Episode 77

Alex Piskopos [00:00:00]:

Yeah. Charging some extra juice on Toronto, but not giving it to the dog. Yeah. Right? So just increasing their line because that that's that's kind of the dirty tricks that they they use out here. But, yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:00:10]:

That's the Titan plays strategy.

Shane Mercer [00:00:24]:

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 over there, Andrew Pace, founder of inplayLIVE, a community of like minded sports bettors dedicated to long term success. And today, we're sharing the airwaves with another podcast host, Alex Piscopas, better known as Piscay, host of Always Betting, a budding entrepreneur, and a loyalist college alumni just like yours truly over here. Biscay, welcome to the show.

Alex Piskopos [00:01:00]:

Thanks for having me, boys. Oh, we didn't talk about that, before we went live. I didn't know you went to Loyalist as well. That's awesome.

Shane Mercer [00:01:07]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Spent, 2 years at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario.

Alex Piskopos [00:01:11]:

Oh, Vegas.

Shane Mercer [00:01:12]:

And actually met my wife in Belvaguegas. Yeah.

Alex Piskopos [00:01:15]:

Oh, yeah. Oh, right.

Shane Mercer [00:01:16]:

So so real connection to to that area. And, when I when I heard you went there, I was like, oh, I gotta I gotta sort of throw this set off the top and give them a bit of a surprise. But Yeah. As we go through the show, I think you're gonna find that's not the only thing we have in common.

Alex Piskopos [00:01:27]:

Interesting. Okay. Nice. Yeah. No. I I loved, my time at Loyalist. It got me out of, Quebec and stopped dealing with all the French over here. I'm actually in Quebec right now visiting my parents.

Alex Piskopos [00:01:38]:

But, yeah, a couple years at Loyalist, and through that, I was able to spend some time in Switzerland. 1 of the professors there ran a school in Switzerland, so that was pretty badass as well. And, that was my stepping stone into to start working in the sports betting industry in Ontario.

Shane Mercer [00:01:54]:

Hey. There there you go. First things that I always like to ask somebody when they come on the show is, what are you betting on? But given that we're just coming off of the 1st week of the NFL, I I'm sure that that's probably what you're betting on these days.

Alex Piskopos [00:02:08]:

Yes and no. Yes and no. Some of the groups that I work with are madly obsessed with challenger tennis right now. So I've been doing a lot of that stuff.

Shane Mercer [00:02:17]:

Okay.

Alex Piskopos [00:02:17]:

And, other things is, I've been working closely with a very, very solid prop guy this season. So a lot of NFL props, but also a major league baseball props. And he's been doing exceptionally well, and he's been a great very easy person to work with, which which is a a great thing to have in this industry. There's a lot of smart people, but I've seen that some of them aren't the best to work with. So when you find the good ones that are very smart and good to work with, well, then it's a double whammy, and it's, very refreshing.

Shane Mercer [00:02:48]:

Yeah. No. That's all. A a tough thing to find in this industry. I I I I think, you know, it it can be it can be difficult. So you definitely wanna hold on to those people when when you find them.

Alex Piskopos [00:02:58]:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:02:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Pace over at inplayLIVE, we had a pretty solid weekend. Very football focused, college football, then, of course, the NFL. But you also had a little bit of a a thing going on with Bet 9 9 this weekend.

Andrew Pace [00:03:12]:

Yeah. I'd it's just one of these funny things. Right? Like, we always love to bring up, like, how a sports book has treated us. I'm just gonna share my screen so that if you're watching this one on YouTube, you can actually see, what I'm referencing here. So, Bet 99, I noticed, and and if anyone's been using them recently, they probably noticed this as well. So they're doing this reality check thing. And when it first popped up, I actually thought to myself, that's probably a good idea. Just because, Shane, obviously, we've touched on, like, responsible gambling tools and how they benefit the sports book most of the time.

Andrew Pace [00:03:51]:

Yeah. And the the benefit is is actually rarely with the player. And and in some cases, I think some of the responsible gambling tools, not only is the benefit not with the player, I don't even know if there's a reason as to how it could benefit the player in some of the circumstances. So a reality check that lets you know your session total is kinda like, okay. You know, maybe that maybe that is a a good piece of information to have. Well, as many people that that follow my betting journey know, $4,744 of loss as a reality check is, well within in my means. But what I noticed with the bet 99 reality checks was they kept popping up. Now in this particular account, I deposited $2,000.

Andrew Pace [00:04:37]:

You know, pretty quickly, I'm gonna have that that, that money down, in in on on the games. If it isn't gonna be in one bet, it it'll usually be in in 2 to 4. So in this particular case, I had $12,000, and and written that up to 4744. And, this might look like irresponsible betting, but, again, that 4744 is well within my my unit sizing. So, I'm gonna get that money down as as quickly as I possibly can again. And with Bet 99, what they were doing is they're sending you reality checks, but they're not sending them when you're up. And not only that, they're sending them when the money is pending. And I was wondering if that was to try to evoke some sort of tilt or some sort of, you know, like, oh my god.

Andrew Pace [00:05:28]:

You know, I'm I'm I've lost my bets when they're they're actually in fact, open. So I just thought it was funny that they were putting out these reality checks that I thought were beneficial because it's I I genuinely was like, hey. You know, maybe that's not a bad thing. But, yeah, 4744, I had pending. And, just a few minutes later, you can see the other screenshot on the side. The the I was not down $4,744.

Shane Mercer [00:05:54]:

Not even close.

Andrew Pace [00:05:55]:

Those were pending wagers that again all happened to win, and you see the balance here, shortly thereafter. So my session total was not that amount. What the reality check should say there is, you know, $0 with 4744 pending, or not post the reality check based on on pending wagers posted after they've settled. So, yeah, I thought that was kind of just one that we could bring up on the show just to almost even see what people think.

Shane Mercer [00:06:24]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You know, it's a a reality check except it's a it's an alternate reality. A reality they want you to live in. Piscuit, what do you think?

Alex Piskopos [00:06:33]:

I I yeah. That that completely caught me off guard there because I'm like, okay. This seems like pretty responsible stuff. But if they're not showing the winning side because they want you in there continuously rolling it over and stuff and and and the fact that it's in red and it and it's pending, that that that just doesn't make sense to me at all. So what what are they trying to invoke there? Deposits saying I guess not because it is a reality check, but the these things do not pop up if you're in the green. Is that is that what you're saying?

Andrew Pace [00:07:04]:

They could. I played, 26 hours live betting this last weekend. 26 hours. I only saw red. They stopped popping up.

Alex Piskopos [00:07:16]:

That is very interesting. That is a big surprise though. Though.

Andrew Pace [00:07:20]:

A lot of zeros popped up. So if I hadn't made a wager in an hour, it would say your session is at is at 0, which even that was weird because I'm like, well, like, yeah. I haven't been in the last hour, but what about what about when I was? Like, where's the you're up 4,000. You're up 8,000. Like, yeah. It didn't yeah. Very strange.

Alex Piskopos [00:07:42]:

Well, I I totally get it, though, because these places, throughout all my content, I like to call them predatory places because a lot of people have have softened that edge and call them recreational sports bets. But, no, I I like to change change the narrative, and they are predatory sportsbooks because these are the sportsbooks that they'll welcome anybody with open arms. But as soon as you start to show that you know what you're doing, they show you the door. And, you know, they go after problem gamblers. I've worked on the inside of these places. Right? They're they're gonna dress it up, and they're gonna, you know, put on the the face of responsible gambling and stuff like that. But deep down inside, it's a business for them. Right? And then the people that are losing a ton make them a ton.

