Episode 38

Randy Stewart [00:00:00]:

You think that they would have somebody intelligent on the inside that would change their lines a little bit, but it's not so. It's crazy. These, these companies that are worth 30, $40 billion, you think they'd be smart enough to have somebody tweak their lines, but they don't.

Shane Mercer [00:00:25]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines, the only sports betting podcast purifying the sports betting industry. Remember to like, download subscribe, follow us on all the socials @inplayLIVE. And if you got a sports betting story you want to share with us, well, drop a comment below and you might get featured here on the show. All right. Joining me, as always, Andrew Pace, founder of inplayLIVE. And today we've got Randy Stewart on the show. He is a coach with inplayLIVE and one of the pros who is calling out sports bets on a regular basis on the live streams that you get to participate when you join the inplayLIVE community. If you do want to see what it's all about on the inside, we've got a promo code for you that is 'BEHINDTHELINES'.

Shane Mercer [00:01:09]:

All caps. All right, fellas, today we are diving in to the NBA. Basketball is my first love. I think I started playing basketball when I was about five years old. It's a sport that introduced me to sports. I absolutely love the game, but until recently, I've never really made any money betting on NBA basketball. It's always been a struggle. It's something I kind of steered away from.

Shane Mercer [00:01:40]:

I was more successful in other sports, never really gained a lot of traction in the world of NBA. Pace, I want to start with you. What kind of role has the NBA played in your sports betting career?

Andrew Pace [00:01:50]:

Basketball wasn't a focus of my personal betting journey when I first started succeeding as a sports better, but before I was succeeding, sure, why not throw a little parlor together and throw a couple NBA favorites on there to bust it up and watch it go to zero so...

Andrew Pace [00:02:16]:

To me it wasn't a big part of things, but it definitely became a really big part of my success before inplayLIVE actually started more specifically the NBA, not necessarily college basketball, whereas now college basketball is a huge part of my success today. And I actually got away from betting on the NBA once I became successful, and not because you couldn't make money betting on the NBA. I think it's a tremendous way to make money.

Andrew Pace [00:02:41]:

And arguably the best and most consistent way to make money of any sport. But for me, it was just a time thing and my focus just remained more so on football and hockey and less on basketball, which very much feels like is transitioning to I would say, gosh, you got to get a night off here and there at some point. But I would say really starting to become a seven day a week thing right now. With, obviously, basketball firing up, which ultimately is a great thing. It gives you the option to take nights off here and there when you want to.

Andrew Pace [00:03:18]:

But if you do want to, quote en quote, work and make money, you got it all running right now. You got hockey, you got hoops, and of course, you got football.

Andrew Pace [00:03:26]:

So great time of year.

Shane Mercer [00:03:27]:

Yeah. And you mentioned college basketball, which is just coming up and around the corner, and also something that we've all, I think, been very successful with. And when I say all, I mean the people within inplayLIVE college basketball just such a bread and butter aspect of everything we do. Can't wait for that. And we've got a show in the works coming on college basketball after that season starts, so stay tuned for that coming your way, but for now, it's all NBA. Randy, what's it been like for you? Where does NBA fit into your sports betting journey? I have a feeling like it's a little bit more of a pivotal point of success for you than maybe Pace or myself.

Randy Stewart [00:04:02]:

Yeah, a couple of things with NBA, I like NBA, and I like college basketball because it caters to my schedule. My schedule is married. I got a seven year old. I have a five year old daughter. Weekends are very busy around our house. As you know, it's hard to just take time off all weekend. So I love football, but it's not as easy to be glued to a computer on Saturdays and Sundays. What I like about basketball is Monday through Friday.

Randy Stewart [00:04:33]:

In the evenings, set aside an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, depending on your strategy and your time commitment. And you can make really good money with basketball, whether it be NBA, whether it be college basketball. So if nothing else, just from the time frame alone in September is a little difficult. I wouldn't say difficult, but schedule wise, the brunt of our work is on the weekends. It's on Saturdays. It's on Sundays. So I'm kind of just waiting sometimes Mondays and Fridays throughout the week where I like to spend the most of my time betting on sports, there's not as many opportunities, but basketball season there certainly is. So my goal is to make as much as I can Monday through Friday, and then when the weekend comes, try to take a step back, be selective when I come in, when I come out.

