On this week's episode of Circles Off, we're joined by a very special guest, Jeff Ma of the Bet the Process podcast
We'll join us to discuss a bunch of things including his
Coming up in the blackjack space how that translated into sports betting the current state of Twitter
Data-driven decision-making tons of stuff all that and more this week's episode of Circles Off starts now
Welcome to Circles Off episode number one ten right here on the hammer betting
Network before I introduce my co-host we preach honesty transparency integrity big brand values for us here at the hammer betting network
We do have a guest on today that we pre-recorded an interview with before there were some technical difficulties with that interview
We're trying to bring you as close to one hundred percent of it as possible
Mishmash of a bunch of different stuff. You'll notice our guests is wearing different clothes throughout the interview as well
We think we got it down, but apologies for the inconvenience should be as close
To a perfect representation of that interview as possible, but things happen in the recording business
We had some sort of power surge that basically blew up our computer
Twice to specifically for the audio should be good. That's that's all that's important audio is good if you're listening on audio
Rob is all joined by Johnny from Betstamp number 10 today is also producer Zach's birthday
Which as Rob just mentioned what a brutal birthday?
but happy 25th
To Zach Zach Phil hammer betting networks own respect brother. Sorry. You guys do actually work to
Not only is it a brutal birthday because of the recording issues
But there was actually something else that was celebrated in the office today which was a friend's
An employees friend getting engaged which was nothing which is a nothing which we all did a shot for I didn't I
Was not there. I would not let this happen
But it's Zach's birthday did not have a celebratory shot poor guy number 10. We've got first off absolute
I always say leafs legends guys not even really a leafs legend Gary volks just a leaf back in the day Gary Volk
We've also got a big soccer number as Rob knows you you got a list of all the guys a ton of soccer players
Well, I mean 10 it 10 is like the number that you're the best player wears number 10 in soccer Leo Messy 10
Pele
Maradona
Zinedine Zedan run Aldinho my boy Francesco Tauti who once spit in someone's face wasn't a very kind act on the phrase about that stuff behind the plate
We had the man whose stance mirrored a metronome Gary Sheffield and
Will said we have number 10. It's got to be a couple other. There's I mean
I'm not gonna call this guy a legend
I would actually call him the opposite of a legend, but Eli Manning war number 10
Eli Manning Hall of Fame debate. I've had it probably about three dozen times in my life
So I'm not gonna get into this one more time, but Eli Manning that guy ends up in the all of pro football Hall of Fame
It's an absolute abomination a joke. They should burn that building to the ground
Eli Manning was never
Ever an elite quarterback for most of his career. He wasn't even above average quarterback
There's no way Eli Manning belongs in the Hall of Fame DeAndre Hopkins Tyree kill these guys were in number 10
Some day they'll probably be in the pro football Hall of Fame because guess what they're elite players at the top of their game
Eli Manning as much as I like him post football. It's pretty funny guy like you never what I never would have expected that
His play on the field does not dictate Hall of Fame and
Speaking of Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame sports book right here in Ontario. I love what you did there. It's a very nice segue
pinnacle is the world's sharpest sports book available to betters in Ontario find out what pro betters have known for decades
pinnacle is where the best betters play
Must be 19 plus of course, please play responsibly cannot preach that enough not available to betters in the United States
I
Mentioned our guest our aforementioned guest and with that, let's start the process
We now welcome in this week's guest here on circles off. He's the former VP of Microsoft for startups
He's the XVP of analytics for Twitter as well, and he's the co-host of the bet the process podcast which we highly encourage that you check out
Follow him on Twitter as well at Jeff Ma Jeff Ma steps up and in on circles off. How's it going Jeff?
It's great. Thanks for having me a lot of formers, which I think means I can't hold a job
So that's that's tough, but whatever. Well, that's not it's not necessarily a bad thing
I was told this a long time ago. I think if you're trying to maximize your like career earnings and stuff like that
You want to actually be jumping from job to job and not consistently hold something down
You might know more about that than me. I'm not a you know business expert or anything like that
But that's what I was once told a long time ago
Well, I think there's a lot to be said and there's there's a book that I talk about a lot called range, which is by David Epstein
And it's all about specialized versus generalized learning and sort of like the tiger woobens versus Roger Federer's story
Where tigers dad had him play golf and only golf from a really young age and Roger Federer's mom was the opposite
Basically had him do lots of things besides tennis until a certain age
And I'm a big fan of generalized learning and one of the ways you get generalized learning is to go and do a lot of different things in your career
I think I did it mostly because I had no idea what I could do or wanted to do and I didn't have a very linear path
And I just got lucky
I think in that I got a lot of opportunities to learn a lot of different things
And so yeah, now I'm a big fan of one of things I've noticed when I was at Microsoft
He kind of noticed that there's a lot more people at Microsoft that spend many many years there because for a long time
Compared to Silicon Valley there weren't a lot of opportunities to jump around whereas in Silicon Valley
If you're somewhere for more than four years, it's pretty it's pretty unique right people move a lot
And so
You do notice it in that I think the transfer of knowledge from one company to the next is really important right like because ultimately
You want to work with you know like people talk about diversity and diversity goals
Like one of the most recent most important reasons for diversity in a team
Is that you want to have people that think differently that have different backgrounds that attack problems differently
And that's like one of the biggest reasons for diversity. It's not just about
You know doing the right thing or affirmative action. It's about bringing in
People with diverse backgrounds to solve diverse problems
Absolutely. It's really interesting and well put
Jeff
I'm very familiar with you. I've been on your podcast several times met you in person obviously
But there's gonna be a lot of people listening and watching to this watching this that aren't as familiar with you
And your personal background in your story and how particularly you got involved in the sports betting space
And I know you've been through a ton
So I'm gonna ask you to just kind of like boil it down
But what was kind of your first experience in sports betting and give us a little bit of that personal background that led to it
Yeah, I mean I um
I graduated from my tea um and was doing sort of like the beginnings of the blackjack stuff
So I think some of you guys have seen the movie 21 on her read the book brain on the house like that's my origin story, right?
