North American vs European sports service prices

[KingsOfOdds]

I am not sure if this is the best sub-forum for this subject, but I can not find a more suitable one, so here we go...

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As a European living in the USA for 14 years, betting heavily on the North American sports and in just the last 2 years being involved also in serious football (soccer) betting - and also managing tipping site & independent tipsters, something is very interesting to me, and I could never found an explanation to this:

North American (USA + Canada) sports service average subscription prices are minimum 3 times higher than of those of European based sports services!

In North America the average prices for a month for well established sites and sports handicappers tend towards $300..., while in Europe doesn't seem to me that they are more than around 70 EUR.

What you think are the reasons for this?

A few weeks ago, when I asked the same from a reputable UK based site's manager (site which verifies betting systems and sports services), he thought that:

"It's because in Europe there are very many services, the market is over saturated, while in the USA legally you can not bet on the Internet, so also the number of services is a lot lower, and those seem like some kind of novelty".

For which I responded that this is very much not true, and from my long time experience I can tell that in North America no matter if folks can not bet legally online (who cares, lol...), and USA people are banned from all important Euro bookies, but still everybody and their dogs are betting, (just look at those huge betting forums, with most US and Canada members), and there are truckloads of sports services.

I hardly believe that in the USA and Canada there are less services compared with the population than in Europe!

I'm very curios what do you think would be the reasons for the big price discrepancies.

[TEDDIE21]

North America is actually a mess when it comes to "handicapping" services or "touts". Not only that subscriptions are about three times more expensive, but I could never find a monitoring service that would guarantee the accuracy of the records. I mean, there are some, but they are not authority sites and I have a feeling they're only made as just another way to advertise those services, not to independently keep track of them. Maybe I am wrong about this and there is such a website, do you know any?

Another thing I hate about North-American services is that they don't keep track of the units staked and returned, about profits in units and ROI's. They just keep it like "20-18 ATS" and that's it, but I would like to have more information if I was to join that service. This is a bad trend in fact that has recently invaded this forum too.

As for the prices, it's about living standards and traditions. North-Americans have more traditions when it comes to "handicapping", and living standards are also higher than in Europe. Europe is not just the UK or Germany, Europe is also Eastern and Southern Europe that has lower living standards, which, as a consequence, makes tipsters less pretentious.

[KingsOfOdds]

As for the prices, it's about living standards and traditions. North-Americans have more traditions when it comes to "handicapping", and living standards are also higher than in Europe. Europe is not just the UK or Germany, Europe is also Eastern and Southern Europe that has lower living standards, which, as a consequence, makes tipsters less pretentious.

Differences between European countries is my only logical explanation too.
In all the former East European communist block's countries, with many of them now EU members, the average income is even less than 1/3 of the West European countries.

But living standards being higher in US than like in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, The Benelux Countries, and even the UK or France... it's at the best equal now, but more likely lower. Maybe 15-20 years were a lot better, but not any more.

Actually the wages for exactly the same jobs are a lot lower than in the Western Euro countries, on the other hand it must be said that also everything is a lot cheaper (exception: buying picks from touts ).
But for example in New Jersey (one of the highest standard of living states) the minimal wage in USD is less than the national minimal wage in France, in EUR. Now it's not a big difference, because right now the EUR is very weak, but 5-6 years ago 1 EUR was about 1,6 USD or more...

North America is actually a mess when it comes to "handicapping" services or "touts". Not only that subscriptions are about three times more expensive, but I could never find a monitoring service that would guarantee the accuracy of the records. I mean, there are some, but they are not authority sites and I have a feeling they're only made as just another way to advertise those services, not to independently keep track of them. Maybe I am wrong about this and there is such a website, do you know any?

I agree that it's a mess because there are way more scamdicappers in % compared to the "good guys" than in Europe. This if even more evident if we consider the average subscription prices.
Besides there are too many individual "big name" cappers who are selling picks on several (sometimes 6-7) big sites.

You hit the nail on the head with the almost complete absence of truly credible, independent proofing sites. Most so said independent proofing sites are rigged, or worst, are part of the scamdicappers' rings.

Another thing I hate about North-American services is that they don't keep track of the units staked and returned, about profits in units and ROI's. They just keep it like "20-18 ATS" and that's it, but I would like to have more information if I was to join that service. This is a bad trend in fact that has recently invaded this forum too.

You may be mistaken here, because every serious North American service site which I know about keeps track of their results using the "units".
However, nobody keeps track of it and cares about the "ROI" (I don't care either about this indicator), which in Europe is far more important than the "units".
For a North American bettor his sports betting success and the true value of a sports service is given by the average growth of his betting bankroll in a set time period. "Units" gained fully indicates this.

I never understood why so many European touts are using the ROI solely. It's totally useless in judging which is a more valuable service, if one has for example average 20 tips per month and the other one average 80 tips per month...

[KingsOfOdds]

Anyways, it's obvious that if the North American "average Joe bettor" would care about horse racing and football (soccer), many reputable European touts would target that market, because with the same effort they could be making 3 times as much money than like they are making from Euro customers.

But of course, very low % North American bettors care about horse racing... and even a lot less about soccer.