Episode 11

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. Thank you for joining us. And remember to like download subscribe, follow us on all the socials @ inplayLIVE. Today we have a very special show lined up for you as always, joined by Andrew Pace, founder of inplayLIVE, the greatest sports betting community on planet Earth. But joining us today, we also have TAW and John. These guys are two sports betting pros who work with Pace on a regular basis. They're calling out all kinds of live calls on streams throughout the week, putting in a lot of hard work. Guys, welcome to the show. Really happy to have you.

TAW Goodman [00:00:50]:

Hey, thanks for having us today, Shane, appreciate it.

John [00:00:52]:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Shane Mercer [00:00:53]:

So guys, today we are going to dive into baseball because you two are really, really sharp when it comes to MLB. So we're going to be talking all things baseball today, guys, and you're not going to want to miss it. But first we want to get into a little bit of news and talk about something that has really been trending in the sports world, the sports betting world over the past week or so. So before I play this video clip for you all, I just want to set the stage. So in Australia, they are currently reviewing their online gambling laws and they're thinking about making a whole bunch of changes. It's regulated at the state level. There they have states in the US. It's a very similar system. And here in Canada, it's also very similar where there is a federal law governing sports betting and gambling, but it's regulated at the provincial level or the state level. So it's similar in Australia. And so they are looking at overhauling the system. And as part of that, the CEO of Sports Bet, which is a sports book, was asked to come and testify as part of a committee hearing. And so in all of that, he was grilled by a lawmaker in their House of Representatives as part of this committee hearing. And so we want to play a portion of that for you and we're going to do that now. But first I just want to set it up. The lawmaker's name is Peta Murphy, and so she is asking Barni Evans, the CEO of Sports Bet, asking him about people who win on a regular basis and whether they place limits or restrictions on those people for using what she refers to as promotions and inducements to win consistently. And so I'm going to play a portion of that for you here. And so the whole clip is about five minutes long, but I'm going to fast forward a little bit because she really presses them on the questions often and he basically just sort of dodges them as best he can. And you're going to hear some of that right now. I'm going to play the tail end of it for you. So you get a sense of what exactly we're talking about here.

Barni Evans [00:03:03]:

If they are affected, then we will take action.

Peta Murphy [00:03:04]:

So if they're behavior in the market because they're winning, then they're stopped from betting.

Barni Evans [00:03:11]:

I'll let you have the last word on that topic.

Peta Murphy [00:03:14]:

No, I know you have, but it's not actually answering my question. Put aside the insider knowledge. Like if you believe they're distorting the market, are you saying they're distorting the market because they're using the promotions and inducements in order to continually win? Is that what you mean by distorting the market?

Barni Evans [00:03:30]:

Yes, that's what I mean by distorting the market where it occurs as a result of people having unique information that the rest of the market does not have.

Peta Murphy [00:03:39]:

And assuming they don't have that unique information, assuming they're just distorting the market by being smart enough to always win using inducements and promotions, are they stopped.

Barni Evans [00:03:50]:

From betting then assuming that they are using unique information, we would intervene.

Peta Murphy [00:03:57]:

No, assuming they're not.

Barni Evans [00:04:00]:

Well, we don't make that assumption. We have teams of people who look at the data.

Peta Murphy [00:04:04]:

All right, I'm going to say to you, Mr. Evans, that I'm taking what you're saying as a yes because of the way you're answering me and not engaging with my questions. Yes, you stop people who are consistently winning from betting unless you choose to actually engage with the way I'm asking the question. That's how I'm going to take your.

Barni Evans [00:04:26]:

Answer, your evidence, that's your prerogative. I've answered the question three or four times.

Peta Murphy [00:04:34]:

I can see my colleagues faces. I feel like they might have the same view of me as your answers.

Shane Mercer [00:04:39]:

So there we have it a pretty comical there and I mean, this is classic lawmaker versus a CEO of company who doesn't want to answer a question. But Pace, I'll start with you. Give me your reaction.

Andrew Pace [00:04:50]:

Well, I'm floored. I love this lady so much. I feel like I want her to negotiate and act on my behalf for everything I do in the day to day world that I go through. Yeah, obviously we've touched on so many things in the episodes of this podcast. It is remarkable to see this at the forefront and to see this at the government level, albeit in Australia. I think it bodes really well for the future of the United States and for Canada. I think that the whole narrative that a lot of the sports books put out there relating to how they treat winners, the low percentage of winners things, this verbiage of manipulating the market or having access to information that other people don't have, it's been almost accepted without question by regulators. And it's just amazing to see the actual truth come to the forefront in 2023. You would presume that that would be the case and that we would see these stories just out there in spades and it just hasn't happened for so long and it's amazing to see it.

Shane Mercer [00:06:04]:

Yeah, it really is. TAW, could you see the CEO of FanDuel or Draft Kings going before us? Lawmakers and kind of maybe answering in a similar way?

