Episode 54

Rob Pizzola [00:00:00]:

It it really is.

Andrew Pace [00:00:01]:

No. You're literally speaking to, like, what probably, I'd say a good, like, 5, 600 people that that is all we do.

Rob Pizzola [00:00:12]:

Right.

Shane Mercer [00:00:20]:

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 at inplaylive. And if you want to see what inplaylive is all about behind the scenes, we've got that promo code for you that is 'BEHINDTHELINES', all caps. Alright. A very special episode today. I am super excited. As always, we've got the CEO and founder of inplayLIVE, Andrew Pace with us. But, Pace, we've got a very special guest on today's show.

Shane Mercer [00:00:54]:

The other guy over there, Rob Pizzola, founder and CEO of the Hammer and host of the Circles Off podcast presented by Pinnacle. And there he is, repping his Pinnacle sweater. Rob, really excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for joining us, man.

Rob Pizzola [00:01:10]:

Yeah. Thanks for having me,

Shane Mercer [00:01:12]:

guys. Hey. So let's just start off very quickly. Your podcast Circles Off presented by Pinnacle. We are big fans of Pinnacle over at inplayLIVE. We've talked about them on our podcast, before. But for those who who don't really, know you or know the Circles Off podcast or the hammer, tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of, what you got going on in the sports betting world.

Rob Pizzola [00:01:35]:

Yeah. So I'm a professional sports bettor by trade. I left my day job several years ago. I was working for theScore, as a product manager there. And, at that time, I was making more money playing daily fantasy sports than I was in my day job, So I was eventually able to just walk away from that. Eventually, the edge in daily fantasy sports start to dry up for me, so I kinda transitioned into sports betting a little bit more, and I was lucky enough to, be able to carve out a career from it. In recent years, I've really noticed a lot of the sports betting content in the space. It's something that I'm passionate about because in my early twenties, my first ever job was a radio producer.

Rob Pizzola [00:02:14]:

I was producing sports betting content. I eventually was an on air whole host. And what I've noticed about the space right now is, candidly, just my opinion, there's not a lot of good betting content out there or specifically, not much in the form of betting education. A lot of the stuff out there is very picks driven, or it's educational, but it's not really educational in the sense that the content creator actually knows what they're talking about. So I thought there was a little bit of a gap in market to insert myself, start to produce some educational content, interview industry, leaders, whether that's, sportsbook, bookies as an example, or other pro bettors or whoever whoever it may be. So that was the the focus behind Circles Off. And we're going on almost 3 years now where we've been producing that podcast. I have a lot of fun with it, and it's just kind of like a mishmash of all sorts of betting related stuff.

Shane Mercer [00:03:10]:

I I didn't know that about you. You're you're sort of DFS, sort of four way, or sort of early on in your in your sports betting journey or kind of midway. But I know you got into into sort of betting more, more generally earlier than that, I think through the poker craze. Right?

Rob Pizzola [00:03:26]:

Yeah. Even a little bit prior to that. So I started betting when I was 16 years old. It was pretty rampant in my high school. The area that I grew up in, pretty much everyone was betting. It was just like a way of life. I still remember, you know, getting my first PPH account and betting into it. And, honestly, I had several years of losing, but I I enjoyed it.

Rob Pizzola [00:03:47]:

Then it eventually just got to a point where it was no longer enjoyable. You just get frustrated by constantly losing. You're like, I wanna do something to win. And I actually took a break from sports betting. I started playing poker. This was during the Chris Moneymaker boom that, you know, popularized poker. I was a very good poker player, was making a ton of money playing online, started getting into sports betting again, started losing most of my profits from poker back on sports betting. And it was just kinda like this cycle.

Rob Pizzola [00:04:15]:

And, eventually, honestly, just like DFS, you know, this is in my early twenties. The edge dried up for me in poker. Players just became too good. A lot of the poor players that were sick of losing, they they just left the space altogether. So I really had didn't have that poker money to fall back on. I had a day job. I was betting on the side, losing money, and I just kinda stopped at one point and said, I can't do this anymore. I need to figure out some sort of way where I know that I can actually be profitable in sports betting before I am actually going to sports bet again.

Rob Pizzola [00:04:47]:

And I kind of viewed it as a hobby on the side. I didn't place bets for about 3 or 4 years, but I placed bets in a spreadsheet and tracked myself and what was working and what wasn't. I do have a bit of a math background. I never graduated from university, but I studied applied statistics and computer science. So I started to take my education and put it towards sports betting, and that just kinda got the the ball rolling for me and and kinda led me on the path that I I'm on today.

Shane Mercer [00:05:17]:

Hey. Sound a little familiar there?

Andrew Pace [00:05:19]:

Yeah. There's there's a couple, couple similarities there. I, my poker story was a little bit different overlapping to sports betting, but the losing from sports betting did come. But my first experience with sports betting was coming from, for lack of a better term, a professional poker arena because I was I was doing it to to pay for my tuition at the time and was really viewing it as a job. I worked a seasonal job at a golf course, so I had no money coming in in the winter. And I was like, let's do this poker thing and and dove in head first and and did really well with it. But I remember thinking, like, in poker, I have to sometimes buy pots where there might be $300 in the pot and a 150 of that was was from my stack. So I might be buying a a placing a $300 wager to buy a pot, that I've already put a $150 in.

Andrew Pace [00:06:13]:

So I've I've put $450 into this pot to to get that $150 back $150 back. Obviously, I'm explaining a specific scenario, but I'll never forget. I put a a $50 parlor together on the Saints and the Niners. It was my first ever sports bet, and and it won. And I was like, oh my god. I just won this much off this little. This is the best thing ever. And, of course, if you're betting in that fashion, the the losing did start.

Andrew Pace [00:06:37]:

But that that was how I transitioned. So yeah. But a lot of similarities for sure.

