Our sports handicappers are often asked about the value of tip sheets.

For football handicapping they have some value as a starting point. Sports Reporter, the Gold Sheet and Northcoast are among the best and Doctor Bob has some good technical angles but I still rate them light years behind the hometown newspapers.

First of all the hometown papers have writers who cover the team full-time and specialize. Secondly the tip sheets still make a lot of money from their hard copy publications. This requires early week deadlines as they don’t have the circulation efficiency of the daily rags to get their publication to the newsstands within hours of going to press.

OffshoreInsiders.com  believes the tout sheets have their place, and have value for midweek bullet points, but a quality handicapper has so many other more ripely and particularized informants.