00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
it was actually so embarrassing how hard he would try to catch a foul ball, like he would run over a bunch of six-year-old kids if he had to. Just I'm like, dude, you're a grown-ass man, what are you gonna do with a fat? I? I get it, you have a foul ball from a baseball game. But like, come on, let's go. Welcome to circles off episode number 134 right here, part of the hammer betting network presented by pinnacle sportsbook. Happy holidays to everyone out there. I'm Rob Pozzola, joined as usual by Johnny from BetStamp. 

00:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Happy holidays everyone. Merry Christmas, number 34. Before we continue, without further ado, we got the mini helmet right in front. Yes, the best player on the Maple Leafs right now, austin Matthews. The best goal scorer in the NHL. Potentially the best goal scorer in the NHL. Potentially the best goal scorer in the NHL. 

00:44 - Zack Phillips (Other)
No, I'm standing on. It Is the best goal scorer Active Today Today, not all time. No, not all time Today. 

00:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Sure, you want to go today. I can live with that. We'll throw out Shaq as well, yeah. 

01:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's a lot of 34s, yeah, with the austin matthews stuff. So alex moretto, who's the director of content for the hammer he's unfortunately a montreal canadians fan, a habs fan, as we would say and for on christmas morning he posts in the edge work chat that we have at the hammer, which includes all the edge work hockey creators, a picture of a kid opening up a box and it's an austin matthews jersey and he's crying. Within like 10 minutes, zach posts a picture of himself opening up a christmas box and it's an austin matthews jersey and he's smiling it was the funniest rebuttal to it after afterwards, but I I did really enjoy that. 

01:40
Became a thing this year like the, a meme that went around of just like a kid and was constantly being photoshopped with different things jerseys of different teams. I found that to be pretty funny, but I'd love an austin matthews jersey for for christmas. I'm a huge matthews guy. You got any 34s, other 34s? 

02:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
oh there's. 

02:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's got to be a ton in the nfl my favorite player growing up was charles bark and he wore 34. I was a Phoenix Suns. I don't know if you were I'm older than you, obviously but before the Raptors came into the league, I was a Phoenix Suns fan. No, you weren't, I was a Phoenix Suns fan. I loved Charles Barkley, but I loved the whole team. Like Dan Marley, danny Ainge, I loved the Suns mascot. That gorilla used to do stupid shit. He'd always come in from the ceiling and stuff like that. 

02:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So you were a Suns fan before the Raptors that was before the Suns were my pre-Raptors team. 

02:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Then the Raptors came into the league. I became a huge Damon Stoudemire, Mighty Mouse fan Because Giannis is 34. 

02:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Giannis is 34. So, yeah, obviously, hakeem Olajuwon, hakeem the Dream. That story with the ball for Giannis is hilarious, by the way. Which one? How he got the whatever. I forget how many points. It was, maybe 60 or something Just above 60. And then the other guy on the other team, oscar Shibue, was his first point, so he took the game ball, oh wow. And then Jan's like get me the game ball, that's my game ball, and it was like a huge spat yeah, he chased the guy down the tunnel. 

03:09 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah, To be fair, though, like give him the game ball. 

03:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I mean Got 60 plus points, I agree. I mean give the. Well, that's a tough one. 

03:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Because against a 60 point I mean the first career points. First career point. Sure, I get it, but it's like he didn't even start the game. He came off the bench, played a couple minutes ago. 

03:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
One point that's a tough one. That's a I'd be very interested. I want to put this one in the comments down below. 

03:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
A lot of people are going to be like a lot of people are going to be like oh yeah, janice, uh, or give it to the kid who, who's the rookie who got, who got his first game point, okay, yes, but also we're talking about, like, potentially one of the greatest players to ever play the game. If he, obviously, I mean, it's got a long way to go, yeah, but he could be there, yeah. And then it's like is this his? What if this is his career high in points? 

04:02 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Context to it is also a franchise record. 

04:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Franchise record. I get both sides. 

04:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I get it. If anyone gets 60 plus points in a game. The only way you don't get the game ball is if another guy got 60 plus points on the other team, in which case whoever won the game, they get the game ball. 

04:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's interesting just because they use the same ball. It's like soccer, right, like there they get the game ball. Yeah, it's interesting just because they use the same ball. It's like soccer, right, like there's a game. Well, now soccer's got a lot of different balls because they have the throw-ins and stuff like that. But basketball is the unique one-off here because hockey, like, you score your first career goal, okay, you pick it up out of the net, they throw it to the trainer, he tape, puts a piece of tape on it, he marks it. Baseball's the same thing, right, like some sort of thing happens you reach some sort of accolade or whatever and they just take the ball out of play, they throw it in the dugout. This is just one Like, could they not have taken that? 

04:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
ball out of play. They probably do have other balls, but yeah, listen, it is what it is. That was a funny one. 

04:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Unrelated to anything, but because you were talking about, like, taking the ball Dude I don't know if you caught this on Christmas Day, the dude I don't know if you caught this on Christmas day the Raiders Chiefs game where there was the defensive touchdown by the Raiders. This Raiders player ran around in the end zone and then he found, like a kid I'm talking like maybe an eight-year-old kid Chiefs fan in the front row and he went to hand him the ball and the kid tried to grab it and he just pulled it back. 

05:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh, did you see the follow-up? No, I did not. Uh, he tweeted he. He said what he said he. So that guy who got the pick, the pick six, he tweeted he said this is not what it seems. I pulled it back. He pulled it back because there was a guy right behind that kid, an adult, who was trying to snatch it from the kid. So he pulled it back and then the camera cut, but he gave it to the kid after got it I got got by social media and everyone got got. 

05:49
But he had to he had to tweet it after but it's bullshit like. 

05:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Look at the actual clip because he takes the ball with him go. 

05:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Go to his tweet. Go to his tweet. We got, we gotta get to the bottom something. 

05:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Something's not right here, because he hands it, pulls it back, but then he doesn't wait there and give it to him. He runs away with the ball, so is that the one? 

06:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yeah, that's okay, go go search it. Jack jones, yeah, find him here. So like he tweeted it, he goes. I didn't snatch that ball from that kid, it was the black dude who tried to take it. 

06:20 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Watch it again, lollipop okay oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah okay I, I get that. 

06:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So there's very clearly a guy behind the kid that does want to try to take, but he still doesn't give it to the kid, but he still does not give it to the kid, he just runs away with it afterwards. 

06:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm assuming there's another oh, that guy was trying to snatch it honestly, there's nothing worse than that. 

06:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I used to have a colleague pruder films. I used to have a colleague I'll throw him under the bus, I don't care. His name was eric cohen. I used to go to baseball games with this guy. It was actually so embarrassing how hard he would try to catch a foul ball, like he would run over a bunch of six-year-old kids if he had to. Just I'm like, dude, you're a grown-ass man. What are you gonna do with a? I get it, you have a foul ball from a baseball game, but like you, just if I catch one, it's going right here. 

07:07
Yeah, on this desk I'm, I'll be honest, I'm, I'm like, uh, I'll be like the hero at the stadium who catches one and then like look, turns around and oh yeah I would probably do that as well, yeah I don't, I'm not gonna do anything with that ball right, bringing your glove, though, to the game. 

07:22
You know what I used to when I was a kid. But then you reach a certain age where you're like no, I'm not bringing my glove to a game, I have to carry around a glove the entire day. How insane is this? You see people that are going to a bar afterwards with like a baseball glove in their hand. I'm like what's wrong with you? You're 30 year old. You're 30 year old man carrying around. 

07:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I have always wanted to go to the home run derby, sit in the outfield and bring a glove, but it is what it is. 

07:45 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I'm a little too old for it now. Do you have any opinions on zach hample? Do you know that guy? No, he goes to every park and tries to catch all the foul balls and home runs and stuff. But he's got to like. He's built up a youtube channel but he like runs over kids to do this and like won't give the kids the ball so it's, it's kind of funny, but it's not when you think about it. 

08:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He's doing it for content. 

08:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's kind of funny, but it's not when you think about it. The last 34 I wanted to mention because I never liked I could never like this guy as a pro because he's a rival of my favorite team but Big Papi David Ortiz, absolute legend After the Boston Marathon bombings. That happened when he did that speech at Fenway. I can't remember exactly what he said, but he like he dropped an f-bomb on like national tv in front of the whole whole stadium. I have to find exactly what he said, but that like I'm not even a Bostonian or anything like that, but like I actually get goosebumps and like tingle, that that's like one of the greatest sports moments of just. I don't know what he said, it's like something like you can't fuck with boston, or something along those lines, but it was pretty memorable this is our fucking city. 

08:57 - Zack Phillips (Other)
That's the one. Nobody's gonna dictate our freedom. 

08:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That that like imagine one of your favorite athletes just walking up to the mound giving a speech. This is our fucking city. Like how fired up you'd get. 

09:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I I didn't get shot after his career. He did. He got like targeted in a bar targeted shooting like a mexican bar or something like that. Yeah, that's inspiring. 

09:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's inspiring speaking of uh, the best in the city, best in the city, best in the province, best in the country would be pinnacle sportsbook. Talk about pinnacle all the time here on circles off. They're a proud sponsor. But I've been betting with pinnacle for a very long time now and I can attest to the quality of the sportsbook. We're going to go through a q a in today's episode. A lot of questions we're going to get. 

09:47
We often give betting advice, some stuff about line shopping. Someone is particularly not happy about the amount of line shopping talk we do on the show. But in all seriousness, if you're a sports bettor and you're not line shopping, you're insane. And the best way to line shop bet multiple sports books make Pinnacle one of those sportsbooks great prices, low margins, great quality of product. If you're in canada, use code hammer to sign up h-a-m-m-e-r. It does support us here on circles off. Of course you must be 19 plus, not available in the us and as always especially more so than ever around the holiday season. Please play responsibly. But pinnacle number one in the biz. 

10:28
Q&a today and for our first show of 2024 as well. So we put a message out there over the holidays of sending your questions. Here we're going to do like a frequently asked questions. Ask me anything Q&A type of style of show. We got a lot. 

10:47
We got some as replies to our tweets. We got a bunch of Twitter DMs. We got people replying on previous YouTube videos. I got some personal DMs. We got some emails. So we actually have to break this up into two episodes so that this doesn't go on forever here, and we're going to go with a little bit of a structure here here and we're going to go with a little bit of a structure here. I know it's one of johnny's pet peeves, but also one of mine when I listen to q and a's that are all over the place jumping from topic to topic to topic and then going back to the same topic. We're not going to do that here on circles off. We're going to keep it very regimented. This is the number one betting podcast In the nation, in the continent, in the world. 

11:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
In the continent? Definitely in the continent. Okay, for starters, we have a couple questions that I really couldn't fit in anywhere into the flow, so we got a couple one-offs off the top. Number one from Arthur Dominguez what makes Andrew Catalan the greatest play-by-play announcer of our generation? So this one, I mean, it's a funny question. Thank you for submitting in, but I think it's just more for rob to tell the story here. I don't even know exactly what happened, but I'll let rob tell it okay. 

11:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So this is definitely a joke of a question, but it does. It does give an opportunity to tell a story and if you enjoy this story, by the way, smash that like button down below, subscribe here on Circles Off. But I'm watching NFL Red Zone on the weekend and it's on the Colts and Falcons game and Taylor Heineke takes a little bit too long to throw a ball into the end zone. But Bijan Robinson is wide open and he catches the ball while he's standing out of bounds with nobody near him. And the commentator of the game play-by-play guy says something along the lines of and I'm paraphrasing here, it's not an exact quote, but something along the lines of uh, this one's on high. Like part of the blame's got to go to Heineke here. He's got to get the ball out way earlier. Bijan's wide open and I'm like no, like he threw the ball to the wide open receiver. As a receiver in the end zone you have one. Well, you have two jobs. You stay in bounds and you catch the ball. There's no one near Bijan Robinson. 100% of the blame goes on Bijan Robinson. 

12:57
So I'm getting like a little bit, as I do when I watch football. I'm getting fired up, right. I'm like no, no, I tweet about this. So I do a quick Google search Falcons, colts commentators. And what I did not realize because I'm partially an idiot as well, don't pay close enough attention to this stuff is that the first hit was an old hit and it said Andrew Catalan is the play-by-play announcer. Was an old hit and it said Andrew Catalan is the play-by-play announcer, which he had previously done a Colts-Falcons game in the past. So I tweet I'm a big Andrew Catalan fan which, by the way, it's going to sound weird, but I'll also tell that story in a second. But there's no way that he just blamed Heineke for that incomplete pass right. 

13:42
And when I said I'm a big Andrew Catalan fan, here's what I meant by it. I listened to another podcast in the betting space we had a long time ago Lockie Lockerson, ken Barkley on who's part of you better you bet with Nick Costos. Nick Costos has also appeared on this channel on 90 degrees and they come in from all of their commercial breaks with an NFL clip and they talk about the play-by-play announcers as well. I know what Andrew Catalan sounds like. I've heard his voice before. I actually think he does a good job. I just got messed up here because I was searching in real time, but to my surprise he didn't even get community notes. 

14:22
No, it was way worse I get a response from andrew catalan at 2 33 pm that says I'm calling the seahawks titans game so notifying me that this is a completely different game. I'm gonna own it. I like I don't care, I don't delete tweet. People make mistakes. I think you should own your mistakes. Generally speaking, I put evidently I'm not a big enough fan, I will no longer slander your name and that's kind of you know, picked up a bunch of steam on. People make mistakes. I think you should own your mistakes. Generally speaking, I put evidently I'm not a big enough fan, I will no longer slander your name and that's kind of you know, picked up a bunch of steam on Twitter for understandable reasons. But I'm thinking about this more and more as the days have gone on here. This dude tweeted me while he was, while he was doing a live game. He was doing Seahawks-Titans game. 

15:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Now I think this was at the half that was a 1 pm start, so at 2.30 could have been at the half. 

15:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But I didn't tag him in the original tweet. 

15:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, you did not tag, I didn't go at Andrew Catalan. 

15:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like either, one of two things happened here. I'm hoping the first thing happened, which is somebody sent him this tweet, probably, but there's the second scenario, where he's searching his name on Twitter at halftime of a game and came across this one and felt the need to respond, which I think is hilarious to think about. 

15:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I mean, at least wait till after the game, yeah, but you got enough impressions that someone could have potentially sent it to him. 

15:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm hoping. At the time, it was nothing Like at the time. 

15:53 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh, prior to him responding. Like the tweet hadn't even blown up, it was just nothing. 

15:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Exactly. 

15:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He might've been searching his name. 

16:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We don't have like a graph of the likes and the interactions over time, but it was small to start until this response came and then on top of that, I retweeted that response and I think that helped. 

16:14 - Zack Phillips (Other)
You got ratioed hard too. 

16:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I actually don't even care. I seriously don't even care. 

16:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, you did mess up, but it's okay. 

16:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's nothing. 

16:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You weren't even care. Well, you did mess up, but it's okay. Yeah, it's nothing, you weren't even disrespectful. Anyway, it's a good story. Hilarious If Andrew Catalan's watching this, which he's probably not, but if he is, let us know. Were you searching your own name and someone sent it to you? Like what's the story there? 

16:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, we have a lot of questions to get to, but I actually tweeted a Merry Christmas to everyone, including my guy Andrew Catalan, or something like that, yesterday. Dude Matt Zalbert got so offended that I made this tweet and then went on this huge rant about how he's a massive Andrew Catalan fan. I'm like, dude, this is just a joke. I didn't respond to him or whatever, but he's so upset that I would dare put Catalan in my Merry Christmas to everyone tweet. Anyways, that was my week. Yeah, People are like oh, you should delete this. I'm like, why? Well, I don't understand that either. This is very off topic. But like, I don't get that. Like, if you make a mistake in a tweet and you delete it, it's actually so much worse that evidence is still there. People screen cap this stuff nowadays. You might as well just own it. Own your mistakes. Listen to everyone out there. 

17:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, we got a bunch of questions on the Circa survivor fiasco here. Obviously, there was that one guy who was, I guess, appearing to be cocky on twitter about his survivor, saying he's the best, better in the world, the adiata and now people are kind of victory lapping that he lost in the broncos. We got a bunch of different questions. Some of them were in regards to what would you do, would you chop, would you not chop? Others were in regards to optimal strategy, hedging, things like that. So I guess, instead of reading out all these and answering them, it's just going to be a lot of overlap. We'll basically answer these two, which is number one Rob, would you chop? Number two, like how would you hedge if not? 

18:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I've been in situations not obviously to the extent of the prize pool of the Circa Survivor, which is massive. Right, you got four people left. Expected value on each of those entries is over 2 million. Right now it's a massive pot. But there are situations where I've been in pools for large amounts of money Survivor money, six figures, not seven. 

18:47
I typically don't reach out to people to chop because it's not my nature or style, like I think it comes down to the individual. But when other people reach out and they're like hey, you know what, let's just each of us takes, you know 10% of the pot and we'll play for the rest. That's like my ideal scenario where you're not just giving up on everything and taking an immediate cash payout. You guarantee yourself something so that you're not extremely giving up on everything and taking an immediate cash payout. You guarantee yourself something so that you're not extremely regretful after the fact but you still are playing for something for the remainder of the season. 

19:13
Where there's complications is like there's legalities involved in, like Circa Survivor and stuff like that. Now there's only four people left At the time where there was 11 and people were talking about a chop. It's hard to organize a chop with 11 different people, especially when one or two might not want to do it. It's just very there's a lot that goes into it. But my personal preference is like this is going to sound really lame, but like I'm kind of like a man of the people when it comes to this. I don't like confrontation. If people are like want to chop, I'll very much entertain it because I just kind of like want everybody to have it's lame, but like a good experience, or like I don't want somebody to go to bed at night because they lost and they, you know, they had an opportunity to chop and nobody wanted to do that. You know kind of what I'm getting at. 

20:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, no, I do. Nobody was uh wanted to do that. You know kind of what I'm getting at. Yeah, no, I do. At that amount of money with the circus survivor, uh, I would definitely be, like I would be interested in, uh, in splitting that out. Proper bankroll management would say you should do that right at the end of the day, like unless you're betting over a million dollars a game anyways. Then you know you're basically doing two weeks left, like you're betting a million dollars a game, uh, and at a minimum here, because your expected equity is just over two, two weeks left for people. So certainly you're betting over a million a game, theoretical by just staying in the contest, and that's typically not someone's average bet size. So uh, definitely would be interested in chopping if that was the case. 

20:40
I like what rob said when there's 11 people in, I don't think I would have even entertained that because there's just so much different stuff. Like I don't want to be having to review and pay for my own lawyer to make sure this contract is done correctly and then something happens Like you're just taking on a little bit extra risk for again and it could be all fine and dandy, but like what am I just going to trust that. I got to sign some random thing on a rush notice. I got to get this done tonight or it's done. I don't review this. I don't really know what's going on in all these contracts. How is that going to really work unless you're sending that to your own probably gaming lawyer or contest lawyer and then making sure that that's actually verified and that's going to hold up? Last thing you want is to chop and chop and then one guy wins it and then he his lawyer finds a thing all this contract null and void. He keeps all the money. Like that would be absolute brutal. 

21:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's a lot of. I've seen all sorts of things, like Spanky picked up like a lot of hate when he said, no, I would, I would never, ever chop, because if people are asking to chop, you know that they're in a vulnerable position. They're not going to make the right decisions going forwards because they need that money. Fair enough, I'm not competitive enough to really care about that. There was also the one where everybody's expected value was calculated. 

21:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, people have different teams remaining as well. Of course, you do have to factor that in. 

21:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Sure, but it's also funny that the one guy who had the highest expected value left when there was 11, it was because he had Jacksonville left as one of the teams that he could have used and then Trevor Lawrence, you know gets concussed and then he hurts his shoulder. It's like, I get it, His expected value still was that high at that time. But it's also like not the be all and end all. So for someone to say like, oh, I'm not taking a deal no matter what, because I have the highest expected value of the bunch, I get that. I understand that, but also like it's football and shit changes like this, yeah but that's that. 

22:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You can't really say that because that's like the edge. That's why we bet. Sure, we bet for these little things. We get a little marginal edge here. You stim it a million times and it ends up coming up positive for us. So that thing where it's like, oh, trevor Lawrence went down, yeah, for sure Another guy could have went down on a team he didn't have, and then he would have been even higher EV Either way, the late season expected value calculations are flawed. 

22:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'll just go out and say that, like I was looking through it. But there are so many scenarios, especially in the final week of the season, where teams will just rest the entirety of their starters and these EV calcs are built off of like what the projected spread is, yeah, like advanced lines, which is not actually accurate. 

23:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's not. 

23:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So, like, good luck trying to calculate the actual true EV on those situations. But for me, yeah, I would very much entertain it and honestly I'm not I'm actually not that a spiteful person. But when I did see that guy whatever his name is sean, but you know which guy I'm talking yeah, the guy who's like making an ass of himself basically tweet out on christmas eve that I'm not chopping, I took the broncos and I never lose. I've never wanted someone to lose more in my life than that exact moment. Like I, I cannot stand the cockiness associated with that guy you could. 

23:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, I don't even. I don't know the guy, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mention anything, but seems like he's trying to build a persona and a character. I don't know how well it's working. It seems like he's getting pretty negative, pretty much negative attention only. But at the same time, like I don't know how well it's working, it seems like he's getting pretty negative, pretty much negative attention only. But at the same time, like I don't I'm not going to be mad at him for not chopping. He didn't want to chop, he didn't want to chop, it's everyone's choice. 

24:11
Agreed. You're just saying it's the way he said it and he's like I never lose. And then he lost, like yeah, it's was the only. 

24:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean he collectively figured out a way in like 20 words to make everyone hate him, like everyone who ever came across this guy's account now instantly hates him for the choice of including and I never lose in a tweet. It would be fine, but and I just never lose. 

24:40
Yeah, but I'm on the Broncos and I just never lose. That's the tweet, and fine, if you don't want to chop, you don't even have to put out why you don't want to chop. You can just say like I'm choosing to play for the entirety of the prize, but this type of stuff Anyways. 

24:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's other ways to hedge as well that are a little bit more effective than just a straight chop. You could like I mean, what I would consider doing is like you see the circuit guys always tweeting like they're able to offer lines of credit against the contest. So a lot of times with the hedging you know you might not have a million dollars liquid to actually just place it on a bet. Definitely understand that Most people don't and you're not supposed to. So that's okay. What Circa does is they offer you to basically be able to bet on credit through the sports book in exchange for them holding the equity on your thing. So if you're going to bet something that's like a direct hedge and then both can't lose, then they'll take that bet. So there's other ways to leverage a hedge, even if you don't have to get the 11 people and there's legal contract in. What you could do is I'm a little bit more like a optimistic here You're usually betting on a favorite. 

25:45
In fact, you should always be betting on a favorite in your actual circus survivor contest. So if you're betting on the favorite, so you have a seven point fave, seven and a half point fave what you could do is also just try to bet a decent amount on the other team that they're facing, uh, plus the points, so as a, as a dog might be able to catch a middle there as well. So you might still be able to stay in the contest and catch a middle. For example, if you were on, I don't know, let's say denver in the survivor and then new england plus the seven and a half you know, had new england won by seven and a half, had denver sorry won by three, instead of new england win by three at the end there, which? 

26:21
was probably actually should have happened um, if, yeah, denver had the ball back to win it on a field goal, they just didn't, just didn't, didn't capitalize. But had they done that, um, you would actually stayed in and, you know, hedge off could have maybe made an extra 500k million dollars, who knows. So that's a probably a better, more effective way to chirp that's. It's a chop. Sorry, that's actually guaranteed. Personally, like I wouldn't be messing around with all these like legal contracts, especially in a contest that big, where the money's so big and people just have so much incentive to, you know, find a loophole of this and this and this, and like, unless I was actually doing it myself, I wouldn't trust it that's a good point. 

26:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's you're not reliant on your other contestants in order to hedge your entry. Yeah, that's the easy way to go In some cases, if everyone's in agreement, sure, but there's alternate methods as well and, honestly, if I was put in this position, even for me I've done fairly successfully sports betting. But $2 million plus is a lot of money to anyone and I would personally even be looking to hedge positions late in the year. So to each their own good questions. But I'm glad that guy, I'm glad Karma bit this guy who never loses. 

27:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Betting strategy. Here we're going to get into some betting strategy, rob, do you know anybody who has ever successfully bet Polish middles? It seems like there would be rare situations where it would work for somebody if they did all the math correctly, but maybe not. 

27:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, personally, so people will. I've bet a Polish middle before as of like people that I know is just like not a part of my routine where I'm pricing out every single thing and opening myself up to all this risk. I've never explored it. I've never seen someone who, like exclusively makes these types of bets. But I mean, technically speaking, we all bet with sports books and this is like basically how a sports book operates. 

28:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, so I'll answer that one. Like I know a few people that have done this successfully and still do, mainly on like the. I call it that one. Like I know a few people that have done this successfully and still do, mainly on like the, I call it thicker spread. So not necessarily on like a half point ones on regular lines, but more in the alt markets and that can be very profitable like 10, 15% edges. No problem on some of these. And again, it's just based on doing the math correctly, as Rob mentioned. 

28:42
Like sports books do this all the time, right when they move the number. So let's say Pinnacle is hanging under 47.5. They take a bet under 47.5. Then they're going to move that to 47. And then they're going to take a bet on the over 47. So now Pinnacle has taken two bets. They're now on over 47.5, their position, pinnacle's position, is over 47 and a half under 47. They've got those likely both at plus money and they've got a lot of other action in there mixed in. But all in, you know they will be sweating that particular bet. There will be like almost a Polish middle right, because they're essentially saying, hey, anything other than this, we're going to win a little bit, but if it does, land 47. 

29:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You know we're gonna get uh, you know beat up on this one position. If anyone did want to do more research on polish middles, um, the the term polish middle is like I don't find it offensive I don't know anyone who actually does, honestly but because the term is a little bit outdated, you might want to look up inverted middles as well, where there's like a lot more literature on that going forward. So if you have trouble finding Polish middles nowadays, because nobody really wants to mess around in 2023 and 2024, upcoming inverted middles is something that you can search out on the internet. 

29:53 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, we've got a couple of CLV questions. We do all the time, but these ones a little bit more unique. This one from Plus EV Prop Bets the prop dude EV prop dude Does beating the close matter for player props. So I'll take that one here. Simply put, answer is yes, very much so, beating the close matters for every single market that you're going to play Player props. Contrary to what a lot of people say, you'll see a lot of like these heroes on Twitter, a lot of these guys who are like you know, oh, this guy doesn't win money because he's betting player props. This guy doesn't win because he's doing this. Oh, this guy can't like, he's only just betting this and this. He's barely getting any money down like man. 

30:33
Player props are probably the biggest, the fastest growing market by a mile, like growing wise, but they're they're surpassing full games in terms of number of bets. They've already surpassed them. They haven't yet surpassed on volume and that's okay because of the fact that there's still a smaller market. It's easier to beat than definitely the full game, but already a far surpassed NFL full game. So player prop bets in terms of like ticket count way, way up. It's like a very high multiple of like what's going to be bet on the actual game. The only difference here is it's typically a lot more like recreational money that's coming into the player prop markets. People like to bet first touchdowns, anytime touchdowns. They like to parlay a lot and when you do things like that, oftentimes the books will just take that, not bother moving the line. Player props also are offered mostly by the recreational books, which typically won't, you know, maybe move the line as quickly on like an auto mover, similar how a pinnacle would. So is it important to beat the closing line? Yes, the reason why is there's still so many people who are sharp that are betting player props right now that they still are moving. So it's seldom that you're going to just see the player prop market close and be like, oh, I could have, uh, 38 edges on this thing, like you might think you would have, but you don't like the market actually closes. Very efficient in the player prop market. 

31:51
Um, the one area where this might be like a little bit of a difference is if something happens like last second injury where, hey, this guy was supposed to play but he actually he's out in the warm-ups, that will impact the player pop market a lot. And if that's the case, where someone was supposed to play, they're out in the warm-ups. Now his totals are void and let's say, this is a receiver for the nfl, so you had I don't know. Calvin ridley is missing in the warm-ups now. He was supposed to play. Everything's clean. Calvin ridley's out. Well, now, okay, zay Jones is going to get more usage, so pop him up. Uh, chris Kirk's going to get more usage, I'm assuming, like fully healthy team right now. So now it's like, okay, one and two are going to be way up If that news dropped like seven, adjust and correct throughout the game. 

32:45
So, calvin Ridley, he's not actually going to impact the spread of the game. So if he's out, you're not going to be like, oh, jags is now from three and a half to, you know, minus five plus four and a half because Calvin Ridley's out. It's not going to happen like that. But on the player market you will see those changes. But on the player prop market, you will see those changes. So, yes, it's important to beat the close. You should be looking to beat the close all the time. If you beat the close, you're going to win. If you don't beat the close, you're going to lose and, in general, there's certain scenarios, like the one I just mentioned, where it might not have the time to adjust. But if that game was on Sunday night and this news dropped on Sunday morning, then it would actually adjust and this would be no and void. 

33:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I can't add anything to that. It's not my market of choice. I fire a lot of darts on player props anyways, and most of the stuff that I'm looking for is typically of the long shot variety due to some personnel changes. For me, honestly, just to echo what Johnny said, I think beating the close matters in every way possible. Even if you don't respect the closing line and you think closing line value is overrated, beating the closing line still matters in the sense that you're maximizing the EV of your bet. You're betting at a time where you're risking less to win more type of situation. So I'm with you in terms of just generally beating the close, okay, uh, up. 

34:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Next is beating the clv. Is beating the close enough to win? I've made 70 bets of 100 to 150, beating the clv 90 and I'm still down. Bad variance, or am I missing something? Thanks for these videos. I'm learning a lot more from them. Okay, so, andrew, you are are on the right track. So this is something I want to answer and I think will be extremely valuable for you. Few things that are kind of a little bit learning opportunities within this tweet. Number one, for starters okay, 70, 70 bets only is not enough to have anything there. So, 70 bets, think about it this way If you, you know, flipped a coin 70 times, like what are the chances that it's going to be 35, 35? It's actually pretty low. If you flip that coin 700 times, it'd be significantly more likely to be 350, 350. If you flipped it 7 million times, then you're going to be within, you know, 0.01%. 

35:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm sorry to cut you off. You can. You can actually just do this yourself. There's some, there's online a bunch of calculators which are called binomial distribution calculators. But to Johnny's point, 70 times, you know, a coin flip is 50, 50, assuming, like a non-weighted coin, the probability you're going to get 35 out of 70 is actually only nine and a half percent, that it's going to land on exactly that amount, the probability that you could get 25 out of 70, I mean even then it's within the range of reason that, like 90, so like one and a half percent of the time, you might end up with just 25%. 

35:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So what's the probability of going like 46%, 46%, so sorry, 46 on either way. So 46 out of 70 is no, not 46 out of 70. So let's call it 39 out of 70, 38 out of 70. 

35:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Use a binomial calculator 79% one way, so 20 to 21% the other way Roughly. 

36:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
What I was going to say then is okay, math's a little off. I don't have a spreadsheet up and everything, but what that would basically say is you're about 75 likelihood, even if you're just coin flipping, to be up or down units exactly and to be up or down like enough to to seem like matters. So, yeah, 70 alone is not enough of a sample size. Anybody on man these guys on. I see so many suboptimal things being spread into the space right now. The one main thing that I see that's probably the worst thing is people don't understand volume and they basically will say what their record is and all this stuff and then they're like, yeah, I'm having a good NFL season, bad NFL season. Like at the end of the day, like you have 80 bets, like they don't understand that. That that's nothing like your profit that you're going to make cannot be measured in units. It needs to be measured in ROI and the ROI times the volume is how much money you're going to make. So all of these guys that you might think are sharp on Twitter that are betting like four or five plays a week, they're literally never going to win enough money to sustain betting as a profession. It's impossible, unless they're literally moving like massive, massive amounts of volume on that game, like massive dollar amounts, which is even worse, it's probably not happening. So, all in, you've made 70 bets and beat the close. Great, you got to make way more bets and it'll turn Okay. Second thing in this tweet that I noticed is you're saying you've beat this, beat the close on 90% of them. So technically, that is not really what you're going to want to calculate here. You're going to want to calculate how much you beat the close on each of them to calculate the true CLV. So if you say, hey, I got a better number than close seven out of 10 times, if you got a better number than close by like 0.1%, but then the ones that you didn't get the better number than close, you missed it by 5% and you're still going to be down overall. So one way that I do, especially for someone who's like just starting out, just learning, go into the Betstamp app, track all your bets there. 

38:08
So the way we calculate CLV on Betstamp, there's multiple ways to calculate it. Really, all it is is just the percentage difference in win probability from the closing line to your line that you bet Within Betstamp. What you're going to want to do is you're going to try to target around getting like a 2% CLV. If you can get a 2% CLV, you're comfortably going to win. 

38:28
Um, if you are based on the way we calculated in bet stamp getting like 0.5 CLV then in some cases that's actually not going to be enough to overcome the VIG. So what you're going to want to do is make sure you're calculating CLV in a way where it's not necessarily how many bets beat it, but in aggregate. How did my bets end up doing on the whole portfolio? How much did I beat it by on average? And if that in the BetSamp calculation is above 2% or around 2%, you're going to be fine with the right amount of volume. And if you keep betting and if that's under that, then you're likely not being the CLV by enough and you need to do more things to help win. 

39:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
One thing that's been really helpful for me over the years is obviously bet tracking. So exactly what Johnny said, but I personally like to calculate unexpected value on every single wager. So let's say you're betting a thousand bucks a game and it could be any amount, could be whatever you're betting, and it doesn't have to be the same. Typically speaking, you would log what you bet on the game, what your closing line value was, and then you would multiply those two to determine an expected value and you can sum up the expected value of every single one of your bets and compare that to your actual win and loss and it's probably a good determination of whether you're getting lucky or unlucky. What you should see over time is that your actuals and your expected should meet up over a long period of time. But again, we're talking about thousands of bets, not 70 or 80. So applaud you for trying to track, but maybe not tracking the right thing here. 

40:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, it's good though it's good. Actually, this is exactly what we wanted for the show. I appreciate that you're supporting us watching the videos that rob's putting out on how to calculate clv, how to actually use it. Um, sorry that you've had the bad variant so far. It's gonna turn. Keep it going. Send in as many questions as you need, reach out anytime if you need any help. Appreciate you. That was from at andrew mccroy up next. Anecdotally to me, lines seem to be opening up sharper this year compared to years past. Have professional bettors found it harder to find clv this year? If so, why? So? That's kind of two-part question. I want to start the answer the first part quick. Okay, he says lines seem to be opening up sharper this year. Yes, they open up sharper every single year and, even, with that, every single week. So anytime the market develops like they are, in theory, going to be a little bit sharper every single day that goes out, it'll be a little bit better. Now I'll let rob answer the other question. 

40:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like half, pros found it harder to find clv this year yeah, like I, I honestly don't even pay attention to opening lines, with the exception of the Forward Progress Sunday night show, where I look at Pinnacle's opening lines and kind of try to predict the way that they're going to move. If you do watch that show I know there's people out there that do, and this is not a plug, you don't have to watch it or anything like that but you would notice that I do have a knack for not even running my numbers yet and being able to somewhat accurately predict which way numbers are going to go. On specific games. My CLV is not lower this year than it has been in past years. In fact it's a little bit higher this season, but not enough to make a difference. Part of the reason why you can find good CLV is that there's still a lot of injuries that happen. There's still a lot of news over the course of the week. 

41:45
The market is very active. Early in the week you have right angle sports releasing. Earlier in the week you have Hitman. You have many, many more people that have market influence in some capacity as well. So overall you put all these things together and if you just look at NFL spreads over the course of the week, you'll notice stuff is moving pretty regularly. If stuff is moving, you can find CLV. So personally, as time has gone on, I found less bets. That's the truth. Volume has reduced, but the bets that I do make, I find that I'm still beating the close by the amounts that I have for years. 

42:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, understood. There Makes a lot of sense that Rob would be finding less bets as the season goes on Because, as mentioned, they're just getting sharper. More people are betting into it. Bookmakers have more time to adjust. 

42:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Teams have less variance in week 17 then we will actually forget about the injuries, but week 14 gonna be a lot less variance than week one nfl, there's gonna be outliers always like we had a covet year right where literally there was teams where like 15 players wouldn't play and the spread would move in the game from minus 3 to minus 13 and you didn't know if they're canceling the game or not right like they're. 

42:57
So those years, yeah, you're gonna have. You could get massive clv in those years. If you have access to information, you're first to bet and whatever like. Forget about that. 

43:06
But relatively speaking, the non-covid years in the nfl, you still get the same stuff. You get quarterback injuries, you get wide receipt, you get stuff that impacts the spread, and it's not like teams have gotten healthier all of a sudden over the years. There's less injuries, still the same amount as ever. So that matters. And also because there's so much market activity and so much early week betting. 

