"You can't visualize 10-dimensional space."

Rufus Peabody said this to Bet the Process co-host Jeff Ma when discussing how he visualizes his model. I don't know exactly how Rufus displays his bets - but I agree with this statement.

The common way to "visualize" the market is through an odds screen. Odds screens show the odds for a given event at different sportsbooks. See below for a sample of my SpankOdds screen (not a sponsor):

Odds screens are easy to understand after spending 10 minutes with one. Say the Cubs are playing the Yankees. The game is given a row on the odds screen. Then each column is the price at different sportsbooks.

BetMGM is Cubs +110. Is that a good price? Just look left and right. Maybe you see FanDuel at +120, so you log into FanDuel and bet there.

Odds screens also allow you to quickly "chase steam" if you are at your computer. If you see the Cubs go from +120 to +110 at multiple books across the market - you can hop on any remaining +120 that you see.

Odds screens win in steam chasing, price shopping, and ease of use. They are great tools because of this and I recommend everyone learn how to use an odds screen.

They aren't the end goal though. There are three big problems with odds screens.

Problem 1: They aren't flexible

To use an odds screen, you have to be sitting at your computer. When you hear professional bettors say they want to cut down their time "staring at the screen" - they are talking about odds screens. There is no way to derive value from an odds screen when you aren't at your computer.

Problem 2: They aren't scalable

The person reading the odds screen is the one generating the bet. There isn't a clear indication of what EXACTLY you need to bet - which is needed for scaling. If you are working with a partner, you need to be able to tell them the exact bet you want them to take.

Even if you had a partner on the phone while you were looking at an odds screen, the main strategy from a screen (steam chasing) is time sensitive. You will miss most of the fills.

Problem 3: They aren't customizable

What you see is what you get.

Whatever markets the odds screen provider shows are the markets that you will be able to bet. And IF they are showing it, there will be less value. Meaning most of the value is "off screen".

Our solution: Bet Notifications

Our betting group uses notifications instead of odds screens. It allows us to:

1. Operate from our phones if necessary

2. Send notifications directly to partners to cut ourselves out of the process and scale

3. Automate bet finding in markets that are "off-screen"

4. Use our model as a source of truth instead of a top-down market average. applied by odds screen.

5. Be efficient - instead of staring at the screen, you can do other work then bet only when notified.

Our strategy is 90% origination - so it quickly became apparent that odds screens weren't the best fit.

We needed our model to ping the sportsbooks, compare to their prices, and return a bet notification if our EV threshold was met.

We also were able to price niche markets with our model - so we needed a way to quickly cut down the time it took to identify opportunities in those markets. Note - these markets were not on an odds screen.

What do you need to create bet notifications?

You need three skills:

1. Scraping

2. Program logic for compare/ notify

3. Experience with a messaging system API (Telegram, Discord, Slack)

Now wait - GP do you have these skills? 

NO!

Personally, I only check the second box, and barely check it. I have scraped odds in a non-robust way that wouldn't meet the test of a good notification system.

That's why we are a group. My partner is a tremendous scraper - and has built our notification system from scratch to become what I imagine one of the best in the space.

My recommendation is that when it comes to more advanced programming (ie production level programs not data analytics in python) - get help.

I recommend partnering with someone who has these skills - but you can also hire out projects. One note when hiring out a project - it helps to hire someone in the space if you have no programming experience. When I have worked with people outside the space - it wouldn't have worked if I had 0 programming experience. This is because you need to build an air-tight project brief for them to get it right.

How to start?

Start small - find one market you want to target that isn't available on any odds screens. Once you build the rails for the first market - the others can be added easily.

Maybe you know how to scrape - but you aren't familiar with the Discord or Telegram apis. That's fine - you can hire out sections of the programming work as long as they aren't dependent on each other.

How to get notifications if I don't want to do all that?

I also understand if you don't have the time to build a notification system - but you still want to get the benefits of using one. There’s good news for everyone who wants to bet profitably in the least amount of time possible.

Last week I launched a public notification service called GP Picks+. It's (in my opinion) the most robust public notification system on the market.

What sets it apart from the dozens of others I see in discords?

- Multi-Strategy: It uses price movement, along with vig-removal to give you the most coverage of profitable top-down bets available.

- Account health rating: I turned my opinions on account health into a "stoplight" system that rates each bet a green, yellow, or red light. This is will be updated as we get more data - and adds context to the bets

- Bet Size Recommendation: Proprietary staking formula that will also be tweaked to take into account market nuance.

For September I am running a giveaway for the yearly package of GP Picks+. If you buy any of the yearly plans (apps, sportsbooks, or sportsbooks + apps), you will get the entire GP Academy Video library for FREE!

If you want to start making profitable bets while simultaneously learning how to take it to the next level - click here to check out the GP Picks+ plans.

Thanks for reading!

John

Is there anything like the dread you feel when you say you saw a movie that you haven’t - and then someone starts referencing specifics?

That’s how I felt when we rolled out the market-based bet alerts in GP Academy. I never used market-based alerts (we have our own alert system that interacts w/ our golf simulation model). So when I started getting questions on how to best use the alerts - I realized I needed to learn them and create a strategy.

After analyzing the alerts, I came up with a dead simple strategy for maximizing your profits using them.

Why alerts? Aren’t you a pick seller now?!?

I had been hesitant to roll out anything that even smelled like a “pick” for so long that I kept going back and forth on implementing alerts.

But during my research into alerts that identify market discrepancies - I was happy to realize that someone could lose a bunch or money or make a bunch of money with the same stream of alerts coming in.

Yes - I am happy that people can LOSE money by blindly playing alerts. You read that correctly.

Why do I want there to be an avenue to lose a bunch of money? Because it means that skill will be rewarded - and teaching betting skill is backbone of GP Academy.

