00:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
welcome to circles off episode number 61. I'm rob his ola, joined by johnny from bet stamp. What's going on? 61? 

00:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
already. I know rick nash great number columbus blue jacket legend you remember all these player numbers? 

00:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't, but yeah, that's, that's a good one off the top of your head. Um, we're gonna get right into it this week with a guest highly requested guest, I would say. We do take in requests. Anyone who wants to hit us up in the youtube comments, please do so, or you can message us on twitter at bet stamp with any guest requests or the circles off account at circles off. But we're gonna welcome in here chris benn's, the Director of Risk at Circus Sports. You can follow him on Twitter at BetChris. He's also the primary manager of their MLB and NFL products. Chris, welcome to Circles Off. How's it going? 

00:56 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Thank you guys, going well, nice to be here. 

00:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, it's nice to have you here. We like to typically get a betting background with every one of our guests that comes on, so really quickly, just share with us some of your personal background and basically how you got involved in the betting space. 

01:12 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I was probably a late bloomer when it comes to getting really heavily involved with sports betting. When I was a kid I did the basic things that most people do that have some interest in sports. You know I'd fill out the brackets for March Madness. I'd have fantasy football teams. The one thing that I can remember that really probably started me on this path was ESPNcom had a fantasy baseball game back in like 2001 or 2002. And it was basically daily fantasy, except you could play for free. You know you weren't playing for for big prizes, but you would select a lineup of players every day of the season and a pitching staff and there'd be a salary cap and you'd, you know, accumulate as many points as you could from your team each day. And I just loved playing that game and I loved that I wasn't tied to the same player for the whole season. You know you could pick a new player every day. If a guy got hurt, no big deal. You know you start fresh again the next day and I don't know how many people were playing that game, but there was one half of the season where I finished like second overall and that probably made me think that you know what I know something I also had the time to dedicate where I could, you know, put my lineup together whenever I wanted to wait till the last second to make a change, that sort of thing. But that's something that I still look back on as like probably really important in my development and, you know, turning this into a career. 

02:49
I did a little bit of online betting when I was in college, but I didn't really have any like exposure to the, the legal market in Nevada until I moved here, and that was after I graduated college. 

03:03
A little unusual, probably, to pick up and move somewhere without having ever like visited it or secured a job or any of that. 

03:12
I wasn't good at like planning out my life, and I'm still not in a lot of ways, but I knew that I liked math, I liked sports and I wanted to do something that had was in the sports betting space, and I kind of had an idea at one time that I could be a professional gambler. But I also figured I would need to have like a regular job that nobody just starts out doing that, and so when I got out to Vegas, I just applied for a ticket writer position at a bunch of different places, and so that's how I got my start was working at the Hilton Sportsbook, which is now the Westgate today, and that's where I really learned from other people that were experts in this space and just saw how people bet, got to understand the markets, and it's just been a long journey from there to go, from betting two dollar teaser cards at boulder station to you know, knowing what I'm doing and being very confident that I can make money betting wow, interesting story. 

04:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I mean seems like off the rip, a huge missed opportunity for espn. I didn't even know they had that game, but it seems like they had. Whatever happened to that product, did you ever follow up and kind of see what happened with that, that daily fantasy product? 

04:27 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I can't remember why I stopped playing or if they just discontinued it. It's a good question. They had a fantasy NBA game as well that I played back in the day and that was a lot of fun, along with the baseball. I mean, it's turned out that, like, baseball is my number one sport and I don't even really pay that close of attention to NBA anymore. But I thought it was just like so much fun and better than traditional fantasy sports and perfectly fits in line with traditional sports betting, and if you're good at one, you're probably going to be good at the other. 

05:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
For sure. So you mentioned the move to Nevada. I think, just to clarify, you know you are the risk manager for a few sports over at Circa Nevada and then for everyone listening, circa, I think, manages risk a slight bit differently in some other States that they may play in. But what we really wanted to know, chris, was you know what's your, what's your role like at circuit, kind of what's the day to day right now? How are you actually managing stuff? And say obviously, whatever you're able to. 

05:30 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So I've got a lot of different responsibilities, but everything starts with okay, how are we going to book the board, like everything that's open for betting? We've got to have enough people, you know, in the office working so that we can handle everything. And I got to know you know what are the sports that are going on. But also I got to know when are things happening in the marketplace? So when it's baseball season and like I'm a baseball guy, I know the most about baseball, anybody on our team and I'm going to be the most opinionated when anybody on our team and I'm going to be the most opinionated when it comes to that sport I'm trying to create a schedule for myself where I think I'm the most valuable to the team for the given hours that I'm going to be in the office. So what I've done is I work on days where there are a lot of like day baseball games. Because I tend to work early hours. I'll get in at like 5am Pacific time and be in the office until like 2pm Pacific time. So you take like a Wednesday, a Thursday, a Saturday, a Sunday when you have the most day games for baseball. That's what I'm going to be in there 5 am. That's when groups start usually moving the market around. And I'm there, I've got our numbers, exactly where I want them for everything baseball and I'm ready to take those limit bets from sharp customers and I know exactly where I'm going to want to move after I take those bets and then also, given the number of day games, I'm going to be there basically to carry those games to the finish line. And it's really a struggle when I have days where most of the games are in the evening and I'm handing them off to somebody else. There's a lot of value in this business, I think, in continuity, and the funny thing is I sometimes make the analogy that we're kind of like doctors, because you know they will have shifts where they need to be on call for more than 24 hours straight, and that's for the sake of continuity and caring for patients. Well, booking a game like we're going to be in the best position if I can be booking it from 5am until the game starts, because I know the whole story, I got a whole plan and it's just really hard to pass that along somebody else. 

07:57
Now baseball is played pretty much every day for six months straight. I can't do this every single day. So you know I'm making this choice to try to focus on the days when there's a lot of early baseball and then those other days I'm, you know, trying to take as much time out of the office as possible, but I'm always working from home sending updates on World Series and pennants and division odds. So I am working every single day, regardless of whether or not I'm in the office or not. And then you know I've got to do anything related to NFL. 

08:34
You know, right now things are happening with Baker Mayfield just getting traded to the Carolina Panthers, dealing with all of the NFL futures, and you know, on a given day that might be nothing in July or it could be something really significant like a quarterback getting traded, and then just all the things that I need to do to oversee the risk management team is a daily process as well. So it's a lot to juggle to be a specialist in any sport, baseball in particular, because it's such a grind and it's, you know, every single day and you really don't get to rest with the baseball. So I am just extremely busy from the time spring training starts in late February all the way through the Super Bowl, which is basically the entire year, except for a couple of weeks. 

09:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm curious, Chris, if you actually have any input into the openers that are set at Circa, for MLB or NFL Particularly. I'm curious about this because Circa is known to take higher limits, especially on openers. So you would think that there's some sort of level of sophistication that goes into setting those early markets relative to a more recreational sportsbook that might post very early numbers with very small limits. So how does the process of creating openers look like and are you involved on that on a regular basis? 

09:55 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So when it comes to baseball it's just too difficult to try to be first in the world for us with the following day's numbers. That's one thing I don't like about baseball. I don't want to think with the following day's numbers. That's one thing I don't like about baseball. I don't want to think about the following day's games until the current day's games have started and it's gotten to the point where I just I don't even want to look at the overnight market until sometime in the evening. And I know other sports books are putting up lines, you know, potentially before noon Pacific time on a daily basis. I'm just not capable of, you know, focusing on that and putting out like the first number in the world when it comes to baseball and what ends up happening is somebody else on the team usually is going to open our baseball overnights, you know, around 5pm Pacific and usually there's quite a few other books that have gone up by that time. But when we open a number, you know we'll promise anybody, no matter how sharp you are, you can get 3,000 on the money line, 3,000 on the run line, 1,000 on the total, and I think you know those limits would compare pretty favorably to most other sports books on the openers, the one thing I do. That is unique, though. Almost every day you end up with games where at 10 am, we didn't know who the two starting pitchers were going to be in a given game, and so books that put up numbers early don't have lines for those games. But I take a look at the overnight market and it might be, you know, six or seven o'clock in the evening and I see these games where the pitchers are known but nobody has a line out there. 

11:35
I feel good enough about my numbers that I'll make you know, I'll make a line on the game and so we'll, you know, put overnights up anytime between 6 pm and 10 pm, and that's just me making a number, and people might assume you know any sports book that's doing this has some kind of you know model or algorithm that they're using to price these things. It's really mostly in my head. I mean, I look stats, I think I know what stats to focus on. But I think people would be really surprised that a lot of the stuff that I do and what I know in this industry, a lot of it's just from experience and just knowing certain markets and just having seen the lines and the bets on a million different baseball games over the year. 

12:24
But like I can't even really fully describe it, it's just kind of. It's kind of pops, a number of pops into my head sometimes and I can't necessarily teach anyone else like my method, but I know with the baseball like I'm not perfect, I have plenty of games where I kind of miss. But it's good enough that we can take those same opening 3k limits and by the time you know we have lineups out the following day and we go to our full limits of 20 K, that we didn't get ourselves in a bad position Cause I made up just horrifically bad number on the opener when it comes to NFL. 

13:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So hold up, hold up. Sorry to cut you off. Be honest here. How often are you looking at other books that I've posted before you guys on the numbers. 

13:11 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Oh, always, okay, yeah, you are. As a bookmaker and odds maker, I mean, you'd be crazy to not be aware of an existing market. I think, now, there's certain things where that's easier than others. You know, if you have a screen where you can just, you know, look at the odds from a bunch of different sports books, that's easy. If you need to, you know, go onto websites and log into apps to try to find a number on a given market. That's another story and we might not be as worried about what somebody else has when that's the story and we might not be as worried about what somebody else has when that's the case. But you know, as bookmakers, when we're working, we've got multiple screens dedicated to monitoring the global market. Like, we are very aware of that and that's how a lot of people bet as well. 

13:59
You got some people that are just pure scalpers and middlers and they're only betting because they can guarantee themselves a profit, because another book has another number. So if I'm gonna make, like one of those overnight baseball lines, like I can make my own number, but I'm going to check to see if anybody else has it up before I hang our number, like I'm not. I'm not trying to show off, I'm not trying to win like any brownie points or anything like that. You know, I'm trying to be smart about this and if there's another book who has an opinion that I respect, like I'm going to factor that in and I might, you know, move off of my number a little bit, cause I don't think like I'm the only intelligent person in this space, like I'm. I'm going to respect the market, I'm going to respect other bookmakers and odds makers that I think know what they're doing. 

14:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough. So you were. You were about to touch on NFL. 

14:51 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
before I cut you off, let's get back to that, yeah, for NFL, you know, circa I think a lot of people know has made a mark with the college football openers and we've really made an effort to be first in the world opening college football sides and totals on a weekly basis on Sundays during the season, nfl not so much. I've got to give a lot of credit to Westgate and the guys I used to work with because when I worked there and they still do it to this day like they will put out the following week's NFL lines on the Tuesday before the current week. So that's you know way in advance and like we're not gonna well, at least currently we're not gonna fight them on that, like we'll give them that honor of being first in the world on NFL. And I think a few other books also end up putting some of the following week's lines up before the current week's games are played. And then they're very fast to get those numbers updated on Sunday afternoons, usually before the afternoon games end, and we just haven't made that a priority to try to be first in that space. 

16:07
Now the area where we can differentiate ourselves are the games where a quarterback is questionable, and there's often books just don't want to put up a number if a quarterback's questionable because he could be, you know, anywhere from two to eight points value for the line and obviously you know if Aaron Rodgers is questionable, that means whatever number you put up is wrong, like you have to be somewhere in the middle and know that if someone beats you to that information on him being active for the game or not, like like they're going to have a good bet, but you know we'll me and a couple of other people will come up with a number for a game in those situations and you know nobody else will have it because they're not comfortable putting up a number when a key player is questionable. 

17:00
We'll throw something out there and we know if we get a limit bet, we're going to want to move that number significantly more than we would in a normal NFL game. Because if Aaron Rodgers is questionable and they're, you know, betting Packers minus five and he's active and that means Packers should be minus eight and a half. Well, if I go from five to five and a half, I'm really asking for it because I could end up with four or five bets on the Packers before we get to the right number and like I don't ever want that to happen in any market. I don't want to take like four sharp bets on the same side without having anything on the other. So you know, we'll do some unique things with NFL props, but when it comes to putting out the sides and totals, it's those injury games where I think we really, you know, stand apart from the competition. 

17:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I find this to be a very interesting conversation. We've had a lot of guests on Circles Off before, but most on the betting side of things and less so on the bookmaking side have we had a bookmaker on before? 

18:03
I'm trying to think off the top of my head if we have or not I don't think we have which I'm unpacking a lot of what you've had to say here, chris, and there's just so many things that pop into my head that I can go over here. But I'm very curious on how much of your process is, let's say, proactive versus reactive. So obviously you work as part of a team. Let's say, somebody sets an MLB overnight line. You come in in the morning at 5 am and you're looking and you're like you know what. This just doesn't feel right to me, or I think this is gonna move one way or another. When groups start betting in half an hour or so, would you proactively move something like that that you didn't feel is right? Would you wait for action? Walk me through how that works when you're working in sort of like a team-based environment where there's multiple people who have input into moving a line. 

