Episode 6

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello and welcome to Behind the Lines, the sports betting podcast that is meant to expose the tactics, the strategies, the traps that the sports books are laying for you to fall into and try and take your money. By doing that, we hope that you'll be able to recognize when those sports books are trying to steal that money from you and you'll be able to navigate them a little bit better and make yourself a better bettor over time. I'm your host, Shane Mercer, journalist and sports betting enthusiast, but that is Andrew Pace. He is the sports betting professional and the founder of inplayLIVE, the greatest sports betting community on planet Earth. Pace, how are you, buddy? Good to see you again.

Andrew Pace [00:00:57]:

Doing great. I can't wait for the episode when you stop calling yourself a hobbyist and you're like, guys, I'm a pro two now.

Shane Mercer [00:01:03]:

You know what, I'm working towards it. I'm at it. I'm out there grinding each and every day with you out on the streams. For those of you who don't know and are part of inplayLIVE there are regular daily streams zoom streams where a whole bunch of guys, hundreds of guys are gathered to watch sports and bet on sports at the same time while Pace and several other pros that we refer to as the Flock are making picks live wagers. And, well, we typically make a ton of money and it's a lot of fun. So that's what Pace is referring to there. And yes, one day I will hopefully join the rankings of sports betting professional, but for now, still journalist. You know what? I'll always be a journalist too. And with that, actually, I'm glad you sort of brought that up because a big part of what I do is follow the news. And I actually want to bring all of you a little piece of news right now. Something that's popped up this week that I want to call attention to is a change petition that's been set up and shared. And so this is it here. And the whole point of it is to make it illegal for sports books to limit winners. Yes, we talked a lot about limiting and restrictions. I think it was episode two of behind the Lines. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go back, have a listen to that where we really take a deep dive into betting restrictions and limits that are placed on winning sports bettors. Yes, when you win over time, the sports books will limit you. They will restrict you. They'll essentially give you the boot and tell you they don't want your business anymore because you are winning too much money. You're taking too much money from or.

Andrew Pace [00:02:44]:

I mean, we had our interview from a couple of episodes back as well, where you might look at this petition and go, oh, woe is me. Some guy's upset because he's not making as much money as he could be or wants to be. Well, there's some pretty shocking stories about people that have only wagered a dollar that have been exposed to this as well, just because they didn't like what they bet on, even though it's something that they're offering.

Shane Mercer [00:03:05]:

Yeah, that's right. You don't necessarily have to win a whole lot of money to get limited or get restricted. Sometimes it's just a matter of you're taking a bet that will win over time, and that's what was happening. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:03:16]:

We'll post that link in the description below. So wherever you're listening, you can click on that link and sign the petition. Be a part of a noble cause.

Shane Mercer [00:03:25]:

I encourage everyone to go sign up. This one is specific to Canada, but it doesn't mean that when rules change in one jurisdiction, other jurisdictions tend to take note, they tend to follow. And because this is such a new and growing industry, everybody is still trying to figure out their way through it. So it doesn't necessarily matter that you don't live in Canada. I encourage you to go sign it. And everyone who does live in Canada absolutely go and sign this because this is important and this is something that I think we all can benefit from. So with that out of the way, I just wanted to call our attention to that because this was just launched and it was posted by someone in our discord group. And I wanted to make sure that we shared this. But that brings me to today's episode where we are really and truly, literally taking you behind the lines. We are talking about the companies that set the lines and that share those lines with the sports books themselves. So, Pace, I did not know anything about this when I joined inplayLIVE back in summer 2022. I thought that all the sports books out there set their own lines. I thought that if you went and you played at FanDuel or you went and played at DraftKings or Bet365, which was my main sports book at the time, that they all created their own lines, I had no idea that there were multiple companies out there that provided these sports books with those lines. And so early on in my days at inplayLIVE, I think I was hearing you talk about Kambi. Kambi, oh, Kambi lines, Kambi books. And I was like, what is this Kambi thing? What is he talking about? It must be a sports book. So I went and I searched Kambi. And I was like, oh, I'll go sign up at Kambi. Because right now, for whatever reason, at that time, Kambi was really popular and we were hitting a lot of Kambi lines. And I was like, oh, I got to go sign up for this Kambi. I got to get this Kambi. And I searched Kambi and nothing, it doesn't come up. And I'm getting all these other sports books coming up and I'm like, why am I seeing all these other sports books? And also I was spelling it wrong. I think I was spelling it with A-C-I had no idea what it was. And then finally I found an article and the light bulb went off. I'm like, oh Kambi, they supply the odds to so many different sports books. And then it clicked. And then SB Tech was brought into the conversation quite often and I finally started to understand, but that's a little bit of my backstory in terms of my ignorance. Despite the fact that I was betting on sports for well over a decade, much longer than that even, I had no idea that this is how it works. So Pace, give us a sense of really how it does work, because all I did was just explain how sort of dumb and ignorant I was to the whole thing. But give us a sense of how this industry actually works and how there are all of these companies working behind the sports books to give them those lines.