Randy Stewart [00:05:15]:

So I love the schedule that it provides, but just opportunity wise. And kind of my successes really started with basketball. It actually started with European basketball and some of the overseas stuff, but a lot of the strategies that I use for basketball carry over. So what started with the European League, I started to use on college basketball and on NBA, and a lot of those still work, but that's really where I got my start, is on the basketball standpoint compared to other sports.

Shane Mercer [00:05:46]:

Wow, okay. I love that basketball as kind of the working man, the family man's game to bet on sort of fits into that nice little box of Monday to Friday evenings, right? Absolutely. I love that. All right, Pace, how would you say NBA is different from other sports when it comes to betting, aside from the scheduling aspect?

Andrew Pace [00:06:09]:

Right. So basketball is the highest scoring sport. I mean, I don't follow cricket or I don't know how that sport works at all, but it's the highest scoring sport in the world. So forget about the NBA. You're going to see the most amount of points scored per second, per minute, whatever, in basketball in general. And then the NBA is the highest scoring of all the basketball leagues. So the level of talent and skill at the NBA level provides a higher points per minute than all the other leagues. So what does that mean from a betting standpoint?

Andrew Pace [00:06:43]:

Well, I think that you're going to get a lot of variance when a.

Andrew Pace [00:06:46]:

Lot of that stuff happens. And the more variance that occurs within.

Andrew Pace [00:06:50]:

Sportsbooks presents a lot of opportunity from the standpoint of potential middles, potential ARBs.

Andrew Pace [00:06:57]:

All happening in real time. But then obviously a lot of dangers because you might be looking at two sports books where one just didn't update yet, and the bet that you were seeing or thinking is a middle or.

Andrew Pace [00:07:07]:

An ARB just simply hadn't.

Andrew Pace [00:07:10]:

Updated yet, and you ended up uncovered on a wager or stuck on a wager because you thought you had a middle or an ARB that actually wasn't truly there.

Andrew Pace [00:07:20]:

Or there's this thing called spooling that.

Andrew Pace [00:07:22]:

The sports books do where your bet doesn't place the second that you place it. And it might be 6 seconds, it might be 30 seconds. And if you've watched the NBA 30 Seconds, you can see potentially nine points.

Andrew Pace [00:07:38]:

Maybe even more just in that one little period of time. So while you were sitting there spooling the books, maybe sitting there on the other side going, this person just spun in an under. There's been six points since he spun it. While we're spinning, we have the option to now spin him into that bet where you've almost lost it before you've even placed it. So there's definitely a lot of opportunity from the standpoint of all this high scoring that occurs.

Andrew Pace [00:08:05]:

But at the same time, a lot of risk associated with if you're doing that in real time, and especially if you're doing it based on what you're watching. Because I would say that the NBA is the single hardest sport to get a live feed on, so it's really hard to actually watch the game and watch it quick enough to match the books and how quickly they're updating.

Shane Mercer [00:08:32]:

Right. You're getting at the topic of latency, which we've covered here on the show before. And if everybody was wondering what that means, I encourage you to go back, find that episode of latency from a few months ago and to really understand what it is that we're getting at there. But Pace, what you're kind of saying here then is that latency in NBA is exaggerated even more than it is in other sports.

Andrew Pace [00:08:54]:

Yeah, well, if you have a 42nd play clock in the NFL, even if you run hurry up offense, you're usually snapping the ball with 20 seconds left on the play clock. So there's 20 seconds between plays.

Andrew Pace [00:09:07]:

If you have a good broadcast, you've probably seen the play within the one play.

Andrew Pace [00:09:11]:

Whereas in the NBA, if you see three, threes and fast breaks and all the things that can happen so quickly in that sport, you could end up being three or four baskets behind with a good feed.

Shane Mercer [00:09:23]:

All right, Randy, over to you. Pace brought up a topic here that I think needs a little bit of explanation or elaboration on. And so he was mentioning Arbitrage, which we've covered sort of pretty extensively here on the show, especially back on our Pinnacle episode where we had a whole tool to show off how to calculate Arbitrage, which is a fantastic tool that you can also find on the inplayLIVE website. But he also brought up this topic of middles and middling. Randy, can you explain for everybody out there who might not be familiar with the term and is wondering, what the heck does that even mean?

