This gap is widest in NFL betting. The oddsmakers and sharp players continue to advance, but the square gets suckered more than anytime in history. The reasons are quite elementary.

Extensive prognostication ammo is readily available. Usage of the thoroughgoing volume though is so time-consuming its complete deployment is confined to the oddsmaker, learned full-time handicappers and the professional gambler.

About 20 years ago, the boiler room sales pitches from the toll-free blowhard touts included cookie cutter boasts about having scouts "all over the country" work for them and crowing about "inside information".

Now, with small monetary investments and enormous time expenditure, bettors can have "scouts" working for them, especially in NFL predictions. Yes, this means employing intuitiveness from former NFL players who scrutinize game film for hours. Who knew how prophetic the snake oil touts really were when they alleged scouts labored for them?
As much flack as I often take for giving props to the four-letter evil empire, ESPN Insider continues to be one of our beloved sources for betting intel.

Via their Scouts Inc, which is led by Jeremy Green the son of former NFL and college coach Dennis Green, sports investors get first-rate scouting reports from film room junkies.

Former NFL players Ron Jaworski and Merrill Hoge also give valuable game film insight. Jaworski has been known to camp at NFL Films and one can bet (so to speak) that he does have a tremendous point of observation

Speaking of NFL Films, their Senior Producer Greg Cosell has his "Film Room Blog" on FantasyGuru.com, one of the best sites for fantasy football with overlapping handicapping vantage points. In includes Cosell's notes from "watching coach's tapes". Considering his status and employer, he's not blowing smoke. His reports are comprehensive, profound, and invaluable for my NFL handicapping.

Sports Xchange, touted by Howie Long and John Madden, is consumed by sundry media outlets and by yours truly in the NFL and MLB.

How about college sports? Scout.com is the centralized portal for Internet and hard copy team specific sites, that in their words, "publish inside and exclusive content" on many of the teams. The caliber of intuition varies greatly from team to team, but sifting through the filler content often uncovers handicapping wisdom.

The next time you hear a handicapper claiming to have scouts with inside information, he may actually be telling the truth. There is one certainty, the oddsmakers have the skinny and the gambler is in serious hardship without it.

The more advantages the bettors' opponent has the less leverage for the gambler. Make no mistake, the oddsmaker is the enemy. The cost of not having a scout's angle has never been greater.

The only way to counteract the munitions that the linesmaker has is to use that same artillery against him. Luckily the bookmaker has to post odds long before the investor needs to finalize his picks, allowing the gamester to empower superior real-time information.

The Information Age continues to be great news for both the oddsmakers and professional speculator, while the hunch bettor underwrites at an accelerated rate. To that we are forever grateful.