00:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Welcome to episode number 40 of Circles Off. I'm Rob Pizzola, joined by Johnny from Betstamp. Has it been 40 already? It's 40 episodes Crazy, it's actually flown by pretty fast. It's getting more difficult to come up with topics. That's why we keep filling with guests, but I'm very happy we got this guest for this week. Uh, he really doesn't need an introduction, but I will give him one regardless. You can follow him on twitter at cap jack 2000 pro gambler twitter loudmouth he said that himself, by the way and part of the team at unabatedcom. Captain Jack Andrews, it's great to have you on Circles Off. 

00:48 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Hey boys, it's a pleasure to be here. 40 episodes, wow, congratulations. I guess every episode is a milestone, right when you're under 100. So good job. 

00:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean it's all blended together. Now you do content yourself, so you kind of know about it, but it gets tougher and tougher, I think, as you go on. We'll get into that a little bit, Jack, later on, because I definitely want to touch on the content side of things with you. But for those who are listening for the first time, myself and Johnny have heard you on other podcasts before. We know your background a little bit, but we've never really heard like a full backstory from you of how you got into the gambling space. So let's start there. 

01:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh, and one more. And why? Why is your handle a capjack 2000? This is a personal one I always wanted to know. 

01:36 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Okay, uh, you know, I'll take that last question first Cause. Uh, so I started in gambling around 1999 and I signed up for this website, bj 21, and I'll get into a little bit here why. I was signed up for this website called BJ 21 and BJ blackjack, just throwing it out there. And so they required a handle and I just on the spot said, all right, blackjack, captain Jack, it's a Billy Joel song. Yeah, I kind of liked that, went with it. Captain Jack is what I chose. 

02:10
And then, shortly thereafter, I realized that my email address in real life had my name in it. So I had to create a secondary email address and I actually had capjackathotmailcom, and I still have it actually. But for whatever reason I decided, you know, I'll try this, I'll try out Yahoo mail. This is back in 2000. Right, and so I signed up for capjack at yahoocom and it was already taken for some reason. So since it was the dawn of the millennium, I went capjack 2000. Uh, long story short, like whenever I have run into something where I sign up for and and cap jack is already taken, I use cap jack 2000. So that's how cap jack 2000 came apart. Um, I'm sure you're sorry, you even asked. 

02:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, I'm just wondering like what kind of it was. A little at first I didn't know which way we were going to go, because you said you signed up for that site. I was like, is that, was that a gambling site? Was that, you know, the whole BJ21? I was like, okay, this could go a lot of different ways, but I'm glad it was just. You know it was a blackjack site, capjack 2000. And then obviously hear you actually tell the story of the Twitter picture on a previous podcast. So we can, we can skip that, but yeah, let's, let's get into it. Obviously, like Rob said, you're definitely well known in the Twitter gambling space, in the sharp betting community and you definitely need no introduction there. But to anyone who doesn't know who you are and stuff like that, let's give a nice background like that. 

03:47 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Let's give a nice background. Yeah, so I, I made my first trip to las vegas when I was 23 or 24, uh, and I fell in love with it, like I just fell in love with that casino vibe. I had grown up in new jersey. I've been to atlantic city plenty of times. Atlantic city and las vegas are two totally polar opposite places and I just loved the, the whole, the whole scene in las ve. I don't love it so much anymore. It's one of these things I guess it was. 

04:07
I was young, in my early 20s, and it just seemed so exciting, like anything was possible, right? And on that first trip I remember and I've told this story I played craps with Joe Theismann, don Shula and Mercury Morris at the same craps table. And this was in hours of me just arriving in Las Vegas for the first time. And that first trip I think I won like $300 over the course of three or four days and I left there and I go. How can I make it so that when I go to casinos I don't lose? How can I get the best of it? 

04:40
And that led me to card counting, blackjack, because that's sort of the gateway drug when it comes to advantage play or getting an edge in a casino is card counting. So I signed up for that aforementioned BJ 21, which was kind of the premier community for card counters. Back in that time was run by Stanford Wong of the Wong teaser and it was and I kind of grew up as an advantage player through that website and, uh, as a card counter, I was never really great at it. I I card counting's not. It's not hard but it's not easy. You got to put a lot of time in, you got to put a lot of effort in. 

05:18
Uh, I was always looking for the next thing and that's sort of been, if you want to draw a pattern, through my entire career as a professional gambler I'm always looking for the next thing. So card counting led to a bunch of other casino games that I would try to get an edge at and that actually led to online casinos. Back in the early 2000s. This was goldenpalacecom and a casino on net and places like that, and it was not unlike today where you could get these ridiculous bonuses for signing up and then you'd have to churn through them on their games and typically I would just play this video blackjack or I'd play video poker and churn through the bonus and then cash out and roll over requirements and then get out yeah, got it Right. 

06:07
And back in this time. I remember the first time I did the roller requirement was just one time through. You just had to wager and you got like $50 one time through and I cashed out like $47. So I played $51 hands of blackjack. I was a I was a nit back then, and so I would just turn through these rinse and repeat and I was building a bankroll that way, and it was. It was very easy to make six figures doing this with very low variance. So you're doing all these online casinos. What does that lead to? Well, it leads to online sports books. 

06:38
I had never bet on sports growing up or in my early twenties up to that point, so I decided to dive into sports betting. This is around 2002, 2003, around there and I was the kind of person I was always looking for what kind of angle can I get here? And I stumbled on a lot of prop bets that I figure out ways to beat, and it was Stanford Wong's book was out at this time Sharp Sports Betting. He had a chapter in there called Poison Props using the poison distribution to beat various prop bets, and I was using that. I was, you know, every prop that I could find. I was trying to backward, fit into a poison distribution in order to find a way to, you know, get a probability for a certain point or for the line that was offered. And that's how I got into it. And you know, as I went through sports betting, one sport led to another, led to another, led to prop betting, led to straight betting, led to totals betting, things like that, on and on. 

07:38
But in around 2006, 2007, everything started to dry up online because the UIGEA was passed in the United States. Online casinos dried up. Funding online sports books became a lot tougher and I moved back into casino play and I was doing a lot of casino play from that point up through early 2010s area there. And then New Jersey announced they were going to attempt to legalize sports betting and I said, okay, I'm going back into sports betting because it's going to be legal here in New Jersey in 2012. I'm ready for it and I just focused on sports betting. That fight took a lot longer than anyone anticipated. It was 2018 before we had our first regulated sports book. 

08:22
In the meantime, I was playing through PPHs and agents, just blazing through accounts, using other people to get accounts for me and chopping them into it, that sort of thing, and also doing my casino hustle on the side. And it was around 2012 that I decided you know what? I don't need this job that I had at the time I worked in IT for a large law firm. I don't need this job anymore. I can. The time I worked in IT for a large law firm. I don't need this job anymore. I can do this. I got enough angles that I can beat casinos. I can beat sports books. I'm just going to do this full time. And that's when I took the plunge to be a professional gambler. 

08:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So what year was this when you officially called the quits on the IT job? 

09:00 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
2013,. January 1st 2013 was my first day as a as a. All my income relies on my gambling skill. 

09:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So that's awesome. Almost a full decade now as a as a pro gambler, which is huge. I noticed you were used the word knit. For anyone who doesn't know, that's like the poker terminology or at least I grew up in poker. For someone who plays extremely tight, very few hands where that kind of comes from for anyone who might be confused by that. But I'm curious, Jack, when you first started out in the early 2000s going through some sort of casino gaming strategy and trying to make a buck, was it always a thing where you were looking for some sort of side income and you enjoyed it, or did you actually continue pursuing this and envision this being some sort of long term thing for you down the road? 

09:49 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
No, rob. Actually, when I started out the income that I was making from it, I just thought, oh, that's just fun money. I wasn't even really serious about my bankroll. You know, I get cash from these casinos, I get these checks in the mail from the online casinos and I just throw that into my checking account and maybe buy something extra here and there, that sort of thing. It was all just discretionary income that I was making on the side. 

10:13
It wasn't until I started to get some real money from it that I was like oh, wait, a minute, I'm making more at this than I am at my day job, and it's far easier than my day job is. And the job I had required a two hour commute each direction. So that was really starting to weigh down on my personal life as well as my quality of living. And so, yeah, I. That's when I said, okay, I can get serious about this, I can create a business plan, I can conduct myself as a business, I can do this. I looked into the tax structure that was available and I said this is, this is viable for me. That was right around the time Obamacare was coming into play, so I had that as sort of like, oh, I can get health benefits for my family and it's not too expensive. You know, it all kind of fell in line there in around 2013. And uh, and so I, I made that leap. 

11:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That makes a lot of sense. We will get into sports betting here really shortly. I just want to ask you out of pure curiosity because of the blackjack card counting stuff Um, I, I've, I count cards as well, but it's like a high low strategy, very basic. How deep into it did you get? Like, uh, there's all sorts of different card counting strategies. There's Omega 2, red, 7. There's like the halves card counting strategy. How sophisticated did you get into that and how much were you actually practicing at the time when you were doing blackjack professionally? 

11:46 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
using knockout, okay, oh yeah, which is, uh, one of the most simple counts. And I'm going by the, the school of thought that those higher edge counts are worth more ev theoretically, but if you make a mistake it negates a lot of your expected value. So therefore, you use a simple count in order to make less mistakes and you make up for it in the long run. You know, by you know, higher volume. I was never a great card counter. I was, first of all, I lived near Atlantic city, so my training was I'd go down to Atlantic city. They had a six deck game at the AC Hilton and I'd play that and I was kind of always under bankroll for what I was doing. 

