00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
On this week's episode of Circles Off. Nba is in full swing, so we're bringing on an NBA guest. He originates the sport, His name is Kirk Evans and he's also going to give us three super hot takes for this upcoming NBA season. All that and more. This week's Circles Off starts now. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 125, part of the Hammer Betting Network presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook. I am Rob Pozzola flying solo today. No, Johnny from Betstamp, but I do have Zach Phillips across from me. Zach, how's it going? 

00:36 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I'm pretty good today, halloween coming up around the corner, so excited about that. 

00:40 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I am. I'm in the 25s as well. I am too. 

00:42 - Zack Phillips (Other)
25 was a very popular um steroids power hitter number when I was growing up yeah, I didn't realize, like how much it was, and then we were just talking about it, looking through some of them, there's a good roster there. 

00:57 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Oh yeah well barry bonds and mark mcguire were the obvious two. Jim tomei as well. Um, huge power hitter back in the day was a 25. In football I remember Jamal Charles wore 25. I only remember that because I played fantasy football and had Jamal Charles for years. But outside of that it's very hard for me to think of other Richard Sherman. Richard Sherman, that sorry ass receiver. I loved Richard Sherman. I still really like. 

01:25 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Richard Sherman. I like him. He's high energy. It's like it makes it exciting right. 

01:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, richard Sherman is actually very intelligent, very smart person. Didn't he go to Stanford? Yes, but when he, I'm pretty sure Stanford. But when he's on this panel for the Amazon Prime games, it's like he doesn't get the gimmicks that they're doing, like he's like he's too. They're going way over his head and he's like being really serious on them and everyone else is like telling him to lighten up and whatever. I find that really funny. Yeah, a memorable moment for a number 25 for me. 

01:57
Hate to make this toronto sports talk radio, but the leafs and senators had a big rivalry when I was growing up. They always used to play each other in the first round of the playoffs and the Leafs always used to win because the Senators sucked. Well, not really the Senators sucked. The Leafs always had a great goalie, whether it was Curtis Joseph or Ed Belfour. Game seven, the one where Patrick Lalim shit the bed for Ottawa. Joe Neuendijk number 25, popped a couple horrible, couple horrible goals. One he just crossed the blue line and took a wrister and that went in. That was a big one. Dave andrew chuck another leafs 25 as well. 

02:33 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Oh, nice, uh, yeah, james van reams. 

02:36 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like after they made him switch from 21 with the leafs, he was 25 in his time here um vince carter, with the phoenix suns for a little bit oh look at you sean mccoy carries carried around the football like a bread, like a loaf of bread. Never seen someone who just held it like a loaf of bread, like this, away from his body as much as leshawn mccoy. We're gonna get into a few things here. We do have a very special guest. I always call every guest a very special guest. We have a guest. I don't want to say it's very special guest, I always call every guest a very special guest. We have a guest. I don't want to say it's very special, it's a guest. I think this is going to be a really interesting one. It's a very good guest, very good guest. 

03:10
Yes, coming up. I'm asking for a pre-like today. Smash that like button down below before you even hear the interview. Our view to like ratio we need to get that up. A like ratio we need to get that up. We need the likes up. Smash it, hammer it, that like button down below. We're also going to do a contest. We'll do a little giveaway, little giveaway here. Halloween Coming up. I'm a big fan of Halloween. I almost got cancelled one Halloween. Oh, no, trudeau, no by Twitter. Yes, I know. Know what. 

03:46
I'm talking about. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. I almost got canceled by left-wing Twitter. I don't associate left-wing, right-wing, I'm pretty central. I'm like morally liberal, fiscally conservative. 

03:59
I guess you would say Whatever, I don't care, I posted one year talking politics, yeah, listen, but but like I just don't try to engage in politics, right, I don't. I don't think of myself as someone who's cancelable because I I think I generally have good morals. Let's just put it that way. I was raised the right way. I don't hate on people or whatever, but I posted posted one year, zach, on Twitter that I like to give better candy to the kids that put more effort into their costumes. I think that's fair. And if the kids show up in like a LeBron James jersey and say trick or treat, I give them some lollipops or Tootsie Rolls. It's not like I'm throwing a grenade into these kids' bags. I'm still giving them candy. But I like to see effort. 

04:45
I love Halloween. It's my favorite thing. It was my favorite thing growing up. Even you know you don't have a lot of money. Wrap yourself in toilet paper, go as a mummy that's some. There's some effort. Like one kid did that last year. It was amazing, amazing costume. But these people they tried to cancel me for having this take Rob way to ruin Halloween for these kids. Like I'm putting razor blades into their bags. Like I'm still giving them candy. People, I'm still giving them candy. I just appreciate the kid who takes a little bit of extra effort. 

05:18 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I think that's fine. I think that makes sense. Like you know what I was a there. My mom used to make our halloween costumes like hand make them very crafty with that so I always had some really, really good costumes. Um, and then you just see kids wearing like the morph suit and like a jacket and shorts. I'm like you just the thing costs like 25 bucks and you just threw it on. You're walking around the green suit like you're not really doing much for halloween here. It's not put some effort in. It's a. It's a. You know, it's a fun thing it's a fun thing. 

05:50 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I go to hallow wine and cheese every year with my friends. Big party, we dress up, we drink bottles of wine, have some cheese I got a recommendation for you. 

05:58 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Maybe we'll maybe try this this year, or maybe don't. I don't know what the legality is. 

06:02 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm gonna have to do. Remember I'm gonna have to do pizza buffet the next morning 11 am so okay, no no, I cannot we cannot be a disaster of a night. 

06:09 - Zack Phillips (Other)
No, this is what I was gonna say go to go to um, the local pro line or somewhere like that. Get some hand, get the tickets and then when parents come to the door with kids with good effort in their costumes, you give them like a five dollar future ticket. 

06:27 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That's encouraging gambling to youth if there was not the kid the, the adult give it to the adult. 

06:33 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yes, and then you say, like your kid, great job. And then they'll be like, hey, we got to go to that guy's house. 

06:37 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
And then your house is a buzz, you're the popular guy in the neighborhood always the popular guy in the neighborhood is the one who gives out the full candy bars. Yes, my friend, aaron bronstetter, did that for years, still does full chocolate bars. I don't want to be the most popular house in the neighborhood. I just want the kids to have a good time. They get some candy. They move on. I don't want to be the one that then you're setting the expectations too high. 

