90 Degrees | Episode #31 Going 1-on-1 With Woj & How To Beat Information Based Markets
Hey, na, wie geht's dir?
Ich hab schon wieder Urlaub.
Oh nein, wie lang denn?
Zwei Wochen.
Komm, ey, das geht schneller vorbei als du denkst.
Ja, hoffentlich.
Du willst auch ein Job, den du liebst, dann kommt zur Lufthansa-Grupe.
Über 50 Ausbildungsberufe von IT über Technik bis zum Cockpit.
Fly-Bake auf Lufthansa-Grupe und Curious.
Hey, it's G-Stack George on the 90-Degrees-Podcast
und wir haben nicht sehr viel skiing gemacht.
Wir habeChat ja prima!
Deutsch eine Annal색ung dieses Lieds und die Zeitballsenss' preferences
auch für Azrael und Hatika, auf denen in heute Abend eine Meinend-Degrees-Podcast ist.
Wir ausgewählten die meisten, künftige foreignersuzpЬ,
wo wir sich bereits reingegangen werden.
linelligwent auswählte Kevin,
Kevin ist quandiert aus dem
Systember Simone,
Der Name ist Drew Dinsick, Co-host der Deep-Dive Podcast und Analyst für NBC Sports Edge.
Drew, danke für joining.
Hey, thank you for having me.
It's an honor to be the first interview by G-Stack, Georgian,
on this, you know, what has been a very enjoyable stream.
Always, always, always love when, you know, kind of intelligent new gambling content.
It's the podcast feed, because honestly, like, it feels like a totally different world
compared to, like, back in the day when, you know, everybody who was talking about gambling
was either running a scam or, like, just obviously didn't have skin in the game
or just didn't know what they were talking about.
So I'm hugely thankful that there are more people, you know, with, you know, with reputable,
you know, kind of backgrounds starting to get into this and appreciate you guys inviting me.
Yeah, back in the day where Stu Feiner and Brandon Lang were yelling,
we're gonna rip your books all off.
I am part of the educational wave of content creators in this space.
Drew, I want to tell you, I discovered who you were by accident.
A few years ago, I'm watching YouTube, I'm watching Captain Jack's series
and he's interviewing legendary gambler, uh, dink.
And I had, I had, they made reference that dink was played by Bruce Willis
if those that didn't know in the movie lay the favorite.
So I'm like, oh, this is unbelievable.
I've seen this movie before.
So I go on Twitter and I guess I'm typing dink and sports betting and Drew Dinsik pops up
and I'm like, oh, that's great.
I found him, followed him and took me about four months until your first video went on.
I'm like, it's a lot younger now.
He's reversed gauged and then I finally put together that you're two different people.
I got to meet Dink.
He was a, he was just a delightful person, like truly like a, just a golden heart.
And really, you know, sad to sad that he passed, but he lived life well.
And you know, if I can, if I can have as much enjoyment in life as he,
you know, got out of it, then I'll be doing well.
I got to connect with Dink before he passed.
And we shared a love of sports betting and wrestling.
And he was a gentleman the whole way through Drew.
I want to talk about the start of your, you know, life in sports betting.
How, like, how quickly did you get into sports betting?
How young were you?
In college, opened a first account sophomore year.
Guy, who's a couple years older than me, was betting college basketball pretty heavily.
We were playing darts and he was like, he wouldn't shut up about how long Beach State was, you know, underrated, books didn't understand.
They were going to kill Pepperdine.
They shouldn't be three point dogs.
And I was like, all right, man, like, what is going on here?
Like, what are you doing?
How are you doing this?
Tell me how it's done.
And, you know, opened up a sportsbook.com account at the time.
And loaded up 100 bucks for my debit card.
And Long Beach State won out right now.
And I was like, God, this is easy.
Oh my gosh.
I, you know, you just need to know someone who knows the answer key.
And you just fire, fire, fire away.
And, you know, it's, it, that was in 2000, I want to say.
So it's now 23 years later, still doing it.
And, you know, it's, it was, it's been a fun journey.
But, you know, I mean, I was, I was a absolute fish in the, in the pool.
For many, many, many, many years.
And then, you know, it's kind of graduated from sportsbook.com
to Wessex back in the day.
I don't know if you've heard stories about them, but they kind of,
they were the first ones to really kind of offer exotic, interesting things.
Like, you know, you could buy live contracts, which were, you know,
with the kind of the precursor to today's live betting.
And, and that was just an absolute ton of fun.
But ultimately, I think it was around,
the time that, you know, Bush really cracked down on, on, on offshore poker stuff.
That I felt like, this is a suckers game.
I've lost a lot of money doing this.
Even if I win money, I'm probably not ever going to get it out of here.
So at that point, I just sat and said, okay, well, I'll focus on career building at this point.
You know, never had a bookie.
Never really had any paperhead accounts or anything like that.
It just kind of went away from, you know, got away from it.
It just kind of went away from, you know, got away from it.
And just playing fantasy and focusing on professional, being a professional.
And, and then that all kind of changed in a, in a instant when, you know,
the, you got stability in the offshore space with the likes of the, you know,
the Bavadas and the five dimes and the better minds of the world.
Where you're like, oh, wait, actually, you can get money on and off here.
They're not going to seize this.
This is a, has like a whiff of legality to it.
So our stability, I guess, is probably a better word.
So at that point, I started playing more and that was probably in like the 2014 range.
And again, I was still, still fish was in, you know, uploading up my account to bet football every September.
And if I made it to the end of the season, then I would dunk it away on college basketball.
If I made it to the end of the college basketball season, I would dunk it away on baseball and then reload again in September.
And that was kind of the rinse and repeat there for three, four years before I got pretty serious about this.
What, what was the moment where you figured out what you're doing and you're not chasing away and dunking it off.
And, you know, Sunday night comes and you got $823 in your account.
So it all goes on the game, even if you didn't love it.
What was the moment you're like, okay, I kind of know what I'm doing here.
Well, I think I went through a span where I lost 23 or 24 bets in a row.
And that sounds impossible to say it out loud.
But I thought it was correlated.
Like I would play first half team total game on a college football side and they'd all lose.
Did that like, you know, had one kind of general, it was all like in a week.
And I was like, this, I can't keep doing this.
This isn't good for my mental health. That was a miserable person around my friends and, and, you know, wife.
And I was like, I got a, I got to find a better way to do this.
And I did exactly what you said.
I think on Monday night football, it was Redskins Cowboys.
Colt McCoy was quarterback.
I remember all of us.
And the Redskins were dogs, big dogs like eight, ten points maybe.
Total was pretty high.
And I was like, you know what?
This is probably my last bet.
Colt McCoy and his live.
I've been parlay, you know, Redskins win with the total going under and put the entire rest of my count.
And I was like, this loses like I'm completely walking away.
And if it wins, and I'm going to like find a better way to do this.
And it won it.
I was like, okay.
Well, I got to, I got to like find some resources.
I got to read about what I'm, what am I doing wrong?
Like, you know, I hadn't even, I hadn't even considered like, how do you make your own number?
Like I was literally betting with my gut.
