Episode 17

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines. I'm your host Shane Mercer, and back with me today is the founder and CEO of inplayLIVE, the greatest sports betting community on planet Earth, created by that guy Andrew Pace. Pace, how are you man?

Andrew Pace [00:00:27]:

Doing great, Shane. Did you miss me?

Shane Mercer [00:00:29]:

Hey, I did. But you know what? We had two great fill ins with Mark Penelton and Craig Keating. We had a great conversation last week. If you missed that episode, I encourage you to go back and have a listen all about getting your mind right. But today we are moving forward and we have a really interesting conversation about tipsters and traps. Chances are you have seen these people plastered all over your instagram feed. Especially if you are a recreational sports bettor and you like sports content, sports betting content. Chances are you have seen these people trying to get you to sign up, trying to get your money, trying to get you to pay for their expert pro picks that are guaranteed winners. Pace, I know you are fired up about this and we will dive into it all in just a minute. But first I got to remind all of you to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials at inplayLIVE. And if you want to join our community of professional sports bettors, you can sign up using the promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'. That's all caps 'BEHINDTHELINES' promo code. All right, Pacer, so today tipsters and traps out there being set by the sports books. We've got a lot to kind of dive into, but first, I just want to get your reaction. When you're sitting there scrolling your Instagram or your TikTok or Facebook or whatever, your social media platform is of choice, and you come across these guys out there and they're all trying to sell you their expert picks for the day, their locks of the day. I know you love that word lock. When you come across those as you're sort of scrolling your feeds, what goes through your mind?

Andrew Pace [00:02:13]:

Well, that's a loaded question. I'll do my best to segue the topic and kind of get started here. The gambling industry is just a dark space, right? It's associated with losing. And when we talk about winning sports betting, that can be met with resistance. And one of the biggest reasons that can be met with resistance is because of the amount of scammers out there that are already in a space that is known for losing. So if you take, let's not say a problem gambler, but let's say a recreational losing gambler that is actually seeking a winning approach that, as well has lost, right? So they've lost some money and then everything below that. Let's go to the very bottom where we go a problem gambler who's actually lost it all. So everything from a problem gambler to a recreational bettor who has lost, who's sort of seeking help, for lack of a better term. Around the corner is some sort of tipster preying on the weak, claiming to have the answers to their problems. And when it comes to sports betting, every single wager is designed for you to lose over the course of time. And there's a vig. A vig is the slang term for the word vigorous, which is the cut that the house takes on any given wager. So when you look at a spread and you have minus seven and a half on one side and plus seven and a half on the other side, it doesn't pay 2.0 or plus 100 on both sides of those wagers, which would imply a fair wager. If it was 2.0 or plus 100 on both sides, you oftentimes see minus 110. Or -115, on both sides of those wagers which in decimal odds would be about minus 110 is about 1.9, right? So then, when you bring in this tipster model, there are people that are preying on the week in a lot of cases. So I do want to caveat that there are people that are successful out there. There are people that do return money betting in the world of sports and there are people that have helped their clients and their customers return long term profits. There's different systems, there's different platforms, there's different services. And yes, there are a few tipsters that I'm sure can get the job done to a certain extent for their customers. But you now have to cover the vig whenever you're talking about value. So when you talk about pregame pros that return a 2% edge over the long term, which is typically what the best of the best do, not only do you need to have that edge that covers the vig that covers the amounts that the sports books are taking over time. You now, on top of that, have to be able to cover these costs of these tipsters that claim they have the answers and the keys to your kingdom. Vig plus pick cost equals very challenging to return long term value. So a lot of these guys praying on the week, there's a lot behind it. It's the reason why sports betting services can't advertise on social media platforms or can't advertise easily on social media platforms because that would give these guys the opportunity to create these really remarkable claims about their success, and have them actually publicly promoted by these social platforms. They are despisable beyond reason, in my opinion, because of the fact that they are preying on losing players and making claims that hopefully every episode up to this point has led you to realize that those claims cannot be true. And I don't mean winning, that's not what I'm referring to. But fixed matches, locks, whale plays, max bets, whatever the hell they're called, all sort of almost implying that they're extra confident that this one will win. And all those types of things that just simply are not the case.

