00:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You definitely didn't play on it. 

00:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, I listened, I played every DFS. 

00:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You played Draft Day DFS yeah. 

00:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Draft Day 100%. I had a. 

00:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Draft Day account. 

00:09 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Johnny put some respect on Draft Day. Dfs all right. Like that was the fourth biggest site when we sold it in 2014,. 

00:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, listen, that's on me, that's on me. I wasn't even legally able to play during the DFS boom, so I didn't have any of those accounts. So give me some slack on that, come on let's go. 

00:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 136. Right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook, I'm Rob Pizzola. Joined as always, johnny from Betstamp. I'm drawn a blank, I actually don't even know any number 36s yeah, 36 is tough, zach. You know any, I know one. 

00:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Was Anton Strahlman, 36?. 

00:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, I don't know if you'll remember, so the one I do know, and only because I caught the highlights last night, is Mats Zuccarello. Yeah, Mats. Zuc. Now am I wrong? Sorry, I'm going to alienate so many people out there. Didn't dimitri uskevich wear 36? Didn't carl gunnarsson wear 36? 36 like really old leafs defenseman? I think muskevich had to retire because he had like blood clots or something dimitri uskevich. 

01:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Anton strahlman was 36, so I did nail it, anton strahlman. And sorry, who did you say Zach? 

01:24 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Carl. 

01:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Gunnarsson Gunnarsson Both guys who went on to the Blues to have better careers and with the Leafs. 

01:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Classic. Classic Leafs I just pulled up. Only 19 players have ever worn 36 in the NBA. One of them is Marcus Smart, marcus Smart, 36. Is one of them Shaq? Shaq for one year? Yeah, or 36 as well. What's our Shaq here? Shaq's wearing 34 in front of me over here, guaranteed. I like to hit his head every now and then. 

01:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't know why Wait. Is this episode 135? 

01:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, it's 136. Am I out to lunch? 

01:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, it's 136. 

02:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Are you sure I I don't know. We have screwed up the episode before and, by the way, they're one of our funniest youtube comments ever is like somebody who who watched that full episode and responded in the comments like you guys, don't even know what episode it is how can I trust your opinions on sports, bro? 

02:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
am I might? We might have to cut this out, but this is that. 

02:21 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
This is gonna air is episode 135 no no, it's 36 oh, I messed up so badly the only reason I know rob put the wrong air date on the sheets I did, I put 

02:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
airing thursday, january 18th if you remember we were gonna, there was gonna be a possibility okay, we're in we're 

02:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
in, we're in it's, we're cutting this out, or no? 

02:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
no, no, it, no, it's just totally in. We might as well leave it in. 

02:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So episode 36. And we messed up the lines and we're leaving it in because we don't void our bets, we don't void our errors when we mess up, and you can't ask for a refund from us either. And you know who else. You know who else will honor the lines that they have posted. 

03:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Always honoring the lines. Pinnacle Sportsbook the world's sharpest sportsbook. Honestly, we preach it every single week here on Circles Off. It's because we both really believe in Pinnacle. Look at Johnny looking beautiful in his hat over there Pinnacle hat, my new hat. A supermodel with that Pinnacle hat right there. But, honestly, nfl playoffs are around the corner. I got my Dak Prescott helmet in front of me. I got my Cowboys shirt on. I'm excited. I'm looking at the lines for the NFL this week. You know who's got the best price in market on either the side or the total in every single game? That would be Pinnacle Sportsbook. 

03:35
If you're serious about sports betting, you gotta be line shopping. You gotta have Pinnacle in your portfolio. There's a reason they've been in business for the past 25 years. They're a very customer-centric book with low margins. So bet smart, bet pinnacle, your trusted sports book. And, of course, you must be 19 plus, not available in the us. Please play responsibly and if you do sign up to pinnacle in canada, use code hammer, as it does. Support us here on circles off. We're now joined by our guest this week on Circles Off. He's an ex-professional poker player. He previously founded and ran Card Runners, which was an online poker training community and he also co-founded, and is now the CEO of, establish the Run ETR. It's Taylor Cabby. You can follow him on Twitter at Taylor Cabby. Taylor, thanks for joining us. 

04:21 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Hey, great to be here, guys, thanks for having me. 

04:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, no problem at all. So we like to start with the journey into betting with every single one of our guests here on Circles Off. Yours is a little bit different because you started in the poker space rather than immediately in the sports betting space. But let's get it started If you can share your journey into the betting space and how you originally got started in poker. 

04:42 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah for sure. I was like I'm 40 years old now. So when I was in my early 20s, late teens, was when, like the sort of online poker heyday was going on and I was just super into poker, you know, played at home, played with friends, played with family. When I got to college there was just, you know, everybody was playing online poker. It was all over television. I think Rob, you played poker back in the day around that time too. I'm sure you and pretty much anyone that was around knows what it was like. 

05:10
I was just one of the people that happened to take a small deposit online and slowly build it up into playing at the high stakes and just make a career of it. You know, I never thought that I would be in gambling, the gambling world, as a career. I was, you know. Again, I was in college at the time. This is like 2000, say, three to six or so. There weren't even really that I knew of like online poker pros, like certainly not like 2003. 

05:35
Like you know, in 2005, it started to become more of a thing, but like it's so hard to get into, gambling was just, I liked gambling and I was good at it, you know, really, and, and you know, by the time I graduated college, um, you know I was playing the highest stakes poker on the internet. Uh, you know, 10th at the time, the highest stakes were maybe 10 to $20,000 buy-ins like cash games. Um, it got a little bit bigger than that, but typically that was where I was playing and you know, just playing for a bunch of money and doing well, and then you know, eventually I don't know how much we're going to go into it now, but I transitioned into more of the business side of things and that was how Card Runners got started and that's sort of in. The rest of my career is more business oriented and gamble. 

06:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so I'm certainly interested in the start of Card Runners and how that transition happened. Was it like a very gradual transition, did you? Did you cut off the poker play and focus on the business side, or was there overlap between the two? You can, you can get into that. 

06:34 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, and I think one of the things to really emphasize for at least my career, has just been like I had absolutely no idea how this was going to play out, like I was just trying to figure it out as I went along. 

06:45
So, as I was playing poker as a junior in college, um, I didn't. I thought I was going to get a job. Like honestly, this was like I was playing like you know five and $10,000 buying games I had done well, but I didn't know anybody else to play poker for a living outside of like seeing you know people like Phil Helmuth on TV and I just like it just didn't seem like that was me. So I thought I needed to get a job and I didn't have an internship. So my friend Andrew Wiggins and I I'll try to make a long story short, but I was approached by some other people to start like what is basically would have been the same thing as Card Runners, and it was some like live players, online players, and they were like wanting me to help out and sort of be involved, and I was down for it. But then it just sort of sputtered and never went anywhere. So I was like, well, shit, I don't have an internship this summer. I need to get a job, so I should start a site, a business, and like I can put that on my resume. And that was literally how it got started. Like it was. It was it probably spent like two hours thinking about it, like maybe. 

07:45
And then, you know, over the course of like four to six months, andrew and I, you know, put together the site and launched it and then, of course, once it, once we launched it, it became successful pretty quickly. 

07:56
And then it was obvious, okay, like just try to keep doing it. 

07:58
But it wasn't like, oh, I gotta, I need, I need to like do this because I'm not going to win at poker, or you know, just there's no plan other than, like I need to put something on my resume and I'm probably gonna need a job. So, yeah, and then, you know, card runners itself was, you know, basically, I would say, the preeminent place to really learn how to, to get actual poker pros teaching you how to play poker, and that was myself and other people, and you know we would record videos of our screens and talk about our thought process and like it was not like bullshit, it wasn't people that were like just talking about it or playing low state and that's another thing along playing low stakes, but it was actually people that had like success, like gambling, and you know that was for years and years. I was the CEO while also playing poker. But just over time it became clear I should spend more time on the business because, one, I wasn't enjoying it more and, two, I thought there was probably more financial opportunity in it. 

08:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's a really interesting story. I'm interested in the impact and maybe the reception that you faced when you started Card Runners. Generally speaking, we see a lot of in the sports betting space nowadays, a lot of sports betting products that are launched and if they are useful and viable and giving actionable info to bettors, they tend to come under a lot of criticism from the experts in the space and the sharp bettors in the space. Did you face any of that in the poker community? Was there anyone that was like very outspoken as to why would you be putting poker training out there and like eroding the edge of some other pros? Did you face that reception at all? 

