00:00 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Do I want to compete with like people spending their life originating a sport? Probably not, when I can basically just cheat and get the same bets that they're getting and go down that road. 

00:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 157 right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network and presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook. Now we have a great interview today. No beating around the bush, not going to have any banter off the start here, because this is a great guest that I've been looking forward to for a while, relatively unknown in the space, and I think he's going to deliver some very good points, talking points that we can discuss in the future and can give a lot of insight to sports bettors out there. But before we do, if you haven't checked out Pinnacle Sportsbook, I highly recommend that you do so. Proud sponsor here of the Circles Off podcast, pinnacle is where the sharpest bettors play. They've been in business for the last 25 years and, honestly, it's a very good sportsbook experience. There's all this talk recently about limiting sharp betters and things of that nature. Well, if you are a sharp better, you're not going to get limited at pinnacle sportsbook. The odds and the max risk posted for everyone to see. No funny business happening there. Also, if you just want an account for pinnacle for real-time odds so you can arb against other books totally easy, you can sign up for an account at pinnacle. Get those real-time odds. If you do so, use code HAMMER to do so. It does support us here on Circles Off. You must be 19 plus not available in the US and, as always, please play responsibly. 

01:36
Before we get into our interview, I want to ask one more quick thing from you. Give us a pre-like and a pre-sub. Don't ask for it all that often, but it's the road to 10K here on Circles Off. We wanna get the subscriber base up. There's still about 60% of you watching every single video out there that are not subscribed to this channel and you're watching a lot of the video 20 plus minutes, excuse me, a lot of the time. So just smash that subscribe button down below. Set notifications. You'll get notified every time we put out a new episode here of Circles Off and make sure you do smash that like button down below as well. Our guest this week here on Circles Off is a sports better, a poker player and a software engineer. He was recommended to us on Circles Off by the infamous NFL pinnacle beater. You can follow him on Twitter at FlupNoLied. We'll put that down in the description below for you to click. Chris Dierkis joins us here on Circles Off. Chris, how's it going? 

02:32 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Hey guys, nice to meet you. 

02:34 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Yeah, you as well, chris. First off, where are you calling in? From? New York City? Oh, a New Yorker. Nice to have you on. I appreciate the time. I know you have a super interesting story. We've chatted a bit beforehand. I think everyone's going to love this episode. I know I'm looking forward to it. We'll start it off your background how'd you get into sports betting? And then kind of the whole story like what are you doing right now? 

02:59 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yeah, sure. So I started more of a degenerate path. My family is very big gamblers no one has like made a living doing it and whatnot and so I've always been attracted to gambling and I played this video game called RuneScape I don't know if anyone has heard that and you can gamble in the game, and I got a little bit of addiction to gambling at that point and it slowly progressed to online poker. I was able to make money playing RuneScape and then I would lose it on the poker site and just repeat that process for about two to three years until I became good enough to actually win at poker and, through studying and whatnot, I started realizing you could actually make some real money gambling and from that point on I played poker in college, played at home games, and that's really my start of my gambling career. I didn't really get into sports betting until a few years after that. 

04:01 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I don't want to directly outright ask you your age it's nobody's business, but you do look younger than me and I grew up in the moneymaker boom. Is it fair to say that you were like the next generation of poker after that.

04:13 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I don't mind, I'm 25. I don't really care. 

04:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It's just interesting because, like and again not to paint everyone into the same picture most 25 year olds I know and I do know a lot of them they're not into poker. Zach is 25 years old. I mean. Johnny held a poker game very recently with some 25-year-olds who had no idea what they were doing playing poker as well. So I'm just curious where did the poker fascination come from? 

04:42 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
It's just like it's part of the gambling. I just really love the thrill of it all and honestly I think a lot of sports. But I disagree with this. But I think poker and sports are extremely similar, like like an example I would use is like if you want to be, if you want to make a lot of money playing poker, there's like two ways in cash, one is just be the best. So I would equate that as sports. 

05:03
To just be the best originator, like be nfl at post, nba post, like I mean you're just gonna make infinite um and if, same as poker, if you're just the best player, you can play the highest stakes games, you can crush everyone. Another way is just get into the softest games and similar to sports, if you just get the softest outs, you can crush that way. So it's very, very similar and with with poker, I just went down the route of getting the softest game. So I would hunt for like live games that were very soft. Try to get into like private games that are are uh, with a couple of big players and whatnot. 

05:42 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That's where I went down did you do anything um in an online capacity in poker and like, did you leverage any uh tools out there to find weaker games online? 

05:53 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
uh, online is so much tougher than in per. It's like it's night and day um for for anyone that doesn't know much about poker, I I would say I could roughly beat about 50 cent $1 online and that is not that high stakes. It's like you're not making a good living doing that in person like at a casino. Like $10, $25 cash, no problem, it's just like it's unbelievable. So I never really tried that much online. I did use online tools like PO Solver. I'm sure you guys have heard of that. It's like study and whatnot, but most of it was me trying to befriend whales at the game, get into the good games. That's really what I tried to do. 

06:39 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Cool, don't have to be the best, you just have to be the best at the table. 

06:42 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Exactly, exactly. 

06:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You got that you still. You took that right from rounders. No, did I? I think that. I think I'm pretty sure that it came up in round. I haven't seen rounders in a decade now so you transitioned uh now into sports betting. 

06:54 - Johnny Capo (Host)
How did that uh come to be? 

06:56 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
yeah, so, uh, nfl pinnacle beater was a friend of mine. Uh uh, he was just mentioning like the site pinnacle that you could like it was much better than other sports books, and at the time I thought like only the smartest, sickest humans could beat sports, like they just have to have all this knowledge. And then I like look, and I'm like looking at advertisements for like like you know, sign up to my betting service or whatnot, and I thought they were all scammy. And then I found an advertisement for like Odds Jam and I was like, ok, let me try this. It's using Pinnacle, it's got to be and I know Pinnacle is good, based on what Penny Beater had said, so it's got to have something there. 

07:45
And I signed up for it and it worked. Like it was the first time like it's like unbelievable. Their advertising is so sketchy nowadays, but like back then a couple years ago it was it just worked. Like it was just easy money, like of course your accounts get limited, but it was literally as simple as like click a button and and make money it would. I mean, it was unbelievable still is, still is. 

08:06 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Yeah, not odds jam per se, but yeah, a couple of that method of betting? Obviously yeah depends where and stuff like that, obviously, as you mentioned. 

08:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But just curious what was the marketing hook to you back in the day to to get you on board with a service like that? If you recall, obviously there was probably some promises of winning, but if you had come across a lot of the scam services, what was it that made you go down the path of using a service like Odds Jam? 

08:38 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yeah, I think it was the data-driven. It wasn't promising picks, it was data analysis based on these things and and part of the thing I like about odds jam at the time I did I don't use it anymore, um, but at the time I liked it is they give you a lot of picks but you actually have to decipher what's good and what's bad, and that's something like I like did myself. I did some work on myself to figure out which which of the plays they show, because everything is basically just like is it an armed penny? If it is like, display it, but not everything that's an armed penny is just like something you should bet. So you have to decide what not to bet and what to bet, and that that process for me was very fun to learn. Yeah. 

09:23 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, and also Penny's not necessarily like the North Star in every market either, which I think a lot of people get confused by. 

09:30 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Exactly and like at the beginning I was betting like player props and it's just like. Then I find out that, like Fandle's, taking like 5x limits on like Penny, and I'm like, well, maybe Fandle's number is a little bit better than Penny's I'm not saying it is, but if the limits are so small, there's probably a reason behind it. 

09:55 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Did you continue using the service until you got limited at all your outs? Or did you branch out and just like start doing your own top down betting where you're like I don't actually need to to follow a service anymore? 