Rob Pizzola [00:06:42]:

Yeah. That's that's actually, in my opinion, like, one of the worst things that can happen to a sports veteran in the first one. It's counterintuitive to what you believe because you just won a bunch of money. Yeah. But when your first experience is winning, you just kinda start to think it's easy and just, like, re reliving my past. I'm a huge sports fan. I always have been. I I grew up on sports, everything.

Rob Pizzola [00:07:02]:

Like, literally watched everything all day long. And when sports betting was first presented as an option to me, immediately, I'm like, oh, I mean, there's no way I'm not gonna make a killing doing this. I watch all of these sports, and I'm losing. I'm losing. The ego in me is telling me that I'm still gonna figure out a way to win or that I'm just getting unlucky or whatever, and then you just reach a point where you're like, that's not the case. And it wasn't until maybe, like, 10 years into my sports betting journey where I started to realize that sports betting is more of a math problem than it is knowing anything about sports. So that was, like, the big breakthrough moment for me. But, you know, like, I wouldn't change my experiences.

Rob Pizzola [00:07:43]:

They I think all of that's led me to to the better that I am now today. But in the early going, it was definitely tough because I just thought that knowledge of sports was going to lead to success in sports betting, and it's it's just not that whatsoever.

Andrew Pace [00:07:58]:

Yeah. That's, I think that's a a really good point. And, also, I think the the losing element of it and making that transition, it does allow you to speak to the industry. And I know that sometimes, like, we, Shane and I know this firsthand, but when you are speaking to the industry, you realize you're really only speaking to 5% or less, of that industry. But at least you have an understanding. Whether the other 95% believes you or not is another story, but you have a, an understanding of where it is that they currently are in in their journey or or where they're at. So, yeah, it allows you to communicate with them at a minimum.

Rob Pizzola [00:08:35]:

I think, like, one thing that, I would say differentiates me from other content creators in the space, and that's not everyone. Certainly, everyone has their own experience. But for me, it's that I have been on the Square recreational side for a large portion of my life, and I understand I understand all of that. I understand betting for entertainment. I understand what it's what it's like to chase losses at the end of the week and try to get all your money back in one play. I understand all the things that a bettor shouldn't do, but I, you know, I I I live that for just as much of my life as I've lived being an actual seasoned sharp sports bettor. So it's just like the melding of both of that those worlds where I I just feel like I have a unique way in being able to verbalize a lot of these concepts to the masses.

Shane Mercer [00:09:23]:

Would would you say that that the hammer then, you know, strictly caters to to Sharp bettors? Is that the idea behind it? And and sort of, I guess, you know, what what's what's, you know, sort of the the modus operandi, so to speak, of the hammer?

Rob Pizzola [00:09:36]:

Yeah. So what we're really striving for is just to build a brand that is transparent, has some sense of integrity and honesty, basically. That's that's really the end goal and the mission for us, is to build content centered around that. I honestly don't care if our content creators lose or win as long as they're being real and transparent with the audience through that entire process. We're not there to, you know, have people that are selling themselves as something that they're not. That's extremely dangerous. I went down the path in the early going of buying picks, from people who I thought were great sports bettors because they didn't know any better. I don't wanna be the brand that does that does that.

Rob Pizzola [00:10:17]:

Now we do gear a little bit more towards the sharper side in terms of the way that we produce our content. A lot of the content creators on our platform are either professional bettors, semi professional bettors, or maybe even ones that, you know, still have a day job, but they're, sharper in the in the sense that they, like, understand the sports betting landscape a little bit more than the average person. So we certainly gear towards that. Our audience, though, is just a mix of everything, and we're predominantly on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. What we notice is that most people find our content through search, whether that's Google search or through YouTube search. Generally speaking, the people who are searching, for example, you know, how to get better at sports betting, NFL picks, whatever, these are not sharp people. Generally speaking, this is more of the casual that's looking for some sort of improvement or just strict strictly looking for picks. So we are a sharper betting network that is trying to cater to the masses.

Rob Pizzola [00:11:19]:

We certainly have sharp bettors that follow us, but the vast majority of our viewership and listenership nowadays is actually coming from the more casual recreational side of things.

Shane Mercer [00:11:29]:

Yeah. And, you know, I guess that's sort of what PACE was getting at there where, you know, we try to reach, you know, an audience that's that's bigger and broader. But at the end of the day, a lot of the things you're talking about, right, and the things we're sort of trying to encourage people to do in those sort of, responsible betting habits, you know, and and using tools like arbitrage, middling, all that sort of stuff, you know, at the end of the day, that it's hard for it to land on the on the average recreational bettor. Would you sort of find the the same kind of problem over at the hammer?

Rob Pizzola [00:11:59]:

Yeah. I'd say it's a much harder sell, for a few reasons. 1, again and and and, again, I experienced this and lived this myself, but ego is a big thing in sports betting. There's so many people who are sports fans, and they believe that they're the best at their craft in terms of forming opinions, and that leads to just generally poor bettors. And it's really hard to convince someone who knows a lot about sports that they're not gonna win at betting sports just because they know a lot about sports. So that's an uphill climb, right out of the get go. I mean, that's that's kind of the main one in the early going, but there's really a lot of people out there that are looking for shortcuts. And that's not necessarily because they're lazy or lack work ethic.

Rob Pizzola [00:12:42]:

In some cases, some people just want the picks, and they wanna go bet that. There's some people that just don't have the time in their day. They work a job. They have kids. They don't have a lot of, recreational time to devote to sports betting. So they're looking for content where they can be fed picks or things to bet in a quick, decisive manner. And that that's, I mean, that's just the reality of the space that we deal with. I'm hoping that over time, there will be some sort of cultural shift.

Rob Pizzola [00:13:08]:

And I honestly think that there will be because we're still fairly new to regulated sports betting across North America. I hate to say this. I feel really bad saying this, but I feel like there's, like, a a big responsible gaming push that's gonna come at least a couple years from now from the amount of people who are frankly gonna lose their livelihoods, or, you know, hard earned income betting on sports because now they're betting into, you know, same game parlays with 20 plus percent hold. The the there's just way too many ways for someone to lose their money quickly nowadays. I think at some point, there's gonna be a culture shift towards learning how to bet properly. We're not there yet, and and it's definitely an uphill battle right now, but I do think that that point is coming.