09:30 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Oh yeah, all the time. And first of all, I think that's a very legitimate criticism, like as a starting point, like it's a question if you're good at what you're doing, which I was like nobody would have said I was not a winning player if not one of the best players at that time. So nobody was like, oh, this guy can't win, this is bullshit. They were like, why are you doing this? And like my answer was and would be like I don't know, you know, like it was probably not the smartest decision in some ways, like I probably should have at a minimum waited until I was having a harder time winning, and like I'm not saying I would have done that, but I'm saying like, objectively, that would have been a smarter decision. I would say my belief is that everybody is operating in their own self interest and a lot of and I think that's totally okay as long as you're transparent with with what you're doing and your goals and who you are and you're not misrepresenting yourself. So for me, like when I look at the hate you know per se that people get for these products, a lot of it is other people acting their own self-interest. They're saying look, I don't want the games to be harder. I don't want poker to get harder, I don't want sports betting to be harder, whatever, and that's completely valid. 

10:40
At the same time, if you have a profit motive for running a business or just a desire to do something because you want to do it, you should operate in your own interests, right? So so for me, I took it personally. I would say sometimes like like a long time ago, I mean, I was like in my early 20s and I didn't like seeing people say negative things about me. But as time has gone on, I've sort of realized like I'm going to do what's in my own interest and I think other people should do the same thing. So where I draw the line is misrepresentation and actually, for me, slash us and my companies. It's like I don't want to do something that I don't think is also in the customer's best interest, like I just don't. There's businesses out there that could be great businesses, but they're just not helping the customer base, at least in terms of my ethics and motivations. But yeah, this is kind of getting long-winded, but yes, I did face that and I think it's valid honestly. 

11:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm going to pick up on that a little bit later on when we talk about Establish the Run as well, because I think that there are some parallels we can draw there. But more of a personal question here. Johnny co-founded BetStamp. It was his first company that he was running. It was a very small team. 

11:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It actually wasn't my first company. 

11:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh really. 

11:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, no, no, no, no, it was my first. 

11:55 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Well, let's get into that. 

11:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, no, no. I had a small little company I started one summer Just like a little marketing company, but again not. It was never going to be anything real, but it was a legit corporation. 

12:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's, I'm learning something new. 

12:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I never knew that before. 

12:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So his second company that he co-founded for me, the hammer. I was part of the founding team here and now I run it as the CEO myself, and these are new experiences for us. So I'm curious on a personal level for you, having just only the poker background, coming out of school starting a business, did you find that like? Was it a seamless transition for you? Did you find it inherently challenging? What was that experience like for you in the early going? 

12:38 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, I would say. The first is that I was very fortunate to have been like found extreme products, market fit like right. When I launched the company, like people, it was a gold rush for poker, so there was such a high demand for the product that was being offered that it overshadowed all of the shortcomings that I had, Like I have no knowledge about running a business and like I didn't know what I was doing at all. So like, yes, that was very challenging, but if you're in the right market and you have like directionally, the right, like strategies and execution that can overcome, you know, just the ignorance or naivety of being, of being inexperienced, and that's what I would say it was like for me. 

13:18
It was like I don't even know what to do. I don't know this product doesn't even really exist out there. We're going to try to figure out what we need to add to our business and where we're going to take it, and it's very hard If you've never done it at any business, much less that one you're currently in, and I still struggle with that today. I think any business owner who doesn't is lying to themselves and you just have to keep working through it and understand that you're going to have to learn over time. What were you studying in school? 

13:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
specifically, uh, it was, I was a finance major, finance major. So I w I was going to ask this is something that a lot of people ask me, not really related to betting at all but did the things you learned in school, like as a finance major, as a business student, I guess was that impactful in actually starting a business? Like, did you actually draw back on that or did you just learn the majority as soon as you started the company? 

14:07 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Uh, I would say no, none of it was helpful at all. Um, I, that's maybe a little exaggerative, but like, at the time I looked at school and I don't really advocate this to other people but like I looked at school as a means to an end. I was like I got to get a degree so I can get a job. And it was like, well, how do I get a degree? Well, I got to get, I got to pass these classes. Okay, well, how do I pass the classes? I studied the night before the test and I get the grade, you know. 

14:33
And it was like that was stupid. Honestly, I should have, I should have been like, hey, I can learn something here. Like go there with the idea of, like, I'm going to make the most of my, I'm going to get the most out of it, and like I just didn't do that. Now, at the same time, I was also playing a lot of cards, you know, having fun, et cetera. So I don't know to me, I have one class there's like an entrepreneurship class I took. The professor helped me out when I was starting card runners and he was a great, is a great guy. I still I still talk to him today, but like, yeah, it wasn't super helpful. 

15:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Interesting. 

15:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I agree. I agree with that completely. The it's not that you don't learn anything. You do learn a lot of things in terms of refining your skills and whatnot, but the actual, uh, business stuff you learn in business school like it all gets thrown out the window as soon as you start your own thing. They're also training more towards, like, how to fit into a corporation, as opposed to how do you like build up your own thing that could then hire some people and scale it up and then, once you realize that these things are not related, you really do realize like I'm on my own you could almost learn more from just like watching youtube vids and shit. 

15:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think go ahead, taylor yeah, just one quick thing. 

15:40 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I took this like uh, options and trading class I can't remember exactly what it was called and one of the first things was they were touting like the efficient markets hypothesis like. And it was like the professor was like you can't, no one can win because all everything is priced in. And this is like this, not just for for the market, but for all of these types of markets, and I was like, how am I winning at poker? I like I didn't understand like, I like it can't possibly be true. 

16:04
You know, like and I don't think it is true today, but like it was just all this like academic, like theory, and and that's not everything, but like there's just so much of that in college and and it just it just wasn't for me that's funny, that's crazy. 

16:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like a efficient market hypothesis doesn't actually mean no one could win. In fact, it means the opposite. It means you can win a lot. It just means that you can't win in certain ways, like, oh, I'll just buy low on this stock and sell it when it goes higher, like, yeah, no shit, that's not, that's not a strategy. 

16:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But in general, like, yeah, you could, it doesn't mean you can't win yeah, you want to capitalize on stuff that's not priced into the market, but then eventually it becomes priced in the market, and the people who who beat the market are the ones that generally so how were you actually beating poker like what was your edge? 

16:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
um just, it wasn't that short at the time, or were you one of the best? 

16:52 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
as crazy as it sounds like, I think I was one of the first people to just realize like you should drastically play different according to the table position and you should be three betting. A lot like this is back in the day and I don't even, honestly, I don't play poker, so I could. I'm sure it's. This is all solved. But I was playing extremely loose and aggressive in late position at the table and playing very tight otherwise, and I had, I had and have very strong emotional control to where I don't ever go on tilt and I'm also very good at knowing when I have an edge. So if I don't have an edge, I'll just quit and it doesn't bother me at all. I can just look at it and just walk away, and I think that's honestly something like 10 years of playing poker up could be summed up to those principles and just sticking to it over and over again. 

17:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's really interesting um, did. 

17:52 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
When did you? When did you realize you lost that edge in poker? Probably 2009, maybe or so. Like I started cardiners in 2005, no I. But to be clear, I knew that I was not as good in 2008 or something as I was in 2005 relative to the competition, but it was clear to me by like oh nine, maybe a little later that I was like no, this is. I don't think I have a future playing. 

18:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Did you value the other resources in the space at it, like between 2003, 2009? So we are relatively similar in age. I've been through the poker boom just as you described for me and this will lead into another question shortly but, uh, you know, I got my hands on play poker. Like the pros, phil helmuth, I used to buy a phil gordon's little green, but like I used to just read and consume everything in the space from that was put out from anyone that I watched play poker company's dream. 

18:43
Yeah, a company's dream if somebody played poker on tv and I could watch them play poker on tv and generally they were winning. I would buy their book and I would read it and I would try to learn and just like little things, I was trying to pick up on as much information as possible, uh, and then utilize that in my own game. Did you take a similar approach, or did you just carve out your own niche and your own style? 

