Episode 74

Gabe Patgorski [00:00:00]:

And decision making create a ton of value. No one in Survivor does stuff like this. Everyone's scared. Everyone's just trying to make it through the next week so they can tell their spouse, oh, thanks for letting me play. I get to play next year too. Right? Because I made it to week 10. Like, there's that's perfect.

Shane Mercer [00:00:16]:

That's usually how I justify it. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines. The only podcast purifying the sports betting industry. Remember to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials @ inplayLIVE. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. That guy there, Andrew Pace, founder of inplayLIVE, a community of like minded sports bettors dedicated to long term success. And today, we've got Gabe Patgorski on the show. He's the founder and CEO of Survivor Atlas.

Shane Mercer [00:00:55]:

He's also a former professional poker player whose lifetime earnings are more than $8,000,000. Gabe, welcome to the show. We're glad to have you, buddy.

Gabe Patgorski [00:01:06]:

Hey. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to hanging out with you guys and, like, figuring out some stuff.

Shane Mercer [00:01:14]:

Awesome. Well Shane. Go ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:01:16]:

Lifetime earnings of 8,000,000 is public. That excludes all the underground money is 1. Alright.

Shane Mercer [00:01:25]:

A real rounder over here.

Gabe Patgorski [00:01:27]:

Right. Those again, rounders, those places they are planned, none of those games ended up on the public databases. So, hey, appreciate that, pace. Point that out. But yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:01:39]:

So so, Gabe, we're gonna get to everything. And we're 1st, we're gonna get to to how you guys met at BetBash, and we're gonna dive into some stuff, from BetBash specifically. And, of course, we're gonna talk about Survivor Atlas and and what you guys are doing over there. But first, Gabe, I wanna get to some news, and update our audience for some of the big stories we're following. And we won't spend too much time on this, but but I gotta bring it up because these are sort of big, developments that took place, us over the course of the past week. And so, pace, a couple things here. 1st, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, probably our favorite favorite regulator in North America at the moment. We we're paying a lot of attention to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

Shane Mercer [00:02:14]:

On Thursday last week, they said they're going to schedule a public meeting to discuss, possible restrictions on operators when it comes to limiting players at the individual level. They're gonna hold that public meeting within the next 7 weeks. They're saying it will definitely happen before October 1st. It's gonna be a one day public meeting. It'll consist of 2 parts. One portion will feature the operators giving giving their take on things, and the other will feature members of the public and responsible gaming advocates and experts. And I imagine hoping, fingers crossed, that the American bettors voices will be among that group of people, responsible gaming advocates and experts. I mentioned it last week that they were reached out to in an informal way, but, you know, I think it's very likely that that they will be a part of it.

Shane Mercer [00:03:07]:

And this for people who don't know, the American Bettors Voices is, the organization, that, was founded and created by Spanky and a few others. We had them on the show a few weeks back talking about it, and I'm sure it came up at that bash. And I'm sure you guys heard about it, you know, at least a little bit if not in a big way at that bash because I heard they made a little bit of headlines, and we can get into that if we want or not. But, anyway, hoping that they'll participate in that meeting. Chris, the chair, Jordan Maynard, said, this. I hope no. I expect every operator will engage in this discussion with us. What do you guys think? Are they gonna show up or what? They got 7 weeks within the next 7 weeks.

Shane Mercer [00:03:51]:

It's gonna be prime football season. You know, all of the bettors are going to be active. Everybody's gonna be in full betting mode. If you are a sports bettor, like, you, you know, you are entering your peak season, and then this is gonna happen, like, smack dab in the middle of it. What what do you guys think?

Andrew Pace [00:04:05]:

The this might be a rhetorical question, but why on earth would they show up? They didn't show up before. What's the incentive? Do they have to show up? Do they get fined? Like, why would they show up? Right? So the the public aspect of the Massachusetts law makes it the that that incentivizes them not to show up because it could be, you know, a whole bunch of dominoes falling in all the other states once they hear what the practices are if and if they do show up. So I hope they do, and, I I don't know that they will and that they will.

Gabe Patgorski [00:04:33]:

Yeah. I would think it's all just kinda lip service that it's so important for all those companies to cut winners that they're all probably just gonna keep doing the most they can to cut the winners out. Right? Which, it's worth mentioning how Circa is, I think, the only sportsbook in the world who advertises how they don't do that. And the reason if you have a choice between Circa and something else, just always go with Circa. They're not doing the stuff to players. They're not messing with players', you know, livelihoods and whatnot. So I'm big time excited about the the American Bettors Voices. I hope, you know, they can bring enough firepower to fight the the industry and and earn something for players.

Gabe Patgorski [00:05:16]:

We'll see what happens, though right?

Shane Mercer [00:05:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. And, I just just wanna point out there. I know Circa is a big, sharp book, and, you know, they're they're definitely one of the major players, but but Prime Sports, also in the US, another, sports book that that won't, limit winners on an individual level. And, outside of the US, the other big one that that Pace and I play at Pinnacle, Pinnacle Sports. They they don't limit winners either on an individual level, and they've actually got some pretty significant limits on on a lot of markets out there. So, you know, all those sportsbooks falling into the sharp book category, not limiting winners, but, you know, they are the very few in a in a Right.

Gabe Patgorski [00:05:53]:

Pinnacle is like the the legend, like, the the the original 4 sharp players max limit. Yeah. I haven't had an account with them in in years, but the other one I the one the other the third one you mentioned, I don't really know about. I've been seeing their name, but I'm gonna keep an eye on them since you mentioned it.

Shane Mercer [00:06:09]:

Yeah. Definitely keep an eye on them. They're they're, they're they're sort of, I guess, on the upswing. They're they're a growing, sports book, and I think they're looking to expand into other states. I think they operate in New Jersey right now. Mhmm. Oof, Pace, where else? They they're in a couple of other states. Kentucky, Ohio, and, I think expanding quickly.

Shane Mercer [00:06:26]:

Hopefully, expanding quickly. Players need options.

Andrew Pace [00:06:30]:

Players need options, guys. Arizona's at 9 books. Massachusetts is at 10 books, And that may that may be down one with the closure of Betway. Right? And they don't have Prime. They don't have Circa. Right? Kentucky is getting Circa, which is really good news. So, they're gonna have a brick and mortar establishment in Kentucky. So you can, you know, go on a bourbon tour.

Andrew Pace [00:06:52]:

And then if you guys have been to Circa in Vegas, Gabe,

Shane Mercer [00:06:54]:

I think I think you've been there a couple times.

Gabe Patgorski [00:06:57]:

Maybe. It wasn't quite.

Shane Mercer [00:06:58]:

Right. But if you've been

Andrew Pace [00:06:59]:

to Circa in Vegas, it's a freaking cool spot. If you have never gone to old Vegas and you have the chance to go, it is a different vibe there. And I think Circa is a very good bridge of the new with the old, separate separately of the fact that they don't limit winning players. It's the best sports book in Las Vegas, period, whether you're indoors or outdoors because they have stadium swim there. So, this is not promoted by Circa. This is just us saying. No. No.

Shane Mercer [00:07:32]:

It's a great spot. And and and, if you're in,

Andrew Pace [00:07:35]:

you know, Kentucky, Tennessee area, you know, anywhere in the south there, if you are near the borders, that is or if you're in Kentucky, if you're near the borders, that's great news.

Gabe Patgorski [00:07:45]:

Oh, yeah. Big time. If you if you're a sports, like, bettor just a person and all of a sudden you have access to a real book, not like DraftKings or Caesars, whatever, banning people or cutting you to $2 limits, that's a big deal to your life. So congrats to everyone who gets a new Circa near them. That's awesome news for for you guys.