I um
Started playing blackjack as a card counter
Um and really in my senior year at MIT and so
When I was and I kind of mentioned this really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life
I was supposed to go to medical school like meeting my parents really wanted me to go
I was a mechanical engineering degree major at MIT graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering
That I've never used in my life
But also had
Medical school applications out and was had took the MCATs
And then right before my senior year, I was basically like I don't want to go to medical
I don't want to go to more years of school. I don't want to be a doctor
and so
My senior year was kind of an exploration of what I wanted to do and you know at the same time
I was like learning this blackjack stuff
And so there was this natural um, you know draw
At that time, so I graduated from college in 1994. There was a natural draw to go towards
Either consulting or banking or finance, right? And finance was a natural thing
For me especially like in those days there was a lot of people going into trading
Right, and they were going on to floor trading and options trading because option trading was all about probability
And all about like using you know data to modeling. It's like early days of modeling
Like options were all priced on volatility and all priced on sort of like basic math
You know like the Jeff Yass who was the Susquehanna
Trader that we had on on bet the process
But also was the huge sports better. There's a natural parallel between the two of them and when I went to
um
Chicago I was on the Chicago board of options exchange right on the floor trading
All of the people down there sports bet and all the people down there were were were degenerates in many ways
And so one of the first experiences I ever had
Was just it was incredible. We they they would offer these futures
On NCA basketball where the team that won
Was worth I think 64 dollars the team every other team was worth zero
And that you would trade teams
Based on a very simple market of 64 versus zero and I was doing this
When I was you know 21 years old when I graduated
Trading college basketball teams back and forth on a you know unregulated un
You know, there was no clearing house or anything like that
But you were like trading with other traders and other clerks. That was a clerk
I wasn't a full-time trader other clerks on there and that sort of what got me into it and then a couple of my friends
um, you know at that time had bookies and so they you know
They were they were probably the gateway into sports betting
All right, so now evolution as a sports better
We asked it to every single person, but what what what are you predominantly wagering on nowadays?
So walk us through what you started with
You said you graduated in 1994
Quite a ways ago, but walk through the evolution as a sports better for you and and how you would class
Classify yourself as a better nowadays because we interview a lot of people some of them consider themselves sharp
Some are semi-sharp some just say that they're wrecked better as they like to bet
How do you classify yourself as a better and what do you predominantly wager on nowadays?
Yeah, I mean, I've gone through kind of an evolution sort of I
Um, I think there was a time where I was very recreational
There have been times when I've been
very sharp
And you know for me because it's never like people ask me or aren't you a professional and I'm not because I have a job
Like I don't it would never call myself the same as as you know a rufus because rufus is
You know rufus if he doesn't win is gonna you know nothing fall back on right so
I
Wouldn't I would say that I'm now I certainly enjoy
The recreational piece of it right like watching a game where
There is no edge, but I do have a fair amount of
You know old school like I want an edge and everything like I you know like if I lose
Something where I knew that I didn't have an edge going forward. It does it does sort of like
Drive me crazy
Um, and you know like things that there's markets. I think that are still
Somewhat beatable. I don't personally really
originate much myself. I work with people these days
To do stuff and if I have someone or or talk to someone that I think has a reasonable approach or reasonable
You know model. I I'm certainly open to like helping work with them on you know getting down or
improving what they're doing
So, you know college football tucking halves those types of things
College basketball things that are you know NFL
It's kind of hard to not bet on NFL at some level
NBA did not do very much at all
Haven't done much there recently at all
Baseball dabbled in it a little this year again
And you know baseball is a challenging thing to bet on it's like one of the if you bet
Volume baseball the variant the the the um
Ups and downs throughout a season
Can kill you. It's it's a pretty tough one to bet on and sort of have revisited the that this year for the first time in
In many years um, so it's been an interesting experience to go through
Yeah, so before we get on to we want to ask you a little bit more about like the data analytics and stuff like that and how you got up
But 21 is honestly one of my favorite movies
and a lot of my friends
It's their favorite movie as well
So I was wondering actually if we can ask you some questions about the story and the origins
I feel like we buried the lead here. We have Jeff Ma of course the MIT blackjack team
So for those of you who don't know the movie
This is a film I guess I'll pull up when it came out
But this is a film with Kevin Spacey we still say that I think so
Kevin Spacey came out in 2008 what it's about is a team of people at MIT
Who essentially and again, this is the movie so we're going to verify that this is the real life story as well
But they and I've watched this movie at least 10 times
They form a team to go to Vegas travel to Vegas from MIT and beat blackjack and count cards
and statistically that and stake wagers and then beat
Basically beat Vegas for what appears to be in the movie hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars
And then near the end they do get caught in the movie
Takes into the back room gets beat up a little
But it ends up working out
Guy ends up getting the mechanical engineering scholarship and the movies
Phenomenal movie highly recommend it
So after on the on the YouTube video, I'll have to put a spoiler alert up
Put a spoiler alert up
Before for those of you who don't know Jeff is not only part of the team
He is actually the main character in the movie is based on Jeff
So what we have to ask you is
First off, how true is the movie first real life that's what I got to know first and foremost
You know, it's funny because people ask that a lot right and the movie was based on a book
The book was called bringing it on the house was written by Ben Meserick
The origin story of all of that is in 2001
I approached Ben who was a friend at the time. I mean he'd written six books
But it's fair to say his career was kind of in the shitter and he was contemplating not being a writer anymore
had business school applications out
And I approached him and I said hey Ben, I got an idea for your next book
And he says what is it and I said well me and my body is from my tea
We use math to beat the casinos and we go to Vegas and win lots of money
He's kind of like
You know, I do. I don't think I know a lot to read a book about a bunch of MIT nerds
And then we took him with us to Vegas like I don't know a couple months later
And he was like oh my god. This is so cool. We should write a book about this
And so we pitched his publisher and his publisher was actually similarly skeptical
of the idea and so
We didn't listen to her and we she gave Ben a small advance to write this book and Ben and I went through this process of
Him doing research during the day and then me telling him stories for three to four hours
At each night for I don't know a few weeks
And we produced brain on the house
Um, so brain on the house and this gets to your your story
It was a probably about 75% true. He took a lot of the stories that I told him
And weave them into a narrative weave them into a thing with a plot
But did a lot of what is this sort of new
Style that he created which is called narrative in his mind called narrative nonfiction. So
Ben has a really strong ability to take a true story and
Create like sensationalism around the right parts and you know
He did a fair amount of research on his own to find other stories from other car counters other people that he could make
Part of this bring it on the house story
now the movie
Was an adaptation of the book
But actually was
The first writer and this is some inside baseball stuff the first writer was about a guy named Peter Seinfeld and Peter
Um
Sorry Peter Steinfeld, which is the comedian Seinfeld Steinfeld Peter Steinfeld
Yeah, there we go. So Peter Steinfeld and Peter had written a couple movies before and Peter like took a real
You know, he really went after this story and he went and spent time with his in Vegas and spent time with us in Boston
And wrote a screenplay
That unfortunately probably would never have gotten made because it was almost too accurate to the actual story
It was probably more accurate than the book itself
um, and then
They hired a guy named Alan Loeb and Alan was a recovering
Gambling addict, but he was also the guy that wrote Wolf of Wall Street. He'd written he'd written a lot and
He turned it into the movie that is 21 and so 21 is much more accessible as a movie because it follows some of the very basic
Like you know movie acts like act one act two act three kind of thing
