Episode 79

Scott Moyer [00:00:00]:

Is if you're a professional and you get thrown out of a soft book, you've got 20 friends. Now those 20 friends sign up and they give you their account. It ain't right. It ain't legal. It Happens, okay?

Shane Mercer [00:00:14]:

We wouldn't know anything about that.

Scott Moyer [00:00:16]:

I know, this is all theory. On the highway the speed limits 65. If you go 65 on the highway here in Vegas, they'll run you over.

Shane Mercer [00:00:37]:

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. On today's show, a lawsuit in the works, the power of positivity, or maybe it's the downside of negativity. I've got a story to tell.

Shane Mercer [00:01:05]:

And we've got Scott from Vegas horse pools and Spank Oz joining us in just a little bit. But first, pace, this is a big one. Huge announcement for us, the audience, all of you out there who have been following the behind the lines podcast from the beginning, we are very excited and proud to share that we are now powered by Pinnacle Sports. Yes. Pinnacle Sportsbook has decided to sponsor this podcast, and we couldn't be more thrilled. We're super excited about it. Couldn't have found a better sportsbook to align with the pace. Do you wanna share some of the details?

Andrew Pace [00:01:48]:

I mean, well, details wise, it's, it's pretty straightforward. I think that they're a sportsbook that we recognize as players that we can play at long term, plain and simple. Right? There's a few of those that have come on to the podcast, and there's a few that have come on to the podcast that maybe aren't as aligned with us. Yeah. So I think just the journey in general is as a sports bettor is, you know, you you wind up using a sports book like Pinnacle as a bit of a crutch knowing that it's there, knowing that it's safe, knowing that it's yours, knowing that they're not gonna take it away from you. And and it's just really cool that they recognized us as well as going like, hey. These guys are playing through us. That's a big part of this.

Shane Mercer [00:02:34]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:02:34]:

These guys are playing through us. They know many of our players are winning. They know that. So a lot of people would be like, you can't beat Pinnacle. We have. Right? And many of our biggest players beat Pinnacle and have beaten Pinnacle for numbers beyond what people could fathom. It's it's actually crazy. They are believers in a lot of the things we've touched on, in this show, where they go, hey.

Andrew Pace [00:03:02]:

Sharp players are great volume players for us, and they recognize our role in that. And not only do they recognize that they they value it. So it's really cool.

Shane Mercer [00:03:13]:

Yeah. Really, really awesome. So so glad to to have them on board and to be associated with them. And, and and, you know, you're absolutely right. We we beat them. In fact, I beat them this weekend. Maybe not for as much as some other people, but I I definitely got after them this weekend, and it was great. And and they aren't upset.

Shane Mercer [00:03:31]:

Right? That's the best part about it. Right? They won't be upset about that kind of thing. And, you know, they'll let us keep playing there for for as long as we want, and, it's it's just, can't say enough good things. We know we've we've spotlighted them on the show in the past. We had, some of their former employees, Jesse Liermonte, a guy who who really sort of, helped develop the product into what it is today. We had him on a few months back. And, and, of course, the former CEO, Paris Smith, we had on, who's just a a complete trailblazer in this industry and did huge things for for that sportsbook. And it's just, this this really feels like a a a very natural, pairing.

Shane Mercer [00:04:08]:

And so, again, just couldn't be more proud.

Andrew Pace [00:04:12]:

Yeah. Absolutely. That should be a lot of fun, and, we'll have more details, I think, to come. This is new at the moment, just with how how it can impact someone that is maybe a member of inplayLIVE and and that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's it's exciting.

Shane Mercer [00:04:25]:

Yeah. Sure. Incredible. Alright. Well, on points of pride here, Pace, we're coming off a pretty solid weekend, over, when it when it comes to the NFL and even college football as well on on Saturday. I know you guys had a had a pretty solid day there, but also marked by a couple of big mile stones for some of the inplayLIVE team. You wanna wanna share some of those details?

Andrew Pace [00:04:45]:

Oh, yeah. Sure. I mean, I always will get messages of success stories, but, yeah, we had a couple big ones from this past week. We had our our guy Joe hit the 6 figure club, which is really cool. And, Gosu, who's been on the podcast for a good 3 or 4 episodes, I think, he just hit 7 figure club.

