[00:00] Disclaimer. The content presented in this show is intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions expressed are those of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of any individuals or organizations mentioned. Statements made about public figures or entities are based on publicly available information and are not intended to harm or defame any person or business. This show relies on fair use of social media posts which are presented in good faith for the purpose of commentary and criticism.

[00:27] Viewers and listeners are advised to form their own opinions. Controversy surrounding how things were settled on some prediction markets, the impact of gambling on society as a whole, and so much more is coming at you here on Circle Back here on the circles off channel, which is part of the Herren Bang Network and presented by Cali. This is a show where we cover the latest and greatest news that comes from gambling Twitter. And I am your host here on Circleback. My name is Jacob Gman. I am a creator and producer here at the

[00:58] Hammer Betting Network. Unfortunately for this episode here, I'm recording this after the fact because there was an issue on my side for audio and my audio file got corrupted. So, we had to fall back to the backup audio file. And I will be honest, it doesn't sound the best. It doesn't sound to the standard that we would normally want from myself and I apologize for that. But the good news is the three people that joined me on the show today, their audio was not impacted at all. It is just on my side.

[01:25] And let's be honest, you should be here to listen to what they have to say and not myself. This is a problem that won't come up again in the future. It is just a one-time thing. But I promise you, if you stick through it, you fight through it, you're going to get a very good episode here with some fantastic guests. So, apologize, but let's get into things. As normal for Fridays, we do have in the bottom left corner of the screen Mike aka Mr. Peanut Better on Twitter. He has calcium donator as his

[01:52] tag for today. We have Joey Kesh in the bottom right corner of the screen. Co-host on Hit the Books as long as he's not walking his dog. Doesn't misf. Uh, and in the top right corner of the screen, we have Storm Storm Pig on Twitter. Pro Better heavily involved in gambling Twitter as well. Storm, how you doing? Thank you so much for coming back, coming with us here on the Friday show. Once again, >> new year, same show. >> Y and we keep it going. And we start off with a big one, an absolute doozy. It

[02:23] was so big that Rob had to do an emergency video for this on Wednesday to discuss it. I kind of wanted him to save it for us here on the Friday show, but we're going to touch on it still on the Friday show. Now, there was some contrary that was drummed up in an NFL win totals market on Khi, our show sponsor here, and we're going to be completely fair with what's going on here and talk through it all as Rob was on the Wednesday video, which you can go check out as well, but not before you

[02:48] hear what we have to say. So, there were multiple people that were discussing that their NFL win total bets was were settled incorrectly where they would have, let's say, the over 10 and a half wins on the San Francisco 49ers. They won, I think it was 12 games. Therefore, it should have been paid out as a winner. Oftent times it was paid out as a loss or just a stake was returned back to the better. This was brought up a lot in Discord server for Koshi where people were trying to get answers because they

[03:16] were reaching out to support. They were emailing, they couldn't get any answers. There were quite a few incidents, not just with the 49ers. I saw it with Seahawks, with the Bears, with Steelers, and it could have been other teams as well. Justin Ger, who reports heavily on dealings involving Cali, said, "People who bet 49ers win total correctly, were only reimbured cost and not winnings when it was graded wrong, and they just and they won't just eat it." And again, this was multiple teams, not just the

[03:41] 49ers. We have some Discord users here that were discussing it and the KCI support team and moderators within the Discord were saying that this is basically the way the market was settled and that's the final result on the matter. One said, "I understand the frustration. These markets were eronously determined early so everyone was reimbursed cost plus fees. I'm happy to take your feedback to the team that handles these." In the end, Khi did make everyone whole. If you did have a

[04:08] winning wager that was incorrectly settled, you were made whole. who were paid out on the winnings, but there was confusion involved. People were questioning how long it took. So, let's go to you. First of all, the couch donator. Mike, what was your take on this whole situation? This is another example where a lot of these prediction markets are trying to grow so fast and they're trying to gain capture share no matter what that I think they're really bumping against the limits of what they can do and you know

[04:38] who they can essentially you know properly serve as uh predictors. Um so I think that what this is just another example of is trying to grow too fast. I'm sure it was rushed. I'm sure there weren't proper protocols or I I shouldn't say that. I would guess that with a lot of these prediction companies, they don't have in the necessary double checks and standards that you might see in most places. Um just based on the fact that they're growing so fast and uh trying to serve

[05:07] so many people. Uh we see this with websites crashing and things like that. So I think this is kind of part of a larger problem where all these companies are growing so fast and it's this move things and or move fast and break things mentality. But when other people have money on the line, that's a lot uh you know more worrisome of a mentality than when you're just using VC money. So this is kind of a common trend with a lot of these prediction markets. It's early in the space. They are clearly trying to

[05:32] hope this stuff gets fixed up. But yeah, >> we there's certainly been some examples and we'll get to one later on the show where the outcome of a market settling is certainly up for debate, but in this instance it was whether a team won this many games or not. It was pretty clear that there was an issue here and it just was weirdly just not addressed by the support team or the moderators like not addressing like this was clearly an error here. Kesh, as this all unfolded, how are you reacting to it? You know, I

[06:02] don't This is like a and I I'll echo a little bit what PB said, but it reminds me a little bit of like uh what happened with, you know, the our friend our old friend Lup over there um at Novig when they had kind of a similar issue. It's like if you just I there's a little disconnect instantly when this happens of okay, we're just going to like all right, we're going to settle and that's that. And the instance there's any like resistance, which obviously there's going to be because

[06:35] people are mad their winning bet didn't get graded properly, then it's you have to reverse course. It's like you can all these companies can avoid this initial cycle of bad PR by just realizing that okay, if we grade something wrong, we're going to have to eat it. Like we're going to have to fix it. Like there's not going to be a scenario where any type of wager that maybe, you know, more than a handful of people played for real dollars that you're ever going to be able to grade wrong. And it's like

[07:09] people aren't going to notice. Nobody's going to come back and then and it's like okay and you never get this is where I I'll disagree with some people like when we had the the no big discussion I feel like once the toothpaste is out of the tube you never get the full like oh everyone like great job for taking the hit on it. So, I think this is one of those like it's kind of just it happens again and again and again where the learning's got to be you almost use this as instead of

[07:39] waiting for people to catch it and then have to like you get the you know the Dustin Gawkers of the world who like this is the best day of his life he's tweeting about you know he can he can tweet about how you know prediction marks and stuff like that. If you catch it on the front end, then make an example and say, "Oh, look at what we did here. Our mistake. We're going to pay out everybody." You almost use it as a marketing tool instead of a, "Oh, we screwed up now. We had to reverse it

[08:05] type of thing." That'd be my only criticism. Um, as I agree, this just hot and heavy things happen, but you got to like because there's that very slim amount of time, right, before when it happens and then when people start complaining about it. If you can beat them to the punch and say, "Nope, we're making it right." Well, that everybody then is happy as opposed to the scenario where you get some people that are upset and then it looks like you just did it because people pointed it out.

