00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Do you think if you had done none of this publicly and this was all behind the scenes do you think that there would have been a different ruling? Probably not. Come on, let's go. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 156, right here, part of the Hammer Banding Network and presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook. I'm Rob Pizzola, joined by Johnny from BetSnap. How's it going, rob? How are you? 

00:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm okay. How's it going, rob? How are you? Yeah, martingale, better struggling. 

00:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, you're here back to back week and I'm on next week too, yikes yep yikes. 

00:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But you know what, though? 

00:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you gotta keep going and you'll eventually catch at some point, at some point or another. You, you know, you use the martingale strategy I'm gonna be going on vacation this summer at some point so it's not planned right now, but I'll be off an episode, for sure that guy's gonna be risking like two and a half million to get his money back that's the, that's the. 

00:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
At some point you're on a run, you're on a hot run. 

00:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You're on a hot run. I'm pretty tired, I'm not gonna lie. I was, uh. I was away for the weekend my 12-year wedding anniversary. I drove back from montreal yesterday in during the tornado uh warning. I would highly suggest to people out there maybe I should have saved this for minus EV. But I'll say now, if you hear of a tornado warning you probably shouldn't drive in that weather, like maybe just spend another day there, wait till it dies off. Holy shit, the visibility on that drive back for a couple hours was very, was very, very dicey man, yeah no good, you have to toss the autopilot on for that one yeah, we're looking uh forward to uh toronto betting meetup. 

01:34
Are you heading to that? Are you going? Well, I'm, I'm going. Um, peter ling, the organizer great dude, love the guy. Message him every now and then. We chat about sports. I run into him at conferences, but, uh, I have to go to get a picture with pisky to make sure that people know that there's really not, uh, a beef. We gotta gotta bury that, I think, yeah you should go. 

01:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm gonna be there too. I'll go grab a, grab a bite and uh talk to some other sports bettors. 

02:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Always, uh, always a treat, always a pleasure yeah, it's like a, a very, very, very miniature version of bet bash, I would say. But like networking, it's in the city. See how people can help one another out. It's always, it's always pretty good yeah, absolutely so. 

02:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, we'll be there, uh, tonight, and then maybe we'll plug the next one ahead of time, in case anyone's from montario wants to go see, because this is definitely not coming out. By the way, this betting meetup is not the day that. 

02:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, the day that this video comes out is not the day this meeting will have happened already. 

02:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So yeah, next time we'll actually do a better job of plugging it so that we can more people can show up. 

02:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And speaking of plugging it, Pinnacle Sportsbook. Plugging it because they're the world's sharpest sportsbook and available to bettors in Ontario. Both myself and Johnny bet at Pinnacle. I've been betting there for a very long time. I would advocate it to every single bettor out there because of the low margins, low vig, Very easy sportsbook to use. A lot of enhancements coming down the pipeline as well, which I'm hearing about from the team. So make sure you check it out If you're in Ontario. Use code HAMMER to sign up if you do so and of course, you must be 19 plus not available in the US. And, as always, please play responsibly. 

03:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
And if you support us on Circles Off here and you support Pinnacle, then consider buying the Circles Off X Pinnacle merch collab that Rob is actually just in the process of releasing. I'm going to say it every week until he actually puts one out, and then one week it'll be serious. But, rob, we have a guest this week. He's on to tell a story which I think a lot of you might find very interesting. 

03:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, further ado. Our guest this week is no stranger here to the Circles Off audience, having appeared on a few episodes in the past. He's a fellow Canadian, an actuary and a gambler. You can follow him on Twitter at PlusEVAnalytics. Matt Buckhalter now joins us here on Circles Off. Matt, how's it going? I'm great. How are you guys? Well, you know what I'm doing. Okay, but we were reviewing what we're going to talk about today and Johnny was very fired up off air beforehand here, so I don't know that he's actually in a good mental place right now. 

04:12 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I am livid on behalf of Matt here, I guess, so we'll let him get into it I can't wait to get into it. It's not my story to tell, but yeah, you know what let's just get into? Get into it, matt. So you're here to tell a story. Um, go ahead, floor is yours all right, um, yeah, so. 

04:30 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So those of you who have been reading my blog and my twitter or are familiar with the story, but understanding that, uh, this might be reaching a new audience, which is great um, this concerns some regular season win total bets that I placed, uh, about a year and a half ago, so the 2022 uh nfl season and I had been doing a lot of modeling, a lot of origination of nfl season win total bets, so I made them at a whole bunch of different places and one of them was caesar's. 

05:06
Now fast forward to I think it was the second last week of the season the uh unfortunate damar hamlin incident, um, where, where the game was postponed, ended up being canceled. I think it was in the second quarter. Um, and, and you know, for the sake of the standings and all the stats and then bets and everything, the game was treated as if it never happened. So the bills and bangles both played 16 games that season instead of the usual 17. So, um, you know, thankfully, damar hamlin was okay and went on to win. Uh comeback player the oh no, he didn't win comeback player no, he lost. 

05:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Wow, everyone who had that bet yeah, oh no uh, he almost won comeback player of the year. 

05:58 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
But anyway, back to my bets. I had a whole bunch of Bills and Bengals season win total futures at a bunch of places, including Caesars. Now most of the bets in question would have lost regardless of the Bills-Bengals result. For example, I think I had a Bills all under that was just dead, no matter whether they played that 17th game or not. But one of those bets actually was live, it was cincinnati to win exactly 13 games. It would have paid 40 to 1. They finished 12 and 4. So, depending on how that last game played out, for the sake of argument you could say 50, 50, 50 shot at cashing a 40 to1 ticket. 

06:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
At the time they actually were live favorites, six and a half point favorites in the game. 

06:48 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Oh well, you got a better memory than me, so thank you for that. 

06:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I had a couple of Bengals bets I was a bit sour about as well. 

06:56 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So all of these tickets that right on the bet slip must play 17 games for action. I think after COVID books got very, very uh specific about that because no one knew what was going to happen was covid going to impact some of the games. So to protect themselves, all these tickets said must play 17 games for action. Uh, also in the house rules of caesar's uh, caesar's house rules, under NFL season win total futures. It says there as well, teams must play 17 games for action. So I was fully expecting all these bets to get voided, the one that was live as well as the ones that were not, because that's what the rule says. So season ends and they grade the Cincinnati exactly 13 wins, the one that was live as a void, okay fine, and they grade all the other ones that were not live as losses. So, of course, first step is you contact customer service and you have a bunch of escalations and discussions and they don't know what you're talking about and have to escalate and get back to you. I'm sure you guys have been through this at different sports books over your your careers. So, okay, part, that's part of the deal. You know you patient. I wait for their supervisor to get back to me, um, and eventually what they tell me is they've made the decision to grade, uh, all the bets that were not impacted by the cancelled game as wins or losses, as the case may be, and all of the bets where the outcome was uncertain pending that cancelled game, as pushes or voids. And on the surface that seems like a decent, fair thing to do, especially if you had something like Bills over 10.5, sees wins and they finish 13-3. You would have been pretty pissed off for that bet to have been voided, but the rules of the bet should take precedence over any sense of fairness or what's deserved. You've probably had some baseball totals and rain shortened games, exactly um that that would have been impacted by the same thing. Over eight and a half, they scored 15 runs and the game was shortened by it, by rain and and you know win or loss they avoid your bet because that's what the rules say to do. Right, shit happens. That's part of the game. 

09:23
You know you play by the rules. Sometimes it helps you, sometimes it hurts you, but you know there's no ambiguity about what the rule is in in those kind of situations. Um, so some people might might be listening to this or reading this and saying, hey, you lost those bets fair and square and now you're trying to angle, shoot your way into a, into a refund. And I disagree with that for two reasons. Um, one is that books do not think twice about using their house rules as a weapon when it benefits them, right. It's come up a lot in the context of limiting betters or you know all kinds of things, that the house rules are like our gossip, right? So that has to go both ways whether it benefits them or it benefits you, you play by the rules, you play by the rules. 

