00:00 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I was just gonna say I was racing digital horses and I would have them have sex with each other to produce babies, and then I would race, then I would race the baby. Come on, let's go. 

00:09 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
You think I'm gonna come on here and put one of the Aussies in the elite tier. I'd vote for Rob of 25,000. 

00:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I wouldn't vote for you. 

00:17 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I can basically just cheat and get the same bets that they're getting. 

00:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's weird because you can also pay your bills at the same place where you bet. I mean you're. 

00:26 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
You're a short guy 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 clowning yourself is a pretty good nfl gambler. 

00:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I I thought you were an idiot say testing, testing, I'm a cup. 

00:42 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
One, two, three, four yeah, 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. 

00:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The Toronto Maple Leafs at 14-1 are 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 175. Right here, part of the Hammer Betting Network presented by Pinnacle Sportsbook, I am Rob Pizzola, joined by Johnny from Betstamp. How are things? 

01:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Buck 75. It's wild, we've done a lot. Somebody asked me today how this podcast started. I'm like, what happened? Maybe maybe we've told him, maybe we haven't, but I think basically one day I was just like you know what? We got to start a podcast, me and rob in the betting space. That's only sharp content. And like none of this picks previews and none of none of this garbage like that's, that's all that, everything that's out there right now. Like let's just do sharp betting, like lifestyle show. And, uh, rob, at first he's like ah, send me a deck yeah, send me something. 

01:51
I'm not understanding the vision he's like send me like a vision, like put some time into it. So I put some time into it. I reviewed a couple other podcasts, I sent it to him and he's like, all right, like let's do it, we'll try to do it. We recorded the first couple, like what was it originally called the uh, the at odds podcast, and then we realized there was a bunch of other ones. After episode three we became circles off and buck. 74 is actually wild because that's years now. 

02:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's years, it's years I've been here for over a hundred. Yeah, you were part of the first video podcast we did, which was with Chernoff, I think, yep. 

02:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Episode one was produced by Jason Yep. 

02:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Who we didn't hire at the time. 

02:36 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
He was later hired. 

02:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He was hired at a later date. Producer Jason from the Forward Progress Watchalongs for those that don't know. But yeah, honestly, it's paid off. I'm pretty happy. Listen, we, we know that sport. You know sharp sports. Betting content is pretty niche, but we have a pretty decent following now, uh, I was this past weekend. 

02:54
I was in uh state college, pennsylvania. Mike craig, who was one of our previous guests on the show audio only back in the day, as a penn state season ticket holder, he invited me out for the weekend. So me and my wife went Penn State UCLA the Friday night in State College. We went out to a bar called Brothers and I'm just waiting in line at the bar and some, some young kid comes up to me. He's like hey, you don't happen to be robbed by any chance. I'm like, yeah, I am. He's like I've, I've watched every one of your episodes two times. 

03:26
I'm like, oh, really like what? He's like circles off. I'm like, oh, that's great. Like and you know mike craig was having a good laugh about this he's like, oh, yeah, you got another fan over here, whatever, but his name was matt. Shout out to matt for doing that, but it's widespread. Like, this is a college kid watching all of our episodes. I checked out his twitter account like top down, better, got odd screen open. Uh, he's got some uh zin pouches there as well. Uh, with him. That's a classic, classic move. But yeah, it's, it's, uh. It feels a lot better when you know you get kind of get recognition. You feel it growing. You feel that people come up to you and they're like I've learned a lot from you. It's, uh, it matters it worth it. 

04:03 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
How many times a year does someone come up to you and say, hey, are you, Rob Pizzola? Um? 

04:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
people don't usually ask. They come and introduce themselves Like they know me. So I, I listen, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not pretending like I'm an A-list celebrity here, right, I, but I was on. 

04:20 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
you're like, you're like an F-list. You're there, You're right there. 

04:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So for those that don't know, when I was in my early 20s I was a radio producer for the Scores radio division called Hardcore Sports Radio, and within about a year of being full-time at that, one of my hosts got fired and I showed up for work that day and they're like, hey, gabe Maranci got let go, you're in. And I'm like, hey, you know, gabe Maranci got let go, you're in. And I'm like, ok, I'm like this 21 year old kid with a bunch of acne and like a blood. 

04:50
So, and it was a radio show, but it was simulcast on TV in Canada because they were kind of looking for cheap programming. Right, and we're already doing a radio show. Might as well. Put on some cameras in the studio, play it on TV as well. So part of what hardcore sports radio is way ahead of its time. And we would talk gambling. We were talking about sports, but from a betting perspective. This is 15 years ago and because of that I got like the quote, unquote, degenerate audience. Right. It was like I would go to the racetrack, I'd go to Woodbine, people would recognize me. I would go play poker at, you know, fallsview, casino, casino, rama people would recognize me. So those are still the spots nowadays. If I'm there, that's where I'm most likely to get recognized. It probably happens, honestly, every single time I go to one of those places, someone will know me from, from that or from this. So hey, congrats. 

05:49 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Well, it's only a matter of time before you can't walk in the streets of toronto. 

05:53 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Yeah, whatever how often do you get hey, are you johnny bett? Stamp never, never happened never happened. 

05:59 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Never happened, no, no, depending on where we are. Where we are, obviously, yeah, but not like, not on the street, and I doubt, I doubt that's ever gonna happen. I hope it never happens yeah, yeah. 

06:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, you know it might, it might listen. I hope, I hope it does. Honestly, that would mean that we've reached a, if we critical mass so yeah, yeah, how about you zach? 

06:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
how many times anyone tell you, are you producers? That? 

06:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, pisky, when he saw him, when pisky saw him on the street, on king street. Hey, producer Zach. 

06:25 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
I know a lot at Bet Bash. 

06:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That was cool. That's different. That's it. We're in our zone at Bet Bash. 

06:32 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Never, anywhere else. 

06:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
People really know, at Bet Bash it's a big percentage of our audience. But, yeah, I'm honestly running on fumes here. It was like an in and out type of trip College party town. I partied, went to the game, got back right away. Sunday NFL still had my commitments Pizza buffet. I'm moving right now. I'm in the process of staging my house. I got rid of Tortellini as well. No, tortellini is now with another family Legend. What Legend? Yeah, I, I, I can't carry him around with me forever. I travel, I feel, I feel like there's I have to get someone to come in and check on him. 

07:14 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Probably probably you hate to say it. 

07:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's, that's a plus ev move it's a plus ev move he lived. I gave him a good life, a good first 12 years of his life or so. He's on to another family that will care for him. I got some pictures of him that were sent to me already and he's having a good time Eating some lettuce and mango he's eating his lettuce. 

07:35
He's got a bigger space. That was part of the thing. I'm moving and I'm like, am I going to bring this guy to my new house? You see, the guest house I have, that's going to be like my man cave. That's kind of like where I would put him and like I don't like tortellini or the pool table, like you know. Oh no, it's tough. 

07:56
It's tough, he did win a handicapping competition against the human, but that's where we got to cut the lines. But he is a legend in the space and speaking of legends in the space, that would be Pinnacle Sportsbook, the world's sharpest sportsbook available to bettors across Canada. Find out what pro bettors have known for the past 25 years. Pinnacle is where the best bettors play Great margins. At Pinnacle, the product offering is getting better and better and, of course, they don't limit you if you win your bet. So check them out. If you're in Canada, you must be 19 plus, not available in the US, and, as always, please play responsibly. Our guest this week is formerly of Roto World and DraftKings and is a co-founder of Establish the Run, also known as ETR in the space. He's one of the most respected DFS football analysts and podcasters in the space. He's won multiple Fantasy Sports Writers Association awards while at Roto World before focusing on DFS full-time in 2015. You can follow him on X at Adam Levitan. Adam Levitan joins the show today. 

09:00 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Adam, how are things, things are good. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. 

09:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, no problem at all. We're both big fans of yours, especially Johnny. We talked to Peter Jennings back in the day. Three Donkeys pod as well, love all that stuff, so this has been a long time coming for us. 

09:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, long overdue. Thank you for joining Adam. We appreciate it, man. 

09:21 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
For sure, yeah, one of the few three donkeys fans. We appreciate you. 

09:24 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Bring it back, man I would be. I'd sign a petition right now. Send it over. I'll sign that right now. How many? 

09:30 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
we got to get. Will you pay for it? That's a better question. 

09:34 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Would I pay for it? 

09:35 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah. 

09:36 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Uh yeah, if I'm spending an hour on it, then that's pretty expensive for me to spend an hour a week. So yeah, I'd pay, of course. What are you going to charge for it? 

09:44 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Million, million, no big deal. 

09:46 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
A mil. 

09:47 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
A mil yeah. 

09:48 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
If you need investors in the show, yeah, no, I'd back it. To bring it back, I think you can do something big with that. Would it be the same guys? Sure, sure. 

09:57 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
We'll talk off air. I'll back that. 

10:01 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I'd back it All right. Well, I mean, we'll get into some of the questions. Listen, so everyone knows you as kind of like a DFS guy, established a run, obviously being like a big DFS and fantasy ranking site. Obviously you're transitioning into betting as well and things like that, but we just wanted to hear from you what do you guys do right now? What's your day-to-day, what are you doing? 

10:22 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, oh, I should be clear. Like we didn't start any of this or get into this with betting in mind or anything. I mean we were strictly fantasy guys, dfs guys, that's pretty much it. Um, we thought that the best way to attack dfs was with a more technical approach and a projection-based approach, and so I spent a ton of time developing projections and then it just turned into people wanted that stuff for betting, props. So we didn't get into it for being into betting or props or anything like that. We're just DFS and fantasy guys who happen to see a lot of overlap with prop stuff. So yeah, I mean, right now, our main focus is just simply how, what is going to happen with every player in every game every week, down to the minutiae of how many pass attempts will they have, um, how many interceptions will they throw, what's the distribution of their yards if the median is 65, etc. Etc. So, yeah, that's our all. 

11:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Our focus is pretty much, uh, right now, when you first got into dfs um was right around the time that I think I got first got into DFS as well the early stages. What was it that you gravitated towards Like? Did you view it as a money-making opportunity or were you just like a sports fan, fantasy guy through and through, and that's what piqued your interest? 