07:01
What happens on a year where it's monday night football and I gotta give, I got my wife giving out candy. It's not gonna be the same experience for the kids. Yeah, she's miserable when she's got to answer the door and give out candy. I, I enjoy it. I'm a different, I you know. Yeah, I get it, but we're gonna do a giveaway. Giveaway a bet stamp swag bag. Here's what you gotta do. It's very simple follow circles off hq on twitter. Post a picture of you and your halloween costume. It's that simple. Here's what we're going to do. Next episode of circles off, we're going to bring up some of our favorites on screen and we're going to give away a swag bag to who we think had the best costume ideally reply to the tweet. 

07:43 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Uh, with this episode being out, that's the easiest way to do it. But if not, just tag us in your photo, tag us on there on twitter how many replies you think we're gonna get over under two and a half? No, I'll take over on that, I feel like. 

07:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Our audience is not the dressing up audience. Shame on you people who don't dress up for halloween. It's one time I'm sure a lot of you have kids. Hell, take pictures of your kids costume if you want to, I don't care, just take pictures of a costume. We're gonna vote on them. Yeah, best costume. And we'll send out a nice swag bag and these aren't, these aren't no bs swag bags of like a t-shirt and some socks. It's gonna be some good stuff in there. There might be socks in there. It's very possible. There's a t-shirt and socks. But also, yeah, more stuff on top of that. More stuff on top of that for the number one costume that replies to circles off hq. 

08:34
And speaking of number one, the number one sportsbook in all the land, at least in ontario where they are regulated, that's pin Pinnacle Sportsbook 25 years in business. For a reason we preach line shopping here on Circles Off. I'd go as far as saying you're an idiot if you don't line shop Absolutely one of the dumbest things you can do as a sports bettor. And Pinnacle has the best everyday competitive odds. Bet smart bet Pinnacle, your trusted sportsbook for the past 25 years, and use code hammer h-a-m-m-e-r if you sign up to pinnacle as it does help support here. Support us here on circles off, trying to give zach a raise. Sign up to pinnacle using code hammer. I want to be able to pay this guy what he deserves for dealing with us on a weekly basis. You must be 19 plus, licensed in Ontario, not available in the US and as always around the Halloween season. But every time of year, please play responsibly. Don't let it get out of hand for you, just don't. 

09:42
Our guest this week on Circles Off is a sports better In particular, specializing in basketball, nba, wnba. He does it all. He's a fellow Torontonian as well. He goes by Kirk Evans. You can follow him on Twitter at KirkEvans0. Kirk, appreciate you joining us here on Circles Off. Thanks for having me. No problem at all. So we start with every guest in the same way. I do want to get into NBA discussion. Nba season started a couple days ago and we're going to get into all that first. But with every guest, we like to get a little bit of a background story on them and specifically how they got involved in the sports betting space. So interested to hear your background story. What got you into sports betting in the first place? 

10:25 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So I think my story is kind of unique but then actually takes a path of actually a pretty uh, average professional better, which there is no real average professional better. But I started doing, uh, business school and then I got my master's in analytics, always with the idea of going into sports analytics in some way. So after school I got a job with the Kingston Front Max which you know OHL team, a minor league hockey team here in Ontario, and my job was to start up an analytics department for them. And this was like right in the middle of COVID, so there were no games and things were a bit slow. 

11:07
And someone who I was working with told me the arbitrage bet, the election that had just happened, biden Trump and right away it just clicked in my head you can do that, like what is going on. I messaged my friend who also was looking to work in sports analytics, who also, um, had done my master's with me, told him about it and I'll never forget I was playing basketball and he messaged me Marquez Valdez, scantling receptions was 2.4 on one site, 1.9 on the other, and from there, you know, we just kind of started arbitrage betting as a side hustle, but pretty quickly we realized this could be pretty lucrative, especially this was right kind of free legalization. Everyone was kind of getting ready and sites wouldn't kick you off for this stuff nearly as quickly. So pretty quickly we turned around, created the bot to you know, notify us of arbitrages. And then it kind of just grew from there to where we are today. 

12:16 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So that was your like establishing the bankroll, I guess, in the early going, using arbitrage. 

12:21 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I'm assuming nowadays that's probably much less of your overall yeah so these days we pretty much never arbitrage anything unless obviously it's plus ev on both sides. Or, you know, like they say, like life-changing money, um. But yeah, so from there we started arbitraging and then probably did that for around six months and then we got into more information betting. So this was mid COVID, so players were getting ruled out left and right with COVID, with other injuries, and we realized you know, if you're quicker to the books on news you can be having, you know, five points of CLB pretty easily. I remember there was a Browns game where, like everyone on the roster had COVID, it moved like 13 points, I think. It got rescheduled, went back. But we started information betting but still had kind of that arbitrage bought and then eventually we came to the realization, you know, if these are arbitrages there's probably one side of the bet that's more plus ev. So I kind of call that phase of our betting life. You know, uh, betting on training wheels right, you're betting into a negative hold, you just need to pick which side's right and you're probably not going to be wrong very often to the point where your bet's negative ev. Um, much less true nowadays, I would say. 

13:40
I would say even in arbitrage opportunities. Now you could definitely take the wrong side, but yeah, we, we went from there. Then I would say, two in arbitrage opportunities, now you could definitely take the wrong side, but yeah, we went from there. Then I would say, two NBA seasons ago we would always have odds boards up, look at lines a lot and we started being able to pick off overnight NBA lines and realize, okay, we think it's good for this reason. 

14:02
And then last summer we've become much more systematic and okay, this is how we want to attack an NBA season. We started originating NBA from there and as the season went we got much more sophisticated, but always were, I would say, even from the jump beating the close. But we probably got further along on the spectrum of how late in the day we were confident in betting. Then we decided you know, we can attack the WNBA market. It's probably a bit softer, we knew nothing about the WNBA, but we took those principles, started originating the W this summer as well, went very well as well, and now we've really evolved our I would say sophistication level from there to now where, again, we're getting ready for this NBA season. 

14:49 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So I noticed a lot as you were breaking that down. You weren't using I, you were using we. You mentioned earlier that you went to school with someone that graduated with you and you were working with them. Is it still a two-person operation or have you expanded that outwards? 

15:04 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, so now it's a three-person operation. We've added one person, the dynamics are a little different because obviously he doesn't. The third person doesn't come in as a full partner, but still me and the partner from the beginning are full 50-50 partners. And then we've added one additional person, got it so three people, all full-time bettors. I know that people get very crabby about that on this program. 

15:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, listen, we'll talk a little bit about that. Actually, I might as well bring up a little bit of it now. So I first became familiar with you through Betstamp. You were publicly tracking. I know you still use the platform, but you've opted to take your public account private, which is basically what I did several years ago as well. And to each their own right. I mean, it's a. It's a useful tool, but some people just don't want to have their stuff out there. There's no need to have it out there, so it makes sense to keep it a little bit private. So I first learned about you through that stamp. 

