Episode 118: Las Vegas Cris Joins for a Discussion
On this week's episode of Circles Off were joined by a special guest. His name is Las Vegas Chris.
We're talking about his origin story, how he currently bets on the NFL,
and we're going to get into a wide variety of topics. Stay tuned, Circles Off Episode number 118 starts now.
Come on, let's go!
Welcome to Circles Off Episode number 118 right here. Part of the hammer-bedding network
Rob Pizzola joined by Johnny from Betstap, our things. Pretty good. Episode 18, a unique one here.
Yes, Marion Hosa. Three Stanley Cubs in a row, not winners, on three different teams.
One of the most underrated hockey players because of the concussions. I actually remember my first
Leafs playoff game that I ever went to was a Leafs Senators game, and Marion Hosa scored two goals.
I believe the Leafs lost four two. There you go. It was a rough one, but Hosa was a great player,
but I think we agree on, so Peyton Manning was more a pain, of course, Peyton.
Peyton Manning at his peak, that's quarterback. Maybe not over my homes, but better than Brady.
When he went to the Broncos that first year, it was electric. How did he do that?
But then he, the corpse of Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl with the Broncos, where he couldn't even
throw like the ball 20 out of him. He won it, though. He won. The defense, Vaughn Miller or whatever,
right? That was a crazy ending story. How many guys actually go out on top, like winning the
ball and then retire? Very few. Even Brady, he did it, but he just couldn't quit. No, he had to
come back. He had too much in him. Well, who's the guy, Tim? Hawkeye player,
defenseman. Ray Bork. Ray Bork, thank you. Yeah. I got a Leafs one for you.
Wait, did Bork retire? Yeah. I've never played another game. That was it. Okay, so there you go. He
did it. Leafs number 18, Mike Brown. Mike Brown? Zach Hyde? I had to throw one in.
Zach Hyde? Oh, Mike Brown, eh? Mike Brown. But Zach Hyde and War 11 with the Leafs,
18 with the Oilers. Oh, he's not even 18 on the Leafs. Yeah, he was 11 at least. We can't,
we can't do a sports betting show without referencing number 18 Calvin Ridley. Was he 18?
Ridley War 18. It would be, it would be sacrilege. What's his jersey number with, with Jacksonville?
I don't know. Calvin Ridley. I know. Jack's jersey. I mean, it's probably going to get his
number. No, you'd imagine that he's going to get the number that he wore in Atlanta. No, he's
wearing zero. Yeah, probably. He's wearing zero. Zero. Yeah, the number of wagers placed in the NFL
seat. Justin St. Jefferson's 18, too, right? Yeah. That guy's going to see amazing, amazing.
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sign up to pinnacle, use code hammer. He must be 19 plus available in Ontario, not available in
the US. And as always, please play responsibly. Our guest this week on circles off is a season sports
better. He's well known for winning multiple contests, including the palms, the win stations,
last man standing a couple of times. He's part of the bet US NFL trio with Steve Fezick and Jared
Smith also has his own YouTube channel under Las Vegas Chris live from Las Vegas. It is Las Vegas,
Chris. How's it going? It's going great. It's so great to hook up with you guys. First time
meeting Johnny and to sort of a visit when you were in town Rob needs to catch back up with you.
Yeah, for sure. We've wanted to have you on for a long time, not because you wear similar shirts to
me, but because of your reputation as well. So let's start with that. A lot of people don't know
the background on you. I actually don't think I know your full personal background. So let's start
with that. Give us your personal background, how you got involved in the in the betting space and
would inspire you to pursue sports betting as your field of expertise.
Well, I was in retail collectibles for a long time. I had retail and wholesale businesses
starting between trading cards and beanie babies. And that's why I mentioned I used to make my
twice a week journey to young and steal in Toronto that hideous 401. That was an interesting
trip. So I'm a former smuggler who used to smuggle in a trunk load of American cards and bring back
Canadian cards and the way back in. So finally did have to start using the text departments on
that, but I got away with it for a while. After that, I moved out here, thought I would kind of bounce
around, play a little poker. That was too slow. Raining to some people in the sports biz. And
ran in some really good people. I was very fortunate. I think everybody has to be fortunate in who
they meet. And Frank went it up being my partner later on. I was doing some funky stuff with,
you know, buying back points and selling off points and other unusual type betting scenarios,
which for my brainwaves, I don't know what it was. I couldn't grasp it right away. It was like
out of my comprehension. You know, he'd be showing me, oh, I get this free 33 and this free 33,
you know, half 34 open. And you know, all I need is to do this. And I'm getting paid to do that.
And I'm like, what's he talking about? So after a period of time of learning, you know,
there's another side of betting that I was completely obtuse about, started working with him.
And that would become a long process. And I think I was fortunate to be here to start at the perfect
time, for me at least, just because it was still kind of a little bit of the wild west. It was,
you know, the post, the heavy bonus era. And that sort of thing. But before, you know,
the cut off, whatever that January 11th was, and did a lot of chasing middles. So I had to
learn the value of everything, led to learning value of points and totals and different wagers.
And you know, it was easier to get credit accounts back then. And we'd burn through them.
We'd have a lot of money invested in chasing these middles. Because that's a low risk,
kind of reward type, you know, proposition. And obviously the part of the learning process is
lots of mistakes, lots of accountability, lots of trial and error. And you learn the hard way.
That's how you learn how to read a market. And I kind of feel that people that are getting
involved over recent periods of time don't, won't ever have those same experiences because they
won't be forced into a corner. Having to learn this, do or die sort of market reading analysis,
sort of thing. So I feel like I benefited from that, and that holds on after all these years,
it just feels like you can look at a board and you can get in the group of things much faster.
And I think that's really important to the success that I have with betting, just being able to
understand the importance in how little, you know, appears to be a little bit of value can really
multiply quite fast. And so basically evolved from being a mid-learning, a scalper, and is that
closed? Had to transition and develop my own bottom-up approach with college football and NFL.
I was fortunate enough to have people along the way that helped me out. I mean, I think you,
you always need people to help you out. And I learned how to do that myself a little bit,
and tweak things up a little bit. And, you know, with rule changes as they changed, I had to adapt
along the way. And, you know, that took a lot of time and effort. And that long story short,
that's basically where I am. A couple of years ago, I went solo, Frank was doing other things,
and I had to make a decision whether I wanted to keep on doing whatever I was doing,
or, and I, but if I did, I'd have to be a hundred percent into it, because I don't think it's
like being a little bit of pregnant. You're there all-in or you're all out for what I was doing at
the time, because I was, you know, allowing what I do to be followed by other people. And you have
to have a hundred percent dedication of other people, or a little high-end on you. And even if you're
doing it yourself, you have to be a hundred percent dedicated to doing what you're doing, because
your biggest leaks are, you know, being half-asked about anything.
