00:00 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
And one thing I know is this there's a lot of fake stuff on Twitter. There's a lot of fake stuff. Even the people that are posting their tickets they're not posting the losing tickets. Nobody knows who's a winner, nobody knows who's a loser. But there is one thing I know on Twitter Johnny's a winner. 

00:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Come on, let's go. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 150 right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network and presented by Pinnacle sportsbook. I'm rob azzola flying solo again today. We got fake johnny in the chair over here next to me rocking his usual swag. He will be back next week with us on circles off. We have a guest episode today. Before we get into it, though, appreciate everyone who gave the positive feedback for last week's episode with Kanish. That was just a random idea that we tried. It did generate a lot of buzz and engagement. I just do want to say one thing, though, just as a reminder to people out there. That was my Twitter list. You know you can have disagreements. We're going to have disagreements, as we see all over Twitter right now. 

01:02 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Well, Kanish had disagreements. 

01:03 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Kanish had disagreements, as we see all over Twitter right now. Well, kanish had disagreements. Kanish had disagreements as well, but I thought I did a decent enough job of explaining why I put people on the list. The big one, though. 

01:11
The notable omission was GRP wins George Riley Panagakis. Are you fucking kidding me? I got to tell you, guys, grp, when he came on the scene, he was up here. Guys, grp, when he came on the scene, he was up here. Right now, his account, it's not even down, it's at the floor. I don't know what happened. I don't know. 

01:34
Listen, I think he got a taste of the fame, maybe, and he started to ham it up a little bit more. I think the account is personally unbearable right now. So it's not in the entertainment category for me because I don't find it entertaining. You might, I don't, but I'd like to see George going back to like the educational stuff. At the beginning, when he came on the scene, he was calling people out you're a bozo for this and this. Now he's just playing nickel and dime units to try to win a lottery ticket. Basically, that's what the entire account has become at this point. It is what it is, are you fucking kidding me? Anyways, I just wanted to talk about that specifically because it's come up quite a bit. Yeah, it was one of the most commonly mentioned things. 

02:18 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah. 

02:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah Well, for me, yeah, not the case. Grp not low. Right now, the nut high of sportsbooks would be Pinnacle Sportsbook. Find out what pro bettors have known for the past 25 years Pinnacle is where the best bettors play. I've been a user at Pinnacle for a very long time. The product is great. You can deposit and withdraw easily. You got low margins. Who doesn't like to bet into lower vig? You got posted limits. You know exactly how much you can bet on everything. It is a great sports book for all. If you're in canada, make sure you check out pinnacle. Use code hammer to sign up, as it does. Support us here. On Circles Off, you must be 19 plus not available in the US and, as always, please play responsibly. 

03:13
Our guest on this week's episode is someone that I had the privilege of meeting at the inaugural Bet Bash in New Jersey, and every Bet Bash since then. He's been betting for the majority of his life across different avenues, including poker, horse racing, casino play and now sports betting. He previously worked as an in-play trader for sportsbooks. More recently, he's been installed as a customer service manager for Spank Odds, one of the most widely used odd screen by professional sports bettors. Right now he also runs a proxy service for the biggest Las Vegas contests, which you can check out at VegasHorsePoolscom. You can follow him on Twitter at VegasHorsePools. Vegashorsepools. Scott joins us on Circles Off, scott, how's it going? 

03:53 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
It's going very well and thank you for letting me join you today. Yeah, no, problem. 

03:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We've probably interacted for like a couple hours over the past few years. I've heard some of your other podcast appearances before including 90 Degrees here on the Circles Off channel with Kevin Davis back in the day. You have quite a storied past and I do want to talk about it and get into it. So this is pretty broad for you here. But can you share a bit about your background in betting and how you got started in the betting space? 

04:25 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
The way I got started in the betting space. The way I got started in the betting space. First of all, I'd like to tell you I didn't choose to gamble. Gambling chose me and it keeps happening over and over and over in my life. First time it happened I'm about in eighth grade and I have my very first computer and my Uncle, norm, who you probably met at last, bet Bash. He's going to be at the next Bet Bash also. He came up to me and he's a big horse racing guy. I of course know nothing about it, nor do I want to know. He says you've got a new computer. I said yes, I do. He says I want you to write me a program on how to predict the horse races. I said I don't have any idea how I'd even start. He says you're a smart guy, you'll figure it out. Here are the 10 things I want you to grade. So what you would think of it is is like a power ranking. At the time I had no idea what I was doing, but it turns out it was a power ranking. He was very, very happy with the success I was having and my computer background kept getting stronger and stronger. My gambling would get stronger and stronger. So we did that for about a year. 

05:35
Then I roll into like ninth grade and I'm trying to learn a little bit more about how the computers work. So I go and I complained to my dad. I said look, my school doesn't have computers. Well, I'm older than you, rob, so you probably will understand my school didn't have it. We didn't have computers in my school until I was a senior in high school. 

05:58
And here I am, sitting here as a freshman complaining to my dad and he says well, what do you want to do about it? I said well, there's an article in the paper for the local colleges having a night class. I'd like to take it. He said, okay, let's sign up. I said, dad, you know I'm in high school, right? He said, yeah, I'm pretty well aware. I said I don't think I'm eligible for college. He said, scott, if I say you can do it, you can do it. He said here's what we're going to do. We're going to sign up for the class together. If anybody says anything to you, you just send them to me. 

06:33
So we took that class together and my computer knowledge got better. I was the only one in my ninth grade class that was actually taking college courses at the same time. I don't think anybody in my school had ever tried that before because apparently they didn't have my dad. So it was kind of cool. So that's how my computer background all got started and I was hooked on computers after that class because of something the instructor talked about. 

07:01
Basically I always thought the computer was like a god, it knew everything. And in that class I realized the real controllers were the guys who told the computer what to spit out. Because the instructor had us do something, uh print something on the board. And I said to my dad, I said I don't think that's possible. What he's asking for is completely impossible because it's not true. And then the instructor showed us how to make the computer basically lie. And I was hooked Because then I realized that the guys who controlled the computers were actually the real people. So that was kind of fun for me. But then at this point in gambling I start working and everything. So I'm pretty much done with gambling now through my high school years and then until we get into college. If you want to talk about college, I can talk about that. 

07:53 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, so I do. But that first program you wrote for your uncle on horse racing, did he actually have success betting with using that program? 

08:02 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, a lot of success. I don't know if predicting the horses back then was much, much easier, because it was only like a 10 point system that I had based on what he had told me to do. Yeah, he had great success with it. I had my best friend at the time. His dad found out what I was doing, so I turned out to be a tout. I would give him the picks too, and he had great success with it. So, yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. That only lasted for, you know, like, like I said, till I was a freshman in high school, because I things went on and I started working and kind of got out of the whole game until gambling called me back when I got to college. 

08:49 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So we'll get into that right now. But I just want to point out you weren't a tout. You were giving away the picks for free. You weren't openly promoting them or anything like that. So as much as you want to call yourself a tout, scott, I mean very, very loose at that point. So you don't. You don't have to, you know, hang your head down in shame or anything like that from your early career. 

09:01 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Okay, I don't hang my shelf in shame. I didn't promote being a tout, I didn't ask, but I got paid. That's all that mattered to me. Yeah, I was like the first time the guy gave me $50 for it, I thought this is the life you know to my uncle. He was happy with me and now somebody else, for doing the exact same work, was throwing me $50. Yeah, I was pretty happy. You call me whatever you want. 

09:31 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, just a little bit deeper into it. Were you getting paid up front for providing the numbers, or were you getting paid a percentage of winnings like a cut of the winnings? 

09:41 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I don't think I was getting either. I was getting a tip, if you will, Okay got it. 

09:45 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So you were probably getting tipped, probably because the the it was winning oh no, no, a hundred percent. 

09:50 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
It was winning. Yeah, because there's no money on it. Yeah, there wasn't a. It wasn't like going to a restaurant you got a bad meal and you tip them anyway. No, I was getting paid on winnings. I don't think I was getting a percent, I was just getting a flat number, but I was happy with it. 

10:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So you moved on to something else then afterwards. 

10:06 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, oh yeah, because horses is really, really slow and I'm really young at this point and I'm not very patient. Well, what happens when I'm in college? Now, my uncle now is playing the dogs. We have a dog track about 60 miles away. He tells me about it. I say, well, this is kind of cool. I don't know anything about it, but I found a computer program that would predict the dogs to win. It was terrible, it was absolutely terrible. It never won anything. I don't know if the guy who wrote it could have done a worse job If he could. I don't know how he could have done it, but I played with that and I thought, well, I had all this success with horses. Now I have this guy claiming he has all this success with dogs, which I can't replicate. Maybe it's the track, who knows? But I thought there's something to this gambling. I don't know what it is, but there's something in it that has to do with computers and gambling and there's some way that I can make money off this. So I have fun with dogs while I'm in college, but I don't win. I'm a loser, and I fully admit that. So then I graduate from college and I think I'm out of the gambling game again. But gambling calls me back. 

11:28
When I end up moving to Omaha and took my very first computer job, two ways gambling called me. I had a third shift where I would work in this insurance office with these mainframes, and I'm kind of an efficiency guy, I try to make everything as efficient as possible. I had eight hours to get my job done and I think I got it down to like 45 or 50 minutes after about three or four months. So I had seven plus hours a night to do nothing. There's a gas station, right you know, right next to the place, where I could go and pick up the dog forms. So I would go ahead and keep playing the dogs a little bit. And then I met an attorney who we became friends and he gave me the secret to gambling. I thought, oh my God, the secret to gambling. I thought, oh my god, I've found the golden ticket. He tells me the martingale strategy. I say, how can this possibly lose? It can't lose. If you're betting on a 50, 50 shot, you're gonna win after the second or third try, every single time you can't lose. 