10:03 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Kind of both. So, like one of the first things I did for top-down betting was Sportsbook Review. It's a great site to get some historical odds and whatnot. I used to discrepe the past 10 years of NBA totals depending on open and close, and what I found is if you bet the close, it's like 50-50. If you go over or under is if you bet the close, it's like 50-50. If you go over or under, if you just bet only overs or only unders, it's 50% even, which would make sense. I mean, the close is very efficient, but if it opens 200 and it closes 201 and you bet over 201, for example, or if it opens 200 and it goes to 199 and you bet under 199, you would actually win at 51.1%. 

10:49
Now, for most people listening I'm assuming that's pretty intuitive why you bet with the steam. But for me at the time I realized the power of steam. If someone's betting and someone's moving the line, they know something that you don't know and just realizing a lot of little things like that was why I thought top-down was the best way for me to go. Do I want to compete with people spending their life originating a sport? Probably not, when I can basically just cheat and get the same bets that they're getting and and go down that road if you don't mind sharing and it's a very personal question, but I'm not. 

11:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm not scared to ask the personal questions. Uh, top down using another service in the start. Uh, just getting started in sports betting roughly how much were you able to make with that? 

11:43 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
honestly, I don't really mind answering that question because it kind of leads into something else which I it's funny, uh, before I was about to get and limited. This is when I was like limited with draft kings, fandles, everything. It was right around 50 000 and I thought this was the end of like sports betting. Like I thought, well, once you're limited, it's dunzo, like that's it. And I had points bet left and I was just like, and at this time I was like starting betting, like I thought, once you're limited, it's dunzo, like that's it. And I had points bet left and I was just like, and at this time I was like starting to like really get into the nfl originate and I was like there's a play I really liked, it was like the eagles plus, uh, nine and a half at tampa bay in the playoffs. Uh, two years ago. 

12:19 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
This was like when, uh, tom brady was still there I did that line closed like seven or seven and a half. 

12:25 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Seven and a half. Seven and a half. So I got the CLV. So it was a good bet and I decided to just jam it in 45,000, basically all in of all my profits that I made from odd sham and whatnot. Just jam it in, just go big or go home. 

12:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
How many months of profits was that? Just out of? About three or four. Okay, three or four months of of profit. You've decided that you were just going to jam it in on one bed. 

12:55 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yeah, and to be fair, like I still had poker on the side, like that, I was still playing poker, so what it wasn't. Like I'm not just jamming in like my night, my net worth on something, but you know it was a significant amount of money to myself and then, of course, just get smashed, just not even close I remember that game very clearly. 

13:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It was like watching, basically, a super bowl team compete against an XFL team. If, if I recall that game, like Jalen Hurts couldn't complete a forward pass in that game, uh, the Bucks went. I can't remember the final score, but yeah, that's. That's actually such a funny story that it's just one massive bet into a book where you got really good CLV, still lost the bet, lost all of your profits. No offense that I find this funny. Like, lost all of your profits. 

13:45
No offense that I find this funny lost all of your profits and you lost your last out in the did you lose your last the account? 

13:51 - Johnny Capo (Host)
that's the funniest part. 

13:52 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
That's like points but limited me after that, like I got, I got limited after that. Like just I'm down like 50 or 60 000 points but lifetime and I can't get it back. 

14:02 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I'm done that is brutal, that happens, that happens, that happens, but that is that is absolutely brutal. Okay, so that's the, that's the nut low, but you came back up, so floor is yours. How did you get? How'd you? What was the come up? 

14:17 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
like. So I I guess a little white. I still had Caesars, like I was partially limited on Caesars. I was still doing a little bit of Caesars, but nothing close to the volume. It was like a couple bets a day and I would talk about sports betting because it was still interesting to me. And at the and at the poker table, one day one guy was just like hey, you can bet on my on, on on my site. 

14:42
And I was like you know, I'm going on on my site and I was like you know I'm gonna try to win right like I I'm gonna be able to beat you because I would just like I didn't. The guy I played with in poker he was friend, I was friendly with him. I didn't realize this was. He was offering me to pph like and I signed up to it. 

14:58
I joined his site and I realized, wow, there's, there's ways to bet other than like, recreate, like just like the recreational books, and uh, that's kind of like where I realized and then and then I was talking to other people that were doing sports betting. I was getting more involved with like twitter and whatnot, and I was like, oh, there's something called bearding, like you can like, you can have other people bet for you like, that's, that's potential. It's not just your own own, it's not just your own accounts. And then that's really like where, like, the light bulb went off, just like, oh, this is so much bigger than what I initially thought it's. It's not just like once you win as much from DraftKings, you're, you're donezo. There's way more ways to make money in sports. 

15:40 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, it's extremely rare that somebody wins like 45k before they learn the concepts of of like PPH and bearding and stuff like that. Yeah, you certainly have like an unusual path to to where you've gotten to. So now you are in the PPH world getting other accounts and stuff like that. Are you continuing with top down through all of that or do you start to figure out ways to flip that and go origination bottom up? 

16:10 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
yeah, a little bit of both um I I tried originating some like nfl um and it is tough, like you know and I know nfl, because you like nfl the most. 

16:23
Yeah, okay yeah, yeah, I know, rob, you've talked about like you can't be like nfl day of which is like reasonable, I can't even beat. Like nfl like mid midweek of like it's tough. Like you know I was able to reach numbers and pick off some like off-market numbers and and be opens, but like it's it's openers like so how much it is. And I also tried like futures, which I found some like gems in the futures market and but at this point I realized like if I really want to make a lot of sports, I've got to either dive all in on originating or I just gotta get outs and like I want the out route. Like I'm not very sharp and like any specific sport, I know a lot of sports medium well and that just like helps me like bet, just like I can read the market really well, and that's kind of where I'm at now that's interesting. 

17:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It kind of reminds me a little bit of when we had uh China on um earlier, where he's just like you know, I'm not really an expert in in these sports, but like I can dig in, I kind of know what's of value and I'm able to get uh down good bets off that um. So you, you mentioned the originating part and we talked a little bit off air in terms of like a precursor to this meeting, because Johnny's been very vocal before about how he doesn't he doesn't bet futures and doesn't like betting futures, and you, on the other hand, do bet a lot of futures and you think that there's a good case to be made for actually betting futures. So if you could walk us through that, I think we'd be interested in hearing. Yeah, sure. 

18:05 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
So first, I do agree with parts of what Johnny had said. For example, when I was first starting out and my bankroll was much smaller, I did run to the exact problem that Johnny mentioned, where I had half my bankroll tied up in futures. I found a banger bet that I want to bet and oh, I can't bet it and I was like damn it, like this sucks, but at this point, you know, if I need more money, I just deposit more like it's, it's not an issue. So for me it's just like I could either put my money in like the stock market or like sometimes like 30, 40 percent ROI future bets like I would be insane not to put it and that like that's the. And then there's other reasons as well. 

18:48
Like I talked a little before air, it really helps with like how it looks on your account. Like I think shippers mentioned this you're betting into a big, big market. It looks fishy if you bet a team to to win in like a 30% hold market. It doesn't look good on your account. It looks like you're an idiot. And if it's winning, that can really help with account survival. It can help with like your outs. Last, but I would say, if you're low on money. I would agree with Johnny Don't bet futures and definitely don't bet them in PPH. It's like that's a recipe for disaster. But if you have a big enough bankroll and you aren't gonna run out, I think you should be betting futures. There's just a lot of gems in there. 

19:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
How often are edges of that size coming up for you in the futures market? Because obviously we can look at like the biggest edge in any market and be like, oh, you should be betting this because you could have a 30% edge. But what is a realistic edge for you to have where you can get down on a future and you're comfortable with making that bet? 

19:54 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I would say 10% to 15%. I know a lot of people say, oh, 10% to 15%, get out of here. But who's betting it? You're competing against no one. Just pull up like nfl win totals, you'll find arbs everywhere. If you just know what side is right, you're already at like a couple percentage points there and if you have a slightly better numbers but like the 30, 40 edges don't happen that often like I can actually share one that happened last year. 

