Circles Off Episode 169 - Wall Street to Bookmaking

2024-08-30

 

 

In the latest episode of our podcast, we take a deep dive into the future of sports betting with Henry Cairns, the dynamic head of trading for Novig. This episode promises a comprehensive and engaging exploration of the evolving sports betting landscape, touching on everything from market-making strategies to the rise of sweepstakes models.

 

From Casual Bettor to Industry Leader

 

Henry Cairns' journey is nothing short of inspiring. He began as a casual bettor during the COVID pandemic, dabbling in poker and sports betting. Fast forward to today, and he is now a formidable force in the industry. In the first chapter of the episode, we delve into Henry’s rapid ascent, from his initial forays into betting to his strategic role at Novig. We also discuss his transition from Bloomberg, where he worked as an engineer, to his current position at Novig. This segment is a testament to his perseverance and innovation, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of the sports betting industry.

 

The Sweepstakes Model: A New Era in Sports Betting

 

The second chapter shifts focus to the sweepstakes model in sports betting. Henry explains how this model operates, where users purchase coins paired with cash, maintaining a free-to-play aspect that mirrors traditional sportsbooks. The discussion also touches on the legal intricacies and potential challenges of this model. The sweepstakes approach offers an alternative entry point into the market, particularly in states where traditional sports betting is not yet legalized. This segment is particularly insightful for those curious about the future of sports betting and the potential shifts in industry dynamics.

 

Novig’s Hybrid Exchange System

 

Novig’s unique hybrid exchange system is another highlight of this episode. In the third chapter, Henry discusses the intricacies of operating a sports betting exchange and the strategic nuances involved. The conversation covers the competitive dynamics between traditional sportsbooks and newer models, and how Novig is carving out its niche with a system that allows users to post their own prices and view order books without relying on third-party market makers. This innovative approach promises to revolutionize the betting experience, offering a glimpse into the future of automated sports betting.

 

Market Making and NFL Insights

 

In the fourth chapter, Henry shares insights into derivative market price algorithms, particularly for player props and NFL totals. He explains how automated systems adjust odds based on accumulated positions without human intervention, providing a detailed look at the complexities of maintaining dynamic and responsive betting markets. This segment is packed with practical betting strategies and entertaining NFL anecdotes, making it both informative and engaging.

 

Final Thoughts and Practical Advice

 

The episode concludes with a mix of sports betting strategies, personal anecdotes, and practical advice. From discussing the correlation between halftime and full-game markets to offering unconventional travel tips, Henry and the hosts cover a wide range of topics. The conversation also touches on the importance of proper audio setup and personal growth, providing a well-rounded end to an insightful episode.

 

Listen Now

 

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of sports betting. Henry Cairns’ journey, coupled with his deep insights into market-making and the sweepstakes model, provides a comprehensive look at the evolving landscape of sports betting. Tune in to gain valuable knowledge and stay ahead in the ever-changing world of sports wagering.

 

By exploring the fascinating journey of Henry Cairns and the innovative strategies at Novig, this episode offers a wealth of information for both casual bettors and industry professionals. Don’t miss out on this engaging and informative discussion!

 

 

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Episode Transcript

00:00 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I had my first son in November of 2022, and I took some leave and during that time I wrote a bot for live odds scraping plus EV kind of stuff. You know a pretty easy project. Come on, let's go. You think I'm going to come on here and put one of the odds in the elite tier. 

00:21 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I'd vote for Rob of 25,000. I wouldn't vote for him. 

00:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I can basically just cheat and get the same bets've been really dear. I vote for Rob of 25,000. I wouldn't vote for him. I can basically just cheat and get the same bets that they're getting. It's weird because you can also pay your bills at the same place where you bet. I mean, you're a short guy, what? 

00:38 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
This guy talks a lot of trash. 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 Coding yourself as a pretty good NFL gambler. 

00:47 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I thought you were an idiot Say testing, testing. 

00:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm a cop One, two, three, four Aussies. 

00:53 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Going head to head with the Aussies. That's what I drew before and I said get him Kirk and they call me a mean-spirited name out with them, the Toronto. 

01:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Maple Leafs at 14-1, staring me dead in the face. 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 169. Part of the Hammer Betting Network presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook, I am Rob Pizzola, joined as always by Johnny from Betstamp. How's it going? 

01:26 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
pretty good. Got a good episode this week. I think we're gonna get right into it, but interesting guests for sure. And you know, something new in the sports betting space yeah, absolutely. 

01:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We're gonna explore a kind of a hybrid model from a new book in the space. Very interesting, very intriguing, intriguing guests for sure. But before we do, do want to remind you football season has started, college football this past week. Nfl is on the horizon. If you are serious about sports betting, you have to do what pro bettors have known for decades join pinnacle sports book. Use code hammer if you're going to do so. It does support us here on circles off, but, honestly, great limits for bettors, great offering, really solid product and, honestly, if you want to get down on football season, it's your spot to do so. If you're in Canada, so make sure you do check out Pinnacle. Our guest this week on Circles Off goes by Big Buck Hunter on Twitter. We'll link that down in the description below. He is the head of trading for Novig, a brand new sports betting exchange which will be launching in time for the NFL regular season. Henry Cairns joins us today on Circles Off. Henry, how's it going? 

02:34 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
It's going great. It's a pleasure to see you guys and be here. 

02:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's I, you know. Just, let's start this off by saying I'm pretty sure I walked by you about a hundred times at bet bash and didn't introduce myself to you. Um, so apologies on that front. I even saw your your chat with judah, uh, fort gang, the nfl one, which we can talk about a little bit later, but um, yeah, that was just weird. I mean, I'm johnny, you were there as well. I remember henry at all. 

03:00 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I did not. I did not. He should have said hi to us no. 

03:03 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I was. I was there for 36 hours basically just to do the presentation with Judah, um, so I was hidden. I was hitting some priority targets. You guys run with us honestly, because we are still building Novig. We're now we're live to a couple thousand people. We we had like a, a wait list and we let everybody on the wait list in and then closed it at that. Um, that's the reason I was the only person from no bigot bet bash is that just like we felt like we should have our heads down and be working and not doing like promo podcast stuff until there was something real. Um, but now there's something real. 

03:38 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I respect that. So you're there 36 hours. You have time for any table games. 

03:43 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Uh, no table games. I got a few hands at the tables at the win playing 5-10, no limit, but that was it. 

03:51 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Okay, poker guy, nice, nice, are you a poker player? 

03:55 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
That's how I started, Like when COVID happened. I threw myself into learning poker. Like I got PioSolver and did some training and I bought a big data set of mid-stake zoom hands from ignition and just like did everything I could to try and get good fast. And that was how I met a bunch of pro or kind of semi-pro poker players and some guys who were like betting on sports for a living but also playing a lot of poker, and all those agents that were running those private games at the time also had like books and so then when I got into sports it was for a while pretty easy to get accounts and outs and network that way. So that was kind of my journey into the sports thing, and then I haven't played much poker at all in the last couple years. 

04:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So your journey into sports started during COVID. 

04:44 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah, in all like kind of serious ways. Before that I'd bet like 50 bucks a game on NFL spreads on and offshore. But I had no delusion that I was winning, I was just doing it for fun. 

04:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean it's pretty interesting because obviously that's not too long ago and you're sitting with a head of trading position right now. It's not too many people who could say that they got into sports like sports betting a few years ago and are now running trading for you know someone who's a book? 

05:11 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Are you betting at all yourself? 

05:13 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I am. Yeah, I was betting more before I joined Novik Like that was especially. I was an engineer at Bloomberg for five years and the nature of engineering jobs is, once you've been there a few years, like there's a lot of free time. So I was just like hustling really hard and making good money doing it. I had my first son in November of 2022, and I took some leave and during that time I wrote a bot for like live odds scraping plus EV kind of stuff. You know, a pretty easy project, but to just like do a personal software project working with betting data sets. 