Randy Stewart [00:09:53]:

Yeah, absolutely. So when you're middling, you're placing a wager on two different outcomes. So typically, let's say a game total over and a game total under. There may be a site that has a game total at 204 and a half and another site that has a game total at 208 and a half. In that situation, you're taking it over, you're taking it under, it lands in the middle. You win both the lands. Outside of that, all that you're losing is the juice or the commission on that. I really like basketball because the Pace had mentioned the variances that you'll see in basketball.

Randy Stewart [00:10:30]:

But the books will give you a lot of different options for alternate lines. So you can really basically take a middle. You can make your own middle, basically. So whenever you see an opportunity where there's four or five, you can take alternate lines where you're getting different juice to make the middle essentially free if you want to. If it's football, for example, and there's a middle, you'll middle around common outcomes like minus nine and a half and plus ten and a half. But sometimes you don't have the chance to take an alternate line. So the only middle that you're taking is if the book is in the main lines, if there's a middle. But with basketball, there's just so many different markets that you could bet on.

Randy Stewart [00:11:08]:

For example, if the game total is 207 and a half, you can go into a particular book and take it all the way down to 200, or take it all the way up to 220 if you want to. So you have the ability of basically paying whatever juice you want for whatever over, under you're at. So it makes it a lot easier for somebody who's middling or somebody who's using arbitrage to profit from.

Shane Mercer [00:11:31]:

Right. And you can also do that with the spreads, too, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Randy Stewart [00:11:34]:

So another example for a spread would be one book is at minus eleven and a half, and another book is at plus 14 and a half. Same thing, you would take a wager at the minus eleven and a half, and then you take another wager at the plus 14 and a half. And with basketball, it's so fast paced that I think you see a lot more opportunities. It's not unusual for a team to go back and hit two, threes, and a book is going to overcorrect on a spread, or they're going to overcorrect on a total versus another book. So being fast paced, there's obviously things you have to do to not get stuck on one side. But I think the speed of the game alone creates the middles and creates the opportunities that we see that we love to be able to bet on.

Shane Mercer [00:12:17]:

How important has the strategy been to your sports betting success?

Randy Stewart [00:12:21]:

So the first this is my fourth year now gambling. You don't gamble, Randy? I don't gamble. Sports investing. And the first two and a half years, there truly was not a gamble. The first two and a half years, every single bet that I placed was a middle. So I literally did not risk anything. So I was well up into the six figures alone just on that strategy. It wasn't before even I joined inplayLIVE that I placed my first intentional, unhedged or unmiddled bet.

Randy Stewart [00:13:01]:

So that alone gave me the foundation to gave me the bankroll and the confidence to be able then for our high ROI strategies to get out of middleing a little bit. I still certainly middle a lot, but it gave you the bankroll to start really increasing your unit sizes. I know a lot of other members and a lot of other people that no longer middle. They started, they built their initial bankroll by middling, which is a great way to do that, especially when you're literally risking very little, if any money at all. When you're doing that know, for all.

Shane Mercer [00:13:38]:

Of you out there listening and you want to learn more about this, I encourage you to join inplayLIVE. Come on in. Randy's got a whole course on middling. It's really extensive, and he really walks you through how to create what he calls these free middles, which is essentially not paying any juice on either side. And here you are, you've got a bet, and you've risked nothing for potential to sort of hit an enormous wager, which is really something to behold when you watch him do it in action. It's pretty cool, Randy, I got to say.

Randy Stewart [00:14:06]:

Like you said, it's a tremendous way and just to get going, I know there's a couple of other people. I was talking to somebody earlier this week. I actually did some coaching to him back in April and he was at about $25,000 of profit and had some success back and forth. And going into the beginning of October, he was at about $30,000 of profit and he's very dedicated to Middling. He does not get interrupted. He sets a dedicated time aside to middle and in October alone, he more than made up all that he did in January and September. So he's up like $35,000 alone just in October from middling, and a lot of that was preseason basketball. So it's tremendous.

Randy Stewart [00:14:54]:

He pulled out some money and he was using some for a down payment for a house. So it's just great to see a strategy like that that's working and able to provide back to his family all from a strategy that he dedicated himself to and that is his focus. So it's great to see and hear success like that.