Andrew Pace [00:06:31]:

Yeah, I think the simple way to think about it is when you go to a website and you land on the site, whatever the name of that website is, that's the shell around the odds provider. So the odds providers are actually kind of the big players in a lot of way from the standpoint of them being the people that are actually in control of the markets, in control of the odds, in control of limiting players, in control of increasing player limits, decreasing player limits, limiting players, which obviously we've touched on and ultimately the entire system. Now, there is some flexibility from the standpoint of what each shell being the actual sports book. So when you go to Barstool sports book, or when you go to BetMGM, or when you go to DraftKings, they do have a little bit of flexibility where they can turn on and off certain markets, but it's the odds provider doing it and the sports book that's actually choosing what they're offering. So I guess essentially all that is to say is that when you arrive at a website and you think that you found your sort of book that you like, or your home book or whatever the case may be, you're actually not really using that book's lines, you're using someone else's lines. And as a pro, I love hearing that because I go, okay, I can find these lines somewhere else as well, potentially. And that doesn't mean that my journey with this one sports book comes to an end for everything because of the fact that I can then go find those lines through another provider, through another book, even though it's the same lines and everything all over again. Even though it's a different sports book.

Shane Mercer [00:08:18]:

Yeah, well, we were just talking about limits and restrictions and that's a great way to get around it. Right? You get limited at one sports book because, hey, one, you watched behind the Lines and you learned how the industry worked. And then two, you applied some of those skills and some of that knowledge, and you actually won some money at a sports book. And then they decided, hey, you know what? We don't want you anymore. You're limited. But those lines that you were taking advantage of, you can find elsewhere, and oftentimes you can find them in more than one or two or three other places, but a dozen other places, right?

Andrew Pace [00:08:51]:

And I think we've talked a little bit about the landscape of betting, obviously, the legalization and the growth of it and all that kind of stuff. Behind the scenes, behind the Lines, all of this is going on. But not only is it going on, it's a battle out there. It's an absolute battle. So when the United States got legalized and we started hearing about these new sports books that were going to become available to us in our different states and provinces, wherever it is that we may be. Over in the UK. They were almost laughing a little bit because they were like, these guys don't know how to run a sports book. We've been doing this for years. And we've kind of touched on that, too, where we talk about you're just taking the odds that are available to you. You're just taking the bets that are available to you. Why are you being punished for it? And then we've also talked about some of the reputable books that are doing it right, that let you keep playing if you are a winner. Well, behind all of that are these odds providers. And in some cases, they've been around for more than 30 years. We're talking dating back into the 90s where the Internet is just really getting going. And meanwhile, these sports books and their odds providers started that early, potentially. So these big companies, Bet, MGM, DraftKings, all of them, they were kind of thinking that they were going to be providing their own lines. What a disaster that was, right? So very quickly, DraftKings signed with Kambi, the company that you just touched on, that's Kambi their company based out of Sweden. They signed with Kambi. But then this is what's crazy. You think about, okay, so who are the biggest competitors of DraftKings? And somewhere on that list, you're going to start talking about Barstool Sports Book and Dave Portnoy. And you go, well, who are they with? Well, they're with Kambi. Here you are with two of the biggest sports books in America competing against each other for business, offering different promotions, different parlay bonuses, different this, different that. Meanwhile, behind the lines, they're identical. They're not even kind of different. They're identical. Right? So since that time, a lot has changed. So you might be watching this now and say they're not identical. Well, that's because major, major acquisitions and changes have happened for these big American books to become competitive and to offer unique propositions to their players. So what actually happened with DraftKings fast forwarding the tape, is they actually ended their contract with Kambi, and rather than sign a new contract with a new odds provider, they purchased a company called SB Tech. Now, when they bought SB Tech, SB Tech was as irreputable as it gets. So I was very familiar with their lines, and a lot of Canadians will remember the ad of Spin Palace. It would just come on constantly between sports games, and that was their free product, but it would come play at Spin Palace. So Spin Sports is a product of the Spin Palace, and they're all SB Tech, and you would deposit your money with them. They'd give you a bonus that you didn't select or ask for. You'd wager with them for maybe an hour. They'd shut your account down and keep all your money, and there'd be money in the account that you couldn't withdraw. And it was like a common practice of theirs. You wanted to stay so far away from these guys, it was nuts. The thing is, in an unregulated environment, there was the opportunity to get away with all that stuff. So Kambi, being a pro, was one of the lines that I loved betting on on a regular basis. I found them to be very exploitable. And here DraftKings is dropping Kambi, and we're thinking like, oh my God, this isn't good. We're losing a Kambi provider, and they buy SB Tech, and then we're like, oh my God. Sptech's practices are going to be carrying over into the regulated market. But what DraftKings has done since that acquisition is rather just take those lines of SP Tech and just simply offer them to them. They've become a leader in player props, in unique flash props. They're called on DraftKings relating to result of plays, result of next basket, result of next pitch. Like all the crazy sort of obscure, minor markets that you can bet on. SB Tech has become a real leader in that space, and ultimately really purified that odds provider. So much so that if you do use any of their other books, you're not going through that challenge of being paid anymore. So that actually has been a bit of a blessing to the industry, in my opinion, because of the fact that the regulation occurred. Then this terrible odds provider with Beatable Lines started offering way more lines, way more products for us to bet on and pays you out in a reputable fashion was a very good thing. What I didn't touch on, though, was that was I believe it was either nine or eleven. I want to say, actually, I think it might have been 21. We'd have to look it up. I believe DraftKings acquired SB Tech for $21 billion. And if I'm not mistaken, Bet MGM made SB Tech an offer of $11 billion that they actually declined. And then DraftKings came in with all that. This was right in the boom. They were already out, they were already millions of users and they went, hey, our stock price has just exploded. Let's make SB Tech a huge offer. So not only now, then you go behind the scenes again. Not only now does DraftKings own SB Tech, but since DraftKings is the actual purchaser of that entire company, all the other lines that SB Tech offers in, say, Europe or in other areas where you can bet on their other books. Books like VIP Casino and can play. And all these books in the UK. They're now profiting from those other markets in Europe. So with that acquisition, they expanded their arm into other areas in the world that a lot of people really don't know about.

