Episode 4

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello, and welcome to Behind the lines. I'm your host, Shane Mercer, here as always with Andrew Pace, the founder of inplayLIVE, a professional sports betting expert and myself, a journalist with a passion for sports, but sports hobbyist, if you will. Today we are going to really take you behind the scenes of the industry and really take a deep dive into affiliate websites. We're really excited to dive into that in just a few moments, but before we do, just a reminder to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials and we really hope that you are taking something away from this podcast. This is our fourth episode now and the whole purpose of this podcast is to help you understand how the sports books work, their tactics, their strategies, their tricks, their dark secrets for taking your money and turning you into a long term loser. By exposing them, we hope that you'll become better bettors and learn how to make money over time by recognizing when the sports books are trying to fool you. So again, remember to like, download and subscribe. We are going to take you behind the scenes. But first, Pace, great to see you again. How was your week?

Andrew Pace [00:01:22]:

Oh, man, from a sports betting standpoint, I think we're on one of the most legendary runs in history, so the wallet is a little extra thick heading into the episode today. So been phenomenal from that standpoint. And yeah, no complaints man. Super pumped to be here. We've had some remarkable feedback so far on the show, and I think that anyone that has enjoyed listening to this thus far, that has a story or has a question or anything like that never hesitate to reach out. Because we kind of started inplayLIVE and this podcast to help people make more informed decisions and create a better world in this sort of dark sports betting industry. So, yeah, I'm excited to keep it going.

Shane Mercer [00:02:03]:

Yeah, exactly. And if you do have a story you want to share with us, please reach out. You can drop it in the comments wherever you're listening or watching this and we'll be sure to follow up with you because we're more than happy to bring people onto the show who have stories or anecdotes, tips, suggestions, knowledge that they want to share because that's the whole purpose of this show. So with that, on this fourth episode, we're sort of taking you behind the scenes of the industry and we're really taking a deep dive into these affiliate websites. And if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, we're talking about the sites that sort of claim to be giving you betting tips and strategies and advice. Meanwhile, what they're doing is that they are really just promoting the sports books. And there's so many of them out there. Odds jam, odds shark. We've got a whole bunch of them that we can share with you. And I'll just do a quick screen share here just to give you a sense of exactly what we're talking about. Here's one that I particularly like. It's the sports geek. It comes up best online betting tips 2023. And then what do you see first thing? Hey, sign up for Bodog. Hey, sign up for Tony Bet. How about two? Two bet or 22 bet, whatever it's called. And it's just that's what's there right in front of you. Here's another one odd shark which I'm sure many of you have seen before, especially if you're active in the sports betting world, you've probably stumbled across it and same kind of idea here. It sort of set up, makes it look like it's a typical sports website, sports news website. And as you scroll along, it just gives you odds and it's got stories and everything. But at the end of the day, again, sort of the whole purpose behind it though is to get you to sign up for sports books. So just a little sort of sense here of what we're talking about. And Pace, give me a sense of what you've heard from average bettors as they sort of stumble across these types of sites.

Andrew Pace [00:04:01]:

Well, I think what I've heard is that people think that they found something of benefit to them with respect to some of those sites kind of being on the inside of inplayLIVE and then obviously dealing and seeing with recreational bettors or potentially aspiring customers. For inplayLIVE, we definitely see a huge mixed bag of different questions and inquiries and things like that. And I would say a rather uncommon inquiry. But at the same time, something I do get probably once a month is something relating to these sites. So to give you an example, someone will message me and say, why would I use your service when I can follow people on covers or ons jam or whatever referencing one of these types of sites. To that end, obviously that particular person is or believes he or she is getting some sort of value from these sites. Which is great because that's what we want in this industry and we want people making more informed and responsible decisions. So if it is benefiting people, that's great. I think that's something that we could probably talk about today is how you can use these sites to benefit your overall decision making. But at the end of the day, what people don't realize is not thousands or hundreds of thousands, the millions of dollars that these websites are making from the sports books and anyone that's in bed with the sports books ultimately is sort of connected to this system of everything that we've touched on so far. So we're kind of behind the scenes of behind the lines here. Really what I want to do is explain to everyone how this all really works and where it came from.

Shane Mercer [00:05:47]:

Yeah, well, give us a sense then of exactly how they work, because these are websites, first of all, for anybody who's unfamiliar, websites sort of operate on a very similar sort of revenue system where they provide a certain type of content, and they have advertisers on the website that sort of fund their operations. But these sites, they don't really have any advertisers except very one specific type.