43:24
And not only is there early week betting just from my experience and this is NFL related, but I think it actually does apply to other sports, just in a smaller sample typically you're getting a lot of what I would call over moves on stuff where a service will release a play at a certain number and no one really knows what that number is good to. So it just keeps getting bad, yeah, and goes further and further out, and oftentimes I find that you know if you were to play back at the peak, you could be very successful in doing that. So clv still exists. It's still very I don't want to say easy to find, but um, certainly it's not getting any harder to obtain clv okay, uh, up next. 

44:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Second, last question in regards to this, we get this one every time. Well, I'll breeze by it quick, rob it's. Does clv matter, indicate less success in certain sports versus others? For example, clv and UFC, ufc less indicative of success versus NFL sides, expect, et cetera. So, as we mentioned, we'll, we'll just answer this so it can be on the record here. 

44:28
But, yes, clv matters more in the sports where there's higher volume and higher liquidity, higher bet limits, no doubt. However, ufc has pretty big limits. You can get down a lot of money in ufc, so the clv and ufc is nearly equally value to the clv in a lot of the other sports. Um, percentage wise, like yes, it is definitely going to be sharper in nfl, but just let you guys know if we're really taking like a practical approach to this question for the majority of people listening like it's the same thing. Don't don't think it's easier to beat UFC than it is NFL. When we say small markets, we're not talking about the ones where you can free, where you can freely bet one hundred thousand dollars. We're talking about the ones where you can get down, like legitimately, three hundred dollars on a bet. 

45:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This came from someone who added at the end of their question I'm finding I'm beating CLv by a lot on some bowl games and losing my shirt yeah, that's just. 

45:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's just the bad variance. Like everyone's getting torched on the bowl games this year. It is what it is. It's not going to last, it it's I mean, part of me always worries that, like damn, somebody found out ways to get down an incredible amount and they're like negative. They're just like manipulating the clv. Yes, but it wouldn't even be that good of a run like this, like clv is just getting torched in the bowl games. It's actually just pure variance. It is what it is. Keep betting, keep getting clv, you'll win money long term yeah, it's, it's exactly. 

45:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
it's a small sample, like obviously it's frustrating. I get these questions and they, a lot of them, stem from frustration, right like this. This question stems from I'm beating bowl games by like X a lot and I'm struggling. Well, I mean take a step back, like would you make these bets all over again? Of course you would Like, if you knew that you could bet a minus three, that's gonna close, minus seven and a half. 

46:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, just middle them. Like, if you're so worried, literally play back to close middle them and just try to hit a middle. A scout bingo, call it a day. Um, up next I started tailing a lot of picks is from uh, filthy phil, zach. Is that you, zach? You look like a filthy phil. Do you know filthy flow? 

46:26 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I'll say this there's a shop it's called filthy phils. Filthy phillies, it's a cheesesteak shop when I was playing junior lacrosse. I tried to get them to sponsor me on my jersey and then they said no, because the team I was playing for was too far away filthy phillies. 

46:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, that is a. It's a chain. There's a couple, I think, here. Yeah, they might open up some more locations, so I started. Uh, so zach here started tailing a lot of picks from nfl cappers and they aren't doing too well still early, man, but what is the easiest way to tell if someone's gonna win in the long run? 

46:55
all right, shocker, filthy phil. The easiest way to tell if someone's going to win in the long run? All right, shocker, filthy Phil. The easiest way to tell if someone's going to win in the long run is are they beating the closing line Right? If you simply put for a lot of people listening that don't even know what that is, they're just trying to learn. If you see a capper post a line okay and then you go to bet that line on your, on your book and you can get a better line than that, then they're probably not going to win. Sorry, not right away. After a day, for example, if their line is still available in the market, that's probably a bad sign. That is the main way, if I can give one way, if someone's going to win or not. That's the way. 

47:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I somewhat disagree. If your capper posts a play and that line is available for you to bet, I don't think that's necessarily not at the time, not at the time I'm saying like available at game day no not even at game day, like if they post the play in the morning. 

47:46 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yep, and they're like hey, bet, bet on, uh, memphis grizzlies minus two. Okay, and you bet it on memphis grizzlies minus two. And then you check back three hours, four hours, five hours later, and the line is still memphis grizzlies minus two. And then you check back three hours, four hours, five hours later, and the line is still Memphis Grizzlies minus two or, even worse, minus one and a half. It was probably a bad sign. That's the one thing I'd look for. 

48:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so like for, for me it's not so much about if, if it's in a couple hours the same line or not, it's just whether or not it closed better or have is. And I want to be very um, I want to make sure that I get this across because a lot of people will, will go, and now more people than ever, I think, are in tune with what closing line value is and they're like okay, I know this guy's beating the clothes or he's not. The issue, when you're tailing a lot of picks from NFL cappers I don't know whether this is on Twitter or you're buying picks or whatever you're doing is that, sadly, there's another step to verify that they've given you a pick that actually existed, because what a lot of people do is they will release or post numbers that, frankly, don't exist anywhere at the time that they've posted. So now it looks like oh, this guy posted I'm taking Eagles minus three and I go to bed, and it's Eagles minus three and a, go to bed and it's eagles minus three and a half. They're doing good, they're getting closing line value what? Guess what? By the time they posted that eagles minus three, it never existed anywhere. 

49:05
So there's like an added layer of due diligence that you have to do, but the answer, I mean we don't take it from me and Johnny, like we did an episode a couple months ago with a shitty sportsbook trader, ship the Justice Shipper, where he basically came on and told everyone exactly how sportsbooks profile bettors, especially recreational books, and they're looking for people who beat the closing line. 

49:38
If a sports book is looking to limit bettors who are consistently beating the closing line, that should set off alarm bells in your head, a light bulb that says, hey, maybe I should be trying to beat the closing line in the long run, not because you want to get limited, but because sports books are scared of people who can do this. So, yeah, the easiest way to tell if someone's going to win, are they beating close? Also, though, make sure that they're not, you know, pulling a quick one on you and giving you lines that have already moved because someone else steamed it right. This is the classic move. This is the animals move. For years, the no fucking around crew, or whatever the hell it was called the Twitter records that were through the roof that they're posting lines that don't exist. So you got to be careful of that. 

50:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay. So we had another question here which is right along the line. I'm going to reword this question so I think it'll be a lot more valuable. But basically, somebody is just asking if they should try to bet dumb stuff in their accounts to keep it alive longer or if they should just go in right away and play any non-major market big edges from the start and just try to win as much money as possible. The question will be a lot like don't even worry about putting it on, zach, it'll make a lot more sense to listeners if we just frame it like that. And then the answer, in my opinion, is straight up. 

51:00
It really depends on, like, how big your edge is on the small market stuff and it depends on how much coin are you really looking to make, what's your bankroll at? Like, each individual person this will be different for. So, if you've got your bankroll is between zero and $10,000, then like, absolutely you should just be like, playing the edges right away and just trying to mix it. You can't really this is not meant to be offensive or anything like that but you can't actually afford to be placing those losing bets, to be placing those negative EV bets. You've got to win as much as you can now and grow that up, because having that higher bankroll for you to redeploy later is going to make you way, way more money than whatever that account was going to be at. So that's my main thing is it's dependent by person. You know, that's really it. I totally agree. 

51:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
These questions, while they are great in terms of, you know, we would love, we'd love to give everyone the answers. You know, it's the same people who message me all the time of like should I hedge this bet? It's like, well, there's a mathematical answer, but there does not apply to every single person. Circumstances are different, so without knowing more about who you are as a better, it's really impossible to answer. I think for the majority of the population, you're better off just playing your edges. That's my personal opinion. If you are, and if you're listening to this and in your head you already have an answer, you're not the person I'm worried about. You're probably better off trying to prolong the account for as much as possible. 

52:32
But for most people out there, if you feel you have an edge, play it, because one and again, again, it's not disrespectful. I'm just speaking with honesty here. But to Johnny's point, you're probably not betting big enough where you need to worry about, you know, priming the account, so to speak. And two, you don't really know when these edges are going to go away. Oftentimes, right, lots of people reach out. I found this. I found this mispriced correlation in this same game parlay. Should I bleed it out over time. It's like well, if you found it, I'm guessing someone else found it as well. And someone else found it, and this is not going to exist forever. 

53:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So just bet it, just bang it, and what you're going to do is smash that edge. And what you're also going to do is then go to the YouTube channel and smash that like button. Look at this information we're giving out here One of the best sports betting podcasts in the nation, in the continent the best, the best sports betting podcast in the nation. We're giving out so much good info. We're always open, dms are open. We're answering all your questions, providing the value. All we ask when it turns out, you absolutely obliterate that like button for this holiday season. Up next, tommy Stanton. Tommy Two Gloves at Tommy Two Gloves. Merry Christmas boys. What are your thoughts on limiting yourself to maybe one or two plays a day instead of overextending? I find it can be easier to cut out the crap if you're dwindling down your card, mr Pizzola. 

53:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay. So this actually depends on whether or not you're winning better or losing better. So I have this conversation pretty regularly with a friend of mine friend of the program, jim Viviano who always messages me and says, like I got so many edges on these props, should I be scaling down? It's like no, if you have legitimate edges on all of these things, then you should bet them, especially the high ones. Like you know, don't pick an arbitrary cutoff point that's like oh, I'm only gonna bet edges that are 15% or higher and everything below that is gonna go. This is the quickest way to grow a bankroll is betting as many edges, getting as much volume. The problem is you actually need to be able to substantiate that you have an edge, and this is where this all like you search general sports betting topics and stuff like that, how should I bet? Most of the hits you're going to get on Google, even on YouTube, are going to be like ah, you know, limit your bets, play only the good stuff. Two or three bets a day. Don't go more than that. There should not be an arbitrary cutoff point, but understand that if you do not have an edge in sports betting and you have to be real with yourself here. 

55:03
If you're a long-term loser, you're not getting closing line value. The more you are betting, the more volume you're betting, the quicker you're going to go bust, the quicker you're going to lose your money, because each single bet has negative expected value or not each single one, but for the most part your bets have negative expected value. You're not each single one, but for the most part your bets have negative expected value. You're just going to be losing money to the sportsbook. It's no different than someone who goes and plays at a roulette table right, a roulette table that has no issues with the wheel, nothing going on there. The person who sits down and bets twice is way more likely to win in the long run or not lose than the person who sits down for a thousand spins because you're just compounding your negative expected value. 

55:45
So it depends on whether or not you're a winner or loser. You have to be real with yourself. If you lose, it's probably because you're betting too much volume without an edge for, so maybe you want to scale back for that reason. But if you're a winner, bet this stuff. Find as many spots to bet as you can. If you're getting good clv on everything and you're holding back plays because you want to limit yourself to one, two, three bets a day. To me, that's a a huge mistake yeah, absolutely couldn't agree more. 

56:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I won't even add anything to that. That's the correct answer there. Um, okay, okay, couple more and uh, and that'll be it for the episode here today. So, rob, oh, this is a good one actually. Oh, really, sundown studios 2.075. This might have been a youtube comment in regards to reverse line movement. Okay, what is the what if the money percentage is higher than the public money percentage, like 65% public 35% money versus 65% public 70% money? 

56:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I hate, I. I'll answer this question. You got it. 

56:56 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I hate this talk. 

56:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'll answer it because it's asked and it deserves an answer. Right, I'm not a believer in reverse line movement. Generally speaking, I don't care about what the public bet percentage is the number of tickets, the number of money, it doesn't matter to me. Because, again, what is your goal as a sports bettor? Your goal is to win. What's the best indicator of success Closing line value. So if you're betting using reverse line movement the public is on this, the money's here, the line has moved in this direction you're hurting your ability to beat the close right. If a line moves and you're betting it after it's moved, because of the way that you're interpreting the public bet percentages and whatever, you're not getting closing line value. That defeats the purpose. On top of this, these sites that are showing public bet percentages they're usually nine times out of 10, if not more partnered with domestic sports books that cater to recreational bettors. What good is it for you to know the percentage of money that people are betting into a recreational sportsbook that limits their players? Like, how is that of value to you whatsoever? You have no idea. It could be one VIP bet that makes up the percentage of money. That's not a sharp bet idea. It could be one VIP bet that makes up the percentage of money. That's not a sharp bet. None of this info is practical. You don't have enough detail to be able to dissect it and find anything meaningful from it. So I don't care about what if the money percentage is higher than the public percentage. I get that it's like the public is. The majority of people are on this side, but most of the money is on this side. What is that money? It's just from public bettors anyways, but at what price? Also, the biggest thing I can try to get across to people and I've explained this a million times I think I did it with actual cash in my pocket before with you. I think I have cash in my pocket, but we don't need to go down the cash example again. But it's this simple okay, if I'm betting into you're wearing a pinnacle hat. If I'm going to go bet into pinnacle sportsbook and I'm going to bet an NFL side, you know what? I'm going to get better than minus 110, because they serve better than minus 110. I might get minus 105 on my side, but either way, I'm going to put down 105 bucks to win 100. 

59:19
The sportsbook now has a bet at plus 105. I've bet at minus 105. Sportsbook bets at plus 105. Everyone wants to get on the same side as a sportsbook. I want to be on the same side as a sportsbook. Guess what? The sportsbook? Their side is plus 105. You want to be on the same side? You have to pay VIG. You have to pay minus 110, somewhere else, minus 105. It's not the same bet. It's very, very different. These are margins that matter when it comes to sports betting. So, yes, vegas wasn't built overnight. These sports books all make money. They do. Vegas wasn't built overnight. These sports books all make money. They do. God man, I'm looking at that board behind Zach right now. But I have to say it, I consulted for sports books before I know how this works. I have generally a good idea of how this works. I know what the hold percentages are for certain bet types. 

01:00:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
God we have to erase that again. No, it's a zero. 

01:00:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It was a zero, right. 

01:00:19 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I'm just going to leave it blank. 

01:00:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah, I might as well not even write the zero. It might just be blank for a while. But generally speaking, on straight bets, especially the sports books, don't hold a ton. It's when you start getting into parlays, teasers, same game parlays, all these other bet types, where their whole percentage goes through the roof. So this is just outdated. And the reality is. 

01:00:41
And what's very, very hard about this space, and now I'm just like going on and on, but I swear I'll stop in one second. Me and Johnny are just getting dragged, like why would I listen to these guys? They have less subscribers than Simon does and whatever. And at first it's very easy to get upset, but then you take a step back and you're like all this stuff is just being constantly driven home by other content creators out there. Why does this stuff get driven home? Because at 99, 98, 99% of people lose at sports betting. It's just the reality of life. 