So you've identified yourself as a bottom-up type of better. So for those in the audience,
we've talked about that as being like originators before people who create their own numbers on games.
I can't remember who specifically said this to me. Actually, might have been Johnny at one point,
but when we try to get to know other betters, or betters pitch themselves to us like, hey,
do you want to move my stuff? Do you want to bet my stuff? One of the main questions that's asked is
what gives you an edge? What separates you from other professionals that are in the sports betting
field? Why should we work with you? So from your perspective, Chris, right now, what sets you apart
from other professionals in the field? Where does your edge come from?
My edge, within it felt clearly comes from my model. It's a pretentious thing to say,
but I have a pretty lengthy history of success with my NFL model. And
amazingly enough, if I'm against the market, my win-loss rate is even higher
in those instances where the market moved against me.
I have noticed that personally, by the way, as well. So for those that don't know,
I'm just a throat out there, but I've been tracking Chris' stuff for years,
and when you don't get closing line value, you actually do tend to win a lot more often than not.
So I'm sorry to cut you off, Chris. I want to dig into that a little bit further,
because a lot of people will say, well, my edge is my model. But is it specifically your ability
to apply logic to sports? Are you looking at things that you think other people are not?
Is it your evaluation of the market and your entry? Like, if you could break it down a little bit more
for us? I believe that one of the mistakes that NFL handicapers are making in general
is they're getting far too deep into the woods. The availability of creating new data and adding
available data to consider is just keeps on growing. It just feels like every year,
everybody's coming up with all these new angles and stuff. And for me,
I believe you just keep it simple. I mean, it's not simple, simple. Don't get me wrong,
but what I'm doing is far more simpler or far simpler than people would ever imagine.
And I kind of want to keep it that way, because the foundation of what I'm doing is more reliant
on an overall outlook, rather than allowing, you know, focusing in on allowing any
inputs to become too influential, so to speak. So it kind of works me a little bit when
people are always going to the same two or three hardcore data terms. I'm not afraid to,
you know, people say that your models are supposed to have the goal of, you know,
you know, we're the closing lines end up. I don't care where the closing lines end up, but I want
numbers that are generated that are off numbers. I have no problem with that. You know,
a third of my games every week come right on the number. So my model does consistently have
30 to 40% of the games right on the number. And then the other 60% it's going to be how far
away from the model. And I, you know, I've changed the criteria. Well, what games are I'm
going to use? And which games are I'm not going to use? And that's, you know, basically where my
starting point is each week. So Chris, why don't you care about the closing line value?
If I'm winning consistently, and I know why the line is moving where it is, I care why the
line is moving more than where it went. If that makes any sense, I, of course, closing line value
is important. Don't get me wrong. It's, it's, it's critically important. I'm, as anal as it gets
trained to get the best of the number. So if I don't get the best of the number 15% of the time,
I'm tracking what we're wrong in those 15%. So closing line value is important, but it actually kind
of gets the blood, you know, like I'll, I'll share with people that follow with me. I'll say,
okay, here we go. We got one of these games and moved against us and, uh, uh, strap in. And
it's, it's not dread. Like it is another sports. You know, you're sitting there on an NBA game and
you see the lead and move go against you. Uh-oh, you might be in some trouble. Right, totally understood.
I mean, I get, I get that completely. I remember years ago, there was kind of, uh, an NFL group
out there that used to bet the under at post on every single high total. Like it was a total in
the 50s is going to catch under money late. And then you're like, you know, you kind of figure that
out over time. And then you just instead of, you know, dismissing the closing line value, I think
you just change your bett timing up a little bit differently over time as well. Uh, and enter the
market a little bit different. Uh, I mean, this in the least defensive way possible. Chris,
you're one of the more elderly handicappers in the space, especially when you see people
who are doing content out there. You've been around a long time. There's obviously been a ton of
change to league, specifically the NFL over the years. And you talk about like the new data that
becomes available. I think some of the younger people that watch this will have, will take a lot
of issue with you saying you think that the new data or is like either being over accounted for
or people are focusing too much on that. And they will say that your approach is too simplistic.
I know I would have said that probably five years ago. So what's your response to someone who
who comes across like that? Well, I think a lot of the stuff is pretty cool. But what happens with
your models? If you've got, if you have, uh, you know, a handful of your inputs based on human
judgment, you know, bad, bad bounce rates or, uh, catch rates or, or, you know, uh, I don't,
I'm not even sure. As far as I'm concerned, anything that involves human judgment, I don't want
in my model because if it's 90% correct and 10% wrong, then that would just compound into each other
repetitively and would skew numbers on something that, you know, I haven't needed in the past.
Why do I need it in the future? All right, Chris, I know that you're a listener of the pod because
you've sent me some DMs in the past. Just randomly over time as I look through our DMs history on,
on Twitter. Um, and we are, we get into some, um, I don't want to say back and forth, but I think
you have an interesting perspective on things. And we recently talked about some episodes we've
done with Steve Fesick, um, which is one of them with Steve Fesick, the other one, a conversational
piece about him, pregame, the industry as a whole. A lot of the line of questioning towards Fesick
could also apply to you. Uh, you're winning better. I think it's six straight winning seasons of NFL,
which are documented, but you still opt to sell your NFL place. Can you walk us through that?
Back and, uh, when, when I had to make that decision of whether I was going to continue and it was
going to have to be a hundred percent, I was never fully, like we had been making our stuff
available for years. And, uh, I would be responsible by myself. There was no partner that could
cheer responsibility or blame or whatever the perspective was at the time. I'm going to be out
there pinging myself out. Am I going to work hard enough at this? Or am I going to just move on?
And I finally decided I had the energy to do this. I'm going to, you know, go a hundred percent on
this. And it was by far the best thing I've ever done, uh, for my process and what I do. Because
I'm not the most disciplined, better. I can get, you know, in the, in the flurry of activity,
you know, I'm throwing bets in left and right and I'm not using Excel to track it all if I'm,
you know, for all my, uh, regular stuff. Uh, and I'm like all over the map. Oh, I'll add this,
I'll add that. And what this did was it made me focus on I have to have my act together.
I have to be structured. I have to be disciplined. It was basically a self-policing and
self-modeling, uh, it's, you know, that I all of a sudden had to follow because
it's my reputation. It's my ego. It's my pride. I don't want to sit there and,
and, and, and put out losers. I mean, I don't need the money from, from allowing picks to be
followed. Um, it challenged me and it made me a better, better. It made my process for me better
because I had to be better. I had no choice. I can't sit there and take days off. I can't half
acid. Uh, there's nothing more important to me than what somebody following feels like.
