00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
On this week's episode of Circles Off. It's another Q&A episode. You have questions, we have answers. We're going to dive into a bunch of topics. All that and more. This week's episode of Circles Off starts now. Come on, let's go. Welcome to Circles Off, episode number 96. You're on the Circles Off YouTube channel, part of the Hammer Betting Network. Rob Pizzola joined, as always, by Johnny from Betstamp, Episode number 96. 

00:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Who do we have today? 

00:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Rob. So Mikko Rantanen in the NHL wears 96 right now. I'd argue he's probably the most underrated player in the entire league. 

00:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Isn't he a top three pick? Not Barkov, he's a top three pick, he is. 

00:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Let's say he's a top three pick, he is he, he's, he's let's say like he's not viewed in the same light as nathan mckinnon for the as good. 

00:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, fair enough he's a he's a big bomb banger. My favorite 96 jersey, the old vancouver canucks beauty black, orange, red, yellow, pavel beret 96 pavel beret wore for a few years for sure. 

01:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, I don't know how this happens all the time, but every single time I look up an nba like nba jerseys number 96. Did meta world peace change his jersey like every single year? Was he 96 houston? He's the only nba player ever to wear 96, I think he might have just went on. 

01:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He probably did it on purpose Honestly he might have done that. 

01:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Metta World Peace for the Houston Rockets in 2009. Number 96. 

01:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Or 96. Did not know that. 

01:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's not a popular number. Once you get into these higher 90s it seems like more it's more niche. 

01:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
More niche. Fair enough, today is our question and answer episode, but before that, rob has a quick announcement here. March madness is officially over. We did a bracket challenge. We said we're gonna toss out some merch rob. How did we do? 

01:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
well I did. Okay, I actually thought I was gonna be. The people that are following circles off here did a really good job with these brackets. Uh, I finished in the 90th percentile with the bracket that I filled out and I finished in 29th in the pool that we put on Our top hammer creators. If this isn't a plug for Hit the Books on the Hammer Betting Network, I don't know what is. Brad Powers had a 97th percentile bracket. John Fendler, who we had on Circles Off a couple months back, 94th percentile bracket pretty glowing endorsement for hit the books. But three people that entered had yukon winning it all. All of you are eligible for some bet stamp swag, as promised. So all you got to do is hit us up on twitter circles off hq. Hit the dms, we'll get your information, we'll send you out the swag. But credit to this guy who finished in first jacko's hammer bracket 1170 points, 99.9th percentile. Where did he rank amongst all espn? I don't know. I can't see like the full leaderboard because I didn't enter myself click. 

03:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Where can we see that potentially zach on here? Leaderboard leaderboard maybe so he got one 170 hit leaderboard, like that is absurdly good. Oh, there was a guy who got 1600. I don't. I don't know exactly how the scoring system works. Okay, so there is a hundredth percentile here, yes, which doesn't really exist in real life, but yeah it's a little bit weird how they did that, but, oh my god, regardless. 

03:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, there's a lot, there's so there's so many so many entries like an absurd amount of entries. So jacko's hammer, bracket number one, vinny chase number two 99.6 percentile. What a loser vinny chase. Great name, also great character and then, uh, chachi goes left 99.4 percentile. 

03:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't know what that's in reference to congrats to all the winners, something, yeah, we gotta give Pazola a pat on the back here, as well as myself a little bit in our March Madness preview episode. All right now. Would we be mentioning this if they didn't win the tournament? Absolutely not. 

04:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I didn't even remember this. 

04:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
By the way off, we were discussing this off air before we started, so I don't even know if this is true one of the pieces of advice that we did give out you can look back to the episode was you want to pick if you're in a big enough bracket style. You know if you're in a bracket, that's got, you know, 100 to 500 000 people. You want to take a team that is not a number one seed but in theory you want. You don't want a team that can't win the tournament as a low likelihood. So what we actually touted was a good value for this year would be a team like a yukon. That's a four seed, meaning a lot of recreational people may not pick them. The winds are a four seed. However, they were priced a little bit higher than that. Yep, how did we know that? How did we know they were priced higher? We we took a look at Pinnacle Sportsbook. 

04:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Pinnacle, the world's sharpest sportsbook, now available to bettors in Ontario. Find out what professional bettors have known for decades Pinnacle is where the best bettors play. You must be 19 plus. Not available to US residents. And, of course, as always, don't forget about this. Please gamble responsibly. But we did look at the pinnacle odds. 

05:07
I mean listen when people are like I want to be contrarian in sports betting. A lot of times they don't really even know what that means, like people think being contrarian is. Let me look up the public bet percentages on this website and and fade the. There's ways to be contrarian in a smart manner where you can gain an edge. Now, of course, I'm the idiot that picked Alabama in my bracket to go far instead of UConn. I figured after I touted it on the show. You know a lot of people were going to go UConn and had to get off it. But there are ways to be contrarian in sports betting it. But there are ways to be contrarian in sports betting. 

05:47
Today's a Q&A episode. We haven't done one in a long time. For those who want to ask questions in the future, we always send out a tweet on Twitter. Make sure you're following us at CirclesOffHQ on Twitter. We also post it to the community page on our YouTube channel as well. If you're subscribed, you'll see it in your feed. You can ask us questions and if you're not subscribed right now, I don't know what the hell you're doing. It's been 96 episodes. Hit the subscribe button If you like the content. Hit the like button. That allows us to keep doing these episodes over and over and over. I know real Frank Costanza out there. You're not subscribed but you listen every week. Thank you for the support, but just hit the subscribe button. You don't have to be an ass and like this tough guy on the outside. You can just hit the subscribe and support us. 

06:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So I'm going to run through the questions as we normally do. As always, if you have a question, you don't have to wait until the Q&A episodes, you can just send it in any time. And also, we got a lot of amazing guest suggestions last time Guest suggestions and we're actually working on and I've locked down, a couple interesting guests over the next couple weeks. So we appreciate those suggestions. Keep them coming. Berry horse episode that we released unbelievable feedback. Thank you everybody for your support and listening, and there's gonna be plenty more. Where those come from. Uh, starting off the Q&A, we got the Rob section which always is a typical favorite. 

07:10
A lot of people ask a lot of questions. They want to know about Rob's life. Number one. We'll start off on the lighter note. I've ordered these hopefully in a sequential order. That makes sense. In one interview Rob said that he had to work for a mob bookie because he owed them a lot. Did they strongly imply that his fingers may be broken if he doesn't work there? Did he work there still after his debt was paid off? 

07:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, so first of all, the definition of like owing them a lot changes over time, because when I was young I couldn't pay off 800 bucks because I was a teenager. I was like grade 11, high school. I worked a minimum wage job, commission at sport check, you know. I had bills, credit card debt, stuff like that. So 800 bucks like that's the perspective of that, but essentially what I did Is that how much you owed 800? 

08:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
bucks. I literally owed 800 bucks. You could have made that back from SportCheck. 

08:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I could have. It would have taken me a while, but like I had other debts too. 

08:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
For the US listeners SportCheck is a retail. It's sporting goods equivalent, yeah exactly. 

08:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I had a blast working at SportCheck, but remember, like back at that minimum wage at that time was like eight bucks, something like that. I was maybe making $10 an hour and I wasn't working a ton of hours and it's not like I could just go and be like, oh put, schedule me for 40. I was a part-time employee, I was in school, so what I did is the classic move that I'm not proud of. I totally hate this nowadays, but I just stopped answering phone calls and texts and dodging the guy that I owed money to. And months went by and unfortunately he saw my car parked at a buddy's house in the neighborhood that was near him and we were playing poker in the garage. Somebody just strolled up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and he's like hey, I've been trying to get ahold of you. You know you want to go have a chat and I was like, okay, let's go have a chat or whatever, and listen. I mean I'm like a 16, 17 year old kid. Really. The guy I'm dealing with is like 22, 23. But when you're dealing with someone that's your elder, you're like, you're scared, like I owe money to these guys. 