11:40 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah. So it's just like a perfect storm for me. Dfs, I could feel it. You know I obviously love sports and loved regular fantasy. Growing up I actually won, by, like some miracle, espn's overall fantasy football title. Like out of everyone who played ESPN fantasy in the year 2000, I had the best team won a trip to Disney World. I was like 19 years old. It was wild so I was always into it. But I kind of gave up on on fantasy and sports for a while. I was just playing poker. You know I was playing poker 20 hours a week or so from probably the time I was 21, which was in 2003, when Borgata first opened in Atlantic City, and then all the way to when Parks opened in Philly. So you know probably 10 years, eight years of playing poker pretty seriously. 

12:32
And if you look at a DFS lobby, the first time I looked at it I was like, oh my God, this is just like online poker. Oh my God, how is this legal? I don't think this is legal. They're telling me it's legal and I was like if this is legal, this is going to be absolutely massive. And at that time I actually was thinking about getting out of the whole, like trying to be a reporter space, you know. There was just no money in it and I was, like you know, trying to burn the candle on both ends, working and playing a ton of poker. 

13:05
Um, so yeah, I, I was ready to give up. I mean, I had applied to business school, took the gmat, I was gonna go get like some corporate job and then dfs hit and I was like, oh my god, this is this is it, and it changed the industry so much. I mean, when there's real money on the line, like there is in dfs and a lot of it, people are willing to pay more for it. And then also, just from a playing perspective, I mean can't make that much money playing season-long fantasy, but in DFS you can roll over. If you wanted to play for six figures on Sunday and roll that over into the showdown slate and roll that over into the Thursday slate and roll that, you can just keep playing huge. 

13:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So so, yeah, just way more liquidity to the whole industry made a huge difference how quickly did you ramp that up out of curiosity, like when you first got into that space? Were you slow to adapt, or was it like this is a huge opportunity here. I need to really push at this. 

13:53 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, I was so bad, you know, and I'm just not aggressive enough with my role, probably. I just didn't have a lot of money at the time and I remember talking to my friends from poker, I was like this DFS thing, like maybe we should give it a go, and I was like, yeah, maybe, maybe I'll put like 5k on or something like that. They were like five, you got a way more on and really like go for it. And I was like I was like, yeah, I don't know, I don't, I don't really know exactly, like how it works, if it's legal. And yeah, I tried to ramp it up more around 2015, 2016. I think the games at that time were probably already starting to get a little bit tougher still soft compared to the way they are today, but certainly started to get a little bit tougher. So, yeah, I was probably too slow and not aggressive enough for sure. 

14:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Out of curiosity. So you've transitioned into Establish the Run. Now I use Establish the Run player projections projections. I've spoken openly about this before. I kind of run my own projections. I like to compare them with other sources as well and and bet where kind of we're all aligned um, and I'm a big fan of what you're doing there. Obviously lots of applications to sports betting nowadays. When did you first kind of make that transition over and say, maybe the dfs? Um, I, we know we need to put a little bit of a pause on this. Or maybe sports betting is a big, bigger opportunity. When did that start? Uh, can you walk us through that? 

15:15 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
yeah, so, uh, for a while we were just had uh, we were only releasing the actual fantasy point projections we started releasing detail. 

15:30
People started asking for the detail, like exactly how many attempts, exactly how many rush attempts, exactly how many receptions we have for each player. And, yeah, it was just a demand thing. People wanted to see all that stuff. I think some sophisticated people are using it for DFS to try to figure out distributions on their own for DFS, but I think more people were probably looking at it for props. It was no extra work for us. You know we were already doing all this, and so for us to flip a switch and say, hey, we're going to be in the NFL player prop market game, you know there's market dynamics that I think come into play. But in terms of the actual work, we were already doing all the work and last couple of years we spent a ton of time and it's a ton of money working on the SIM stuff and the distribution stuff, which also helps for figuring out all kinds of different things that are going on in the props market also. 

16:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, so you're not necessarily a sports betting guy. You started in fantasy, you're a fantasy guy and now ETR has transitioned into the projection space and into the space where you guys are giving out picks as well, behind a paywall. How much, if at all, was there a learning curve for you into how the actual betting markets work? Because for a lot of people that's, you know, it's not a seamless transition. Was there a learning curve for you in that? 

16:48 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, I think Bill Crack. What's his name? Kraken Krakenberger. 

16:52 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah. 

16:54 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
He went after us as, like, those guys don't know what they're doing. They're blowing up the market on a Thursday when there's no liquidity or whatever, and a lot of that stuff wasn't true. I think we did have some learning to do, though, in terms of how the market works, and especially something like props, where it's not that liquid in the first place. And you know, I mean now when we we were seeing stuff like books were so scared, you know they would take down an entire market. Like, if we took one thing in the market, they would just take down the props for the entire game. You know, in the market, they would just take down the props for the entire game. You know, and it's like they're gonna be real, like you can't take down the entire game of a college football side or of an nfl side, right, like they're never gonna do that, but they can just do whatever they want with props in terms of, uh, making it harder on people. 

17:35
So, yeah, there's definitely a a learning curve there. I think, um, we are pretty up to speed, I think, over over the last couple of years on market dynamics and props, especially since we're somewhat controlling a lot of it. There's way more participants now, I would say, and we're probably not controlling it as much as we did a couple of years ago, but yeah, it's a fascinating market for sure. All these niche markets I do find really fascinating. Yeah, it's really interesting. 

18:03 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It's not even niche anymore. I've been saying this for a couple episodes now. But I've spoken to a couple of buddies who work at a lot of these major books and what they're seeing is like the handles are actually higher on a lot of the prop stuff than full games. Now it's passed it in a lot of times For certain markets I've been saying this like touchdown scores, you can bet more on a touchdown score than you can bet on a college football total or sometimes college football games. Depending on the game, you can definitely bet more than anything college basketball. So instead of you know, people used to think, oh, the easy markets to beat are like the props. But really the easy markets to beat are like college basketball totals and stuff like that. The harder ones to beat are like NFL props. I'm not saying they're hard, but they're harder than you know. Wnba totals for sure. 

18:50 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Well, it's gotten a lot harder. Like three years ago, I would say four years ago I could probably just look at the prop screen, just eyeball some stuff, bet some unders and win. Our prop stuff now is like 50-50 on overs and unders and I would give credit, a ton of credit, to the books. The lines that they're opening now are 5X sharper than they were two, three, four years ago on NFL props. I mean massively sharper, and maybe some of that is more market participants that are sharp in here. But I also give you know this is always gonna happen, right, like any market. 

19:18
You know like you could go in and bet blindly unders for years and win on props. They weren't going to let you get away with that forever, you know. And so they've, I think, wisened up to some degree and, like I said, I think the lines are roughly right now. I'm pretty sure I'd have to look, but I'm pretty sure that we've taken almost the same amount of overs as unders this year, which would have made me sick to say, like I actually would have thrown up saying that like three years ago. 

19:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I think one of the things I've particularly noticed with the props market and I'm not a props expert by any means I've kind of recently got into it over the past couple of years for the reasons that Johnny said as well, like nowadays you can actually keep accounts, you know, live longer, sometimes by betting props or high hold markets relative to betting, like a college basketball total, would be a great example. But I notice the competition in the space now quite a bit, especially this NFL season. We're five weeks into the season now. You have a lot of pick selling services now that will actually oppose one another on games. You see some big moves one way, buyback the other way, like this is very different than even a year ago for me. So I think it really goes to show, you know, how many people are involved in the space and paying attention to it now because something over moves and like it gets hit back now the other way, whereas people would have been a little bit more hesitant to this in the past. 

20:37 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, I've been saying this too, yeah our. 

20:40 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Our stuff moves stuff way too far. You know there's definitely value in buyback on some of our stuff. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt about it. 

20:47 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah. Well, what's crazy about the whole props thing right now is when you look at, let's say, you were a trader reviewing an account and they had in there like Derrick Henry under 80 and a half rushing yards, and then you look the next play and it's like Amon Ross St Brown over 60 and a half or something like that, whatever it is, and you look at those four plays like does that look like a guy who's winning betting or does that look like a guy who's having fun betting, like in in the previous years? When you're like, oh, 10 years ago, it's like, wow, this guy's only betting player props. Yeah, now, all my buddies that bet like there's very few that are hammering like full game minus six and a half on stuff they're hammering all props or if they bet that, they're betting like five to ten times the volume on props as well, just because it's so accessible nowadays yeah, yeah. 

21:34
But people who came into betting, especially at like, like you know the two major books they came in from, like fantasy and dfs and shit. So they're coming in like oh, these are my fantasy guys. I kind of know, like this guy's out, I I know ty tracy's gonna get yards, like let me bet him over and get a touchdown and then that's a 2xer on a same game parlay and if you can find the ones that win on that, yeah, then you can hit yep, yeah, agreed. 

21:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh, what's the extent of your betting right now, adam? Because, um, obviously both myself and and Johnny are entrepreneurs and we run. You know, we're CEOs of two different companies. We know the amount of work that goes into running a company. There's just so many moving parts. So when we look at establish the run relative to maybe what you're playing in DFS or you're betting right now, how much of your focus is business versus monetary game through betting or DFS? 

22:26 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Oh yeah, now how much of your focus is business versus a monetary game through betting or dfs? Oh yeah, I mean, my focus is, at least you know, 90 on on the business stuff. I but I would say like, um, I still really love to play dfs, I still play nfl dfs every week for roughly the same amount that I always did. On the betting stuff, though, I like people always get so uh surprised or shocked when I say this. I never bet sides or totals. Like in my entire life I don't think I've ever seriously bet, uh, a side or a total and people are always like so shocked by this. I'm just like such a ev hound I would. 

22:59
I don't think I have an edge. You know betting sides and totals and I also don't find it that interesting. You know, I always find it fascinating when people do find it interesting. I my thing, and I feel like maybe it's generational, like I want to compete with another human straight up. That means you know I want to look at someone while I'm playing poker, play heads up games in DFS. You know, I play a ton of tennis bets these days, basketball Like I don't think it's like not only do I enjoy it more, and I find the game theory of all that stuff more interesting. 