Andrew Pace [00:06:14]:

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to that. So if we're going pre 2018, which was the legalization of single game sports betting in New Jersey, and pre April 4, 2022, which is the legalization of Ontario and Canada in single game sports betting, you could still bet on sports online. What you couldn't do was advertise. So there was some loopholes that some sports books used and are still using, and those systems have transcended into the legalized system. So, again, giving you an example here, you might have seen George St. Pierre before the legalization advertised, and only at Bet 99 net doing a Bet 99 ad. But it wasn't for Bet 99 Dot, it was for Bet 99 dot net. And what Bet 99 dot net was, is if you went in, you know, went, oh, it's my guy GSP, he's telling me that I can go play for free at Bet 99, and that's where I play for free. So it's a free casino. And then as soon as you register, then obviously you start getting inundated with the ads to play in a paid environment for both sports betting and for casino play. So that was kind of a bit of a loophole that was used to actually advertise in main TV spots, the main ads that you watch on TV during the game and that kind of thing. But as a general statement, you were not allowed to advertise in any capacity, so you couldn't advertise on socials. You'd get banned from Google, from Twitter, from Instagram, from Facebook, and like I said, you couldn't do it on TV. So that kind of led to, over the last sort of 20 years, this affiliate revenue sharing model become sort of the lifeblood of new customers in the betting industry. And really, simply put, you can just go to a website like Pinnacle, you can go, hey, I want to represent Pinnacle. So you can go, Pinnacle, Google, Pinnacle affiliates, and you can become an affiliate for Pinnacle and say that this is the best sports book to play at. And how it works from there is everyone that goes and clicks on your link and signs up, then basically becomes one of your players that signed up for that site through your system. And what a typical affiliate model might look like, you see it with all these influencers. It could be people selling makeup products, people selling a new type of clothing, a new type of coffee blender, whatever the hell it might be. You see it all the time all over Instagram and Socials. Those influencers that are making those recommendations are paid in a series of different ways, but one of the typical ways is you're paid based on a sale. So if you clicked on that person's link or if you use their promo code, you then triggered a commission percentage for the person that you followed and went and bought that product through. The difference with the sports betting world is when you click on that link, you're paid based on a percentage of revenue. So if you're a winning player, you're actually going to negatively impact that affiliates commission. So if I click on your link, you're fucked straight up. Like straight up, you're in big trouble if I click on your link. And the flip side to that is the majority of people in the industry, they lose money. So they make not thousands or hundreds of thousands, they make millions and millions of dollars from you losing through their sites. So when you brought up that screen share there and the first thing you see is those three different links to those sites, they're really hoping that you go and place the bet through there. But I can take it a lot further than that. You'll go into a site like Oddsjam is a really good example and Oddscham legitimately provides value. I'm not going to argue against that. They provide what the best line is for each market that you're looking at. And that is powerful because if you're looking for the greatest edge, the better the number is of what you bet on, the greater the edge is that you have in that situation. So in the case of Odds Jam, they're providing you with the lines at 5, 10, 15, 20 different sites and saying, hey, this is actually the best place to place this bet. But what happens is you then click on to place the bet at that site through their link as soon as you click and you go, oh, it's best at Draft Kanes or oh, it's best at Bet MGM. Shane's just brought up exactly what I'm referring to. So that's just one particular game. And there's all the lines and you can see the green ones are where they're the best or the closest to best line is look at all these.

Shane Mercer [00:11:17]:

Look at all these. And you've got so many here, I mean, look so many sports books and then how many of them are green? How could they all have these great lines? Right?

Andrew Pace [00:11:30]:

Well, in this case it looks like we're getting the best line on points bet for the underdog side of plus 1400 for Eastern Michigan to win the game tonight. So let's say that for whatever reason you thought that there's theoretical value on that. Well, you might click on that and then you'd get directed to points bet. And if you don't have an account, odds Jam now owns anywhere from 25% to 50% of your losses at that sport.

Shane Mercer [00:11:56]:

Wow, 25, 50% of your losses. Correct. That's wild, man.

Andrew Pace [00:12:03]:

Yeah, and the more volume you bring in, the better that deal gets. Oftentimes it'll start around 25% and then in some sites you can work your way up to 35 and in other sites you can get all the way up to 50%. So in cases like this, what people don't recognize and what they don't realize is that behind the scenes of these books, they are profiting with the books on your losses. So you could argue that it's almost a bit of a trap clicking on that best line, because now you become a customer of that site, you enter into their system of how they generate revenue off of their customers, and you're being profited off of by both of those two companies. The one that brought you there and obviously the one that you're playing at. And that's really how whole thing works.

Shane Mercer [00:12:59]:

So these sites though, then they have a real motivation to make you lose, right? You think that they're providing you with the most up to date information, the best analysis, the best tips. You think that they're making you a sharper bettor, but at the end of the day, all of these sites are incentivized to make you a loser. And how can we trust them? Should we trust them?