09:29
I don't know what's going on and the agreement that we made was that I was just gonna be a runner, I was gonna do collections for the book until I could pay off my debt. So that's essentially what happened. Wasn't super. It's not like this threatening story of like oh, I went down into like the basement of some area and there was like a guy cracking his knuckles and like no, it was just like I couldn't pay a debt. They expected the money. They're not gonna let me off the hook for 800 bucks. Whatever. 

09:59
Sure, honestly good life experience I don't suggest everybody go out and try to lose money and gamble responsibly, like I mentioned earlier but teaches you a lot of things about the industry, how things run. When you're an agent and you can like log into accounts and see what's going on and like very clearly identify, oh, this guy's losing all the time and he's parlaying all these games, you start to like learn like what not to do about certain tendencies. So whatever was shameful point in my life? Thank you to whoever asked this question. I always love reliving these moments. My current wife paid off my $800 debt she was my girlfriend at the time Wow Quickly. And then I worked the rest of it. Afterwards I'm like oh, I can make some money running here, and then did that for like one or two years. 

10:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
My life story is okay, well, it's dark, interesting, interesting stuff. I already knew that story, but we're uh glad to have answered that on the air. So it seems like his fingers were not in jeopardy no, no, chopped off. 

11:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Listen, if I didn't pay this, nothing was like in hindsight, literally nothing was only 800 bucks. 

11:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I mean potentially the listeners thought it would. It was a lot more no, that's what I'm saying. 

11:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like for me, I'm dead serious. Like here, like I'm gonna get the comments oh, like rob is all as a poor or whatever, and this, like I would never, ever go to my parents for that type of money because I'd be totally ashamed to do that. Like it's just like one of those tail. 

11:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Give it to you, but then you'll be in more trouble. Anyways, it's not worth it. 

11:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You know what I'm saying. Like it's, it's not worth it for that type of thing. And I I grew up my father did well for himself as, like someone who had parents that immigrated to Canada with nothing like quite literally nothing and had to work like real hard labor jobs. Both my grandparents my father became an accountant did really well to like I had a good upbringing let's put it that way right, but I wasn't a spoiled kid Like he. 

12:09
He really taught me the value of certain things, right, and I wouldn't go to him in a jam like that because I just wanted to like I had to deal with that. Like I always knew that I would have to deal with that. Like, of course, if I went to my parents they would pay off 800 bucks or whatever, but it was like no, they were like you know, wanted me to learn the ropes for myself through experience, got into some trouble, it worked out Okay, figured it out, but I don't wouldn't trade any of my life experiences for anything really, and that's how he met his wife, so it was all right Up what's up rob no, here we go. 

12:47
What starts with? What's up, rob? 

12:48 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
what's up, rob? You mentioned in a previous episode that you used to be a successful mlb better, but lost your edge. How did it come to that realization? Did the market stop respecting that action or was it based on your results over a large sample size, genuinely intrigued? Thanks, rob, you're a big inspiration to me as a better. No, I made that last part up. 

13:08 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Everyone who's watching on YouTube can see on the screen. 

13:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, go ahead. Yeah, so it was mostly based on results over a larger sample size. So I think part of it was maybe arrogance at first, like when you go back. When I go back and I look at my previous like tweets, my life, the way I carried myself, even like six or seven years ago, it's almost embarrassing. I think a lot of people feel this way about themselves in general, where you think you know it all and you don't. It wasn't really as dumb as it sounds. I don't think it was really as that hard to beat mlb when I was beating mlb it wasn't the old fangraph. 

13:56
Steamer zips yeah, it wasn't a super competitive market. Like, if you had a decent math background and some understanding of baseball and like some understanding of the market, you could have success. And I surrounded myself with like some very smart people who taught me a lot about things. Seville guys won't like that. I say this, you know, rest in peace to Groovin, but I used to chat with him pretty much every day and learned a ton from him. There was another guy on Twitter that I had a falling out with. That went by Dale Doback on Twitter, who, yeah, who I had like a good relationship with. We used to chat baseball every day and you just learn from these people. 

14:40
But at the end of the day, like over time, you have to be real with yourself and results and like a year went by and just like not winning anymore, not getting the closing line value that I once was, and at that point you have like this self-reflection moment of do I continue to do this? There's this, you know, skepticism, this lack of confidence, or like, do I really have it in myself to put in the time that it's going to take to overcome this right, build out my own projection set? That I think is super strong and, frankly, I just didn't have it in me to do the latter. So, um, I think it's a combo of these things, like when he says that the market stopped respecting that action, I was getting less closing line value for sure, and was it based on results. 

15:34
Absolutely like the last season that I bet baseball seriously, I lost money in the over the duration of the entire season. Just had to call it a day. I mean, some people would continue going right. I know of people that bet professionally and they'll have a losing baseball season and they'll just chalk it up to variance or be like ah, you know, we didn't account for the ball in the first month and a half of the year. We had some really bad results coming out of the hole, whatever. But I'm a realist. I don't like losing money, I like winning money, and if I'm not confident in what I'm doing, then I'm not going to go down that path anymore. 

16:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, there's something else with baseball too, given that it's, like you know, dead heat of the summer. If you are actually grinding baseball every single day, which is a true grind, and you're on every single day and then you lose money at the end of the season, it's hard to get back next year on baseball. Like you you're, you are quite literally like when you're gambling, trying to earn money, working a job that you don't get paid for unless you get the results. And if you work an entire summer, think about how pissed you'd be if you work an entire summer. You lost money, could have enjoyed the summer. No, couldn't work the whole time, grinded every day. At the end, not only did you not get paid, but you had negative money in your bank account so in my opinion, I I won at baseball for several years. 

16:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, there was like an email group I used to send out baseball picks to as well of people that just tail the action or whatever. I was a small, small timer at that point, like betting a few thousand bucks but nothing, nothing you know serious per game, but in baseball this will sound odd, some might disagree, this is just my own personal perspective there's really like 20 pitchers over the course of a year that are going to make or break your season, where I think you're going to have a different opinion on this subset of like 20 guys, let's say might be even less than that. 15 to 20 guys where you're like no, this guy is way better than the market gives him credit for, or this guy is way worse. And there's some seasons that go by and you're like ha ha, like laughing it up. Right, you're like no, this guy's. 

17:34
You know Marco Estrada used to pitch for the Blue Jays, right, marco Estrada? When he was had, his peripheral metrics were bad FIP, everything Barry Horse talked about, fip, xfip, sierra, he's not a strikeout guy, but he induced a ton of weak contact. And when you're watching Blue Jays games at least I was watching a ton. It's like this guy's never going to get lit up because he has a really good changeup that works down and away and all this contact is soft contact. But all the projection systems that that are in the public marketplace All hate Marco Estrada Because, oh, he doesn't miss bats, he's not going to strike guys out Putting the ball in play, he's getting lucky. 

18:20
Well, I took the opinion that he wasn't getting lucky. I would bet. I bet him for like an entire season and made an entire season and made a killing off of his starts. So you get to that point. But then what happens? When you start losing on those opinions, you lose your, you completely lose your confidence. You don't know if it's variance or not. Betting is so much more like when, when you're originating and there's tons of approaches to betting. Obviously there is a legitimate confidence factor that for me personally, I can struggle with at times, and with baseball it did get to the point of maybe I still did have an edge, but I didn't feel like I did or wasn't comfortable enough to bet that amount or it wasn't enough to overcome the work that you'd put in and sure wouldn't have been worth it, because I mean my partners were encouraging me to keep going. 

19:10
at that time they're like no, no, this stuff's good. We got unlucky last year. I didn't feel like it. 

19:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, fair enough. Why did you not push back as much on Barry horse as you would have if physics said the same thing? Re markets oh, is the bell curve meme? It is. Is it the bell curve meme in real life? Okay, sorry, it the bell curve meme in real life? Okay, sorry. So the bell curve meme? I was just trying to figure what he meant by that. 