Shane Mercer [00:15:34]:

And obviously with that then comes the fact that these lines that DraftKings offers, you can go find them at these other books now. And you may not even realize that if you're using some of those other books that you just mentioned in other markets, like in Europe or wherever, you may not even realize that, oh, those are the exact same as DraftKings. And DraftKings runs the company that's providing those lines, right? And that's new.

Andrew Pace [00:16:02]:

But they don't that sports book. The sports book has a contract with SBTech that they're fulfilling.

Shane Mercer [00:16:13]:

Exactly, so they don't own them. So we've talked about Kambi, we've talked about SBTech draftkings just to make it easy. It's almost DraftKings owns SB Tech now, but there are many others out there providing odds. And let's quickly touch on. The biggest one is Bet365. Right. Biggest sports book in the world. Who provides their odds because they're a little different, right? Right.

Andrew Pace [00:16:36]:

And that's where you get into stuff that gets really crazy and tricky when you get behind the scenes of this whole thing. So we touched on that sort of SB Tech relationship with DraftKings to kind of build on that a little bit further. Some of those UK books, they have the same lines as DraftKings, but they might not offer the same flash props, the same player props, all those other types of markets. Now, that's because their contract with DraftKings doesn't allow them to offer those lines, but the lines they will offer will be the same or very, very similar. Sometimes you can have a bit of a nerfed version, which is to say that the odds might be slightly worse. So in DraftKings where it might be offered -110 on both sides, you might go over to another book, the lines are identical but it's -112 on both sides. So there might be a bit of a bigger vague or vice versa that could go the other way as well. Now, what's crazy is how much these sports books work to differentiate themselves and solidify market share to become, like you said, Bet365. The biggest book in the world. Bet365 had its own system for those same flash props and player props that they had before DraftKings even existed. Well established years and years of action coming in on them. And let's call it more or less comfortable with what they're offering. They're not changing too much. Well, Bet365 uses a series of different odds providers to provide them with a unique product and a unique solution. So one thing that you'll notice when you're using DraftKings for any player props, and Bet365 for any player props, the systems will lock at the same time, they'll reopen at the same time. The numbers will be identical for all of their player props in, say, the NBA and the NFL. So total on receiving yards, total on player passing yards, total threes made total points. In the NBA, they're all the same. So they're using the same odds provider, a company called Sport Radar. So DraftKings, which owns SB Tech, is outsourcing another odds provider for that system specifically. Right then, Bet365 is sourcing now they got rid of all of their old flash props, they're all gone now. They're sourcing SB Tech's flash props and got into bed with DraftKings despite the fact that they're competing at such a ridiculously high degree because they decided that that was a better solution for them. So you can have a main odds provider for NBA, but then also use a different company for say, NFL or for player props, but not for your main market lines. So it all really starts to get interwoven. And one of the things about Bet365 is they have a lot of unique lines and unique markets. But if you dig hard, you'll be like, oh, those are the same lines as Bet365, but just for basketball. Or those are the same main markets as Bet365, but just for the main markets. So just the spread money line in total. And what that is, is that's different sports books sourcing different odds providers for specific situations. And Bet365, because of their size and power, they've worked with Sport Radar to become unique and offer propositions and markets that other books don't have access to that also use the same odds provider.