Shane Mercer [00:13:56]:

I just wanna jump in. Go ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:13:57]:

Yeah. Yeah. So when you talk about the same game parlor and the 20% hold, it it I I view that as, like, you walk into a casino and, obviously, casinos just negative expected value the second you walk into the door. The same should be said about the sports betting industry. It's negative expected value the second that you walk through the door. And you going up to the slot machine and spending all your money on the slot machine instead of going, hey. Okay. This is an entertaining thing.

Andrew Pace [00:14:24]:

I'm here to have fun. I'm not here to get rich. But in order to have fun, I'm gonna go play at the least, expected loss arena. So I might go play blackjack instead and play perfect blackjack. Maybe you get a free few drinks. Maybe you're hanging out with some friends. It's an entertaining experience, and hopefully, you're engaging in a in a way where you are, you know, expecting loss. And if you win, all the better kinda thing.

Andrew Pace [00:14:54]:

But these same game parlors in the way that the industry is operating, but not only that, there's the ads, but then all the bettors and the the way the landscape has almost conditioned itself that it's like everyone walking past all the blackjack tables and just all the slot machines being completely full at every casino floor, and it is insane. It is absolutely insane.

Rob Pizzola [00:15:19]:

Yeah. I mean, everyone wants to be able to put down a small amount of money to win a large amount of money. Like, that's that's the people play the lottery with, like, you know, huge negative expected value because of of that. And and I get the allure to doing that, but, you know, a a lot of people bet on sports for entertainment. But there comes a point where it's just not entertaining to lose anymore. It's the same deal if you're going to a casino. I I love to play casino games as much as anyone else even though I know when I'm walking into a casino that the expectation is I'm gonna lose. But if I was playing roulette every single night o for over the course of 3, 6 months and those losses are starting to add up.

Rob Pizzola [00:16:01]:

This is not gonna be fun to me anymore. I'm not gonna I I that's not gonna be an entertaining experience. I mean, to each their own. Personally, to me, that's not gonna be the case. I think you see some of that with sports betting. You hear about a lot of these recreational books who are having retention issues with players where players sign up. They play for a little bit. They're out the door, and they never come back again.

Rob Pizzola [00:16:20]:

I think part of that is just the experience of losing your money this fast, and especially with the same game parleys and how those are being conditioned, especially through advertisements. That's just, like, the easiest way for someone to take their initial deposit, run through it very quickly, get nothing out of it, and just have an, like, extremely sour experience.

Shane Mercer [00:16:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, you know, it's it's tough. And then, you know, they lose all that money. Right. And then, it's either a really sour experience and they don't go back or they deposit and they just repeat the process again. Right? There's there's a lot of that that goes on. But then, you know, you get a guy like you, Rob, who comes along or a guy like Pace who comes along and you have some success.

Shane Mercer [00:17:01]:

And this could be very book dependent, but on some books, you can have a lot of success, and they'll cut you off. On other books, you can have very little success and still get cut off very quickly. What's your experience been like when it comes to books limiting, and do you even bother with them?

Rob Pizzola [00:17:19]:

I I bother with every book in some capacity, provided I I think that I'm gonna get paid. If I win, I'll bet there. I think the more outs you have, the better. You can price shop. You can bring the VIG down by betting at a bunch of different notes. So I'll mess with any book. I've honestly had experiences where I've lost at books and I've had my limits cut as well, which is possibly the worst experience you can ever have in your life because you don't even have the chance to win your money back. But that's just the, you know, what we deal with nowadays where sportsbooks are so scared of the sharp action that if they're on your scent, they're just gonna slash limits, even if you might not even be a sharp player.

Rob Pizzola [00:17:58]:

I've had some of my more recreational friends who've had their limits cut on some sportsbooks where, I mean, you would never wanna cut their limits, or I know that as their friends, but, that's just the case in, you know, and what we deal with nowadays. So it certainly changed things for me. I still bet a lot of regulated outs. There's, I mean, it's changed the betting strategy. Right? I'm mostly like a straight wager player. If I'm playing into, offshores or PPH accounts, I'm making a lot of straight wagers. Nowadays, with the propensity for, the regulated books to cut you off, you almost have to put yourself into a trader's shoes and say, you know, what would I be looking for if I was the trader for this sports book and using bonuses efficiently is one of them. Someone who's getting a lot of closing line value, someone who's betting a lot of straight wagers.

Rob Pizzola [00:18:51]:

So, I mean, I same game parlay a ton now, which might come as a surprise to people who are like, yeah. You know, stay away from parlays. You should never bet parlays. Well, if you have an edge on all of the legs of your parlay, you're now compounding your edge by betting that parlay. So that's a good way for me to stay under the radar. That's worked pretty successfully with a lot of the rec books in terms of prolonging my lifespan with those books. I mean, ultimately, you win too much money. You're gonna get cut off everywhere.

Rob Pizzola [00:19:19]:

But for me, the the battle in the last year and a half to 2 years, I'm based in Ontario, has has not been winning, which sounds like egotistical. It's I'm just being honest. It's not been winning. It's been, you know, scaling. And how do I keep these accounts alive for a longer period of time and make sure I'm maximizing these accounts. So I'll bet everywhere, but I I've had to I've really had to adjust the way that I bet over the course of the last, 18 months or so.

Shane Mercer [00:19:48]:

Yeah. That sounds, I think that those comments are gonna land pretty heavy with a large majority of our audience when you when you talk about, you know, winning, not being the problem, but keeping books and being able to scale is the is the big problem and the real challenge. How do you tackle that challenge?

Rob Pizzola [00:20:08]:

Just on a personal level of trying to scale as much as possible? Yeah. Okay. So I work with partners. I'm never gonna advise anyone try to multi account on, regulated sportsbooks. Where I'm in in Ontario, it's actually illegal. I would never say do anything like that. I still do bet a lot of stuff into the gray market, whether that's offshore or into, local PPH accounts. For those accounts specifically, I do work with other partners across North America.