12:42
My Uncle Norm comes to Omaha and we hang out at the Dogs and we do that. And then we stop by a place and I can't remember the place I was just talking to him yesterday about it too, and we can't remember where it was. But there was a Keno game where you could bet top and bottom. Top and bottom is a 50-50 proposition. This was designed for Martin Galeale I'm gonna be a millionaire. So we sat down this is the first game that I'm gonna be a millionaire and I bet five dollars because that was the minimum bet. You know, five bucks was good money. So I put down five dollars and of course I lost. Last I lost immediately. So I to my uncle I said these guys don't know what they've run into here, because then I came up there and I fired $10. And it lost. Then I fired $20. And I'm looking at him and I said this ain't the way it's supposed to work. I bet the $20, and it lost $40, lost $80, lost, next $160. 

13:47
I said Norm, let's get the hell out of here yeah number one reason why I'm not willing to bet $160 to win back five. And number two I don't want to know how this puzzle ends. I want to get out of here before I know what the next one ends, because I'm stuck. You know a bunch of money at this point, and that's when money meant something. So we go to the car. I have no idea how the $161 went, because I refused to bet it. 

14:17
Martingale blew up on me on the very first try. So again now I've given up gambling again. As far as that, I'm still playing the dogs, but I'm just kind of having fun with it. You know, it's just an entertainment. It's not like today. Today I live and breathe the numbers. That was not my life then. It was just all fun. So then I'm back out. I'm just a recreational dog guy. 

14:45
So then the story gets a little more interesting. I end up moving a couple of times and end up in Texas working for the phone company. Okay, I end up getting married in Texas. One day I jump on the train to go to work. Who's on the train? Gambling's on the train, and it's a phone call for me. There's pamphlets all over the train about Hold'em poker. I don't know anything about poker, I don't want to play cards, I don't want anything of it. So I pick up the pamphlet, I read it and go to work and I don't think any much more about it until I get home and I show the pamphlet to my wife and we're talking about it. So eventually I'm all in on poker. 

15:35 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Around. What year was this Scott? This was before. 

15:38 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Moneymaker won. 

15:39 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Okay, so early 2000s. 

15:41 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Early 2000s. Yeah, this is right before he won. He wins the first year I'm playing. Okay, I was so deep into poker. I listened to a World Series final table this was the year right before Moneymaker won where two people were announcing it that couldn't see the cards and I listened to them over the radio. It was crazy. But here my strategy in poker. I was the greatest poker player that ever lived. I truly believe that. 

16:11
Here's what happened. I'm making six figures at my job. I'm playing in underground clubs against people that are making minimum wage. So it's not fair. You're bullying them. I don't. I can bully anybody I want. Nobody will fight back and I'm very, very tight and I'm very, very aggressive. 

16:35
So the worst thing for you to do is to get into a pot with me because, number one, I'm going to put you all in and, number two, I've got a better hand than you did. I never got drawn out on. I didn't even know what that was, because it just never happened to me. I'm probably the luckiest person you've ever met. We would play. They would take a dollar out of every pot for high hand of the night. I'd win those high hand of the night 60, 65% of the time it was impossible to believe my stretch was in. It was just unreal. So here I am. I think I'm great, I'm bullying everybody around, but the thing I would do when I sit down at the table is I would just chat with you and I'd say hey, Rob, how long you been playing? You'd say so long. I said, well, who's your favorite player? You'd tell me I'd go home and buy their book Now. 

17:31
I know exactly, I know how you think. 

17:34 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You're profiling the players. 

17:35 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I pro, I yeah, I didn't have to know anything. 

17:38 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep. 

17:38 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
And then the thing is I had an advantage because I was tight and aggressive and very patient, because I've gained some years now, right, yep. So now I know how you play, I know why you play and I've had the better hand than you and I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I keep winning these big hands for the uh part of the night. So I talked to my, to my buddy there, and I said we got to go to vegas. He says, okay, let's go to vegas. So the worst possible thing happens we got to go to Vegas. He says, okay, let's go to Vegas. 

18:06
So the worst possible thing happens when we go to Vegas, he's my buddy says, hey, let's take my dad, the three of us will stay at four Queens. I said I don't care, that makes no difference to me If we stay in a cardboard box, I just want to go, win my money and get home. So we go, we fly into Vegas and get home. So we go, we fly into Vegas. First tournament we enter is at Four Queens. I want to beat my buddy. That's all I want to do, because I don't want to take a bunch of ribbon in the room that he's better than me. 

18:36
I want to be the best, right. I never planned on winning this tournament. I know you're supposed to. I don't. All I want to do is finish better than him. You're supposed to, I don't. All I want to do is finish better than him. So I just keep skating by in the tournament, skate by the tournament, and my buddy gets knocked out when they get to the final table. I'm on the final table with just nothing, just a handful of chips, but my buddy was just knocked out. I'm on a free roll now. I went from low chip stack at the final table. I think I won the first seven or eight hands in a row, going all in, because nobody would call me because I was a tight, aggressive player. They thought I got hit by the cards. I end up winning this stupid tournament and now my ego is three times bigger than it was before and it was way too big at that point. We fly home and, of course, again I think I'm a god. 

19:33
First time I ever get kicked out of a place was in Texas, in an underground club. This is kind of funny. The owner came up to me and he was playing in the tournament too. He, you're a really, really good player. I said, well, thank you. He said, uh, you don't buy enough alcohol and stuff like that here at the bar. We don't want you here, no more, you're too good a player. Well, I don't drink alcohol at this point because that hurts my game. I want nothing to do it. So the first time I ever got backed off was in an underground club in Texas. But so then there's a World Series training seminar that I go out. So again, I think I'm the greatest guy in the world. Go out to this training seminar and to get picked to go to the final table, you had to win your sit and go with your team or you had to win another little tournament. So if you won either one of them, you got to go to the final table. And of course I'm really cocky at this point, and of course I win both entries, so I'm at the final. So when they say, well, we need all of the people to come to the final table that won one of these two tournaments, I said what about the people who won both? Of course I'm the only one because I'm being a smartass, but I go to the final table. I think I got second or third, no big deal, but yeah, I thought I was really good. 

20:57
So I talked to my wife and I said they're going to build a statue of me in Vegas. We've got to move out there to be with the statue. She says, okay, well, my wife and I have been married about seven years at this point and I never wanted her to work. I always wanted her to stay home because I made enough money. That money was not a problem. So why not get what I want? She says, okay. Well, what do you want to do? I said, well, I think you need to go back to being a nurse. So she says okay. He says okay, go as a traveler. 

21:33
But she goes out to vegas, gets a traveler nurse position with the whole intentions of moving us there. So she goes out, sets it all up and about three or four months later, after she gets a permanent offer which she's still there today I quit my job when figuring I'm done working for somebody the rest of my life. Right, because I'm going to have all the money in the world with this great big statue in Vegas. So I go to Vegas to play full time. Here's the problem with playing full time in Vegas and you need the money instead of you don't care. People fly into Vegas every single day to play poker. None of them flew here to fold. None of them Right. They're all going to play showdown poker with you. 

22:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Completely different game for you. 

22:20 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
It's a completely different game. Back in Texas, everybody liked me, everybody respected me, everybody was afraid of me. In Vegas, nobody knew for you. It's a completely different game. Back in Texas, everybody liked me and everybody respected me. Everybody was afraid of me. In Vegas, nobody knew who I was and nobody cared, and they were all willing to call. I treaded water for four to six months and I said Susan, I'm done, I'm done, I'm going back to work and luckily I got a really good computer background. So no problem at all, get me another job and I'm back into corporate. So gambling is getting hung up the phone. So I'm back in the regular life now. 

22:57 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So that's 20 years ago. Just out of curiosity, do you still play poker at all? Not at all, not at all, zero. So I'm interested in that and I'm all over the place here. But a lot of the poker nowadays. So I have very similar story to you where I was like the best at my home games in my local area and then tried to expand on that, did fine online, but anything outside of that I couldn't and I just started to hate the game. But nowadays I'm not sure how much you keep up with it, but so much of poker is like a game theory, optimization, gto. Nowadays, right, people are studying computer models of you know if I'm in this position, this is the range that my opponent has. This is what I should be doing, just off by brief conversations I've had with you in the past before, that kind of feels to me like it would be right up your alley yeah, it sounds like it doesn't it, but there's one thing that you're missing. 

23:55 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
The greatest thing that can happen to you in gambling is for them to take their edge away, and my edge was taken away in poker and I'm not going back. I watch all the poker videos now for entertainment, like when doug polk was playing daniel negrano every day during covid. I never missed a minute of that. I love that, but my edge was taken away in in um in poker, and I'm going to the next step so, out of curiosity, I don't care. 

24:25
You said the greatest thing that can happen is is losing your edge yes, because you got two choices you got to find something bigger and better or die, and I'm not dying I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna find something better. 

24:40
So then we're here in vegas, I'm working my regular computer job and I mean it's a job, but gambling is calling again. It says, hey, you got to get back in the game. So we kind of put a plan together and I said you know, I don't want to work at a job I hate, I want to work at a job I love. So we talk about it. I said here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go work for a sports book. My wife said I don't care what you do, whatever you want to do. So I apply at a couple of different places and there's a sports book here in town that picked me up at the home office and I had to do some computer work for them. No big deal, right? My whole goal is I want to be a trader. Why? Because I want to know the secret sauce. How do you know? The Steelers are plus seven. If I become a trader, they're going to have to tell me. They got no choice. Well, I worked the computer into the job for a while and finally get my promotion into the trader's room. Computer into the job for a while and finally get my promotion into the trader's room and right before I get converted into the trader's room, there's a meeting at the office about horses and I have figured out this computer job. It was an eight hour job but I could do it in about 45 minutes, okay, so I had time. So you want to have a meeting about about X? I'm in because I got time to do it. 

26:06
So I go to this meeting and they're talking about horses and how you pick them and all this, and it was all mumbo jumbo and Robert, the guy who was running the meeting afterwards, said to me he said you know, there's people in Vegas that live like kings and all they do is bed horses. I said well, tell me the rest of the story. I said I'll tell you a little bit tomorrow, I'll tell you a little bit every day. And so eventually he tells me the magical words negative horse pools. First he had to define it, and what a negative horse pool is is when the track has to pay out more money than they have. It's a plus EV situation for the better. It happens when you have a huge, huge favorite and you bet them to show. So all you're trying to do at this point is basically pick up the comps or pick up the rebates or whatever you're trying to do. It's basically pick up the comps or pick up the rebates or whatever you're trying to do. Well, in Vegas at the time, I could get 3% return and a whole bunch of comps and a whole bunch of free stuff. So he tells me about this. 