19:31
Is that meme that says clv doesn't matter, I'll beat the market? And that's at the lowest level of iq and then at the highest level of iq, it's the same thing. In the middle, everyone cares about clv. Yes, so, yeah, I guess. Um, you know, you call it what you want. I, I wouldn't necessarily think that. 

19:47
Uh, fezik is at the lower iq. Probably he's on the other end of the spectrum. He's actually really good with, uh, with numbers and mathematics. Uh, better than me, for sure, and better than probably almost all the listeners. So wouldn't say it's that at all. In terms of fezik, by the way, not that I'm trying to defend his process or anything like that, but the main thing here is with berry horse in the market, we wanted to have a good conversation. I don't think we had so much to get to that I don't necessarily think that it was worth the time to spend basically being like well, the market is efficient and for the most part, he did mention that it was efficient to a certain point and it was the most efficient thing we have, but it's just not correct. 

20:28
And I do believe that, by the way, the efficient market hypothesis states that at any given time the current market is the most efficient thing we do have, but it doesn't say it's correct and that is why you cannot just true kelly stake and expect to never go bust in sports betting he exactly. 

20:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So, like you know, I I actually what I I barely ever do this with circles off. Obviously, that interview was a little bit more I don't even know how to term this but like it was definitely at an intellectual level up here. Like, obviously Barry Horst is a very smart person, right, and in conducting that interview I went and I listened back to it afterwards. It's like there anything that I missed or whatever, but that particular part. He was basically saying you know that the closing line is wrong, which he's right about, but it doesn't mean that it's useless or not predictive in any way. Right, and you can. You can take that however you want to take that in terms of doing interviews, though, like I don't have an agenda, when I go into an interview, I I'm speaking for myself and not Johnny. 

21:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But I started. 

21:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm just saying I have no clue. 

21:36
I don't want, I'm going to fucking flame this guy, yeah, this guy. Anyways, I don't have an agenda right now. I try to. I try to just ask questions that I think people are going to want to hear about. Like I don't like asking stuff that people already know to put like lobbing softballs up on a platter. You know I have a very specific style when it comes to pushing back on someone. You can do that, but like we're having guests on because we want to hear their perspective and there is times where definitely we'll push back. The Fezzik interview was an example of you pushing back on Fezzik. Right, I've had disagreements with people on this show, including Matthew Trenhale from Pinnacle when we talked to him about public betting percentages and stuff like that. If it's worth pushing back on, I will, but like I don't want it to be this counterintuitive like state of argument perpetually with guests. That's that's. That's not good for anyone really definitely not. 

22:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But, by the way, what? What we mean when we say that the closing line is is not correct is basically, let's say, you go flip a coin a thousand times or sorry, a thousand's not even enough, but one bazillion times, infinite times, infinite amount of times. It should net out 50 50. If you play the same football game a bazillion times, then the home team is not going to win by three. That's not going to happen, like that's not going to be the most likely outcome. It will probably be something else, because that is not the actual fixed odds for it, it's just what we think it is yep. So because of that, we don't really know our edge and you have to attempt to quantify it, and that's why perry horse is saying the market's wrong and you could easily have a 10 percentage, which you can. But to have that consistently is kind of where we disagree. But anyways, next question here what is one skill you wish you had from your fellow co-hosts? Include Zach as well, please. 

23:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This isn't a skill, but I wish I had Zach's hair. 

23:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's a good one Same here. 

23:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, believe it or not, we've only known each other for what? Three, four years? Right, probably, yeah, yeah, five years maybe I don't know somewhere around four I'm horrible with time. Anyways, believe it or not, when I was his age, that's what my hair looked like. You would never know it. This is what sport, this is what sports betting at a high level will do to you. 

24:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough. Can we get people to comment here? If Rob were to shave his head completely bald, here we go, would his hair grow back? The exact same it is right now. 

24:23 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I say no. 

24:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I say it'd be a lot thinner. 

24:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I actually don't know enough to argue this, but there was someone Mark, in the office who was very adamant that it would. 

24:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It would just be there's some dead follicles on there that he ain't getting back seinfeld remember well that elaine's boyfriend shaves his head and doesn't. 

24:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean, it's true I I, I don't know. 

24:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So okay, but go, let's answer it for real then, rob. 

24:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, so I don't know, I don't want any of your abilities. 

24:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Can't think of a single thing. 

24:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No. So here's the thing For me I'm very much to a fault, maybe very data-driven in terms of decision-making, and oftentimes I would be better off just trusting my gut and acting on something quickly rather than processing all the information available to me. I think you do that really well. So at times I wish I was able to make decisions in the manner that you do and just like, have the self-confidence to be able to do that, rather than needing to process everything. Rather than needing to process everything, because if I think about things that have, like, gone by the wayside in my life, it's stuff where the opportunity was there for me to take advantage of it, but I took too long to act on that. So that's probably the characteristic from you For Zach. I don't know Zach well enough. I don't. What am I going to? What am I going to take from Zach? 

25:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If you're, if we're talking like not a mental skill and just like an, a physical like stuff that you could actually learn, that that we already know, like, obviously, to take Zach's like ability to edit videos, of course I would do that in a split second. 

26:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
but like we can learn that? Yeah, but we don't we don learn that, yeah, but we don't. We don't know. I know now with all the AI I mean. I don't even have to create. You get artificial intelligence YouTube thumbnails now. 

26:15 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Yeah. 

26:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't even know if Zach's position might be obsolete in three months. We're going to have a computer behind the desk. 

26:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Zach does a great job on the podcast. But the podcast, I know, isn't like the most like it's. You're not showcasing your full skill set by just editing a podcast. You could actually edit like real videos and stuff like that. So maybe if I had zach's editing skills I would have cut a sick hockey highlight tape myself, sent it around I've been playing d1 college puck back in the day maybe. But who knows? 

26:43
Uh, from rob I would say if I had to take one skill from him and I'll more relate it to betting and stuff just because it's easier, but I would say like just the analytical skills on a lot of the things Rob's like super good with like a big data set getting into the weeds, where for me I just like it's not. I wouldn't say it's for lack of trying. I just don't necessarily have the patience to like take a look at that and like build over a long period of time, as you mentioned. Even I'd be more of like a go, go go type thing and I'd rather focus more on like execution and planning as opposed to like let me like actually figure out with this big mlb data set like what, the what, like the actual projected stolen base impact is going to be this season, right yeah, I'm pretty good at that, like applying logic and working with data sets. 

27:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
One of the things that you mentioned there is probably what I would take from Zach I'm. I can be very impatient at times and he is very patient as a person. I can say that as someone who's been. You know he gets down to the studio here. He waits for me to make my coffee. I go up and make another coffee. We we mess around for like half an hour before recording. 

27:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He's got like a million things to produce, like gets himself a water bottle, comes down, I say hey, is that for me. 

28:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He throws it to me, go, grabs himself another water bottle so definitely his patience, uh, is something that I don't have and uh, I would like to honestly I would like if things didn't, you know, bother me as much as they do. 

28:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I got, I got some oh, let's go zach, sorry we forgot for zach the male bonding moment right here uh for rob. 

28:22 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I think, especially considering what I'm in doing right now, is the networking ability, ability to kind of uh have connections in all the different sports, different aspects. It's not just people who are, uh, betters, it's people who are insiders or in media or in marketing and stuff, and being able to connect with those people. That's something that I could use as a skill, especially as a producer trying to continue to add. And uh for johnny I know we like joke about it but I don't know if it's like a skill but like a trait, is a self confidence, like dude, to be able to just say like I could fucking build an F1 car like that, I know we joke about it but like to have that confidence and actually he's not doing a bit, like he's actually certain that he can do that. 

29:02
Uh, there's things in my life that I've done, um, that a lot of it came from just being like all right, I'll put myself out there and do this, but some of it took like a lot of building up to get to, and I think that maybe I might've missed out on some earlier opportunities had I had that self-confidence to jump into it right away, had it come up like in that moment, rather than take the time to be like, oh, maybe, maybe, maybe, and then wait and then do it. 

29:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So self-confidence, I think all right fair enough so, uh, you can't build the f1 car, though we're not gonna get into this it's good to have self-confidence, but there's times where people are insane I could build the f1 car. All right, anyways, I could for sure build the f1 car like I could build the f1 car like this is not even a hard thing. I could. If we're, if we really want to go, we can go more extreme. 

29:50
Well, now that now I can do the conversation is different now and, by the way, it wasn't that I could build the iPhone card. That wasn't even the question. 

29:57 - Zack Phillips (Other)
It was. Can I build it in a year? I didn't want it. Yeah, I know. 

30:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But also remember at that time you wouldn't have had chat GPT to help you, and now you do so. It's very different, like it's becoming more possible nowadays. We'll move into this one. Do you guys think that chat gpt or any other ai technologies will have a major impact on betting in the next year? So I'll kick this one off. Um, definitely, there's a lot of value that's going to come from ai. There's probably a lot of scary stuff that's going to come as well. 

30:31
You know, I don't know exactly how I feel on it right now. 

30:34
Um, at this exact time, I don't see any impact, especially not within the next year. 

30:40
Um, for betting, I think the AI tools that are out right now they're they're cool and they're neat, but a lot of times, like like the, they only work well if you're already, like a specific domain expert in that thing, because you can actually, kind of like bingo, weed out inaccuracies. The way chat gpt specifically is built, from what I understand it and it's definitely on my area of expertise is like you know. It kind of just takes what it predicts the next word to be and then builds the information and formulates a sentence and everything based on that. It's awesome for, like you know, writing and storytelling and anything that might actually be considered fiction, but when it comes to nonfiction, actually like going through data, it's a lot of inaccuracies and multiple people on Twitter have actually done threads on this and mentioned it. One person from the gambling community is Harry Crane, so he's mentioned like if you don't know the stuff with it, it's actually quite dangerous to think of that as fact. So, as it's related to information like I'll share, we did a stupid one beforehand. 

31:46
So we asked it who is Rob Pizzola? We asked ChatGPT who is Rob. So let's read the response. 

31:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I'll read it out loud here. So first paragraph Rob Pizzola is a well-known sports analyst and professional sports better. He has gained recognition for his expertise in sports betting and predictive analytics and has been featured in various media outlets, such as ESPN, the New York. And has been featured in various media outlets such as ESPN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. 

32:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
As of right now, accurate, all of that is accurate. All of that is accurate and, to be honest, that's actually a quite a very fair description of you to somebody who doesn't know you and may be looking at who is Rob Pizzola, right? And if you do know Rob or you listen to his podcast, you're like, yeah, that checks out. 

32:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And if you do know, Rob or you listen to his podcast, you're like, yeah, that checks out. So now next, okay, pizzola has worked as a consultant for professional sports teams and has also developed predictive models for several online sports betting platforms. So here's where we get off the rails a little. This is actually true, but I don't know how this could possibly know that I have consulted for a professional sports team. I just made it up. I honestly it's just. I think this is just like luck of the draw, correct. 

32:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But it also says you've developed models for. 

33:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Develop predictive models for several online sports betting platforms. 

33:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That doesn't that's not true. It's not accurate. 

33:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, then it gets into. 

33:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
here's where we go okay, so so right now, at this point, if you're someone who doesn't know rob, you're like oh yeah, it makes sense. He consults for teams and he built models for these things and that, and whether you deem that to be accurate or not, whatever that's, it checks out, it's within realm. All right now we get off the rails. 

33:24 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He is the founder and ceo of sportsetah a sports betting analytics firm that provides data-driven insights and predictive analysis to its clients. 

33:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So for those who don't know, sports Cheetah is Preston Johnson's Twitter handle. Our good pal Preston, friend of the pod, has been on the podcast in an earlier episode. It is Sports Cheetah, that's nothing. 

33:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm not the founder or the CEO of sports cheetah, because sports cheetah is a person's alias. It's not a company. It's not a betting analytics firm that provides data-driven insights. I'll tell you that. 

34:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But given the first two things that Rob read, you would actually lead that to be accurate. Yes, if you didn't know, if you had no idea, if you had no idea about Rob, and even people who listen to this podcast. I'm sure if you read that you'd be like oh that okay. Yeah, he did this thing. All right, keep going. 

34:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
In addition to his work in the sports industry, pizzola is also known for his philanthropic efforts. He founder of the Bet on a Cure initiative, which raises funds for cancer research through sports betting. None of okay. Here's what I will say. I'm not gonna like, not gonna pat myself on the back, I'm not like this, you know. 

34:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Philanthropic effort that doesn't exist, by the way. 

34:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That doesn't exist. 

34:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The Bet on a Cure initiative. I don't do like. 

34:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
that's not me. I have personally raised money for diabetes research before. For those who followed my content, prior to founding the Hammer Betting Network, I used to do Sunday morning videos and as part of that I would ask for donations for diabetes research. I don't have a Bet on a Cure initiative. I don't raise money, nor does that even exist it doesn't even exist. 

35:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There is Bet on a Cure casino night. That happened one one time okay uh, and I would also say wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 

35:15 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Johnny is bet on a cure casino night. The scene from the office. Is that what that is? Oh, it might be. Do you know what I'm talking? 

35:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I know exactly what you're talking about okay, anyway, sorry, sorry continue no, it says th November 3rd 2022. 

35:28 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Okay, nevermind which honestly chat. 

35:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
GPT wasn't even connected to this data, so it just it's made up. 

35:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

35:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It might be made up. It might be made up and listen again. 

35:42 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is me patting myself on the. I have multiple. You know I sponsor some children at World Vision, which I've done for going on a decade Now I've seen them grow up like to actually go to college. It's it's honestly pretty cool. I donate to sick kids. I like there's a part of me that's always going to give back to the community. This is not a ton of my net worth. It's a very small amount, but I would say I am definitely not known for my philanthropic efforts. Like this entirety of this paragraph is wrong. So it starts very accurate and just goes off the rails. And if we're going to apply this to sports betting, I'm going to tell everyone out there. 

36:20
I've gone down the AI rabbit hole for the last month or so. Zach can attest to this. I've sent him like some messages in the middle of the night he probably wakes up to. He's like Rob's going nuts. Like this is crazy, but AI can really help in some ways. 

36:36
I've never used Photoshop in my entire life. I do not have a like creative artistic bone in my entire body. I'm like the type I'm the guy in Pictionary that I'm embarrassed to draw pictures like basic pictures. I can't create anything. I can create a YouTube thumbnail for any video I do in about 10 seconds using AI and I can literally just type what I want to be in that thumbnail and it's done Like. That is a huge time-saving service and a skill I will never acquire. 

37:09
Where we get into danger territory, you ask chat GPT questions about betting, likely what you're going to get filtered to you and I don't listen. I'm not saying I know exactly how chat GPT is built, how it works, how I'm not. I'm not suggesting I know exactly how it's work works, but I've tried this a lot and what you're going to get filtered is stuff that is often horseshit. And the only way you know it's horseshit is, as johnny said, if you are a domain expert, because sometimes I can ask. I can ask chatGP2 a question about like can I win betting with reverse line movement? And it's going to pull up a bunch of stuff about reverse line movement. What the fuck? 

38:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
are you pulling up bro? 

38:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, Zach, what is this? 

38:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
on the screen. 

38:05 - Zack Phillips (Other)
This is what AI created as well, like this is what I'm saying. Oh, this is the Pope in GQ wearing a puffer jacket. 

38:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I was like what the? I was wondering where this was going. Like what is Zach talking about? What is he talking? 

38:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
about. Sorry, but it's crazy. 

38:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like the Donald Trump running away from the feds that got posted like a couple weeks ago Like it's a fake picture. It looked very real, like there's dangers to this type of technology and in the sports betting space holy geez, is some of this stuff I did? I say what I use horseshit? Yeah, yeah, it is a lot of it is horseshit and it's scary because I use this for other stuff as well. If I want, if I wanted to bad example, I know how to change a tire on a car, but but if I didn't and I typed a chat, gpt, how do I change a tire on the car or whatever? 