Alex Piskopos [00:08:24]:

So, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that, they do have little manipulative tactics to to mix in with these responsible gambling tools of theirs.

Shane Mercer [00:08:35]:

That that's fascinating that you call it predatory. I mean, I think, you know, Pace and I probably sort of view it in that way too, but the what's interesting to me is that you're calling it predatory because we're gonna dive into that a little bit more because you have worked at these places. So, for all the audience out there, stay tuned. We're gonna we're gonna really dig into this topic in in just a in just a few moments. But before we do, another kind of reality check on one of these, predatory books, as he referred to it as. Bet 365 got a bit of a reality check, in the in the past week here, and it came from, the, New Jersey, regulator. And this is a bit of a funny one because it's not a lot of money. So the the regulator in New Jersey fined about 365, $33,000.

Shane Mercer [00:09:19]:

And that's because they were betting bets on events in which the outcome was already known. So this isn't be this isn't the story of, like, oh, you know, bettors hitting them up a a past post kind of thing, but it's the fact that they offered the markets at all when the event was already known. And in in one case, it took bets on an MMA event a week after it was already held, which is just, like, unbelievable to think that it was a full week later that they're still taking bets on on this event. And I guess it was being played, over tape, and they were kind of treating it like it was an actual, event.

Andrew Pace [00:10:00]:

So so but hold on. Like, could could people not have won money as a result

Shane Mercer [00:10:04]:

of that? Yeah. Yeah. People, people could have. It's not clear whether what they did with the bets if they voided them all after the fact. I imagine they did. But just, because they were offered at all, the regulator fined them for that.

Alex Piskopos [00:10:18]:

Wow. But Interesting. 33 k, though. That is, like for bet 365 that you've paid me.

Shane Mercer [00:10:24]:

It's It's pretty small. But hold on, though. In fairness, this does come, after they were fined in July, for changing odds on players after the bets were already made. So so unilaterally changing the odds, which, you know, anybody who's current soft books on a regular basis has has dealt with this at some point. But the the same regulator, New Jersey's gaming enforcement division fined Bet 365 for that in July, to the tune of over 500,000, which is arguably you know, it's much bigger than the 33, but still vary within Bet 65 means.

Andrew Pace [00:10:55]:

Yeah. But that's all that that's also New Jersey. Like, that whatever they did in New Jersey, we know this obviously firsthand. They did it in every state and province and across the UK and everywhere that they operate. They only got fined in New Jersey. I would love to see the other states look into what they got fined for and roll it out across all of them and say, hey. You did that here too. You can't do that.

Andrew Pace [00:11:16]:

Because that that is what that what Bet 365 is like, they are the scum of the scum of the scum of the scum. And I've I've had a recent reminder of it, and it's, yeah, they are they are absolutely brutal when it comes to all this kind of stuff and what they try to pull over their players. So I'm glad they've gotten fined. I'd love to see it, I'd love to see it, yeah, across multiple states.

Alex Piskopos [00:11:40]:

I I would like just the regulators to have a little bit of knowledge of the space. How how about that? Is that too much to ask? Because the you know, I I scream about this online all the time, and people tell me to calm down and stop whining. And you know how the industry is these days and, like, pretty much has always been. But what really infuriates me is, yeah, the just the lack of knowledge of the regulators. Like, they need people with actual sports betting experience, and it would be nice if they could get people that actually know what they're doing and have have been profitable in the space and have been through these terrible things that we always go through of getting kicked out, getting limited, get shown the door, kicked out after 3 bets. I just had something that happened to me. Are we allowed to shit on other sportsbooks too?

Shane Mercer [00:12:29]:

Absolutely. Go go for it. That that's what we do here.

Alex Piskopos [00:12:31]:

So we there was there was a new sportsbook that showed up. It it it's called Titan Play. They're they showed up newly in Ontario. Every now and then, I go over to Igaming Ontario's website, and I get I tell them to give me the list of sportsbooks that are allowed to operate in Ontario. So Titan Play popped out of out of nowhere, and I'm like, okay. Let me take a look. And I went and took a look. I liked what I saw, so I sent him a little deposit.

Alex Piskopos [00:12:55]:

Super soft, by the way. If anyone wants a real easy book to go and kick the shit out of

Shane Mercer [00:12:59]:

Did you know who the odds provider is?

Alex Piskopos [00:13:01]:

I do not. Okay. I do not. But, you know what? If you go on to IDaming Ontario, they have that listed there.

Shane Mercer [00:13:07]:

Right.

Alex Piskopos [00:13:07]:

So I I went on there and, did a number on them, but, like, we were on a hot streak. You you guys know how it is. Right? Up and down, up and down, up and down. At the end of the year, you want a certain hold percentage, but we've we've been on fire the last 3, 4 weeks. So that that happens, and then, obviously, when that happens, you start losing accounts. But this place did something that I haven't seen in quite a while. They doubled my juice on everything. So I logged in on Sunday to play some bets for the NFL, and I was staring at minus 128 aside on sides and totals in the NFL pregame.

Alex Piskopos [00:13:46]:

Can you fucking believe that?

Shane Mercer [00:13:47]:

And you think and they just said this to you?

Andrew Pace [00:13:51]:

Yes. No. That's one of their systems that they they flick a switch. So

Alex Piskopos [00:13:54]:

Bingo. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:13:54]:

If you if you have, like, a lot of the the PPH, like, bookie sites. Right? They design your account how they they design your account based on the player. Right?

Shane Mercer [00:14:05]:

Mhmm.

Andrew Pace [00:14:05]:

So for some people, those accounts can be, you know, as good as Pinnacle from, like, a juice standpoint. If not, even better potentially depending on how bad that player is, all the way to what Pisky is describing there. Right? And those same lines are oftentimes offered at some of the offshore sportsbooks. So, you know, if you go into some of the most reputable sportsbooks that exist, I'm not saying they do this. I'm saying they can where they put you in a class that that does give you higher higher juice

Alex Piskopos [00:14:38]:

Mhmm.

Andrew Pace [00:14:38]:

Longer spinners, all that kind of stuff. Now Titan play just because I assume as many of our listeners, hear that come out of your mouth are gonna do exactly what I just did, and that was instantly go to the site. So I'm on their site

Shane Mercer [00:14:53]:

right now.

Andrew Pace [00:14:55]:

This is the same odds provider, and this is gonna really hit home for a lot of our members as Fans Bet. Okay? And I have never, Pisky, never in my life have I had an experience at a sports book like what happened to me at Fans Bet. So do did my standard sort of $2,000 deposit. I'm sitting up at about 10 or 11,000 in the account, and they're taking, like, a decent hold on the wagers that I'm placing. So in this particular example, there's about 6 minutes left in a hockey game, and I placed a wager on the outcome of the remainder of that hockey game. 6 minutes on the timer. So real time, that could be 6 minutes at at the at the least, but there's gonna be a whistle, a time out penalty, whatever, probably closer to 15 or 20 minutes. They spun my wager for the entirety of the remainder of the game, waited to see whether or not it won or lost, and then either voided the bet or accepted it.

Andrew Pace [00:15:57]:

So I videoed I videoed $1 on both sides for the next hockey game. They did the same thing, voided the winning side. I took both sides just to see what they do. Right. Voided the winning side

Andrew Pace [00:16:11]:

and put in the losing side. So, Shane, we actually had a discussion. I think it was last week 1 of the NFL. It was probably to the day

Shane Mercer [00:16:19]:

Like, a year ago to the day.