16:00
You had a very small social following. You still do not like I'm not, you know you haven't really blown up on social but you've really got into it with certain people in gambling Twitter over the course of the last year or so. So I do want to get into that a little bit later on for sure, because I think that's important to cover, and I'm sure a lot of people that you've gotten into it with the past will probably be watching this one this week with bated breath, looking to pick up on any little thing that you say here. I'm not an NBA better myself. I'm throwing to you as the expert in this space, with the season starting and you having some knowledge in there. But I'm curious. First of all, you said you play some basketball. Is that how you got started in NBA betting? Was it a passion for you? Because you enjoy the sport on the side? Like what sparked your interest in basketball as a whole, in particular? 

16:52 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, so I think basketball has always been kind of the number one sport I followed and I always felt like I was kind of on the right curve of, you know, the analytics movement in basketball right curve of you know the analytics movement in basketball. 

17:08
I remember when I was like probably 14, 15, I was getting into yelling matches with fellow torontonians on, uh, demar de rosen's true shooting percentage and how you know he actually wasn't really helping the offense. I think I tweeted about this recently, the first like 11 years of demar de rosen's career 10 of them uh, the teams were better with him off the court than on. I don't know, that's a ricochet shot for DeMar DeRozan, but I always was kind of on the analytic side of the NBA and then once we started betting, it was pretty clear that that would be the sport we should attack. I had the best knowledge of it. My partner with I work at also had good knowledge of it and since we were doing a lot of information betting at the start as well, that's very relevant in basketball obviously, because there are, you know, very controversial so much rest, so many rule out. So it kind of went from our basketball knowledge was by far the biggest, and then also it was a sport we felt like we could attack the easiest. 

18:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Can you describe your approach to betting basketball? So obviously having an analytics background, I'm assuming and you can correct me if I'm wrong this is very numbers heavy, very algorithmic. But is there a human component to it as well? Because modelers tend to agree or everyone has their own way of modeling games. Some people purely trust their numbers, some people want some sort of subjective analysis on the side and they kind of meld it together. How do you approach the NBA, wnba? Are you merely making a number on the game through mathematics and then betting those, or is there some sort of level of subjective analysis on the side of that? 

18:43 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So I'd say, when you're pricing any basketball game, you want to get at the most basic level an offensive rating, a defensive rating and a pace and then from you want to, you know, be able to build that up through modeling. But I would say that our process is far more manual than I think someone would predict with, you know, two people with analytics degrees Not to say that it's super subjective, because mostly what we are working with are numbers. So we'll build out a lot of tools and models that will give us a number, but we've actually always found that our numbers are more accurate if we go through each game specifically, both take time to price it. I price a lot of things by hand. I think people will laugh at that but we build a lot of tools to predict, you know, outcomes of games, or even mostly to predict underlying statistics that we think will predict numbers better than you know the market will. But we don't, you know, just crunch numbers, spit it out and then bet it blindly no. 

19:54 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Can I dig for an example of where you might think that the manual process comes in? I have some experience with basketball betting. I just don't bet basketball anymore. I have some experience with basketball betting. I just don't bet basketball anymore. It's never really been a passion of mine, but personally, from my point of view, I always found that it was extremely hard to mathematically project player minutes as an example, like when I was big in NBA DFS. I would put together a model, I'd output it, but I'd look at the player minutes. I'm like this doesn't really make sense for this player and I'd manually go through games, just like you're doing now, and adjust the minutes of the players. What are some examples for you of stuff that you feel is just better suited to be done manually rather than having it automated? 

20:40 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So I think player minutes is a great example. Models work best and maybe we're just not the best modelers, but models work best with larger amounts of data and things swing really quickly in the NBA and I think a huge component of it is how many injuries there are and what the injury information is. So you know. A good example is a player's playing with a left ankle sprain. You know that's a hard thing to train a model to really understand, especially how important listening to what the information is coming from. You know the coach or himself, you know how full go are they. Just really focusing on that information aspect of it I find is much better manually than you know through a model yep, that totally makes sense. 

21:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Um, we, we talked, we started the interview with your journey from kind of arbitrage betting, um, to like attacking overnight markets, now to dabbling more day of games. 

21:43
Uh, I get this question a lot through dms on twitter and I'll pose it to you as well where there are people that have success with one style of betting and then they want to know basically, they ask themselves am I ready to take this to the next level? How do I know that I'm ready to take this to the next level? So, in your case in particular, you have a lot of success in overnights or whatever and I'm not diminishing that, by the way there's still like some decent limits overnight. You can make money that way, but a lot of people will just continue forward with that and be like this is this is working for us. We're doing a hard, a hard, a high excuse me, roi, keep pressing forwards. What made you take the next step to saying, okay, forget about that, we're going to move on. We're going to attack bigger, bigger limits, more efficient market and dabble in that for sure. 

22:33 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I think it's really embedding, very challenging to know like are we ready to bet numbers? You know, at this time, you know when the market's 5x as liquid as it would be for overnights. Like me personally, generally I'm getting down between 8.30am and 10am and then waiting for injury news and we'll attack that throughout the day as well. But and when I say injury news I don't mean you know LeBron James is out, bet it, I mean LeBron James is out. What does the line come back? 

23:04
As, honestly, my advice would be you know you got to test it out. That doesn't even have to necessarily be betting it later in the day, but you have to say I think X bet is good, y bet is good and then track it to close. I think Betstamp's actually not to plug you guys too hard, but Betstamp's actually a great example of a site you could use where, if you think you can beat you know 9 am lines in the NBA because you're beating overnight just track 50 bets on Betstamp, see if you beat the close, and if you did, you're probably pretty likely to be able to beat it in reality. Yep, to be able to beat it in reality. 

23:42 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep, I think that's a valid point as well. I mean, there are ways to see what your success can be at another level without just actually donking off the money to find out type of situation. So I think that's good advice I've actually got one more here piece of advice. 

23:58 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
This is sort of related to that. One thing I've always done and I think people on gambling Twitter might really disagree with me here, but always I dm people who I think have a better grasp of the market pretty much all the information I have and what bets I think are good. I did that for fiba this summer. I've done that for props at the beginning of the nba season, because there are people you know on Twitter who are better than you at betting and they will like if you're sending them good information and typically they'll respond if they think your information is good. So it's kind of a symbiotic relationship. 