38:54
It's probably going to scour the internet and put together something based off of all the higher ranking search results are mostly just created for SEO purposes and it's a very weird industry, because this was one of the questions that came in, like what percentage of bettors do you think win? I think less than 2% of bettors win. Over time, it might be even less than that, but you have so many people working in the space who are quote unquote experts in the space, producing content in the space, that don't win, and I don't like again I've said this before I don't care if people don't win, as long as they're transparent about it. But all this content that's being produced page one of Google, page two of Google. Look at the biggest sports betting channels on YouTube. All this content that's being produced, page one of Google, page two of Google. Look at the biggest sports betting channels on YouTube I get, like some the professor's picks like filtered to my YouTube stream. 

39:59
Now this guy that's like a university professor like it's all crap and this is likely what the ai technology is being built on. So it reminds me of early wikipedia, if that's. People remember that anyone could just go on wikipedia and type whatever they wanted and people were like citing I was citing it in my like university papers and stuff like that, and profs are like no, no, you can't cite wikipedia and I was like why not? It's an internet source. They're like no, remember you couldn't cite wikipedia. 

40:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Cite wikipedia. Holy, yeah, you had to put like seven citations in and couldn't use wikipedia back in the day. 

40:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Horrible, horrible but that. 

40:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But this is, this is the danger of ai as of right now, I'd say this if you ask it, hey, how do I beat the sports betting market? Yeah, that's not gonna work. Also, if you ask it, hey, how do I beat the sports betting market? Yeah, that's not gonna work. Also, if you ask it, hey, how do I make money options trading or something like that that I also don't know, you're not gonna get good advice. If you say, hey, write me a poem. That's this, it's probably gonna be pretty good. And there you go. That's where it's at right now. I'm not saying it's not gonna get there. You know almost certainly will will get there. But um, as of right now, be careful about doing things like that and then thinking that it's going to make an impact. It would probably be the equivalent of reading the first article on Google about how to win a million dollars betting sports. 

41:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But it's scary, which is not going to win See the thing is me and you can ask a question to chat GPT, and I don't mean this to come across as arrogant, but if you ask it, hey, how do I change my tire on my car Also? 

41:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
you don't know if that's right or wrong. 

41:30 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I agree with you. 

41:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So that's also not like chat. Gpt can't be used for informational stuff. Use YouTube, you know why? Because you can actually then look and see that person has credibility and then you can actually see. Now again, yes, it could be fake ratings, fake reviews, but you can go on and just look that, look at that and be like, oh, this seems like, based on my human brain, this looks accurate, it checks, it passes the test it's dependent on when you go to. 

42:03
When you go to chat, gpt, if you just type anything, there is nothing you can reference that says if, what part of that is accurate. And essentially my argument kind of the whole thing is if it's 75% accurate and 25% inaccurate but you have no way as a human to know which is which, then that is essentially worth zero. It's not worth 75%. It's worth zero. You can never use it. So it's going to get there and I think the the, the actual company itself, doesn't expect that it's to be used like this currently, in its current form, but eventually it will be. 

42:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The only thing. I'll push back on it. Remember we did that episode where we watched the guy break down his basketball live betting strategy. That's a clear example. Go read the comments on that page. Like people are enamored with this. They think this is like a gold mine that they just hit. That guy has tons of subscribers. Like this is what I'm talking about. Fair enough, can't trust. You can't really trust anything, and I mean that's obviously like we broke that down. We'll put the link in the description below as a horrible strategy. Now, I don't mean to shit on AI altogether. I think this is again. I think there's lots of applications. There's a guy on Twitter that goes by Waco's Wagers. I found out about him through Andrew Mack Ginge Face Killer Ginge Face Killer. But he's building out a model using I don't know if it's chat, gpt, but like some sort of AI technology, and he's you know he's testing it and coming up with some weird results. You've got to give it all the inputs, of course. 

43:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's not really that beneficial. 

43:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Agreed. I think what people think is very different from the reality of the situation. Some people think that they're just going to ask ChatGPT to find them winning bets tonight and ChatGPT is going to do that, and they ain't going to do that. No absolutely not. It's going to be a problem. 

43:57 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Even to your point and johnny's point of saying you can review these things. On that video where we reviewed the guy talking about how he has that surefire winning strategy in the nba, we talked about how it was wrong. Someone commented on our video that we made about his video, saying we were wrong, like you know what I mean, we maybe we are we did the simon hunter exposed episode and some of the comments in there are like you guys are nuts, simon hunter. 

44:26 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I won lots of money tailing simon hunter's picks this year. It's like you missed the point of the entire video, missed, like completely missed it and there was a bunch of comments like that. Now they all got downvoted. I noticed they're all at the bottom of the thing, so obviously our, our following is taking over, but there is. This is a you know, we're, we're going to. 

44:45
If it was a battle of me and Johnny against the masses, we're going to lose because the vast majority of people have no clue and they think that they have a clue and I was in that boat. I lived this personally. I grew up through this, where I was a pure wreck better, but I thought, because I was in that boat, I lived this personally. I grew up through this, where I was a pure rec better, but I thought, because I was like I understood math and I watched the games that I was an expert in sports betting and this is even like losing money. I'm still convincing myself that I'm an expert Like this. I can't explain how the human mind works, but I have people like messaging me on Twitter who are actually experts and I'm dismissing their advice 10 years ago, telling them like, no, no, no, like this is the way I um, his name eludes me. 

45:32
Who did we have on with Jeff Benson? Jj Gruden, jj Gruden, I was Gruden If we did that interview 10 years ago. This is why I don't want to completely trash the guy or whatever he has his beliefs. It's hard to change that mentality. I was him at some point in life and the majority of people are JJ Gruden. So, like this is where the AI stuff when you're building answers off of stuff that is wrong, it just perpetuates this further and further. Like I don't know how the sports industry ever gets out of this. I honestly don't know how, because this is the stuff that wins. Like the public bet percentages, reverse line, all the all the fake news garbage is the stuff that wins anyways. This has been a long answer for this. This guy just asked if we could win on sports betting this year I mean with ai, yeah I mean I'm I'm very bullish on ai. 

46:33
It's scary for sure seeing some of the stuff that can happen. I'm'm learning more and more about it. But do I think you can just go type in a chat like find me winners for the national basketball association tonight? No, I don't and I don't think that's happening within a year. 

46:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Do you think the current NFL product is better than it was five years ago? 

46:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's hard to say because I have to remember back to what five plus years ago was like. What has been the evolution in the NFL product since then. Five years Wasn't that long ago. It's really not like. I think this question, like what stems from it, like at the heart of this question, might have a lot to do with, like, the officiating of the sport. Frankly, if nfl officiating has always been, it's not, it's not any worse now, in my opinion at least actually pull up what was so five years ago, like we still had red zone as our as the way we were watching sports. 

47:34
The difference for us in ontario was five years ago I had dfs to play in ontario. I don't have that anymore, so that's a little bit. But like now, I've just transitioned my DFS action to player props action and it's kind of the same thing. So I don't know, I don't think it's. 

47:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Like think about this Five years ago was Mahomes' first season, yeah, when he won the MVP, that was 2018. 

47:57
I mean, maybe that's four, whatever, four and a half years ago so five, five years ago was the year that mahomes sat on the bench and then essentially it was his first season. So from there, if you look at the actual like nfl product fandom, how it's expanded like I don't necessarily think it was massive in terms of like any of the production quality or fandom. I think mainly the. The big thing is like gambling has just expanded, licensed, right and now we get like a bunch of advertising on there. But what are that many more people betting on nfl now than five years ago, you think I I think probably. 