Like, you know, this doesn't feel right.
These guys are playing great.
This price, you know, this looks wrong.
Like it was all qualitative bullshit.
And I definitely kind of came out of that.
Like, okay, a renewed purpose of like, I got to get serious about this.
I'm not going to have another one of these losing streaks again.
And I'm going to see if I can get good at this.
And I am still very much learning, I think, I think of it at least.
And, you know, the entirety of that point forward, everything I've done involved in the gambling space has been an effort to try to network, learn more, get more information, become a better player.
And I think that's sort of the process that everyone goes through.
Once you get to the level where you're doing this, you know, at a high enough level to be taking it seriously.
Well, you mentioned the media space.
And I want to talk about how you consume the media space.
But first I want to talk about you getting into being a media personality.
When does that happen?
Is that something you wanted to do early on before it happened?
Or did you kind of just fall into it?
Yeah, a little bit of both.
The, you have conversations with your friends when you're, you know, the power balls of billion dollars.
Like, how many tickets are we buying?
You know, okay, we're definitely winning this.
What are you going to do with your share of the winnings?
You know, already, you know, you talk, talking around.
It's like, well, if I won the power ball, I'd get quit my job for sure.
And I'd get into sports talk radio.
Like, yeah, that was like, that was what I would do, what I would do.
So like in the back of my head, it was something I always, you know, it was interested in doing just because I like, just enjoy the format.
I like having conversations.
I like talking, you know, about sports more than I like talking about anything else.
And, you know, then it was random kind of a Labor Day weekend.
We were driving, driving with my wife out from Denver Airport up to the mountains to go do our, you know, traditional annual October Fest at Beaver Creek Village, which is up by Vale.
And we were listening to Bill Simmons, cousin Sal, talking about, you know, win totals and just previewing the NFL season.
And I'm going on, on like, these guys don't know what they're talking about.
They're not even using the right length.
Lingo, like, they're not betting.
Like, they don't, or if they are, they're absolute idiots.
Like, I'm, so, you know, I had been taking things seriously for a good year and a half, maybe two years, built up a decent following on Twitter, just posting my numbers.
And, you know, my wife was like, oh, you think you could do better than these guys? Then why don't you do it?
And I was like, oh, I guess I'm getting into the podcast game.
And, you know, I figured, well, we'll see how hard this is.
We'll start putting episodes up and see if anyone listens.
And the response we got from the first episode we posted was like overwhelming.
I was like, and I don't, I don't even know if SoundCloud was juicing the counts or whatever.
But I was like, this can't be real.
Like, this many people, let's just really like, they care, like, wow.
And the actual, like, kind of comments and feedback we got back was like, oh, this is, this is cool.
This is for real.
We should actually try to see how we can grow this.
And, you know, it was a hobby at first.
And then, you know, one day you wake up and you're like getting calls and offers where it's like, oh, this could actually now be, you know, a professional endeavor.
Let's go for it.
And it was like, so it's kind of in the back my head that I always wanted to do this.
But the actual kind of throwing our hat in the ring and then how it's grown to this point.
And, you know, being able to do this on behalf of NBC is all stuff that I don't think I would have ever dreamed of.
We'll be started.
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Yeah, I love that it you really hits a hit close to home for me because I'm listening to expert gamblers.
I believe some of them are very good at betting, but they're explaining rules of like preseason overtime in the NFL.
And I'm just like, no, that this, that's not a thing like you're not accurately saying anything right now.
And they're giving you an edge based on a false proposition.
And I'm like, I've had enough of it.
I think we need more positive voices that are very educated in the space.
And I said, you know what, I'm just going to build myself a studio and start doing stuff slowly and surely.
I want to talk about listening to media because I over consume especially during the football season.
And it's not, it's not so much about like, oh, what's this guy on? What's this guy on?
I just want to refine my process.
Sometimes the best tidbits I get are from shows that are not even about betting.
Just there's really smart guys in the football space.
They don't understand the betting aspect, but they understand the football aspect.
A lot of what I do is through matchup handicapping.
Do you do that? Do you consume media during football season?
I know some people who say, no, I'd prefer to just block it all out so I don't bias my opinion.
I consume as much as I possibly can.
I don't overweight like listening to other people break things down.
But it is a huge, huge element of my process for sure.
There are different categories of people I will listen to.
There are people who I know have skin in the game.
We're going to move markets who are going to, you know, our friends on the matchbook pod.
I want to know before we get to that part of the week where they're leaning,
what are they going to be doing?
Because I know the markets are going to react to that.
And so there's a segment of media I'll consume where I'm trying to just get a sense of market sentiment.
There's a, and then there's sort of what you're alluding to, which is the, you know,
the athletic football shows, the media kind show, the ringer.
You have been so I can, you know, like there's those guys who are kind of breaking it down outside of the,
you know, outside of the veil of gambling.
And they absolutely have nuggets that are applicable to applying to a matchup handicapped,
to a qualitative layer that you want to add onto your numbers.
And, and, you know, they, there's no way that I'm ever going to get to the point where I can crunch crush film
and tell you this is what matters based on the film analysis.
But I think it's a good, you know, it's a good shortcut to listen to people who do
and kind of specifically try to glean their takeaways and weave it into your process in some way.
So yeah, this is, that's a football is the easiest to do that with because there's pretty clear obvious blue chips,
sort of avenues of content.
Basketball similarly, there's true blue, you know, Nate Duncan and, you know, the dunked on pod,
you know, that like they will explain it to you, you want to know, they will tell you, you know.
And, you know, you, if you can kind of take that information, Zach Low, you know,
shake that information, we've been into your MBA handicap.
You're going to absolutely, you know, be rewarded for it in my opinion.
I, I'm going to get some flat gear because I'm going to compare myself to the US president for a quick second.
I'm like in the way that, you know, they'll get all their top advisors in the room and, and get,
all right, what's your opinion, what's your take?
And then it's up to him to make the drill down assessment and what they need to do.
I'm a very good aggregator of information.
So I find the more I consume, I can drill down what I believe is an accurate representation of all the data.
That's always been one of my strengths in life.
So that's where the analogy comparing myself to the president is, is that I'm not the best at creating my own original ideas,
but I know how to expand on ideas and which ideas actually have promise or not.
I love that.
And I think the among the many very valuable tricks that I've learned is the ability to kind of diffuse responsibility for certain things to a network of people who you can trust.
And then, you know, basically say, okay, I expect to get this information, you know, injuries, great example.
Like, I'm not on the beat for the bears.
I'm not in the locker room.
You know, I can't kind of gauge, you know, kind of the nuances of, you know, how a guy is dealing with the twisted angle or whatever.
But, you know, I know exactly who to look for to provide information on that sort of stuff.
And so if you can kind of disseminate your responsibilities for the various things that matter most and then, you know, kind of bring them back together into a, you know, kind of an overall handicap.
And I think you're doing it right.
All right.
I've talked to many people in the sports betting space.
Some of them is just all about the money.
Others, there's part of the validation of the process and being right.
What is the more, what's the most satisfying bet for you like that, that you win?
Like, I'll give you an example of like you get the opening line.
