Episode 14

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. That guy over there, Andrew Pace, the founder of inplayLIVE, the greatest sports betting community on planet Earth. Today, Pacer, we are talking all about the lessons we wish we knew before we started betting on sports. And before we get to that though, I want to remind everybody to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials at inplayLIVE. And if you want to sign up and be a part of the community, you can join with a special promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'. So Pace, before we get to the lessons and this all stems from a contest that you guys held at inplayLIVE that was a lot of fun and it was a great way to share a lot of knowledge, but it also yielded a lot of valuable information, valuable tips, and strategies for success in sports betting world. So we're going to dive into some of those in just a moment. But before we do, we also want to bring your attention to something that we talked about on the show a few weeks back when we covered a story that was making news. And this is about the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. It is looking at banning celebrities and athletes and influencers from participating in sports betting advertisements. So essentially it's going to tell the books, you can't use these people in your ads, or at least it's exploring this idea. And right now, Pace, there was supposed to be a deadline. They've now extended the deadline for anyone out there who is involved in this space. So that means likely all of you who are listening and watching you have at least some involvement in the sports betting space. There is an open call to go and share your comments, share your suggestions on this topic, but at the same time, you can also share your thoughts and comments on other sports betting topics as well, right? Pace?

Andrew Pace [00:02:03]:

Yeah, I think this is, I mean, you could listen to that and go, who the hell cares about celebrity endorsing sports betting? And some people that do care are the people that are very anti gambling legalization. They don't want to see it on the screens and then to take that a step further, they don't want to see Connor McDavid, Austin Matthews, and Wayne Gretzky showing their kids that betting is cool and it's what's required to enjoy the game and that it's easy, right? So you can have an opinion on that or not, I don't really care. What I care about is that the AGCO, which is a regulator of the Ontario and Canadian sports betting landscape, they're listening. That's what I care about. So it doesn't matter if you're in Canada, you're in Ontario, or you're in another regulated state elsewhere in the world, everyone should follow this process. They should contact their regulator and let them know about what types of behaviors the sports bettors are. Sorry. The sports books are engaging in with their sports bettors limiting players, catering to losing players by increasing losing players limits decreasing winning players limits clawing back wagers voiding bets, you name it. So whatever's happened to you that's relating to sort of shady practices from the non regulated world that have spilled over into the regulated world? Your regulator in your state or province should know about it. As for this specific situation, all you have to do we've brought it up on screen here is go to the AGCO website and click on and register for the engagement portal. Give them your opinion on the celebrity bettors and then let them know how the sports books have impacted or affected you or people, you know, relating to some of the practices that are happening out there. They're listening. That's the power of this.

Shane Mercer [00:03:54]:

Yeah. This is your opportunity to tell them what you think. It doesn't come around that often where they're actually willing to hear it and willing to read it. So please seize the opportunity and let them know what you think about the sports betting landscape as a whole. Definitely comment on the celebrity thing but then tell them everything else that you want them to hear because they're listening. So, great opportunity here. And pace. I think that closes on Monday, May the 15th.

Andrew Pace [00:04:20]:

Monday, May the 15th.

Shane Mercer [00:04:22]:

Yes. All right. There we go. Perfect. So now with that out of the way, it is time to dive into some of these tips, suggestions, the things we wish we knew before we started betting on sports. And I want to start it off with this sort of general theme that really touches on the purpose of this show, which is to purify the sports betting industry to help you learn how to navigate these waters that are unfair. It's stacked against you. And I think a lot of people who are rec bettors who are doing it for fun and are sort of maybe early on in their sports betting careers, so to speak may not know or recognize or realize that the deck is stacked against you. There is a common sort of saying in Vegas that the house always wins. It certainly applies in the world of sports betting or at least the sports books are always looking to have an edge on you and you need to recognize that and understand that. And that's something that came through in the contest. Right, Pace? That people didn't quite realize that it wasn't unfair. And now that they realize it, they kind of know what's lurking, what's coming their way as they make their wagers.

Andrew Pace [00:05:38]:

Yeah, for sure. I think one of the biggest things relating to what we do at inplayLIVE that's so powerful is the ability to lean on one another that are all walking down a similar path or have already walked down the path. So if there's a major change in the betting industry. If there's a major rule change in a sport, anything to do with a bad beat, those happen where you're heavily favored in a wager and you can almost count your money before it's happened. And then something crazy happens, which we've touched on in our Chaotic Models episode, where you lose and you do have this whole community of people to lean on. For me personally, when this whole thing started out, it was obviously me instilling my knowledge into the members that were there. And then as we grew, I really started to become a part of the community where it no longer was a one way street, it was a two way street, where I was really learning from the community in a series of different ways. One in the bad habits that I didn't necessarily have myself, that I started to see members have. That wasn't a problem that I personally had, which gave me more perspective. It gave me more ability to help the next person, knowing that that particular problem wasn't something that I knew people went through, that I now see others going through that I've been able to help them with or point them to the people that went through something similar that they can help them with, and then actually learning from them. Myself, where I go, holy smokes, I didn't know about this opportunity, or Holy smokes, I didn't know about this strategy, or wow, I never thought about using a sports book in that way. Oh wow, your eyes on that same thing that we're all looking at and doing have brought a new perspective that's created new avenues of profit for me. So the power of bouncing ideas off of each other and the power of learning together and then failing together so that you can lean on the people going through those same things as you, and yes, turn to the ones that have walked through it before for support and help is priceless. And what I love about what we're doing today is we have literally hundreds of contest entries from the members of inplayLIVE giving people free betting advice. So if you haven't seen it already, for the last probably ten days or so, we're periodically posting one of these pieces of advice to our Twitter and to our Instagram and Facebook pages. And sometimes you might know what that piece of advice already was. You're like, oh, that's a no brainer. But then one might come along that actually might change the outcome of your life forever, or the way that you bet forever. So we're going to be going through some of those today, which I think is just so exciting because a lot of these lessons are lessons that I learned a decade ago. A lot of these lessons are lessons I've learned in the last year. And a lot of these lessons I'm actually continually learning because you never can't fully stop learning in the category that they're being brought up.