19:05 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
so from, I would say, 2001 to two or so. This is before online or before I ever played online poker. Up until maybe 2005 or six. That was me to a t like. I read every single book in the poker library in the library at my hometown. I read everything you could possibly read on the internet, read the forums daily, consumed every bit of information possible, and then when I started Card Runners, there's just not enough time in the day to have that obsession about poker while you're also running the business and playing at the high levels. You can't do all those things at once. So I'd say that that stopped around then, and it's no surprise that my skills eroded at that point. 

19:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so the question I wanted to follow up with there, and maybe this isn't true and I'm misreading the situation and this is based off my past experiences. 

19:52
But I always found that, growing up, poker players were very receptive to learning and they tried to consume as much information that was out there, and there was a lot of people that were willing to admit that like, hey, I have a lot of room to grow my game. I don't know everything in the sports betting industry. It seems to be the complete opposite to me, where I think the vast majority of people that I've talked to, even if they are long-term losers, they actually still believe that they've figured it out. Now, that's just my you know, read on the situation and you can feel free to disagree, but in the card runners, like you said it card runners, great timing is a good product. A lot of people willing and receptive to learn. Do you think that there's ever going to be that big of an appetite in the sports betting space Like, for example, could an online sports betting training platform ever exist in a capacity where it just blows up in the market? 

20:47 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
So that this is a lot to unpack on that on that, but I would say that I would agree wholeheartedly that poker players, anyone that's successful at a high level you just have to have the willingness to admit when you're wrong to improve your skills, however that may be. Like you know, admit when you're wrong to improve your skills however that may be, like you know education or, you know, software. 

21:07
There's some form of improving your knowledge, right? I think that's exactly the same at the high levels of any discipline like out there. I think sports betting it's the same thing. However, you just said yourself, there are people that maybe they're losing sports bettors that say that they think they haven't figured out. Well, I tell you this there's a lot of losing poker players that think they haven't figured out too. There's a lot of people everywhere that don't know what they're talking about, that think that they're very wise, right. 

21:33
And I think that if you ask like I guarantee you, if you ask Billy Walters or whoever else the top sports bettors are in the world, they would have the same mentality that they have to continue to educate themselves. And as far as the training site aspect goes, the big difference between sports betting and poker is that sports betting is a connected global market, so there is not enough room for many, many people to thrive in sports betting to the extent that a poker pro could Like if you're at a poker table and you're like, there's the you know you're this ninth best player in the world, and they get eight guys that are better than you are sitting at the table like you're screwed, but you could be an objectively terrible player and be playing with worse players and still be have a lot of room to make money in that environment. So it lends itself better to education because it's not. There's more room for more people to make money Like sports betting, like the largest entities are just hoovering up like much more of the money, in my opinion. 

22:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So that's, fair. 

22:31 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah. 

22:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So, basically, you just have to be the best player at the table and then you, you win. You don't have to be the best player in the world, whereas in sports betting, to scale it up, I guess you're. You're as long, as I mean, if you have certain notes that nobody else has sure. Yeah, but for the most part, yeah. 

22:47 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
But then you don't need to be the best sports better in the world. It really just comes down to like, if you have the outs, like that, that's what matters in that situation, like I mean, obviously if you're betting like you know NFL, you know an hour before kick, like yeah, you gotta be good, but like the, what actually drives the value is like game selection, you know, of getting that, getting the outs and so. So the edge that you're giving up by you know explaining this, potentially, if you are that guy on the top level of sports betting, is just massive because it's literally just seducing the entire market instantly. You know it's not the same in poker yeah, that's crazy. 

23:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I agree with that completely. Um, so we'll shift to establish the run now. Um, we know you moved into that, but for before we even get into what that is, I just want to ask you, like, what's what's better? Like what was more fun playing poker and grinding out money, like that, or running the business and making money from that? 

23:41 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Definitely the business for me. Why? Um, I think it comes down to well, okay. So I tell people all the time and they ask me if I still play poker. 

23:52
I don't like the games that are like sort of fixed and like the rules are the same and there's like an objectively correct strategy, like a like a gto strategy. Now I think there's times you're supposed to deviate from that, like you know. But if, but what? But if you're depending on your opponents. But I like games where it's a little more unsolved and evolving. And business is like that to a T because it's always changing. There's always new factors coming in, the rules are changing, there's new opportunities that come up for the same businesses that can go into new lines of business. 

24:25
Poker is just like get really, really, really good and slowly, slowly, improve your skills at that, at that thing over time and like grind out your edge. That I don't like as much. The second thing is is that like I get like, especially as I get older, I want like better work-life balance. I want to try and make money while I'm not working, I want to try to have you just, you know, keep stress down, like things like that. And I think that poker and gambling in general is pretty tough for that, so I tend to go more on the other side. 

24:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, fair enough. So then, I guess, tell us the story about ETR. How did that get formed? What's the story? 

24:57 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, so I'm going to cut out years because I started a DFS site which failed and wasn't great which one Taylor. I played on all of them. This is draft day. 

25:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Draft day Okay yeah. 

25:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You definitely didn't play on it. 

25:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, I listened, I played every DFS. 

25:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You played draft day DFS. 

25:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Draft day 100%. I had a draft day account. 

25:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He bankrupted you. 

25:26 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Johnny put I had it. Yeah, he bankrupted you put. Put some respect on giraffe day dfs. All right, like that. That was a that it was the fourth biggest site. Okay, okay, all right that's all right. 

25:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Listen, that's on me, that's on me. I wasn't, I wasn't even legally able to play during the dfs boom, so I didn't have any of those accounts. So give me, give me some slack on that you know what you were talking about it was like you were like a 25th biggest dfs site. And then I'm like there's, and the way pazola answered, he's like oh, yeah, yeah. 

25:52 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
And I'm like there's no way, this guy, he's just saying, he's just nodding his head I for for what it's right I should have said from the start I'm a big fan of the show and I like, I like hearing you guys banter, so I feel like I can just come in and start firing stuff off. So feel free to give it back to me, you know when. 

26:05
I'm sure buddy, of course no, but but like but um, yeah, no, I'm just and I'm also like I'm really competitive. So the fact that we didn't have a great outcome to me to this day still bothers me and makes me just feel like it wasn't great. So if I talk about it, it's kind of painted in a negative light, because that's just how I feel about it. But, like I started a dfs site, this is before draft kings was started. It was 2010. We started working on it like this was early and it was the right. It was the right bet, you know, it just didn't work out. Um, but so, long story short, it didn't work out. 

26:37
We sold it in 2014 and but I knew dfs was going to get big because I just draft kings and fanduel raised a ton of money, so I quit, or, when we sold it, I just played DFS for a living for like four years, from like 2014 to 2018-ish, and so that is relevant because, obviously, with Establish the Run, we're heavily in the DFS and fantasy space. So I had a very good knowledge of what it took to be successful as a player and I knew the people that were in the industry my current business partners, adam Levitan, evan Silva and Andrew, who I mentioned earlier was also playing DFS for a living. But I knew those guys from the industry, just having been a part of it, traveling to events, things like that, so like that sort of led the back. That was the backdrop of hey, like maybe there's a business we can start in in this industry. But it wasn't just like, oh, I'm going to go straight from poker to like a, like a DFS content site. It was. It was a little more winding. 

27:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So was your? Was your site? Um, okay, actually, here's my question. You mentioned you started before DraftKings. Obviously, we know DraftKings right now valued you know, multiple billions. Um, how close were you guys Like, if you, if you zigged here when you should have zagged whatever like, would you actually see a chance that you could have been like the next DraftKings? 

27:53 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
or the first DraftKings. No, no, only because I wasn't a talented enough entrepreneur or knowledgeable enough at the time to even know like. The strategy that you needed to take was a I'm going to go big and go big and raise as much money as possible, and I'm going to either be a multi-billion dollar company or be out of business. That was the right strategy. I had only run my own small businesses at that point in time and just didn't have that in me and, frankly, that's not how I'm wired either right now. I would never start a business like that, because it's too stressful for me to think about. 90% of the time you're going to fail and 10% you're going to be worth hundreds of millions. 

28:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Does that strategy still work right now? 

28:40 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
For what? 

28:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Just in general, the strategy of essentially operating a negative cashflow and company raising a bunch of money, having a high likelihood of going bust, but trying to become a unicorn. You think that could still work in today's day? 