Shane Mercer [00:15:13]:

Love hearing that story. Look at that. This guy months time has been able to create enough wealth for himself to put a down payment on a home, something that will continue to appreciate well into the future. So he's winning now, getting the home, he'll be winning for years to come. I absolutely love hearing stories like that. Okay, let's move a little bit away from middling and pace over to you. You've seen a lot of sports bettors come through inplayLIVE over the years. You've talked to them, coached them a little bit.

Shane Mercer [00:15:42]:

What are some of the biggest mistakes people are making when it comes to betting on NBA basketball?

Andrew Pace [00:15:48]:

Oh, man. Well the NBA is tricky, right? Because I think with any sport you have this sort of like they can't.

Andrew Pace [00:15:55]:

Lose mentality and when the season starts, you're really trying to get going as a team.

Andrew Pace [00:16:04]:

If you're a poor team in the.

Andrew Pace [00:16:06]:

NBA, you're trying to prove yourself and win some games.

Andrew Pace [00:16:09]:

And if you're one of the top teams in the NBA early on, you usually have some pretty good games, some real tests early on that you want.

Andrew Pace [00:16:16]:

To go perform well. So the motivations tend to be pretty.

Andrew Pace [00:16:22]:

Clear at the very start of the season.

Andrew Pace [00:16:24]:

Everyone is out there to win basketball games.

Andrew Pace [00:16:28]:

And that seems like common sense.

Andrew Pace [00:16:30]:

You would think like, okay, we're going to progress throughout this season and we're.

Andrew Pace [00:16:35]:

Going to keep winning games. Well, actually the motivations do change.

Andrew Pace [00:16:39]:

The motivations can turn a little bit more towards your longevity in the season.

Andrew Pace [00:16:46]:

An 82 game season is obviously nothing to it's serious. We've seen serious injuries year in, year out from marquee players.

Andrew Pace [00:16:58]:

And if Nikola Jokic is hurt, are the Nuggets going to win the title this year?

Andrew Pace [00:17:05]:

They might, but I think the answer is no. If Steph Curry gets hurt, do the.

Andrew Pace [00:17:09]:

Warriors have a chance to beat them?

Andrew Pace [00:17:12]:

I don't think so.

Andrew Pace [00:17:13]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:17:14]:

So it's very much a season of managing the overall risk to your players. But then on top of that, with it being this elaborate 82 game season, and we've seen the Miami Heat as the 8th seed go to the final, and we've seen the warriors win the final, coming in as the 6th seed, there's less focus on that one seed.

Andrew Pace [00:17:40]:

Now, it's important.

Andrew Pace [00:17:41]:

I don't want to undervalue being that one seed, getting that home advantage throughout the entire playoffs. It means something. But more important to that is this longevity and sustainability of your team, especially with a lot of these big stars being veterans in the league at this point that are some of the big names and the big brands across the league. So in order to see them late in the playoffs, they do have to be healthy for their teams to actually win and succeed.

Andrew Pace [00:18:07]:

So there's a major trap that can.

Andrew Pace [00:18:11]:

Be set on any given game that you can't necessarily pinpoint in any easy way, shape or form. And it is precisely that when a team that you think is out there to go win that basketball game actually doesn't have the full motivation for that one particular game. And that can lead to resting a player in the middle of the game, resting him before the game starts that maybe you didn't know about and even the sports books didn't know about yet. And you bought a bad line because.

Andrew Pace [00:18:38]:

That player ended up not being in the game.

Andrew Pace [00:18:40]:

And then everything to do with gambling, right? Like chasing, obviously big favorites, bad bets, chasing your losses, all those types of things that exist across the board. And people love making these basketball parlays with these big favorites. And time and again, these underdogs obviously show up and win, especially in the middle of the season, especially when you got teams on back to backs, traveling on that day, like a big travel day and back to back travel days, playing on the road, and factor that in with potential load management. Yeah, there's a lot of traps to be set out there from a betting standpoint that everyone should be aware of. And that's quite honestly why I bet Live. It's the same thing for every sport.

Andrew Pace [00:19:26]:

It doesn't matter.

Andrew Pace [00:19:27]:

Time tested and proven. I don't give a fuck who's in the roster. People are like, oh, but he's not playing, or he's not playing.

Andrew Pace [00:19:33]:

I don't care. I got to turn it on.