Shane Mercer [00:08:54]:

Yeah, like you said, they can really totally change the way that you view sports betting as a whole. And there's some absolute gems that we're going to bring up today. And I want to get into one right now that comes from one of our more interesting members. We have a lot of great members in the community, but Ray the Caddy is a really kind of special character, as you're all going to see here in just a moment. And this takes us on to our next topic, which is betting live. And a lot of people didn't really totally understand the value in live betting, which is being promoted heavily by the sports books, but what they don't promote is just how valuable it can be. So here's Ray The caddy:

Ray The Caddie [00:09:47]:

How are you doing? Ray the Caddy here say, listen, the boys across the pond at inplayLIVE have another contest. This time, all they do is pose a question. What's the one thing you wish you knew before you started Sports Wagering? And let me tell you, for me, I wish I knew about Live Wagering, right? Because when I started, you're betting spreads, parlays money lines, which is great, but the kind of money you can make with Live Value Wagers that make you money over time, that's one thing I really wish I knew. And so live value wagering with inplayLIVE yeah, that's why it's called inplayLIVE.

Ray The Caddie [00:10:19]:

Figure that one out. Yeah, clever. Anyways, the second thing I wish I knew was the golden peck and goo he's part of the club. That guy's like a living cartoon character. Not only will he make you a lot of money, but he's worth the price of admission if you just join.

Ray The Caddie [00:10:33]:

He's like my Uncle Seamus when he has too many pints at the pub, next thing you know, he's up on the bar singing The Gambler. Yeah. So check out inplayLIVE's instagram feed, you'll know what I mean? Anyways, ray the caddy out and live. Value wagers with inplayLIVE.

Shane Mercer [00:10:49]:

Ray the Caddy with the big shout out to the Golden Goose. For all of you don't know the Golden Goose. That is Kenny, one of our members who is on the streams often with Pace calling out Live Wagers. And yeah, he can be pretty entertaining, to say the least.

Andrew Pace [00:11:04]:

Yeah. And one thing that I knew when Ray started making these videos was that he's actually not Scottish. And I just learned before the broadcast of the show that my brother, who's actually met him face to face, didn't even know that. So for anyone that knows Ray the Caddy and has followed his tales and his posts that he makes with our group, he's an actor, and a damn good actor at that. So his persona, Rey Dacade, is Scottish, but he is not well, he really.

Shane Mercer [00:11:37]:

Does a great job with that accent. But he highlights this really great purpose that inplayLIVE is built around, which is live betting. And we have a couple of other people who also sort of made this same comment and one of them saying you can't find 100 profitable games to bet on every week. In fact, it's almost impossible to find 100 profitable games to bet on in a month. But betting live during games greatly increases your opportunity to find profitable bets tenfold crucial to long term success. And that's what it does, right? Live betting really sort of increases the volume of great opportunities, right?

Andrew Pace [00:12:17]:

I think that's one of the reasons why also two bad beats don't impact me the way they do a pregame bettor. You can have this amazing pregame wager where you got the line that you wanted, you got the right line movement that you were looking for. You analyzed it, and it's going just how you had planned. And the whole game goes by, and then in one moment, it's gone, and you get this really bad beat, and it's a lot lower volume. The more volume that you have, the more you find out whether or not something is or is not working. So with live betting, if you do have a strategy that is working, you might be able to put that into practice with the volume of potentially multiple wagers in one game, let alone the whole slate of games that day or that week. So you oftentimes we'll see pregame sports bettors that are the best of the best. They got these razor thin margins, these really small edges and you have to make a high volume of wagers but then they just don't have the opportunity to do that in some sports and in some seasons. Really good example being the NFL. The NFL is not a high volume sport or a high volume league, right, versus say MLB where you have 162 games per team. So thousands and thousands and thousands of games, so much higher volume even from a pregame standpoint. But then take that live where you can potentially get a dozen opportunities in one game. That's where the volume really opens up and that's a dangerous thing, right. Which is one of the reasons why we see live betting advertised quite a bit. You have more opportunities if you're making bad bets, that's more opportunities to lose money. But from a pro perspective, you take that pregame data, that pregame analysis and you can convert that into live wagering where you're not just making one bet anymore that can turn around and go the wrong way really quickly and you potentially are making a whole bunch more. If something's working, you're going to get volume that gives you more returns and if something isn't working, you're going to be able to figure that out much quicker because of the higher volume.

Shane Mercer [00:14:31]:

Yeah. So betting live gives you that volume to work with, but it can sometimes be a double edged sword but also finding the opportunities can be a bit of a challenge Live, which is why Book Preparation is so important. So we have another comment here from one of the contest entries. He said for a beginner starting in January so just January of this year 2023, he wish he learned about book preparation in advance of events like March Madness and now he knows for next year. But he felt a bit behind when he started as he was sort of probably scrambling to find books that offer the markets needed to execute on the college basketball strategies. We have another one here. Number one thing I wish I knew before betting on Sports is that how much various books and markets are needed to sort of capitalize on the odds pace any advice for people out there who are Like, I've got Bet365, so I'm good.

Andrew Pace [00:15:40]:

Yeah, I mean, there's some truth to that too, right?

Shane Mercer [00:15:45]:

It does have a lot of good opportunities on Bet365. But as we've covered off very extensively on previous episodes especially the one about limiting is that it won't take long if you are being successful on Bet365 to get the Boot.