24:36
I definitely did that with props. There's a prop better, adam Ewenstein, on Twitter. I sent him, you know, 50 props to start the NBA season last year. He responded being like yeah, I'm betting a lot of the same stuff. I think your process is good. And that just kind of gave me the confidence of oh okay, I can do this by myself. And then I'm still definitely friends with him, talk to him all the time, but good bettors will give you the time of day if you're giving them good information. To me that's been a very plus EV strategy. I don't know if people agree with me or you know people are very secretive with their information, but it's hard to confirm. You know you can beat that market if you've never tried. 

25:19 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I think this will make for an interesting conversation piece. I agree and disagree. Through experience, the one challenge that I faced personally in situations like this and um, I was I mean, I was probably at a very similar point to where you are now. Uh, maybe six or seven years ago and I really looked up to some people on gambling twitter grooving mahoovan, rest in peace. Uh, some other people dale dobak that aren't around anymore that I used to DM regularly. The challenge is whether or not you can trust that they're being truthful with you, and that's the inherent difficulty with the space that we deal with. I think that the ratio of scumbags to decent people in the betting space is a lot higher than that in most other spaces, so that's always the inherent challenge, I think, in these types of situation is yes, I think it's good to seek advice and some people are going to be authentic with you, but you just have no way of knowing whether or not they truly are. 

26:23 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
A hundred percent agreed. So as a caveat to my advice, I would say try interacting with the person first, and obviously it's hard. Everyone not everyone, a lot of people on Twitter are behind not even their real names, including myself. It's hard to know how truthful someone is, but I also think you can get a sense. I've never had that, or maybe I haven't, I don't know. I've never had someone who I think has like really lied to me and put me on the wrong path. But I totally agree that the ratio of scumbags to non-scumbags is higher on gambling twitter for sure. 

27:03 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You mentioned sending out player props to someone else that you respected in the space, with your process being more manual than people would think. Is that a challenge to come up with actual, good player props? Is it extremely time consuming? I imagine that it has to be. 

27:20 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, the challenge is the time. I find that that's clearly the next frontier of our team and what we do is we need more automation, especially with props. It's very manual and there are thousands of props every day in the NBA so I would say I pretty much never on like a full game, eight game, 10 game slate will get through every team and every game in props, because I am doing that. That's really a very manual process for us. It's also been super successful, but 100% that's. It's a challenge. I think time is is really the resource we lack the most on our team. 

28:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
If, going forwards first, what's your breakdown? Rough breakdown now, of wagers that are props versus major market sides totals money line. 

28:15 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
So in terms of percentage of bets it's probably more props, but in terms of actual money and volume it's definitely probably 80% sides totals, 20% props. 

28:26 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Is that the split that you'd like to see going forwards, or do you envision yourself in a couple years having something drastically different than that right now? 

28:36 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I haven't really thought about it. I think the split we have right now is pretty healthy. Maybe if we could automate props more, going slightly more for prof. But just the nature of the bet you know you can get 10x on a side in total than you can at a prop, even if you're betting a prop in a lot of spots. Yeah, absolutely. 

28:55 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I was just curious about that. That's not really accelerating the conversation at all, but was, uh, just interested in your take on that. Um, we do want to accelerate this in terms of making this educational in some sense for people that are watching, that are looking to bet NBA over the course of the season, any sort of basketball. I think a lot of this is going to be applicable, but with the NBA season season having started a couple of days ago, can you share something related to NBA betting that you think maybe the casual or average NBA better might not be aware of? 

29:29 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So I think that the casual NBA better maybe would think that what I'm about to say is relevant, but the slightly sharper NBA better probably is gonna be surprised by this how much narrative matters in the NBA in certain spots, and I would say I learned this the hard way. The perfect example is last year, lebron, you know, to break the record. I think he averaged around 28 points. He needed 35 and a half, I think. Whatever the odds were like 25% if it was a normal game. I'm hammering the under all day and people are hammering over. I'm like, oh, obviously every square in the world wants to bet this over. Who cares? It's going to go against me, I don't care. You watch that game for three minutes. You know that he is going for that. 

30:23
Not that he had a hundred percent chance of getting it. But I was wrong. The market was absolutely right. 

30:28
So I kind of look at it as like that dunner, dunning, kruger chart, where it's like if you're square in the middle you're like, oh, lebron can't just decide to get 35 and a half, but once you really start paying attention it's like, no, those things matter a lot. Like steph the year prior, the three-point record, he, he didn't get it. He had a terrible game but his line was crazy high and right away from that game again you could tell he was going for it. A couple other examples would be last year Dallas versus the Bulls, when they rested Luka and Kyrie to get their top 10 protected pick. That team was doing everything possible to lose that game, maybe not the players, but the organization was desperately trying to lose. 

31:13
And then I don't think this is really a secret anymore in the market the away team loses two games in the playoffs and goes home. That first half spread is going to be heavily moved towards the team now playing at home. Those are all things that are. 

31:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You know, that's not really by the numbers, that's not really analytics, it's all pretty small sample, but those things really matter okay, I I find this very interesting because this phenomenon exists across multiple sports, but I think in the case of the NFL, as an example, I think eventually the market catches up, right. 

31:53
So the example is NFL, week 17. There's the, there's the incentives the players that are playing for bonuses Right, and this came up many years ago. I still remember Antonio Brown walking off the field in that final game of the season because he wasn't gonna, you know, get his, his bonus or whatever. But that was a thing for several years. It came to the forefront, more and more people were talking about it and then all of a sudden it just wasn't a thing in week 17 anymore and and all the lines either got beat really heavily early or became uh, or were posted in like the right spots. Do you think that the advice you're giving now, I think, is very sound, but do you not have to weigh it against the actual numbers in some competitive like is there a chance that this year maybe we get similar situations and we get to another extreme? 

32:43 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
as an example, I think it's possible. But I think in the NBA, like that NFL example, that's so like systematic that's kind of one example Versus in the NBA it's much more sporadic as to what these examples are like when teams are trying to lose, when teams are tanking, you know stuff like that, or even records being broken. So I think that it's much more challenging for the books to price that stuff right than in the NFL where it's all week 17,. You know you can look into a player's contract. It's so easy to know. I'll give another example here. Maybe this is a bad example, not a bad example, but an example I shouldn't give. Mikael Bridges has played every game of his nba career. They rested the, the nets rested last year every starter other than mikhail bridges. They played mikhail bridges five minutes. You same game, parlay his unders, max unders, you can make a good amount of money. You know those situations are much more niche and nuanced than you know. Players, incentives, all at week 70 fair enough. 