I want a GP Academy user to profit more than a standard +EV bettor when given the same alerts. Also, there are other discords with really good alerts - so learning how to best trade on this information has become an essential skill of 2024 sports betting.

What is an alert?

Here is an example of a GP MarketWatch alert:

This alert is a suggestion to play Kyle Bradish Over 4.5 Strikeouts at a price of -116.

A few key parts of the alert:

Odds | No Vig: The “Odds” (-116) are the odds that the site (BetOnline) is offering. The “No Vig” (-126) is the “fair” or breakeven price as determined by PropProfessor’s proprietary algorithm.

Site | Value: The site (BetOnline) is self-explanatory. But the value is the % return you expect to have on this bet according to PropProfessor’s fair value (-126). A bet that should be priced at -126 will return 4.1% on average when bet at odds of -116.

Market Data: These are the prices other sportsbooks are offering for the same bet. This is where a good bettor (hopefully you) will separate themselves from someone just mindlessly clicking bet.

THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY IS MADE!!

A Tale of Two Bets

It was the best of bets, it was the worst of bets…

Two bets can show similar value on the top half of the alert - but when you dig into the bottom half you start to see a very different picture. Let me give you two examples to show you what traps to avoid and what set-ups = $$$.

Bet 1: The Bad Bet

Why is it bad?

1. The book we are being recommended to bet into (FanDuel) is relatively sharp. They take big baseball bets and originate their own numbers.

2. The sites used in the market data section to support the No-Vig price are three of the most square books. None of these books are comparable to FanDuel in pricing ability.

3. There is no arb to bail you out. This bet isn’t a full arb to another bet. Meaning you couldn’t bet both sides and make money. This isn’t always necessary - and you should normally just pick a side even if it’s in arbitrage. But when a bet is in arbitrage - you know for a fact at least one bet is good. Here we can’t be sure both sides aren’t bad - which is a slight tip of the odds away from our favor.

Bet 2: The Good Bet

Why is it good?

1. Now we are being told to bet into ESPNBet - a square book.

2. The sites used in the market data section include FanDuel and Caesars, two sharper books.

3. There is a fat arb to BetMGM and a breakeven arb to Caesars. Most likely both the BetMGM side and the ESPN side are BOTH good. But even if you are only betting one side, you know that either both bets are good or at a minimum one bet is good. The odds are now tipped in our favor.

Other considerations

1. The displayed “value” or EV % isn’t indicative of how many data points have gone into the calculation. If only 1-2 sportsbooks are being considered in the Market Data section, you will have more fragile assumptions than if 5-6 are considered.

2. The varying sharpness of books across markets also isn’t considered. AKA if Fanduel is sharp at Baseball HR props but not sharp at Hockey Shots on Goal - knowing this will give you a major advantage when checking the market data.

3. One-way markets are less valuable than two-way markets in the market data. Having a quote on both sides gives us more confidence in calculating a fair value.

Even if you aren’t a member at GP Academy - I hope you can get max value using these strategies out of any alert system you are subscribed to.

One Ask (plz help…)

Please share this newsletter with someone. Maybe your friend who thinks they can go 80% on NFL bets. Or your old math teacher who liked building MLB models just for fun. Anyone who might be remotely interested would help.

Recently I have been having problems with my Twitter account - and as of right now I can’t log into my account and share this on Twitter. I would be extremely grateful if you shared this newsletter with one person.

If you are looking to improve your sports betting game, here is how I can help:

For Free:

Join my free sports betting community: GP Picks

Listen to my podcasts w/ top sports bettors: YouTube Podcast

Follow me on Twitter for quick tips & tricks: GP Twitter (down rn lol)

For $97 a Month:

Level up your game (and your profits) in my sports betting training community:

Unlock your 14-day free trial: GP Academy

Learning something with others creates an insurmountable advantage over people who learn on their own.

Learning a pure jump shot

Here is a hypothetical example to convince you of my point.

Say you are trying to learn a jump shot in basketball. You find a hoop and a ball. After watching basketball on TV, you think you know what you need to do and start practicing your jump shot

The results are uninspiring - but you can't understand why you aren't getting the same results you see on TV. You continue to practice with mediocre results.

One day, an NBA player walks by you practicing. He says "Hey you need to put some backspin on your jump shot". You had no idea this was the proper method for jump shots. You change your jump shot and start over. You struggle for a while, but eventually you see results.

Now, what if you had asked a professional before you started practicing how to properly shoot a jump shot? The time spent between when you started and when the NBA player fixed your form would be productive.

Paying the price in poker…

Let me give you an example of how I paid this cost early in my poker career.

After putting myself out there on training site forums, I made my first few "poker friends". This is the part of the story where many poker players careers take off. Mine stagnated.

Why?

I didn't put myself in a position to benefit.

My poker friends who were more successful than me played a specific poker game (HU SNGs) along with some tournaments. I also played tournaments - and was looking to add a game I could play consistently.

What would you add? Obviously, you would add Heads Up SNGs right?

Wrong

I decided to play Pot Limit Omaha cash games. I knew 0 people who played these, but it was what the "cool kids" were doing. So in our group Skype chat I was the only person playing PLO. I watched videos, read books and forum posts, and reviewed my hands. I tried really hard to learn the game - and learned a law of physics.

Effort pointed at the wrong thing doesn't produce outsized returns. Effort pointed in the right direction is unstoppable.

I became okay at PLO. This is the most dangerous skill level in gambling (especially for a full time player). You are good enough that you can win a bit against weak players. You may even be able to scratch out just enough money to get by. But you never make outsized returns.

Predictably, I became strapped for cash. I went to my friends asking for backing. They said of course - but you have to play our games and we will coach you. At that point, I was a beggar - not a chooser. I accepted.

In a few months I was one of the best HU SNG players in post-Black Friday US poker. I was getting coached by the best - so it wasn't a fair fight. I was also discussing hands daily now with a group of specialists.