Andrew Pace [00:19:34]:

I'm going to see if he's on the floor. I'm going to see how they're playing.

Andrew Pace [00:19:36]:

Right?

Andrew Pace [00:19:37]:

So that's why I love betting Live, is because it's based on what you're actually seeing in that game, progress throughout the course of the game. And then when you really factor in some motivations and some ways that you can exploit sports books in certain circumstances on top of what you're seeing that does have some sort of level of consistency to it. That's where you can go, okay, I'm locked into this game, I'm getting the opportunities that I was looking for and hoping for and it's all coming in line with the strategy that it is that we're deploying and now's the time to capitalize.

Shane Mercer [00:20:10]:

Love that you touched on so many key things there about the NBA that make it unique, which is, yes, this is a league built on superstars and super teams, right? More so than any other league out there. We've seen superstar players. Like LeBron James, for example. Like a Steph Curry. Like a Kawhi Leonard. Like James Harden. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving. I can go on and on.

Shane Mercer [00:20:34]:

These guys who sort of get together and decide they all are going to play at one particular team in a particular city or want to play together somewhere know they form super teams. The whole concept of super team is something sort of I think born from the NBA and it doesn't really necessarily exist in a lot of other leagues the way it does in the NBA and that culture know bringing together the best on a single team to be dominant. And then this aspect of load management well, those superstars, they can't play every know and know one night one plays and another know another one plays and someone gets rest and I know the league also looking at bringing in some regulation around the topic of load management and maybe you can't take a player can't just sit off a night if that game is in prime time because these things know made fans upset they paid the ticket prices to go and see these games. So I think these concepts are something that are very sort of unique to basketball alone. Randy, when it comes to betting on sports and what you've sort of seen from recreational sports bettors or people who are trying to transition from being recreational sports bettors to professional sports bettors in your capacity as a coach, what are some of the most common mistakes you think they're making?

Randy Stewart [00:21:54]:

Yeah, I think Pace always laughs at this and I think a lot of us do. When somebody says that this can't happen or this is so obvious, you have to take that and I always laugh because it's like who are we to say that we're better than the Vegas odds makers? On determining the overrunner for this person's points so someone says, well, they scored more than 30 in the last two games so they got to be over 26 and a half and it's like that. They didn't take that into consideration. So the recreational bettor and I think I said in the last episode I don't call pregame I was probably one of the worst recreational bettors. I would just figure out whatever, well this OD doesn't make sense pregame and I would take it and then there's a reason why the odds were what they are. So I think when you're recreational, you're trying to do what's obvious and the pros do the opposite of that. So I always laugh when someone asks me who's going to win a game. I never act like I have a crystal ball.

Randy Stewart [00:22:51]:

Frankly, when it comes to trying to predict an outcome, I'm awful at it. But what I am good at doing is saying, okay, well, the total is at 212 on three books and one book has 216. It doesn't take a genius to say that 216 is probably an outlier. There's probably a lot of value. So there is value there. So that is what I'm looking for. And when there's value and anytime that you have the odds in your favor like that you're going to win over the long term.

Andrew Pace [00:23:20]:

Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:23:20]:

And I guess that you find that that works, right? Identifying those weak lines. You hit those weak lines and how often would you say they pay for you?

Randy Stewart [00:23:27]:

So when I'm looking at a weak line, I'm typically going to take a weak line if I have a ten to 15% edge, typically. And it is very common to find over the course of a night, you probably find at least a half dozen to a dozen opportunities where you're taking a line that's going to win 60% to 65% of the time at normal juice. So when you're finding that, you're going to end up very well over time. But typically when you're middling from the middles that I hit, I'm hitting probably about one and four that I see. So high quality middles and weak lines are two really good ways to go at it that work really well.

Shane Mercer [00:24:09]:

Love it. All right, Pace, you only bet live. You say that all the time, but is there any value pregame betting on NBA? And then when you are betting live, you have a very specific way to approach the game of basketball and I want you to explain that.

Andrew Pace [00:24:25]:

Yeah, so I mean from pregame, there's probably so much value in NBA pregame, I just don't want any part of it. It's just going to impact what I'm doing live. So I can give you some insight on a couple strategies that I used to do in the NBA. And I touched on this at the beginning about how NBA actually didn't become my focus once some things had changed. And it wasn't that you couldn't make money there anymore. It was just a balance thing for me. But I'll give you an example. So big Golden State guy, so Golden State's broadcasted a lot of times.