Andrew Pace [00:16:00]:

Yeah, they'll shut you down really quickly. And I think with a lot of the advice in general, one of the biggest things that I've learned in giving advice isn't to say I told you so. It's that people actually do have to walk the path themselves to really, actually sharpen their knife and have truly learned it. So I think sometimes which we saw with spader coming on when they first get limited they've heard of it it isn't like it's this new concept. They've heard that it exists out there, but they don't think it'll happen to them. And then when it happens, it's like, oh my God, what am I going to do? Like, I don't have my Bet365 I don't have my points bet right and that's where these guys advice is coming in these guys are Saying, I wish I knew about book preparation. So what they're referring to is they're referring to not relying on one sports Book. They're referring to having multiple sports books when you have multiple sports books you can compare lines between those sports books. If you are losing in recreational sports bettor and you get 1.95 or -105 on a wager that you're going to take whereas other books are offering at minus 115 or 1.87. That difference is the difference in losing less over the long term. And for a pro, that difference can be the edge of profit versus not long term. So when you have multiple Books, you can price Shop. That's a big learning lesson in sports Betting. When you price Shop and when you get the best lines, you're providing yourself with a greater opportunity to lose less or potentially make Money. That's number one. Number Two, when you do proper book preparation and you have multiple books, there is the opportunity to use bonuses from sports books against each other and to actually turn bonuses into profits despite them being betting tokens. Even though they're not real money, you can turn them into real money. That's a lot harder to do with just one sports book. The next with price shopping and with bonus harvesting, you get arbitrage opportunities where you actually can't lose. Those are very rare, and the books love to shut you down if you've caught one of them. But those are all a part of the learning lessons in the journey of becoming a sports betting pro. So when these guys are saying book preparation, they're referring to that number one. And number two, they're actually also referring to being limited by sports books, where they go, Holy smokes, I'm in the middle of the action. It's a big day. It's an NFL Sunday, it's a college football Saturday, it's the conference tournaments leading up to March Madness. Those are big days. And right smack in the middle of the day, boom. You got shut down by a sports book. And you're sitting there frozen going, oh my God, what do I do now? I don't have my sports book. So they're going, I want book preparation because I want to keep wagering, and I'm doing really well. I've been limited, which means I'm making money. I need an outlet to continue to wager on. And when that happens in real time, you can feel really hopeless. Whereas if you've done some book preparation and you're ready for that, you would move on to the next book that's already ready to go. That's already verified and something that we've touched on before, hopefully established as a good customer, for lack of a better term, on that sports book so that it is ready to go and hopefully has some profit behind it.

Shane Mercer [00:19:21]:

Yeah, and we talked about establishing that good customer role, I think, in our episode last week on parlays. Parlays are sort of not necessarily a way to win money long term over time, but it is a way to show a book that, hey, I might be a good customer for you. Keep me around a little while until you realize that I'm not a good customer for you.

Andrew Pace [00:19:43]:

Exactly. But I mean, incredible advice to anyone. Whatever stage of your journey you're on. Incredible advice. The most entry level is open up a new sports book that you don't even deposit into. Just check out their lines. Just look at their lines. If you're betting live, look at them compared to the book that you're currently using. Just have two options out there. And then when you're comfortable with that, add a third at a fourth at a 10th.

Shane Mercer [00:20:10]:

Yeah. And it's important, too, to know that just because you have a book that has the markets and the lines that are being called at the moment, you are at some point going to be successful if you're following all the advice and you're going to want those same markets and lines somewhere else. So you better have those books kind of ready to go.

Andrew Pace [00:20:29]:

Totally.

Shane Mercer [00:20:30]:

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense there. All right, so moving on to another way that makes a world of difference, and this is something that I think a lot of respondents chimed in on this topic, and these are topics that we kind of have discussed quite a bit on the show, sort of throughout in small ways, but it's something that we can't say enough in driving it home. So here it is. The number one thing I wish I knew before betting is that you only play with two and a half percent of your bankroll and gradually increase your unit size that comes from toter an established member within the group and another one here coming from another member. One thing I wish I knew about sports betting, unit sizing, money management, scaling and then connecting with others in the community and communicating with others sort of about what they're doing on that front. So money management, we've talked a little bit about this numerous times in each episode but it just keeps coming up because it is so important and it is probably one of the most important aspects. And money management is what is your unit size and then how is your unit size adjusting over time as your bankroll grows and it really sort of prevents you from losing too much at any given time. Right? Pace.

Andrew Pace [00:21:48]:

Totally. The harsh reality of this industry is that it is gambling, right? And we hate the G word at inplayLIVE. We like to invest in sports. So if you're not deploying proper money management, even if you are making wagers that actually have an edge for the player and not the house, you will always go broke regardless of the loss percentage. So regardless of the chance of you losing when you're deploying money irresponsibly, there's always going to be a time that things sort of turn around for you. There's a couple of really famous movies that I like to reference relating to poor money management that I'm sure the casinos love because there's gambling films that are out there, they're really famous. Right? So I'll tell the first one from Rounders rounders is entirely built around Mike McDermott being an absolute prodigy. He's a poker savant. So it justifies his behavior in the film through its entirety without questioning what he's actually doing. And because it's a feel good story, in the end mike McDermott takes money that is not his. He goes and sits down at a poker table with 100% of that money in one game. So in rounders, he wins. Right? So I'll now give the next example, which is Mississippi Grind, right? Another poker savant, right? This time he's playing with his own money and he's on a hell of a gambling run, and he sits down at a table with his entire bankroll, and there's a two outer in order for him to lose, which I think usually you're a 98% favorite, right? So the two outer comes bang, bang, and he loses his whole bankroll in one hand. Did he get his money in good? Yes.