Andrew Pace [00:16:21]:

12 months ago.

Shane Mercer [00:16:22]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:16:22]:

And it was about that odds provider, and I'd still so they did that to me as I did basically 2 bets around the exact same time, which wiped my balance. They, marked them as those wagers, they they spooled them for the whole time, then marked them as losers at the very end. Well, I had, like, $600 left in this account. And I was like, okay. Well, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna build a crazy ass parlay, and my goal will be to, hedge out on another book. Or if it hits, just start moving. Since they're letting me bet still, that pregame and move my money out through Pinnacle, by by hedging out. And, obviously, I'm gonna take a a real hit if I do that on on the juice.

Andrew Pace [00:17:06]:

So what I did through it's again the same odds provider. So what I did was I, selected a whole bunch of wagers, just a whole betting menu for for NFL Sunday. And, Shane, we were filming this with Monday night football pending. The the wager was pending. I had one leg left, and it paid out, like, 90,000 or something like that. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:17:26]:

I remember that.

Andrew Pace [00:17:27]:

We we talked about what my options would be if if it won. But this is the important part of why I'm bringing this up. All the odds that I selected, what they're all pregame. When I clicked it, they all the juice that actually went through on the bets up we shared it on this show. Yeah. All the juice that went through was they all went from, like, minus 1 tens to minus 1 forties. They all changed once it accepted. Nice.

Andrew Pace [00:17:55]:

And I would have just loved nothing more than to hit that last leg. But, of course, as every bettor who takes ridiculous long shot parlays can tell you, the last leg, of course, lost.

Alex Piskopos [00:18:05]:

That's brutal. That's brutal, man. I I was kinda stunned when this was happening, and and, I will add to to my experience as well. There was a point where they started screwing around with because you can tell. Right? At at the beginning, everything's going in nice and smooth. And then you get to a point where, yeah, it would spin, it would spin, and let's say I played a minus 21. All of a sudden, it would spin and then in the bet slip, it would change to a minus 23. Just no explanation.

Alex Piskopos [00:18:33]:

No no change of juice. No nothing. It's just like, okay. Take it for, you know, 2 points worse than you wanted, and it's like, okay. No. Cancel, obviously. And then, yeah, the NFL Sunday, a different line code. They put me in a store, I guess, that they put maybe sharp bettors or guys who get really lucky like I did.

Alex Piskopos [00:18:50]:

And, yeah, and and that's it. Now I I I have not requested a payout yet. We'll see how what that experience is is like, but man, oh, man, like, that that's where I think regulators need to step in. And there there has to be a level playing field here because it's it's just the books can do whatever the hell they want.

Andrew Pace [00:19:10]:

So so when you, get a wager accepted there, it says running. Right? Is that was that right?

Alex Piskopos [00:19:15]:

So yes.

Shane Mercer [00:19:16]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:19:16]:

Yeah thats the odds provider. Okay.

Alex Piskopos [00:19:18]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:19:18]:

So they're they are the ultimate scum of scum of scum in the industry. There's no one worse than them. But the good news is for you, they've entered a regulated environment. So So they can't really You you have something to fall back on.

Alex Piskopos [00:19:28]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:19:29]:

Whereas in the stories that I've had, you really don't have anything to fall back on with these guys. So So whenever I'm looking up lines, and they are so soft, guys.

Andrew Pace [00:19:37]:

So go get them. They are so soft.

Shane Mercer [00:19:39]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:19:40]:

Go get them, but expect this is this is the thing with some of these practices with books this bad. It's net worth the problems that you deal with because of how beatable they are. Mhmm. So this bullshit all occurs, and you still end up going well.

Alex Piskopos [00:19:53]:

Okay. I'm still gonna take the Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know? You you kinda know what you're signing up for, and they're like, okay. I'm gonna have to deal with a little bit of bullshit, but it might be worth it because like you said, they are that bad. It it's pretty bad.

Andrew Pace [00:20:04]:

You you regulator aside, you are gonna have a real headache getting the money out of there, but you you have something to fall back on. So I'm sure you'll be able to to to get paid, but I am shocked they entered into Yeah. Ontario. That odds provider entered into Ontario. Wild stuff. They they are the worst of the worst. There's nothing I've seen worse in the industry than them.

Alex Piskopos [00:20:23]:

Yeah. And, I mean, I think Ontario Ontario, they're for the most part, it it's really cheap to get into as an operator. Like, don't quote me on this, but I think it's somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter million per per operator to get in, whereas if you're looking at states like New York and stuff, I think it's, like, in the millions. Right? So, I think that's why they have so many people coming in because it is cheap to operate there. But, yeah, for people that know what they're doing, Ontario is a great place to live right now because I think we're up to 30 different operators that you can hop around to, do the merry-go-round and then, yeah, move on to

Shane Mercer [00:21:00]:

We we are very lucky being in Ontario for that reason. Yeah.

Alex Piskopos [00:21:03]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I love it. 2022, I I actually spent the football season in Vegas. I I we were trying to get the podcast off the ground. We're trying to give some spice and fire to the content that was putting out. And I think as a Canadian, I was I only had about 6 outs in Vegas, whereas you come back home to Ontario, and now I'm up to 30.

Alex Piskopos [00:21:25]:

So, yeah, massive difference and, obviously, the best place to to play if, if you're doing this thing of going place to place.

Andrew Pace [00:21:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. So, Shane, Titan play launched in, June of 2024, the end of June in Ontario, so it is super new. I'm surprised we actually haven't come across it yet. And, they're powered by a company called sorry. I lost it. Powered by Dellsport. And that that would be and they they have another, that same odds provider has another book in Ontario called, so if you wanna hit them twice, they, called something green, I think.

Andrew Pace [00:22:08]:

I'm just looking it up now. But, anyways, yeah, there's there's another book with Dallas, Green Brick Labs. Maybe that's just a casino, but if it's a sports book, they're in Ontario as well. So it's good it's actually good news from the standpoint of someone that soft being in a regulated environment that you can go hit if you're in that if you're in that area.

Shane Mercer [00:22:27]:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm actually getting a little bit excited over here kinda kinda licking my chops. I got some fresh meat. Thanks for bringing that to our attention

Alex Piskopos [00:22:34]:

here, buddy. Appreciate it. Go go after them, boys. But, yeah, let let it be known that they have a weird way of telling you to scram.

Shane Mercer [00:22:42]:

Well, you know, they they all do it on their own way, I suppose.

Alex Piskopos [00:22:45]:

They do. They do. And, again, my back to my experience, I know places do have different stores for different types of players. I remember, like, way, way back in the day when I first started in the industry, they would have player profiles, between guys who always played favorites and guys who always played underdogs. So he'd probably lose or gain a half a point depending on what story you're in. And then, you know, every now and then, you'd have these guys call in and say, I don't understand. The Broncos are minus 6a half in my account, and in my buddy's account, they're minus 7a half. Like, what the hell

Shane Mercer [00:23:17]:

is going on here?

Alex Piskopos [00:23:18]:

But, yeah, that was that's a long time ago. So

Shane Mercer [00:23:21]:

Well, well, let's let's do head back into the past a little bit, though, pissing you because, you know, we're talking about Ontario. We're talking about the regulated market, and you are probably somebody who has, you know, deep extensive knowledge of Ontario's regulated market and and, you know, the way it changed over. How many years did you spend working at OLG?