18:54 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So this, actually this whole process would start with the overnights and, like I said, it's usually somebody else on the team that's opening the numbers and none of them are going to be real opinionated with the numbers in the way that I would. And when I'm looking at the overnight market and our numbers are already up, you know and I'm making a number for a game where there isn't a line, but we know the pitchers I'm also looking through every other game that has a market, every other game that has a market, and I got an opinion on everything and I don't want to like annoy my team and be like, oh, can you move this one, five cents or whatever. I only want to have them do something. If I'm like really adamant, that okay, I think this is just not a good number and I do not want to take a bet at this number. But in my mind I'll be like, yeah, I kind of like this one side a little bit, but I'm just gonna let it go. Like, yeah, I kind of like this one side a little bit, but I'm just going to let it go, like I don't want to annoy these guys too much. 

19:50
And I come in in the morning and you know, I look at where we're at, where the market's, at what we've taken for bets, and very frequently I'm just moving something on air not because we took a bet. And it's funny because, like you, can look at the odd screen and see a number move at circa. But how do you know if we took a bet or not? Right, like a lot of these moves early in the morning are because we took a bet. A lot of them are because I just have an opinion and I moved it and we didn't take a bet. So if you're out there making an assumption that oh, circuit just took a sharp bet on something, um, you might be wrong. So, yeah, that's happening pretty much every morning that I'm coming in and doing the baseball. 

20:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And I would presume that this is happening across multiple sports. I'm good friends with Jeff Davis. I know that he does a lot of the NHL and golf stuff. I would imagine this process is Davis. I know that he does a lot of the NHL and golf stuff. I would imagine this process is the same, or or is it? 

20:50 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
is it dependent just on the person? 

20:51
Yeah, I think it matters. 

20:53
When the person that's like really the most knowledgeable for that given market is the one in the office like booking the games, that person would be moving something because of opinion they have or some information they just found out, without needing to see a bet come in. 

21:15
Like if I'm booking NBA, like I don't follow NBA close enough to have a real opinion, so everything would be reactive. When it comes to nba, right, you know, I come in at at 5 am, like I would for baseball, and it's like, okay, I'm doing the nba today because that's what the team needs. Then I wouldn't like touch anything until I took a bet or I saw like the market steaming really hard in one direction because, like I don't know, I don't have an intelligent opinion on this, so that's happening, you know, some of the time, because we don't have specialization at all times in all markets, so you just have to use like kind of general bookmaking skill, like I would need to do with MBA, and that's a lot of the time where a given market is being booked by someone that's not really a specialist in it. 

22:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Right, One thing we kind of just brushed over and I'm curious about is, obviously you're very confident in your ability to set a number for MLB and NFL. How did you validate that your opinion is worthwhile? And when I say that, did you do it through betting? Were you a pro? Better for several years? Was it just something where you constantly paid attention to the market and you started saying, oh, the numbers I'm making you know things are moving that way. Just curious in terms of your background there and how you validated that these opinions that you have or these numbers that you set are worth something. 

22:48 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I think the biggest reason I have confidence in any given market, in setting a number, is because I've been a sports bettor. 

22:57
I've made so many bets over the course of my life and while I was working at the Hilton I really learned how to make a good bet and how I did in a given sport and over the course of a full season. 

23:29
And once you, you know, accumulate a large enough sample size there, you can confidently say, okay, like I know how to spot an edge, I know if a number is solid or I know if a number is weak. 

23:43
And I don't know how long that process took I mean, it was probably at least four or five years probably where I got to a point and I could say, okay, at least in this given market, like I know how to identify a good bet. And to identify a good bet, it means you can make a good number. You can say, like well, here's the price being offered, here's the implied probability, but here's what I think it really should be and so I'm going to bet it because there's a big enough difference here. And just that you know, accumulation of experience and results from my betting over time has given me that confidence that like, okay, I really do know in this space here and can have an opinion in setting a number and in booking games, and it doesn't have to be 100% reactive and just trying to like balance things out as much as possible, right. 

24:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's a. That's one of the things I wanted to get into as well. So, um, I spend a lot of my time on on social media. Uh, there's a lot of people who think that they have it figured out, as if they've worked behind the counter before, who are formulating opinions on on what odds makers are trying to do, whether that's you know they're they're baiting me into setting traps and so on and so forth. 

25:04
But I think the trap game, yeah, as if, as if, um, anyways, the one that really stands out to me, um, which I've actually, you know, I I've worked in the betting space, consulted for sports books before, never worked as a trader or anything like that. But, uh, get different opinions on this question depending on who I ask, and there's a common perception out there that books, as best as they possibly can, are trying to balance the action as close to 50-50 as possible, so that, regardless of the outcome of the game, the book is winning money For Circa. Is there any truth to that? And, if not, how do you, as a book, decide that you're fine with taking a liability on one side, or a big liability in some cases, and will you guys do anything to actually offload any of the risk? 

25:54 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
It is definitely not true that books are trying to get 50-50 action on a given market and guarantee a win on either side. I mean, in practice that's pretty much impossible, like with our limits or like any reasonable limits. That's just impossible to do. Like stuff's gonna happen to make you imbalanced, to have liability on the side and especially if you take a bet at the last minute and you literally have no time to get a bet back on the other side. Like almost every market, you have a winning side and a losing side. As the book, and over a large enough sample, you know you expect the VIG to work out in your favor and that you don't need to to win. You know 50 of the time, um to be profitable and I mean that's just talking about like point spread sports, where people are betting minus 110, but the principle still applies to, you know, any given market where the sports book has some positive, um theoretical edge over the customers. 

27:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So how often, oh sorry, how often would you have a play. How often would you have a position on a game where you're profitable, no matter what, and how often would you have a position where you lose money, no matter what? 

27:20 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Um, I don't know. I mean it's less than 2% of the time probably, where you're like going to win something on either side. It's pretty much always the case where you would lose something. Like that difference in it being $100 or $100,000, you know, is going to be, you know, very different from game to game, but it's just extremely rare that you win on both sides. 

27:50
The thing that I wanted to say about sort of bookmaking philosophy, the way I look at it, is you know, you put up a market first and foremost. I mean you want people to bet. Like sportsbook can't make any money, nobody bets, so you want to put up a number that is going to lead to a decent amount of volume, like it's a thing that people want to bet on. If I put up baseball games and it's minus one 60 on one side and plus one 20 on the other, we're probably not going to get a lot of betting interest, like that's an ugly price on both sides and like then there's just no point of doing this if the big is so big and the margins are so wide. So you, you know, when you think about your pricing, it's got to be something that's attractive to people that might want to bet into the given market and then the other thing you want to do is try to get, as you know, large of a ratio of as possible, of a ratio as possible of square money to sharp money. And that's oversimplifying things, because there isn't really a big gap between squares and sharps. Like people that are betting a decent amount of money on sports have gotten like way more sophisticated over time. So to just lump people into like two categories, like that isn't fair and it's really not accurate. But it's just my way of describing how I want to book. 