TAW Goodman [00:06:14]:

Yeah, I mean, that is the answer they would give, right? I mean, it sure seems like it anyways, from what we see from them. I mean, on a regular basis, we see them limit players for doing exactly what she's saying, but not only, hey, winning through promotions and these inducements, these sign up bonuses they're offering, but also winning, like many of our members in IPL, inplayLIVE do. Winning on a regular basis and then being told, okay, you're not allowed to bet here anymore. Right. What other answers can they give them other than, hey, we're really discriminating in part against players that are winning so that we can continue to operate in a fashion that allows us to be more profitable than if we continued to let them play.

Shane Mercer [00:06:55]:

John, do you think you could have helped the CEO better prepare for that line of questioning?

John [00:07:01]:

I don't know. He seemed pretty prepared. He seemed that he had an answer and an angle that he wanted to take and he stuck to that. I think that there's some of what he kept saying about having specific information. He's essentially using that as a catch all to refer to people who have access to data that is generally publicly available. But just because data is publicly available doesn't mean the average person knows what to do with it or can actually turn it into winning. So he's finding some way to still paint it as though these players are cheating or in some way insiders, which would be against terms of service. But obviously we know that's not what's happening.

Andrew Pace [00:07:48]:

It almost actually implies that they're referencing winners as like people who are fixing matches or something.

Shane Mercer [00:07:56]:

They're making winners sound like cheaters.

John [00:07:58]:

Or when he says they're influencing the market or changing the market. If there were people that were betting one way so hard that it moved a line to where they could arbitrage on the other side, if you did that same thing in the stock market, it's illegal. That would be totally understandable, but that just simply doesn't happen. And most of these books don't even react to betting on one side or another. They just simply hang a line and they try to get more people to bet the bad side of the line than the good side.

TAW Goodman [00:08:31]:

It's funny because the way I take what he's saying, in some ways, the way I think it implies is he's saying that because you are winning, because we are limiting you it's because you're winning and it's impossible to win on our thing. Unless you're cheating, which is crazy, and we know it's not true, but that is the way he almost is making it sound in that interaction.

Andrew Pace [00:08:56]:

Yeah. I would say the one thing too is for anyone that questions whether or not you could win at betting. That line of questioning and the way that CEO is squirming. And by the way, there's a whole other line of questioning with other CEOs and people prominent in the industry in Australia that you can follow along with that same news story that's associated with that. But you know, winning is possible. When you watch that, you can never question all these people that say the house always wins. You can't question that when you watch that video.

Shane Mercer [00:09:28]:

Yeah. It becomes very apparent that not only do winners exist, but they need to take action against them quickly. John, you have won a lot of money betting on sports, but you've had some challenges getting paid by at least one book.

John [00:09:46]:

Yeah, by at least one book specifically, I think, what we're referring to as a regulated book. So obviously, when you deal with unregulated books or books that are regulated outside of your jurisdiction, then you run a risk yourself that you don't have recourse against them. Right. That they could essentially just not act in good faith and you may not get that money. It's kind of a risk that anyone takes when dealing with those books. But when it becomes regulated and legal in your jurisdiction, then you expect that you should be treated fairly and responsibly and that the lawmakers should should help you out there when you have an issue. So there's a regulated book that I've been using that limited me. And when I tried to withdraw money after I got limited, they just ran me around the wagon, made me submit pictures of my photo ID, which I'd already submitted, made me submit a selfie of me holding my ID. Made me give them they asked for proof of residence within the state, which you don't even need to do that sort of thing. And it actually took well over a month before I actually got my first withdrawal processed. And that's just not acceptable. They are kind of an outlier, I think, in my experience. But that same book, I had a buddy who he also got limited on there and he's been dealing with trying to withdraw his money and his account has been locked for almost two months now. He has since gone to the state regulator and they actually replied to him, I think, earlier today, and they're going to investigate that issue. But that book simply hasn't responded to him for over three weeks now. They've completely ghosted him, which is the kind of shady practice you'd expect from a book based on some island in the Pacific somewhere, not from a book that's a brick and mortar institution somewhere in the United States. That kind of stuff is completely unacceptable and outrageous. And it's crazy that it is allowed to happen again and again with the same entities in the same jurisdictions and there seems to be no punishment for it.

Shane Mercer [00:12:02]:

Yeah, it's interesting because you've got a whole bunch of books that maybe weren't regulated before and now that they are regulated, they're still trying to use some of their tactics and strategies that are just plain and simple unethical.

John [00:12:17]:

Yeah. To add to that, they seem to be somewhat beholden to a lot of the third parties that they contract out to operate their books. I think a lot of these books just put a label or a name or a brand on their product and they actually have one of those shady offshore partners actually operating everything. And I think when you deal with their customer support, when you deal with their financial, part of that, there's one piece of it is the book that you're using. One piece of it is some third party money transition piece and then there's another piece that's the odds behind it and you're trying to coordinate to get all these people to agree to pay you out and it can be just a problem still even despite the regulation.