Alex Piskopos [00:23:43]:

OLG, I started in 2008, and I left in 2021. So and it was the ex the exact day I started is the day I left. So I worked 13 years to the actual day, which wasn't really planned, but it's just kinda weird how that worked out. But, yeah, 13 years grinding inside the corporate environment that, you know, as a young punk, I thought climbing the corporate ladder was the way to go. And, and I mean, like, halfway through my tenure there, I realized that that is not who I am. And I kinda used it as a guaranteed income because I started to get more serious in sports betting. And, yeah, in 2021, it was it was time to leave because, they were making some mistakes at the lottery corporation that I told them about. I I was I was a very good employee at one point and and told them some of the issues they were having.

Alex Piskopos [00:24:34]:

And, they they made a choice not to listen to me. So I I partnered up with, again, some very intelligent people, and we decided to do something about it. And I'm very confident that that, will be a book or a movie one day because, how we did it and what what we did and how we did it was was pretty special and pretty entertaining.

Shane Mercer [00:24:52]:

Okay. So I know a little bit about it

Andrew Pace [00:24:54]:

Hold on, Shane. Are we not are we not gonna go into the book of the movie?

Shane Mercer [00:24:57]:

Like Absolutely. No. No. No. I'm about to sort of venture. I know I know some of what Pinsky's story is here. Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:25:03]:

Of course. And it is absolutely fascinating, and it's it's really incredible. And and, PACE, we've sort of talked a lot about lately on the show and Pinsky, you know, this is sort of something that our audience will will know is that over the last few weeks, you know, PACE went to Pet Bash. We've been connecting with a lot of, like, old school sports bettors guys like Spanky, Fats, Adam Bjoern. You know, some of these guys who have been around a long, long time and, have sort of, you know, approach sports betting in the very sort of Billy Walters approach of gather some originators, create a team of movers, runners, and and disperse, you know, and and get your money down, know you have an edge, all that sort of stuff. And that, you know, was sort of the approach through, you know, seventies, eighties, nineties, 2000s. And now here we are in this sort of, you know, 20 tens, you know, things start to change. And then certainly in the last 5 years, it's been a whole shift, you know, where where the game maybe isn't played that way anymore, but you did play the game that way right at the tail end.

Shane Mercer [00:26:11]:

And, you know, it's really sort of fascinating how you did it and what you did. But, you know, for for everybody out there listening, I guess, give them give them that sort of, you know, breakdown of exactly how you attacked OLG on player props.

Alex Piskopos [00:26:24]:

Yeah. So it's a fascinating story because they had a very archaic system in place at the old g that I had to work with. Right? So a lot of people like to poke fun at how shit the the odds were at Proline and, you know, how many mistakes we made. But if anyone were to see the, tools we were using at this place, I always like to compare it to using plastic utensils at a steakhouse. Because the the tools we had were were built in the late eighties, and they had little band aids all over them so that the product itself was essentially Swiss cheese. There there were a lot of different ways to bet, to beat it. And I've met a lot of different people that were doing very similar things and just, you know, living, making a tremendous return off a lot of the proline products. But, yeah, what what made it really interesting was the fact that they had a little bit of a defense mechanism in place that was you could only bet a $100 per store, per ticket.

Alex Piskopos [00:27:31]:

So you could buy lottery tickets at gas stations, convenience stores, grocery stores, Shoppers Drug Mart, places like that. And they they put this defense mechanism defense mechanism in because they didn't have the ability to move their odds. So what once they put their odds out, that was it. They they had no ability to change them. The only way they could zap a an event would be to take it off the board completely. Yeah. So we needed bodies.

Shane Mercer [00:28:02]:

Which they did quite often.

Alex Piskopos [00:28:03]:

Yeah. Which they did. Yes. Again, it was it was, like, speaking from the guy who was on the inside, it was our only line of defense. So if, you know, you see this random game getting blown up and you realize that your odds are way off and that's why they're blowing it up, you only have one choice and that is to zap it. So, yeah. So we needed to get down volume. We had an edge.

Alex Piskopos [00:28:23]:

We had a very strong edge, and we needed to get down as much volume as humanly possible. But seeing as though you could only play this product in convenience stores, grocery stores, and gas stations, We set up a team. I think at, the peak NFL Sunday, we're probably 25 total that went out as far east as Cornwall and as far west as Burlington. So if anyone's familiar with Ontario, Ontario is a pretty big province. So we basically east to west completely.

Shane Mercer [00:28:54]:

We're talking about a 6 to 7 hour drive from one end to the other here. Yeah.

Alex Piskopos [00:28:59]:

Yeah. So, yeah, we we had this crazy crazy system where my buddy, my partner, the full dog, he was down in Costa Rica kinda orchestrating everything from there, and he'd put together all the combos and would send them up to me in Toronto. I'd be up at 5:30 in the morning filling out these selection forms. So these selection forms were, like, if you go play a lottery a lot of 649 in store, that's what you had to do. You had to fill out one of those for every combo that you played on these, player props.

Shane Mercer [00:29:26]:

Yeah. It's a scantron sheet is what it is.

Alex Piskopos [00:29:27]:

Scantron sheet.

Shane Mercer [00:29:28]:

There you go. If anybody remembers that from high school, you know, when you did those multiple choice tests. It's the same idea.

Alex Piskopos [00:29:33]:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So we had 1,000. I I spent the entire morning from, like, 5 AM till 7 AM just printing these things out, getting these envelopes. Everything's in cash. You could ever put cash in these envelopes, and then my all my runners would show up to my condo in downtown Toronto.

Alex Piskopos [00:29:50]:

So I used to meet some of them in various other parts as well. And I would give them these envelopes, and then it was their job to go from store to store to store to store as many as they could, and we'd pay them on how many stores they could go to. So that that was kind of the incentive that we used is that, depending on the amount of volume they could get down, we would give them a percentage of that volume.

Shane Mercer [00:30:11]:

So they got paid no matter what. Win or lose, they got paid.

Alex Piskopos [00:30:13]:

Win or lose, no matter what. Yeah. And I'll even give it away because I gave it away on the, the circles off podcast. It was 5%. So whatever they could bet, whatever they could get down, we would give them 5 percent of, as I was paid. So yeah. So they they loved it. My friends loved it.

Alex Piskopos [00:30:27]:

And, but it it was challenging because a lot of these places would only let them play a $100 a pop. So we had little tricks of the trade. There was one one of my favorite ones was, hiring, well, my hiring getting my girlfriend and some of her, really good looking friends to help out because, you know, as a dude, you walk into some of these gas stations and the attendant, you know, would look at you and, you know, give you the hard stop sign and say, no. A $100 max. But you send in an attractive female with a big smile and, you know, kick up the charm a little bit. And, you know, they would politely ask, can I play 200? Can I play 300? And the store clerk would, absolutely. You do whatever you want. Come back anytime you want.

Alex Piskopos [00:31:12]:

So that's that's one that I always like to share. But, yeah, it it was, like, the the way it it had to happen, it was so time sensitive because the games kick off at 1 o'clock, so we have to get out early. They'd only start offering these things at 5:30 AM. And just getting everything coordinated and make sure everyone goes out and there's no mistakes. And, again, all cash all cash transactions, you gotta use very reliable people because, you know, sometimes, Christ, if you didn't, very easy for cash envelopes to go missing. But our our crew was just spectacular, and we never had issues with that. And, yeah, we we did it for the course of the football season, and it it it went the way we expected it to to win with the with the exclamation point being that amazing game in Buffalo in December. I don't know if you guys remember.