10:13
More importantly, if you think about the exact season win, total markets, 17 games in a season, so zero through 17,. You've got 18 possible outcomes you can bet on for each team, right? 16 out of those 18 outcomes would have resolved as a loss. According to the way they chose to to um grade these bets, 2 out of the 18 would have resolved as a push. So cincinnati won what they went 13 games. So I think 13 and 14 would have graded as a push because the outcomes were uncertain. There's a 12 12 game win. 

10:50
They went 12 or 4 yeah, I'm sorry, 12, yeah, 12, 12 and 13 would have graded as a uh, as a void, and everything else would have graded as a loss. 

11:00
So this choice of how to resolve these bets actually creates a windfall for them Not really on the over-under, I mean, it's still against their own rules, but at least it's quote-unquote fair. But specifically for the exact season win totals, this way to grade it really creates even more than a free roll. It creates a windfall for them because two out of 18 get refunded, 16 out of 18, they just pocket the money. Another way of looking at it is if they were going to pay out the fair value on my 40 to one ticket, even if we given the benefit of the doubt, even though they were favorites and assume it was 50-50, they should have paid me, like you know, plus 1950, or or um, or use their their uh dead heat rule or something you know. Uh, you can't say that a void is a fair settlement on the one that was live and also say a loss is a fair settlement on on the one that lost, right right, yep, so to. 

12:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
To recap, in my in opinion, this is how I was thinking about this story when I first heard it. Obviously, matt was wrong because the house rule stated one thing, you receive the other. They just didn't take it into account. Pretty unacceptable for a regulated book to be doing that. But the major issue obviously is the fact that it was an exact season win, total market, and you know they're obviously paying out. Like Matt said, they're paying out no money and they're just collecting people's money in that, not even paying out an outcome. No debt, heat rules, nothing like that. But initially what I had thought was listen, these sports books a lot of times this might go to a trader, might go to a management. They don't really understand the situation the way that maybe they should. I'm sure it gets sorted out, you know, if you pursue it completely right. That was my initial thought was this is a tricky situation. It's call it once in a lifetime, obviously, but it'll happen again. 

12:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But game was you know my? 

12:58 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
my thinking at the time was okay, it might take a day, I take a week, might even take a month. Oh well, like I'm going to get my money back eventually, it's just a matter of time. I just have to be patient, wait for the right person, who knows what they're doing, to get their hands on this file and it's all going to be okay, yeah. 

13:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So what happened next when you, when you're at it with support there? 

13:19 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
All right, so support wasn't going to help, so my next step was to contact the regulator, which is iGaming Ontario, and it took me a while to jump through all the hoops that they needed me to jump through before I was officially allowed to engage them, like their rules are. I have to be careful. I don't want to get this wrong with something. Like you know, you have to lodge a formal complaint with the sports book. You have to either get an answer that's unsatisfactory or go some certain period of time without getting an answer at all, at which point iGaming Ontario will pick up the phone and talk to you. Other than that, forget it. Don't even talk to me until you've gone through blah, blah, blah steps. 

14:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Now dealing with customer support and going through that doesn't qualify. If someone explicitly states to you this is the ruling that we've made at a management level, you have to go to another step above that. 

14:14 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
No, you have to. So what they told me is there is. It says somewhere in Caesar's House rules to file an official complaint, you have to send an email to this address. So I hadn't done that, I didn't even realize that that was a thing, um, until the person from my gaming and they were very nice about it they just said, okay, here's what you have to do, and then you know, either it'll get resolved or it won't. Then you can come back to us. Okay, fine, so I did that, jumped through all the hoops, followed all the rules, you know. Eventually, know, eventually, they decided, okay, they're going to open an investigation or they're going to look at it. Okay, I'm thinking finally, like this is the last step, I'm going to get my money back, we're going to be done. 

15:00
A few weeks later, I get an email very short email, it would have been more than a couple sentences from some agent, customer service agent at iGaming Ontario, saying they've spoken to Caesars and they are satisfied with how the bets have been resolved. That's it, no further explanation. So after I got over my initial shock, how could this possibly be happening? Um, I I responded. I said okay, like can you give me some kind of a rationale or an explanation or cause. I don't know what they said to Caesars. I don't know what Caesars said to them, right Um, you know, I don't know if, if, if they were lying or misrepresenting like I wasn't there when they had this conversation. 

15:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Shouldn't you be included on that conversation in some capacity or have some sort of visibility into what Caesar stated? 

15:52 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Well, we're going to get there in a few minutes. But yeah, I think, had this been like a formal hearing, like I should have been allowed to testify and tell my side of the story, not like a closed door meeting between those two parties, but for at this point it is what it is. So I I responded to I game and said he can give me a little more here, like give me some some kind of explanation. No, we can't do that. You have to go to caesar's and ask them. 

16:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh well, I think that defeats the purpose of the regulatory body altogether. 

16:27 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Yeah. So this is, this is the best part of the whole thing, because to this day, I don't know what was said between my gaming and Caesars, but there was a point in my discussions with Caesars on the topic where they pointed to a rule in a different section of the Caesars NFL rules, and this rule says all bets are action if 55 minutes are played. Okay, all bets are action if 55 minutes are played. Now, first of all, this rule is obviously meant to apply to single game bets. Yes, right, if there's a lightning storm after 58 minutes and the game is canceled, that stands Like. This is if I had had a single game bet on the DeMar Hampton game, 55 minutes weren't played. You know, then you know, all bets, the bets on that game went out of action. Very, very simple, very intuitive, very common rule. 

17:25
Tell me simple, very intuitive, very common rule tell me they said they try to tell you is 55 minutes in the season had been played. No, they tried to tell me okay, go ahead, go ahead. That's exactly that's exactly what what they're so, oh my god, yeah I thought it was going to be. 

17:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
They said they were going to say like well, 55 minutes was reached in every single one of these games. Therefore, we're going to rule that these games are fine, but 55, 55 minutes in a season, 55 minutes of the season were played, which is obviously absurd. 

17:51 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
But even if you get past how ridiculous that is, there are a couple of and I apologize for going kind of wonky legal on your audience, but there's a couple of basic principles of law that apply. One of them says that if there's a conflict between two rules, the more specific one overrides the more general. So this 55 minute rule was in the NFL wager section. The 17 games for action was in the subset, the NFL season win totals subsection of the nfl section. So it was more. It was a a more specific application and this is this is like law 101, um, that whenever there's a conflict, the more specific rule should override the more general. 

18:40
Another basic principle of law says that if one party drafts a contract and there's no negotiation of the terms, any ambiguities in the contract should be interpreted against the drafting party. So when you sign up at Caesars Sportsbook, give them all your information. There's little blocks that says do you accept terms of service? And you have no opportunity to negotiate terms of service or say hey, I want this changed or this stricken, like it's a take it or leave it kind of deal, and this is called a contract of adhesion. In legal, like when you go to school for actuarial science sorry for the aside here they make you study a whole bunch of different areas of everything and they actually make you study a little bit of contract law. So this is sort of how I do this that this whole principle applied where, if I'm agreeing to their rules, as opposed to it being a mutually negotiated set of rules, the burden is on them for the rules to be as clear as possible. And to the extent the rules are not clear, that's their problem, not mine. 

19:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Make sense. The rules, to be honest, are pretty clear here, and I'm just going to, as a guy who has been betting sports for a while, must play 18 games. Sorry, must play 17 games. It pretty well means you must play 17 games, Otherwise the bets are going to be void. 

20:05 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
There's there's not that much. End of the course. 

20:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, all this other stuff is like yes, the 55 minute thing is an absolute joke, that's obviously for single games. Like is the premise that if, if every team played one game in the season and then all of a sudden the nfl season got wiped out for some reason or another, that all the bets are now going to be settled under those rules Like it doesn't make any sense. Anyone who understands not even sports betting, but just like how the NFL works, obviously that rule makes zero sense. 

20:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like it's ridiculous. If you bet a player prop and it says player must start for action and he doesn't start, then the bet's no action. 

20:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But and this is the point of the rules and we'll keep going through this but, like I made a, I made some mistakes on Super Bowl betting the anthem this year, where I was not clear enough or didn't really understand the rules of specific sports books that I bet at and the anthem was graded differently by different books in the space. Was there multiple Braves? There were multiple Braves at the end and some sports books had specific rules. You know where the timing of the anthem would end at a certain time. So there was two different times for the anthem this year. And guess what that's on me. Like I own that at the end of the day. I just went to the house rules afterwards. I'm like well, actually it's very clearly stated here how they're going to grade it and I have no recourse and I move on in this situation like it's. It is, to johnny's point, very clearly stated how the bets should be settled, like 17 games, like that's. That's as clear as day this. 

21:44 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I don't know how long this recording this podcast is going to be, but this should have been a 15 second conversation. Must play 17 games for action. How many games did they play? 16 done like. 

21:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That should have been the beginning and the end of right out of curiosity, did you play these same um futures at other sports books? 

22:05 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So I actually I had futures at other sports books, but not involving the Bills or Benz, so all I had to go on in terms of how other books rated. This was just hearsay from other people and, to be honest, I can't even remember because this was now going on a year and a half ago what they said, but I'm pretty sure that the approach Caesars took was not the approach anybody else took. If anybody out there is listening who has experience with other books and how they might have graded this, please let me know. But to my recollection, this was a uniquely Caesars problem. 

22:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But to my recollection this was a uniquely Caesars problem. I was able to independently confirm with some other sportsbooks that they were not graded in the same manner that Caesars did. So that'll answer your question. 

22:56 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I guess they just void everything as consulting for sportsbooks. 

22:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But yeah, they just voided everything in those cases, even bets that had already won or already lost. 

23:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The rules are the rules, but you realize it's just as likely to impact you either way, by the way. So for anyone saying like oh, you got unlucky, you got lucky like one one time, this is gonna happen, you're gonna get lucky. Next time, you're gonna get unlucky. 

23:16 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Yada, yada, it's gonna, it's gonna even match, yes, but not on the exact win season totals. There wasn't there. 

23:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No the exact win season totals just literally needs to be void. And you know what, if the sports book wants to pull a good guy move, they can say we're going to pay out both 12 and 13. Kind of the way they do the you know the bad beat refunds. It's not obligated to, but that's probably more likely to happen than them to do what they did in this situation by what they did in this situation. By the way, a lot of people ask me why I don't play futures bets. 

23:44 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I'm not saying that this is why Don't let this dissuade you. 

23:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm not saying this is why I don't play futures, but a lot of ambiguity in these rules. 

23:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Next week's episode we do have a futures bettor. We'll talk a little bit more about that, but we'll continue on down this path. Matt, and actually, before we do, if you're comfortable sharing, you can tell me to F off, but are you comfortable sharing the amount that you stood to win or, in this case, I guess, not lose? 

24:12 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Yeah, so all the documents are available at my website, pluscvanalyticscom, and the actual wording of the. We'll get there, but the lawsuit is there. It's there. So the total amount was two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. So I had twenty three hundred dollars in total bets fifty bucks on the one that the, the cincinnati one, was live that did get for it, and the other 2250 um bets that deserve to have been voided but weren't. So the actual amount in dispute of bets that should have been voided but weren't was $2,250, which in the grand scheme of things, is not a huge amount of money. It sucks to lose, but it's not like a life-changing amount of money that I just couldn't get over. So what pissed me off more was just the same thing that I sensed from the two of you that, just the injustice of it all. 

25:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm going to ask for a speculative answer here because you don't know this one way or another, but do you think that the grading came in this manner because of the amount? Like you know, I could potentially see and this is just my own personal opinion someone look at the overall portfolio and say, well, you know what it's, 2,200 bucks. He's going to be unhappy, but he's not going to make a big stink about it for this amount of money. That's just my pure speculation. 

25:32 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I don't know how you feel I'm going to say no, because I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only person making bets in Caesars' entire portfolio, across all the places they operated, so there was a lot more at stake than just my $2,250. Right, I have no idea and I will not speculate on what their futures book looked like in terms of how much they stood to win or lose for any different grading option. Got it All right? 

26:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So you contact iGaming Ontario. They have a separate conversation with Caesars. They say we're satisfied with the way Caesars has graded this. What recourse do you now have as a better to try to recoup your losses? 

26:15 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Yeah, so I mean, a lot of people would have just let it go at this point and in hindsight, that's probably what I should have done, especially because this was the end of my Caesars account. But I was pretty mad at that point and, like I said, the money sucks to lose, but it's more the injustice, the sense of being wrong. So the next thing I decided to do was sue them in small claims court. And yeah, so it actually isn't that hard to do. You don't need a lawyer in small claims court. So I didn't have to pay any legal fees. The filing fee is like a hundred bucks, but if you win, I think you can recover that cost from the other side. 

27:02
So the actual financial outlay of doing this wasn't a lot. Yes, there was a decent amount of time I had to put into it in terms of okay, you have to state your claim in a very clear and concise way, you have to print out all the screenshots and the bet slips as evidence and you have to lay it all out in a way that a judge can read it and understand, because most judges probably have no experience in this industry and they'll have no idea what I'm talking about. And, um, you know their their first inclination probably just be to say well, I gaming ontario are the experts, so who am I to overrule what they said? So I kind of had to lay out my case in like here. Here's why I gave me was was wrong in a way that a lay person can understand roughly. 

27:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
How much time did you put into assembling that case? 

27:56 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
oh boy, I don't remember, mostly because it was so long ago, but it was probably a good uh, 10 to 20 hours of work, just, you know, compiling everything um just revenge. 

28:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He just wanted revenge well at this point. 

28:12 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
But that's, that was kind of my undoing. 

28:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We'll get to that for a chance at retribution I mean, I did I, I wanted, I wanted justice well, I'm happy you did it, because I I I'm happy that I now know what what the result was, which I'll let you get into you're lucky I went through it so you didn't have to, um, but, yeah, and I, so I I did it, um, and I I shared the story on on my twitter. 

28:39 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Um, just, you know, because I thought this was an interesting story, the same way that you two seem to be interested in this. You know, I thought a the same way that you two seem to be interested in this, you know, I thought a lot of my audience would just want to be. Not that I wanted to go up there and badmouth Caesars, but I just wanted to tell the fact of the story and let people kind of form their own opinions about who's right, who's wrong. So, you know, for like the 18th time, I thought this is going to be great, they're going to get my lawsuit. This is the. 

29:09
I had one other prior experience in small claims court and that's when I used to live in a condo and, uh, my spot in the parking garage was directly underneath the swimming pool and there was a leak and this white crap dripped all over my car and the the condo board refused to pay for it. It until I served them with a statement of claim in small claims court and they said, ok, we're done, we're paid. I had pictures like obviously something dripped from the ceiling and ruined my car and they were going to pay for it. So as soon as I served my statement of claim, they paid me Done. I thought that was going to happen, that somebody was going to pay for it. So as soon as I served my statement of claim, they paid me Done. 

29:47
I thought that was going to happen, that somebody was going to get this lawsuit. They would read it. They'd be like all right, this guy is absolutely right, let's pay him out and be done with it. Obviously, that's not what happened. What happened was I got a defense filed and it was filed. They actually hired a lawyer from a firm called Blake's, which is a top tier corporate offer here in Toronto. So again, I don't want to speculate what they paid in legal fees, but it would not have been cheap for them Above the $2,200,. 

30:25
You think I would have to guess, so, even though I don't know for sure. 

30:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, what we pay in legal fees for the hammer. I can tell you that this is above $2,200, very likely. 