33:54 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I think that's a. That's a good example and and illustrates the point uh, even further. Um, you mentioned this a little bit, but in a different capacity than what I want to get at. I think this will be an interesting conversation as well, but for the last couple years we've seen I'll use I'll use the word phenomenon for the second time in like five minutes, but like a league-wide phenomenon, basically of players being rested right. Um, especially veterans don't want to put too many miles on on old and tired legs. Get them to the playoffs healthy. 

34:25
And we've seen some massive line moves off of this stuff because if Kawhi Leonard doesn't play a game, guess what that has some sort of tangible impact. Whoever it is Kevin Durant, lebron James if they rest, they're star players and there should be some sort of impact on the line. Typically that player is out, the market gets steamed into oblivion one way. All that CLV and for the last couple years that's been pretty regularly losing Me and Johnny talked about this on the show before as well where people get like 10% CLV, 15% CLV, massive moves and are regularly losing these bets. Do you think that this is I don't want to call it a one-off, because it's been consecutive seasons. Still small sample size we don't see it happen a ton. But do you think this is something that will continue going forwards, and if so or if not, however, how do you prefer to approach these types of games? 

35:23 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
For sure. So I'm not sure that I don't have the data for two seasons ago, but I don't remember it being as bad as last year. I talked about this a lot last year. I think if you've had a crystal ball and got the bet before any player was ruled out, you maybe would have won a little bit of money. Could have been negative. Last year was pretty unbelievable. 

35:45
I'm not entirely sure what I think, because someone actually tweeted at me this recently and it's pretty interesting. Last year there was a massive boom in NBA offense and that increase in offense was actually mostly from the top players in the league increasing their true shooting. But the best players in the league last year actually got much better and the rest of the league kind of stayed. Their true shooting also increased. But I think it was like the top 100 players who shooting was up two percent and then the rest of the league was like 0.7. So that would imply that it would go the opposite way and the better players are even more important. I'm not a hundred percent sure what I think. I think the spots are really. They're very hard to price, so I think the clv actually probably does mean less in those spots than typically, but I don't foresee that trend continuing. But if it does, I think I'm gonna have to deep dive deeper into it, because it was pretty shocking last year out of curiosity, because you also bet the wnba. 

36:53 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm curious. I don't bet a well, I bet some wnba. It's not my own stuff, I don't follow the league at all very closely, but does this type of stuff happen in the wnba, as an example, where you'll get a star player out, massive line move and then the same type of like? Are there comparisons? Can we draw the same comparison between leagues, or is it just an nba only thing? 

37:15 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I wouldn't say we could draw the comparison well, mostly because the wnba players actually play, so there was a way, even as a percentage of games like I think deladon missed some time this year and like the, the top players in the league pretty much all played the entire season so much harder to compare. But also, I would say, in the specific games where players didn't play. I don't think it for, uh, bear out the same as in the nba. No, I don't't. I don't think so. 

37:45 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So there was something. This is many years ago. I've been betting on the NFL since I was, you know, 16 years old, but I would say mid 2000s to the mid 2010s, like a full decade. There was something similar that happened in the NFL where backup quarterbacks making their first start after the starting quarterback got hurt had like an insane against the spread record, and there's part of me that just thinks that maybe these players get more motivated when the star player is out. 

38:16
I never played sports at a professional level. You played some sports and you know you mentioned playing basketball and whatever, but in games where our best player or best players were not there, there is something like a tangible feeling that you have as a player of like I just we can't mail it, like everybody's got to give it their all on every shift, on you know whatever, and it kind of just feels like that's the the reasonable explanation where maybe the players are just giving that much more effort. You'd like to, you'd like to think that players are giving 100% effort at all times, but it's not the case right, especially over the course of an 82 game season. That, to me, is the only way that I could possibly describe what I see happening, but I also don't necessarily believe that this is a thing just yet. Like I think that there's possible, we just go into this season there's a lot of resting, that happens, lines move and then maybe we just win money off of those line moves. 

39:17 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah, I think it's a plausible theory, especially, you know, if you watch the NBA. Anyone who watches the NBA knows these guys are not trying 100%. Every night the season gets to a massive slog. January to March guys absolutely will phone it in for some games. So I think I actually kind of do like the theory as well, because you know, generally in those games players are playing roles that they wouldn't typically play. So you know, if a number two is now a number one in a game, that's a game they're really going to want to prove themselves and it could also be a game that really affects their contract, right? If they show. 

39:53
you know I can play as the number one ball handler on a team. 

39:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That being said, if I can get bets of you know Luka Doncic out, I will be happily taking that line, and if I have to throw the clv out the window, I still will now, I don't want to misquote you or anything and you just correct me if I'm wrong, but earlier I asked you a question and it seemed along the lines of when these types of situations happen, you're not necessarily the person that's going to immediately try to get in and fade that team um and and like, react that news. It seemed like you prefer to wait until that news is processed and attack like the new number in market. Did I? Did I get that correct or am I off base there? 

40:39 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
yeah, no, no. So I I definitely alluded to that earlier. I would say we, we certainly do both. Obviously, if you're betting, you know lebron james out into an account that could restrict you, they're going to kick you off pretty quickly. So if we can get good information that the market doesn't have, absolutely we will bet that every time, especially you know if you can get it into pen or chris or bookmaker. But we don't necessarily want to just continuously destroy accounts, so just get it. And also, everyone knows about underdog, nba right, that everyone's getting that information really at the same time. So it didn't really used to be the case. 

41:19
I know I haven't been doing this for that long, but definitely the way I look at it is an NBA line opens a bunch of times, right, if everyone's healthy, and then a player gets ruled questionable. They're essentially reopening that line on the questionable and then that player gets ruled out. They're not reopening that line with that player out. So you get a lot of opportunities to attack that line. So maybe you don't like it at open, but maybe you think that they're not pricing that questionable, right, maybe you don't think they're pricing that player outright. So definitely a big proportion of our betting is what does the line come back as for sure? 

42:01 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
in your opinion, what are the most significant differences, uh, between betting on basketball we can use the nba, specifically your basketball and betting on other sports like how do you adapt your strategies for basketball specifically? 

42:17 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
yeah. So the nba specifically is definitely. We've we've covered this a lot, but the nba it's all the information. Players are getting ruled out all the time. You know, sometimes full teams don't play, sometimes a team is tanking and will shut down their three best players for a month. I know apparently that's not supposed to happen this season. So for the NBA specifically, I think you have to be ready to bet on games where their best players aren't out, or bet on games where their fourth best player aren't out, but also you know their sixth best player is out and they're both, you know, wing players. You know how does that compounding effect work. So for the NBA, it's definitely that. For basketball specifically, it's probably I guess this is also NBA mostly. But just how closely you have to follow each game and the news of each game. Again, I'm kind of going back to information, but in the NFL it's true for that as well. 