Shane Mercer [00:13:05]:

Well, we wish your friend the best of luck as he sort of fights the good fight, so to speak. Well, with that, guys, I want to move on to something a little more fun. Baseball's back, baby. We've got like, what, a full week under our belt? Maybe a little bit more than that. And there's this idea out there in the sports betting world amongst professionals and regular sports bettors the recreational bettors, that baseball is hard, that baseball is harder than the other sports, that it's very difficult to win at baseball. But TAW, John, and even you, Pace, now really kind of getting into it, are starting to find some success. I want to start with you. Give us a sense of how you found success in baseball.

TAW Goodman [00:13:53]:

Sure. Well, first, baseball for me, baseball has always been a part of my life, right. I've enjoyed baseball, enjoyed watching baseball as a kid. I think I've told somebody recently, baseball is every boy's first love in the United States. Growing up, some of my first memories are playing catch in the backyard with my dad. So baseball always been around it, played baseball, and then when I started sports betting, suddenly I got to baseball. And like a lot of other things, you lose sometimes, right, and you learn from losing. And so that's kind of where my success in baseball first started, with being unsuccessful in baseball. I remember back several years ago now, I had a baseball bet and I had bet it live and I had the bases loaded. The other team had the bases loaded, but my team was tied and I was like, oh, no, I've already lost this bet, I'm going to cash out. And so I did that, sure enough. So I got about less than $0.10 on the dollar back. But then after that, I probably even bet the other side. Then I'm like, oh, I'm going to chase this, get some of this back. And then watch that bet not only win, but then the corresponding cash out, then I would have got, rather than getting $0.10 on the dollar, get paid. And that's when I realized there's chaos in baseball that can be taken advantage of. And I've kind of worked on that since that moment.

Shane Mercer [00:15:31]:

Yeah, chaos. We dived into that a couple of weeks back apace when we talked about chaos in sports and baseball, there is a lot of chaos. We've got a pitcher who's holding the ball most of the time, but that pitcher changes every game. In fact, that pitcher will change several times potentially in a single game. So a lot of chaos to go around in the game of baseball. John, how do you try and implement some order into that chaos?

John [00:16:02]:

Sure, yeah. A lot of it is trying to figure out what the books are trying, whether they want you to do right. So think about in the case that was just laid out where you have a bases loaded tie game. The book is posting lines that assume the team's already scored. They're giving you minus one and a half at minus odds or paying you less than one to one for that. And what they're trying to trick you mentally into thinking is that that's a safe bet. When people see that I have to pay $100 to win $80, they think, well, this bet is probably going to win. That's oftentimes just not true. They like to play those psychological tricks on you. And the value is almost always on people to not score, people to not succeed. I love saying to my friends, I love betting against human achievement because it's the most sure thing in sports is that people are going to fail and they're going to fail a lot. So you're just one strikeout or one double play away from no one scoring in those situations. So that's what you do. You lean into the chaos, like was said earlier, and you try to go against what you think that they want you to do.

Shane Mercer [00:17:18]:

I love that betting against the achievement. And in a sport like baseball where if you hit the ball 30% of the time, you're an All Star, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to bet against success. Pace, you would probably be the first to admit that baseball hasn't always exactly been your bread and butter, but you're starting to make a little more toast lately.

Andrew Pace [00:17:39]:

I'm sitting here right now feeling like a baseball god today.

Shane Mercer [00:17:47]:

Yeah, why is that?

Andrew Pace [00:17:49]:

I'm so excited for the season because of the success we've had in the last week. It's been awesome. We've got some great strategies. Ta down there has been betting baseball a long time. He sells himself short. He's to say he's successful at it. It's an understatement. And John, he's the data king. So data is prominent in baseball. Everyone has access to it. The way you look at it and the way you interpret it can change and can cause, I think, a lot of problems in baseball. But everyone plays 162 games and there's a lot of verbiage in baseball. This team can't lose and there's no chance this pitcher is going to lose to this team, things like that. Meanwhile, down in the basement and the gutters of the league are 60 win teams. So winning almost a third of the time, or over a third of the time, so presents a lot of opportunity. And the flip side to that is it never stops. So baseball is one of these things, it's not like an NFL Sunday where you're like, all right, it's NFL Sunday, let's get it. There's a busy slate of baseball almost every single day of the entire summer. So you really got to be cautious from a gambling standpoint as well because you get into a bad headspace, something doesn't go the right way and there's so many opportunities to give back as well. But yeah, for the longest time I would say I was the guy sitting by the pool with a nice little parla and a cocktail and some losses throughout the summer. But yeah, definitely excited to be a part of the inplayLIVE community and to follow these two pros that are on the chat with us today.

Shane Mercer [00:19:24]:

Whether you bet on sports or not, this baseball season in particular is really interesting because of all the changes that are taking place. So we've got rules around when a positional pitcher can come in to pitch. We've banned the shift, we've got a pitch clock, we've got bigger bases, the game has really changed. So Tod, are there any ways to take advantage of these rule changes or how are you viewing these changes?