Shane Mercer [00:08:03]:

There you go. Well, you know, we we aren't sponsored by Circa, but maybe we could be. If anyone out there at Circa's listening, guys. Hey. Alright. Alright. I wanna move on, though. And and you brought up DraftKings, so I wanna get to their big news as well.

Shane Mercer [00:08:14]:

But just very quickly on the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, just for everybody who's listening out there. Within the next 7 weeks, when we do have a firm deadline, we'll let you all know about it. And, of course, when that meeting does play take place, we will bring you all of the highlights like we did from the last one. Alright. Moving on to DraftKings. They're backtracking, not moving forward with their surcharge on the decay tax. So that's what we were kinda calling it. But, so this, it would have been applied in 4 states with high taxes, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont.

Shane Mercer [00:08:44]:

It was going to be a 3.2%, surcharge on winning bets only. But here's what DK says. DK says they've heard from players and changed their minds. Here's the quote that they posted on Twitter. We always listen to our customers. And after hearing their feedback, we have decided not to move forward with the gaming tax surcharge. They say we are always committed to delivering the best value in the industry to our loyal customers. Now I'm going to call bullshit on this one because this announcement came immediately after FanDuel posted its Q2 results and announced it would not implement any kind of surcharge to offset high taxes.

Shane Mercer [00:09:29]:

So I think that might add a little something to do with it.

Andrew Pace [00:09:33]:

Regardless, it's great news. Whatever bullshit they were trying to pull, it never happened. And it it got it got we we limited them before it it had happened. So that's that's a winning story, guys. That's a winning story.

Gabe Patgorski [00:09:44]:

Yeah. Who's limited now, DraftKings? That's that's that's funny. Well, I was thinking about them limiting people. I always think about how they will limit you. They will players are limited on the coin toss for the Super Bowl and DraftKings. Like, how how are they taking care of the players if you're limited to how much you can bet on the coin toss? I don't trust them.

Shane Mercer [00:10:04]:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, they're always that that's what they're gonna do, and they're one of those main operators in in Massachusetts. I think they might be the biggest operator in Massachusetts. Well, them and FanDuel, that that we're hoping to see, come and talk about that at that at that public meeting when it takes place. But, I just wanted to to bring those those little bits of news to our audience and give them a bit of an update on that. But, let's get to to you, Gabe, and what you're doing at Survivor Atlas. Tell us a little bit about about this business that you got going on.

Gabe Patgorski [00:10:32]:

Okay. Sure. So, you know, for those who don't know, Circuit Survivor, it's the biggest survivor contest in the world. I as someone who's been a pro gambler basically my whole life, it's the most fun contest of any sort. I played gambling contests all over the world from, you know, like, $100 buy ins to 100 of 1,000, and I am sure that circuit survivor is the most fun entertaining for me. So a few years ago, I won the contest in 2021. I got a big check right over there. It says 1 and a half 1000000 on it.

Gabe Patgorski [00:11:10]:

Yeah. 1 and a half 1000000. There was 5 winners that year, and, 3 of them got only 1,000,000 or 1.2. And then me and Tyler guy won a bonus, so we we chopped an extra million. And we there was some excitement, of course, to get there. It almost happened where we won the entire 6,000,000, to ourself. When I say we, it was like me and my family had a few entries together. And, you know, some of the the strategy I used to find the value where we had a chance at winning all the $6,000,000 on one single day.

Gabe Patgorski [00:11:46]:

I had been I had used, like, my own set of tools. I've been playing Survivor since way before Circa was was even a thing. So and, also, like, I I have a computer science background, so, I had all these tools ready. And then when I when I made this big play, I realized that there was so like, every single player would benefit, whether it's making them smarter or saving them time. Everyone would benefit if they had access to this. And because Survivor is such, like, a weird thing, right, it's not year round, you can't do it every week, it's just one season, one shot, I thought there would be more value in building something for everyone than just using all my tricks to be sharp myself. So last year, we put out Survivor Atlas just to see what kind of appetite there was for tools that help you just in this one specific contest because for now, it's only focused on the circle. And the reception was great.

Gabe Patgorski [00:12:42]:

The reception, you know, was it's really, like, motivating and inspiring. So I got some people on the team, and now we're making it bigger, better, smarter, more helpful, more valuable to everyone, and, that's where we're at now. And maybe at some point, I can I can show off some features, or we can just talk more about that?

Shane Mercer [00:13:01]:

I wanna check it out. I I this is my first time hearing about it. I I'm gonna be participating in this at least 1 survivor pool in the inplayLIVE community. I'd love to, to to win it. Pace, I think you won it last year. Am I right?

Andrew Pace [00:13:12]:

Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:13:12]:

Yeah. So we can't let this guy win it again. No. And I'm gonna need some help. So let let's see what you got here.

Gabe Patgorski [00:13:18]:

Well, shoot. Maybe maybe I'll get to play it. Maybe maybe I can get on your survivor pool. You guys can you guys aren't scared. You know? It might just might just take all the money, though.

Andrew Pace [00:13:27]:

You know what, Gabe? When you give everyone your tool in this podcast and they every single person uses the tool, then you learn to reverse the edge. Yes. So bring it on. I want you to bring it to the portal so that I could I can swim against your data. Hey.

Gabe Patgorski [00:13:44]:

Hey, Ronald. No. Every, one one no. Hey. That that makes perfect sense. Like, once you boil the the problems down, the components down, and everyone's on the same page, then it becomes, like, mind games and, like, extra NFL reads. But I think the field in circuit survivor is still, like, unsophisticated enough that there's a lot of the edges where you don't have to be, the best you don't have to be good at handicapping. You just have to if you know the theory of, like, the underlying structure of Survivor, you can have an edge.

Gabe Patgorski [00:14:18]:

And it seems like there's more survivor contests blown up, whether it's with friends or with other sports or playoffs, so it's worth anyone out there who like who likes the idea of making money through sports stuff, it's worth getting your head wrapped around the idea of survival and how to generate value in it, for sure.

Andrew Pace [00:14:35]:

That's smart. And I will say, you know, before we dive into some of the stuff, it's it's important that people know, Gabe, why you're on the show. We met at BetBash, and, Gabe wasn't some random attendee. He was actually one of the people invited to give a seminar, to a room full of professional sports bettors that have, like, you know, 1,000,000 in profit combined in the room for sure. And I attended his seminar and invited him to be on the podcast knowing that the value of what he proposed in that seminar that we're gonna get into here, is just absolutely freaking phenomenal from the standpoint of really taking an expected value approach to a both a week to week and to a long term sort of mindset with your survivor leaks. And, if if someone isn't using this service now, they're gonna be really missing out on a tremendous edge. So, yeah, I was blown away by the presentation. Super happy to have you on, obviously, Cabe, to to show us what you're doing.

Andrew Pace [00:15:43]:

And I know you're talk you're talking about the mind games. I think with your poker background, you know, a thing or 2 about, about those those those, those games and strategies.

Gabe Patgorski [00:15:52]:

Hey. Thank you for that. So one thing I wanna mention is how Circuit Survivor is the biggest one, and the way it's played, for the 1st few years was, like, you put your picks in in their their app, and then they just tweet a list of, you know, 2,000 people and everything they pick. And they say, okay. This is it. See you next week. And it just happens over and over again. And, you know, if you ever played, like, a online poker tournament, you know there's a lobby and you get to see everyone's chips and what the payouts are and who's got the big stack, what you know, where the bubble is happening, all this stuff.