43:22 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But nhl mlb, I think the market consensus moves off that team much slower than in the nba so I'm I'm very interested in this because, when you're, I've modeled nhl for several years and it's extremely rare like part part of the, the process as a better is not only like what am I going to bet, but also bet timing. 

43:50
When am I going to enter the market? Who's influencing the market? What are they typically like and what I've noticed from my own modeling versus the way the market moves in the nhl is typically the market's going to consistently move on or against a specific team for weeks on end. And even my model right. If I like a team in one game, it's very likely that I'm going to be betting them two, three, four games in a row or something like that, unless it's a one-off, like a goalie change or something like that. I know a lot of NBA bettors who've told me the exact opposite, which is like from game to game, I'm way more likely to bet on one team, game one and then against them in week two. Is that purely because of the amount of lineup changes that we tend to see, or is it because you're reacting to data quicker in that sport? 

44:41 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I think I think information or lineup changes definitely matters, but I think that it's more than that. So one thing that's interesting about the NBA is or basketball in general, is, shooting is like effective field goal percentage, true shooting percentage. However you want to look at it, is the best indicator of who's going to win that game. If you could get one stat before a game, who's going to win that game. You know, if you could get one stat before a game, who's going to win. Shooting is the most important, but it's also the stat that takes the longest to regulate, so it has the most noise but is the most important stat. And I'm talking mostly about four factors here. So the four factors are effective field goal, rebounding, turnovers and free throws. 

45:28
So I think that adds a really interesting element, and I would also say that in the NBA, how players play together is a much more significant driver of beating the market than in, definitely, the MLB. I think the MLB is mostly just kind of an individual sport where you have to know how good each individual player is. And then the NHL I think there is some, you know synergies of players, but I think if you have good players in the NHL, they're mostly going to work together. Good players in the nhl they're mostly going to work together versus in the nba, I would say there's a lot of how does player x play with player y? 

46:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I think that's really interesting and, um, yeah, I, I, I do, and it makes a lot of logical sense to me. I'd be shocked if at the nhl level, we we really don't have that complete data to really figure that kind of stuff. I'd be shocked if anyone's using that type of stuff in market right now. How X player plays with Y versus X with Z and I think with most other sports. You're correct, it's more of just an evaluation of the players and not necessarily how they're playing together on the court or field or ice or whatever. At the same time, I'm going to ask you a little bit of a personal question here and then we'll get into some stuff. Uh, for this current nba season that that just started but very interested in what your long-term goals are as a as a better and specifically how you plan to continue evolving your craft are. Are you comfortable with where you are now? Do you want to grow substantially? Just on a personal level, what are the goals for you? 

47:09 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Yeah. So I would say I'm never comfortable where I am. I think probably a lot of bettors feel this way. The market's always getting better, right. So I think that my general ethos goal is I want to be improving faster than the market's improving right is I want to be improving faster than the market's improving right. But on a personal level, I love beating the market. I think it's really cool and it's kind of why I wanted to work in sports analytics. I like player evaluation, I like team evaluation, and then it adds another component of the betting side. Where you get to, you know, try beating a market. 

47:48 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So I would say, yeah, the general goal is to get better, faster than other people get better and faster than the books get better one more question in regards to this, because you have the analytics background and I've come across many, many smart people over the years much smarter than I am that either have degrees in stats, analytics, math, whatever that are publicly posting projections for any sport, whether it's the NBA, mlb, nfl and you take a step back or at least I do and I look at these and I'm like how could somebody actually post these and not laugh? What do you think makes you different from others in your terms in terms of like being able to evaluate and process this all and and beat the mark Like what? Maybe the question should be phrased as what do you think gives typical analytics people trouble in making an accurate market projection relative to the best of bettors? 

48:53 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
It's a really good question and also certainly a huge pet peeve of mine of, like you know, people post, oh, here are my win projection totals for the year, and there are win projections that are, you know, 13 wins off market market and then they'll go on a podcast and be like, oh, but people always bet the lakers because they're the most popular team. That's why the market's that way. Um, why can we what? Why can better beat the market and analytics guys not? I honestly think it's a lot of kind of the work they put in. 

49:26
I don't think that Kevin Pelton is putting out a model to try beating the market. I don't think he thinks about that and I don't think he realizes how challenging that is. So he doesn't put any of the markets inputs into his model. Versus, I would say, when we're betting, you know, if I'm betting on a team or betting on games and the market's going against me, I'm thinking, okay, my numbers are wrong, we need to figure this out. So I would say it's just kind of a different challenge of beating a market versus being, you know, an analytics guy for the athletic or espf. 

50:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I think that's valid. The end goals are different for the better and the analytics person and maybe they they just don't put their numbers under that much scrutiny when there's no consequences of actually losing money on it. So I think that that makes a lot of logical sense. There's gonna be a lot of individuals who are looking to start NBA betting this year or get back into it or improve their betting skills. Do you have any advice for individuals that are getting into the sport this year betting skills do you? 

50:26 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
have any advice for individuals that are are getting into the sport this year for sure. I would say, not so much nba specific but just in general. I think the, the gambling community, kind of looks at top down or bottom up as two entirely separate things and you know if you're a top down better and want to go to bottom up, you know, build out this massive model and try beating the market. I look at it as much more of a spectrum overnight going slowly beating props while still having that kind of like what I did when I said betting on training wheels. If the market really disagrees on something, try picking a side so you're betting into a way more negative hold. So if you're trying to become bottom-up up, don't think of it as you're either pop down or bottom up. Think about it as more of a spectrum interesting um this upcoming season. 

51:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We started a couple days ago, so maybe not as timely and maybe not as actionable, but I still think it's interesting. So give us a goal, give us a bold prediction for this NBA season. 

51:49 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I've got three for you. So, Raptors, I think win over 45 games. I think the market has them at like 36 and a half. I'm just way off on that total. 

52:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, I have to stop you there, though, because we just talked about this five minutes ago, so there's got to be a legit reason, and I need the explanation as to why we're way off here okay so sorry. 

52:12 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I think that if I had to set a total, I would make it at probably 39 and a half, but I'm bold prediction I gotta go more bold than over 40. 

52:22
I like what you did, I think I think 45 plus wins is a good bet in the market. I don't think someone should go bet their friend minus 110 for over 45 wins but for the reason I think the market is way off. On the Raptors' defense, I think they have a path to being a top five defense in the league and I think that a lot of the reason the total is so low is because people are anticipating trades for pascal and og and at the end of the day this front office has not traded any of their stars lowry left, fred left. They have a top six protective pick out, so tanking is going to be really hard for them this year. The motivation seems to be to win. So I think that last year their pie bag wins was 44 and what was considered a disastrous season brett is out, but we get full season of pertle and schroeder, who's whatever. 