TAW Goodman [00:19:56]:

Yeah, and as I see, we have another host joining party there with John. So the rule changes, I guess first we have the pitch clock, right, where essentially it's moved to speed up the game. I think last I saw last year the games were taken a little over 3 hours in excess of 3 hours for a game. And so far this season they're averaging less than two and a half hours. So essentially half hour shorter. Right. Which is great for the game of baseball, it's great for viewership and games haven't been going in that amount of time since I think before I was born. So I think 1984 was the last time games are going that fast. So what happens when games are going fast like that? Well, we've got more opportunities for, first of all, I think there's chaos as well, right. These pitchers, they don't have as much time to think about what they're going to do. They're limited in the amount of times they're allowed to make pickoff attempts. So I think the rule is you can try to pick off or step off the mound two times during an at bat. The third time if you do it, you have to get the runner out or the runner advances. So obviously that combined with the new rule, with the bases being closer together while they're bigger, making them closer together creates more opportunity for stolen bases. There's obviously markets available for that. The ban on the shifts, creating the opportunity for higher batting average on balls and play BAP. It I don't know what they call that, John, but the B-A-B-I-P there's going to be a rise in that just by the nature of all of that. Now, I don't have the data to back that up, but I assume that that's going to be true. And we're still early on in the season and I'm sure we're going to see more of that. So some opportunities to look at runs, some hits, some stalling bases and those kind of things.

Shane Mercer [00:21:57]:

John's, the data guy. John, what are you going to be looking for here? What sort of statistics are you really kind of zeroing in on and focusing on with these changes and how do you go about collecting that data now given all of these changes, because it won't necessarily be comparable to the past.

John [00:22:16]:

Yeah, a couple of things. So just in general for this season so far, I think overs are hitting at about a 57% clip or 58% clip. So that's obviously pretty high. Normally an over really only hits about 48% of the time. The under is typically the side that you're going to tread water on when you're eating the juice on a bet. So that's interesting. I think that's what most people expected, though. I think some pitchers, having said that the pitch clock gives them an advantage, made us kind of question that a little bit, and maybe that's true for pitchers who are able to get more of a rhythm, like the starting pitcher. So maybe in the first five innings you might see fewer runs. I think I've actually kind of observed that in some of the data that I've had of betting overs in the first five versus unders in the first five. But then the bullpen comes in, the guy comes in cold out of the bullpen, and all of a sudden he's got to throw a ball every 15 seconds. I think that might be where we see some variance there. So I'm looking forward to taking a look at that. I think it's kind of going to be a cat and mouse game as the season goes on, because I think while we collect data and the books collect data and they try to adjust lines, the teams are also collecting data. So the teams are starting to are probably going to start figuring out like, hey, we thought we should steal more bases, but it's actually like we're getting out more trying to steal or maybe we're stealing bases at a higher rate than we even thought we would from a success standpoint. Let's do more of it. I think we've seen a lot of people bunting more, I feel like in weird situations in the last week than I remember normally. Like teams that are ahead bunting and trying to do double steals and interesting things like that. So I think this season is just going to progress kind of strangely. It actually reminds me of last year at the beginning of the NBA season when they tried to implement what I would call the anti Trey Young rule where if the offensive player was initiating contact driving to the basket, they were not calling the foul. And I want to say it was like 64% of the games in the first month and a half went under and there were games in like the players eventually just revolted and made them change the rule back. But I don't know that we'll see that this year. I think a lot of people like the rule but the books really didn't adjust in the NBA and the rule actually had to be reversed for everything to correct itself. So that's something I would look to. I think we give them a lot of credit but sometimes I'm just not sure that they're actually as astute as we think that they are.

Shane Mercer [00:24:44]:

John touched on a lot of things there, Pace. But I know one thing you're always big on if players come out and say that something benefits them or gives them an advantage, I know your ears kind of perk up. And do you believe it, though? Because you're always focused on player motivations and thoughts, that kind of thing.

Andrew Pace [00:25:00]:

Yeah, player motivations. Body language. We touched on the 162 game season, right? Like there's legit days where guys don't want to be playing baseball. It's just a simple reality. They get like a day off a month or some crazy statistic like that. There's no other sport like it right.

Andrew Pace [00:25:15]:

So there's legit days that you can see in the body language of the team that they don't want to be there or they're on a double header and it's pouring rain and it can be a little bit miserable out there at times. Right. So those are things that I really like to keep an eye on. But with respect to the rule changes, my God, I've seen some crazy stuff in the last week. We all have to give you an example. We rewind the tape, right? Let's go to the 2022 COVID season of baseball where because of the shortened season, they wanted to make sure that games didn't go 1819 innings. So they created the advanced runner in the extra inning rule where if you do head into the 10th inning and beyond and it's not in the playoffs, a runner gets placed on second base at the start of the inning for both the home and away team as to increase scoring and shorten the game. That kind of goes in line with a lot of the changes that are now made for the 2023 season with respect to speed of the game. And just like a side note, I think it's phenomenal personally, because four hour baseball games versus two and a half hours as a bettor that creates a lot more consistency for us, not necessarily in scores, but in timing of games. So that gives us the opportunity to know when to clue in for the end of games. If you don't want to watch the whole thing or middle of games or whatever the case may be, which I think is great. Now, when you take that advanced runner rule, right? And now you take the larger bases, the larger bases, in theory, creates more stealing because there's a shorter distance between first and second and between second and third. So traditionally, speaking, before 2023, but after 2020, if you were in the bottom of the 10th inning and a really good batter came up to the plate, especially if the game was tied, it was likely that you would intentionally walk that hitter. So if you had a game that's tied five five, and there's two outs with a runner on second base and Aaron Judge is coming up, you're probably not going to pitch to him. You're going to intentionally walk him and pitch to the hitter that's after Aaron Judge or Mike Trout or whomever right? Now, what we watched last week a couple of different times, both in tie games and one where the away team had the lead, is the best hitter came up. They intentionally walked him, thinking that's what you do in this spot. And then you get a really sharp coach who's taking advantage of his opponent for having done that and runs a double steal on the first pitch. So not only do you now have a situation where you're trying to take advantage to get a force out, now you've got runners on second and third because of the coach doing that. And those are the kind of motivations that I look at and go, holy smokes, can we take advantage of this opportunity and how can we do that? And interestingly enough, one of the games that that happened in was a seven six baseball game where the away team walked the runner, the home team did the double steal, and Ta saw that right away in our group and capitalized on a great opportunity as a result.

Shane Mercer [00:28:26]:

How did you see that coming TAW or did you know that this coach was going to be able to take advantage of this?

TAW Goodman [00:28:34]:

So it's not something I knew a coach would be able I mean, obviously, I thought this is something that could happen. Having watched baseball ever since this rule change has come into play, it's something that in the past, I've always thought, well, runner on second at first, you would see when this rule first came in, they were still bunting this runner over a lot, right? They were. Giving up an out to get the runner to third base, which from an analytic standpoint just doesn't make sense to do that. But there's some old school coaches and that's what you do, right? You got this guy coming up, he's not that great of a hitter. Let's bun him on over. Or pitchers even before they have universal designated hitter now, but had a pitcher come in and bunt the guy over if he's on base, well, that's changed now, right? There's still a few teams that are doing that, but for the most part the league has realized, hey, why are we giving up and out? And we have this runner on base. And so taking that one step forward, hey, now we've got a runner on second who's got some speed, we've got a runner on first. Obviously, even if he's not the fastest guy, they're going to go after the guy on third. And why not try that double steal? Worst case scenario, we still have a runner in scoring position with one out, right? So it's something I thought could happen, saw it in action and I was like, now the value on this team after this having happened or before it even happened, it's just so much more than maybe what it was a year.

Shane Mercer [00:29:51]:

And will we continue to see it? Other coaches are watching. They're seeing this. And a lot of leagues can be copycat leagues.

TAW Goodman [00:30:00]:

Right and I really do think so. And it's something where and I don't know if we'll ever get there, but since this rule changes come into play, you probably play in a season again, I don't know, maybe ten to 15 extra inning games a year. A lot of these teams, right? And there could come a situation where they have a specialty guy that's just fast, right? A Billy Hamilton from a few years ago, or old school Ricky Henderson, but he was good at a lot of things, a faster guy that maybe someday that they'll have on the base path, right, to put in those situations, to pinch run and maybe further. Well, obviously that'll help us, but also help the teams maybe along the way.

Shane Mercer [00:30:37]:

So for all of you out there who are listening and watching and this gives you a little bit of insight into how these pros are thinking about the game and how these sort of sharp bettors are thinking about their wagers and sort of thinking about the motivations, how it can play out with new rules and then looking for the markets where they can take advantage of it. John, what advice would you give out there to recreational bettors who are sitting at home going, I want to bet on the game, but I don't really know where I should be looking?

John [00:31:08]:

Sure. I'll start with a couple of really simple things for baseball off the top. So one, check the weather, which way the wind is blowing and how fast it's blowing. Don't be afraid to bet a really low under. Don't be afraid to bet a really high over depending on the wind, it's probably the most correlated thing to the total of the game. Second, always shop around. You'll find books that will have over 8.5 at -110 and then you'll have books that have over 8 for the same price. It's like, well you should always take the 8 flat and it's amazing what the prices look like from book to book. So always shop around and then I think the last thing is probably.

John [00:31:58]:

I mentioned earlier about just what's your first thought? What do you think the books trying to get you to do? So last year DeGram on the Mets I think almost every time he started the Mets were like -300 or something stupid and I think they were winning barely half of those games or like a little more than half or something kind of ridiculous. So the value betting against the best pitchers in the league while it feels awful, like it feels just so nasty like something you should not do. You feel terrible when you take a dog like that against such a stud on the mound. But it's just profitable and you can look up those data, those trends long term. I'm sure there's places on the internet you can go find that information but it's just profitable. So like I said, just be a contrarian. Don't do what they want you to do.