05:52
And then what I did was I reached out to a bunch of VCs, founders, kind of smart people I knew and just said here's who I am, this is what I've been doing. I respect what you do, would love a conversation for career advice, just to kind of brainstorm and had a bunch of calls like that, got a survey of what I thought was happening in the industry, decided that I want to be a bookmaker. Honestly, that was my conclusion was that if you have a family and you want some steady income, the bookmaking side made sense for me, especially having like an engineering background too and just knowing like I can sit down on a computer and just build things for eight hours a day and and make progress, whereas betting is kind of like 24 hours a day or you know more asynchronous. Um, and then I I found out about Novig and they had an option to, uh, build your own role. And so I wrote him a cover letter and said I think it would be really advantageous to you guys If you actually seeded all your own markets. 

06:59
You didn't have to park, partner with all these market makers, negotiate these awful profit split agreements with them. You just run it all in-house. And I think I could build the whole thing. And they brought me in, we talked about it for a day, did an interview and they were on board, and so I joined a little over a year ago and, uh, just built that, did exactly that so with that, with that model, that's more like the sharp the sharp book model, know, like book in house. 

07:25 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I know maybe this is it, but Novig is not planning to restrict any players or anything like that. Is that correct? 

07:31 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
We're not planning to restrict any players, so we're operating under a sweepstakes regulatory framework. It's kind of a nightmare how complicated this thing is to describe. It's really not that complicated. You install the app, it works like anything else, but the language around it is a little strange. So we're using the sweepstakes regulatory framework, which is what Global Poker uses, it's what Fliff uses, it's what ProfitX is now using, and that gets us into a lot of states that do not have legalized sports betting apps. That gets us into a lot of states that do not have legalized sports betting apps. 

08:06
Um, so the you know, the original thesis of the company was very much uh, sports betting exchange, no commission, obviously no limiting everybody. Anybody, um, nobody's orders get any kind of priority or anything like that. Uh, it very fair. Um, now that we're in so many more states, that still is the way the product works. But we've definitely, like, considered there are these trade-offs right, like you can offer really, really sweet product if you're willing to cut off some users from the product, and that's not a road we want to go down now. But you know that if you live in Texas or California, you just don't have a same game parlay app on your phone period and if I said I can give that to you but I got to cut you off from it if you're killing me and then you can only use you can only bet straight markets, like how unfair is that really? So for now nobody gets, gets limited, probably stupid to even raise the specter of it. But, like I, I do try to think about you know who are customers, what is actually advantageous to them? 

09:12
Um, as we build the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, that's kind of informed, like what we did first too right, like exchanges, ufc, boxing, tennis, these kind of individual sports that are hard to do, like data-driven handicapping on, are always way bigger on exchanges than recreational books. Um, like they do really good numbers on betfair and forecasters and so at first that kind of looked like those are the tier two markets after the major American sports for us. Um, but once we saw that we were going to do this uh, sweepstakes angle, it's been player props, player props, player props Like we have WNBA player props, you know what I mean, with no tennis matches or boxing matches. I think we'll have tennis next week, but that's like that's an unusual way to go about building an exchange, I think. But I think it makes sense for who we're going to be able to offer the product to. 

09:59 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So do you have any idea yet on what the limits are going to be for a lot of these markets? Obviously, when you're operating this model, it's tough to offer massive limits, you know, at risk of, you know, taking a beating. So what's the plan there? 

10:12 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah, so the ceiling is going to be about risk 2500 on the biggest stuff. On spreads and totals, there are some laws on how much an individual sweepstakes redemption can be per state. In a couple of the states it's $5,000. So $2,500 at even money gets you to just being compliant everywhere. It's going to be lower on player props but it's an exchange. So there's unlimited rebet on everything you can click as many times as you want we move. And there's unlimited rebet on everything you can click as many times as you want we move. Um, and there's also seating. So we have we have users who have been posting, you know, a grand on home run props and just getting like filled throughout the day for huge amounts of money on a single home run line interesting, not bad. 

10:59 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Before we move on, sorry, one last question. So we wanted to talk about your own betting. We jumped, jumped ahead to Novik there when you were betting yourself. I just want to ask what did you start betting? You mentioned you built a couple of bots. Were you in a regulated state? Where were you playing? What were you betting on? 

11:13 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I was in New York, so it wasn't regulated until, I think, the beginning of 2022. 

11:25
And so I was just using Offshores and a bookie and then I just grinded through promos and I was doing like the most toxic top-down stuff in the first few months that things were out and burned most of my accounts, and then started talking to the guys I knew who were betting sports more seriously, and learning how to actually do it productively Was mostly moving for people for the first year, uh, until I joined Novig and then the startup lifestyle. It's just not enough time for it, and so now I I still bet. I'll carve out a lot of time for it during NFL season, cause I really liked the NFL and follow it and the the one week timeline makes it a lot more digestible. Um, but I don't move for anybody anymore. Sometimes I have a bunch of friends who like, if they scoop up more than they need on something and they just want to drop it somewhere, they'll just add it to a spreadsheet and you know that's fine, I'll take it, but I'm not super active in, uh, the betting side right now. 

12:23 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Fair enough. 

12:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's okay. So I've been making some notes here, I've been paying attention, I promise. But there's a lot to unpack with what you've said so far here and there might be a knowledge gap with viewership or listenership right now. So Johnny and I obviously we know what the sweepstakes model is. I know I've chatted with Dean from ProfitX before about this a lot, and Jake as well, and he's explained it to me. I get it. I played DFS back in the day. I've seen Fliff, I know it's complicated but in your best words, can you just explain to the wider audience here, who may not understand what the sweepstakes model is, how that works? 

13:02 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah Well, the simple explanation is that if you install our app and you make a $500 purchase, you now have $500 worth of cash that you can wager with, which can be redeemed back to dollars. So it functions very similarly, for those who want it, to a regular sportsbook. What is actually happening is it is a free-to-play app. There are coins that you can bet unlimited, as much as you want, on anything you want, and they're never worth anything. And it's free to play with coins, and when you buy coins, you are issued cash in parallel to the coins. Play with coins and when you buy coins, you are issued cash in parallel to the coins. 

13:48
Additionally, you can play with cash for free by writing us a letter and asking for I think we do a dollar at a time to be deposited into your account. So you think about, like the mcdonald's uh monopoly games that would say no purchase necessary and most people just buy a big Mac and you get a tab. But you could like call some number and they'd have to mail you a tab. So it's a similar thing. There's a way to play indefinitely for free with us, and that covers it, and I'm also not a lawyer, so if I got anything wrong, I apologize. 

14:23 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
How do I get this free dollar for anyone? 

14:26 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Somewhere on the website there will be instructions. The official name of it is Alternative Means of Entry, amoe, and it has to be a handwritten note requesting a dollar. I don't know the other specifications of it and there are people who try to bot this and try to game this. That is part of the ecosystem of this people are trying to game literally anything everything. 

14:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If it can be gamed, it will be gamed yeah, honestly, that's a good earn for someone. 

14:53 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
If you can, if you can churn those out, if you can churn those letters out quick buck at a time, it doesn't take much. 

15:00 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
No, I'm just kidding you have a source of cheap stamps. Dude like that's, that's going to boost your ROI. 

15:04 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
The stamp too, you have to pay the postage. 

15:06 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
You got to buy the stamp. We're not supplying you the stamp. 

15:09 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So you have to pay the postage and write it up. So this is probably like a 25 cent ARB all in yeah. 