It closes a lot further, but the people who bet the clothes didn't beat the market, but you did.
Like, that's the, all right.
You had a market.
I was right.
And just the, you know, those small 5% of examples were I won because I was, I was early enough on the market.
Is there a type of bet that you make that gives you like rewards you even more than the money itself?
Without question.
And it is.
If the money part of it for me is always going to be a little bit different than I think a lot of other professional players, because I don't rely on this for income.
Almost everything that I'm making sports betting, I'm immediately turning it out out in, you know, spending it on a Croatian vacation or, you know,
buying, you know, trying to save up by a boat or, you know, a vacation house, right?
Like, it's literally luxury money for me.
So I ultimately don't ever see kind of life changing money being possible.
Maybe it is, but I, you know, I think realistically, if I'm like trying to hit eight figure type of turn, turn around in a year, it's not going to be coming from sports betting.
It's coming from some other avenue, right?
And so even seven figures probably not.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, if I continue to get better at NFL, that could hit that kind of a number a year or win like a, you know, a circuit contest or something like that.
Like that's not crazy, but that's aspirational.
But the skin in the game from being a public figure saying, you know, the Super Bowl prices wrong.
My homes should be the favorite.
Like you do two weeks of media talking up that sort of stuff.
And when in your right, it's amazing.
And when you're wrong, it sucks.
It sucks, it sucks, it sucks.
It's like an exponential factor on, you know, right or wrong.
And you can be right about the context in every way.
And variants can still sting you.
And nobody cares.
But you can, you can tell yourself that.
And you can be dead wrong and still get a winner.
And the people are patting on the back and you're like, uh, thanks.
Yes, but you know, it's just, you know, there's, there's a lot of complicating factors.
But I guess the best, best day I've had recently sports betting wise was last Friday.
I'm joking, which played Carlos Alchoraz at the French Open for two weeks.
Everybody that asked me, I told them, I thought joke, which should be favored for the title because of path.
I thought that was a coin flip match.
He shouldn't be a dog.
He went, he opened plus 160 close plus 170.
So the market was against me every which way.
But I stuck to my guns and I was like, Joker is going to win.
He's going to win.
He's going to win.
He's got the experience, got the experience.
Und ich glaube, das war natürlich der Reason,
weil er das Wichter hat,
du know, das ist nur because of his ability
to, you know, navigate best of five tennis
und being right about that
was as good as winning money on that match
and winning money on him, winning the title.
Like, maybe better,
because people kind of, you know,
you kind of build up long-term credibility
being right in the biggest moments.
Ja, if you're doing media, right?
You know, like,
there's a weird,
there's kind of two things that I feel like
I've learned doing media.
Number one is,
you can,
you know, whether you're being a 1,000,000 percent
transparent, saying your record,
saying recapping aggressively.
Like, no one really cares about that
at the end of the day,
as long as like you are being 100 percent
honest that you are actually betting it, right?
Like, if I have a great season or a terrible season,
whether I'm out there banging my chest
or groveling and saying,
I'm sorry, does not matter,
as long as I'm actually doing it, right?
That's my opinion, at least that day
and at least the relationship I have with our audience,
I think.
And, you know,
the emotional swings of having a great week,
having a terrible week,
having a great season,
having a terrible season,
being right in the biggest game,
being wrong in the biggest game,
like all of those things are part of building
a kind of a very authentic brand, I think.
And so the actual record keeping for,
at least at my level,
I don't think matters as much as the authenticity does.
And so the,
and the,
but the things people will definitely remember
is that guy went on every show
and every freaking podcast for two weeks
and hammered the table about Joe Kovic
and sheer shit, he was right.
And like that kind of stuff
is like the sea building in terms of your,
you know, people's opinion of your opinion.
And, you know,
so those, those things matter more for sure.
Like, if,
if,
you know,
if Bradbury intercepts Pat Malms in the end zone,
instead of getting that flag
in the Super Bowl and the Eagles win.
Yeah.
And, you know, in the Chiefs lose.
Like, without question,
people are like, oh, that guy, man, he was so sure
that Chiefs were going to win.
And, you know, it, like,
and that's not lost on me at all.
And like, I will tell you
with sincerity beyond belief
that the Eagles played a 95th percentile game.
Outside of that penalty,
outside of the Fumble by Jalen Hertz,
that was as good as they ever probably could have done.
And yet, it was still, it was still the Chiefs.
And to me, that tells me
that the handicapping that I was doing was correct,
even though you got a 50th percentile type of game out
of the Chiefs and a 95th percentile game out of the Eagles.
And it still didn't matter, right?
But nobody, nobody's going to listen to that.
Nobody cares.
You were wrong.
In the eyes of a lot of the consumers of the video.
So, you know, it's, it's a,
the big stuff is stupid as it is.
And as, as often as you get to like an NBA finals this year.
And I was like, the market's right.
There's no bet to have to be out here.
Like, but still, like, people expect you
to kind of provide context, provide commentary.
Give them a bet.
And, you know, that, that type of stuff is, is tough,
but it ends up mattering.
So you got to be sharp in those moments
or you lose credibility, I think,
at least with your average consumer
for the type of stuff we do.
I'm glad you led me this way
because when I asked a question,
I had a pathway to a conversation I wanted to have.
For myself, it's also when I'm bucking the sharp market.
It was better to be lined up with the sharp market,
but whenever you can say, no, I'm off market,
but I believe I'm right.
And for me, that team last year was the Bengals.
I often had to bet them at close
just because the market refused to believe
that they were as good as they were.
You had a big moment last year.
Right now, it's the week of the NBA draft.
You have a huge moment.
I am, I am attached to this not because I bet it
because I'm an Orlando Magic fan.
So for those that didn't know,
Jabari Smith was talked about to Orlando
as if it was a certainty and priced that way.
And for about a week or two before
the market started to steam towards
Paolo Bankero going first overall.
And the morning of Wojge, so Adrian Wojgenowski,
he is the Adam Schaefter of basketball.
Those are the two biggest insiders in sports today.
He comes on and he says, nope, it's still Jabari Smith
first overall.
And then Drew puts his balls on the table,
does a media and says,
Wojge's wrong, it's Paolo Bankero.
Because after Wojge's tweet,
the market's re-steamed back to Jabari Smith
and you could have got another
tight at the Apple with Paolo Bankero.
That was a big risky move by you to basically say,
I'm right in this legendary basketball insiders wrong.
Can you describe that for those that didn't know
and how you felt during that week?
That was the, you're giving me chills
to try and remember that week, man.
That was most ridiculous, ridiculous week.
Man, and the funny, the people will assume
that I had the goods,
like I had the inside information
and that that was why I was willing to do that sort of
kind of stump, I did not have it.
I did not have it.
There are 500 screenshots on my phone
of me going back and forth between the different groups
and telegrams and DMs of like hearing this,
getting this and getting this, like what is happening?
Like, you know, what is going on here?
And it was 100% just a flat out handicap
that the market was wrong.
The only inside stuff that we had is we had connections
to his camp because his camp was pretty big.
A lot of you coaches, a lot of people at Auburn
that were willing to talk.