12:21
But I you know here's the thing, Rob I was getting more and more into this advantage play culture and this community. Bj 21 at the time was about a thousand members, it was a, it was very it was. It was kind of the place to meet other other card counters and I was on there for well, I'm still actually on there as a member 20 years later. It's not as fledging as it as a f fledgling as it used to be, but it's still a great place to talk about advantage play and card counting and even sports betting and yeah, so card counting was never really like what I hung my hat on in terms of making money. It was sort of what to the whole culture of advantage play. 

13:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Right, just finding an edge somehow, basically. 

13:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah. So, Captain, before we end up going to the sports betting stuff, one thing I want to ask on the casino, which we've never actually talked about casino advantage. Play on this podcast. Maybe we can have some other guests on in the future. But everyone knows card counting. Right, it's easy. Everyone's like, oh yeah, you card count, Everyone's seen 21, the movie, different things like that. Read these books. You don't have to give out any specific edges that you might've had or had now, but would you be able to discuss a little bit about some other edges that were, you know, casino AP exclusive edges that existed in the past? Sure? 

13:43 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Here's the thing, Johnny Every casino game can be beaten under the right circumstances. 

13:49
That's what we like to hear, and so you just need to know what those circumstances are. And the circumstance might be something very esoteric, you know. It might be something like well, if you have a loss rebate, then playing roulette, a single number on roulette which pays 35 to one, but the odds of it hitting are 38 to one If you're on a double zero roulette wheel, if you're, if you're, you know, but but you have a loss rebate, then that's sort of like playing a long shot sports bet on a free bet that you have from a sports book. Um, that's the sort of thing. I was part of some teams that we took out millions of dollars from casinos and they never knew what we were doing, how we were doing it, and they never will, because I'm not gonna, we've all agreed not to give out specifics of how that all worked. But that's the sort of thing you, when you have a casino and they, and there's so much money flying around, it's tough, it's a tough surface area for them to defend upon every little thing they do, and especially when you go beyond, okay, just the games of it. 

14:51
What about, then, the marketing department? And we see this with sports books today. Right, the marketing departments are going nuts. And if you were running a sports book and your marketing department is giving away millions of dollars, you're like, well, we're a low, a low house edge here. We can't possibly make back millions of dollars right away. And they're like, oh, don't worry about it, we're going to make it back 10 years from now. We don't need to be profitable right now. Casinos sort of operate in a lot of that loosey-goosey way and you can always find inefficiencies in a casino, much like you can always find inefficiencies in a sports book. It's a lot of the same mentality carries over. So, yeah, I you know I have had, I have tons of great stories about things we've done in casinos in times past. Many of them I'll probably never share, maybe someday, I don't know. But the takeaway is everything in a casino can be beaten under the right circumstance. 

15:41 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It brings to mind for me the the story from I actually don't even know how many years ago it was now, but the whole phil ivy situation where he was actually providing his own cards to the casino and got them approved and they were obviously marked cards, so he had someone sitting with him at a table who was basically informing him whether he was playing back or out, I believe. But, um, yeah, I mean like I'm all for finding edges in any situation. 

16:06 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
But go ahead. I'm sorry, I just have to correct there Go on the story yeah, go for it. There would be any kind of cheating going on. Phil Ivey did not supply those on cards. 

16:15
Oh, right they were supplied by the manufacturer, jamaco, to Borgata. The thing about them was they were imperfectly cut and so you could look at the card and you could see, well, one side of the the edge of the card, had a thicker circle and the other side, because of where they were cut, had a thinner circle. And so he would make sure they turned the eights and nines in baccarat one direction so that when he saw, when the person looked down and saw a thicker circle, they could say, oh, that's an eight or nine, and they'd know they'd have a winner, or they could bet on the dealer or the player. Um, so that that's just how it all worked. 

16:50
But the funny thing about that is so they used two different types of cards. They used a purple card and a yellow card. Well, the yellow ones you couldn't see. The contrast isn't high enough, right? So he would request they only used the purple cards, and that was the request he made. The barcode is like yeah, sure, if you the purple cards, and that was the request he made. The Borgata is like yeah, sure, if you think purple cards are lucky, phil, we'll say yeah, no problem, so correct me if I'm wrong, but he ended up not getting paid out for that Right. 

17:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He lost that lawsuit or the Borgata went after him and he was had to pay back the money. 

17:17 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
What happened. It ultimately settled, and we don't know the exact terms of the settlement. He lost the lawsuit in Europe, at Crockford's in the UK, where they awarded, and the reasoning for that was they said well, casino games are not meant to be beaten, so if you were winning, therefore, you must be cheating, which is a ridiculous thing for a court to establish. But European courts I have no idea what they're doing In the US. It was a much closer fight, and I think, after all of this time, borgata pretty much said all right, look, enough is enough, let's find a way to settle this so it doesn't keep hanging over our heads. And so I don't know exactly how it was settled, but he doesn't seem too much worse for wear. 

17:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So the thing that I'll say is first off for everyone listening, that I'll say is uh, first off for everyone listening, I tried to to get some casino edges out of them. Unfortunately, with all respect, you got to take someone to the grave and probably, similar to this phil ivy thing, maybe, like you know, speaking about that edge, comes back to haunt you right, because then, um, you know, it's, it's out there, and then now you might have a case or something like that. So you got to keep that under wraps, 100 I percent. I will say one thing that people have asked me about casino edges that I really haven't been able to answer. 

18:27
Much is on kind of what they are, but one thing I always do say is, if you can find a casino edge, typically that's going to be more of a hidden edge that the casino thinks that they still have covered. So you're going to be able to juice it for a lot more money than a sports betting edge. You know, if someone misprices a line or even is incorrectly mispricing a certain segment of the market, you might be able to hit it for like a couple of weeks. Depending on the outs you have and the amount you can get down. It's probably gonna be a good earn, right? If you can hit a casino for that, it might be a lot bigger before you get booted out, even if it's just a day or two or a week. That's one thing I've always mentioned. Cap, would you agree with? 

19:03 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
that To a certain extent, johnny. When you look at blackjack card counting, that's something you can't really scale that much higher. 

19:12 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I wasn't referring to card counting, I was more referring to something like, for example, that edge there, or if you have something with a slot machine defect, where you're the only one who knows that and it kind of goes under the radar with the casinos or things like that. 

19:26
Sure, because they they're likely making a lot of money in that right. Whereas if you see a sports book, if a trader is constantly getting hammered on, like one segment of his book, and then takes a look and is like, oh, what's going on with my uh, you know nfl alternate lines or what's going on with the alt props here, they're going to see, oh, we, we're been pricing these too high. And then you know NFL alternate lines or what's going on with the alt props here they're going to see, oh, we were in pricing these too high. And then you know, might be a day, might be a week, might be a month, but they're going to just fix it back down and the amount you can juice in a week or a month from a sports book is likely a lot less than a casino or a chain of casinos no-transcript. 

20:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
How do you divide your time now between betting between unabated which we'll get into as well and just living your daily life? Basically, give us a day in the life of Captain Jack right now. 

20:42 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Well, you know you guys have talked about it before but work-life balance when you're in this business is really tough. So I am not a winner at life when it comes to work-life balance, but lately it's been a lot of unabated work because getting it off the ground it requires pretty much 24-7 focus to get a startup going and keep it going and keep it on an upward slope. Back when I was betting full-time as my only work, I would wake up around 9 am and that would be the time that I know a lot of the sports folks are starting to move, both on the East Coast as well as around the world. I never really worked on overnight lines and things like that. The limits were too small and the impact was too damaging. And so, yeah, 9am to roughly 11, I'm probably putting in any plays that I originate on. So anything where I don't have to work, I don't have to rely on news or other information or market movement to to trigger my play. 

21:49
And then you know, from that point on, it was probably a lot of Twitter and and farting around. You know, it just wasn't, it's, it's. It's probably not the most efficient lifestyle. When you're a sports better, there's a lot of time when you could have been doingtor. There's a lot of time when you could have been doing something better with your time, and that was the sort of thing. 

22:09
One more dichotomy between casino AP and sports AP Casino AP is a lot more bang for your buck in terms of the time you need to invest in it and the time you need to do the work. Sports betting is a lot of work for less actual gain or, you know, for profit per hour. I guess you could say so. But yeah, and then I, you know I am, I'm married, I have two kids through marriage. They're both in college now, so that's a little bit easier, although far more expensive. And so, yeah, you know, raising a family that way and being around and you know, you know what's daddy doing in his office all day long and cursing at the screen. But for the most part, you know, I've tried to keep that balance and have been successful. 

23:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If, if one of your, your kids, wanted to get, or both wanted to get into sports betting, what would you say? 

23:06 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
No, don't do it. We've had that, We've actually had that talk. I just it's not something that's just easily to get into. You have to have the personality to get into it, you have to have the. You gotta be kind of eased into it. It's not a career choice you wanna make. In my opinion, yeah, it's interesting. 

23:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, obviously, this is just a matter of personal preference and everyone has is entitled to their opinion. I remember we talked to Spanky and it was the polar opposite for him, where he was like you know, I kind of want to leave my business to my kids and I think that they can handle it. And part of the reason that he fights the fight against the sports books limiting people is because he wants to pave a way for his, his children, to inherit his business at some point. So, um, I'm kind of where you stand. I don't have kids, but if if I did, I would tell them just find something that makes you happy. If it is sports betting, then then fine, but um, it's, it's a tough way to earn a living right now. Um, well, not necessarily tough, but it's that it's a grind, as you put it. Uh, jack for sure. Um, guys, but it's a grind as you put it, jack for sure, guys, every job's a grind. Well, yes, but I mean yes and no. 

24:11 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
If you're smart enough to make a living at sports betting, you're smart enough to make a living in a lot of things that are far less roller coaster, and so, look, you know my son, he's a mechanical engineer, smart kid. So, look, you know my son, he's a mechanical engineer, smart kid. I hope that he can find a great job somewhere and, you know, do what he loves and be fine with it. 

24:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Makes sense. Have you noticed a major change in your betting patterns, your day-to-day, since regulation started happening in the US? Because obviously, probably three years ago and further on than that, you operated a certain way and now we have all these legal operators that rushed into market to obviously be first adopters and get early action and we get all these bonuses driven in market right now. Have your day-to-day betting pattern significantly changed over the last few? 

25:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
years and you've been in Jersey for a while, obviously, so you got the whole. I guess the current best state in terms of number of operators. 

25:11 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah, colorado has technically more, but I think New Jersey has sort of like this betting culture that has permeated through to the market and makes the market so viable in this state. Yeah, it has changed, rob, and I was not prepared for what it was going to be like. I thought it was going to be an extension of Vegas. I thought, you know, there's going to be four or five big operators and everyone else is going to try and fail. I didn't think it would be this many operators, this competitive. I didn't realize there would be this large buffet of bets available to make, and that was a pleasant surprise. I didn't realize there would be this large buffet of bets available to make, and that was a pleasant surprise. I remember DraftKings started in New Jersey August 1st 2018. I was on it the first night and I remember poking around and seeing oh, I can bet MLB first innings and second innings and third innings and fourth innings and I was like I can beat those. 

26:03
I had been beating those on bet online and they had gotten to the point they wouldn't take my bets on on inning derivatives. And uh, and I was like this will be. This is, like you know, shooting fish in a barrel Cause, uh, my understanding of the New Jersey laws was they could not ban you for skill-based games. So, uh, I should be able to win at will in New Jersey. And it took until like August 24th or so and I started getting bets rejected and I'm like wait what? And I? There was no talk of getting limited, that was. That was not even in the lexicon in terms of sports betting regulated in the United States. I didn't know it was even a possibility. And suddenly I can't bet more than like this ridiculous, like $12 and 62 cents on these inning derivatives. 

26:50
And I remember just that feeling of like, well, crap, I'm done, I'm done at DraftKings and like that's one of the few books in the entire state, like what am I going to do now? And yeah, so it really took to me early that there was going to need to be a sense of art that needed to be developed for betting at these regulated books, and it was the same sort of thing that I've been doing in casino AP for a long time. There's the science of advantage play and then there's the art of advantage play and the art is getting the money down, and I was going to need to extend that through sports betting as well. And you know, that kind of started that whole ball rolling. That ended up in me kind of putting out some content later is that I needed to kind of work through the ways to overcome the system that was in place that I would later learn is very permeating. 

27:40
It's this, you know, soft book model, this European model, and you know everyone from Europe european model, uh, and you know everyone from europe was like, yeah, we've been dealing with that for decades. You know you can't get past it. Um, and I just wasn't willing to to accept that. I was, I was, I wanted to go about sports betting and saying this is my ticket. I've been waiting all these years. I'm gonna find a way to beat this system. Um, and you know, in some ways I have, but in other ways I'm still still trying yeah, you'd have man. 

28:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I love that the game within the game right, yeah, it's the best. 

28:10 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's the best part of the whole thing, obviously, and, um, yeah, I mean, if you, it is frustrating, obviously, and we don't really have, um, the draft kings and fandle here yet in canada. But obviously the whole model of, like you know, oh, if you do get good enough to beat it, then you'll be limited. It sucks for the consumer, but, um, you know, there's other ways. Like you mentioned, like you know, if you're taking money from a casino, winning they're gonna also tell you to stop playing. So you might have to figure out a way to stay under the radar and things like that. And, as you mentioned, like the art is, uh, probably just as fun as the science. 

28:42
And we've heard, heard Spanky when he came on this podcast. He said that winning at this point for him is just trivial and it's just about getting the money down. Now, I wouldn't say that's 100% true, for us at least, or for other bettors in the space. It's not super easy. You can print as much money as you want and just about getting down for a lot of people, but it's a big mix between both, and I think you've done a couple of videos on this on your on your YouTube channel, which I quite enjoyed as well. 

29:11 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah, I definitely. I like to talk about it and I think it's an evergreen topic, but makes good, good video as well, and I like to do evergreen topics. So, yeah, it's, it's all part of the process, right. 

29:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's all part of the process. That's a good way to put it. You're the first guy, jack, that I recall doing the we call it me and Johnny the OG YouTube content. We had thought about it for a while I had, at least on a personal level and then you came along and you're producing YouTube content. I found it very, very informative, very educational. I will get into that because I think there's pros and cons to that. But what made you ultimately decide to leap into that content realm? And I guess, what was the end goal for you when you started producing content? 

29:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Also, rob, we say the OG content, but obviously YouTube has been around for a while. I think Captain Jack just started posting videos at the beginning of 2020, I believe around there started posting videos at the beginning of uh, of 2020, I believe around there, or maybe mid 2020. But what I will say is I think when we call them like more of the og for gambling youtube content, it's not necessarily like content that there's no, there's been no gambling content on on youtube. It's more this is the first person who's actually done like decent, uh, you know, well-produced, educational style content, like not not just like a gambling show that says, hey, cowboys minus seven, here's the spread, or talk about a bunch of nonsense. It's been more like, you know, I would almost call them like educational vlogs, like vlog style, where it's you talking, couple graphics, come on, you might have a slideshow that goes through and, um, you know, for those who don't know his, we'll plug your channel right at the off the top. But, uh, definitely we'll link it in the show notes. 

30:47 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Like a lot of great stuff there yeah, if you, if you go to youtube, slash captain jack andrew is all one word. I didn't use cap jack 2000 there. Uh, captain jack andrews or search for that you'll find these videos. Um, yeah, so the idea for youtube and doing content on YouTube actually started back in like 2018, right around that same time that I got limited by DraftKings. I was like, you know, I need to find a way, so I started to post about it on Twitter. I was getting a lot more Twitter followers. You know when, when legalization hit, I only had 50 followers on on Twitter. 

31:21
I was known entity in the AP community of casino gambling, but I was not really known on gambling Twitter. I had been on Twitter for a decade but I had never posted, and so I started to get more involved in Twitter. People started to follow me. I knew David Purdom and I think he retweeted some of my stuff, which that was a huge boost. But that idea was there to start in with the YouTube content, and my idea was I wanted to do some online courses of kind of explain to people how sports betting works and the basics and the ABCs, but the e-learning sites that are out there do not allow gambling content in any shape or form, even if it's regulated legal gambling. 

32:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
What do you mean by e-learning? 

32:01 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
sites Like Udemy uh, I forget what some of the other ones are called, uh, but these are. These are course corsair. These are sites where you can sign up and play, pay either a flat rate or pay per class and take a class on learning how to got it like graphic design or stuff like that you could yeah yeah, you can do all kind of things you could say it's video editing, stuff like that, yeah right uh. 

32:26
So then I was like, okay, you can do all kinds of things. It's video editing and stuff like that. So then I was like, okay, I can't do these e-learning sites, I'll try to do that on YouTube. And I bought a nice camera and some stuff and I never got around to it. And I remember talking to people in 2019, like, oh, this year, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to do all this. And they're like, oh, that's a great idea, yes, you should definitely do that. And I never got around to it. And then the pandemic hit. And so then I said and I did weekly for three or four months there, and then I started to do recorded things because I could do some more editing to it. I didn't have to worry about tech issues because I was having a tech issue every single week. So you know it evolved. Now, what was my end game from that? 

33:19
In the beginning, I probably at the very beginning, thought it was a way to make money, and not until I did it do I realize how little money is in it in YouTube, because you hear about all these success stories, these people that have, you know, millions of subscribers and millions of views, and they're making six figures a month from YouTube ad revenue. No, it doesn't work like that. It's much, much less. I think most months I was averaging about $20. And then, you know, I had I had one breakthrough video with Dink that now is up to like a quarter million views and I think I've made like $500 off of that video, which, when you consider the amount of time it takes to create a video currently my rate is about for every 30 seconds seconds video takes me about one hour of production time, post production, editing all that. So if I'm doing a 15 minute video, I've put in at least 30 hours into creating that. So to get paid 20 out $20 for 30 hours of work. 

34:21
It's ridiculous. Have you considered working with? 

34:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
like a video editor or anything like that sure, sure, I've, I've considered it. 

34:28 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
But I also I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I needed to all be my voice, my tone, my editing, my like it, what I put up there is very thought out. I I don't just, you know, throw an iphone video up there unedited. I make sure it's all worded perfectly. I use a teleprompter that I built so that I can kind of look directly in the camera and still say the words that I want to say with the exact phrasing that I want. 

34:59
I probably put too much work into it, you know, because the phrase perfect is the enemy of good really applies to the stuff that I'm doing, because for a lot of bet, because I, the phrase perfect is the enemy of good really applies to the stuff that I'm doing, because for a lot of betters, they would like just the good enough stuff. They would like for me to just turn on the camera, say what I want to say, turn off the camera. But no, I got to do all this extra stuff so I make it harder on myself. But yeah, so the end game. I still don't know what the end game is with the video content, obviously, you know we formed unabated. We're using that as a company Now we have big plans for that. My video content is part of that Um, but I still I still have my channel and it still gets you know plenty of views on YouTube. 

35:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yep, I think we can totally understand where you're coming from in terms of all the content that you produce as a reflection of yourself, so you know you can outsource that stuff, but if it doesn't really fit exactly what you're doing or you feel like the quality is poor, I completely understand where you're coming from in order in terms of wanting to control everything related to that. Now that Dink heard you made $500, though, on that, he's probably going to ask you for a royalty or something going forward. 

36:02 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
I did. I did donate to the Santa Barbara horse rescue. There you go, and I gave him a pretty healthy donation. So, but yeah, no, you know, let me talk about that dink video for a second. 

36:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Hold up. I got one comment on the dink video. Sorry to cut you off, captain Jack, so you got how many views right now 250K you said yeah about yeah, so that that would be at least 2.5 mil. If there was perfect audio quality in that one and for anyone who's listening to that one, I think you're gonna know, you're gonna, you're gonna laugh and know what I'm saying. 

36:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
like dink we love him I love he's listening to this for sure yeah, for sure I. 

36:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I met him at uh over in um in jersey and uh, you know we'll hope to have him on the pod, um, you know, soon. But man, every time he does a video there's always wi-fi connections with this thing, and then that video he was getting right into it and you guys had disconnected a couple times. It was going and then I still saw it took off. 

36:52 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
So if that one had better quality I think you might even blew it up even further, because I I'd imagine that that uh damages the youtube algo well, you, you're exactly right, johnny, and that's what I was going to bring up is I created that video with Dink and we recorded the Zoom call and the call was about an hour and 45 minutes and I cut that down to I think that video is like 30 to 40 minutes long to edit that because I just didn't like the final product, especially since everything that we talked about I had already made a video about before I had done, you know, webcasts and things like that that were all about building a bankroll without actual you know, you needing to use computers and models. 

37:34
The reason that took off was the YouTube algorithm, and what it was is my thumbnail, for that video is is a picture of D and Dink is a very unique looking gentleman and it said you know, legendary gambler gives his thoughts in the thumbnail and then the title of the video is something like how to win at sports betting without computers or models. It's one of those things. It's going to grab the SEO value, the search engine optimization people searching how to win at sports betting, because the YouTube audience is going to search for things that they think Bingo. 

38:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Bingo. That's what they need to know. It's the same with us. With um, I mean circles off. We have our own um episode titles on Spotify, but when we post this to YouTube it's a little bit more clickbaity of a title because there's certain search results that people are going to constantly be looking for and listen I got. 

38:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got this one. I got this one's title. You want to hear it? Go for it. Legendary casino better. Takes millions without casinos. Knowing what a clickbait title take off and then, and then they're going to be so disappointed to just hear that one, the one sentence, and no explanation on that. Let's put yeah, yeah, note, note that down, zach will put it. But sorry, I cut you off, rob, you were going to say something with the YouTube stuff. 

38:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, I I actually even cut captain Jack off there, but I I captain Jack off. That's the first time it came up on this one. I was not meaning to do that. I didn't. It was not intentional, not intentional, but continue on. I wanted to get into a little bit about the Dink video specifically, because you have been producing content now on YouTube for more than a year and a half roughly and there's obviously some things that you have found that have worked, which specifically Dink probably the clickbaity title, the imaging associated with it. Everybody that I know has watched that video, even friends of mine that I wouldn't even think they would be interested in that. They've watched it and we've talked about it. What are some of the things that you've found so far when you're producing content have not worked for you? 

39:37 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, and the reason that worked is that algorithm. Plenty of people have said to me well, I finally watched that video because YouTube wouldn't stop recommending it to me and when I look at my analytics, that's how I get most of my views. Is YouTube recommending my stuff, not Twitter traffic coming in, not people subscribing to my channel subscribing to my channel. So, yeah, the stuff that works is largely the stuff that is unfortunately a bit clickbaity, and that's the flaw of YouTube is that it rewards clickbait, and I try not to play that game, but you kind of have to if you want your to get a following. Now, once you get a large following, you can dial down the clickbait because people are going to keep coming back because they've watched so many of your videos. They're going to be referred to them just based on their search history and their watch history. So some of the things that haven't worked. 

40:33
Look, I got a great video out there about taxes and gambling and you guys, as Canadians, probably don't care too much about it, but for the US player, taxes are a huge part of gambling and especially if you've been any bit near successful or you've made a profit. The US tax structure towards gambling is really poor, but there are some ways that you can go about it to be more efficient. And I've got a great video out there. It's like 45 minutes. It's one of the earlier ones that I did and it still only has like 3000 views and the value of that video to some is betting anywhere near professionally or is profitable is immense. It's. It's probably saving you 1000s of dollars off of your taxes every year, but it just hasn't taken off because it sounds like a really dry title and it's like tax and retirement strategies for gamblers. 

41:23
You know, nobody cares about that and some of the other things that I've done just don't seem to get that traction. But you know, I've learned and I've learned. Okay, you need to have a face in your thumbnail, because the YouTube algorithm actually looks at your thumbnail and says people believe things that have a face attached to it. So therefore, thumbnails that have faces rate higher Tagging, the meta tags that you put on videos are very important because that's sort of like the search phrases, the keywords that people are going to be searching for. 

41:55
I see a lot of content out there from other content providers on YouTube that just don't understand that. Content providers on YouTube that just don't understand that. You know there's there's one that I'm sure we've all seen who. They put out eight videos a day about one single topic, about their website, just constantly drilling it over and over again, and they're cannibalizing themselves. They're literally cannibalizing themselves Because YouTube's like stop spamming the world with arbitrage betting. So therefore, therefore, they get downvoted in the YouTube algorithm and they don't even know it and I'm not gonna tell them and hopefully they're not listening. But people just don't understand a lot of what goes into the art of content creation. 

42:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Agreed so much more than just the content itself. There's so many things and different avenues that you can take. It's funny that you mentioned the taxes one, because we have a social team that runs our bet stamp Twitter accounts, uh, and all our social accounts. I get probably a message from one of our social guys at least every day, if not every other day, of we got a DM from somebody asking about taxes related to gambling. What do you want me to do? How do I answer this? And now I'll actually just send them to your video link every single time. 

43:08 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
I've gotten three today already, and I average a few a day. And this is the time of year when everyone's doing their taxes and they're like, oh shit, I made this money on drafting, so they're going to report me, or you know they have all these same questions. Yeah, I would prefer if they'd watch the video first and then then ask the questions. What's the title of that video? Tax and retirement strategies for gamblers Okay, I'm going to make my driest title. I'm going to make my own. 

43:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The thumbnail is just a PowerPoint slot. It's not, it's poor. Okay, so I'm going to make a video, just going to be retirement strategies for gamblers, and then it's just going to be a couple of big bomb bangers. We're just going to put a couple a 17 parlay retirement strategies from gamblers. That'll get the people going. That's a clickbait one that might work out. But yes, we will definitely link that video, zach, in the description, for sure. 

44:02
On the retirement one, again, like we said, like some of the content that you're right, man, that's, that's super valuable. It's going to save you more money, probably watching that video and then structuring your taxes correctly, to save you way more money than some video on a different edge or even learning about something else. But it's obviously not as glorious and the money doesn't maybe come in instantly today. So you know it goes to the bottom of the list. But yeah, I think there's, there's value in that for sure. 

44:28
And again, even though I'm from Canada, I have seen that video and thought it was very well produced and very well made, like when captain Jack said I was thinking of that video, when you said you quit your job uh, obviously with the it company, and then you said something like yeah, and I looked up the, the tax strategies and everything and I was like knowing you guys will see when you go to his youtube channel. But knowing how meticulous the videos are, I could imagine that it wasn't like an overnight decision to quit the job. You definitely mapped that out for a couple years was like, okay, I can, if I can, get to this and then this and then this, and then even mentioning the, the health care stuff, like all right, this is it. Now I'm finally covered where I can go. He's a very calculated guy. 

45:06 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
The number one piece of advice I can give to anyone who is thinking about going pro is the only way you know is when you have no other reason not to do it, and that's how I knew I finally ran out of reasons not to do it, and that's when I took the leap. 

45:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm going to stick on the content subject for a second here, but take it to the other side of things, because people who are critical of you and we're obviously everybody gets some sort of negative criticism in this space. That's just the reality of the situation. If you have a big social following, you're going to hear about, there's going to be some negativity in some capacity. But when you were first producing the youtube content, the main criticism um is from people is if this stuff is really valuable, then why is he not keeping it to himself? Why? Why is he bringing it to a larger audience? I guess the same would be said for Unabated. 

46:05
When you guys first launched, or you said you guys were going into a beta the big before even people saw the product right, it was well. You know how do you navigate the line between providing useful content and utility and affecting your own personal ability to make money. If you guys are putting tools out there, well, aren't the sports books able to see this, aren't you know? You just lose your edge. So I'm just curious on your thoughts on that, because a lot of people you know would call you a fraud. Obviously, I don't believe that. I actually know that you are not, but that's a common criticism of oh, this guy's lost his edge. 

46:49 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
He's just producing content. Now how do you respond to something like that? Yeah, look, I go back to card counting. Do you know how many books are out there about card counting? There's hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Blackjack is still offered in every single casino and it's still offered at a house edge of like half a percent. It's like a game that's insanely beatable. And yet there's all these books and videos and courses you can take to learn to beat it. But it's still offered. And why is it still offered? It's because casinos still make money with it and, no matter what I do in putting out my content, casinos are still sports books are still going to make money from sports betting. 

47:21
You only need to listen to anytime Spanky puts up a Twitter spaces where it's the open mic, the people that talk, like it makes you realize the vast majority of bettors just don't have a clue and don't want to have a clue. They don't want to know what they don't know, and there's that's always going to be the majority, right? We know that only about 2% of sports bettors win long-term, and what I'm teaching in my educational content is not so much how to win, it's how to lose less. It's how to think. In terms of being a sharp bettor, I'm very careful with the content that I craft, that I'm not just giving away the answers. First of all, I always want it to be evergreen. Secondly, I want it to be kind of thought-provoking and read between the lines. 

48:11
I had a video recently about exploiting a FanDuel mistake that I had found at the beginning of the NFL season, and in it I didn't really give away anything. That was still a viable angle because FanDuel had corrected. Now I'll tell you guys, I made one fatal flaw when it came to that angle is I told Rufus and Rufus started betting it and you know they look and see why is Rufus betting this and they automatically realized they must have a problem Like that was. That was a mistake on my part. I shouldn't have told Rufus. I should have just kept it to myself and kind of practiced the art of getting down, and it might have lasted longer. 