The amount of learning I was able to shortcut was insane. My confidence shot up along with my hourly. I finally felt like a "professional" instead of someone who was "pretty good".

I urge everyone reading this to take stock of their network. Where can you leverage them? Do you need to add people to your network to pursue the challenge you find most interesting? Do you think you should pursue something else more in line with the expertise of your network?

These are questions I wish I asked myself earlier...

If you are looking to improve your sports betting game, here is how I can help:

For Free:

Join my free sports betting community: GP Picks

Listen to my podcasts w/ top sports bettors: YouTube Podcast

Follow me on Twitter for quick tips & tricks: GP Twitter

For $97 a Month:

Learn how to become a profitable sports bettor by joining the premier sports betting education community: GP Academy

Hey Everyone,

Today I wanted to share an expert tip I wrote for the members of GP Academy. This week we spent a lot of time learning about originating (a topic that’s woefully misunderstood and under-represented in betting education)

If you want to try the Academy, there is currently a 14-day free trial! Sign up here: https://academy.goldenpants.com/

Here is a taste of what’s inside w/ Thursday’s “Expert Tip”

The expert tip earlier in the week got us believing that sportsbooks are not omnipotent odds makers. In fact, that's not even what they are great at.

They are great at:

• Bringing people onto their platform

• Getting thousands of lines out each day

• Grading

• Paying / transacting with customers

• And doing it again tomorrow

Unlike us, a sportsbook doesn't have "one goal". (Our goal is to make +EV bets). The book consists of people with different goals:

• Traders don't want to embarass themselves infront of their bosses.

• Their bosses want smooth numbers to present to the executives.

• The executives want smoother numbers to present to investors.

What happens to this complicated hierarchy when a sharp bettor starts playing?

The trader's in a weird situation. They can keep taking the action and learn from it - and many want to. After all, the trader's have ego tied up in the trading results just like we do.

But their bosses hate losing - they have metrics on hold % that they (wrongly) get judged on by their bosses. So when a customer rinses a trader, the trader gets yelled at for fucking up their bosses metrics. The trader then (effectively) kicks out the customer. Doesn't matter who's decision it is.

So what do we do in this situation? Are we doomed to get kicked from book to book like an unwanted pet?

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this

I have tried a lot of different tactics to break through the barriers put up against bettors

I believe there is one answer to this question...

Specialize

Many of you know I specialize in golf. So much so that when asked about data sources for other sports in the previous few days - I have been entirely unhelpful.

The reason I specialize in golf is because I love golf.

The reason I specialize is I love taking the sportsbook's money.

Specializing allows you to:

• Bet into sharp books,

• Make winning bets without CLV

• Bet a price that isn't the best on the market.

This is the best way to get your head above water and feel comfortable.

If you pour enough time and energy into one market, I promise you can create advantages against the sportsbook trader. Remember, we don't need to make a market - we just need to be able to snipe value.

The first step of specialization is market specialization. AKA knowing:

• Which books are sharp in your sport

• When movement happens

• Who are the market movers for the market

The second is specialization in domain knowledge. You learn:

• Wrinkles that bookmakers can't account for

• Rule changes that will discredit historic data

• Best sources of news and lineups

• Special situations that create windfalls (Wynham Clark at Pebble, Mikal Bridges iron man, Draymond Green Klay Thompson return).

And third, you specialize in the data analysis of the sport. You:

• Know the best data sources for the sport

• Learn how to build a useful database for the sport

• Understand which hypotheses could be valuable and which aren't worth chasing

If you do all this, it would be unreasonable to believe that you can't win.

The best advice when you are starting out is "the sportsbooks know more than you". That's because they do! But a lot of that is knowledge you get quickly while betting top-down.

Once you understand how sports betting works, I think it's worthwhile to take another crack at making a better number than the books. And that's what we are trying to do here.

Take that next step from top-down to complete bettor. So mull over the list above.

• Do you know who the market makers are in your sport?

• Do you have a weighted list of who is sharp and who isn't?

• When does your market move?

• Where are the best data stored?

Spend some time thinking about this and fill in any gaps in your knowledge that you can.

If you enjoyed the above and want to learn how to bet, instead of just relying on others for picks, join the best sports betting education community: https://academy.goldenpants.com/

What is a "counterparty"? Think about betting like trading - your "counterparty" is whoever you trade with. They are the person, or entity that is taking the other side of your wager.

In trading, if you buy a stock, someone is selling that stock to you. In sports betting, if you bet the Chiefs +120 v. the Niners, someone is taking the Niners -120.

Why do you NEED to know about your counterparty?

Most amateur sports bettors don't think about their counterparty at all - which is a massive mistake. Coming from a poker background, I am programmed to think about my opponent. Why are they posting this number? Why are they taking a big bet from me? Why did/didn't they move when I bet?

The goal of everyone generally is "to make money" but it's not always on the same timeframe. As bettors, our timeframe is really short. We want to make money NOW. We need this bet to be +EV, or else we aren't making it.

The goal of your counterparty will not always be "to make money now". Think about DraftKings and FanDuel. When they entered the market, they threw $100 million+ at customer acquisition and ran a losing business for years. Their goal was money, but they saw the biggest pile of money at the end of acquiring market share.

This is a good spot to be. If a counterparty is focused on something else besides winning the bet you make with them at all costs - we like. There is a recent example of this going on right now with Sporttrade in golf.

Sporttrade makes a splash in the golf markets

Sporttrade is regularly offering $25k a side on golf head-to-heads w/ a very tight spread. To put that in perspective, the biggest widely available amount besides ST is $10k. And the spread on the $10k matchups is TWICE as wide. It's insanity!

So is the market maker at Sporttrade way sharper than the established golf market makers? How do we determine this? Can we run an analysis of their closing lines and compare to the results? Probably not - the amount of time it would take to reach an answer would be too long. Who knows how long ST will take these big clicks - we have to shortcut our way to a good guess.