Andrew Pace [00:13:28]:

Well, obviously I love sports betting, right? So I look at the whole thing and I go these are businesses that have struggled with the ability to advertise. They need to bring in new customers as a business. So where's the disconnect in should we trust them, do we trust them? All these things, what they're doing? And how do we actually succeed or at least play in a way that is responsible and sustainable? Not for them, for you, for us. We have to live in that world and ecosystem for the health of everyone as it relates to the G word, as it relates to gambling, right? And I think you can trust them as long as you have this information. Information is power and if you have it, then you can at least enter that arena knowing, okay, odds Jam is making money because I clicked through them and points bets trying to get me to lose as much as I possibly can. Now that I know these things, now that I know that gambling provides dopamine and is addictive, I am better prepared for the arena that I've entered.

Shane Mercer [00:14:44]:

Yeah, you mentioned how they were needed before for these sports books. And if you're a sports bettor and you enjoy sports betting, you need the sports books to a certain extent as well. Of course. Right. We're all sort of part of this ecosystem as you kind of put it. But we did episode one that was all focused on advertising and the prevalence of advertising now where the sports books can advertise everywhere all the time, which they are doing. So do they still need these websites, these affiliate websites?

Andrew Pace [00:15:20]:

Well, need, I don't know the answer to that question. Want absolutely. And the thing is that those advertisements that are on our TV, they have to follow strict regulations and guidelines, believe it or not. Sometimes that seem hard to hear, but once you go back into the old world the way they used to advertise, a lot of those regulations are no longer in place. So they're a little bit more free in how they can advertise it because it isn't them advertising, it's someone else advertising them. It's a big difference. Right. So the other side of that, too, is actual influencers. So we talked about celebrities, Jamie Fox and all that kind of stuff. Well, you'll see Paige Spirinac, maxim hottest girl in the world, she's working with points bet. So then there's also that that you're then sort of inundated with afterwards. Is that affiliate and influencer marketing? That's happening not on a company level like Oddsjam or whatever we've talked about, but actually on that individual level as well. So you go from seeing it on the ad to looking it up online and then being told the best line is here and then opening up your socials where you're like, oh, hey, I just want to check out my friend's Cat. There it is again.

Shane Mercer [00:16:38]:

Right, yeah, a teaser alert, by the way, Too, we are going to be taking a deeper look at the celebrity bettors. Like you mentioned Page, there are all of these people, these famous athletes and actresses and actors who are all sort of a part of this sports betting ecosystem. We're going to be looking at that in next week's episode. So if you're interested in that, be sure to tune in for that because that's going to be a really good one, too, where we kind of expose some of these people. Hint, hint, Drake, we'll be getting into all of that next week. But I want to ask you, Pace, when I look at these websites, too, another sort of thing that kind of comes to mind is this perpetuation of pregame betting and live betting is still somewhat new. Not a lot of people out there who are betting on sports regularly are thinking about the difference between betting live and betting pregame. And almost all of these sites are geared towards pregame, right?

Andrew Pace [00:17:50]:

Absolutely. Like, you're not seeing any theoretical value or correlation with some sort of opportunity relating to getting something live or even potentially a correlation between, say, maybe some type of same game parlay that is pregame. You're literally just getting the main market line in a lot of these cases. And the reason for that is because the books, they just cannot lose. You got minus odds on both sides of a bet and that fluctuate to draw people into the new line, to manage their handle, that creates theoretical value, in some cases, pregame. But largely speaking, that value, well, it might be for you individually in that one exact moment, it is never for the masses because of how they manage their pregame handle to ensure profitability. Do the sports books have losing days? Absolutely. Do they have losing weeks? Absolutely. But overall, they know what they're doing. And pregame betting is phenomenal for them because of the handle that they're able to take in on most events. Not all of them, but most events like the Super Bowl being the pinnacle of sports betting, the handle that they take on the Super Bowl, they're bulletproof with the money that comes in on that game.

Shane Mercer [00:19:15]:

There's another issue I kind of want to bring up with these sites that for me, as a journalist, really kind of irks me, rubs me the wrong way in a lot of ways because there's supposed to be this separation between news and corporate agendas, right? And so you think of all the big news organizations out there, CNN, or well, then there's the public broadcasters like BBC and CBC in Canada, PBS of the States, which sort of operate under a different model, but the private ones like CNN, NBC, ABC here in Canada, CTV, Global, they all have corporate ownership. But there's a real separation between the newsrooms and the corporate agendas. And there are clear lines that can't be crossed within these organizations. And when they do, it becomes a big issue. It becomes a big story because conflict of interest, of course, right? That's a major issue. And you want the news to be unbiased. You want it to be objective, which is what I think viewers and audiences expect, especially when they go to these credible news sites. So then we've got that brings me to these affiliate sites where we've already established who is funding them, the sports books. That's their main revenue source. And then they are offering news. And so right now, I'm on Odd shark here. And you scroll through. Look, news article, right? 20, 22, 23. NHL stanley cup odds. Bruins make massive jump to top of oddsboro. Okay, go through. And here we go. We've got Tiger at the Genesis Invitational. And basically they're all a bunch of news stories up here. But at the end of the day, this website only has one purpose, which is to get you to sign up for sports books and then lose at the sports books so that they can take your money. And so it makes me question the objectivity, the motivation, the bias that inherently exists on these sites that are pretending to offer us real news. It just really grinds my gears. It gets me going.