Andrew Pace [00:24:55]:

And again, this isn't about fanship. This was about me knowing that team really well. And I just lock in on warriors games and I knew exactly when Steph Curry would come out of the game and I know exactly when he'd go back in the game and it's like clockwork. And it's actually interesting because a lot.

Andrew Pace [00:25:10]:

Of these top players, they might not.

Andrew Pace [00:25:13]:

Come out in the first quarter and score a lot of points. And it isn't that they miss their shots.

Andrew Pace [00:25:18]:

A lot of these top players, they'll.

Andrew Pace [00:25:20]:

Spread the ball around early. They'll give some looks to some players that they want to have a little bit of mojo and confidence when the game's on the line later in the game. So they're getting them their touches and they're getting them the ball. And Steph Curry predominantly scores the majority.

Andrew Pace [00:25:34]:

Of his points in the third quarter.

Andrew Pace [00:25:36]:

So when it comes to the actual player prop markets and the longevity of the entire game, well, it's an algorithm.

Andrew Pace [00:25:45]:

That is based on time.

Andrew Pace [00:25:47]:

So let's say that his pregame total of points is at 24 and a.

Andrew Pace [00:25:50]:

Half and he hasn't scored much in the first quarter.

Andrew Pace [00:25:52]:

Well, the total just keeps coming down and down and down.

Andrew Pace [00:25:55]:

But he might not have actually put the ball up yet.

Andrew Pace [00:25:57]:

And again, it's come down, and it should it shouldn't go up. It shouldn't stay the same.

Andrew Pace [00:26:01]:

But if you have that type of information where you go, okay, now we're.

Andrew Pace [00:26:06]:

In a really good situation where maybe the game's tied, maybe they're up a little bit, or maybe they're down, but they're not being blown out or they're.

Andrew Pace [00:26:12]:

Not blowing their opponent out.

Andrew Pace [00:26:13]:

They might need to rely on him a little bit more. He might need to be the guy that is most involved during these next two quarters. And maybe he is actually having a good shooting night despite being below his point average per minute in a game. So that was something that I would pretty consistently look at and do really well with. And that opportunity absolutely exists to this day. Really knowing the team, really knowing the players. And then as a result of that knowledge, then capitalizing on the discrepancies in the averages. And I'm not talking about what Randy referred to, oh, he scored 30 the last two.

Andrew Pace [00:26:54]:

He's got to go over 25. But maybe being able to get him.

Andrew Pace [00:26:57]:

At 18, right you go.

Andrew Pace [00:26:59]:

He hasn't put up the shots yet. The situation's really good. We know we're going to need to rely on him.

Andrew Pace [00:27:04]:

I watched him drop three, threes in a row last night, nine points in 1 minute. And it was spectacular to watch. And that's the beauty of the NBA, right?

Andrew Pace [00:27:14]:

You watch the talent level of some of these players where aside from a.

Andrew Pace [00:27:18]:

Soft line, aside from winning or losing.

Andrew Pace [00:27:20]:

Didn'T even have money on actually, I had the under in that game, scored nine points in a minute.

Andrew Pace [00:27:25]:

We won the under, thankfully. But watching that go down, it is just remarkable.

Andrew Pace [00:27:30]:

And that's where the team needs him the most down the stretch in the end of the game. So that's where you're going to get potentially really good opportunities on some of these superstars. It's not contrarian.

Andrew Pace [00:27:38]:

At all. It's not contrarian at all.

Andrew Pace [00:27:40]:

It's taking an over for a major player live based on the situation in the game, and you can do really well with that. But the other thing that I used.

Andrew Pace [00:27:48]:

To look for was, okay, Steph Curry's.

Andrew Pace [00:27:51]:

Coming out of the game, but not just keep going back to Steph Curry.

Andrew Pace [00:27:54]:

He's come out of the game.

Andrew Pace [00:27:55]:

He's come out of the game. Get all the games on in front. All these guys have just come out of the game. I could bet on player point unders when they went on the bench for six minutes, and then I could bet on their over two or three points.

Andrew Pace [00:28:03]:

Lower when they came back, as if.