Rob Pizzola [00:20:38]:

So one of the beauties of, doing what I do. So there's different types of sports veteran. You can win in a 1000000 different ways. Right? There's some people who can win just via bonus hunting. There's some people that do, like, a top down steam chasing approach. I'm I'm more of the origination style of things where I set my own numbers on games, and I bet wherever I have an edge. So sometimes people will call that bottom up. There's no shortage of people who are looking for good originators out there to be able to move more money.

Rob Pizzola [00:21:07]:

So, luckily, I have a pretty big profile on Twitter where I constantly have people reaching out to me to partner in some capacity. So in the past, I was much more reluctant to do that because I like to keep things I like to keep the operation a little bit more tight knit. I don't like a lot of my stuff to leak and, get bet into market, steam the market, and and whatever. Mhmm. Nowadays, I'm way more open to those partnerships. So that's probably the biggest adjustment that I've made, along with my betting habits on the regulated sportsbooks, I would say, in the last 1 or 2 years.

Shane Mercer [00:21:42]:

Yeah. Pretty pretty interesting there. You know, I think, I we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast here before, but, you know and I've done done some reading on on the topic of of sports betting and that kind of thing, and we bring it up all the time as, you know, we're a community at inplayLIVE of sports bettors. Right? And we lean on our community in a lot of ways in in many, many aspects of what we do. But, you know, whenever you look back through through history, I find that there's always this kind of thread in that successful people in this space are part of some kind of group or some kind of community or, you know, work collaboratively in some way. Would you and you talk to a lot of people who work in the space. Would you say that that's something that you you find from a lot of people?

Rob Pizzola [00:22:23]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I I think networking is one of the biggest components to being a good sports bettor. I mean, there you you reach a point where there's only so much you can do by yourself. And some people are fine with that, and they're comfortable with that level be because it replaces the the income they can make in a day job or whatever, and they're they're fine to go that route. It all depends on what your goals are as a sports bettor. And and, like, just being candid with you, like, I I would like to retire early. That's my goal.

Rob Pizzola [00:22:49]:

I I'm I'm married. I don't have kids. I have a set age where I don't wanna be working anymore, and I'd like to just be able to to earn off of the income that I've made. So for me, it's crucial to try to make as much money as I can in a shorter window. And because of that, networking has been huge to me. I got my break in sports betting purely because I was posting, my daily Major League Baseball win probabilities to Twitter. And I was doing that months on end. And, eventually, somebody reached out to me via DMs on Twitter and said, hey, Rob.

Rob Pizzola [00:23:21]:

Just so you know, you know, as soon as you post these on Twitter every day, the market is moving based off of this post. And I I had no idea what that even meant at the time. I'm talking 10 years ago. And I'm like, you know, explain that to me. They're like, let's jump on a call. So somebody walked me through it. You know, you're posting your numbers for free. Somebody's using that information to go and bet themselves.

Rob Pizzola [00:23:42]:

This is a pretty good indicator that what you're doing is, you know, successful and and you're not you're, you know, undercapitalized. You don't have the money to bet it. Come join up with us. We'll give you certain bet size. And that's where I got my break. Like, prior to that, if I had social media didn't exist, I don't even know that I would have recognized that I had an edge in sports betting or anything like that. So that's just the key of of having a social profile. From there, networking has just been huge for me, to to strike different partnerships over time.

Rob Pizzola [00:24:11]:

You know, maybe you'll have, a specific account or sportsbook where you have a really big edge because they consistently misprice something, that doesn't exist elsewhere. You might wanna reach out to partners to to try to maximize that edge. Sometimes it works the other way around where maybe there's a specific sports book that, you know, you don't play play in all that often. You don't beat all that often, but someone else out there, is looking for more of those outs. All of that works, you know, to increase your earn. So for me, that that's just one of the biggest things, in this space is being able to network and connect with other people, where, you know, you you pat in my back, I'll pat yours type of thing.

Shane Mercer [00:24:50]:

I I love that you brought up that that it was baseball that got you into it because, you know, I I think a lot of our community members would probably say baseball is probably one of our toughest out there to to, you know, be successful at. So I think that's that's really interesting that that's how you how you kinda got into it initially. It's very, very fascinating there. You've given us a bit of a sense on on, you know, how you bet. You mentioned, you know, bottom up and and sort of as an originator. But how would you describe your overall betting style, and are there sports that you're that you focus on specifically? Or I guess, give give us a sense of what your sports betting calendar year looks like.

Rob Pizzola [00:25:25]:

Yeah. So it's it's pretty crazy, and and it adjusts year to year. So I don't I don't bet Major League Baseball bottom up anymore. I'll just be very upfront. I I lost my edge in baseball several years ago. There was a time where you could just beat baseball by honestly looking at steamer projections, running them through, like, a Monte Carlo simulation. You find a a bunch of edges every day, and that was good enough. Over time, Statcast data emerged.

Rob Pizzola [00:25:53]:

You know, it it became tougher and tougher. I mostly focus on NFL and NHL nowadays from an origination point of view, and major market NFL and NHL. So I do bet some player props mixed in there, but the vast majority of my, what I'm looking at on a weekly basis, NFL spreads and totals, NHL money lines and totals. And those have just been like I bet those mostly just because I've had the most success doing that. It's not that I enjoy those sports more than other, although I do love the NFL. I'm a huge NFL fan. It's just, you know, what what does your ROI tell you? Is it worthwhile? Keep doing it if it is. So I do that a lot of that.