Shane Mercer [00:05:00]:

7 figure club. Wow. That's big money right there.

Andrew Pace [00:05:03]:

Yeah. Really cool. So I think Joe started with about $2,000, and he, 18 months later, hit a 100 k in profit. One of the things with this podcast, right, is, like, behind the lines. So you want to get behind the lines. And sometimes there's episodes where, you know, maybe we cover a little bit more news than what's going on at sportsbooks. And, you know, maybe we cover, something that maybe isn't the biggest plus EV listen or learn for some of our our guests. But I think the biggest sort of plus EV take home that I always get when I hear these stories.

Andrew Pace [00:05:35]:

So $2,000 from Joe started with it 18 months ago. Shane, we obviously did your journey to a 100 k. They're the takeaways from these stories are so unbelievably consistent that if you're a a listener and a learner, whether you're at the 8 figure, 7 figure, 5 figure, or 4 figure level when it comes to betting, it honestly doesn't really matter because it's consistency, it's great habits, it's survival, which means that you didn't just print money for 18 months. You know, you you stay you stayed consistent with learning and discipline and money management. And that doesn't mean that you didn't make mistakes in those areas. It means that you grew from them, when you made them and, and persevered. Right? And, you know, if you if you we talked about this on your episode, but if you annualize the 18 months, you know, with the 100 k, you're like, okay. Well, it's not that crazy, but it's the scaling.

Andrew Pace [00:06:38]:

Right? It's like the that last 10,000 may have come in in potentially a week. Right? Yeah. So, you know, it's the scaling and where you go from there. And then with John hitting the 7 figure club, he joined in PlayLive as a professional pregame sports bettor and, did a lot of futures, stuff he still does to this day. And he started with us with a $20,000 bankroll, which is actually extremely uncommon. I would say most people start with $5,000 or less. Yeah. And most most start with 2,000 or less of of the of the group I just referenced there.

Andrew Pace [00:07:15]:

And, you know, it's been, you know, a two two and a half years, or so with John for him for him to be able to do that. And, yeah, really, really special. And I know that he hit a wall. Like, he really, really hit a wall. You know, he kinda launched to that $250,000 level almost overnight. Really smart guy, you know, great sports bettor, picks up the strategies and runs with them. And then, of course, when you hit that wall, a lot of that can be, where am I gonna get my my bets in? How am I gonna get money down? He's also in Tennessee, which makes things really challenging from the standpoint of a lot of the markets that we may take for granted in some of the regulated states or provinces. He might not have access to them in the same capacity.

Andrew Pace [00:07:56]:

A good example of that is, like, in Arizona, you can't bet on flash props, in football. So, you know, there's a lot of bettors on there out there on social media and things like that that we'll talk about, those flash prop markets, and it they did they just aren't even there. And I know Tennessee is similar with a lot of things. So, you know, you can make excuses and say, oh, I can't do this or I can't do that, or you can figure out what the next step is and and go from there. So, huge congrats to those guys. It's always great to hear about these success stories. I think that puts us at 26 people in the 7 figure club or or past and present, 26 people that have hit, a $1,000,000 in profits. Really cool.

Shane Mercer [00:08:34]:

That's incredible. Well, big shout out to to John Wilson. Congrats, man. That's a that's an incredible milestone at a $1,000,000. And, and huge shout out to Joe, reaching the 100 k club as he sort of continues to make his way to that $1,000,000 mark. And, I just wanna say too, you know, Joe, gave me a shout out on the stream, on Sunday when he, let the team know that he had hit that 100 k mark. And, Joe, thank you for for sharing that. It's such an incredible, feeling, to know that you helped contribute in some small way to someone else's success.

Shane Mercer [00:09:09]:

So, Pace, I think I have a little bit of a sense of how you must feel, when people share their success stories with you.

Andrew Pace [00:09:14]:

What what did he what did he say, Shane? I missed that.

Shane Mercer [00:09:17]:

Yeah. He just said, you know, thanks to me for, some advice I gave him in one of the focus group sessions, that we've been doing at inplayLIVE.

Andrew Pace [00:09:24]:

Oh thats amazing.