I don't, I, I get my, you know, my finances are an afterthought compared to the emotional
ups and downs of going through, you know, bludgeoning losses and, and, and great winds. So, uh,
in that respect, that's why I started it. That's why I do it. And it's still evolving as it goes.
I believe, you know, I, I believe what I do is always challenging myself to get out of my
comfort level and to, uh, share whatever value that I can with people and, and I don't consider
myself a pickseller. I make what I bet because damn well, every single thing that somebody gets,
it's following me. I'm betting and I'm betting a lot, even if it's a small play. So, uh, it, it's,
it's accountability. It's, it's process and it's, uh, uh, just the whole challenge of it. And I
get a great reward from it. And I, I cry or have more heartbreak on bad weeks over what a client
is going through, uh, then, then what's going on in my bank account? It takes hold up. Sorry. I was
gonna say, Chris, I have a couple of questions that, uh, maybe you, be willing to answer on there
just because I know you've been around the game for a long time. A lot of people know who you are,
but they don't necessarily know like, and they know, they listen, they know you bet NFL,
right? But they don't know like what the kind, the deal is with the whole betting process. So,
I was gonna ask you like, first off, if you're willing to say like, you know, where are you betting?
Is it, is it the Vegas books? Are you working with different groups? Things like that? Like,
would you mind getting into a little bit more about like the betting process? Because that,
just genuinely, I think like a lot of people in the space would, would love to know and probably
would, you know, even, um, gain a bunch of respect for you if they knew, you know, how much you
are betting and, and that kind of stuff. But again, if you're uncomfortable, that's fine.
It's, uh, I'm basically my own guy. Uh, I, I've worked in relationships with a lot of people.
Uh, I do a lot of different things. I don't work with any groups. Um, I think like a year or two
or go, I kind of reached out to a couple of people thinking maybe it would be better for me to,
to possibly work with a group. And I'm like, no, I don't think so, I guess. I would be willing
to work with other people. I mean, it's, uh, for my process, I, I could know what, let's just say,
you know, the most success, whatever else is successful in NFL, I could know their picks ahead
of time. I would do absolutely nothing to compromise it. I could, I couldn't care less what direction
they're going. I only would like the information of, for market reading purposes, because, you know,
if, if people were trustworthy and could work with each other and honestly would just stick to
their own agendas, that would be better for everybody because then everybody would have great
market timing. And it would be better. Uh, but that can exist. You don't know when somebody's
going to jump in and move a market on you. Well, it's tough because we're all competing, right?
For the same number. So if, if you have people who are want to bet the same side, once somebody
gets wind of that, it, there's just nobody in, in the real world that's going to be able to wait
on somebody else that knows that they like the same thing, right? Well, yeah, it's, again,
it's just, that's what makes me different. I don't care. It's, you know, there's an, there's an
honor. There's, there's honor involved in dealing with stuff. I get a hell of a lot of good
information that I can't even, I don't even bet. I won't even, because somebody calls me up and
says, you know, I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I'm not betting it. I'm,
I'm not going behind somebody's back and even sticking it in and some, you know, far off accounts.
It's like, I told you I won't bet it. I'm not going to bet it. Let me know when I can bet it.
Yeah. No, but what would happen, Chris? By the way, I respect that a lot because that's not the
way that the space it works from my personal experiences, right? A lot of times, I think there's
people just looking for info. There's so many more people betting out there that are just like,
it's not about just the people who are like, openly giving us a disorder for us to run so deep. Hold
up. And one, one thing like at a certain level. So obviously, you know, you are betting against
the sportsbook technically, right? When you're betting against the book, but at a certain level,
once you cross that threshold, you're no longer betting against the sportsbook. You're betting
against other betters. Yes. So you, you, it's like a technically a negative some game, right? Because
the sportsbook has to earn two, they're earning off recreational. And then if you're a pro,
you really have to have another pro group loose for you to, for you to win in any given sport
on the season to provide that liquidity. So that's why I just like, you can't, we can't all get
along. I know I agree, but in Chris's situation, right? Like honor, honor is a big thing. If you're
working with someone, then that's zero, zero missed territory. Like your honor, your reputation is
everything. You can't say, Oh, I'm not going to bet this out. And then go bet it out. That's
a absolute scumbag movie deserves not work. I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with that. All I'm
saying is that like Chris is going to run numbers on games, right? Presumably every week, like you
said, you know, it's bottom up, you have numbers on games. There's going to be certain sides that
you like. And you're going to now time those sides because you, you want to get the best numbers
generally speaking, right? You know the difference between getting a three on a game and getting
a three and a half. It matters. But now someone else comes to you and says, Hey, Chris, I like this game.
And it's the same game that Chris really liked the most. You now get into like this moral compass
dilemma of, well, like, am I going to let this number go or am I going to bet it? And I would say
that the vast majority of pros out there would probably just bet it at that point. I'm just like,
in the real world. So because they don't want to cost themselves any points in that scenario, Chris.
Well, you have a changing dynamic in this market. Last year, we saw some critical mistakes
in market reading lines in the NFL betting space where people were able to influence the lines
based on when they wanted to bet a game. And they had an inordinate amount of ability to move the line.
And the market reading was off. And you know, multiple occasions. Can you give a specific
if you don't mind because I think we're talking we're thinking of the same thing. But if you would
want to get more specific, that would be great. Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't, I always think it's
it's really not that important because it's it's not it's not going going problem. It's going to
become an ongoing problem. So to isolate one person, you know, there's going to be a handful of
these people that are going to be able to move lines. And if they don't know what the hell they're
doing, well, now it's like you got to find a way to reach out and say, dude, let me work with you.
Please, you know, let me help. I'm not trying to take advantage. Let's find a way to work together
and not blow up a market because when you're missing key numbers and you're and you're pulling
the trigger too early, it's just egregious errors. I mean, you can't there's not enough games in the
season. One mistake, you know, you know, damages a season record in a fell. Unfortunately,
there's two few games. Oh, you're long. So they're all the more important to have right. We're not
talking about NBA sides where you got games every day. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And
and we are talking the same thing. There are content creators out there. There's just other
personalities with big followings. We have Adam Churnoff, guest, you know, a fellow guest of
the show, Barry horse, Brad Powers, a fellow. Fabian Soma, like just where anything that they say
publicly could potentially have an influence on the line. And not only does it have an influence,
in some cases, a lot of people would say that maybe the line overmoves because there's so many
people willing to follow. So I think we're we're talking the same thing there. I know Chris. So
when we ask the question about, you know, why do you opt to sell plays, which we do to pretty much
anyone that opts to sell plays, you've you've given a unique answer here in terms of it keeps you
disciplined. And you know, that there's like it motivates you to work harder. No, people don't
generally give us that answer, right? Usually they give us, okay, it's the income is good,
something like that. Or you know, why not? Because it's not affecting my bottom line. But I'm curious
if if you actually, because at some point you might have sold because that was the motivating
factor. It's like, listen, you know what? I'm donking off money on stupid bets here and there.