You know and a lot of the sort of quote-unquote plot you know in storyline behind 21
It's not necessarily true like you know when I went in to see the premiere of the movie my dad was with me
And I told my dad I said hey, I got two pieces of bad news for you before we go in the movie and I said
He says what I said
Well in the movie I'm white and you're dead
So because my dad is was alive and he's still alive at the time at now
But you know in the movie I'm from this like home where you know my dad passed away and you know kind of like
It's not like a broken home, but like there's this idea that like because who would believe that someone from a good
Chinese American family taught all the right values would get lost in this gambling ring right
But but a lot of the things that they do in the movie like around car counting and around
um
You know the team play and those types of thing those are true
Um the idea of like backroaming that's pretty true although there wasn't like this notion that like they would beat you up
And like that kind of thing like they you know Lawrence Fishburn's character was based on
This uh this detective from the Griffin detective agency and you know he um
They wouldn't I never got physically threatened right but you guys have seen me. I'm yoked
So they wouldn't bother you know trying to so was there no was there no love story amongst the team
Um
Not not really I mean the the Kate Bosworth character is based on
Um a woman who is a super smart woman, but like there was there had there was no romantic interest
She was married to someone else on the team um I had no you know love altercation with her anything like that
There were obviously like some really cool like
You know relationship things that developed in Vegas and there's some of that in the book
You know one of the sort of like you know things is that I dated a Rams cheerleader for a little while. This is when the Rams were
um
You know first first in L.A. Before this St. Louis move before they went back to L.A. Anyway, so you know
Those were the kind of things that they that happened and there was like you know one of the themes of the book and one of the themes of the movie
I think that's probably true and probably
um
More interesting in some respects than some of the things they talk about in the movie because it's kind of nuanced
Was just what this sort of Vegas lifestyle
Did for my like psyche and personality meaning like all of a sudden in Vegas
I was this like rock star that people wanted to be around and like you know
I'm throwing money around and like I have this
Gregorious personality whereas like at the core. I'm this like MIT nerd right who you know is like
And it's like you know worried to talk to women at a bar or something like that that that idea of that juxtaposition
Between or the economy between those two worlds is was a very interesting thing. I think that we went through
That's highlighted both in the book in the movie, but people probably don't catch quite as much of how like origin formative story
It was for me. So in the in the movie the last scene is essentially
He get the main character your character gets the scholarship because the whole movie he'd been searching for a life experience
And then he finally has it with this so my question to you as a person who lived it is
What's like the main takeaway the main thing you learn from the whole MIT blackjack Vegas extravaganza
The main thing
God that's a really hard question. I mean ultimately
I think the thing that was most important to me was about was the teamwork in the camaraderie aspect. I really enjoyed
Um being part of the team that would go to Vegas and win like I was joked that like
Back in those days the flight out to Vegas was like this. Oh is this complete
You know debaturus loud everyone's happy people are drinking and then the flight home from Vegas
It's like everyone's somber and quiet and whatnot. Well, we were some of the few people that would come back
On that Vegas flight and be happy because we'd won and we you know try umton
You know, I think a lot about the camaraderie of that and um
I mean it was very it's very formative for me because it was happening
Like when I was basically 21 to say 27 or 8 in those years were so
um
They were so formative and so for me like I do think a lot about the people that I was you know
I don't really talk to any of the people that I was involved with that in and people that was asking me like
What are those guys all up to what we all went our separate ways?
Um, and I think
I've matured a lot as a human being since then and I think like I was pretty immature back then and so
um
Yeah, the question I don't know like I don't know what the learning learning is. I mean, I think the learning is
um
Probably that you can learn a lot in life from any experience that you do and there's probably no cookie cutter
You know, I was brought up in a very cookie cutter way like I
You know now that I have kids
I think a lot about how I was raised and how I was like guided to to you know study and to map and to value academics
And to value specifically like the the in classroom part of academics
Um, but you know, I think I learned probably more from that blackjack experience
About so many pieces of my career now that I leverage
Um, and so there's just lots of ways there's lots of past that you can go to to learn
Out of curiosity Jeff when you're talking about sports betting
You're talking about how there is like this recreational part of you that just wants to sit down and watch a game and have some money on it
Or have some sort of rooting interest
You started in blackjack your card counting
I I'm just making the assumption that you can basically not play blackjack anywhere now
You can tell me if I'm wrong on that
But is there a part of you that would ever be able to sit down and play blackjack
recreationally if you could where you can just turn off your brain
And just actually play the game for the fun of the game and the you know
The blunt flowing so to speak or is that are you an uncapable incapable of doing that at this point?
It's it's hard to play blackjack with for me like so I I really can't play blackjack at any appreciable
Scale like we were just went to banded dunes and there's a casino and banded dunes
It's like the coups bake a scene or something like that and it's like casino in RV park
It's like a pretty interesting place
But they had a blackjack game and my buddy is all sat down to play
And I sat down you know first I didn't sit down and then I was like kind of looking around and yeah
What's the harm and I sat down and played and um
You know, it was a beatable game
A lot of games these days aren't beatable meaning like they pay blackjack six to five
Or they you know and I I can still count right so I sat down and I was like counting
And I was like telling them you know trying to tell them when but they don't care right there just degenerates trying to play blackjack and
They don't need me telling them what to do
Yeah, no, I definitely it was still counting cards and I think if the blackjack game wasn't beatable
I wouldn't have sat down and played like and it's funny because I would go play craps
Which I know has no I have no advantage in
But for some reason like the knowledge of playing blackjack where I know that like I'm you know, don't I it's weird
And so you know, I've had some funny like simian rice
Who's like a guy I've got to know
He'll come to town in Vegas and once I want to play blackjack with him
Because he always wants to play blackjack me so I'll go sit at a table with our at aria with them and play blackjack
And it's like there's occasional people like that that are like fun for me to go play with
They'll say like oh come play with me somewhere and all but I'll just bet like quarters and like you know
Like no one's gonna care if I'm betting quarters and it it does it's like boring to me, right?
So like I'd rather go lose a bunch of money playing craps and whatever than then you know
And for some reason it's just really gambling whereas blackjack always seems just like a job to me still
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean I the reason I ask that question is because
um
I've heard commentary from other sports bettors in the space
I'm not gonna give names or anything like that private conversations of people who at one point or another had a really large edge betting on sports
And now they don't have that edge and they just cannot bet on sports
And I in in in a way that is like meaningful to them
They've lost all interest in sports altogether was never about the sports
It was about the betting and I was just curious about the game of blackjack for you
And that's sort of the reason that it's it's it's it's it's similar
And I never thought about it like that it because like when you do that edge and it's gone like you don't
You know again like yeah, interesting. I never thought about that
I want to shift into a little bit of data analytics
So when I did the the intro for you obviously I someone were to look at your resume from top to bottom
You're very much known for your use of data analytics. You've been very vocal about it
Data-driven decision-making over the years
But then we you know we've had side conversations Jeff
We've done the Calcutta auctions together where sometimes you kind of just say things like I you know
I'm kind of going with intuition here or you know
You know my own judgment
How do you go about balancing the use of analytics with your human judgment when you're making decisions
And this can apply to business it can apply to sports betting comply to anything
But how do you find that you're able to balance the two?