Shane Mercer [00:06:26]:

Yeah, we see a lot of them out there. And you mentioned the vig, the juice that you got to pay on these. And there's one in particular that's been popping up on my Instagram feed a lot lately. And all of his plays. He gives you a lock of the day. Or here's my free pick of the day. Go bet this right now and it's always like a -160 -180 kind of play. It's a huge favorite. It's baseball season right now. So these tend to be baseball plays and it's this massive favorite. And it's funny because I actually marked one down the other. Day just to sort of laugh at. And then actually, I'm watching the games live and paying attention, and the mets got crushed. He had picked the mets, and they just got smashed. And I was like, wow. There's your mets. -160 pick for you. Just hilarious to sort of watch some of these guys. But you Do Make a Point that there probably are some really good Ones out there. Good in the sense that they are good at what they do and that they can win over time with a very small edge. We've talked a lot about pregame before and as you mentioned if you can win 55% of your pregame bets, you're among one of the better pregame bettors out there in the world. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're always going to cover that vig. And now you add this extra cost on top of it where you're paying for the picks, at some point you're breaking even at best. Chances are you're probably still going to lose money over time, right?

Andrew Pace [00:07:58]:

Totally. And I think that you touched on the heavy favorites there. And this is where it really gets messy. So let's uncover this let's unpack this a little bit more. So there are a whole series of tipsters. And, Shane, you were touching on. Okay. There is actually some people that have long term success, and then that sort of leaves someone that's a potential customer potentially feeling hopeless. But one of the ways that they'll try to start to recognize after maybe being scammed by a few different people is starting to ask the tipster or the service some more questions that make it appear as though the customer is doing some due diligence. So we at inplayLIVE, we get a lot of those questions. We don't get them from the inside. We get them all from the outside. And I'll bring one up for you here. This was just the other day so I got a message from someone saying that he was really excited about the service and he had been scammed in the past and had some hard truths relating to these tipsters and scammers out there so he goes I need to make some money. So with that being said please give me your best lock for Tomorrow. I would prefer an MLB call, but I will also take a hockey call and if it hits, I will join as a member. So you guys got to put yourself in my shoes, in the spot. I have the opportunity to send this guy a massive favorite that's heavily likely to win and I could say to him, bet on this game for tomorrow, bet the money line and in the 70, 80, 90 plus percent that that team actually does win that match. I've just gained myself a new customer as a service that sells sports related information. I'll tell you what I said back to him just really quickly, just so you guys can get a sense of how I treat this part of the industry. And I think that this is really good education for everyone that is listening, irrelevant of how I actually personally handle these. So I said basically the only lock in life are the outcomes that have already occurred. There's only theoretical value or lack thereof. You should never judge a Tipster or any sports betting service on one pick. We have an excellent live education and wager system that works really well and has worked for thousands of people before you. If you'd like to sign up and take it seriously, it's going to take you quite a bit of time. But we do have ways to optimize your time and then you can start to potentially see success. And he responded to me saying that it's called momentum and that if I don't understand momentum and that if I can't give him one pick then he's not interested in our services. So I responded to him and I said to him simply, no shot. With respect, we don't want someone in our community that is going to contribute to what we believe to be the problems within the industry. We wish you the best and should you choose to tune into our podcasts and reverse the scripts on how you wager and the industry as a whole, then we'd love to educate you further and have you as a member. But until then, kindly please refrain from any interest in our community. Now if you are a Tipster, you can prey on that person in a heartbeat because of the fact that he's in such a vulnerable place where he's basically asking for you to give him something that will give him a return. And like I said, we have the option to give him 70, 80, 90% favorites and likely get his business based on that.

Shane Mercer [00:12:01]:

Yeah, but again, it's like you said, you don't necessarily want people like that in the community because they're really here to just take picks, right? And they're not here necessarily to learn and grow and sort of develop their sports betting IQ and their sports betting skills. And for all of you out there listening, that's what inplayLIVE offers. They offer an education in sports betting as opposed to picks, which is a big part of the reason we created the show also to help give that kind of education and sort of teach people about the dark side of the sports betting industry, the traps that they've set. And that's the whole impetus behind our show here. And those people out there that are just there to give picks aren't doing anything to help you become a better bettor. But Pace, we might have a lot of people out there who are listening for the first time, or maybe they're still fairly new viewers, new audience members, and they might have sort of poked around at inplayLIVE. A Little bit and kind of have seen you a little bit, and they might be thinking, Wait a minute. Isn't this guy a tipster himself?