Alex Piskopos [00:32:01]:

It was in 2021. It was the patriots at the Bills, and I think there was a combination of maybe 6 passes that were thrown the entire game. And this Never forget it. This system this system, was betting unders. It was all the under. So we just parlayed all the, all the props under, week after week, and that was when the bomb went off because I think it was just the Patriots running back that went over. He had the he broke the runners.

Andrew Pace [00:32:29]:

He probably bust the line in the yard

Andrew Pace [00:32:31]:

That was expensive for me.

Alex Piskopos [00:32:33]:

Every every other single prop that they offered, went under, and, I like, it it was stunning. In the in the moment, I actually had nightmares that night of the RCMP coming and knocking on my door because of how bad we lift them up. But it was, it was spectacular, and we miss it dearly. But, yeah, in 2022, they they ended up switching their system, changing to a more traditional style sportsbook. So our angle went away, and, all these store clerks and gas stations haven't seen any of us since. Every now and then, we we do pass the some of our our go to spots, and, you know, they they just look at us with these gleaming, eyes and, you know, thinking that it's back on. But, no, unfortunately, it's not. Things change.

Alex Piskopos [00:33:15]:

And we've had to adapt and change up and, go go on and move on to different things.

Andrew Pace [00:33:21]:

How much money did you make on that Bills game as a team collectively, the total amount?

Alex Piskopos [00:33:27]:

You know what? A lot of people ask for, specific numbers. I'll tell you it was in the 6 figures. I I won't tell the exact amount because I I like to keep it in the business.

Andrew Pace [00:33:39]:

What were the odds you hit you hit at?

Alex Piskopos [00:33:42]:

That I couldn't even tell you. We were we were playing a lot of, 5 and 6 teamers. Usually, I think the flat line was 1.7 aside. So on the surface, that looks like complete dirt. Right? But, once once you get them all all portion together, it it explodes in quite a quite a sensational fashion.

Andrew Pace [00:34:04]:

Yeah. There was some 7 figure bettors that day for sure. People that saw the game that jumped on the same game parlays of all the unders live in real time.

Shane Mercer [00:34:13]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:34:13]:

You know, it's funny because when you're telling the story, number 1, that's just fucking incredible. Like, it's incredible. It's just so cool. It sounds fun too.

Alex Piskopos [00:34:21]:

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:34:22]:

Like, it sounds like it's a lot of fun.

Alex Piskopos [00:34:23]:

It was a ton of fun and and the ultimate revenge factor. Right? Because I was in there and, you know, cut them at the bottom rung of the entry level thing, just a just a sports analyst, and I went to them with this problem. I said, listen. This this is beatable. And, you know, this is, you know, ways that you can ways you can fix it. And, you know, it was kind of a, you know, settle down young grasshopper. Here's your 2 page manual. Do nothing less, nothing more.

Alex Piskopos [00:34:49]:

Yep. And then, you know, we started compiling data, and, you know, I gotta give a shout out where shout out is deserved. The the full dog down in Costa Rica, he smelled blood, and he went after it. And, yeah. He, he built something very special. He said, this is how we're gonna do it, and this is how I think we can get down. And, we put it all together, and it was pure magic. Fuck.

Andrew Pace [00:35:09]:

It's so cool.

Shane Mercer [00:35:11]:

It's really it really is the ultimate, like, disgruntled employee revenge story. You know? It's just like yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:35:18]:

Well, I I don't I don't think that you are old in any way, but when you said you're gonna remember this Bills Patriots game, I thought you were gonna say, like, in 2012 or something. Like, it because I'm thinking about, like, British Columbia, and we had the exact same system at play now dot com. Right. We had to parlay everything. I don't know if you had to parlay everything.

Shane Mercer [00:35:39]:

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Shane Mercer [00:35:41]:

the like, you had to be part of it. Three legs minimum. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:35:44]:

So we we were 2 legs minimum, and I don't ever remember seeing a player prop option ever. So I don't think we had the same system, but it sounds very similar. And we had playnow.com replace what was called, sports action sports action. You wanna bet? That's what it was. And we had playnow.whenplaynow.com first came out, it was just the online version of it. So but it was the same, the Scantron thing, the same system, everything. So if you guys would've had that, there would've been this brief window where you could've done it online instead of in person. But, that was gone for us, like, a solid like, I wanna say 12 years ago, but definitely 10 years ago, that was gone.

Andrew Pace [00:36:28]:

So when you were telling this story, I thought you were dating back. I can't believe that was still there in 2,022. That is unbelievable that it was still there

Shane Mercer [00:36:38]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:36:38]:

Given the technology in the world we live in.

Alex Piskopos [00:36:41]:

2021 was the last year they offered.

Shane Mercer [00:36:42]:

Okay. Yeah.

Alex Piskopos [00:36:44]:

so Basically, the Giants Patriots game

Shane Mercer [00:36:46]:

Basically. The young grasshopper was right.

Alex Piskopos [00:36:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, they'll never admit that. They never admit that. And I never tell the exact amount, so they they think I'm probably talking about, like, 5 grand here and there. And, you know, that's fine. I I I want it to stay that way. And, you know, a couple of the the guys that that helped us with liquidity, know the number and the the full dog that there's basically 4 of us on the entire planet that know what we did in there.

Alex Piskopos [00:37:10]:

And, I I I like that it it continues to add a little bit of of mystery because, yeah, like I said, it was special. And you mentioned something about online. See, this this was the benefit that we had. I don't think we could have done this online because they would have taken a ton of beards with a ton of KYC and getting shut down, and and they'd be able to see your place. The OLG had blindfolders on. They they they couldn't see nothing. Everything was done anonymously at these convenience stores and stuff. Stuff.

Alex Piskopos [00:37:39]:

They didn't know who was sitting them. They didn't know what we were they the tools that they had were complete garbage, so they couldn't see any of this. And to be honest, it looked like just some crazy parlays. Right? Just 5 16ers. It's usually nothing to to get your panties in a bunch about, you know, as as a bookmaker. So the reason this succeeded was because of the anonymity factor, because online, I don't think we could have pulled it off, to be honest.

Shane Mercer [00:38:05]:

Okay. So but in in order to maintain that anonymity factor, you you had to do something else because I've won big with OLG before, and I've been put through the interrogation process, which which is what it is. You you know, I was in a room for, like, 5, 6 hours one day,

Alex Piskopos [00:38:20]:

You know?

Shane Mercer [00:38:20]:

And, like, you would go through a layer of interviews. You you would know all about it since since I worked there. Right? And, so you would have had to keep, I think, your your winnings below $10,000 to avoid that process of of verification and and interrogation. Right? Am I am I right?

Alex Piskopos [00:38:39]:

Oh, 100%. Yeah. We we strategically, built these things. So the way we went out on games, the only time you'd have to go to the price center, which is the interrogation room essentially, is if your ticket paid over a $1,000. So we strategically calculated the odds pre pre, going out on them. And for the the high ones, like 5 and 6 teamers, yeah, we we did them at $25 a pop. So you'd walk into a gas station, and you'd hand them the slip and you say, can you play that play that 4 times, please? So it would be $25 parlays instead of a 100 because we wanted to keep everything under a 1,000. And then we went out into the city, around Toronto and just made some friends with some retailers because the retailers, it helped them out as well.

Alex Piskopos [00:39:24]:

So this is another crazy factor. This is coming out of the pandemic. Right? So we had some retailers that helped us out big time, and without them, this would have been completely impossible because you needed constant cash coming in. Right? So when you win, you had to go in cash at the retailers. Well, if a lot of the retailers didn't have cash because we're coming out of the pandemic and everyone thinks cash has COVID all over them. Right? And so without making these friendships with these retailers that would bring us in, they would close down the store, they would cash our tickets for us. Without them, again, this would have been completely impossible, but the retailers would would get 2% of everything they cashed. So they loved us.