[08:34] >> So, uh, two things before I go over to Storm. First of all, uh a little bit of extra information for anyone's not aware of it. There there's there's more technicalities involved with a resellment of a bet for something for like a place like Cal Prediction Market rather than a sports book. Since they're under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, it's very difficult to get resettlements and make post settlement adjustments. There's actually quite a bit of a process for

[09:00] them to do that. Now the issue is they didn't communicate that they were in the process of doing that and they were going to make the amendment which was again part of the problem. I think they'll learn from that going forward. But the second thing on on Dustin Galer like I I don't think at any point Koshi kind of like the people saw that there was an error here and thought like you know what like we're just going to keep it as is. Sorry but your winning bet we're just going to keep it as a loser.

[09:23] Again it wasn't communicated effectively but I don't think at any point they win we're just going to keep it as is. I think the the goal was always to get this amended. So for people like like Galer, I I actually like could not believe going through his feed how much he thought like he was the one. He is why if it wasn't for him, nobody would have gotten the money for their winning wagers. It's because of him that it happened. Mike, you want to add something >> real quick? You So you think I I am with

[09:54] you on Gooman wasn't the one who kind of broke this story? Um and it wasn't. But you think even if like you think from the initial go their plan despite what the uh you know first customer service person said you thought their plan was always to resettle and they just didn't communicate it rather than they got pushed back and then they decided that they were going to resettle. >> Yeah. I don't think it's really like it's black and white this market. It is did this team win

[10:19] this many games? I don't think that they could I I truly don't believe they could seriously look at that and say, "Well, it's settled like this. We're not going to go. We're not going to bother. We're just going to leave it like that." I I just I I cannot see that truth. >> Yeah. It's not a situation like Plus EV where is weird even though he was in the right in my opinion there at least like it was a weird situation. It wasn't just like, you know, this is the, you know,

[10:41] exactly how it is. So, yeah, I do understand that point of view. We're going to get to it later in the show, but another like there's also prediction markets are kind of coming from the the more political space in the sport where when you have like uh like we're going to do the whole like Venezuela invasion and there's a lot of gray, right? like the the guy Domer who's been doing it forever has been involved in I don't know a dozen of these where like the settlement of like did X country invade

[11:10] X can be pretty gray and once you settle that you just want to be done with it like we're going to take it decision as opposed to >> like we won eight and a half or that line was eight and a half we won nine games there's zero great there zero like yeah like so I think >> there's a reason why they don't want to resettle in a lot of cases but now that you're in the sports realm of it, you can't really have that that exact policy. >> The the Zalinski suit was like the

[11:39] perfect example of that where someone I was talking with someone and they were like, "Well, how would you define a suit?" And I thought about it for a second. I was like, "I honestly have no idea if I could tell you like what needs to be required for it to be a suit versus not be a suit." Those that stuff is like impossible. you can put it in the like, you know, fine print or whatever to some extent, but like yeah, like you said, Jacob, this is 100% there's no argument in any way. It

[12:03] >> it just seemed to me like perhaps the moderators, even like people on the ops team that were in the Discord, maybe they were just trying to put out the fire and just didn't get the message out effectively. Maybe they weren't in communication with the people who could make the change. >> Maybe they weren't privy to sports markets. They're more privy to political markets. And therefore what like you said Kesh typically if they settle it that's that it's going to remain as that

[12:28] and they've never really dealt with an instance like this and going back to what Mike said like they've really like there are so many prediction markets involved in the space now and even some traditional sports books are building their own prediction markets that there's going to be hiccups like this along the way. The the goal is to learn from it and be better from it. But uh we've talked enough. Let's go over to Storm. Uh your take on everything here. So, couple issues I have with this. The

[12:53] first is there's no explanation for what happened. Did some person who works in the Cali office click the wrong button? Was it a misclick? >> That's a great point. >> How how do things like this happen? And you know, we're all pretty heavily involved in sports betting and people kind of rely on us to get these answers and we don't know where to get these answers. So, how can anybody feel great about, you know, putting a lot of money on something and not knowing how something is graded? So, and

[13:28] again, like everybody else said, black and white situation, win total. There's no ifs, hands, or buts about it. So, the lack of communication from Koshi is what I have an issue with. And it's not just them. You know, we're going over the next topic and goes back to what Mike said that everybody's wants to capture market share here. So, it's kind of like figure it out as we go along. But the problem is if you're going to take that approach, you need a better communications team. You need to say

[13:55] right away, this is how we screwed up. This is what happened internally. This is how we're going to fix it. Letting gambling Twitter control the narrative is the worst possible thing that can happen in every single instance of any sort of breaking story, especially when it comes to money. So I just think that you know these these sites and again not limited to just Khi need to plan better for situations like this and a little more transparency because like I said I I'm so curious to know

[14:30] how did this happen? We still don't have that answer. The other thing I want to bring up is you see a lot of people saying, "Oh, well, why didn't they just regrade it or it's just an exchange all the other exchanges, you know, can fix things like this and a lot of people are forgetting that there's a big difference between CFTC regulation and sweep stakes exchanges and people are trying to make the comparison between NOVIG in a lot of cases and two completely separate things. It's apples to oranges in this

[14:57] case and one, you know, how a situation is handled at one is not how it can be handled at another. Right. >> I would I would push back only on uh you said that you don't think like giving the explanation you don't want gambling Twitter to run with it. The only thing like I maybe I'm playing devil's adv advocate more than I actually am sure about this. But I wonder if just saying nothing about it, nobody knows what's going on. They don't want to put their foot in their mouth. They say nothing

[15:23] and it just like quietly dies. I you know I kind of said no big. thought that they like were going back and forth and discussing it with people. And I think that's like a genuinely like very uh you know moral way to handle it. But I almost wonder if from like a PR perspective if you're better off just being like hey let's say nothing. Let's just keep moving. Like plug it in. Just be like hey yep it's decision is final. I'm sorry if you have problem. Like I think that initial customer service

[15:50] worker my guess would be that she gets bombarded with a million of these things and she's just like taught over and over like hey next next one. Nope. we're not dealing with the next one. So, I wonder if like >> that's part of the like why are we gonna get into this even more and make it a larger discussion? Why, you know, put air on a fire. >> Yeah. And and I think it was just again like maybe people who weren't familiar enough with what this situation maybe it's a unique circumstance and like you

[16:17] said like the amount of times like a customer service representative would have to deal with something like this. This is probably just they see this hundreds of times a day. So, I can understand how things kind of broke down, but obviously, you know, a lot of money is at stake for people here. There needs to be it needs to be handled better going forward. And I think that there will be something that that that can be that can be better as a result of this. I did go through like the the social accounts to see like if this was

[16:48] addressed. It was like a KI news account that mentioned that the market was settled and everyone was paid out correctly and they amended it. But I I think that Mike, they took your approach of like they're not getting the bad PR out there on their socials. They don't want to broadcast this. They're trying to keep it as low as possible because maybe you're not like super ingrained in gambling Twitter. Maybe you wouldn't have even seen this. >> Yeah. I I think to be clear, I'm not