Andrew Pace [00:13:16]:

Oh man, I hope not. But I know you're right. Well, I think one of the big things is when you actually look under the hood of what we're doing at inplayLIVE and I think if you're listening to this right now, you've already looked under the hood. If you watch the podcast, it becomes pretty clear to anyone with their head on their shoulders that we are different from any other service. In that respect. I'm a big believer in the power of live wagering. A lot of these guys, or all of them are wagering before the game starts. Pregame has value. Like I said, you can get people that have this 2% long term edge wagering pregame. My issue with the Pregame system that does work, so this is assuming that it does work, is that it requires a really big bankroll to actually make a life changing difference overall. Now, if you live wager it isn't that the edge is necessarily bigger. I think in a lot of cases it is, but the volume is a lot higher. So you can scour a menu of any given day, of any given sport for that matter and you might not find a lot of pregame opportunities. And when you find zero, you might be able to find ten to 20 just in one particular game. With live wagering there'll still be games that you find zero in, but you might be able to find potentially dozens of opportunities live in any one given game. So whether what you're doing is or is not working, pregame can take you a lot, a lot more time to actually figure out whether it's working because the volume was lower. So you go, okay, my sample size isn't big enough to actually determine whether or not this is working. Whereas with Live, even if it is not working, you have a higher volume. So you find out that something isn't working quicker and hopefully it didn't crush you versus pregame. And then if something is working, then that impact can be a lot higher where you actually don't need to start with a really large bankroll. But yeah, with these heavy favorites too that these guys are calling one thing that is really rampant with these tipsters is they'll design a system and they'll say that this is the first play of this system. And what they'll do is they'll have you wager on the system, and because they're such big favorites, they'll oftentimes win that they're favored to win. But it ignores actually whether or not the line that you wagered at had long term theoretical value. So if you have, like, a -200, favorite, that means that based on the line alone, nothing else. They need to win two out of three times to break even. So if this guy keeps hitting at 67% and actually breaks even over time, then you might look at his record, right, and you go, oh, he's got a really good winning record, he hits two out of three games, that's incredible. So people that are then doing this due diligence, then view that as oh my God, I found a guy that hits at 67% and you've seen some guys that say we hit at 75% and we hit at 80%. But the system that they have you on is the most dangerous system you could ever wager on. Because how it works is, you might have the Dodgers playing a four game baseball series and they're -200 or higher in the four game series and you wager on that first game whatever unit size they recommend, and it's a part of the super system or the whale system or the lock system or whatever stupid fucking verbiage these guys use. That implies that it can't lose and then it loses, right? Eventually that's inevitable. It's always inevitable. And then the next game they have you actually double your wager, which is referred to as Martingale. They'll double your wager to cover the loss of the first game. And then at the end of the season, you might see them post a record like our Super Max System, Whale Lock, whatever, was 24 and three on the season. And they'll say that the percentage that they hit at was then in those seventy s eighty s ninety s percents, which again, we just touched on relating to what the actual fair price was. But what that ignores was that the four game series, the heavy favorite got swept, or the three game series the heavy favorite got swept and you doubled your wagers for each of those times. So the 24 and six or whatever I just said the six actually killed your whole bankroll. So you just need one of those to kill your whole bankroll. One of those losses over the course of the series and your entire bankroll is toast. So it's not actually 24 and six, it's a draw to bring customers in that are inevitably going to go belly up when trouble hits. And then in all the times where they're winning before the losses come, you've got a new wave of customers that is praising you for going holy smokes, it doesn't matter that we lost that game. We're doubling up tomorrow, and if that wins, we break even or get a profit still. Then what about the third and the fourth time, right? Which again, it's inevitable. When we talked about chaos in sports, shouldn't surprise you. It will happen.