Andrew Pace [00:23:58]:

Did he make the right decision at that time by deploying what was available to him and getting that action in? Yes. But he should have had, in poker terms, 10% of his bankroll on the table, no more than 10% at one particular time. So if your poker bankroll was $100,000, you would want to have sat down with an absolute maximum of 10%. So that 2%, two outer that cost him his whole bankroll. You could be like, oh my God, that's a bad beat. How the hell did that happen? You're so unlucky. But that never will not happen because 2% is one out of 50. So if you keep putting yourself into positions where you are a 98% favorite, where one out of 50 times you're going to lose, it is a guarantee that there will be a time where you lose. And when that time comes, you had better have a responsible amount of money on the table in the sports books deployed for that one bet, whatever it is, you had better have a responsible amount of money at that particular point in time. So Hollywood celebrates these stories, and I'm sure the casinos love that they celebrate those stories. But for our members and going back to our previous advice about live betting, it's high volume. So if you take any one of your potentially thousands of opportunities that you get in a month and deploy an irresponsible amount of money, and you do that consistently, it is without question and an absolute guarantee that you will get bit, and you will get bit bad. So we are constantly reminded, myself constantly reminded, Shane, yourself constantly reminded to manage your freaking money. And that's why people wish that they had known it beforehand. But the flip side is you don't learn unless you go through that loss that bitch you.

Shane Mercer [00:26:01]:

Yeah, I think everybody learns from it when they do get bit, but the idea is to learn before you get bit. And thankfully, I haven't had any too big of losses because when I first joined inplayLIVE, this was new to me, money management. It's not something I had really given much thought to before. So I was really sort of open to hearing it and receiving it, and I thought, oh, okay, two and a half percent is the max I'm going to do. Well, a lot of my bets don't even ever get to two and a half percent. A lot of them are 1% or in that range of 1% to 2% occasionally might do a max two and a half percent. And that's the percentage that is for sports betting because it is so high volume. And if you do go on a losing run, you don't want to lose. You lose ten in a row, well, okay, you lost 10% of your bankroll. It's not that big a deal, and you can recover from it. But knowing where to deploy your money and when is also tricky. And knowing when to go 1%, when to go half a percent, when to go the full two and a half percent isn't sort of easy. It doesn't necessarily come right away. But one of the biggest ways to figure that out, and this was the advice that I had sort of submitted for the contest, was tracking. Tracking, tracking, tracking. And before inplayLIVE, I had never tracked a single wager, ever. Never did it once in my life. Since joining inplayLIVE, I've literally tracked every single wager I've made, which is now well into the thousands, maybe even over 10,000. I've probably eclipsed 10,000 wagers tracked. I've got them all marked down. And what that has allowed me to do over time is to go back and look when things aren't going well, go back and look well. What isn't going well, what sport, what particular market in that sport. And it also allows me to look and see, well, what is doing really well, and the comparison between what's doing okay, it's making me some money, it's got some edge, and what's doing extremely well, and what has a great edge. And that's how I've been able to kind of, over time, figure out, okay, this is where I want to deploy a little bit of money, because there is a shot of it hitting, and it does pay over time. But this opportunity over here has a really high percentage of winning, and I'm going to deploy two and a half percent over here. So for me, tracking definitely the biggest thing I wish I had known about before beginning my sports betting journey.

Andrew Pace [00:28:38]:

Yeah, I mean, it goes hand in hand with money management, right. It really keeps you in tune with how things are going. And one of the really cool things about tracking your bets is that when you do it, it gives you great perspective when you lose.

Shane Mercer [00:28:57]:

Absolutely.

Andrew Pace [00:28:58]:

You can look at a strategy that just went for five and not question whether or not you made the right or wrong wager. And just because I said that, I want to actually bring up some advice from the great Gosu. So his conscious entry, he said, the thing I wish I knew before I started betting was that the result of the bet is not an indication of whether or not it was a good bet. You always have to think to yourself after the fact, would I make this bet again? And if the answer is yes, then it was a good bet. Good bets. We refer to at inplayLIVE as value wagers, meaning the wager had value in it.

Andrew Pace [00:29:42]:

And one of the hardest things for recreational sports bettors to grasp and arguably one of the hardest and worst perceptions that's an absolute rampant plague through this industry is resulting the decision was right or wrong at the time you placed the bet, not based on what happened. And when you track your bets, you know that. So you can look at a wager where you just placed on a game, where you go everything, checked the boxes for this to be a green light, and it lost. And you know that you made the right decision. A really good example of that is if you and I, Shane, were to flip a coin together right now and you had bias towards heads, you're like the flipping coin, gods love me.

Shane Mercer [00:30:34]:

I'm more of a tails guy personally.

Andrew Pace [00:30:36]:

All right, there you go. We're starting right down the right path. So the tails gods love me, whenever I flip a coin, it lands tails, and I say, okay, let's do $100 wager. Well, what's considered a fair wager right now would be if we both put $100 down and the winner takes both of those $100 bills back, that's a fair wager. Because if you flip a coin a million times, you're supposed to get in theory, this is theoretical statistics 500,000 heads and 500,000 tails. It's a 50% chance of landing on either side. So a fair wager would return back 2.0 plus 100. That $200 with a $100 wager, that's a fair wager. The sports books, if we were to flip a coin on on a sports book, which oftentimes you can do for the Super Bowl, you get bet on heads or tails. Some books will do a promotion where they offer that wager fair. I find that funny. Always it's a promotion to get a fair wager from a sports book, and it'll be max $20 or something like that, right? But what the sports books will do is they'll have a vig or vigorous, which is the cut that the house takes, and you have minus odds on both sides. So rather than getting $200 back on that coin flip, I might get 195 or $190 back. And that little difference of that $10 on the $200 example I just gave is how sports books make money, right? But let's say you're a tails god, and you say to me, you know what, Pace, if it hits tails, I'll give you $200. But I only want $100 if it hits heads. If we make that wager. I made a value bet. I made a value wager. I'm way ahead statistically on the odds than you, even if you won the bet. And a lot of people have a real hard time grasping that because they go, but it won. Here's my money. And we see that a lot in the responses of our parlays in our ads. So we say to people, don't parlay and why in our ads? And then people will respond with all the parlays they hit, saying that's their justification for it being right. So that's why I say it's a rampant plague in the industry and there's nothing like tracking to really keep yourself confident, keep yourself grounded, and keep yourself value oriented. And I just want to finish this point off with one thing. Our tracking tool, Shane, that you use, I think that you've just learned this recently, it is free to the public. So you can go to inplaylive.com/free-tools or just click on the Free tools link right here. There are a series of free tools available at inplaylive.com and you just click on the free Wager tracking tool and when you click on that, you're actually going to be enrolled for free in our responsible wager tracking course. That teaches you how to use the tracker and get you started on tracking your bets. And even if you are a recreational sports bettor, the power of tracking allows you to start realizing that certain teams are more profitable for you than other teams. Even if you are parlaying, maybe the same team keeps busting up your parlay. If you track that stuff, you start to see patterns and trends. And the sports books do they talk about their responsible tools? They don't want you having this kind of stuff. This is the kind of stuff that fuels your success.

Shane Mercer [00:33:51]:

And they could easily make these kinds of trackers and put them out there if they wanted to, but they definitely don't want to. What an awesome free resource. I mean, jeez, I wish I knew it was free before I joined. I would have just taken the tracker.

Andrew Pace [00:34:05]:

I think our strategies are a little bit more valuable personally, but that one's pretty valuable.

Shane Mercer [00:34:11]:

Yeah, the strategies might have a little something to do with things, but yeah, no, the tracker is phenomenal. What a free resource. And for all of you out there who have never touched it or even thought about tracking, I encourage you, go check this thing out, use it, even just use it a little bit. Give it a try. I can't speak highly enough about tracking the tracker at IPL, which gives you a whole wealth of information and it sort of allows you to build a bar graph and all kinds of stuff that you can use with it. And Pace, you talked about, was it a good bet? Right? I think a lot of rec bettors out there and even maybe some pros who maybe don't track as diligently might say to themselves afterwards after the bet lost and say, well, it was a good bet because I liked it at the time, but was it, was it really? And tracking allows you to go back and see was it really a good bet? And it sort of forces you to do a bit of reflection on it. And I don't think that you can ever go wrong taking some time to reflect on the wagers. You've made and really sort of ask yourself, does the data support my belief that this was a good wager? So an absolutely invaluable tool and great practice to get it. But I will warn anyone out there who does go and get it. If you're anything like me, you might become somewhat addicted to tracking. And I almost can't not track a bat. Now. If I place a $5 wager, I've got to track it, I've got to mark it down and if I don't, it wears on me. Over time, I start thinking about it, oh, that wager I made on whatever it was, that pregame bet I made on the raptors, I never tracked it. I've got to track it. I've got to get it in somewhere. It's just something that I absolutely can't not do that now.

Andrew Pace [00:36:03]:

You're out at the bar with your buddies and you're like, truly a wreck bet. I'm going to place my Raptors bet. And maybe you've had a few drinks. You wake up in the middle of the night like, oh my God, it's not in the tracker.

Shane Mercer [00:36:18]:

It's not in the tracker. Or I'll wake up the next morning and literally be like, oh, you know what? I got to get this tracked. I got to mark this down.

Andrew Pace [00:36:24]:

But you know what, Shane? It all speaks to just really good habits relating to betting and it shows that you're taking betting seriously. You could be a terrible sports bettor and you start putting these practices into place, you're not going to be terrible forever. You might not be great, but you're going to really improve overall with what you're doing.

Shane Mercer [00:36:43]:

You're going to become much better and lose a lot less. Absolutely. That's 100%. You will lose less, guaranteed. And if you really sort of bite the bullet and you take all of these pieces of advice that the show is giving you and that other members of the community may be giving you, and you put it all together, while you can do more than lose less, you can certainly make a lot of money.

Andrew Pace [00:37:06]:

Totally.

Shane Mercer [00:37:07]:

And a lot of that though, also comes down to mindset. So I talked a little bit about how tracking has kind of changed my mindset in a lot of ways, but mindset applies to so many aspects of this game that we're playing with the sports books and it can't be understated how mindset really is everything. When you have the practical tools and you know the strategies and all of those sort of fundamental things, it becomes almost entirely about mindset. And I've got a great piece of advice here who comes from one of inplayLIVE's very, very successful members. And this is Azaan who says, before I started sports betting, I wish I knew the mental strength required to stay the course and continue to lock in value when bounces don't go our way. So sort of really moving away from that resulting that you were touching on pace and building up that mental strength, that fortitude to not get caught up in resulting and to rely and trust your data, trust your process. I think that was a really sort of valuable piece there because it does take a lot of mental strength, right?

