00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But there's like this fear that you know, god forbid we take this second division lacrosse league off the board and this guy's going to leave. This guy that's not even valuable to our business is going to leave and go play it somewhere else where it's offered. Come on, let's go. 

00:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You think I'm going to come on here and put one of the Aussies in the elite tier. 

00:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'd vote for Rob with $25,000. I wouldn't vote for you. I I wouldn't vote for you. I can basically just cheat and get the same backs that they're getting. It's weird because you can also pay your bills at the same place where you bet this guy talks a lot of trash. 

00:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He's talked a lot of trash about me, Rob, a lot of people in the community, but he's refusing to show his face. 

00:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Touting yourself as a pretty good NFL gambler. I thought you were an idiot. Take testing, testing. I'm a cuck. One, two, three, four Aussies going head to head with the Aussies that's what I grew up for. And I said get him Kirk. And they call me a mean-spirited name. I don't hang out with them. The Toronto Maple Leafs at 14-1 are staring me dead in the face. 

00:56
I'm already getting you know a lot of early. This could be the best Circles Off episode that's ever been done. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 163. Part of the Hammer Betting Network presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook. I am Rob Fazzola, joined by Johnny from Betstamp. How's it going? 

01:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Rob, we are here. We had a couple things go viral on Twitter over the past couple weeks. 

01:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
New social media hire Chris Horvat is proven valuable. He's farming some engagement for us. 

01:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Farming some engagement. The one my Plus TV move of the week on the Matt Trenhill episode for those of you who don't know what we're referring to was that people are getting to the airport too early before their flight based on the fact that they're sitting at the gate for too long Okay, and I never expected before their flight. Based on the fact that they're sitting at the gate for too long, Okay, and I never expected this to be very divisive. 

01:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So such a controversial take? 

01:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Certainly not as divisive as it was. I'd say it was probably 70-30. In agreement with me on the comments. We had a couple hundred thousand views on the tweet, which obviously we're thrilled about, but what was crazy is the amount of people that were just giving out bogus takes, and I'm here to address a few of those right now. 

02:19
I'm not going to name anybody by name, but I'll start by saying this If you actually genuinely believe that you can go to the airport and be as productive as you are at home and can do all of the same things you can do anywhere else at the airport, then that, in fact, is incorrect Because, as everybody knows, that's very, very big logic. It's physically impossible. So I'll list a few things that you can do at home that you can't do at the airport, and that would be the start of that list would be anything you can do at the airport. You can do at home in more comfort or elsewhere in more comfort, agreed, and certainly there's a lot of things you can't do at the airport. For example, taking a comfortable nap, sleeping in your own bed, getting a workout, hanging out with friends that are not going to be going on the trip to you past airport security and countless others. I didn't think it really need to be said. But there's so many people just commenting that I even had Roxy Roxborough. Yeah, he shot him. 

03:16
He's like if you can't be as productive at the airport, that's on you. Like listen, I know he doesn't know how to use the internet and I know he's used to the small internet. But who's using airport Wi-Fi nowadays? Like listen when I work not to be a snob or anything like that but I dock into an ethernet Like we're using fast connection because that's needed and it just speeds up your productivity. I'm not, you know, going nuts on the airport wi-fi trying to connect to a thing, sign up for a thing, spam my computer, steal all my data so I can get a, you know, airport hacked wi-fi on my thing. That's going so slow. Like, do your work at home, come to the airport when you need to go to the airport, see ya, done deal every camera at that airport could see your laptop screen if you're involved in the betting space. 

04:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not even saying that. That there might be reason for you not to want to bet at the airport and things of that nature. Just saying. Also, I don't know what other people's setups are like and maybe this is. I fully agree with you on this. Take by the way. 

04:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The internet sucks at the airport. There's no denying that. 

04:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But also your setup sucks. Like you're hunched over in your seat or whatever you got. You know, whatever your laptop screen, but I'm used to multiple screens. I mean, listen, this might come across as like oh, look at Rob, he's like always, but that's my setup at home. Like I want to use that type of setup as much as possible. 

04:35
Um, I my big thing is that people are always like well, the worst case scenario is you miss your flight, you miss your flight, you miss your flight Again. I always encourage people to think probabilistically okay, if, but for for some reason, you're super late to the airport. You got held up in traffic. I don't know. Just like in Toronto this week there's some flooding that caused some issues for people to get out of town. Okay, you get to the airport, you get in line. There's still going to be like an airport agent that comes up through the airport. You get in line. There's still gonna be like an airport agent that comes up through. The line is like Chicago leaving at 7.25, anyone in Chicago like they will accelerate you to the front if you are in danger of missing your flight. 

05:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
People are gonna think that they hate those scumbags. 

05:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well listen, I don't like it either. 

05:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't even do that I just get to the gate on a reasonable time. It's not that hard. You get there right as it times in and people say, oh, it's impossible to predict. I can't even begin to predict the time because you never know what's going to happen. That's what a prediction is. That's what the bet is. You make a bet based on the correct probability and you go and you just do that. 

05:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's a problem you're not missing your flight is what it cut. 

05:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like listen you can, but it's such a low probability that I mean when we're doing like expected value calcs and, as I said in the initial clip, if it's something that you cannot afford to miss for a reason that's beyond monetary or time, then, yes, go to the airport early. But in most scenarios people who miss their flight will still just wait two hours at the airport, which people are waiting anyways. So it's like as if the equivalent if you're going three hours early, you're essentially missing your flight every time. You're missing your flight every time in time value. Other people brought up listen this guy obviously doesn't have a wife and kids. Sorry, I'm glad that you know you having a wife and kids now is forcing you to make still bad decisions. Hopefully it's not impacting. 

06:28
Hopefully you don't just make bad decisions because you have a wife. Apologies for anyone who's in that boat. 

06:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I do listen. I do understand that point of view. Sometimes there are battles in marriage that are worth fighting and those that are not. I haven't been there before, but I can understand that. If somebody says, listen, I don't want to put up a big stink with my wife or my spouse or whatever because I want to get to the airport half an hour early, I don't want this to be a thing that's real life, because sometimes you might have a partner that might hold it against you for a while. I can understand that. 

07:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. Tough spot to be in for everyone out here. Who's in that uh scenario? Um, in addition to that, oh, we, you don't know how long it takes to go through with kids. Uh, hey, buddy budget, that in right. So part of the prediction, go ahead. And again, the reason I'm speaking like this because I got so much hate on this tweet, that's so far like. These guys just don't understand at all. A couple other ones people brought up. Well, you could obviously get an airport beer. We'll get into that later. So we talk about the airport beer. There's, like it's so comfortable A an airport beer. Sure, maybe you enjoy that, but you can't even bring it to the gate. So you're still, no matter what, going to the gate early and sitting at the gate. You have to. Well, I don't know if there's any airports you've ever been to, but I've never been to an airport that just allows open beer at the gate. Usually you need to sit at the bar I'm not. 

07:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm honestly not big on the airport beer. I've talked about this before. I think it's a very overrated beer for me personally, because airport beer leads to me having to piss on the flight more than I generally would, and I don't want to. I really just want to like sleep through the flight. 

08:09 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I got absolutely crushed on before I went on the flight to Calgary and then just kept drinking on the plane. Yeah, like, but like. Thankfully I timed it out so that I didn't have to pee too early and then I was good to go, yeah, but your kidneys are like 10 years younger than mine. 

08:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm a little bit older. I have to. I have to pee more often. I like I would prefer an airport edible, like before I'm I'm getting there and like by the time I get through security I'm feeling good. I'll sleep on the plane Like I. Much rather that. 

08:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of other people brought up the airport lounges. I mean, listen, teach their own. I'm not a big fan of those. Personally, I think they're also still negative EV in many ways. You're going early to go to a lounge experience, which is not really great, and it's probably more comfortable to be at home or elsewhere. In addition to that, I do agree, though, it is much better than sitting at the gate if you can, and oftentimes you do get drinks drinks free booze and stuff like that however however, I personally wouldn't voluntarily go there. 

09:10
It's more of a yeah, you're in this situation, that's the best, and and a lot of people did mention and respond in the comments like, not all airports have a good airport lounge. So you know, depending on some small airport you might be in, there might not even be that option to go there early, and sometimes there's only maybe one spot where you can grab a beer and it's a packed bar. 

09:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I will say too, like another thing that I just kept thinking about over and over, and maybe this doesn't exist for every airport in North America or worldwide, but like if in Toronto, if you're going to Pearson Airport, there are wait times that are live online at any point, like you don't need to leave home earlier just in case there's a three hour wait, when you know with certainty that there's like a 15 minute wait at that exact moment as well. So like there's a lot of stuff that people say. And when I was consulting for sports books, I had to fly a lot. I did have to fly. I was taking at least four flights a month for two to three years. I've flown a lot, I've experienced a lot. 

10:11
At first you're just like you think you know what air travel is, you get to the airport early and then eventually you just start pushing it and pushing it a little bit further and further, because you're like why am I gonna go to the airport so early? And you just start to like learn certain things about it. But like, yeah, you can look up wait times. Obviously, you know traffic with like a decent, like we have live traffic Now it is we have live traffic now. 

10:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We do have live traffic now. 

10:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We have a lot of good predictors of when you need to be there. Sure, you can buffer a little bit of time. If you happen to get there a half hour early, you hit the lounge, you can get a half hour massage or whatever you know. But I'm with you, johnny, like I'm very a lot of the stuff that was brought up as like opposition to your. To me it didn't make a whole lot of sense. It is just stuff that didn't make sense. And this guy's a legend, by the way. Chris Doncic over here, who tried out the airport run early with two children Departure at 3.09, arrived 2.15, walked right on the plane at 2.39, no weight Stress level six out of 10. Probably when you're pushing it into early going you'll have like a little bit more stress because you don't know, but only because we met my in-laws who arrived an hour earlier and kept calling. 

11:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You know, this guy's an absolute legend. 

11:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Absolute legend. 

11:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Congrats, buddy. I hope you continue to save time and time at the airport. Put that time to good use, spend it with your family, not in the line, and instead maybe you know obviously playing with your daughter, teaching your kids. 

11:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
In the year 2026, when we finally have swag, we'll send this guy a sweater Done deal. 

11:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. The only one that really, to be honest, grinded my gears was the fact that people said like, legitimately, were saying what can you do at home that you can't do at the airport? And it's just. I don't even think it has to be answered anymore. We're obviously not going to go there. 

12:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm very tangled here at the moment, by the way. 

12:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There we go finally Speaking of something that, nah, maybe that's probably not going to work there, Wait actually, joni, I got something bone to pick with you here. 

12:13 - Zack Phillips (Other)
We did the beer draft last episode, rob, and I just kind of glossed over it when it happened. Yeah, we talked about this this week. You deserve the most flack ever for that spike ball Spike. 

12:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
ball beer is not cutting it. 

12:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Those who know no. Those who know no. 

12:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But it's like any sport that you could play with one hand and hold a beer. What makes a spike ball beer better than a butchy beer? 

12:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, because it's a part of the game, listen, hear me out, those of you who know, you know, and I had a couple buddies who messaged me and they said, ah, these guys don't, they don't know they don't, and that's fine that's fine, I've been saying you guys a couple. 

12:51
I say there's a couple screenshots. I'm not expecting everybody to know this, it is more of a personal experience, but there is nothing better than playing spike ball. You have a beer in the hand, like a can of beer in the hand, and you're making a diving play. Where you need to, can switch, and then you pop it back up on a dive, can switch back, finish it. That it's part of the game. It's it's an, it's an unbelievable experience and again, I'm gonna need. 

13:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not a big like we're gonna. I'm not a big beer. 

13:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm not a big beer drinker, certainly not anymore. Um, definitely have crushed my fair share of beers in the day. For those who were commenting like do these guys even drink beer? I don't even anymore. Did an honorary beer chug at a wedding this week just to post on Twitter. The full video of the beer chug was somehow unreleased. Our new social media guy, chris Horvat. 

13:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, no, it's not his fault. It's not his fault, was it you? So I so that beer chug um I. 

13:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I finished it last well, okay, yeah, no shit, thank, shout out to the, the one guy who's like I analyzed this video and, based on the bottle of angles, rob certainly came in I would also like. 

13:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is definitely we talked about. This is like the worst beers I. I don't want to ever chug a beer, but I especially do not want to have to chug a beer that's just been like removed from the freezer like my teeth were so cold. 

14:10 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You don't have it in you. I don't have it. I don't have it. Um, I finished. For those you watch the the video. I finished the beer very shortly after the end of the video. I was it's. It should not have been cut. Let's see if we can get that full video posted, please. 

14:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But uh, my wife took the video of that and she said I think she didn't want to embarrass me so she sent the. 

14:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
She sent the clip I actually watched it after and it there was a full video there's a full video yeah, it's okay, she, she's nice and yeah she obviously had to embarrass me. 

14:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You don't want to embarrass rob. I mean listen. Well, I gotta say if I had, I would certainly the one beer that was missed, that was commented on several times and it's truly an epic great beer. Honestly, I think I would have put it atop the list is that beer right after you mow the lawn, Like the mow the lawn beer, because you're always mowing the lawn when it's hot. You don't want to mow it when it's raining or it's wet. It's warm. Usually you get in. After there you open the fridge, crack a beer. That, to me, is number one beer. I don't know how I thought about it. Whoever pointed that out totally agree, Like I'm going Vegas cab beer. There's no way Vegas cab beer is better than the beer after you mow the lot. 

15:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So that, to me, was a clear my favorite one in the comments was somebody a comment for. A worst beer was the blackjack table beer, where you order the beer. It comes an hour later and you already busted out. That's the worst beer. You didn't even want the beer. Terrible, how they get you these casinos, man that. Congrats on that comment. You had me laughing for quite some time there. Actually, I sent that to a bunch of people, yeah. 

15:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Shower beer is, by the way, extremely polarizing as well. Yeah, I'm not a fan that wedding we went to. There's people going up to Zach like, oh, you get it, man, shower beer, whatever. And then there was people like what the hell? Shower beer? It's disgusting and whatever. It's very polarizing beer. 

16:04
Pinnacle is not a polarizing sports book, because everyone knows that pinnacle is the best sports book out there. If you haven't found out yet in canada, make sure you do check it out. We got lots of stuff coming up here euros just ended, cope america just ended, the olympics are starting. I remember betting the olympics a couple years ago. Decent limits at pinnacle relative to everywhere else, even though it's a smaller market, pretty solid there. We got nfl pre-season coming up, college football season coming up. Make sure you check out pinnacle sportsbook. The best odds in the space, extremely competitive treats. Every better, fairly can get down. Not going to get limited, not going to get cut. 

16:40
Been in business for 25 years. For a reason if you do sign up to Pinnacle in Canada, use code HAMMER. It does support us here on the Circles Off channel and, by the way, while you're at it, we're about 1,000 subs now shy of the 10K mark. That would be big for us At 10K. We said that we were going to actually get merch. Hopefully we will at the 10K mark, but make sure you smash that sub button down below. Make sure you smash that sub button down below. Make sure you turn on notifications, because we're gonna have more content coming on this channel. That's not just this show with me and Johnny. And also, if you do like the content we put out there, let the YouTube algorithm know. Smash that like button as well. It goes a long way. 

17:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, I got the list of questions for our Q&A today. I segmented them as best as I can. We're going to do some betting strategies, some questions about the industry and then some questions about Rob and I that always seep through. If we didn't get to your question, then we didn't see it, or maybe you're an idiot and you commented a shitty question. 

17:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's some bad questions. There were some funny ones that I don't think we can include because they're not for this audience. If we had a maybe, uh, we're probably, you know most. 

17:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's a high chance. 

17:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We didn't see it and just grace through it as well but, you know, those of you who know you know who you are all right, like just last thing please, please, stop with the questions on, like, illegal activities. I'm not going to answer questions on illegal activities just for the future. We get them every episode. I'd love like, yeah, like there's a lot of things that are illegal I don't really want to talk about. So now that we got that out of the way, there was a lot of good questions this time around it's not all bad. 

18:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So Johnny, all right. Is there a number this one was by take from takes by Jay Is there a number that you would never bet, regardless of expected value, to avoid a risk of ruin? Example betting a minus 10,000 or greater. So I'll start with that one real quick. And the answer is simply put yes, there is actually. And the expected value in guy in me. 

18:40
Obviously you know for a fact that you can plug this in, based on your bankroll, into a proper calculator and you should have a bet size for you. So if your bankroll is $10,000, then there's really basically no way you can lay $10,000 to win $100 on something, right? If your bankroll is $10,000, you can't lay $10,000 to win $1. It'd be pretty stupid of you to do that. If your bankroll is, let's say, $1 million, then can you lay 200,000 to win $1 on something where the expected value is there. You could, and Kelly, in certain situations, based on the expected value of that bet, would say yes, you should bet this. However, for me I'd say and it's a very loaded question, because there's not many sports bets at the sports books that are in the range of minus a hundred thousand that are actually good value bets but no, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't risk a million dollars to win a dollar. 

19:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It just I don't, I wouldn't do that, I also wouldn't. So minus 10,000 is a 99% implied probability, even if you estimate something at like 99 and a half percent. It's really like the only situation where I would do something like this. It would be a pass post where you already know the outcome of something with certainty that that's the outcome, because aside from that, like we really don't know anything for certainty. That's just so. I don't know what the number is, I don't know the exact number, but I tend to like I will risk, and I regularly do like minus 1,000s during hockey season. 

20:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No minus 1,000 is a completely different thing because you use very likely that you're able to identify value on things that are in that range. 

20:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, minus 1,000 is like 91% that are in that range. Yeah, minus 1,000 is like 91%, 90.9% implied and like you might have like a situation where it's 96%, 97%, that this goalie's not gonna get a shutout as an example, totally worth the bet in my opinion. Some people disagree, but once you get to the point where you're dealing with like implied probability, 99% unless you know it's a certainty I'm not touching it. 

20:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Agreed there, although obviously if you really buy the book, then there's certain bets you should make. For me it's like I said I'm not going to risk a million to win a dollar. The sheer embarrassment alone would put me off of that. Up next, somebody's asking here I have three soft books that offer niche markets, but one consistently offers outlier odds. For instance, two books offer two and a half and the third consistently offers different odds. He's actually talking in decimal odds. A few offer 2.5 and the third consistently offers 3.1. So that would be a plus 150 and plus 210. Is it wise to consistently bet the outlier book market only offered by three out of 50 books? Okay, so this one. So you need question. Or he's basically saying is you know the market's off, but this thing is only available on three books out of 50. So you know he's not sure about efficiency and stuff like that. 

21:44
I'd say the best thing here to do and it's very good advice that you're getting right now is to, I guess, paper trade this or soft trade it, or look at historicals, if you can find them, and just outline, identify which book is Can you explain what paper trade or soft trade is for people who so what I'd say is again if it's a meaningful amount of money for you and you like, you can just bet it anyways and then wait until you see for a couple months. 

22:09
And if you're consistently losing on the outlier book, then in this situation likely that outlier is actually sharper than the other two books. 

22:16
But what I would do if I wanted to be sure and not lose any money and only place great value bets is I would just essentially write down the odds and then when, when I say paper traded, I mean don't actually bet it, just analyze it for many weeks and write down your record of what you would have been if you bet on book A and then what you would have been, you know, profit wise, if you bet on book B, which is the outlier book, and then go from there. So that's likely the best way to do it. There is situations in which you know you're not talking about many books here there's two odd sets on one and one odd set on another and in most cases with things like smaller markets, there could even be something where those two books are actually using the same like the odds provider odd source. So you're really like one against one. So there's definitely no way that I would just blindly, without this information, place a bet on either of these two and tell you with certainty that it's good value. 

23:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Totally agree. The big thing I was going to say was that just because there's three books that offer line sets doesn't mean that there's three different sets of lines Correct. Two books could be using the same odds provider for one of them. So I've talked about this on podcasts before. But don't always assume that the outlier is the most efficient or the correct number or vice versa. You kind of got to figure this stuff out over time. 

23:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, next up this one. I think, rob, you'll be a good answer for this one. Somebody entered the Circa Millions first time this year. It's a team of three guys. They split one entry. They're new to gambling on NFL pick and pools, definitely not sharp. What is your advice to give us a fighting chance in the millions, besides listening to forward progress? What time should we be looking during the week for picks? How much weight should we place on line movement? How important is it to try and be contrarian, given the size of the pool? That is from mike um. 

24:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So, mike, you're asking me a question. I've never cashed in the circa millions. To be fully transparent with you, it's pretty loaded question because a lot of this is going to come down to luck. Um, that's the reality of it. Like you look at who wins the circa millions every year and their final record, and it's pretty absurd like there's obviously a lot of luck associated with it. I would still try to handicap as best as you can, especially in the early going of the season. 

24:32
The biggest mistakes I see people make are they pivot to going for what's called the booby prize too quickly because they'll have like the first couple weeks of the season will be bad for them. They'll go like three and're like I'm out of the race for the millions. I might as well just try to go for last place, but your EV is still higher going for a cash than it is with what they pay the booby prize. And the second thing is people develop a process. Some people do this in groups, some people individually, and they just stick with that process throughout the entire season, even long after it makes sense for them. So there'll be like five, six, seven games out of cashing in the latter half of the season and they're still playing like the biggest moves, like the biggest discrepancies between the current line and what the posted contest line is, when you actually have to start altering your strategy. 

25:22
So that's my like really high level advice. At the end of the day you're entering a football competition pick what you think is going to happen, obviously, in the early going of a season. Yeah, if the contest line is minus three and it gets steamed to minus four and a half, probably put that game on your card. It's a decent idea. But as the season goes on, you kind of got to play it by where you stand in the contest. So that would be my best advice is like don't be too rigid and also don't make too many rash decisions based off the first couple weeks of the season. 

25:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, good answer. I would agree there and, like Rob said, it is a lot of luck. So you know, entering that contest, there's a bunch of people who just don't even submit their picks. There might be an overlay this year. I don't think it's a bad bet that you guys made and hopefully you have a bunch of fun and cash Up next. 

26:11
Will you win long-term beating the pinnacle Novig line at slow moving or off-market books, understanding that you will get limited? The question is more about overall strategy success, so I can take that one real quick is more about overall strategy success, so I can take that one real quick. Simple answer is yes, simple, simple answer. If I were to not explain it all, yes, you can do that. Obviously there's so much more that goes into this and a lot of this. When I say so much more that goes into it, I can explain a bit. It's a hard, complex thing to do, right? So you're basically saying, hey, the pinnacle Novig line is that the sharpest be all end, all line for everything. 

26:49
And the answer to that is no. Is it better than the Novig line at another sports book that might be the king of sports books or something like that? Most likely yes. So you need to really factor in, though what is the market on this? How much is pinnacle taking on this market? What juice is pinnacle taking on this market? So, for something like player props, where pinnacle might be taking 20 cents a side, the novig price there matters a lot less than euro cup final with taking a net five cents total juice for the entire thing, two and a half cents spread per per side, where that novig line for a three hundred thousand dollar limit is, you know, almost certain to be more sharp than you know some of the recreational sports books, so that matters an absolute ton. And another thing here is, when you say the no vig line I want to make sure everybody is is like de-vigging these things properly. Um, that was another question, I think it was so I'll put that in there. 

27:44
people are asking about de-vigging, like if properly that was another question I think we got it was, so I'll put that in there. People are asking about devigging. If it's a minus 400 and the other side's plus 200, the no-vig line is not plus 300. So that's not how it works. The best advice I can get is get a devigging calculator online and use that. It's not practical to be like doing the calculations at all times. It's not useful. Just go online and do that. But don't assume that the midpoint is is that so if you have minus one 38 and plus one 30, then it's it's not minus one 34, which is the which is the DVIC. So that's just something for a lot of people to review. 

28:24
And then, last thing, before I toss it over to Rob, is you really have to factor in that if you think Pinnacle is the best, sharpest book of all time, that's just incorrect. There's so many other sharp books as well. There's so many other places that will have certain indicators on certain markets, that just taking Pinnacle alone, de-vigging that and then betting everything else across the entire market that's off of the pinnacle line I personally think would be a losing proposition. So when I say can you de-vig pinnacle and then win betting at certain books? Simply put, yes, depending on the books and depending on the markets. However, if you did that as a summation across the entire betting market, you would end up a loser. 

29:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Just looking right now at how many different soccer leagues Pinnacle has posted 453 soccer events posted right now on Pinnacle. At the time that we're doing this, recording the market matters hugely because for some of these markets they're taking like $400, $500 a pop, and what will happen in a lot of these markets is they're taking like 400, $500 a pop, and what will happen in a lot of these markets is they actually get faked. So what that means is that people will look to use Pinnacle and move the line in the wrong direction so that they can bet the line elsewhere. Maybe whether that's a different offshore book that's copying Pinnacle or PPH that's copying Pinnacle. So it's not entirely the source of the truth on every single market. I'd feel very confident doing this for large leagues that they're taking a big pop on all the major leagues, but once we start to get into individual smaller markets, I would not assume that Pinnacle is necessarily sharp in every single one of those. A lot of times they could be being used for market manipulation. 

30:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, good answer. Okay, this guy's following up on a previous question asked that Rob, I mean maybe me or you mentioned we'd look into. I don't really have the answer, but why do you get less points in a basketball teaser, which is a higher scoring sport than a football teaser? We said we would follow up on this. Yeah, do you know it or are we following up again? Listen, it's got to be something about the range of outcomes on the score. It has to be, because in basketball you can only increment. 

30:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, think about, think about it yes, exactly, basketball you can increment by two or three. Football you're incrementing by three or six. You have way more scoring frequency in basketball than you do in football. Like, I trust that someone came up with these teasers and they logically made sense as to why they got these points, but I mean, I don't know I've never done the work into this. It's how these individual points have an impact on the spread. That's the best answer I can give. Apologies for saying I was going to follow up on it. This was absolutely a blatant lie on my part. Whoever uh, whoever sent this question. True apologies. We did that episode and I never thought about this question again. That's on me. I need to be better, but I don't have a better answer than that. 

31:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Up next. Barry Horse recently shows his MLB stats. This was a very good tweet. And he is hitting a great ROI with barely any CLV in a market MLB, which is taking millions of dollars. Is this a small sample size or hiding CLV in an efficient market? Rob, I don't know the answer to this. 

31:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm hoping you have something I don't. I don't. I can't say with certainty ever right Like I don't. I don't bet baseball at the highest level anymore. So the MLB major sides and totals market I can tell you who some of the players are in there, but I don't know how deep it is how many big groups are betting into like full limits. I don't know how deep it is how many big groups are betting into like full limits. I don't know all of that. 

32:07
Generally speaking, I still believe in CLV as a solid measure. However, there is a possibility that Berry Horse is doing something that's substantially different from other people who are betting into market. I will tell you this past hockey season I had much lower CLV than I did in the previous few years and had a better season in the process as well, doing some stuff that was probably very different from what I think other hockey bettors are doing right now. Barry Horse is a super smart guy. He thinks in a different way, but that's certainly possible. I don't know if there's any data sets that exist in baseball that are like just a data set that he has access to. I don't know if that's the case. Hard for me to say an answer on this question. Generally speaking, though, this is what every sports better wants to strive for. Really Like this is a license to print money, if you do have an edge and you're not getting a ton of CLV in the process. 

33:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, if you're not getting CLV, then that means you can really key in on focusing on getting good numbers and that in turn will help your ROI as well. I don't really have too many comments on here. 

33:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have some hypotheses but potentially to share for another Also like I wonder about the timing of the bets as well, right, like if he doesn't think the baseball market is super efficient at close or something's happening late and he's just jamming at post. He's not gonna get a lot of CLV doing that, but he might be stronger than whoever's who came in before him at that point. I honestly don't know. My gut is that he's probably doing something a little bit different, I will say, from modeling for those who originate. Lots of times you kind of just get stuck and like rooted and stuff works and you just keep doing it over and over. And I'm not suggesting that everyone does this, but I recently, you know, was talking to a major baseball better and they've been using the same originator for years and having a lot of success doing so and they're like, yeah, he's not changing a whole lot, he's just consistently having success. I don't know it's a good thought exercise, but I can't answer it with any degree of certainty. 

34:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right up. Next, how would you handle bet sizing when steam chasing slash top down betting? Would it be a flat bet across the board, with knowing, with not knowing, where your expected edges will land? All right. So we've mentioned multiple times about staking. When you're betting for real, it's going to be very hard to flat stake anything because certain books take certain amounts and eventually, if you're doing this correctly and making money steam chasing, then you're going to get. You're not going to be able to bet as much as you like. So on certain, on a certain book, they might take a max bet from you of one hundred dollars. Another book might take a max bet from you of twenty thousand to000. 

35:07
To ever be flat staking is pretty ridiculous in that space. If your bet size, for example, is $20 and you're on the come up, then I would recommend, in fact, not flat staking and instead Kelly betting, based on how good you envision the play to be at that time. The fact that it's not 100% set because you don't know the exact CLV on it shouldn't matter too much. You should just take the best information that you have at the time and grade your bet against that and then stake accordingly In the long run. If you're doing this correctly, then it'll all even out and you'll get roughly the amount of CLV that you projected and everything will work out. Certain ones you might have an injury moves against you, and then the other game you know might have the one that moves in your favor and, in summation, as a total bundle you'll end up okay. 

35:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, and if you're doing top down and you're just picking off a bad price relative to the rest of the market, you know what the market price is everywhere. Like you can estimate your edge at that time. It might not be exactly what it's going to close at, but at that time of the bet for a lot of these you actually know exactly what your edge is at that exact time. So you could Kelly stake or you know, just do it off the top eyeball, it off the top of your head. This is a 4% edge. This is how much I should bet, whatever, but you should know. You should know for a lot of those bets. 

36:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yep, I agree there. If you bet an NBA spread plus five, you know Mavericks plus five, it's bet down to Mavericks plus three and then you see it climbing to plus four and a half again. Are you grabbing minus three, minus three and a half and minus four when it starts climbing for the middle, or just raw dogging the plus five? I guess you'll have to consider limit changes and your own number on the game too. So if, if a spread in NBA goes from uh, plus three or sorry, like yeah, it goes from plus three to four and a half, then minus three in theory is value, but minus four, depending on the juice, is probably not value. You can buy and sell points anyways in the MLB, so it should be fairly easy to actually calculate how much each point is worth, given the game, the total, everything like that. So to answer this question, there's many ways to do that. If something is plus five, it gets bet down to plus three and I know it's going to close four If I'm getting the correct juice where I feel that that would be a good bet based on the four close. And yes, I'll take minus three and I'll take plus five and go for the middle because, independently, I feel those are both good bets. If I, um, you know, played plus five and it got bet down to minus three and then it moved all the way up to plus nine, then I would take minus eight or minus seven if the juice was correct, even though I already had a plus five, and I would take a reverse middle. So really, the key here is you want to just place as many good bets as you can at the time and in the end, if you're doing this correctly, it will all even out. 

38:01
He does see, like, yeah, you have to factor in like limit changes and your own number on the game too, of course, if you want. I don't even think you have to factor in like limit changes and your own number on the game too, of course, if you want. I don't even think you have to factor in like limit changes too much. You just want to end up on a good price relative to the close if you would like to win long-term. So if the close is plus four and you end up with minus two and plus six, you have a great middle. If the close is plus four and you end up with plus six and minus four, then you only have one side. That's a profitable bet there, and you probably would have been better off leaving that bet unhedged. 

38:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean, if you're considering your own number on the game too, it really just depends on where your number lands, like at the end of the day. Like if you made a game three in the NFL and you could get minus two and a half minus 110, one side plus three and a half minus 110. The other side, the three, is more valuable than the VIG on both. You would take that. But I mean, really, you answered that pretty well. I mean, at the end of the day you're just looking for valuable bets, is all it comes down to. So, yeah, totally acceptable to do that if both bets are valuable. 

39:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So this one I don't get a hundred percent, but I'm going to read it rob um, originator. So you're working with an originator. Originator sends you a wnba first half total over 77. You play it and it closes first half over 77 and a half minus 10. So it moved up a half point. The over 77 is now priced at minus 117. So it's moved 7 cents and the under 77, which is the opposite of the bet you just played, is minus 103 at close. You could have the over 77 at minus 110, 7 cents of value is what he's saying or the under 77 at plus 110, 13 cents of value. 

39:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He's saying basically, you do not bet it out for the originator, so like the originator sends you, I want a dime on first half over 77. And rather than betting it out, you hold it and you're getting plus 110. Basically, you're acting as the bookmaker. 

40:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I would recommend not doing that because that's what you know technically, not be on side there. But, Rob, what do you think? What do you think in that scenario? 

40:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, this is like a very specific scenario where you know what the play is going to close at and you don't know that. Like, if you're working with an originator who's sending you plays, you're generally working with them because you respect that person and either that person and either you want the, the uh, you want information, either, like, you know that in some way that information is going to be helpful to you, or you want to piggyback on that play. You would really only hold it if you're like, if you're really uncertain about this person. But I don't know. This is not a realistic example, because in this example, it's just like you know where it's going to close. You know what I'm saying. Like, you make that decision in real time all the time. Um, if it's, if it's a wnba, first half originator totals, I would, I would bet it every time and get the seven cents of value fair enough, good answer there. 