23:29
But I also think I can actually find good action where I don't think I'm really winning against sides and totals and then people are like, oh well, you know you could just do top down betting. And I'm like god, am I really gonna like stop my day because a line is six on dk and six and a half on circa. Like that doesn't excite me, you know and maybe I'm alone, I know that excites a lot of people out there. I know there's an edge and I would never hit on anyone for earning in any way that they could. I just don't find that sports betting stuff that exciting. I know I am in the ultra, ultra, ultra minority here because everybody in the world loves sports betting now, but I still prefer to play DFS and and prefer to play peer-to-peer games so, in terms of the, when you say tennis bets, were you referring to you betting, someone playing them in tennis or betting? 

24:11
oh yeah, I, I thought I, uh, I, yeah, I've I've probably played like five or six pretty big, pretty high stakes bets over the last you know, uh, six to 18 months or so, and I have a coach and a trainer. I'm always, I'm always like, ready to play a tennis bet if there's anyone out there? 

24:27 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Is there a spread? Is there a spread or, like you'd, handicap, or just straight up? 

24:31 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
You can see. I have matches on YouTube and people can offer a line if they want. I have a standing offer to anyone out there. If I've never seen you play tennis in your entire life, I will play you for 500 straight up. If you don't have like a profile. Like you know, you're not some college player something. If I've never seen you play, I'll play your 500 straight up. It's just standing offer. So if anyone out there wants that. 

24:52 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Uh, that's always an offer. Yeah, that's not that much for someone like. They probably fly out to where you are and whatever, so I think that's fair. 

24:56 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
But yeah, there's definitely a lot of guys who are really good tennis players like yeah don't make that much money oh, and you and you know, I think it's like the best game from both physical and mental strategy perspective. It's so fun. And yeah, there's always lines. I played a match with a frying pan against a former pro. I give guys a 15 love lead, 30 love lead. I take those kind of leads. Play with one serve. I mean there's all kinds of handicaps that you can do to make it fair, for sure, but we have to establish how good we are versus each other and that's where the initial 500 comes in. 

25:29 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, fair enough. So you're just basically offering a 500, like whatever, I'll pay you 500 to play me if you're really good, and then you just play a couple matches after. 

25:39 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
These people that take me up on this 500 offer, though, almost always suck. They think they're better than they are. And the people that take me up on it yeah, they usually are what was your level? Yeah, how good are you? I play 4-5 USDA, which is like a decent high school player. Basically, okay, nothing special. I'm like okay, got it. 

25:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm just wondering if these guys come play a $500 game and they sandbag you and make them look like it's a lot worse, and then they come out the second time. 

26:04 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Are you playing gamblers usually, or just people, random people? 

26:08 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Mostly gamblers, but then. But then I start getting hit up by like regular tennis guys, like some kids. Some 16 year old kid who's like the number one player in Colorado hit me up. He was like hey, I heard you do a 500 blind bet. I was like, hey, you're 16 and B, I can look you up, You're the number one boy in Colorado. He's going to smoke. I'm not going to win a point, so yeah. 

26:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
We got to hook him up. We have a mutual buddy who he claims he's good at tennis. I don't know if he's good or not we're talking. First name starts with an S yeah, yeah, I think he's a really good tennis player. All right, well, you might might be, uh, might be able to set up a fun match I actually love this, because, uh, who would you back? 

26:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would back, uh, not adam, yeah yeah, because this guy's also. I play golf with this guy and he you know he claims he's not good at golf and he's actually really good so if he thinks he's good at tennis. 

26:56 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
He's probably no, well he'll. He would definitely take you up on the 500 just because he's a pure gambler as well. We'll'll connect it after the show Perfect. 

27:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's great. Are you good at tennis? No, I like playing tennis, but I'm not good at tennis. I would never say I was Growing up, I played some doubles with some friends, had a good time doing a bunch of stuff, but I'm not a big tennis. I actually love that you brought that up, though, because I'm really into betting on the golf course. Personally, I'm not a good golfer, I'm like a 14 handicap, but when you have like handicaps in golf, you can figure out ways to make things even. I just like to have competitive matches, no matter what. I think it kind of like, you know, watching people crumble under pressure or like rise to that level. It actually changed my perspective on how I view sports as well. Like guys like Derek Jetereter, who I always used to crap on, uh, who people like, oh, he's just, you know, he's a clutch hitter I'd be like, ah, there's no such thing as clutch. I actually really really started to believe in clutch and and like anti-clutch over the years. I would. 

27:57 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I would play, yeah, no, for sure I would play anyone in a sport where, like you, still want to have fun, right, like I don't like gambling with people for real money on golf, because it's just it's there's too much chance for issues to arise. Like you know, people cheating stuff like that, like kick, kick a ball in the lie, tennis, it's like, yeah, we're playing a game of tennis, like no one's gonna. You know, it's pretty easy. Like I'd play you as well with a with the correct handicap. I'm not, I'm not very good at all, but I'd play. I'd play for money, just for fun, but with a handicap. Golf, though, is one I just don't love gambling on golf. 

28:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Adam, you ever get into any real beefs on the tennis court with people calling bullshit? They call it out. It's really in One of those Got to go to the hot guy yeah you guys might know Brandon Adams, a pretty famous poker and DFS player. 

28:41 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I played him the most. We probably played like seven or eight matches, pretty high stakes, and we've had calls back and forth both ways. But both of us know we're not going to cheat each other on purpose or anything like that. So if I'm playing big it's usually with someone that, uh, that I would trust and know, like brandon, who I know is not gonna not gonna really make any bad calls you guys get like a ref or an ump? 

29:00 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I guess no, no, no no, you video, it's a 500 match you're not gonna know he's saying they're high stakes, not for the five dollars, for the high. 

29:08 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, no, we, we get our own balls and yeah um and call our own lines. Yeah, gentleman's game nice um, that's fine. 

29:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
okay, so you mentioned you don't bet major market sides totals it doesn't interest you at all. But you're big into dfs and we have, like this new suite of product offerings nowadays in the sports betting world and DFS tournament play, which I was pretty heavily involved with for some time, you get into all sorts of stuff like projecting the high ceiling players. There's a lot of game theory, a lot of pricing correlations and stuff like that, and we have a lot of that nowadays in betting markets with SGPs that are being offered. You get alternate player prop lines and things of that nature as well. Is that the kind of stuff that interests you? Have you ever jumped into those type of bet types? 

29:59 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah. So I think the best comparison to me would be an SGP to a showdown slate in DFS. So you guys don't know what like showdown slate in DFS is. It's just a one game DFS contest and it's like what you're trying to do in both of those. In SGP and showdown is like what's the most tail outcome that's actually viable, like can we have defense and captain with four players from the opposing team in flex? And so the Sims are super helpful for figuring that stuff out. 

30:30
I think it's a little more complicated in DFS because you need to think about dupes too, which is where the game theory comes in. But it's the same thing as single game parlays. What's something that's really unlikely, but less unlikely than the books think, and the classic one that I always think of with SGPs is like understanding distributions of different kinds of players. Like Jamison Williams, under two and a half catches, over a hundred yards. That's way different than Wandale Robinson. Wandale Robinson, you know, maybe it's over seven and a half catches under 35 yards or something really tail outcome like that that the books have trouble pricing. My problem right now why I haven't bet that stuff, is I don't have a great way to price that right now. It's something that we want to work on and maybe we will one day, but yeah, I don't have a great way to price that myself right now, so I haven't bet any of those. 

31:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'll just push back on that a little bit, because I would think that your intuition would be allow you to to just look at a price and say like that's an edge or it's not an edge, because, I'll be honest with you, the Jamison Williams is a perfect example of something that I play pretty regularly. I hit one of those earlier this year with Darnell Mooney uh, under on stream, by the way live, you could have got it too, if you were watching. 

31:43 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Check with with the live streams. 

31:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, anyways, that did happen. You know, I pat myself on the back but I had no idea if that was a real edge or not. I just looked at the price and I'm like 80 to one I mean, this happens way more than one out of every 81 times that this game is played where Mooney's going to go under receptions, over receiving yards and a touchdown. So yeah, that's sort of what you know. I guess what I was pushing back on is like needing to know the price in order to make a bet rather than just being able to estimate. 

32:15 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
And one thing that we struggle with is like, let's say we could price that right and we put out a tool that prices this. It's over, you know. I mean it's immediately over. The books have it. They're going to adjust all their prices, they're going to adjust their distributions and it's over. And so, like we're real cognizant of of stuff we put out where, you know, it's not an ethical thing, where, like it's more just like if the market's gone, we're not going to be able to beat it, you know so. 

32:37 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So yeah, where would you be looking right now? So this, this show has, you know, pretty much all our listeners are people who love sports and are trying to win and are advantage players. So if you were to just give us like a brainstorm right now, where would you actually look in terms of betting SGPs, let's say, for NFL, because I know it's your specialty. So you mentioned like, okay, inverse, correlated under receptions, over yards, any other angles, maybe some of those quarterbacks, touchdowns, what else is there that you to kind of go to? 

33:10 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, good question. 

33:10
One thing that I think we've seen in the sims for dfs which I don't know how applicable this is for sgps but playing like running back and wide receiver from the same team without someone from the other team and without quarterback, in other words, like um, let's say you played travis etn and brian thomas Jr together on the same team, without Trevor Lawrence and without any Colts, yesterday. 

33:28
In my head, in my pea brain, that sounds awful Like I would never do that. Sims are saying that's actually really good, and I think the reason that the Sims are saying that that's really good is because when a game hits an outlier outcome which is again what you're trying to hit in both DFS you know top heavy tournaments and in SGPs, when there's a really weird outcome, it can drag along like a lot of different guys. So, like ETN and Brian Thomas can both go off in this outlier game, you need the Jaguars to score five touchdowns or something crazy like that, anyway six touchdowns, whatever, and so they both can hit in that way. That was just something I've been thinking about recently. 

34:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And other stuff. I I don't really have any other great ideas for sgps. Uh, right now. Um, when you were playing dfs, you correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were known as more of a cash game better than a tournament. Better that correct? That's correct. Yes, is it some of the? Is it some of the variants of these bet types that might turn you off a little bit, if, if you're, if you're like more of a cash game guy, it was all about, like, reducing the variance right, taking the safer option, it you know, does that translate to sports betting for you? 