Rob Pizzola [00:26:36]:

I do mix in some top down stuff nowadays. I used to crap on it a lot more than I do now. There's, you know, listen. Top down approach, you're gonna get cut off at a lot of books a lot quicker, I would say, because you're mostly picking off, bad prices essentially, or when the market is steaming, slow books, whatever it may be. But there's, the ROI per time invested is extremely high with that approach as well. So for sports that I don't know anything about or don't bet, the NBA, Major League Baseball, I'll bet a lot of player props top down in that style. And then, like, all sorts of just stuff comes up over time, where the landscape changes. I don't wanna speak, like, too much about it right now, but, right now, there's a major edge at at a a pretty, widely available sportsbook that has existed for months where, I'm talking like, you know, a major edge, which I would be dumb not to completely invest most of my time into capitalizing on that.

Rob Pizzola [00:27:38]:

So it's kind of cyclical for me. The big thing for me is I track everything that I do. If I don't think I have an edge on it anymore or the edge is so small that it's not worth the time, I'm not gonna put the time in to do that. I'm sure 3 years from now, you ask me this question. What I'm doing might be completely different. I I I sports betting's adapt or die, man. That's what it is. It's an adapt or die approach.

Rob Pizzola [00:27:59]:

And I'm always just looking for wherever I can spend, the most effective time.

Shane Mercer [00:28:04]:

And Pace, for everyone else out there listening, he said he's tracking everything and and also adapt or die, a big a big mantra, within our community as well. Right, Pase?

Andrew Pace [00:28:17]:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the things we're doing today are so different than the things we're doing, you know, in the previous season. And if you rewind the tape a decade, to some of the things that I was doing before inplayLIVE existed. And you were like, hey, dude. You're betting on this on March Madness, and I hadn't even ever filled out a bracket before. I'd be like, you're crazy. Right? But it's exactly it's exactly it. You know? You you have people that guide you, into new strategies.

Andrew Pace [00:28:43]:

You work on those with them, and, and you adapt, as as those things change. But, I mean, the thing about sports separately of the actual betting element of it is if you look at trends through leagues over time and the whole Moneyball era of analytics coming into the game and what teams do in certain scenarios, and we were to just go, hey. Let's flip on a game 30 years ago and forget about rule changes because that's a whole other side of it. You know, there'd be things in in football where you'd be like, they're they're kicking a field goal on 4th and inches right now. That's crazy. You know, you you could say the same for hockey as we've seen Patrick Waugh, you know, emptying out, the the go the the tendy with, you know, 10 minutes left down 4 in the playoffs and things like that. Not that it's necessarily been effective, but, you know, these things that have been introduced to the league and the impacts that it that it has on them, completely separately of the betting landscape. So those trends and changes, lead to opportunity, but they also lead to potential catastrophe if you don't get out of your own way when those things change.

Andrew Pace [00:29:54]:

So, yeah, you've gotta have your finger on the pulse. And, you said it, Rob. You said you love sports. Right? That's that's how you started. And, you know, you could look at this and go, who the hell is time for this shit? Right? Well, you gotta you gotta love it.

Rob Pizzola [00:30:09]:

I I agree. So, like, there there's different, mantras on this. Right? So, like, some of the best professional bettors I know know nothing about sports betting whatsoever, and they prefer it that way. I I can't operate like that. And it's maybe just because I came up as a huge sports fan, but you mentioned the Patrick Wa situation. Right? And, like, one of my biggest edges I ever had was when the goalie polls started changing in the NHL and the impact on the live market. Because the live market was just way too slow to catch up to the fact that goalies were being pulled so much earlier. That made, the favorites minus 1a half much more valuable because a lot of the in play algorithms were built off of, okay, we're expecting the goalie to be pulled at, you know, a minute and 30 seconds, a minute or whatever.

Rob Pizzola [00:30:54]:

All of a sudden, that number started going higher and higher. So, to me, you know, I love changes in sports. I love when the game becomes significantly different because I think those open up the biggest opportunities for people to profit. You look at Major League Baseball. And, again, I barely bet baseball. I know nothing about baseball. I still watch games here and there, and you would notice at the beginning of some years, well, the ball's flying out of the ballpark here. What's going on? And some people are like, oh, it's just random variance.

Rob Pizzola [00:31:21]:

You know, it's only 4 or 5 days' worth of data. It's like, well, I mean, look at these statcast numbers. The ball's flying off these bats. Maybe we're dealing with a different ball and literally I mean, when can you say this? You could you could bet blind bet overs across every baseball game for 2 or 3 weeks, and you're just raking in money because of one fundamental difference in the game, they're using a different ball. Or maybe the ball is a little bit more dead, as a counterexample or whatever. But those fundamental changes in sports, you people ask me all the time, like, why do you watch all the NFL games every week? It's something I do every single week. Even though I have my own models that run my numbers on NFL games, I still watch the abbreviated version of every single game on Monday because you might just pick up on certain trends that are happening around the league. And, like, that helps.

Rob Pizzola [00:32:15]:

That helps in your betting. All of a sudden, holding penalties are down. Why is that? Is that gonna continue going forwards? How do we capitalize on that? Things of that nature. So, I'm a big proponent of watching the games and, betting when you see stuff that just doesn't quite add up, but it takes a certain mindset to do it. I think some people watch games and that negatively impacts them because they develop certain biases with teams based off of, like, these smaller samples and they don't know how to they can't process how one team could possibly play so badly in one game and then play so well in the next game. So, like, the the it's it's hit or miss. But for me, personally, I I've always been a huge fan of watching the games and trying to pick up on something that may not be accounted for in the market just yet.

Andrew Pace [00:33:04]:

Yeah, Rob. I like that, in the NFL, those players are waking up on money and they're studying film, and you're waking up on Monday and you're studying film. I would, I make sure I don't miss them in real time, but that's because I'm I'm really not placing a single bet before the game starts myself. But, again, you said it already. There are many different ways to make money betting on sports. Right? So, yeah, I think there's a a lot of good information there. And I know too, Shane, I don't know if you've seen this come up, but in our community, there's some people that will say, like, hey, you know, are there any other good betting podcasts out there? And a lot of the times, I just automatically my my brain and my gut just tells me, you know, it's it's people that are, you know, posting pics or selling pics or trying to sell pics or whatever the case may be. Right? So, I think they they've got a a a few good options if they're listening to you at the, you behind the wheel of of the show because, you clearly know what you're doing.