41:02 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
A couple modeling questions. I'm going to deflect a lot of these over to pazola as I'm, uh, very fairly strongly out of the modeling game and very happy about that. When modeling NFL player projections, should your wide receiver projections be dependent or independent of your QB? 

41:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So for me personally, I've never done wide receiver projections that are independent. I've always made it dependent. So you can build things into the model as well, especially if you're assuming on a full season, which is like percentage chance of injury, percentage chance that the backup starts to play, because all of that is going to affect your wide receiver projections as well. If you're just assuming that, like the wide receivers, it's dependent, the answer is I always model dependently, me personally. You might ask some other modeler what they do in that situation, but for me it's always modeling dependently. 

41:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Next up in your personal models. Rob, do you favor success rate or EPA? 

42:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I favor EPA. Models are built off of EPA, but there's some inherent flaws with every metric right Like random example. But if you see a quarterback throw a Hail Mary at the end of the first half and it gets picked off, that's gonna have a pretty negative impact on both. I mean, it will have a negative impact on success rate, but it'll have a much worse impact on EPA and in a lot of cases it's like you don't even need that play. So I do EPA. I use EPA for my modeling, but I also strip out plays. Maybe that's not exactly what he asked, but it's a little bit more than what he asked for, but I think that's a good answer. 

42:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Last one on the NFL modeling For turnovers in football. How do? A? Good answer. Last one on the NFL modeling for turnovers in football. How do you weigh those in your power ratings or model? So you're basically he's trying to weigh turnovers and he's saying do you weigh a team that gives up more turnovers on offense more than a defense that forces more turnovers? 

43:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay. So there's been like long, long standing debates on what turnovers are lucky and unlucky in the NFL. I think a lot of originators would have different points of view on how they go about this. For me, all I can tell you and I don't apologies for not giving a super specific answer, but I think you're really trying to determine what is predictable going forwards. So if a team defense actually has is forcing a lot of turnovers and you think that they're going to continually force turnovers based off of the type of turnovers that they forced long, you know I'm trying. I'm trying to do what I can here to give you an answer that makes sense to you, but also not give away what I think is maybe like a differentiator from what I do with other people. Reality is you got to try to determine what is real versus fake turnover. 

44:02 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Let me just say that All right, and this one I think I can answer. Actually, this is a really good question. Do you have to be more computer savvy today to make money betting? What time period do you think was the easiest to make money 70s, 80s, today? So 70s, 80s today is hilarious. 

44:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's a lot of decades in between those 70s, 80s or today I mean there's betting long before that as well Absolutely Like you could bet in the twenties and you could fix a baseball game. 

44:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Probably, I don't know. 

44:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You could fix a baseball. 

44:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There you go. 

44:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is not alleged stuff. There was legit fixed games back in like major league baseball a century ago because if you had a lot of money you can make a lot of money. 

44:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So, yeah, probably most likely. Yes, yes, do you can make a lot of money? So yeah, most likely. Yes, do you have to be more computer savvy? So, in general, obviously, yes, the game is running on computers today. You need technology, you need tools, you need accounts, you need technology. So to start, yes, 100%, you need to be computer savvy. Now, don't mistake that for me saying you need to be able to code and you need to be able to write scripts and things like that, um, but you do need to be able to obviously know how to use a computer and read a screen pretty effectively and or use technology on there to to bet. 

45:19
What time period you think was the easiest to make money? So this is, you know a lot of people will agree with this, a lot of people disagree, but the time period that's the easiest to make money overall, I think is actually right now. And the reason I say that's the easiest to make money is because gambling is so much more accessible to everybody and there's so many different promotions and boosts that are just like super, super free, and so I think right now is the easiest to make a little bit of money Now, back in the day, if you had an edge, or a really big edge, I think there was a much larger chance you'd be able to make more money, but in terms of just number of people winning, today has got to be the highest. Which is a little bit sad, though, because today is also by far by far the highest number of people losing as well. 

46:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, um, I don't know the exact, like era of, uh, but listen, at the end of the day, there was a time where there was opening numbers that were posted in a newspaper in the morning and that was the number for the day. Whether or not Patrick Ewing was out of the game or Michael Jordan was out of the game, you could bet into the number that was on the morning line. It's so hard to bet there. 

46:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's hard to find people that would take your action and to get down a lot of money and all that stuff. 

46:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Betting is always. That's always an element of betting. 

46:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If you're good, it's always hard to scale, that's always an element of betting, like if you're good, it's always hard to, it's hard to scale, but literally right now, if you want to just place a bet on something in the majority of places within North America, you could just open an account. 

46:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What's the specific terms of the question here? The easiest era to make money? It's Because I agree with like nowadays there's so many books. 

47:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Which time period do you think was the easiest to make money? It's got to be now To make money, not to win a bet to profit money. 

47:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I actually do think it's now. There's so many books now, Like so many accessible books with different line combinations. 

47:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You can just sign up on your computer. 

47:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Although like it's pretty, look it's, it's actually, it's actually got to be that error that I was talking about. Think about it like if you're, if you were just very selective but where are you even going to get the information? 

47:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
there's no pot, there's no circles off pod. There's no way. 

47:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You have to learn you go early to the airport, which is what you hate doing you get the newspapers you get the newspapers you wouldn't even have thought of that. 

47:48
But you just have like a consortium of friends that go to different cities and they call each other with information. Actually it's. I don't know if that's a violation of the Wire Act or something like that. Either way, that has to be. It. Like imagine Dan Marino's just out of, like Joe Montana's not playing this week, and like people and people in that city know, but it's not national. 

48:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It was easy to win. It was easier to win your bet, but it was harder to make money. In my opinion, it was harder to make money because it was less accessible. 

48:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I didn't live through it. I did, but I wasn't experienced better through that. But I would have liked to live through that. I think I could have been like me. Personally, I think I would have been more successful if I was born 10 years earlier, maybe even earlier, maybe 20 years earlier, so that when I'm in my prime, now was like the time where oh, rob thinks he's in his prime. Oh sorry, that was definitely. I definitely did not mean to say that I'm I'm most certainly past my prime. I danced at a wedding and I can't feel my entire body Three days later. I'm most certainly past my prime. I know that's actually a really good question. I would be interested for people's comments on that down below in the comments on YouTube. Let us know I. You can win in any era is the reality of the situation. It's just whether or not it's easier, like it's so easy to win now. It's so easy to win now. 

49:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't mean to sound like arrogant or Like it wasn't easier to win your bets 10 years ago. Yes, but it was way harder to sign up for an account. So therefore, all in, I think, the easiest now, but obviously we're just splitting hairs on the question. We'll get into some industry questions here. Uh, this one, rob. I'm curious what you think here. Months ago on the joe rogan podcast, billy walters said the goal of sports books was to get equal action on both sides. Why do you think he said that? 

49:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I honestly have no idea. I honestly have no idea. I talked about this specific podcast. With who do we talk about this podcast? With Alan Boston, right when we had him on, because Alan Boston used to work with Mr Walters, as he called him. I don't know, but that particular podcast, billy Walters, said a lot of things which I was puzzled by. 

50:11
Again, for the second time in this episode, I'll bring up that I had consulted for sports books before. It was never, ever a goal of the traders to get split action ever in any scenario. We've talked to Chris Bennett from Circa in the pod. We asked him about that. He said that that's BS. We've had Shipper on, talked about that. Like pretty much any person that's been part of a trading room who we've talked to in the last three years has told us this is not true. So I don't know if there's like this mass conspiracy of people that are lying, but I lived through it personally myself prior to that and it was never a goal. So I actually don't know. I honestly don't. Maybe this was like the goal back in the day when Billy was like in his prime, there was probably a lot of books that were running their business that way. But I think with the evolution of the market it's it's not the case anymore. 

51:12 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm not sure either. Can't. Can't really give a great answer there, unfortunately, Rob. Do you see, actually these? These are kind of together, so I'll read this one first. Given the consensus that fewer than 3% of bettors win long-term, why do sportsbooks limit or kick out winners? Wouldn't the 95% 97% losers be enough to cover the 3% who wins? What are your thoughts on this practice? 

51:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Pretty simple. I mean, they're businesses. 3% are winning. You don't want those 3% to win because your net gaming revenue would be higher if it was 0%. That one, that's the answer. It's. I mean, I don't even wanna say it's agreed, because it's not Like. Anyone who runs a business generally wants their business to be more profitable, especially in the case of these big sports books. You report to a board of directors that, like this, is the end goal. This is how the world works, so it's purely monetary. 

52:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, if you're running a hat shop selling hats on the street and you make money every month, but there's three guys coming in every week and stealing hats, you're still going to kick them out, even though you're making money, despite the fact that they're stealing the hats. 

52:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's an interesting example that you went with hat shop. 

52:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I just look in there, saw, saw a hat, got a hat on zach's got a hat on. I'm a simple guy you're running a hat shop and to follow up another question here do you foresee a future where sportsbooks no longer limit players? What impact would this have on the variety of sports betting options available? 

52:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Nope, I don't foresee that future. Personally, I think there's a lot to overcome, and the biggest is the lack of education at the regulatory level. Remember, each state is operate independently. Each province in Canada same way. I just don't see it. Like I don't see it. I can potentially envision a world and I think it's an extremely low chance where there's like one universal line set down the road. This would be some time from now where maybe you can get into a scenario where people would be afforded better limits, but no, I don't. I just I don't see it. I've lived and breathed this industry for a while now and I think there's just too many obstacles and hurdles to overcome. 

53:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I agree, yeah, and if it did. Speaking more to the impact of the question is if they did not limit players, they wouldn't be able to offer all these different markets that people bet on. So it's very common that people say, oh, if they didn't limit me, I could win unlimited money, they wouldn't be in business. So the fact that they limit you is the reason why they're able to offer that stuff. And that leads into this other question here, which again is a very good question. I love these discussions. Somebody asks question for someone who's consulted for sports books is for rob. We all know that you obviously shouldn't max bet european handball if you don't want your account limited. But why do the books offer european handball? 

54:19
well, there's obviously still a market to bet it's obviously a bunch of squares that bet it. 

54:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, of course I mean like, look at, look at what was transpiring during COVID right, like people want to bet on stuff. People were betting lots of money on virtual camels dude During. Like, people will bet stuff and especially some of these sports books actually have streams of the events as well embedded into the book itself, so you can bet like a handball game that's going to happen quickly and watch it very quickly. For a lot of people that's a great experience, whether or not they're going to win or lose. So having a breadth, you know, deep offering is important for books because at the end of the day, there's people that will bet on anything. 

55:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I look at, look at me and you around the office certainly I'll bet, I'll, I'll play heads up blackjack for almost anybody. I mean like no vague, like I'll play. 

55:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We have a, we have a, a fake like roulette spinner that we have in here, and I give johnny the fair well, not the fair odds the casino odds and he'll rip some spins and as long as it stays in the family. 

55:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's not, and it's low, low dollar amount. The gambling is obviously very fun. So yes, that that is why they offer those, because a lot of people say, oh, if you limit, if you um bet european handball, your account's going to get limited. But that's not what really happens. What happens is, if you bet european handball for max bets, it's likely that you're it's going to trigger an account review if you're winning on that, and then a person will review your account and say, ah, this guy's winning on this and other stuff and whatever, and his account's up a couple thousand bucks or 10,000 or maybe more, and then they'll cut you off. 

55:59
If you go for an account, if you bet European handball and you're losing on it because you're just DGN betting it, and you go and you end up, uh, getting an account review and your account's 25 grand in the red betting, all stuff that's losing. They're. They're not going to limit your account for betting the european handball. You get limited at the end of the day for for winning and for beating the line or for placing bets that the sportsbook believes are going to be winners long term I will say like from again from past experience being part of general sportsbook conversations and trading conversations sportsbooks are scared of not offering something that other books are as well. 

56:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This actually happens where they're like ah, we're getting killed on this sport. They will not take it off the board if another book is offering. Again my past experience. But there's like this fear that you know, god forbid, we take this second division lacrosse league off the board and this guy's gonna leave. This guy that's not even valuable to our business is gonna leave and go play it somewhere else where it's offered. They don't wanna do that. So I think a lot of it is just like. This is truly like fear, motivated as well. Now, granted, they're returning a positive ROI on all these sports, so it's not. You know, whatever Some guys pick them off are like European handball experts. They're still doing just fine on European handball. 

57:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The point sucks Jeff Benson argument about being banned from Circa for past posting prompts this. Most rec books smoothly transition from pregame to live as the game start. The game starts. Does a betting at the borderline game time run a risk of being accused of past posting, even if it's unintentional? I can take that one right now. Circa is a regulated sportsbook within las vegas. They they have to use a certain software many people don't know this that prohibits them from using an auto mover and they have to take games on and off the board manually. In that scenario here I do believe, based on the information I've seen online, that this guy point sucks was limited for past posting them on, uh, second half bets, meaning the second half started and then the person you know. 

58:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There would be like a bucket in an NBA game, a three-pointer or whatever. 

58:12 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, and then he'd hit that side. In this scenario, it's really something that's more of a Circa issue and not, you know, a Pinnacle or a DraftKings issue, because, at the end of the day, this is just simply due to Circa Sports' inability to use technology correctly and Automover based on the Las Vegas regulations. 

58:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I would answer this simply by saying that no, you don't have a higher risk of being accused. You have a risk of being accused of past posting. When you're past posting, that's usually when you get accused of past posting. If you make a bet five seconds before the second half tips off and there's no points in the game, you're not going to get accused of past posting. It's not going to happen. If you make a bet five seconds before the second half tips off and there's no points in the game, you're not going to get accused of pass posting. It's not going to happen Like if you make bets within proper time frames, even like you're going to be fine. 

58:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, in this scenario, by the way, it's also pretty easy to tell because, like, if this person's just only doing this, there's traders on that game and they'll be seeing like, oh, on that game, and they'll be seeing like, oh man, I'm getting popped right at the end of the game, like some, and he's guys doing this every time, like it's obviously something. Um, I think it'd be a lot harder to identify where there's not a known issue at these other sports books of this happening. And at the end of the day, um, there's just no way that there's that many people. If you're betting it, it's you're not actually posting the odds of 37 people. Betting that at the exact same time is very slim and that's another big alert trigger for a lot of these books. Okay, this guy sent in a screenshot, which prompted Rob to send me the screenshot on the notes, so it's a little small and in white writing. 

59:45
I'm going to do my best here. You guys ever think about your betting endgame? I'm a 45-year-old rec plus better who's been at this seriously for the last decade, but now I have two boys 8 and 11, who are into everything. It's becoming more and more difficult for me to remain as plugged in as I feel necessary to continue to be successful betting Thank you Gone or part-time during my ramp-up over the years. I am a little concerned with a form of withdrawal, not only from discontinuing betting but also from not participating in the space, losing good relationships and friends I've made along the way. I'm curious your thoughts on my situation and if you've ever thought about what your retirement might look like. Patrick in St Louis. 

01:00:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think I've met Patrick. 

01:00:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
My eyes are watering here, I think I've met Patrick. My eyes are watering, I think. 

01:00:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've met Patrick at a Bet Bash before I'm almost certain I have. Listen, I'm not Dr Phil. This is the reality of the situation. Sounds very clearly like you know what you want to do, patrick, by this. Like you're heavily leaning towards retiring. Focus on family. I'd never stop anyone from doing that. At the end of the day, people have to prioritize what's most important to them. Some people it might be money, some people might be family, some people might be something completely different. But if they're getting in the way, you go with whatever's the higher priority to you. That's the best piece of advice I could give you. I wouldn't tell you one way or another. Do this, do that. I think you make the decision on your own, based off what your priorities are. 

01:01:37
Have I thought about retirement? Absolutely. I've been working the last 10 years towards very life-specific goals, both monetary and a number of other things as well. So I do think about it all the time. Honestly, I don't want to share those publicly, but I have some very specific goals on where I'd like to be the end of this year, when I'm 40, when I'm 45. So I do think about it quite frequently. I've talked about this before, but I don't have the same love for sports betting that I used to at one point or another I could have seen myself doing it forever. Now I just it's a means to income for me, but not necessarily something I love to do. So that's my personal response. Yes, I do regularly think about retirement. 

01:02:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm a bit too young to contemplate retirement at this age. Yeah so it's more of a question for Rob. 

01:02:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, like it's like how can I get to like? For me, I think about how can I get to like the point where my life is self-sustaining right. It's like, okay, I can travel the world and make income off of my house and still make income betting and doing. It's not necessarily retirement, it's maybe just like a different form of life. It's not necessarily retirement, it's maybe just like a different form of life. But I'm regularly thinking about that stuff Because, like you I don't know I think it's important to be like real with yourself. 