Shane Mercer [00:20:04]:

Wow, this is such a tangled web. Like you said, there's so much going on here between these sports books, these odds providers who's using what, when, and from the way you're describing it, it's always changing, it's always shifting, it's not static by any means. And these lines of competition between these sports books is extremely blurry. They work together in some areas, in other areas they're competing, they're exchanging money with each other to provide different services. It's really quite a complex industry when you start to really have a close look at it here. So how many other players are in this space? How many odds providers are there.

Andrew Pace [00:20:57]:

That's the thing. A company like Kambi is publicly traded, okay? I think they're valued around like $700 million. And you can buy them on the Swedish stock exchange, whatever the hell that stock exchange is called. Because they're publicly traded, you can access a lot of information about them. SB Tech was a private company. They were a company that you really couldn't get much information about. A lot of times, if you go to these odds providers websites, if they're not publicly traded, which a lot of them aren't, the information that you get on there is so basic. And for a company that's so highly at the forefront of technology, their website will be as basic as a landing page that basically says, contact us for a consultation. And I've called a few of them. I've been on the phone with a few of them. There's curiosity elements to it. One of the things that I was trying to do was I brought up.

Shane Mercer [00:21:55]:

They're like, wait a second, someone's actually calling us?!

Andrew Pace [00:21:59]:

Yeah. So sport. Radar, I touched on already. One of the things that they also do is they provide a lot of live data to almost all the major sports books. So companies like William Hill and NBC, Twitter, Amazon, with Thursday Night Football, Amazon Prime, like, the list goes on and on, they will be the provider of live data. So when you're sitting there in the broadcast and catch was just made by Justin Jefferson, just caught a 15 yard pass. You might not know exactly how many yards he has in the game in the broadcast, but what eventually appears out on your end is the live sport radar data feed that track Justin Jefferson's catch the yards, the total, and then can also reference other data where oh, that's the third time this season justin Jefferson's gone for 100 yards. That kind of information is provided by Sport Radar on top of lines. So I've been in touch with some of the odds providers from the standpoint of, okay, without necessarily disclosing what it is that we're doing, can we use this data to leverage it for our success? What kind of data would we get that could benefit us? What kind of data could we see that we see that they don't have, that we have that provides opportunities to actually potentially win over time? And then live sports streaming. So these companies offer live sports streaming to the sports books. I think many bettors that have been in here before. They've opened up a game, and there's a little play button, and you go, holy shit, I can watch the game. I can watch the game. So cool, right? And from my standpoint, there are certain circumstances, certain sites and opportunities depending on where you are in the world. It's not the same everywhere because of TV rights, where you go, gosh, I can have a dollar in this account, and I can watch all the baseball games. That's incredible. You don't need to pay for MLB TV or whatever the hell they're offering now. I put a buck in this sports book. I can watch every freaking baseball game depending on where you are in the world, right. That's Sport Radar they're offering that live streaming to the books. Not in all cases, but that's one of the solutions that they offer. So I've also contacted them from the standpoint of going, okay, I want the most live data. This isn't even about inplayLIVE. I want the most live data. I want the live streams of all the games, especially the ones that can be hard to get. Everyone knows that if there's 158 college basketball games in the menu, you can't watch all those at once. But maybe in a certain circumstance you go, hey, I want to follow the end of this game in, or I want to make sure that the fouls are correct in this game. So you want to be able to flick those games on. So the calls didn't bear any fruit, but I guess ultimately what I'm getting at. You asked me how many providers there are out there. I don't know the answer to that question because of the fact that a lot of them aren't publicly traded and the information that you can gather on them is very limited in a lot of cases. So there are times where we at inplayLIVE will refer to a certain company where we have a nickname for them because we don't even know what the company is that provided those odds. Like we don't know the name of the provider and there isn't really a lot of information out there about it. So does that answer your question horribly?