Alex Piskopos [00:40:05]:

And I I don't know for certain, but as soon as we stopped betting, a lot of them disappeared. So I don't know if we were keeping the lights on with a little bit of hope with the with what we were giving them in terms of cashing our tickets, but a lot of them went completely, bank or I guess they're just not there anymore. Wow. So, yeah, it it was it was a perfect harmony because, you know, the letter e corporation makes a ton of money. A ton of money because there are so many squares out there. There are so many squares that have no idea what they're doing. They're going to the store, they're buying their milk, their bread, and they're playing a $5 pro line ticket, and they've been doing it for 35 years. They cash in big time on those people.

Alex Piskopos [00:40:43]:

And then you have the Sharps that, you know, that eats and take a little bit of, you know, off the table from the lottery corporation, and then you have the retailers that were making money off of us. So everyone was perfect. Everyone everyone was having such a great time, and they had to go and change it. And now, Yeah. That that's not it's not like that anymore.

Shane Mercer [00:40:59]:

It's really cool, though. Like, what a season of magic.

Alex Piskopos [00:41:01]:

Yeah. It was perfect. Everyone was eating. Everyone was happy, and they had to go and change shit. So that's

Shane Mercer [00:41:07]:

kinda Okay. So at at the top of the show, though, we talked a little bit about you know, you called them predatory sportsbooks. The OLG and ProLine now has its app. It's got its you know, it it's in the mix with the rest of them, and it's a soft book. It can be very, very soft in some markets. And and they do exactly what all the soft books do. What what are your thoughts on on having worked there and the fact that, hey. This is a government agency.

Shane Mercer [00:41:35]:

It's an agency of the province of Ontario, and it's, in in your words, preying upon its own citizens.

Alex Piskopos [00:41:46]:

Where do I begin? I I just think, yeah, they're all in the same boat. No one is better than the other. They're all coming at it from from from the exact same angle, but especially the lottery corporation because they they really piss me off in ways. And, yes, you know, I am very thankful to have worked there for as long as I did. And, you know, having them as as sort of a backbone was my kinda highway into the the stuff that I did on the side with the sports betting and stuff. So I kinda do owe them some credit in that regard. But, yeah, the the fact that they can, you know, tell people to come in and and spend all their money, and and they have some massive losers there. I I during the pandemic, I I worked a bit of time in customer service, and I had access to some of the accounts, some of the, like, the VIP accounts that are just massive losers.

Alex Piskopos [00:42:41]:

And, I mean, the fact that they can take all that money and and and and not blink an eye, but yet as soon as someone knows what they're doing, you know, they give them all kinds of problems in terms of shortening their limits and then, you know, the KYC and, you know, let's screw around with them a little bit more. This is blurry. That that doesn't have a logo on it. Send it in again. It's it's just it's despicable. And the lord the the lottery corporation pisses me off even more because they try to act all hoity toity about it. Like, they're big responsible gambling people. But yet you're responsible gambling people that deals drug.

Alex Piskopos [00:43:16]:

You know what I mean? You're you're a drug dealer that you say, you know, consume responsibly, but you're the one dealing the drugs. So I I just don't know. I I don't see how they can align, and and that is something that that drives me crazy. And especially for them because they act so proper, and they act like, you know, they're doing something right. And, you know, all our proceeds go back to the to the people of Ontario, and they try to dress it up like that, but they're no different than any of these other places, whether it be offshore or legalized now. They're they're all the same.

Shane Mercer [00:43:48]:

You know, what what's frustrating about it to me is that, you know, they could and I don't know that they have the technology and the infrastructure for it right now at all, but they could, in theory, given that they are an agency of the province and they could get the funding for it, is to adopt a sharp book model. You know? And that something that would, you know, maintain some level of of fair play with their own citizens.

Alex Piskopos [00:44:14]:

I'm gonna be as nice as possible as I can with with this answer. I've seen the inside of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. They do not have what it takes to run a shop SharpBook model, not in the slightest. And I will just I will back up, and I will just leave it at that. They don't have the personnel for something like that.

Andrew Pace [00:44:32]:

I think, guys, from an industry standpoint, though, like, it's easy to sit here and just talk shit, talk shit, talk shit. But we always have to have the perspective of how we've made money in the 1st place. Right? So if you're a successful sports bettor and I ask you the question of, would you rather, OLG and or any book, really, but let's since we're on the topic, OLG and, what's it called again? ProLine? OLG and ProLine. Would you rather they have Pinnacle's lines where you play there forever, or would you rather have their lines where you play there for a short period of time and then maybe some friends and family of you play get to play there as well? Right? So there's a place in the industry where do I want these sportsbooks to treat winning players the way that they do? Of course not. Do I want it regulated better? Absolutely. There's no debate of that. But if you're saying the alternative is this world where everyone is pinnacle bet, Chris, you know, the other the other sharp books, Well, I kinda like the world that we live in to an extent, and it's like, let people keep trying to get a piece of the pie, where we do have new sportsbooks like what's this terrible one you just told us about? Titan. Titan.

Andrew Pace [00:45:47]:

Let Titan play come try to get their piece of the pie. Right? You know, I'd I'd love for there to be some middle ground with all of it where it is it is better regulated and and people are treated properly. But at the same time, like, you know, if if the alternative is everyone's pinnacle, that's no upside.

Alex Piskopos [00:46:08]:

Absolutely. No. I I couldn't agree more. You know, I I I do love to partake in shit talking, all the predatory books out there and getting frustrated when they shut you down after 6, 7 bets because you're getting a ton of CLV and things are hot off the press when you're betting them. But for someone like myself, I I am a top down better. I need these places because I do not have the mental capacity to beat places like Pinnacle. Maybe maybe in in weaker markets like props and stuff like that, I I kinda stand a chance with with some of the new guys that I'm working with. But I I've been a perennial loser at Pinnacle my entire sports betting career.

Alex Piskopos [00:46:45]:

I am not scared or ashamed to admit that. So, yes, to answer your question, I need the pro lines, the Titan plays, the bet 365s, the draft kings of the world, because I pick on them with the what I know about what the number should be because of the sharp books out there.

Shane Mercer [00:47:04]:

You know, I just wanna say, like, yeah, Pace, I I take your point there that that, you know, we need these we need these soft books. Absolutely. And, you know, probably nobody needs them more than me, you know, because I'm kinda like with Pinsky there. You know? I'd I'd you know, I wanna avoid the the the sharper books where I can. But when I talk about a government agency, something that my tax dollars go towards, I I it's fine, you know, if you wanna limit me, but give me a reasonable limit. Don't give me a dollar limit. I think we can all lead, I guess, is the point, you know, where where, you know, Pinsky, you made it very clear that look. BOLG is raking it in.

Shane Mercer [00:47:38]:

I think maybe they can allow some of the sharp bettors to come in and eat a little bit. They can afford that without limiting us to the point where you can't use them anymore.

Alex Piskopos [00:47:48]:

I I I totally agree. Have have you been limited completely on Proline to, like, $1 max? Yes. You have? Okay. Because I I have an account there. Now I don't know if this is maybe because they they just don't wanna see the social media storm that will ensue if they do put me at 1 single dollar. On on soft markets, on, like, some of this really weird challenger tennis stuff that I've been betting, the limits are super small, like, $50, $75. But on other things, my account is still good. I deposited at the Super Bowl because they had some stupid promotion going on, this past Super Bowl.