34:35 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
uh, yeah. So I always, you know I always encourage people to, to play cash and I I do it because I mean well, for a couple things. First, like I need money, man, you know like I started doing this, you know I was seriously, I was, I was 21, I had no money, had an expensive apartment, you know, like expensive girlfriend. You know I I just I can't stack sklansky bucks. And when you're playing exclusively tournaments in dfs, you can be playing really well, I mean like really well all year and lose, I mean 100%. That can happen often if you play well a whole year in DFS tournaments and lose and that's really demoralizing and like not only would I be in trouble, I need money, or I needed money, I'd probably just quit or I'd be miserable to be around, like it would affect me. 

35:20
So by playing cash I do it a lot for my mental state. You know I book wins, I realize my equity faster and I think you know there were spots in poker too that I think mental EV or like emotional EV, I would say matters Like, let's say, I get into, I'm playing poker, I get into a pot it's a massive pot, pre-flop, and somehow I figure out I'm exactly 53% to win. If I call pre, I might still advocate for folding, not because of the money, like obviously I wanna get it in 53%, but 47% of the time I lose, and then it affects the rest of my session, it affects the rest of my week. So maybe I'm just weak mentally, but I think that's one reason that I encourage people to pay to play cash. And you know, it was also softer and easier a long time ago. These days, if someone's just starting out playing DFS, I probably would encourage them not to play cash. It's gotten, you know, certainly a lot, a lot tougher. 

36:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, there's compounding effects. Tilt is very real and it is in sports betting too. Honestly. Well, like a lot of people, they succumb to variance. They might get it in good, they lose a bunch of bets in a row and then guess what, sunday night football comes around and it's time I got to win it all back for the week, type of situation Like that's very real. Obviously, don't do that, but it's a very real mental state for a lot of people. 

36:33 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
You mentioned the cash games right after the SGP. I just want to actually say a little message here. I've seen a go bust I genuinely have and if you're betting these SGPs, by the way on mega long shots, actually calculate what your max bet is that you can put on those, because I'll tell you, for most of you guys listening, you can't afford to be putting $500 on that bet. It doesn't make any sense. You're talking massive high pluses, a lot of them. Your correct bet sizing might only be $100, might only be $50. You might be used to playing four or five grand, or 10 grand or five grand on a regular player prop, but when it comes to these SGPs, you're probably looking at only only being able to max a couple hundred bucks, of course, unless you're in a, you know, mega bankroll, in which case ignore what I'm saying. Yeah. 

37:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, agreed with you. I mean, listen, you can estimate, you can like, like I was saying to Adam, to adam, right, you can estimate your edge and apply some version of kelly staking or whatever, right, because the reality is like, if you're betting an sgp that's 150 to 1, that you think should be 100 to 1, that's still going to be a very, very minimal bet size, like you're, it's, it's not a massive edge. 

37:39 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I can't believe I'm saying this now, only one week after I said if you're not max betting, don't bet. Yeah, I'm so. I'm so toast right now. Okay, it doesn't. Doesn't include parlays, only for straights. If you're not max betting straights, don't bet them yeah I'm toast, all right, what else we got, wow? 

37:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, um, all right, I'm interested in how you see the landscape evolving going forwards here. So, um, dfs and sports betting they're kind of coexisting right now, but not really. Like you know, dfs was huge for a while. Sports betting gets regulated. There's been a huge shift over there. Like, do you think that there will ever be another dfs boom at any point, or do you think now this is just like a declining industry and it's all sports betting going forwards? 

38:29 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
God, you're gonna make me cry, man. I love DFS so much. I thought that my initial thought was that this would be good for everyone. We get sports betting people on DraftKings and FanDuel they would start playing DFS, you know it'd be good. Kings and Fandle they would start playing DFS you know it'd be, it'd be good. 

38:48
I think there's some sentiment among weaker DFS players that why spend a bunch of time working on lineups and thinking about all these complicated things like game theory and correlation, where I can just go fire off an SGP on six guys to score a touchdown? And that makes me sad, man. It does, because I don't know. I mean, you could say the rake is high in DFS and they're probably going to lose. The weaker players are probably going to lose in DFS anyways. But I know for sure these people are losing betting sports and I know for sure, for sure, that the handle that they have no idea what the price should be. They put an SGP and they're getting 10 to one when they should be getting 40 to one, and they have just absolutely no idea. And I don't know. You know it's sad. I think I shouldn't say it's sad. It's sad for me, just because I'm one of the few that loves DFS more than sports betting. 

39:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But yeah, I think we are seeing weaker players go from DFS and be like it's too hard, I'm just gonna fire off SGPs yeah, it's funny because a lot of the complaints about the rake in DFS over time, which is like yeah, you're, you know you're not going to win money against a standard rate, they apply to sports betting for a lot of people as well who just bet into, like any time touchdown score Market which is a massive type of VIG without even thinking about it. But I think it's just the ease of the bet type, right, which is what it comes down to. You know you're not setting lineups of eight players, 10 players, you're just, you know, having to fit them in a certain price. That's fun but it eventually becomes, I think, for the average person, a little bit painstaking If it takes you 10 minutes to set a lineup when you can just fire off, like some bets like that. 

40:26 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean honestly with with a lot of these, uh, sgp style stuff as well. The books like they hide how much vague they're taking. It's hard to compare that. It's like a lot of work. So when you have, let's say, just a straight, a straight game market, everyone's used to paying minus 110 aside. So if someone were to charge minus 35, you're like what is this? I'm not betting it. But on the sgp is like you don't really think to check. It's a bit bit of a. 

40:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You know it's crazy yeah, I mean, listen, I, I, uh, I also I kind of like grew up on dfs. It was a very pure game for a long time. It's's part of what I love about sports betting is or especially on the originating side is the like it's like a logic puzzle, right, like you're solving a puzzle, and that's what. That's what DFS was for a long time. 

41:17
Stuff that seems so trivial to us now at one point or another was just it was like breakthrough. You know you'd be playing an MLB GPP and you stack one through five in an MLB lineup because there's a lot of correlation there. If a team scores, you know, 15 runs in a game, there's a lot of compounding stuff. Runs, rbis, homers are going to affect everybody in that range and in the early days of of dfs that people weren't doing that, like there was a very small, select amount of people and over time it kind of got solved as well, and I wonder if that also contributes to the, to the situation that we're in now, where it's you is solved, but not to the same extent as DFS. 

42:08 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Well, yeah, I would say live poker isn't solved right and like live poker is booming. Like you go to a casino anywhere around the country, the action is so good, the games are so soft, Live tournaments are so soft. Online poker, I think, is probably more solved than DFS actually and like the people playing online poker have it like real down. It's more of an open system I think in DFS. But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. I think it's like a lot of things, you know, Things that are really fun and exciting for a while. People like rich people, like the guy who owns Cirque du Soleil who was playing poker for a while like eventually they're just gonna make sure they're just gonna give up. You know there's to be like you know what? I'm losing million dollars here. It's not that fun anymore and you know I'm gonna take my million dollars and go home, you know so. So, yeah, I think that you know it's just the wave of peer-to-peer games. I think it's just kind of the way it goes yeah, what's the? 

42:59 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
what's the all-time funnest casino game for you? Do you play any casino? 

43:03 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
uh, dude, I'm so bad at, like I, when I walk through a casino and I see people you don't play at all a roulette or blackjack. My stomach actually hurts like I want to throw up because I'm just like so sick over them knowing that they're literally can't win, like like literally they're they're not gonna win. So I can't even like sit down and have fun with my friends and play craps or blackjack. I have a real problem like only, only poker for you. 

43:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's long run that they can't win. It's a little short, but you know, listen I I'm not gonna win in the long run, because every single time I go back to a casino I play. I don't have it in me to take a bunch of money from a casino and be like, okay, that that's it, I'm done. I'm never playing craps again. That's not, you know. I know what I'm getting into. 

43:49 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
But technically someone could take, you know, decent amount, assuming zero edge, though, levitan, assuming zero edge, are you a gambler or no? Like okay, I'll give you an example. Sorry, let's say like me and you were, just have it. We're just out with a couple a couple of the boys were there and we're just like having a nice night watching sports and I'm like, okay, we're gonna bet thousand dollars a hand blackjack. I take 10 hands at dealer and then each of us gets 10 hands at dealer and obviously no ev, and we just go around. 

44:16 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Would you bet or would you be like, no, I'm good I would play that for fun, but probably I'm such a god I even hate saying this but I would probably play it just because people who offer games like that are usually good action down the line and I'd probably get you. I'd probably get you for more later. 

44:31 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That that's the only reason that I would probably say yes you said I'm saying I'm saying a negative ev, I'm saying an even ev game, I'm saying you want to just play heads up blackjack yeah let's flip. Flip a card for money. You're saying so. You'd play that just to get the relationship and take them down the line. 

44:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Wow, a true shark he's thinking long term, the long term. Well, I believe I've heard you talk about playing credit card roulette before, right at restaurants. 

44:52 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
You've been part of that. 

44:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's a. Everyone has the same chance of being part of that. You think that's smaller. It's harder to pick out of the bunch. 

45:03 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
There's I would have taken you as a guy who was bro. We got to get bryson on so you can talk about the the golf ball edges. There's some credit card roulette edges. You got to figure out which card you're using. 

45:13 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I'd love to hear the credit card roulette, but the main reason I like playing credit card roulette is be is because I can't face like the separate bills when it comes and everybody's like argue you know, roulette is just so much cleaner, that saves time. That's way different to me than being like, hey, we're not doing anything, let's play $1,000 hands of blackjack heads up against each other. 

45:31 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Fair enough? No, no, I agree. So would you say lifetime. Lifetime, just like betting with friends and like, for example, these tennis matches, all these bets that you're doing, like I'm assuming you're up but like what would you say? 

45:51 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
lifetime? I don't know, uh, not that much, not that much. Yeah, I I've lost plenty and uh, and and yeah, um, there's a lot of fun fun ones too that I do, you know, just give people action, because I, like, like bales, did the that disgusting 6, 12, 18, 24 bet which I lost a lot on and and, yeah, I mean, I, sometimes I, yeah, I give people action to do funny stuff too. So so, yeah, I I'm definitely not up a lot, but I really were you on the bails push-up? 