29:17
Like I want to be taking action where I don't feel I need to move the number a ton, like if it's a football game and they're betting minus five, like I don't want to have to move to minus seven, I want to be able to move to minus five and a half and get money at plus five and a half, so that that really really sharp money is the bets that you're going to have to move more strongly. And you want to get to that point where you have enough confidence in the number and you don't think that people betting have that big of an edge where you need to be moving it all that much, because that's where you know the sports book is, is going to make its money, is going to have its edge where it's earning something. Now it's straightforward when they're betting plus five, minus 110 and minus five, minus 110. But when you're moving the numbers around, then you got to think about, well, what is the value of this half point like? 

30:10
Are we actually, you know, earning anything by taking a bet on the favorite at minus 110 but a half point different, and betting the dog at minus 110? So those are the two factors that you know I'm thinking about all the. And if we're putting stuff up and just nobody wants to bet it, then we're like we're doing something wrong. If we're putting stuff up and they are only betting it because it's just horrifically bad numbers, well then we're still doing something wrong because it's not possible for us to win that way. And then I think there's a second part to your question there that I forgot. If you can repeat that, johnny, Okay, so you know. 

30:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I think my my question was more along the lines of also like is there ever a scenario I mean, I know there is, obviously, but where you're going to lose no matter what, on the position right, so something where maybe, like you move the money line too much, you got action on two on the wrong side of both both the numbers and then couldn't get another bet back to even it out, so you're like left with a small loser. Does that ever happen in baseball? 

31:16 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Oh, sure that can happen. Here's a simple example you take what is a limit bet at the time at like minus one, 20 for 3000. A little bit later you take a limit bet on the same side, at minus 130 for 5000. And then, like later on, limits are even higher and you're taking a bet on the underdog at like plus 128 for 10,000. Well, in that scenario, yes, somebody laid minus 130, and somebody took plus 128. But taking 10,000 at plus 128, taking 5,000 at minus 130, 3,000 at minus 120, a math's not perfect there, but you'd probably get the idea where, because of the different prices that the bets were made at and the differing amounts, you'd actually be lose-lose on both sides. 

32:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, so how often does that happen? I know there's scenarios which it could, but would you say that happens, you know, is it weekly, monthly, daily? 

32:14 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I mean, it's maybe not daily, but it's not that infrequent. What happens in practice is you take a series of bets like that and you're not lose-lose on both sides. But when you look at your net, you're not lose-lose on both sides. 

32:35
But when you look at your net position, your win-lose, your net price is worse than the closing number. As the bookmaker, so it's like, yeah, it's not a good position where the market closed minus 130 on a side, but you, as the book, need the favorite and you're actually laying minus 160. If you look at, you know your win loss. That's what happens a lot got it. 

32:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So you are. You are basically pulling in a bunch of negative ev positions on at the daily close and then you have to figure out how to like. You know what I mean. May not be you may not end up being a loser, but it's scenarios where you believe, based on your closing line, that I guess it is. It is negative EV, if I'm understanding that correctly. 

33:09 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Yeah, there's plenty of those, but you know you try to make those positions as small as possible. And then you know your bigger decisions where you have a you know a better chance to win money that should outweigh all of these. You know smaller cases where, yeah, you effectively have a bad price as the bookmaker. That's just like the nature of the industry. No matter how good you are at making numbers and booking, you're just going to end up in situations like that because there's just so many markets that are offered on a daily basis and if you're offering fair pricing and fair limits, it's just unavoidable. 

33:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay. So as of and I'll preface this by saying, as of today's date you know, circa doesn't limit winning players, right? So if you're listening to this, in three years and circus started limiting winners, we've we've reduced our exposure. I'm not on the hook for that, but as of today at least, and in the recent history, circa has not limited professional bettors or winning bettors, and then they offer a fair limit sheet to all. It's one of the best features of the sports book, in my opinion. 

34:18
Um, but a question for you here, chris, is you know, how do you deal with the whole? Like you know, because you are, you are not limiting winners, right? So how do you deal with the whole? Like you know, because you are, you are not limiting winners, right? So how do you deal with the whole? Like profiled accounts versus non profiled accounts? You know we have a lot of people who you mentioned you can't just classify as sharp square, right, you might have. Okay, this guy's a recreational guy, came from out of town. Every time he comes, dunks 100 grand on whatever his favorite team is, and I'm sure you're not moving the line on that. But how are you dealing with the other classes of players? How do you classify people and then how do you actually build that grading into someone who is a new, fresh account that just got opened. 

34:58 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Yeah, so that's like an ongoing process. Every day, you know, you've got new accounts, names that nobody on the team maybe has ever encountered before, and that's where, like, our communication and our bookmaking skill, you know, have to be combined so that we're making good decisions on this. And you know, for players that have a large sample size of bets, you know and you've gotten to understand, you know if they're good or not. You see if they're winning over a large sample size, are they moving the market? Are they beating the closing number? That sort of thing. You should have coherent strategy for how you're going to book their bets. 

35:42
But when it's a new person and you know they want to bet your posted limit or more number one, we got to figure out how much are we going to let this person bet. It's possible that we will give them a bet that's bigger than what our standard limit is for that market, just to see. Okay, maybe we can work with this. Uh, you know, maybe it'll turn out that this person's making a really sharp bet and it's not one we would extend limits to in the future. Like we, we take those chances all the time. Like we're, we're trying to take everyone's bet, basically, um, and so we'll. We're gonna make ourselves uncomfortable some of the time by accepting certain bets and saying, yeah, we never nobody knows who this person is. They want to bet this. Um, it's more than our posted limit, but you know we'll, we'll do it, we'll take a chance on this and, obviously um be very aware of what happens with this market going forward and, obviously, whether they win that bet or not. So it's really about, like, everyone on the team being aware of these bets, whether they're in the office when it happens or not, and talking about okay, well, you really got to look at the specifics to the given market they're betting into. Are they the first real bet into that market? Did we already get sharp bets in that market? 

37:08
On the same side, on the opposite side, is it a situation where there is a key player questionable and maybe we think this person has that information? That's probably the number one concern or uncertainty when it comes to these new players looking to make big bets. We had a situation in the NBA playoffs where somebody wanted to make a pretty big bet on some obscure player's points prop and one of the other players on his team was questionable. So we were thinking, well, maybe he knows, because if that other guy's out, then this guy betting over on this other guy's player points is a good bet. So you know, we were aware of that. 