Shane Mercer [00:18:34]:

It absolutely will happen. And we've just seen an example of it happening. We saw the Lakers, who were a favorite, get swept in the NBA playoffs and I mean, there were people out there who just couldn't believe it that that kind of thing was happening and it happened and these things will happen. And that's why we love sports, right. That's a big part of the reason that we're into this is because anything can happen and we want it to happen. We want anything to happen. It's what entertains us and keeps us so engaged, knowing that that underdog can come through and always cheering for the favorite over and over again simply isn't even fun necessarily. You got to suck the fun out of it when you keep betting those big favorites over and over, and then they disappoint you over and over, oh my gosh, I could just be crushing both emotionally if you're a fan of that team, but then also your bank role as well. And then we get into the big problem side of gambling, right? This is when people will start being inclined to chase, like you said, and then they're being encouraged by these tipsters to do that, by Martin Galing, by increasing their bet and kind of going down what can become a very dark path. Meanwhile, they're thinking all along, well, this guy's an 80% winner. We got to win at some point here. But yeah, over the long term it's not profitable. So are there any tipsters out there that you've seen that you think to yourself, well, maybe this person isn't as despicable, I think, as you had described them initially?

Andrew Pace [00:20:18]:

Yeah, I don't think that there's any one specific tipster that I follow or like. I think rather there might be some decent services that actually do have value backed wagers that can help you make more informed decisions. And a lot of those are tools that use data, AI and things like that to actually determine if there is a pregame edge on a certain scenario. And those would be the areas that I would lean on that would make you a better bettor. But even then, if you actually look at the long term edges and data, if it's actually true and the numbers above 5%, it's a scam. It just is. So there might be certain systems that will have an edge higher than 5%. But net, when you put it all together, it's usually going to be less than 5% if it's legitimate. And from that standpoint, that also ignores the discipline, the money management and everything, the survival aspects that are associated with doing that long term. So if you were to wager $100 on every game for a system for an entire summer in the MLB. That does have a 5% edge you have to stick to that. You can scale up for sure, but you don't do it randomly. And that would also imply that then you would, of course, have to scale down as well. And there is the human element, the gambling element that is completely ignored, where even the best systems will yield long term losers because of that human element.

Shane Mercer [00:22:05]:

Yeah, you can never get away from that human element because that's who we are, right? We're all humans. And the sports betting and gambling in particular is designed to appeal to a very sort of ingrained emotional element within us that you have to learn to control over time. If you want to be a successful sports veteran, you have to get your head around it. And for the most part, if you're shopping around for tipsters, just looking for picks, you haven't come to that moment where you realize that there's even this emotional happening that's going on inside of you that fuels an addiction, that fuels problem gambling. Chances are, not only are you sort of denying it, you're not even aware of its existence in the first place, which is probably the most insidious form of it, because you can't stop it until it's way too late. So let me ask you this, then. Are there any tipsters out there that you specifically really despise or think that they are an absolute plague on the industry and you want to see them gone?

Andrew Pace [00:23:18]:

Well, the thing about what you said, Shane, is that a lot of them are gone because the gig ends up being up, but that doesn't mean that the next one isn't there. So action action network or sorry, the documentary was called Action, and it was on the Showtime network, and this was the legalization of sports betting. And you've got a really good tipster on that show. Like a really sharp guy. Reminded me of Warren Buffett, to a certain extent, at least that's how he's portrayed in the show. His packages are extremely expensive. And this is the just since I said the word God, really appreciate I'm letting you know. I'm really trying to just I can get really fired up when this conversation comes up. The daily package. The weekly package. And if you buy a monthly package, it's viewed as long term with these guys because they know that that's really not who they get, is the guys that are monthly. And the thing is, inplayLIVE, we see the industry portrayed in the customer base, and I'm not referring to our members at all. We see the industry from the outsiders, the people that aren't in, and the questions that they ask. So they will say, where is your daily package? Where are the picks? And it's because they've been trained from previous people that this is the way it goes and everyone else has followed suit. So you're asking, like, why inplayLIVE is different? Well, we don't offer any of that stuff, right? We give you a fishing route as opposed to just giving you a stinky, smelly fish that's going to make your bankroll go to zero. Sorry, what was the question you had asked there? Well, I was on a tangent.

Shane Mercer [00:25:09]:

I was asking if there's if there's someone I despise.