Shane Mercer [00:32:49]:

Pace, I'm going to turn it over to you here John suggesting don't do what they want you to do. And for anybody who bets on sports, whether you're recreational pro or somewhere in the middle, you get those promos, those boosts, the hey, bet on this because we're going to make it a little bit spicy for you. Is that a good indication of what the book wants you to do and should you veer away?

Andrew Pace [00:33:16]:

I'd probably disagree with that line of thinking just from the standpoint that if it is a single wager that is boosted on one particular site, number one, there's a limit on it that usually is a very recreational limit. So it actually is in the player's favor in a lot of those cases. So what you can do in those spots, if you don't like the wager or you don't want to be a part of it is because of the fact that it is boosted on that site you could potentially use pregame arbitrage and get out of that at another book and just lock in. We're talking about a few dollars usually worth of profit because the limits are so small on those boosts. But if you have any sort of enticing wager like I know barstool sports will do Dave Portnoy's parlays and it's like his picks for the day. I don't know if one of them has ever won. So those are probably the ones that I would say are not as enticing or appealing and that you should probably stay away from. But yeah, I think there's a lot of traps with baseball that recreational bettors should be aware of. And I think the most obvious one, and for me, what I do is I don't look at the data the way that John does or has because John's literally like a human encyclopedia when it comes to this and he reacts the same way to any sport with all of his data. It's truly incredible. And what makes inplayLIVE so unique is having access to all these different sort of ways of looking at winning money betting on sports. But I just look at what I used to do, that's all I need to do because then as soon as I do that, I put myself in the brain of the recreational gambler, the poor sports bettor and one of the most common things is obviously parlays, right? They're three times more profitable to the sports book than any other wager that they take. So typically speaking, there are exceptions. Don't Parlay and the second one is the run line. These degrom situations that John just brought up this -300 degrom where he's maybe winning at a 50% clip in the example that he gave the public does not have -300 they just don't they have minus one and a half and even minus two and a half pregame and we know this firsthand you'll see potentially even with those favorites where you're trying to close out your parla. It's the last pick. It's your fourth leg. You hit a bunch of minus one and a half favorites and there's a runner on first base with two Outs. They let them steal second, they let them steal third and then bang, there goes the parla and the public comes collapsing to the ground. So stay away from those sort of oh, I'll just switch it to minus one and a half type mindsets. There are exceptions to that, of course, but overall, I would say those are two of the biggest traps for all.

Shane Mercer [00:36:12]:

Of you out there who are not a part of inplayLIVE and are listening and watching. We in the group have very specific strategies that are used to make money over time. And so TAW, without getting into those strategies, specifically giving away some of our sort of behind the wall secrets, what are you planning to do to make money off baseball this season?

TAW Goodman [00:36:37]:

Well, the first thing I'm doing is I'm starting slow, right, let's see how some of these rule changes go into play let's see how they play out. Let's see are the same teams or players that were good last year? Are they good this year? So there's a little bit of watch and learn here in the first month. I know baseball and all sports are very data driven and John's really good with that data. But I think John would be the first to agree that a lot about baseball is the feel of the game, watching teams, watching players, and so I'm going to watch some baseball too, right? So that's the second part of that. And then collaborate, collaborate with Pace, collaborate with John, collaborate with others in our group to hone in on the skills I already have, but hone in on our strategies to make sure they're still working right. Is there a tweak that's needed to be done here? Maybe it's worked in the past but the rule changes have created some change that's necessary and so that's kind of my path. And you know what, some days I'm going to take days off too, right? That's important because just like those guys play every day and they get burned out, we can get burned out too. So knowing to take, hey, I don't need to do this seven days a week, let's take a step back, enjoy day with my family, enjoy day with friends and do those kind of things. So that's my plan for the summer.

Shane Mercer [00:37:52]:

I love it. That's so important, right? Getting away from it sometimes. And you mentioned the power of a group and working together with other people. Pace, you brought up the fact that every team is playing 160 games, there's full slates of baseball every single day. And when you are part of a group, well, you don't necessarily have to have your eyes on every game all the time, right? There are other people in the group who are paying attention and watching and calling things out as you go. So again, anybody out there who's listening and is not a part of inplayLIVE but is curious and wants to join, we do have a promo code for you 'BEHINDTHELINES' so that's out there. But John, what's your path for the summer? How does it look?

John [00:38:35]:

Yeah, like Toss said, so leaning into the beginning of the season, just going light, starting small, making a lot of just really small pregame bets as well, just to kind of force myself to follow along with the game. So now just betting one dollars psychologically makes you more invested, makes you pay more attention to games and you'll actually start to learn more. But I'll do that while I'm following in the NBA and the NHL playoffs and just kind of enjoying the weather outside and kind of a nice blend of sports right now. And then we'll focus more on baseball as the summer goes on and then the good old CFL will start up. I can't wait for that again next season.

Shane Mercer [00:39:22]:

Yeah, you're a big football guy too, John. It's funny because you're in Tennessee, right?

John [00:39:28]:

I am in Tennessee. CFL was my best pre game football sport last year, went over like 60%, so can't complain about that.

Andrew Pace [00:39:40]:

Wow.