37:55
But you know, we, we talk about it, we make a decision, we accept a bet and then we follow up on that and we remember that name and we, you know we've got our records of all the bets that a given person has made under their account. Like you can't come to circa and bet, you know, for more than our posted limit without you know identifying yourself. Like you can't do it anonymously, like you'll have to have a player's card or something like that Cause we that, to be a good bookmaker, you're, you're profiling all of your customers, and so it's just a process of you know that very first attempted bet and then just setting that precedent and figuring out as time goes on and that person makes more bets, like, okay, is this somebody that we can extend limits to and, if so, how much? And just having you know so many customers and doing this process over and over, it's just a daily thing. Um, it's just, it's a routine and it becomes basic, you know, once you've done it, um, for a while. 

39:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
How closely are you guys looking at the props? You mentioned, like the prop stuff here, so obviously the major markets there, but are you moving props for injuries or are you just moving them on action? 

39:12 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
If we've got a prop market up and there's some like injury information that is relevant to a prop that's open for betting, you know we could be moving things around without taking a bet. I'll give you an example. Like for NFL props, lots of times you know, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends are questionable and if a given player is active or inactive, that's going to impact the expected targets and usage of players that you might have props on. You know, sometimes we will offer props on players that are questionable. Sometimes we just won't use that player, but we know that player's availability is going to impact the other players. 

39:56
So if it's, what is it an hour and a half before kickoff of an NFL game that we've got props open for? And you know I look and see the inactives and some, you know, questionable wide receivers. Then we know if he's active or not. I might go quickly, be moving numbers on other players on his team, not waiting for someone to bet it, because I just have the opinion that, okay, you know this, let's say he's. This guy is out. That's going to mean more usage, more targets for this other guy that we've got a yardage number and a receptions number on. So I'm just going to go move that, like I don't want to take a bet at this number. 

40:36
Sometimes it's in a gray area, where even if I get that information first, I'm kind of like I don't know what the market's going to do with this. I'm just going to let them bet this number, even though I know, like the information, and just move accordingly, cause I just don't know. 

40:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Interesting, chris. I wanted to walk through just a potential hypothetical example here and how a trading team would react to it. So let's just say news comes down that the league has handed out a suspension to Deshaun Watson. Obviously, you guys have a bunch of stuff on the board, whether that's Cleveland Browns over under, total wins, divisional futures, super Bowl futures, season lines, whatever, so on and so forth. Obviously, this is going to get taken off the board. But walk us through what's going on in the Circa back office at that time. Is it one of those things where you guys realize that there's probably a large appetite for people to start betting stuff now? So you're going to quickly act on that. Try to figure out what a new number is, post it right away. Is it something where you take your time? Do a little bit more due diligence, try to work through it. How many people are involved in that process? So just walk us through what would typically happen in a situation like that. 

41:54 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Okay, and this is good because it's a real-life example. We don't know what discipline is going to be handed down to Deshaun Watson, and it's possible he won't be suspended for any games. It's possible he'll be suspended for a full season, and this is a guy that's considered a top-ten quarterback in the NFL and a whole heck of a lot better than the Browns' fallback option right now, which is Jacoby Brissett, who has some experience in the NFL and has not demonstrated that he is a starting caliber quarterback, and so the difference over the course of a full season from Jacoby Brissett to Deshaun Watson is pretty significant. And we've got markets available right now on Cleveland Browns regular season wins yes, no, will they make the playoffs Odds to win the Super Bowl, the conference and the AFC North. Now this market has already moved significantly from the opener based on the expectation that Deshaun Watson is going to get suspended. 

42:57
Now the tricky part is well, what is the market pricing in right now? Has it already priced in a full season? Is it somewhere in between? Is it kind of pricing in half of a season? I don't really know. I mean, part of that might be like I'm not as good with NFL as I am with baseball and, like I said earlier when I was talking about making numbers, like I don't have some fancy model for making baseball numbers, I don't have some fancy model for making baseball numbers. I don't have some fancy model for making NFL numbers where I've got okay, here's my numbers with Deshaun Watson in, here's my numbers with Jacoby Bursette in for a full season. A lot of this is by feel and by. You know all of the bets we've taken up to this point, so you know it's going to make a big difference. Number one, if this news happens when I'm in the office or if I'm not, it's like we talked about earlier. 

43:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So presuming, you're presuming, you're in, then what happens? You're in, you're in office. 

44:00 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I'm going to be happy that I'm there when this information, so let's say it drops like 10. 

44:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Pacific, so we're looking at like 1 pm Eastern time. You just got in, settled in and then news drops. I assume the first move is okay to rip everything off the board. So you guys have done that. Now what happens? 

44:22 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So in a case like this, where the value of the information is so significant. Yes, we will probably take it off the board. We don't like to take things off the board in general. We'd rather have things available for vetting at all times and sometimes you know that limit will be less than what it otherwise might be until you know the market gets a little stronger and the market tells us sort of what that number should be based on the new information. But in this case, yeah, I'm probably taking a few markets off the board quickly and trying to get them updated and back open for betting as quickly as possible. And that should be, if I'm in the office, that should be like less than 15 minutes until they're back open for betting as quickly as possible. And that should be if I'm in the office. That should be like less than 15 minutes until they're back open for betting. Now I might have the limit lower than it currently is. So, like right now, you can make a pretty decent size bet, and maybe someone out there actually knows the answer and it just hasn't been announced publicly. So we're kind of, you know, vulnerable to that, because I certainly don't know right now what the nfl is going to do. But assuming we all get the information at the same time. Um, we're going to make a quick adjustment and really it's just going to be by feel and I'll have the limit at a number where it's like, okay, I'm willing to take a bet for this amount here, and if they bet it, I'm just going to move it really number where it's like okay, I'm willing to take a bet for this amount here, and if they bet it, I'm just going to move it really strong. And it's entirely possible that you know, whatever I, I have that number at. Let's say, watson is suspended for the entire season and right now our number on Brown season wins is eight and a half, with the under minus one, 20. And suppose, like my just quick move was browns eight under minus 120. So I just move it a half win from where we were at now. 

46:15
Anyone out there who has an opinion on what the number should be might say, oh, that's, that's not a good number, that's not the point here. Um, I'm getting the market back open for betting and taking the limit that like we can handle if it's ends up being a really good bet for the customer, but also not so low that it's like embarrassing to say, oh, we're only taking like 500 on this when it's like an nfl season wins market. So with that new number, you know, if someone bets it for the limit and it's an account we really respect it's entirely possible. I'm moving in a full half win and I know a half win is worth more than 20 cents. Like I'm technically scalping myself If I'm doing that. I just want to find resistance as quickly as I can and I know we're going to take maybe multiple bets that aren't really positive expected value for the house. Like that's just what we accept when we're trying to keep these markets open for betting. 