And they gave us the sincere impression
from just honestly like, didn't go great with the magic.
Like it was bad, it was a bad, you know, a bad meeting.
And this was not even really private.
You know, there was public reports
that it didn't go great with your barry.
And so, you know, I didn't really realize
how much liquidity was in the NBA draft market.
So I assumed it was nothing.
I assumed it was going to be tough to get a bet down of size.
And I wanted to be, but the prices for Bankero
this time relative to the draft.
So this Friday, before the Father's Day weekend,
before the NBA draft, the following week was when
we kind of cooked up the betting strategy for this,
which was, it doesn't look good for Jabari.
Chip Holmgren had some medical red flags that were obvious.
And like the reports on the Friday
before were that his team was specifically
withholding medical information from the magic.
And so it was literally like, this market is wrong.
Bankero should not be 20 to 1.
What do we do about this?
And it turns out that the number one overall pick market
was pretty deep from a liquidity standpoint.
They would write pretty big bets,
particularly at the legal shops.
And we want to pay for tickets because it was big numbers.
And the idea when we first got down was literally like,
let's just corner the price on this.
We'll use our influence to try to like,
you know, steam the market one way or the other.
And then, you know, we'll buy out
or we'll buy some Smith that lower prices
and we'll just kind of neutral, you know, our,
our, this thing because 21 is crazy.
And Mike, the guy that was helping me do all this
who's really well connected.
He sent in messages to all of the movers he knows
to get paper tickets.
Nobody's getting back to him.
I'm like, we were trying to get,
we were trying to get 5K down at 20 to 1.
That was the goal.
And we got no responses back on Sunday
because it was Father's Day to everybody had their phones off.
And so it was like Sunday night, he's like,
man, I tried everything, I'm sorry,
but I don't think we're going to get it.
I'm like, you know, I'm like crushed
because there's no off show.
I can't click any buttons myself.
I'm just like, you know, I'm like,
I'm bet on mine to take $100.
And then you're locked out.
Bookmaker didn't even have the market open
or if they did, it was already beat down a little bit.
So I was like, I was just depressed.
And then Monday, yeah, I get like a 5 a.m.
like emergency call and he's like,
everybody got back to me,
they all had their phones off cause of Father's Day
and we got a lot more than we were looking for on this.
And so then it was like, oh shit, like what do we do now?
Like this is going to be a, you know,
this is now this is real.
Like this is real.
Like we got to figure out a way to kind of leverage,
you know, we got to find a way to kind of balance,
you know, shed our shed some risk.
Like, you know, how do we even do that?
Now somebody that we had moving for us was,
I don't even know who, but somebody was blabby.
Or and or like saw over, was overheard or like got,
you know, somebody over the other side of the counter
was like, hey, I wrote a ticket for a lot on Bank Hero 21
and so did all these other guy, you know, like,
so like word spread enough that other people
were kind of behind us on this for sure.
Yeah.
And the price crashed on Sunday night Monday morning.
And you know, at that point, it was literally,
we didn't even have to do anything to like,
try to, you know, change sentiment in the market.
Yeah.
And, you know, we use some other interesting ways
to let, you know, we put feelers out there
for on some exchanges to take the risk off for us, right?
At the new prices.
And, you know, we were just kind of waiting
and we're like, the minute that those go,
somebody with the goods who does know is, you know,
the only reason that you would take those bets
at those prices if you actually had the nuts.
Yeah.
And somebody took them on Wednesday night
and we were like, game over.
That's it.
Like this, it is, it actually is Bank Hero.
Like, we got this.
Like, this is good.
And then Thursday morning, like, I don't know,
texted my friend, Gil on Visa and I'm like,
okay, yeah, you want to do a little NBA draft?
Thursday morning, do you do a little, you know,
victory tour on Palo?
Like, this will be fun.
And then Wojge, five minutes before we went on air,
was like, still Jabari.
And I'm like, I'm like, no way somebody took those bets
off from us if they didn't have actual insight information,
but it was still just speculative.
Like, we didn't have somebody in the war room
saying we've made our decision.
If we didn't have anyone in Bankeros,
Bankeros camp didn't know until they freaking said it.
Like, it was all just a total surprise.
And that whole day, I had bookmaker open
watching that market because they were taking
1,000 a click on Bank Hero at like a three to four,
three to one, four to one type of price.
And it's just like, it just waiting for it to go.
Waiting for it to go, waiting for it to go.
Like, you could have gotten 10 clicks in
before they took the market down.
Like, just like somebody take this, go, like, make it go.
And it never happened all day.
Like, I can tell you, I got zero work done that week.
Only on my phone, texting friends and watching
the bookmaker price try to be hoping for it to go.
And then our before-woage tweets, change of plans,
whatever we tweeted, Bankeros in consideration.
And the once-woage capitulated, that was like,
click it as hard as you can, market's gone.
And then you're like, it's over, like, it's over.
We were, I can't fucking believe we were right.
Like, it was, it was surreal.
That was the best, best experience I've ever had
from a betting standpoint.
Most stressed week, though.
And you can't bottle that adrenaline that you put on.
Oh, no, no, no.
I want to talk about.
No, absolutely, cool.
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I want to talk about information markets,
because obviously we attack them differently
than something where you're handicapping
and you're using your own numbers.
How much of it is you looking at a situation,
identifying like team need, fit with player
and mispriced outcomes versus you getting the tap
on the shoulder and saying, hey, I've got it
on good authority that this is happening.
How, like, what's the spread there?
Is it mostly you connecting the dots
or is it someone outright telling you, here's what's happening?
Yeah, the, I'm pretty networking
is enormously important.
No, do you know that that was a huge lesson
from that draft.
It's a huge lesson from every draft cycle.
Like the more good smart people you know,
the more access you have to huge liquidity
in these pools, the more information is going to find you.
For the most part, my assumption is that,
that there's not a lot of,
these people who do have the goods,
some of them sure are like greedy
and trying to get something for it
and they're gonna try to sell it.
What's this worth, right?
Like, I'm sure, yeah, I've never bartered
in that sort of space because it's just gross.
And, but at the same time, like, you know,
there are really good professional gamblers
that I know that are well connected to agents,
well connected to teams, coaches, you name it.
And they'll get information, they will.
And when it comes to draft markets,
that's all that matters.
You know, like, there's some problem solving
like the palo stuff like that.
But that was still, that was still information based, right?
It was just where were you looking?
Who were you listening to?
What did you, how were you qualifying
the information that was coming in?
Because, you know, you get a wage tweet
that says it's still Jabari.
If you have 100% weight on wage's opinion,
then that's all the information that matters.
But if you have a different set of weights,
then, you know, you're gonna have a different read on that.
And, but yeah, when it comes to just literally information
that's not public, it's really tough
to get meaningful liquidity on stuff like that.
Yeah, I discovered through the NFL draft this year
is there's so much information and most of it is junk
and there's some really good stuff.
And I said, now we're gonna have to start charting
all the experts in the field
and who had a good info and who was fed crap through an agent
because with the NFL, there was a lot of misinformation
and a lot of different guys steamed at different moments,
especially with a second overall pick.