46:09
bet against him or for him uh, I was for him, of course. I was actually there with him and his and his uh his girlfriend pillow girl for a lot of it. Yeah, um, yeah, I that one was, you know. If he said could do it, I knew he'd be able to do it. You know he wouldn't say it if he couldn't do it. 

46:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I backed Bales for quite a bit and I barely ever chat with Bales. I met him at Sloan once we went to a Bruins game, but I DM back and forth with him and he was pretty confident at that time. And there was this was during COVID right, I'm almost certain it was during COVID and there was nothing else to bet on at that point. So there was actually really decent liquidity amongst other bettors who wanted to bet on this stuff. So I mean it wasn't anything crazy, but I think I won like four or five grand on the heels and then he dunked it all back on Joey Kanish pushup no. 

47:01
I did not. I did not bet. I bet against Kanish on that one as well, but yeah that was a big thing for a time, push-up bets. People were just randomly posting videos of them doing push-ups in their garage and stuff like that after Everyone wanted to be Bales. That was an insane feat. 

47:14 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Bales was an insane feat, and then Kanish followed up with one of the least impressive feats, and Uncle K obviously you know we're boys was that was a brutal one. I did lose on that. I actually played that at bet online you. 

47:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You lost money on knish's push-ups yeah, I played for him. 

47:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I I said he was gonna do it. 

47:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It was like 150 push-ups in 15 minutes like I get. It was a bad 15 days. 

47:35 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It was a bad bet, but it probably got me way higher limits at uh at the book you know, I, I remember the, the bails one was like it was very riveting. 

47:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It really was like, must see, it was 2,400 pushups right In 24 hours, correct? 

47:51 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
12 hours. 12 hours, yeah. And not to say that it was easy for him. I actually left to go to work for a little. I had like a little office near his apartment and then I came back and he was like he was like on his bed, like he did not look good, he looked like super pale. He said like he was super dizzy and yeah, like so it. It wasn't. Yeah, it definitely wasn't easy, but I always thought he was going to do it Honestly. 

48:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He maintained like such good form throughout the whole thing. It was absurdly like impressive. 

48:21 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
And then you ripped out a couple bonus ones. At the end he just kept going, he just yeah that was. 

48:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
that was unreal. That was a great time, man. I kind of I kind of miss having nothing to bet on just for a little bit of time, because we were betting on like pushups, Madden simulations I had I had, like my tortoise was giving out picks, and stuff like that for a little bit of time. You know, it was crazy times. 

48:45 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
COVID was crazy. I can't leave people back. Sorry, Lovedang, go ahead. 

48:48 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Oh, I was just going to say I was racing digital horses and I would have them have sex with each other to produce babies and then I would race, then I would race the baby. That was that run. No, yeah, yes, exactly. 

49:05 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
What about when, uh, your tortoise bet ben the better in the pick, in the pick contest, and then, and then they literally posted odds up and the turtle was minus 160 and people were literally saying I will. People were crossing big amounts like giving ben the better negative, like basically a 50 50 picking contest, and the turtle came in and did it, bro, because ben mismanaged it and it was an edge. 

49:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What was insane about that? Uh, we'll continue on here, with adam in a second. But what was insane about that contest was there was such a big advantage for ben on the way that the contest was set up, because he built up like a four or five unit lead in the first couple days and all he had to do was yeah, he had to just give out three picks no, because it was. 

49:45 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
He could pick between three and six games a day and he literally was up five. 

49:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You had a five unit lead and he was still just firing six games and then that meant the tortoise could fire six games as well, and then he lost and it came down to the final game. 

49:58 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I'll never forget there was some fat crosses on that, by the way. 

50:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like I, I was pretty good five figures easy I'm pretty sure people were helping ben as well, like people were reaching out to him with pick. He was picking stuff he never picked before, like there was some sort of interference and he still lost anyway, and meanwhile rob's turtle, he's putting a piece of lettuce out. 

50:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
He's like who do you want? 

50:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
he's just going waddling over to one side. 

50:20
Oh, that was incredible, ah good shit, good shit um, I want to talk a little bit about, um, the etr projections. We had taylor cabby on one of the previous episodes. We talked a little bit about this as well. I'm just curious if there's been any evolution in how you guys are making the projections, because, um and we're seeing a lot of evolution with nfl metrics nowadays as well like even just the amount of people who know what epa and rate are nowadays is night and day relative to what, what it was two and three years ago. Is there anything cutting edge that you guys are doing now, or would you say that a lot of it has been status quo? 

50:54 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Oh no, all this stuff is over my head now. Man, I honestly don't even know, like, what we're doing behind the scenes. We have a four full-time data side team now and we completely rebuilt the way that we do projections and it's all sim based. Now you know, like pulling projections from the sim, what's this player's ceiling in this game? It's the 80th percentile outcome from the sim. So run it 10,000 times with our baseline projections and then figure out what the 80th percentile is there. That's the ceiling. 20th percentile is the floor and then you can always pick out in there all the different distributions. So that has been just absolutely massive for us improving our projection system and understanding the distributions which now, given the way the NFL props market is now, if you can't understand distributions median versus mean, create your own medians for play different kinds I think you're in like a lot of trouble, because utilization stuff is table stakes. 

51:50
Now you know, I think that's like where I'm best at and that's where previously I think we had a pretty big edge. It feels like table stakes now to understand that this guy is going to be in the slot. This guy's hurt. This guy is his direct backup. You know Pukunuku is out. His direct backup is going to be Jordan Whittington and Tyler Johnson is Cooper. Whatever you want to say, like all that stuff, I think is kind of table stakes now. I think we can do it slightly better than other people. But yeah, all this stuff on modeling has been um and simulation has been the cutting edge and, and you know, made a huge difference I think. 

52:22 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, that's interesting. My, my most fascinated the market I'm most fascinated is the touchdown scores. Right now you can get so much money down on them and it kind of looks a bit square, I believe, but obviously there's still edges, just like with any market. So when you look at the usage stuff you mentioned for example, whittington coming in for Puka there I feel like I know at least 20 people just my buddies that would know that offhand. I agree with you, it's more table stakes. Now, what's offhand? You know, it's like, I agree with you like it's more table stakes. Now, what's anything you could look at that would give an edge? And, uh, specifically touchdown scores, what would you? 

52:53 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
yeah. 

52:54
So we look at touchdown scores. We honestly don't see many big edges there. Where we do see big edges is like like uh, rarely use tight end to score three touchdowns. The books are mispricing those. You'll never hit one, but the books are the books. You'd have to live like a hundred lifetimes to hit one, but the books are mispricing like brock right to score two touchdowns in the lions game next week and stuff like that. 

53:17
Um, yeah, it's really hard, I think, to find like new data that people don't have. If that's what you're referring to, I do think that the next wave of what makes a difference is all of the offensive line, defensive line stuff. Can you quantify this lineman is out. That means why Is that worth a quarter of a point? Is that worth a half a point? Should we have a running back's rushing efficiency lower because Jack Conklin and Wyatt Teller are out? That stuff is really hard and really hard to quantify. I think some people are doing kind of a mixed approach, which I actually honestly think is better for all this stuff. 

53:58
When we do projections, it's like people think it's straight math, straight modeling. I just talked about that. It's also hey, cooper cup is out. What percent of targets in this very first game should we have for tyler johnson versus 22well versus Jordan Whittington? There is no math or model that is going to tell you that. You have to put in the inputs yourself. 

54:15
And we have a whole team of NFL people, including myself, that is in there trying to figure this stuff out every week. And then we take that and do the modeling and simulation stuff on top of it. So I think you can do that for offensive line or defensive line play. Also, you know, know, we have brandon thorn who I think does a great job. He knows every offensive lineman in league who's out, you know. If you asked him to sign a number value for each offensive lineman, defensive lineman, and then built a model off that, it's very subjective his numbers, but maybe you could build a model off that. I think something like that would yield an edge that people just aren't looking at. Um, but yeah, you know it's, it's. It's definitely hard on the on the data side to find new data, I think in the nfl yeah. 

54:56 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So when you get, let's, so let's say that scenario, that just I'll give you an example from this past weekend like devin singletary, who's doubtful, he's then ruled out, right, so you have, you have ty tracy and you have eric gray. You you basically now at this point know that tracy's gonna get the carries because he got that. He got the carries last week. So, moving forward, if singletary were to miss again, you're like, okay, I can assign that, but for that first week. What are you guys actually looking at? 

55:18 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
yeah, exactly so we look at what's happened historically. So we, you know we had it, I think, around 75 percent of running back carries for tracy, like 20 for eric gray. And then we gave a sprinkling to dante miller. They called him up from the practice squad. You know, we don't know. You know, maybe dante miller, they like him and he plays. You know, these are educated guesses. 

55:38
The reason that we had it like that was because they have shown confidence in tyrone tracy to give him full series at times in close games, you know, not just when singletary was tired or hurt, like he got full series at times ahead of Eric Gray. 

55:51
So it didn't look good. The first, the first few snaps, it was like Eric Gray catch, eric Gray catch. I was like, oh no, and it was like Eric Gray carry. I was like, oh my god, we may have really butchered this. And and yeah, I think knowing that trying to guess that stuff is a huge edge, bigger than any modeling if you can do it better than everyone else and landing somewhere different than everyone else is hard to be different and right. But yeah, if you have a different opinion on what percent of carries or what percent of targets we have for a guy and you disagree with us, you are going to get paid off because we're controlling so much of what goes on in the props market. If you said, oh, it's going to be eric gray for 50, 50 with him and tyron tracy, you could have printed because we had it. 

56:32 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
You know, 75, 20 in favor of tracy so I like, I like the thought process on a lot of these things. Even this will be dated by the time the podcast gets up. But for tonight's game, for example, another situation where so you had you have steel and then you have kareem hunt for the chiefs. Okay, now Steele was playing, they signed Kareem Hunt. He fumbles it, first carry, so that sends it to the bench and Kareem Hunt gets all the carries. Now you have another game Do they go back to Steele? Do they keep it with Kareem? Is it 50-50? What goes through your mind in a scenario like this Because these are the scenarios where I'm like I don't even know where to start. It could easily be 10 to 3 for steal, for carries, exactly. 