Andrew Pace [00:21:27]:

Well, I can't say that 100% of their revenue is from their customers losses because they do have subscription services, right? They do some affiliate stuff and have some other channels of making money. But the vast majority and again, seven figures, seven figure payouts are from the losses of their customers, which just says everything. And again, information is power. When you enter that arena, if you know that, you look at it differently. It's not that you don't use it. It's not that you can't benefit from it. It's not to say that we hate them and we don't want them in this industry. It's simply knowing how their business model works and how I guess we should probably tell the story of how this all came to be for inplayLIVE and our experience with affiliates, because it's pretty cool.

Shane Mercer [00:22:17]:

I'd love to hear it. I don't think I've heard this story.

Andrew Pace [00:22:20]:

Do we have time? I think we got time, right? So when we launched inplayLIVE, we didn't know this stuff about the industry. For me, it was just, hey, I'm making money off of sports. And I think that this is something that can benefit everyone else in this industry to a certain extent, in the sense that, hey, you can win, and I can share my knowledge with you. And that was the foundation of this whole thing. But we didn't release it as a subscription. We didn't release it with live streams. We didn't release it with the intent that people were going to be betting what I was betting in real time. That's what it grew into. But it was released as an elearning platform, which is essentially like an online book, a few hour thing that you pay to join. You learn about philosophies and strategies of winning betting, and then good luck. Go have some fun. And we were privy to this affiliate system, and we looked into it so much so that we actually registered for a few different sites. And very quickly, people know that have followed the inplayLIVE story. The online book lasted a couple of weeks at most. And then basically what had happened was people were like, we're actually looking at a Montreal canadiens hockey game. And people were like, hey, Pace, based on what you taught in the course, this was on our facebook page. Would you take this bet in the Montreal Canadiens game? And I was like, hell yeah. Responded in the comments, and the bet happened to win. It was really good odds. I think we got like 3.0 or plus 200 in American odds on the on the wager. And that's where it very much turned into, let's bet live with this guy. That's kind of the progression of what happened. A green pistol got fired under that very first win, and that was the spark of our green pistol movement. So at that time, we were growing. We had a few members, and a few people had clicked our affiliate link at inplayLIVE. We had a few different affiliates, most of which we don't have anymore. But I can actually show you guys here. I'll just share my screen really quickly.

Andrew Pace [00:24:27]:

So this is my affiliate page, and this is a very standard affiliate layout that you see with really any system. And this is actually for Bodog and Bobata. So they were one of the people that we first sort of registered with as an affiliate. So you can see our commission this year is negative 1.3.

Shane Mercer [00:24:48]:

I was just going to ask you.

Andrew Pace [00:24:49]:

About 1300, but if you click over here and I just go to my reports, this isn't active at all. So you can get some really good perspective here. Here's Bovada. We have 18 customers all time, which is nothing, and we're negative 1600 lifetime at Bovada. And here's Bodog, Canada. We had 35 sign ups through there and we're lifetime negative $8,000. So we've had 53 people sign up through our link. No one's using it anymore or anything like that. But this were the early days of inplayLIVE where a handful of people signed up and won money. So that's 25% of what, that's 25% of our commission. So Bobata Bodog, they won four times that amount, however many players actually played. And that was our net payout during that time. And apparently, like I said, this year in 2023 were up on them four times, that $1,300 amount. So that's probably just one or two players that used our link back in the day that are still playing with them. So what we've had happen with inplayLIVE, and I think it's really good evidence of the success that we've had is basically any affiliate we've signed up with, we can still log into that site. So most of them we can't log into, they don't exist anymore. And they've ended on bad terms and that's happened really fast. Around the same time when we signed up for Bodog. Many of the inplayLIVE members will remember this story really well up close to their hearts. We signed up for bet 99 and we were all super excited because we're a really small group at the time. And bet 99 was giving us extra bonuses that they weren't offering anyone else. They were talking about us potentially getting to meet GSP, like all these really exciting things that we're like, oh my god, guys, this is so cool, this sports book. And this is the thing, bet 99, they came to us, they found out about us, they were a brand new sports book and they were like, hey, this is awesome. This other startup company that's got like 50 or so sports bettors want to all sign up. And I remember chatting with one of the owners and he said to me, he's like, I warned him, I'm like, we're pretty good, bettors. I don't know that this is going to work out for what happens when we take all your money.