27:17
And I've never written in Python before at this time. But given the fact I've got seven plus hours a day to work on Python, you know what I'm going to learn it because it's the best language to do this kind of scraping I need. So I find all the information I talked to Robert about it. We talk back and forth. The variance is just way, way too high for my stomaching it, because the horse runs out. Now you lose a huge money because it's a bridge jumper. 

27:51
So I said I got to come up with a way to hedge this off. So at this point I decide I'm going to give away what I've got. And here's the reason I'm going to give it away Because if I give it to more people, more people are going to bet it and then the number of people that bet this horse goes from 92% to 93% to 94%. Every one of those moves is good for me. So it's good for me to give this information to you for free, so that you do what I want you to do to cause the market to do what I wanted to do it's a little bit of market manipulation in a way yeah, a hundred percent. 

28:33
it was a hundred percent manipulation, and I got like a thousand followers on twitter because I found a way to post them automatically. So, so I'm driving this market, completely driving it. The problem is, the customer service is completely, utterly overwhelming, because these people are paying nothing and they have a million questions and it was just too much for me and I knew that I had to cut this variance down. Well, there's two ways I can cut the variance down. One I can charge for the information, or I can get somebody to help me understand what I don't know, and I don't even know at this point what I don't know. So what I decided to do? I started charging for the information. So my subscriber count. It's the same thing Sp spanking cards did, with a completely different outcome. Uh, my subscribers, you know, from a thousand people watching this to 10 just overnight, the minute you started charging, anything but I got a pro out of california, which was really cool. 

29:39
And then there's the here's the goal, the gem that I got a guy named Joseph Medka. He's paid for thrills on Twitter, huge, huge horse racing guy. He is a pro's pro at this. He contacted me. Well, after he contacted me, I started explaining to him my problem, and this has kind of been my superpower my whole life. I just kind of tell my friends my problem and one of them will just make it go away. So I told him look, the variance is killing me. This is a really solid system, but it's killing me. 

30:21
He says well, have you ever thought about hedging off on the other horses? I said I thought about it, but I have no idea how much to bet on the other horses, and it's going to have to be less than the first horse winning is. So we kicked it around a little bit and he found the formula on how to figure out what all the show tickets would pay, and it didn't matter who came in. So my Python program would tell you what the show tickets would pay. And it didn't matter who came in. So my Python program would tell you what the show tickets were going to pay if the race ran 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, 5. I had it all programmed out, which was beautiful, because then I could reverse engineer it and I knew exactly how much to bet on the other horses. So after I'd been doing this for about a year now, when the horse race runs. I don't even care who wins, right, because all I want is all these massive comps so you, so you. 

31:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You just want to basically break even on the race. Yes, yes, earn yourself a bunch of comps. 

31:24 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yes, but see there's also. At that time I was getting cruises, I got. 

31:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I got everything there was what's the best, what's the best comp you ever got? 

31:37 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I think the best comp I ever got was I got a seat with a couch and chairs at the Super Bowl. At one of the local sports books. I had my whole area. If I would have known they were giving me enough for 10 people, I would have taken more than my wife. But we had this great, huge spread of food. We had a huge TV for us. It was unreal. My wife would say the best thing is the cruises that we got. There's a problem with cruises, just so you know. If you've never been on one, when you get a free cruise it's an indoor cabin. Yes, Don't go and look at a balcony, because with a minute you look at a balcony, you can never go back. I'm going on a cruise here in about two months and of course, I've got to pay for it now because nobody will give me one. Yeah, but I'm paying for a balcony because the balcony is the nuts. 

32:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Oh, 100%. I've done cruises before. The first one I ever did I was really young. I was actually I don't even know if I was engaged to my current wife yet. I'm surprised her parents let me go on that cruise with them. But I was with the family and I was in an indoor cabin. It wasn't even large enough for me to lay my luggage down on the ground. To open it up I would actually have to put the luggage on the bed. 

32:54
The comedian on the cruise ship was a heavyset fellow and he told a joke which I'll never forget to this day, because the inner cabin and a lot of the rooms on cruise ships for people who don't know are kind of like these circular tubes that you kind of step into. And he was a big guy and he joked that the way that he would wash himself was just soap the walls in the shower and spin in a circle and then let the water hit, because there's just no ability to move in those. And that was a big time crowd pleaser. Sorry to interrupt, I'll just, I'll just never forget that that guy no, but you're exactly right. 

33:30 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
But before you go on that first cruise, you go. I'm not gonna spend any time in the room anyway. As long as it has a bed, what difference does it make? Yeah, but then somebody shows you a balcony and you could never go back, I agree. So that all kind happened. I have now figured out how to post everything on Twitter, because I was giving away the information which I started charging. 

33:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Sorry, Scott, you built the gambling bots way before the rest of these gambling bots started appearing on Twitter. It's a different story, different type of gambling bot. Those are the fixed game gambling bots. 

34:06 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, those are funny, those are really funny. But yeah, I had to do it and I did it in a terrible way, but I made it work. So because then my computer and everything would run at the house and I would be at the casino and I would have a special Twitter account where it was posting on. That was private, so you had to pay me to follow it. It all worked out really, really well. I had a great time with it. But when did the edge stop? Well, there's a local sports book that I was making really good comps on, really good cruises on. 

34:41
They made a stupid decision. There's a stupid decision they made is I decided to get bigger because, again, if I can sell this information twice, why don't I do that? So I start betting another casino at the same time. Well, casino number one had a had an app, so I could enter them on the app. So I would go to casino number two and bet them over the window. So I would go to casino number two and bet the big money over the window. Then I would bet the much smaller money at the local casino, which was good for them, because I don't want to go into the whole the way negative horse pools works. But it was good for them financially for me to do my off bets with them. 

35:29
They got tired of it and kicked me out, said I wasn't allowed to bet horses anymore. Again, this is a great thing. Take away my edge. I got to get bigger. So that's when life kind of changes again for me in gambling. But luckily I got a lot of friends and I had a friend that I complained to and I said hey, got a problem at this local casino. I want to go on their cruises but they won't let me bid horses. He says I got a dice game you can play. So he kind of got and got me into that. But yeah, that's kind of-. 

36:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Before we move on, scott, I want to follow up on a few things here, because this is a very unique story. Right, you typically talk to bettors, anyone who's betting and don't get me wrong, comps are a form of money. That's like a monetary prize that you're winning, whether it's show tickets or cruises, super Bowl, vip experience. That's all monetary compensation. But it's incredibly rare that people don't start with just trying to win money, right, like you're building a program, essentially, where you can break even to earn comps. Did you ever have a thought of why don't I build a program to actually just try to beat horse racing and win more than I am in the comps themselves? 

36:54 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Hey, you're thinking too small and I know you think you think you're not, but you are. My wife makes incredible money. As a nurse, I paid for all our entertainment Every time we went out to a show, every time we went to dinner, every time we went on vacation. I paid for all of that with comps. So it was money, and trying to break even is a million times easier than trying to make money in horses. I'm telling you today, all of the big teams that I'm aware of barely barely make money. The only reason they make money is because of the rebates. Rebates, yeah, and we don't have that in Nevada. We don't have it, so you can't do that. So that was just way too hard. 

37:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But, given the fact I can pay for all of our vacations, all of our entertainment, it losing. They want to be treated like royalty, they want that experience. But it's just. It's unusual, at least from my perspective, for people to start out that way and be like yeah, you know what? Here's where I think I can gain an edge, and that's by getting comp tickets, food, whatever, versus just trying to make money. So I didn't mean to diminish in any way, I just find it unique. Right, and I wasn't trying to make money, so I didn't mean to diminish in any way, I just find it unique. 

38:26 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Right, and I wasn't trying to criticize you. I was just saying you've got to look at the bigger picture, right. And again, I'm living this world as a partnership. My wife and I we've always had one income. We've always had one income except for a couple of years here in Vegas. So we're very happy with what we have. So if one person was paying for the vacations and any show they wanted to go to because there's a lot of tricks you can do with shows that we could talk about for hours probably not relevant to this conversation, but yeah, there's pretty much every show in Vegas at one time I'd seen until COVID hit, and now I don't go to shows anymore because I just flat out don't have the time. 

39:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Interesting. Just to backtrack a little bit on negative show pools. So I'm just trying. I'm trying to better understand it myself. By the way, this is not still an edge of yours, correct Like this is long gone, it's dead. Okay, so you have no problem with me just digging into this a little bit more oh, I'd answer it even if I did okay. 

39:27
So negative show pools. From the sounds of things, I'm trying to think of a way that, uh, the, the, basically the track, or the or um could have to pay out more and like are they guaranteeing a certain show price, no matter what? On the big favorite? 

39:47 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Absolutely. Here's where the magic comes in. The state of West Virginia today has a law that says they have to pay 10%. So for every $2 you bet they must return 220. 

40:01 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So you could have a one to nine favorite on the board and they have to pay 20 cents on the two dollar bet, no matter what, even though the actual yeah you know payout should be like two cents exactly and if you work it out mathematically, anything above an 89 favorite in the state of west virginia is a negative horse. 

40:22 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
which that what that does for me is it allows me to have more money to bet on the other horses in the race. So here's, here's your dream. This is your dream, if you're doing this is you want a five horse race in West Virginia with a monster in the race, because those pay beautifully. If you get somebody at the 94 or 95 level, at a 220, yeah, you can print money. The rest of the states now, when I was doing this, iowa had the same law. It was 220. The rest of the United States was always 210. You had to be about 91, 91.5 percent to be in this break-even situation. But they would run these monsters. You know you could get several monsters a week. 

41:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So it always paid out really good, really good. That was going to be. My next question is the volume on that right, like I like to go to the track. I'm a casual horse. Better, my dad used to take me there when we were younger as well. I love that, but it's pretty rare to see horses that are favored in that type of price range. I guess you're right. The five-horse races where there's some scratches you tend to see stuff like that happen. 

41:39 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Oh, speaking of a scratch, here was a really good one. I, you, it was blowing. It was blowing range really bad in chicago and they scratched the race down to four and they left up the show pool. Well, I'm doing handstands trying to get as much money down as I possibly can and, uh, my big, big favorite just stops right before the finish line and I didn't even think he was going to cross. He barely got third. It was just hilarious because this big, big, huge favorite, but the wind and the rain and it was terrible and nobody should have been there. But here's the thing you get two or three of these at a track, but in Nevada you're dealing with 15 tracks. You're probably dealing with 40 of these a week. It's a really, really profitable organization to be involved with, but it can't happen anymore because of the computer players that are getting their bets in at the last second. They've taken this whole game away. If I was going to do this today, none of this is possible yeah, I mean um nowadays. 

42:50 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You know I'm very interested in horse racing. I always have been um. I've actually tried a couple times to to model it with very limited to no success. Uh, negative success, I think you would call like you're just losing bets. Part of the issue that I've personally found is data integrity, I would say, but not in the traditional way where, like data's incorrect, it's just. You know you're dealing with so much data in horse racing and it's hard to apply that data in a proper manner. So here's an example. 

43:24
But I like to be the guy that goes and gets the program at the racetrack. So at least I feel like I have some sort of you know, I'm not just playing license plate numbers on the way in. I feel like I have some sort of control over my outcome. You get all the practice times for all the horses and whatever. How do I know if the jockey, like if they're actually running that horse seriously during that time, if they're out for a leisurely stroll, like there's just so much to account for and it's it's a, it's a pro, like sports betting is here. At this level, specifically some of the leagues I deal with, I think horse racing is like exponentially more challenging to model. I don't know. I just wanted to share that. So I've tried. I don't know if you've ever you've tried since with anything horse racing related no, I've never tried to win. 

44:11 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I personally think it would be impossible for me giving, given my knowledge, to pull it off, so I've never even tried, but I have to. Um, I have to say one thing here about the horses. I have to say one thing here about the horses I'm really glad. I was not glad this week but I was glad a week later after that casino kicked me out because again they took away my edge. But I've got friends, and I have a friend who was getting that horse information from me, who said, hey, you can still get your cruises at that casino by playing this dice game. So he showed me how to play this dice game, which was a very small winner on its own, but it racked up comps like there was no tomorrow and allowed us to go on the cruises still. So again they took away my edge. So I have friends and I immediately get a new edge, and that lasts for about a year too. 

45:11 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So to be clear, the dice game that you're playing, there is a a minimal house edge or no house edge, based off of the way that you were playing when I was doing it, they had about a one and a half percent edge so you were still but, but you were still basically playing with a house edge in order to accrue the comps. 

45:28 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, the problem is that the mailers that you would get was worth about 3%, got it 4%, so it was just the difference between what the house edge was versus what they were providing you. 

45:38 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So you're basically taking advantage of the hosting program and saying, yeah, they're giving way too good comps for this small edge. 

45:45 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Right, like the hosting program, and saying, yeah, they're giving way too good comps for this small edge, right, and then they throw the cruises and stuff in as a bonus. Yeah. So again, the most valuable thing you can have in this industry is friends. Because at this time that we're playing this dice game, because you got to play together, you got to have two players. So at the time we're doing this, I decide that I want to investigate sports betting. 

46:08
So I wrote my own version of spank odds. It's nothing like spank odds, but it was the best that I could do at the time and I was just trying to work out how does sports work, how does all that going to happen? And what happens at this point is they take the dice games out. My edge is gone again. Now I got to get serious with the sports betting. So the only thing I can do at this point with sports betting is ARBs. It's all I can do because I don't know anything. So I'm playing the ARB game a little bit, and this is about the time I took a second sports book job. Well, there's a, there's a. There's a story you got to hear about my first um. My first job in the sports trading world is there's the problem with working at a recreational book. 

47:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep. 

47:05 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Is they believe that the trader controls the outcome of the game. They believe you shouldn't accept bets that are going to win. The problem with that theory is you don't know. The problem with that theory is you don't know. So I would take a massive amount of bets and you don't learn that much playing on the sportsbook with the recreational, because number one thing they do is they want to throw people out. Okay, they want to throw people out, that's fine, that's their gamut. 

47:36
So there was one big game with Alabama and I'm playing the in-play side and I'm talking over a headset, like I am to you today, to the guy who was controlling the computer and I was telling them look, every single bet is coming in on Alabama. We need to move the line. And he flat out told me no, we're leaving it where it is Now. That was the greatest win. I ever had one single night working, but that happened. And then, a couple of weeks later, I have the same situation. Nobody says squat to me, right, it was the single greatest night I'd ever had, winning because this guy refused to move the line. So a couple of weeks later, I have the same event happen, with a different game and the guy refuses to move the line for me and I get beat and I lose six figures. Now I'm the bad guy right because I never should have taken all those bets. 

48:37
But that's the difference between a recreational place and a real sports book. Because one of the things that I found is working at that sports book. It's kind of like going to a party Everybody's laughing, everybody's joking, everybody's having a good time. I later worked for a different sports book. That was business right, everybody's head down, they're looking at it, they're serious players. Everything is different. Then I've taken tours of the best sports book in the country and it's like a library. So one of the things and I know if you got a bingo card at home, you probably have Rob did consulting work for a sports book, but I wanted to ask you, since they got that off their bingo card, is have you found the same thing? The louder the trading room is, the more recreational the book is. 

49:39 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So I've never worked on the sharp side. So every sports book I've consulted for before would have been on the recreational side. I can say that the story you share really hits home with me. There would be someone who I know very well would be in charge of in-play slash small live trading team, small props team and whatever. But because the bulk of that player base is built up of losing bettors, because everybody else is being kicked out, filtered out, that whenever there's a huge liability built up like that, they honestly don't even care. They would rather just continuously have that over time because they know over time people who are betting this are losing bettors. We probably, we're probably fine here. So I mean, I was. 

50:27
I was in a trading room for a Superbowl one year. You know I don't want to disrespect the people that were working, but I could not believe how lax it was. And you know there were people that were drunk in that trading room, that that drank 24 beers in one night and uh, were away from their desks for 15 minutes at a time and they'd just come sit back down and be like, well, you know what. A bunch of bets came in here and like it, but it was like it was just a. It was a printing machine, really didn't really matter um, and that was. 

50:57 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
That was my experience well, I'm glad you said it like that, because when I went to the best sports book in the country, when I went and toured their trading room before I was allowed to go in, I was told you're not allowed to talk in here and it was like going to it was. It was quieter than a library. If there would have been a mouse in there it would have made more noise than it would have been deafening noise compared to what I never heard anybody speak, everybody just had their head down and everybody was in the game. I'd never seen anything like that. That was an incredible, incredible experience. So I'm glad you were able to have the same experience as me. But the one thing I did learn working these two jobs and I'll tell you these two stories. I'm going to have to hide a little bit of the details, but it'll be enough that you're going to be able to get the gist of it. The first air that I saw, the first book I worked at, they had a correlated parlay that they knew about and couldn't take down because of technology. They had a team in the final four that you could parlay with them winning the title. Well, that's pretty damn correlated. They knew it, they couldn't do anything about it. So technology is a real, real problem for them. It's a limitation, a huge limitation. 

52:26
The other sports book that I worked at. The huge problem they had was time. They were very professional. Everybody's head was in the game. But whoever has that information first is the controller of the world. So we would have people betting our in play that had faster information than us At the time. We believed they were court-citing. I've actually talked to the person who was doing it because, let's honest, here, at spank odds, I get to talk to everybody in the world yes, anybody who knows anything about sports. I talk to them if I want to. And I talked to the guy who was beating us up at that second sports book and it turns out they weren't court-siding at all. What they had was another sports book with faster information than us and they were just betting their moves against us and there was nothing we could do about it Nothing we could do about it. 

53:27
So that's the things that I learned that sportsbooks make some mistakes, but the real takeaway for bettors is don't embarrass a trader. Team A is playing Team B. I don't care if this is a recreational book or the best book in the world when they flip the line. Just don't bet it. Why would you want at a recreational book? Here's what's going to happen to your recreational book you're dead. They kill you. That the professional book. They write your name down and say, if this guy needs something, he ain't getting it. Yeah, so that's the thing you're better and everybody listening to the show needs to understand. Don't embarrass the trader. He's going to take enough crap from everybody around him that really cares about their job that the minute you jab him too, he can take it out on you and he will. Don't do it. 

54:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It's very interesting to hear you say that. We've had that conversation many times on this show over 150 episodes and there's very mixed opinions on it. I tend to side with you. There is just every now and then the one that will slip through the cracks where people think it's worth it, right. It's like that one time I hit this mistake line, they didn't notice, I got paid, and now I'm going to do it forever. I think the downside is heavier than the upside based off of that, especially nowadays with the likelihood of those getting paid out. Interesting to hear you say that. 

55:07
I also just want to jump in as well, just for terminology. For anyone that's watching or listening that might not know what court siding is, court siding would be someone who's actually at the event themselves, typically with some sort of communication to someone else who would be able to bet before the sportsbook moves the line. So think about it as somebody's at the game. They're on the phone, you know they see a touchdown happen and they're like touchdown, touchdown and somebody hits the live line before it actually happens. So if anyone was wondering, very, very, very challenging to do nowadays, especially with IP addresses being needed in the legalized market, whatever, but just so people needed to know there. So, scott, you go from in-play trader, two different books, two different places, and then what happens after that? 