Yeah, yeah, no, oh yeah, without question.
I still don't really know what happened there.
Like, the stuff that we had was from solid gold people
and information and it was all just not close
to what ultimately transpired.
And I mean, the way that the market reacted
to this current NFL draft cycle,
particularly on the day of,
it didn't really seem like anyone really knew
that Stroud was an option
because you could have gotten some massive prices
at big old clicks at bookbaker all day long
on Stroud and Yobu.
I have to one like up to two hours before the draft.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't until that last 40-minute stretch
where all the info came flying in
and if you were lucky enough to have some slow moving PPHs,
you could still clean up a little bit.
Yeah, and I did not at all.
It was a losing draft for me,
which is almost inexcusable.
Like the idea of losing money on an information.
Yeah.
It's kind of like, it's pretty fucking embarrassing.
Honestly, you should not be, you know,
betting information markets and losing.
But, and I got, honestly, I got lucky
because we, I had a good read on the Levis
not being the Colts number one option for whatever reason.
It was like, it just didn't,
like the stuff that was out there
it was all kind of, didn't really check out
and Erse obviously had his hands on
and he was doing stuff that implied he wanted Richardson.
So, yeah, when the owner's doing stuff,
you pay attention, you know,
because he's ultimately the guy
that's really making the decision on the quarterback draft.
And so, yeah, and it ended up getting a good chunk
of Richardson under four and a half
for like three or one, yes.
Yeah, I went to war with somebody
because I would bet that triple click it at bookmaker
and then it would go right back.
Like, wow, like, huh, like so somebody was very sure
I was wrong now, but that actually allowed
to, you know, kind of get a pretty good coverage there.
And that I covered most of my absurd,
terrible bets that I made on Levis
like under four and a half,
I weighed big prices on that.
Usually kind of philosophically
when it comes to draft stuff,
like I'm not weighing prices for the most part
unless it's something that I think is like 90,
it's lined 90 and it should be 99.
Like, I'll bet I'll lay that stuff,
but usually at the death, right?
Like right at the close, I'll go bananas on that stuff
just to get liquidity into the market for a small return.
But I made some terrible decisions
about laying juice early in the cycle this time.
And I mean, the way that the way that the Texans
conducted their entire process
and ultimately their decision making
and what they did on draft day,
spoke, they might have made their decision
40 minutes before when the market went.
Yeah, they caused.
It might have been the owner's wife.
You know, who does that all know?
Like, I honestly don't know who made that pick or why.
We had, we had really good info
on the draft board for the Texans
that did not have strut as their number two quarterback.
And they take a number two.
So there was some really, really bizarre stuff
about that whole process.
What was your read ultimately?
So I was also part of that Will Levis steam early on.
And then it just like listen,
I still think CJ Stroud was the best quarterback
in the draft, but I'm trying to square away
my opinion of the versus the information I'm getting.
And like Stroud was, there was three bets
that really saved my draft because what I gathered
from a lot of people was this draft was humble pie.
We've been clear for years
and this was the first time the bookmaker
was able to land a shot back.
And I got the information fast enough,
had enough outs, slow moving PPH's to attack on Stroud.
The most crucial thing that for me was,
for a few weeks before the draft,
I was on the Anthony Richardson.
He was actually three and a half.
You can actually get,
you got him pretty close to like minus one 10.
So at that point, it's, I'm locked into that position.
I get to tap around the shoulder like around maybe three
o'clock that day that hey,
the cults are going to take Anthony Richardson.
Unless by some miracle Bryce Young falls there,
he is their guy.
He always has been their guy.
And then you start connecting the dots.
You're like, okay, she ain't stiking in Philadelphia.
You had a similar quarterback
with a similar skill set in Jalen Hertz.
And you're able to get in a pretty good position there.
But man, I thought the Houston Texans
really threw a wrench into the plans
and it didn't help that two of the best known Houston
insiders were on different opinions.
They ended up both being wrong in John McLean,
who frankly, he's been great for Houston,
but the last few years he hasn't been accurate
with his information.
And the gentleman on the NFL network.
Yeah, Lancer line.
Lancer line, like he started the whole edge rusher at number two.
And I'm sure part of them trading up for Will Anderson
was, hey, we were considering him at number two.
So I thought that uncertainty really created
an interesting dynamic in the NFL draft this year.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think you're right about they landed a punch
in terms of the books one,
which makes it even more inexcusable
that they're not putting up NBA draft props anywhere
for decent liquidity.
I blame, I blame, like, that only me.
Brut, in, no, NBA liquidity in the draft.
And I think the stuff that has come across sometimes
that's info based for draft props,
if it's not related to, if it's not,
like, the only stuff that I think you can say,
I can run with this to market is literally like
the team that is picking first has made their decision
and this is who it is.
Like, if you have that in hand, go fucking crazy.
Otherwise, you've got to be a little bit problem-solvy
because you have to kind of build out
probability distributions of,
well, what if, Bryce Young doesn't go first, right?
Like, well, what if, you know, this,
you know, what if this trade happens?
What if this, you know, like, you know,
maybe it's a small probability
and maybe you're willing to, you know,
live with the chances of those things happening,
but, you know, you got to do some problem-solving
no matter how good your info is in the draft cycle.
Similarly with, you know, injury information, right?
Like, last year NFL preseason was fascinating, right?
Like, we had good boots in the ground at Box Camp
and Brady disappeared, right?
Yeah.
And the immediate reaction from the coaches was what?
Like, they did not know what was going on.
Like, 100% certainty.
Like, I can tell you, like true blue,
like good information.
They did not expect that he was going to leave.
And so at that point, it was literally like, hmm.
Is he retiring?
Is something, you know, there was a lot of speculative stuff.
And, you know, within, yeah, 24 hours later,
bulls out there, like, yeah, no, we knew it was gonna be,
you know, we knew he had some things to take care of,
he's gonna leave and it was like, they're,
they're now they're lying.
Oh, like, like, what is, like, what is happening?
Like, this is crazy.
Like, there's something, you know,
there's something afoot here.
And, you know, it's still not obvious,
what do you do with that information, right?
And, you know, there's a lot of ways and things you can,
you know, try to make good with that.
But, you know, there's any kind of information
is always a piece of the puzzle.
And I think at the end of the day,
you're really just, in any kind of information market betting,
at the end of the day, you're hoping you have
one more piece than the market broadly.
Yeah.
The puzzle is a little more obvious to you
than it is to everybody else.
I saw the, I noticed in the NFL season,
like, I follow, like, 200 beatwriters,
like, six, seven per team.
Sure.
And it was San Fran and the Raiders,
the second last week of the season.
And just an obscure Raiders beatwriter types out,
hey, you know, Derek Carr's contract's guaranteed
if he gets injured.
Raiders are, you know, they're out of the playoffs now.
And then you start to connect the dots,
you're like,
there's no, there's no playoff opportunity.
There's a injury risk.
And frankly, they, it's clear that they're done with him.
And they may even want to drop a couple positions
in the draft.
And it's, you, you get on San Fran there,
you get it, you know, it lost because who knew
that Jared Siddham was incredible quarterback
who covered the original number.