Gabe Patgorski [00:16:26]:

Survivor didn't have that. So Survivor Atlas is not just tools to make people sharper. It's a way to, like, experience the game, how it's supposed to be experienced. Like, you can see like, if you only have a few entries, but then you can look at the leaderboard and see, oh, there's guys with 10 entries. What are they doing this week? Oh, they're all in the Giants. Well, let me cheer against the Giants because the people with all the entries are you know, finding what, like, matters to you, it was impossible before. And one of the major value propositions of of Survivor Atlas is is, like, to present the contest, make it more engaging, more fun. And, like, for you guys, in in the inplayLIVE contest, I don't know if it's just I guess, it's one entry for everybody.

Andrew Pace [00:17:10]:

Unlimited unlimited entries and rebuys until week 4.

Gabe Patgorski [00:17:14]:

Oh, wow. So so yeah. I mean, you'd wanna see I don't know if you guys have if you guys do it by hand or

Andrew Pace [00:17:23]:

No. It's it's, it's hosted on office football pools.

Gabe Patgorski [00:17:26]:

Okay. Yeah. I haven't used them, recently. I'm not sure if they have, like, a leaderboard or a lobby or how it even looks, but I'm gonna check that out this year, because they're doing some interesting stuff in the space. So I'm a I'm gonna be keeping an eye on that.

Andrew Pace [00:17:41]:

Yeah. I mean, since you just brought up that they're doing some interesting stuff, and we like to cover news and stuff like this on this podcast. So office football pool was actually bought out by, what's it called? Splash. And that allows for you to do paid contests because office football pool,

Andrew Pace [00:17:59]:

You have to check a box saying, like, this is for entertainment purposes only, yet they charge you per entry because they know no one does it for entertainment purposes.

Gabe Patgorski [00:18:06]:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Andrew Pace [00:18:07]:

Now Splash, I was in contact with. And since you're a survivor, you know, kind of kind of a survivor buff or survivor guru, I was migrating our pool from office football pools over to their new owner, Splash. And in that process, I got to set up a league and look at all the different options and settings that you can, you know, put forward to obviously run that league. They were limited in options compared to office football pool. They didn't have quite the the same array, of options. Then when you go to select number of entries, there's a maximum. So I contacted them and said, hey. Like, this is what we did last year.

Andrew Pace [00:18:47]:

This is what we ran on office pools. Can you accommodate us? They got back to me saying that they can't do the rebuy thing. We love the rebuys until week 4. It allows you to take some really ballsy picks early on. Right? Whereas if you survive, you potentially used a bad team. And if you didn't survive, you know, you can get a a a crack back into the pool. As a poker player yourself, if you're sitting there in week 4, and let's say the pot was at $10,000, And now and now in week 4, it's sitting at $30,000, and the entries went from, say, a 100 entries, and now you're sitting down at 70 because a bunch of people didn't rebuy. The pot odds of that pool have just skyrocketed.

Andrew Pace [00:19:31]:

So I was actually trying to explain this on one of our livestreams recently. And, again, I know we're talking about circus survivor mostly today, but that the rebuy makes a ton of sense from the stand from from that standpoint of, you know, having, the theoretical odds to win that are greater than the remaining remaining players, especially when there's no big. Now this is where the splash sports comes in. They charge a nasty big, like a really nasty VIG. There's, there's 10% per pool. And I said to them, I'm like, guys, that is steep. So, you know, if you have a $100,000 pool, they're pocketing 10 $1,000 off of that that's being managed by their site. Now do they deserve to get paid? Absolutely.

Andrew Pace [00:20:19]:

So they did say to me, once we incorporate rebuys, like, we'd love to have you and we have some wiggle room there, I think I could get on board with 5%. But, yeah, I I wasn't overall overall impressed. But as you kinda mentioned, there's a lot of things happening in the space. These are major players in the space that are looking to be, you know, the the front runners. So that, yeah, they could they could definitely, be successful here. But now when you look at, like, Novig and some of these other contest books, we had Novig on the podcast recently, the these these prize pick style pools, I think they could wipe out this a company like that with a click. If you go to 1, 2% on your spreads, you know, you're gonna take over the market really quickly if you have if you have an effective product. So, and and it would be the same sort of infrastructure that they'd already be licensed for.

Andrew Pace [00:21:09]:

But, anyways, yeah, that was my experience with all that. To To answer your question, office pools, you can see everyone's picks. You can lay it out in a board, where you can see everyone's picks and what they've taken, and you can see what they what they have left. Nowhere I've seen Survivor Atlas, so nowhere near your technology. But, the the basic the basics are there.

Gabe Patgorski [00:21:32]:

Cool. Well, I do think I mean, the thinking of the people charging 10%, I agree with you. I don't know how long it's gonna last because, like, I already wanna compete with them. I think we can run them on Survivor Atlas and not charge anything, maybe. Right? Like, if we're you know, one of the things that we're focused on is growing a a community and just showing more people how fun Survivor is. And I think there's a lot of people coming in the space, and, hey. You're right. That 10% is not gonna last because, I think they're just first mover.

Gabe Patgorski [00:22:02]:

They're, you know, they're raking as much as they can, but I I don't know what they're special, like, what their value is. Like, why you would pay them the 10% if you have a $20,000 pool. I don't know if they're really worth 2,000, but whatever. That's for y'all to decide. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:22:22]:

Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, Gabe,

Shane Mercer [00:22:24]:

Why don't you tell us a little bit more about Survivor Atlas, though? Because I wanna see what it looks like. I wanna know how I can use it and and really sort of Yeah.

Gabe Patgorski [00:22:31]:

Let's dive in.

Shane Mercer [00:22:31]:

Get into it a little bit.

Gabe Patgorski [00:22:33]:

Okay. Sure. I've been loaded up, and I'll just talk about this stuff for a few minutes. Basically, we have all these features related to contests, and the first cool thing to show them all is that we have all the past Circa Survivor Contests from 2020 through now. Every entry, every decision, all the spreads, all, you know, who was popular, we have all that loaded in here. So, let's load up the year I won because I like looking at it. So we'll go we'll go we'll go to 2021, and, you can see this is, like, our this is our lobby. And this was me right here, return a survivor.

Gabe Patgorski [00:23:15]:

And if you expand my entry, we can see all the different picks I made, each week where I got knocked out. And this is for like, finding this data was pretty fun to relive with my family because we had experienced it together. They had some small pieces, and I kind of forgot how the order went down until we finally put all this stuff on Atlas. And, it's it's like a fun trip down memory lane, and I think anyone who ever played Circus Survivor, not only is this, like, kinda cool, it's, like, nostalgia. You get to look back on your own stuff, but there's also a lot of, like, analysis stuff you can do from old content. So, yeah, people can search everything they did. There's some funny stuff to look up, like how many people just forgot to turn their picks in. You can see 42 players last year forgot to turn a pick in.

Gabe Patgorski [00:24:08]:

Like this guy, no dessert. 4 of his entries right here, he just he just ghosted.

Shane Mercer [00:24:14]:

Oh, jeez. Oh, also, Gabe,

Andrew Pace [00:24:15]:

I mean, we haven't touched on it. Survivor now Circus Survivor now is a $10,000,000 prize pool.

Gabe Patgorski [00:24:21]:

Oh, yeah. I think 12 is on track for 12, by the way.