Andrew Pace [00:38:32]:

Jeez sometimes words can just be so simple where you're like, oh, great mindset coming from Aza

an it's like, I know his whole story is such a good friend of mine and it's so powerful because of who it comes from. You're like, wow. Mindset being able to handle the bounce backs and then this is again one of those things where you go how do you learn that without doing it? How do you learn that without walking through it? And that's one of those things with his advice is you go, well you can't all you can do is look to guys like him that are telling you that that are being leaders that are inspiring confidence where you go, hey, dude, you just made the right decision. You made a great wager as long as you deployed a responsible amount of money on that wager. We want to take that again and again and again. Don't worry that that one lost and he went through a pretty crazy journey with inplayLIVE where he was really successful and then it fell apart really quickly and the guy's now basically at the top without saying any actual numbers, he's basically at the top and yeah, mindset and having that long term outlook. I think with sports betting, this is something that can be said for any profession. But with sports betting, you really have to have an infinite mindset. And then that changes your day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute decision making from the standpoint of not letting it affect you when you have that infinite mindset, where you go, I am not here to make $100 today or $1,000 today or to win this bet. And you say, I am here to continually and on an ongoing basis find value against the sports books. That creates long term success and sustainability for me and my family and the people that are coming next. So the next person, the next is on, right? The next go to the next chain, the next pace. When you have that mindset these little tough moments or these bounce backs and things like that, they're expected, they're a part of the journey and you learn from them, you don't ignore them, you embrace them and you go to the moon.

Shane Mercer [00:41:07]:

Yeah, seizing those opportunities to learn and sometimes you got to learn the hard way. I know we love to learn the easy way and that's a big part of this podcast is helping all of you out there who are listening and watching. We're trying to help you learn the easy way, but sometimes you got to learn the hard way. And here's another piece of advice on this topic and I think this really sort of speaks to learning. This comes from TAW, who was on the show a couple of weeks ago with the great go sue John Wilson, who you have already taken his piece of advice and shared it with our audience. But Ta was on that same episode where we're all talking about baseball. Great episode. For anyone out there who loves baseball or is interested in betting on baseball, go back, have a listen. It's from a couple of weeks ago. Great episode, and we talk a lot about how you can make some money in the world of MLB. But here's what his piece of advice was. He says, I wish I would have known all of the resources available to me, whether that's public data that is available or a group of like minded members like IPL or the latency of a sports streaming feed, know that you don't have to do it all on your own. And I just think that that is such a valuable piece of advice. I mentioned this on an episode several weeks ago where we were talking about chaos and all of the sports betting groups. I read this, a book by a mathematician who looked at chaos in the world of sports and sports betting. And basically one of the themes that ran through it was that he looked at blackjack, he looked at horse racing, he looked at sports betting, he looked at poker, all of these sort of areas of wagering. And the people that were most successful were the people that worked together in groups. Just an unbelievable sort of reinforcement that I know that what's going on at IPL makes a lot of sense. And this is how you learn, right? You don't learn just by being on your own in a silo, right? You learn from others. You learn from reading books, from people, from watching shows that have been put together with experts and people commentating. Or you learn from a group of like minded people who are all working together and supporting each other and sharing valuable pieces of resources whether that is data that's openly available to the public that you just never knew about or it's a strategy that's under development and is being fine tuned. There are so many opportunities to learn from a group of people.

Andrew Pace [00:43:47]:

Yeah, I mean, it's just such incredible advice. And I think, again, it really goes past this industry. When you have a team and you personally have a weakness or a flaw, rather than working on your weakness or flaw, you focus on your strengths. You focus on what you're great at that allows for another team member to be the resource or liaison for your weakness, provided that it's one of their strengths. And the more people that you bring together, the more cohesiveness that you can have relating to exactly that, right? So really flushing out any weaknesses and really bringing to the forefront the strengths of the group now apply that to sports betting and a team of bettors. Well, Todd Goodman a really good example of a guy who's a baseball pro. I haven't been a baseball pro in my past. Put us together, and we become a more complete package that can offer really great advice, hopefully year round to the community of inplayLIVE. But that's just two people. What about the hundreds of other people that all have their own set of strengths and skills that are all bringing those to the table? So, yeah, I think that's really powerful advice, and I think that's something that everyone can apply stronger together, better together, and really abandon the whole dark gambling industry hiding things under the table and not being transparent about it. Be transparent about what it is that you're doing. Be transparent about your budget and what you're putting into it. Be transparent about the wagers that you make. Hey, you know what? I did bet too much on that game, and I did learn the hard way that game lost, and I was irresponsible with the amount of money that I deployed. You can't learn if you don't acknowledge and if you're not acknowledging what it is that isn't or is going well, you don't have the opportunity to improve. And again, like you said, you have a team to help you with all that stuff. If you can be transparent about those types of things, it's crazy how many people will be there to walk you through it and help you through it if you're in the right place.

Shane Mercer [00:45:56]:

Yeah, it really is truly remarkable about how there are so many who they start off as strangers to you, but they're willing to help because they've been there before, and they know what's waiting on the other side. And because they've experienced the other side, they want to bring you there. That's why we host this show, right? We want to bring more people to that side to show them, hey, this is possible. And it almost feels I've said this to some of the people in the group before that I feel like a responsibility now to sort of help share this knowledge and put it out there because I've benefited from it. Because other people like you who started the group and many others who were in the early stages of it with you, have already walked that path and sort of paved the way. And so I just think it's important to bring others down the path. But I want to get into another aspect of mindset here, because when you are in a group like we are, there are many different people who have an expertise in various sports and various markets within these sports, and they're calling out wagers. Right. And they are very likely value wagers because they've been in the community for a long time, and they know how to identify value wagers, but they have a system that works for them, and you don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of their system. And so it can lead to this idea of FOMO fear of missing out. And this is a big part of the sports betting life. When you are in a group of really smart bettors, it can be difficult to sort of overcome this idea of FOMO. So we have one person here who says, one thing I wish I would tell my old self about gambling is that many times you win by not betting. I would gamble a lot because I wanted to have some action. I've learned through IPL that sometimes not wagering is a great strategy. And then we pounce on the big ops.