48:48
But when I teach something, I'm often teaching things that are more esoteric, more of a life skill, rather than they be. You know, here's how to beat this Now, unabated. On the other hand and you know, you guys did some episodes about it too it was funny when we hadn't announced anything we were doing, yet people were automatically saying they hated the product because they knew exactly what we're going to be doing. And they didn't know. And that's fine. People can hate or like or whatever they want to do. 

49:19
The tools that we're creating on Unabated are largely providing the resources to answer questions that the user brings. 

49:28
So, in other words, you need to know what to ask, you need to bring your own power ratings or you need to know how to look at lines and take the market line and find derivative pricing and things like that. They're not things like we're not putting up an arbitrage screen, we're saying look, here's this price, grab it real fast. That does make things disappear quickly, but if you can offer things in a way where the user has to engage and learn and go through the process, you then create something that is both a valuable tool as well as a sustainable tool, and I think a lot of the things that we do on Unabated are things that are going to be sustainable for a while Now. Will they be as profitable as they were when we first launched? Probably not, because I'm sure there's a lot of sports books that also subscribe to Unabated and check our product out. I saw that when I was in Vegas. I cashed some tickets late at night at Circa and the guy's like oh man we play with your product all day long. 

50:28
We just love it. We just run through all these scenarios and see, and they don't even offer all lines. So you know, we're definitely making some, some sports folks sharper, but the point is like, I think there's a lot of meat on the bone out there for everyone, and a lot of these square bettors that don't want to learn any more about the, about how it all works, are just adding more meat to the bone for us all. So am I? Am I limiting the edge down for everyone involved? I don't think so. I think we've got a very inefficient market for years to come. 

51:02 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So did you guys give out any real edges when the product launched Like anything that you think would have been exploited right away could have printed money off of at any of the legal books, regulated books? 

51:12 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
I definitely think some of our alternate pricing was those numbers hadn't been out there yet and there were a lot fatter edges at the start. We even saw it when we have like launch party and things like that and I would do some live betting, but you can still find five to 10% is on all lines every single day. We just actually launched the NHL period derivatives. So I mean that might be interesting to you guys. These are things that up to now, no one's really offered a calculator on how to derive alternate lines for periods based on the game line and you know home and way and things like that. So we're constantly coming out with new tools, new things to find. 

51:56
Look, we could. I'll give you this example we were planning to do a Super Bowl package and we were going to sell this Super Bowl package and it would basically be you enter the Super Bowl line and we'll print out all of the projections for props for the Super Bowl. Rufus obviously has this long history of just crushing the Super Bowl prop market. He was willing to basically create this tool that would put out all these projections and this would be very valuable. I think you guys, you know, nod your head Like this is something that she would love to have. 

52:31
But we kind of decided well, if we sell this, we're basically going to be accused of selling Rufus's picks for the Super Bowl and the last thing we want to do is people to think, oh, this has been the plan for Unabated all along. You're just trying to sell picks. So we said you know, this isn't a good first impression to people. We're not going to do that this year. We're going to do a ton of content around the Super Bowl and if you watch the content, you're going to get a lot of Rufus's projections and you're going to get it for free. We're not going to sell that. But that's an example of like. We want to make sure that how we're perceived is not just going out and, you know, selling picks or wrecking markets. We put a lot of thought and effort into doing this the right way and a sustainable way. 

53:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I completely get that. It is kind of sad that we have to think about the politics of everything associated with our product just because of the space that we're in. Obviously, I ran a PIX service for a year in Prediction Machine, which I inherited from someone else, and I completely tried to revamp the site to get it away from actual PIX and make it more of a projections-based website with other utilities involved. Other utilities involved, um, but I I remember honestly that that was one full year of my life where I spent more thinking about what other people in the space would think about me than the product itself, uh, and designing a product that I think would have the most value to everyone out there, which actually might've been picks at that time. Um, sadly, as as as as weird as that seems, but um, yeah, it's it's just a weird space Jack in that time. 

54:04
Um, sadly, as as as as weird as that seems. But um, yeah, it's, it's just a weird space jack in that. Um, I think part of it is because you're a very reputable person. Um, you have a public persona. So does rufus um, so does dan fabrizio, who's your uh, another partner of yours, who's famously uh, founded sports insights as well. But it is kind of sad that we have to think about these things on a day-to-day basis how others are going to perceive us based off of what tools are available on our sites. 

54:32 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, it is unfortunate. And you know, look, a lot has been made of Rufus's stance towards both anti-talent as well as towards, you know, his personal journeys and things like that. I can relate to what he's talking about. I have been anti-tout for the longest time. I still am anti-tout, but I understand that tout is a spectrum of gray and one of the first articles I wrote was should you pay for picks? Are there times when you should pay for picks? And the conclusion of that article was yes, there are times when you can pay for picks and it's beneficial information, but you got to make sure they all line up with these things that you're trying to do. 

55:15
As a sports better and for the vast majority of sports betters, they'll never hit those points, they'll never be fast enough, they'll never be able to overcome the cost, they'll never be able to um, take the information you're learning about the market and and apply it. Um, you know that's one of the fascinating things about, about touts is how they move markets. And is that efficient movement? Because at some point it's not. You know if, if raz is saying take over 184 and a half and it, you know the line steams up to like 188, and you know well, raz didn't tell you to take over 188 and raz would probably take the under on 188. So you know, look, spanky's been making a career out of that. Like you need to understand market movement when you're uh, you know as well. So that's neither here nor there. 

56:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, I think when people say anti-tout, when they're like, oh, I'm anti-tout, they're just really like anti-scam or like anti-fraudulent stuff, like they don't want people to get scammed. They don't want to get scammed, but the reality is most touts, yeah, you don't really truly understand what you're paying for. You're buying like a vision of success and a promise of success and it's probably not going to happen. But to be anti-tout overall, I think I agree with you. Just, it doesn't really make sense, because if someone does understand what they're buying, um, they could get value out of it. And even the ones that are not value from a monetary perspective sometimes offer like a community and just an entertainment value to be in a community with a group of value, to be in a community with a group of people that are betting on the same thing, and there's value in that as well. Now, that's not value, valuable to me, it's not valuable to Rob and it's definitely not valuable to you, jack, but there are people who find value in that. So I think, um, I agree with what you said earlier in a sense that, like you have to, it's a wide gray area. You have to kind of just decide for yourself what you want to buy. You can buy anything you want. You know some people find value in like a Rolex. Other people would be like, nah, I don't, I don't, why would I spend a couple of, why would I spend tens of thousands on a watch, right? So it's completely different and everyone has value in different things. 

57:17
So, okay, uh, moving on, we had, so we had a bunch more questions, uh about unabated, but you did answer, um, a couple other stuff off the bat. Uh, one more that I wanted to ask was more just in regards to like, so the future of the product you mentioned. We didn't want to sell rufus's super bowl picks or super bowl model, whatever it might be, because you didn't want to come off as like selling picks and being a pick selling site. Um, so, to at this point and I know things change rapidly in a business as we, as it does with us here at Betstamp as well but at this point in time, what are you guys kind of mulling over in terms of like? 

57:51
How do you monetize this? It is a very niche market that we're both playing in in terms of a sports betting community and people who actually want sports betting information and stuff like that. So what streams have you looked at? We know there's affiliate, we know the subscription model, we know there's other different ways where you can monetize any product via advertising and things like that. So if the pick sales is off, the bat is off the table, then what are you guys thinking of doing? 

58:17 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah. So we we've always been. We we've shied away from affiliate. I wouldn't say we're anti-affiliate because there are some companies towards folks that I would say, oh, I will gladly have an affiliate link to these guys. Circa, you know, is a good example. 

58:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
One of the few that doesn't have an affiliate program. 

58:37 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Right, exactly, exactly Because they can't afford to have an affiliate program, because they don't throw money around the way that these others do. Um, and here's the thing about affiliate programs. What we've seen in europe is that in europe, sportsbooks profile based on the affiliate link you come in from, and you know, that's a little bit of an art that I think we get into in the united states. Eventually, if you're coming in from a, a affiliate link of a, of a line service, you know, like a bet stamp, where sorry if I'm not, no no, no, speak honestly, that's fine yeah. 

59:10
I'm not trying to shit on your potential affiliate income, but in Europe if you come in from like a site like odds checker, where you can see all the odds across the board, they automatically say, okay, this guy's at least a little bit sharp because he knew enough to be on a line service looking at various on the odd screen. 

59:29
So I think we're going to get into that in the United States very shortly here I don't know of any that have applied that yet, but it's coming, and where you sign up with is going to be or where you link into the site from is going to be a key factor in determining your risk tolerance profile. So back to unabated though. Look, we're going to have to sign up, we're going to have to stand up a paywall. Eventually. We have about 10 employees, a couple of contractors, a significant drain each month in keeping this product going. We're going to have to sign up for paywall, and a paywall is coming, and I'm sure some detractors will immediately say oh, you know, I told you they were about the money. Yeah, it is, it is what it is. You know we put it. 

01:00:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You're running a business. You're running a business. 

01:00:18 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Right, we're running a business, we're not running a charity, yeah, um, so anyway, yeah, a paywall is coming and that's going to be basically our, our revenue model and, uh, I, I have promise for it. I think, look, I there are people that are using our tools and they've told me they've made six figures just this nfl season using our tools. Um, and multiple. It's not just like one guy, that's like, you know, just bugging out on the screen all day long. You know, multiple people have come to me and like, wow, this is really great. Now, will that be sustainable and everybody that signs up will make six figures? No, no, of course not, but we're going to have something that's for like a vast audience. So the way I kind of look at it is for the beginning, better. We have content. We have articles content, we have video content that I'll be doing a lot of interactive content. We've got our discord community For the immediate better, the aspirational, sharp, better. We have these tools that answer questions, these tools that probably they don't have the skill or the knowledge to build yet on their own Various Monte Carlo simulations for prop betting for the NFL, these alt line tools which are, you know, pretty much kind of showing you what the price should be, and it's up to you to go find where that price is available or better, and then for the expert level, better. 