20:25
This was, I think, week 12. There was five games left for the Tennessee Titans and their win total at the time was like five and a half minus 110. And they played Monday night versus the Dolphins and I already leaned their over. But then on Sunday CJ Stroud gets injured and after the Dolphins they were going to play the texans. Well, they just went from a three and a half point underdog to now a three to three and a half point favorite. And when the futures market reopens on monday, same line over five and a half minus 110. And they just gained like 0.2 wins by that like switch in equity and like that's just an enormous edge. And because no one is betting and that was up, that closed at five and a half minus 110, like no one is betting it yeah, and they came back from two td, two tds, down to the dolphins as well and won that game, ironically enough yeah, they beat the dolphins and they lost the texans, but you know, that's that. 

21:26 - Johnny Capo (Host)
That is like, well, that's sports betting the money's made when you place the bets, obviously not of course of course the results. 

21:31
But no, that that's interesting, I, as I've never said that there wasn't edges available in the futures market. But just to kind of like reiterate, I just don't see any value right now in putting in like a season long win total for NFL right now, given that that's not going to grade until like, depending on the book, could be like mid-Jan, depending on some books could be, you know, if it grades after it completes and maybe having over four and a half, you get lucky, maybe you get a grading in like October and November, but you're really not getting grading for at a minimum here, like probably nine months from this point. 

22:07 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yeah, that's a fair, fair point. But another point I counter to that is the non-grading is actually a benefit in some cases, for example, like taxes, like having an account in the next year can be very beneficial if you can count the loss this year and move it to next year, like that's a way of starting the year. So if you, if you do like the loss this year and move it to next year, like that's a way of starting the year, so if you, if you do like, start on a downswing, you could write off that losses because you can't carry, carry them through. So that's like another reason why I like futures in that regard the old revenue recognition principle implications. 

22:39 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Uh, yeah, that's great. That's actually a very good point that I've actually I've never heard anyone bring up before Tax harvesting sports betting via futures. 

22:48 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Yeah, no, listen, that's an angle that I think is very interesting. I'm glad you mentioned on the podcast. Now that's out there, that's awesome. 

22:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You're in New York, right I? 

23:00 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
just moved here for a new job, so that's what. 

23:03 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But when were you previously? Because I I did you go to Virginia Tech. 

23:07 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Is that? 

23:08 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Okay, did. Have you been in any like legalized states for a long period of time where you? Can sort of in person wagering. 

23:18 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
There was a MGM National Harbor opened up in Maryland and they came. I played poker there. That was like where I played poker a lot and they just got legal like two years ago. And when they had the kiosks open it was a gold mine. I mean like in person. It was like taking candy from a baby, it was. It was insane. So I don't mind staring, sharing these edges because they're just dust at this point, like good luck getting them, getting them down yeah, I like that. 

23:50 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I love the stories now where I mean, listen, these will certain things just will exist over time and then they no longer exist and everyone's comfortable sharing them when they no longer exist because it's not gonna, but it's still. I still really enjoy these stories like, uh, like the telemachus, uh, telemachus, telemachus I always butchered the name, uh, when he talked about the super bowl story. How they just like, how tom peabody's just like mashing a kiosk for hours on end on a terrible line. Great, like great stuff. 

24:20 - Johnny Capo (Host)
So I'm actually very curious I've given out a couple edges on this pod that I thought were dead, that then one of them did come back and is still currently active. Right now I'm not going to say which one, but maybe you listen back to all 160 episodes. But no, I'm not even talking shit. There is one that I gave out. That's back now. But go ahead, chris. 

24:37 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
That's fair. No, if you bring up, I'm going to say his name wrong to tell us something. Tell Marcus his name wrong to tell us something. Tell Marcus, um, what he was telling the story. I was just laughing because the same, very similar thing happened to me. So the biggest edge I got was one of my friends that I met on gambling twitter. Um, uh, clar 24, I'm sure you guys have. 

24:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Oh, yeah, I've ever seen him. Yeah, I've changed. I've exchanged dms with him before. If you can pipe into his year that we'd love to have him on, because I've tried a few times he's like it's not a good time or whatever. But anyways, continue your story. 

25:08 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Sorry, he messaged me. He said you should try, like this was like two years ago when our or yeah, where ohio state, I think, was the five seed in college football and, um, I might be getting it wrong because I don't really follow college football that much, but they either needed to win to be like one of the final four or they need someone else to lose, and that was the only way. And he said you should try parlaying that happening and Ohio State winning the natty. And I was like, okay, like it's worked. And I was, oh my God, it's like you're getting like 30 to one on something that like is without a shadow of a doubt, is like 13 to one. And I mean that's look, you can't just bet like infinite on it because you're gonna lose often, but that is something that you can just get a lockdown on. And then I tried betting an NFL team to win and that same team to win the division and that worked, which is obviously just like insanely correlated, like unbelievable edges, like 50, 100 plus edges, and I was just like pounding the kiosk, just getting as much down as I could. And and then there's another edge too, where I'm just I remember it was like 1 am and I just came back from a poker session. I was like, oh, let me just like check the kiosk lines. 

26:31
It was like Thursday night football, niners versus Seahawks and the Niners are like three and a half point favorites and team total like Niners 19 and a half, seahawks 22 and a half. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Like how are the? How are the Niners favorite? They just flipped the the wrong name, so I just emptied all the cash I had on me $300 at a time into the kiosk and just like the next day just hand it in, they pay it out. I don't get banned, like no big deal, and that's. It was funny, like when Tomalikas was saying like he's worried, and that's. It was funny. Like when tamalcus was saying like he's worried about like getting banned. I had like multiple of these like obvious, like mistakes, and just never got banned. It was incredible. They had no idea what they were doing. 

27:16 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, that's just some pretty bad trading uh but, you know what listen I these edges do come up like they happen. Mistakes will inevitably happen. Um in a similar vein, here in ontario there was a couple um sports books that their same game pricing algorithm did not take into account, like correlations with um players lines in hockey. So you know you could bet someone to score a goal and someone to get an assist in a same game parlay where they're playing on the same line, which is obviously very highly correlated. And many, many books are pricing that correctly. 

27:52 - Johnny Capo (Host)
But some were just absurdly off and like that lasted for months and prior to that, which I didn't even tell you guys prior to that, when it first started, you could actually do, uh, even better than that was power play goal and power play assist for specific guys yeah, at way higher juice on on a correlation but you don't know this stuff unless you try it. 

28:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
And honestly, I, I I'm I'm a huge hockey fan and and I make most of my uh betting income from betting hockey. I spent like a day just going through like correlations everywhere and I'm like this is obviously wrong and sometimes you don't even need to be able to accurately price it, you just know intuitively, like this doesn't make any sense. How could this possibly be the price? And uh, it's like brute forcing yeah, edge, but it exists. 

28:46 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
It's funny you mentioned that because I was the same way Back when I was getting a lot of PPHs. Every time I got a new PPH I would just try every correlation that I possibly could. And this is a nice PPH story I had. One day I had this PPH. It was like five-cent line P line pph. Mostly you could just bet like major markets, so I wasn't betting it that much because I can't really beat a lot of major markets. 

29:12
But one day he, the owner of the pph, must have like fucked something up where he allowed me to parlay tennis sides and totals. So I was just parlaying, like you know, like egos, we tech minus seven and a half and under 17 and a half at like plus 264. It's just like the fair on. That is like plus 120, like you can't lose betting, betting that and like you can just crush them instantly. Uh, I mean, how could you possibly lose betting that that big and you could? You can just win piles and that same pph. Uh, he ended up scumming us a little bit but we got him for, like you know, huge. 

29:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So yeah, well, that's that, that's inevitable, inevitably if you're not getting scummed on the way out, then yeah yeah, that's inevitably how most of the pph stuff ends with uh the better winning a bunch and then not getting the last pay out. But yeah, shoulder shrug, all right, I want enough off this guy. I'll deal with it. For those who are new here and you have no idea what we're talking about. In regards to pph, pph stands for pay per head. 