If I can really like refine this or narrow it in and I have to be responsible to clients now,
that can change things for me. Do you think that that still applies? Like let's say you were to stop
selling now. Do you all of a sudden go back into the bad habits that you had? Or do you think you've
now evolved enough as a better where this is kind of your day to day? And it's not an issue.
I can't shake bad habits permanently. I always have leakage at some point and I do stuff I
shouldn't do occasionally. But no, yeah, you're exactly right. I do think about that because it's a
centering. It's a mental centering and focus. Because it would be too easy to become careless and
kind of leave things for the last minute and that sort of stuff. It just makes me more thorough.
And I can tell you, I've never even touched the money I've earned. It's gone into an account
and it's just like, who the hell doesn't? You know, the money is the side part of it. That's
you know, the manner of respect or an appreciation for what the person is getting on the other line.
Because it's not just about what did I bet. It's far more than that. In fact, when I was offering
May and F.L. this year, I made that clear. I go the least valuable part of what you're getting
is what the win-loss result is going to be this year. The value is going to be that you get 24-7
access to me. You get to contact me whenever you want. I'm going to have, you know, weekly video
conferencing with people. You want to know why I'm doing stuff? I'm going to explain why I'm doing
stuff. You know, today I put in a, you know, it's going to sound silly without full context, but
I put in a complicated wager, an unusual wager. Like if somebody didn't know me, they'd say,
you gave that out to your clients. But I went, when I go through the write-up, I explained to them,
this is why I'm doing it. This is the goal. This is the actual mathematics of it. It breaks out
to minus 133. We're going to lay minus 120 on it. We're getting value on something that is just
a goal-oriented thing. And as nothing to do with just being an action player or anything like that,
it's serving a multipurpose. So when you have all those instances throughout the course of the
year to educate people why you're betting certain ways, then that's extremely valuable. And
sometimes we underappreciate how people don't understand what we do. And people get
are just shocked sometimes that I'll answer the DM or that I will put myself on video. And I will
talk to them while I'm working and tell them exactly what I'm doing, exactly what I'm thinking,
exactly how I just screwed this up or how I did well here. And that openness is the exactly kind
of what I went through coming up with the people that influenced me along the way where
you can apply it directly because you can't read this stuff in books. The Billy Walters book's
going to be great. But living it while you're going through it is going to be your best education.
Now, this is your perspective on the situation. And I personally agree that a lot of times there
is value in just being able to connect to somebody who gets the space and answer questions of theirs.
Johnny won't even like admitting this, but I'll just be completely up front. He used to DM me
probably like seven or eight years ago before he was a seasoned veteran. And if I go through all
those DMs now, you probably be embarrassed. You think just you? But I do agree that there's
inherent value in that, right? But at the end of the day, Chris, let's say you know you put yourself
out there. You're doing video calls on a weekly basis. You're asking answering questions for
people. What happens in the case of a losing season for your clients? Let's this is hypothetical.
I know you've actually won for the course of the last six years. I have the access to the numbers.
But you have a losing season. What happens in that case? Like are the clients satisfied that
they were able to learn from you over that capacity that they got good numbers? Or at the end of
the day, is this just to end up amount like as much as you want to say, it's not about the win
and loss, right? This is your words, right? At the end of the day, it's not about the win and loss.
That's, you know, my premise is that at the end of the day, at the end of the season,
someone pays for your services. They care only about the win and loss. The rest of that is a bonus.
But if you're not in the green at the end of the year, the rest of the stuff you did doesn't matter.
That's going to be the perspective of a lot of clients, in my opinion.
Yet, it's not about the win or the losses. I know you didn't mean to, but let's make sure we
differentiate. It is absolutely about the wins or the losses. But in the context of what I offer,
it isn't technically the most valuable part of it in my opinion.
Well, if people, if I had a huge winning year, everything else would have been more important.
So it is all about the wins or the losses, of course. I'm not looking for any excuses for bad results.
And when I do go down the toilet, I tell people, I am cold. This is what I bet today. I don't suggest
following. It's your judgment. I suggest lowering, ignoring, sitting out or proceeding with caution.
And completely open on that. It's because I just say the way it is. There's no way to avoid
huge losing streaks. And it's going to happen. And answering your question, I cannot freaking believe
how nice people were. I had some big long stretch. It was at the embarrassing level about a year
and a half, two years ago, I forget. But I could not believe how nobody gave me crap.
And everybody was understanding and kind of knew, hey, this is the way it goes. And I'm just like,
boy, does that make me want to just work even harder for these guys? You know, thank you for not
trolling me. Thank you for, you know, of course, I get the fly by night people that are not in tune
on a regular basis that complain and have a different type of response with those people.
But the people that know me, you know, really, I haven't caught any crap from anybody
that has been with me for any period of time. Do you consider yourself a professional sports
better? You know what, I think I post, what the hell is a special professional? That's what I
wanted to get into. So yes, what defines a professional sports better? And do you consider yourself
one? I mean, it's, it's, I thought that I had a pretty good definition of it at first.
It's, it's because I see people selling, offering, you know, they've been in the market for like two
or three years. They've had one or two years of success. And they've been through the school of
hard knocks. They know it all. They can philosophize and they can, they know all the angles and they've
been through all the mistakes. And they, and they, and they haven't been. And it's, and they'll have,
you know, these claims that, well, I, you know, I'm a professional sports better, you know,
you know, you know, all these media shows, professional sports better Joe Blow, professional sports
better Joe Blow. Well, my image initial thing is, well, it's on my tax returns as professional
sports better. But then, and then I sit there, go, would any of these people have it on their
tax returns once? Can you be a professional sports better and have a job? Well, you can be a
successful one, but it doesn't make you a pro. It doesn't say, I mean, if it's not on your tax
returns, that's a big warning sign number one. But then if you're not 100%, you know, on the
up and up with your government, well, they're not, certainly you're not going to declare it. So
there's, there is a valid excuse to not have it on your tax returns. Right. So there's a lot of
loopholes to really qualify people to be a professional sports better. But, you know, is there a
bad amount? I mean, it's, it's, it's, they're half the people doing this don't bet or they're
$100 better. Now, where does that come into the context of things? It's, it is bet size important,
it's tax returns important. I don't know. I'm asking you Rob, what is the definition now it is?