57:13 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
So we're relying on information that we can get from sources. People in Kansas City, hopefully people that know something, read everything that we can. I mean, I spend a pathetic amount of hours of my life reading articles from beat writers, even for the NFL. Sometimes you'll read something, an article, that just isn't out there in the market. Um, I think, yeah, I mean we had it. We had in that game that you're referring to. We had steel for far more than cream hunt. 

57:41
I think they intended for steel to be the feature back in that game. He comes out and fumbles and they're like you know what, let's make this an open tryout second quarter. They gave them all touches. They like what cream hunted best. And they're like you know what, let's make this an open tryout Second quarter. They gave them all touches. They like what Kareem Hunt did best and they stuck with him, you know, and like it's going to come down to that stuff a lot. 

57:55
This is sports. You know what we project. It could change in the middle of a game. So yeah, that's, and he helped them win. You know, it's not like rocket science. I think we I don't have our stuff in front of me, but we certainly have still a smattering for Steele and a still smattering for Samajit Pirine. It's also a role-based stuff. You know, in passing situations, who will be out there in rushing situations, who will be out there at the goal line, who will be out there rushing situations, who will be out there at the goal line, who will be out there, and all that stuff is layered into the projection as well, and some of that stuff is based on the game line too. You know, if you're a huge dog, obviously we're going to have more reps for samajay piran in the pass down stuff. So, yeah, I wish it was like simpler. I would have a lot more time and probably money on my hands, maybe, but uh, but yeah, it's like a lot of guessing on the inputs in situations like this. 

58:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I love this conversation because it's not an exact science for any sort of modeling. In sports betting there's way more guesswork than I think anyone cares to admit that there is. You know I do a lot of the same things that you guys are doing at ETR, not specifically for the prop market. I do make my own props, but this all factors into my full game projections as well, and all that's important For me. A big thing in recent years has just even been coaching tendencies. You look at Carson Steele fumbling. Andy Reid benches him. Two thirds of the coaches in the league would probably still run him back out there and continue. And like there's now in-game stuff that you can account for with specific coaches as well. Belichick was known for this back in the day. Right, somebody fumbled. They wouldn't even see the field for the next yeah, without Belichick. 

59:36
Now Ramondre fumbles for four weeks in a row yeah, and he and he still gets time, but that matters. Um, the defensive schemes, uh, like I don't know how how deep you guys get into that, but some offenses, in my opinion, are tailor-made to beat certain defenses, and some coaches are going to play Gus Bradley for the Colts. They're going to play a lot of cover three, no matter who the opponent is, where. There's going to be other coaches who are going to mix and match more. There's so many data points that you can use to come up with projections, and what I think is valuable, what adam thinks is valuable, what you, johnny, thinks valuable, what other people think is valuable, might all be different, and I think that's like what makes coming up with projections really fun for me, honestly okay, I got, I got a hypothetical for you, adam. 

01:00:22 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
This is what I think is a good one. 

01:00:24 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Okay, so you watch college as well never I saturday I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to be with the family. Never, never, never. 

01:00:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
College football okay, well, hypothetical ruin well, no, well, there's a there's a. 

01:00:35 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
There's a scenario this week. I'm sure you saw it, but I don't even know how to pronounce his name. I hope I'm pronouncing it correct ashton genti, genti, sure I heard of genti ashton genti. 

01:00:44
Okay, so this guy is obviously trucking everybody right now. So his line pops up. It was like over, under, like 189 rushing yards. Okay, he's favored to get over two and a half touchdowns. Okay, that's the line that's opened up, based on how he's performed so far. Okay, assuming you could bet either side of that open of that closing line, over or under, so you don't. You don't know the player, yes, you don't know the play area, so you don't know college or whatever, would you take the over or the under on the rushing yards? 

01:01:14 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I mean obviously under. 

01:01:16 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
So you think in a scenario like that, you'd take the under. 

01:01:19 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Well, I just assume that this kid if I've heard of this kid, and he's everywhere on Twitter that the line's just inflated. 

01:01:25 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That would be my assumption that the line is just too high period. So I know this is what the reason I asked. It is like I. I prefer the under as well, and you know 99 of these scenarios, but when the total gets that high, I feel like it's more likely to be mispriced towards the meaning it should down. 

01:01:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
When a total gets that high, out of whack across from everything there's so many moving parts, so like this is the boise state running back right the the spread of the game would be like my first um you know it also. 

01:01:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
But the spread of the game doesn't matter, because it's just about how many carries they're going to give him. 

01:01:59 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Sure, because if they give him 30 carries, he'll get 400 yards right sure, but but if they're, if they're a 21 point dog, the odds they can get 30 carries off is really low. 

01:02:08 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yes, no, no no, they're gonna, obviously in these scenarios where his total is there it's factoring in that they're gonna take, that they're gonna run him and take him out of the game in his exact stat line, was I mean, depending on at what point, at what price you got the, the total you could have middled it actually he ended up with like 180 something and three, which was exactly where he was kind of projected. So he it was bang on in that scenario, but they only gave him like 12 carries. So what I was going to say is, in these scenarios, like I was just cool question to ask you, because I think a lot of people would say blindly like yeah, no, I take the under a hundred percent, but when the lines get inflated that high, I actually think like there'd be even value on like an alt over in that scenario. 

01:02:48 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
So what you're saying is that the public can't believe that a number could be that high, and even the public is going to bet the under. That's what you're suggesting. 

01:02:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Correct. And also I don't think that the public impacts the market in a college football prop as much now, because there's so many guys like us in this room and just guys on Twitter who are just going to hammer that under blindly. And I think like if going to hammer that under blindly and I think like if, okay, so, for example, if it was so far inflated, it would just get absolutely pummeled by all the sharp guys and it would come down another 10 yards, because it's not going to take much to get that down 10 yards from 190 to 180, right, and it doesn't. It keeps creeping upwards. So I, I don't know, cool, cool question. I just thought. I thought it'd be better if you don't watch college. Obviously it is what it is, but this kid's like his first run was just like. He literally got one for like 68 and it touched it was a 63 yard touch yeah, his first run was just a 63. 

01:03:37
I think he finished under, but if you got the opening, number you could have middled it 186. 

01:03:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, because I I remember I saw something on twitter this weekend where somebody gave out the under there and he was getting roasted in the early morning kanishanish. It was Kanish. Yeah, Like people calling him an idiot. And then, of course, he victory. Lapped it when it ended up under by like 40 yards. 

01:03:55 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It was literally right there because they just took him out, but he just keeps breaking long runs. It's insane, like in those scenarios. I would like if I could redo that again. I'd fire over big on that. 

01:04:06 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Well, I would say that guys like that can. It can be like a real modeling problem. Like I know, our stuff has a problem with guys who are outrageous outliers, like devon achan or, uh, derrick henry or nick chubb, right like the model wants to regress for these guys. But if you are so sure that they are like a total freak outlier, then I think there's probably like some edge there in overs, you know, um, so yeah, I get what you're saying. 

01:04:29 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, fair enough. No, I thought it'd be a cool question there. What else we got here? 

01:04:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm curious on the ETR side of things. So there's obviously like an evolution there from DFS to prop betting. Any other plans to like extend things even more? Like you've carved out a nice niche for yourself now I think your brand has. Uh, there's a lot of brand equity. Nowadays people know who you are. Is there any plans to get uh deeper into the sports betting space, potentially more content driven than you already are? Uh, there's tools for bettors which other sites are doing as well. What are the plans for etr going forwards? 

01:05:07 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
yeah, I mean, we're just like really adamant that we'll only do stuff if we know that we can actually help people. 

01:05:14
And I don't think we can really help people if they want to bet sides and totals. 

01:05:18
I mean, that's all that people want is for us to tell them what to bet on sides and totals, and I'm sure we can make a lot of money if we started charging for that, but I don't think we can actually help people. 

01:05:28
Maybe one day we would get there, um, but honestly, like you know, our focus is I I'm sure you guys have heard the quote um, you know, like don't put all your eggs in one basket. Like I think better for us is put all our eggs in one basket and watch it really close, and like that means being the best at projecting every player in every nfl and every nba game. If we can do that and stay ahead of the market, which is certainly harder than it seems I think we'll be fine. So like, yeah, not overly interested in expanding into stuff. Really, just trying to like make it more sustainable and stay, make the operations sustainable and also stay ahead of the market is like we're already, you know, up to our neck with that. So so yeah, I would be surprised if we came out with any like new, like that yeah, respect on that, for sure. 

01:06:22 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I think that's a good lesson for a lot of bettors too. Like, if you do something really really well, you're probably your best ev is to double down on that. So if you're really good at prop betting, double down. Try to figure out a way to scale that, as opposed to saying, oh, I'm really good at props. Let me now take on full games yeah, would you agree with that? 

01:06:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I totally agree with you, I. I think people stretch themselves way too thin sometimes and they feel the need to venture out and do. I'm into specialization, let's put it that way. 

01:06:45 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I think if you can really find your niche and you can be successful at it, then you go hard at it if you're the best media guy for sports betting in the world, you lean into it, like my friend here, mr rob is all the this guy's the best in the biz. Uh, levitan, we got. Oh, man, we have. We have so many, we have so many personal questions. I I like what you guys do with the uh, with the lawden used to do the law and we did one. We did one with with with Jennings. Would you be interested in playing around? Sure, I love the best games in the world. Who actually started that? If you can tell the history, what was it? You was a Jennings, was a Bales like. Who actually brought that to the show? 

01:07:23 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Oh, I mean, you know, from playing poker, everybody is everybody's played that game. I mean mean there was a time when you couldn't go to a poker table and not find people playing a lot of things. So yeah, I don't, I don't remember exactly, but yeah, um, yeah, easy game okay, you want to do a round right now? 

01:07:38 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
sure, we could do a round. All right, I feel like it's. It's either very entertaining for people or they're going to be like I hate this so much. 

01:07:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But if you hate it, we got mixed reviews last time, but I I find the game entertaining. The only thing I don't find entertaining about doing this and this is just very selfish there's the potential to look like a real moron with some of the guesses. 