48:33 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, it's hard to say. I would say yes, because there there is a subsection of people that has been reached that was not betting before because they wouldn't bet into a gray market, black market, anything like that right. But ultimately, like would you not say that you just define the answer of this question using TV ratings for NFL? 

48:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, I don't know if TV ratings are that good because, like the sport fandom, yeah, the sport fandom, I think, has actually gone up. 

49:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But the question is the current NFL. How do we define the current NFL product? 

49:06 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay, so here's some things I would throw out to you. The value of the NFL has certainly gone up over the last five years. 

49:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's what I'm saying. 

49:11 - Zack Phillips (Other)
But here's some things I would say probably have changed in the last five years. I can't remember some of the specifics, but adding some of the Thursday night games, christmas games, the old London games yeah, the international games so some of those are different. Adding Christmas games 100% improves the product to the NFL overall and experience of a fan. 

49:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I mean, if this is like. By the way, they didn't actually add Christmas games. 

49:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, it just happened to fall, they just had. 

49:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Saturday games that now happen to't actually add Christmas games. 

49:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, it just happened to fall, they just had. 

49:41 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Saturday games that now happen to fall on the Christmas weekend. 

49:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like if this is, is the NFL increasing in popularity? Then the answer is yes. I think that's clear cut. Yes, from my own personal perspective. Okay, I sit here I complain. Oh yeah, jerome Bogard did this cost me this. Whatever, he's out of the league, you know he's gone. Now jerome's retired, I no longer have to cross off that game off my list at the beginning of the week. 

50:03
But I watch as much football as ever. Like I basically tell my wife it's like diana, thursday night, figure out what you're gonna do with your friends. She's like isn't it like eagles texans spreads 13 and a half? Like, yeah, I don't give a shit, we're gonna find some bets on the game and we're gonna't it like Eagles-Texans, it spreads 13 and a half. Like, yeah, I don't give a shit, we're going to find some bets on the game and we're going to watch it. Like, do you really have to watch it? Yeah, I do so. 

50:25
Like, for me, I love the NFL. Like I live in. I'm doing a video every day on forward progress, just doing mock drafts for random teams, because I'm so passionate about the NFL. So for me, I think the product is as good as it's ever been. I mean, you could complain commercial. Oh, there's too many commercials. There's this, whatever we're all watching, we're all really highly invested in it. Now, a lot of it is because of betting, for sure, but I think that's part of what we have to consider the NFL product, like the NFL product, the NFL has embraced this. It's part of the entirety of the ecosystem. 

51:08 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Tough question to answer. Well, relatively, I think the NHL product's gone down. Or advertisements, well, that's like Review adding the review takes forever now with the review. 

51:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I guess I I mean there's certain like five years ago I don't know, they're not enough changes, like obviously there's things on a yearly basis that'll drive me nuts in the nfl. 

51:32
Like remember when they added that you could review the pass interference penalty one year but they never fucking overturn these things, like could literally be assaulting a person on the field, and they're just going to stick with the ref's call Like that to me was that's a really shitty thing in the product. Like why even allow this to happen? Extreme frustration. They got rid of it. Do I think there's ways they can make it better? Sure, I don't know. I think it's fucking solid though. Man, I love the great sport. Great sport, the best the best league. 

52:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So, Rob, what are your thoughts on betting exchanges for major markets with high liquidity, particularly those that have low house fee one to 2% hold? 

52:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay Loaded question Get your thoughts too. I love the idea of exchanges in theory. We preach this all the time. It's why we promote pinnacle as one of the sports books that you definitely should have in your portfolio. If you're in ontario, lower vig option, same thing with exchanges right, cut out vig. You often will find the best price at an exchange issue. I see with current betting exchanges, this is just major markets. I mean, this is a question is what are your thoughts on betting exchanges for major markets with high liquidity? Fine, I like that idea. It's great. But who's like you're never going to get the average better. That's going to go over to a betting exchange just to bet a bunch of major markets Like they can't same game parlay, they can't do this, they can't do that. It's not the same experience as elsewhere. So the idea of a betting exchange is great for pro bettors where it's like okay, we can get down. I mean, assuming that there is actually is high liquidity on the exchange, the idea in principle is great for someone who's getting down a lot. 

53:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's horrible for a casual. It's fair. I'll say that it's very fair the fact that you don't get limited and all this stuff. It's very, very fair. And I do think everyone needs to have the exchange outs. If you're in a regulated state that has that, do I think that's going to become the number one book in America? Definitely not. 

53:42
But the way betting works nowadays is no one uses just one book anyways. It would be quite dumb to just use one book. You should probably use, you know, if you're serious about betting five plus, if you're even just a casual guy or girl who wants to bet a couple bucks, you should probably still have money in three. If one of your if you're the serious better who has been at five, then yeah, I would consider putting an exchange in one. But at the end of the day there has to be like if, if one takes off and then becomes like massive and then starts getting prop seeded and like you can do parlays and you can do all this stuff, then boy, that would be phenomenal. Uh, but I think we're a ways away from that and I hope we get. But I'm not super bullish on like an exchange becoming the number one book in America or Canada. I think they can survive for a bit and potentially one takes over, but I'm not super bullish on it becoming like the number one. 

54:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Not unless they can offer the same like markets as all of the other recreational books in the space. Like in principle, right, it could be great, but the but it's. It's all in principle, it's all theoretical. Like, find someone who's gonna see these exchanges with all these prop markets where they can get picked off at any time, like it's. I love the idea. I just don't think that there's it's executable. I hope someone proves me wrong again. 

55:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I love the model yeah, and if you're in new jersey, check out profit exchange. It's, it's a good ui nice, nice sports book. Um, as rob mentioned, like they don't have all the markets, they only have the major stuff. 

55:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But you know, if you're betting mlb, check it out, see if it's uh, see if it's for you and, of course, as always, you can head over to betstampapp slash circles off if you do want to sign up through any sportsbooks. We're not pushing you to do it but if you want to support the show, sign up through sport to sportsbooks through betstampapp slash circles off. 

55:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The link is in the description below yeah, got the links to profit exchange up there. If you're in colorado, there's the sbk exchange and, uh, you know, might have a few more launching soon, uh, over the next little while, which we, uh, which we're pretty fired up about, if you ever needed a little push to go and sign up for new sportsbooks or have more than one. 

55:57 - Zack Phillips (Other)
this morning, when we were doing the Edgework show, calgary Flames playing tonight against Arizona or Chicago, excuse me, and Calgary on, majority of books was minus 400. One book was sitting at minus 550. If you're sitting there with only minus 550, I mean. 

56:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You're paying a lot more for that loss or you're not winning as much on the win, something that Zach does. It shouldn't drive me crazy as a Canadian, because Canadians do say the word this way, but when I first started doing a lot of media hits US radio, some TV stuff in the US I had to get a speech coach, because you can probably still tell that I'm Canadian, even if you didn't know, from watching. But the biggest thing that I used to get feedback on was against Against the spread. Did I say that? That's how you naturally say it, because that's how Canadians say it. 

56:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
What do I say? 

56:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You say against as well because that's how you're brought up to say it. But Americans Against Say against. Do I say you say against as well because that's how you're brought up to say it. But americans against, say against. And I now always say against because I've been coached to say it that way anytime I hear against it. Just, I don't know why it triggers me. Um, I'm, I got like the american speech in me now yeah, fair enough. 

57:15 - Zack Phillips (Other)
well, americans also say I mean, we say ah, what? 

57:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
was that Sound like a duck? More than anything, pardon. 

57:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Pardon. Ah Ah, all right, last question for today's episode, so last question for today's. And I can assure you, if your question wasn't asked, likely it was not skipped. Likely, what happened is it's going to be answered in next week's part two episode. So if you're still looking forward, we have a ton more questions we are going to answer. You know just how many pro gamblers are there in the united states. 

57:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's about to get answered in next week I'm sure we're going to be extremely accurate with our projection as well. 

57:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, and you could ask chat gpt on that. 

57:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We're going to be bang on with, with our projection. 

58:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There we've got, we've got some other we've got some other bang and bangers here. 