[17:11] saying that that is the like, you know, most like the best way to handle it in terms of how I would want someone to behave uh you know, ethically. But I'm just saying like in terms of what I think the best PR strategy, I would just keep moving along and act like, you know, the more you recognize it, it's, you know, don't apologize, double down, uh there. But if you're a political leader and you say, "Hey, I was wrong on something." Or if you're a political leader and you just say, "No, that's

[17:38] person's an idiot. I never said that. You're I think one has been proven to uh be a better, more popular choice so far." >> Right. >> I guess I should amend one thing. I wasn't really saying from the perspective of Koshi like they don't care what people are saying on Twitter. More so if you're trying to inform yourself, don't go off of whatever narrative is being spun by gambling Twitter accounts because like I said, even we don't really know how this

[18:04] happened yet. So until you hear something official, just you proceed with caution. So the best I can get for how it happened is from this message in the discord is that these mark these markets were eronously determined early. So everyone was reimbursed cost plus fees. Again not a lot of details that that come from that but just again feels like a very large disconnect overall. But to to the people that think I I I vehemently disagree with people who say like if it wasn't for people making like

[18:37] an outrage out of this this wouldn't have gotten amended. it wouldn't have gotten solved. I I I do disagree there. I think that this was something that they were working on. It's just not something that can just happen right away. You disagree, Mike? >> I I don't know. I think that like I think that it's hard to put a lot of certainty in that situation. I I would probably lean that way, but I would say that that might have just been like, hey, you know, just keep it moving. But

[19:03] you you might be right. I don't I don't >> just say just say what everybody's thinking. We don't know the answer, but we don't want to attribute any success to Galker and you know inflate his ego any more than it already is. >> I definitely don't >> because like the way >> we need Jason Cooper here to be the real investigative journalist. He's got to teach Gooker the ways. Um so yeah, I think that's how we have this settled. >> I cannot believe like his Twitter

[19:28] account honestly. Like I've never really had an issue with an account until now. I I actually genuinely cannot believe the the way he's portraying himself. like the way he's putting himself up on this pedestal like I got your money back and when people talk about Koshi got Khi made it right, Khi gave everyone their winnings and like well how did they make that happen? Who did that? Uh yeah, I generally was stunned. >> Do you think it's going to be an awkward uh conversation when Gooker is put on a

[19:59] Kowi uh leaderboard for will he win the Puliter Prize for this? >> Right. when that market is going up. >> Absolutely. Well, anyways, we're going to move on to the next topic here. As I said this to start the show, this is sponsored by Cali. We're being as fair as possible with the situation here, but still this is a company that we stand by. This is a company that we believe in. We wouldn't be pushing out a company here on the channel that we truly don't believe in. I understand where that

[20:26] doubt could come in as as Mr. Peanut Butter was just alleging to and as Storm kind of pointed out as well. I understand where that's coming from, but it is a product that we stand behind and it is something that's continuing to grow and hopefully they learn from these sorts of situations and we still believe it is a company worth getting involved with. You can sign up to Koshi by going to the link in the description anytime while you're watching or listening or by scanning the QR code that is on screen

[20:50] right now. Thank you to Koshi for being the presenting sponsor here on circles off. But I again I promise you they have not fed us anything. They have not told us what to say, what not to say. They have given us no direction. This is just our honest thoughts on the entire situation. Now, we t we talked about a lot. We've teased you enough with this one. Moving to the next topic. This one involves another prediction market, poly market. So, unless you've been living on Iraq, uh you you have obviously seen the

[21:18] capture of Nicholas Maduro, uh the leader of Venezuela by the United States. Uh they've taken him out. They brought him to the US for trials and there are people who placed predictions in poly market on whether the United States will invade Venezuela and people are confused as to why this was not settled as yes it is still a market that has been unsettled as the invasion according to poly market has not happened yet. Trader 53 says gamblers trying to collect their payout from poly market left baffled as they learned that

[21:52] the US operation carried out in Venezuela does not meet poly market definition of an invasion. I pull up the market specifically to get the language used here and I'll read it out. This market will resolve to yes if the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela between November 3rd, 2025 and January 31st, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Eastern time. Otherwise, this market will resolve to note for the purposes of this market land de facto controlled by Venezuela or the United

[22:24] States as of September 6, 2025, 12 time will be considered the sovereign territory of that country. The resolution source for this market will be consensus of credible sources. So I personally never considered what the US did as an invasion because I also thought it would be for the intention of dominating or controlling a certain region of the state or the country in this case for Venezuela. I can understand why people may have perceived it that way, but to me it's laid out pretty well with the rules in the

[23:00] market. Storm, uh, I'll go to you first in this one. Do you agree or disagree with that? Do you see any issues with this? >> After seeing the way it's worded, I don't have a strong opinion, but I'm okay with it. I two things here. The first is this brings me back to the human scent iPad episode of South Park for anyone familiar. The entire premise of the episode is read the fine print. So when you're wagering money and for some people a lot of money, you have to know the house rules. And I I tell

[23:36] people this all the time. You know, there's in the PPH world, there's been some huge disagreements about things like tennis settlements. Every site has different rules on retirements, things of that sort. So, you always have to know the house rules of what you're playing. You always have to know the rules of the wagers that you're placing. It's unfortunate, but I I'm not I don't have that much of an issue with this one. Um because there's this is kind of like the

[24:03] anti-free roll situation. There's probably situations in which guys that lost on that will probably benefit in the future on other outcomes that you know a fine print may go in their favor. So you're not going to hear them complaining in those instances. So not that bad. The only other thing I want to mention is there was a great great tweet says down in my bunkers radioactive ashes rain down on my city. I checked poly market yes shares for atomic bomb detonation in 2026 using the last remnants of internet worth0

[24:36] resolved it as no because it was technically a hydrogen bomb and not an atomic one. >> Very very solid tweet. >> I mean it is true though like if I had the no in this I would be like yeah this is this is not an invasion. I'm betting on this because it's US trying to establish control and perhaps somebody got an edge in saying like I read the rules here which are on the market like typically with a sports book like you have to really dig in to find the house rules. This is right there on the market

[25:04] page like you don't even have to really scroll to find it. If I were to read that and people's perception of uh kind of the snatch and extract mission of Maduro, if that if their perception of that is an invasion, they're not reading the rules, maybe I can I feel like I have a good position and an edge on that one. Uh Mike, we'll go over to you next. Um you agree or disagree with what we're saying. >> Basically, you have to know whenever you are looking at a market, what are you

[25:29] actually betting for this one? You have to like the part of reading the fine rules is going to or the fine print of the rules is going to be one of when they do these prediction markets like the big key edges going forward is how you interpret those rules and how you think other people determine them. In a way it's you know not quite this extreme but like if you think about it for uh if you're betting awards market you're not really betting your opinion of who the most valuable player in the NBA is.