But a lot of the times is you're, you know,
you're jumping ahead.
You're, you're making sense of the information.
Sure.
And then,
By the time it hits big news the next day,
like there was a whole day where I had that information
and I was able to get down before anybody reacted.
And that's just connecting the dots
cause it's one beat writer speculated.
You didn't even have information.
He was just thinking out loud.
And, while that makes a lot of sense,
I kind of like that theory.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
The most common, there was good.
There was a lot around information last year.
people who were certain that the broken ribs suffered by Justin Herbert
Matt, he was going to miss that Jacksonville game.
Yeah, they were sure.
And he played.
He played poorly, so it didn't matter.
Ultimately.
That they were wrong.
But they were wrong.
Yeah, lung crashed hard.
That was incredible.
And Christians Tuesday, and it went seven and a half to three.
Within, like, less than three minutes.
It was incredible.
I remember that.
Yeah.
And it was wrong.
He played shit.
Aber ich bin still kicking myself on that one,
because rather than just be a good soldier and take the Jags,
I got frisky and parliate every Jags price I grabbed with under.
Trying to be a smart ass and sure enough,
the Chargers run defense,
completely no showed in the fourth quarter
and gave up some nasty touchdown to James Robinson
who didn't even finish with the team.
Anyway, maybe I'm misremembert,
but we're on the same level.
Herbert was playing for no reason.
There's this weird thing about Stanley.
Trying to handicap when he's going to pull his starters
is not a thing about us.
Last year, I had a correlated parlay and he did Denver to close
and I'm just sweating the whole game.
This guy's not going to take out his starters.
This is unbelievable.
But the two biggest regular season results I had to the good.
One was the under week one, Bucks Cowboys.
That was an enormous liquid market.
I don't think I've ever seen a liquid at all
that wasn't a playoff game or a Super Bowl or whatever.
There was a lot of people that were willing to take bets there.
Basically, that was my angle on Brady missing training camp
or being away from training camp for surprise reasons,
was that he was going to be rusty in the offensive line injuries
and all that followed by.
The other one was the Cowboys Eagles, Chris Maseef.
Yes.
That one was fascinating because, again,
this was not inside information.
There was no whispers of hurts wasn't going to play.
There was literally just one of our friends
who was going through the tape on Monday morning.
It was like, did you see this hit to hurts?
And his shoulder got freaking driven.
Late in the game, they didn't throw another pass.
We were like, oh, I already had an appetite to bet the Cowboys
because I was holding a massive position on Ciriani coach of the year
and the only thing that in my mind that could screw that up was
them losing to the Cowboys.
I was already ready to go bet the Cowboys in that game anyway.
The number was pretty obviously...
Just right around pick him, Ish, Cowboys maybe like one.
And you look, you hear hurts, maybe injured, right?
It does not matter if he's going to play or not.
If he lands on the injury report with the throwing shoulder injury,
you know what's going to happen.
The market is going to react violently to that information, violently.
And if the Cowboys are at home and they're under a field goal,
it does not take a rocket scientist to know that the minute
that injury report hits the wire, that the numbers go on over three.
And that's incredibly valuable if you can capture a three
in that time of the season.
You just don't get bets like that.
Yeah.
And so there was pretty...
It was a minute you were like, I wanted to bet this anyway.
It's going to go across three when the injury report hit the wire.
And he might not play.
This might be a gardener-mitching game, which point maybe this...
Where does it even stop?
Does it go to six?
Oh, yeah, this could really get away.
And so it was easy, easy, easy call.
He has much early week betting down on the Cowboys as possible at those sub-three.
Anything less than three was a bet.
And then, yeah, it did turn out he was badly enough hurt that he wasn't going to play.
I can't remember when that became public.
I think that was late-ish in the week that it was like...
They were like, he's definitely out.
It was not like doubtful.
It was like, he's out.
This is a mitchy game.
And I forget where the inflection point was,
but knowing that you could capture three and kind of like...
Yeah, I know.
She's not that bad of a quarterback.
How much is he really?
That whole discussion has been over.
That all made it very, very easy and obvious,
because don't really trust McCarthy.
Don't really trust the Cowboys.
They burned me enough in the past.
Burmese specifically in the game against the Vikings the year prior, I feel like.
They had done it.
They had pressed up in play.
Yeah.
And then they won.
I'm running the Vikings.
That's green.
I don't think he won anyways.
I don't remember the game.
There's been some weird, there's been some weird Cowboys stuff anywhere.
And you know, I've been on the wrong side of enough close calls.
Maybe even that season, last season, I've been on the side of, you know,
enough close calls that I was like, you know, it's Christmas.
I don't want to be stressing on Christmas Eve about Cowboys.
So I'm going to take the Eagles sixes or whatever and hope the slants three.
Sure.
And it...
That's a really good number.
Yeah.
And I think it landed three in a pretty ridiculous way.
I don't even remember the game, but it was a Christmas miracle that Cowboys pulled off
the defensive stop at the end to make sure that they won that game by three.
That was great.
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You know, you talked about information and I remember a moment last year as well.
It was the third last week of the year and the Titans played the chargers.
And Tannenhill gets a high ankle sprain ends up, uh, they ended up losing the game.
And there was this interesting dynamic where Titans didn't need to win any other game.
This, that season, except the final game of the year against Jacksonville.
They almost had two dead games that were meaningless.
And the line opens seven and a half and I'm like, no, Tannenhill heard his ankle.
He finished the game, which was incredible.
And he looked awful finishing the game.
They scored seven points total at that moment.
I don't even need to go through my handicap and process.
I'm like, this numbers off.
And there's no way Tannenhill's going to play against Houston in a meaningless game.
That game ends up closing two and a half.
And that's just purely an informational play.
I don't want to talk about your process.
There's good advantages with the information you bet NBA NFL and tennis.
You have the same process for all three.
Are you originating your numbers?
Do you observe the markets?
Are you handicapping, uh, how the matchups play against each other?
Yeah, they are three very different handicaps.
Um, the own, the reason I gravitated there for those three sports in particular
has nothing to do with similarity of the handicap.
It is entirely based on just the calendar, like tennis and NFL are complimentary
because the tennis season kind of gets going as the NFL is winding down.
And it ends at us open as NFL starting back up.
NBA is kind of in the mix there.
Fine.
It's not, it's at a, it's at a, it starts at a decent time where the edges and the NFL,
in my opinion, get a little narrower.
You're doing a little more coin flipping than a little less.
You get less, you have an injury, unless you haven't, you know, like, you know,
basically wherever you were right, wherever the market was wrong,
at the start of a season on a prior, that's been sharpened by October.
So I don't mind dedicating a little time to the NBA at that point.
Um, but the processes for the three sports are completely different.
The market in the NFL matters so, so, so, so much more than the other two sports
because it's so much more liquid and because the market cycle itself is so dynamic
and different things happen at different times during the weekend.
Like you almost need to be more market literate than you need to know anything
about the sport of football.