I don't think there's a universal one. Yeah, there is. If there's a majority of your income comes
from no, just how much? Oh, you're saying to declare a professional. Yeah.
Well, depending on your state or province, there's an actual definition in terms of, in terms of
success metrics. Yeah. It's who, who wins the most? I've been open about and clear about this,
who wins the most is the best, right? Okay. Now, in terms of deeming you professional, you're saying?
Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, the, yeah, the tax return thing, I don't, I mean, it's a good argument,
but I don't know if that's necessarily the best thing because it's like, well, to Chris's point,
I think a lot of people, I'm not speaking on my own behalf, but I think a lot of people would,
would try to skirt. I mean, they, they'll seek out the best, you know, tax advisors possible,
and they'll say do things in this way or pick up a little job over here, which you can declare
as income or whatever. So I don't know that that necessarily is going to help, right?
Like, the way, so the way I define, personally, I don't think I'm a professional. Right.
I don't consider myself professional. The reason being like, I have, you know, my main thing that I'm
trying to do is to grow bet stamp to grow an actual company into something that is a massive success
and that I can either continue to run, make money off of sell, whatever it might be, but that's my
main goal. That's my main thing I'm working on right now. Sure. Do I also bet? Yeah. Of course,
I'm going to, I'm going to be betting and do I, you know, hope to bet to win money and not to lose
money. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, that's not my main thing. So the, the way I consider
a professional better, in my opinion, is, is that the main income source that you're relying on
to sustain your lifestyle, feed your family, save your retirement? If that's the case,
I just mentioned those three things, but whatever. If that's your main income stream,
and you've been able to sustain your life from betting, then you're a professional
for to put in a perspective, you know, rest in peace, dink, who sustained his lifestyle living in
Vegas for years, years, years, years and years, from being a better, whether that was like, you
know, different types of betting, different this working here, working at working with this group,
but he's been betting for that many years. Like that, that's a professional better. In my
opinion, despite the level of success up or down. So I think, Chris, when you're looking at this,
like, yeah, if you're, if your, if your main income stream is your revenue from betting,
then you're a professional, in my opinion. What's also time management, too? What are you
spending your time doing? You know, to me, it's a seven, you know, somebody mentioned
them yesterday, it was a holiday. I go, what? I lost track of those two. And there's,
and they're in the industry, like, oh, well, it's a family day, you know, but what?
No, because there were a half a dozen people within the two previous days that had mentioned,
well, no more off days from here. They sat in the other. And of course, there was, to me and off day
of like, I consider a complete three days, if I only have to do like six hours of stuff,
that would be a complete off day. In my way, I process things.
I think the professional sports better argument is interesting because the,
there's like this burden of proof on the better. It's like, well, who's to say you are and
you aren't. And honestly, we're just never going to get to know that this came up in the conversation
last week when we were reacting to the dream preview pod. And like, intentionally, like,
who are the people that are misleading their audience? You can never really know if somebody comes
out and says, like, for all I know, as an example, Simon Hunter could be a pro sports better.
I think there's almost zero percent chance that that's possible, but it is possible. Maybe
there's a lot of stuff I'm not privy to when I'm breaking things down. But what I think ultimately
ends up happening is you do get the other people who are pros in the space who tend to police it
because they are able to smell bullshit when they see it. I think that's what happens in the
space nowadays, right? It's just if you've done it enough and you've made your income off of
betting, it's pretty damn easy to spot the people who are liars or who are fake, not to a 100%
level. Maybe be wrong on some people. I've been wrong on people before, but technically speaking,
the game also changes every year, though. Not even every month. This spread, though, between people
that give a crap enough to even notice the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, it's too easy to
exist in this environment completely unseen. I mean, the people watching this and are in our
Twitter verse of gambling, you know, familiarity. This is not even 5% of the betting mark. We
much less, much less than that. It's not even approaching 5%. So like you wake up every day,
you look at your timeline, you get familiarity with people that we're familiar with, and we live
in our little space and we kind of think that, well, this is at least the majority of what's out
there. And it's nothing. It's a pimple. It's literally nothing. Fair enough. So that's why it
makes it so much easier. Like, when every time I go into YouTube, I see people getting a zillion
hits and, and you can, and it's, and it's real interactions with people. I've never heard of
these people. Every single time I scroll YouTube, there's new people with huge audiences where
the hell did they come from? I can't even find them anywhere. Well, I mean, I'm not on TikTok.
This is what drove us to create the hammer, to be honest with you, is just the amount of people
that we're getting views in the sports betting content space that we're like, no, no, this can,
this cannot be what's generating 99% of the viewership. But I think it's, it's definitely
interesting discussion. We really appreciate your perspective. I also want to get your perspective
because you mentioned it in passing, not like specifically here, but about like the trolls
that are out there. And I remember a couple months ago, you posted like a tweet thread about
Twitter trolls, generally speaking. I think everybody has their own way of dealing with the trolls
in the space. Some deal with it better than others. I tend to just like mute and ignore people. I
really honestly just don't care to see the negativity, but I know it's out there. You seem to be,
you approach it more head on. I would say than a lot of people that I know. And I'm curious what
the reasoning is for that. I basically was laughed at for not blocking people and even paying
people the time of day by a lot of people in the space. Why would you do that?
And I just had the 100% different perspective of killing with kindness. I shouldn't say this,
but I'd never blocked a single person and trust me. You should have said that.
You should have said that, Chris. That's the way it is. I ignore people. I've gotten to the point
where I have a criteria that I've tweeted out. Which are all completely irrational things.
If you're going to have one of these irrational traits within whatever you are trying to include
me in, I'm not going to take the time to bend over to break bread. If you cannot communicate
in a civil way with respect, knowledgeable, no, I mean, you can't do anything. You just ignore
those people and they give up. But the thing about it is there is nobody that is happy,
that is going to waste their time and spend their time and energy to try to make other people
unhappy. So if you can process the fact that the only people doing this are people that are having
life management issues, frustrations with kids and family and they're just unhappy,
then you come from more of an understanding sort of way. And it doesn't matter how vicious
and cruel and vile they are, that just tells you even more how they're hurting. And it's like,
I don't want to add to their hurt, even though they're trying to hurt me. And you'd be shot at
the number of people I've turned around that started off trolling me. And I'll just be nice.