01:07:57 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
That's why it's so great. One of the questions we did was how many stars are there in the galaxy? And we asked Jennings and he said like 5,000 or something, and the real answer is like 50 billion or something like that. 

01:08:12 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
No, that's why you got to go one where you can't easily get the real answer. That way there's nothing. So I'll start with one. I've just been looking around here. Okay, how many-. That was my first move too, by the way, was look around the room. How many in only the USA? How many dedicated podcast studios are there? 

01:08:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
who are you asking? I'm gonna ask that to pazola dedicated podcast. This needs more of a definition, okay, okay. 

01:08:43 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
How many podcast studios are there? That the thing is only a podcast studio, not a guy's, not a guy's office, and he just has a camera there, like this is like, for example, this room we're in right now is a podcast studio. That's all it is. It's not also your house got it. How many podcast studios are there in the us? 

01:09:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
in the us. Yeah, um, what's a popular I? 

01:09:05 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I can't ask population of u the US 300 million, 330 million, 330 million Dedicated podcast studios. You don't say it out loud? I think we say it at the same time. 

01:09:20 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
You're supposed to write it down. Write it on your calculator. I can't find a pen, but I'll try. 

01:09:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have a pen here, but no paper. 

01:09:30 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, I got my answer All right. I have a pen here, but no paper. 

01:09:31 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, I got my answer. All right, I have my answer. This is what Rob thinks, right yeah? 

01:09:38 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Okay, okay. 

01:09:41 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I said Rob will say 71 dedicated podcast studios in the entire United States 71. 

01:09:48 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Okay, I said 33,000. Okay, I 000 okay I. 

01:09:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have 66 000 you got exactly double. 

01:09:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, there's definitely more than 71 podcast studios, just a major podcast. I don't have a podcast studio my house. Okay, I can probably name 71 podcast studios just from the major podcast, like mcafee's got multiple studios rogan's got us, if we have one we have three. 

01:10:12 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
We're in canada, to be fair, we have four, I think. Do you realize how many podcasts actually make money? 

01:10:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
maybe, maybe 100 in the world, maybe I I can say that I I have seen more than more than 100 for sure, just on my twitter feed. 

01:10:28 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah that's a gear and that's. 

01:10:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's just of who I follow in the sports betting yeah, we're not even talking the non-sports betting space okay, if it if you guys, lex, friedman, rogan, all these guys go down the list your name. 

01:10:43 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
You're naming the literal only, but we could go. We can go 71 deep there for sure. 

01:10:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We need to know in the comments below who people think. I need guesses as well. 

01:10:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I thought 33,000 was pretty accurate, but it could be high. It's funny that. 

01:10:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I went exactly double that. I just used a percentage of 300. 

01:11:02 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That's probably why we got that. Yeah, all right, all right, all right. Comment below. 

01:11:06 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Comment below what you guys search up how many podcasts do many podcasts in the us? And? But it got it came with audio production, so it's not bang on podcasting. 

01:11:14 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
23 000 as of 2023 okay yeah, those are like television studios and stuff. Right, that's what they're not. No, no, no. 

01:11:22 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Podcast no, no tv. Uh, not tv, but it is audio production specific, so it would. So it would include like music and stuff like that. 

01:11:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
As far, as I can read. But yes, yes, I definitely overshot. I'm willing to say 66 was a bad guess, but like now that we're talking it through, it's a lot easier after the fact. But I'm gonna say 71 is a much worse guess than 60. Unless you were implying that you think I'm a complete idiot and you're like Rob's going to guess 71 because he knows nothing. 

01:11:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Listen, everyone knows the rules of the game One nothing me All right. 

01:11:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right. So do I get to ask? I guess I ask Adam Sure, all right, how many laptops are there in North America? 

01:12:16 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
in North America. Just, I believe we did this one last time. No, we did swimming pools with no. I'm pretty sure I remember the laptops with I just yeah, jennings. 

01:12:28 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
No, rob, rob thought the same thing. He probably went and he looked at his laptop, but he's like how many? Yeah? 

01:12:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
that's exactly what I did. Well, whatever we're doing it again, it's fine. Now I gotta do another one. You can obviously ask repeat questions. Anyways, you're asking to someone completely different, it doesn't? 

01:12:42 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
yeah. All that matters is what the person says yeah, in north america in north america. 

01:12:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I mean we're adding Canada, which is 10% of the US population. 

01:12:51 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
How many laptops? Laptop, not desktops, that's last laptop. Okay, okay, I got a Stake factor that down there, all right I got my answer, so who asked? 

01:13:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you asked 11 to 11, 10, all right, what do you got? 

01:13:08 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
No, you guys have to say first oh shit, shit, shit. 

01:13:09 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
And then I say what my answer is. Sorry, okay, I'll go mine first. I guess $162 million. 

01:13:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I put $275 million. 

01:13:19 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Wow, I said $199 million. 

01:13:24 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Johnny Two and O baby. 

01:13:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Two and O $199. Why not $200? 

01:13:30 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I guess that's just the way your mind works Round numbers are yeah, not it. It's like if you're ever making bids in season-long fantasy football, you never bid 80 or 70. You always bid 81 or 79 or something like that, More likely to get them. 

01:13:42 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It's true. Producer Zach, can you check that? 

01:13:46 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Yeah, I'm checking right now. 

01:13:49 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
And then, I guess, levitan, get yours ready to go to ask me. 

01:13:53 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
The number that I'm reading right now says that it's 4.7 million in the United States alone. I'm trying to find something with North America 4 million laptops. 

01:14:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's wrong, bad source, very bad source. I would bet everything I own if you offer not even 4.7 million. If you offered me 40 million, I would still bet over on that for all of all I own in in, just in the whole US. 

01:14:18 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, guaranteed, guaranteed, you're right, 100%. Uh, yeah, okay. Well, while we look that up, levitan, you have your uh question for the final round, although just it's already the wins already been secured by me, but I guess we'll play for fun. You got to play it out. 

01:14:33 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Okay. How many dogs named George ate turkey in the United States in the last 24 hours? Let me repeat that how many dogs named George ate turkey in the United States today in the last 24 hours? Okay? 

01:14:52 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Today or in the last 24 hours. 

01:14:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Last 24 hours and this is asked to To me, to me. 

01:15:00 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Oh, this is a tough one. 

01:15:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, Johnny's not a pet owner, so you would have no idea how many if George is a popular name or not. For dogs. 

01:15:09 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I know it's not. I'm just trying to figure out how the real one, that's quantifiable idea, how many, if George is a popular name or not for dogs I know it's not. I'm just trying to figure out how, like the real one that's quantifiable, is how many dogs are there in the US. That's what I got to figure out. 

01:15:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have. No, I like this. This game is very challenging. 

01:15:20 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Okay. 

01:15:21 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
So I actually think the number is way, way, way lower than this. But based on Johnny's first answer, first ridiculous answer about the number of podcast studios I'm overshooting this by a mile Again I think the number is way, way lower. I said that Johnny will think 6,400. 

01:15:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, mine is significantly different number. 

01:15:40 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Okay, I have my number. 

01:15:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I said 20, 2-0, 20. 

01:15:45 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I think that's closer. I think that's closer to right. 

01:15:47 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
But yeah, okay, my number is six. 

01:15:53 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I had a bad read. You had a bad read, but. 

01:15:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think that podcast studio was-. I think 20 is too high, like actual number. Six is, I think, a decent guess. 

01:16:02 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
My initial calculations when I did it all led me to 0.1, but there has to be at least six. 

01:16:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Turkey's not a popular dog food for one George, I guess, is a decent. 

01:16:14 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
George, what's a dog named George One in 2000? 

01:16:19 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I don't even know, but I was just thinking because I had a turkey sandwich and I always like peel a little bit out and give it to my dog. You know what I mean? My dog's not named George. 

01:16:29 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's not my dog's not named george. Yeah, there you go. 

01:16:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, wow that's a good question. It's a good. It's a great question, that's a good. I think that's a very. I mean, we'll never know the true answer, the true number, but I actually think that's that's really close to so wait, what did you put? 

01:16:40 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
levitan, because you anticipate I'd go high 6 400. 6400. How many dogs did you guys think were in the us? 

01:16:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I have no idea. I was just thinking in my head that this, this has to be an extremely rare. 

01:16:54 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
It says 86.9 million dogs in the us, I was budgeting for like 200 mil yeah, I, I didn't think about it like that at all. 

01:17:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I just thought that you were gonna think this has got to be super rare. I'm gonna put a low number, yeah that's all. 

01:17:08 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That's all. Rob knows how to read me better, but that's fair. 

01:17:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, I do co-host a podcast with him. 

01:17:14 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Well, that was the second ever Circles Off Game of Lawden. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Zach, please, please, please, for the love of the listeners, cut out all the white space. 

01:17:24 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Thank you, sir. Yeah, it will be. 

01:17:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, adam. Yeah, it will be all right, adam. Let's uh, let's end with our usual here. Uh, our little personal reflections category. Uh, we do something called plus ev, minus ev here on circles off. Uh, doesn't have to be related to sports betting, it can be if you want it to be, totally up to you. But one thing that you think is plus ev in life and one thing that you think is minus ev in life yeah, I mean, you guys are speaking my language with this. 

01:17:49 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
This is is like all you know, I do a solo pod every week. I talk about all this life EV stuff and I want to be clear like the way I live is not healthy, like I cannot stop thinking about EV at all times, even if, like things with life, things with my family, it's so bad. So, anyways, this is right up my alley Positive EV. Things with my family it's so bad. So, anyways, this is this is right up my alley uh, positive ev. So, uh, I have like mild, uh back problems. 

01:18:15
Over the last I don't know 10 or 15 years, I had an mri. I was like a mild case of spinal stenosis. I did some physical therapy. Didn't really do anything to help. I tried all these different things. 

01:18:27
About six months, I started putting a big pillow underneath my legs while I sleep like underneath my knees. So, believe me, this is like not helping me have the sex or anything like that, but it looks ridiculous. But I take the big pillow and I put it underneath my knees and it does two things. First, it forces me to sleep on my back, which is, for anyone who's studied this stuff, I mean sleeping on your stomach, which I have a horrible habit of, is so bad for your back. So sleeping on your back, having the pillow under there, kind of forces you to do so and second, it kind of puts your knees up and puts your back down at least for me into a place where it's actually comfortable, and so I have not had any back. It's like a miracle I have not had any back, like it was so bad. At one point I was having like pain down my leg. I've not had any back problems since I changed to this pillow thing at night. So yeah, massively pussy for anyone out there with back problems. 