The market maker at Sporttrade is SIG - a trading firm worth billions of dollars. They are better capitalized than ANY current sportsbook and it's not even remotely close. They are also an investor in Sporttrade (we learned this when founder Alex Kane was on the pod - great episode, link below).

My partner and I were talking about how we should stack up the information we are getting from ST compared to the established golf MMs. He made the case that for SIG to make worthwhile money (to them, they’re rich) they need ST to succeed. So they are most likely in the market share game - willing to make a splash, lose a little, learn a little, etc...

Great - if someone is in the market share game, and you are in the money game: trade. They want to trade with you for the time being. They are willing to lose a little money to grow (at least they should be).

Parting Words

In poker, the "fish" (bad players) are usually way wealthier than the pros. They are playing for amounts of money that they don't care too much about - and their goal isn't to win at all costs. Their goal is to have fun. So this is a good "counterparty" for a professional poker player.

In gambling - always consider the counterparty. This isn't a single-player game!

What’s New?

GP Academy!!!

If you haven’t heard - I just launched a sports betting education community. It’s been months in the making - and will be absolute best in class. If you like the newsletter, it’s worth checking out (it’s for slightly more advanced bettors).

The special launch price of $77 is available for 4 more days: https://academy.goldenpants.com/

I was reading my timeline on Twitter and saw people posting graphs of epic wins on ESPN Bet. These accounts were well-known live arbitrage accounts - so they also indicated that they were up more on ESPN Bet than they were up overall.

Wait what…?

Yes - if they didn’t play at any other book besides ESPN Bet, they would have made more money than they did. They were losing money taking the other side on mainly Caesars and FanDuel.

They are paying Caesars and FanDuel to de-risk. That’s fine - maybe that’s the only way they feel comfortable playing rn, and playing is worth a ton to them because they are making A LOT of money. Get the money - that’s motto #1.

My goal in this piece of writing is to show a few alternative ways to de-risk (will be exclusively outside the box) that some of these grinders can implement to keep a few extra dollars.

How I think about risk:

A quick example of how I think about risk:

Say you are about to bet on a coin flip with a guy you don't know. Then someone else comes up to you and tells you “That coin is weighted, it will always land on heads”. 

What do you do? Let’s say you have a bankroll of $100 and were going to be $1 - now do you bet more? 

Probably not - you have no clue who the fuck this guy is.

But now let’s say this guy is your trusted friend who makes a lot of money flipping coins. Do you bet more than $1?

Yeah I would

And now let’s say your friend explains he saw this guy w/ the weighted coin flip 100 heads in a row last week (and he recognizes the coin).

Probably bet even more!

In these situations, you are presented with the same fair value (heads 100%). But intuitively we can understand that each situation presents a different level of "risk" and probably demands a different bet size.

Okay, so I think we can all see how the same fair value does not demand the same amount risked. This newsletter isn’t about how to size your bets - it’s about how to de-risk. And how did we de-risk in the above example? Two very effective ways:

Discuss with smart people

When the random person turns into our coin-flipping genius friend - we feel comfortable taking more risk. Let’s go back to the ESPN Bet example. If some of those live arbitrage crushers started to discuss where they were making and losing money - and everyone seemed to think they were mainly earning from ESPN Bet, it should make you more willing to not hedge the CZR & FD side.

You can greatly decrease your risk by having a smart circle of people you discuss ideas with. The risk that ESPN Bet is the “sharp” side goes down with each person that confirms what you are seeing in your results. And that’s the true risk to taking one side of an arb - the risk of taking the sharp side instead of the square side.

Of course, your results fluctuate more when you take one side, but your big risk is betting a -EV strat without knowing it. That’s what arbitrage betting mainly protects people from.

Craft a hypothesis

When our coin-flipping genius friend explains “why” he thinks that this coin is weighted to heads, we become even more comfortable. It’s because we have a hypothesis that makes sense - and the data back up (he saw the results of the coin flips).

Without a why, you will feel lost. It doesn’t mean you can’t win without a “why” - I just don’t think you can size up effectively without knowing why you are.

This goes back to the tried and true advice of defining your edge. I always recommend doing it, because if you can’t explain why you have an edge - it’s hard to believe in it.

In the ESPN Bet situation, the hypothesis is easy but requires some past industry knowledge. ESPN Bet is a rebrand of Penn Gaming - a historically soft sports betting operator. Caesars and FanDuel are two operators who have started to separate themselves as the US operators most tolerant of sharp action.

To take sharp action you have to:

1. Know what to do with it
2. Feel somewhat confident in your trading / pricing

So before even seeing the results - I would believe CZR & FD are more likely to be “sharp” than ESPN. Then the data confirm this - seems like a clear edge to me.

Hopefully, that helped give you a new perspective on risk (and how to mitigate it)

My most recent podcast with Spanky sparked this idea for me - check it out below and please subscribe to my YouTube channel while you’re at it!

https://youtu.be/krGByrd20vY

I have to admit I was tilted Monday morning…

I missed one of the biggest sports betting spots of the year, which would be understandable…unless it was in Golf, the sport I specialize in!

But if I am not going to make money immediately on the situation, you bet I am going to make future money by learning from it. So let’s break down the golf betting spot of the year in this week’s Risk Takers Digest

The Situation

The PGA Tour played at Pebble Beach last week - arguably the most iconic American golf course; situated on the Pacific Ocean. Being directly on the coast, it is sometimes subject to extreme weather only seen on the UK links courses.

(Here is a video of Tony Finau hitting driver on the 100-yard 7th hole at Pebble…)
https://youtube.com/shorts/5PaejVH5Wtg?si=wyuyss3PQIpIjBNZ

The weather for the first three rounds was relatively mild. Winds hovered around 10 mph each day. (Wind makes golf very hard btw). The projected weather for Sunday however was comical.