30:17
It's a traditional uh, local bookie. I mean, you would have probably encountered this at some point in the past. Maybe not, but in the olden days, before regulated sports betting and even before offshore, you'd go meet up with somebody on maybe your the local corner, or you'd find someone at the you know, the barber shop, whatever. Just give you a betting account and back in the day they used to write it into their books. Eventually got more sophisticated, where you'd call in, and then obviously nowadays there's websites which you can bet, but it it's just meeting with uh, with someone uh yeah, local, to be clear here, we do recommend you play, if you're in canada, at pinnacle sports book and you know, don't mess around with that stuff. 

30:54 - Johnny Capo (Host)
A lot of uh issues, you know you don't get paid out. There's really no recourse. A lot of times it's not really fair. So you know, if you're, if you're looking to just sign up for a new book, like you know, no, no need to go asking around for a local. Go go sign up at Pinnacle Sports. 

31:07 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Use code hammer by the way, you often hear professional bettors such as Chris here talk about the PPH world, because we're all looking for additional liquidity. A lot of us have have either been limited or banned from certain accounts. Or banned from certain accounts. We all would love books like Pinnacle to exist everywhere, but they don't nowadays, where you can bet more there. But eventually lots of bettors need a bet size that might even be bigger than what the Sharp Sportsbooks are offering, and they seek other spots to get down as well. But, chris, we've briefly chatted off air and exchanged some messages, but you did let me know that you're currently working as part of a smaller betting group, uh, where you would consider yourself the head trader. Nowadays. Yeah, um, depending on who you talk to, head trader of a betting group can mean a variety of different things. Uh, what I would consider to be you, you know, head trader of our group might be very different from someone else. So what does a typical day look like for you and like what's your responsibility within the larger group? 

32:13 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
So, as head trader, my job is basically placing the bets. I have two guys that are able to get accounts for me, which is they're really good at, and my goal is just to maximize like account survival in that regard. And yeah, something that I've heard a lot about people talk about account survival is you know you had Mr Limited on and he talked about how can you keep your account up to max. I think I have a different attitude about accounts, to call it, and you know for a fact you can get 2000 an ev a week for the, for the, for a year before you're booted. Or you can get 50 000 an ev in one month but then you're booted, like I feel like most pros would just say, oh, 2k a week is just the way to go, you're getting not only fake, only fake, only fake. 

33:09 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Sharks wouldn't say that. Uh well, I'm with you, I'm agreeing with you. You're going to say you'd rather the 50K in the one month, of course. 

33:19 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
And I think I want like. Time is a huge factor. My goal is I want to burn every account I get as fast as possible, while maximizing how much the max expected value is. I want to churn through accounts as fast as possible. I'm not here to survive long-term. I want to get the money in good now, when I know I have an edge. That's my attitude about it. 

33:46 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Stellar, stellar way to look at things. Honestly, I couldn't agree more. I've always mentioned this. People always say you got to make sure you're going and like making sure you like you never lose an account at the end of the day, like you're gonna get limited. You're gonna get limited, like you're gonna like I'm, you know, I'm gonna sign up at points bet and I'm gonna get limited at points bet and it is what it is. I'll go play somewhere else, but I don't want to be like, hey, I gotta, I gotta make only like 25 bucks a week here so that I don't get limited and I could keep this account for my. 

34:19 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I keep my points but account for three years like it doesn't matter I think chris hit the nail on the head with this, which is, if you prolong the account for as long, as long as possible. And, by the way, listen, there's some people who I think sports betting is, um, everyone's entitled to their own process, right like I believe in certain things that I do and they've really worked for me, um, and I don't believe in some other ways of betting. But to each their own. Everyone's going to figure out what works for them in some capacity. But I think where chris hit the nail on the head here is that you don't know that your edges are going to exist forever. 

34:56
And when you have an account that you can bury in that moment and win like a ton of money and you don't go for it under the premise that, hey, if I can just kind of let this go over a long period of time, the edges do go away, especially if you're like finding an error, mispricing. Other people are going to find this stuff too, and then eventually, the sports book becomes aware of it. So I've always you know, listen, I'm to each their own, I I really think it depends on the account, um, and and like a variety of things that I can't even get into, because there's there's actually so much that I think goes into the equation, but, but the assumption that you have an edge that's going to exist forever, I think, is where a lot of people go wrong and they're like I need this account because I'm making 3,000 a week off of this account. I mean, that doesn't mean that 12 weeks from now you're still making 3,000 a week Can completely change, so I think that's a good point. 

35:54
Do you ever, though, chris, consider at all any sort of strategies Like I know? I know you just said to me like, listen, I want to hit these accounts hard, but would there ever be a situation for you where you're like it actually might be beneficial for me to try to keep this out for as long as possible? 

36:11 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yeah. So it's like it's balancing both, like there's a happy happy, happy happy medium, like I'm not trying to get limited and account and one day I mean I'm trying to do it where I maximize, maximize both. And if you recall our DMS Rob, I'd actually asked you like how can you like prolong an account, how can you bet negative EV to start to maximize it? And I think doing that at the beginning could really help an account like survival, whether it be legal or PPH, Just looking recreational can prolong you a little bit and your net total will be higher at very low time cost. 

36:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We did do the full episode with mr limited limited. I do love that episode. Honestly, if if you do struggle with uh getting limited at sports books, I probably would check that out. He's pretty knowledgeable guy, uh. But I'm gonna ask you, chris, are there any concepts or ideas and I know you're a circles off fan? You've told me that before um on how to get more down at potentially recreational books, that that we may not have covered here on circles off before I'm not sure how much you've covered this, but I'll say anyway. 

37:26 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
So I would say, when I get, like, when I'm looking at a recreational book, I want to tell a story of the of the account. Like think like shipper has mentioned this before but like think about everything you know about the account. Like what ethnicity is the person? Like are you if you're betting? Like how old are you? Where are you living? Like, if you're in New York, maybe bet a lot of New York teams if you find value. That's a logical reason for like books, to like why you'd be betting. These things have a same pattern. 

38:01
And then I think another big thing is in the first week. I think about it as, like you know, for data scientists, you're classifying something like in the first like week or two. I would highly recommend never betting sharp in the first week or two of a new account, let them classify you as a fish, as square, and then at that point hit them hard. And and then my attitude is once you start betting sharp, then you're just, you just never, never go back like that. I don't want to like bash mr limited, but that's something I disagree with him about. I don't believe in this. Like you max, you go back and forth. Once you start, once they have one bet where, okay, this guy might know what he's doing, never go back, in my opinion. 

38:45 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Just just pounded it got it um yeah, really interesting bible steam ahead. 

38:49
I do, I love that I do love the local teams thing. So I've mentioned this before and I'll mention it again, that not everyone watches every single episode. But what I typically like to do is make make the account look as square and recreational as possible in the early going. Oftentimes what I'll get, what I'll what I'll do when I open account, is I'll have friends that I know are super, you know, pretty square. I'll basically just be like send me the bets that you like in like a telegram chat or WhatsApp and I kind of just go through the betting behaviors that they would, because I know that they're not winners and whatever right. 

39:28
And it's very clear in the early going that they like to bet the local teams. Um, you know, blue jays, raptors, leafs are going to be you know 60 of the action. Um, whatever the rationale may be like I have a feeling about tonight or whatever, jays can't possibly lose five games in a row. You know the very uh wreck thing, but I mean that is a very wreck thing to do. There's a lot of wrecks who sign up purely to bet on their own team and make the game a little bit more interesting. I think there's a lot of recs who sign up purely to bet on their own team and make the game a little bit more interesting. I think that's probably one of the best ways you can disguise yourself. 