53:19 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So I think the path to 40 plus wins is very realistic okay, that's number, and you said that you have three for us in total. 

53:27 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Three. So these are all. I don't think above 50%, but bold predictions. 

53:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
No one's going to. I'm not going to hold, I'm not going to be the guy that digs this up like a year from now and is like, oh, kirk went 0-3 on these. 

53:45 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I'm going to do defensive player of the year. I think you can get like 30 to 1 in the market right now. Obviously the path becomes difficult because the jazz are just not that good of a team and typically that award goes to someone on a good team. But he was the best rookie defender I can ever remember since following the NBA. I think he was the best rim protecting center in the league last year. People will say Jaron Jackson. Jaron Jackson plays next to Steven Adams. 

54:17
Walker Kessler does not play next to another big. There's a lot of skepticism there that he can't turn 23 minutes into 30 minutes. I don't really see why people think that the Walker Kessler Defensive Player of the Year and then this one's pretty bold and got blown up a bit because of the Bucs and Celtics trades. But I think Cavs have the best record in the East. You can get. I think maybe 8 to one on that in the market. I think they were 54 wins high. Fag last year got better in the off season. I think the market market's mostly corrected on them, I think. But the market was pretty down on them originally because they had a bad loss in the playoffs. But the playoffs are different than the regular season and they've been really good with garland on the floor in the regular season back-to-back years, and they have a second year going into third year player in evan mobley who has, in my opinion, really big upside all right, three bold predictions which I promise that I will not come back at you with if we go oh and three. 

55:24 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I can't say the same for producer zach, who does like to click all good and zach, you can come at me. 

55:29 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
You can come at me if I go. Oh and three. Oh and three. Put the big x up over his face for for youtube shorts and I'll have. 

55:36 - Zack Phillips (Other)
That's a lot of victory lap for you, ready to go. If you do go, three for three yes, even one. 

55:40 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Okay, that's fair. 

55:42 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah, that's fair that's fair. 

55:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We we are. We are fair here on circles off, or at least I think that we try to be in. Uh, in most cases, I'm gonna throw a couple um recent twitter arguments at you and get your thoughts on them one way or not. These are not my original thoughts. These are just stuff that I picked up over twitter that are hotly debated in the in the twitter realm. Um, the person who makes more money at sports betting is better at sports betting, true or false? 

56:15 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
definitely false and I wish johnny was here because I think he says that on the pod quite a bit. Um, obviously there's a correlation between who makes the most money and who's the best, but there are just a million examples of why saying it's a one-to-one correlation doesn't make sense in the world. Because he found a bunch of rich fish to play with and took them for 100 million like he's obviously not better at poker than you know, players, that he would lose to playing at a poker table, but he might have made more money than that. The example I got into on twitter was if you win circa survivor nine and a half million dollar prize this year, hypothetically. If you win Circa Survivor $9.5 million prize this year, hypothetically, if you win alone, which probably isn't going to happen you know you've now won in the top 99.999 percentile of any better in the world. I think anyone would recognize that you're not in that percentile because you won one lucky competition. 

57:26
I also gave this example. I once had an out on a site that matched 10 odds on women's college basketball, but it was like 10x the limit. I didn't know one player on one of these teams. I wasn't the best women's college basketball better, you know for that three months that that out was available to me. There are I think it's a skill getting accounts and that is very important, but it's just obviously not a one-to-one correlation in my box yeah. 

58:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So the devil's advocate would say that that's part of the sports betting game. Being able to find that account and being able to get 10x down which you can at another site is part of the game of being a sports better. And you know, I I can see the point like the circus survivor. One's a great example, because I think that's just bullshit. Right, like somebody gets lucky over the course of a 60 game span, whatever, and it's more than that, but whatever, and they make a lot of money, fine Congrats. The likelihood that they're able to repeat that success is probably extremely small. So I get that. But there is some form of being able to continuously compound winnings and grow and grow and grow, to get at, at, to scale. 

58:56
We. We had a conversation before between me and johnny. Uh, it was asked in one of the q and a's that we previous not the last one we recorded last week, but a previous one down the road and it was along the lines of if you had access to five sharp bettors in one sport or one syndicate in that sport, which one would you choose to tail? Who's going to have the, the better number on a game? And I chose the syndicate, as did Johnny, and Johnny's whole reasoning was they have the most money to bet with. Obviously they've got to that point. We should trust their opinion more and we both got grilled for that answer. 

59:36
But I've worked with syndicates before. I've worked with the largest betting group in in North America, toronto based group, and the thing is you might have five originators separate from that, but that one group is going to be processing so much information from so many different people that they're it's not just their opinion, it's the opinion of everyone within their network that they're somehow collecting, which is going to kill the five individual sharp bettors. I think there is some skill to being able to get to that level, like a lot of people can't even imagine getting to that level. With that said, I have to agree 100 like. There's not a one-to-one correlation. There's not, I'm sorry, and anyone who thinks there is and I, you, the people who are making this argument are the ones that have made a lot of money in sports betting, which I get. You want to give yourself the pat on the pack, but it's not. It's definitely not a one-to-one correlation, it's definitely For sure. 

01:00:33 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
I think it just allows for zero allowance for for luck. Like, obviously there's a lot of luck in sports betting, even a lot of luck in getting out in sports betting. So it's very correlated. I'm not saying that the people who make the most money are bad. They're obviously incredible bettors, but they're just are. It's just not one-to-one obviously. 

01:00:57 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
All right. Second one I'm going to throw at you. Trends can be useful in sports betting, True or false. 

01:01:04 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
Like obviously true. I think there's no one in the world it depends on. Are you saying trends? Are you saying trends with like a z at the end? 

01:01:11 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
well, I I'm not going like the triple z or all the zeds or some form of trends can be useful in sports betting. So you say obviously true, explain how well, isn't everything. 

01:01:23 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
We analyze trends. You know, like if a team, if the Boston Celtics, start this season winning by 50 points in three straight games, that's a trend, obviously that doesn't mean that you should bet them to win by 50 in the fourth game. But if that trend isn't changing your analysis from what the Boston Celtics were before the season to what they are three games in, you're doing something horribly wrong. Even I think as a more prudent example, the NBA season game one to game two what happens in game one will affect the props for game two 100% Every week in the NFL as well. What happens in that game will change the prop for the next week. So of course trends matter. All we deal with are trends. The real challenge is deciphering which trends matter and which don't. And obviously I'm not saying that you know team is a 10-1 against a spread, we got to bet them. You know is a 10 and 1 against the spread, we gotta bet them. You know at close in the nfl. 