Andrew Pace [00:28:06]:

The time was stagnant still and they were on the floor. They're not even on the floor. So I'm getting a way lower number when they came back on the floor. I think that loophole is gone now. Maybe some books still have it. Maybe it's a point lower, and it doesn't make sense, but I remember sometimes getting four points lower after they had just simply been on the bench. And that's different from foul trouble. That's one of the things.

Andrew Pace [00:28:28]:

And then the last one that I used to do quite a bit was.

Andrew Pace [00:28:30]:

In the fourth quarter.

Andrew Pace [00:28:32]:

I'd just look for games that were 30 points or higher, 30 point differentials.

Andrew Pace [00:28:36]:

Or higher, and then I'd literally just.

Andrew Pace [00:28:38]:

Blindly take the team that's down 30 points to cover the spread. Especially if they were a big underdog. Pregame because you might have a Milwaukee Bucks type team playing someone really poor in the league, like the Houston Rockets or whomever it's been. And it might be like a 15 or 18 point pregame spread.

Andrew Pace [00:28:54]:

And then they're up by 30 or.

Andrew Pace [00:28:55]:

35 points or 40 points even. And all the starters are out of the game, and the underdog is covering the spread, and they're trying to play still against the four strings of their opponent. And that hit at well over 70%, but again, is something that has largely been corrected. So we look at those types of things constantly within our group at inplayLIVE on how you can succeed in this sport long term and looking for those opportunities and playing situations. And if then you listen to this and you go and you take these strategies and go, oh, my God, I feel so excited to try this player prop thing that I heard about this guy who makes a bunch of money betting, I'm going to go give it a try tonight. Start taking all these overs on these superstars, you're going to get absolutely smoked. So you have to set out a set of parameters that actually even allows you to even look at the game in the first place. And then you go, okay, now I'm looking at this game.

Andrew Pace [00:29:44]:

It's caught my attention.

Andrew Pace [00:29:46]:

I am engaged in this game, in this situation.

Andrew Pace [00:29:49]:

Now, what are the other parameters that I need to actually check off to place this wager? Does he need to be shooting at a certain percentage in the game? Does he need to be having a bad game and hope that it turns? Does he need to be having a great game but just hasn't had the looks yet? Does he need to be below his point average per minute? Does he need to be above it? These are all the things that come into making an actual wager that isn't some covered middle or arbitrage wager that gives you confidence in theoretical value over the long term. And the opportunities with that in the.

Andrew Pace [00:30:20]:

NBA, they're not like, oh, here and there. They're constant.

Shane Mercer [00:30:26]:

Yeah. So many great pieces of advice in there for all of you out there who are listening or watching us. I mean, and so much to kind of dig into there. I love that you brought up those Steph Curry from last night because, man, those three, threes in that minute were just nasty. Like, you saw how he just shaked the one defender with the behind the back and drained the one comes out doing the whole scary face thing. He's so much fun to watch. That guy absolutely loved that moment, even though it was going against our wager. And, hey, who cares? We still won our wager in the end, so it was all fun and all a good randy, you know, Pace talked a little bit about parameters and making sure that, you know, a defined plan in place.

Shane Mercer [00:31:10]:

What does a successful NBA season look like to you right now here in October? As we kind of embark on this.

Randy Stewart [00:31:19]:

Season, I think it's just continuing to be selective. I mean, the opportunities that I'm seeing right now in basketball are as many opportunities as we've seen in future years. So the opportunities are endless. Obviously, there's other obstacles that we continue to deal with. Right. And the books are always trying to play games with you. So just navigating the difficulties of the books. So thinking forward, planning the books, right.

Randy Stewart [00:31:46]:

Knowing the books that are continuing to give the best opportunities, continuing to use those books throughout the season. If I can continue to do that, which you have to have a plan in place to do that and that's a discussion for another episode, then I'm going to still be able to just print money, really all throughout the season. So it's having the infrastructure, I think, in place to do that and having a plan. It's crazy. The books that the gentleman that I was mentioning earlier that was having all the success in October. I won't name a book, but it's one of the books that we've been exposing year after year. And you think that they would have somebody intelligent on the inside that would change their lines a little bit, but it's not it's crazy. These companies that are worth 30, $40 billion, you think they'd be smart enough to have somebody tweak their lines, but they don't.

