free, it will probably wind up costing you more than you paid for it.” 

• One of the most valuable tools we have is our multi-year and weekly reports. Each week,
  we update our members on which sports services are doing the best against the pointspread.
  We do so in an honest way using the accurate pointspread for each sporting event. Our 
  members can tap into this database and follow the nations best performing services each 
  day. We have a snapshot of this report available to non-members. You will find our 
  current top performing services at our TOP SERVICE REPORT PAGE. The report that
  our members can access is more thorough than the report we reveal to our non-members
  and it includes the in-depth breakdown of every service we monitor. Our honest pointspread
  reports are the key to knowing which sports services will give you the best opportunity to 
  winning each day. We strongly encourage our members to trust in our 25 years of 
  handicapping service and the reports that have been accurately generated. 

• Our members can find our friendly customer service staff at 1(800) 845-7834 when they
  have a question about anything in the sports handicapping world. We can also be reached
  via email at smi@sportsmonitor.com. Our customer service is another of the many ways
  that put us on a higher plain than the new breed amateurs. Many of the part-time internet 
  services do not have customer service phones. 

• The membership fee for the entire 2007 Football Season is $1095. Of course, as the season
  progresses, that fee goes down. This gives you Football Service through the Superbowl, 
  averaging out to only $40 per week for all the plays from every reliable major handicapping
  service in the nation! When you join us, you can rely that the information you get will be
  accurate and professionally distributed to you. For a list of the services we will be monitoring
  this season, click HERE. The best way to get a snapshot of our price structure and current
  "in-season" rates, visit our very popular Free Selection Page.

• Call our customer service office or go to our internet registration page.  For your 
  convenience we accept your personal check via the internet, fax check, check by 
  phone, cashiers check, money order, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express
  and if you are local, you can drop by our office to get started.