[25:56] You're betting on who will be voted the most valuable player. So, I mean really with some of these prediction markets, you could go even a step further where not only am I betting on how this bet will determine, I'm betting on how I think the people determining the bet will think it determined. So, uh, yeah, it's back to similar with the suit situation with Zillinsky where it's like, you know, how do I define a suit? I don't know. Your best guess is to read the rules and kind of see how do I think

[26:22] they would define a suit. Um, I don't know. It's kind of craziness. It's kind of pedantic, but if if you are betting into these markets and you don't have that kind of stuff wrapped up and you don't know the risk that come with it, then you probably shouldn't be betting into those markets. I think that those like this is just it all is now kind of part of the handicap. >> And finally, over to you, Kenish. >> I mean, if you're wondering why the customer service people in the first

[26:49] segment reacted the way they do, it's cuz the market's like this. Because if I bet yes, the US would. and wasn't getting paid out after what just happened, I'd be on, you know, in the customer service person telling them, you know, I'm going to, you know, call uh call the the, you know, this the US armed forces to go after them. because I I I can see why and again to kind of layer it in why the prediction markets in terms of settlements have to be pretty standard cuz this is one where once you make a

[27:23] you can't really go back in this instance and you're going to have a lot of upset people that that you know like if you bet the invasion yet you're going to save people that. So, this is one of those that's in a kind of a very different arena than the cut and dry sports results that can be like numerically um like basically defined. This is kind of the prediction thing where it gets where it gets gray and it gets nasty. Um all I'll say is yes. I would be if if I bet the yes on this and I had a big

[27:55] payout that they were going to do it and wasn't getting it, uh I'd be pretty triggered. I would did you guys think like even without reading the fine print do you think like I guess when I wouldn't have labeled that an invasion even if I never read it like >> I don't think it's an invasion and then I think when more details came out that essentially it was like a single per like operator on that was like inside of Maduro's closest people carried it out I wouldn't really consider that an

[28:21] invasion >> but yeah probably I think the overarching lesson is if you have a market that can't be defined by did team win x amount of games, then you are always going to be at risk for like these situations where it's somebody else's interpretation of how they're grading it. >> Yeah. And you go you keep referencing the Zillinsky student in anybody doesn't know there it was a market on whether he'll wear a suit. I think it was to a White House meeting and he wore

[28:46] something that like pretty much 50/50 honestly like it was 50/50 as to whether it was a suit or not. It looked like maybe a jacket that looked like a suit. Uh so very ambiguous. However, if you're predicting on whether there'll be an invasion or whether Zalinsky will wear a suit to the White House, you have to understand that in doing so, you are signing up for how they perceive the market to be to be graded and the results. Like you have to understand that I think because I I can certainly see the argument as to

[29:23] this being an invasion but to me it would have to be for the purpose of establishing control or dominance over region which I don't believe this meets the criteria. The Zalinsky suit on the other hand I I I could go either way on on that one. So again, >> one more thing that I'll add here just to circle back to the first thing we talked about is I think people would appreciate more transparency on matters like this. This is how we came to this decision. This is how this happened. Without any of that, it's just that this

[29:57] is going to keep happening over and over again. >> Yeah. So we just I think from these last two things, we just want an explanation. We want further communication on on these sorts of things. So perhaps we can get that going for it. Before we go to our next topic, we're going to hear a quick word about Bet Stamp Pro. >> We know the Hammer is truly like a family. Familiar faces, inside jokes, and the one person that everyone likes picking on. Well, here's your chance to continue the conversation. Join our new

[30:24] Hammer Discord. A chance for us to discuss all the games and news, share our favorite bets, and interact with your favorite Hammer creators. discord.gg/hammer to join now or visit a link in the description. Next topic comes from the impact of sports betting as a whole on the world. And it kind of started with this conversation here from Dave Ramsey who does a show talking about finances and how to properly and best manage your finances. Gets people to call in oftent times to discuss things that they've

[30:54] done they've done incorrectly in the past etc. It's about being smart with your money essentially. And he says here online sports gambling is destroying a generation of young men. Haralabov, an incredible sports better who's made loads of money in the space, agrees with it and says, "Yes, it is destroying a generation of young men." Johnny replies and says, "Help us beat the books." And healab quote tweets it by saying, "Stop betting on sports. Delete the app. Stop

[31:18] consuming content that promotes gambling there. You're welcome." Kevin Corona says, "Open Hell's Gate, then shut it behind you to not let Johnny bet his lol." He responded and said, "I dedicated my life to recognizing patterns, building models, and applying math with discipline in order to win. I didn't bet for the thrill of it. I bet because I wanted to win and knew what it took to actually win." Johnny isn't cut out for that life. And even if he were, it wouldn't matter. They're very the

[31:44] very books promoted by his favorite sports media personalities would kick him out the moment he proved he wasn't there to lose. So, there's two ways we can kind of discuss this. We'll talk about kind of the the greater societal impact in just a moment here. I wanted to first of all start off with the grind that comes with sports betting because I think we can all attest that it is easy to win at sports betting. The difficulty comes with winning at scale. So Kesh, someone who has done so many has has had

[32:13] so many different roles in sports betting. I would say you've really put in a lot of hours to this. Maybe you can touch on the the grind, the absolute grind that comes with this industry. Uh, I mean, first I want to touch on Bob is such a [ __ ] arrogant prick. Godamn it. Uh, like he just I can't as some like when I first got into the big like he was someone I like looked up to and he's become so just absolutely intolerable um with his attitude. But I mean from to answer your question, Jacob, it and I

[32:47] think I basically all the other panelists would like it took over uh a good portion of you know my life and still remains. Not as much as uh when I was probably, you know, in the absolute grind like absolute grind era, but I it it was really my only I it was the only thing like it was my only hobby. It was the only thing I did. It cost me um you know some like relationships in the past. It took where if I wanted to have basically do a dual life, right? have the corporate side of things and um be

[33:24] able to that that meant and I wasn't one of those people that was like Bob who was you know having a you know a sophisticated quantitative model and that but that meant you know at 10:00 if I needed to go out to the casino and get a fill that that was right you was where you found value in the world if that means you know like doing whatever it took to get some BPH accounts that what it was. So yeah, I I don't I and to like tie it back to I think is it harder now than it was in errors past? Sure. But to

[33:55] say that like I is a very I don't want to sound like Bob, right? I don't want to come across as like no I I won the the the gravy train's over. Nobody else will have a shot. at the same time recognizing that there's likely yes going to be a I mean Isaac's the you know we we needed him to you know a phone a friend here for Isaac to want to talk problem gaming in this country. It's not really my bag but I I understand what Dave is saying. Um, at the same time, there's still like you

[34:32] look at a lot of the new generation of gambling Twitter like the Picket Crew and all that. Those kids, I'm calling them kids now cuz I'm getting to be an old man are are winning money. So, it is possible. I I guess you probably have to have almost a separation between what your mainstream view like what your mainstream communication is from people like Dave Ramsey and versus what's realistic for your people that are like have some sharp tendencies or really can get in the industry and make money.