47:19
In situations like this where there's a suspension and like we really don't know what that number is going to settle at, and just like the individual games where a player is questionable and you just you got to move the numbers around really aggressively way more than you normally would and you just forget about, like actually earning anything until later on in the process and you just hope that later on you'll have a number that's really solid and you'll be writing an action on both sides and earning and it'll all outweigh those smaller bets that you took early on as the market was forming. 

47:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Interesting, yeah, so that makes that makes a ton of sense. 

47:59
Price discovery, basically Price discovery yeah, but I think what's cool about it is that you are taking the bets from everyone, right? So the price discovery for you is very it's like anyone could bet it, there's. No, you don't limit the player who is now going to bet that and get take advantage of it, like you don't. You're not being like, oh, let's review all the accounts that bet the under eight and a half soon as the watson news came out, and like let's limit all those guys to a dollar, right? So that's the part I think I respect the most, and it's like what you said sometimes you're taking a slight negative position. Add, obviously, a lower risk amount versus your posted limit or standard limit in order to get that price discovery and then now have the sharpest number for the higher posted limit. So much respect on that. I'm I'm I'm pretty, actually impressed with that answer and I'm glad you guys are looking to even not take stuff off the board as much as possible, like, as you mentioned, to start it off as well. 

48:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, chris, I want to touch on closing line value here for a second. It's something that's come up on many episodes of this podcast, but particularly I want to bring it up because of again, I live on social media, probably a little bit too much, but over the course of the last couple nfl seasons I've seen it now more than ever especially. I bring up the last couple of seasons because of all the covid news over the course of nfl where we've seen more drastic shifts I would say in point spreads totals than we've typically seen in years past, off of injury news. And over the course of the last couple years I've particularly noticed people complaining of not believing the closing line is efficient in the NFL. How many times they've beat the market by sometimes a touchdown, and still lost their bets. So I'd like to get your take and your opinion on the strength of the NFL closing line. 

49:46 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I think it's very strong, but I think it's probably equally as strong in all the other major American sports. Yes, the NFL is the most popular from a betting perspective, but the strength of that, the number at close on a given NFL game, the number at close on a given NFL game, it's probably equally as strong as pretty much any MLB, nba, nhl regular season game as well. So, even though it's much more high profile and there's a lot more betting interest and you could say there should be more efficiency because there's more people, more participants that are shaping that number, I don't think there's a drastic difference in the efficiency of those numbers. The closing number definitely, you know, over a small sample it's not like absolutely ironclad. This is the correct number but it's pretty much the best estimator that we have of the probabilities, like over the long run. 

51:00
I think the market is very good, very strong, if you're consistently getting a half point worse than close in nfl or any other major sport like. I don't think anyone out there is manipulating these markets to the degree where there's that kind of value at close, like I think it's very tough to beat and it it does have importance. And if you're, you're only beating the number, though by five cents or half a point, not around a key number. Yeah, you might be losing and that might not be good enough. So, like the closing number is, it's very important, but it's not everything, and there can certainly be someone who is winning betting into the closing and someone who's getting a half point better and they're losing. 

51:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Off the top of your head? I hate to put you on the spot with something like this, but I just kind of want to flip this on its head a little bit. Obviously, clv, you know, plays less of a role closer to game time, for obvious reasons. But is there anyone off the top of your head that's betting NFL, betting MLB, that is consistently not beating the close but winning, so something that you would consider somewhat of a unicorn, where over a large sample size, you see a better that doesn't get great value, betting into extremely late markets. A lot of the times or market tends to move against them, but they've still shown a profit over time. And then how do you handle profiling that type of better? 

52:37 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I would say there's probably a handful of accounts that would fit that profile, that I can think of, where you're. They're not consistently beating the closing number and they're winning over a large enough sample size. You know, certainly betting enough money that, like we're aware of it, it's definitely possible that you have people betting small enough stakes and I'm just not aware that they're winning, even though they have no market influence and are not necessarily beating the closing number. So you know, it's probably less than 10 accounts that I can think of, and when I think of the many thousands that we have, obviously that's a very, very small percentage, for most people like to get to that level of expertise where you can win with your opinion, basically because that's that's what it is. 

53:39
If you're not beating the closing number but yet you're not such a big presence in the marketplace For whatever reason, you know, maybe your risk tolerance is just at a certain level when you know you you're sharp, like you have an edge, like you could maybe bet more and move the market around, but you don't, for whatever reason, like those people exist and like anyone out there who thinks like maybe that's not possible, or like you, the whole goal should be to beat a closing number. Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat and there are people out there that can win. You know, betting an opinion and it doesn't have to always be being on the same side of some group that's moving the market, or you're just out there and you look on your screen and you say one book has a half point better on a given side than another. Like you might really struggle to make any money doing it that way, but if and I really think this speaks to what kind of approach a better wants to have like I find sports betting way more fun and interesting if I have my own opinion. 

54:55
If I'm just, you know, betting a number because it's different at one book than another, to me that's not as fun. Like I get a lot of um, I got a lot of satisfaction out of like okay, I analyzed, you know, this game or this player or this season or whatever it might be. And like I feel confident that I identified value. I made a bet, and you know that one bet my win or lose, but over a large enough sample. Like, oh, I'm profitable doing this and it certainly can be done without know, oh, you crushed the, the closing line on that, because lots of times line moves lose and getting a half point better than the close is just it's not good enough to win yeah, I understand it might be fulfilling to originate your own opinion, but honestly, like, for me, I just I just want to win right. 

55:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like, yeah, the most, like the most satisfying thing is actually just winning money. Versus like, oh, I, I get it, it feels great. Like if you spot something and you're like, okay, this is my thing, I just found this, and then you win money off, that like it does feel good. But, above all else, like just actually winning the bets is what always, you know, has gotten to me versus the, the whole appeal of like winning the beating the market, like I just want to win them. Like whoever wins the most money, I feel like is the winner right yeah, I, I agree with you. 

56:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I, I think this matt, I mean obviously, I think, uh, individual characteristics matter in this a lot, like for me, um, who predominantly bets hockey and football. You know, I want to be the best in those sports period. Well, who's the best in those sports? The one who's winning the most money yes, I would agree but it's there. 

56:44
There's some element of satisfaction knowing that, like, like, if you look at a top-down approach, right, someone who's just picking off stale numbers or reacting to market movement or whatever, there's some sort of satisfaction for me that those people could not exist without me. Do you know what I'm getting at? 

57:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough, but I'm saying, like the, whoever has the sharpest number, the sharpest mind, yes, are they the winner? Or is the winner the person who made the most, the person who made the most is is is the ultimate winner, in my opinion. 

57:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Chris, you can feel free to do a question then. Yeah, let's hear it. 