Shane Mercer [00:25:21]:

Well, but it's amazing. So as part of the research for this show, and I'll just do another quick screen share here, you know, as as part of me sort of trying to figure out, okay, you know, I know that there's so many of these different providers out there I stumbled across. And first of all, I want to mention too, before I get into this company here, when you go and search and do a Google search, odds providers or who are the odds providers? Or what companies are odds providers, or you try doing any kind of search like that, you know what you get? A whole bunch of sports books, the sign up pages for a whole bunch of sports books. It's very difficult to learn who are the odds providers?

Andrew Pace [00:26:13]:

Very few people know about what we're talking about right now.

Shane Mercer [00:26:18]:

Well, exactly. And that's why we're talking about it.

Andrew Pace [00:26:20]:

Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:26:20]:

And so I came across this company, DonBest, which looks like they provide a lot of similar services as the company you were talking about, Sports Radar. And it looks like they offer all sorts of stuff look trading solutions in play integrate our data. They're advertising to sports books and the Igaming industry. It's a B to B company. So I said, oh, let me go have a look at who are their list of clients. Well, you take a look at who this company, don best business services is working with. Take a look. You got Caesars on here. Golden nugget. This is all domestic, all in the US. William Hill, Wynn, MGM. And then international clients. Look right at the top of the list. Bet365, and betfair betradar Bovada, which is also Bodog, and the list goes on. Take a look. Pinnacle down here.

Andrew Pace [00:27:13]:

This is a really good example, okay? So I've gone down this rabbit hole so many times, okay? So number one, sometimes I would just do what you just did here with this Dawn Best, where I go, okay, these are Dawn Best lines. I want these lines available to me for as long as I possibly can. So I need to get all of these sports books, or maybe I need to go through this list of the ones that they offer, and you click and you listen to what we just said and you go, pinnacle is not the same lines as Bet365. And that's where we get into the web that I'm talking about. So what does DonBest offer Pinnacle? We don't necessarily know that, and we can't necessarily readily figure that out. But the whole point is that you look at a company like Sport Radar, and they might have Caesars on the list and not offer them any lines at all. But what they're offering them is the live streaming or the live data of updated information. And DonBest could be a competitor to sport radar. They can have their own lines, whatever the case may be. But it's exactly like you said, all these books, look at how interwoven they are. They're all using them for a little bit of their own sort of piece of the puzzle. And then you take a company like Bet365 that does have all these unique propositions, and they're unique because of the fact that they've interwoven their product with so many different odds providers.

Shane Mercer [00:28:33]:

And look, I don't want to say that the sports books don't want you to know this information, but for me to find Don Best, I think I had to go to the fourth page of my Google search. So it's not readily available for you, so to speak. It is out there. And if you want to search and dig, you can. And you can find this stuff. But it takes that effort, it takes that time, that commitment, that sort of desire to find it. And I don't think that the average sports bettor is thinking about those things. They're simply thinking about, what am I betting on? What's my favorite sport? What am I watching in the moment? And can I. Get a bet in on this, right? They're not thinking about any of this stuff, and I think that's exactly what the sports books want.

Andrew Pace [00:29:24]:

Yeah, I think that's a good example for sure of how readily that information isn't available. It is not something that people really, number one, they don't search it a ton, but number two, they definitely don't want you to. Information is power. I say it every week. They don't want you to have it.

Shane Mercer [00:29:46]:

They don't want you thinking about this stuff, right. They just don't. And so now it comes to the next sort of taking this a step further. Now you know the information, right? All of you out there who have been watching and listening to this episode, now you kind of have this background knowledge like, oh, okay, all of these odds providers are working with the sports books to give them all these different lines. How do you, as a professional sports bettor take advantage of this?

Andrew Pace [00:30:15]:

Right? Well, I think the first most simple thing is let's say that you really like playing at unit, okay? And you go, that's my primary sports book. Now, I might not be getting a lot of people that would say that that's not the most prominent book out there, but you go in there and you play here at unibet. They offer pretty much everything that you could think of, lots of different propositions, lots of different main markets, and lots of different sports. So you go, okay, I really like playing here, and I've been limited. Well, that's where you now have the opportunity to go, okay, who is the odds provider for Unibet? And it's a company called Kambi. So we go over to Kambi, just like you did with Don best, and we find out again, this is a great example because they are publicly traded, right? And this is where you could go, okay, so where can I find who else offers these lines? And that's from the standpoint where you go, okay, I got limited here. I'm a pro. I can keep going, right? Like, I can keep the conversation. I could keep my betting with this company on the go, but I need to find out where else I can wager with those specific lines. I'm just going to actually share my entire screen here. So here's the Kambi website here, and you can go through their site and you can find out, okay, what is it that they do, what is it that they offer, who do they work with? And that's where when you dig a little bit further with it all, you find out some of their other odds providers. So in this particular case, I've done my homework. You guys don't need to do it. Okay, so I'm on unit here, and let's say I've had a bunch of success betting on tennis with unibet. So I go over the live menu in tennis, and let's say that I got limited here and you go, okay, the way I was wagering on tennis, on unit, I can't figure out how to do that anywhere else. It's only working with that odds provider. Well, we can head over here on Bet Rivers and look in the tennis menu and click on the same match. And again, I did touch on lines being nerfed, but just check, just take a look at what we're looking at here. Does it look identical? No, but look at the graphic, look at the score, look at the yellow beside it all, that's all identical. Now if we go to the actual odds, unibet here on the left is in decimal odds, bet Rivers on the right here is in American odds, but plus 340 is 4.4, right? And we just saw it move at the exact same time, right. So you ask me, how can you use this stuff to your advantage? Well, you go, okay, that's number one. We now have the exact same sports book at different providers with the same lines, so that allows your leash to be longer. So not only now are we able to beat one book, but we can now find that same odds provider elsewhere and potentially beat them there as well. Now we're going to go to Bet365, we'll go bring up the same match and take a look at it over there. So this is who are we looking at here? Radu. This is the same match and you're going to see discrepancies now. So look at the price for Mattia to win on Kambi.

Shane Mercer [00:33:50]:

What are we looking at?

Andrew Pace [00:33:51]:

Plus 420 or 5.2 plus 300 at Bet365?

Shane Mercer [00:33:57]:

Come on, give us something better there 365.

Andrew Pace [00:33:58]:

So there's a discrepancy. So you go, okay, well, now that I know that there's different odds providers and there's different odds, that allows you as a sports bettor to go, okay, I really like Matia here. I placed it at four to one. And let's say you won the bet. Well, you just paid for potentially three losses. If all things are constant, you bet the same amount on all three of the other bets. But if you bet it over at Kambi, you paid for 4.2 losses. That's a big difference. Sometimes these two numbers can be the difference in theoretical value and value to the sports books. So a bad bet versus a good bet, a value play versus a loss, and with different odds providers, we are able to look at these types of things. On the flip side of it, let's say we like the favorite minus 450 at Bet365, minus 715 at Kambi. That's a huge difference, right? And that's where potentially we don't have one in this case because we just pulled this up on the fly. But there might be arbitrage opportunities or sure betting opportunities, which means that if you bet both sides using two different books, you actually locked in a profit where you can't lose, provided both bets actually did, in fact, get placed. So with different odds providers, it allows for these discrepancies that actually allow us to win, but also allow us to make sharper and smarter decisions, where we place the wager, where we get the best odds. And yeah, I'll say it again, knowledge is power. Right? So in this particular case, if you're a sports bettor and you're only using one sports books, you go, Holy smokes, I could be doing better just by having a few different lines to look at. Even for those of you that are just recreational bettors where you go, oh, forget this, this is stupid. Put together a parlay on one book and then put it together a bookmaker, see which pays more. Right. Do you want your parlay? If you make a five pick parlay off of $50 or something, do you want it to pay 1000 or do you want it to pay 1300? It's a huge difference, right?

Shane Mercer [00:36:00]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:36:01]:

The best lines are worth shopping for in a lot of times, and it doesn't take that much work or time to do that if you have it open. And sometimes you don't even need to have an account with them. Just have it open so you see it, and that's where value starts to really jump off the page for you as a bettor where you go, holy smokes, this line is so much better at this book versus at that one. I'm going to place it there. There's a reasonable chance that if you found an outlying line, that there's actual value on it.

Shane Mercer [00:36:31]:

Yeah. And so now that we know that the sports books themselves aren't necessarily providing the lines, the lines are coming from these odds providers and we are shopping for lines. Are there odds providers that you look to on a regular basis to sort of be, I guess what we'll call it, for lack of a better term, a litmus test? This is what the line should be. And now I'm looking for something either here or here where I can take advantage of that line. Is there a sports book or a sports book provider, an odds provider that you think is really sharp and is on the money all the time, and then use that as a way to gauge right where you can find your value.