01:01:41
We're going to have an odd screen, and we went back and forth about an odd screen for a long time and it really. What kind of forced our hand is, just how poor Don Beth's efforts have been over the past year and a half. There's an area there which is just begging to be taken and that is the real-time odd screen. Now, running a real-time odd screen is very difficult. You can't just run a scraper and get real-time odds. You need to basically create partnerships with sportsbooks in order to have the real-time feed, the direct API, the push feed. 

01:02:19
In a lot of cases where they change it on the, the backend, and it changes on our odd screen at the same time it changes on their website and there's key books you need real time for, obviously, the market makers, the pinnacles, the Chris circa, I would say, and the one that I'm kind of proud of proud of that I don't think we've really revealed yet is we're going to have deck prism on our odd screen. Nice, the deck prism feed, the direct deck prism feed, the one they send to the sports books that they do trading for both pregame as well as in game. I look that that right there. If that should be, that should be worth the price of admission I would think you know, because you can't find that anywhere else and that is gold. When it comes to determining, you know what the sharp line is. 

01:03:09
So our odd speed is going to be largely about knowing the market makers in real time. 

01:03:14
And we're going to have the other books out there too the DraftKings, the FanDuel, the PointsBets, betmgm but they won't be. We're not caring about real time. That's going to be scraped data. That's going to be data that you know obviously they don't want to partner with us anyway and that's going to be information that the user can still use and look and see. And then we're going to integrate our trading tools into this odd screen so that you can find alt line value without leaving the odd screen. You can compare two lines, you know, a plus six minus 110 and a plus six and a half minus 125, which one's better? You can compare them right in the odd screen, that sort of thing. That's the value add and hopefully that's going to appeal to a lot of the expert level bettors that need that real-time data and combine them all together and hopefully we have a pretty vast funnel that isn't too much of a niche product for the industry and hopefully it'll be a successful launch. 

01:04:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So two questions follow up. First off sounds like an awesome product. I think if it's a UI, ux, user interface, user experience, improvement over Dawn, best and real time, then that definitely has a market in the space right now. First would be you know what markets I mean? I guess you could add everyone in due time but is this going to be like you know every sport, every market, props, game props, stuff like that or is this more of a? Let's get the basics up. 

01:04:35 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah, well, the first iteration is going to be the basics, the major sports college, the major four, four major sports in the US, as well as college football and college basketball, and we're going to be up any day now on our what we call our preview, our preview mode of this odd screen, unveil that to our Discord community when it's ready for users to start hammering. It's like 98% of the way there. We're just working on some minor tweaks and bugs we still have to iron out. But, yeah, we'll add other markets to it and we plan to add the ability to drill down into what the alt speds and alt totals are for each one of the sports books on the screen. We'd like to offer props down the line. That's a little bit trickier because there's really no, there's not like a Don Best rotation number for props. There's, there's. It's really hard to find a source of truth that wouldn't end up giving multiple. And you guys, you guys know this, you guys, you've been through the same pain points. 

01:05:34
It's really tough to kind of to iterate props through with a with a odd screen. But yeah, we, we plan to add that sort of thing as well and then iterate that or combine that with our, our props tools that we've created as well. 

01:05:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So my second question here is and again, you don't have to give out the info. I don't want to be this great reveal of the product and stuff like that, but obviously Don best quite expensive for those who don't know the, the, the, the. They have a free version. They have a sorry, a cheaper version that's a little bit delayed, which is essentially useless because you're getting a bad, uh user experience product and a delayed feed and you still pay for it. 

01:06:12
But the, the main service they have is, is worth it for a lot of people. It's $500 a month, um USD, per account username, so you can't even share that with like your buddy and have like two sign-ins and stuff like that. So really, per username, per login, it's $500 a month, which is quite expensive for anyone who's betting Um, pretty much anyone who's betting like a hundred bucks a game, 50, a game 10, a game. You're not going to have value in that. So what I was going to ask is did you guys discuss, like, what price points you'd be able to come in at what better? Because the right product could be worth 10,000 a month to the right, to the right person, right? It's not necessarily about the exact cost, it's just about, I guess, finding a middle ground. So have you guys thought about that at all yet? I'm sure you have. 

01:06:55 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
But are you able to say anything? We've had a lot of yeah, we've had a lot of discussion. I don't want to. We haven't really finalized a price. Specifically, I will say look, I've paid $500 a month to Don Best for the last I don't know how many years, and I regret it, but I don't regret it because I've needed that service. I would not feel right putting out something at $500 a month. It's just that's. That's just too much, because there are things else that Don Best does in terms of alerting, in terms of injury reporting although they really suck at that now in terms of information about the game day experience and things like that, and these are all things that we have on our wishlist as well. But you know, anymore Twitter is a better source of injury information than Don Best can even be. 

01:07:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I don't think anyone's using Don best injury info nowadays. I mean maybe they might squeak one or two in, but uh, definitely that was better back in the day. 

01:07:53 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Yeah. So look, we, our product won't be. Look, our product's not going to be $20 a month. Um, you know we're, we're not uh, we're not like data golf, but we're, we're planning to put out a product that's, I feel, is worth the amount and it's probably is worth more than the amount we're going to charge. And you know, rufus and I have kind of stuck to that from the very beginning that we we don't want to make this look like a money grab in any sense. We want to offer something to bettors, and if we price it according to its worth, it's only because we really feel like there's a huge benefit to bettors to get this product. So, yeah, I don't want to say even what our suggestions are in terms of pricing per month. I don't think it'll be construed as outrageous for everything you get, though. 

01:08:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You can check out Captain Jack's site unabatedcom. I am a user. It's free to sign up right now as well, so I'd suggest anyone check it out. I personally find a lot of utility in it, because one of the most common questions I get asked in real time when I'm doing video streams is would you take this number or would you take that number? And you guys have a very easy compare lines tool which I use quite regularly, and I do love doing the simulations, future simulations, especially now that you guys have preloaded a bunch of different options, whether that's in predictable market ratings or PFF ratings, espns, fpi. So I really enjoyed, enjoyed it for football. I'd highly recommend that anyone check it out and I'm very excited to see the odd screen as well. 

01:09:29
But I want to shift gears, jack, because one thing that you are definitely known for on social you're highly opinionated. You don't really care about sharing strong takes. You are willing to go after sportsbooks in some capacity. You've been critical of them at times. In most cases, I agree with you. Let's say that Captain Jack is starting a sportsbook from scratch in the regulated market tomorrow. 

01:09:57 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
What are the biggest differences we would see between Captain Jack's book and most of the other operators in the space that's a really good question and it's something I have put a lot of thought into in the past and you know, obviously I have some strong opinions and some strong takes. Look, the sports betting market in the US right now, and the one that's probably going to be in Ontario shortly, is serving such a select segment of the audience that's out there and it leaves other parts of the market underserved. And I'm not talking about sharp bettors, I'm just talking about people that don't want to just piss their money away quickly. Uh, are very underserved in the current sports betting environment. So if I were to create a sports book, first of all I'd want it to be appealing to people that are at least aspirational about their betting, and those people are usually price sensitive. So the first thing I would want to do is be at least price sensitive in how I price everything on the site. The second thing and that doesn't mean I'm doing minus 105 on everything, I'm just saying you know you can at least try to be up on the pricing in terms of everything you offer, whether it be derivative markets not being gouged or parlay pricing not being gouged. You know, if I were to do a same game, parlay thing, you know the average, the average VIG on a lot of those is like 50% and higher when you break it all down. So, uh, there's room for improvement there. But then the next thing is I'd want to innovate, outside of just this standard sides and totals that we've all been locked in for decades in sports betting. 

01:11:42
Uh, things like contests, pool betting, uh, calcutta betting you guys, you guys, you're both in the bet, the process, calcutta. Sorry about that, johnny, but Calcuttas are exciting because you think you have the best of it. Everyone that exits a Calcutta draft thinks they have the best of it. And in terms of a sports book being able to run a Calcutta product, it would be like running a DFS product where there's a rake involved. A very reasonable rake could be run and bettors could compete against each other in whatever the pool of the Calcutta was for, and I think they would all feel like they're getting the best of it and they're getting a lot of bang for their buck. And ultimately that's sort of what's missing in today's sportsbook environment is that feeling of the user feels like they got the best of it and the customer feels like they got enough entertainment value, because right now a lot of these sports books they're just looking to to gut as as quick as possible. They just want to get the money as fast as possible. They're they're pursuing double digit hold percentages and things like that. Um, but there's so much more that could provide a sense of you got the best of it. 

01:12:52
And it doesn't mean you have to give products that don't have high edges. Like when you look at slot machines right now, slot machines have a high edge, but there are components of slot machines that make you feel like you've got the best of it. You get a bonus round and you know well, in this bonus round I'm going to make money. Well, what if you had like sports thing where you make bets and you spin some kind of wheel and sort of like win bet was trying, where you get either a bonus amount added to your payout or you get a multiplier added to your payout payout or you get a multiplier added to your payout? I think bettors would like that sort of thing to feel like, oh, this time I know I've definitely got the best of it on this wager that I just made. And that doesn't mean that you would have, you know, an exploitable edge either. It just means like this would be kind of baked into the total big. 