When wind and rain get to certain apocalyptic levels, it becomes impossible to play golf (balls start rolling around without having been hit). Everyone who was following closely agreed that there wasn’t going to be play on Sunday - but the PGA Tour said they would try to finish on Monday if possible.

While the weather on Monday wasn’t that bad, the course was already wet - and there was a looming possibility that rain Sunday would make it hard to play Monday.

Sunday afternoon the PGA Tour makes it official that they won’t play Sunday, and are hoping to play Monday. If they can’t finish Monday then it becomes a 54 hole event.

The Bet

Shortened events on the PGA Tour are really rare (I believe the last one was the Zurich Classic in 2016). That should send alarm bells off for us as bettors - weird/outlier events often present epic value.

So how can we make some money?

First Thought

Wyndham Clark to win at +200

After Round 3, Wyndham Clark was in the lead. If

But remember, what are we actually betting on? We are trying to bet on Round 4 getting canceled.

If Round 4 gets canceled, then Wyndham Clark does win - and we win a +200 bet. But is that the best way to monetize a Round 4 cancelation?

No

One of the best monetization strategies I saw of a Round 4 cancelation was by the bettor @Kante_Bets. His play is below:

Twitter tweet

This is genius. Because remember - what are we betting on? We aren’t betting on who wins the golf tournament; we are betting on the golf tournament being shortened to 54-holes. 

If the golf tournament is shortened to 54 holes, Wyndham Clark wins. By betting Wyndham Clark to win, we are getting +200 on the tournament to be shortened (plus a big insurance policy on it not being shortened, b/c Wyndham still very likely to win if they play)

But the insurance policy of Clark blinds us to the REAL bet. The REAL bet is what Kante made - he parlayed the players currently in the top-20 to be top-20.

If the tournament plays a fourth round, this is very unlikely to win.

BUT

If the tournament is shortened to 54 holes, this is guaranteed (yes actually guaranteed) to win. So Kante has created a +4930 payout on a yes/no round 4 to be played bet.

Absolutely genius

Just to highlight how good this bet is, the tournament only needs to be shortened to 54 holes 2% of the time for this bet to breakeven.

At the time this bet was placed people were quoting their fairs in the 25%-75% range. CRAZY. But this isn’t even the main reason this bet was genius. Many others made similar bets and had them voided. Enter the villain of this story…

The House Rules!

DraftKings House Rules:

FanDuel House Rules:

TLDR: If you make a bet after the last shot of the tournament is hit, the bet is void. 

In the Pebble Beach Scenario, if you placed a bet after the last shot in Round 3 was hit, your bet would be void. I did this.

And to make matters worse….it was a Clark outright! So bad.

The reason Kante and some other very smart people won their bets is they placed them right before the last shot of round 3 was hit. This was the real differentiator here - knowing the house rules.

Knowing the rules of the markets you are playing is so boring, yet so important. I didn’t know the rules and it could have cost me $1 million in this situation.

What can we learn about “big spots”?

If you take just one thing away from this - it’s how important big spots are. If I had figured out the rules and the proper way to execute on this situation - my entire year would be completely different.

Open your mind to the reality that your year can be made by one situation a year. It’s scary, because 1 is very close to 0. But if you pay attention you will find a few each year that make up the majority of your P&L.

The other takeaway is how much do we bet? On one hand, you want to get paid - I learned this lesson the hard way w/ the DFS site “Units”. I won $35,000 on a big spot - but they didn’t pay because it was likely too much money for them and they are not regulated so they don’t have gaming on their ass.

DraftKings or FanDuel? Worth a big shot - they incur big headaches if they don’t pay out customers.

1. They are very well known - so the press would be all over it
2. They are overseen by regulatory bodies

And….they have fat bankrolls. So they can take the loss and not have it shut them down.

You’re always doing some calculus in these situations. My advice on regulated books is shoot for the moon - try and win almost as big of a number as you can.

If you need to hire a lawyer/ go to gaming, it will be much more worth it for a big number.

Thank you everyone for reading! As many of you know, I am launching a sports betting education community in the upcoming weeks!

Stayed tuned for exclusive offers sent just to the mailing list!

Join the FREE Discord: https://discord.gg/goldenpants

^{_{Longevity in Sports Betting}}

How do you deal with getting limited?"

"The apps have stopped allowing correlated parlays - what do I do?"

"What if my edge goes away?"

These are some of the most common questions that people ask me and that I ask myself. The common perception in the sharp sports betting industry is that you cannot make a living betting on sports. I hear this from sharp bettors, square bettors, bookies etc...

It's not true - but I understand where they are coming from.

The argument from squares and recreational bookies is some variation of "the house always wins". Again - not true but true in 95%+ of cases.

The argument from sharps is that if you win, you will not be allowed to bet - so you can't sustain a living. Not true - but highlights a very real problem.

I write this with the assumption everyone reading this knows you can win money betting on sports. So we will be tackling argument number two - book limits make it impossible to make a living.

TRUE! For 90% of winning bettors

And that's also okay! If you only have a few hours a week to devote to this - you can bet profitably as a side hustle and make life-changing supplemental income.

But if you want to do this full time - you have to solve this problem. And the solution to this problem is switching how you define yourself as a bettor.

What product do you create as a winning sports bettor?

Information.

The solution to your problem is creating the best information product possible and knowing where to market it. Certain "sharp" sportsbooks are buyers of information. A few that will let skilled bettors beat them in exchange for information are:

• Circa Sports

• Pinnacle

• BetCris (aka Bookmaker)

• BetOnline

These markets for your information are open 24/7 and are the easiest way to monetize it. But what's the tradeoff?

It's hard to beat these books - and often the "information" you are selling to square books belongs to these sharp books. The square books don't want to buy that info and they turn you away. So if your "information product" actually belongs to sharp books, you may struggle to sell it.