57:18 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So let's just say you know. So, Rob, you're really into hockey, right? Yes, let's say you know you're doing your whole process for hockey and you have an acquaintance that also does hockey. Now you guys talk, but you really do your own thing and you have very similar size bankrolls. You typically risk about the same amount on something that you consider a 3% edge or whatever. A lot of similarities. But one day this guy inherits a hundred million dollars and so now he's got a much bigger bankroll than he had and he's just going to amplify everything because of that inheritance, and so he's basically got the same process that he had, but his bets are much bigger now and now he's winning the most money, even though, like on a percentage basis, you guys are doing equally well. Is he the winner? 

58:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
so here's my rebuttal. I got a good rebuttal. Go ahead. I've brought it up before, but it's a fish in market hypothesis. Eventually it'll even out. So if this guy is truly betting the most in the market and winning, then he will continue to win more and continue to bet more and he will stay on top. If he's the betting the most in the market but he's actually not winning and somebody else is winning more, then eventually that person who's winning more will grow his or her bankroll and then bet more and then eventually it adds up Now inheriting like a hundred million dollars in sports betting. 

58:57
It's not really that big of a deal because, as you know, the limits, you know outside of a few books, are not really conducive to having a hundred million dollars. So having, in some cases, not all, but having, for example, actually I'll go as far as to say having a $100 million bank roll and a $10 billion bank roll for sports betting, is going to be largely the same, would you say, in terms of volume getting down. Yeah, probably Right, having a thousand versus a hundred thousand obviously going to be wildly different, but because of that, what I'd say is because there's a kind of a cap to really how much you can get down, and then there's other ways you need to maneuver it. I think whoever is actually the sharpest and whether that be from the origination standpoint or moving, or reading, market or connections, whatever it might be whoever is the sharpest will be the person who ends up, over the long run, betting the most and winning the most. 

59:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's a tough question to answer. I'll tell you how I validate what I what I do with hockey and that's just basically on the market's reaction to my plays. And like, when I bet out a hockey game, it's extremely rare that it's gonna come back against me and if it does, someone who's moving that hockey game for me is just gonna plow it back in the other direction anyway. So I'm artificially creating my own closing line value, but to me that's a validation that what I'm doing is well-respected. Now there's other people in the hockey space as well where the market will respect their stuff as well, but stuff will also move against them. That's not injury related or stuff like that. So I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to put it into perspective, like it's a really good question and in your scenario I wouldn't consider that person more successful just because they're making more money. So maybe it's not. Maybe it's more ROI, market validation, like a lot of stuff that plays into it. 

01:00:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But I still think it's most money because ROI first off, if I wanted to bet like man, I'm just probably going to get some flack or whatever. But if I want to just bet like $100 unit size, I want to see you earn like probably 30% yeah. 

01:00:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Agree with you there and I have way more volume now than I used to as well. So my ROI is like it's lower than it would be just because I'm playing smaller edges. So maybe ROI is a bad example, but I don't know, it's hard to say. I think in the, I think in the betting space, you just kind of validated by your peers a lot of the time and what people you know, people that have been moving for you or working with you and and what they say, and it's not necessarily for me. I obviously want to make as much money as possible or whatever, but to me I don't view it as um I you know there's probably people making more money than me just because they're willing to risk more money on the stuff than I actually am capable of. Would that make them a more better hockey? Better they're, you know, they're just more financially capable of getting down more. You know what I'm getting at. 

01:01:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, but if you're the best in the world, then that means you're going to make so much this year that next year you're not going to double your bet size. Then, year after that, you're going to double it and then you're going to be there right right away two and a half to three years, yes, but then what happens is, when you have a year, that's a setback or something like that. 

01:01:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I guess you're not the best in the world that well, I mean you you know, you know how it could happen, I do. 

01:01:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But but in theory, if you did have a huge negative year, then that would basically determine yeah, okay, well, I guess he's not right if if yeah, no, I stick by that. I stick by that statement. Okay, it's very, it's very tricky. I'm, I'm, I don't, I'm not trying to sound um no, no, I get it. 

01:02:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I actually think it's just that's my, that's my it's a valid argument. I actually would love to open this up to anyone that's listening in the YouTube comments. 

01:02:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Um, if you agree or disagree with also under the tweet or or DM cause. I know we're not as big on YouTube as we are audio. 

01:02:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
True, anywhere you want be interested to hear perspectives on this Before we get to the final question, chris, I just wanted I mean I think we have to touch on the general state of the market because of what Circa does. So Circa is obviously very different in that high limits. We're typically not seeing this in the space right now. Do you think that we will eventually see a market shift where most sports books are willing to cater to sharps or at least accept a real bet, or do you think that the existing landscape now is how it's going to be for years to come? 

01:03:08 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I don't see it changing unless other operators are forced to change, where a regulator would have to say you know, you must take at least X, you know, on a given market or on any market, from anybody that wants to bet into it. Without that I don't see why books would change. Books have made money for a long time with this strategy of identifying sharp customers and severely restricting them, if not banning them outright. Some casino, you know product tied to your sportsbook that can bring those, the square customers, in and you can shut out the sharper customers. You might be able to continue operating that way. If you've got some mobile app that has a sportsbook but also a bunch of casino games, you know, maybe you're able to retain customers through that. As long as there's some avenue to keep that segment of the customers that are profitable and regulators are not forcing them to do anything to accommodate, you know, the sharper customers, then I don't see it changing. 

01:04:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If you were running one of the more mainstream books obviously ones with massive marketing budgets DraftKings, fanduel, I can go on. What's one change that you would immediately make if you were running one of those books? 

01:04:43 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
It's a little hard to answer that question because, you know, I'm not on the inside of those other sports books operations, like I don't know what all of their challenges are and limitations and things that are just maybe impossible, that to us seem possible or even fundamental. So I don't want to be too preachy about anything. To be too preachy about anything. But the one thing that I will say that I'm very proud of that we do I mean it's a little easier to implement with our Nevada and Iowa apps than it is our Colorado app but just clearly displaying what the standard limit is on a given market for anybody. Like I don't want to have to play guessing games when I'm trying to make a bet. Right, like you find something and you're like, oh, I think this is really good. You know I'd like to bet 10,000 on it, but I don't know what they're taking. I know if I try this amount, it's going to come up for approval. Maybe they're just going to get mad at me for trying to bet 10,000. And they're going to give me 1,000. Where if I try for 2,000, they give it to me. That sort of game I hate. 