56:01 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
two different places. Um, and then what happens after that? Well, what happens for me next is I've learned at this point that they, the traders, they don't know. They're not learning anything on how pittsburgh is a plus seven. They're not learning any of this. Basically, everybody's watching the screens, and that's what it is. The recreational books are watching the screens. The pros are watching the screens. They have a model in the background that's driving their opening number. But let's be honest, after that opening number comes out, the screen drives everything. So there is one small exception to this. When I had my first job, there was one guy who's a very famous guy that I would love to tell you, but I can't Out of privacy respect. Fair enough. The guy could not pick anything On my screen. When his bets would come in, it would specifically say you're not allowed to turn anything down. Whatever he bets, your only option is to hit accept. So why do you give me that option? Why do you even tell me if I have one choice? 

57:03 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Just do it automatically. This is like the book at Trent of back in the day, basically. 

57:09 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
It is so funny because this guy could bet on a baseball game. In the ninth inning His team's up 100-0, and somehow they're going to get beat 101 to 100. The guy was incredible. He's very famous in vegas for uh, for being a stiff. He, uh, he could just lose anything. But yeah, that's the one thing I learned of being a trader if you don't have somebody who can't win, because they're just as valuable to you as somebody who can't lose, because all you need is the word can't in that sentence and you can just print as much money as you want. So that kind of leads me to uh, to the way I kind of do business today. But did you have any other questions about the sports book there? 

57:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
well, no, specifically with that. I was curious, if you like, undercover, uncovered, like, any weaknesses for the books which you kind of alluded to a little bit, with technology being a limitation in some cases, that honestly still happens. Nowadays it's very rare, but you can find stuff that you shouldn't be allowed to parlay, or something that's correlated, that's not priced like it is, and things of that nature. So I think that's a very important one to hit on there. But you go from that and you mentioned that you were going to get into some arbitrage betting. Was that because of your experience with the in-play, where you're like, well you know what, there's lines all the time where you could just automatically profit, or did someone tell you about that? Like, what was the inspiration for moving towards arbitrage at that point? 

58:46 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I didn't have a choice. I had nothing else. I knew I didn't know enough to build a model, which I still don't. I knew there was no other option for me, but here's what happened. They took away the dice game If for me, but here's what happened. They took away the dice game. If you're going to take away my golden goose, I got to create another one. So I get really, really lucky. At this point again, I'll tell you I'm the luckiest guy I've ever met. 

59:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I I'm a huge fan of gambling with an edge, richard munchkin. 

59:15 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, yeah so here's my gambling with an edge uh, play. What I would do is the shows would come out at one o'clock and I would try to hear the shows immediately. I want to be the very first one that listens, because I want to be the very first one that sends you a message in your box. In your box, so I got a chance of you responding. I send the message to richard after that and he responds to me. We're great friends, even today. Heck, we're going to lunch here in a couple of days. I got really lucky with him. 

59:52
But then there's this crazy guy who I really, really liked the sound of on there and the guy's name is spanky. And I said this guy's a character, but you know what, he's my kind of character. Do the same thing with him. And he responded to me. So I'm talking to him a little bit. And he says look, I'm in Vegas, let's meet up. I said okay, cool. I said where do you want to eat? And then he tells me a place and I said you know, I can get free food here. He says that's cool. I said do you want to go to a show? He says yeah. I said well, what show would you want. And he says you know, the show I've always wanted to go to is Barry Manilow. I said here's what I'll do. I'll get you a great seat at Barry Manilow and I'll get you free food at Westgate and we'll make an evening of it. He liked Barry Manilow well enough that he thought he liked me, which I think was great. I got the Barry Manilow leftovers, if you will. 

01:00:55
So we're at supper and we're talking and look, I don't have a mom, I can't give you plays, I don't have a lot of money, all I've got is comps. So there's no use in the world for Spanky and me to ever talk again. And he makes the craziest statement to me at that supper. He says he says, scott, I can do, I can do something to help you. I said what can you do? He says you just name it and I'll do it. And it's anything you want. And I felt I've never told anybody this story and I hope Spanky doesn't hear this part, but he probably will. 

01:01:35
I felt like I was um, I just rubbed the head of a genie, right, and I got three wishes Because I've got the biggest, baddest sports bettor in the country just gave me a blank check and I can write it for anything I want. And I thought I want three more wishes. How do I get three more wishes? So I said, okay, here's Spanky, here's what I want. He said, okay, name it. I said I want to be your friend. He says that's all you want. I said oh yeah, and like a sucker he took the deal. He took the deal and he said you never know, maybe sometime in the future we'll be able to do something together. I said yep, maybe in the future we will. 

01:02:20
And then, about less than a year later, he called me up and he says you're a computer guy, if I remember right. I said yeah, I'm a computer guy. I said I'm certified by everybody Microsoft, cisco, everybody. I'm certified by everybody. He says you ever thought about working again for, instead of just doing your comp thing? I said well, maybe if the deal was right. He said what do you think about working for Spank Odds? I said, well, what is it? Then he tells me what it is and I log on to it. That same day was the day I shut down. What crap I had, because it was nothing compared to what he had. 

01:03:02
And then for the next year I get to test it and complain and then help improve. And he says, yeah, I'm just going to let you run customer service and when you decide you want somebody to help you with customer service, we'll just add another guy. I said, okay, that's cool. He asked me that about every six months and I always tell him the same thing. I don't want help because I have a real hard time with giving up control. So kind of the way we do spank odds support is if it's before I get up in the morning, you deal with spanky, if it's after I get up, you deal with me. But I the first year of Spank Odds, there was like 10 of us on it and I had 20 minutes to make a decision. So I got to learn everything at a very, very slow speed. Then he turns it on for everybody to test and it went from 15, 20 minutes to 15 20 seconds. So that was. That was an interesting day. It was a sad day for me. 

01:04:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes, I had fun I remember it, as does, uh, my co-host from last week, joey knish. I know he had some uh choice words and the when spain got launched in the early going. But you know what, scott? What I love about this story is you know me and Johnny are big advocates for networking in the space, right, we talk about it a lot on this podcast and making connections that could be mutually beneficial. And this was the one. Just by meeting Spanky and, you know, hitting it off with him basically opened up a huge opportunity for you, opened up a big opportunity for him, because now he has a great customer service manager, someone that he can trust. 

01:04:48
And I actually remember the first time I met you at the first Bet Bash and the reason why I remember is I'm going to try not to get emotional here is I'm going to try not to get emotional here, but I walked in and the first person I saw was wearing a Quebec Nordiques Wendell Clark jersey and it was Dinky. It was Alan Denkinson. I walked over to his table and you were actually talking to him at that time and you know that was kind of you putting yourself out there in like networking. I know you've spoken before about how you really wanted to meet Dinky as well and you made it a point of emphasis to do so. But it's just like such a small world of how it's just. You know a one night event, four or five hours, bunch of different people. I've maintained so many connections from that initial Bet Bash I know you have as well and I know you actually got pretty close with Dink as well from just that one initial conversation. 

01:05:51 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, we went to lunch in Vegas multiple times afterwards. Yeah, you're talking about Bet Bash 1. And if you want to talk about networking, that was the biggest event of my entire life Because I had three people on my list to meet that night and I know you're going to think I'm sucking up to you, but I'm not. You were number three. Number one was Dink. 

01:06:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Why wasn't I number one, Scott? What is this Number three? 

01:06:16 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I'll tell you why you're number three, because I had something. I wanted to give you, some information that I thought was important for you. 

01:06:25
And I remember that conversation, yeah, and we won't talk about it here, but there was some information that you needed to know and I wanted to make sure you got it. There was. I mean, I'm I'm not going to get involved in your hockey or anything like that. I know Dink threw me plays once in a while for his hockey, but, yeah, I didn't want any part of that. There was some information that I thought you needed to know. I really respected everything that you were doing in the space and I thought you needed to know it. So Dink was on my list and Chinese Mike and those two guys literally changed my life that night. 

01:07:03
Because I got to Bet Bash number one about an hour early was my big plan. Right, I get there an hour early. Whoever shows up first, I've got them heads up because there's nobody else there who shows up early. Dink and spanky, come on. You talk about hitting two home runs in the same game. 

01:07:19
So I'm talking to those and Dink turns to me and he says, kind of hungry for some pizza, you want to walk down the street? Well, whatever you want to do, buddy. And then on the way walking down there, he says tell me everything you're doing and I'm going to tell you everything you're right, you're doing wrong, and I'll even tell you if you're accidentally doing something right. It'll make you a much, much better, better and you'll be much more profitable. And so I told him everything I was doing and he gave me a list of things to work on and we would meet for lunch at South Point. We've met multiple times and he wanted to say how are you doing on your list? Took me about a year and a half to get most of the stuff taken care of, but that meeting changed my life. 

01:08:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, uh, he was that kind of person for sure. Very helpful. Um certainly mentored me and one of the the best connections that I've ever made. Um over the course of my life as well. So same experience on my end. Um, scott, I mean typically with that so the Spanky situation back in the day, you have your comps All right. You know, typically in networking people connect because they have mutual interests or they each possess either skills or something that can help one another. So you know, you get Spanky some Barry Manilow tickets. He doesn't forget and he says you know what, Scott, I got your back tickets. He doesn't forget and he says you know what, Scott, I got your back. Nowadays, what's your typical pitch when you're networking with someone? When you go to a bet bash nowadays, what can you bring to the table for other people? How do you break that barrier? 

01:08:53 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
between you and someone you've never met before. Well, I'm pretty lucky there because most people know who I am, but the access to information and the access I have to people is unparalleled. Probably the best story I can tell you here is I had a guy who was working on NASCAR and he had a problem with whatever he was trying to build. I don't remember what the problem he was having, but it's not really relevant to the story. He calls me up and he asked me. He says can you help me with this? I said I can't help you. I don't know anything about NASCAR, but give me your question, I'll make some phone calls. So, whatever the question was, I just called Spanky and I said hey, I got a problem. He says what is it? I said got this NASCAR question. He says I don't know that much about NASCAR, but I know the best guy in the country with NASCAR. I said who is it? I won't say the guy's name. He said this guy. What you need to do is call him, tell him that you're, that I gave you the number and you work on spank odds. I said I know who you're talking about. You think he'll take a call from me because the guy's a legend and I call the guy up, very nice to me. He says here's, here's a better thing for you than that? He says I'm flying to vegas tomorrow, you want to meet for lunch and I'll explain the whole thing absolutely for sure. 