01:02:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But all we deal with are trends yes, in a way, you're talking about like reacting to data that becomes available. Your opinion on a team or a player or a game or whatever should change based off of previous data. Right, like that's just part of of sports handicapping. The trends that don't matter, like you said, are you know the ones that are dating back to 1978, when it was like completely different game and different players, or whatever a team's record is on a certain day of the week, like these are obviously non-factors. Um, in sports you've been known to to dish it and be on the receiving end of some gambling Twitter hate. Surprise, surprise, been there before, lived through it. What is it about you that makes you so polarizing in the space? 

01:03:22 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
It's a good question. I think one thing that definitely at the start had me really polarizing was the bet stamp account and posting my picks publicly. I think most you know serious bettors on Twitter looked at that as very you know less than and were very not happy about that. I have one specific person who DM'd me said I was the same. I was very similar to you know someone who's scamming people, who make them pay for their accounts I mean, sorry, not pay for their accounts, pay for their picks who is a widely known loser. Um, so I think people really didn't like that and I'm actually about to double down. 

01:04:03
If you are an up and coming, sports better. I think posting picks is incredibly plus EB. You talked about the biggest Toronto based syndicate. It's very hard for people to know if you are good or not, but it's really easy for people to know if you're good if you're posting picks, especially if you're beating major markets. So now pretty much everyone I bet with is from some relationship that I've built on Twitter, everyone I bet into like give them my plays and they get down for me. So it has been wildly plus EV for me to do that and I think if you're up and coming and need more outs or want more liquidity. Proving that you're actually good at sports betting is super important. 

01:04:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I actually love that piece of advice because I actually owe almost everything I have in life to just posting baseball and hockey numbers to Twitter. I had no idea that my stuff was even good at that time. I had no contacts that my stuff was even good at that time. I had no contacts in the space, basically no confidence in myself until that happened and people started to actively reach out to me to let me know how valuable the stuff was. I had no idea. 

01:05:21
So I actually think it's a really good piece of advice for those that are out there, not only for you just like personally track for your own personal purposes to know whether or not you're winning or losing over a long period of time, but also if you're looking for visibility. There's a lot of people in the space that are going to reach out to you and want to work with you, maybe offer you a free roll, maybe you take on some risk or whatever, but it leads to opportunity. So I actually think that's a really good piece of advice that a lot of people should learn from out there, especially if you're undercapitalized or just don't even know what who to reach out to in the space. So I I really like that piece of advice. Do you think that the people who typically hate on you will watch this interview and feel any differently about you? 

01:06:11 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
interview and feel any differently about you? Probably not. I think. Also, that answer took all the liability off me. I definitely deserve a lot of blame for the fighting I get into on Twitter. 

01:06:20
Gambling Twitter is like a really weird world where, like, you're just supposed to know that you know person X with a weird Twitter handles, like one of the supposed to know that you know person x with a weird twitter handles, like one of the best gamblers in the world, right, and when I kind of started getting you know people not not a big following, but started having some followers and kind of got exposed to the space, I was like who the hell are these people who just shit on everyone and then never post anything? 

01:06:46
But it turns out those are are some really good gamblers. I'll give them credit and I've actually I do have now have some relation with some of the people I'm talking about, so I think that that was definitely a big reason as well. I came at some guys who are, who are pretty big um, and then I also don't. I find it pretty fun, I like getting into it and it's pretty entertaining. But to your question of will they look at me differently? Ship shipper was on here a few weeks ago and I look at I thought he was great on here, so so maybe hopefully I'm doing well, but it's it's a hard question. 

01:07:24 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I know it's tough, you you're. I'm asking you to put yourself like somebody else's shoes and think about how they would react. And uh, not all these people are, you know, fully sane. Let me just put put it at that as well. 

01:07:35 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
So I think I think we saw that yesterday for sure yeah, it's we. 

01:07:38 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We see some stuff out there in the space that, uh definitely, um, makes me think twice about about everything in life. A couple of final questions. We ask to every single one of our guests and I want to get your thoughts. It doesn't have to be sports betting related, it can be. Might not be totally up to you, but one thing that you think is plus EV in life and one thing that you think is minus EV in life. 

01:08:04 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
So for my plus EV, I'm going changing your mind. I think there's a weird stigma that changing your mind is a bad thing. You should be changing your mind on something literally every day. You should always be changing your mind. To me you don't want to be like too fickle, obviously, but I like to think about it as any opinion I hold. If I'm presented with better information, I will change my mind on that. I don't want to be so emotionally tied to my opinions. 

01:08:32
Negative EV and I've thought about these way harder to think about negative EV than positive EV. I think you guys always say that because you're always just thinking like it's the opposite of positive EV. Negative EV, obviously in spots, but I'm going optimization. So I think another way you could say it would be like perfect is the enemy of good or great is the enemy of good. Like I see a lot of people I'll give like in the fitness space or the eating space. You know they're not eating perfectly, so then they're kind of like oh, why am I doing this at all? But like you don't want to go from bad to perfect, you want to go from bad to incrementally better, incrementally better, incrementally better. So don't be discouraged by not being, you know, fully optimized, just like have the goal of get better. 

01:09:25 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Two very good pieces of advice, um, and I agree with both of them, especially the plus ev, but both as a whole. If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your old self? 

01:09:39 - Kirk Evans (Guest)
uh, definitely not gambling related at all. But I think like five years ago I was in university, I think I definitely looked at like meeting new people and like making new friends as this thing like, oh, I don't want to do that. 

01:09:53
But if I could go back five years I would say, you know, by being more outgoing meeting new people, like I think that's just a really good general ethos to have in life is meet new people and try to diversify the people you know it's three good pieces of advice to end the show here with kirk evans. 

01:10:09 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You can follow him on twitter at kirk evans zero. This has been a pleasure. I think this went really well. I'm not a huge nba better myself or basketball better, and I've actually learned a lot over the course of this interview, so hopefully those who are watching or listening in podcast form found value in it. If you did find value here on YouTube, smash that like button down below. Subscribe here to Circles Off. If you're listening in audio form, make sure you rate and review. Five stars for myself, rob Pizzola, for Zach Phillips, for our guest, kirk Evans, for Pinnacle Sportsbook being the number one sportsbook in the space. This has been Circles Off, episode number 125. Peace out. We'll catch everyone next week.