[35:02] >> All right, well said there. Uh how about you Mike? What are your thoughts and everything? I mean like I you just look at the whiteboard behind you like this is this is really a business the way the way it's run for you. I I think there's two things that are kind of getting conflated here that I mostly agree with Joey on HBO overall, but I do think that he has a good point in the fact that like the way he's interacting with gaming, the way I'm interacting with gambling or Storm or Joey is so

[35:29] different than what the average person is. You're almost comparing two different things. It's kind of like a, you know, should we ban drinking in the United States? It's saying, "Should we ban?" Like, they are the people going to the bar and getting hammered and we're the bartenders. We're going in, it's our job. We're handling it very different. It's not for fun. It's for, you know, I mean, I enjoy it, but I enjoy it in the same way that you can enjoy a job. Like,

[35:53] I think that it's such a different conflation of him saying, "Hey, this is bad for the average person who's trying to bet money and getting poor versus someone I don't know if he necessarily would be like, "Hey, I think that the people grinding out like I don't think he's anti-AP here. I think he's anti- everybody else the way it's being used in society. So yeah, I think it's more like a bartender goes to their a bar. Um a person who's drinking at the bar have

[36:18] very different reactions of how what would happen if gambling or if alcohol was banned. But it's for gambling for some reason we kind of just pair everybody together. >> And finally to you Storm uh maybe you talk about and sh on the grind involved with it and your thoughts on it. I don't like Bob at all. I love what Kesh said. I like what the guy Kevin said about closing the gates of hell. I I frequently say he likes to pull the ladder up. I got invested in Gambling Sharp from replying to a tweet of his back in 2012

[36:59] maybe and somebody I went to high school with who was involved in Sharp Sports Betting saw my reply and that was kind of like my in and how I met Rob and everything. So, you know, I I went from really admiring him to just being like, "Wow, this guy is just the biggest pompest [ __ ] in the entire gambling space." And one thing that a lot of people love to forget is that he got his start by being a giant bookie. So, you know, it's it's not like uh maybe you can say, "Yeah, he's qualified to make

[37:31] those comments and tell people not to bet because he was on the other side getting plus 110, so he sees how much people can lose gambling." Not to diminish what he did as far as betting, but just something that a lot of people don't know. Um, as far as like the comments about the grind of sports betting and how it goes now, I also fully agree with what Kesh said. In the last 18 months, I think the sandbox has appeared to be much larger than most of us who were doing this for a while initially thought it was. And there's

[38:07] plenty of newcomers making a lot of money doing this. And previously the arguments was always, oh, is there enough money to go around for sharp sports betterers? I think there's way more money than anybody realized. I think Bob's comments are sort of ignorant because, you know, I don't know his involvement at this point, but people say like, you know, the Harab Bob group, there's people that he used to work with that are still betting, you know, at at large scale. Um, you need bookies, you need counterparties to make

[38:35] money. So to just like completely [ __ ] on something that made you rich and you know may you may still continue to earn on completely speculation. I don't want to speak on that but like at least people that you worked with in the past are still making money from it. To try to just shut the door on anybody else trying to follow in your footsteps is just asinine to me. And I I also just think like he got so rich from crypto that it's just like one of those things where like you're that guy's opinion on

[39:06] anything can't be like listened to at this point. You you're just in a whole other world like you you can't possibly understand that like a common person you would agree or disagree with at this point. >> No. Yeah. I love that point cuz he's he's in the he's in a tier now where like if I'm doing tiers right and you would have your your better who knows absolutely nothing you know Nola no square then you'd have you know maybe like your more educated better your rec plus guys your

[39:36] sharper sport he's in like this now tier of elitist that there's zero connection left between the world that he left and kind of what he's doing now so to speak on it makes it seem I guess the only thing I would retor is like I'm I would never tell some do I think you know mainstream for your average but is it going to be like you know a career or something like that? No. But the the but what I've seen is like you know the the the finance kid or the engineer that works all day and then

[40:08] goes home and arbs or you know live bets edges for you know from 5:00 p.m. until he goes to bed at midnight or something. I'm not going to, you know, if you want to grind and hustle like that to make it to the next, you know, to try and level up in life, I would never tell somebody not to not to go for that. I'm not going to tell I I think the cell would be that to not have it be like this may might not be something for you to like life changing or your career for the next 50 years but to make you know a sum of

[40:42] money over the next 6 12 you know couple years or so that that can enhance your life financially or your class standing I I think it's a somewhat okay goal to shoot for if you're going in with the right mindset as opposed to like, oh, I'm going to hit the biggest barlay of all time and never have to work again, >> right? All right. Interesting points there. We're going to stick with similar conversation as I mentioned and we're going to stick with what Dave Ramsey said about online sports gambling is

[41:13] destroying a generation of young men. We had a few takes on that one. First of all, Piggy Bank said, "Not a Dave Ramsey fan. I know people are are posting gotchas with piggy grass, etc., But the truth is online sports betting is crushing a lot of young men. It's unfortunate because sports betting is the easiest thing to make money in right now. I think any driven person man or woman that isn't already wealthy should be dedicating a lot of time into learning all you can about it. A lot of

[41:37] good places to start. Andrew Gmbas on Twitter bets and picks MMA does MMA origination says sports betting is the easiest thing to make money right now is a grossly untrue statement from someone that actually makes money sports betting. That's me really awesome tweet. And plus TV analytics says anyone responding to this with actually it is possible to win is missing the point. We are the privileged few. The vast majority don't experience gambling the way we do. So I I'll go back to Kesh on

[42:04] this one. So kind of going away from the sentiment from winning sports bers and their stance obviously going to be well you can make money on this or it's going to be I made money but you can't anymore. But like as a whole, do you feel like sports betting has been it's posit it's worked positively for all of us sitting here. But to the grand majority of people in society, has sports betting been a positive or negative net? Really? >> Um, you know, man, that's a it's I wasn't expecting

[42:39] you to phrase it that way. Um, >> well, how would you like me to fight? What What would >> No, no, no, no. I I don't I don't think your phrasing was bad. I just uh I I really want >> I mean I'll say I I'll say it's it's it'd be tough to it'd be tough to come up with an argument and say it's a positive. >> I agree with you. That's what I was trying to go with. I didn't want to just hammer and say it's been >> not to be disrespectful, but I would say

[43:03] if you're watching content like this, you're putting in at least the work at the start to understand what it takes to win. I don't think the most people watching this are just idiots that are dunking on stupid parlays. But as like as a whole, the biggest creators in the space are people who shill out parlays, who give out losing bets and don't track correctly and fool their audience. Uh commercials are bombarded with uh with sports betting ads. Now, like I like I said, like 98% of people are honestly

[43:35] when people say 98, I think they're wrong. I actually think it's like higher than that. I would I would wager it's 99% or more lose at sports betting. So, it's tough to say as a whole it's a net positive, but there are people that can definitely take a positive out of it like I think us four. Uh, but go back to after that. >> No, it's just a couple of things, right? Like I don't know that I don't know a piggy bank guy at all, but some people in the space that talk like this are

[44:03] people that are like [ __ ] dub club like where they've made money off of not actually winning at sports betting off of like the the business of sports betting and selling their stuff, right? So it's like oh I've made life but you didn't make it actually betting. The other thing would be uh to to kind of respond to to Goombas's point is, you know, five, seven, eight years ago when legalization was first happening, you could I mean, if you just wanted to be like a, you know, a a bonus better, you