01:10:14
I got to spend a couple of hours with the legend at circa because I knew spanky and this guy was a nascar guy. We got the whatever the question was about nascar. She spent too long, I don't remember what it was. I got the information for the nascar, gave it back to the, the guy who was trying to originate that, and the guy doesn't forget. So when he has some nascar, he throws me some. So I don't sell anything to anybody. I give stuff away and people give me stuff. So I think that's a really good thing. 

01:10:51
That I can do is, if I'm in your network and you got no idea who to ask, ask me because I don't know. I just go to Spanky and he tells me where to go. He's a huge resource for me. I've talked to him at three o'clock in the morning before about a problem. Uh, I, I talked to him 20 minutes before this call. He's a huge resource in my life and people don't realize how good he is to everybody, like giving away the spank odds for the five minute customers, all the money he spends on the bet bashes, all the time and effort he spends on be better bettors. He spends a lot of money on everybody and I just don't think people really give him the credit that he's due. 

01:11:33
But one thing I will tell you before we forget here is about Dink. I mentioned dink on about half my calls to spanky and we get him in the hall of fame and he tells me the same thing every time. Scott, you know I don't have a vote. Call fats, call Chris, call somebody who's least got a vote. I said I've already talked to them. I'm trying to get your help because that guy deserves to be in the hall. And I don't know if you saw it or not. But a big announcement today Nick Boddanovich wasn't just elected, which is there's not a more fitting guy for the Hall of Fame than Nick. He's a legend too, yeah. 

01:12:10 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I have no interaction with him, but yeah, I mean Dinky will be in the Hall of Fame one day. It would be like a travesty if he's not. I mean he's just so good at his crap. He's a professional gambler for life, like he. He did it his entirety of his life, right up until the very end. So I don't have any doubts that he's gonna. 

01:12:31 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
He's gonna get there at some point scott, but I want him in today. Yeah, I'm not, I'm. I don't think there's any point waiting. He's a great guy and he should be in there. But the experience I had with Dink at Bet Bash 1 was completely, utterly life changing. And then I got to talk to Chinese Mike and Chinese Mike says why don't you come to the office and let me give you a tour and let me tell you a few things that I see? And that was an amazing hour and a half. 

01:13:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Did you get to see a vintage piss jug at Spanky's headquarters? 

01:13:08 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Oh, I got to piss in it. We took turns. It was a beautiful experience, it was. Spanky's office is better than any trading room I've ever seen in my life. I do everything I can to try to come up to that level with my trading desk here. 

01:13:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, what does your setup look like, scott? What do you have out in front? You don't have to show us, but, yeah, I can't show you, but I can tell you the first row. 

01:13:41 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I have three 40 inch screens. Those are all dedicated to spank odds, because when somebody sends me a message I need to act fast because there's 10,000 people that are signed up to spank odds. So you've got me outmanned, so I've got to be fast. I don't have a choice. So I've got these three 40 inch screens. Then, at my next level here I have a communication PC. It's just where I talk to people on the phone because I call a lot of pro customers. If a pro customer sends in a problem and I think somebody should talk to this guy, I just pick up the phone and call them. Somebody should talk to this guy. I just pick up the phone and call him. 

01:14:25
Then I have another one over here for more communications, like the Spank Odds, internal controls and admin screens that I have. The screen I'm talking to you on is where I keep all my computer records. This machine over here I run tests on, and these four machines over here Over here I run tests on and these four machines over here. This is where my scores are and some of my other gambling information comes through. So my setup is pretty dang good. It's better than any trader I've ever seen and I have more screens than spank odds or spanky traders. 

01:15:02 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So what's interesting for me interviewing you and watching you right now, it looks like you're in your dining room, so you've outfitted your dining room with all these screens and everything. Is there a particular reason for that? 

01:15:10 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yes, because I'm a very big believer in family. Okay, so I had. I had a choice when I took this job with them was spanky. I could go upstairs. I have a four-bedroom house right, my wife and I are the only two that live here. I have a computer room, she's got a craft room, we've got a spare bedroom, so it's no big deal. I can go upstairs and turn one of those rooms into my office. 

01:15:35
Here's the problem. I work this job from the minute I get up to the minute I go to bed. So if I went and made an office up there, I would never see my dogs, I would never see my wife. So what we agreed on is I would just take the dining room over, so I have the entire dining room. We don't have one anymore. 

01:15:57
Because now, when I look to my right, I can see where my wife sits, I can see where my dogs hang out, I can see our television, we can talk, because I don't want to give up any of those guys, but I need to be here at my desk in the command center to be able to see every single sport all of the time. So I think, family. You got to put family first, but that doesn't mean you can't do this job when you're awake the entire day, and because there's nothing I'd rather do than this job, I don't dread getting up tomorrow morning to start my Spankov's job. I start my Spankov job before I get out of bed. I roll over, grab my phone and I look to see is there any messages from anybody, any customers? Then I look at our internal chat. Is anybody doing something that would affect our customers? Because if there is, I want to know it before I walk down the steps. So I'm prepared Because I take this job very, very seriously and, like I said, I can't even take a helper because I want the job done the way it's done. 

01:17:12
What I think is funny about this job is spanky. We've had, I think, two incidences in the last two years here where somebody has gotten mad at me and said I want to escalate to spanky and I always say to myself no, you don't, because he likes me better and I'm right. So the people that have got escalated and Spanky immediately regretted it Because I want you to be happy with Spank Odds. And I'll just break the news right now. You don't know this yet, but I'm pretty confident you're probably a Spank Odds user. 

01:17:57
The new version of Spank Odds is you've got it. It just hasn't been turned on yet. There is a big change coming that you're going to be very happy with, and Spanky asked me this morning what I thought of it. And I told him what I thought about it. We need to make a couple minor changes, no big deal. And he said we were talking about it and I said I think you need to charge people a million dollars a month to get the upgrade. He said do you think anybody will pay it? I said if somebody will pay it, we need to raise the price because I don't want nobody else having the stuff. I want to test it until I die. As soon as I die, I think you should release it for whatever price you want to do. But yeah, the next version coming out, you're going to be very, very happy, very happy. 

01:18:43 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
What's the rough timeline on that? 

01:18:44 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Scott as soon as he convinces me that I'm happy with it for customer use, and I'm going to stretch it out as long as I can, which probably means it's probably going to happen in a couple of weeks All right, there you go. 

01:19:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Look for a new change in Spank Odds coming soon and, honestly, if you listen, you know I'm a co-owner of BetStamp, big believer in what we do at BetStamp. We do have a player prop screen as well. To each their own right. What BetStamp is going to work for some people, spank Odds is going to work for some people. Unabated is going to work for some people. There's lots of products out there and some people have all of them. In case that you know, there's different use cases as well, but I am a Spank Odds user. There's this very specific use case that I use it, for, which I love. I think it's a great product and appreciate what you guys are doing over there. Scott, recently you also got involved in the proxy game out in Vegas as well the proxy game out in Vegas as well. 

01:19:42 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, this was a crazy decision. I get to talk to everybody through DMs on Twitter, through Spank Odds, and I got this message 20 times Are you guys going to run your own proxy service? And the first couple of times I just kind of dismissed it right and I mentioned it to Spanky and I said are you going to run a proxy service? Because I keep getting requests? He said no, I don't want anything to do with that. And I said okay. And then a couple of weeks later I said look, I'm getting hammered with these questions. He says well, why don't you just do? It said okay, I'll just start my own. He said, okay, that's cool. So he knows I run it. 

01:20:27
Um, I love the proxy service, but not for the reason you think, not for the profit, because I had. I had a you know a handful of people 50, 60 people, uh, like that on my service the first year. So it wasn't a whole lot of money. But what it did for my networking is it just exploded. Because now, when these 50 or 60 people have any kind of question at all or have some kind of comment to make, they come to me and I help them, I get them what they need. It just perfectly expanded my network and it's kind of the same thing that I was attempting to do and I think I pulled it off at bet bash. 

01:21:14
When bet bash um two was going and spanky told me it was only going to be three or four days, I said, come on, can we just do seven? He said it was only going to be three or four days. I said, come on, can we just do seven? He said no, we're only going to do three or four days. Until what I decided to do was expand uh bet bash by a day. Way I did it is I had a private, uh get together with just about 10 friends, right. I talked to my bud, adam Bjorn, and I said what would you think about coming to a private lunch, about 10 of us, and we just ask you questions Went beautifully right. Adam took questions for two and a half hours. The guy barely got to eat. So I was able to extend Bet Bash 2 one day. 

01:21:59
So then I tell Spanky about it. I said the next one at bat bash three. I told him about it. I got all the traders from his office chinese, mike, I had 50 or 60 people now at this private lunching last year, this year I don't know if you saw what he did, but he told me. Before he did it, he said sc Scott, I'm taking your Tuesday away from you. I said, well, what are you going to do? Well, it's going to be a VIP day. We're going to do the golfing. 

01:22:27
We're going to do the poker and I thought perfect, I'm just cooking the frog. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move my private lunch to Monday. I'll force him next year to take it from me, then I'll move to Sunday. I'm going to get my seven days out of it. I'm just going to cook that frog real slow. But the VHP proxy is very interesting, I think, because I invited all of my customers to this private lunch and they got to sit with Fats and they got to sit with Chinese mike and spanky and, uh like, like luke was there, all spanky's traders were it was. 

01:23:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm a huge fan of luke, by the way. Very underrated follow on twitter and just uh, general human being. If you're at bet bash this year, say hello to luke. He kind of gets lost in the shuffle every now and then, but great dude he is a great dude. 

01:23:19 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
He'll definitely be at my private lunch. Who knows, maybe, if you're a vhp proxy customer, maybe I'll invite you or maybe somebody will get you as an add-on. But as far as the proxy service, I ran it very simply the first year off google forms and it was a. It was went very, very well. There's a lot of customer service Actually a little more customer service than I could even deal with, but I made it work. And of course, here's a huge tip for Circa. 