I mean, I don't really I know I'm not sure which conversations you're you're talking about in terms of the Calcutta or anything like that
Like but I very seldom way if I have data available to me in a model
That I believe in will will use intuition over a model or data like I'm always going to be
leaning towards
Towards the data and analytics side if it's available
To me and I believe in it like in the all the Calcutta isn't like off Calcutta's
There's a model and the other Calcutta's we've done
I've always I've always had a model right. I've always had something that I like leaned in on that
I believe would give me an edge over the people that I was competing against
I don't think I would go into and I know I haven't like there's been times where
There's been you know, potentially opportunities to be in Calcutta's without a model and I haven't wanted to do them so
In terms of intuition and the role and tuition plays I think in startups which I've done you know four of
It's challenging to be truly data driven because you don't have a lot of data
When you're when you're starting off in a company like and so
Ultimately
To make better decisions in life and and we had um we just recorded about the process and we had
Ellie who on and we were talking about
You know when he was a lawyer and just the way that he
Would actually like calculate
probabilities around you know like for insurance companies and things like that around like different outcomes
They're different verdicts and expected value and whatnot like I love thinking in that way because it gives you a framework to make decisions
Making decisions is hard right and I think that the reality is that the reason making decisions is hard
Is because one we don't have frameworks and two because we're emotional right as human beings and we are prone
To cognitive biases which drive us to make bad decisions, you know
We talk all about like recency bias or things like that and gambling
You know, we all that gamble with analytics take advantage of cognitive biases right like there was a time
Back in the day, it was as simple as you know, betting against the team that got blown out the week before and football
And you probably have a small edge because people would overreact to what had just happened recently right
Obviously, it's not that simple anymore, but there's still residual amounts of that right like teams getting blown out on a
Monday night or whatnot or teams that are like really underperforming
But maybe like they're they're underlying
Underperforming by results like like points standpoint, but they're underlying metrics are maybe better than what what they've seen
You know, and so yeah, I mean
I will always be on the data and analytic side in terms of decision-making if I can be
You think it's healthy at all though to question it so I mean you're co-host with Rufus right and I've done some shows with you guys
And during football season mainly where Rufus might give out numbers
And I might question those numbers and and say you know, how do you think that that
Is possibly correct and his answers like you know, I backtested this model for years and I use it and I've had success with it
Um, I think there's obviously I'm on the other side of things right like I'm a very data driven person
But I question a lot of the outputs a lot
I don't know if that's actually a healthy practice or not and if I would rather be better off just sitting back and saying no
You know what this is the model. It's been successful. I'm just going to fire on this this this and this
But I feel like there's
There's part of me that just can't do that and I don't know if it's just a um, you know personal characteristics or traits or anything like that or whether
It's actually healthy to constantly be questioning questioning outputs that might not necessarily look correct to you
And I'm just curious if what your take is on that if you think that that that's like
A healthy thing to do generally speaking or if you think betters would just be better off
You know building out their models and just flat out trusting the outputs as long as there's some sort of proven
um measurements via error metrics ROI in the past that indicate that this is likely going to lead to success
I mean, it's the most difficult
question in all of
Data analytics and modeling specifically is like how much should you question a model or how
You know station stationery or stability or uh stationery over time. I'm like the idea that models um that things change right and data changes and so ultimately
Um, we talked about this again today on the on the podcast a little bit just because the idea of
um
Questioning how quickly do you question
Uh
Your model if it's you know producing and we had this exact discussion honestly and so um
Um, I mean, I think it's really healthy to continue to always question your model um
In good times and in bad times because ultimately you want to understand you know like we're not
So blackjack right is there's a there's a continuum here, right
Blackjack is a game that's completely closed
It's a game that's stable over time. Yep. It's stationary. It's all of that right meaning like the game if the rules change
You know
If they're dealing out of a different kind of deck of cards you know, right? There's no subjectivity to
What the dealer says or does the players at the table don't matter the other players with table don't matter
Sorry to all of you guys that believe they do, but they don't matter. I'm glad you said that
And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, but yeah
But so so even though in blackjack what's interesting is
There was a casino in in um Chicago or just outside of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois
It's called the Grand Victoria and when I was living out in Chicago
It was a casino that had just opened, right? So what's interesting is I don't think people will remember this
But essentially
When we started playing blackjack
There were probably casinos in two states. We were done playing blackjack. There was casinos in like 30 some states
You know, it was it was crazy and the Elgin Grand Victoria casino
Um, they had this incredible game for us. They basically had this like
Lat layout of just
I want to say like 40
50 blackjack tables all with two thousand dollar
Maximums and you know, which is like reasonable for for and all with like five to ten dollar minimums
And you know, it was a place that there were tons of people
It was standing around so we could all stand around and blend in
And we could go and play there and they took the action meaning like someone getting two thousand dollars did not freak them out
and the first
Month few months that were open we played there a ton
And we got creamed
And we got creamed to the point where we were like
Huh
What's going on here and we even questioned blackjack and so we went on there and just did some random sampling and counting of shoes without playing
Where we were essentially just making sure that enough of these shoes
Like ended at zero which they kind of should if your card counting like and you know like we basically looked at what the distribution
We did a hand test of all of these and we found that they it was normal and we
kept playing there and eventually started to creamed them
But the reality is like you should be constantly checking things now in that case
We weren't testing a model we were testing to make sure they weren't
Cheating honestly is what we were what we were worried like maybe they had taken some tens out of the cart deck or anything like that
Um, and really like we were being paranoid. There was no reason that that would have like that
These are people they're not too because he knows they're not doing this in the in the mid 90s
They weren't doing this like late 90s. They weren't doing this. I don't think
You're like wait
How could you be beating us and then you had to check the third sheet? No, it makes sense
Question for you Jeff actually this is one that I've been asked and don't know how to answer correctly
If you are let's say you're counting blackjack right now
If you have like all five seats at the table
Under your like whether it's you are four buddies would that make a difference at all to the game
No, I mean not really but depending on what you were doing right if you're just straight card counting
The only time it would matter is you could kind of play a bit more optimally at the end of your shoe
Because um really like the right the right like most positive EV thing
To do against a dealer is to play kind of heads up
Like because you have the ability to change
You know, and then you want to kind of like spread
When you need when like the table maximum
Like if you're playing with someone else there you want to play two hands to like decrease the variance
So there's like this
Uh push and pull between being able to change your bet as many times as you get more information and actually like trying to minimize the amount of variance you have
Um
So no, but if you were doing other things like cuts or shuffle tracking or things that are more advanced games where you need to actually
Control which cards go where
Like and you have an ability to do that then certainly having all the seats of the tables is you the same way to do it
So um, but just standard card counting or what people are doing. No, it doesn't really matter
So if you're standard card counting though, you would want the the furthest like the last hand at the table though
So you get more information. No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. All right fair enough. It's on that's just on the margin. Yeah
All right, so did you want to ask oh Twitter? Are we going to go into yeah? Let's let's talk a little bit about it
I mean, it's very current affairs and um
You know as someone in your case Jeff who is very heavily involved VP of a section of the company
Um
When you see what's going on with Twitter nowadays first of all
I'm making the assumption that most people feel that the product has gone down
Yeah, and that's a loaded question because well
I feel like the product has gone downhill and I think the general consensus is that way but that might be my inner community
But what do you think of the current state of Twitter overall Jeff?