[44:34] know what I'm saying? Like there was that easy pathway where they were shilling out thousand bonus bets, you know what I'm saying? Or you you could do the thing where like there was a lot of early like lot of early mistakes at a lot of these places that haven't, you know, have gotten tightened up over the years. So I I think the again I don't want to like do the whole HBO ladder up thing, but I do unless you're and we've said it on the show before, unless your pathway right

[45:05] now in terms of ease is like I want to sell SGPS on an on an app that sells that stuff. Yes. then it's probably easier than it was 5 years ago to make a living. If you actually want to bet and win or like, you know, do some type of AP methodology, then I would say it's significantly harder than it was 5 years ago, >> right? Uh let's go over to Storm second on this one. Um how would you answer the way I asked it? Is it a net positive or negative? >> Yeah, definitely a net negative. And

[45:42] I'll disagree a little bit with Kenishh. I think, you know, without naming names, I think there's a lot more EV tools and EV betting tools out there now that did not exist 3, four years ago that will make winning easier. Now, you get into the whole conversation that we don't need to beat to death, you know, winning easy, scaling hard. Um, you know, you can't just go and beat up using like an EV betting tool on soft wreck books. But on the flip side, I love what plus EV Analytics said. You know, anyone

[46:15] responding to this with actually it is possible is missing the point where the privileged few. Completely agree with that. In the same way, you know, that I criticize Bob for like being like so disconnected from, you know, where most people stand in sports betting. Now, you could say that about people that do this professionally versus people that don't. you know, less of a gap obviously than, you know, somebody of his stature, but you still have to remember that most people don't make money doing this. So,

[46:44] you have to view it through that lens. And you know, somebody like this piggy bank guy, th those are like the um what's the mean? The guy that says, "But actually, like those are just guys that want to toot their own horn and like put a tweet out there, hey, I actually win at sports betting." You know, guys that want to their own farts. So, you have to keep that in mind, too. Uh, finally to you, Mike, your take on this. >> Yeah, I kind of jumped the gun earlier when I made the bar analogy that I kind

[47:09] of butchered, but we're interacting like I don't want to get in a like echo chamber where I don't realize that everybody is interacting with this so much differently than we are that like we're like, oh, you know, you could make money doing it, but so everybody's just using it to throw whatever on and lose whatever. So, I don't know. I think that he like plus is right. we're some of the, you know, chosen few as he says. So the way we are going to deal with it is going to be so much different than

[47:36] everybody else that I almost think that like we should be we're so we're such a small part of the equation it doesn't totally matter. >> Yeah. And it's just I I think it is just another one of those examples where people that are really ingrained in sports betting just that there's people involved who just really sw to grasp the mindset of an average person. like this is a very this kind of sounds like like bad as well but it is a very like small percentage of people that can find

[48:04] success in the industry actually wagering and for some reason doesn't click like that for like to to it doesn't click for them that they are in that rare position so that's probably what the most most of the comments are coming from but but again I do agree that that that it's probably causing more problems than it's solving but there are the few that can take advantage of that and and find success in the industry >> and just just because something is a net negative. There's lots of things in life

[48:31] that are net negative. So I don't think that's like a fair bar for >> like alcohol is a net negative but we don't make drinking as I continue to go to this analogy. Uh but like you know there's other net negative things that we don't necessarily outlaw because you ultimately get the agency to do what you want. So you can choose to you know donate to Koshi like I can or you can choose to get winners. >> Exactly. There you go. We'll move on to our next topic in just a second here. If

[48:58] you are enjoying the show so far, please make sure you've hit the like button. Also, consider subscribing to the channel for more content just like this. We have circle backs Friday and Monday. We also do bonus videos on Wednesdays as well. Plenty of great content for you to keep involved with. Rate and review five stars as well if you're listening in podcast form. Going to get into the next topic though. As I said, we're talk about cash outs because we had Keith uh I hope was there Keith Kapalot says my

[49:26] parlay is green. It's the same game parlay or parlay general on the Steelers 10 plus regular season wins AFC North winner which they have accomplished both. And now final leg of the parlay is to win the Super Bowl $50 wager to win $3,64 plus $7,18 odds. The cash out though after the Steelers did get their 10 plus regular wins and win the ASC North is 4370. Scott Riel quote tweeted and said, "This better now is the Steelers to win the Super Bowl at plus 7100 because of a three pick parlay. The current price for

[49:58] the Ste Super Bowl is plus 6,000. However, the cash out option would result in a $7 loss. This parlay sums up why the FanDuel cash out option is never a good deal. First thoughts on this one, Mike, over to you first. Well, to be clear, you could have a situation where they got those first two parts of the leg and then the odds still went down. So, like if you bet on the Thunder to win the to get the number one seed and then Shay gets hurt in the first round, their odds to win the title would actually go down. So, that part's not

[50:27] ridiculous to me. I do wonder some of these cash out options like they're so insulting that mostly like betters can't tell. They have no idea these casual betterers if the bet is a good deal or not. This one it's like it's looking at you right in the face when there's only one leg left and like they can see, oh wait, what happened? I went down. Like this one's almost so easy to see that it's a bad look. But this is actually what happens all the time. It's just not

[50:51] put in such like a perfect example. >> Agreed on that. Uh we'll go to Kesh. What are your thoughts? I mean, I think mo in like almost every instance the cash out's going to be I've probably said this on shows before, but I think the only time you I I the only time that I've personally cashed things out are scenarios where like I'll just play this scenario where like let's say you have this ticket and boom, you see a notification, Aaron Rogers torn Achilles, torn ACL or something. If you

[51:25] go in real quick and take the cash out, no matter what it is, it doesn't matter. Like, okay, let's say the cash your cash out is, you know, 10 bucks, you're at least getting your right. That's better than zero, right? Cuz the season's over. This ticket isn't going to cash. So, I've had instances in the past where uh I there was like a Giannis Buck season where he got hurt and I had some Buck stuff and I just went in boom, cashed it out real quick. Back in the day, you

[51:50] like if there was a NASCAR race and somebody crashed, you could go in real quick and cash it out. I don't think that works anymore. But those are the only scenarios where I've ever is like if you know your bet is dead and I mean dead dead like 100% dead or 99.9% like dead and you still have a cash out option that's better than zero then you can go in and maybe salvage whatever percentage of your bet you have left. Outside of that, you you'll almost always like be better off if you wanted to

[52:25] actually hedge of going in and doing some type of like legitimate hedge as opposed to hitting the cash out. >> How about you, Star? Your thoughts? >> Cash out is always bad, but I I think the guy Scott thought he had like more of a gotcha than he actually did. It's a mega correlated parlay there. And yeah, the EV improved by like 0.1 or 0.2. So it's not uh it's not a gotcha like I think this guy thought it was. >> So I mean I wouldn't say like cash out is never a good option. There are like

[53:01] it's rare but I'll usually like calculate the EV on the bet and if the cash would disappear to that and every like once every few months I will actually be kind of surprised that wow the cash out actually would be better to take the cash out. It would be plus CD to cash out here. So I would I think just like the blanket here it's like saying don't buy picks because like in general you're probably better off just following that. I'll say the same casual in general. Yeah, probably you're better