01:23:52
Circa has made a serious mistake with this contest. You should never limit it to 10 entries, because when Chinese Mike came up to me and said, hey, I want in the proxy, I said how many do you want? He said how many can you sell me? I said I can only sell you 10. Well, then I'll take 10. Well, derek could move that number to 20. I would have twice the business. So what do you think Adam Bourne said when? He said, when he said to me he took all 10. And then the big guys, they always want that magic number. So Derek really needs to raise that from 10 to 20. But we have some, uh. 

01:24:28
So Spanky looked at the whole setup and Spanky entered some pics a couple of times on the setup. He says you know you really should make um a better website for it. I said, okay, so I've got a guy working on making me a better website for it. I said, okay, so I've got a guy working on making me a better website for this year. And then some magic happened and this is breaking news too. 

01:24:48
Adam Bjorn called me up and said do you know anything about this Euros Soccer 2024? I said I know what soccer is, but that's it. He said what do you think about using your proxy service to let people put in their soccer picks? And maybe we can have some fun in the summer when all there is is baseball. He says who knows, maybe we'll give away some prizes or something. And Spanky said yeah, maybe we'll give away some prizes. Who knows, maybe I'll give away some proxy service. You know, something is going to happen. We'll give something away, and so we're going to have a contest that's going to be ran over the VHP proxy infrastructure starting in June. I think. It starts on June 14th, this big Euro tournament, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd sign up. There's going to be no entry fee and, who knows, there might be some decent prizes. 

01:25:42 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm big into soccer, I love Euro. I actually considered going to Germany this year for the tournament itself, which is taking place mid-June to mid-July. So definitely, I'll be happy to promote that as much as possible. Free contest with the opportunity to win prizes yeah, I'll be happy to promote that as much as possible. Free contests it's an opportunity to win prizes yeah, I'm all in. I'm all in. 

01:26:05 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Scott, I appreciate that. I'm going to pitch a couple more guys and see if I can tuck in some big guys to get on it. But yeah, who knows what the prizes will be? Maybe there'll be trinkets, but at least it'll be something you can lord over your friends, like you could lord it over Johnny. But speaking of Johnny, I think we've buried the lead because I had I don't know, I think 10 people contacted me the last time you mentioned me and criticized me on your podcast. I don't know if you remember this or not, but you specifically criticized me, saying you didn't know if I was a winner. You were talking about all the fake Twitter guys and they usually had the word Vegas in their name. 

01:26:51 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Okay, it's coming back to me now. I want to jump in here. We're going to try to find this clip at some point. It's hard. I guess we'll use the YouTube transcripts, zach or something, to try to find it. I believe it might've been a Q&A episode. Johnny brought up some people. I said generally speaking which I say a lot, generally speaking, by the way. I got to get that out of my vocabulary but if they have Vegas in their Twitter handle, they're probably not worth following. And then I started going through people that have Vegas in their Twitter handle. I got to you Yep. 

01:27:26 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
What did I say? You said I don't even know if he's a winner, and Johnny said he's definitely a winner, Definitely a winner. So I was really hoping to say thank you to Johnny. I appreciate that. And one thing I know is this there's a lot of fake stuff on Twitter. There's a lot of fake stuff. Even the people that are posting their tickets they're not posting the losing tickets. Nobody knows who's a winner, Nobody knows who's a loser. But there is one thing I know on Twitter Johnny's a winner. I know that If he knows I am. 

01:28:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We're going to have to cut this out of the podcast. The ego is going to be through the roof when he hears that clip. 

01:28:05 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
He's a winner. 

01:28:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes, you know what I will say. This and this is not. It's not to backtrack on the comment at all. I said it, I own it and whatever. I don't vouch for people that aren't me, seriously, I just don't. I don't vouch for people that aren't me seriously, I just don't. You never know Like. 

01:28:23
I've worked with people before who won for like a decade and then they lose their edge and you still think that they're a winning better. And someone will reach out to me and be like Rob you know, should I be working with this guy, should I give accounts to this person? And I just say listen, based off of my experience, I won with this person in the past. I cannot guarantee you a win going forwards or that they're still a winner now, because all I know for certain is what I do. Anything outside of that is a mystery. You can tell. You know anyone can come on this pod and say they're a winner or whatever, and there'll be people that back them up and vote for them. But unless I see it myself, I don't vote. That's just my rule of thumb. 

01:29:03 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
And I think that's a good rule of thumb and here's the way to prove to you that I'm a winner is I don't want anybody to contact me that say I want to give you accounts, I don't want your accounts. I got my own accounts, so I'm not trying to drum up account business. My day is so full between what I do and the way I bet, because I bet a little bit different than anybody else you've ever met. We could probably talk about that later or now, whatever you want to do. 

01:29:31 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, let's do it, let's do it. You said that you made the segue. I don't even have to do anything here. 

01:29:36 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
What do you? 

01:29:36 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
do different than everyone else. 

01:29:38 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Okay, now when you listen to Spanky talk, it's top down, it's top down, it's top down. Somebody like you with a model. You believe it's bottom up, bottom up, bottom up, and I think you're both wrong and it doesn't work for me. Neither one of them works for me. Here's what works for me and I think, if people really thought about this, there's an air in your, in your hockey model. You know there is. It's not perfect. You're overvaluing something and you're undervaluing something. So I don't want to deal with your model. So what do I do? I have a lot of friends. I talked about the NASCAR guy. 

01:30:21
Let me talk about a guy really specific here, but I won't name him because I don't think that's fair. He's my college baseball guy. You see me do a lot of posting about college baseball. I love the college baseball because his model is razor sharp. Do I bet his model for him? No, I don't bet anything for anybody. He gives me his numbers and he bets them. He bets them like you bet hockey, which I think is wrong. What I do with his numbers is this I have spank odds up, I'm looking at the lines moving and here's where your model is going to have a problem when you overvalue something, you're going to get a lot of market resistance. My way of doing it I don't get market resistance. 

01:31:07
If he tells me we had a big game the other day, lsu versus Tennessee, and he had a number. Okay, when I look over here to my left, college baseball is the second quadrant to my left. When I look over there and I see the college baseball is starting to move, is it moving with him or is it moving against him? As soon as I can see a couple sports books that I respect, that respect his number, then I fire. If the if he's got a number there and the book's not moving, I don't know if he's right or wrong, but I know there's no activity. I don't want no part with that game. But you give me somebody like lsu versus tennessee. And that board lit up the other day, just lit up because his number radically differed with the market, so I rode the wave. It was a beautiful experience for me. 

01:32:08 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So this is a combination, scott, of um, essentially steam chasing, but you already have a number attached to that. So, if I if I'm just taking a step back and interpreting what you're saying you got your numbers on your college baseball game, but you don't want to actually bet them until you start to see that there's market agreement on them. As soon as that starts to happen, then you're jumping in and you're going to take that. 

01:32:37 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Right, but I do it before the steam starts. It's right before the steam starts. Ah, it's right before the scene starts. I think I'm part of the first wave of the steam. Okay, because I am early enough to the case. Once I see you starting to trend my way at a couple of sports books that I respect, got it. Now I'm gonna fire and when I fire they start to jump. That starts. So somebody like Spanky is going to see my bet. Yes, he's not going to see the bet before. 

01:33:07 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
There's some signals that you have that are going to say the market is going to move here quickly. I agree with this move. I'm going to go bet it right now, and then somebody else, like you said, is going to follow suit based off of your move, and somebody is going to follow suit based off of now, and then somebody else, like you said, is going to follow suit based off of your move, and somebody is going to follow suit based off of theirs, and it's just going to go. 

01:33:24 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Exactly, but I didn't write the model. I can't write the model. All I can say is my buddy's model. The market agrees with him. I'm going to get in on the very first wave and then let the steam take it wherever it wants, because what I have noticed on the college baseball and I don't want to give away too much, but I can say this when that steam starts it goes way past his number, way past a lot of the smaller sports and not to diminish again. 

01:33:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
College baseball is just generally, generally speaking, smaller limits than other major sports. A lot of those tend to overmove, sometimes to the point where you can actually get an edge on the other side afterwards. 

01:34:10 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, and I actually have to do that sometimes because the money is just too good the other way. 

01:34:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah. 

01:34:15 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Very, very true. But I think the key part is getting in there right before the steam starts and actually being part of the steam, because I know what kind of money he's betting and I know it's not moving off him. I know that part. 

01:34:31 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So that's the way I bet. I want to jump in here with a question in regards to that why do you care about the model number? So here's what I mean by that you could just do the same thing you're doing without the access to the model itself, right, like if you had indicators of you wouldn't have the same level of confidence in your bet. But if the general idea is to beat the close right or get a good number, once you started to see the screen move in maybe a couple spots or some PPHs that are starting to move, why do you even need the model number in the first place? 

01:35:12 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
The perfect answer to you is because I get a better number than the Steam Chasers, because I'm still below the Steam, got it. I'm starting with the steam. So, yeah, my number is much better than you. And so if you're going to play this game, you must, must, must beat the closing line. And if you're a steam chaser, I beat you to the steam. So you very well may be even reacting to me betting. If you're chasing college baseball, I would say, um, there's probably a couple sports books here in vegas. You're 100 chasing me. I'm the one, I'm the steam I would believe it. 

01:35:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Don't chase the steam, be the steam, be the steam don't talk about it, be about it that's. 

01:36:00 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I remember that episode. But see, that's the huge advantage I have because I have friends. I have a college football guy, I got an NFL guy. All of these guys are my friends, so they just share their numbers with me. It's a beautiful thing because they might ask me something hey, if you see this happening on this game, would you call me? Well, absolutely, I'll call you. So until Spank Odds gets that functionality which should happen soon, I'm hoping, before football where it's going to actually start notifying people when they're not at their desk. Maybe I'll lose my edge with some of my friends, but I think Spank Odds is going to actually start notifying people when they're not at their desk. 