Andrew Pace [00:25:13]:

Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Someone I despise. So the reason why I brought that up is because everyone has heard of this guy, Vegas Dave, right? And I think more or less, the guy's gone now. He's been kicked off almost every social media platform. And, I mean, he had millions of followers, but that's one of the things you constantly see with these guys is a paid following comments turned off, potentially sending out that wagers were won because they sent out to two different groups of people each side of a game to ensure that they kept one side of their customer base happy. So Vegas Dave was a guy that from this documentary I don't know how the hell he was able to get on this documentary, but he lost hundreds of thousands of his family's money and then he hit the Kansas City Royals to win the World Championship in MLB. And then he brags because he predicted Holly Holme to beat Rond Rousey in the UFC. And he brags about that as if he did something that no one else was capable of doing. And sometimes I look at the long OD wagers that we place at inplayLIVE and we hit them with such consistency that I would go imagine saying that we predicted the future, that we knew that this was going to happen, and then advertise that to people. Well, are there anyone in particular that I wanted to see gone? It was him and he is gone. But he created such a remarkable base of people doing the same thing, using the same terms and creating that same platform of falsely projecting value and in predicting the future to the point that the industry is full of people that are relying on someone else to make a pick for them. Yeah, and he's created this whole other group of these new tipsters doing the same thing. And it's purchase followers. It's not comments underneath, like comments aren't allowed underneath a lot of their posts. And it's riding this wave of favorites. So you get these favorites that go on a bit of a run, you think the guy's great, and you buy more until obviously it inevitably comes crashing down with one of those favorites, losing a few games in a row with this style of calls, packages and picks. So when you say, is there someone that you'd want gone? I think the whole model of preying on people is what we want gone. And when it came to purifying the betting industry and launching inplayLIVE, there was a lot of things that we did because we were fighting against the books and a lot of the reason that we started was to give people the tools to actually be able to fight against those books. Then the flip side of it is, well, what about all these other guys that aren't legitimate? Well, we want to be the light at the end of the tunnel. Not in the sense that we've got the keys to the castle or the answer to all your problems, but that there is something legitimate in the space. And I don't just mean something that you interact with that does give you legitimate pregame edges. I'm referring to something that you can actually have a community bond with, work with, perfect strategies with. Not that that's ever even possible, but really actually work as a team to succeed long term. All of them is the answer, Shane. All of them.

Shane Mercer [00:28:38]:

I love what you said there about inplayLIVE doesn't give you a stinky fish, right? It gives you a fishing rod. And it doesn't just give you the fishing rod, it teaches you how to use that rod so you can keep catching your own fresh fish over time. It's the truth. It's exactly what that is. And that's why on this podcast we're not giving you any picks or predictions. We're not peering into crystal balls because the truth is that you pace, you don't know the future, you don't know who's going to win. We're recording this on Monday and the Heat and Celtics are about to play a game seven. You don't know who's going to win. I don't know who's going to win. But maybe we can look at the lines and look at them together as a group and maybe we can identify some value pregame. But I can guarantee you 100% that there will be some value identified live during the game because there almost always is something to take, but we don't know what it is and we don't know what it is ahead of time. We might have some ideas, but no one's peering into the future here or claiming to make these big long shot predictions. And if there is a pregame wager taken, that's a long shot. It's not because we know that that's the outcome or that we are predicting the future. It's just a matter of there's value here and a lot of people in the community have been trained to identify that value. It doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to happen. But you mentioned all of these sort of tipsters that have kind of come about and are sort of existing out there. It almost is its own kind of space in the gambling economy and in the sports betting economy is that there's now this sector of tip providers, expert opinions, expert picks, and it is all sort of grouped into this category and it's not going away. It's growing at. Least from what I'm seeing. And maybe you do have expert Dave or whoever that guy is that's gone now, vegas Dave, right? And you had him, but he's gone now. And like you said, there's always one sort of coming in to fill the void left behind. But I'm starting to see that it might be three coming in to fill the void left by one, or five coming in to fill the void left by one. And we're now seeing it, too, where the sports books are using these people to their advantage, right? And so I want to bring up one thing that I've sort of seen a conversation that's been taking place on Twitter, and so I'll just share my screen with you. And this one comes from this. Well, he's involved in both of this, but the guy on Twitter, his handle is plus EV analytics, but he's actually a Canadian guy and he's an actuary, so he works in insurance, but he bets on sports. And we may have talked about him on the show in the past, I'm not sure. But he's actually involved in a big lawsuit with MGM over that Bill's Bengals game that we'll all remember, where DeMar Hamlin got seriously hurt and they had to cancel the game. But I'm kind of digressing a little bit because the point here is that he's actually on Twitter here. So in this case, in this one here, he's actually calling out. He's saying, how can a sports book owned media outlet say with a straight face that the goal is to help people win? And he's having a conversation with this guy, Brad Evans, so who's saying he finds it entertaining how industry sharps are continuously bothered by on camera betting content creators. We're all after the same goal winning bets. Some of us also attempt to do so with a twist of entertainment. So a little hint there that this is more about entertainment and eyeballs than maybe necessarily giving winning picks. There's this one and this guy, Brad Evans, and I'll just click on him for a SEC here, not to give him any kind of extra promotional value, but just so that we know what we're talking about here. So he is the executive producer of gaming content for Bally Sports. All right? Now, Bally Sports is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group owns Bally bet. So we've got a guy here, he's giving out sports betting tips and giving out these kinds of picks on Bally Sports, which is like a sports betting network. They have a whole bunch of shows and stuff that you can watch. It's a whole network devoted just to giving out tips, but it's actually owned by a company that owns a sports book, right? And so we've got this clear kind of conflict of interest going on. And it's just amazing to kind of see that there is this whole sort of economy being built around this idea of we'll bring people on, we'll give them tips, and we'll, one, get them to gamble on our sports books. We'll have them watching our network so that they can get those tips and we'll have them betting on a regular basis and have this group of problem gamblers who, one, watch our network, they're an audience, their eyeballs, and two, they will use, hopefully use our, in this case, bally sports betting platform to make those picks. It's this whole sort of just, I don't know, a terrible unvirtuous ecosystem that just promotes problem gambling. And it's just kind of remarkable to think that this is what it's grown into and this is what it's becoming. I mean, what goes through your mind when you see stuff like this?