Shane Mercer [00:39:40]:

Well, there you go guys, stay tuned for the CFL coverage. Midsummer. Pace, what's your summer looking like? I think from everything I've heard you say is that this might be a baseball season that you're most excited for compared to past seasons.

Andrew Pace [00:39:58]:

Yeah, well, I think when TAW's talking about balance with taking days off and things like that, I used to just take the whole summer off. It doesn't mean that I didn't bet on sports. I rarely go a day that I don't place a wager, but a lot of it was more recreational, a lot of it was account maintenance related and getting ready for the next season, the next opportunity kind of thing that was going on in the summer. And then, yeah, you're sitting by the pool, maybe you're playing some cards, maybe you got a cocktail, you're with some friends, you throw a game on with an outdoor screen, kind of like that circus sports book that they got in Vegas, and gosh, it's just so fun to gamble. That's the draw, the entertainment side of it. And that's the way the summer definitely was for me. As far as this summer goes, I think that everything that I touched on there is still very important. And I think one of the beauties of some of the stuff that John's doing as an example with his data, where he does catch an edge, pregame that doesn't take any time, commitment, a lot of pregame pros, right. What really drives their success is a lot of labor outside of when the games are being played. Data analytics analysis, like John said, shopping. Right. So when that guesswork is taken out of it for you by you can talk about the tipsters in the trash of the industry by a legitimate pro, that's a really nice thing to have. So if John throws something up for us to wager on, I quickly pull up my phone. Place that wager over at a sharp and reputable book that has good lines like your Pinnacles and things like that. Place that wager and time commitment then becomes very low. And then the flip side to that is, from a live betting standpoint and every single game being super hands on and all day, every day with baseball schedules, you go, okay, well, how can we simplify that? And what I mean by that is, how can we have strategies that allow us to queue in at key times during games for all sports? This isn't just for baseball so that you can go about your life. You can get a wager and while you're cycling the sea wall or you're out on a canoe in the middle of camping, that is still a data backed, motivation backed, profitable wager that doesn't absorb all your time or all of your summer. So that's kind of, I think, the direction that as a group and as a community, we have gone in with a lot of sports and baseball, I think, would fit the bill for that. To give you a very specific example, let's take a look at the Sunday schedule for the MLB this coming weekend. And this goes for every Sunday, which is why I brought it up. You have got every team playing on a Sunday, so everyone's playing barring no rainouts or doubleheaders or things like that. Every game starts within a three hour window. So if you were to watch baseball and watch every single game that day from COVID to cover, you'd be now with the new rules looking at roughly five and a half hours of your day where you saw every single pitch or followed every single pitch. Well, if you simplify that into key times in the game, you can wager baseball that day, hopefully very successfully for roughly 30 to 60 minutes, cover off all of those games and go about your Sunday with your family, your friends, whatever the case may be. I know we're getting into NBA play in and playoffs and NHL playoffs here. As soon as that is done, then that kind of becomes the bread and butter for these summer months and that allows you to have that summer that we're talking about. And I'd actually throw that question back at you Shane, because you told me that baseball was your first experience with inplayLIVE, running up an account and having significant success. So I'd throw it back at you as well.

Shane Mercer [00:44:15]:

Yeah, I'm really excited for baseball. Again, I don't want to give away too much in terms of the strategy, but when I first joined inplayLIVE, it was at the beginning of July and baseball was all there. That was it. And I realized very quickly after joining, damn, I joined at the wrong time. I was like, wait a minute, why did I do this now? But baseball is all we had and in a lot of ways it was a great thing because it allowed me to just focus on one sport, one game. And it was very sort of easy to kind of go through the course, learn the strategies, take the strategies and apply it on my own. While the streams were great and you learn a lot from the streams, it was the summer and guys are doing their own thing and there might not have been as many streams as there have been over the last several months. So it was something I was able to take. Take the strategy. Go to my sports book, throw on the jays on my one TV because I don't have a nine screen wall like you do, Pace. But throw on the jays on my one TV, right? Pull up the sports book, pull up a couple of them where I can follow other games and apply the strategy on my own. I think I got lucky because it's a very high variance strategy, but I hit a couple right off the bat and then it was like, oh wow, okay. And then I kept that it kept rolling with it. I did experience the variance and went on significantly long losing streaks. But the beauty of this one strategy in particular is that when you hit, you hit at very high numbers, you hit at 4.05.06 or seven to one even. I think I even might have had a couple eight and a half on the season there, which was just awesome. And when you hit a bet at eight and a half or something like that, it just gets those endorphins going. You just feel that much better, right? It's a lot of fun. So, yeah, it was great. I learned the strategy, applied it, and then of course, football rolled around, which was sort of what I was most excited to join inplayLIVE for was football. Football was great, but now here we are into the spring and the beginning of the baseball season and man, do I ever feel prepared. I feel ready. I know what I'm doing, I know how my summer is going to go, and I can, when I want, sit down, focus on games, and then when it's over, or I've had enough or I want to break away, I can leave it. And as you mentioned, the beautiful thing about baseball is it's on all the time. So it's there when you want it and you can leave it when you don't. Go spend time with the family, go enjoy your summer with friends. So, yeah, I'm really excited to be able to sort of have a lot of fun with friends, family throughout the summer and at the same time enjoy baseball and make some money off it when I want. So that's me. I'll throw it back over to you guys for one final baseball thought from each of you. TAW, one final thought. Go Ahead.