30:35 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So you know you can speculate on why they might have done that, but you know I'll leave that to you. I don't want to say anything that will get me in trouble to you. I don't want to say anything that will get me in trouble. So they filed a defense and the court system here in Ontario is, I think they're still like bogged down from having been shut down during COVID for all those couple of years, because this took a long time to sort of work its way through the system. And we're know we're here in the spring of 2024, and a trial date still hadn't even been set yet, like that. That's how backlogged the court system is here. So, okay, I mean I kind of expected that going. Nothing I could do about it, just kind of wait it out. So their lawyer actually filed a motion before we could even set a trial date to get the whole thing thrown out. They said this is an abusive process. I'm not going to get into the legal of it, but this lawsuit has no merit. There shouldn't even be a trial. We're filing a motion to get the whole thing thrown out. 

31:48
And I can summarize their argument for doing that. It really had three parts. First is I've already gone to the regulator, I've lost my case there, so I'm not entitled to a second chance. You get one kick in the can and there is some legal validity to that principle, but only in the case of a prior judicial decision. So a court of law or an administrative tribunal, something like a landlord tenant board, for example, where you go to a hearing, you state your case, there's a ruling and if you don't like it, there are ways to appeal it. It's called judicial review. Review. It's a lot more complicated and expensive than small claims court. Um, but you can't just say, hey, I don't like this, I'm going to sue you in small claims court because that's, you know you don't, you don't get two chances. 

32:39
Um, you know, obviously my problem with that was this decision was from a closed door session where I had no idea what was said between the parties. Right, there was, there was not even a, a decision to appeal. It was just, hey, guess what we're done here, like, take a hike, so you know in. In my opinion, it did not have the the um officialness required to satisfy that um in, you know, it's already decided you can't sue. But that was their argument, that it was. Their second argument was that there is a clause in their terms and conditions that says all disputes must go to arbitration. So you can't sue us, you have to, and I've never been to arbitration. There's a whole set of procedures and fees that you have to pay. They get an arbitrator to decide your case. 

33:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You were never a restricted free agent. 

33:34 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Not yet. Not yet. Maybe one day. I didn't want to do that, but anyway, their arbitration clause had a very clear exception, and that exception was for disputes related to the settlement of wages. 

33:47
Now, I think they put that in there because they want me to go to iGaming instead of arbitration, because that would be less expensive for them, and they actually had an affidavit from their VP of compliance that said oh, that rule is just there. It's meant to apply to things like technical malfunctions on the website, but that's not what it says. I don't care what you think it's meant to be, for you go by the letter of what it says. And it says disputes relating to the settlement of wagers are excluded from that arbitration clause. The third thing that they came out with and this is maybe where there's one silver lining out of this, because I'm sure some law student at Blake's is now a much better gambler than they ever were before because they went through my entire catalog, articles that have been written about me in the gambling media, podcast appearances I've done, courses I've taught and they came to the conclusion that I'm doing this solely as a publicity stunt to get clicks. 

35:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Wow, okay stunt to get clicks, wow, okay, I mean listen for the people watching. I have a pre-existing relationship with matt um, and this is just my person, like that. If you know matt personally, this is like the complete opposite of of anything he would ever want to do, like gain more publicity by putting himself out there. Uh it's, it's ridiculous, having known you previously. 

35:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, I know why he's doing it. 

35:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He feels robbed. Yeah, exactly, he wants justice. 

35:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He's a petty guy and he feels robbed. He doesn't care about the money. I know for a fact he does not care about the $2,300. I do care about the money. All right, there you go. 

35:41 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
And I do enjoy telling the story, don't get me wrong. And I enjoy discussing these issues and I enjoy being a consumer advocate for players. But you know, in my opinion, that shouldn't invalidate the claim. There's no gag order here. This is a matter that is of interest to the betting public. I have a bona fide interest in consumer advocacy and you know I'm not slandering anyone. This is just. You know, I'm going on podcasts, I'm writing articles. I'm saying here's what happened. You know, here's my view on it, here's their view on it. We're going to trial. I hope I win, and you know, and that's that's, that's really. 

36:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's all I said they're gonna watch this episode back afterwards and be like I told you, this guy's looking for publicity. By the way, we reached out to matt separately. He had no idea this was coming. We johnny was literally furious when he saw matt post the result. 

36:42 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'll tell you guys why after, but anyways can continue. There's one last step. I guess what happened. 

36:47 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So what happened is the judge granted their motion and the case was dismissed, and that's really the end of it, like it's over. I lost Anything you can do now. I mean, I've talked to some pretty smart legal minds and they've said that if I were to appeal this I would have a good chance of winning. But at this point that's just going to cost more money and more time and at this point I'm kind of sick of it. 

37:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But you're so close, matt, you've gone down this path already Dark. Knight, Matt I can pay the appeal for you. Do you want to sponsor my appeal? Close, matt, you're, you're, you're. You've gone down this path. The dark night I will pay I can I can pay some cost out. 

37:28 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Do you want to sponsor my, uh, my appeal? You know what? 

37:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
imagine like the hammer you said it, rob said it if we air this, he's got to do it. 

37:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It can't be that much. You got to sponsor it honestly. 

37:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It just feels like you're so close at this point, you've gone through all these steps and you're you've gotten legal advice that says if you appeal, you probably will win. I don't know. 

37:50 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I understand it costs money. It wasn't legal advice, so this is just conversations. With friends Got it. 

37:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I know people who are. It's not legal advice. 

37:58 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Yeah, because I don't want to get anybody in trouble for like, giving unofficial legal advice. That's not what happened. I was just talking to friends who happened to have expertise in this area and they said, hey, they didn't agree with the way the ruling came down. I'm sick of it. Here I am talking about it again, but I think the aggravation. At this point I won't close any doors. I'll reserve my right to change my mind on this, but at this point I think I'm ready to let it go. 

38:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What did you like hope to achieve with this? Was it simply getting the bets changed? Or was there a part of you that continued pushing through this because of wanting to enact change like? 

38:50 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
just be honest with us I mean, I did want the money back. Like this is, this is and I know people who, who are in the betting world, kind of get they get desensitized to to relatively large amounts of money. Um, you know, I'm lucky enough to be in a financial position that $2,200 one way or the other is not going to change my life, but I'd still rather have the money than not have the money. So I absolutely didn't want the money back and feel like I was entitled legally to it. But I also thought that if I were to win this case, it would open the door for others, because I'm sure there are others who were similarly impacted by this and I. 

39:32
My hope was that other people would see how victorious I was in this and say, hey, I had a bet that should have been voided as well. You know, then they, they go and try and try and get theirs and hopefully it would be easier for them than it was for me. And did I want to be part of a story? Yeah, to be honest, I did. And this is probably my biggest regret in the whole thing is I made comments. Like you know, if they offer to settle but they make me sign a nondisclosure agreement. I won't accept any offer like that, because I did want to tell the story. 

40:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So maybe he was looking for publicity. 

40:14 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I mean their lawyers picked up on that and the judge did use it against me in the ruling. 

40:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Wow, do you think if you had done none of this publicly and this was all behind the scenes, do you think that there would have been a different ruling? 

40:30 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Probably not. It's tough to say. I don't think it would have changed the whole. Oh, you went to iGaming, you're not allowed to have a second kick at the camp. It seems like that was the primary argument that they had, and they just sort of tacked on this publicity thing. You never know, um, you know in an alternate universe how things would have played out, but I, I it seems unlikely that it would have turned out differently now johnny was furious. 

40:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
so I'll tell you why. I was furious because the whole grounds for regulation in any industry, but specifically with the sports betting one, there was already offshore sports betting here in Ontario and you kind of had the whole well, what if something happens? You have no regulatory body to go to. They could just, you know it's a scam, they're going to do this and this and this and this. 

41:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And honestly, we use that messaging here on Circles Off because we believed it to be true, like we really did. We did an episode on regulation in Ontario why you should bet through regulated sports books, and I still suggest people go through the regulated sports book avenue. But a big reason for that was you know if you're betting offshore I mean a site could disappear tomorrow and you have no recourse. There's nothing you can do about it. In the regulated sportsbook world it's very different. 

41:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We talked about this If they misgrade your bet offshore and they message you saying ha-ha, we misgraded your bet too bad. 

41:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You can't do anything about it. 

41:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well no, you can't even do anything about it, right. But now why I'm so upset is it turns out same deal, they're regulated right. Upset is it turns out same deal and they're regulated right. Because here's a scenario where, just to give a quick 25 second recap, guy places a bet, clearly against the, the rules of the thing, he should have been voided. His money should have been returned back. Clearly, anyone who's ever bet anything would understand that. And there's no, it's not up for debate. 

42:22
Goes to iGaming, goes to the, the sports book, they say f off. Goes to the regulator they say do all this work, go ahead. And then says nah, we don't side with you, why not? I don't know, can't tell you. And then he he's like okay, fine, I'll go to court then, because now with the regulated system, I'm allowed to go to court and they say uh, we don't even, we're not, we're actually not even going to give you a trial. That's how little, that's how far away I'd say you were from getting this money, because I know Rob's like he's pretty close, but I'd say you were very, very far away from getting this money. You didn't even get a trial, so didn't even get my day in court. 

43:00
Didn't even get your day in court after paying the fee, taxpaying citizen here, whatever couldn't, couldn't get it done. So I was a little bit upset because that's not how it's supposed to go, but at the end of the day it is what it is. 

43:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm in the same boat as you, um it? It like, if it, if it happened to me, I would be infuriated. And that's not to say like I'm not. You know, I do feel for you, matt, but like it is ridiculous. It's ridiculous because there's, as sports bettors, there are very clear terms that are laid out to us by sports books, like we have to respect the house rules in our betting. 

43:36
You know, this wasn't like a situation where Matt tried to like angle shoot some sports book and pick something out and be like, oh, I'm gonna place these types of bets because if this happens, then it's gonna work in my favor. He just, he just ran some math models, play some bets that he thought had edges and under the terms of those bets, he should have been refunded. It's plain and simple. It's it's I mean, and and that's what's. That's why I'm really upset about the whole situation, because it's one thing for the sports book to say, no, we're not going to do this. They interpret things however they want to, but then you are supposed to be afforded that ability to go to a higher body. You're supposed to be able to understand that, and that part should have been on gaming. 

44:20 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I fault them a lot more than I fault Caesars or the Small Flames court. 

44:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm with you. The court system has years of precedence, I'm sure. But in this scenario, what's the difference between you just messaging on your offshore book on the security chat and then saying, sorry, your account's suspended and there's nothing we can do, and then you saying why? And then saying I can't disclose this information, Sorry, the decision is final. It's the same thing. 

44:45 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
It's a lot to ask a judge to overrule even though they legally should have, in my opinion but it's a lot to ask them to say, hey, these regulators are experts in this and they decided one thing. 

44:58
You have the pretty big burden of proof, which I think I met. But anyway, I think that the regulatory regime here in Ontario seems to me like it's a very hands-off kind of approach which is pros and cons. I mean, this is the reason you can bet on elections, you can bet on Oscars, you can bet on how many hot dogs are eaten at the Rogers Center on Goonie Dog Night, which is a real thing you can do here in Ontario that I don't think any US jurisdiction allows. So that's the nice thing about a very kind of hands-off regulatory approach. But the flip side is, you know the term regulatory capture gets thrown around a lot and you know a lot of people who have commented on the case have used that phrase and I mean again, I don't know, I wasn't there to know who said what to whom, but it seems like this wasn't necessarily heard on the merits of the case. 

46:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What are the chances that when nfl win totals are posted at caesars this year? Well, you already had that last year, oh yeah, being one in between. What were there changes in the wording last year? 

46:16 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
there actually were. Uh, there were changes in the wording last year. I'm pretty sure there were. At caesars I think there were a lot of places. Um, to say now says must play 17 games per action unless a result has been already determined, or something like that. 

46:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Which I think is the logical rule that should be in place. 

46:36 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
However, it wasn't the rule previously it wasn't the rule back then it's still. It's a free roll against you if you're betting individual win totals, but that's just. You know, it's such a event that you you don't really worry too much about it. Um, but yeah, that that that is the rule now. So I guess that is the legacy of this case the plus ev analytics rule, that's the plus ev analytics rule a lot of sports books. 

46:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If someone was going to go, like if someone had a similar situation happen to them now where they feel they were, um, unfairly ruled against by a sports book, uh for let's you know, let's say, a similar amount of money that's not considered life-changing but listen, let's give a specific scenario. 

47:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Let's say I had let's say you had five thousand dollars, yep on, uh, austin matthews, over three and a half shots on goal, and he got four shots on goal on nhlcom and on espncom, where they take them from. Yeah, and then you woke up in the morning and your bet was graded a loss. Yeah, you messaged support and they said we've graded this uh thing, this bet is a loss I, I'm like for what do, you do yeah, that's what like. 

47:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What advice would you give to a bet like is? Is it even worth the like? Do you feel it's even worth it to go through these who you know go down these paths nowadays? I mean, this is heavy topic matter for, but, like it, it really is defeating the for you to have lost this case well as a fellow, better like it is someone who tried and failed. 

48:03 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I don't think that really qualifies me to give advice to the next guy. So I mean I hope, hopefully was there anything you did Like? 

48:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
was there anything you did as a whole that you think negatively impacted your chances, or do you think you were just up against it the whole time? 

48:17 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I'm talking about it publicly, I think certainly didn't help. We discussed with the outcome of a different and you never know whether it would have, but it certainly didn't help my chances or the fact that I talked about it so much in public. Other than that, you know I probably could have pushed iGaming a little bit harder, not to say that they would have done anything. But you know, give, give me something in terms of a written notice of decision or at least something that I can use if I go to court and say, hey, here's exactly what happened and how it happened and how I disagree with it or how I think it's wrong. Um, you know, I really wasn't left with. I mean, I I filed the email from my gaming as evidence in the court case, but it didn't really say anything other than we're satisfied. 

49:09
Caesar's explanation I don't even know that explanation, what's? Um, so again, it's not like there was a hearing and I and I pled my case and they pled theirs and an impartial judge decided okay, if that had been the case, fine, but you know that that's, that's not what happened. And then for that to have been held against me in terms of, well, this is a prior decision and you can't try and overrule it. 

49:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I was not thrilled with with that outcome well, comment down below what you think on the case, if you think matt was wrong here, what you would have done. And and another thing is, comment if you, if you think that if you were wrong, you would actually now go through the trouble, because I, I don't know, I don't know if it's depending on the amount of money, it doesn't even seem worth it at this point now to even go through it, knowing that there's a precedence in the case that's has already lost. 

50:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think there's something about just generally fighting for yourself and you know the I think the word justice was thrown around earlier. 

50:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like it is, it is really upsetting would you go to the regulator if that? So that thing I just mentioned with, like, let's say, the matthew shots on goal, let's say you had five thousand dollars, so for me it's, and this is not. 

50:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is the truth. But it's not actually about the money, it's about the principle. So, yes, if I was very, very clearly wronged by a bet and the sportsbook refused to overturn that decision, I would go and I would make it public as well, like Matt did, even though it might work against me, because I just don't think that's fair and I would want to make an example of that particular sports book that wronged me. But this is it's extremely frustrating because it shows, in my opinion and I want to be very careful with the words that I use, but it shows either some level of what I would call corruption Maybe not like fully to that extent, but hey, caesars pays us a lot of money in tax money every year. They pay for their license. 