28:53 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Oh, a hundred percent, I would say. I would say it's that that's what the entire venture capital industry is built off of is identifying those things that are too risky for most investors to to want it back and giving them risk capital to go big or go home, you know, and like that. That is, it's not for me, like I mean I do some investing a bit in it, but like I'm not wired to want to be an entrepreneur running my business that way. 

29:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough. Okay, so your, your strategy is more like make money, run a good quality company that's going to make money in perpetuity and have something that just slowly builds and builds brand. Is that correct? 

29:31 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I mean my strategy is to identify businesses where that strategy makes sense, so like if it's, and like oftentimes content businesses, like media companies, are oftentimes that way. It takes a really long time to get them going. It's's not easy. It's like look at barstool. I mean, like I've taken a lot of inspiration from barstool and what we've done at etr and you know, those guys grinded out for like 10 plus years before they even got the chairman investment and were, you know it, just a lot. It's a lot of work, you know, eventually, but then once you get it going, it can become can become a great business. Obviously there's tons of other examples of things like that. But, yes, that's that. That is how I prefer to operate. Um, if, if, if, given the choice, I guess. And then I have a choice now. 

30:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, of course, and uh, we'll, we'll parlay into that then. So you guys are obviously running ETR right now, and when I first learned about ETR, it was strictly actually just DFS, or I mean, at least in my opinion, what I used it for was like fantasy football, slash DFS and giving out whether it be just like player projections or listening to a couple of the shows there with Levitan, or even just following Levitan on Twitter and seeing like who he thought was going to have a big week. I would use that in my season-long fantasy. So now I know ETR is a lot more than that, but I'll leave it to you to kind of give like an overview of what you guys do now and how it transitioned. 

30:56 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah. So my opinion and this is a general like, not just gambling or fantasy opinion is that a huge lacking thing in the world is, with the rise of social media and all this information that's coming at your, at your fingertips, readily, it is very difficult to know who you can trust, so like we've never had access to more information. But it's also never been harder to like to actually know, like who you can believe, and I felt like that as someone who had been gambling at very high levels you, you know, for a long time. That's the name of the game is like finding good information and that you can trust, whether it's like people you're working with or it's the, you know, the projection system or the information, whatever it is. You have to get to that point and I felt like I had figured it out on some level because I'd done it successfully at DFS and I had talked just through my you know, connections with Adam and Evan At some point in time. I was like you know, you guys, like they Adam was at DraftKings and Evan was working for NBC Roto World and I was like you know, we could bring, we could start a business, and nothing. Our only goal is to put together the best information and just find all of the things that I use and and andrew uses to be a dfs player and just put them under one place and and only care about credibility and trust. And it's a higher price, like you know. 

32:13
A lot of the information like adam was putting out was like free. You know, he just put it on the draft kings blog, you know, and it's like that's not the highest and best use for like the best gambling information. It shouldn't just be sitting out there free. I mean you can do it, but it's not the way to optimize the value of the information. So for me it was get great information, great people, build a brand that people can trust and then combine that with high quality content that people actually want to consume. There's so much dry content out there. That's something I think you guys do really well here. The show is actually fun to consume. Even that's something I think you guys do really well here. The show is actually fun to consume, even though it's got good information as well and put it all together and it's like part analytics, part data, like the hard predictions, but it's also fun and entertaining. 

32:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
When did the transition happen from strictly fantasy and DFS into the online sports betting space as well? 

33:04 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
So I was actually well before I say this um, is there anybody here that's ever been a sportsbook consultant? Um, I just want to make sure that's how I could tell you. 

33:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Listen to the shows. Uh well, I I didn't say it this time, so we're not putting it on the board this time so wait, is it shows that we got to get the one zach, like they have at that. 

33:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Those like auto, um, like auto factories, where, like the parts factories, where they say like days without an accident and then it like beeps when it does it, we have to put a drop on. Let's do that, all right. All right. 

33:35 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I just want to make sure that I'm speaking to other people that are like myself, that have consulted for sportsbooks. No, I was working at a sportsbook Rush Street Interactive. They have like the Bat Rivers brand and other sugar house brand. No, I was working at a sportsbook Rush Street Interactive they have like the Bat Rivers brand and other Sugarhouse brand. But I decided that I was going to leave to start Establish the Run. Just yeah, and I was actually consulting for them for a little bit when I started Establish the Run which is the lame way I made that joke but like, yeah, we started in 20, yeah, 20, 2019. Um, we just decided to put it all together because I was talking to adam and evan and they kind of felt like they were getting screwed in their contracts and could make more money and you know this or that. And I said, well, let's just I mean not I, but like we collectively were like we probably could do this better and and that's when we got started in this space nowadays. 

34:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh, I think etr is is really well known, uh, for the player prop projects projections that are put out there every week. Uh, they have a a pretty big influence on the props market. A lot of people waiting for those projections to drop. Um, can you walk us through, like, the process in developing these projections? Uh, you obviously playing dfs for a living. I don't know if you were making your own projections or, um, if you were sourcing them or whatever, but what are the like? What are the factors that contribute to the accuracy of the projections? 

34:54 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
yeah, I'm not going to have the greatest answer, in part because, if I did, I probably wouldn't want to say it exactly here just because I think that, like, just like you guys probably wouldn't share all of your the way you're approaching your origination for stuff. 

35:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But but also is I'll share mine for the right price, by the way. 

35:10 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, I don't have that much money, but so I would say I would say the truth of the matter is, in a broad, in broad strokes, like putting together very, very smart people is probably the most and lining incentives so that everybody's motivated and willing and able to work together to achieve a common goal. Myself and my partners have been doing this in different ways for 15 years in the fantasy space, and some of the other guys have been creating projection systems for their own play or working at other sites, things like that for a long time. These are people that are like they know what they're doing and then it's just giving the resources that they need to execute on that and like. So what is it Like? Well, there's following information closely. It's everyone thinks that like projections is all about like just some algorithm. 

35:59
A lot of it is like you know knowing what or predicting what is going to happen. It's subjective and like there's there's like manual inputs and there's automated inputs and it's very challenging but ultimately our goal is to be the best at it and like I think that sounds silly to even say that, but like I think most people that are putting out content and projections, their goal is to make money and like maybe get an audience or sell show for affiliate or who knows what their actual goal is. But like we want to actually be the best at like projecting how, how well these players are going to perform. So we measure it and so we you know for what's what, where are we wrong? And like how can we improve that? And like who do we need to hire to help in certain ways? So it's just like a mindset, I guess, of getting really smart people and really really caring and working over years and years. 

36:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Now, the projections did stem into giving up prop picks and specific picks. Some might call it touting. Was that a tough decision for you, and did you know that you would be met with criticism for going that route? 

37:00 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, I mean it was a tough decision. Only because I wasn't really sure how it would go or what the right decision was, like I don't know how it would play out. Obviously, people were giving us shit even before that. I mean DFS oh, you're a DFS tout or you're a season long fantasy tout or whatever. Yeah, fine, like that, like that's the yeah we are. You know, we have, like we sort of joke that we're touts Okay, it's okay, like we're not. A joke that we're tough okay, it's okay, like we're not. 

37:27
I, I truly think a lot of that is virtue signaling, where people are trying to project to other people. You know you're not doing things the right way. I'm doing things the right way as, whatever it may be, it could be just someone that's not even in the gambling space, just like they're. Just, they have a normal job and there's nothing wrong with that, like absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing people that are that are doing things, if you just don't agree with that. So I'm not trying to say that that's all wrong or anything, but anyway, yes, we thought that and we knew that our information was better than the market. 

37:53
So we knew that people were already using our projections to bet player props profitably, including ourselves. We were using them too. We all love betting when we can get the chance Like we all love betting, like when we can get the chance and it was just clear to me that there was a good opportunity to monetize the information in a better way by providing picks. And again, to be clear with this, this is like a relatively small part of the business, like we're a fantasy and DFS oriented site first and foremost, but like it was sort of like hey, like there's an opportunity here, let's just see how it goes. We're already projecting all of these players because we have to project them for DFS and we have season long content, you know, day in and day out. So let's just see how it goes with the, with the props market, and that. That's kind of how we got started on it. 

38:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Earlier, when we asked you about card runners, you talked about when you were younger that, uh, the criticisms used to bother you a little bit, or at least got to you. Um, maybe I believe you said that when we were about half an hour ago. Do the criticisms still bother you in in any capacity? 