Andrew Pace [00:27:17]:

Well, there was also the side of it from that standpoint where I was like, hey, this sports book wants to work with us. This seems really cool. This is sort of the new thing we're doing now. And we know this industry is growing and yeah, this all sounds really exciting. I think it was like day four day five, our commission balance was negative 30,000. The guy called me, he was so upset. And one of the things he said to me was he was like, winning players just end up going and losing in the casino. And I was like, really? I didn't know that. That's news to me. But, yeah, anyways, our relationship with them lasted only a few days.

Andrew Pace [00:28:09]:

Now we get people knocking on our door all the time, like, we want you to promote us, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I, I don't go through with it, and I say the same thing back to all them. I'm like, we destroy the sports books. You guys don't want us playing here. And that you, you really, you don't, you don't hear back from them after that, typically. And the ones that push, it's hilarious. It's absolutely hilarious. The ones that push. So that experience was eye opening for us with Bodog, bet 99, and some of these other sites that we were winning so much off of that we were no longer welcome there. And the deals got changed really quickly. But it was really eye opening because they promote these affiliate systems and these affiliate programs which require multiple people to click on the same link. So those people belong to odd shark, or those people belong to inplayLIVE. But then watch when you win. It's a matter of days where they're like, we don't want these guys. And then clicking that link is poison to the player. So they want you clicking all the same links, promoting betting in the same room, all the things that you do. But then as soon as they have a reason to associate you with someone else, they use it against you, which is so backwards.

Shane Mercer [00:29:34]:

Well, it's because you're winning, right? Again, winning. We kind of covered off this a little bit in episode two where we talked about restrictions and limits and how quickly they are to impose that. And even in last week's episode with Chris Garvey's story of bet three, six, five, getting limited on one dollars bets, it's like, as soon as they identify that, hey, this person could be a possible winner, you're gone. And then anyone you're affiliated with too, right? They don't want any of it.

Andrew Pace [00:30:05]:

Exactly. And that kind of led us to a new path. And again, this was not something that we sought out. This was, again, someone trying to work with us. So I'll just bring up the state.com affiliate program. Really unique affiliate program, and really, really cool.

Shane Mercer [00:30:25]:

And so did they reach out to you? Stake?

Andrew Pace [00:30:28]:

Yeah, big time. Big time. So refer our brand and earn money through participating in steak dot com's affiliate program. Exclamation mark. You will receive an affiliate commission for every user that registers and plays on steak.com through your links. Being a Stake.com affiliate means you earn commission for all bets placed on both our casino and sports book, which, unlike. Traditional affiliate programs means that despite if they win or lose, you still make the same commission.

Shane Mercer [00:31:06]:

Wow. And did it work out that way?

Andrew Pace [00:31:15]:

He found me. We met, chatted with me, heard all about inplayLIVE. I'm like, Dude, we're winning players. Like, this is the craziest affiliate program ever. He said state.com does not limit their players, so we had nothing to worry about and we could keep playing there and that we will be paid out in a revenue share percentage or sorry, not in a revenue share percentage, in a bet placed percentage. Like advertised rate there that we just brought up on the screen. So we started that system, and it was day three. Also, I didn't mention this. He doubled our commission from their standard rate because he was so excited about working with us. Doubled it. Okay, so it was day three. He contacted me saying, this isn't going to work anymore. I'd be happy to do a revenue loss sharing model with you instead.

Andrew Pace [00:32:15]:

I'm like, look, it says regardless if you win or lose that you get paid out. And he's like, okay, but I'm resetting your commission to the flat standard rate. So what was amazing about this was this launched our inplayLIVE rewards system. And our inplayLIVE reward system is if you're an existing member, you can refer a new member, and we'll actually give you a kickback. So what we decided to do inplayLIVE is not in this for that type of revenue. We don't want it. So what we decided to do was every single dollar that we earned through stake, we would give back to our players through our rewards program. So any money that came in, we tipped it back out to our members based on them referring new people into our group. So that was our entire model. We don't want that revenue from the sports books. We want you to take that money that we got from the sports book and hopefully go use it again and kick their ass with it. And we did. Okay, so this was actually, somewhat recently, my conversation with the state.com employee who ran our referral program. He said, please text message me on telegram regarding your inplayLIVE account affiliate account. But he didn't proactively reach out to us. What we did is we'd log in, and at any given time, we'd have about $500 to about $3,000 in there. Being the reason why it never grew is because we were always tipping it back out to our players in our reward system. So he goes, Hi, you're from inplayLIVE, correct? And this is three days after I'd messaged him three separate times. He goes, We've informed the team, and we've seen abuse from your campaign, and your commission was turned to zero. So not only was the commission turned to zero, they took all the funds in there as well.

