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Wall Street Journal, By SAM WALKER, January 5, 2007; Page W1

LAS VEGAS -- ...

Each Thursday morning at precisely 10 a.m. Nevada time, every major casino sports betting operation in the world from here to Costa Rica was being simultaneously pounded by thousands of bettors wagering millions of dollars on the same few college football games. Odder still, most of these lock step bets were turning out to be winners, costing the casinos a fortune.

To protect themselves, bookmakers broke with protocol and began making unusually large and sudden corrections to their betting lines, or "point spreads." At least one offshore casino disabled its Web site for maintenance and restored it only after adjusting the odds. "The whole thing was unreal and unbelievable," says Robert Walker, the race and sports book director for MGM Mirage in Las Vegas. "In 20 years I've never seen anything like it."

There were rumors. Some thought terrorists were involved, or hackers, or maybe a shadowy international gambling syndicate known as the Asian Group. But as the month wore on, the truth began to bubble up through the Las Vegas whisper pool.

Turns out there was no grand conspiracy. The global business of sports betting was being jolted every week by one person: an obscure 41-year-old statistician from San Francisco named Dr. Bob. (Bob Stoll).

...

But in the last three months, Mr. Stoll has emerged to become one of the world's most influential sports handicappers. And when it comes to predicting the outcomes of college football games, he is peerless. By his records, which have been tracked by dozens of bettors and bookmakers, the recommendations he's made on college football in the last three seasons have turned out to be winners against the point spread 63% of the time. In 2005 he finished with 51 wins and 21 losses for a success rate of 71%.

But what separates Mr. Stoll from these professionals and makes him so frightening to bookmakers is that he's not hoarding his information -- he's distributing it to the public. In fact, anyone who wants Mr. Stoll's advice can visit his Web site, drbobsports.com, and buy a subscription package for anywhere from $25 to $2,495.

Read more.

Here is another story on Bob Stoll,

Read Dr. Bob's picks moving college lines.