01:36:46 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Maybe I'll lose my edge with some of my friends, but I think Spank Odds is going to get that eventually. Well, scott, I got to say I think that the way that you bet is very interesting and I also think that it's a testament to your character as a person that you're able to network in the way that you do and acquire this information, which is extremely valuable. I don't know that everyone can do it. Honestly, I'm sure if I messaged a bunch of people and said, hey, man, do you mind shooting over your baseball numbers for the rest of the season, they would tell me where to go. But I mean, it's worked for you and you know, again, like we often talk about the importance of networking, I think you're the best guest that we've had in terms of really being able to illustrate that and just how. 

01:37:25
So many steps along the way and this is again not to take anything away from you, because you did it, but so much of it is the connections that you have made over time and helped them, helped yourself along the way and, yeah, it's just nice to be able to talk to someone. Like you know, we talk in hypotheticals here a lot on Circles Off right and we share some of our own personal examples, but to see someone who's lived it yourself I think it's been it's very valuable for people out there to say, hey, you know what these guys talk about it all the time. Here's a real life example of someone who's lived this. Well, hey, you know what these guys talk about it all the time. Here's a real-life example of someone who's lived this. 

01:38:02 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Well, I tell you, I learned everything I know about networking from Richard Munchkin I think the world of that guy he's the greatest networker I've ever seen. Like. I was hanging out with him at Bet Bash 2, and he introduced me to Jelko. Jelko knows him by name. Oh this, you got to hear this jelco story because this is funny. Um, I had my list right for the blackjack ball. So I go to the blackjack ball and I had a name that I wanted to meet. 

01:38:34
I can't lean on richard, because he's at the door right. I can't lean on him. I can't lean on Spanky, because Spanky don't know the guy either. So I do know Jelko. Jelko is a billionaire, one of the most successful sports bettors ever. And I walk up to him and I said, hey, I really need your help. And I bet this guy has heard this a million times in his life. What does this guy want from me? Does he want money? What does he need, you know? And he remembered me from Bed Bash. I said I'm really looking for this one guy and I told him the name. He said okay, and he pointed at him. I said okay, thank you very much, and I walked away. I think that floored Joko for somebody to come up for him and ask for directions. It was a great. I've heard some great Joko stories, but that's one of my favorites. I don't know I hope you liked it. 

01:39:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes, I mean, you're an interesting person, scott. You have lots of stories. It's funny. They just come into you. I got to tell you this. I got to tell you that it's been great chatting with you. Honestly, this is more than we've probably talked over the course of our entire lives together, but you're a fascinating person and I truly appreciate you sharing all your experiences with us. I think a lot of people are going to gain some valuable insight out of this episode. Before we close off, I'd like to ask our guests a few things. You've seen some of the episodes before. 

01:40:02 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I've seen every episode, every episode. I think so. 

01:40:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You've just been watching back the one where I ripped you over. 

01:40:09 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Oh, I've watched that one a bunch of times. 

01:40:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm going to get this guy, you know what. Maybe, if you know the exact episode, that'll help us find the clip and we can use it afterwards, insert it afterwards, but it doesn't have to be related to sports betting. It can be related to sports betting, totally up to you. One thing that you find to be plus EV in life and one thing that you find to be minus EV in life. 

01:40:33 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Okay, it's going to be a couple of minutes. This is kind of a long one, but I think this is the most important tip I could give somebody, and this is in life, not in sports betting. There are three kinds of people in this world. The first kind of people are givers. They give you everything. They'll give you the shirt off their back. They want nothing from you. They're good, solid people. The second kind of people in the world are traders. I call them traders, for example, or matchers I don't know what word you'd like me to use, but I'm going to give you this, but I want you to give me that. You give me this. I want to take that from you. There's a third person out there and they're called takers. It doesn't matter what you give them, they just keep taking. They keep taking, and they'd rather throw something away than give it to you. 

01:41:29
So what I did when I found out that this is the three people? This was in a book I read and I thought it was fascinating. I wish I could tell you the name of the book, I just don't remember. I thought this was fascinating because I said, okay, which one of these three guys do I want to be. Well, I'm going to be a giver. No, no, no, no. I can't be a giver because a taker is going to beat me up. The takers are still going to beat me up and I don't. I want to give more to the givers. So a matcher doesn't work. A taker a taker gets so very little out of life because the minute somebody finds out you're a taker, they want nothing to do with you. 

01:42:12
So I developed a fourth personality type that nobody's heard of before, and I call it the mirror. So you have these kind of people and then you have me, and I'm a mirror. So here's what I do when I deal with a taker, I show them a mirror, I'm a taker. When I see a matcher, I show them a mirror, I'm a matcher. And when I find a giver, I try to find every single thing in this world to give them, give them and give them, because I know this and I need something. They'll give me everything. 

01:42:51
So I think the key to life is to follow my lead on this. Go with this first fourth personality type that I created, called the mirror, and just let everybody in your life look at this mirror and you treat them exactly the way they treat you. Don't treat them the way you want to be treated. Treat them the way they treat you because the matcher people you're going to get more matches with them. The giver people you're going to get more from them. And the takers you're going to have almost nothing to do with, which is a great thing, because you want to eliminate or remove as much time from takers as possible. Anyway, it's a really interesting perspective. 

01:43:38
That's my plus EV move. 

01:43:39 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, we have a lot of takers here at the Hammer Betting Network. Think off the top of my head, joey Knish. 

01:43:45 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Hitman myself, johnny takers it's about 25%, I believe, from my studies. 

01:43:53 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Minus EV. That was really good, by the way. Very interesting perspective. 

01:43:57 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
EV, this one. I'll give you a gambling example of it, but you can do this with anything. When I first started doing my negative horse pools and hanging out at the casino with a group of horse bettors, these guys were always really, really negative, always really really negative, really really draining. Everything in the world was wrong. You are a combination of the five people you spend the most time with. So I started to be getting more negative and more cynical and not as nice of a person to be around. And the minute I realized that because my wife told me, she said look, you're getting really, really dark here. 

01:44:43
So what I decided to do is I started hanging out at the other casino, away from this group, and generally my mood just kept picking up and picking up. What I do is I try to find the best possible human beings to hang out with, because I want to be a combination of the five people that I hang out with the most, so I want them to be the best, because I want the best for me. So that's my negative one is watch the circle. Watch the circle of the five friends that you're closest to and make dang sure they're the five best people you've ever met. Don't hang out with the negative people yep, it's really got me thinking. 

01:45:27 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That's really got me thinking about the people I hang out with the most well, what it's. 

01:45:30 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
What it's making you think, though, is how do you get to be in my five and my five's full? 

01:45:35 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
so I you're gonna have to start your own five well, when you started that story I story I was thinking I was hanging around with bad people. I was thinking, you know, you got Spanky and Chinese, mike and Luke. I'm like, okay, you know, yeah, terrible people, I'm just joking. 

01:45:50 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
But you can let Johnny know there is room in the five for him, because I know he's a winner. 

01:45:55 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
He's not big on social media, though I don't know how you guys are going to interact all that much. 

01:46:00 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I've talked to him a couple of times elsewhere in a different manner. I guess I don't want to say much more than that, but oh, that reminds me of a story. You've got to hear this story. This is funny. We can wrap up with this one. 

01:46:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But I told you I'm the host here. Scott, when I want to wrap up, we'll wrap up. 

01:46:18 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Okay, well, I don't know how long we've been running, but this story is worth listening to. I get a message on Spay Gods. Right, it's a direct message from somebody huge in our gambling space. He's not sports better traditionally, but he's huge. And I looked at that message and I said there's no way it can be this guy. I sent him a message back and I said hey, I think we're going to have to take this one to the phones for me to be able to help you with this. Did we have to go to the phone? No, but I wanted to hear his voice and actually be able to get to talk to him one time in my life. It was a beautiful experience. But I can't give away customer names at Spank Odds. 

01:47:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
No, no, don't expect you to do that, I would never expect that. 

01:47:07 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
Because Spanky sends me messages sometimes like do you know who you were talking to? That's so-and-so's relative. I said how would I know? So they must be bearding in to Spank Odds. That's how you. That's when you know you've made it when people have to beard into you. That's my story for you. 

01:47:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We'll end it off here. If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your former self? 

01:47:37 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
What advice would I give to your former self? What advice would I give? Probably the best advice I would give was try to not hang out with the negative people as long as I did. That was a huge mistake. Getting to sports I wish I'd have got to that 10 years earlier. I wish that wouldn't have been this ledge of my life. I wish it had been the beginning part, because the sports is very profitable. But I also know this Sports is going to go away and this might be something that I can get some response from people. 

01:48:13
I think where I'm going is eSports. Where I want to go is eSports, but I don't have an eSports friend. The problem I have with esports is this Imagine I'm playing a video game with somebody I know and you're dumb enough to bet on it because I'm going to know who's going to win before that game starts, because if I know my opponent, bet the dog because we are. So that's probably the thing I would think of the most is wishing I would have got to sports quicker because, like I said, I think the next thing is esports. 

01:48:46 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That's where I'm trying to go probably gonna have an episode on esports at some time over the summer, uh, with a with a big name guest there, but I I tend to agree no one's really cracked that yet. From a sportsbook perspective, I mean, esports is growing. Esports betting it is, but not at the same level. So I'm very interested in that topic of conversation. His name is Scott. You can follow him on Twitter at Vegas Horse Pools. If you're looking for a proxy for any of the Las Vegas contests, check out his website, vegashorsepoolscom. And, of course, we highly recommend Spank Odds. If, if you're a serious bettor, you're looking for a real-time odd screen, make sure you check out Spank Odds as well. And I mean, if you're lucky enough, you'll deal with Scott one day on something. 

01:49:31 - VegasHorsePools (Guest)
I appreciate that. 

01:49:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
All right, scott. Episode number 150 of Circles Off is completed. If you did enjoy the interview here, make sure you smash that like button down below. If you're not subbed yet here on Circles Off, which is over 50% of the people watching right now, make sure you hit that subscribe button down below. Helps us monetize our channel and grow it as well. We'll be back next week with another guest interview. This has been Circles Off episode number 150.