Andrew Pace [00:34:49]:

Well, the first thing I'm going to say, Shane, is that you touched on who would you want to use and what examples I would have of that. Well, I'm not the best person to ask that question because I don't rely on tipsters for my actual wagers that I'm making. Right, but what you've just done is you've done a little piece of due diligence. And we talked a little bit before about the record that sports tipsters might have and the record might be really good, but we don't actually know what the win loss was there. And this is important. You can have a losing record and be profitable. So I can go 25 and 100 in my calls and be up a whole bunch of money if I'm getting 6.0 on those 25 winners or higher, plus 500 or higher. So record is irrelevant. This is the kind of due diligence that you want to see. And if I see this guy on Twitter who's speaking the way he is on Twitter there, I'm much more likely to believe that EV analytics guy is closer to the real deal, if not the real deal. And of course, that still ignores whether or not you can manage your money and deal with the discipline of the calls that are being made through the system or platform that they offer. But that's kind of the ultimate point that I'm getting at now as far as how I feel about the whole situation. It's not surprising in the slightest of what you just said. And this is such a great thing where we've touched on celebrity bettors and them being in bed with the books and affiliate marketing and how that works behind the books. So let's take it a step further and look at this. So you're either a tipster or a betting platform that is being paid by the sports books. Well, the sports books or owned by the sports books. The sports books can balance action at any time by releasing one side of a game and say, take this side of the game and they've just completely mitigated their risk on a game. So let's say you did have 80% of the money on one side, their noses might be open to a big loss in that game. They can use their tipster, service or wagering platform to balance that action, right? And then you talk about who do you want to see gone in the industry? And some of these tipsters that are really problematic for their customers in the grand scheme of things and really great for the sports books if they do have a legitimate following, if they do have a legitimate fan base, the sports books want to work with them. Not to balance their action, but because they know that they're getting those desperate, losing, long term gamblers that eventually are going to get that O and four run that makes their bankroll go belly up. So sports books will pay guys like this guy right here who I'm not going to validate with names or information. They'll pay guys like this super confident, super max pick tonight. And if that loses, we're going to bet double on the next one the next day, right? And I don't know if this guy happens to be good, but I don't care. The point is that the books love having those types of desperate people as customers and if they can stick their affiliate arms into those channels, they're not saying no to them. They are like hell yeah, give us as much as we possibly can. So it's balancing the action, it's generating long term losers. And not only that, they're paying these guys to do it for them. Oh man, it's bad.