And they don't expect it. Or I'll correct them on something they're saying,
well, where did you hear that? Well, can you give me an example? And I got to
let me show you this. And I completely contradict what they're doing. I'm so sorry. I thought
these guys knew what they were talking about. I was kind of finally in the herd. But little things
like that, those are wins for me. Because if I wasn't doing this, I would like to be a shrink.
I would love to help people. When I was in retail, 10% of my employees, 220 employees,
cried with me at one point or another. It's life management skills. And it's important
to respect other people and to be real with them and understanding with people and to look how
you can bridge gaps with people rather than how you can alienate more people. Life sucks in general
when you get out of our little landscape. Why do we want to alienate more people? I want to embrace
other people. You don't have to like me. A lot of people dislike me. And with good reason,
I'm an ass. But I'm a nice guy too. What you see is what you get. But if you understand these
people are miserable and you just try to be nice to them, that really keeps a lot of them away
frankly. It just makes me feel better too. You mentioned that you've had some emotional
experiences in the past when you're doing the retail management. So obviously connected with
people pretty closely at one time or another. Are there any, let's say mentors or individuals
throughout your journey as getting from there to sports betting that had a significant impact
on you and your career? Oh, absolutely. I mean, in fact, it was so funny too because I just sent
one a voicemail the other day. And I said, you're the last person on the plane that they would
want any recognition. And I just feel bad because you are always in my thoughts when I'm
so often. And I would love nothing more than to amplify you and thank you publicly. But that's not
what you're about. But it's important that somehow you understand from me whether I voice it or not,
how important you've been and I don't ever forget it. And I was met with some nice appreciation
and there's a lot of people along the way. And this is sound like complete and utter horse shit.
You guys can be my mentor. You guys can inspire me. Anybody can inspire me and I can learn from them.
And if you have an open mind to absorb what each person does well, admire that and say,
I admire what that person does doing this. How can I incorporate that into who I am? Well,
people remotely mentor like that. So I'm always looking to absorb. I don't know it all. I never will.
As far as I'm concerned, the more you learn, the more you realize how dumb you are. So
it comes from all aspects I've had. But again, I think what benefits me the most is I
I think when people are networking and in that sort of thing that they don't value the networking
and the possible long duty of future relationships enough and they don't nurture them in private
and discrete manners like they should. So it's important to me to do that. It's important for me
to maintain friendship. So it's not about, you know, I can't really, I don't want
so comfortable naming names because you're always going to leave people out and you're
quite frankly, I don't think anybody would name would want me to name them.
So and that's what helps me fly under the radar with a lot of different relationships because
I've lost touch with people over the last couple of years with the COVID thing and being
overworked and stuff and I've bounced back into a couple recently. And we pick right back up.
You may not have talked to this guy in four years, but we can do business today. You know,
lots of credit, don't have to worry about getting paid, whatever. Here, take some accounts.
What you know, all kinds of that stuff. Those are from relationships I built long ago and you don't
have to maintain them religiously on an ongoing basis. But you build them and they're part of
what made you today. And you just never know when those resources are going to be
a benefit down the road. And it's great to have those in your arsenal of being able to
search out knowledge. I think that's very honest. A lot of that resonated with me, especially the
value of the networking. I think with both of us, me and Johnny, we find a lot of value in being
able to establish relationships with other people and keep those going over time. So I think that
was a really good answer, Chris. And a lot of people will take something away from that as a whole.
Another interesting thing is this space, the smart people I know work with the people they don't
like. And you don't need, like, I work with people I don't like and they know I don't like them.
And I know they don't like me. But business is business and you compartmentalize the way
you're going to manage relationships. And if you can both benefit and get along,
no problem. You don't have to like each other. You have to respect each other, though.
That's a very good way of putting it. On a personal level, something that frustrated me for years
was when I finally got to the level of being, I'll call it a pro sports better or a full-time
sports better, the people that were the most vocal against me in the space were people that were
indirectly actually benefiting from a lot of the stuff I did, or even in some cases directly
through relationships and stuff like that. And it took me a long time to really process that.
And it's like, how can someone be so horrible to me as a just as a person when they're directly
benefiting from the stuff that I'm doing in the bedding space for them? And it took a long time
for me to separate the fact that someone can really respect you, but they don't have to like you.
And I mean, I think that's a really good way to sum up the space because I actually do think
that there's a lot of mutual respect in this. Like, even a guy like Fesik for so many years
who gets a lot of hate from a community, I actually do think there are people that hate him,
period. Let's let's call it out for one day. But I actually do think that there's people
that respect him. And it's not just him. I could use any name. It's just topical or top of mine
because of the last episode we did. But I do think that there's a lot of people out there that
are genuinely respected, but not necessarily liked. Could be the personas as well. And maybe I
don't have the persona to be liked because I'm pretty brash. I'll tell you this is I didn't have
any dealings with Steve, basically prior to a couple of months ago. And I had my opinion of him
and, you know, which is his Twitter persona. And I also, you know, had little issues within
myself with, you know, little, you know, contest posturing in my brain. You know, hey, this is
Mr. Toot Time champion from, you know, course in buggy days. And here's me, you know, doing stuff
now. And, which is, you know, obviously, I'm saying that in just because it doesn't matter when,
those are accomplishments that can't be taken away. And I don't care. It's hard to win any contest.
So it does, but that's, so I had my perceptions of them where there might be, you know, we went
all full circle, the Twitter persona stuff that goes around in my head. I remember I pulled them
aside one time a few years ago and I wanted to challenge them. You know, I'm sitting there
like a, I'm embarrassed by it because I just kind of, I look back. I go, you're being like,
you were really unfair to him. Just kind of, you know, hey, let's pull him out and slap him
on the table right here and see who wins. You know, one of those types of insecurity type challenges.
And I was, when I look back on him, there's a dick, a dick to him, you know, and I kind of,
and I didn't even told him this. So he'll, but I was, I would look back. I go, I was a dick because
I was like, you know, trying to be a tough guy. Oh, you don't want to or whatever. And it was just
all silly and stupid. But the point I bring this up, this guy is the nicest guy.
Unbelievable. It's been the nicest guy you'd never believe it based on his Twitter personality.
And, but I've always heard this from people that do know him personally. So it's, it's consistent,
which with what I've heard for 10 years, from people that know him as a friend. And I can tell you,
while I've only known him personally for a couple of months, he's so painfully misunderstood
because he is a genuinely nice guy. Yeah, I think that there are people have a moral dilemma
with some of the stuff that he does. And that's just general pixels. And that leads to a lot.
Like, I would agree with you. I've had very limited interactions with the man. I think he's a nice guy.