01:01:18
So many people lose at sports betting, they're not willing to admit it, they're not willing to change their strategy and figure out that, oh, all these things that are being told to me about the public bet percentages are not working. They just assume that because so many people are saying it that it has to be correct and it's not. And you can believe me, you cannot believe me. At the end of the day, it's your money. You bet however the hell you want to bet. 

01:01:42
I'm just giving you my opinion based off of my experience in the space, both on one side of the counter, I guess you could say, and on the other. But this stuff doesn't matter, it really doesn't. It's not apples to apples. You want to be on the same side of the sports book? Fine, find somebody that's going to bet into you. I don't want to actually say that I'm not encouraging you to do illegal booking, but that would be the way to be on the same side of the sports book, because at that way people are betting coin flips. You're getting plus 110. That's very different than you having to bet minus 110. 

01:02:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, rob, we got three questions here on all in regards to sports betting exchanges and you know we're not really going to get into the exchange model, whether we think it's going to work, whatever, like listen, this boring shit. We want to talk about betting advice. We want to talk about actual betting. But there are a couple good questions came in on, like sports betting exchange liquidity and like would you actually sign up and use a betting exchange? Sports betting exchange liquidity and like would you actually sign up and use a betting exchange? And um, I went over a little bit about this last couple weeks, but certainly yes. 

01:02:43
So if there's a betting exchange that's available to you that you can sign up for deposit in play at, you got to take a look first. Like don't just be blindly giving your money to anyone betting exchanges. Typically they're not going to have, like the prop markets going to be the straight wagers and things like that. I mean first half straight game, total spreads, money lines. But if they're offering, in some cases, better prices than you can get elsewhere, then why would you not sign up there? Obviously with the caveat being as long as you thought it was reputable and they were going to pay you out and there was no risk there, then you should be signing up and trying to take advantage of getting better prices. There's really no scenario in which you would want to be betting something at a worse price at a book that's not necessarily going to limit you or an exchange model type site. So if you have those available to you, I would actually strongly recommend opening up as many outs as you can and not just exchanges any other sites as well. 

01:03:40
As long as you've done your due diligence, you reach out to people, say, hey, is this a good book? Have you played there? Are they going to stiff me? Are they going to do this? Are they going to do this like, how are they in terms of reputation? And then also take a look at just go through the bets you're doing. If you're betting nflals, make sure you take a gander at the site beforehand. Like, do they offer the NFL totals? Like that's something you're going to want to do in exchange, because they're definitely you know, really thin on the markets but super worthwhile. There's a couple regulated ones now that have popped up. There's the STX exchange in Ontario there's Profit. There's Sportrade in New Jersey and Ontario there's profit. There's sport trade in New Jersey and there's a few others that operate, you know, within the Canadian market. Globally, there's multiple in Europe and things like that. 

01:04:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So just take a look, depending on where you are, and see what you can get yeah, we, we practice what we preach here on circles often and I'm a big believer in just trying to get the best prices wherever possible. So I'm I'm perfectly fine with that from an exchange point of view. Just two things I would recommend that you be very weary of with exchanges. One there are times where there are hidden fees. You gotta be very careful with that stuff. Good point, good point. So like it might seem like you're not paying VIG on individual bets, but in reality you are through other ways, whether that's deposit, withdrawal, the number of transactions you post, whatever. But you have to look through the fee structure of the site. 

01:05:02
Second thing if you're new to exchanges, I would highly recommend not seeding the exchange. And I'm not saying like being a market maker where you're providing them with a ton of liquidity, but as soon as you post a bet, that bet is live for someone else to take. So you don't want to get picked off on injury. News is basically what it comes down to, right Like you don't want to have a bet up and then all of a sudden Kawhi Leonard is out and someone's quicker to take your bet than you to take it down. 

01:05:31
So I would generally say if you're not experienced, you're not tech savvy, you don't wanna be the person who's posting a ton of bets every day, like I don't wanna. You know, if you're gonna go and you're a teacher and you're gonna be in school all day and at 8 am in the morning you're gonna put in all the bets that you want in an exchange. There's a chance you're gonna come back from school that day and the prices that are not favorable to you anymore are all going to be picked off. So just be smart about that as well. But overall, they are valuable and I think diversifying your portfolio, getting the best prices wherever you can every better should be trying to do that. 

01:06:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Good advice, rob. One last question for today and reminded everyone, there will be another Q&A next week as well, where we get into you know this was more betting strategy we're going to get into you know some of the business aspects of betting, some other strategy. And then you know some personal questions about the podcast, about maybe Rob's betting, things like that. So stay tuned for next week. If your question didn't get answered, it's highly likely in that batch for next week. Last question for today Rob would love to hear your thoughts on round Robin betting. So I I guess I'll start. 

01:06:38
Actually, round robins for those who don't know what it is, it's basically just a combination of different parlays, so it's parlays within a parlay. You do every combination. If you do a 5x round robin then it'll round robin, every single combination of those five plays and you can choose by 2x parlay, 3x parlay, 4x, 5x parlay, etc. Mainly I used to think round robins were good. Now I actually think they're kind of bad. No one really bets these in the recreational space and you know, speaking my co-host here, he's consulted for multiple sports books in the past. 

01:07:10
I think a round robin at any you know amount of limit would actually draw some major flags in the books. We've talked to a few people that have actually given that info, so we're happy to pass that on to you guys. I think, uh, you know, round robin is probably a net negative as opposed to a net positive. It is a convenient way, though, to get money down. If you have three plays, you just want to click it and it'll get more down for you in one click. But don't be lazy. Just play them straight manually, do your. It's probably going to draw some flags. 

01:07:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, when we had 50 Kelly or Cat123454 on last week, he did talk about doing some round robins as well, especially if you have a lot of edges at one time. Basically, what you're doing is you're kind of like increasing it's one way that you can get a bunch of good bets in together in parlay form. Increase the payout, like people think. Generally parlays are always bad and that's again misinformation. 

01:08:03
That's out there, the vast majority of people who play parlays. It's a bad idea because you already don't have an edge and now you're putting all these bets together. It's going to make it even harder for you to win in the long run. But if you do have an edge in all these individual legs or even just some of the legs, if you do your math properly, it can be advantageous. But people used to use round robins to try to get around limiting at sports books and profiling and all the information that we've gathered and gleaned from people who are on this show, from industry reps that we talk to pretty regularly over the course of the last one to two years basically tell us that that's not really a viable strategy. There are closing line value reports on parlays. To Johnny's point, some sportsbooks will say actually if you do round robin parlay, we're more likely to profile you, because this is not a recreational bet type that we typically see at our sportsbook. 

01:08:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
What guy do you know that's recreationally betting, that's tossing it around? 

01:08:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
robin think about it when, when I was younger, honestly it that was my core friends, core friends. But I think the the dynamics of betting have changed a lot now and people gravitate more towards same game parlays now, where that leaves round robins as more of an outlier. So I think at one point in time it made sense, like when I was in my late teens. I mean, I'm honest here with people I set like a six or seven round. 

01:09:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, that's cause. That's all your book would offer also. No, no Like for the big payout ones like a PPH. They're not offering like massive same game parlays. They're not offering like parlays on player props. It was just just. That was the only way to really get big payouts, exactly and and as with anything betting, patterns and habits change over time. 

01:09:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um so what are my thoughts? If you have an edge on all the legs which is, I mean, it can happen go for it, but generally speaking, I'm not someone that you will see around robbing things all too often. There you go. 

01:09:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right. With that being said, we're closing off this week's episode. This has been episode 134 of the Circles Off podcast here on the Hammer Betting Network. Please absolutely smash that like button subscribe. We'll be back next week with another Q&A. See everyone soon. Outro Music.