Andrew Pace [00:24:25]:

12,000,000. Okay. So let's just say it's 12,000,000 this year. It's a $1,000 entry. So that's those those coffins, those ghosts there, if you guys are listening on Spotify or Apple Music, this is a good one to be on YouTube for because you we have the nice visuals here. That's 4 g's that person donated

Gabe Patgorski [00:24:46]:

No. It's worse than that. I'm and I got a instrument to show it off because, you know, the value changes every week. Right? Like, as people get knocked out

Andrew Pace [00:24:56]:

Right. Right. Smart. Okay. So on

Gabe Patgorski [00:24:59]:

week 4, the average value of the entry was $2,000. So those 4 entries, that was actually $8 in equity. And if you do that that same process for everything in the whole season, the 73 entries, that was almost a 160,000 in total equity burned.

Shane Mercer [00:25:16]:

Wow. Just donated.

Gabe Patgorski [00:25:18]:

Right. And it's always funny every year to see this. It's it's funny because everyone who does get their picks in is always cheering for the highest number of no picks that week. Right? Like, you just the dream is if you wake up and everyone else did a no pick, and you just win via default, I think. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:25:37]:

I think I will say there, Gabe, too. If anyone that doesn't understand that, the reason why the value of those picks went up is because the prize pool stays the same, but the number of entries each week decreases. So I said 4,000. That was based on the buy in. Gabe is factoring in the fact that at that time, the the the number of players remaining was left was less, meaning the probability of you winning actually increased, meaning your $1,000 entry becomes worth more. And I know we talked about this in your seminar. Maybe we can get to it. When you're getting into those final weeks, you know, there's potential teams that can help you out, that can hedge, that can do a bunch of things to help you realize some of that value.

Andrew Pace [00:26:18]:

Because as you get into the range where some of these entries might be worth, you know, 50 or a $100,000, the probability of you still winning is is quite low even though the value of the entry is so high. So there's guy Gabe, you're one of these guys, right, that can help people out in these spots. So if you guys are ever in a survivor pool and you want help realizing your value, I think there's a pro on this on the podcast today that can, help you

Gabe Patgorski [00:26:44]:

with that. Hey, Riton. Thanks for bringing that up. When the when the entry when the values are high, it gets real stressful making this pick every week. It gets crazy. Like, I it's hard to put it in words. When my personal equity on a game was something like $800,000 a few years ago on the last survivor game, and thinking, okay. Like, they're probably gonna win, but that's, like, that's a lot of money.

Gabe Patgorski [00:27:11]:

And how much, you know, do you hedge? It's it's, like, nerve wracking. And I know I think in 2022 actually, I'll pull up the dude's entry to make a point. From what I understand, this guy fired one entry. We're gonna see him as one of the winners. This guy right here, Brown. Only one of 1. That means he only fired one one entry. Actually, both of these got some stories to tell, but we'll look at Brown.

Gabe Patgorski [00:27:34]:

Brown only had one entry. And, like, from what from what I heard, he wasn't, like, you know, he wasn't super rich or anything where near the end of the year when his interest was 500 k, and the guy who only fired 1 entry is, like, thinking, let me let me cash some of that out. And that's a big that's a big challenge. Like, if you're in that position, obviously, it's a good problem, but if you mess it up, you you walk away with 0. And, we, me and some some people, we did some business, the last few years. We're buying and selling stuff, and, it's worked good for it's it's good for us because we can try to buy in someone else's at a good deal, but, also, they are getting value because we are quite sharp at this stuff. And people don't necessarily have to listen to us unless they sell us, you know, the the control of the entry, but, if you're lucky enough to find yourself in that spot, definitely hit us up. Maybe you can cash out some of your entry through through us.

Gabe Patgorski [00:28:42]:

Hey. But check out this other guy who won this year. Jed. This guy has 3 no pick.

Shane Mercer [00:28:54]:

What?

Gabe Patgorski [00:28:56]:

Yeah. He just he had no picks, and then he put the run together. You know?

Shane Mercer [00:29:01]:

He got his act together. Look at that.

Andrew Pace [00:29:04]:

That okay. If that is not evidence that anyone can win survivor

Shane Mercer [00:29:08]:

Yeah. Really.

Andrew Pace [00:29:10]:

Nothing in this world is. You've got a guy who again bought in for 1, 2, 6 entries, $6,000 in week 3, had 4 entries left and didn't enter 3 of them. You have to think that that's user error.

Shane Mercer [00:29:26]:

Yeah. Like, how do you how do you fuck that up? Like, I don't understand. Like, you managed to get one of your entries in. How did you not get the other 3?

Andrew Pace [00:29:33]:

That's like the lottery ticket where you you someone says, like, they buy into the 300,000,000 ticket, and they say all I need is 1.

Shane Mercer [00:29:40]:

Right? Exactly. Which which is true. It's just true

Shane Mercer [00:29:44]:

Totally true.

Gabe Patgorski [00:29:45]:

It I do like thinking about how that one pick made it in. Like, what was going on with that guy's day where one pick goes in and the other 3 is, like, these entries aren't aren't worth it. I can't even think of a a pick and just at least it ghosted.

Andrew Pace [00:29:59]:

It's a good story.

Gabe Patgorski [00:30:01]:

Yeah. And and, really, the the stories you know, every week when CIRCA releases the pick, they'll say, you know, a 1000 people are on the Cowboys, and there's 20 no picks. And everyone kinda laughs at the no pick, but adding on Survivor Atlas kinda gives more to the story. Like, I didn't know it was this one particular guy who had the 3 no picks that week, but but seeing it now that he won, you know, makes it that much more special, I guess, you could say, because it does highlight the fact that anyone could win. This guy didn't even care about most of his injuries, and sure enough, got a check for 2,000,000, something like that.

Andrew Pace [00:30:36]:

Now I I think it is important for people that that are viewing that aren't familiar with Circa Survivor here to understand that you do have to be in the state of Nevada to enter your picks. So there are some no picks that could be proxy related. So they weren't able to get their pick in based on travel, family emergency. Right? Like, the list goes on and on as far as that stuff goes. So, if anyone's thinking like, oh, I really wanna join this, there are proxy services that exist to essentially get your entries in on your behalf. But in this case, we cannot make that argument because, again, we know he got one of his picks in. But, yeah, huge huge congrats to Jed. That's insane.

Gabe Patgorski [00:31:16]:

Yeah. Oh, and and on that note, how you have to be in Vegas to sign up or to turn your picks in, if anyone needs help with that, hit up Survivor Atlas. We have a team of people who are trying to help players all year long realize their dreams of hitting the $12,000,000 ticket on this thing. So, yeah, hit us up if you wanna play from somewhere anywhere in the world. We we can work it out somehow. But, hey, let's let's let me cover a few more of these instrument things.

Shane Mercer [00:31:45]:

Yeah. I'm I'm really curious. So, like, it's awesome to be able go back and have a look and and sort of see what people did in the past and and and that kind of thing. But I wanna know, like, hey. How is this gonna help me win this season?

Gabe Patgorski [00:31:54]:

Hey. Hey. Right on. There the you're just gonna have to bear with me, Shane. Alright?

Shane Mercer [00:32:01]:

Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:32:02]:

Dave, I think, just from the standpoint of what data you show, I know we just looked at your year, and then we looked at this this 2022 year. We are like, a lot of our listeners will be really close to home playing in our league and seeing last season. More particularly, like, that Patriots everyone saved the Patriots for that one game. Right? Thinking like, you know, we're gonna get a big underdog as a favorite. And I that was that was, like, the winning week for me. But, like, going through some of that with your EV, your some of your EV stuff would be really cool. Yeah. So

Gabe Patgorski [00:32:37]:

the okay. So those that weren't following Circus Survivor, last year, it got down to 12 people, and 11 of them wanted to chop. 11 of them called up their their person, the the proxies, the agents, the hellish people in a group, and said, let's split the entire pool evenly. And then there's one guy, who's who's kind of a famous, like, boisterous gambler guy named Sean Perry. A lot of kind of scandal seems to follow him, but he wouldn't take the chop, which as their gambler, I kinda respect, that he was like, let's play for it all. That's kinda cool. But this week happened. I'm gonna I'm gonna load up right here.