01:13:47
I think loyalty rewards are vastly underserved in sports betting markets. You know, one of the things a sharp sports betting book would do is they want higher and higher volume. Well, if you give higher and higher volume, they can charge less and less big, because the one truism when it comes to gambling is the longer you gamble, the less likely you are to win in terms if you don't have an edge. So casinos bank on that. That's why they have tons and tons of slot machines. That's why they can deal blackjack, even though it's a low house edge game, because they're going to deal tons and tons of hands and in the long run they'll win. Sharp sports folks understand this. That's why Circa is always trying to push volume for their low edges, because they know the longer they take the money, the more certain they are to win. 

01:14:34
Well, get back to loyalty rewards. The more volume you give a sports book, the lower your VIG should be. Everyone starts at minus 110, but you hit the platinum tier or silver tier or whatever, you get down to minus 109. And if you hit the next tier up, you're down to minus 108, minus 107. And that's going to encourage people to play more and more at your sports book because they want to keep getting to the point where the VIG gets lower and lower down. It's basic economics, folks. 

01:14:58
But a lot of these sports books just don't seem to want to innovate. They just want to copy what the next guy did. Oh, you guys got same game parlays Okay, we got same gameisle. You guys got a bet boost Okay, we got a bet boost. You know the amount of brain dead that's in the sports betting industry right now is kind of shuddering and there's so much better it could be doing, but it's not. And if your follow-up question is well, would you ever go work at a sports book? Absolutely not. I would never go work for a sports book, would. 

01:15:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would never go work for a sports book. I um, that was going to be my followup. Question is not would you work for one, but would you ever? 

01:15:39 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
consider being your own, running your own operation. Yeah, I, I don't know, I don't know Like I go back to the Shakespeare line of like I come to bury Caesar not to, uh, praise him Like I would you? Know I get it. I don't know if I would ever cross that line. I Rufus, has said that he would like to run a sports book someday, but then he's also said he wants to run sports teams and things like that. I would. 

01:16:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I would personally love to run a sports book and I would. I would implement. Obviously, you've thought about this a lot. I could by your answer, but the ideas are genuinely good and I think there's a lot of overlap between how we think sportsbooks should be run. 

01:16:15
I love the uniqueness of the sportsbook that you would have in terms of the variety of games. I love the idea of auctions, all sorts of alternative ways to bet, and right now you look at the space, it's just same game parlays are emerging as the thing right now, because they're a new version of how you can bet on something. Now people don't understand the hold associated with that, as you've outlined, but it's new, it's unique. People haven't been able to do it before. Everyone's gravitating to it and I think there's so much more room for creativity in this space with things like that, and you're seeing sportsbooks rewarded for that with the amount of handle that they're doing and the hold that they're doing on those things. So I think that that's a great idea. Yeah, I echo pretty much everything you said and it is kind of a dream of mine to one day be able to put that into action. 

01:17:06
Now, a lot of people obviously don't know the startup costs associated with running a sportsbook, with the amount that you need to be able to handle the liability but handle customer service, marketing operations, e-com, whatever. But yeah, I think that that's probably the most well thought out answer of anyone I've ever asked in terms of well, because everyone's very critical, right, oh, the sportsbook shouldn't limit, they shouldn't be doing this, they shouldn't be doing that, but they don't offer up alternatives. That's where I find it a challenge. In this space it's like, okay, what would you do in that situation? And we just don't like we don't hear that a lot. We hear all the criticisms, but not necessarily what someone would do if they were on the other side of the counter no-transcript. 

01:18:18 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Whereas people like Circa hire the best of the best to do their trading so they can take a bet, move the number, that sort of thing. 

01:18:28
We just have a dearth of trading talent in the us. Bookmaking talent I'm not going to use word trading bookmaking talent in the us right now, um, and they're gonna. They gotta overcome that. They gotta find a way to overcome that, because people like draft kings and fanduel and and the like, they can afford to be taking on all the action and they wouldn't get guys like me always bitching about them, because they can afford to take this action and move the number and become sharper and still get all of that square money. In fact, they'd get more square money because they're getting that brand recognition to start. So, in other words, you know, one of the reasons I always complain about it is because it doesn't even need to be happening. If we were all small little sports books, yeah, they couldn't afford to take on sharp bettors. But these are model lists that are that are spending $180,000 a day on marketing costs. They can afford to book the sharp action and figure out how to benefit from it. 

01:19:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean I, I I complain as much as the other guy about, like obviously, wish I mean I don't even complain about it, I wish I didn't happen with with the limiting. But we also got to realize like we live in a small community, on uh sports betting twitter here, wherever we are, and like the majority of sports bettors don't even really know that people get limited right and obviously doesn't help when you have like people at like ceos and stuff saying that you don't limit it. And I know this one, the draft kings one, recently saying that was maybe a little bit of an eye-opener to some people, but most people don't know that the sportsbook can actually just cut your limits. They've never heard of that, they never will experience it and so it's not a main issue. So if I were running DraftKings or FanDuel I honestly probably would do the same thing. I wouldn't really care too much about that. 

01:20:04
Someone reached out to me yesterday and they were like oh, I found a incredible edge on the same game, parlay at the at one of the games, uh, at the rams game, for for this rams cardinals playoff game. They're like you could, you could put in the same game parlay, matt stafford over half a touchdown, one and a half touchdowns, two and a half touchdowns and three and a half touchdowns and if he gets four touchdowns they all win. And I was like what was the payout? And it was just the the same payout obviously as the oh, three and a half. Because they, they assign, they assume the correlation and they right, you can't bet like cooper cup first touchdown and parlay that with cooper cup anytime touchdown, because if he gets the first he gets the anytime. So they just give you the odds of the first right. But that person had had been obviously betting that and not knowing that, like didn't even look at the payout and saying he's only really getting like plus three, 25 for that. And if you, you know, if you're obviously parlaying for things that should have been like you know that's a, it's a big bomb banger, but anyways, we just wanted to like. So things like that, it's just like you know, draft Kings and FanDuel game parlay product, yeah, the hold's high, but people still just bet into it, right? So until they actually start seeing a problem where they're like oh, we don't get enough customers and we're kicking out too many people, I don't even think they really need to change and on that front I was going to say great points on the whole, like you know, game betting, uh, making the the better think that he or she is getting the best of it, which is awesome. 

01:21:28
One thing that I realized awesome promotion that one of the books is doing is actually barstool, which is actually outside of the whole like banning people and whatever and limits I know they're quick to limit, but outside of that I think barstool is actually becoming like one of my favorite books promotion wise. 

01:21:43
Not that I am able to use it here in canada, but the promos they're running are, you know, a lot, of, a lot of what they do is like merch based, right, so like a hoodie you might. Um, so if you back this team, if you, if you bet michigan in their bowl game and michigan wins, then you get this hoodie. You get this bar stool hoodie, which they probably sell on the site for 60 bucks, maybe cost them 10, 15 bucks to make, and they're getting signups and deposits because people want that hoodie. And they're getting signups and deposits because people want that hoodie and they're like, oh, if I win this game, I get this hoodie. And now what they've done is if somebody deposits to Barstool and they win that game. They get that hoodie which costs Barstool, but whatever, 15, 20 bucks, probably even less, actually I don't know what it costs nowadays. 

01:22:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What country they're making? 

01:22:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, I don't know the quality of them, because I haven't seen the hoodie. But you can obviously make a hoodie pretty cheap and then there's some that are expensive, depending on the branding. But what I was going to say is they give that out and then what that does is now, if Michigan wins that game, two things happen. Number one is that person gets that hoodie. They're constantly reminded every time they wear that hoodie or wear it with their friends. Oh, every time they wear that hoodie or wear it with their friends, oh, sick hoodie. 

01:22:50
Yeah, I deposited in Barstool, I bet on Michigan, they won, I won my bet and I got this hoodie. Like it's a constant reminder that something good just happened when they bet and they have it and they remember the win. And for some of the promos they do win or lose. But what happens is if that bet wins, you get that hoodie. Like, now you have an extra, you deposited 50, now you have 100 in your account. Like, let's be realistic, most people are just going to lose that 100. You know, if you play long enough, like you mentioned, compound that negative edge, you're likely going to lose that 100. So for barstool, they're pushing deposits and they're tying it with a positive reinforcement back. That gives you a positive thought in your mind when you win, and that's something that I always just like never really considered that, but it's kind of like giving someone a reminder like ah, what a sick bet. 

01:23:28
Thought in your mind when you win, and that's something that I always just like never really considered that, but it's kind of like giving someone a reminder like, ah, what a sick bet, you know. It's like as if you could all your best bets that made you so happy. The lucky wins you had the big parlays that you cash when you're growing up coming up. If you had like a reminder for each of those would be so awesome. Like, oh, this player, um, cashed me this game because he ran. He got this crazy pick six in overtime and I just got his jersey. And now I have this random cornerback from 2005 on the dolphins that I have his jersey now and every time I wear that I'm happy about sports betting. I think that's a serious. I know I've talked an ear off here, but I think that's a serious thing that they're doing. That gives them a leg up on every other book, in my opinion right now, and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite promos. What do you think there? 

01:24:18 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
I, yeah, I mean I, I. I can see the value there and from the, from the book side of things. 

01:24:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Um, you know, I do, I want to wear a barstool hoodie forget about forget about the bread, forget about the bread and forget about you and forget about the whole barstool thing. It doesn't have to be a barstool hoodie it could be anything for you. 

01:24:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It could have been a circa hoodie as an example or not even. 

01:24:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It doesn't even have to be a branded thing, it could just be. You get this thing that you use. 

01:24:42 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
You know what I mean reminds you, yes, yeah, yeah, it reminds you of that feeling of winning, exactly. I agree, that's a good, a good psychological, uh, you know comp. 