TAW Goodman [00:47:24]:

One final thought. In addition to all the things we talked about, betting baseball, watching baseball, anybody listening, I suggest go to at least one baseball game this year. Baseball is I love the game of baseball and people say it's boring and you watch it at home and you don't like it. It's ten times different in person. Take your family, take your kids, enjoy a game out at the ballpark this summer.

Shane Mercer [00:47:49]:

Love it. John, one final baseball bet thought.

John [00:47:54]:

Yeah, I like that one a lot. I think for me, as somebody who used to be grew up obsessed with baseball, played baseball so much, it's all I thought about, and then kind of just fell detached from the game as the games tended to get 4 hours long and nobody got on base and that sort of thing. I'm just going back into it with an open mind this year and optimistic about rules changes and just excited that they're recognizing that they have a problem and that they're doing something to try to address it. Because I think so many leagues, so many sports have issues and they don't do anything about it. If we remember back to the Think, that's what got baseball in trouble in the first place, right. So I'm just excited to give them a second chance and really just enjoy watching a lot of games this summer.

Shane Mercer [00:48:42]:

I love both of those. Get out to a game, embrace the change, because the league is doing something about it. Pace, over to you. One final baseball thought.

Andrew Pace [00:48:51]:

John, didn't you have an example about Zach Greinke from now until then? What was that example that you gave us?

John [00:48:59]:

Yeah. So anybody at home could go find it on, go to YouTube and just search Zack Greinke Kentucky Derby and you will watch. I believe they were happening either simultaneously or around the same time, but the entire Kentucky Derby happened in the time between two Zach Greinke pitches several years ago. And there's a million other videos that are the exact same. There's like an entire inning being played this season between one pitch last year. There's some other things. The national anthem being sung at the Super Bowl. There's just a lot of really funny touchdown drives in football. Everything you can think of, people have compared them. There's like somebody playing an entire round, entire hole of golf at the Masters in between two pitches from Pedro Martinez, like twelve years ago. So some really funny stuff, but yeah, it's all out there.

Andrew Pace [00:49:54]:

Yeah I think that speaks to the power of embracing change and not being baseball is one of these sports and you see it in moneyball, right, where the scouts are all in the room and a guy starts talking about a player's jawline as a reason to draft him. Like, the kid's got a great jawline. Baseball has been one of these traditional sports where the data and analytics have almost been removed to an extent, but now we've hit a point where it can't, and it just speaks to the value, I think, of the changes that they've made. So that, like Toss said, it isn't this boring thing to watch. It is played in a reasonable time, and it is exciting and it is much more fast paced. Imagine football without a shot clock or game clock or basketball without a shot clock. Right. So I think that stuff's really important. I'm just excited again about the motivations. I'll just share one quick other story that I saw from last week. So Tom mentioned in the rule changes that when you go to pick off a player, if you do two pick offs, you can't pick off a third time. Well, you can, but if you don't get him out, then he gets the next base for free. When you talk about traditional coaches. So a guy that's doing an intentional walk versus an analytics and rules change forward coach, kind of like a new wave coach where he goes, hey, thanks for intentionally walk. I'm walking that runner. I'm going to do a double steal now. And I have two runners in scoring position now instead of one. There was a situation that I watched where they did the two pick off attempts to a very fast, high, prominent, base stealing runner, and then they never stole the runner. So he can't pick him off unless he gets him out. He didn't take an extra step. He didn't take an extra lead off, nothing. They didn't steal him. The batter hit into a double play and then the next hitter hit a single. Not that all things are constant. I'm a believer that once one thing's occurred, that next thing is not then going to happen. So one thing that a lot of recreational sports bettors will say, they say he would have scored or they would have scored. That's not the way that stuff works. But in the example that I'm using, I'm excited for the motivations still, because when I see that sort of dinosaur esque traditional baseball coach being put in that position, it's mind boggling to me. But then, of course, again, we look at it from that betting angle. So I'm really excited about that. And as always, I think it's my advice for everything. Have fun. Be transparent, have fun. Tell the family what you're up to and why, and there's no need to hide what it is that you're doing. Play responsibly, make informed decisions. And even if you are a recreational bettor that's losing money over the long term. Just stay within your budget, keep it fun and enjoy your summer.

Shane Mercer [00:52:41]:

I love that fun so important. If it ain't fun, it ain't worth doing. Guys, this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate all of you joining me. John, TAW, thanks for coming on the show. And Pace, I'll see you next week. All right, guys, till then, keep beating the box. Take care, guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and everywhere you get your podcasts. Have a betting story or want to be featured on our podcast, drop a note in the comments below. And if you want to join inplayLIVE, use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'.