Randy Stewart [00:32:37]:

So the same opportunities in the same places that we've had for years. So, yeah, successful season for me is continuing to have the books available to progress through and do what we've done in the past.

Andrew Pace [00:32:50]:

Yeah, I think that's super interesting because it's not about the strategy. It's not about the execution. It's actually the ability to even do it. That's the sustainable aspect of it. And he's referencing books limiting him.

Shane Mercer [00:33:05]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:33:05]:

So, yeah, that's definitely a major factor that comes into play with all successful betting.

Shane Mercer [00:33:12]:

Yeah. Knowing your books, which we've talked about sort of extensively here on the Behind the Lines podcast, that's what it's all about, knowing your books and in a lot of ways, knowing the odds provider behind the book. Randy mentions the 30, 40 million, billion dollar company, massive companies, but at the end of the day, they're just outsourcing their lines anyway, right. They've got somebody out there who's just providing the lines to them, and they just hope to make money over time. And with a whole bunch of recreational sports bettors out there making a ton of bad wagers, they probably are still turning a nice profit on it. Right. So it works for them and it.

Randy Stewart [00:33:45]:

Works for you, too, right, randy yeah, absolutely. They'll change over time, and they'll try tricks to limit you, but you just have to have other tricks up your sleeve as well, which we certainly do. And we have some strategies inside of the group. Yeah. It's a game of cat and mouse. So as long as you can continue to be a mouse and not get caught, you'd be right.

Shane Mercer [00:34:08]:

Exactly.

Andrew Pace [00:34:09]:

I thought I thought I was the cat. Randy geez.

Shane Mercer [00:34:14]:

Okay, guys, wrapping up here. If you had to give one piece of betting advice to a complete newbie who's like, I've never been on basketball before, how do you do it? And you've got 30 seconds to give them a piece of advice. Randy, go ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:34:30]:

What is it?

Randy Stewart [00:34:31]:

I think it'd be the same piece of advice as other sports. It's probably do the opposite of what makes sense to you as a recreational.

Shane Mercer [00:34:40]:

Great contrarian thinking there. But, Pace, you said earlier that sometimes you don't even have to be contrarian. So what's your number one piece of advice to somebody who's brand new to all this?

Andrew Pace [00:34:49]:

To use two separate sports books with two different odds providers. Wait for timeouts, for absolutely every opportunity that you can possibly bet on and take as little risk as possible to watch your success grow over time. And I will just add to that, because of our last episode, we had alex on from OddsJam. We do an OddsJam screen share for hoops Wednesday and Friday nights. Randy's a big part of those live streams that we host on our that's actually on our live pro platform, which is an added tier that can be added to your inplayLIVE members platform membership. When we do those screen shares, it.

Andrew Pace [00:35:25]:

Allows a consolidated version of all the.

Andrew Pace [00:35:29]:

Sports books so that you can see those discrepancies very quickly, very easily. And that allows for you to uncover soft lines, middle or potentially arbitrage some of these lines. And if you are interested in the OddsJam platform, you can get a 15% off discount in perpetuity using the code inplayLive15. Or you can get a 35% discount on your first month using the promo.

Andrew Pace [00:35:53]:

Code = inplaylive, regardless of the two that you use.

Andrew Pace [00:35:55]:

There's also a seven day free trial. So you can check out some of these discrepancies in these sports books, which I believe basketball to be that sport that really is going to make those they're exploitable across the board, but the most exploitable in basketball. But I would say use two books and compare the lines to find value. That would be the simplest form of things. And join inplayLIVE.

Shane Mercer [00:36:18]:

Of course. Exactly. And yeah, two books minimum, if you can get more better. And having Alex on last week, I encourage everybody to go back, have a listen to that episode, if you really want to get a sense of where the sports betting industry is at and what somebody who is really sort of entrenched in the industry is seeing out there. Alex Monahan, CEO and founder or co founder of OddsJam. Just a great chat with him last week. So go back and have a listen to that. All right, coming up in the next couple of weeks, we're going to do a little bit more NFL football as we sort of approach halfway mark here.

Shane Mercer [00:36:47]:

And as I've been promising, I'm very, very excited to talk about college basketball, college hoops getting underway in the next couple of weeks. So we got a couple more very exciting episodes ahead in the weeks ahead, and I encourage all of you to come back and join us for those. Until then, guys, keep eating those books. 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'.