15:14 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
You know what, though? Hey, 25 cents, Not like 25 cents on the dollar, Like yeah, 25, yeah, 25 cents. An actual quarter is is the arm, yeah, but then do you have to roll over, or no? We, I think we have. We have a minimum redemption, Um, and the amount that you can get from us for free is a lot lower than that. So at some point you're gonna have to wager Additionally if you just purchased regularly. We have a one X uh rollover. That's just like a you know, anti money laundering kind of like standard thing of course, yeah, standard there. 

15:48 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Um, no, fair enough, I'm just joking. Obviously, like it's, it's not worth the time to well, it depends. 

15:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, for some people it might be probably. 

15:55 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I feel like the point is to make it not worth the time it's definitely not worth the time for for the vast majority of people. 

16:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, I I'm gonna ask you to take off your no-vig cap for a second. You know figurative cap. It's my understanding that a lot of this sweepstakes model is built off the legal opinion of a select few lawyers who have said yeah, you know what this should be allowed. This is kosher. Do you think this is a legitimate long-term solution in the space for people to get into the market? I wonder, will this be challenged at some point, either from the larger sports books, from the general public or anything like that? What's your unbiased opinion on that? 

16:42 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
So, first of all, anytime you're building a startup right, you're trying to write code that's worth a billion dollars and so everything's a long shot, right, it's just like some things have to go your way. So I kind of always have the mindset of like, no matter what we were doing, the odds are stacked against us. It's just, it's very hard to win. Were doing, the odds are stacked against us, it's just, it's very hard to win, um, but you're playing for keeps. You got to keep in mind when, in the early days of dfs fan duel, draft kings, also like draft street and all those that was that was the same thing, man, those guys looked at the regs. They said, hey, there's a carve out for fantasy football. What is the minimum legal, viable definition of a fantasy football game? Could it happen in one day? You know, and dfs pickham has even, like you know, that's the crack version of it um, and, and all the conversations were identical back then it was like, okay, this is technically within the bounds of the rules, but sooner or later somebody is gonna say this isn't in the spirit of the rules and stomp it out, and instead what you have is, you know, $50 billion businesses. So it's totally possible to be in the situation we're in and just keep you know, winning like that does happen and it happened not that long ago, realistically. 

18:02
So most of the volume for sweeps apps happens in uh states that don't have uh legalized sports betting. So texas and california being huge, florida is kind of a weird edge case because of the hard rock exclusivity thing and and they have, florida has more reason to stamp out uh kind of the I don't even know what you'd call the alternative platforms because of the I don't even know what you'd call it the alternative platforms because of the revenue deals but in California. So you got California and Texas being like maybe 60% of the volume. The federal government has no interest in touching anything with sports betting. They're letting this all percolate and sort itself out at the state by state level. So you would need challenges to be raised at the state level and certainly you know your DraftKings and FanDuel are not entirely happy about DFS and about sweepstakes and they might be picking fights, but they have one very specific fight that they are picking in Texas and California and it is not sweepstakes, it is. 

19:03
We would like to operate in Texas and California, right, and we've seen like they'll agree to anything. They agreed to a 51% tax rate in New York. It's just let us get in there and the long-term plan of course. Win over customers. Then go back, start actually negotiating what you really need to be a profitable operator. We saw DraftKings try to do that with this kind of ill-conceived, you know additional payout tax in the high tax states in New York and Illinois. 

19:32 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
They're going to start calling that the Uber surge. 

19:34 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
That's what it was, which you know, everybody clowned on him for it. But like if, if you're a better, sooner or later you need those big operators to start fighting those states. This is not a sustainable model for them in those places, but anyway, that's a tangent. So I don't think they start the fight in the states. We care about anytime soon, if and when they do. I think there are a lot of paths to still continuing to operate, especially if you get big right, like ultimately, these states just want tax revenue, you know. And if you're, if you're showing tons of income and it's hey, make it work like x, y and z, so that we're compliant in four weeks and we start paying you whatever the new higher tax rate is done deal, they're gonna be totally fine with that. But I think we have a fair amount of leash before any of those conversations happen in the places. We're concerned about them happening and I think we have outs even when it does happen would be my summary. 

20:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, no, I tend to agree with you on that. Listen, I mean, myself and Johnny are betters. I think competition in the space is good. I think for bettors it's a great thing when that happens. What the sweepstakes model is kind of getting around is the liquidity pools right and being isolated on a state level and now you can have a shared liquidity pool. That makes the product a whole lot better. Obviously, when you have something like that and I've been thinking about this a lot I think there's definitely room for growth. I just wonder that if the exchanges operating under the sweepstakes model start to really take market share at some point, whether it becomes a real battle against some of the bigger sports books, which would honestly be funny because it's in a sense kind of hypocritical with the way that these major books were running DFS before, if they were going to draw a line in the sand. But I do think that that potentially poses a problem down the road if this type of model is successful. 

21:43 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I'll say one thing the guys listening to this pod me and you. We fire. This is why we let those guys deal with all their stuff. Oh yeah, of course. 

21:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not suggesting differently. 

21:56 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
We let those guys deal with it and listen. I'm happy that there's a new place to potentially fire, depending on the regions. I know you guys are planning an extensive launch that's going to hopefully include multiple different jurisdictions and things like that, but yeah, I think, all in, we let those guys fight. 

22:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yep, totally agree On your side, henry. I wonder. There are some regulated betting exchanges now there's one specifically in Ontario. Do you think that you'll start to see the regulated exchanges, or those who've gone down that path, start to switch over to this model if you guys are successful, out of the gate? 

22:36 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Well, first of all, it's kind of funny that it's now these two exchanges who are doing it, because there's nothing about the model that is particularly attractive for exchanges. 

22:46
I guess the shared liquidity pool is one thing, although that is, that is very attractive that is attractive we felt like we had some workarounds for that anyway, but that's a story we no longer have to tell. 

22:55
Um, but it it's really like. First of all, there's a lot of uh spots that are trying to do this from zero just because of the gold rush element of it, and I've definitely talked to some smaller operators and this was a conversation we had when we decided to do this. We're like man, if we were, we're like just too big to risk it all on this, but there's a good chance we look back in a year and say why the hell didn't we do that? What were we thinking? Why did we think, state by state, grinding out these million dollar licenses made any sense? So I don't think anybody is going to start a third sweeps exchange anytime soon. It's hard, you know, like both us, and probably poured blood, sweat and tears in this, but I think you're going to see a ton of white label wrapper around some other company's odds, just app and marketing business. Things start happening pretty quickly. 

23:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
There's no market makers. You guys are just moving in-house off an auto mover. So it's essentially the sharp book model, but I think people are able to post their own prices if they want, which? 

24:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
obviously no one's going to do. It's like a hybrid model. 

24:13 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
It's the most closed system form of an exchange, so you can post your own orders. You can see the order book. There's depth to it. We don't have any third party market makers and you can't bet into us via an API. 

24:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Got it. Are you ever planning to add that kind of stuff? 

24:32 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Possibly there's not a ton of upside. The upside is not building, is that you don't have to build what we've built, like you can say we're just going to leave that to everybody else. And also, if you do that, you have to charge commission or you have to start, um, scalping people's profits over a threshold. Like you can't, you can't do what we're doing. That's part of it. Like if you, if somebody takes an NFL spread at even money and somebody else on the other side, they get an actual, no big bet. Like if they just hit up a friend on discord, which you can't really do anywhere else. Um, and you know, that's like a lot of the exchanges. 

25:09
I don't want to talk shit about exchanges, but, like I, I'd much rather be holding 100 than holding 30 or 40 of what some other market maker is holding and then having to squeeze the customer a little bit more to make that worth my time. So I think it's ultimately like rec recreational users get the same experience of being able to place orders by orders. And, if anything, if I was going to make it more possible to do like professional market making on Novig, I'd want to do something kind of like what bed angel is? Um, for I just said the name of the exchange, I'm blanking on it the big one Betfair, betfair. Yeah, like, I'd much rather incorporate into the app tools for our users to market, make intelligently, like, like. It would be very cool if I could just say hey, here are our numbers. You can add to the pool. Here, you can add to the pool. You can front run us by a cent or you can backstop us by five cents. 

26:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Whatever you want to do, like I think, bring all that yeah, like that. 

26:09 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That I think is more interesting just for everyone listening at home uh, who might be thrown off by the name? It appears? No vig. There is actually indeed vig on the book yes, there's, there's no commission there is vig no vig is a better name than no commission. 

26:24
No, no, listen, listen, We'll see how it ends up. Obviously, I know you guys are still in beta mode, but listen any out. That's not limiting players. I think is something that's cool, especially for a lot of people who are listening to this podcast, potentially have been experiencing things like that. So it's nice to have and regardless of whether people find value on it or not, time will tell but $2,500 in the grand scheme of things, it's $2,500 more than people could have got without Novig, so I think there'll be a lot of people happy for sure. 

26:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yep, it's one of the reasons that we're proud to have Pinnacle as a sponsor here as well. Books who give people a fair shot and don't limit just for winning. You had mentioned so you've been with Novig. I think you said just over a year, correct? Yeah, so you've probably been involved in a lot of the high-level conversations about where the company is going. Considering that you're at the point of soft launch right now and then a launch coming up here around the start of NFL regular season, Was there ever any consideration to relying on third-party market makers instead of doing your own internal market making? Was that ever a conversation that happened? 

27:35 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah, totally. We've talked with a bunch of them. We had some in the pipeline to get approved in Colorado to do it. I was always the most strongly against it, just because it's like this is my baby is doing it ourselves. But there was some thought that you get the liquidity higher, you can get more market coverage. But honestly you have to manage a ton, even if you have third parties quoting everything like you still have to handle, like market life cycles and settlement and all these things and the integrations are heavy. So the only thing it gets you is more quantity, which I don't know. The ROI on that. You look at the whale tracker for sport trade and it's just totally flat. You know what I mean. I don't think it's driving that much actually into their coffers. 

28:24 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So what uh? So, on this model, what would you as head of trading, what would you expect to earn Like what percentage hold we in Colorado we held just shy of like 2.9% every month, which is basically exactly what we wanted to do. 

28:41 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
We model out our V vig and our quantities, um, we, we bucket everything. 

28:47
So we, if we have minus 10 on both sides, we've actually denominated like how much of that is because the game starts in six hours versus two hours, how much of that is because this is a total or a home run prop, or because this rotation number is six digits instead of three digits, uh, or because it's ball on court in play or timeout in play, um, and then how much of it and this is the last thing is actual profit is when you account for all those things that make it really hard to trade sports. Here's the width that gets us our profit. So obviously the theoretical holds with live and props are higher than 3%. On the main lines that get lower. 

29:33
But we can kind of back out from all of those like subcategories, exactly how much we think we're going to hold and everything, and we've basically always hit right there and we can tune it Like if we see if somebody comes on and they're just like destroying us on NHL totals, well then we check, like, what is our average customer doing? Are they also betting NHL totals? Is it worth just having the high limits and low holds to keep this person on or not? And we can like define that parametrically and just the whole system updates to like deal the kinds of numbers that we want to deal for that profile of customers. 

30:11 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Got it. Aka, they're hawking bets. They're hawking bets on their, on their thing. No, that's, that's good. I mean, at the end of the day. Listen, the sharp model for people that don't understand is the pinnacle model as well. It's like you can beat them for sure, but they're also going to try to become sharper over time. You know it's a cat and mouse game and, just like what you said here, if you're winning NHL totals it doesn't mean you can't beat these places. It's quite possible to beat Pinnacle and the response to this show, but you can beat them on certain markets. Other markets might be tough, but here's the thing If you, you might beat them for six months. That's not just going to last forever. You might beat them for one month and then they're. They're going to adjust some stuff and as long as you keep that model, I think everyone's in business for the long run and it's obviously harder to just continue to print money, but it. 

31:01 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Well, the other thing that happens too, and this is something we don't have yet and we're working on it right now Once you're on every odd screen and once you have this reputation right, like you have insurance, Nobody wants to click into you and blow up the board. So you know we're taking more sharp. Like I remember when we were in Colorado we were getting popped, we were on odd jam and we would get popped on stuff and then we would get the buyback from people who saw us on Odd Jam or like oh, that's you know good, and they'd come back and then you know, but we were getting hit on college basketball overnights and I would just fly Right Like obviously, and I would deal five hundred dollars overnight because I was like I can just get clickbacks on this and we weren't getting them. And I realized, like Odd jam, we hadn't told them we were doing college basketball now and it wasn't there. And then, as soon as it was up, people got way more conservative about clicking college basketball overnights into us because they don't want to blow up the board. 

31:56
So if, if you auto move off everything and never limit anybody, uh, sharps click into you last, if at all. And if you're, if your quantities are 2500 like, you're probably never even getting the click right. They're gonna go try and get the the 10k click and that's kind of the last one that makes everything explode after they've gotten down quietly everywhere else. So yeah, all the more reason to just do it yourself. Like you start really looking at it. It's not that hard. Unless you want to be the biggest, best sports book in the world, then it gets really hard. 

32:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If you want to be pinnacle, it's tough, but if you're, if you're willing to be like a slightly smaller fish, it it's not that challenging um, you've mentioned auto movers a few times now, so I I want to geek out with you a little bit about this, because we really haven't talked auto movers on. We're 169 episodes right now and it's it's not a topic of conversation that we've broached. I have a lot of questions about this right now. So, for those who are unfamiliar, can you walk the audience through what an auto mover is? It's a little bit self-explanatory in the name, but please, if you could do that. And then I want you to talk through your experience in building out the auto mover, because presumably you did not have experience doing this in the past. Maybe you did with your trading job in some capacity, but curious the complexities that you faced in building out an auto mover. And then I might dive into, like, some very specific examples and kind of ask you how you dealt with those edge cases. Sure yeah. 

33:23 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Well, auto mover is the word that betters use to describe when you bet on a market and the odds immediately update without any trader reviewing it or making it happen. It is actually the function of a pricing algorithm on the back end. Any place that doesn't auto move or doesn't auto move off you, it either means they're not using a pricing algorithm that cares about their positions or they have chosen to filter you out of your their positions. Right? So like that's how a lot of these places work. When you know they say they, they move off sharp action, it's not really what happens. It's they, they move off their positions and they filter square accounts out from their positions. They say for the purpose of calculating our positions, don't even consider these people at all, just kind of leave it on the cutting room floor or scale it down. Like maybe the same way you have like 10% limits on FanDuel, a rec might have like 10% of what they bet actually added to the positions that the trader is seeing, um is seeing when numbers are updating. It's a simple algorithm for two-way or multi-way markets. Hansen's market maker is a very easy way to do it. You can just Google that. The smart gets internal trading system is called Hansen I'm sure it's named after that. I'm sure they're doing it the same way and all that does is you give it some sensitivity to dollar, to an individual dollar, and for every dollar in position you accumulate on a market, it'll fade your prices appropriately and it distributes it right. So, like, like you think about if you had a division future where the Bills and the Dolph higher, your price for buying the bill significantly lower, because their previous position was that they actually had some chance, and you basically apply none of the move to the uh fringe teams that already didn't have a chance, right? Um, that's part of why calculating uh synthetic hold on multi-way markets is kind of a lie, right, it's because it's not evenly distributed. Um, so it's very easy If you just have a market where, if you're just trading a single market, auto moving is not that hard. 