40:02 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
It's something else my partners and I discussed is actually signing up to a service that loses, like a scam service, to get their plays. So I get, so I get classified in with a bunch of other we it's too painful for me to like give a scammer money and then like bet, but I there's something I thought about just like if, like, if, like a rec book has like hundreds of guys been the same thing and they all lose, how good does that look on your account if there's the same like moronic parlays? I don't know if that actually would actually work or not, but it's something to think about that is literally hilarious, bro I I want. 

40:36 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I wonder about that, though. Um, I do want to have shipper on for another episode at something you're saying. Does it ban when everyone's betting the same thing every once? Me and johnny uh attended a uh um holiday party for a recreational sports book at the end of 2022, and we found our way into the trading room for that sports book and we were able to very clearly see um how they they see bets in real time and um how they profile in real time, based off of multiple people betting the same thing at once the trader was also a listener of the pod, so a lot. 

41:11 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I know there's a lot of traders at these books that listen. Here I got a. I got a suggestion, by the way, for a book after, but go ahead but, but. 

41:17 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But we, we know very clearly that they pay attention to the winning services and if they see a so right angle sports, for an example now, now, I know right angle sports had a down year for college basketball but typically they would have been a respected service in the space and the traders at that book would be on top of every right angle sports release. And if they saw people betting it at the same time as the release, which you know, a lot of people will bet it later and they don't care about those people because they've already lost four points on the college basketball total. But the people who are betting it right away boom, profiled across the board. Right Limits cut boom basketball total. But the people who are betting it right away boom, profile across the board. Right limits cut boom. But I don't know if they're paying attention to the shit services, because there's, I don't, I don't think. 

42:02 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I don't think they are. I've I've literally seen trade a trader do do this like oh, donovan mitchell's out, they just just got steam. Like review, review, review, review, review, review, review send off. I, I've seen it. So like I know these, a lot of these guys like we give them no credit. We're like these guys are terrible. 

42:19
I think if the book has just like an influx of bets coming in, like you can't really like here's, here's an. You want a real example for people listening. He's like let's sometimes, with bet stamp, like you know, we have bets that track we. We have like literally millions of bets coming in that people are tracking. You know how impossible. 

42:39
People are always asking like, oh, do you ever like look at the bets people are placing and see like the amount of project that would be to actually do this. 

42:48
Like sure we may, we may even be able to build a ticker which we don't have. It would literally just be flooding with bets every the whole time. Like to actually review which bets are sharp would be just such a project. So I do think, like when you, when you're at draft kings, for example, and I'm sure we have like more bets coming in than them because it's tracked and people like track all the bets at the same time. They'll go through and whatnot and draft and a lot of our bets also aren't necessarily verified bets. People just tracking random stuff. But would be nearly impossible, I think, to just look at a draft kings trader screen and then from there be like wow, this guy's, these guys are automatically wrecked, so these guys are automatically sharps, just from the bets that come. But as soon as you like right click, probably click on the profile and go through, at that point I feel pretty confident that I'd do a very good job profiling somebody. 

43:41 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah and as would you, I'm sure. Yeah, I, I mean, for me it's it's always comes down to, uh, my experience with consulting for sports books in the past. 

43:49
Oh, couldn't even go one but but I, I I've lived this before and I I know, like the metrics that the books look at in the early going and, uh, you know, you just you just want to portray yourself as a, as a bad better, as quickly as possible. There's other ways to do it, outside of bets, by the way, like if you deposit a certain amount and you lose your initial deposit and you have a second deposit day, like very quickly. That's another good way of you know portraying yourself as as someone that the sports books might think they can extract value of out of you in the long run. 

44:26 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Actually, there's something I wanted to mention on that. I think like there's a lot of talk about responsible gaming. Something that I believe is very helpful is shaping your account as much as a problem gambler as possible. What I mean is something I like to do is, if I deposit a new account, win a bunch on bad stuff like big parlays that are like negative uv and stuff, withdraw that same amount so I'm playing with the profits and then or chase losses, like double up, like try the martingale strategy on on your account, like look as problem gambler as you possibly can. 

45:08 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I mean look, did you ever set the problem gaming limits on the account? 

45:14 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I did try that once um, but that caused more problems than it. 

45:19 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That helps, so I would not recommend not recommend that um but like well, I recommend it if you are a problem gamer. But if you have issues and you struggle with the controlling yourself, use the problem gaming like. I say that seriously, I might have a smirk on my face, but seriously, if you are going to struggle with betting addiction, do use those tools. If you're not going to, then it's. It's a different story yeah, of course. 

45:44 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Obviously I'm talking about like winning winning sports and whatnot. But you know they want the problem gamblers like. I mean they can say whatever like pr nonsense they want to talk about. That's how they. That's how they want the problem gamblers. I mean they can say whatever like PR nonsense they want to talk about. That's how they, that's how they make the money and and if you can look like one as much as possible, your limits are only going to go up. So that's. 

46:07 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep, that's the whole. I'll win 45 K in my account and just put it all of it down on one, that's massive. 

46:14 - Johnny Capo (Host)
So this is massive so this is my, this is my sports book idea because it stems from that, like a lot of rec guys and listen, I'm I don't intend to to start my own sports book. I'm happy to put this idea out there, but this is, this is something that I would love to see. Okay, a lot of a lot of my buddies they'll they'll bet the jays every game. Okay, they don't necessarily carry with the price about the jays every game. Yeah, it's actually one of those guys. Well, this is what I want. 

46:38
You have like an option. You, they do all these preset bets and everything. They're all garbage, like preset 16 parlay, like they should do a pre-package home team, and you get like some sort of discount. It's like I want to bet you. You basically pre-commit before the season. I want to bet 50 bucks base amount on every single leaf game for the entire season and then you agree to just get the closing odds and you lock it up front and pay all the money up front and, as a result of doing that, they'll give you like some sort of boosted promo where they'll give you like 500 bucks or something If you do that and then you just get to sweat on the leaf game every single game that is actually an excellent idea, that if I'm drafting, why would I not do that? 

47:22 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
like that's a no-brainer dude, that's a no-brainer zach cut that out, we might that's a pretty solid idea, until everyone just shits on it in the comments. That's it. 

47:31 - Johnny Capo (Host)
That's I think about right now for a wreck, better like that's. I know I have, you know, at least 10 buddies that would would just do that. Like, yeah, give me 20 bucks on every single jay's game and they'll just be willing to accept. Like, maybe, obviously, if you're, you're going to be adjusting it. It's complicated, but just give them the closing price every time after the game starts. 

47:48 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah every day's game about price, the bets in their account yeah, and it's just like an automated way to do it. 

47:53 - Johnny Capo (Host)
You, you prepay up front for the year. Book's probably happy. Hold the money and it's good. You know what's good for the book. Every win it'll release to 20 bucks back to your account. So you're you're, it's like you're depositing a little bit that you can play with no brainer. You're welcome. It's patent pending, much sharper than he looks. 

48:11 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Much, much sharper than he looks. I was in here. Sorry to go completely off topic. I threw zach under the bus. There's acts actually a pretty decent better himself, nowadays, but I was at. I heard he lost a bunch on the anthem of the super bowl but other than well that that that was because he got some bad in place, that at the wrong books, unfortunately, um. But last week I gave him um, I didn't give him tick. I I was gifted tickets to uh blue jays game. 

48:36
Uh, from yeah it was last week when we were recording from the guy that helped helped us with build this studio and I couldn't go that night, so I I gave them to zach and I saw zach was here, like you know, up to like 15 minutes before the game and he's hammering away on his computer. I'm like what are you doing, zach? He's like I I got all these player prop overs tonight for the jays. I need, I need these guys to come through with a bunch of hits tonight. I believe they got shut out and like three hits total as a team and I'm like, oh man, I mean, you know what, though? I'm like that's, that is a genius way to prime an account. Man. Like, just go in toronto blue jays bet every single player over on hits to hit a home run every single night. 