Andrew Pace [00:33:58]:

But one thing I wanted to comment about what you just said there is we obviously talked about some some trend changes in leagues. Obviously, the the, you know, balls flying out of the park, all that kind of thing where where you've noticed something and you go, hey. Is this, you know, is this just a a weird data set, or is this actually analytical, trend or change in the game in some capacity? One of the biggest things I noticed, and I specifically noticed it once Ontario got legalized, and that was, from one hockey bettor to another. That was the significant and overwhelmingly substantial change in the pregame hockey lines. There would to see a minus 500 favorite in the NHL was not even remotely fathomable. In fact, I remember if I saw a minus 200 favourite in the NHL, I would be shocked. Like, my jaw would drop. And there was value actually in some of these favourites in hockey, because they were they were underpriced.

Andrew Pace [00:35:00]:

But when on the Ontario market, the biggest hockey betting market in the world, got legalized, you really started to notice some changes with those pregame lines. And I think that presents opportunity live, but at the same time, it does present new challenges. So forget about the game and the analytics, then there is also the books and what they're doing, to to cater to, you know, a lot of these recreational bettors and how they're gonna be wagering on their teams. Especially, you know, you're stringing together in NHL parlor at the start of the night. And if you're, you know, obviously, the the public tends to lean towards these favorites. You know, buying a bunch of these minus 200 plus favorites in hockey, I look at it, and it's just such a tough game to to produce results night in, night out. And and you see it. Right? Like, all these teams do get into, you know, the 20 20 win range at the end of the season or higher 20, 30 win range at the end of the season.

Andrew Pace [00:35:54]:

And, that means those minus 500 favorites aren't always winning. So yeah.

Rob Pizzola [00:35:59]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I I mean, the disparity between the top teams and the bottom teams is definitely bigger than ever. I think part of it is is to do with the the structure of the league right now. And and, typically, you have so many teams who are competing for playoff spots late in the year that at the trade deadline, there might be, you know, only 4 or 5 sellers, and they're selling off whatever they possibly can. And especially as we get it late into the year here, you know, you have more AHL players on their squad. But hockey is a is a high variance sport. Right? Typically speaking, the less scoring events there are in a game, the higher variance you're gonna have.

Rob Pizzola [00:36:35]:

So soccer has a lot of variance. Hockey has a ton of it. You could see all, you know, all sorts of situations where a bottom feeding team can be can beat, you know, one of the best teams in the league. We see it happen pretty frequently in the NHL, if not even scare teams as well. San Jose, Dallas recently comes to mind. So there's a lot of those situations that happen. I take it honestly, I I on a game by game basis. Like, for me, hockey, I I remove myself from the situate like, it's almost robotic.

Rob Pizzola [00:37:05]:

Everything I do is pretty much automated. It's just like model produces a number on a game and then we, you know, just compare it to other prices and we go out and bet it. And I I I just try to remove myself as much from that situation as possible. But, I certainly am not finding value on these big favorites. And, it would be very difficult for me to lay never say never. I mean, you might have situations where, sure, minus 500 is actually a valuable bet, but, it it's just really hard to get there nowadays with, a game that's just as high variance, especially at the NHL level.

Andrew Pace [00:37:40]:

Totally. And I think, like, compare comparatively speaking, obviously, the NFL is a higher scoring, sport than than the NHL is. But, you know, you you would see these minus 18 favorites, Denver Broncos against the Jags. Peyton Manning was, like, minus 22a half or something like that. Minus 23a half. I can't remember what it was exactly. Yep. They didn't cover the spread, but, you know, the money line there, I don't even know what it would have equated to.

Andrew Pace [00:38:05]:

But, you know, you would see these crazy favorites in football where you have this unbelievable handle and so much recreational action coming in in these massive favorite parlors, obviously, being strung together every single Sunday. And, Yeah. You just didn't see it in hockey, and you see it now. And and I think it's it it it has affected baseball quite a bit as well, you know, minus 200 favorites having theoretical value, you know, that's like a 1 percentage, over the course of, like, the last decade or something like that. And you're seeing some minus 400 and 500 and things like that that have jumped into MLB where you go, hey. That might have been a minus 200, you know, 10 years ago, and it's just not today.

Rob Pizzola [00:38:43]:

Yeah. I mean, the landscape is changing for sure, across betting markets, but also across the leagues, generally speaking. I I I think there was, like, you know, I I I've, again, been watching sports my whole life, but I think back to 20 years ago, a lot of these leagues. And the parity was, you know, the range of the teams was a lot tighter than it is now, and I think part of that is just modern day franchise building. Right? Nobody wants to be the the 8th place team in their conference going into the playoffs. And just like that team that's consistently getting in every year, we see more teams that take this do or die approach. Right? It's either this is the year. We're going all in.

Rob Pizzola [00:39:18]:

We're a top team, or this isn't gonna be it for us. We're rebuilding. There's just not a lot of teams that over the course of 5, 6, 7 years are hanging out in this midrange anymore. So it just makes the the range from, worst team to to best team a little bit higher, across all the major sports. But, yeah, it's I mean, it's always something to keep an eye on, and I'm sure things will change. I mean, it's again, just gotta be adaptable. 5 years from now, it's gonna be different than it is nowadays. So you gotta pay attention to what's going on across these leagues and and use that to formulate your decisions going forward.

Shane Mercer [00:39:54]:

I wanna ask you something there, Rob, that you brought up a little bit ago. You know, you mentioned, you were talking about hockey and and poll times and and sort of, live wagering and that kind of thing. How much live wagering do you do? Is it mostly pregame? And and I guess sort of, you know, the people you talk to as well because you get a lot of industry people on, especially other professional sports bettors. Do you find that they're doing a lot of live wagering or is it is it all mostly pregame?

