When Schwimer raised $130 million more from a group that includes hedge fund manager Bill Miller and former Goldman Sachs partner Steve Duncker, he took the management fees and assembled a small team of sports-analytics experts. They explored a few business opportunities -- a predictive horse-racing algorithm, something similar for golf -- but chose to get into sports betting first.

“I watched analytics completely change Wall Street during my time as a partner at Goldman Sachs, and Michael and his Jambos team are far ahead of this same trend in sports betting,” said Duncker, who’s also a board member at the New York Racing Association.

An Edge
In equities investing, if you think you have an edge, you raise money and start your own fund. In gambling, it’s not always that easy.

That was Schwimer’s original plan, so he went to Las Vegas in December to test the algorithm’s college basketball picks. He says he was there for 16 days, and up a few hundred thousand dollars, before the sports books reduced his maximum wager to $300 per game.

“So I had this realization. I can’t bet $300,000 a game, but a thousand people can bet $300 a game,” Schwimer said. “And that’s when the subscription service came about.”

Jambos’s service isn’t for casual bettors. It’s designed for those willing to put $300 on each game, a big enough stake to offset the cost of the picks.

It also recently completed a beta test in which it charged $1,500 for 300 college basketball picks. Schwimer said subscribers ended up with profits of more than $5,000.

Wouldn’t Sell
UNLV’s Cabot, who practiced gaming law for 37 years, is skeptical about the tout model in general. “The best bettors I’ve ever seen would not sell their picks,” he said. “If you’re hitting at that rate, you can set up offices in five different countries, and you can go to places that take higher bets than Nevada and do quite well.”

Schwimer, who is a contributor to ESPN’s gambling show “Daily Wager,” is ready for criticism. He faced it recently with his baseball investing -- Big League Advance was briefly sued by a player who claimed he was deceived -- and he knows that a lot of touts make similar promises about breaking from the industry norms.

That’s why he’s heavily promoting his refund policy. The discounts vary depending on how long you subscribe, but the full 17-week plan, which costs $3,000, carries a $10,000 refund if the picks don’t make money overall.