49:16
Imagine a trader reviewing that account

49:19 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
okay

49:19 - Zack Phillips (Other)
, hold on one quickly in my defense. It was not all in the jays, they did get shut out. I had a bunch of stuff on the jays, they, but I had a lot of stuff on the white sock uh yeah, it was white socks as well, so I ended up losing money because I had a bunch on the jays and they everyone lost. But but yeah, I did have that. 

49:37 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But someone reviewed his account, probably at night, and they're like they, they hadn't they had a note there. 

49:44 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Producer for hit the books and they're like this guy's square as can be. 

49:49 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Do you remember the note on your account at that sports book I was mentioning earlier? Yeah, yeah. 

49:56 - Johnny Capo (Host)
You can't mention it but but but I've there. There's been some funny, some funny stuff I've dealt with in the industry just from as a result of this podcast. Basically, yes, like as a result of this, like getting pre-profiled on stuff, I mean it's just a risky play. It is what it is we. We like doing the podcast. We have fun here providing value to everybody. I hope if are smash that like and subscribe. 

50:17 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Definitely Road to 10K. We need to get the subs up. So many people watching out there are not subbed Seriously over 50% every week. Hit that subscribe button. I want to do a little bit of a personal reflections section here, chris, actually before we do, just out of curiosity. Johnny loves this question. He mentioned it like five times on the show. What are your future goals in the betting industry? Like? What do you hope to get out of sports betting? 

50:39 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
As much money as possible. Like I mean, I started like for the love of sports and a love of gambling and it's kind of just devolved into a love of money. I just want to win as much as possible as quickly as possible. 

50:54 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Chris, if you could go back and, uh, let's say, like, get your original accounts from the start, like you're starting over again. You signed up to all the sports books that you can. How would you change what you originally did with those accounts? 

51:10 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
oh, okay, uh. So I would basically exclusively parlay. I want to win, just absolutely bury them. And I think another thing that's really good about parlays is you either lose a small or you win a lot, and I'm not talking about negative parlays. But the reason that's so good is, if you keep losing, you're just a fish to the, to these rec books, so you just keep keep losing. Your limits get bigger and bigger and eventually, when you win I mean you just pound it in and I like to view every account that I get is what's the max I can win from it? And I want to. How can I get that number to be as big as possible? So if I had my old accounts back, I'd want that number to be you know, we're talking like six figures, seven if possible like that's what I would want, and I'd want to hit a huge one and just keep losing until I hit a huge one, and that's that's what I'd want to do. 

52:11 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Keep in mind, guys, for anyone looking to take this advice you you will need a bankroll in order to do this, Like you can't just keep jamming your accounts. I got some. You have to be responsible. This is absolutely not for people just starting out. Or even if you have, like, let's say, a mid five figure bankroll, it's not advice for you. Like you don't want to be growing super risky. If you're above that and you graduated, then I would agree with the advice. 

52:35 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
That's fair and I you know I could also preface this by saying, like the max you could win on account is usually dictated by your bankroll. Like, like you said, if you have like a $20,000 bankroll, you can't win like a million dollars in your draft case, like because you just can't bet big enough and you're going to need so many bets. So like, because you just can't bet big enough and you're going to need so many bets, so like I guess a better way to say it would I'd want to win a lot more units than possible. And whatever size you're using, like if you're only betting like 50 bucks a parlay, that's fine, but I still think sizing it down is the way to go. But just be responsible with your sizes. 

53:13 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I take it you wouldn't jam 45k on uh, on eagles plus nine and a half he would. 

53:18 - Johnny Capo (Host)
He would do it on a parlay that in the under now exactly some player props parlayed in as well. Oh, I'm not sure which rapper said this, but when you said, when you were explaining what, how much you would like, how you would treat your accounts, the this line came to mind too much money ain't enough money, that's. That's basically how you were talking there, like I just want to hit them as hard as possible, rob's like how hard you're like harder oh man, that's too good. 

53:48 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Um, do you keep up with, like, the sports betting landscape and there's been the the conversations with the massachusetts gaming board recently about limiting players um, how much of your time is spent on like keeping up with the industry as a whole and trying to, you know, make sure that you're planning your adaptation, so to speak, over? 

54:11 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
time. So it's funny you mentioned you referenced me as a professional. I would actually not consider myself professional better because I I have held a full-time job for the past three years. Um, even though gambling has made a, what do you do for work? Uh, right now I'm a um macroeconomic analyst. I just got a new. I was planning on quitting, but I got a new job offer to uh work for like a, basically a hedge fund. So it's the same thing as sports betting, except we're gambling on the stock market. 

54:40 - Johnny Capo (Host)
So I figured out this is an obvious answer, but people need to hear it. What's easier to beat stock stonks or sports? 

54:47 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
obviously sports it's not even close. I, it's like people talk about, like oh I can, I can beat like nfl, like the sickos nfl. Yeah, they're only taking like two, three hundred thousand dollars. You can chuck 200, 300 million on some of these stocks, like, and you think you can beat the stock market like, get the fuck out of here. 

55:07 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Yeah I I've been. I I have arguments with people sometimes where they're like, oh uh, like air canada is a good buy right now. And then I'll be like, okay, like why Air Canada is a good buy right now? And then I'll be like, okay, why, why is Air Canada a good buy right now? And they'll be like, oh well, they just announced that they're doing this and they're buying out this. And then this is going to happen. And I'm like, first off, and you compare it to sports, right, you're like, okay. What this guy basically is saying to me is that he thinks Air Canada is a good bet at the market price that it's currently at right now because of news he read from yesterday that Kyrie Irving is in for the series. But really that news hit the market three weeks earlier that Kyrie was in for the service but in for the series. That's like the level at which people are. 

55:52 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I don't know, I'm not trying to bash like telemarkets or anything. I think telemarks is like much smarter than me. I mean the dude. I listened to his episode. I'm like, oh my god, like another level. But if you take some like the crushers of the stock market and they put them in the sports, winning, they would like blow him out of, like it wouldn't even be comparable. Like the top dogs in the sports would be no match for, like the sickos of the stock, the stock market, like the real geniuses and people who compare it have no idea what they're talking about I. 

56:23 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I think the parallels between uh, sports betting and and the stock market uh speculation are are very similar, especially from, like the recreational crowd who, uh, every like it's it's made my own personal experience, but like all my friends who bet and lose on sports, also are the ones who put their money in the stock market and lose and they're just constantly feeding me like the exact same stuff as johnny, like you gotta buy this, like this is, but the thing is it's it's like so much more variance because you're betting so little's. 

56:53 - Johnny Capo (Host)
It's like so much more variance because you're betting so little and you're like so many, so little stock trades in the stock market that, like most people that you talk to will just say, yeah, I, I made money in the stock market. Just sheer variance of like being in the market, even though they probably underperformed versus like standard indexes, but they still like have made money in absolute. So they're like, yeah, I'm a legend I was, uh, I was recently. 

57:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
My sister is six years younger than me. I was recently had her place with, uh, all of her friends, so a bit of a younger crowd and, um, they're sharing the different cryptos that they're involved with now and they're like, oh, you gotta get in on this, you gotta get in on this, you got to get in on that. And I'm like, why? Why do I have and because it's going to the moon man Like this one is going up and all these guys are in like 20 different alts and if they had just put it into Bitcoin or even ETH recently, they're making money and they think that they're doing something like amazing, like earth, but if they had just put it into Bitcoin, they would have made like triple the amount that they made on these shitty alts that they've bought. And they don't even realize. They're not even realizing this. Some of this happens with the stock market to sports betting. It's, it's all the same, like there's just so much overlap between all. 

58:13 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Chris, what will piss you off more, a stonk tout or a sports betting tout? 