Shane Mercer [00:38:30]:

It really is. And like I said, not only is it not going away, it's growing. And it's almost like, hey, if you're a sports book now, you need to have a sports betting network they'll call it, right? And really what it is is just a YouTube channel or some kind of streaming service that they might have that's pretty cheap, affordable, oftentimes it's free. And they do. They have all of these experts on there predicting the future, right? And that's what it is. It can be a 24 hours channel of just, hey, let's make our NBA predictions now. And we'll talk about why we think it's going to happen for an hour, and then we'll talk about golf for 2 hours and talk about why we think Brooks Kepka is going to win the next big major and I'll talk about it for half an hour and give you all my reasons why I'm predicting him to win at whatever his ODS are. Maybe he's ten to one or something like that, right, in a field of 150 and they have a whole network based on just that. And then we'll do it all again tomorrow. And you can follow these pro expert, superstar pro experts, because some of the other guys on the network aren't totally at that level yet. We got tears to them, right? And you got one guy who's way at the top and you have to follow this guy. He is our number one top expert. It's funny how they've created this whole sort of segment. That same guy plus EV Analytics was calling out another tipster with VSiN. I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce it, but it's VSiN and it's one of those networks and he was calling out one of their people because that network is owned by DraftKings and it's another one. Right. It's almost like now if you're a sports book and you don't have a network or sort of a TV channel for lack of a better word, where you are running something around the clock that is one, encouraging people to bet. Two, has a whole roster of experts and prediction people and analysts and three, getting those eyeballs in both ways, then you're not doing it right. It's almost like if you're a sports book you need to have all of that sort of working for you. And it's funny too because DraftKings being one of the books that we know is out there actively limiting winners. Right? They're not even hiding it anymore. They are out there saying not only is it our responsibility as a publicly traded company to go after winners, but we are actively developing our AI, developing our algorithms to identify winning bettors. And they're out there telling their shareholders this is what we're doing. We are trying to find those winning bettors and getting rid of them. It's amazing.

Andrew Pace [00:41:28]:

They provide a service to help you win.

Shane Mercer [00:41:32]:

Exactly right? How can you be doing both at the same time?

Andrew Pace [00:41:36]:

I think there honestly is an answer to that question and it lies in a purified betting industry. So if we have a regulated industry that allows winners to play, that allows losers to access their data in a productive manner and access real tools that actually help with problem gambling, not hitting some self exclude button or hitting a time limit button, that actually helps the books. The more you stare at lines, the worse off it is. So if a thing pops up that logs you out, all it does is make people that are staring at lines get logged out, right? If you actually have this purified betting industry and you do have sports book owned services that help people win, will you go, well, what's the upside to the sports book? And I can answer that. Balancing action helps the sports book. So if you do have the public that's driven a line a certain way to an extent that even though the public's on a bad line doesn't mean it's going to lose, it can win. And the sports book's noses are going to be open for that game, balance the action with a sharp wager, those two things can go hand in hand. Those things can be symbiotic. That's number one. Number two, collecting the data of the winning players not to shut them down, but to make your product more efficient, to make your product more in gear with what actually is working for the sports book. And that would mean that certain lines in certain circumstances wouldn't be as profitable potentially as they are today. And it would actually mean that the sports books improve rather than just stay stagnant or offer new markets to be competitive that even become more beatable. And I'm talking about a world that doesn't really exist right now.

Shane Mercer [00:43:34]:

I was going to say I don't know where this is happening. We do know of a couple sports books that are using Sharp Bettors to balance the action and they're not limiting players, which kudos to them often I think they're described as the Sharp books versus the other model, which is the soft book model. But we have so many more soft books out there, right? So there must be something to that model and using these tipsters that sort of works for them and they would much rather just you know what, there are so few regular winning bettors in the grand scheme of things. Let's just limit those guys, get them out of here and we'll keep focusing on our losing customers and keeping them in the space, right? And it's interesting because you brought up inplayLIVE kind of being a light at the end of the tunnel and you see the scars on customers as they show up, right. That they've gone through this whole process already of subscribing to a tipster and they've been conditioned a certain way. And it just seems like those are the people that the books just love, right. Because they move from maybe one soft book to another as they move from tipster to tipster, right. And maybe network to network that they're watching, right. Searching for that winning strategy, right. That sort of pot of gold at the end of a long, long, ugly, not colorful rainbow. It seems like most of the sports books would much rather focus on keeping that problem gambler in the ecosystem in their sector as opposed to, hey, why don't we work with the sharp bettors and help them sharpen our lines and we won't limit them and we'll sort of create this space that's a little bit more level of a playing field. It just seems like so many of the sports books out there are just not interested.