I, my opinion, to really be successful at betting the NFL, um, matchups, of course,
matter, situational stuff matters, the number, whatever number you come up with
in my opinion for an NFL game, uh, it ought to have, it ought to be my, again,
my processes come up with a fair price that's quantitatively based and then add
qualitative layers to it.
And if you want to take those qualitative layers you have and actually quantify
them, fine, go, go, go wild.
It's sometimes you're dealing with small sample size problems.
So I don't really think it's worth it in the NFL.
I think you just have to kind of accept the fact that better off just building
a probability distribution in your head and go for it.
Don't like spend the time to build out a numerical, um, you know, a numerical
process in my opinion.
Other people probably think that's ridiculous than they're laughing at me,
but that's fine.
Um, so quant, I come up with a, you know, come up with a number,
add the quantitative layer to it and then, then time the market.
And that's, that's the best name in the game in the NFL.
NBA is almost purely quant, very little qualitative layer.
Everything I do in the NBA is quantified.
I'm literally just punching, execute.
What are the fairs?
Okay, let's go about them.
Like I'm, I'm, I'm no, I'm grinding a tiny edge
inside over the balance of a season.
And I'm just trying to keep my head above water, right?
Like there's, there's, uh, you know, whereas I would, where I would say NFL
is 60, 40 qualitative NBA is 95, 5 quantitative.
And tennis is a little bit kind of split the middle there.
It's mostly quantitative, but there are definitely qualitative aspects related
to kind of form that you can only really get if you or one of your friends
is watching the matches, right?
Like there's, there's an eyeball test that matters more in my opinion for tennis
than for the other two sports.
Like I don't think you need to watch football to be able to win betting it.
You definitely do not need to be able to watch that.
You don't need to watch basketball to win.
I know that for sure.
If you like basketball, you, you enjoy it, go for it.
But I don't even think that I test matters a ton,
other than random, small stuff like injuries and form, you know, specific
being able to eye test how a player is being utilized in a system,
whether it's working or not, that matters playoffs.
It definitely matters.
Eye test and NBA is so funny because the regular season is so quantitative
and then it's all vibes in the playoffs.
It's just like flips on its head.
It's so weird.
But the, um, uh, the process for, uh, for tennis, you need an eye on players.
To be able to tell about what's going on.
What are you looking for?
Are you looking for how tired they were the match before and how they struggled
in certain situations?
Because it's one, because it's one on one, because there's no team aspect, injury
and form, kitten, they picked off by eye more so than it can be by any, by any
number or by any data, right?
You're literally looking for just being at, you're looking for, you, you're
using the eye test for, I've seen this player play on the surface before.
They're doing something different.
They're doing something that makes that looks injured.
This, you know, you can pick up some things numerically, like,
this guy's first serve is down from 160 to 130.
Like, that's a problem.
Like, you can pick up some quantitative stuff.
I, if you really have good data, but tennis data is pretty hard to come by
other than tennis abstract.
Um, and, uh, but you, but eye on form matters a ton, especially because, like,
and I, I think why I, what, what it comes down to is it's, it's one on one.
So the actual, you know, what's going on with that player in any given moment?
It matters so much that I think that, that, that kind of aspect is, is pretty
important, but, um, you know, there, there are probably good examples.
You could point out in the NFL where you're like, if I wasn't watching that game,
I wouldn't have seen this and I wouldn't know.
Sure, but I think overall, uh, I tend to compartmentalize when I'm watching
NFL and not get too caught up in mental model reactionary stuff from what I'm
seeing on, on the film or on, on a broadcast, because, you know,
broadcast, you're not even seeing all the players.
You're just watching the quarterback.
It also helps that the NFL, like, information is so readily available.
Oh, sure.
Like, all you have to do is like scroll through Twitter for 10 minutes,
and you've got your fill on information that's flying out there.
So you say tennis is a lot of like eye test and one on one.
To me, that's what boxing is.
And when I, yeah, the data doesn't matter.
I don't care that he's got a 25% offense rate.
At that moment, it's styles make fights.
Um, how do they match up against each other?
Common opponents, how do they look against them?
And you start to create factors like that when you're pursuing,
when you're going to bet in boxing, so I'm guessing tennis is a bit like that.
Absolutely without question.
One last question futures.
It's a, it's one of those you either love futures or you hate them.
And I know some pros hate them.
They don't want to tie up their money.
They don't want to, they want to be able to roll their money over daily.
Um, I happen to like it.
I think it's, uh, it's a two-parter.
It, it's an opportunity to make money.
But it's also, you create an emotional attachment to a team and you're
basically managing a stock position, right?
It's not immediate.
You know, if you've won or lost that week, you're, you're, you're, you're watching
where the price is going and how it shapes up and, and you're trying to determine
how long do I ride?
Or is there an opportunity to get out, make some money and be happy about it?
Do you like playing futures?
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, it's, you brought up all the key points, I think, uh, but for the most part,
um, you know, there's still a gambler in me at the end of the day.
And winning a 30-to-1 is awesome.
And you can't do that on game-by-game betting, right?
Like, I'm not a robot.
I'm, I probably have some, you know, some, them on the spectrum in some ways.
I'm sure, but I definitely don't, uh, I'd like to, you know, to, to get a big
price home and awards markets are kind of the name of the game in that regard.
Um, they're, you know, the, the futures for championship equity are a little less
dynamic.
So they're a little less fun.
They're a little less, you're a little less able to really, uh, get an edge out
there, um, as far as I can tell you.
Um, but the, um, the awards markets are volatile.
The volatility is, e is awesome.
It's awesome.
It makes it for a fun handicap.
It makes it for, you know, the, the, the disagreements, they're, you know,
the disagreements between books is fun, right?
You can still price shop in awards markets, um, and, uh, you know,
and you can, you can craft and use unique ways with basically your opinion and just
the time, the time aspect of it is pretty, pretty unique for NFL futures.
Like you can figure out pretty readily, which, you know, what, what teams,
what players the market has appetite for and, uh, look at their schedule
first four weeks and decide, man, if they go three and one or four, no,
these prices are going to get nuked.
And, yeah, you know, at the end of the day is the best bet on the board,
probably Pat Mom's MVP.
Sure.
Is the best price you're going to get this moment?
Probably not.
Like almost certainly there's going to be a, a good chunk of the season where
people, like, you know, human nature is what it is.
People can't help themselves.
There's going to be debates about is, you know, is bro better than my homes.
Is what Josh Allen bet when my homes was a topic for like the chunks of last
season and ultimately, yeah, ultimately is like people can't help themselves.
They're going to find ways to, you know, shape those MVP, MVP market.
I, like, I'm not going to bet my homes six plus six if even though it's a good bet,
because I feel like you're going to be able to get it at a better number at some point
this year unless they go one defeated out of the stretch and they're eight,
no, and it's just as, you know, it's just a foregone conclusion.
But, you know, that even that I, I don't mind missing out on because, like,
if he's, if they're, if they're just destroying out of the gate and everybody's,
like, oh, this is decided mid season.
Like that, that doesn't always hold up.
No, there's other guys, yeah, especially because it's almost like the last thing you
did is what people remember.
Of course.