58:20 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
that's a good question. Um, honestly, a sports betting tout, and the only reason that that is is, I think the biggest difference between the two is, in general, if you just, blind, like a monkey, throw darts at the stock market, you actually will have a positive roi, right, because the stock market does go up. Now you might, you're probably not going to beat the standard index. But if you follow us like a, like a sports tout, you just, you just lost, like you can't win, like you, you lost your bets and you had to pay him. We're like, with this, this, the stock tout, like you, have a better shot and he might actually be good just because he's actually operating in like a plus cv overall environment, because the general market does go up over time. 

59:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Chris, you've been very gracious with your time. Before we get into our final questions here, do you have any funny or interesting anecdotes from your betting journey that you would maybe like to share with the audience that we haven't asked you about today? 

59:20 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I think I kind of think I covered like mostly, mostly everything. Um, yeah, I guess the only no. That's pretty much it. 

59:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I think I've covered everything all right, perfect plus ev, minus ev. I take it I got. 

59:35 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I got one thing to mention actually. Uh, so somebody sent me in uh something. They're like hey, I think it'd be a super cool idea for the podcast If you guys like talked about like a full episode where you had just given out old edges that are now like fully new, and he gave me one to give out on here. So I just pulled that up. It was like, uh, he reached out a couple months back but, uh, I figured this is the episode we've given out a bunch I'm going to give out. 

59:58
His said it was good for the air, but, um, he said I don't know if it was him or someone in a group, but uh, a crazy cool edge he had and this one's this one's really awesome was uh correlated parlays, where he would basically parlay uh nascar matchups, but you could parlay the same guy to win versus like five to six opponents. So let's say you had ryan blaney versus like truex and then ryan blaney versus hamlin blaney versus kyle bush, and then you'd be able to I don't know if you could parlay that also with like blaney to win but if you could just even parlay those six, essentially all you need is ryan blaney to win that race, maybe fair odds plus a thousand, and you're probably getting somewhere in. 

01:00:48 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like you know, crazy crazy much higher payout you don't even really need a win. 

01:00:52 - Johnny Capo (Host)
You're seeing him to win his matchup, yeah, so, um, thank you, uh, tim, for sending that one in. Appreciate that. I know we chatted a while back. We will hope to do an episode on that. I think that could be cool. We'll maybe get some ones from the community. If you want to email them in, you can email. What is? What is the email we're using right now? Circles off, uh, at the hammer dot bet. Yes, circles off at the hammer dot bet. 

01:01:15
If you have any like nuked edges. You know, don't, we wouldn't want you to give away anything that you still play or anything right now. But you know, what I think you could also do is would be a interesting ground for a lot of like sharps in the community, guys like us, to actually think about these old edges, and then maybe something pops like light ball moment. We're like you know what, if I take this, turn it to this, something I can do on this book, maybe we all make a bazillion dollars there's actually been a lot of times, too, where people think that an edge is completely nuked because they've exhausted all of their outs. 

01:01:45 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Um, and it actually still exists elsewhere. Uh, it's happened before, uh, where somebody's like, ah, I, just, this used to be a thing, it's no longer there and they, they operate in some us state that has like four sports books and you can still do that at like 10 more, 10 more books. 

01:02:01 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Yeah, I'm gonna go quickly before this airs. 

01:02:04 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Try that nascar edge for the indie 600 I actually think that might have been available at the in-person kiosk because I, when I was betting all my stuff, I mentioned it to like a poker friend of mine because he would get help me get down, uh, and I was like you should look some of the stuff and he mentioned something about nascar, but I didn't know much about nascar at the time and that might have been the same thing. 

01:02:28 - Johnny Capo (Host)
But it's definitely dust to it at this, maybe at this point I did just say indy 600 was nascar, indy 600 is indy car racing. Nascar is a different thing. Nobody kill me please I'm sorry, I don't watch nascar. 

01:02:38 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
The guy that's gonna build an f1 car no yeah, I will. 

01:02:41 - Johnny Capo (Host)
All right, I listen, I, I know a couple. I know a couple drivers in nascar, but other than that I'm not a big. Uh, I haven't. I don't even know how people watch. There was a nascar event last week. I and I I was following it because I had a couple bets and, um, no joke, it started at like 6 pm. I checked back at like 9 30 to see the results, to see if I won any bets, and they were. Maybe there was a delay or something. They were still on like lap 240 of like 400. I'm like, are these guys just sitting there for six hours? 

01:03:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Dude, when I, when I played BFS back in the day there used to, I knew nothing about NASCAR, but there used to be a huge edge in NASCAR DFS because so many people just didn't understand the scoring system which, um, you know, primarily, you want to take guys that are going to start very low on the grid, that are going to finish higher up, because there's, uh, you you know, if a guy starts 40th and finishes 12th, that's worth more than a guy who starts second and wins the race. 

01:03:38
Um, so there was a, like an edge to be had for years. But I'll never forget I can't even tell you what race it is or I'm not a nascar fan but I had, uh, I was winning a gpp which I think would have paid 180k, which is substantial money for me. Uh, at that time, it's still a substantial win. No matter how you cut it, 180k is something. But kevin harvick pitted and on his way out of the pit, hit some debris and caught a flat, like got a flat and had to go all the way around the track. So I watched, like you know, the DraftKings currently winning 180K solo first, go down to $0 very quickly and I'm like I'm never watching a NASCAR race again in my life, and I haven't. 

01:04:19
I've just completely given up on NASCAR after that. 

01:04:23 - Johnny Capo (Host)
So we'll get into our closing question no we didn't do plus EV, minus EV. 

01:04:27 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That was what I was actually going to ask oh, you were not going to One of our closing questions. 

01:04:31 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Give us a plus EV or minus EV move of the week. 

01:04:36 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
So I got a serious one and a less serious one my friend Klaus just mentioned. He wanted me to say Yannick Sinner is an absolute lock to win the french open. Any price is good. It's, he's a lock. Um, so that would be my plus cv. 

01:04:53 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Let you can just figure out it's not gonna air in time, is it well? 

01:04:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
it's. Oh, this is not gonna air in time no well, you know what? 

01:05:00 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
it doesn't matter yeah, no, it'll be even better if he wins it now all right if he, if he wins it, keep it in, if he doesn't, okay done. Um, uh, and then uh, another one that made this one might be the less serious one, or the other one was um, you mentioned something. Someone else mentioned this before, but I got this from a poker friend of mine. When you go to a restaurant, as soon as you get your food, ask the pit to close it, like to pay right there. Nothing is more tilting. When you like, you finish eating and the waiter or waitress is walking around you can't find him. You're sitting there for like five minutes. Just just pay then, and then you can leave as soon as you're done. Eating Saves so much time. 

01:05:47 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I've used that before. It's a super easy move, super. 

01:05:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
There is honestly top five tilting experience in life is waiting for your bill and like trying to get the attention of like, especially on a busy night. Love that move by the way. Love that move, by the way, love that move. I'm gonna continue with the food. 

01:06:04 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Uh, related I have one food related as well, so last week I talked about the hot food. 

01:06:08 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Right like, listen, you get hot food. You don't want to burn the top of your mouth, you're just wait for it to cool off a little bit. It's, it sucks almost as bad, maybe actually even worse than that. This is a real first world problem here. Sharp bread okay, what I don't know if you've ever went and pick, you're picking out like a sandwich you're gonna eat you're italian. 

01:06:35 - Johnny Capo (Host)
There's no sharp bread in america. 

01:06:36 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
In america that you may maybe or maybe not it's only paninos, bro, they have to be very particular about the bread that you use for sandwiches. 

01:06:46
There are some that are constructed that at the top of them. You just bite into them and they just immediately pack the roof of your mouth wide open. This happened to me a few days ago. I don't want it to happen to everyone, anyone else. So avoid. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it's it's. It's bothering me a lot. It's bothering me a lot to the point where it even hurts to drink coffee. Avoid sharp bread like that's. Really take into account the bread as much as the ingredients in the sandwich I think they just have wonder bread sandwiches in the states. 

