Smart question. Most sports handicappers are bogus, so too are the monitors that track them. Don't be shocked. Why should you expect anything different? These charlatans either allow pundits to post their picks after the games have been played and/or get a kickback for each click or customer the handicapper signs up. Even more insidiously, they will post only partial results and let random variation make some of their customers look like winners.

So how do you find an honest monitor, which in turn allows you to find an honest handicapper? As with any business on the internet, start with Google (which once was called research). There you can find out how long they have been in business, follow any forum discussions and read any reviews.

If they seem like an honest site, this is what to do next:

Review one sport. For sake of argument, lets say the NBA. As a monitor site, it should be very easy to see the history of every handicapper ever monitored by this site for the NBA.

1. If they do not allow you to review every handicappers results for every past year (and in total), the monitor is bogus. Yes, you should be able to see results of not only the current season, but all previous seasons. This is very important. Otherwise, the monitor is bogus, or flawed at best. Why? because any handicapper can have a good year. By pure luck some will show a profit for a season, and if they are all in league, eventually they will be all be near the top (and share the spotlight so to speak) at least some of the time. The reality however, is that they are all losers over the long run.

2. If they do not link to the handicappers web pages, the monitor is bogus.

3. If more than 30%-40% of the handicappers show ANY profit, the site is bogus. Handicapping is hard. Most pundits fail. The good ones will rise to the top, and the bad ones will land on the bottom. No handicapper is going to allow their name sullied without a fight, but there should be active handicappers on the bottom of the list. This is ok. Just make sure they are valid sites by visiting them. If only a few handicappers show a negative profit, the monitor is bogus. If the same several patsies are on the bottom of every list (making the other handicappers look good by comparison) the site may also be bogus, or they may just have a bunch of bad handicappers.

4. If the top handicappers show more than a 10% ROI (Return on Investment) over a large sample of games, the site is bogus. Fake handicappers need to make outlandish claims to top the other fake handicappers. If a monitor confirms such claims, the site is bogus.

5. Lastly, top handicappers are usually only good at one or two sports. If the same few handicappers are on the top of the list for every sport (and with several of the same patsies on the bottom), they might be in league with the monitor. This one is tough to spot, but if your google reviews or instincts tell you that any of the top pundits are a sham, consider the entire site bogus.