01:02:59
One thing that drives me crazy I'm going on like a complete tangent here it's like people who are just like miserable with their life and I'm not miserable with my life but they refuse to do anything about it and they like refuse to come up with a plan of like how to get themselves out of that state. It's like, wow, you don't understand, I have to do this. It's like, well, you have to do that now, but like there's other means to an end for everyone. So I'm a big believer in life planning and I think about that very often. 

01:03:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, I mean interesting. I know at the end of the day you might lose interest or something and then at that point it no longer becomes valuable to you, no matter how much money you're actually making from it. So it's obviously a tough spot to be in and may. I never get there, I guess. 

01:03:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But like this specific example. Right, it's like I'm heavily leaning to retiring completely after this NFL season. Focus on family, recommit to my career Sounds like that. Sounds like you know. It's pretty close to his mind, made up, but I'm scared that if I don't participate in the space I'm gonna lose good relationships and friends. You don't have to do that, Like if you just make it a priority to maintain those friendships, reach out regularly, call guys, Listen if your partners are abroad or whatever. You just make it a point that I'm going to see these guys once a year, Like it doesn't have to be one or the other in a lot of cases. I think sometimes people just feel really overwhelmed, Like, if I do this, ah, what's going to happen there? Well, like, make both of those, you don't have to pick one or the other. 

01:04:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
in a lot of cases, all right, a couple other questions here. In regards to uh the hammer, why did you hire joey kanish? 

01:04:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
it's a no-brainer. Kanish is amazing. He's. He's an amazing content creator like brings a lot of energy, funny, knowledgeable about the space, like lives and breathes betting he. Kanish is one of the best hires we've ever. I don't know that we'll ever make a better hire than kanish honestly don't pump his tires like that no kanish. 

01:05:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got you buddy. You've been backing me up every episode you've been on yeah, well, he did. 

01:05:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He did say like every episode you've been on yeah, respect. He did say like the one that he said when I went 8 for 8? When you went 8 for 8 from the three-point line, that was like a backhanded compliment, that was like yeah, I don't really expect Saying I came off the bench? 

01:05:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, but you know what? I still respect it. I still respect it and he was with me on the airport take. 

01:05:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Listen, kanisha is not going to be everyone's favorite Joey Libs, listen, I get it. Some of the liberal takes maybe they're not for me. You know he shows up late to a lot of shows and there's really not much that we can do about it because he operates on his own schedule. But he produces really good content and that's what I'm about. Like, I just want to. I just we created a network to produce good content and I honestly not even just like within the Hammer, he's one of the best content creators in the space. But Kanishn Powers, seriously, I'm just plugging it right now Go subscribe to Hit the Books. If you even watch a little bit of college football, go subscribe to Hit the Books. It's the best college football content out there period, without a doubt. Anyways, that's why we hired Ganesh. 

01:06:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Speaking of the best content, what people or companies outside of your guys' great stuff do you think are producing the best content for sports, for casual bettors and for advanced bettors? And before I answer that question, I did want to say one thing I forgot to mention. On last week's show about prepping for NFL, we chatted, rob and I were like hey, do you even know who's like the starting receiver running back and stuff on the commanders and like all these teams now, like everything changed Forward progress during the summer, you can binge all the episodes at once. You don't have to catch them in real time. They're actually going through and, um, giving out info which you need. 

01:06:53
You need to know in advance, like you need to get acclimated with all the rosters, especially if you're betting the player prop market, just to know what, like what guys are on which teams. Who's going to potentially start pre-season especially, you want to know like who's playing. You want to catch those for week one. That way you can kind of see like all right, these guys are getting actual playing time here. This guy's probably going to be at this. This is mispriced here, um, so yeah, if you don't do it right now because you're not like directly into football season. It's, you know, mid-july when we're recording this. That's fine, but some point between now and nfl season. Um, I haven't done it myself yet, but I'm going to be binge watching all the forward progress episodes that basically just recap each team and the changes that that happened and we have people that are very plugged into those teams as well yeah, like personnel changes, scheme changes, like they're actually giving out really good info um for this question in specific. 

01:07:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
By the way forward progress on youtube as well, and you can, if you just want to listen in audio form, go ahead, spotify apple podcasts as well. Um, this is a challenging question, right, because best sports betting content can mean something different for a lot of generally. When we say best, it would be like whatever's doing the most views is largely considered the best. Right, that's how we evaluate music, movie, like anything really in the content spaces. What are people watching? 

01:08:09
Personally, for casual bettors, I think Barstool puts out the best sports betting content. I fucking love big cat. I don't know what it is. I find him hilarious. He's like it's just cat. He just reminds me like he. He's just a, a through and through casual. Better, that knows how to. That has a lot of personality. 

01:08:37
So for me, I admittedly do not consume a ton of betting content because I find a lot of it. You either have to be really entertaining or really informative. That's that one or the other. If you have both, then you're like you've hit it right, like that's why I love Hit the Books. Entertaining, informative, complete package. Barstool is super entertaining. You're not gonna go there and get like the best picks. You're not gonna get a lot of valuable, but they do some really good stuff. So, personally, for casual bettors, if you're casual, you're looking mostly for entertainment value. 

01:09:10
Anyways, for advanced bettors, this is where we have a problem and that's like what the hammer is trying to step into and create, because there's nothing Like I'm not going to recommend. What can I recommend for advanced. There's like an in-between which is you better, you bet, which I love. I appear on it during football season Nick Costas, lucky Lockerson, ken Barr I love I appear on it during football season Nick Kostos, lucky Lockerson, ken Barclay. By the way, maybe I'll say something. I'm not, I don't care, it's my podcast. Say whatever I want to say. 

01:09:41
Betql, nick Kostos and Ken Barclay I don't know who their agents are. When they're negotiating their next deal, they should ask for seven times the amount of money that they're making right now. If you've ever tuned into anything else on like BetQL, what an absolute abomination. Sorry, I said that out loud but I had to say it because like there's such a drop off sometimes when, like Nick is done or something like that. Anyways, you better, you bets like in between. Right For pure advanced bettors, like what is there in this space and are advanced bettors like what is there in the space? And are advanced bettors really consuming content? All that right. The advanced bettors I know personally actually prefer to consume entertaining content because they're not going to really learn something from I mean. This is, and that's just people that I know, but I don't know. That's a tough question to answer, ben, because I don't have a strong. I don't think there's a lot of good content out there. 

01:10:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's been mentioned on the show that you have a player prop tool for purchase. That would be the BetStand player prop tool. Where can someone go to sign up for that? That was from APWhiteVXAP21. That's not a planted question by by me. You have to look up the profile. 

01:10:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, you can check that out at lemonpartyorg. 

01:10:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If you do want to register for the BetStamp player prop tool. So it's fully closed for now. We're doing another round before football season. There's no way to just sign up for on the site. You basically have to just like DM, rob DM the BetStamp account and set up a one-on-one as of right now. That's it. Potentially more things coming for September, but it's fully closed right now. It'll be back and better than ever for September for NFL season. Hopefully we're going to be making a lot of money. 

01:11:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, dm the BetStamp please directly At BetStamp, please direct. 

01:11:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
DM BetStamp and directly At Betstamp. Please direct DM Betstamp and for VXAP21, I'll have somebody reach out to you. Actually, I'm going to send that off right now Also, by the way, sorry, I'm just like this is completely random. 

01:11:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I didn't know that because it came up again, because I brought it up again. I didn't know that Lemon Party was not like a universally known thing. Like I made that joke on a really old, it was like episode one. Some guy responded to that episode very recently and it's like, oh, like I actually visited this site. Real apologies to that. Like in my universe everyone knew what that site was. Don't check it out, don't visit it. I just actually want to issue an apology to that guy, who, uh who, who accidentally stumbled upon it because of my recommendation. 

01:12:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Rob and Zach rate Johnny's wedding speech from 1 to 10. Okay. 

01:12:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm a harsh critic. I'll tell you right beforehand I would say I would get. So this wedding speech. For people who don't know Julian Packer, cto of Betstamp, got married and Johnny was his best man Gave a speech at the wedding, opened it up with a banger joke which I won't repeat just in case some people find it offensive. 

01:12:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Just don't, even don't say any of the jokes. 

01:12:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not gonna say the jokes. I'm not gonna say the jokes. I'll give it an eight and a half out of 10. I'll for sure. I thought it was a good mix of, like you know, showing your friendship plus some comedy. If I had some piece of advice for you, I probably would have made it like a minute shorter. That would be the only downside, but I'm a big fan of short and simple speeches that get to it. But it was very entertaining. My table was very in tune and there's a lot of speeches at this wedding, so I could tell that you had the. You captured the audience more than anyone else. That's a true assessment. 