And if you if it has gone downhill in your eyes as someone who's such was so heavily involved in the company
Do you like take that personally do you feel some sense of pain with that?
Um, I mean, I still have a really good friend that works there and he's he's pretty high up there
And so I actually was just talking to him yesterday a little bit about it
There numbers are better than ever
So if the product is going down on hill
It's definitely not being reflected right now in their usage numbers
The the actual
product experience for me
Has gotten better with the 4u stuff personally like not to get to like the 4u tab is really interesting to me because it's made me discover
It's created a new experience for me. I think there's a lot of noise there now
Because there's people that you don't follow that all of sudden appear in your in your in your 4u
But I spend so much time on Twitter that I don't mind the self
filtering of the product
I think the Elon stuff is tough because you know, he has a style
That is um, that's tough to deal with and it's tough to embrace like one of the things that was amazing
About working at Twitter was just the people and the culture there was really was really an incredible culture
And that's one of the reasons it made it so special
But I used to joke that working at Twitter was like working at like one of the largest nonprofits in the world because you're sort of working on jack's gift
To the world and you know the idea that um, you know, you're monetized like there were
Too many people working at Twitter right when I sold my company to Twitter
Alex rudder who was the VP and this is like a fascinatingly funny story now
He was running all of engineering at Twitter and he had 1600 engineers working for him
And he said to me he goes Jeff. We have 1600 engineers
SpaceX has 1600 engineers SpaceX is landing shit on the moon. We're messaging out right and this is in 2015
Right, so this was like an incredible
precursor to what was to come
Um, but yeah, I mean, I think Twitter had too many people working there. It was bloated and
I think Twitter needed to innovate more but at the core Twitter is an incredible phenomenon, right?
And for me personally like I haven't even looked at threads like I don't really have any interest to go over threads and
I have invested a lot in Twitter and like the people in Twitter and like
Yeah, I guess I just I don't I don't I think there's a lot of noise right now
And I I think you know, threads maybe is an existential threat to Twitter
But there's been lots of existential threats to Twitter since I've been there and since I was there and since in the last
15 years and maybe this is the biggest one, but like
Ultimately for me like I saw a great Twitter experience. I haven't noticed anything
That's changed that much a little bit easier than it used to be
Yeah, so like it's interesting hearing Jeff's perspective on that because for me like the for you tab
Is the bane of my existence you can just use the following no
I for sure, but sometimes Twitter will do an update where it like resets it back to the for you tab
I don't know if that's intentional or if it's a bug, but like I will just get
Part most of the stuff in my life that I don't want to see is filtered to me in the for you tab
Because it's in the gambling Twitter space that I find to be like a toxic culture now
Maybe Jeff doesn't consume a lot of gambling Twitter already does and enjoys that but for me like it's
Intentionally feeding me stuff that I'm trying to avoid
That's why I love the following tab
It's because it's like this is my curated list of people
I want to see people who I care about
But it's a matter of perspective right because even when I I publicly tweeted maybe two months ago about how I hate the for you tab
And it was very mixed reaction to that as well
So for some people it works and some people it doesn't but
You know, I will say as much as I have personally stated
I think the product has gone downhill
I don't spend as much time on Twitter as I used to
But I still spend a lot of time on Twitter and like I personally
Created a threads account this week
You know just checking it out
And within a day
I was like I have no longevity or interest in using threads like absolutely none and was back to Twitter
So there's something sticky about it for sure
And maybe it's just like
Maybe it's just the thought of having to rebuild
Us you know a brand and like my own social profile which I've built over the course of 10 years on a new platform
Is like too overwhelming that I'll never do it
But I don't know there there is something sticky to there and and honestly as a sports better and you can attest to this Johnny
I'm so heavily reliant on Twitter or news and stuff for news and I don't know if there's like a world where that's ever gonna change
Because it's it's it's it's exactly what you need is a better in real time
It's essentially just a real-time curated news feed and
Who's gonna do that better for sports better?
I don't know that it can be done better. Just in FYI. I think Twitter got significantly better since
I guess the Elon took it over like by um in my opinion significantly better
Also recommended for you Rob would be I used to get bad stuff in my 4U feed
Which was like I didn't want to see but like if you actually give the thing
Info it will improve
So if you like whenever you see something you don't want instead of just scrolling pass it literally click on it and mute it
And then or block that account and then you won't get stuff like that and it'll sub-con like whatever and sub-consciously
It's an algorithm the algorithm will just update and then you'll have a better feed
Jeff's laughing here because we're kind of talking talking I I think well they do agree Jeff are you?
So I mean, I think the thing with Twitter is that there's still just like a lot of really good people there
Really smart people that understand how to build
Products and every decision they make is data driven. It's all all around experiments
And you know if they're putting this for you tab out there. There's a reason for it right ultimately
And so um you know the original question around do I like pull for Twitter and does it like worry me? What's happening?
I just think Twitter's a phenomenon that'll be around forever. I don't ever really worry about it
I worry about the people a little bit there just because they're such good people and
The people that are still there it's at this point. It's almost like Stockholm syndrome like I don't I don't really like
You know, they're there and they're enjoying it and for whatever reason they're enjoying. I mean they work
I don't these guys work around guys and girls work around the clock
They work so hard. There's a buddy that I
Um, that's there. That's you know, uh, he's like a plus one handicap. He's awesome
Ace of golf with them. Everyone's well. I'm a golf with them in probably nine months because he's he's just works
This works so much and so and he loves it because he gets a lot of time you know with Elon and and whatnot and and uh
I think Elon is a very interesting person to spend time with I mean with regard to some sort of what you think about him
He's had some level of success in life and he's probably got some things that you can learn from
Speaking of working so much
You guys are at like a million episodes now of bet the process
Which kudos to you for one because we are an episode 110 here and me and Johnny had this conversation on air last week about how
We got to like 80 episodes and it was like what are we gonna do going forwards and then we kind of crafted this plan of attack
I want to talk about bet the process because a lot of people do listen to it
Um, but I get a lot of people who for some reason I guess because we interact Jeff
They think that I like know you really well and talk you regularly
But they always ask me as if I'm gonna answer on be your behalf
Why does why does Jeff do bet the process like what's the motivation for the podcast?