Rob Pizzola [00:40:23]:

I do very little live wagering. That's just a conscious choice on my part, because I I do well pregame, and I don't want my days to run extremely long. I grinded, you know, 12 12 hour workdays longer than that, honestly, for several years. And after a while, it even when you're making good money, it just beats you down. And you start to think, like, do I need to really exhaust this much effort? And,

Shane Mercer [00:40:51]:

you know,

Rob Pizzola [00:40:52]:

mental state is important in embedding, guys. Like, it it really is.

Andrew Pace [00:40:56]:

No. You're literally speaking to, like well, probably, I'd say a good, like, 5, 600 people that that is all we do. Right.

Rob Pizzola [00:41:04]:

No. No. I I and I get it. Like and and to each their own. Right? Like, again, it's all your, the big here's here's the honest to God truth. The big changer for me was, when COVID happened, first things to open up were golf courses. I didn't golf prior to that. I'm like, you know what? Golf courses are open.

Rob Pizzola [00:41:20]:

It's a good way to get outside. I got addicted to golf. So now the summer comes around, and it's like, I don't wanna be around all day long waiting for baseball lineups to come in to be able you know, Mike Trout is out, and I have 10 seconds to go and bet against the ain't like, I don't wanna compete in that market anymore. It's just too time consuming, labor intensive. Like, there would be times I'd be scared to get up from my computer to go take a leak because, like, what if some news comes down in the 2 minutes that I'm in the washroom? Right? So I I don't wanna live like that anymore. So it's more regimented for me nowadays, and I've really learned, at least it's been my choice, not necessarily a learning. It's been my choice in more recent years to kinda turn it off once a game start. And I don't have to be around.

Rob Pizzola [00:42:04]:

I watch less sports than ever. I sweat less games than ever. I'm at my computer less time than ever. And, honestly, it's just been very healthy for me as a person. On top of that, I am running a business. I'm the CEO of the hammer. That takes some of my time as well, which is time that I have to cut from sports betting. So to balance all these things, I I I just don't wanna suffer from burnout.

Rob Pizzola [00:42:25]:

So for me, the decision not to bet live is not necessarily that there's not edges there. Because to answer your second question, I know some people that bet exclusively live. Now they found certain things. Maybe that's, in smaller soccer leagues, for example. You know, Chilean soccer, Bolivian soccer, or whatever in, in games that, you know, are are less widely available. Data may be not as good, and and maybe there's only a few people that are concentrating on that market. But for me, because I do well pregame, it's never been a thought of mine that I need to really expand into the live markets, because I just don't wanna take on that additional work. And that's I mean, it's very counterintuitive to, I think, how a lot of other professional bettors might think, but it's what works for me, gives me a healthy lifestyle, and I I don't hate sports betting because of it.

Shane Mercer [00:43:15]:

Yeah. Well, hey. You now you now know 2 more people who bet exclusively live. Could roll us into into that group there. But, you know, I I like what you're getting at there in terms of, you know, managing, you know, your your time, your stress levels, you know, the the mental health aspect of this, because in a lot of ways, sports betting is a mental game as much as it is anything else.

Rob Pizzola [00:43:39]:

Sorry. Just to cut you off. This is a a true story, but the best year I've ever had betting, in terms of the most income that I made was probably the most miserable year of my life. And, again, like, to some people, they might hear that and, like, roll their eyes, but it's it was such a grind that year. And on top of of of the amount of work I was putting in throughout the day, I was watching all my bets at night. And for hockey bettors, you will understand that, like, when, you know, 30% of your games are going into overtime and shootout, you know, and you're stressing those at very high limits, it it's just not healthy. So, I mean, I went through a a year of misery where I did really well betting, and I would much rather cut my income down in half and be happy and healthy because what's the point if you're not gonna do that? Like, you're you're you're not enjoying life. So so what's the point? And, for certain people, like I you know, it it'll be a complete opposite of me.

Rob Pizzola [00:44:38]:

They love it. You know, one of my my business partners my cohost on Circles Off, Johnny, You know, he doesn't have a life. He would admit he just doesn't have a life. He's he's he's betting all day. He goes to the gym for an hour, and that's about it. But he loves that. And to each their own, that's totally fine. For me, that's just never been, you know, I've never had an appetite for that.

Shane Mercer [00:44:59]:

I I actually think I heard Johnny say that just a couple of weeks ago on an episode a couple of weeks ago. But, you know, pace, if you're, you know, if you're not having fun, what's the point?

Andrew Pace [00:45:09]:

Well, I think there's a lot of valuable, piece of information in that statement. And what Rob said is precisely what works for him.

Shane Mercer [00:45:18]:

Mhmm.

Andrew Pace [00:45:18]:

And my answer to that same question about balance would involve obviously a ton of live betting, but a very similar answer. And it doesn't matter if it's betting on sports, trading in the stock market, you know, being obsessed with fitness, like, the list goes on and on. You have to strike a healthy balance. And, if you're finding yourself doing well financially and not happy, or if you're finding yourself, you know, in a position where, you know, you aren't seeing friends or or getting away or or any of those types of things, you you can genuinely ask yourself. It doesn't matter what profession it is. Like, what what is the point of of the efforts that you're you're putting forward? So, you know, whatever type of planning you're doing, whether it's goal setting of any kind, you have to you have to hit the pause button and and relax. You have to hit the pause button and celebrate. You have get sleep.

Andrew Pace [00:46:05]:

Like, all these things, really factor into the equation. Right? And, yeah, for for something like what Rob just said. Hey. I love going to the golf course. Well, that's freaking phenomenal. Like, get out to the golf course, and it doesn't matter if you bet live, pregame, whatever. Get out to the damn golf course if that's what you like doing. You know, that that little next piece of information, that little next opportunity, when you let go of that, there's power in it because that shows that balance that is required to have sustainability.

Andrew Pace [00:46:39]:

Otherwise, you know, what you're doing just simply is not sustainable. It it's gonna it's gonna break you long term.