01:13:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'll take an eight and a half out of 10 all day True assessment. 

01:13:28 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah, I agree. One piece of criticism would be you pointed a lot there was a lot of pointing. 

01:13:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You pointed a lot. You did a lot of pointing. There was a lot of pointing. You didn't even do it. 

01:13:39 - Zack Phillips (Other)
You were self-conscious, right, that's basically the only thing I could say to you that I didn't like. Well, it's not even that I didn't like it, that's just my feedback. I was pointing too much. 

01:13:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There was a lot my table I laid minus 500. I didn't know your speech I laid minus 500 that you would mention Betstamp and. 

01:13:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I did not, you did, you did. I won the bet. Yeah, good, that's an easy. 

01:13:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I risked 100 to win 20. With who We'll talk off air afterwards. Wait, I don't even think I mentioned it. You did, you did. You said Betstamp once, yeah, yeah, wow. I didn't even you said well, I actually don't know that you said bet stamp, but you said when we started our company together, or something like that, and that was enough to be like oh buddy, whoever bet that with you? Got fleece on the terms. 

01:14:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
They got fleece on the terms there. So, Zach, what's the official rating? 

01:14:25 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah, I think 8.5 is fair. I do agree with Rob, you actually fully like. Everyone was very, very engaged, which was really good, Not easy to do these. 

01:14:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It wasn't even that long either. 

01:14:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like I'm not nipping, it was like five minutes. 

01:14:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It was like five minutes I like joke writing a lot and you know, unfortunately I was asked to cut out my best two jokes because they were too sexual for a wedding. But hey, listen, at the end of the day. Sexual for a wedding, but hey, listen at the end of the day. 

01:14:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You gotta be making the crowd laugh. You gotta win over the audience. I love, I love wedding speeches. That that do that you just got. 

01:14:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You got to capture attention and you got to keep the attention throughout the worst wedding speech you can have is is when people say a story that is not even a good story and is a complete inside joke between three people at the thing, and then the inside joke to other people sounds so ridiculous. I'm like, oh, to this guy, uh, my, uh, my best man, he did this all from going back in times like when we slept over on the air mattress and then the air mattress thing with the beer. Like they tell stories like that and then everyone else in the crowd's like ah, they can't relate. 

01:15:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Nobody can relate. They have no idea what you're talking about. There's two people laughing that lived that through that story and one of them is not even really laughing. Yeah, you can just literally tell that to the person on the side no, you got to capture everyone's attention. It was uh, it was. It was a good speech not that much. 

01:15:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
you can put in terms of jokes too, because you need to and I I do like writing jokes a lot, um, it's you you need to put in something that everybody who is at the venue will understand or can potentially understand really quickly. So you can't do like earlier jokes, you can't do callbacks, you're not hanging out with these people for forever. It needs to be like jokes that are more like visual. You could see like okay, ah, I got that like hilarious, um, but no, it is what it is. Last question of the show here I'm guessing you both have taken a strong liking to betting podcast hosts, so to be to being betting podcast hosts, sorry, okay. 

01:16:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So tongue twister right there. 

01:16:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You know, zach, please cut that out. Basically, what he's saying is this I'm guessing you both like being a podcast host right now. If you were offered a dollar amount right now to step away from the podcast and you cannot go out and start another podcast about sports or sports betting, what would be both of your buyout numbers? 

01:16:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I didn't see this question come in beforehand. I'd have to think about that a lot. So it's complex because we own equity in the hammer. 

01:16:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, do I still own a portion of the podcast or no, because that would change it a lot. 

01:17:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So me and Johnny and Zach own equity in the hammer, as do a lot of our other hosts, and I wouldn't want to leave other people hanging either. For, like my own monetary game it's like, oh okay, guys, I'm taking a you know a million bucks. I'm seeing see you later, like you're you know the last couple years you've put in, fuck off and you know, move, go, fight. Like I wouldn't do that, so I don't know um, like it would actually have to be significant life-changing money for me. 

01:17:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
For you to step off here, which you know, I think. Listen, rob, I'm a big boxing fan, big time. In boxing there's an A side and a B side. Obviously, with this podcast we can't lose Rob. Rob can't go. He does every episode. You know me, I'm off one and every four anyways. Yeah, you'll be off next week too. If I still owned equity in the podcast and we got an offer for someone to replace me, which was going to be, like I thought, potentially a more polarizing guest, that would be even better and whatever, like I'd entertain that and then I'd kind of just come back and do episodes here and there. 

01:18:15
I do enjoy doing a lot of these episodes. There's also some that you know, like Rob does solo and I don't even and I don't even join. I'm really busy traveling all the time. The one thing I will say about the pod most people won't realize Consistency is the most important thing with a podcast. If you guys realize, we put an episode out every single Thursday at the same time and you cannot miss. There are times when you know Rob is traveling, I'm traveling, we're here, we're there. That is no excuse to miss. So at the end of the day, while we have a ton of fun with this podcast. At times it often is a grind because we're actually working on this full time. We put a lot into this, like today, for example, is I'll just say it's a mass recording Today's we're gone, rob's traveling, I'm traveling. 

01:18:58
Today is a full day. It's a three episode recorder. It's a three bagger episodes. We're almost finishing up episode two of three and we still have another one to go right now. So in certain scenarios would I love to do one of three, and we still have another one to go right now. So in certain scenarios would I love to do one? Yes, absolutely. But I wouldn't give up this pod, you know, unless the right thing came along, unless I couldn't do it anymore. 

01:19:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think the big thing for me right now is that I still enjoy doing this. When I don't enjoy doing it, we'll talk. You know, we would talk about some sort of succession plan, but right now I still enjoy doing it. I talk to interesting people that I ordinarily would never talk to. It's a good outlet for me to speak. My mind that's not something that I take for granted is like I have my own outlet to talk about whatever I want, and there's people that are interested in hearing that. I enjoy that. Again, I own a percentage of this company. I enjoy that Again, I own a percentage of this company. So I don't know what the number is, but it's more than a million bucks. I'll say that if it's more than that. 

01:20:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, mine is my buyout, honestly would be. So we're factoring equity and everything like that, so I'd probably go with $1 more than your buyout, all right, and then Kanish would tell me he wants a dollar on top of that I'd probably go with $1 more than your buyout All right. 

01:20:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And then Kanish would tell me he wants $1 on top of that. 

01:20:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's how it goes. That's how every single content creator at the Hammer. 

01:20:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Honestly, I'm not going to mention names. I swear I won't mention names. But one of the funniest things ever was when we were negotiating like I'll share this publicly, I don't care. I think a lot of content companies fail because they pay so much for shitty content. Okay, I'm not saying VEASAN is shitty, but, like you, look at how much money VEASAN is like losing right now publicly, which has been reported to like a hundred million dollars a year. It's like how is this happening? 

01:20:50
Big thing for us was like we want to build a sharp sports betting community. A lot of these people already, um, do fairly well betting on sports themselves. The idea of making like 50 an episode it doesn't even appeal to like a guy like kanish. These people want upside. So we're like this is how we're gonna. This is how we're gonna structure the hammer going forwards. 

01:21:13
And when negotiating the equity deals with people I had, it was like putting together a logic puzzle. It was like person A is like I don't care how much you give me, as long as it's more than this person. And then person this is the person B is like yeah, you know what that sounds good, but I to make sure it's at least equal to what this person is getting, that I was trying to fit it all together as, like the you know, russell crowe a beautiful mind, like walking into the garage with all the stuff on the wall and um, anyways that. Yeah, it's just hilarious how, how much different we are than every other content network out there, just like guys rooting for each other to fail non-stop terrible listen. 

01:21:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's a couple questions I wrote down here. I know I mentioned off the top there's a lot of shitty questions. There's a lot of good ones that we didn't get to some of them. For example, someone asked a question about the Euro Cup. It's just way too hard to explain this with the rule changes and stuff like that. There's a couple other questions. Maybe we'll get to another time on the next episode. But uh, for rob and I thanks everyone for tuning in this has been our probably seventh or eighth q a episode. 

01:22:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh do you know? 

01:22:27 - Zack Phillips (Other)
do you know, zach else it's gotta be seventh. No, uh, no, I don't know part of the Hammer Betting Network. 

01:22:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Everybody please like and subscribe. See y'all next week.