Andrew Pace [00:48:02]:

Cool. Yeah, I love the line, right. Sometimes the best wager is the one you didn't make. That's a classic one that I'll drop on the group. But you know what's interesting is you can almost, like, manifest what you'd want to bet, and then if it misses, you say, I'm glad I left it, and then if it wins, you think, I should have taken it. Which goes back to the point that we were just touching on relating to resulting right. So the whole FOMO thing comes from thinking that you should have done something based on the result, and you can take the FOMO thing one thing further. So if you're on Instagram and you're swiping through and you're doing your scrolls, right, and you see Jeff's in Mexico and Susie's in Hawaii and Rachel just had a baby, right, and, oh my God, they're at the finest steakhouse in the city, and you just see this barrage of happiness and other people's life. And that's been a very real thing, like social depression in a lot of different ways, right?

Shane Mercer [00:49:12]:

Absolutely.

Andrew Pace [00:49:14]:

Right. So you're on social media, and then all of a sudden you're thinking to yourself, like, why am I not in Mexico? Why am I not at the steakhouse? All those things kind of can sort of parlay together in your mind, and you have FOMO relating to that kind of stuff, right. But you're not looking at the non highlights of their life. You're not watching them sleep, you're not watching them get up and fart. You're just watching this sort of perfectly put together, molded version of their life. And then how you can put it in your mind is, I'm not doing those things. That becomes problematic, and that can snowball. Right. Let's bring that over to sports betting. So this is what can happen. Let's say you missed out on a night, and there was 25 calls that night, and around 06:00 p.m., you saw three different winners come through. You didn't see people celebrating the 22 losses, but you saw them celebrate the three wins. So you're like, why wasn't I a part of that? I'm missing out. I need to start betting everything. And then you pay the price. So that same sort of spillover with FOMO occurs with sports betting. And that is where I feel so blessed, because I was trained as a sports. Better to think from the opposite of everyone else. If someone was really confident about something, it would make me bet the other side. That's just how I was, and I was really lucky in that sense. FOMO was never an issue for me. But when I see the FOMO happening in our group, it happens in our group all the time. You look at it and you go, are you tracking your wagers? Are you wagering responsibly? Why didn't you take all those wagers? And you have to be remarkably content with letting bets go, regardless of the outcome, and that is a very difficult lesson to learn, and I'm so grateful I haven't had to learn that myself.

Shane Mercer [00:51:20]:

Yeah, it's definitely not easy. It takes practice. It takes a certain amount of time. I still struggle with it here and there. It's never been a major problem for me, but I won't lie. Paste you guys went on an epic little run. The one day, I think it was Thursday, and I just couldn't make the stream. I was busy. I was doing other things and doing some other work, and I just couldn't make it. And then I found out afterwards, wow, you guys crushed him. You went and you had a perfect night.

Andrew Pace [00:51:50]:

100%. And the thing is, too, it wasn't a great week.

Shane Mercer [00:51:53]:

Right?

Andrew Pace [00:51:53]:

So you missed that day. It's the difference of a profitable week or not.

Shane Mercer [00:51:56]:

And I missed that day. But I was more than happy to just be happy to know, hey, I'm part of a group that can hit perfect scores on a single night. And, yeah, I didn't make it that night, but that's okay. There'll be more, right? This is a game that never ends. Like you said, it's infinite. It never stops. There's always sports. Sports are always happening. Yeah, the summer might have a few less leagues in action, but it really doesn't ever stop. It keeps going, and there'll be more down the line.

Andrew Pace [00:52:27]:

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. Is that's, okay? There's always the next opportunity. And whatever it was that caused you to miss that night, you do want to be present for, you do want to commit to that. You don't want to be 10% in and 90% out. You want to be 100% into the present of what you're currently doing. The flip side to this, Shane, and I think this is actually a really good piece of advice for anyone that deals with this FOMO thing, which is kind of one of the rampant sort of response rates in our inner contest. There is organize your life, not so that you never miss anything. Organize your life so that you have the ability to, at very key times, check in. So that if there is an amazing opportunity, you can duck out and say, hey, guys, I just need to take 15 minutes and do some work, whatever the case may be. So that for those 15 minutes, or whatever it is, you are 100% in. And that is actually very possible to do with sports betting. One of the things that people close to me know is that you're more likely to get a nice brunch or lunch with me than a nice dinner, right? So I've organized my life in a way that sports betting is a huge priority for me because it is a driver of my success that would be very difficult to do if you didn't communicate with people, you weren't transparent with people, and then all of a sudden you're trying to do it. It wouldn't add up to anyone. It wouldn't make sense. So does that mean I'm in seven nights a week, 365 days of the year? Hell no. Right. I'm going to miss tons and tons of calls and not FOMO over them at all. But there's certain days, certain times, certain games, certain situations in the year, be that March Madness, be that NFL Sundays, whatever the case may be. Those are days that are blocked off for me.

Shane Mercer [00:54:29]:

Yeah, it's like you said, you got to be transparent. You got to be open and honest with the people that are in your lives, whether it be your family, friends, whoever it is, the people that you love, because they're going to ask questions. You don't want to be hiding it. Right? That's the last thing you want to do. And that can have a really negative impact on your mindset when you're wagering, if you feel like you're doing something wrong, if you feel like you're hiding something, and that's the last thing you want. And, yeah, you want to make sure that you're prioritizing certain things in your life and being sort of all in on them. I absolutely love that. Now, here's the next piece of advice here, and I think it sort of falls between this category of mindset and the next one we're talking about, which is the life changing potential that sports betting offers. And I just want to touch on this piece of advice that came in, and it's something that I keep trying to tell people when I tell them about what I'm doing and for the friends that I'm encouraging to have a look at it and explore it, and then for the people in my life that I know won't be interested in it, but to sort of explain what I'm doing. But this is a great piece of advice here. Sports betting is not a get rich quick scheme, but inplayLIVE has certainly made me richer very quickly. And I love this piece of advice because I think a lot of people, when you first tell them, oh, yeah, I've joined the sports wagering community and we're betting on sports all the time, they're like, what is this? Some kind of get rich quick scheme. And it's like, no, it is not a get rich quick scheme. And I understand that people might think of it that way.