Gabe Patgorski [00:33:20]:

This is week 16 where everyone had everyone had the same best team available. This is what this is what actually happened. Okay. So the what's interesting about this is that the biggest favorite everyone could pick was Denver. They played New England. I'm not sure if this was the week you were talking about because New England came into play. I just I'm talking about this one because it's important. So, you know, we're a few weeks away from the big from the checks getting written.

Gabe Patgorski [00:33:51]:

So what most people would do in Survivor is they're really, like, nervous. They're they don't wanna do something stupid, so they just pick the biggest favorite possible. You know? Because if on the if the odds say they're the 7 point favorite and everyone else is a 3 point favorite and you're trying to survive, of course, you pick them. Right?

Shane Mercer [00:34:11]:

Yeah.

Gabe Patgorski [00:34:11]:

So one of the instruments that is basically impossible to do by hand when there's thousands of people is the best available. Find every single entry's best available team and put it in a pie chart. So in this week, we see a 100% of people could have picked the biggest favorite Denver. It turns out only 6 of the 10 did. I said there's 12 people. Maybe that was the week before. Let's let's just go with 10 people now. So this week, had a bunch of interesting decisions.

Gabe Patgorski [00:34:43]:

Like, do you pick the highest chance of survival because you're you're trying to maximize the chance you make it to the end, or do you try to generate value for yourself by being on an island somehow? Being on an island in Survivor when there's not many people left is often worth a ton of money because just takes a few rough whistles and kickoffs to make it so you are the one scooping an entire prize pool. That's worth a ton. So one of the tools that we we have and I use a lot during the year, it's kinda weird to use it week 1, but we'll talk about week 1 soon. And that is where you can look at the EVs of all these picks based on who was on what team and that team's chance of winning. And, I mean, in the seminar, you know, I was able I I had a bunch of time to break down this full concept. It's not it's not that simple just to get across, you know, in a in a quick sound bite here. But, basically, if you if you break down your how you evaluate your EV into short term and long term and long term is who you're saving for the future, short term is the win percentages and the selection numbers of this week. The your EV is basically completely dependent on what everyone else is picking.

Gabe Patgorski [00:36:07]:

You can pick someone. If 99% of the field is on the same team as you, you're not ever gonna gain much EV. It's just the math. Like, there's just no if if you survive, there's no way that your value goes up that much. There's no edge. There's the edges come from when you can find where the field is going, and then you find a way to try to get on an island or try to get on a not on one of the huge land mines, because when the big chalk blows up, you want your value to go up like 5 x or something, because everyone some people would get knocked out. So thinking about this example where if you knew a 100% of people were on Denver, then the actually, the most valuable thing to do is to take their opponent, which is New England. So we're actually trying to buy an entry at this point last year, where we were gonna buy the guy's entry, pay him the cash, like, you know, maybe $500 or something like that, and then we were gonna make the the plus EV play on New England that would generate you know, not a theoretical value.

Gabe Patgorski [00:37:10]:

We couldn't make a deal, but, kind of exciting. So you can see some people, 3 or 4 people chose to to not go with the chalk. They they those 4 people all risk dying on a on a non biggest favorite team because they were wanted a chance at glory. They wanted a chance at scooping everybody. And I'm not sure if Survivor Atlas influenced these people at all because we were talking a lot about this concept on Twitter. Just thinking about to Robert off follow us on Twitter. We talk a lot of sharp stuff on there. Do you guys have any questions on this example?

Shane Mercer [00:37:50]:

I just wanna know what happened. Like, did Denver I don't remember. Did Denver lose that game? Did they win?

Andrew Pace [00:37:56]:

Gabe, why don't we go back down to the EV there? And, our listeners I know who you're like. You had that presentation, at bet bash on the EV stuff. Our listeners, for the most part, understand this. And, like, from a really simple concept, let's pretend that Chicago is at the top here. Let's pretend Chicago is 50% and exactly 50% of the people picked them. So 50% win probability with exactly 50%, of the people in the pool taking them, you're gonna end up at a 1 point o EV based on this example where it's a completely fair wager to have taken. So based on that same scenario, if you have a team that's a 60% favorite, but only 5% of the pool are on them for some reason, you're gonna have massive expected value on them because you've got a favorite that no one else can take in that particular, example. So if you guys are watching right now on YouTube, he just adjusted some numbers there, and you see anything above 1 is a positive expected value, and anything below 1, even though they might be a heavy favorite to win, will have a negative expected value in the short term because he said there's long term expected value and a short term expected value.

Andrew Pace [00:39:00]:

That is the the EV thing. So let's let's pretend it's that week 16 right now, Gabe, and you are about to make your decisions, and and using this tool to do it.

Gabe Patgorski [00:39:12]:

Okay. So first, if we just look at the best available to everyone, we see a 100% Denver. That's easy. Right? And we there's no edge there because everyone's on the same thing. So if there's 10 people and, let's say, instead of 10 on Denver, let's say one of them goes to New England, so we change this to 9010. So that's just one person stepping to an island trying you know, they're on a huge underdog. They're basically trying to ruin their Christmas Eve because this is Christmas Eve. You know, no one wants to be on this the big stupid underdog in front of their family and torture their 100 of 1,000 equity.

Gabe Patgorski [00:39:49]:

But to be sharp, you gotta have balls sometimes and, like, you can see the value you created here. Bang. So if every entry was worth average, maybe 600 k before this if if if everyone's 600 k, then the one guy who went on the New England island, his theoretical value is now, like, 1,700,000. And and as soon as this pick goes in and the plays get revealed, that value, it's not theoretical anymore. You can, like, hedge off that and lock up a ton of that profit because the fact is, if New England wins, you get all the money, and if they lose, you don't have any survivor money. So it's it's not it's a really clean hedge. But not to talk about hedging that much. I'm just I'm just trying to

Andrew Pace [00:40:34]:

that that the hedge the ability to hedge means you are ahead. Right.

Gabe Patgorski [00:40:39]:

It's like showing that the value is real kinda. Exactly.

Shane Mercer [00:40:43]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:40:43]:

Exactly. And I think it's worth noting in this example that Denver is also playing New England. So you could also throw that one pick onto a different team that is a favorite, and you're gonna even in if 9 people did in fact pick Denver, you're gonna have even more value.

Gabe Patgorski [00:41:00]:

Alright. Not necessarily.

Andrew Pace [00:41:02]:

Okay.

Gabe Patgorski [00:41:03]:

Because the picking the big underdog, you get the leverage of if that dog wins, you also or if your team wins, you also clear out everyone. So let's let's say instead of 10% going to New England, let's say 10% went to Chicago. And I don't even know what it's gonna say right now. We're just seeing if it's better than 2.8. And, yeah, it's a little less because when Chicago wins, Denver also wins a lot. Right.

Andrew Pace [00:41:27]:

I understand. Got you. Okay.