38:57 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
yeah, a little bit, I would say. But like, I think I'm a little separated from it too, because I'm sort of behind the scenes and like and like I'm not, like I'm not the guy out giving out the pics or I'm not on the podcast or whatever it is. I'm on the business side of things and you know, if I'm being honest, I think that's a lot easier than having your name and your face attached to the criticism and I, I have a lot of empathy for anybody, and including people on our, on our company, in our company, that are facing just like direct hate. You know, like, whether it's founded or not, it's tough to see. So, um, yeah, it's still gonna bother anybody, and but it's probably a little easier in my spot that's pazola here he's the guy a little bit. 

39:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yes he's got to deal with all the stuff. 

39:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I still get some, some stuff just because I'm on this podcast, but holy, is it much easier being behind the screen Any sort of product change or change in direction for Betstamp, because I'm like the public facing guy, I know this guy gets reamed. 

39:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I didn't get any reaming. Pazola's got to get an award for that one. Taylor, you mentioned something that you know, I think I brought up in the past on this podcast. But in regards to like touting stuff like that, what a lot of people I think should really realize is that everybody is selling something, no matter what it is. As soon as you tweet anything, no matter what it is, you're selling something. If you're attacking somebody like, why would somebody be giving out free pics Because they're trying to build their own following, and then that has value, they're basically selling you information that they're giving out in exchange for your attention. 

40:29
A lot of this is just about, like influence and different things that you gain on social media just growing a following that you can later monetize. Or maybe you never monetize it, but it's still worth something. You're still selling a relationship, friendship. Now you have trust with these people. So when somebody is selling a product for actual money, it almost appears as if they're in a completely separate tier now where, oh, because I'm actually selling this for money, then I'm a bad guy. But in reality, anyone who's given out like free picks, it's the exact same thing. You just really need to focus on that. Everyone's selling something. We're selling something. We do this podcast. Why, I don't know. A sure it's fun, but we also make money off this and are hoping to one day make money off this or are hoping to, you know, build relationships off this. You know, see ourselves more in a positive light, all these different things. It's crazy how, as soon as you attach a dollar figure to something, taylor like, it just changes. 

41:19 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
So I applaud that you've been in that game for a while too. Along those lines, I've seen the common complaint from people that are strictly professional bettors that sort of like speaking down to people that are like doing what you said selling something and, honestly, most people selling something are full of shit. Like, I want to be really clear. I'm not like supporting people that are selling shitty products that don't really help you. 

41:40
But the truth of the matter is guys that are betting professionally are not good for the market either. Like you know, if I'm the guy that has a bunch of running a syndicate or a better you know, moving the market in some way, I'm making it harder for everybody else in the market Because when I get more accounts, I get more influence. I bet more money. That's just pushing all the lines towards an efficient point and like taking money out of the literal pockets of anybody who was going to bet the game before that happened. That's, how is that anything different than taking money out of the pocket of the player who's paying for picks or paying for content or paying for something software, whatever it may be, as long as you're not misrepresenting yourself or misleading something, you're you're. Everybody is operating in their own self-interest, and you know, I know that I'm maybe oversimplifying that a little bit. 

42:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, but it remains true. Like everybody's selling something, you just have to. If you dig deep enough, you will figure out what it is. But everyone in some capacity is operating in their best interest and selling something. 

42:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, let's drop back to a recent example, right, because I want to get into this conversation a little bit about the ethics of, or morality of, touting and producing content that could be detrimental to some section of the population. Now, obviously, a lot of times, it is the pro bettors who are like why are you doing this? Why are you releasing this? Um I recently via twitter uh, there was sal salvetri that was out there that put in like this week 18. 

43:05
Yeah, before Pizzola buried him and then well, well, yeah, so you put out this week 18 incentives thread on Twitter of like, here are all the incentives and I personally can't stand that stuff, for a different reason than other people. Like there are some of the, some of the betters jump in and they're like why would you put this out before there's a market open on this, which is a fair and valid point? For me, it's like why would you put this out when it actually has absolutely no utility to other people and I'm basically calling into question the way that he's building his brand? What are your overall thoughts on the ethics of producing content in the space? I know that's a very broad question, but I'm curious in your opinion on this content in the space. 

43:45 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I know that's a very broad question, but I'm curious in your opinion on this. Yeah, so the first thing I would say is, like I don't think I have the any standing to be too too critical of anyone else, because I'm sitting here operating in my own self-interest by selling information that makes the market sharper. Okay, so, like I'm not trying to like call myself some like purist or I'm not. I'm not good for the market. I got it in some ways. So the reason I say that is I see people out there telling saying to sell in this example, why would you release this so early or why would you do that? These same people are literally selling pics on other sites or doing content or information. It's like they're choosing to get paid to do the same thing that he's doing and sales monetizing it in a different way. He's putting this shit out there for free so that he can build an audience. He's done a phenomenal job of it. He's got a massive audience. 

44:35
Honestly, the guy is really impressive from a business point of view. He's got a huge audience on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. He's got six figures of followers in all those places which go go ahead and try to find people that have done that. It's very, it's very hard to do bro, completely agree. 

44:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You know how hard it is to build up instagram on sports betting. It's fucking nuts. Nobody's. Nobody's big on instagram on sports betting, like twitter. Twitter is a better community for it, but this guy's crushed uh, tiktok and ig as well well he. 

45:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He DM'd me personally after that thread and we went back and forth on it and at the end of the day, this is just my perspective on it. I'm not going to share the entire thread, but I got the impression that he feels that he's putting great content out there. He doesn't feel like he's doing any harm to the community. In my opinion, he's not a subject matter expertise or not a subject matter expert that thinks he is a subject matter expert, and that's where I personally have an issue with what's going out there, Because I think of, you know, 17 year old Rob. If Twitter existed at that time, that would have saw that thread and probably when the lines opened up, I would have bet the over on everything because I didn't know any better. That's what I find to be dangerous about that. But in terms of building an audience, if that's his sole goal, then he's accomplishing it really well. 

45:58 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Right and that's where I think the point of debate is very legitimate is you can argue? I don't think think you can argue. Why are you releasing this now? Because because he wants to. Okay, that's what he wants to do. He wants to get millions of views on twitter, which he got from that, by the way. Okay, the part that I completely agree with is that if you're just pushing out all these bets that are, like, in my opinion, not good bets, I mean again, I'm not like gonna how do we even know they're good bets? 

46:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
there's no, he didn't even have a bet or a number attached to it. 

46:25 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Exactly, but some of them may have been good bets. I don't know. I didn't follow exactly where the lines closed. I can't sit here and say for sure that was bad information. Some of them I can. There was the Devin Singletary. He's going to go over 153 yards rushing or something. 

46:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He said this. He's like. This guy needs this. Consider taking his over six and a half receptions. Like at what? 

46:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
at minus 300, at plus 100, like it does. But for sure, like the, the, like jordan love has an incentive. Like a playoff, uh gets like a 500 000 or a million dollar bonus if the packers make the playoffs. Consider his betting, his passing overs. It's like you don't think making the playoffs is the same with baker mayfield. 

47:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's the same thing exactly yeah, it's totally totally agree 

47:10 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
yeah, totally agree. I mean that that's the part where I think I would not personally be comfortable with that. Then you start to get to the point where. Is he intentionally doing this or does he just not know any better? And I don't think I really want to say what I I don't have enough strong enough opinions and I'm not looking to take a shot at him or anything like that. 

47:29
I think that what is good for the algorithm, which is what makes people engage with it is is that's what's good for the algorithm is writing it. In a way, it's not going to be good to be like don't take all these bets because there's no price and, by the way, they're probably not any good. Like who's going to click on that? So like would his stick work if it was? Like done in a perfectly, you know, careful way? The way that, like we try to say things whenever we're trying to talk about something we're just trying to be careful about, like not misleading someone. I don't think it would work, but we're in a different business. Like we're serving the high end of the market, people that are willing to pay hundreds of dollars or more, potentially for products, and he's certain people that are still scrolling on twitter looking for a sweat you know, just a one small change that I've. 

48:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've because I thought about this a lot. I actually I kind of feel bad. At first I didn't feel bad for going after him. We're dming back and forth. It's very clear to me that I don't think he has malintent and that's important. Now that doesn't make it right again. I think. If you're producing content that I personally deem to be harmful and I can voice my opinion on that, just like anyone else can then I'm in my right to go about that. But that thread could have just been structured as here are the incentives, here's what I project the player at for this week in terms of his passing yards or his receiving yards or his rushing yards, and then somebody can make an informed decision afterwards if they want to go out and bet that or not. 

48:53 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Um small little change right and probably still gets the same amount of interaction even still, I I question that because then there's like you know, I guess, if you put out like here's what I think the medians are for this week, you you have to convert the projections. If you're doing a mean projection and like it just gets to be really nuanced, where the content just starts to suck, if you like care about that. So that's why, like for us, like we don't put a ton of like our good content is mostly behind the paywall, it's just like we just we're on shows where there's data people are using, there's picks, whatever it is. 

49:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's just hard to do that stuff in the most credible and accurate way in that type of format, the way we've structured like this podcast, like the audience of this podcast, like it has to be, like you guys listening at home, like I know there's a lot of sharp bettors in here that are actually smart people, but even with that, like the amount of times that I've just seen us post content or something like that, that just gets like completely interpreted the wrong way, even in the style that we provide it, it's very, very uh obvious as to why he writes it like that. That's what works, that's what's going to gain, like, as you mentioned, taylor, that's going to gain the most interaction and, by the way, people ate that shit up like you wouldn't believe. On the incentives I personally got, I mean, listen, I get a bunch of messages every week like what to bet? This is this we all do from the podcast, whatever. But I probably got at least like maybe 18 messages this week on like, oh, am I taking this? 

50:19
Where can I bet jadavion clowny to get a sack? This guy's guaranteed to sack. Like, where can I bet him over half a sack? And like, congrats, he got it. 

50:27 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
He got it. 

50:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It doesn't really matter, because they didn't even care about the price. They're just like get me the bet on Clowney to get a sack. I know he's going to get it. And it's like, well, what if that was priced at minus $350? You don't. And, by the way, with these incentives things, it's just one little thing. But all of this shit, it's like okay, two years ago, three years ago, maybe it was an edge. Two years ago it's a little bit less. Then, like, literally for sure, guaranteed 1 million percent. This year it was absolutely not an edge. You had FanDuel Sportsbook posting a section of the site saying player incentives. It was like all the guys exactly on the incentives, someone priced those out. 

51:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
In fact, I I would actually argue that it was an edge betting the opposites of the incentives this year xrk. 

51:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
In my bad, I don't mean that it wasn't an edge, because still fandu could have mispriced those and you could have found an edge on that. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying just blindly. 

51:15 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Doing the incentives is no longer a money printer oh for sure, and we posted an article covering the incentive. We've done this for at least a few years, I don't know exactly how long, but we actually posted it, whether it was on Twitter or on the article, I can't remember certainly in the content, like the audio content, that we don't think there's an edge in this right now, but we're going to still give it to you. For DFS, for example, it's worth knowing, like because it's going to change the projection for some of these players and like the market is going price with you know correctly, but like the zfs salaries might not. As one example, I will say too, I it's not that I don't think there's an edge, it's that I think it's very nuanced. Like you know, some of these guys or the teams are very clearly focused on it. 

51:54
Some of the like the sack one. He's not clon, he's not just going to automatically get a sack because he really wants to try. The other team's not going to just let him go get a sack. But there are guys that like I'm trying to think of a specific example like someone that might need like three catches or something like that, or two catches. That's a decent player. They're going to get him that incentive, unless he gets hurt, you know, like those types of things. So there is still some nuance to it, but it's not what it once was. 

52:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, there's even more nuance to it, because some teams will just pay out the incentive even if it's not met in the final game. 

52:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Wait, didn't tweet about it. 

52:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But it's happened in the past before where teams just come out right before the game and say, yeah, we're going to pay out the incentive regardless because they don't want it to be a distraction and affect the actual way that the team is playing the game. 

52:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But I will say this one, not that I bet this, but knowing this after the fact, deontay Hardy, on the bills, had an incentive that he need If he got his average punt return yards for the season above 12, and he fielded that punt at the two yard line. And I'm like you, moron, why would you feel this point? And then, as I'm saying that he takes it to the house, he definitely ran that back because of the incentive. I'll. I'll call that right now. 

53:04 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Fair enough Fair enough Do you think they let him do that? Do you think they told him that's okay To do what? 

53:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
To field it at the two-yard line and run it back To win the division game. Oh yeah, that's right. 

53:17 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I wasn't watching that game. 

53:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That punch should have been over his head and in the end zone, the special teams coach. 

53:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If he was holding a clipboard, he threw it to the floor once that putt was, and then picked it back up and started yeah, no, that was. 

53:31
That was interesting stuff, for sure uh taylor, another tough topic here, but I want to get into it because, uh, we had ed golden on for episode number 100 of uh ceo of right angle sports. Um, we've talked about right angle sportsle Sports a lot on this pod. One of the very common criticisms of them is that, yeah, they do really well, their records are solid over years, but nobody can get these lines, or very few people can get these lines, and some people will just go out and flat out say, well, it's a fake record because you know these lines don't really exist in real life. The detractors I think, of a lot of the prop picks that ETR gives out is that some of the selections are made off of, maybe openers that are less widely available, or the numbers just move fairly quickly. So, personally for you, how do you guys like balance this internally? Uh, has there been any conversation about this in terms of how you track your record? I'm just curious to hear your input on this yeah for sure. 

54:33 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
No, we've talked extensively about it and honestly, I think the better criticism is that our record isn't that great this year. We, we, we, I, I, we, our roi, uh, for nfl this year is like 0.88% from the season, which is previous years, has been double digits in some years and certainly high single digits. So if anybody's, I haven't heard a single person talk about like openers. I actually did see someone say something about it, but it was clear, someone. They don't know what they're talking about. The real criticism is how is this product performing in today's market? I think that's. I would say the same thing if I was a customer or just an observer. Um, and and the answer, my short answer to that is like, I don't know. As everybody knows, the market is evolving and like it's, you have to adapt to stay ahead. Put out 450 picks on the nfl season. You know what's your. You know if you have a I don't know five to seven percent roi, it's well within the range of outcomes to have a 1% season. So this is a total aside from the question, but that's the criticism that I would be lobbying out there if I was trying to criticize the product. The second thing is on those criticisms. 

55:40
We release the bets later in the week Friday, saturday, sunday. The vast majority of the bets for props are out widely available. We have and like widely available. It could be a debated topic but for us it's like fan duel. If it's on fan duel it's considered widely available. We focus on like domestic, like regulated books, so like if it's fan duel it's considered widely available. If it's like a couple others, like, say, draft kings and like Caesars or you know, it'd have to be at least a few of the other books in order to be considered widely available. And then we monitor, like offshore stuff, but it's not considered like part of the service cause. We just keep it to regulated books. So we try to make it widely available because that's in our interest, like it's in our interest to have people be able to get the bets. If they can't get the bets like, why are they going to subscribe to the product? 

56:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
so yeah, so, in your opinion, just be with the fanduel example. It might only be at one sports book, but because it's in so many households, essentially, and there's so many people with accounts there, that you, you would consider that as being a widely available number I, I would for our, for our purposes, and also fanduels. 

56:41 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
This is kind of nuanced, but like, like it, it tends to not just be available at FanDuel. Like, if it's available at FanDuel, it tends to be more available available elsewhere and they take the most. Again, this could this could differ depending on exactly who you are and where you're betting, but like they tend to take more money. It's just considered a good. They tend to move the lines less quickly, like there's just, it's just a better experience for getting money down on FanDuel. So I would say yeah, but honestly, we want people to succeed with the subscription. We don't If you don't. We tell people all the time. 

57:15
And I will say one more thing we only offer weekly subscriptions to our prop service. We do not offer a full season subscription because we don't want anybody to feel like they paid for a subscription and they don't get. They got limited or they got. They can't, the bet's fast enough or they're not winning. Whatever the reason is, just cancel the subscription If you don't like it. It's not for you. That's totally understandable. You know, you only have paid for one week at a time and we give people a refund if they're upset about it. Like just just give them their money back, like that. That's that's how it goes. And um, the other thing is too with the subscription you get access to the projections, you get access to discord. There's tons of other stuff beyond just the pics, so we've tried to make it like more than just you know. 

57:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Hey, here's pics like even though that is a big part of what people do want you heard it here, guys if you just sign up for etr and cancel after first week, demand a refund. There you go. That's how you get etr for free you'll give your money back? 

58:10
yeah, we will give you just kidding, but no, for real. Honestly, yeah, check it, check out the product. Um, no, I've been on the site multiple, uh, multiple different occasions. I like I said I actually used to use etr for fantasy back in the day when I uh thought I had a, when I actually did have a season-long fantasy edge with my friends was the back-to-back champ back, uh, back in the day. Now I think I'm nine years in a row losing money. I actually just wrote in our league chat the other day I go boys with absolute pain. I'm saying this right now. I have officially lost my edge in season-long fantasy and all time I'm now in the red in profits or losses. Actually, from my fantasy season I said I'm not dropping out, I'm not going anywhere, but I'm admitting to myself I'm now just gambling with no edge in this fantasy league. 

58:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would have never thought that. With the way that I come into the office and hear you talking usually on fantasy- weekend Only so many Monday mornings. 

59:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
weekend only so many monday mornings, only so many tuesday mornings where you can lose a fantasy week and then say you got unlucky injury or somebody before you just admit that you have no more edge in fantasy, uh, fantasy football. 

59:16 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
So johnny, it might be time to re-up that etr sub uh next next august. 

59:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Straight up, I'm back on etr for next year's fantasy league. If a lot of people from my league listen, boys, I'm coming. 2024 is my year. That's it I'm calling it. It starts with this year's playoff draft. That determines the waiver order for next year. I'm going to win the playoff pool, first waiver. It's over, boys, it's my year. We've got playoff fantasy. Is it for player pools? 

59:48
I don't know what's player pools. You just draft all of the players Like a regular fantasy. You just draft all the players and then your roster is your roster throughout. 

59:57 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, for sure, we have the projected. So there's a couple. I'm sure you know this, but like, the most important thing is like well, if you're playing just as games played, right, like games. Yeah, games played, but like I, was thinking it's like 12 people in the league, right, it's not like a it's not like a big tournament or something like 12 team league. 

01:00:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got 10 overall Help me out here Like obviously Caffrey's first overall. But am I going to go like stat? I got to stack one team. But who am I going to this thing? 

01:00:21 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
10th overall I would probably consider the cowboys, um, if you could. I mean lamb will be gone by the time you pick, um, but they're back will probably both be gone. 

01:00:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So then I'm the third team, taking the cowboys I'm gonna net out with like pollard and then on the way back I get like brandon aubrey. That's in my team, it's not not, it's not gonna be a good that's not great. 

01:00:40 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, um, I'm looking up. Uh, who we've got like 10th tenth here? You'd probably be looking at something like Pacheco Diggs, lamar Jackson Gibbs. Yeah, that's, that's. That's who's coming in that range? I? 

01:00:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
am not. I am not looking forward to tomorrow night. Let's just say that I'm not. I'm not in good shape, especially I don't want the chiefs. I might maybe I go lions, I go, I go lion, lion, if I'm on ros there and then I take like I'm on ron gibbs I know, yeah, you want to go for the, for the uh, the games, but if debo is there at that spot, I think it's just double up san fran, debo purdy. 

01:01:21
If he doesn't, it literally like I can't even project for this right now. I need, I need to see like who's going debo iuk back to back. And you, just who are you avoiding right now? Taylor, who I mean you're avoiding? You taking any eagles guys out the window? 

01:01:34 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
look, it just depends on where they're going. I mean like, like like the Eagles are what three-point favorites this weekend, like everybody's like acting like they can't possibly win a few games Because I mean it's looked pretty bad obviously. But like what, if these guys are going in like the I don't know fourth round or something, you know like it's very possible, especially because they have some actually really good players, um, if, if they're healthy and playing, you know, as they normally do? So yeah, I don't know. I mean should? 

01:01:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'll just send you these rankings after this after this podcast you can look at them, but, like I, I appreciate you. 

01:02:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Thank you um, I, I don't want to, I don't want to fixate on this too much. I promise to move on to another topic. But you talked about the results for etr this year, right? Um, as a better. We all have like bad years, down years. For me personally I'm just speaking from my own experience this is like the most stressful moments in my entire life, right, where you're used to turning a certain roi over the course of multiple years and now all of a sudden, you don't. What's the next step for you guys? Taylor in the off season, is there like a full post-mortem? Um know, how do you guys evaluate the results as a team and move forward from that? 

01:02:42 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, that's a great question. It's already really kind of begun, like we've had some discussions oh, it's ongoing, I mean, we're never not thinking about it but I would say coming together and there's a lot of analysis that can be looked, and we're doing this already. But like comparing how our projections are doing to the market, like and that's a lot of analysis that can be looked and we're doing this already. But like comparing how our projections are doing to the market, like, and that's the part that's been so frustrating is, if you look at our projections, like we track all of our projections compared to closing lines and how those and and what's that showing? You know, like, if we're showing an edge, how is that performing? And overall it's been performing fine, like you know. 

01:03:14
So there's like, in theory, a ton of bets that we just didn't take or that we were close to taking and and and and did better than our results have done. So that's one indication that maybe we're running bad. But honestly, I couldn't like other than to say that we take it seriously and we understand that, like you can't just chalk things up to variance like no, no real betters ever, just gonna, when they're losing, just think that their process can't be improved. So it's to get together with the guys that are doing the analytics and and get together with the guys that are actually. You know there's there's analytics guys, there's like sort of more like, uh, trade I don't want to say traders, it's not really that but it's like the guys actually sort of making the, the, an analyst, you know, and having discussions about what research we need to do, what can be improved on the process. 

01:04:02
You know, there's been some discussion of like perhaps maybe we need to release more picks earlier, because we certainly have so many picks every week that are we see them and then they're just gone because, like, by the time it's totally widely available, like the price isn't any good anymore. So perhaps we need to have a subscription. That's for people that have outside draft cakes, you know, as an example, you know and like have other books that, like you know, not everybody's able to get because they get limited. This is like getting way into the weeds. But like, as long as you're honest with with customers about what the product is and what they can expect, like I think you just have to be open-minded as a business owner and try to make something work and the truth is, maybe nothing does work and we eventually don't do it. So I don't know, we'll see. 

01:04:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Fair enough. 

01:04:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So, for those of you who don't, who've never, um, you know, heard of Taylor or anything before, obviously he doesn't appear on much of the content within ETR, even though you might've seen his business partners do so. But, uh, I consider Taylor to be extremely sharp when it comes to the business game. Just, you know managing relationships in business as well as managing the company. So, taylor, we want to ask you for the listeners. Here is a little bit of entrepreneurial advice. Actually, like, what advice would you give to anyone who's an aspiring entrepreneur looking to enter anything, maybe gaming related? 

01:05:15 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah. So the thing that I always tell people is like focus on a niche, like be really really good at something and then build out from that, as opposed to like here's all the things I'm going to do and like here's my two year plan or even my like six month plan at the beginning might not even really might be too long. Have an edge at something, like and you got, you got. I don't know what it is. Obviously it depends on you. 

01:05:41
For me it was poker and then it was DFS and then, over time, you know, you start to add like pieces to the to the puzzle, right, and like like build, you know, hire people or partner with people or whatever. But if you can't come in and articulate, where is it that you cannot compete other people and it could be on sale. You know, if it's like just you're a really good people person, you're really good at sales, you could start by selling the same thing someone else is selling, but just doing a better job of it, like that hell. That's how Billy Walters got it, at least in his book. That's what he said. You know he was selling cars and making a ton of money at betting and then eventually figured it out with betting, but, like I would just say, have an edge and focus on that niche and then build from there, as opposed to trying to do too much at once. 

01:06:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's the G-Stack George story. Right there, car salesman turned better. 

01:06:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Some people still claim he's a no-stacks George. No-stacks George, source of income still unknown, Still unknown, Any like specific lessons that you know you learned along the way, whether it be with either of your startups yeah, I would say so. 