01:06:02
So I'm in favor of every operator just making it clear like here's what we can promise everybody on this market and you know it's not about equaling what Circa is doing in a different market. Like I'm not going to criticize someone for having a lower limit than us, just be transparent about it. Like this is what we can promise you. You know you can try for more. Maybe you know be able to place that bet, but to to have it be something where you just don you know be able to place that bet, but to to have it be something where you just don't know you got to play this game to try to get a bet down. Or you do get restricted to some obscenely low number, provided you know your account's not trying to bet the same thing at the same time as a hundred other accounts. Like that to me is like the number one thing, that that's most important. That could be improved upon, I think, by a lot of operators. 

01:06:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I've been meaning to ask somebody at Circa this question so it's not on the question list, so feel free to. We can cut it out if you, if you don't want to. But what percentage of players do you guys think beat you guys at Circa? So what percentage of players? And if you can give the info, actually end up positive on the year, not not just like fluke you know, hey, this guy came in and hit us big at the end of his trip in vegas but what percentage of winners do you guys have? And how do you think that compares to like a percentage of winners at like DraftKings or FanDuel? 

01:07:31 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
So I don't have this information like readily available. We do have some people in our data analytics team that could probably like compile this information. I can, I can take a guess and you know, probably want to filter out accounts that have only made a handful of bets when we're asking this question, right? 

01:07:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yeah, I'm talking like real long term winners. Yeah, not a guy who just came to vegas, won two bets under his player's card and left, and then it's going to come back the next year. Not those, I'm saying real winners right? 

01:08:06 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
um, I feel like it's in like the three to five percent range. So do you think that would be? Higher than draft kings I don't have a reason to believe that our number would be all that much different. Really, I, I, yeah, I. I don't have a strong like sense that other operators number would be much higher or lower than that well, definitely didn't prep you for the question, so I'm not, I wasn't expecting, I mean just my like. 

01:08:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't know the answer to this either. Subjectively, I feel like more players will win at Circa just because of the clientele, because most other sports books that cater to the rec action are going to cut anyone with a pulse, probably to the point where, but then those players could eventually come back in. 

01:09:02
They probably will. A lot of those players are probably finding their way back in through their dad's account and their mother's account and whatever, but the accounts are getting limited to the point now where they're not even usable at some of the books. Right, absolutely, you're talking about $1 limits. They're gone forever. So if I had to guess, I would say more at Circa, more winners at Circa, just because of the clientele. 

01:09:27 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
But that's my hypothesis and I don't know the answer one thing you might want to consider, uh with that question is nobody is picking us off at circa on the hungarian soccer league, true, or triple a baseball, yep or um rebounds by, like the shooting guard for kent state in a in a conference game in uh uh in January, because we don't offer those markets, so we don't have a lot of the softest markets that might be available at other books. 

01:10:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
True, but for every person that's doing that, there's probably 10 donking off a same game. Parlay at 20%, hold 20 more than 20. 

01:10:09
That's what I'm saying that's like exactly. So I agree, I think that take is totally fair. But then I think that there's alternative betting methods and, like the rec, player is way more likely to parlay, way more likely to tease, way more likely to same game parlay and I think you'll probably see way more of that at the rec book. I'd be very interested in what the actual numbers are. I'm not putting you on the spot to provide that to us, chris, but I I mean on a personal level, I'm just very interested to know. 

01:10:41 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I personally would love to like be on the inside of every sports book operator and see, like, how they do things, how it compares to my experience I've only worked at two sports books in my life and obviously things are done very differently at other places and you know, I can only make judgments based on, you know, listening to podcasts that feature other bookmakers and interviews and that sort of thing, and just looking at the menus that other books have, um, but still I'm making a lot of assumptions and I, yeah, I would love to, you know, just see the inside why doesn't circle limit players? 

01:11:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
what's the reason? 

01:11:20 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
uh, it's really the best way for us to to differentiate ourselves and we believe that you know people that are sharp and are betting with us and are long-term winners that they're going to tell other people, regardless of their skill level and whether they're likely to be a winning player or not, that circa is a really good sports book for this reason, like, if you're going to bet on an nfl point spread, well, every sports book has that Like, why should you bet it at Circa? And you know, maybe some of that business we get is because of good word of mouth and having a good reputation and being respected in the industry. So we feel there is value provided by all customers, regardless of how sharp they are. 

01:12:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So our our buddy Spanky, who's been on this podcast before, he always has been saying you know for quite some time that a sharp bookmaker is going to take the info from the sharps that are coming in and then he's going to, they're going to use that to shape the line and make money, more money, all right. So I'm curious to know if you agree with that sentiment or if you think that this would be more along the line. So to answer that question long-winded here, I'll ask it another question, which is if you limited players so everyone who you knew was going to win that five, three to five percent we talked if you just limited all those players sayonara can't bet here anymore. $1.28 limit Are you, as a book, more profitable or less profitable? 

01:12:59 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Today. Yeah, we might be more profitable Five, 10 years from now. I'm not so sure. The way the industry is now, you know there's a handful of books that you can be confident have a strong number in a given market because you know of the limits they take and letting sharp customers bet with them. But if you don't let sharp customers play, then you really are 100% reliant on the screen by being able to copy somebody. And if you can't copy you're screwed Because the sharp people are going to find other people that do get extended limits and will end up making sharp plays at some point. So that's not a game that we play. It's not a game that we want to play Like. We would just rather have the sharp customers like bet in the accounts they want to bet in and know that that's like the sharp action. 

01:14:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, interesting. All right, so I think that's a great way to close it off. Um, we have one final question that we asked to all of our guests. So thank you so much, chris for, uh, for taking the time today. It was incredible speaking with you and, I think, a lot of good info shared. So our final closing question is if you could go back five years, talk to a previous version of yourself. What is one piece of advice that you would give? 

01:14:27 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
Probably to relax. I'm pretty uptight, I sweat the games, I sweat things over a small sample, not that this advice would even work, but, yeah, just to relax more Because I love this industry, I love this work. But you have to accept that, like there's going to be lots of losing games, lots of losing bets, you're going to go on losing streaks, even if every individual bet is a good one. Um, and to enjoy the process and not get so worked up about like the very short term results. 

01:15:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Amen, I can probably get on board with that and probably could use that advice. That's been Chris Bennett. You can follow him on Twitter at BetChris. He's the director of risk at Circus Sports and the primary manager of their MLB and NFL products. Also, I would highly suggest that, if you are in Las Vegas, to check out the Circa Sportsbook, which I've been to several times it's the best place to watch games, love the service there. Truly fantastic experience. If you're in Las Vegas and you want to check out the Circa Sportsbook, chris really appreciate the time. All the best and hopefully you do relax before MLB season merges with NFL season, because I can't imagine what that's like for you. 

01:15:57 - Chris Bennett (Guest)
I appreciate it. Thanks, rob, thanks Johnny, this has been episode 61 of Circles Off. 

01:16:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Please rate and review five stars and we'll catch you next week.