Gabe Patgorski [00:41:29]:

Good point. The leverage is it's dangerous, and it's it rarely matters except in, like, the huge money spots with Circuit Survivor. One thing about Circuit Survivor we haven't mentioned is they have these bottlenecks where instead of having a full weekend slate of games you'd pick from, you have to only pick from Christmas games or Thanksgiving game. It's a really fun twist, and it makes the game theory stuff, like, allow for big edges for sure. Hey. So let's look what actually happened. You know, this was the chart of what actually happened. 2 Chicago, 1 over here.

Gabe Patgorski [00:42:00]:

Let's just look at their EVs. And, you know, years past, this doing this process would be a huge pain in the ass to every single player. We have it built in so people can look at EVs, like, on the fly or projected. It's helpful a ton, and, really, I I can't wait to use it myself. But, anyway, the EVs of what actually happened are Denver, where the chalk was, you know, the big crowd, are still minus EV. So if everyone went in with their entry averaging 600k, those people all torched about 14% of it theoretically. Because on average, if you average all their outcomes, there's not many outcomes where they gain very much EV because most people are on that pick. It's these other people who found the courage to not pick the biggest favorites, where they're sacrificing a little bit, you know, they're risking a little bit, but their EV, their average outcome for theoretical dollars goes up.

Gabe Patgorski [00:43:01]:

And it's counterintuitive. Most people do not like thinking about it this way, but this is like the underlying nature of the game of survivor. It's all about who everyone else is picking. And one more thing I I wanna say about this is let's let's go back to the example where 10% let's let's make it simple. 10% on Chicago and 10% Denver. We looked at these EVs. We see Chicago is doing pretty good. So let's say you were you're a handicapper and you're convinced that Denver is a a sweet play.

Gabe Patgorski [00:43:39]:

The market's saying there's 72% to win. So what is that? The market's like minus 300 something whatever. And if you were super wizard and you knew they were 80% to win, first, if you were that confident, you should be betting massively on Denver. Right? That's a huge edge on a huge market. If you're that smart, you can make 1,000,000 of dollars every year with your big edges. And if you want to use your ego to justify this big edge in survivor, let's let's just look at a year if this went to 80 20. So even if you were, you know, god's gift to handicapping and you oh, sorry. Hold on.

Gabe Patgorski [00:44:19]:

I I changed I changed the wrong number, guys. Hold on. Before I start saying that, I gotta make sure I change the right number. I meant to change the win percentage. That's what should be 80 right there. K? 80, and now we'll change this to 82 or as well and just look at it. Okay. Thank god it still helped me make this point.

Gabe Patgorski [00:44:40]:

So even if you're god's gift to handicapping and you knew that instead of 72%, it was actually 80%, and you have this huge edge, that doesn't automatically give you an edge in survivor. You're still losing to the 1 guy or the 2 guys who are bold enough to switch to Chicago. So survivor is a different beast than handicapping. Handicapping helps for the long term considerations, and when it's close, you can't really tell based on the numbers. But people trying to handicap their way out of a you know, to a survivor entry, that's a trap, and it's basically one that a 100% of players fall into. The fact that it's called survivor and it makes everyone think that the goal is just to survive, is like a bigger trap. The the if you're sharp, you wanna be increasing your value every week. And this type of play on the 0.93, that's not that's not increasing theoretical value.

Gabe Patgorski [00:45:34]:

Does that make sense, or what's confusing about that?

Andrew Pace [00:45:36]:

No. I think that's amazing. I think the 2 takeaways here, like, if you were just almost to summarize it, is the first thing is that what you think is going to happen in survivor isn't necessarily value. And if you are a really good pregame handicapper or sports bettor of any kind, that type of value doesn't necessarily correlate to survivor value. That would be kind of the first point or the first takeaway. The second takeaway is where people are playing is what creates the value, not necessarily what the lines are set at. And and when you understand that, it allows you to make some risky moves that could hurt your season, that do in fact eliminate you, but the theoretical value where if you were put in that situation 10,000 times over will bear fruit. And I think the point is when you come into a league where you're talking about $12,000,000.

Andrew Pace [00:46:35]:

Right? So, you know, thousands of entries. You have to do some crazy shit to have a chance.

Gabe Patgorski [00:46:44]:

Hey. Hey. That's a great in or a great segue to what I think is the best survivor play of all time, that I covered up my seminar, but I I I think it gets the point across really well and because it's no one's ever never done a move this crazy before. So if you don't mind, I'll talk about that for a minute. Oh. Okay. So in in, 2021 on Christmas, there was only 3 games to pick from, and, everyone had a favorite available, including my entry. And if everyone just took their best available team, it would have looked like this.

Gabe Patgorski [00:47:28]:

Arizona, about even. Green Bay, about even. San Fran, about even. But what actually happened was instead of playing Arizona, I pivoted to an underdog this week, which no one in no one in, like, the world was talking about this idea at the time. I felt like I talked to gamblers. But because I've switched from a Arizona EV that was 0.9 whatever, I switched to a team that's likely to lose the game. You can see this 36%. I was likely to lose, but my EV went up to 1.23 ish, something like that.

Gabe Patgorski [00:48:03]:

So this entry going into this week was worth almost 400,000, and this theoretical decision just increased my value by 20%. That's a ton of money to make on on any gambling decision, and it's not even like you know, obviously, I the team's gotta win, and I wasn't likely to win the game, and I won anyway. But, like, the decision making, the kinda contrarian decision making, created a ton of value. No one in Survivor does stuff like this. Everyone's scared. Everyone's just trying to make it through the next week so they can tell their spouse, oh, thanks for letting me play. I get to play next year too. Right? Because I made it to week 10.

Gabe Patgorski [00:48:42]:

Like, there's that's perfect.

Shane Mercer [00:48:44]:

So That's usually how I justify it.

Gabe Patgorski [00:48:48]:

Right. And you gotta, like, slice that out of your head. And it's like, last I was talking to people who busted last year on week 1. And in my opinion, the 2 bad teams that everyone's on the chalk last year, they won and everyone else lost. So people who got knocked out week 1 last year, I actually, respect them more because they were not on the minus EB chalk teams. They were on the kinda getting froggy teams, you know, trying to trying to scoop the all the money.

Andrew Pace [00:49:17]:

It's such a great lesson for everything in life. Like, you make your decisions at the time that you make them. What happens after that, you can't control. And yours there's only this theoretical value, this expected value, or lack thereof. And Yeah. That means that you can lose week 1 and have made the right decision, because had you have won, it would have set you up really nicely and really increase the value of that $1,000 entry. It didn't pan out. You made the right decision.

Andrew Pace [00:49:42]:

You, you know, had some a set of nuts on you for doing it, and and you gotta move on and and live with that. You know, you're a genius if they win. Right? So, yeah, I I think it's a great lesson that actually transcends survivor embedding.

Gabe Patgorski [00:49:55]:

Hey. Hey. Right on. Yeah. And and just doing the safe thing and going with the crowd, like, there's just you're not gonna get the alpha doing that. You gotta you gotta be stepping outside the box, thinking for yourself, and always be trying to create value. Anytime you're just like, I'll try to create value next week, that you're you're making some bad plays problems.

Shane Mercer [00:50:16]:

And it probably becomes harder to create value as you go along if if that's sort of your take. Right?

Gabe Patgorski [00:50:21]:

Yeah. Hey. No. Big time because it's one of the things in survivor, if you guys played a lot, it's like, you wanna use the team that survives because you wanna be around next week. You wanna be there talking to your friends saying, I'm in. You don't wanna just take the charges week 1 and be out, but, that's how you get ahead. That's how you set yourself up to scoop people. Because you're not trying to survive and chop these things.