Shane Mercer [00:09:24]:

Yeah. Because, Joe in particular was having an issue, around scaling up and and, you know, pushing his unit size a little bit further than, what his sort of personal level of comfort was, but his bank role at where it was at required him to up his unit size. So he was sort of, you know, at this point where it's like, well, I'm not really comfortable. I think it was maybe, like, you know, he was betting a $100 when he should have been betting more like $400. You know? And and he just wasn't at so he pushed his comfort level, and we kinda had a good conversation around that. And, boom. There you go, guys.

Shane Mercer [00:10:04]:

The guys in the 6 figure club.

Andrew Pace [00:10:07]:

Yeah. There's a lot more to that Yeah. Shane, and it's not it's it actually has nothing to do with that advice specifically. It's what we did leading up to this football season, and I think to 2 things. I think number 1, putting together these focus groups where you have a smaller group of people that can engage with a pro in a more intimate level. That helped me beyond words can say, and I was the pro leading my my, my focus group. So the message here to anyone that is taking anything seriously in life, but if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, hey. I wanna be a better sports bettor.

Andrew Pace [00:10:45]:

I wanna make money from betting on sports. Prime yourself for what's to come so that you're ready for it once it arrives. So doing, like, a football preview focus group with some of the best sports bettors in the world that are members of our community, going to BetBash, doing that same thing, and then going to our event and listening to Kenny talk about how he's gonna make this season the most profitable yet. I've almost hit my level of profit from last season in 3 weeks.

Shane Mercer [00:11:18]:

Wow. That's awesome.

Andrew Pace [00:11:20]:

It's just been nuts.

Shane Mercer [00:11:22]:

That's incredible.

Andrew Pace [00:11:23]:

And a lot of fun. And I don't think I'm doing that much different. It's just cleaning up little things and being ready. That is so beneficial.

Shane Mercer [00:11:33]:

Well, there there you go. But, yeah, I totally agree that those focus groups go go both ways. You know, I'm leading the group, but I'm learning so much at the same time. And and, you know, it's great to go and, you know, join someone else's group and and learn from other, pros as well. Like, they've just been super valuable, and we've gotten great feedback, on them. And and this was just one of those pieces of feedback that that came over the weekend and makes, you know, made me feel, great to sort of be a play a small role in someone else's success. So that that's fantastic stuff from from the weekend there. Alright.

Shane Mercer [00:12:03]:

Pace, let's move on. We've got something else in the works, going on, that you wanted to share. When we achieve this kind of levels of success along the way, there are certainly, challenges that we have to meet head on and overcome. And one of those challenges can sometimes be, dealing with some of these, books, specifically, some of the ones that operate in the gray market, the offshores, some of those, you know, crypto based books and that kind of thing. And, they can be a little bit shady sometimes. We talked about that, at length here on this podcast. But, there's now a lawsuit underway, pace, against a book that I think, many people might be familiar with.

Andrew Pace [00:12:50]:

Yeah. Yeah. Before I kinda touch on that, I think, like, you know, there's been some comments sometimes on social media, like, maybe from a reel I've posted about, you know, sort of like a mini sports book review of, like, my experience at that particular book. And they're like, why wouldn't you just play at, you know, FanDuel as an example? And, like, yeah, if you listen to the podcast, obviously, we've gone through, you know, books that limit, books that don't limit. You know, it can be kind of, honestly, like, a little bit of the same discussion over and over again to an extent. But the reason why we play on some of these sites is because we can. Right? Or it's where they'll take our our money. Now we just had a major UFC fight night recently where it was in the sphere, and it's in Nevada, which is one of the we've actually end up touching on this with our our, with our guest, but we touched with him with we touched on it with him offline and online.

Andrew Pace [00:13:50]:

And Nevada being a very difficult place to, I guess, play play on some of these newer post 2018 regulation sites. And then, you know, this topic of gray area and offshore sportsbooks and, you know, getting the licenses, which we obviously touched on with Joe last week, that whole equation. And then sitting on the on the arena at that that UFC event is stake.com. Right? So they're not licensed anywhere, in any of the states. And obviously, they are advertising to UFC, which is predominantly being watched by people in the United States in a legalized state that's very difficult to get licensing done. So how are Americans playing on Stake.com when they don't accept American users? Right?

Shane Mercer [00:14:46]:

Mhmm.