And if you see like a prime time stack of games in the last three weeks for a team
and a guy's in the hunt, oftentimes if you do it with, with the most eyeballs on
you, it can really shift the markets.
No, no question.
So I think, you know, market timing and it's a, it's just a fun, fun game.
It's a fun puzzle.
Uh, it's better.
It's, it's better than, you know, hitting execute on an MBA side.
Fire and metal.
I'll tell you that much.
Uh, yeah.
We all have the one future that we remember.
Sure.
When I say that, what's the one that, what, and it's not even always the most money.
Sometimes it's just the one you're the most connected to.
Yeah.
What was the one future for you?
Yeah.
So this goes back to my, we can close, close the loop here.
My sportsbook.com account, uh, after I won my $100 on Long Beach State, uh,
this was in December, I had completely bought into the Patriots,
were a team of destiny.
Uh, and, uh, I guess this was,
it must have been 2001 then, right?
Cause this was right after 9-11 that they won the Super Bowl for the first time in
Serams.
I don't entirely remember the timing, but I can tell you without with, with,
with perfect clarity of mind that the end of that season, I was bought into the
hype that the Patriots were the team of destiny.
They were going to win the Super Bowl, Tom Brady.
And, uh, I took my $200 whatever and put it on Patriots at 20 to 1 or something.
And, um, it, uh, it was a wild ride with the stock roll game and the game against
the Steelers where Brady was heard and then ultimately a Super Bowl where
there were 12 point dogs or whatever it was.
And, uh, and at one and, uh, at paid for me to be able to go to Kankoon on
spring break.
And, uh, I got the, I got my, uh, I got my, uh, check in the mail from what
was like a Chinese holding company that, that had, it looked like the most
fraudulist scam of all time.
Yeah.
And it had, it literally had tire tracks like, they, like,
somebody had gone to the trouble of putting it on the ground and driving over it in
the hopes that it would never be cashed or something.
And I get it in the mail and I, like, literally I walked into the bank after,
like, you know, I'm waiting for, like, the manager to come around and be like,
son, come with me.
And I'm like, I really want to go on spring break, man.
I'm like, please cash this.
Like I can't, I've already, I've already committed to tickets on this chart
playing like a, please, uh, and, uh, yeah.
So that was clearly the most memorable future I've ever had.
And, uh, I, you know, I don't think I've hit actually a, a super long shot,
uh, super bowl winner since then, actually.
Now that I think about it, you, you said, uh, it felt like they were a team of
Destiny.
This is so for my favorite future wall pan.
Well, I win a small future, uh, the year the Patriots go undefeated.
I basically took the notion, because the market was, I was,
it, they were like 24 point favorites against the Baltimore Ravens with
Raid Lewis, who always play everyone tight, market decided.
This is the team.
And I'm like, let me just fade them.
Let me just pick three teams that I believe can beat them.
I ended up taking one of the teams was the Giants.
And it was all based on that week 17 game that neither team needed to win,
but they played it down to the wire.
If you remember, it was a field goal game.
So the Giants, during the playoffs at like 35 to one because they were the
wild card team.
So I win that play and two years later, I'm at a stag and I win a prize.
It's an Eli Manning jersey.
And if you two years after that, the Giants win again.
And I remember there was a story of a baseball batter who bet the St. Louis
Cardinals at 999 to one with like, well, it was a legendary story.
You, if you, if you Google ESPN, St. Louis Cardinals, they were like 20
games out of the division with like two and a half months to go.
And he goes, and he puts a thousand dollars on it.
He's just, he, he became a millionaire because they were 999 to one.
I saw this and I said, man, I would love to one time in my life make over 30 K on a bet.
So the Giants are entering that year 35 to one and I end up putting a thousand
dollars on the Giants.
And I just kept having this belief.
I'm like, it was very similar to it.
Did you Google the St. Louis Cardinals?
Yeah, you saw, you see it, right?
Yeah, I can't even ever heard this story.
It's inspired me to, because I go, it wasn't about, I just said, I want to win over $30,000.
I was a number in my head at this point.
I'm not a pro gambler.
I still do all the things wrong.
So I end up, I said, you know, this Giants team is similar to when they want it.
They got the good pass rush.
They got decent offensive weapons.
Let me bet them the season goes on.
There's another opportunity to take another stab at 50 to one.
And then finally, it's December 11th.
I remember to this day.
So this is week 15 and they're a game out of the division.
So they're being priced like having no chance and they wouldn't make the playoff.
It was if it wasn't for winning the division.
That's how bad their record was.
But they happen to be playing the Dallas Cowboys that evening.
So it's 72 to one.
And I said, let me just put one hundred more dollars.
I've gone this far, but let me go one more time.
They end up beating the Dallas Cowboys and everyone can Google this stuff.
It was like week 15 Sunday night of the end up beating the Dallas Cowboys.
They get into the playoff race.
I remember everything.
I remember against Atlanta Falcons holding them to two points.
I remember they beat the Packers with a half time Hail Mary to Keen Nix.
I remember Victor Cruz, salsaing all season.
I remember the game against the 49ers in the NSC Championship game.
And I remember them winning the Super Bowl against the Patriots again.
And the common thread was, man, it's fate.
And the funny thing was there was a legendary local book in Toronto at the time.
It was called Platinum Sportsbook.
And these guys used to throw Super Bowl parties.
It was very well known, ended up being rated a couple of years later and shut down.
And I became known as the dumb kid on the Danforth
who had $50,000 in futures on the Giants and did not want to hedge.
So when they won, I wasn't even sure if I was going to get paid.
I ended up going with my cousin to meet up with this book.
And I'm like, we got to meet in the public space because I'm terrified.
I like, I've never been handed 50K in cash.
I don't believe this is going to happen.
So when you say fate, that was the one driving thread for me the whole way.
Is this is state I won on the Giants four years ago.
I won the Jersey at a stag.
And I saw the St. Louis Cardinals bet that year and said,
I want to make at least 30,000.
That was my only goal that year.
Incredible.
Wow.
Well, and you know, I think the underlying lesson here is that you don't get to this point
without survivor ship bias.
Yeah.
Colt McCoy loses to the Cowboys.
I probably, I'm like gambling for suckers.
Never again.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Drew.
I want to thank you, man.
You're such a great guest.
And you know what?
From my first episode, I knew I wanted to reach out to you.
So I'm really thankful.
Of course.
This is a ton of fun and best luck.
And I can't wait to hear who you guys line up next because very, very much
enjoy this feed.
All right.
That's it for me.
My first episode is the host of the 90 degrees podcast.
There's some thanks I'd like to give before we go to my guest, Drew Dinsett, cohost of
the Deep Dive podcast, an analyst for NBC Sports Edge.
I want to thank Alex Moreto, Rob Zola, Johnny, the whole betting, hammer betting network
team.
And of course, my right hand man behind the scenes, my producer Jason Cooper.
I want you to like the content, subscribe, share, comment, even if it's positive or negative.
I appreciate the engagement.
It helps to get this content in front of as many people as possible.
We'll be back next week with another guest on the 90 degrees podcast where we give
an inside look into the sports betting industry.
That's it for me.
Hope you enjoyed.
Until next time.