01:19:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Wow, this is the second member of ETR we've had on Circles Off. If you recall. Taylor Cabby came on. He told us about the acupuncture mat that he lays down by the side of his bed to help with his back at night as well. Just, they're into the health and bettering the body, honestly you asked about like what's next for ETR. 

01:19:47 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I'm so interested in health man Like I've been on a crazy health kick. Like I did a voluntary colonoscopy way before time. I'm doing this liquid biopsy test. I've done all this that actually. I would actually feel really good about that, like starting a data driven service that helps people like get control of their health. That's a great idea. 

01:20:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You should talk to Johnny, who's the healthiest man alive. 

01:20:11 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
We should talk after the show. For sure We'll talk. I'll message you on Telegram. I got some stuff to run by you on the hell shit. No, for real, I'm actually dead serious. I've been trying to be healthiest man alive for a bit. I've been applying for mayor of Shred City, trying to get absolutely cut mayoral candidate. So we'll see what happens. 

01:20:36 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
But yeah, we should definitely talk after the show, bounce some ideas, all right out of minus ev move uh, yeah, um, man, you know, especially in the space that we're in, I you know, the minus first, minus ev move that that comes to my mind is bragging every I see everyone out there bragging all the time. 

01:20:55
Like bragging, bragging, bragging. This victory lapping, I think the key to any success that I've had like connecting with people ever in life and like I never got into this stuff to connect with people or have a podcast, or like be a ridiculous celebrity on Twitter or whatever, like I just like to play poker and I like to play DFS and I just I like to talk about it. But I think connecting with people three things Tell them you're poor, tell them you get no women and tell them you have a small dick. If you do all three of those things, it is extremely positive EV. People will love you. The bragging could not be more negative EV. We gotta stop with the victory laps and everything, unless you're prepared to get dunked on for your bad takes. I hate seeing the victory lapping. I like that. 

01:21:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I like that. 

01:21:42 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, I see. 

01:21:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Listen, I do run a content company. If I hit like a 28 to one in-game SGP, I got to occasionally promo it. I got to get. But you know what, if I I lose, we have a shit night. I also recap the shit night. 

01:21:59 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
I think you got to maintain the balance is the importance there, yeah, and I think there's. There's also like and and obviously, like we do it too. We want people to like understand, like, the work that we're doing and how it can have success. I think that's. That's different than being like. I knew that Christian McCaffrey was gonna get hurt. You you know like he had 400 touches last year. You idiot. You know what I mean. Like the, the stuff like that, like negative ev. I think massively it's like live your life trying to victory lap or or dunk on other people and stuff like that yeah, I, I have a minus ev. 

01:22:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Move and listen. This is like we've given a lot of these. Now we're going bottom of the barrel type of stuff here, but I'm just living through experience now. Don't tell other people to watch movies that you grew up on, or don't show them movies that you grew up on, because so much of your appreciation for that movie is nostalgia and oftentimes you watch it back. A perfect example is Star Wars. This is why I'm giving this example. 

01:23:00
But I grew up on Star Wars. I loved it when I was a kid. But I recently showed my wife like we watched some. She's like how, like this and I'm watching this back. I'm like, well, like the CGI is actually really bad and this story is actually even worse than I remembered it as well. So, the CGI is actually really bad and this story is actually even worse than I remembered it as well. So much of it is nostalgia and you just need to like leave that behind, appreciate it yourself, but try not to force it on other people. Other people have done the same with me before. Like, oh, you never seen this before you got to watch this. You go back and you watch it and you're like no, I really didn't need to watch this. So, yeah, keep it to yourself. It's probably not as good as you remembered it and if someone didn't watch it growing up they're probably not going to like it. Like, taste changes over time quite a bit. 

01:23:47 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Yeah, no, that's a good one. Also, if somebody recommends a movie that's like an older movie, if they had had like, if I like to usually ask like OK, what are your other good movies that you like? And you got to find one in common that you're like OK, we both like these six movies. Like, yeah, ok, I'll give this one a shot. Yeah, but people have such different tastes in movies and music you can't just take a record. 

01:24:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, of course I mean. Listen it's especially if it's a different generation or like people who have different tastes. I think you're like I. I love the big lebowski. When I was younger it was one of my favorite comedies. I show it now to like some of my younger cousins. After like 15 minutes like this is the worst thing I've ever watched. We have to turn this off. They don't get. You know, styles change over time. Comedy changes over time. Um, cgi gets better. You know, special effects get better things. 

01:24:35 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
That stuff doesn't hold up is what I'm getting at, so just leave it in the past yeah, I have one buddy who, like, if he recommends me a movie then it's almost an utter certainty I'm not watching I love that we all, we all have, we all have to have that one guy. But I have a bunch of buddies that if I, if they recommend me anything, it's blind, automatic tail, because it's like yeah, it's true, it really depends on who's built up that reputation for so long like, obviously I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit a try on this. 

01:25:02
Um, what else I got here? My, uh, I'm going down the list. I got a couple. Let's see what I'll give out today would be I don't know if I mentioned this at all, but it kind of actually goes hand in hand with levitan's is on the bragging thing. Like the most negative ev thing is watching social media, instagrams, instagram stories. Watching instagram stories is the most net, nut low, negative ev thing you can possibly do there's. I don't think there's anything beneficial that could come from that at all and it's only people's highlights of their thing, which is going to make you either A jealous, b nervous, c, feel shit and you're not getting any value of it. And also it's fake, like it's all fake. So I'm not saying social media as a whole, even though I personally don't use it at all. I don't have my own social media. I'm not saying that's bad, but Insta stories specifically, nut low. 

01:25:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's just everyone posting the best moments of their life because and it's not even entertainment. Why would you post anything else? 

01:26:01 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I see the appeal in. Obviously. I see the appeal in scrolling Twitter and looking at sports news and memes and stuff like that and I do I don't do it myself but I see the appeal in swiping through TikTok and like just you know, at least it's like quick dopamine hits, but the stories is just it's people you follow as well. It's like net, not low, negative EV. 

01:26:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I agree with you. 

01:26:20 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
You realize we post stories. 

01:26:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, yeah, our stories. 

01:26:23 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Don't watch them. 

01:26:24 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Like literally, what are you getting out of those stories? Just don't even bother wasting watching those hammer stories, just go watch the show. 

01:26:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We got some great stuff out there, man. There was one that picked up last week. It was the one where I told people that nobody gives a fuck about their fantasy teams. 

01:26:37 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Like, stop talking about your fantasy team. That was a good one. 

01:26:39 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You talked to Levitan about your fantasy team for five minutes before we came on here. No, no, no, I said I bought his projections and I'm 4-1. 

01:26:46 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Technically 4-0 still because the week hasn't adjusted, but I'll be 4-1 after off here tomorrow. 

01:26:56 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
Um, fair enough. Uh, yeah, no, that's all. That's all I got, all right. Reo zach, you got one, or are you? Uh? Yeah, I do have one. Uh, positive, ev is subscribing to the hammer content across all channels hit the books edge. We're coming back. Board coming back forward. Progress rob's hidden 170 to 1 anytime. Td parlays edgeworks coming back. Net positive units ROI for the last two seasons. The board coming back with Pips and Jacob net positive as well, not net positive on Hit the. 

01:27:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Books, but they went 8-2 last weekend so give them credit where it's due. 

01:27:27 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
Gotta promote the short term trends. I've been watching the live streams. 

01:27:29
I've been watching all the live streams you're doing for the nfl. Yeah, I I will say, um, it's taking a big step up this year from where it was last year. The shows are actually very good to watch like it's. It's it feels like you're just side by side with a companion having fun, like just buzzing with the boys watching the game and, legitimately, the only thing I have that you need, that you guys need to do, is if please don't tell me get a clock on the screen. 

01:27:53
No, no that this can't be done we tried, we tried no, the thing, the thing you guys need to do honestly is, like when we have bets that are in, like every, we have to make sure everyone gives out bets when they're there, and then we also have to have it so you can go in and then on the screen it shows like what we're sweating. That's the only. The only thing I would like as an ad is when I log on, because yeah maybe I'll be like 20 minutes late. 

01:28:17
I want to know like, okay, rob sweating this, got it, jason sweating this? 

01:28:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
okay you know what? That's a fair enough point. We're tracking them in bed stand but, it is a. It is a good point, it's valid good feedback. 

01:28:26 - Zack Phillips (Announcement)
It's valid the clock? Don't ask me, I don't know. 

01:28:29 - Johnny from Betstamp (Co-host)
I tried so hard for 11 for the listeners. I was trying to get them to sync up a clock with the game screen, so it's on the timing, so that you can pause the YouTube and then watch it at the same time as the game, so that you're not watching the game and then you're ahead or behind and then Pizzol's like, oh, what a catch by DJ Moore. And I'm like, ah, fuck. 

01:28:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's no universal stream is the problem? If Levitan's watching on TV, it's going to be different than my time. And even stream is the problem, Like if Levitan's watching on TV, it's going to be different than my, and even like different states have different. It's a mess. I wish we had like one universal stream we could all watch, but we don't. Can't be done, Unfortunately. Can't be done. Can't be done. All right, Adam, we'll end on this. If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what advice would you give to your former self? 

01:29:12 - Adam Levitan (Guest)
Yeah, I thought about this one. I'm 42 now, so five years ago I was 37. At that time, well now my kids are nine and six. They're great. Five years ago, though, they were four years old and one year old, and I was just in an awful place mentally. I was so depressed, so miserable, like so stressed. I had no time, like anyone who tells you that they love having babies is either a liar or a freak, in my opinion. I had no freedom. So if I could go back, though, and tell myself something, I would say it's just a phase, like it's only until the kids are like four years old or so, where it's truly, truly horrible, and now that they're nine and six, you know it's it's like the best ever. So I honestly just wish, like for them and for my wife, I had a more positive.