They don't have sponsors
You guys have talked openly on air about how it's kind of like a sunk cost where you just you know
You're putting your own money into getting it produced
Um, and I don't know the answer to that. So for the people out there
What's the motivation for doing bet the process for you?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's changed a little bit over time and it's just funny that we're having this conversation
Because I think this football season the first real season that we're going to think about how to monetize it
But when we when we first started it
You know, I have been relevant in sports media in my life right I was on ESPN for two years doing sports center
Um, I've I've was on Fox business for a while like I've
Been an on air. I've done you know, I do Tony corn highs there every week and that kind of thing like
Um, and I'm not I was never good on television like I will I will say that I will say I will own that that I wasn't good and
Could I have gotten good? I could have probably gotten better because I sucked but yeah, I could have gotten better
But was it ever something that I was gonna love? I'm not sure and so as I was kind of like leaving that world of relevancy or like
Irrelevant I mean like I don't want to overplay how relevant what I was but I mean it was there was a there was a time where
You could find my content on different platforms
As I was leaving that world
Like I had an agent who was trying to book me on different things
And a lot of the things that he's trying to book me on it just wasn't that interested in you know and not really worth the time
And I was like well, I like doing podcasts and how do I like kind of remain relevant and have some kind of a platform
And so I really just decided that I wanted to a podcast and Rufus and I didn't even know each other that well at the time
But I like asked him if he wanted to do the podcast with me and
You know when we started I think we were very
You know Rufus used to be very anti-taught now he's a tout so it's not like it's things have changed over time
Just kidding no, I mean like when we started we definitely felt like there was a need and an opportunity to elevate
The conversation around sports spending
I mean, I think you guys have thought the same thing and there's you know since we did this which was six five or six years ago
I think at least six or seven years ago
There was really bad sports betting content and so ultimately we were trying to
Raise and as part of that ultimately
We made a pledge to each other that we weren't gonna just take you know that the low-hanging fruit would be to take sports book sponsorship
But the minute you do that it like changes your ability to be
Genuine and organic around the content you produce and I think
Neither Rufus and I needed you know initial few thousand dollars a month or whatever it would have been
And so we really wanted to focus on
The content and how good the content was and we've gone through a lot of iterations
I mean, I think there have been episodes of the episodes that we've done that have been amazing that I would put up against any
Piece of sports spending content out there and we've done ones that are terrible
We've done ones where like you know people used to yell at me and Rufus for yelling at each other and like
I've gone back and listen to some of them sucked
It was like painful to listen to right and so
You kind of take feedback and I think part of it is like growing and right now
The reason I do it is I like I like producing the content
It takes it takes a fair amount of work because I do the editing now and I do a lot of the
Strategy around it like Rufus is is great, but he doesn't have a lot of time for it and
Every once a moment Rufus leans in like this week having Elohu on was his idea
We produce great stuff, but he he doesn't have the time often to do that
And so now we're just trying to produce really good content and and I do think we will try to monetize it this fall
Because there's lots of opportunities to do that in the right way now
Whereas I didn't think there was before and we have we have a good
We have more than seven listeners. That's a spoiler alert and we have like a good
Group of people that that listen to it and I think it's a very interesting demographic
You know, we have people that I think are very knowledgeable in the space
And we actually have people that listen that don't even sports bet which is crazy to me
They just like and enjoy the process to hear the process of how we think or how we make decisions
When you get to the point of having produced as many episodes of you had as you had
How do you keep things fresh? I mean like
How much prep goes into about the process do you got do you and Rufus chat over the course the week
Do you just show up for an episode and do it like I'm just very curious
In terms of your style of content creation and whether you know some people are very meticulous in that they they literally plan
Every minute of their show top to bottom. I want to touch on this. I want to touch on this. How much is a spontaneous for you versus plant
It varies a lot it varies a lot on who the guest is it varies a lot on how much time either of us has during the week
I there have been times where we've had
What I would consider to be important guests where I've wanted to really nailed the interview and and I will have
Questions in a script and a whole thing
Um, I do think I have like a pretty good skill of being able to ask questions and and take a take a interview in a certain direction
And so, you know, I do feel relatively good flying off the cuff and honestly a lot of times
It's how familiar I am with the subject matter like today we had Ella who on and I told Rufus
I'm like can you put the script together? Can you put the high level together?
And he did he put a bunch of questions down that we started with and then we got into it and it flowed really well
Um, but yeah, I mean, I think
Again, like another thing we're thinking about doing for football season is trying to create more structure around what we do
Create segments that I'm sure you guys think about this that can be sent on on social and things like that
We did that whole segment last year that I think is really good
But we'll take a lot of time to do called that the process where we actually look at you know some other person
And what they they did like you know Simmons is the perfect example like I listen to Simmons's podcast all the time
But like some of the process that he goes through in terms of understanding betting is it's crazy right?
It's crazy how sort of like misguided it is in terms of how he thinks about things
And so um, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's sort of like
It's a labor of love to definitely it's definitely like a passion project that we do around around it
Um, I think again like there is a way that we could probably monetize it in really interesting ways
I think we probably influence
A interesting segment of the market that we could probably
Activate for a brand or for a company um, we haven't figured out what that is yet
But um and when we're we're also like I think one of things that we find
Interesting and I'm sure you guys think about this is the community that you create around your podcast right this whole joke that we have around seven listeners and things like that
You know people will come up to me in random situations and tell me I'm one of the seven like my painter for my house
Came up to me and told me he's one of the seven and it's just it's just like it's awesome to hear and it's awesome to like
You know my wife happened to be around when she he was talking to me about this and she's like oh wow someone actually does listen to your podcast
That's great. You think he'll give us a bargain on our on our house painting and so
um
You know that there is there is a lot of
Um, I do the 20 cornheizer podcasts now I do it during the football season I give picks and the other two people that give picks are
James Carville and Chuck Todd
We're both political guys
And and a monkey sorry, there's another and they they um
But one of the things that's crazy about that one too is there's a huge community around it
Where people will come up to me and say lichisaree which is like this kind of thing that they talk about
On to any cornfires things so I really
I think I really respect and and really enjoy this idea of like a micro community that you create around the content
You create and around who you I think it shows um
That you built something and and maybe those things aren't worth a lot of money
Which is which is a bummer at times, but also
You know, they're worth more than money in some respects because they're they're kind of like very organic
And they're not there aren't a lot of real things like that that develop over time
In terms of the listenership
um, I think
You may disagree, but I think your audience skews more towards the sharper semi-sharp community
Are there thoughts on your end about potentially opening the podcast up to a wider audience?
Or are you just content with having I mean group you know this smaller sub subsection of betters
We wrestle with that a lot obviously with our own podcast as well because I think you know
We can appeal to 1% of betters
But we would like to open up the educational components especially to to more novices. Do you guys wrestle with that same issue?