Alex Piskopos [00:48:24]:

Yeah. Yeah. This past Super Bowl. Made a small little deposit. I've probably 8 x my deposit. And, yeah, I I don't have the biggest limits, but it's still usable stuff. Right? I can still get in 200 here, 500 here, a1000 on some of them. And I I'm kinda shocked by that because I my strategy is, like, I'm delicate when I go into new books.

Alex Piskopos [00:48:47]:

Right? If it's a fresh DraftKings, if it's a fresh FanDuel, I'll kinda, you know, try to look as square as I can going in there. But once you put the cuffs on me, and let's say you give me 10% limits and my max bet is $200, well, now you're getting all the shit. Now I don't care. You know? You're getting Bulgaria division 2. It's it's coming. It's coming hot. You know? And I just I just let them have it, and I've kinda found a way to use these small limit books to my advantage because, yeah, sure. One book let let's say one account will give you $200.

Alex Piskopos [00:49:17]:

If I have 10 of those accounts, well, you know, that's 2 dimes. Right? So, yeah, it's it's it's really a cat cat and mouse game, but once once it gets down to anything lower than a 100, that's when it's time to Well take the payout and move on.

Andrew Pace [00:49:33]:

Yeah. And I I the last thing on the show I wanna do is be like, oh, Pace is defending the sportsbooks limiting player. Like No. That's not what I'm about. It's just the when I look at the equation as a problem and take take the lottery local lottery corporation out of the out of the discussion. And you're telling me the alternative is everyone is on this, you know, super sharp moving lines, model where every wager, you know, is is fixing the juice as action comes in and, you know, you can see some pretty crazy stuff. Obviously, that's not what that's not the world that I think is is is what any player really wants, and the market has shown us that in a big way. Like, people love FanDuel for oftentimes their highest hold products.

Andrew Pace [00:50:19]:

These crazy same game parlays that they make the most money on of anything else is why people want to play there. Right? So, you know, you know, all the answers together aren't necessarily the the easiest thing, but I think you brought up a good example. You know? So you've limited me to 200. Well, if you go out into the public and you're just walking down the street and every single person that walks by you is a sports bettor, we know that on average, not everyone's betting $200. In fact, 200 would be viewed as quite a large bettor even though it is far less than what we would like to get down on one particular event. So there is a reasonable amount that exists out there where you go, okay. This is my, you know, my lottery book now where you go, hey. I can still I can still bet 200 there.

Andrew Pace [00:51:10]:

And, you know, you know, Joe Smith John Smith walking by you on the street is gonna be like, 200? You bet 200 on a game? That's a lot of money. Right? So there is some reasonable amount that's out there, and a lot of these sportsbooks, obviously, a bet 365 being just such a good example where you place 1 wager. 1. And the second that it's placed, you get that email, your account, and your limits are now at a buck. It's like it's just it's insanity to me that you can't manage your book better to allow for players to be able to to wager 3 figures on a game. It's nuts.

Alex Piskopos [00:51:48]:

Yeah. Yeah. Especially with with what some of these places are pulling in and all of them, to be honest. Like, there there's not too many sharps out there. Like, there is, but in in terms of the grand scheme of it all, what do you were talking 99 to 1. Right? So, yeah, you should be able to to book $200. But, again, maybe maybe I just gave away the secret sauce. It's like, well, if we do that and this guy has 50 accounts, well, guess what? We still have to deal with this asshole.

Alex Piskopos [00:52:16]:

So you know what I mean? So I don't know. I I to be honest, I I don't know. Go we could go back and forth on this all day long, and I I still think there's, like, question marks. And and I'm one of the rare few that actually understands it from both sides of the equation. Right? So I I get it from from a sportsbooks, side of things because, man, when I worked with a lottery corporation and, you know, we we well, I say we, I'm I'm gonna group myself in with with the other, odds makers and stuff, but they we had a lot of squares. So on certain games, we would push certain favorites. The Toronto Maple Leafs, heaven forbid, if they were hot at any time, you know, we could push them and make them extra favorites because we know everyone that's going to buy their bread and milk are gonna put the Maple Leafs in their parlay. But when you do that, you give value to the other side.

Alex Piskopos [00:53:06]:

So Toronto playing the Phoenix coyotes, well, guess what? The Phoenix coyotes were paying better at at proline than they were at pinnacle. So what does that tell you? Well, that tells you that a lot of sharps are gonna realize this and go out and have the Phoenix coyotes in every single one of their parlay. And then when the the Phoenix coyotes would eventually win because they don't lose every single game, they'd win some. Man, the lottery corp would take some serious hits. And and the way they they some of these sharp groups, got down on this stuff. Like, I would honestly take a 15 minute bathroom bit break. You know, everything's good. The liability on each every every game looks looks solid, and then I come back and then, yeah, holy shit.

Alex Piskopos [00:53:48]:

How the fuck did they bet $50 on Phoenix in 15 minutes that I was just at the washroom? Like, I I know how hard it is to get down on this shit. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's I don't I don't know if there's a perfect answer because, again, if if everyone turns into pinnacle, I'm screwed. I gotta go find something else to do with my time because I I I can't beat pinnacle easily.

Andrew Pace [00:54:11]:

You're actually describing something that we've talked about it inplayLIVE quite a bit about Toronto Sports in general. Nothing specific to OLG is exactly what you just said. Toronto has such a remarkable concentration of really some of the best fans in sports from a loyalty standpoint. The betting concentration in Toronto is extremely high per capita, and then you get teams that typically are gonna be favorites in a lot of games and crazy volume coming in on them. So separately of being, you know, at OLG, I think that fading Toronto can have value just from the concentration of bettors and and and how heavily they back their teams. You don't get a lot of people in Toronto betting against the Maple Leafs. You know, and the the the following for the Blue Jays, is insane as well. So, yeah, I I find that, what what you just said is actually something that can be exploited to an extent.

Andrew Pace [00:55:12]:

We do that in live betting quite a bit, against, you know, some of these really heavy heavy favorites in hockey. And, I mean, the Maple Leafs in the regular season have been insane for a good few years, but a really good example is is some of those hockey lines that you see on the minus 300, minus 400 favorites for the Leafs now these days, especially since the the legalization. When when, when the regulated sportsbooks landed in Ontario, I saw bigger favorites on the Maple Leafs than I'd ever seen in hockey across the league ever.

Alex Piskopos [00:55:44]:

I yeah. Pretty wild. Yeah. I I believe that. Like, I I don't know if they could really get away with it too much in terms of of pushing it these days because people have odd screens, you know, whatever one you're using, Don Best, bank odds. You know? And if if you see an outlier every single time well, the Sharps are gonna notice. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Alex Piskopos [00:56:02]:

And then and then they're coming.

Andrew Pace [00:56:04]:

That's what I'm saying its across the board. Like, Toronto's over handicapped across the board to deal with the amount of volume that comes in on them.

Alex Piskopos [00:56:12]:

I believe it. I believe it. And even, you know, I I could see them these days of, yeah, charging some extra juice on Toronto, but not giving it to the dog. Yeah. Right? So just increasing their line because that that's that's kind of the dirty tricks that they they use out here. But, yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:56:28]:

That's the Titan plays strategy.

Alex Piskopos [00:56:33]:

He's he's goddamn.

Shane Mercer [00:56:34]:

There you go. I can't believe Pisky, first off, though, I just gotta say, I love, love, love that you used the Phoenix coyotes as in your example there because teams from Arizona are very near and dear to our audience's heart. We we absolutely love teams out of out of Arizona for betting reasons.