58:05 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Uh, we also by the way I'm. I'm just gonna be authentic and real with the audience here. Some of these questions were absolute trash this week which we just had to cut out. So I don't want to give false expectations. But if you like you know, if you're just a real one, if you ask a real question, we're gonna get to it like if you're asking a really stupid question to get a rise out of us, we're probably gonna skip it. So I mean, you can waste your breath in further weeks, that's fine, but uh yeah, because it's a slippery slope. 

58:33
You answer one of those questions then they just they start rolling in like nuts and we can't, we can't't go down that path. 

58:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So we've got what percentage of bettors win long-term we have. We're going to talk about signals to help figure out when you kind of lost your edge, signals to figure out when a market is being manipulated. We are going to talk about a very interesting one. What is the public side tax? 

58:56 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I saw that question. I'll speak more to it next week as well. 

59:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, ton of questions coming last week, but to close it off for today, what we have is an absolute doozy. Which is this absolute doozy? Okay, if you were in plus ev analytics shoes, how would you have handled this caesar's situation? 

59:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
okay, so there's going to be a segment of people that are watching or listening that don't know what this is, so you want to give like a little quick-. 

59:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Go ahead. 

59:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Briefer. Okay, we've talked about this on Circles Off before, but for people that don't know, long story short, I'm not going to get into a five minute diatribe here. But essentially, plus EV Analytics, who has sat in johnny's seat before for a q a episode at one point on circles off, uh is suing caesar sportsbook um for essentially bets that he feels were unfairly ruled on, and we're in the province of Ontario. He went to iGaming Ontario, the regulatory body, to complain. Igaming Ontario ruled in favor of Caesars. I think that this is absolutely a moronic ruling. Don't even get me started, but he has gone and now taken Caesars to court. I think the total amount is like $6,000. Do you remember it offhand? 

01:00:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't but it's. 

01:00:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's it's what some people would consider an amount that they wouldn't sue for let's put it that way that it's more than a hassle. So it's definitely a matter of principle for him it is. So the question is what? What I have done? If I were in plus EVs shoes? I would have done nothing, I would have sat and I would have stood, because I have a different like. I get the matter of principle. 

01:00:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I honestly but wait, the scenario we didn't even explain is he bet a bunch of futures bets to start the NFL season. 

01:00:50
They were must play 18 games for action. 

01:00:53
If they don't play 18 games, there's no action. 

01:00:55
Obviously, buffalo, cincinnati voided that ticket, or should have voided that ticket, given that that game was no action Meaning anything for a future on Buffalo or Cincinnati would have been absolutely no action stated right there in the ticket. What they did, which I think really pissed our buddy off here, is he had exactly 13 wins and exactly 12 wins they graded one of them as a push, which technically had a good chance of winning, and then the other one they graded as a loss and really that, as per the rules, should have been a push. And because of that, what happens is you can kind of infer that what the sports book did in this situation is anyone that basically would have won their better, had a chance to win, had their bet voided, and then anyone who had, you know, would have won their better, had a chance to win, had their bet voided, and then anyone who had, you know, bengals' exactly perfect season or four wins was still slapped with a loss, meaning they just took a massive profit on the Bills and Bengals' futures tickets. 

01:01:52 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm honestly still in awe that iGaming ruled in favor of the sport but did they even really understand the scenario. 

01:01:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's what I want to know. 

01:02:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is the biggest frustration, right? The regulators are supposed to be acting like keeping sportsbooks in line, having the best interest of the betters at heart and maybe they do, and they just don't understand the situation all that well, but it's mind-boggling. And listen, I'm going to defend Plus EV. I think what he's doing is very noble. There's people out there that are like oh, plus EV, what a peasant. Like he's barely betting any money on this stuff. Okay, first and foremost, the guy spreading is all the money around across all the regulated books. It's not like this is every single future that he played Played a bunch of money on futures. I know the guy personally. Like we can stop with the. Oh, he's betting like nickels and dimes on stuff like he's. He's got decent sized bets, whatever. 

01:02:48
Besides the point, the matter of principle, I get it. I would have blew a gasket if this happened to me. Would I have taken caesars to court? In all likelihood no. Would I have put them on notice on twitter and whatever other means? I have social media, absolutely, but for me, what I would stand to get out of it is just not worth the amount of time I'd have to invest in fighting a legal battle for this. It's a different story for me If it's like 60 K instead of six. 

01:03:25 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, 60,. I think a lot of people would have pursued some additional action, but I'm not plus CV analytics. 

01:03:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's important to know that he's allowed to make his own decisions and do whatever he wants to do and, frankly, if it is a matter it, honestly I know plus CV, I know where he has a golfing membership, I know where he lives. Frankly, I know what he makes at his personal day job. Guy's doing more than fine. It ain't a matter of the money, okay. So for him to do that as a matter of principle, I think honestly it's noble, I really do, and maybe it gets nowhere, but I respect the hell out of the guy for that. I honestly do, because he's not doing it to grow his social following or to be like the guy that's doing it. 

01:04:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He's doing it for a larger cause yeah, also, like anyone who actually understands the situation would, I think, should agree that he was wronged in this scenario and he was treated unfairly and the regulators, obviously, who are designed to protect that, were not able to protect him. But in this scenario, if you're gonna ask me what would I have done, I don't know. I don't know what I would have done. I can't tell unless I was actually faced with this situation. If I did like, I would be very upset if that happened to me. 

01:04:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What do you value the most in your life right now? Like I'll tell you for me what is it the time, Time I do not have enough time to do everything that I want to do. 

01:04:56
Running the hammer is a lot of work, recording content's a lot of work, but on top of that I want to be able to live my like. I want to golf in the summer. Right Now, you know, I'm going to simulators or whatever. I have stuff I want to do. I don't even play video games in my spare time. The show comes out. I want to like time. So for this, this is just like a time suck. It's a principle it's a matter but. 

01:05:18
But again to bring it back, the question is is you, how would you handle it? For me it's yeah, I get the principle. I'd love to fight the war for other people. 

01:05:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I've done that many times before people go after their ex-wives and ex-husbands all the time, just to go to principle I don't know, I I, I hope it doesn't I? I don't know. I don't know what I would do. I um probably more in the, in the same boat as you, but at the same time, like man, is that frustrating to have to deal with. 

01:05:45 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I have a question for you guys, because you brought it up. We're not really sure. I feel like maybe some other people might have a similar question, but this is pure speculation on both your behalves what the answers that you'll give here, because there's no way to truly know. But in the same sense that, like gary batman operates for the nhl and roger goodell operates for the nfl, where they are um, essentially representing the owners, like they they act on behalf of the owners do you feel like there could be an element of the I gaming and that's more specific to here? 

01:06:17
but like it could be any regulatory body across any us state do you think that it, like it could be any regulatory body across any U S state? Do you think that it could? They could be potentially operating in that capacity for the sports books themselves in those States and in the provinces. 

01:06:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's possible. This is where you get into like a slippery slope, because the sports books are providing tax revenue in the States and provinces that they're operating in, so it's like it's possible. I'm not not. I don't want to make that accusation. I actually don't think that that's what's happening here. I honestly don't think that that's what's happening here. I think you get you know, do you think he'll win his case? I think he'll win his case and if he doesn't, it's honestly the saddest if he does not, this is clear honestly, it's so upset. 

01:07:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He is so clearly in the right, like by the terms and conditions he's not trying to like pull a fast one take advantage of a thing like that's not what this is if he does not win that case, it's the. 

01:07:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
it's one of the saddest things I've seen in sports betting, because it could have it was him, but it could have easily been somebody else where that $6,000 matters a whole lot to them, and or, or just whatever, and I don't want to also 6,000. 

01:07:29 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We we're making it off to seem like it's nothing like 6,000, if it comes across that way. 