Um, yes and no, I don't think either of us wants to do a mainstream vetting podcast
But I think what we would be interested in doing is a mainstream podcast on decision-making or on process and as being important like this year
We've had
You know, we had Maria Maria Hoan who is you know a poker expert not a sports betting expert
We had Allison Levine on who has nothing to a sports betting
She like summited mounted led the first all women summit to Mount Everest
You know, we've had people on we were gonna have
We'll have publisher rayon pretty soon. We had Evan wash on who you know was is a EVP at the NBA talking about
And I thought the Evan episode honestly was one of those fascinating ones. We've done recently
Where he talked a lot about like the you know the the play in game
He's he'll come back on to talk about this in season tournament
But he's like the guy that's figuring out all this stuff out and the idea of sitting around and thinking about
You know game structures and incentive is around the NBA
So I guess I get more excited when I hear people say that they listen to the podcast
But don't really sports bet and are just kind of interested in hearing the process of how we do things
But like it's tough because we're not
I don't think we target our content intentionally
We don't target our content particularly well because what maybe really interesting to that person
Sometimes we'll just nerd out on like specific sports betting stuff
That's probably not going to be interesting in that person at all like I have a friend that's a huge golfer
And he loves it when we talk about golf and the high level process of sports betting
But then when we get into the nitty gritty of like like probably the times when we have you on and you're like going into
X's and O's and things like that
That are really interesting for NFL people
It's probably not as interesting for that general person that's like trying to learn more about process thinking and whatnot
for sure
In terms of advice
We get this a lot of people asking us questions, but I'm very curious for you
Um, there's a lot of aspiring podcasts host out there are people who want to create content
Whether that's topics that are related to sports betting
potentially analytics data driven decision making it could be any subject really
What advice would you give to an aspiring podcast podcast host who's passionate about a subject and kind of just wants to communicate that to people
I mean, I think I think it's about caring about the content right and not caring about the business aspects of things
Or like your
Like it is sort of the opposite of how I would tell anyone to do anything in business right in business
I'm super analytically driven. I'm super like understand your customer understand what you need from the customer
I think
Podcasts are personal at some level and you need to understand like what is what is your
Voice or your platform that you want to talk about and like just go after that now
Hopefully there's a cross-section between that and an actual demographic of listeners that want to listen to what you said
Um, but you know like you get again if you go back to rufus and i
It really is around like process driven thinking and and and like for us now
It's somewhat about our our relationship right and about how we've grown and as as like friends and whatnot and so
That's the kind of stuff we're interested in like rufus is like a you know
It's like a little brother to me and like but like everyone's like you're so mean to him at times
And i'm like i don't know if i guess if i had a little brother
I'd probably be mean to him also like i i watch my
Oldest son james with this little brother charlie and he's really mean to him
But then i'll say things like this morning i'm like let's go get
bagels and he's like let's wait for charlie to wake up so charlie can come with us
So it's like you know who does it is it is what it is
I someone who knows you or have gotten to know you over the years jeff i mean that i
You have like some of those same characters. It's like a hard outer shell
I don't know how to describe it really. I think you're one of a kind person, but kind of the best way i can put it is
Probably like my first experiences with you
were at
I think it would have been MIT Sloan sports analytics conference where you are a moderator
And i would be sitting in the room and i'm like i've never seen a moderator
Ask questions like this to people on panels now typically speaking you go to a sports any conference
Like 99% of the time you're going to get a moderator
Just kind of throwing law balls to the panelists and they're there to promote whatever they're doing
And you were there and like people would give answers
And you challenged them on that which was very refreshing refreshing for me
That was what made me want to introduce myself to you in the first place and be like i i really like this guy
In the sense that he's just not here to you know put put on a show
He's going to ask the tough questions that need to be asked
But then i got to know you more and you what you do have like a softer side to you
I do want to particularly dig into those those panels though and like the moderation aspect because
Is that uncomfortable for you at all like you're meeting with these people
Probably talking about what the the content is going to be over the course of that hour of the discussion
And like what the talking points are going to be
And then you're up there and i don't i don't want to use grilling because it's not the right word you're allowing people to answer
For themselves you're just asking questions
But it's done in a manner that is a typical of what those panels typically are
Just walk me through that like if if that's natural to you if you do feel level of discomfort in doing that i'm just genuinely curious
I think i have a responsibility to every person in that audience who paid quite a bit of money to go
And to the people that are watching it on a live stream
To try to get as good a content
As possible right and these panels where everyone agrees
Or everyone says they're sound by the very well rehearsed like you could just watch that on youtube or you could just read a marketing message and so
For me i'm just trying to be
You know trying to produce interesting content and try to ask real questions and um
You know i i think it's interesting because
As i've evolved in my life and my career and needed to think a little bit more about you know being mindful
Of the people in my life that i piss off right it's it's harder right like i just don't think i'd be a good as good a moderator now
As i was 15 years ago when i didn't have kids or i didn't have a like i didn't have any
There wasn't there was less like i gave less of a shit than i do now and i probably give more of a shit now
Then i used to and so
When you ask is it uncomfortable
It's that you know when i had her alibob and matt holt on and you know that's the that's the that's the whole
One that everyone remembers where matt holt was clearly like really uncomfortable and her alibi i mean that's
Or you know when i share an otterman was on from William hill and i i challenged her and
You know i
I think in a lot of those cases i'm going easy on these people which is funny because i i feel like i'm restraining myself
But i do think as long as i am
Being fair
Not being a jerk like asking fair questions. I don't have any problem with that like i think i'm being myself and i'm being fair when i
Would much rather be that way then swallow my tongue and be a shill for you know some corporate sponsorship or what not
And there's probably a reason why i wasn't moderating either
Com either sports betting
Panel this year at slow
So jeff recently rob and i've been given out some positive ev and some negative ev moves of the week all right
Now these can be anything in life doesn't need to be sports betting specific doesn't need to even be gambling related
Okay
So we wanted to ask you as someone who has definitely made some ev moves in their lifetime
Give us your ev move of the week
My ev move of the week my ev move of the week would be to tell
Anyone that is thinking about betting on sports not to
Really that's a positive ev that's a positive
I mean if you think about if you think about like the world that
We've made ourselves into
where
We obsess about things that no one else cares about
That we go through these ups and downs like anyone that's bet on sports at any kind of level has had
A somewhat level of depression from it at some moment right it's definitely caused a
Negative mood swing itself and live you if you haven't
I'm incredibly impressed, but you know i've had great positive ones and it's brought me certainly a lot of enjoyment
But if I could go back in time to the moment
I first decided to bet on a game and go back and just tell myself not to
I probably think I would tell myself not to i think that would be my positive ev move
For the rest of my life is to be one of those people that like
Just like sports for the sheer enjoyment of watching a game with nothing on it now
Would that be possible for me probably not
But if I could somehow decouple myself from that
I think that would be positive ev
Interesting. I think this would make for a very interesting case study because we we know from like industry studies
That the vast majority of bettors are going to lose in the long run and the vast majority of bettors know
In some might be delusional
But some know that they've lost and I bet you if you you ask them
Like you know, would you go back in time?