Alex Piskopos [00:56:53]:

Okay. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:56:53]:

Yeah. Yeah. Shout out the bags. Alright.

Alex Piskopos [00:56:56]:

Well, you guys noticed that that when when you're a sharp bettor and I was talking to this with, with my prop guy the other day because it seems like everything that he's betting is underdogs and unders. Right? Just all all the shit that has value is that you're usually betting on the junk, the garbage of sports betting. And, like, I'm I'm used to it at this point. Again, like, during that that OLG project, we had every under on in every single game, so you get used to just cheering for pure garbage. But that's that's the way it is. That's where the value is. Right? So it it it's it's kinda kind of a different way of doing things, and I think that's why a lot of people just can't handle sports betting for real because you end up getting forced to take a lot of this stuff if you're playing the value game where and people don't like that, man. Like, the average Joe wants to bet favorites and overs.

Alex Piskopos [00:57:46]:

Right? None of this Yeah. Dogging undershirt.

Shane Mercer [00:57:48]:

Hey. Let him have it.

Alex Piskopos [00:57:50]:

That's it. That's it. Keep keep gobbling those up because we're waiting on the other side, 100%.

Shane Mercer [00:57:55]:

Exactly. Well, you know, Pinsky, we're already out of time here a little bit, but I just wanted to get a sense of of you know, we talked a lot about where where you've been and what you've done. What are you doing now? What are you doing as time goes on? What can people expect from the Always Betting podcast?

Alex Piskopos [00:58:09]:

Well, the Always Betting podcast is a little different. We we've had different angles. We're in our 4th season now. And, you know what? We actually did it a weekly episode when we were doing that OLG project. So you can go back and listen to it now. Advance apologies because we were very new at podcasting, so it probably sounds like shit. But, there's probably, like, some fascinating stories that we told that I don't even remember to be honest because we were doing it actually every week that we were doing that project. So, the the podcast nowadays, we just started, this this past Friday, come back for season 4 and we're having a little bit more fun with it these days.

Alex Piskopos [00:58:52]:

I I think there's a lot of podcasts out there that, you know, if you want to learn a lot of information in the sports betting industry, there's podcasts out there for that. Now we can teach you a thing or 2, but we do it in a much more digestible manner. It's myself and, the guy that I worked with side by side at the OLG for 13 years. We call him the Godfather and and we like to have fun with it. We we incorporate a lot of our day to day lives. We like to shit on sportsbooks like we did here today. And, and this season, for the first time ever, we're actually, trying to come to a consensus. So we joined the Circa million, football contest down in Vegas when we were there at BetBash.

Alex Piskopos [00:59:31]:

So we have to come up with 5, picks every single week against the spread. And that's that's what we're doing this season is is having a little fun with it. The Godfather is is a favorite guy. I'm an all dogs go to heaven guy, and we have to come up with a consensus, 5 picks every week. So there's gonna be some fireworks. There was just some fireworks in our first episode. So that's what's going on with the podcast, and and we're gonna mix in different things as well, maybe have guests on from time to time just to to keep that educational component as well, just to switch it up. You don't wanna hear us dummies talk all the time.

Alex Piskopos [01:00:02]:

So there's that. And, for myself, I just completed my 1st year as a full blown entrepreneur. So my goal now is, just to create as many revenue streams as possible for myself. And, by doing that, I'm also creating a lot of content and kinda documenting my journey. So that's something if you wanna follow along, still trying to figure it out the the whole social media thing, but, I am pretty active on there. I do, talk to my phone quite often. And, yeah, it it's it's this new journey, and I I I left a lottery corporation in 2021 to to do this. 2022 is kind of a transition phase in Las Vegas.

Alex Piskopos [01:00:42]:

And now 2023 2024, yeah, full blown entrepreneur. I I dabble in crypto. I dabble in sports betting. I dabble in, in rental properties. So I'm just doing a lot of different things and and hoping that, a lot of mud will stick to the wall. And, Yeah. I can create some, some new additional revenue streams for myself. So it's entertaining and, yeah.

Alex Piskopos [01:01:06]:

Follow along on the journey. And all my social handles are at piskypositivo, p I s k y, positivo. And, the only reason why people think, oh, what is this guy some sort of preacher or something with this positivity shit? It's actually just a personal reminder to not get on social media and bitch and whine that, like, a lot of people do. So I threw Positivo at the end of my name so that I'm like, every time I go there to complain about something, I'm like, oh, no. I can't do that. I'm a positive guy. So that's what it's all about.

Shane Mercer [01:01:35]:

Love it. Love it. Yeah. Hey, man. Having that positive mindset is is extremely important in this line of work.

Alex Piskopos [01:01:41]:

Oh my god. Yeah. Especially in sports betting and in entrepreneurship, if you come to the table, if you sit down in front of the computer with a poopy diaper, you're in you're in big trouble. You you gotta be as positive and as upbeat as you can. And, yeah, so far so good. You know? I don't I don't wanna get ahead of myself. I I I know these things, especially like in sports betting here today, gone tomorrow. So, you know, delicately move forward and, hopefully, the good times keep rolling.

Shane Mercer [01:02:07]:

Hey. You know what? I'm a big fan of the Always Betting podcast, The Godfather. What a character that guy is. That must be a lot of fun recording with him. Great show. Like you said, it is a lot of fun to to listen to, and, you guys have a great time on

Alex Piskopos [01:02:19]:

there. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. The Godfather is, is like a second dad to me. He's he's been around, myself and and my friends and my family for for so long. And, you know what? He he's a hard worker, man. He he's dedicated.

Alex Piskopos [01:02:34]:

He shows up every podcast episode full of energy and fire, and, it it just adds to it. I I think it's fantastic, and he helps me a lot with the betting stuff that we do. And, Yeah. I can't say enough good things about him. It's it's it's a lot of fun, and we have great chemistry together.

Shane Mercer [01:02:51]:

Awesome. Well, it's been great having you on our show here. This is a lot of fun, recording with you and then chatting with you. I I had a great time, getting to know you. And, you know, maybe we'll have you back sometime. It would be great. Would you love to come back?

Alex Piskopos [01:03:03]:

I I'd be honored to you guys. Honestly, I I love what you guys are doing. I I I jumped into your website before getting on here a little bit. Like, you guys have done a shit ton of work that I can see. And, you know what? I'll tell you whatever marketing strategy you're using is working because my feeds are polluted with inplayLIVE shit. I'm telling you. And, you know what?

Alex Piskopos [01:03:26]:

I support it because I gotta get better at that myself. You gotta scream and yell a lot on social media, and I try to do the best I can. But sometimes you get in your own head and you get overwhelmed with it. But you guys are doing it, the right way and, yeah, keep pressing and and and keep going. And it's it's honestly it's amazing meeting like minded individuals that understand what we have to go through as Sharp Bettors and stuff like that. It it's it's great connecting with guys like you. So I really appreciate you having me on here.

Shane Mercer [01:03:56]:

Hey. We were happy to have you. Alright. Well, good luck with your entrepreneurship. Looking forward to listening to you and the godfather fight it out week in week out on the Always Betting podcast. That'll be great to to listen to as you pick your spreads. And, yeah, maybe we'll have you back on the show again sometime. But for now, that's it.

Shane Mercer [01:04:12]:

To everybody out there, all the sports bettors listening around the world, pace, piskey. Till next week, keep beating those books. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download, and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and everywhere you get your 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.