Rob Pizzola [00:46:45]:

Yep. I mean, earlier on, Shane talked about, the value of tracking your bets. Right? And I'm a huge proponent of that. So I'm a very analytical person. I always have been. Again, you know, the the the statistical background, computer science, I've since I was young, I just gravitated towards numbers. That's just always been my thing. For me, I mean, as silly as it sounds, I have a metric for myself that I track, which is profit per minute.

Rob Pizzola [00:47:10]:

And I've done this for a long time now, and it's like, I'm devoting x amount of time to this, and it's only turning this profit. Am I do I need that in my repertoire? Like, can I just cut that out, eliminate that? I'm and I slowly started to do that over the years. So to each their own. You know, it's not a one size sports betting is not a one size fits all. And for someone who is maybe a little bit more undercapitalized, they have an edge now that might go away tomorrow, which can happen in sports betting at any time. You might wanna devote 16 hours a day to that, and I wouldn't stop you. And and if I felt that way about something where I had a huge edge, I would do that as well. But there gets to be a point where it's just diminishing returns.

Rob Pizzola [00:47:53]:

And it's now, okay. I'm investing an extra 3 hours a day, and I'm only making this much off of that additional 3 hours, maybe I should take that 3 hours. And, you know, I could take my dog for a walk for half an hour. I can go to the gym. I can go to the driving range. I can do whatever. That that, to me, is just way more healthy, and it makes you wanna bet more rather than, rather than it becoming a job.

Shane Mercer [00:48:18]:

And I I would argue that it keeps you sharper when you are engaged in betting because now you've created that separation. Right? And you've sort of created that space where it's okay. I was in fun mode, and now I'm in all business mode. And I I think that that it's so important to approach it that way. And I think a lot of sports bettors for, you know, for a whole host of reasons as we've kind of discussed, but especially recreational sports bettors don't think about it that way, where sports betting is the is the fun mode. Right? They're in fun mode when they're sports betting. But if you're gonna lay significant amounts of money, you you should probably treat it pretty serious and, and sort of treat it in in a business mode. But I also wanna get at another aspect of it there, you know, pace because this is kind of something we've seen within the Imply Live community.

Shane Mercer [00:49:01]:

And I'm wondering if Rob is sort of seeing it in his as well or even in a in those sort of broader space, but, you know, that FOMO that comes from, man, I I didn't get I didn't get all of Rob's picks in today. And then you get people sort of saying, can you post it sooner? Can you post it at this time of the day? Can you do it? Can can you cater to me so that I can get every single pick in? What what do you say to those people, Rob?

Rob Pizzola [00:49:28]:

It's tough because I totally understand it. I've been there before. I've been on that side of things. It's inherently challenging. And even, like, as a content creator, it's one of the biggest questions I get all the time. Right? It's like, well, this time of the show doesn't work for me or can you post these numbers overnight? And balancing the, betting with the content is actually one of the most tricky things to do because you want to be able to put something out to the audience that has value, but you also don't wanna take dollars out of your pockets, right, out of your pocket. So I get that. I totally understand where the frustration can come in at some point.

Rob Pizzola [00:50:05]:

I mean, I'm I'm the biggest proponent for people, that don't have a big edge of betting earlier. Right? Like, there's so many people who wait for game time to bet. And it's like, why why are you doing that to yourself? I mean, if you look at Pinnacle as an example and you just look at how their limits increase over the course of the day, why would you wanna bet, an NBA game when Pinnacle's taking $50,000 on the game when you could have bet them earlier in the morning when Pinnacle's taking 2,000 and the market's less efficient? Most people don't know that, and things of that nature. So I I completely understand the FOMO side of things. It's just it goes back to I'm more of a proponent of trying to instill process in people so that they can figure this stuff out on their own. That's not to say that I don't do picks content. I do give out picks. I try to do it in a way, exactly like you said, where it's valuable to someone else.

Rob Pizzola [00:51:02]:

I would never ever, ever give give out a pick on a platform that I would not be willing to bet at that exact moment in real time. So, like, I I eliminate that from the equation. But for me, I would rather somebody learn more about the process and have their own way of figuring this stuff out because people aren't gonna be around forever. I mean, some people might really value your, platform and inplayLIVE. They might value the hammer or whatever, but who knows? Like, those things could go away and then that bettor is just left with nothing afterwards, trying to just find someone else to replace that. So to me, I think for someone like that, it's just more important to try to carve out your own process rather than being, reliant on somebody else. If you want this to be a long lasting sustainable thing, I think that's a necessity.

Shane Mercer [00:51:50]:

Pace, it sounds like he's trying to teach people to fish and not give them a stinky fish.

Andrew Pace [00:51:58]:

I love it. I love it.

Shane Mercer [00:52:00]:

Yeah. It's, it's great, to have you on and, for you to give us your perspective on on how you're doing things over there, Rob. Really, just wanna say thank you for coming on. Where can people follow you?

Rob Pizzola [00:52:14]:

Yeah. You can check my me out on Twitter at Rob Pizzola, just my name. You can check out our website, the hammer.bet. And if you're looking for educational content, obviously, you can go to YouTube, or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, search for Circles Off, which is my educational, podcast. That's probably where you're gonna get you're gonna get the best bang for your buck. But if you check out the hammer. Bet, you can see all of our channels. Whatever sport you may fancy, we got some content for you.

Rob Pizzola [00:52:40]:

So those would be the best places.

Shane Mercer [00:52:41]:

Awesome. Pace, anything you wanted to add before we let Rob go?

Andrew Pace [00:52:44]:

No, Rob. Really appreciate your time, man. Thanks for coming on.

Shane Mercer [00:52:47]:

Alright.

Rob Pizzola [00:52:47]:

Alright, guys. Thanks for having me.

Shane Mercer [00:28:16]:

Pace, Pizzola, and to all the millions of sports bettors out there listening around the world, till next week. Keep beating 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 podcast. Have a betting story or wanna be featured on our podcast? Drop a note in the comments below. And if you wanna join inplayLIVE, use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'.