Shane Mercer [00:34:09]:

They took it abuse from your campaign. Wow. That sounds like, what an accusation.

Andrew Pace [00:34:19]:

But it gets better. So he says, that account has been deleted. So I said, what abuse occurred? Sharing the link with the people that you wanted us to? Is that what you're referring to as abuse? So he goes, I can get the details from the sportsbook team and I'll get back to you. So I said, please do. In the meantime, I sent him that same thing that I just read out the state.com affiliate system that says whether or not you win or lose, you make the same amount of amount of money. So he basically said, I'm happy to share the details with you. So I responded to him. I said, so we won money, question mark.

Andrew Pace [00:35:43]:

So I said to him, sharing the link with people like you want us to is abuse, question mark. He said, I can get the details from the sports book team and find out why they flagged it. And I responded saying, so we won money. I then sent him that same blurb from stake dot com's affiliate program that says which, unlike traditional affiliate programs, means that despite if they win or lose, you still make the same commission. And he says, in cases where abuse occurs, we do need to flag the account and discuss it further. So I said, can you please define the term abuse and tell me what happened? He responded, can you define the term we? So this goes back to my point about if you're a group and you lose, it's the best thing in the world, but if you're a group and you win, he has asked to define the term we. I responded, the people that used our link, dot, dot, dot, which is what we're supposed to do and what you wanted us to do. In fact, you heard about me and offered me higher commission rates. You were licking your chops. I said to him, he said, I'm happy to give you all details once I receive from the sportsbook team, which regards to the abuse itself. And I said, please do define the.

Shane Mercer [00:37:21]:

Term we as in everyone you wanted to side up.

Andrew Pace [00:37:27]:

So winning money is abuse.

Shane Mercer [00:37:32]:

Wow.

Andrew Pace [00:37:32]:

Which is simply using their line. So this is then really brings the whole thing together where I go, okay, these beneficial sites really aren't benefiting their customers because they wouldn't be able to provide the links. Guys, that's the tip of the iceberg. This is just a conversation that I actually have over text. Some of these have been voice text calls. Some of them have deleted all accounts. So we can't show you a negative balance. But the point being is that if you actually win, you're not a part of this system, which is really ingrained inplayLIVE, as I think we're the people's provider.

Shane Mercer [00:38:15]:

It's amazing too, because to think this gives a lot of insight into the conversations that take place behind the scenes between the sports books and these affiliate websites. Imagine if these affiliate sites were giving you really helpful information and their users were signing up through there and winning on a regular basis while that sports book, as we can tell, would come knocking on sports geeks door or odds jam or odd shark's door saying, hey guys, what gives? Your users are winning. How dare they? We either got to end this relationship or you guys got to figure something out to make them lose. And I guess that's where this distrust, my personal distrust. I'm only speaking for myself here, but my distrust of these websites comes from, and that's back to that point I was making about news. I can't trust their news. Forget that. Now, hearing a story like that, I mean, come on. That's just unbelievable.

Andrew Pace [00:39:23]:

It just goes to show don't make that offer. Like, just don't make that offer. Just be like everyone else. Don't advertise that you're the people that aren't like everyone else. If you can't handle that, someone actually did come in and lose. And oftentimes the operators of these sites can be greedy in nature themselves, and that has led them to making an offer like this and then having the audacity to pull back on an offer that's public. This isn't a private offer. He made me. It's stapled on their website. Right. Unfortunately, that is the case with pretty much every book out there. They'll kick you almost it's almost instant. They cannot believe that players came in and won money from them. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:40:09]:

The audacity of doing such a thing. How dare you. This is supposed to be for fun only. How dare you make a profit and turn any kind of investment into a win. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Okay, so we've talked a lot about these affiliate sites and kind of the dangers of them and sort of the pitfalls and what their motivations are, which aren't aligned with your motivations. The average sports bettor's motivations. But do they serve a purpose? Do they offer tools? Do they have a place that can benefit us? The average sports bettor?

Andrew Pace [00:40:49]:

Right? Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. I don't want this episode to be this overwhelmingly negative thing that speaks so ill of these affiliate programs. Information is power. Keep saying that you have a resource where you can get the best line without needing to open all those books at the same time. That to me is a benefit. If you're a professional bettor or even if you're a recreational bettor, looking to just place the best bet. If you only have one sports book and you're like, oh, it pays this at this book, who cares? Click. Well, if I'm describing you, you know you've lost money over time. You know you have right.