Andrew Pace [00:45:42]:

Right. Obviously, that's where regulation comes in and there is regulation as it relates to some of these tipsters, but mostly it's through social channels that they're not allowed to be a part of or they do have accounts, but they actually can't promote using their channels. And that unfortunately in a lot of ways, fortunately and unfortunately is applied to the whole industry. So it's kind of across the board. And that's why you don't see sports betting ads on your social media when you're scrolling through. You don't see DraftKings, you don't see FanDuel. And if you do it's for a free site.

Shane Mercer [00:46:17]:

That's okay, we got enough of them during the games.

Andrew Pace [00:46:20]:

Yeah, we see so much of it. Right? We see so much of it. But I do want to kind of just go through a couple final thoughts, because we did touch on due diligence as it relates to actually finding someone that's good. Make sure that they do have their head on their shoulders. And I think that chain, that process that you went through is a good start for going. Okay. These guys actually do say things that are legitimate. They're not talking about fixing matches. They're not talking about super whale plays and locks. If you hear the word lock, run. If you hear the word whale, play, run. If you hear supermax, run. People that are smart aren't using those terms, period, because they don't want to be associated with those people in the industry. Number two, there's nothing wrong with asking for someone's record, but make sure you understand the context of why records don't matter. And I touched on that. But losing records can be profitable if they're taken at ODS, where the wins cover the losses and more. So what the record is, is a trap and something that you don't want to be a part of. Never judge someone on a daily package, a weekly package or a monthly package. Success is long term, and one month is not long term. Judging someone on their record, it would be better to judge them on units gained. But it's also very important to understand that units gained implies that the price that was listed was actually available to wager on sports betting lines are dynamic. So when you are looking at units gained, you should nerf that number. And the reason why I say that is because chances are you're not going to be the first person wagering on that line. So those units that are listed will be different for you than it was for the actual service or tipster listed. But there are times also where you can get better lines as well. And lastly, I would say, just with respect to all of that, is your gut. What does your gut tell you about this person? Is he waking up every day and talking about incredible runs over and over and over again? Or is he transparent as he or she transparent? Or is the service transparent in relation to the challenges that have come with sports betting, the time it takes to succeed and everything associated with that? And can you actually wager on them? Right, like that's. The other thing, too. A lot of the calls you might not have at your one sports book or especially not an outlying line, so making sure that you do actually have the books that are available to you that will allow you to succeed with that service or platform is important.

Shane Mercer [00:49:16]:

Yeah, having those books are so important. We've talked a lot about that. But you mentioned going with your gut. Right? And chances are, if you think it's a scam or you think it's too good to be true, it probably is. And I think that's it's funny you bring that up haste because I think that's something that is part of how I ended up at inplayLIVE and finding the community and joining it was simply a matter of this person isn't trying to give me picks and this person isn't promising me riches or anything like that. They're basically saying you can win at this, we can teach you how. But it's a grind and it's long term and it takes a lot of work and effort and time and it certainly isn't something that's going to happen overnight. And I think that was something that resonated with me and it had my gut thinking there might be something to this, right? And sure enough, they're absolutely wise, totally surpassed my expectations.

Andrew Pace [00:50:20]:

A lot of these guys, too, they just give you the pick and again you got to cover the vig and the cost of the pick. There's no actual rationale for why they took the pick. And one of the things about losing that's really important is if you understand why something was called, you understand the motivation behind it, you understand the data behind it, you understand the situation in which it made sense to take that wager that you took. That means you can understand losing and why it was okay knowing that if you got offered that wager again, you would take it again because there was value there, irrelevant of the outcome. And one of the great things about inplayLIVE is what you just said, Shane, it doesn't attract a lot of the people that are associated with this scammy part of the industry. Have we seen some of them? Yes. Will we see more? Yes. But long term the people that fulfill the community are going to be like minded people with their head on their shoulders, Shane, like you or hopefully close to it. Right. And then that in and of itself continues to make us who we are in the industry and hopefully not be associated with all the things we've touched on.

Shane Mercer [00:51:37]:

Yeah, absolutely. Pace, great time chatting. I think that's it for this week. Till next week, buddy. Keep beating those books.

Andrew Pace [00:51:45]:

Cheers.

Shane Mercer [00:51:47]:

Thanks for tuning into another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and everywhere you get your podcast. 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'.