But at the end of the day, if you don't believe in pixels or touting or anything like that,
and you feel that that is ethically wrong, then you draw a line in the sand and you say,
everyone on this line who does that, I don't consider them to be a good person. And I don't think
that's unfair. I really don't. I think that there's some lines of work where if somebody was put
in that situation and, you know, even if it was a close friend of mine, I'd just draw the line and
say, like, no, I don't stand for this. I just don't think that that's a good human quality.
You can agree to disagree, but I think that that, I mean, that's kind of where Steve gets the
rap from. But I think that, but that's sort of like saying, Joe, you know, Joe blow over
here's a liberal. And I don't respect liberals. I don't, you know, that's his whole personality.
That's all he's that's always his substance has to be about. I can't have anything in common. I
mean, it's that's a little different though. Now, now we're told like we got political beliefs.
It could, it could be any sort of belief. This is a hard line on whether or not people think that
pixels are a form of a scam, essentially, but who, why is there only one category? I mean,
it's right. It's, it's, it's basically, yeah, you can't be a little bit pregnant in that field.
Year year, they're all in or all out. And there's one category of it. And that's your
whoring your stuff out to the masses and taking advantage of them. I mean, you're, you're
essentially chasing people down on the street, holding them down, sticking a needle in their arm,
telling them that they have to do this. And you're going to turn them into a pick junkie.
I mean, there's, who's determined that there's only one category of somebody that makes pics
available. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to get any argument for me that the vast majority of
the space is really bad. Okay. You're not going to get any argument. But there's more than one
category of people that make information and picks available. I, I agree with you by the,
I think we all agree with you. I, I don't think it, so who determines it? Nobody does. Everybody
is entitled to their own opinion, right? There was a guy, but you just said you, you, you, you say,
I've got this hard line here. You've already, everything's insane. Well, I'm talking about like a,
let's say like a more drastic thing than pick selling where I think every human would have a
hard line with some certain things or, or anything like that. From pick, I sold pics before. Yeah.
I, I, I just tried to do it in a way that I thought was morally correct people view what I do now
and monetizing the sportsbook revenue as, okay, Rob's a scumbag. And they're entitled to that
opinion. Anyone is entitled to the opinion. I don't necessarily agree, but there's certainly a very
vocal major. I mean, it's a vocal minority that lumps all of pic sellers into one. And if you
sell pics, you're, you're scum. And I don't agree with that. But ultimately, I mean, people are
entitled to their opinions. And those people are, are particularly vocal about it. It's the nature
of the business. So I agree with Chris there, by the way, nothing wrong with like honestly,
anyone could kind of do what they want and something really wrong with. But I also think just
there's a rationale behind it. There's a, there's an evolution that is going to be demanded
by the consumer. So this is a good kind of a growth period. And I'm nobody, okay? I've got,
I'm, I'm literally a pimple in that landscape of things. I mean, I have people that have been
following me for 10 years that don't even realize that I have been involved in that. I, I, I,
basically, other than this year had a hard fast rule that four times a year will I reference
that you can go someplace else if you want to get more information. But you know, I'm not out there
like other people every day. You know, my touch on something you said earlier, I don't need to see
that crap every day. You know, that's kind of crossing a line that I don't want to see where
then it becomes a little distasteful. But the consumer is going to end up demanding more at some point
in time. And they should because I shouldn't just be as a consumer sending you my credit card number
and just giving your picks. And it has to be involved into something like I'm trying to do with
all the time access of video conferencing, lengthy write-ups, strategy discussions and teachings.
You know, we're in your hitting hard core important things that are imperative that betters
learn and live through. You know, show them and live through variants with them. You know,
you don't get too high with them. You never celebrate. You know, no, you don't do that because
you don't, when things go bad, you can't have a pity party either. You know, what are the mental
issues? How do you deal with betting and life real world problems that you have? How do you get
them to coexist? How do you get to be open and honest with yourself to make yourself in a position
to succeed is a better to exclude yourself from things that are going to disrupt the way
you're able to bet successfully? You know, if you aren't able to have the mental maturity to
understand, I can't be around these guys on Sundays because I'm going to end up putting in a
toilet roll at crap just to be one of the guys. You know, or if you don't have the mental maturity
enough to know that you have to stay away from the wife at certain periods because she's going to
make you do something or make you aggregate. And then it's going to be her fault that the game's
lost or you bet. Right. I know. I'm so like, I used to share the same opinion as you and I thought
that we would see more of an evolution in the pick selling space. But as time goes on, I honestly
don't think we will because I think there's so many. And again, I don't want to like make this
seem like we're the only like the people who are consuming this content are the only educated ones
in the space. There's obviously a lot more. But I think too many people just cannot decipher
like between good and bad in the space. Like I think back to myself, even 10 years ago, maybe 15
years ago, coming out of high school, going to college, you know, trying to get into sports betting.
But again, using Google as a use Google as a tool now to try to understand sports betting. And
you're just going to get a bunch of crap. That's the reality of the situation. You're going to get
a bunch of crap, public bet percentages, reverse line movement. This not just like nothing that's
really going to be of value to you. And a lot of that is even dominated by pick sales companies
as well. You know, it's it's just so difficult for a regular person to get into the space and not
learn a lesson the hard way. And because of that, pick services. And I'm not suggesting your
yours is anything like this, Chris, it could be it couldn't be whatever. I'm not I don't mean to
make a suggestion, but pick services in general can pray upon people just because they don't know
any better. And I don't know how we're ever going to like, what is the path to that ever changing?
Education, education, you know, I see a lot of misguided people building up their,
what they're trying to do in the space, skipping the most obvious, you know, you build a house.
That's what you do. Whatever you're going to build, build the house from the foundation of
what are you missing? And media companies and educational companies and people building
into this space, all without exception are missing key parts that are painfully obvious that
need to be done. And that's education. I know I just don't I don't think we're ever going to get
there, but it's education from the bottom up. And there's ways to do it that nobody does it. And
some, at some point they will, but, but, but you will never dent the market to get to what I think
the point you're making is you're not you're never going to get, you know, come to Jesus moment
from everybody where everybody just all of a sudden understands. Of course, it's never going to happen.