Shane Mercer [00:41:28]:

That's okay.

Andrew Pace [00:41:29]:

There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you're doing from an entertainment standpoint. But if you have ten different sites that you're playing responsibly in and you don't want to open all ten of them up at the same time and you just want to know where the best line is, those services do provide that value. And then from the standpoint of actually being a pro, every single number matters. You want the best number always. That can be all the difference in profit versus loss. So from that standpoint, yes, absolutely they're beneficial. And especially if you've watched this episode and you now know that that's how everything's working on the back end, I think that that is just beneficial to have that information. And then you might be like me, where you're kind of like, you know what, guys? Sometimes I'll be like, I'm not clicking their link. I don't want to do that to them. That's actually what I think. If it's a small company or whatever, I'm like, I don't want to do that to them. I'm going to send their balances into the negative. Some of them I'm like, yeah, I'm clicking your link.

Shane Mercer [00:42:31]:

You there's ones that you've got a bone to pick with.

Andrew Pace [00:42:38]:

Sure. But I think even from that standpoint, just having that information, I know a lot of our members watch this, knowing that now they're going to be like, yeah, I'm coming for you. Odds jam or maybe odds jam is pretty valuable, but sure, one of those sites.

Shane Mercer [00:42:54]:

Yeah, whatever one is kind of nod of their good books. Pregame line hunting, that's a useful sort of aspect of it. It gives you a sense of where the best numbers are. If you're shopping around for numbers, which you should be if you want to win over time, it's just valuable. But beyond pregame and pregame line hunting, is there anything else that they offer?

Andrew Pace [00:43:18]:

Is that kind of no, they provide legitimate value. Yeah, legitimate value. The difference between providing value to a pro and making money off of all the people clicking your link is, I think, like night and day. So someone like myself or a lot of our members, they're going to want to see how much money came in on a game, where the money is, how much the line has moved, how much injury or weather has impacted those things. You can see all of that on a lot of these sites. So while they'll trap a recreational player and expose them to more betting opportunities and gambling opportunities, and they profit from that. That being sort of the dark side of it all. The positive side is if you are a pro, you can get legitimate value out of those services without a question by checking where the vest line is, where the line changes are, where the money is, how much the spreads moved, how much the totals moved, all that kind of stuff.

Shane Mercer [00:44:24]:

And Shane, of course. News. Don't you want your news? I've got other places to go for that. I don't think I'll be going to those sites for their news or their analysis, either. Or, yeah, no thanks. But I guess you really have to be a sharp bettor already going into these sites. And you really kind of have to know this already to be able to utilize that information and separate the good information from the bad and making that distinction. And I guess the other question then is and I don't know that they do this, but it just makes me wonder, because I have this extreme skepticism about them, is would they provide bad information?

Andrew Pace [00:45:14]:

Right?

Shane Mercer [00:45:14]:

Like knowingly provide bad information in a malicious way. And I'm not saying that it is a common practice, but it makes me ask the question, would they? Could they have they?

Andrew Pace [00:45:28]:

I don't know. Right. Yeah. I think that anything in this industry should definitely be approached with that level of skepticism, so that when you see something that's being offered to you, you do kind of not say fuck off, or put your back up, or anything like that, but you go, hey, I need to look into this myself. Like, is that really the line? Is that really the best line? And I've seen that with sports books more than I have one of these affiliate sites. And a really good example of that is like a bet boost on a shady betting site where boosted line isn't even better and they try to trick you into something like that and it's just a marketed thing on the front page. It's like something boosted from 2.5 to 2.8, and then you can go put it in a same game parlay and it pays 2.9. Like stuff like that. Right.

Shane Mercer [00:46:21]:

Yeah. I'm not surprised seeing something like that come from a sports book. But these affiliate sites, you hope that they wouldn't behave in that way, but given that they have a financial incentive to create losers, it's the kind of thing where you can't totally put it past them either.

Andrew Pace [00:46:47]:

Well, the article, boston Bruins shoot to the Top of the List for Betting. Right. I only saw the headline there. I didn't read the article. I don't think they directly told you to bet on the Bruins. But when a line moves in that fashion, the value typically is no longer there. And it certainly encourages you to go bet on Boston to win the cup. That headline, I know what that does to a recreational bettor. They might only not bet it, they might parlay it with you seen some of these parlays. Chiefs to win MVP, Djokovich to win Australian Open, all these big favorites in certain circumstances. So this Bruins article, bruins make massive jump to top of oddsport and then you click on the article itself and it's going to talk about how good the Bruins are. That's what it's going to do.

Shane Mercer [00:47:39]:

Just very quickly here, I got to point this out. Pace, we just clicked on the article. We're looking at it. It's at the top of their website. Okay? It's the very first article you see when you go to the website. Look at the date of this article.