51:14
Yeah, we want to make them happy or it shows a level of what I would call incompetence or lack of education and that the regular, the body that's regulating sports betting, should understand sports betting. And very clearly, by this ruling I don't want to say in my opinion, you just don't understand sports betting if you cannot apply the basic house rules to how the bet is settled, plain and simple. So to me, that's what's so disheartening. It's either you have something going on behind the scenes of like, no, no, we don't want to these guys off because, hey, they're paying us a lot every year, we're making a lot off them being in Ontario, or there's just a lack of fundamental lack of understanding and like. 

52:03 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So you say it's disheartening, but I actually I agree with you, um, but I think that would be a good reason for the next person to actually try it at iGaming Ontario, because it's going to end up on the desk of somebody else next time and that somebody else might have a different understanding, or a better understanding of how this thing is supposed to work. So if we go with the they didn't understand how this all works. Explanation that's pretty much a crapshoot. Whoever's desk at iGaming Ontario this ends up on, and hopefully you get luckier than I did and you get a better outcome. That it's pretty much a crapshoot. Whoever's desk at iGaming Ontario this ends up on, and hopefully you get luckier than I did and and you get a better outcome well, it's not only that, like I don't think that somebody should not try because your case fell through, or or? 

52:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you know, I'll use the word failed, because you didn't get the result that you wanted. But at the end of the day, there's other positives, like maybe at some point, um, media picks it up in some capacity and it and it gains some steam, and like there are ways that to enact change, even though somebody, people, failed beforehand. So, um, yeah, it's a little bit upsetting, I mean, yeah, as we've gone through the story, I you know it goes back to what johnny said, like when you first posted it to twitter. There's obviously some people that don't like you, that are like oh, you know, you're only betting this amount of money, like why do you care? 

53:28 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
whatever, but there was a lot to me. I don't know, it's not everyone likes me there was a lot. 

53:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, people especially love the, the bird pictures now, and the videos as well. Those are big hits on twitter. But uh, there, there was like a large portion of us that are like yeah, this is very easily, you know, like you're very easily gonna win this, and then that result doesn't come and you're just like what the hell happened here? 

53:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
and end of the day, misgradings happen all the time, right like if you're betting on sportsbook you're gonna have a misgrading. It's usually done automatically, there's nothing wrong with that. The real issue is when the support doesn't overturn it. And then things like that, you know, come, but there's been multiple times where I've had a bet misgraded or something messed up. Or I come look and my bet's void and I message support, say hey, why is this void? This should have been a winner. And they say yeah, no problem, like oh these guys aren't perfect. 

54:15 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
There are system errors, there are human errors. Like it's, it's okay if it, if it gets resolved in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort, you deal with it. 

54:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's just when it doesn't, that gets irritating of regulated betting and whether or not the regulated system is failing us right now. But recently we had the Massachusetts Gaming Commission Captain Jack was a part of that asking some questions. 10 different sportsbooks chose not to participate in that publicly. Uh, for fear of proprietary information getting out there. Whether you buy that or not, completely up to you. Uh, there is an argument to be made that they didn't want to share some stuff publicly. I get that. 

55:12
A representative of bally's was there candidly. My opinion beer in the headlights had no idea what was going on, felt kind of bad for the guy watching it. But the topic was around the implications of limiting sports bettors and whether or not this should be allowed in the sports betting industry as a whole. I'm curious, matt, I know you've written about this before. You had an article a couple of weeks ago. A few simple truths about limiting, but what was your perspective on watching that assembly and do you think that there's anything that's going to change down the road in regards to the limiting of sports bettors? 

55:55 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Okay. So first of all, I think that there's a part that you left out of your recap there where the operators that no-show as far as I understand, they all agreed to actually participate in the forum and then all of them, except for Bally's, pulled out at the last minute. 

56:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, they released statements. As to what, each individual sportsbook released their own independent statement. They differed from one another in some nuances. 

56:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Proprietary secrets of trading would be revealed. 

56:26 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
It's a pretty big coincidence for all of them to independently, at the last minute, come to the realization that, no, what we changed our mind. We don't want to do this. It's sketchy behavior on their part. 

56:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would agree and sorry, I want to get into this as well the fact that it was a public forum obviously played a large part in that. They knew that going in they did. However, I would, I would suspect, had this held been held behind closed doors, privately, not broadcasted or displayed on youtube, I would say that you probably would have gotten some this is speculation more participation, but yeah, I think publicly, sportsbooks do not want to speak about limiting bettors. 

57:10 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Then that's. They said the same thing as well. They requested it to be held in private. The commission denied that request and they said it would be divulging proprietary information, which I think is a load of crap. I disagree. So they're right in that there are specific algorithms that are unique to each company that they would use to profile betters, but the inner workings of those algorithms were not at issue. Like you could easily go and say yes, we limit bettors, we're not going to tell you exactly how we do that. Yes, it happens and here's why we do it, and there would have been no proprietary information required to be disclosed. And they know. Like they're, they're let's let's not play dumb here. Like they, they understand what, what would and would not have been asked in these hearings. I think it was a convenient reason for them to drop out I totally agree with that. 

58:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I think it's. I do think it was a convenient excuse. I also do think that it is a valid reason. Um, I don't want zach to erase that board but based off of experiences I've had in the past before, certain sports books do things that other sports books don't and they want to keep it that way. So I think that's fair. However, I don't think that they necessarily would have had to give those details publicly. Any representative of another rec book could have easily said we do not want to disclose that information when asked about it, and still spoke to other things. 

58:44 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So I do think it was a convenient excuse and then, to make it even worse, you like, you're right, a lot of these books did publish, um, you know, prepared statements on on the topics, and a lot of these statements were, I would say, intentionally confusing them. They seemed like they sidestepped the issue. They were like yes, we limit players for reasons including responsible gaming reasons, cheating or attempted cheating or manipulating the system. And yes, of course they do, but that wasn't the question when they said for reasons including blah, blah, like you could tell they're trying to, they're trying to spin the question into something other than what it actually is. And again, these guys are not stupid like they. They understand the context of what's being asked here and, and reading some of these prepared statements, um, really struck me as slime. Like you, you, you know what the question is and you're intentionally trying to to avoid it yeah, I mean listen. 

59:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Nobody wants to come outright at the moment and say we limit winning bettors, like nobody is prepared to make that statement, even though a large contingent of people out there already know that's the case. 

01:00:05 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
See, I disagree with that. I think a large contingent of people inside the gambling industry and gambling Twitter and people who are quote unquote insiders know that. But I don't think that many people in the general public who bet recreationally understand and and you know, you can say it doesn't matter to them because they're not the ones who are going to be limited. But I think if people started to understand that okay, if you were any good at this, you wouldn't be allowed to play, and you know the next step of that logic would be hey, they're allowing me to play. Therefore, I'm not very good at this. 

01:00:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, but to be fair, that is what is common knowledge. With a way more popular game such as Blackjack, where everyone who goes in a casino they've seen all these movies and they know, oh, you can't count cards, or they take you to the back and rough you up. Although obviously it is what it is, they don't actually do that. 

01:01:04
I think, I think, I don't know I I'm not a card counter, I don't know I'm not joey knish, but basically people know that about blackjack and they know I'm walking into the this casino, and I don't have an edge and I lose. And if I were to like count cards and get an advantage on this game, they'd take me to the back and rough me up a bit and they still play at the game. So I don't really know if the I don't know if people make that connection. 

01:01:30 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
They're they're very different domains. This would be a fun experiment. If you go to I mean go to go to go to a sports book in vegas we should do this at bed, bash, not at circuit. We should go to, like, uh, mgm, go to a sports book in vegas, we should do this at that, bash, not at circuit we should go to like uh mgm, go to their sports book. 

01:01:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not going off that I'm. 

01:01:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If I'm downtown, I'm staying downtown, going to the golden nugget circuit doesn't even take massive bets on casino and I'm going to call that out right now find a hundred random recreational people in the sports book and ask them and so what's your over under on? 

01:01:59 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
how many people would say, yes, I, I understand this happens oh uh, not at circa not at, not at circa at a random recreational book very, very few. 