[53:30] off not cashing out, especially for like a player prop when things are moving so quickly. You're probably better off just not cashing out. But there are going to be rare instances where yes, it it might actually be plus cash out or you could hedge out of a play. This one >> distinguish you could distinguish by saying that there are situations where it makes sense, but you're still not going to get close to a fair price because they basically never offer a fair price. So there are sometimes

[53:57] there's accounts that you can get like hey they give you your just essentially they give you your exact cash provided the line hasn't moved like say you know you bet seven they give you the exact amount that you bet back. There are situations where like >> I have had an account that had that the line moved in another spot to a better number. I cashed out bought the better price got stuff like that. I mean like again these are just very rare. Usually like Storm said they're just they're

[54:23] never giving you a good deal. Um, so if it is a good value, it's because you have to generate it yourself, >> right? Well said there. Hopefully some good insight into everything there. If you want more insight into anything doing in sports betting, well, great place to go is the Hammer Discord. I'll tell you more about it right now. >> A lot of people ask and with football and basketball kind of in full swing right now. There's one oddc screen that I stand by. I'm very biased because I

[54:53] helped build it, but it's the Bet Stamp Pro prop screen. And listen, this is built for high level betterers who need to spot and scale up edges fast. It's not built for everyone out there, but if you're someone out there who's looking to win money betting on sports and you want to try to exploit some inefficient numbers, you can't do that without a hyper efficient odds screen. Don't wait. The opportunity to capitalize on the prop market is right now. If you want, you can visit betstamp.com/hammer

[55:23] or you can scan the QR code up on screen to apply for a demo. Spots are limited. Last main segment on the show today comes from Foszen Poker who quote tweeted this from uh Brien Feeko Foko. So, hope I said that correctly. And he says, "Can someone find this high school basketball coach at Preston Strong? He owes me 20K." And there was a conversation in the DMs. Preston, the high school basketball coach, and I got 12 bands. Say the Ravens win. We can go up if you if you want. You got it.

[55:55] Matter of fact, since you've been talking so spicy, I'll up to 20. Now, what you want to do? And the reply from Braden was, "Let's bet it, boy. Bet it up. You might need to go ask LSU for some bread real quick." Anyways, uh, the Ravens lost. Therefore, Preston owes this user $20,000. And he's questioning where to find him. Foes in poker quote tweet and said, "No way morons are betting with randoms on Twitter and expecting to get paid." So, uh, Storm, I'm sure you've been in many I know

[56:28] you've been in many dealings with strangers over the internet in terms of sports betting. Um, how do you go through like how do you find someone like if you if if wages are going to be placed between people hypothetically, what is the vetting process? Like surely it can't just be a a a conversation in the DMs. >> Um I mean a lot of it is just gut feeling experience in this specific instance. How could you even say that that constitutes a bet? Like one guy could easily free roll the other guy and be

[57:01] like, "Oh, that was a bet." Depending on how it happens, it's kind of like a nothing burger here. Um it just seems like two knuckleheads. And you know, this guy's, like I said, you you could easily, if it had gone the other way, the guy could have been like, "Oh, that was a bet or that wasn't a bet." It's not like, "Okay, we locked this in or these are the odds or anything like that." I think one of their replies is like, "Oh, you got you bet on whichever

[57:27] team at like even odds that should have been plus money." Like it it didn't it's just two guys that clearly don't understand anything about betting whatsoever. Um, and as far as vetting people, like when it comes to Twitter and stuff, like search their mentions, things like that. Um, but like there there's been there's like this group of like four or five guys that over like the last 10 years have just been like perpetual scammers and shot takers and like sometimes they're

[57:54] so sloppy they don't even like switch handles or anything and they'll like try to message you to like slip you an account to play into and it's just like them booking it or like sometimes like there would be people that there were certain PPH sites back in the day that would give out free trials and like you would know based on like the username that it was like a pre-trial user, so you knew it was somebody taking a shot at you. It's just one of those things you pick up with experience and gut feel

[58:17] for the most part. >> Uh, anything, Mike, you could elaborate with on that? >> Uh, no. I mean, you're going to be risky on who you work with if you're trying to totally maximize. There's going to be times where you're probably get burned every once in a while, but this is the next level of like insaness to just be like, "Okay, 12 bands on a Twitter DM." one like one key factor is if it's still in Twitter DMs like there's still some riskiness to it unless you're like hey

[58:45] do you want to talk on telegram do you want to talk on you know whatever other app if like a a lot of times if it's just like a Twitter DM with someone that you don't know like what are we doing here so yeah I I understand that uh people want to make bets with whoever but there's always a line >> I feel like you got to be like is if you actually want the bet tap you got to be like I'm betting this. You're betting this. Are we in agreement? And then you need visual confirmation. Yes. Yes, we

[59:14] are in agreement. >> One better. Sorry. >> One better was uh he got scammed by a guy on Twitter known as cameltoe. So like that's some of these you can't even make up the story of how it's >> at least in this case. This is a real person. If he knows he's a high school basketball coach, at least there's some personal information there. It's not cameltoe or like something like jagging off 69 as their handle. Um Kesh uh finish off the segment here for us. >> I I've seen the FiO guy. I think he used

[59:48] to play at like yeah LSU. It was a whole lineman or something. He's just like okay >> likes to uh I don't know just do try and do like the viral content type thing. So it seems like kind of a cornball in terms of his account stuff. But yeah, I mean 99.9% of these like I've had people if I say like a hot take on Twitter that'll be like a come in like you know I'll bet you 10,000. No, but like but come on now. So you got to be you got to be really if it's not somebody you

[60:17] actually know the chance that they actually want to like make a bet or like people have vouched for is like one in a million. >> Right. We're going to move into our final segment in just a second here. Before we do, if you're enjoying the show so far, please make sure you have hit the like button, subscribe to the channel for more content like this. As I mentioned, we do plenty of content here on Circles off to hopefully help you become a more aware and better sports better. Providing education, also

[60:44] providing entertainment, we hope in shows like this. But the final segment on the show, as always, is the chopping block stuff we wanted to briefly mention before we head out today. Okay. And the first one comes from Joel Rubano who says, "Just saw my first job posting for a prediction markets trader at an elite hedge fund. Let's go over to first of all Kesh on this one. You wanted to talk about this. What are your thoughts?" >> Yeah. You know what this seems like the there listen if you're at a hedge hedge

[61:11] fund is they love what what you would call inside information, right? and not like insider but inside information to be able to like do whatever it takes um to take massive positions on thing. That's kind of like the area that prediction markets, you know, have drifted into where you can have info on like Google searches or a tire or what somebody's going to do. And like I mean I I think it just makes sense if you're if you're like a fund now to have somebody on staff to to manage these