Gabe Patgorski [00:50:44]:

You're trying to scoop all the money for yourself. That's that's how you gotta approach it. Even though it's unlikely it's not that unlikely. Someone's gotta be the one doing it.

Andrew Pace [00:50:52]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Gabe, show us this chart and how you can use that crisscrossy thing to to do stuff.

Gabe Patgorski [00:50:59]:

Okay. So this is, this is what we call the map. This is the Circa survivor 2024 map. It's, kind of applies to other survivor pools, but it's the most useful for Circa. And the idea is we start over here on the left, and we pick a game each week, and we try to get to the end of the season. And you can't use the same team twice in survivor. So let's just get it started. Let's say we're gonna use the biggest favorite week 1, New England.

Gabe Patgorski [00:51:29]:

And then week 2, you know, this sorts by the spread. So you don't have to be digging through all the teams, and and you can put the spread on there. We can there's other stuff that we're kinda working on. Sometimes you don't even wanna look at the opponent. You just wanna feel out

Shane Mercer [00:51:42]:

I love that.

Andrew Pace [00:51:43]:

Yeah. Take your bias. Like, look at that. If you guys are not watching on YouTube, he has a button to eliminate the team. Yeah. Yeah. Just see colors based on, so your bias is gone. You don't even know what team it is.

Shane Mercer [00:51:58]:

I assume I just want I I just wanna take all the dark green here.

Gabe Patgorski [00:52:02]:

Yeah. Hey. Yeah. Right on. And, yeah, you can try to get through the map with just hitting the dark green, and then you start seeing all the problems of of doing that. Because I just I'm checking off a bunch. Let's say this enough, and then we'll go back to add new opponents. And I'll like, did we save ourselves anything for Thanksgiving? Oh, we got Thanksgiving wide open.

Gabe Patgorski [00:52:21]:

Wow. Nice clicking, buddy. Look at that. Yeah. I might have to use that, method, but, you know, again, the the the circle of the bottlenecks are so important. Everyone's thinking about Thanksgiving. You want to, be in a good shape in Thanksgiving, but it's months away, so you gotta prepare for it. If you use all these teams in Circa now if you use Dallas, Kansas City, Detroit, Green Bay, Miami, Chicago, Vegas, Giants, you're not gonna have anyone for Thanksgiving, so you will be eliminated, and you will not win the money.

Gabe Patgorski [00:52:51]:

So one thing that's really helpful about going through the season this way is you can always have an eye on the holidays because these are the the tight bottlenecks. And then the, the minor bottlenecks. You know, it's the Sunday after these holidays. So, you know, there's there's so many ways to use this. The what gets cool is for circuit survivor players, you have this map, and as the season goes, we are we are scraping all the data from Circa. We're scraping all the NFL odd stuff. We make it so you can load up your entry into this map. And if you have multiple entries let's let's see if I can find this.

Gabe Patgorski [00:53:42]:

Like, we can oh, here we go. 2023. Like, here's here's someone's entries for 2023. We can see all 10 of their entries and see what they did. Looks like they they busted a lot. He just really went deep. So maybe this was a bad example. Who who won last year? Or let's go.

Gabe Patgorski [00:54:05]:

I know this is one of the winners. So we can load up his entry and see, like, all the stuff they're doing throughout the season. And this is happening during the season. So, like, on week, week, the week before Christmas, he can load up this entry and see, okay, what what teams do I have available this day? And okay. Like, you don't have to track stuff yourself, and Circa is not tracking anything for you ever. They're just dropping a list of who picked what every week. So naturally, everyone wants to know keep track of who they pick, when it's available for what weeks. And, yeah, there's all sorts of ways to customize it based on what you wanna be looking at or if or how you wanna be comparing.

Gabe Patgorski [00:54:48]:

Maybe you just wanna look at, you know, everything without the holidays or something. I don't know. There's there's so many things to look at. But it helps you see when what important weeks you need what important teams for. And maybe, one thing I haven't shown yet is we have this new feature that I'm really excited about. I'm gonna turn off everything and just show the these grids. So these grids, this represents how much a team was available, how much a team was picked, and if they picked or or lost or not. So, like, remember we're talking about that Denver game? Week 16, all these people picking Denver? 60 percent of the field had them available or no.

Gabe Patgorski [00:55:37]:

A 100%, because it's all lit up, had it available, and 60% took them, and it's red, so they lost. So, you know, we're experimenting with new ways people can can look at the future and kinda feel what might happen, whether it's gonna be the chalk or what's gonna be an island or,

Andrew Pace [00:55:53]:

Yeah. Like that Detroit Green Bay game is, like, dark red. I remember that one pretty distinctly. I think that was Thanksgiving too.

Gabe Patgorski [00:56:00]:

Oh, yeah. Big time. That was 60% of the field. Yeah. That one really helped me win. Yeah. You know, we're we're still developing this stuff. Right? Like, this is our 1st year where we have lots of people paying attention before the season started.

Gabe Patgorski [00:56:14]:

Like, last year, I had 0 followers. And all this stuff, we're we're adapting and, you know, just thinking about you guys playing Survivor and, like, you guys getting it with Survivor Atlas, I'm thinking now, like, obviously, I need to have contests like y'all laid out at least so you can plan stuff a little bit in Survivor Atlas. Because, you know, once the money starts getting bigger, you start finding yourself staring at this stuff way too much every week. Right? Like, it's it's Tuesday morning. You're just like, man. Am I really gonna take that team? And you just find yourself wanting to stare at something. I mean, you guys you guys stare off sports all day long, and it's just gonna creep in your brain even more. So, the

Andrew Pace [00:56:51]:

the it's and I think it's an important lesson, and it it again, something that's also gonna transcend survivor and transcend betting. This is what you're out there and what you're up against. Right? Like, if you're a recreational sports bettor trying to win money betting on sports, you have to deal with people like us at inplayLIVE that are analyzing our data to this level that's then causing decisions to be made on the next opportunity.

Gabe Patgorski [00:57:16]:

Yep.

Andrew Pace [00:57:16]:

If you're playing survivor, you are against guys like Gabe that not only created this, developed it himself, and used it to win survivor circa. And if you are playing poker in today's day and age, you have these hand charts and everyone else, you know, analyzing hands apparently right down to the final hand of the World Series of Poker this past year, where people are getting every edge and angle that they possibly can. And you want survivor to be fun. You want sports betting to be fun. But if you wanna win long term, these are the types of things that you need to do to, you know, obviously take things seriously. So, Gabe, this obviously looks really expensive. What what is your subscription cost?

Gabe Patgorski [00:57:54]:

Oh, hey. No. It's all free. One thing I think you guys might be able to relate to this is, like Wait.

Shane Mercer [00:58:00]:

Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Gabe, you're not charging anyone? This is all free?

Gabe Patgorski [00:58:05]:

Yeah. No. I, this is all free. We're just we're trying to make the besides growing the game, I wanna see this this prize pool get to 50,000,000. So when I win it that year, it'll be that much easier. But, honestly, though, that,

Andrew Pace [00:58:19]:

you know, there you know, separately of that, you know, I think it's really cool that you're giving. You you know, in in essence, you've given away your edge, but you know when you give away an edge, what comes back to you. And that life needs to be so transactional. There are people that simply just wanna help other people, and some people really cannot grasp that concept. And separately of that, from a more transactional standpoint, you build relationships where people know that if they are in a survivor situation where they need help, where they can hedge, where they have potentially have someone to, you know, take a percentage of what that value of their current entry of what it's worth, you know, cash out a little bit of it while still playing the rest of it with a real chip on their shoulder in you and your team helping them, you you then develop those relationships with which hopefully bear fruit for you, long term. So, from from a transactional standpoint as well, obviously, there's there's the upside there separately, of helping people. So I think I think what you're doing is is is really cool, and, yeah, we really appreciate you showing all that to us.