01:02:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
And even if you went to a guy behind the counter and said, has anyone ever get limited here? You say no. 

01:02:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Maybe one guy like he would also say we don't come maybe if they, if they're exploiting or you know, they would make it out to be like the worst possible human being, what it would be, the one that gets limited right, oh exactly so I think that that is. 

01:02:33 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
There's still a ways to go in terms of public understanding of how this stuff actually works. Would you agree? 

01:02:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
oh yes, like my friends around me, have zero clue in terms of limiting or anything in that regards and they don't understand that by being able to bet the amount that they're able to bet within specific sports books, it is a sign that the sports book is welcoming their action. They don't get that. I it's. I don't know that, I don't know that they ever will, unless unless they reach a certain number of losses before they can actually have a real conversation with themselves about it. I think, again, it's something about the ego of the sports better where they. 

01:03:16 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I think there might be a tipping point in terms of just public understanding of how this stuff works and, and if I'm running a, I think there might be a tipping point in terms of just public understanding of how this stuff works. And if I'm running a recreational book, I'm afraid that public sentiment would actually start to tilt too far in the other direction, because there's an equal number of misconceptions and half-truths on the other side. Oh, nobody's allowed to win, this game is rigged, only suckers are allowed to play. You know any? Anybody who wins gets kicked out the next day, like this. That stuff is equally wrong, right, but if people start to get that in their heads, that's a big problem for the industry. 

01:03:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh yeah, that's, that's one of them. You know, listen, there's lots of solutions that have been put forth to this right. There's the idea of you got to have some sort of minimum bet and everyone has to have that. The pushback from a lot of the sports books, um, and from industry insiders is then, well, you're not going to have the same offerings of of bets. You know, if, if there's going to be a minimum of of whatever x amount on all of these markets, then guess what a lot of these markets are going to be a minimum of whatever X amount on all of these markets, then guess what A lot of these markets are going to disappear and sports betting as you know it and are able to bet into it now is going to change drastically. And like I honestly think that that's a cop out, because it's Penny, does it? 

01:04:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, Listen, we, we do support pinnacle as of as of right now. We support pinnacle. 

01:04:44 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I'm switching my. I'm switching my stance up. I'm not blindly supporting anyone or anything, because things could change but, as it stands, caesars is the new sport. 

01:04:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The sponsor of circles off. 

01:04:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't. I don't believe they will be in the running. Listen, as it stands right now. As it stands right now, and you know, in my experience historically with pinnacle, they've been extremely fair. Another thing I did want to mention, actually not to even plug the sponsor, but they're the people working at pinnacle. I know many of them personally, whether it be on the trading team, you know management. 

01:05:05
We've dealt with a lot of different we will see a bunch of them at a toronto betting meet very, very sharp people and they know about betting and I think what happens there is when they know about betting this stuff it's much, much less likely to happen. So when you look at, like you know, matt situation here where they messed up the grading and they, the guys at pinnacle, are going to be like no, this is obviously unfair, this I'm I bet as well, and this is how I wouldn't do it. There's no way you think, and they'll resolve those issues and historically, anytime there's been any incorrect grading on pinnacle, that's resolved in a snap. They do a lot of things, you know, definitely worse than some of the recreational books in terms of bonusing and offering and things like that. But you are getting a more fair and just experience and the guys there, they know, like I can tell you from experience, most of the guys there and everyone that I know they know about betting. 

01:05:53 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So anyways, I'm plugging the sponsor for no reason, but it's a different thing. I love pinnacle too. I love circa I I love. I've never been into prime is not available in ontario, but I love the idea of of time and people who run it seem to be great guys, um. But here's the reality. Running a sharp book is a very, very difficult thing to do. You can pull it off great good for you. But I'm afraid what happens if you move to to minimum bet limits or no more limiting or any of this stuff is, I think, the days of being able to open an odd screen like Betstamp and see 20 different independent sets of odds and being able to line shop your way to profits. I think that goes away very quickly in an environment where these softbooks lose their first line of defense against winning bettors. 

01:06:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's really interesting. I've gone back and forth on this whole subject in my head many times before and it started with, like well, this is ridiculous, there should be at least some sort of minimum limit. And then, over time, I don't know how I got to the point where I just reconciled with the fact that this is the industry like you can complain all you want on twitter about getting limited in the space or whatever. It's not going to help you in any capacity. Like just figure it out. I mean, I think right now, part of betting strategy is not only just like finding an edge, but being able to mask that edge and prolong the account. Like I think that's a skill in betting right now. 

01:07:28
But then I take a step back. I'm like, what the hell am I talking about? Like why should people have to do this? This is absurd. This is ridiculous. Why should I get a dollar fifty cents on a bet where someone else is able to bet a hundred thousand dollars like this? This does not. This is not a real world, and I've kind of gone back to that other side there. But there is the argument that the product offerings will get worse, and I think that's very valuable. They're like. That's a very rational argument because there are a lot of people who do do not bet to win like we bet to win. But there's a lot of people that just bet because they enjoy betting and they get entertainment value out of it. Nothing wrong with that, and we are the minority of people. It's it's really hard to enact change when it's this vast minority of people and this problem just doesn't affect like 99% of the population. 

01:08:25 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So what I think you're saying is you want it to be one way, yet it's another way. Shout out to the blog post by a guy named Ferris D underscore 86, who wrote a really good blog post and I think he made a lot of the same points that I made, maybe a little bit more uh, colorful language, but uh, former guest of the podcast yeah, one of our favorite episodes, honestly, and I did read that post. 

01:08:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I messaged him on the week. Uh, I said, as always, great writing. I agree with a lot of what you said. I disagree with a lot of what you said. I would encourage people to read the stuff. Um, there was something in there about how do the guests go on circles off and not have a plus ev or minus ev move of the week. It's like slapping rob and johnny directly in the face. What people don't even know on top of that is we actually tell every single guest every week. You can expect this to come at the end of the show. I'm not naming names, but there have been some people who come out there and they're like deer in the headlights, very, very confused as to what Joey can ish pumping whatever fruit juice would would come to mind. But yes, we've deviated a little bit, but that is a good article. 

01:09:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
With that being said, Matt, what's your plus CV move of the week? 

01:09:32 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
All right, I did prepare. 

01:09:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Wow. 

01:09:34 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
Did my homework. Plus, the move of the week would be and this is a full credit to my wife for for discovering this but walmart has a, a service kind of like amazon prime, but for walmart. I think it's 10 bucks a month and you get unlimited, uh, grocery deliveries from from walmart. I like walmart, but I don't like going to walmart and, um, I think we've had like four, four Walmart deliveries to the house here in the last week and a half, two weeks since we signed up for this thing. It's been outstanding. The service is great. You know, someone might say what is this idiot just discovering Instacart? But it is actually. 

01:10:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I was maybe thinking that actually? 

01:10:15 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
yeah, of course you were. But my experiences with Instacart have been they go to the store, you send them 20 things and 10 of them they say they don't have substituting something else which is completely different. And you know they have the thing they the guy just was too lazy to to look for you got a message saying please ask somebody from the store there's certain tricks. 

01:10:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's just like getting limited there's there's tricks that you can I usually message and I say I was just there yesterday, I know they have it. And then he goes does that work? 

01:10:44 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
yeah, oh, all the time yeah, but anyway that that that doesn't happen. Maybe they have like walmart employees doing the shopping. I don't know why, but but I haven't had the same issues. Um, on the on the walmart service, it's been. 

01:10:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's been actually very, very good there you go, matt buckhalter, big uh advocate for a walmart. 

01:11:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got a, I got a story from from this week. Actually, I got a uber uber eats promo for grocery delivery. So I do my uh grocery delivery on a different app. They send me a promo. It's like, uh, spend 70, get 45 off, like no brainer. You're obviously taking advantage of that. So I go um, so I I do it. It's at a long goes which is a regular local grocer, right, maybe 30 locations, I'd say I don't know how many in ontario, built in my area big fan. 