35:51
And there are some books like I'm sure you've seen this Bookmaker does this. I don't know if Pinnacle ever does this, but, like, if you keep slamming a player prop on Bookmaker like LeBron James under 27 and a half, they'll go down to like minus 250 on that side rather than going to 26 and a half because they don't either they don't have, or they have not integrated their actual models of lebron james points. They're probably getting it from a vendor, right? It's like a 200 limit. I'm sure they're not making that number. So it's very easy to just keep trading that specific market one way or another. 

36:29
What's hard is if you actually want to move down to 26 and a half, move down to 25 and a half, because those are entirely new markets and that's what people expect. Right, when you bet an NFL total under 43, you want it to go to 42 and a half. You don't want to just be trading that one number all day. So that requires actual simulations and models of distributions, of possible totals or possible spreads or whatever, so that you can understand how much 43 is in 42. And there's a lot and also you know how far down do you have to go before 42 is actually closer to your midpoint 50-50 event. 

37:15
And then the real tough one is if you have cross traffic right, so you have bets on over this line, under this line plus this spread, minus this spread, you have to actually you really have to calculate exposures to individual scores and say how much money do I win or lose if this game ends 31, 10 and then okay, so I need to fade away from that number um, and and do that dynamically and that's tough and it's, it's really tough, uh, the more dimensions you add to it, not to get too in the weeds, but, like from a computer science perspective, if you have M markets, you have end to the M time complexity on calculating this stuff, so it a computer can't do it. 

38:02
If you're talking about like we're going to do all our player props this way, blah, blah, blah, all this, this you know in soccer where there are so few outcomes and it's all just goals, they could kind of keep adding these things and trading them super, super efficiently, where you bet exact score or first half or whatever and and everything can update um, but when you're looking at you know whether or not a fullback is going to have a catch in a game or not and you're trying to move your total off of bets on that like a server can't handle it. So you have to decide what you want to do well, and invest more effort and processing power into that and then maybe be a little sloppier on some of the other markets and it's different, like we said, at the offshores those player props are real low On DraftKings or FanDuel. Obviously they're limiting a lot of people, but in general they're taking a ton of player prop money and some people are getting a few grand down on touchdown scores. 

38:59 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I've been saying this. I've been saying this for weeks now and everyone's commenting like that's impossible. I've been saying this for weeks now and everyone's, everyone's commenting like that's impossible. I've been saying this go ahead. 

39:10 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Sorry, but I appreciate that. So so it changes your. You know your priorities on like, like you might. They wouldn't do this for an NFL spread, but you know, like for tennis main lines, certainly up until very recently, fanduel was just like cloning some vendors' numbers, right Like you go to a tennis match on FanDuel. It doesn't even look like the other sports. It's just like copy and paste of something Like why bother? But they're definitely modeling all their own player props and have some real understanding that you know. If everybody's clicking overs on LeBron, then maybe Anthony Davis isn't going tonight. Like that is built in there. They're not just trading those on the money back and forth. Yeah, so that I don't even know if I'm answering what you asked about. 

39:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, that was great. I love the level of complexity that you got into there. Specifically, I've always had questions around how you move off of the derivative markets. Right, somebody bets a full game against the spread one side. I assume that in a lot of cases you're also going to move the other markets that are associated with that first half market, potentially first quarter. What if it's vice versa? What if someone comes in and is slamming a first quarter in an nba game? Do you move off? Do you move the first half line and the and the full game line? Do you move any player props so like? How do you treat an edge case like that? 

40:38 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
yeah, well, we have full game simulations including results at the end of quarters and halves. We don't trade them right now because I I think it's pretty toxic flow and if I'm going to take toxic flow, I'd rather have it be on like a player prop market that's a new thing than a derivative. We do the alts but we don't do the halftimes. But we have them and I can see them. What you end up doing is you calculate the correlation between, let's say, the halftime market and the full full game market, right? So if whenever the bills cover minus seven and a half at halftime, we see that 80% of the time they also cover the full game spread, then whatever the exposure is that you've just taken to that minus seven and a half, you apply 80% of that exposure to the minus 13 and a half or whatever. And you apply 20% of that exposure to the minus 13 and a half or whatever. And you apply 20% of it to the other team winning, right, cause you now also do have exposure to the half game winner, full game loser kind of situation. 

41:36
Um, and then you just let those, those trading algorithms that only look at your positions, determine what they should fade the prices to. But it's a synthetic position, right. It's like we've accumulated some position on this full game line by virtue of the fact that it's correlated with this other thing and that also cause, if you're doing that by dollar, that helps you from things for like, like. If you're, if you're taking five gay on the full game, one K on the halftime, you could get caught in some trip trap of like oh, somebody just max bet the halftime line, right. But it's like no, no, you want to go dollar for dollar, right, and so only think of that. As you know, 800 on this one, 200 on this one. 

42:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm wondering in the sense of people using the outlines or derivatives to manipulate the main game line and then come back and hit, you know, a higher amount of dollars on that. 

42:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, I wouldn't work at those limits. 

42:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, at those it doesn't really matter. But there's go ahead. 

42:32 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
The trick for that is is using copycat books. Right Is like. I can do this for cheap and I know this place that's just hanging the same number and then I can come back on it way bigger right, there's usually a few more steps involved, but yeah, there are definitely angles there Interesting. 

42:56 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Wanted to ask you about the I guess, like we'll call it like the parlay stuff, the SGP. You know I've heard the founder of Novig talk about how they're potentially looking at that kind of stuff. What are your thoughts on that? Like actually pricing that? Like are you guys going to include SGPs, things like that? I heard the rumors, yes, but you can confirm? 

43:12 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
We're definitely incorporating SGPs. We're definitely going to offer them over the counter. They're not going to go onto a book. It's not going to be here. You come on the other side, the only place I know of that does this. 

43:22 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
What do you mean over the? 

43:23 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
counter. So you pick all those markets, we quote a number and you can click bet, and it's not like, oh, here's what's on the order book for that specific parlay. Do you want to back it or lay it? Do you want to request a better price? Like, none of that functionality is going to be available. It's going to be like it is on a standard sports book. 

43:50
The only place I know, um, I get there are probably a few places that do parlays, but I know, for instance, like bet openly has some same game parlays that they put on an order book and it's just flooded with correlated stuff and kind of like toxic, trying to fool people, things, and it's a mess, isn't it? It's like a solution in search of a problem, right to have like some four-leg parlay sitting two-sided on a order book. So we'll do it. We'll have limits. It won't be unlimited re-bet, because we just can't support it that way and it's really just about delivering it as a product rather than, like this is fully within the ethos of unlimited re-bet. Everybody can do anything they want, kind of exchange stuff, um, because people want it, and you know like we think we can make it happen yeah, I think one of the inherent challenges with the, the current exchange model, is attracting rex. 

44:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh, frankly, I mean, the products tend to, I mean, forget about attracting rex. There are some sharps that don't want to use exchanges because it's just different, it's not something that they're used to relative to traditional betting. So that's already a challenge. But then when you're not offering the bet types that recs are typically looking for specifically props and SGPs I mean it's got to be an extreme challenge to onboard anyone at that point. So it's really interesting that you guys are going down that path. I've consumed some other content that you've done. I do prep for these. By the way, contrary to popular belief, people are asking me all the time like do you prep, do you vet the people who are coming on? Yes, I do. 

45:21 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
So for the audience, the run sheet from Rob is crazy detailed. I think he literally consumed all the content I've done, because there's not that much of it, um, possibly yeah, at least at least half of it, for sure. 

45:34 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
But puzzle is a true pro. Everybody knows that. He's a true pro when it comes to the podcast game I appreciate that he, no, he, he Listen. Every week the guest gets a run sheet. I get a run sheet, you know. On occasion I'll add in a few things that I will run by Pasola. Hey, ask this guy about this. We'll ask him about this, but for the most part, man, this guy's lights out on these outlines. 

45:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Thank you. This is very flattering from both of you right now. 