Well, if 1% of the market is educated and let's say 90% of that 1% if not higher than that are
scared to educate other people because they think it's going to like diminish their edge and some
capacity or you just end up getting like, I mean, what are the what are the educational spots in
the space outside of our podcast right now that you could go too regularly if you want it to be a sports
better. So I see there's not much beginner content out there. That's the lesson on the thing like
how to do things the right way from like a beginner thing. Yeah, it's all it's all recycled
SEO content. Yeah, I also struggle standing this podcast like friends and stuff right because it's
a it's a little bit advanced in a sense that you don't really enjoy the content unless you
already bet every day and kind of know what you're doing. Yep. If you're just starting from scratch
and you, you know, you barely, again, everyone started some scratch at one point. At some point
everyone no matter how big you bet now was betting five ten bucks and sweating it out. But
if you're at that level now and you're just learning like what a spread is, what a money line is,
whatever, this podcast even is not much value for you. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I
the thing is like the what is a spread, what is a money line that's been done in milk, like
not for sure, but even like people who bet, let's say someone who just bets one book right now.
Yep. You got one account and they just loaded up every football season with 500 bucks and then
they just placed like $20 parles in every weekend, same game parles, touchdown scores, whatever.
Like, how's that person going to learn to win betting? Do they even want to? Do they even need to?
Well, that's the thing. So like the demographics, right? Like, do we overvalue the percentage of
people that we think actually want to win at betting? I feel like everyone wants to win. They just
don't want to put in any effort whatsoever. But do they want to win on their own terms?
Like, because I think like I think about my buy someone's picks to win happily. And honestly,
pick selling is actually good for mental pick buying because like it just keeps the fun in betting.
If you're, if you're making the picks yourself and you lose, you're like, I suck at
bases. It's true. It gives you someone else to buy. Buy a Pizzola's picks. Go down 16 units.
What's the like, I'll just be like, oh, he had a bad run, but historically this guy's one,
whatever, it's going to turn around. But also it's not you will commit yourself. It's not on me.
I'm not having even a bad time. I'm just like, all right, we got to just get through this run.
And then you have Pizzola being like, all right, here's the picks tomorrow on phase. You're like,
all right, it's good. But, Johnny, what, just what do you think like in your mind, what do you think
the pick purchasing community consists of? So if you just had a, you know, you cut this,
you know, the pie and you looked at it, what do you think is in that pie? What type of people?
The people that are purchasing picks. What are those people? What traits, goals, or what type of
people do you feel fit that pie chart? Well, I mean, there's going to be a wide variety of people,
wide variety, like, you know, demographics, age range, you know, countries, everything like that.
But what I think the main one, consistent point of view, they all are looking to win. No one's
buying picks, paying money out of pocket, expecting that they're going to lose from those picks. It
just, like, it doesn't mathematically make sense for someone ever to show money. Yeah.
Like, expecting to lose more money off the picks. If anything, they just make the picks themselves
out of Pena. Yeah, extra fee. I think, like, from my inner friend group, which is a very small sample,
we're talking like a dozen people, all of who've bought picks at some point or another.
From what I see personally is people who do not want to have to do the work. Like, they just
don't have the time to spend on handy picking. I think the picks are going to win. They obviously
all think the picks are going to win. No one's buying picks because they think that's I'm saying,
or they're buying them because they think they're so bad. They can fade.
Same thing, but it's the same thing. They think they can win off of those. But I think time savings
is a big factor. I think people who don't want to bear the responsibility of making the pick
themselves is also a way bigger factor than people will realize. So, but I don't think your,
your answer was, is any different than what I was thinking, you know, years ago, the obvious void
here is that there's neither of you came up with that there's a aggressive knowledgeable group of
people that's involved in this. What shocks the hell out of me is my perception of what the
pick buyer would be is entirely different than the realities of. Now, of course, you have
a large segment which are what we envision. But the percentage of people that are out there
that are not looking to blame people. They're looking to learn, they're looking to compare,
they're and they and many of them are sharper than I am in many ways. I have met so many people
that were clients that are doing stuff that blows my mind and they're completely under the radar.
They do their thing and they're very talented in their own right and it helps their process to
be, you know, whatever. At some juncture, it helps their process to be involved with me.
I've got people that, that insane amounts of money involved in the space and they are sharp,
they care about their money, they don't want to waste their time or energy with, you know, failures
and stuff. They don't, they know how to navigate through the BS and you've got other people that are
buying all the services. I don't know anybody basically other than really hardcore originators
that haven't. It's much easier to just buy a service than to try to just get it, you know,
for there's ways to get them free. So there's the direct route, there's a convenience,
there's there's just a lot of little different things that people can benefit from. But
we're all doing it, you know, amongst ourselves sharing information with other people one way or
another and that's, you know, perhaps the way that they prefer to do it. They don't, they don't
have the time to, they actually have things to offer themselves. And, but this is the easiest
way for them to do it. So a lot of interesting people, a lot of interesting people out there.
Chris, we appreciate your time today. We're going to close off here with the same two questions
now that we typically ask everyone. So we introduced a segment a while back plus EV minus EV,
doesn't have to be related to sports betting, it would be anything in life totally up to you.
But one thing that you think is plus EV in life and one thing you think is my minus EV in life.
One word and it works for both. Okay, take a guess. No, I'm not guessing. Habits. Habits.
There's nothing more important than habits. Why would it be minus EV in the sense that bad habits?
Bad habits, bring you down. Good habits, bring you up.
All right. Very philosophical answer there, Chris.
What an agenda, everyone.
Jen, I'm trying to be that simple. It's that simple.
There are no habits. Okay. Okay. And last question now, if you could go back five years in time,
talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your former self?
Oh, that's pretty easy and that is to become comfortable with your skin and be yourself.
But that seems to be the reoccurring every five year thing if that makes any sense because,
but when you're navigating social media and you're trying to do this,
whatever you're doing, you should be doing for yourself not to
uh, climb social status, build ego, whatever you're doing should be for your process and don't worry
about what anybody else is doing, worry about yourself. And if you're, if there's nothing,
if people tell you that they, you know, are different than other people because they do this,
this and this, and they always have to point it out, say, well, this is why we're different,
or this is why I'm different. And they keep pointing it out. Well,
it really just basically says the opposite because a lot of people are trying to climb up too fast.
You know, they've had a little bit of success and they want the attention and they see
all other people get it, maybe sometimes too fast. And they want that. And the, the very,
very best way to earn it is to just be yourself and you know, to be recognized because if you
have to tell somebody else what you're about, then you're not that. You are what you are.
There you go. Las Vegas, Chris, you can follow him on Twitter or ex at Las Vegas, Chris,
that's Chris, C-R-I-S. He's a professional sports better. We talked about that earlier on the
podcast. You can catch him with the bet US NFL team Wednesdays, a C-R Jared Smith and Steve
Fezick, a part of that and also check out his own content on YouTube under the channel Las Vegas,
Chris. He does some good stuff with Ron over there. I've caught some of that stuff in the past as
well. So make sure that you do check that out. And if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you
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everyone next week here on Circles Off. Thank you, Chris. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.