[61:46] things. Um I I think this is probably just the way uh the way the world is trending, >> right? >> So the go ahead >> in the comments they said that the company is SIG. So like of course they're hiring prediction market traders. Like they're the largest liquidity provider for lots of uh things. So like they must have been posting job links for months now. It's just nobody noticed it because I mean if it if that person was right I guess I shouldn't say for sure but like SAS

[62:13] Sasuana has obviously had prediction market traders for quite a time now. >> How about you Storm? >> I don't think it's that surprising. Uh I one distinction is like trader is such a vague term as far as a job description and a lot of what these hedge funds um a lot of their edge and what they excel at is high frequency trading because they have the manpower, they have the resources, they have the technology, they have the latency to execute high volume trades and high frequency trades

[62:47] as most people call it to just completely you know it's like a David versus Gol sort of thing in some instances a lot more with inplay betting, but um it's there's it's an interesting distinction between like okay is this like a trader who they need for like conceptually how to win or like is this a trader for like somebody you know who's good at the process of executing trades. So it's it's definitely a very vague thing but it's not surprising at all. >> Right. And then next up on the chopping

[63:19] block, we have this from Movez 0x MobZ on Twitter says, "Poly market sports bots are making millions on a plus 45 second live stream delay. While you're checking the price in Poly Market, they already know where it's going. The real issue is the latency between the live event and the live stream. Then provides steps and a code to be able to execute this on your own." Rob at robdfs says PM users finding out you can't courtside bet from using stream. Um hey I hate the the the nail

[63:50] on the head but we will go to Storm first on this one. I think we just have to. So give us your thoughts on it. >> It's like there's this this scourge of these accounts. People call them K. I've seen that term thrown out. actually not even sure what it stands for, but they're essentially like shill accounts for prediction markets and they just want everybody to believe that you can win at sports bettings. It's like the the new thing is like this vibe coded arbitrage bot, you know, download it and

[64:19] plug it in. And one funny thing is one of the poly market bots, I think it was called Polycule, but I forget exactly um was hacked yesterday and people's wallets were getting drained. So you be very careful with what you do. um especially when it comes to trying to automate processes when it comes to betting or anything for real money. And you know, as far as the courtsing stuff, it's it's a lot harder than you would think on these prediction markets. You're not going up against complete

[64:48] dummies. And the the other problem with these um like shill accounts trying to make everybody think that this stuff is possible to win is that what they're doing is working. I I get like probably like three to five people a week reach out to me like, "Oh, is this possible? These guys are making all this money." And another thing people seem to forget is like when you look at those leaderboards and and Mike can tell you this, like somebody's, you know, all-time win number on a exchange,

[65:17] especially depending on the size they're betting, can be up huge or up down huge, you know, dayto day depending on the numbers you're betting. So you seeing these number, oh this guy made x amount of money doing this and most of the time what these accounts are are putting out. There was an example in the past where somebody did like one of these like poly market profile descriptions. This is what the guy is doing and within like an hour the guy found the tweet and was like no you're completely wrong. That's

[65:42] not what I'm doing at all. I'm not going to talk about what I'm doing to make money. But it's just like speculation and it's just total garbage and it's horrible for the space. You >> want to add something Mike? >> Yeah. I actually got approached by one of those companies when I back when I was on the high end of the leaderboard. And luckily, I told him I was like, I'm literally just running hot in college football. There's nothing like that is like special about this strategy. I was

[66:06] like, I'm running hot on this one platform. I just want to let you know. So, thank God I did that uh in hindsight. But yeah, it's all just like, you know, you can have crazy variance depending on how much you bet and things like that in one account. So yeah, I but to go back to the original point about faster feeds, like everybody is doing everything they can to get the fastest feed possible. So the idea that you can just like plug it into the world's like slowest lag computer is just obviously

[66:30] insane. to go back to to go back to what I said about these hedge funds and these high frequency traders like there's things that people don't even realize that you know they they will find out where like a poly market server is and like set up base near there to have the highest latency possible and this is stuff that traditional hedge funds and you know stock market traders do as well like you if you think you found the solution you didn't find the solution there's always going to be somebody that's doing it

[66:59] more efficiently than Uh, Kenish, before we move on, anything from you? >> Yeah, like I I the only thing I remember PB commented on this where like you'll see a post like this by by a sponsored account and then underneath it'll be a bunch of like AI botcoms like great strategy like good for you. Like the first 20 comments like oh like man you're you're quite good-looking as well like very very nice there. like I it so there's definitely a uh aggregation strategy that's that's happening in

[67:29] play. Uh so if you're not familiar uh it's it's good to um at least we're doing a PSA for people out there. >> When I when I was a tra or someone I know when they were a trader they would try to get the fastest feeds as possible just to adjust the models like it wasn't like making trading bets. It was just so you could see what was happening. And in between the game there was commercials and before the game if you logged in like 15 minutes before get everything set up for the game. It was like the

[67:58] only way I could describe it was like an a staterun African countries like uh national TV program. They had people training in the military and it would be like a military ad. I couldn't understand what was going on because it was in a language I didn't understand but I was like where the hell are we getting these feeds from? it was just anything to get the feed that much faster. So these people that are operating at huge scale obviously are doing way more than that and way more effectively. So the fact that these uh

[68:27] you know like yes streamies doesn't quite work >> right. Last thing on the chopping block and last thing on the show for this week originally came from BR betting bleacher report betting account uh said yep public got cooked. How do they keep getting away with it? And it's a graphic of Adam Sandler from Uncut Gems with the caption 69% win rate fading teams receiving 65% or more bets this season. So fading the public apparently just the easy strategy to win bets. But Jason Logan of Covers said feel like there's

[68:59] some context missing to this post. For the past six regular season have tracked how the most popular NFL picks each week performed against the spread. This is based on bet count, not handle. Uh this seasonal team is drawing 60% or more of picks when 56 and 76 uh and one against the spread. Teams draws 65% plus we're 15 and 33 against the spread. So it feels like maybe slightly misleading and and when you're as ambiguous as this like if teams are receiving 65% more bets or like you know maybe Pugway isn't

[69:30] influencing but like lines are moving a lot so you can really like handpick some information to draw up a narrative as it is kind of doing here. So I don't know Bleacher Report is trying to drum up obviously the the entire business model of Bleach Report is to drum up engaging content. They really do not care about the substance and the stuff that they are providing. But when it's involved in something like this, it just feels very damaging. Uh we'll go to Mike first. What do you think?

[70:00] >> Yeah, it's this is just it's astrology for guys like to come up with these oh this has this percentage of that and like it's like uh who cares? All this stuff is just you can slice it however you want. It's uh just I don't know. It's meaningless. >> Kesh, how about you? I the next time I hear about public bet percentages will be uh the you know I I could go to my grave never having heard about this again. Uh I can't believe this is still like when I was literally first learning

[70:30] about sports betting I remember this being so invogue and like I the fact that some it's still getting like content churn is just unbelievable. >> Yeah. I I never actually heard this sort of theory before like I I started taking sports banks seriously. So maybe I got I got lucky there. Storm, last thing on the show from you. >> Too long, didn't read. There you go. >> All right, so that's going to do it here for us on Circle Back. Thank you so much for sticking it through the episode.

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