Winners & Whiners review: picks sold by the play, with leaderboards and a credit-only guarantee

A storefront for cappers

Winners & Whiners doesn't pick games itself. It's a shop window for a roster of handicappers, each with a bio, a leaderboard line and a list of plays for sale. The refund policy says every purchase is made from Wager Talk Media, LP, which it calls the parent company, and the support page gives a suite address in Las Vegas.

Most plays sell for $15 to $25, and I saw one at $29. One handicapper offered a 1-day pass at $39, another a "Weekend Warrior" pass with every Saturday and Sunday football play for $49. The FAQ says you can also subscribe to packages and cancel any time from your account, with access running to the end of the period. It takes the major credit cards.

The sales copy is the loudest I've read in a while. "ELECTRIC +72.72 units." "HAMMERS YOUR BOOK LIKE A ROOF NAIL." One bio says that if you follow the capper's picks "you could earn a solid second income from sports betting". I'd treat that line the way I'd treat a book offering free money. Nobody selling $25 picks is handing you an income, and a man who could reliably make one wouldn't need to sell the picks.

The guarantee

Next to most plays is a second button: "Purchase with Guarantee", $38 instead of $25, $23 instead of $15. The listing explains it: if your day's picks don't produce an overall profit, you get 100 percent of the price back as "Capper Credits" to spend on more picks. So you pay half again on every day you buy that way, and on a losing day you get credit in the same shop.

Do the sum for a capper who wins about half his days. You pay $38 for each of two days, $76. One day loses and you get $38 of credit. You've spent $76 in cash for two days of picks plus a third on credit, about $25 a day, which is the plain price. The guarantee mostly keeps you buying. Outside it, the refund policy is short: all sales are final once a pick has been bought, delivered or viewed.

Reading the records

The leaderboard ranks cappers by sport over the last 7 days, 30 days, 365 days and the year to date, with wins, losses and units. The listings pick their own windows: "24-17-2 +14U", "44-22-2 since Sep 3", "11-4 overall run", "+85 Units (1 unit base)". A capper can always find a start date that makes him look good. A coin-flipper making 20 picks goes 14 and 6 or better about 6 times in 100, and with a few dozen cappers in the shop, several are on a run at any time.

The plays are rated by stars and percentages, 4★ or 4%, and records are given in units, but I didn't find a page that says what a unit is or whether a 4★ play counts more than a 1★ play in the record. Nor does the site say who keeps the records or checks them. If you can't see every pick, with the time it went out and the price, the record is the seller's claim. Our ATB Verified page says what a checked record needs.

The free picks

This is the part I'd use. The free picks page posts plays from several handicappers with the game, the time, the price and a written case: Montreal on the moneyline at plus money, for one, with a paragraph on the goalies. (The page dropped the plus sign and showed the price as "102", so read them carefully.) Take a capper's free picks for a few weeks, write down the price at the time you saw each one and the closing price, and see whether he beats the closing line. That's free, and it tells you more than the leaderboard.

The FAQ is more honest than the listings. It says no pick is certain to win, that betting carries risk, and that past results don't predict future ones. I agree with every word.

No picks service takes the risk out of a bet. If you buy a 4★ play, bet it at the same small slice of your bankroll as everything else, and stop at the loss limit you set before the week began. The handicappers section has more on judging a seller.

The free picks cost nothing. Start there.