46:00 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I do appreciate that Full honesty, though it keeps the podcast going because I listen. I used to consume a lot more betting content in the space. Now not not as much, just because it's a little frustrating to listen to some of these other podcasts. But if it's all over the place and everything like that, like it makes a, it makes for a genuinely worse listening experience. 

46:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I like to just assemble. We're going into, like my podcasting you know strategy. Now I like to assemble like a very clear flow of I think it makes sense to go over these topics. I think the guests will be interested. Like I don't want to fire questions that I think that there's not going to be a great answer or that the audience already knows for the most part. So I just like to be organized is what it comes down to. I think it makes a big difference. That stems from me starting in the call. 

46:48 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I was a radio producer, so I used to have to put together scripts, but at the same time we don't just like stick to this paper Like if you. If you look at our sheet right now, we're out of order, but that's because it is what it is. You start taught he we brought up sweepstakes model, that was. That was actually kind of at the end, so we gotta skip past that now. 

47:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Of course it is what it is A little inside circles off. 

47:08
It doesn't matter, you gotta go with the flow, right you just, you have some general talking points you wanna get to, but how you get there might be different every single time. But I have, henry, consumed your content. You're very well spoken and it's great. But you also have a. What I would say is like maybe something I picked up on, maybe it's a reputation for challenging the status quo in the industry. A lot of people I think are just like yeah, this is you're a little bit. That's one of the characteristics I picked up on from you, so I want to. I'm interested in what you think. Some of the biggest misconceptions are that people have about sports betting and market making in the betting space today. 

47:49 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Well, I'll start with. I loved what you guys said in the Bet Bash recap about the ABV roundtable and you know I don't want a union. And have you really thought about the second order effects of all this stuff? I mean, this is something I try not to go off and be too negative on Twitter or anything, but I think people who bet for a living totally have the wrong idea about trying to pursue some kind of regulatory mechanism to get them higher limits or keep them on books longer or anything like that. I think that's a very bad idea and in general, I have a ton of respect for everybody who's advocating for it. It's all the nicest, most invested, best people in the space but I just completely disagree with them on the concept In general. 

48:46
You know, if you're a participant in a market and you're making money either on the buy side or the sell side and you're one of the killers the 99th percentile it is very helpful to you for that market to be deregulated and out of the line of sight of anybody who wants to stick their finger in it and mess with things. 

49:01
I think crypto people get this right. It's just to be deregulated and out of the line of sight of anybody who wants to stick their finger in and mess with things and like I think crypto people get this right. It's just like a politician who's pro crypto is good for me and who's anti crypto is bad for me. There's no sense of like well, he's going to screw my counterparty to my benefit. So I like this what this guy say, but and and sports bettors don't seem to get that. I think they have this particularly adversarial relationship with sports books and and uh don't realize how closely their interests are aligned. And and how many uh dominoes could fall if we started going down the wrong path with all of this stuff. 

49:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up. So I've had this conversation off air about the ABV with Spanky this week. We chatted for about 45 minutes and we don't see eye to eye, obviously, and he's entitled to his opinion on it and he formed this collective and he believes he's doing right on behalf of the betters. He's totally entitled to that opinion. Zach posted a clip on Circles Off HQ on Twitter last week. Make sure you're following us on Twitter. 

50:10 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, not enough people follow the Twitter. 

50:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, follow on Twitter. It's easy way to get updates on the show. But Zach posted a clip of me talking about this and Captain Jack, who I respect a lot, responded to it and said, like you know, kind of don't listen to this. This is fear mongering. This is not going to. You know, this is not going to happen in reality. Books are not. The product's not going to get worse, they're not going to pull markets, and I wanted to eventually use our own platform on Circles Off. It's coming up here. 

50:38
But when I used to consult for sports books back in the day, I was what the equivalent of a commercial director would be for a sportsbook as part of my consultation role. I would have been the person in charge of making this decision for probably the biggest offshore sportsbook in North America Now different, it's not regulated market. But if someone came to me and said, hey, rob, the guy who's reviewing all the commercial numbers, we have to take a minimum $500 bet on every single one of these markets. I'm going to run some math on all this and I'm going to say guess what? We're pulling a bunch of these markets. And then someone might come to me and say, well, rob, we risk people going to another sports book and betting these markets there and I'm going to say, who cares? Like they're not going to be a profitable customer for us. So let's pull this market and I truly believe that that will happen. Now I'm not saying the products are going to get horrible, but I think certainly forget about the days where you can bet a $500 same game parlay on you know, bench players in the NBA, third liners in hockey and things of that nature. I think the product suite ultimately gets worse because of it. So I do believe in that stance. 

51:54
I don't want people fighting on behalf of me and, additionally, multi-accounting is not going to go away. Let's call it out for what it is. I do not suggest you ever multi-account on a regulated sportsbook. I mean, this is against the law in several states and provinces. Don't do it. This isn't I'm not. I'm giving you advice. It's your own risk. You know you do whatever you want to do. 

52:18
I'm not suggesting you do this, but the reality is it does happen in the space and just because you tell somebody now you can bet $500 doesn't mean they're going to stop going out and trying to accumulate accounts. They're still going to do it because the money is green, like it's not, in my opinion, going to affect the behavior of a lot of bettors already. So I think that there's big time repercussions for sportsbooks. I do think, ultimately, it's fair for everyone if everyone has the same limits. I'm not talking about what's fair and what's not, but from that perspective, I think that there's a lot of problems when you have one collective arguing on behalf of all these people, all who have different betting tendencies, bankrolls, styles and things of that nature. So that's kind of my spiel on the situation. I'm not sure if you agree with that or not, henry, but those are my thoughts. 

53:12 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I agree completely. I think you're totally on point. 

53:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, thank you, I did need that. I need the validation, the pat on the back. Listen, everyone's entitled to their opinion. I respect Spanky, I respect jack. At the end of the day, they feel that they're doing right for the better and I'm not going to argue with that. I just do think that it has negative ramifications for a lot of betters in the space and right now I think part of the game is being able to overcome those obstacles. But, um, I think that's what separates, like great bettersors from good bettors and average bettors and things of that nature. 

53:49 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
You can adapt you know, just to throw it out real quickly, One of the things me and Judah talked about when we were at Bet Bash you know, the reason the the same game, parlay stuff he grinds is so important is you can let the books tell you what they want you to do. You know, if they want you to bet this stuff, then do that. Figure out how to do that. A lot of people have been doing the same thing in the same sports for 15 years and they don't want to have to adopt and and at some point you have to read the writing on the wall and and we're still. We're still pretty early. You know there's there's a lot coming, a lot of the. The target audiences for all of these marketing campaigns have been men in their twenties, right, who are now, you know, getting jobs, making more money, able to bet more like. Just just watch this space. For the next five years, a lot is going to shift and yeah, that's all. 

54:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You brought up Judah. Judah is Judah. Fortgang at throwthedamball on Twitter is new to the Forward Progress team at the Hammer this year. So Eric Eager, vp of Analytics for the Carolina Panthers, congratulations. Sucks not having Eager part of the network and part of the content this year. Carolina Panthers, congratulations. Sucks not having you. You're a part of the network and part of the content this year, he told me when he left. He's like you got to do me one favor. You've got to get one guy and it's Judah which I did manage able to recruit him for Forward Progress. So if you don't know what Forward Progress is, it's our NFL division of the hammer. Make sure you subscribe here on YouTube. You can check us out in audio form as well. It goes a long way. 

55:15 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
We've got tons of great content coming up this year, but you co-host Wait just so people know, the Forward Progress channel is a lot different than this one. Right here we talk betting, strategy and stuff like that. Forward Progress there's a lot of shows that actually will, you know, give out some picks, give out some strategy and insights specific to NFL and actually betting and beating football at specific things. So completely different. If you're a fan of this show, you may also be a fan of that show. If you're a fan of forward progress may not be a fan of this. You don't check it out and see for yourself. 

55:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Absolutely Um. So I wanted to ask you, henry uh, obviously you co-hosted that NFL betting seminar with him at bet bash, didn't I? I witnessed about 20 minutes of it. What was that experience like for you overall? And, uh, I honestly I was going to plug Judah myself, but I think you think pretty highly of him, so I'll give you the floor. I want it to come from someone else. 

56:04 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah, the experience overall is humbling to stand next to Judah and try to talk about the NFL. We had a good division of responsibilities. He was in charge of talking about the NFL season. I was in charge of needling Steve Fezzik if he got out of line, which he did so johnny knows all about that that's that's like. 

56:24 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Who's that? No, I'm kidding can I tell? 

56:28 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
can I tell one fezik story sure from bet. 

56:31 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Tell as many as you want. Where's my arm, buddy? 

56:33 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
so he was. He was lingering outside of our uh, our seminar space, the the conference room, five minutes before it was going to start and I introduced myself to him and he said you're running the NFL seminar. Okay, give me one play right now that you like, and don't give me a deadline. I'm sick of people giving out lines that aren't on the board anymore. And I thought, okay, I'm going to say something fun, because I don't want to get adversarial with Steve Fezzik in front of my seminar as everybody's coming in. So I said I like Gerard Mayo to be first head coach, fired at 75-1. I think that's a fun flyer and he goes. No chance, the optics are too bad, try again. I said all right, steve, you want a real line. I like Chargers Raiders under. I think you can still get 43. Chargers Raiders under 43. And he pauses for a second, he goes. You can get 43. I checked the board this morning because I love it. Nice play, it's like oh, thank God. 

57:33 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
We actually just we just mentioned forward progress for this season. If you want to get all of Fezzik's plays, you can actually get those on forward progress. Actually sorry, though that's Hitman. That's Hitman's plays Same, thing, same thing. 

57:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I love what you did there Inside joke. For people who don't know that's going to turn, there's more content coming on Circles Off in the next few weeks. We got a secondary form of content starting soon. I think it'll be a big hit. It will explain stuff like what Johnny just talked about right now. Did you? That was really good Because you delivered it with a straight face, like I couldn't tell that it was a joke for a second. 

58:14 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I honestly was like oh no, if Steve is on the the hammer, I probably shouldn't have told the story about him. 

58:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But no, steve is a part of our like. We have him on for live watch alongs during the nfl season. Um, I don't know if that's going to continue again this year, but we're we'll try. Um, he's an interesting character. I agree and disagree with him on many things in life, uh, but um zach's making me laugh too hard. 

58:40
I gotta stay laughing very hard back there, uh, at that joke, is it was a good joke. It was a good joke. Um, we'll wrap it up here. It's very nice uh of you joining us today, henry. Uh, obviously, uh, I know you listen to the pod because you've tweeted at circles off hq before specifically about arriving at the airport early, I believe. Um, are you? Are you a proponent of that or or not? 

59:06 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I. I think any man who has a wife and kids knows that you are the only person in your household who has any inclination to get to the airport on time whatsoever, and you have to calibrate yourself towards getting there early or else you're just going to miss the flight. And I've had to run through security one too many times to be casual about it Now when I flew solo back in the day. Sure, get there at the last minute, global entry easy peasy. But things change. 

59:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right. 

59:41 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I mean, I don't have kids, so I don't know, just for listen, for this take. I wasn't even saying get to the airport, like a minute before. I was just saying get to the airport so that you don't have to wait and purposely spend time at the airport. It was more for the whole two hours, three hours before people go to the airport, because that is a thing. There's a lot of people who genuinely go three hours before the flight just in case anything happens. But yeah, if you have a wife and kids and you're anticipating some delays, then obviously budget accordingly. You don't go 15 minutes before you go an hour and 30 before maybe, whereas I might go 45 before you might go hour 30 with kids. There's still a way to budget it where you can actually be more optimal with this airport thing. But yeah, still way too many hours being wasted. Also, I gave out on last week's episode plus, you've moved the snuggle neck pillow. 

01:00:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

01:00:34 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Man boy, did I leave at least tens of dollars on the table by not getting an affiliate link on that? 

01:00:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I know there were lots of comments last week that they bought the pillow. 

01:00:44 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I could probably have made a buck per pillow on that an affiliate deal. Just kidding, it is what it is. 

01:00:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We talked about that on the show and I don't use Instagram a lot but I check in like once a day. I'm getting served up hard Instagram ads on travel pillows right now, so the phones are always listening, Just another lesson in life. 

01:01:04 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
That's totally what's happening, has nothing to do with you sitting next to Johnny for three hours a day, every day. 

01:01:12 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Do you have your plus EV minus EV move of the week? 

01:01:15 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I do, and I've learned from you guys. Guys, the key to high engagement plus EV, is giving out the most insane travel tip that you possibly can Perfect. So I've opted to do that. So this is the worst possible travel take that I thought I could even try to defend, which is, when you book a ticket on a plane, sit in the very last row, and here's why, if the plane is sold out, you're screwed. But when the plane is not sold out, the stewardesses like to clear that row out so they have a place to sit, and so they will ask everybody sitting in that row if they would like to move to the front of the plane. And sometimes they will give you a premium seat for free if you opt to move out of the back row. So you can avoid paying for a seat by picking the worst seat on the plane and possibly get luxury seating and, more often, at least get up to about halfway up the plane. 

01:02:21 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Interesting now like I'll disagree hard. 

01:02:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's a significant negative ev I personally never, ever booked the back of the plane. Ever now I have seen the back row, he's saying voluntarily booked the back I've seen the back row I. You would need to calculate, you could apply math to this right, like the percentage time that you are going to be upgraded to. I would say business class, or better, I think, if it's like in the 20% range. 

01:02:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Definitely, not 20%. 

01:02:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's no chance it's 20%. To first class. Definitely not 20%. 

01:02:57 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
There's no chance of 20% Upgraded to first class. Upgraded to first class is like you get that, maybe over under lifetime, one and a half. 

01:03:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think the only redeeming thing that I could think about of sitting at the back of the plane is that you don't have to deal with all the idiots when your plane lands. You just know you're getting off last. 

01:03:18 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Is the bathroom lavatory as they call it at the back of the plane as well, because then you've got to factor that in as well. 

01:03:26 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
There is a bathroom at the back of the plane. 

01:03:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, and they line up outside the bathroom too. People don't? There are symbols all over the plane that tell you when the bathroom is free. You can just wait, but they form a line at the back of the plane all the time. 

01:03:40 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So I don't Listen. We'll see how that one gets received. Obviously if you can, I feel like you could just ask for an upgrade. Anyways, though, as soon as you get there provided you got there three hours early you can just go up to the front and be like hey, can I get an upgrade? And I'm sorry. Podcast yeah, no, it's, it's actually a, it's actually a plus. 

01:04:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Ev gambling podcast we only make good, good value bets here, the back of the plate. I'm gonna piggyback because I have a travel one again as well. This one is not quite. Uh, I don't know where that one came from. I don't know, I don't know how that one's going to be received. Uh, this one actually comes from cleave ta, who posted it in our forward progress group chat this week. It's been on my list for a while but I want to credit him just in case I get like any blowback like a hitman type of situation. Right, like he posted in there, I had it written on my own like notes anyways disclaimers in plus cv move of the week. 

01:04:33
You got to do this all the time. I see people all the time that are. They're just on the plane and they don't understand that the temperature in the plane is going to fluctuate as you fly. You might get on. It might be a nice summer day, 30 Celsius, whatever. That is like 95 Fahrenheit. You think you're great. 