Andrew Pace [00:47:50]:

Oh my God.

Shane Mercer [00:47:51]:

Are you joking me right? This is what I'm talking about though, right? Like it's like this is at the top of your website. This article is more than a month old.

Andrew Pace [00:48:02]:

It's six, seven weeks old.

Shane Mercer [00:48:04]:

And I mean sure the date is there and it's stamped there so that if you're reading it, you know it's old but it's at the top of their website.

Andrew Pace [00:48:10]:

But no one looks at that, right?

Shane Mercer [00:48:13]:

It's so small. It's right there and right away you want to get to this section where it's like, oh well, where are they and who should I bet on? Who do I like? You scroll right past it. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that. Then there it is. Unbelievable.

Andrew Pace [00:48:29]:

Yeah. And that's the thing, right? The difference between a professional, a sharp bettor, we call them sports value analysts and a recreational player as a recreational player might not even click that and just go bet the Bruins. Or they do click it and they see that there is incentive to bet on the Bruins with of course the links provided to you to do it. It's no different than when Dave Portnoy posts from Barstool like a parlay that he's made. We're obviously going to dive into all that next week. There are a lot of similarities with the affiliate pushing it down and then obviously the celebrity and who you follow. But ultimately you'll just click the link and make the bet without actually doing the research or looking into what it was that they were trying to get you to click on in the first place.

Shane Mercer [00:49:21]:

We mentioned that big for pregame gathering information and that kind of thing. Is there any purpose that they offer for in play for live betting? I know a lot of them don't offer live odds but I think some do, right?

Andrew Pace [00:49:37]:

Some of these systems will offer live lines. I guess what the challenge is is how robust the live lines are from the standpoint of how quickly they're moving. We worked on something like that for inplayLIVE actually ourselves a tool for our members that was providing live lines and discrepancies on those lines which could potentially present like arbitrage opportunities or potentially like soft sides of lines with value. And what we quickly learned from our standpoint was that the power of the group actually at the time of technology, I'm sure that this will progress over time, but the power of the group was far more superior to actually the lines. And when your lines are going through one site, through another, all that kind of stuff, there can be latency. So, yeah, there are some of the services in the paid side that you can see the live lines, but typically those are going to have the best sort of real time value at maybe a half time or between a period or something like that. Because the fact that once play resumes, they're moving so much that you're looking on one site to go place it at another, by the time you're there, the light's completely different, et cetera, et cetera.

Shane Mercer [00:50:50]:

Well, as we sort of wrap up this episode here, Pace, it sounds like some of the takeaways are is that, look, if you're an average sports bettor, you need to be aware of these sites. You need to understand how they operate, how they work, what their motivations are, how they're incentivized and what their business model looks like. But if you do understand all of that, they can provide you with some value.

Andrew Pace [00:51:18]:

Absolutely right.

Shane Mercer [00:51:21]:

Well, as we kind of wrap up the episode here, do you have a particular affiliate site that you go to on a regular basis, something that you might suggest for the average sports bettor if they are going to use these sites?

Andrew Pace [00:51:38]:

Man yeah, I mean, I used to I like winning and I'm not a good pregame bettor, I'm just not. So no. The answer was yes, but it's now no. I don't want to see them. I don't want to see them. Some pros might hear me say that and be like, god, I make so much money doing this or that. There's so many different ways to make money. Betty I like to go in with no bias live. I don't want to know how much money the public's on. I don't want to know that there could be value on another side because the public's on one side or not. I just want to see real time if the number is good enough based on the motivations and situations. So for me, the answer is no.

Shane Mercer [00:52:17]:

All right, well, there you have it, guys. Answers no from him. But you might be able to find some uses out of it. Just know how they work. Know how what? You know, how they operate. So with that next week's episode, as we sort of mentioned already, we're going to be getting into the celebrity bettor and there's so much to talk about there. Right, Pace? I mean, you must be excited for that one. I know we've sort of talked offline about this a little bit and it's something that kind of gets you going a little bit.

Andrew Pace [00:52:47]:

Oh, well, yeah, it's the can't lose bettor is where we don't know how it works behind the scenes again. So it'll tie in really nicely with this last episode.

Shane Mercer [00:52:57]:

Yeah, looking forward to that. All right, guys. Well, thanks again so much for joining us for this latest episode of Behind The Lines. Remember to, like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the social media @inplayLIVE. And if you want to join inplayLIVE, we have a promo code for you. You will get the best possible deal you can get. It is ‘BEHINDTHELINES’. All caps. So use that promo code you choose to sign up for inplayLIVE. And with that, thank you all. Thank you, Andrew Pace, the founder of inplayLIVE. And keep beating the books till next week. Take care, guys. Cheers.