The medium term solution is selling that information to bettors who can still bet at recreational books. How you sell that info is up to you - just make sure they are controlling the account and clicking the bets in to keep it above board.

Ideally, you would do both. The "pro-bettor setup" would look like this:

1. Easy monetization of info by betting into sharp books

2. Monetize leftover info by selling to other market participants

What kind of info do I need?

You may be realizing that not all edges in sports betting are conducive to this set up. Actually, most aren't - because most low hanging fruit requires split second execution and doesn't win against Circa.

Edges that don't work for this setup:

• ABC Steam Chasing (note, understanding derivative nuance to main market moves would work)

• De-vigging sharp books to bet soft books

These are the main two - and I bet the encompass 90% of bettors. BUT WAIT - even if this is how you make money you can still scale and create longevity.

Remember you are selling info - so teach someone else how to win using these methods and invest in them. Classic poker backing situation - and I recently talked to an ex-poker pro who does this with great success in sports betting.

Or build a product that cuts people's time and effort down and sell that product (OddsJam, SpankOdds etc..)

So you can still make money - you just have to use the right avenue.

Edges that work for the "pro-bettor setup" are:

• Origination

• Finding systematic sportsbook errors

• Excellent market reading skills

You could write a book on all these, and many people have. But these are the information edges that work against sharp books AND aren't so time sensitive that you can sell to other bettors.

I hope this helps you frame what value you are creating as a bettor and how to best monetize it. It's not intuitive - but when you look at your winning bets as "information" you are better able to monetize.

Recently, we have been putting a lot of time and effort into improving the discord. If you are looking for a community of bettors trying to take the Sportsbook’s money, join here: https://discord.gg/goldenpants

Recently some unfortunate anti-sharp measures hit the community - including:

• Underdog slashing limits from $100 to $50

• Correlation getting nerfed at every site

• PrizePicks refusing to even take a bet from anyone skilled

And that's not to mention the uncertainty around legality that hangs over the DFS Pick'em industry. Expect sites to shut down in New York any day now...

But you know what...

That's okay

The DFS Pick'em edges that provided 40%+ ROI were never going to last forever. Explain that you're upset with a 10% ROI to someone who plays major sports betting markets - they will think you're insane.

Will there be another spot like DFS Pick'em where you can have 50%+ ROIs? Idk...

It doesn't really matter. One thing I can tell you is that there will always be opportunities in advantage play for people who are:

• Hardworking

• Curious

• Optimistic in the face of uncertainty

One that has been around for a while is traditional sports betting. If you are currently winning at DFS Pick'em you will be able to make the transition.

I want to highlight three key differences for you when trying to make the transition:

1. Steam chasing is more important than de-vigging

2. There are more operators with their own opinions

3. Live betting is a much bigger opportunit

Let's break each down.

Steam chasing > de-vigging

On Tuesday I released an intro podcast on steam chasing (see below)

Choo-choo! (Intro to Steam Chasing) | Ep 28

open.spotify.com/episode/4NqSMg4psD0FQWYaLZ8PJC?si=FcnGCBrCR4mMb-IabLpRoA

In DFS Pick'em, de-vigging sportsbooks lines to find good opportunities works well. It's easy to automate - whether you use the tools built by OddsJam and DGF, or you want to automate on your own.

It works in DFS Pick'em for two reasons:

1. There is so much EV in correlation that you just need breakeven plays to crush

2. DFS Pick'em doesn't operate as a market - everything is a parlay, trading teams lagging in talent, model is full-blown recreational.

In traditional sports betting, some books welcome action from smart bettors. These are "market making books".

Some examples of market making books are:

• Circa

• BetCris (aka Bookmaker, aka 411)

• Pinnacle (kinda - I am less sold on them)

• BetOnline

A smart bettor (usually an originator) will bet into a number at one of these books - then the book will move the number.

So if you see a spread go from -7 to -8 on Circa, you are lead to believe someone smart bet -7. If -7 is available on DraftKings, you can bet it there.
These are the easiest opportunities in sports betting and they happen all the time. A de-vigging method will miss these as it will assume that the current -8 number at Circa is the "true price". When the smart bettor bet -7, they probably thought the true price was at least -9 though to justify a bet. That's where steam chasing will give you different signals than de-vigging.

De-vigging will often give you false signals in sports betting because it doesn't correctly factor in line movement.

Operators have opinions

PrizePicks doesn't actually have an opinion. They may have the opinion that 90% of their customers bet overs - so they shade lines accordingly. But that's probably it.

In the sports betting space, even a recreational book like DraftKings will have opinions on games.

It's your job as a sports bettor to constantly be updating whose opinions matter most.

Some important factors to consider when ranking sportsbooks:

• The strength of opinion (or "sharpness") will vary by sport at a sportsbook. Don't get trapped into thinking because Book A sucks at NBA, they suck at NHL also. It's a reasonable assumption, but test it periodically.

• Who does the market move towards? You can rely on the market to give you a hint on who the sharpest player is. If you see a market move towards Circa consistently, start paying more attention to their number.

• Personal change - don't get locked into an opinion on a place. If the best basketball trader at a book leaves to go to another book, that will have a big impact on both books basketball opinions. Humans matter in this game and they move around a lot.

Keep a list of who you think is sharp - and evaluate it constantly. This will help you get in ahead of market moves.

Live Betting

In DFS Pick'em, I believe only Underdog and HotStreak offer any type of live betting. Additionally, it's very hard to live bet in DFS Pick'em because you will always be on the lookout for a pair.

Live betting represents a massive opportunity for sportsbooks and they all offer large menus. They offer more than they can effectively keep track of - in the name of customer acquisition. You will find full arbs frequently in the live market - and since you don't have to find a pair, you can quickly bet them before they disappear.

Also, if you have any expertise in the sport, you can find inefficiencies beyond arbs. Models are not advanced enough to judge the likely result of a penalty challenge for example.