01:24:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, market marketing tactic. And then, honestly, barstool sells a ton of merch and and they sell it. That stuff it's, you know, a big business for them. Also similar to like a lot of the influence type things, youtubers selling a lot of merch and things like that. So there is a huge market for that. A lot of people want to buy that. 

01:25:08
And even if it's not barstool branded directly, like there's certain podcasts or things like that. You know back, uh, you know whitney and and, uh, paul bizonette, two former nhl players with their podcast. That's become pretty big. So it's kind of like, yeah, if you, if you're a fan of that podcast and you're a hockey fan, you don't even have to be a barstool fan. You could just be a fan of those two guys and be a hockey fan. They bring on a ton of ex-NHLers, current NHLers. It's a cool podcast in my opinion, and if you're a fan of that podcast, you want a sweater. It's like okay, deposit to Barstool. It's an awesome promo to get that stuff. I'm impressed with what they've done on that, despite the fact that obviously, you know, there are definitely things wrong with the Barstool sports book, as there are with other books as well um, you've been very generous with your time, jack. 

01:25:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, we had adam churn off on last week. I had talked to you off air beforehand. You said you listened to the episode. Um, I consider both yourself and adam to be some of the best educators in the space, so I actually kind of wanted to run through a few questions that I asked him towards the end of the podcast and provide potentially some educational content for those that are listening out there that maybe have not seen your stuff before, would like to get your point of view. So I will start with if you could give a piece of advice to a new better entering the space, what would it be? 

01:26:26 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
I mean, obviously my one piece of advice would be the same one that Adam gave, that I think anybody would give is that open up as many sportsbook accounts as you can. The more outs you have, the more line shopping you do, the less you're going to lose, just based on your price sensitivity. But since he gave that answer, I do have like a backup answer. I kind of thought of Ignore the FOMO of sports betting, ignore the fear of missing out on things Like everyone's going to be talking about the super bowl coming up. 

01:26:58
If you're not betting the super bowl, if you're more of like a best better, don't feel like you need to have a bet on the super bowl. You know there was a UFC fight this weekend. If you, if you know, late Saturday night, if you're suddenly like everyone on Twitter is talking about who they're betting on the UFC, that doesn't mean you have to go make a bet. So ignore the FOMO that comes to sports betting and that you think you need to have a bet on something or you need to be looking to make a bet on something I agree. 

01:27:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It depends how down bad you are, unless you're chasing from your. 

01:27:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Saturday NFL losses this week because we got some NFL playoffs. No, I'm just joking. By the way, I don't know if people can sense the sarcasm sometimes with me. All right. Number two what is one common piece of betting advice that you think is often overstated or just straight up false? Where people are often misled by this piece of advice? 

01:27:49 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
This is an easy answer for me Push frequency charts. There's a certain site that rhymes with the word wager talk that likes to run out this old guy who has created these push frequency charts. 

01:28:05
14% of games land on a three. So therefore the three is worth 14%. No, if a team is favored by three and they win by three, that's a push frequency, that's a push probability. All the games in the world, whether it be whoever the favorite of the dog is, whatever the spread, landing on three, yes, that's around 14%, but that doesn't mean the push frequency of the three is 14. Um, look, you can use the tools that unabated to kind of figure out exactly what it's worth. But I can't stand that this still has legs all these years later. He updated the chart again and people are like, oh, look, all this new information since the two point, uh, since the extra point was moved back, they're still just. It drives me crazy. Um, push frequency chart from wager talk. 

01:28:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think that's the first reference ever of push frequency on circles off for episode number 40. It took us to get there, but obviously you're very passionate about that. I know exactly what you're talking about. Drives me up the wall as well. Um, last one. What is one thing that's currently happening in the betting space that absolutely drives you insane and don't? 

01:29:15 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
reuse what? 

01:29:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you just said, and what can be done to fix it. 

01:29:20 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Well, you know, I mean, look, look how triggered I get on push frequency. Just imagine what really makes me insane. Um, look, I, I. I thought of a few um cause you did tell me you going to ask me these three questions. So first one, bet percentages. You know, 70% of the public and 65% of the money is on this. Bet percentages are bullshit. 

01:29:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
They're going to get me going here. 

01:29:40 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
They don't indicate anything. If you were getting bet percentages from a book that only took sharp action, then, yes, they might be a little indicative, but you're not. 

01:29:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You're getting it from draft kings and points. But you know pinnacle put up the bat percentages. Now that information out there, pinnacle is that. You know pinnacle put up their own bat percentages now on the site? 

01:29:59 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
yeah, exactly, and, but it's not, it's not real. 

01:30:01
There's no way it's real, though right, I'm not so sure pinnacle is taking the sharp action anymore, like, but that's another topic. Um, but I, a couple others that I've done the lottery mentality about sports betting, um, this feeling of like everything's got to be the same game, the, what do you call it? The boom banger or whatever you know, like the, the multi-team parlay. Come on with this. You know, stop making people think this is a lottery product. It's, it's disingenuous, it's, it's not helping anybody, you know. 

01:30:35
And then the third one is what I kind of referenced earlier is that sports books can't take sharp action. You know what did Jason Robbins say? You know market manipulators, they like whatever, like the you, you wouldn't know sharp action if you tripped over it. So why can't you take it? You don't even know how to use it. That's the problem. So the, the kind of sports books that we can't take sharp action. You know we'd be broke tomorrow if we did. No, you wouldn't. So that's what you're, that's what makes me insane. But anyone that follows me on twitter already knew I hate all those things yeah, the, uh. 

01:31:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The second one you mentioned holy or the or sorry, I think it was actually the first one the bet percentages versus the win percentage. I get triggered so much on that because people legitimately make their bets based on that whole like reverse line movement thing and that, and the people who make their bets based on that are typically like um think they're super, super educated in the space. They're like this is the way you beat it, like you. They say like oh, you guys just picking your sides, you're never gonna win at sports betting. And they're like this is how you win. And then they bring up that. So that's why it even triggers me a little more, because it's not like it's just someone's opinion that they're betting it out. It's usually that's the thing that people are trying to teach other people about. 

01:31:49
Here is how you win. The reality is like it just couldn't be. There's, there's no value in it. It's literally just a neutral. It's not value. It's not not value. Yeah, pick, pick. Like if you bet on that, you're still going to just have the same hold as if you bet whatever. It's not like you're gaining, it's not bad, it's just nothing. 

01:32:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's all it is. I would actually argue it's a net negative, um, for those who are listening or watching the whole notion of reverse line movement or using public bet percentages. People tend to wait till later in the week or closer to the game to get as much information as possible to make their bet and they're actually just betting into a much more efficient market, like they're waiting for someone to move the line and then they're they're basically chasing the steam at that point. So it's actually I would argue that it's a net negative for anyone that's looking at that and using reverse line movement as a way to bet, because now they're betting into a more efficient market. Uh, I'm glad we got a three for one out of you on, jack, they're chasing the steam at the worst price. 

01:32:46 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's the problem with it, with it not chasing the seam. Okay, cap jack, um, it's been. It's been a long one. Thank you so much for your time. Our closing question, uh, and then we'll let you go, for sure, and we'll make sure we plug all your stuff at the end. If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what piece of advice would you give to your old self? It's the same question we ask all of our guests, uh, at the of the podcast. 

01:33:09 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
Right, and I won't give the jokey answer of buy Bitcoin or, you know, bet on this team. No, here's the thing Seriously disabuse myself of short-term thinking and it's something I still struggle with the fact that you, you know, look, we all log our progress. You know, whether it be on Betstamp or whether it be. You know spreadsheets that you make and it's tough not to look at the short term, look at what the results are today or this week or this month, and none of that matters. Like for tax purposes. Yes, your annual win loss matters, but overall, like, if I look, I have the same spreadsheet I've been using for the past decade and I can go back to 2011 or so and I can pull up the chart of 2011 to 2022. And you know what? It goes right up through the roof. 

01:33:57
That's what I should be thinking about is the fact that I've had this edge. I keep maintaining this edge. I keep growing this edge. Relax with that. Just think that's all that really matters. Stop thinking about yesterday I lost, you know, twelve thousand on this. Or, you know, this week I'm down this amount. It doesn't matter, it's it's that long term, it's. It's like I said before if you play long enough. You'll lose if you don't have an edge, but if you do have an edge, if you play long enough, you'll win. And so that's what I need to do. You'll win, and so that's what I need to do. And and I still struggle with it sometimes and, um, I would have been in a lot better head space over the years had I kind of felt that and been able to believe that, uh, at times when I would, you know, maybe get down about a negative swing. 

01:34:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So yeah, I think we've all been there and it's uh some good advice. Uh, so, everyone, this has been episode 40 of circles off. If you haven't checked out the video yet, if you are still listening to the audio, continue listening to the audio. It's all good. Check out the youtube if you do prefer to watch stuff live. We got a cool setup here, a little studio, rob and I. You can see captain jack on the tv. This will be our fourth episode, uh on youtube. 

01:35:07
And, uh, while you're on youtube, definitely check out Captain Jack's channel, as we mentioned before. It's at. It's just Captain Jack Andrews. If you search just Captain Jack, you're going to find some pirate boating stuff. If you search Captain Jack Andrews, you're going to get the goods for sports betting content. So that's what you're going to want to search, and you can follow him on Twitter at CapJack2000. And then a lot of these products and tools he's been mentioning and referencing to are a part of his company, unabatedcom, where you can find these simulator tools, the line comparison, and do you have the push probability chart? 

01:35:45 - Captain Jack Andrews (Guest)
There's no chart, but you could derive one. No chart, but you could derive one. And after we stand up a paywall, we're going to be a little more open about like getting charts up there rather than having to enter things into the tool manually each time. 

01:35:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, so there you go. So no charts yet, but go sign up there and, as you mentioned, it's free to use right now and hopefully some cool stuff coming in the near future. Thanks everyone, appreciate you tuning in.