And recover the money that you've lost
But you know you're never betting on sports
I would imagine that the vast majority of them saved no way
Like I've had way too many great experiences from just betting on sports
It's a sunk cost that's my belief
Maybe you feel free to disagree with me Jeff
But I think the majority of people would say no I would rather not have this money back
Because of that experience and I want to keep betting on sports
Yeah, I don't know I mean, I think it's definitely been something that's taken a lot of my time
Mindshare and you know again like as you go into this world where you have kids and things like that
You know the the the time that you could be spending doing other things besides
And the problem is I like to sweat games, right? That's like the ultimate like someone like Rufus doesn't really sweat games like I do
I sweat games, you know
And I like perversely enjoy it
But I know how much of a time it was so again, there's this whole like
Protect myself from myself thing that really is is is at the core of this
Well, I also think so there's definitely some validity to the whole you ruin the game for yourself
Because now when you don't have money on it
It's not necessarily a fun sweat as you mentioned Jeff
But with that being said I feel like when you're
Younger before you start betting you watch the games for fun
Then you start betting and now you watch them because you have money on the game
but
It's no guarantee that if you didn't have money on the games
You would be as big a sports fan as you are right now or or there because there's so many people who just lose interest
Like yeah, I used to like watching hockey and basketball and whenever I watched every week
I played fantasy maybe and then I have kids and then just forget about it
So there's no guarantee that you would still be like a sports fanatic right now just watching the game sweat free
That's the other thing I've always considered
Yeah, I mean the last two years where I didn't really do much baseball or anything like that
The summer was definitely like empty and I didn't like pay attention to baseball and I didn't even like no
A ton of baseball players and there was like a little bit of feeling of emptiness, but like
At the core now that I'm back in it
I'm not even sure if it's like again
You go back to this net positive or negative in the world like it's it's a
I think you should go do that little case study Rob and figure it out. So Jeff do you have a negative EVV move with a week?
A negative EVV move like what would be what would I tell people to do that was negative?
No, no, so like this is like something that people I'll give you mine from last week was like given somebody a gift card instead of cash
Because it's you lose the flexibility
So that's like a negative EVV move of the week
Mine was paying for fireworks like actually putting your own money down to purchase fireworks
When there's so many fireworks that are accessible publicly it can be anything Jess
Yeah, I think a negative EVV move is like
And people have kids I'll understand this it's
caring a lot about what your kids eat
Meaning like you put a lot of meticulous care in a cooking them something or you go out and buy something that's exciting for them
Only to have them not want on it not eat it and tell you they want to eat something else like the kids thing
You know, it's spending a lot of time trying to figure out like what kids want to eat which I will always do again
Like I am the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome
I will continue to do it because like I love it when my kids like really really like something and get into it from a food perspective
But consistently trying to do it and care about it is a pretty negative EV move
All right, that's a good one that we've never heard before that's awesome. I don't have kids
So I'm I don't plan to so I won't experience that but I can miss I can see how that would be
particularly frustrating
Absolutely
All right, and then Jeff we've got one final question for you
But before we ask it, I just want to let everybody know
Jeff obviously hosts bet the process with Rufus P body
You can find that show I guess on Spotify iTunes all streaming platforms
He's got a great episode that should be out at the time of this release with
Ella who who's a great mind in the sports betting space as well
So if you want to check out one from this week head over to bet the process
On any channel and check it out
Also robs been on there multiple times if you want to just search pizola go back
He's been on a bunch of episodes as well. Maybe one day. I'll come on. I got a message Rufus still so
Net last question for you Jeff
If you could go back
Five years time. So there's only five years
What's a piece of advice that you would give your current self?
Oh, I don't know how serious we want to get here serious. We want to get serious
You want to get really serious, right?
So where were you five years ago? Were you were you um with Microsoft?
No, I wasn't five that was pre-microsoft so five years ago. I was probably
You know, I think there is
And this is like there are a couple things that I would think about one
Um, I think one of the things that in my life that I've always
I
Have vices. I have vices that I love like sportsmaning is a vice to some degree and
Drinking is a vice to some degree eating is a vice to some degree like I do whenever you do something in in sort of like
You know
You know whenever you do something like too much like it's bad right and like
So, you know, I think there's probably a little bit of like
moderation conversations I would have with myself about different pieces of this stuff
um, but I think ultimately
The biggest thing which is kind of the saddest thing about life is that
There is like part of you that needs to learn how to assimilate right how to assimilate in whatever situation you're in so I've had
um
And I think in the five years I probably had like
Theriish jobs in that time like one was I was doing consulting for the CEO of AT&T one
I was at like a small startup in the hotel revenue management space and the other wasn't Microsoft
and I think
You know, and also obviously I've had I do a lot of stuff besides my jobs
and I think
I've had to learn to do
and life is
to
Like I have a very you know rob rob and I talked about this
I have this like or we talked about this like I have this part of like meet myself that just
That doesn't give a shit
Right that just says what I want to say and like you know in his organic
And I guess sometimes maybe I should give more of a shit and I should probably think a little bit more and is that
Good or bad? I think
It causes less conflict in your life
and it probably helps you
get through more situations in your life than
um
You would if you just always decided not to give a shit now
Part of my being is not giving a shit, right? So like there's only so much of that I can do
Before I like literally like numb myself down and become like a different person than I am
But I do think there's a lot of the unfortunate part of the world which is that
You know
This is like
Like history kind of tells you like it's better to just
You know succeed
You know, uh, sorry fail unconventional failed conventionally than it does to succeed unconventionally, right
And that's obviously like part of the analytics lesson and the self-preservation of like coaches and why people don't go forward
I'm forked down as much
But unfortunately like that's somewhat of the of life lesson and I guess I guess maybe really and this is like a
Terrible meandering answer so I apologize for it
But it's really just pick your spots
And I think in life like I probably
Need to learn when to pick my spots better and ultimately like you can't always be
Running on 11 you got to sometimes be like running on five and like running with everyone else and then pick your spots when you want to go to 11
Think that's all that advice and by the way, it wasn't
Is it though? Is it kind of depressing? Well, that doesn't mean that it can't be good advice. I got to go
I got to go home and think those are not mutually exclusive things
Yeah, I think the other thing too that I would tell myself by the way is to play more golf
Because golf is like this incredible
It's in this incredible thing that you do for yourself
But it's it's also incredible as a way to really
Connect with old friends like I did this golf trip to band and I do all these like Vegas trips and like historically
It's been like super fun and like you know
Whatever, but I'm too old for that now we did this band and trip and I just thought it was like the best hang
I went to a hoopy and and Georgia and did this golf trip there
It was such a great hang and on the quality of life perspective and the quality of the trip and the quality of the hang
It's much more of a positive EV than than like a guys Vegas trip
Which I never thought I'd say in my life and and I believe that you know what I actually agree with that
Completely 100 percent agree with that completely. All right. This has been episode 110 of the circles off sports betting podcasts here on the hammer betting
Network. Thank you Jeff. Thank you Rob. Happy birthday, Zach. See y'all next week