When live betting you must be at information par.

This is a phrase coined by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow in their excellent book "Interception". What this means is that you must make sure the sportsbook doesn't have information you don't.

There is a delay in your feed compared to their feed. You can test it by pulling up FanDuel and watching the odds change on a key play. Then time the difference between when the odds move and when you see the play on your TV.

You want to only bet when nothing will happened during this delay. That might be at commercial breaks, timeouts, penalty discussions etc... Just make sure you aren't betting on a hockey game where the puck is on the ice and everyone is skating.

I hope this gave everyone a little fuel for thought on how to approach sports betting if you are mainly in the DFS Pick'em space. Appreciate you for reading.

If you benefited from this - please forward it to a friend who also would enjoy it.

Bet sizing is the most underrated skill in gambling. The best bettors in the world are the ones who know when to size up and when to play it safe.

If you use Quarter-Kelly (QK) for everything you bet, you are leaving money on the table.

But, before we examine why a QK strategy for all bets is lacking, let's talk Kelly Criterion.

Kelly Criterion is THE bet sizing strategy in the industry. No math in these - but what you need to know is the following:

• The goal of Kelly is to grow your bankroll at the highest possible pace without risking going broke

• For Kelly to work, you need to know the true probability of an event happening

• Kelly only operates in a realm of mathematical certainty

If you were to flip a fair coin, and got +110 odds - you could use Full Kelly as long as you are certain that the coin is fair.

And that is the crux of sizing - confidence!

Most people assume that you should only be scaling your bets as your edge increases. And this is true in the mathematically certain world of Kelly.

But the real world provides us with the challenge of never being certain. So we use quarter Kelly because QK sizing protects us against being wrong.

And this is good! We should always default to conservative sizing.

Where I diverge from Kelly though is in which situations I ramp up my sizing. Kelly wants your to ramp your sizing up when your price diverges from the book's price the most.

In theory - excellent

In practice - you go broke

You go broke because Kelly will have you bet the biggest when you are the most wrong. In my experience, showing a 20% edge on something just means I am wrong and I don't know why. In these situations, Kelly tells me to smash in huge bets. Luckily, I have found a much better sizing variable - validation.

Sports betting is a game of best guesses - it's impossible to know the true probability of the Steelers beating the Browns. But that doesn't mean you can't be more confident in one guess than another. Actionable confidence can only come from validation - not your gut.

How do you use confidence to make more money? You scale your Kelly % with your confidence that the edge you are showing is correct.

Some factors that would get you to increase your Kelly %

• Line movement in your direction

• Outlier price

• Agreement w/ other models (your own or other people's)

• Sportsbook is weak at this sport

• You can define your edge and understand what mistake the sportsbook is making

A few examples:

1. You like a bet at -110, and you see the line move from -110 to -120 at a respected sportsbook. Now, if you see -110 somewhere else - not only does your process show it as a bet, but you have market confirmation. Size up!

2. You like a bet at -110, and only one sportsbook is offering -110. Every other book is offering -120+. Even if there isn't line movement, this increases the likelihood you are correct.

3. You realize that a book is mispricing correlation because of some intricacy of the sport - this is a sign to size up.

Knowing when to leave the comfort of quarter Kelly is the skill that has made me the most money. But it took a while, and I am still building that skill. Leaving QK doesn't mean going full-Kelly also (although there are times to). Always air on the side of caution!

My recommendation is to start thinking about how confident you are in a number. How likely are you wrong? How likely are you wrong, but even if you're wrong the bet is still +EV?

Start asking yourself these questions and adjusting your Kelly % accordingly.

Thanks for reading! If you are interested in my other content, it can all be found at https://www.goldenpants.com/

I used to think that sports bettors came in three flavors with a clear pecking order:

1. Pros

2. Semi-pros

3. Recreationals

My gambling career has resided in the first two bullets: semi-pro & pro. Right now I am a pro. When I say I am a "pro" - I mean that sports betting pays my bills. I would have defined "semi-pro" as someone who creates some income sports betting. And finally, a recreational is a category that I placed all losing bettors.

But then I started to poke holes in my definitions...

Billy Walters, the best to ever place a bet, made money from other businesses. Does this mean Billy wasn't a "pro"? Billy could have supported himself without betting - so was he recreational or a semi-pro? And because I don't have another business I am a pro?

Take this a step further - does this discourage me from starting another business? Because then I am not a "true pro" eating what I kill from the sports betting jungle.

Considering these definitions lead me to question what the goal of sports betting is. Is there even a pecking order that the pros sit on top of?

And I remembered an observation I made during my poker days!

Yes - stay with me for a brief poker story. I used to play in a live 5/5 cash game at the Sugar House Casino in Philly. The game played deeper (PLO) - and the average buy-in was about $2k. In poker this isn't considered a "big" game - but it's big if you aren't trying to make a living from cards.

At the game, there were three buckets of people.

• Winning players: The majority of this bucket was poker pros. Some winning players had jobs - most played cards full time.

• "Shit Regs": It's hard to explain shit regs...they aren't winning players and they don't seem to have jobs. They come and go.

• Recreational Players: These were people with established careers who were here for fun. You have to do pretty well in your career to be able to lose $2k+ in a night of poker - so the recreational players were successful.

I remember losing a big hand in a very unlucky matter to this rich dentist who played in the game. The hand hurt a lot - and I remember being pretty mad after. I usually wasn't mad when I lost to recreational players, but I was jealous of this dentist.

I remember thinking..."Wow, he is just here to have fun. Winning or losing that pot has no real impact on his finances (hopefully)."

Whereas, losing a big pot like that was harmful to my finances. My emotions and ego were tied to the results of hands like that. And yet, I would still place myself ahead of the dentist in my mental pecking order. I was the pro and he was the "rec".