01:11:30
So I get, I get a bunch of stuff, um, and then the guy shops. It doesn't ask for any replacement. My first time doing this on uber the uber app doesn't even ask for any replacements or anything like that. Um, and then I just get the notification saying, like your shopper checked out and the guy I. My order was like 92. The guy didn't get half the items, which then dropped my thing down to 45. 

01:11:56 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
So you couldn't use the promo and I didn't get the pro. 

01:11:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I didn't get the promo and then I contacted breeds nothing you can do went over to I gaming ontario nothing, and now I might have to go to small claims court. Join the club, screwed by the system yeah, yeah, I got absolutely rinsed last week on that um and then also what's your business? 

01:12:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
so you're just a bonus hunter man? 

01:12:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yeah no, they got me, they got me good, so I and also the promo then went away as well. So I lost. I lost the offer, just a tough, tough situation all around very hard you got you got a plus or do you have a minus? Ev met am I doing both, so then you go uh yeah, we don't, we don't care structure for this. 

01:12:36 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
You might just yeah all right, let's get it over with. Um, so you already mentioned my parrot, uh, so my minus ev move of the week is picky pets. So get home from work yesterday the bird is just like distraught, biting my finger, biting my wife's finger, biting the kid's fingers, like he. The bird is not himself and I'm I'm freaking out like do I have to find a vet to take this bird to? Is he sick? Is something wrong? 

01:13:03
So he has this bowl of food which is like bird seed, and it was half full so I'm not starving this bird, so I top up the bowl of bird seed, just in case that would help. All of a sudden he starts pigging out. He spends like 10 minutes just face deep in this bowl of bird seed and I think what happened was the birds. The seed is a mix of, like, different types of seeds and I think this bird is so picky that he ate the seeds he liked and refused to eat what was left in the bowl, so that the bird was like going on a damn hunger strike and just biting everything that moved because he was so hungry, because he was that stubborn and refused to eat the half of the of the bird seed that, uh, that was not his favorite, so saved myself a trip to the vet yeah, but it's hard to avoid. 

01:13:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You didn't know that when you got the pet the negative ev move seems to be getting the pair. I'll say it yeah, I will, since we get in the bird. I had no comments great I've. 

01:14:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've had two african gray parrots before for five years you're such a guy that would get an african well, you know, you know my wife. My wife's an animal. I'm an animal lover too. But there is no chance in hell I will ever get a hurt again uh, tortellini's still in my office living going hard. 

01:14:22
Might be doing some pics again soon. Uh, spoiler alert. Um, but yeah, I could never. I could never do that. But the problem with this minus ev matt is you don't know that the pet is going to be picky. It's just to johnny's point. Maybe you don't get the pet altogether listen, screwed by the system again there. 

01:14:39 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
You can't catch a break these days. I will say my wife when I get the pet altogether listen, screwed by the system again. 

01:14:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There, you can't catch a break these days. I will say my wife when I get the costco trail mix she just eats the m&ms out of the costco trail mix. And then I go to get the trail mix and there's no m&ms in there. So that's pretty much just as bad. 

01:14:52 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
I assume she goes and has a different snack that she doesn't just like. Go on a hunger strike until you give her more trail mix no, I guess that's that's also a valid start biting your finger. That is a valid point uh, what you do with the privacy of your own home is none of my business um minus ev um. 

01:15:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm out with a bunch of friends recently and, uh, for dinner, uh, we're eating, we're ordering and uh, one person who I would never, ever expect to order a salad this isn't based off his body size, it's based off what he typically eats orders a salad for dinner. So I know something's going on right and I'm I'm, I'm a shit disturber. I make a comment and, uh, he tells me can't eat anything else right now, and then he lays out the reason. So for everyone out there, when you get served steaming hot food, no matter what it is could be a soup, could be pizza. You know, when pizza comes right out of the oven, don't be the guy who goes in right away and eats it and burns the top of your mouth, because I've been there before it. It sticks with you for like at least a week where every meal afterwards is just painful. It like hurts to eat food. He's like I can't eat anything else. I can only like eat leaves and salad because the top of my mouth is burned from eating hot pizza. 

01:16:15
Salad is okay, he said it was. Honestly it wasn't because there was some vinegar in it caused some reaction. It was a real problem for him, no matter what, but just wait when you get really hot food for it to go down to an appropriate temperature. That's, it takes one minute, two minutes sometimes. If you could see that steve and the guy like, especially when, like, the waiter drops it off, and they're like, ah, it just came out like, be be very careful, it's really odd plates. Really, you don't have to be that person that immediately stuffs your face. So that's uh, I guess, whatever way you look at it plus ev wait for your food or minus ev don't eat the hot food could be either one all right, I got a negative ev. 

01:16:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Move of the week was me saying I could build this f1 car. Now I can build it. I I still back. I can build it 100. But the amount of people who just comment and say and tell me now you can't build this f1 car, it's they are so convinced that I can't build it that it's pulling away from my credibility on anything else I say and for, for that reason, significant negative EV because it's been brought up countless times. 

01:17:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You know what you gotta do. Of course this guy values Dave Portman's vets. 

01:17:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He thinks he can build an F1 car. And the crazy part is is, at the end of the day, I can do it and I know I can do it, and there's multiple people out there that know I can do it and know I would do it, but I'm never going to do it. It's never going to happen because I'm never going to be incentivized enough to spend a full year of my life just to build this F1 car. So I hope I hit it big sometime in the next couple of years and have a year to kill, in which case I will move out, probably to maybe I'll move out to Rome and build this F11 car. So I really hope in the future I can do this as like a life challenge. But what a negative ev move it's been to. This keeps getting jammed in my face. But yes, absolutely I can do it. 

01:18:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Obviously it's easy. There's much worse things. You've said before that I won't bring them up again because it's going to be. But there's you. You've made like way more outlandish statements of the f1. That's what. I never met a future. No, that one I don't. Whatever, you have your arguments for that, which we will get into on a future episode, but uh no you remember circles off roasts? That's what I I've, uh, I've been putting something like that to get I would. I would like to be roasted personally rob. 

01:18:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, fair enough, I think, at some point, I think arrange that? I think for what's the word you've been saying? The guy keeps commenting like rob's counter of saying, yeah, nowadays, nowadays, I don't think I said this episode I bet you have you know what. 

01:18:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I actually don't mind that uh type of cop. I throughout I say a lot of things, um, I'm gonna over and over that like I, you just don't know, I, I say like a lot, by the way, when I listen to myself back and I'm like like, like whatever, but that type of stuff, once it's brought to the forefront, you can, you can guard against it a little bit more. So I'm a little bit more cognizant of that. What I was referring to was if you played hockey in the eighties or early nins and the amount of points or goals that you may have. 

01:19:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm not gonna bring it up on. 

01:19:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's an easy one as well well, you can follow matt on twitter at plus ev analytics. Appreciate uh you, matt, for sharing that story in full. Of course, if you did enjoy the episode, make sure you smash that like button down below. Get us to 10k subs. Hit that sub button if you haven't done so already. We want to get there fast. This pot is growing and uh, yeah, we just want to be rewarded for, uh, putting together content that we think is. I don't care if you like subscribe. 

01:19:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Just do it, no, rob, just like to commit to the the 10k subscribers will that? 

01:19:53 - Matt Buchalter (PlusEV Analytics) (Guest)
will that prompt the roast? 

01:19:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
no, you know it'll prompt. Rob's gonna get the merch ready. 

01:19:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The merch it may or may not be underway. I really the merch. It may or may not be underway. 

01:20:02 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I really hope it's underway. 

01:20:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
May or may not be underway, but merch is coming at some point. I'm thinking maybe the roast for Circles Off episode 200, but I'm not sure. I think we got to do big things for the big numbers Appreciate you guys. 

01:20:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We'll see you next week.