Andrew Pace [00:14:47]:

So right. Like, what does that equation look like for Stake? Why are they advertising in that capacity? Why is why are major, major celebrities, a part of them, their their operation? And they are huge now. Stake is huge. They've really, really made a dent in some of the offshores, just with their whole crypto landscape. And what that caused, that whole stake movement, was a whole bunch of sportsbooks to follow suit. And one of those sportsbooks is RollBit, and RollBit is very, very well known online and in the crypto world. They've got tons and tons of sponsored influencers and gamblers on social media playing on their sites, and they have now hit the point where they've developed a reputation that, yes, they do limit their players. They limit them quickly, but they are not paying their players.

Andrew Pace [00:15:40]:

And this is just this is not just people at inplayLIVE. They are making it near impossible and even completely closing people's accounts down without access to any of their information, any of their data, nothing, and taking their money and seizing their funds. One of our users, like one of our members, they just had a situation with Robit where they accused him of a a whole series of things. And when he denied the accusations, which, by the way, were completely false so they basically said to him, like, we know you're multi accounting. Please tell us all the other accounts that you're using. This is his first and only account at RollBit. It is in his name. Wow.

Andrew Pace [00:16:27]:

They accuse him of all this stuff. He denies it, and they said, sir, we require you to be truthful in order to receive your funds.

Shane Mercer [00:16:37]:

So they just accuse him of lying. Okay.

Andrew Pace [00:16:40]:

So he then gets the regulator and the lawyer involved, and they come back to him and they're like, sir, we just needed to make sure that you were being truthful. We didn't we didn't, say any of the things that you're claiming we said. And he's like, well, you implied that I was lying to you and had and tried to trick me into telling you I had other accounts so that you could, in fact, not pay me. So the thing is, though, is that when you compound all of this, we, myself included, I am one of these people that I'm mentioning, go to, the lawyer that we use for this stuff for Curacao Sportsbooks. And the stories have now compiled with this sportsbook, not over the course of the last month, but over the course of the last several years. And there's, like, a class action lawsuit that's going down against Rollbit, and, they're gonna be completely fucked. I don't know if they're gonna file bankruptcy, but it it may come to that because, like, in my case, specifically, it's not that big of a deal, but they have about $25,000 USD of mine, from years ago. And what's crazy is my lawyer separately of this lawsuit went after them for my funds, and they claimed I never had an account, period.

Andrew Pace [00:18:04]:

They said the account doesn't exist. Then after this is like this is like a long time. We're like fast forwarding a year forward. Then they said that the regulator of Curacao sided with them in their case with me. So they are deferring to the Curacao regulator. What they're saying did not happen.

Shane Mercer [00:18:31]:

Yead they just made it up.

Andrew Pace [00:18:32]:

There was no case with me, they made it up. So it's it's a pattern of of lying. They're trying to trick their customers into saying things that will get their money taken from them. Like, sir, we need you to be truthful, and then once we are, we're gonna use that as a reason not to pay you.

Shane Mercer [00:18:48]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:18:48]:

Right? Once you are is a loose statement because that isn't this is happening to completely, you know, innocent users of their site. Right? But then separately of that, they are actively lying to people about the situations that they're in, which is just nuts. So, you know, kind of being on the sidelines of all this, I just basically said to everyone in inplayLIVE, you need to contact this lawyer immediately, if you have any issues with RollBit right now because they need as much ammo as they can possibly get. So if you're listening to this and you've ever had an issue with RollBit, message, @inplayLIVE on Instagram, and we'll give you guys the contact information of the the legal team that's working on this. I don't know if it's too late for for that stuff to be included, but I don't think it is. So that this is something, Shane, that I think that will provide an update on in probably a year or 2.

Shane Mercer [00:19:41]:

It probably will go on for that long. Yeah. You know, these things never move quickly, but, you know, yeah, they need to be done. And this is this is, you know, this will be this will serve as an example to other books that are, you know, contemplating behaving this way.