Andrew Pace [00:37:22]:

I think we've touched on the books that allow people to win over time. They don't limit you. As a general rule, if you've got a book that allows you to play as a winner, they don't limit their players. You found a pretty freaking sharp sports book. So books like Pinnacle and Bookmaker are really good examples where if you can find value relative to what they're offering, or vice versa, usually you can use that to find value, like true value. And when you go to the Pinnacle website, they actually teach you how to do some of this arbitrage and some of this line comparison and actually have articles written that show you how to do it. What's cool about that is they're so confident in their lines that they go, Please bring it on. Like, Please make the other sports book. If you're not going to gamble. Right. If you're the player and you're playing two books against each other, that means you're not gambling as the player. They're saying to the other sports books, let the other books gamble against us. We're ready for it. And they tend to be the sharp side of most books. Doesn't mean they're not beatable. Does not mean they're not beatable. I've beaten both of those books that I mentioned to the tune of six figures. So you can definitely beat those books. But, yeah, it's definitely harder to beat them. But on that note, there's an odds provider. We actually didn't touch on that. A lot of people at inplayLIVE both love and hate, and I think they're a good odds provider to bring up because they contradict a lot of the things that we've said in this episode. So we talked about being a pro, where you go, okay, now I have more lines to go to anyone that uses this odds provider. They will share that information with the sports book, and they will block you your name across the multiple platforms.

Shane Mercer [00:39:09]:

Oh, wow. So you won't be able to go and jump to another sports book. They've already got your name, your info. And you're blocked everywhere

Andrew Pace [00:39:15]:

And they'll do the same for your address.

Shane Mercer [00:39:19]:

Oh, wow.

Andrew Pace [00:39:20]:

So if your wife and you wanted to play together or you and your roommate wanted to play together, they won't allow that because they'll correlate that across all their platforms. So scientific gaming. That's the odds provider.

Andrew Pace [00:39:36]:

And you know that because BetMGM offered SBTech $11 billion and got declined. It shows that the relationship that they have with Scientific Gaming isn't necessarily the best, or at least it wasn't the best. It may be repaired.

Shane Mercer [00:39:51]:

It wasn't their first choice.

Andrew Pace [00:39:53]:

It may be repaired. Now, you never really know. But BetMGM uses scientific Gaming, and scientific Gaming has two different odds providing products. So one of those odds is used by books like Golden Nugget and Wynn and the Score. They all use one of Scientific Gaming's products. And then BetMGM and Bwin and Party Poker and Boyle Sports. They use Scientific Gaming's second product. So they have an A product and a B product. Both of the lines are so unbelievably beatable, it's insane. But the unfortunate part about that is that they do share that information and limit you much faster or immediately based on using now a second or third book, especially if it's those MGM lines that BetMGM has. Now, the good news is for American players, and I've heard this has really been beneficial for a lot of American players, is that DraftKings is countrywide. So if you have a draftkings in New Jersey, it's the same account in Colorado. BetMGM allows you to open up an account in New Jersey, but then if you go to Colorado, if you go to Pennsylvania, if you go to New York, you open up a new BetMGM. And for whatever reason, if you are limited in the one state, they'll actually let you play under that same name in a new state for a certain period of time. So you could literally, if you're a pro, do a cross country tour, beating some of these books that allow you to go state by state with new accounts. So that's actually contradictory to what I just said because I said that they'll limit you across your household and your name. They'll do that in the state, but then when you leave the state, you can play again. It's crazy.

Shane Mercer [00:41:48]:

Wow.

Andrew Pace [00:41:48]:

Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:41:49]:

It seems like a glitch. Seems like an oversight by them or a sort of glitch in their matrix, where it's like, oh, we have this hole that needs to get patched up.

Andrew Pace [00:41:58]:

Yeah, but I mean, again, you talk about how can you use these to your advantages? Well, that's not necessarily doing anything that creative. But, hey, if you've beaten a book to the tune of five figures in a short period of time and they've limited you and you can cross state borders and do it again, it's a great way to make some cash.

Shane Mercer [00:42:17]:

And there's a lot of people who live near borders right. And can cross easily and do it as a day trip and go have some fun across state lines and then go home at the end of the day.

Andrew Pace [00:42:28]:

Exactly.

Shane Mercer [00:42:29]:

Yeah. That's a great way to kind of go about it. Is there anything else important here that you think we've missed in terms of these odds providers? I mean, we've covered quite a bit of ground here. We've talked about some of the big ones. We've talked about how to take advantage of them once you know that they exist, and how to sort of shop for lines. And it's essentially kind of like we talk about shopping for lines. The odds provider is the store. Right. Not the sports book, necessarily. Right. Or it's the brand, perhaps, if you want to call it that.

