Sports Tout Says He's Out to Change Industry's Reputation

The world of sports gambling tout services is rife with problems. Bettors pay for advice on how to place a wager and then find out the tout service is telling another bettor to take the opposite side. By doing it that way, you’ll at least have half of your customers happy.

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Adam Meyer who owns and runs Real Money Sportsknows of the reputation of his business and he has what he thinks is his greatest marketing ploy.

“There’s not one bet that I tell people to make that I don’t bet on myself,” Meyer said. “No one in the industry does that.”

So when he told the people who subscribe to one of three of his services that Animal Kingdom was going to win the Kentucky Derby, which happened, Meyer won too.

His $25,000 bet resulted in $543,000 in winnings. He has the winning tickets to prove it. But we checked anyway. Michelle Blanco, director of public relations for Calder Race Course, where he placed the bet, confirmed Meyer did win that money. If the 1,300 clients that paid $100 for the pick, listened to his advice, they made a pretty penny too.

Meyer also made $1.2 million off his $100,000 bet at 12-1 that the Packers would win the Super Bowl. He says eight sports books in Las Vegas now refuse to take bets from him, others limit how much he can bet.

But Meyer says part of having credibility in the business is admitting when you lose. He’s not afraid to give away a few picks on the radio and while he cashed in on the Packers, he’ll also tell you he lost $1 million the year before when he bet on the Colts to beat the Saints in the Super Bowl.

Meyer says his bets have won 59.7 percent of the time over the last two decades, which if true, could make any gambler a lot of money.

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There are three types of clients.

Meyer says he has more than 11,000 people who pay $199 a month, which buys them 15 to 20 picks a week.

There’s also a group of bettors who pay him $10,000 for even more games.

And finally, he says there are 67 gamblers in the Platinum Club, which costs $250,000. Those gamblers can work with him until they net $1 million. If they don’t within a year, they probably don’t use Meyer again. If they do, they can choose to pay him another $250,000 for their next million.

“I have clients that are famous doctors, lawyers, actors,” Meyer said. “And I help them manage their money like a brokerage firm.”

Those top level clients, by the way, have Meyer’s cell phone and pay to call him at any time they want. All clients have to pledge that they won’t publish or share Meyer’s information.

Meyer doesn’t portend to be a gambling savant. His talent, he says, is football. And to make sure his company’s advice is right more than wrong, he employs a team of sports experts as well as more than 100 freelancers, who he says he uses to try to get inside information before it hits the betting lines.

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Meyer’s Web site has been getting more attention of late thanks to the fact that a team has allowed him to advertise.

This year, Meyer bought signage behind home plate at Florida Marlins games. He advertises with a different suffix,www.adamwins.net, so that he can measure how many people are coming from the ads.

So far, he says that the sign has yielded more than 500 paying customers.

“We’re breaking down the barrier,” Meyer said. “The Marlins approached me, I didn’t approach them. We’re talking now to an NBA team about advertising with them.”

To show he’s really about giving sound advice, Meyer says sometimes he doesn’t make a call on a game. “It happens,” Meyer said. “There could be some Monday Night Football games I won’t play. My customers know that I think of this as a business and not a compulsion.”

Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.com