01:04:51
You're in your shorts, in your T-shirt, you get up in the air, the air conditioning is cranking, everyone's freezing. You see like the guy's nipples next to you are popping through his shirt because it's so cold. Pack a sweater with you in your carry-on every time you go. I'll go as far as saying I actually prefer a zip-up if you can, not something that you have to take on and off over your head because it's very easy in your seat. Zip up, zip down. It makes a huge difference on every flight because the temperature is going to fluctuate, especially on these cross-country flights. You do a toronto to vegas. Yeah, you go through the motions in temperatures over the course of that flight, so that's actually a real good one, agree agree like what henry gave out I'll agree on that one wholeheartedly, as rob would say. 

01:05:36 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That's a very good agreement there. I always pack a sweater. You never know. 

01:05:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You don't know, you never know. There's no downside. It's in your bag. It's like a what? 

01:05:45 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
extra Slight downside to carry it, but it's going to be likely cold on the plane. All right, I'll go mine. I have actually a full list on my phone here, plus EV, minus EV one, just so we can stick with the theme. This one is when you travel, people usually bring a little bag of toiletries with them, maybe some shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, stuff like that it this one. It's just significant. Plus EV get a new reusable, disposable toothbrush every time you travel. You don't want to be saving the same one. Seen it too many times. People have like a travel bag and they have like a toothbrush case and then they'll put it in there and then they use that same one. It's accumulating bacteria in there for months in between your travels. It's not that much. Buy a pack and then you have those and a new one every time and they're full in the package, Plus, if you, of the week. 

01:06:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think we batted 667 on today's show, if you ask me. 

01:06:46 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
You got a negative. I do. My negative EV is this microphone. I thought this thing would be ripping and apparently I sound like a tin can and just in general. You probably can't tell, but I have a habit of buying music equipment and recording equipment and it is the most expensive habit on earth with zero roi um that a lot of guys like at all, or yeah, I record a little music what do you? 

01:07:13 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
what do? 

01:07:15 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I do like drum machine and synthesizer stuff. I think I have one, one track on spotify that's under my name. 

01:07:21 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That exists out in the world pazola is a big, pretty good musician. 

01:07:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I'm a guitar player back in the day before. Uh, he got too big time me. I was gonna record like an album with preston johnson sports cheetah but then he made like a billion dollars off of nfts and owns a soccer team now and like that's not going to happen anymore. 

01:07:41 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
But uh, maybe, maybe we'll do a collab at some point that's often when people start pursuing their foolish creative dreams is when they've made that billion dollars. 

01:07:49 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So you got a shot with him now he's recording with way better musicians than me. 

01:07:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's, that's he found himself like a real band, uh, but with the, with the art of post-production, people will probably not hear the quality of the mic. We do have producer zach here, who's? Uh, that's what I'm hoping he does. 

01:08:07 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
He does a pretty good job. I think honestly, I'm just pointing it the wrong way. I think I'm supposed to be over here. Oh, you know what? That might have been it been it, but once we started, I couldn't change it. 

01:08:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, you could have sorry, you look, you look good, at least you look good, at least you look good yeah, maybe it's meant to be talked. 

01:08:24 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Uh, like you know your head hit like every other microphone on earth. Yeah, that's probably right. 

01:08:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah I've got a negative evie move of the week here, this one, uh. So it's for those of you who are in toronto with us here it's carnival season Canadian National Exhibition Negative EV move of the week. Whether it's at the CNE or anywhere else, do not ever go on a portable carnival roller coaster or Ferris wheel. There is just no way. These things are being brought in and assembled in six to eight hours. And listen, I know I said I could assemble that F1 car, but I don't even think I can assemble one of these Ferris wheels correctly, because these things are just not safe. 

01:09:09
Every year you see videos around Canada and the US at least a couple of them falling over. Sometimes there's deaths, sometimes there's serious injuries. But avoid at all costs. If there's a legit amusement park where the roller coaster is actually like permanently there and built in, it doesn't apply to that. I feel like those are a little more safer. But these amusement park ones where they're like carnivals and they bring them in on a truck, avoid at all costs. Negative EV move of the week. 

01:09:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I think you hit two out of two here. Truck avoid at all costs. Negative EV move of the week yeah, I think you hit two out of two here. I've seen them assemble these things before I'm stuck in traffic on the Gardner. People who are not from Toronto know what I'm talking about. But I love thrill rides. Personally, I'm not riding pop-up thrill rides they're not even good. 

01:09:50 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
They're not even good rides too. They're dangerous and they're not even exhilarating roller coasters. They're like base level roller coasters. 

01:09:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
My Canadian national exhibition experience is usually two to three hours at that horse wheel that they spin. It's got, like all the classic horses, biggest minus EV imaginable as a better. 

01:10:10 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
But it's all gambling games. 

01:10:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's like second period man of war, like bunch of, and they spin a wheel and there's like three arrows and it pays anyways. Very addictive. 

01:10:21 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It's literally all gambling games there. That's all it is. You go there and you're definitely losing like 38%. Hold on all these games and then the prize is a stuffed animal. But you got to do it I don't even care about the prizes. 

01:10:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I just play for the rush of seeing that wheel spin 100%. I want to hit Manowar pretty regularly. Let's end it on this. If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, Henry, what advice would you give your former self? 

01:10:49 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Well, so I quit drinking about 11 years ago, and I was probably the best decision I ever made, and I feel really good about just about everything I've done since then. Um, so I would be totally fine if I saw myself five years ago just saying keep on keeping on, you're doing great, um. With that being said, if I had one piece of advice and I probably wouldn't have listened to it anyway I would say have kids right now. Uh, stop waiting. You, when it's all said and done, all you're going to want at the end of your life is to have had another year or two with them. So why are you putting it off now? 

01:11:35 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
And uh, yeah, Is it a personal question. We can bleep this out if you want, but what? What age were you five years ago? 

01:11:42 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I was 31. 

01:11:44 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Interesting, interesting. 

01:11:45 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
Yeah. 

01:11:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Neither. 

01:11:47 - Henry Kerins (@BigBuckHunterrr) (Guest)
I would have had a lot of advice to give John Harbaugh about the uh 2019 AFC divisional game. If I could go back in five years, that would probably be more important to me If you gave me the option between speaking to myself or John Harbaugh. 

01:12:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would snap choose B. I probably would like if I could change the course of like my favorite teams, sports teams. I probably would do that before more than giving myself advice. I don't know. 

01:12:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I'd be giving myself advice. I don't really care about sports. To be honest, guys had so much heartbreak over the years. 

01:12:22
I obviously want my teams to win. But, man, betting really ruins you as a fan. Eh, it really does. It really does. I never really had an NFL team More, just, you know, pure fan of the league. Same with college sports. But I mean I used to be such a big Leaf fan Like I used to watch every game, like basically how Zach was like two years ago, but just over the years, just through betting I just kind of like lost interest and then it wasn't that important to me and teams were always like okay, and you know, never made a run and just call it. Now I don't really watch many regular season games, I'll throw it on in the background, but I used to literally watch every single game. Crazy, eh, no good. 

01:13:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Change over time. I used to watch sports like 14 hours a day when I was a teenager. I'm not even exact. I had NFL Network on at all times. Like this is not an exaggeration. Now, I don't know when. The last time I watched NFL Network was His name's Henry. You can follow him on Twitter at BigBuckHunter. We'll link that down in the description below. We are gunning for 10k subs here on Circles Off. We're almost there If you're not subbed to the channel yet please just sub to the channel. 

01:13:27
It's a nice milestone for us. We do have some swag to give out as well. So 10k subs. Smash that like button down below as well. And of course we read all the comments, comments. So if you enjoyed the episode, you want to talk about anything. If you want to give henry shit for his terrible plus ev move of the week, you can do that down in the comments below as well. Thank you everyone for tuning in. This has been circles off. Episode number 169. We'll catch everyone next week. Outro Music. 

 

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