01:07:34
No, it's absolutely. 6,000 is a ton of money and, to be be honest, like people have gone out pursued stuff for much, much less than six thousand and, um, yeah, for most people, for the majority of people betting, a difference of a six thousand dollar swing, which you should have been paid, is likely the difference between a winning season and a losing season. So, like a matter of principle, like you know, six thousand is not a lot, not a little, like that's. That's very frustrating. 

01:08:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's also just a really not talking about 200, 100 bucks here, 50 bucks it's a really shitty thing for the sportsbook to do, because someone there has to recognize that they're definitely in the wrong, like you, like I don't know the situation but like do you think that that and I we're, we're going down a slippery slope here but someone on that trading team or customer support, whatever has to realize in that they're wrong to let it get this far, like the reputational damage that has been caused to caesars, in my opinion, just from plus evs social tweeting about it, and the amount of people in the space picking that up is way more than $6,000 by opinion. 

01:08:44
You can feel free to disagree Like why would they ever let it even go that far? I don't know why they would even let it go that far In most cases. Like if this was, I'm surprised that somebody at least didn't reach out to him as far as I know, this hasn't happened to say even to say you know what? We think we're in the right, you think you're in the right, we'll do $3,000. You sign an NDA, you don't rip us apart. I don't think plus EV would have taken that. But like the fact that that didn't even happen and it's just like, no, like this is the ruling. 

01:09:17 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
They didn't even credit him a back credit, it's uh. Anyways, all right guys last personal question wait let's go to next week. 

01:09:25 - Zack Phillips (Other)
We're no, no, this one is this one's time sensitive here? Okay, people are listening to this. It's the first day of the masters. It's easter weekend. You guys are in different, uh, life situations here. I think people can take away something for this from themselves. Going into easter weekend, you're going to have dinners, lunches with your families, but you got to balance the masters here. The masters is on TV. I know it's important to both you as it is to myself. Rob, we'll start with you. You got family functions going on, but you have to deal with the masters. How do you balance being a family man, being a good guy, being around, but also enjoying the greatest golf tournament of the year? 

01:10:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
so secretly. I'm hoping that we have a monday finish this year. There's bad inclement weather expected on the on the weekend. So my family, my personal family, my father, my mother, my brother we golf your personal family as opposed to what my in-laws. So my family, they love golf. Now, when you're married, my mother wants to do Easter Sunday one year. My mother-in-law the next year says, ah, you know, we get Easter Sunday, you got to deal with that stuff. So this year Easter Sunday is at my in-laws. If that's the final round it's going to be me getting up from the table a lot. I'm hoping my, my Diana's uncle is there, who's also a huge golf fan and he'll get away from. We can sit in front of the TV, but it's tough If it's my family. 

01:11:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Rob Pizzola Sr has got the game on the TV, no doubt. 

01:11:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Easter Sunday it's always like early lunch Masters is going to end like around what? Six, seven o'clock, right? So it's like, okay, let's get the lunch out of the way so that once the coverage starts at three or whatever, like we're all there and watching and that's, you know, typical. 

01:11:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But she's such a good tournament. It's so good. 

01:11:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Honestly, the sound of like Jim Nance's voice with like the harp in the background. It's so soothing, like I'll just be like half asleep on the couch and there's like an amazing shot. And you wake up and you watch and you're like, oh, so good, good, I love you. Pass out for like another 15 minutes it's it. 

01:11:45 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Johnny just went there, he's, he was on a master's pick. 

01:11:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Give a master's pick um, I don't want to give like one of the the favorites, or anything like that give it to give a non-favorite I'm gonna be rooting. 

01:11:59
Uh, I mean, I have my effect. You know, for people who don't believe me, these are locked in on my Give a non-favorite. I'm going to be rooting. I mean I have my. You know, for people who don't believe me, these are locked in on my private BetStamp account, which I'll quickly flash to the screen here. Look at these numbers. How proud of you, how proud of me. Corey Connors 75 to 1 to win the tournament. 

01:12:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Let me pull up the bet stamp odds comparison tool. By the way, listen, the golf product is not the best. We don't. I'm not going to lie to you and say we at the we got. Well, it's the best out there, cause it's not really a good golf product. It's very hard to do. But futures we took. It's very useful. It open right now. Maybe zach can even share it on the screen. Yeah, go to the bet sam golf futures, futures tool. This thing is great if you want to pick your master's bets, look at their goal. Winner. 

01:12:49
Tournament winner all right, so it doesn't have every single sports book, but it's more than enough to get a nice comparison and then actually give you a true odds price there. As you'll see, by the way, on the left pinnacle sports official sponsor circles off has the best price on a lot of players, like if you're betting at, for example, barstool right now, plus 650 versus plus 756 for rory mcelroy. 

01:13:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's pretty big difference it also like the scheffler number, uh like makes a pretty large difference, especially like yeah, people don't realize that right, like plus 650 to plus 756, in terms of implied probability, that's a significant percentage. 

01:13:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, plus 5,800 to plus 5,900 is not a big deal, but we're still in a good range here. So listen, who do you want? Scroll down. Zach, I gotta give an official pick. 

01:13:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Who do I want as an official pick right now? This is tough official pick. Who do I want as an official pick right now? 

01:13:43 - Zack Phillips (Other)
this is tough, okay, so right now I do have brooks kepka. Did I scroll past? Yeah, he's right there. He's right there. 

01:13:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You had a cursor now I don't think he's gonna win, but I fired off, uh, uh 7500 75 to 100. 

01:13:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I want to see the book, don't? 

01:13:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
we don't have to say that is that plus, yeah, you know, you know what the book is. 

01:13:58 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Plus 4572 right now. 

01:14:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I fired a Max Homa at plus 6600. It's plus 3300 now. 

01:14:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh these are all absolute verified wagers. 

01:14:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And I fired a Corey Connors at 75 to one. Scroll up right there. 

01:14:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Connors at 75 as well. Wow, some great, great prices. Win or lose. 

01:14:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm going to give a Masters is underway right now, so you're going to have to live bet this if you want anything, but I'm I'm rooting home that Hideki Matsuyama 50 to one right there 50 to one Hideki Hideki. 

01:14:42
I have a soft spot in my heart. So people who don't know I seriously bet golf for a couple of years and then I got to the point where I'm like I think I can win at golf but I'm never going to be Rufus at golf and that pains me to say that I pride myself on like doing something the best and he has a huge headstart. I think he's better at modeling the sport than me. Something the best and he has a huge head start. Think he's better at modeling the sport than me. But that year, one of those years, we bet hideki in like every tournament and it was just like this running joke of like the clown, the clown meme. 

01:15:10
Right, yeah, like we run our model, we just, for course, fit whatever we bet on hideki, with him putting on the clown mask, um, or the hair at that point. So I have a soft spot in my heart. I actually think that's a good number 50 to 1, so hideki 50 to 1. 

01:15:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right people are gonna be listening to this. 

01:15:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He's already six over and first scroll scroll up zach. 

01:15:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Okay for my official pick. I'm gonna give, I'm gonna go with nothing like official master's picks. Scroll down scroll down a little, don't? You, don't need, don't? Well, you wouldn't be able to tell this because this episode's coming out on thursday. That's what I'm saying. 

01:15:48 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's nothing like official master's picks that you can't that? 

01:15:51 - Zack Phillips (Other)
the tournament is already underway. All right, flip this and drop it, for my official master's pick. 

01:15:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
give me, give me tony fino plus three thousand. Tony, give me tony fino. Commercial Masters pick. Give me, give me Tony Finau Plus 3,000. Tony, give me Tony Finau plus 3,000. All right, and you got plus 5,000. 

01:16:10 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Hideki. Hideki Finau never won a major correct Correct. I like it. 

01:16:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
This might be it Remember when he broke his ankle. 

01:16:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Man that's Celebrating the hole-in-one, right? I'm pretty sure he was celebrating the hole-in-one. Anyways, all right. 

01:16:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
This has been episode number 96. We are back next week to finish up this Q&A for episode 97. See you all next week. Like, subscribe. Thank you for all. Thank you all for viewing you.