01:06:43 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I mean, there's a lot I'm trying, like the one I always focus on I kind of just said it before is not doing too much. When I, when things went off the wire, the rails for me, like when I was with draft day, I was trying to do card runners. At the same time we also own there's a poker software product called hold a manager people are familiar and poker trackers, another one that we own. So, like I was trying to do well at the time we didn't own poker tracker but like I was trying to do too much, I was trying to play poker, I was trying to have a social life and you know, you're just not going to be that good at anything if you're doing too many things at once. So, like that, that is the thing that I always say is just like, focus on what you know and try to do really well, say no to most things most things are not good opportunities and then just just, really really keep your eyes focused on on what matters. Um, that's what I try to do. 

01:07:30
I would also say, like reputationally, just like really I'm really careful about who I associate with and like not that I like associate with, but like going to business with or like I'll hang out with anybody or whatever, but like it's not, like I'm not going to go into a business venture with someone, that I think is like dishonest, or even if it's a good opportunity, I just I'm not going to like settle on that front and like I think that like I've had situations in the past where people I was working with were doing things that I didn't agree with and I didn't even know about it in some cases and I it just looks, it makes you look bad, and like if you just have a really high bar for getting into business with somebody or doing anything, then it's going to work out for you in the long run. 

01:08:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, on the same topic here, we'll close off. We uh, you know you are a listener of the show and we appreciate your support, but, um, that being said, do you have, uh, did you prepare your plus ev negative ev move of the week? 

01:08:24 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
oh, you bet, I did um this is gonna be good. I I'm a little shy about this one, but, like the plus ev move of the week, have you guys heard of uh anupressure mat? Do you know what that is? 

01:08:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, I do, producer Zach yeah. 

01:08:42 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Yeah, my man Are you, are you in, or what? 

01:08:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have not gotten them, I just know what it is, yeah. 

01:08:48 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
Okay, okay, cool. So I am not like like acupuncture Again, this is acupressure, but it's like related to acupuncture, where they like stick needles in you and somehow it helps. My wife does acupuncture or is a customer of a place and saw this mat that like they were selling and basically what it is is you lay on this mat with like small it's almost like spikes that like go into your back or your legs or whatever. You're laying on it and she got it for me just on a whim and I was very skeptical of it but I tried it out because she got it for me. You lay on it and you just like relax for like 10, 20 minutes or whatever and like, honestly, the first time I ever did it, like within five minutes, I was like holy crap, I'm like so friggin relaxed right now and I was like this is maybe it's a placebo effect, like you know, whatever. 

01:09:37
So I started reading about it and like it apparently like can release dopamine, slash, reduce or increase circulation slash. I don't have like back pain or anything like that. So like some people say it for that, but for me it's just like after like 20 minutes of laying on it I'm so relaxed. So I do it like before I go to bed at night. I track my sleep too. So I do it like before I go to bed at night. I track my sleep too, and I've noticed a difference in like the metrics. If I use it or if I don't use it I feel great. So check out the acupuncture pressure mat. 

01:10:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
And also, this is not medical advice, so send us your affiliate link. Yeah, I got nothing. 

01:10:11 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
I got no skin in the game and I'm not a doctor, so talk to your doctor. 

01:10:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But, doctor, I can't tell you how much I love the analytical approach. 

01:10:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, sleep better. 

01:10:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm tracking your sleep. 

01:10:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's brilliant, so you're putting forth a recommendation that you've backed with your own experiment. Guys, like us, we can't stop doing that, though Once you do that for certain things you just can't stop. Like Pozzola Cabby, he tracks his strokes gain putting, approach whatever, and he shoots in the 90s. He's the only guy I know to track his strokes gain putting. 

01:10:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Because I want to know where I need to improve the most. 

01:10:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I know I know, but that's what I'm saying. It's a good thing. It's not even it's a chirp, whatever, but it's a good thing. Okay, great, plus EV move I I'm starting to get back pain, even though I'm still the youngest man alive. But holy, am I getting some back pain. I got to be working on that Negative EV move of the week. 

01:11:03 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
The negative EV move of the week is not considering that. The online, what you're seeing online, there's a selection bias towards pessimism. So everything that we're seeing consuming, like the stuff that rises to the top of social media or media in general, has a generally a negative or pessimistic tone with, like, where things are going in the world, what's wrong with the world, what's going to happen, whatever what's happening, and that is the stuff that gets more engagement. It's better business, generally speaking, to run that and I think it's proliferating throughout the world and people are like when you're online, you're scrolling and you're like, wow, how bad is everything right now? Or even it's tempting to join in and pile on because that's what you're seeing all the time. But I think that avoiding that trap of falling too into pessimism and trying to stay optimistic is I don't know if that's actually minus ev and others debate is that avoiding a plus I don't know, whatever it that's, it's minus ev to be too pessimistic. 

01:12:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So just just consider what you're seeing yes okay, that's a good one as well, especially on social media now from from a content perspective, because we're in the content business. 

01:12:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh, you'll notice like, if you go to youtube, the videos that are like don't do these things, always vastly outweigh the do these five. Like do don't do these three things and you'll be a great sports. Better, always outweigh do these three things, I, and that kind of explains it. But I think, generally speaking, people are gravitating towards negativity they really are. 

01:12:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got a. I got a positive even move of the week here. It's when you have a massive win in sports betting whether it doesn't have to be dollar, it could be dollar value wise, could be just like a really a cool win that you watch. Maybe you were at the game and something came through for you player prop over, first touchdown score or whatever. Get, buy a token of appreciation For that for like a little wall. Alright, there's no better move. You buy, oh, whatever. I just Can't believe I got this first touchdown score. Doesn't have to be anything expensive. Buy a jersey. Go online, get a cheap jersey Of that player, frame it on the wall, put a little note, maybe a picture of the bet slip and then you you will thank me one day you will be coming and it also make it so more enjoyable like, wow, remember when I cashed this bet. I'll remember when I cash this bet. You're the only one who's gonna care about it, but it's gonna make you so happy. 

01:13:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's a mega plus tv move I've done that same thing, but I've taken the opposite, negative approach and I've put all the bad beats I've ever suffered right behind me. 

01:13:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, don't be too negative. Don't be too negative, but actually a great move and, honestly, even if you just write them all down because people don't write down enough good shit that happens to them, and just look back on it. One thing I haven't used Snapchat in a number of number of years, but one thing that they did do was they just randomly, when you open the app, we'll send you like a Snapchat memory, usually something cool, Like hey, remember this time three years ago you did this and it's like wow, that was sick. We don't do that enough, man. That's a way to get dopamine hits and just have more fun. Yep, I'm with you. 

01:14:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
For sure. 

01:14:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well said yeah, all right, uh, rob rob. 

01:14:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Final question uh, if you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your former self? 

01:14:23 - Taylor Caby (Guest)
so the two, two parts of this. The first would certainly be focused on health and fitness more. Um, I, I've become very cognizant, or oriented towards health and fitness over the last I I'd say one to two years and I just have come to believe that it's much more important than I previously thought and like it's almost like becoming trendy. Now I feel like too, but like it's not for that reason. It's just, I just want to live a healthy long. You know, healthy life is really the best way to say it. It's not easy to do that when you're gambling and or when you're in this industry or in any industry. Really it's not easy to do that when you're gambling or when you're in this industry or in any industry. Really, it's just, it's very difficult. So get focused on that, like you know, try to eat right, try to get to the gym, things like that. That's what I would say to myself. 

01:15:04
Five years ago, for ETR specifically, we didn't really know what the site would become. I mean, it's been great, we've been super, super happy with where it is, but when we started it was just like a wordpress site. It still is just a wordpress site, with no mind, with no thinking about, like laying the right front, the best framework for like growth and and like. It's just a lot harder when you if you're not, you know I said before earlier don't think too far, just do niche, do one thing really well, but at the same time you can make decisions that can kind of hamstring yourself, like for growing and like and like. We're dealing with some growing pains, trying to think through the, you know, redoing our site or things like that, and I wish I had just spent a little more time thinking about less about the content and more about that aspect of things. 

01:15:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
His name is Taylor Cabby. You can follow him on Twitter at Taylor Cabby. Make sure you check out. Establish the Run establishtheruncom. Taylor, very much appreciate you joining us today and, of course, all of you out there. If you did enjoy this interview you made it this far. You might as well smash the like button down below. Make sure you're subbed here on Circles Off. We'll catch everyone next week. This has been Circles Off, episode number 136, part of the hammer betting network presented by pinnacle sportsbook. Enjoy your week, everyone.