Andrew Pace [00:42:59]:

Yeah. The only thing I would really say is it's exciting to follow the acquisition of SB Tech after the MGM tried to get them. That's crazy. And for us, that's big news because we're always following it. And then the fact that they're offering these new lines, that's always really amazing for us. We're like kids at a candy store when we find out that we're getting new lines available to us because we try to figure out how those can be exploited. But BetMGM has kind of shown that they're out there and open to buying someone. So there was some talk of if you're offering a private company $11 billion. And Kambi is publicly traded. And it's out there and available for purchase in theory. And the valuation of that company right now is 700 million. There could be big acquisitions that we see down the road. Fanatic sportsbook, as we're making this episode isn't even out yet. And they acquired and are working with the same odds provider that Fox Bet was. But now apparently Fox BET's lines have changed. So it's an ongoing sort of juggle and also with the regulation changes and things like that, that juggle tends to present some new and different opportunities. A good example was there's a sports book in Canada called Come On. And when SB Tech was purchased by DraftKings, they were an SB Tech book. They switched odds providers to scientific gaming. So you go, oh, I can lick my chops and go, hey, I got a new book for scientific gaming. It's all about how you look at it and what opportunities you have with those sort of specific books. But yeah, it's a ton of fun and I think it's really cool to follow. And I think we're just at the forefront of all this. Right?

Shane Mercer [00:44:42]:

Well, that's exactly it. There's so much moving and shaking going on in this industry. The news is changing all the time. The landscape is constantly shifting. And in a large way, it's shifting on a big level, on a global level, but it's also shifting in your state or province, and who's providing what, where and when is in the constant state of flux. And so it's it's important to know that. And then, like you said, there's there are always ways to take advantage of yeah. And just have to look for them.

Andrew Pace [00:45:11]:

I'd say from the standpoint of this podcast, whenever big news like that does come through, that'll be something that we keep our listeners in tune with. Absolutely.

Shane Mercer [00:45:20]:

We will bring those stories to you, for sure. And so with that, though, there is another big story going on in the sports world. It is one of the biggest sporting events definitely in North America, but I think it has a lot of popularity around the world. It gets me very excited as a big time basketball fan. March Madness, it's just about here, and we have a big episode coming your way next week that is going to dive into all things March Madness, betting ways that you can take advantage and sort of find advantages and capitalize on this big event. But inplayLIVE also has some great tools as well. So tell us a little bit about what's going on for March Madness with inplayLIVE.

Andrew Pace [00:46:07]:

Well, right now we have the conference tournaments on as this one's being shot, which is an amazing time because all the teams are still in and they're all fighting to get into the tournament. So that's always a super exciting time. You can head over to Inplaylive.com NCAA, you can see the success we've had. And you can also see the tournament schedule from the standpoint of who's playing and the significance of that game and of course, the time that those games are on. And you can filter everything on that page so that you can really get the right information that you want for the tournament, which is really beneficial to. I know the dads of inplayLIVE that need to plan ahead. With their families to make sure that they do have that time blocked off and available to hopefully bring in some bacon for the family. But yeah, I mean, it's just an incredible time of the year. We do really well with college basketball in general. We do extremely well when we know motivations in specific scenarios that really can't be handicapped by an odds provider. So when something's changed drastically, where you go, okay, we're now in the NHL playoffs, we're now in the NBA playoffs, we're now in a tournament setting. In college basketball, the motivations and the way you handle a game oftentimes change in a way that become exploitable from a professional betting standpoint. So it's a great time of year.

Shane Mercer [00:47:35]:

Yeah, a regular season game, very different from a one and done, right?

Andrew Pace [00:47:39]:

Exactly.

Shane Mercer [00:47:40]:

Yeah. Well, we're going to break a lot of that stuff down for you guys in next week's episode so be sure to tune in for that because you're not going to want to miss it. I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait to spend an hour chatting about March Madness with you Pace. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So I'm looking forward to that. Well, with that, I think this is now the time where we remind all of you to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials @ inplayLIVE. And if you do want to join the community you want to be a part of inplayLIVE, see what it's all about, join and you can use a promo code that will get you the very best deal 'BEHINDTHELINES' so that's your promo code. You'll save some cash. Chances are if you join inplayLIVE, you're going to make some cash. So definitely sign up and use that promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'. Pace, any last thoughts before we say goodbye?

Andrew Pace [00:48:29]:

Let's have a big week. Shane.

Shane Mercer [00:48:32]:

Let's do it buddy. All right, till next week, keep beating the books.