I started to see recreational players and semi-pros in a new light. They had this life outside of poker that fulfilled them AND they got to play the same game I was playing. And they got have fun doing it? It all seemed impossible to me.

So I changed how I viewed the purpose of gambling

Now when I consider how sports betting fits into my life, I don't see it as solely a monetary engine. It also is:

• Something I enjoy

• A way for me to work remotely and live in the area I want to live in

• How I broke free of the standard corporate path - and gained freedom & time

• A community

When I think about sports betting/poker as just a way to make money, I do it a disservice. Because the goal shouldn't be just to make money - if that were the goal I would still be in investment banking. I love sports betting because I can make ENOUGH money, and check the more important boxes.

And I realized goals are personal!

My goal is probably not your goal. I know a lot of people who read this are building a strong second income stream with sports betting.

That's awesome!

If you don't need the second income, but sports betting fulfills your problem solving itch - that's great too.

My definition of success has changed. I used to believe the person that made the most money, or had the best model was the most successful. Not anymore. Now I believe the following:

The most successful sports bettor is someone who gets sports betting to fuel their dream life.

Thank you everyone for reading! If this was interesting to you, check out some of my other free content available at https://www.goldenpants.com/

Recently I had started talking to more sports bettors who have started to make real money gambling. As someone who has been an "Advantage Player" for 14 years - these conversations have me reflecting on my career.

One question pops out to me:

“What early career mistakes will I never make again?”

Many mistakes I will repeat (hopefully with decreasing frequency) over time. But the big changes that stuck were mindset changes. I wanted to highlight 3 mindset mistakes I made early in my career that I have since eliminated.

Eliminating these mistakes has made a bigger difference than any one gambling tip/trick I have ever received.

Let’s dive in:

Mistake #1: I Didn't Set My Goals High Enough

A good gambler can create a side-hustle that helps them achieve financial goals.

A bad gambler can lose their house.

But a legendary gambler can achieve freedom (financial and personal).

Don’t get it confused: a reliable second income is good, but it’s far from what makes the most difference.

Once I became a winning gambler - I took my foot off the gas and was happy to make a moderate amount of money. I would win money, take a break, need money, get stressed, win money... It was a terrible loop and didn't allow me to build a life.

It also didn't allow me to leverage my skill gambling because I never built a bankroll. Gambling is an amazing skill because it can compound your money. But to compound your money it turns out you need to have money. I didn't - and it meant I had to play for someone else and give them a % of my profits for far too long.

I only recently started playing my own money (last three years). And the reason I did was I knew it was the only way to create a sustainable life from gambling. My mindset shifted first from "I am happy being a winning player" to "I need to use this skill to create the life I want".

After this mindset shift, things started to naturally fall into place.

Mistake #2: I Had Shiny Object Syndrome

Until you’ve burnt your edge into the ground, don’t take your eye off the ball.

"When it gets easy is when you go hard"
- Alex Hormozi

I think about this quote daily because it reminds me to make money. You think making money would be an obvious goal of a professional gambler - but you would be wrong (at least in my case).

Over my career, I have had a lot of fun finding edges.

Finding an edge is like finding hidden treasure

It's exhilarating! You feel like Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Oceans 11 - you've found a way to extract money from a casino. And finding an edge is the most intellectually challenging part of sports betting. But I would argue that executing the edge is more of a character test.

The number of times I switched formats in poker right after I became a legitimate winner is embarrassing. I suffered from "Shiny Object Syndrome" - aka always trying to pursue something new and exiting.

My poker coach was the exact opposite - he played the same format of poker for years. He played every day, he reviewed every day and he improved every day.

He was a pro.

I was an amateur.

I was a great player (mainly because of his tutelage) but I had nothing to show for it. Being a great player isn't enough - you have to become a pro. You really start winning at gambling when you can come in every day and do the boring stuff.

Now I would say we (me and my partner: Damedolla) live by a 80/20 rule.

80% of the time we spend executing on our "fastball"

20% of the time we spend on R&D

This is optimal for us - but earlier in my career I would argue 95/5 is even better, because building your bankroll so you can play your own money is so important.

Mistake #3: Thinking My Edge Will Last Forever

We all tend to think current circumstances will last in perpetuity.

When applied to gambling:

We all think we have unlimited opportunity to exercise the edge we found(and project our earnings accordingly).

We all think we are immune to the market adapting, the sportsbooks learning and the rules changing.

But the truth is, we’re not.

Know that edge finding is the skill that you will be able to constantly leverage and improve.

It's scary to acknowledge that your edge won't last forever. When you acknowledge this you also acknowledge:

• You can't accurately project your future earnings (impossible anyway)

• You will have to change in the future to remain a professional gambler

• Learning is always going to be a requirement of this career (is this even bad?)

I still have moments of existential dread when considering that all the edges I have today I probably won't have in a couple of years. But I used to "solve" this problem by not thinking about it - not acknowledging it. This caused me massive anxiety because I wasn't living in reality.

Now I accept the fact that edges disappear. This allows me to align my decisions with reality. This means that:

• I am more conservative with spending money - this helps protect me from potential periods where I don't even have an edge

• I allocate time to R&D - this creates a systematic way to preempt the inevitable loss of current edge

• I share edges with other bettors - sharing is caring. Often when I share edges, they offer edges they are seeing in return. I used to be really secretive, but I got so much out of networking and adding value to other sharp bettors

Anxiety around losing your edge will always exist. Mitigate it by facing the fear head on. Take the steps you can to best deal with this reality of ever-changing markets.

I hope some people reading this can learn from my mistakes. If you got something from this newsletter - please give it a share.

If you are reading this and haven't subscribed - please do. The more people I know are reading this, the more incentive I will have to push these to be better and better.

If you want to join my (free discord), listen to my podcast or learn more about what I am doing - check out https://www.goldenpants.com/

Thanks for reading!