01:07:21 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I you know what? Wonder bread? A sponsor of nascar, and I would just mention. 

01:07:25 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I don't know if they are really or if it was just the sponsor of ricky bobby in the movie, but yeah, if you're, if you're gonna go to little italy, wherever you're located new york, boston or whatever and you're gonna order a sandwich at the local deli, just be very careful about which bread is on that set. You might even want to ask to see the bread first, to avoid the ones that are a little bit harder and have a sharpness to them at the top. 

01:07:49 - Johnny Capo (Host)
So this one, this my Plus TV Move of the Week. It's a send-in from a friend here that I received. He says simple rule now, with all this craziness about people demanding tips in the restaurant industry If you're standing up to order, absolutely no tip. If you're sitting down to order, you tip, that's a plus. I heard it. I thought you know what? Sure, I'll say that one on the pod, Not bad. 

01:08:17 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I'm not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, I would say that I classify myself as a good tipper. 

01:08:25 - Johnny Capo (Host)
You sit at Starbucks and you go. 

01:08:27 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It depends on, uh, whether or not I'm greeted with a smile if the cup is in the right place. Sometimes on the app I'll put like picking up in store and they put it at the drive-thru like I'm not gonna give it, I I, because then I have to ask somebody. This sounds ridiculous, but there's a process to it. All the tipping. Tipping on the machines now is absurd, dude, like it's gone out of. I don't mind leaving a tip when 10% tip on something where somebody just prepared it for you and it's ready to go. Sure, but don't give the minimum option on the machine as like 20% we're getting out of. 

01:09:02
And I understand a lot of people work jobs where they get paid, you know minimum wage and they're reliant on tips and that's fine and that's why I will do it. But there are some cases like you go to a baseball game and you order a beer and it's a tall can and they open the crack, open the beer for you and give it to you. I'm sorry, like that's not worth a 20 tip on the machine. It's not like I don't want to be that guy, but if you gave me an option of 10, that was like a stand on there. I would probably hit that and be like all right, fine, whatever, sorry I don't even decide that what that's worth 10 but not 20 like. 

01:09:41 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
What's your thought process there? 

01:09:43 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
you know there is not one other than I. I feel like it's an act of service. It probably should be rewarded in some capacity, especially if the beer is cold and they've kept it cold, um, but yeah, I don't know. It's getting ridiculous now, like the machines themselves, that they I don't know how it is in the us, by the way it's very different. Um way, stuff works in canada, in the us, when you're paying for stuff. But typically speaking, they'll serve you up a machine for your credit card and there's some standardized tip percentages and they used to be like 10, 15, 18 and now it's like 20, 20 to 28. 

01:10:23 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Maybe that's just here in canada, but no, it's crazy, I'm. I'm like, uh, I'd say as well, I do value tipping people. I like to tip a lot on uber eats, especially if, like someone's coming in, going up an elevator, finding the floor, I do get, I I tip a lot it. My tips vary completely based on the level of service I get. I'm'm a true believer in that. 

01:10:43 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
I do have a plus TV on the tipping. Whenever I was like hitting the kiosk I would always tip the cashier Like the cashier is like big, which is very plus TV in my opinion, and it actually paid out once or twice where I cashed in like a duplicate bet that I had bet and I'd always tip this cashier like a lot and he mentioned mentioned, by the way, they're trying to crack down on this. You shouldn't. You shouldn't do that so often and he's still paying out the bet. I'm like thanks, man, I appreciate what do you mean cashing? 

01:11:13 - Johnny Capo (Host)
oh, like two bets are the same two but two bets. 

01:11:16 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Anonymous bets on a kiosk yeah, same bet limits yeah, yeah, I'm glad to hear someone, someone, uh tips in those situations, because I know for a fact that uh good friend, uncle k joey kanish, does not, does not. Based off of his previous uh twitter pictures, where he's he's always got a perfect dollar amount, you notice like he cashes out exactly 500 and it's it's for, it's, you know, 500 bills. You can tell right away when somebody has uh, you know, given a little tip or not, based off of those pictures. But it's good, it's listen, it's good to give back. I don't want to be an asshole here. I am by nature maybe an asshole, but it's a little bit out of hand. Now, like for services, it's very small services that I will. 

01:12:05 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I will give a small tip, but it's you know when they start asking for tips in the drive-through. Now it's getting. It's getting a little ridiculous like it's, it's getting out of hand. 

01:12:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I understand inflation it's, you know things are going on and but we, we gotta, we gotta get back rooted in reality at some point or another all right back. 

01:12:25 - Johnny Capo (Host)
Sorry to bring up that negativity on the show actually. Uh, all right, chris, so you mentioned earlier 25 years old, just a, a brisk 25. If you could go back five years to when you were 20 years old, probably still at school in virginia tech, or, yes, probably at virginia tech still a hokey, still a hokey, yes what advice would you give to yourself? 

01:12:51 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
um, our first advice would be like don't bet under 20. I would never do anything that ridiculous, like never, ever would I ever dream of betting under 20 21. So wait till 21 to bet. That'd be my first advice, of course. 

01:13:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It goes without saying. 

01:13:08 - Chris Dierkes (Guest)
Yes, but some advice I would give, give myself, is have more confidence in sports betting. Have more confidence in edges you find and edges you see like you don't have to double check so so often. Like an example I would give is like a futures edge I found, is like last year it was like total wins in division and it was like steelers under three plus 130 and I don't like I actually went back and like checked to like all the math to make sure it was like good and just apply some like common sense. Like they're the worst team in the division, the median win total, and you're getting plus money Like and you're competing against like a random trader that posted these numbers up. You don't need to like think about it, just like have confidence. And the reason that's so important is these lines move fast, like if these big edges pop out. You got to hit it. You got to hit it hard. 

01:14:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So have confidence in in your numbers, don't spend so much time like checking in the obvious stuff. Yeah, good, good advice it's very true. 

01:14:16 - Johnny Capo (Host)
I'll add one thing like like, I've been betting player props for a long time, very successfully for my essentially almost my whole life, a whole betting life and the reality is I have so much data now stored personally just from like, even from from bets and from everything like the amount which I have is more than probably anybody in the space right now for player props. If you told me I had to make numbers for all these player props and win consistently against like sharp bettors, like I would would lose. And there's and I'm saying this as like, let's say, I worked for a regulated bookmaker and I was just tasked with making the player prop numbers I would do a significantly better job than they currently do right now, but I would still lose to sharp bettors, without a doubt. And when, when you realize that to to like book that breadth of a menu requires I brought up earlier in the episode imagine a screen coming through of just countless bets per second. There are going to be some errors, even the smartest people. It's going to be very hard to do to actually beat. 

01:15:19
So I agree with Chris there, like if you think you have an edge on something and maybe it's like a future, maybe it's a division winner or something like that. 

01:15:26
Like a lot of times, people, they we've gotten almost too far one way where, like people like, oh, the market is everything and you need to just follow the market and just follow pinnacle and use it as the North star, that, like we got to realize there are like exceptions that come in and mostly on like futures and alt stuff and you know, alt player props and stuff like that. Like to think that the book is going to correctly price every single guy to get a triple double is just insane. And if you're, especially if you're hitting like openers or in the morning, like there's going to be a ton of edges in there that you should be able to do by just like watching the games and, uh, you know, learning yourself. So I I'd agree with chris in that sense. Like if you, if you think you have something like you know, be more confident sometimes and be responsible with it, but you can go sometimes well said. 

01:16:13 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
His name is chris deer kiss. You can follow him on twitter at fluff no lied, which was a poker handle back in the day which I found out off there. We'll post that down in the description of below. For those of you who do want to follow him, I do recommend that you do so. Of course, I do recommend that you smash the like button down below. Make sure you're subbed here to Circles Off. Appreciate everyone who tuned in this week. We'll be back next week for another big episode. This has been Circles Off here in the hammer betting network presented by pinnacle sportsbook.