Gabe Patgorski [00:59:24]:

Hey. Hey. Thank you. The community thing is, I think, just really valuable, and I think it's cool. Like, there's a lot of people who love Survivor. There's no other place to leave people who are just talking Survivor, and why not build community around the biggest contests in on the planet? And, hey, I really hope you guys are are firing this thing next year. It might be 15,000,000. 15,000,000.

Gabe Patgorski [00:59:49]:

Hey. You guys you're not saying no to that. Right, guys?

Shane Mercer [00:59:52]:

No. Absolutely not. I do

Andrew Pace [00:59:54]:

actually wanna bring something up, before we we run off here, and I think this is extremely important for our listeners. And it also applies heavily to to parlays and futures bets, but definitely to survivor as well. We actually had an example of this recently on our show, Shane, when we had Steve Steve on. I think it was Steve. No. GRP?

Shane Mercer [01:00:18]:

GRP? GRP. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. GRP. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:00:21]:

When he was on. Right. And now the example is we've talked a lot about hedging, in this episode where that's kind of been like, oh, well, you could hedge or something like that. When it comes to futures, when it comes to parlays, and when it comes to survivors survivor pools, there is a massive difference between a I think this is a good hedge and an actual hedge. Yeah. You can find yourself in situations heading into this football season where maybe there's one leg left or there's 2 legs left or, oh, you know, comeback player of the year is either gonna be Baker Mayfield or whomever, and then Joe Flacco comes out of nowhere. Right? You can get absolutely fucked if your potential hedge is not an actual hedge. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:01:09]:

Oh, yeah. With Survivor, if there's 10 entries left and you now see the picks, and 9 of them are on one side, and you're on the other side of that game, there are only 2 outcomes that is hedgeable. But if it is not hedgeable, the gambling gods can really mess with you if you try to do something that does not cover all of the outcomes when you are trying to hedge. Now

Gabe Patgorski [01:01:33]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:01:34]:

With Survivor, you can scoop, and Fats brought this up in your seminar. If you have a situation where now it is a true hedge, meaning you can get out of it in one way and the the the, the other side of the game is an underdog, you can take the spread and win both. There will be a middle there where you could still win the game and you could cover the spread on the plus side. Use alternate lines as well in that circumstance. So let's say that you had a massive favorite. You had, like, a plus 10 and a half underdog as your hedge. You could move that line to plus 7a half, plus 6a half, plus 3a half, and then potentially have a colossal payout because you're getting big plus money on both sides with a middle,

Gabe Patgorski [01:02:21]:

in the 20.

Andrew Pace [01:02:22]:

But that doesn't mean it just comes out of thin air. Right. Make some work.

Shane Mercer [01:02:26]:

Make sure all the elements are covered. Alright. Let me let me add a couple things to that.

Gabe Patgorski [01:02:31]:

1, if you do ever get in a spot with a ton of equity on a thing, whether it's a futures ticket or a survivor thing, I always recommend people like, talking to their friends. Like, if you have friends with people who can spot the value, it's so much better to sell a piece to them, you know, without having to go to the house to bet a a bigged up bet or whatever. But, obviously, you gotta have friends to do it, so that's why it's cool to have gambling friends. Another thing is, shoot, about about hedging and, oh, the live betting, when you're having a huge survivor sweat, has some cool, like, overlap with, how to hedge and, like, there like, I don't know how to say it, but, like, there's way like, I know when I was on my run, I was, like, trying to live bet games, but I would rarely press the button when it was the team I needed to win. But whenever it seemed like the live bet on the other teams may be good, then I would definitely press it then. Right? Like, it it's just it's just a way to kinda mix in the lot of stuff with the hedging and, you know, you don't wanna go too overboard with it because you don't wanna get stuck on a hedge and then have to recover it over weeks or something, but there's something to that. So something that you want.

Andrew Pace [01:03:56]:

Gabe why don't you leave us with, I don't know, a story of you bluffing Phil Ivey or something?

Gabe Patgorski [01:04:01]:

Oh, hey. Okay. So I used to before COVID, I was flying to Asia and Europe playing, like, some CD poker games, pretty connected to Hong Kong and Macau. And then once COVID happened, it was kinda like there's no reason to fly back there. But there is there is a a video of me winning a tournament for, like, $6,000,000 at a at a casino in London. And if you really dig into the Triton poker archives, there's a there's a cash game of me and Phil Ivey where, basically, the board is ace, queen, 7. And I check I got enough. I got 9 high, and he has pocket 8, which is isn't really anything.

Gabe Patgorski [01:04:48]:

And he bets maybe, like, 50 or $60. And I have a backdoor flush draw and, like, a backdoor gut shot or something. I I got, like, not really anything, but I got maybe something. And I just feel I just there's I can't describe how I could just feel his energy that he was, like, betting, hoping I just pulled to to be done with it. So I just grabbed all my chips. It was cash money. I think it was maybe £220,000 or something like that and just shipped it all in his face. He snap folded.

Gabe Patgorski [01:05:19]:

And, yeah, I feel like the commentators weren't even really paying attention because it was, like, the sickest bluff I ever pulled, and they were just like, wow. Okay. Thanks for thanks for letting me brag about it here.

Shane Mercer [01:05:30]:

You you didn't show him the bluff. You didn't show that bluff, though.

Gabe Patgorski [01:05:33]:

Well, I'm pretty no. I've wheeled it in his face. I he kinda have Yeah.

Shane Mercer [01:05:37]:

You did.

Andrew Pace [01:05:40]:

What's the line in, what's the line in rounders when they bluff Chan?

Gabe Patgorski [01:05:46]:

Oh. There's a great line.

Andrew Pace [01:05:48]:

You know you know what I'm talking about.

Gabe Patgorski [01:05:50]:

No. I play with I think I have everyone who plays with Johnny Chan has said it to him about, like, at the Mirage or something. Yeah. Right on. Shout out, Jerry.

Andrew Pace [01:06:01]:

I would have loved to drop that quote. Tons of our listeners will be like, pace. Come on. It's this. But I would have loved to drop that quote. Like, yeah. You, yeah, there's something to Chan. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:06:10]:

Yeah. Anyways

Shane Mercer [01:06:11]:

Drop it in the comments for us, guys. Drop it in the comments.

Gabe Patgorski [01:06:14]:

Yeah. Yeah. I remember I do remember having the feeling, like, still Ivy's a legend. I don't know if I wanna put it in his face, and then I was like, oh, yeah. I got to. I just bang. So I'll go check that for accuracy after this, but, hey, guys. It's been great chatting.

Gabe Patgorski [01:06:29]:

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to talk about Survivor Atlas. And I'm so excited about this year and sharing it and also just excited about connecting with you guys and hoping we get some cool overlap going in the future. Absolutely, Gabe.

Shane Mercer [01:06:44]:

Yeah. For sure, Gabe. Great to have you on. Great to have you explain Survivor Atlas. I look forward to checking it out as I get ready to win the IPL survivor pool this year. Hell yeah. Yeah. But, great to have you, and, I look forward to connecting with you again.

Shane Mercer [01:06:55]:

But but to you, Gabe, to pace, to all the sports bettors listening from around the world till next week, keep beating those bucks. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download, and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and everywhere you get your podcasts. Have a betting story or wanna be featured on our podcast? Drop a note in the comments below. And if you wanna join inplayLIVE, use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'.