Shane Mercer [00:56:13]:

And even for rec bettors out there. And for all of you listening who have never been a part of inplayLIVE and are thinking about it, inplayLIVE is not a get rich quick scheme. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Andrew Pace [00:56:24]:

No.

Shane Mercer [00:56:25]:

It is a learn a lot, it is a work hard and it is a have fun, but do it responsibly and consistently over time way of making money. It definitely does not happen overnight. It takes a significant amount of time and it takes a lot of patience, right? A lot of patience, a lot of humility, being open to learning and just really embracing a lot of the tips and knowledge that we're giving you here on the show in this episode and learning how to apply it and learning from a group of like minded people.

Andrew Pace [00:57:06]:

Yeah. So, well said. Yeah, we definitely work hard, right? We have fun and you got to love it, right? So there's all that whole notion out there like, oh, I love my job, and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes the weekends and the weekdays blend in for me because they're all the same. Whereas obviously a lot of people are so excited when it's Friday and then they dread going to work on Mondays, right? And then they say they love their job, right? I actually love this stuff. It's so much fun. And that's where things can really blend in together. But from the standpoint of it certainly made me richer. You could say that about any investment class, right? Any type of asset where you go, hey, my stock portfolio has done really well. I've increased my wealth from investing. My real estate has now become a passive income stream for me because I have a renter in my condo and it pays me every single month. There's some sort of sports betting that sort of fits into that whole investment thing, certainly, if you take the approach that we take. So it's one of these things where you deploy a certain amount of money towards that asset class. This one is not passive, it's hands on. You have to actually engage in it yourself to see a return. You can't have someone else do it for you, at least. I don't think you could do that in any capacity that would be sustainable. And I've been asked about that a lot, by the way, and the answer is no, because there's limits to sports books. So when you have a certain amount of people, you hit that limit pretty quickly and then it doesn't work anymore. So you have to look at it from that sort of angle and it's extremely volatile, right? Sports betting is going to be extremely volatile, but when done with volume and tracked and all the things that we touched. On today. Yeah, it absolutely can be successful. And yes, you can make money from betting on sports.

Shane Mercer [00:59:01]:

I love that you brought it up as an investment or asset class because that's exactly what Brayden said here. I wish I knew before I started sports betting the possibilities it held, the impact that it can have overall when done right, it truly can be and potentially should be viewed as an asset investment class. Just like, there you go. I want to get into this other one though, here from Will. So before I started sports betting, I wish I knew that it could have changed my life in so many ways, and I wish I would have started earlier. He says, I wish I knew that sports betting had that kind of power and so much more to offer. And then he says that sports betting was kind of a kryptonite and a major part of his depressed life. So it sort of sounds like maybe he was as a rec bettor, losing often and contributing negative. It was a negative aspect of his life, but he's saying not only did IPL change his financial situation, but it helped him mature and he doesn't know where he would be without it. Wow. It really is incredible, man. It really is incredible. And I know that that story is just one of many powerful, life changing stories that exist within the community.

Andrew Pace [01:00:14]:

Yeah, that's really powerful stuff. I mean, certainly gambling can have the negative impact on your family and your mental health, and that's probably the more common story. But I think it's really cool that when you actually do teach people a skill and they are able to succeed with it and then also put the community behind that, create new friendships, new relationships, all that kind of stuff, that's really powerful. And I know that that's not an isolated story. We've had some pretty crazy stories of people that have quite honestly said that they were really struggling with mental health, like the highest level of struggles that are just in a much better place now. And that's really cool. I guess for me, I never would have thought that those stories would have been something that would have come from this. And it's so humbling, it's so powerful to hear that kind of stuff.

Andrew Pace [01:01:02]:

So. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:01:03]:

Thanks, Will. Thanks for sharing that, buddy.

Shane Mercer [01:01:05]:

Yeah, we've given you a lot of the advice in this episode today. There's so much more though, that we just can't jam into an episode. And you guys over there at IPL pace, you guys have collected all of these responses from all these various members and you're going to be sharing even more of them, right?

Andrew Pace [01:01:26]:

Yeah. Just hit us up. Follow us on Twitter. Unfortunately, Twitter is _inplayLIVE. It's not just @ inplayLIVE, but everywhere else. It's @ inplayLIVE. Hit us up on Twitter, Instagram, whatever, and some of them will be in video form. Some of them will be in text form. But we'll continue to release the advice so that you all can become like Shane. A better, bettor.

Shane Mercer [01:01:51]:

Over time. And it's free betting advice, right? For all of you out there who are searching for that kind of stuff betting advice, betting tips, betting strategies. This is free stuff. I know a lot of other places out there. They want you to sign up. They want you to pay something for a little tidbit of advice. We're giving you lots of free advice here, but you know what we're not giving you? Picks, predictions, crystal ball analysis, none of that. These are actual pieces of sports betting advice that will change the way you bet and like Pace said, make you a better bettor over time. Pace, anything else you want to add before we wrap up here?

Andrew Pace [01:02:29]:

No. Keep having fun. Play responsibly.

Shane Mercer [01:02:32]:

All right, buddy. Till next week. Keep beating those books.

Andrew Pace [01:02:35]:

Cheers.

Shane Mercer [01:02:36]:

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'.