Andrew Pace [00:19:55]:

Right. And I think that I've noticed a pattern of a few different sportsbooks where they jump onto the scene, they get excited about the prospect of being a sportsbook. Mhmm. It was mentioned by someone, I think this was Joe again from Prime. It wasn't on our podcast. This was offline where he said when you start a sportsbook, you know, your first 500 users are essentially like vultures. They're absolute sharp players that are coming to kill you, and you have to weather that storm. And what happens is when you first start out and you do have, you know, these sharp players coming into play on your sports book, you are putting yourself in a situation where if you aren't trustworthy out of the first few players, they probably get paid out and they think like, oh, maybe they even had a long leash because they're like, oh, he's not gonna win long term.

Andrew Pace [00:20:43]:

They go, holy smokes. We really do have to cut this person off. And then you hit a level where you're like, okay. We need to basically find some tricks of the trade to to screw these guys over. And then the reputability goes down the tank. And we've seen books like that. They come onto the scene. Some people got their money, then there's a whole wave of people where it becomes a problem, and the site just disappears and they're gone.

Andrew Pace [00:21:04]:

So you do have to be really careful approaching these sites, but I I will also say, RealBit, They're one of the they're one of the they're it's like Stake is that big crypto sportsbook. I know Cloudbet's up there too. But Stake's that big crypto sportsbook, and then it's literally like roll bit right behind them. And what's also crazy is I have now seen them disappear when you're searching for sportsbooks. I've seen them disappear off of almost every single list because I think what's happening is anyone that's recommending them is obviously also being contacted by the customer that initially, you know, was recommended to them and and saying, hey. Like, these guys aren't paying me. And, I I would imagine that it it would be happening in the casinos as well. Just they're just not paying people that are winning money in any way.

Shane Mercer [00:21:51]:

Wow Yeah. Just just terrible. I mean, it's you know, that your the reputation is tarnished now. That's it for for that. You know? And it sounds like anybody that was referring people to them is is disassociating with them. So, you know, you know, it seems like it can only go downhill for them from here. And and I you know, you bankruptcy, like you mentioned, is probably the most likely scenario, and it means that maybe some people aren't gonna get paid out long term, which is unfortunate. But, you know, at least there'll be one less, one less shitty player out there.

Andrew Pace [00:22:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. It does suck, but I think that, you know, the it's out there, and we have to be aware of it before we we engage with it. And, like, I had a really bad odds provider that I worked with, to the company called DittoBet. I I think I got my account balance up to about 50,000 with them, and then they they seized my funds. I was able to win this one. I got I got that money. Took a long time, but I I got those funds and I was like, I'm never gonna play on that odds provider again.

Andrew Pace [00:22:50]:

But while I played on that odds provider, I was like, fuck. This is awesome. I'm gonna, load up a couple more of these, find out where else I can get ready and and and lose some money on those accounts so that they're ready to go when whenever it is that I turn back to them. And one of those, accounts site called BetPlays. And, I've gotten 3 messages in the last 2 weeks. We don't we don't recommend them in any way, shape, or form, but 3 messages in the last 2 weeks of people where, they've taken all their money and not paid them out. So, the lawyer is coming for them next, but buy or beware with these with these sites. Make sure you are going to ones that are are reputable.

Andrew Pace [00:23:27]:

And if they aren't, make sure you have some sort of recourse.

Shane Mercer [00:23:30]:

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well and and, you know, if you're looking for that recourse, inplayLIVE is a community where, you know, people are able to network, talk to each other, figure out those those paths, you know, to to to sort of handle these types of challenges. And, you know, anyway, thanks for the update on this one, PACE. We look forward to sort of hearing where it goes, as as, you know, as developments happen. You can share them with us here on the podcast and share them with with all of our audience. So that's, what we'll be watching that one, closely.

Shane Mercer [00:23:59]:

Alright. I wanna share something quickly before we get to our guest. It's not gonna take very long, but I do wanna share this because I think it's a little sort of just something that I've learned over the last couple of weeks. And maybe, you know, maybe it's something that I kind of knew before, but it's it was crystallized for me, shall we say, over over the last, few weeks of the NFL season and pace. You know, you were saying that that you've had, you know, an amazing season so far. We're we're not even all the way through week 3 yet, almost done week 3, but you've already sort of had an incredible season compared to last season. And, that that's awesome to hear. I know that the team at inplayLIVE as a team has just been smashing on NFL.

Shane Mercer [00:24:36]:

And to see the, the unit tracking, after each NFL day, to see, you know, 4 units added on a on a Thursday, you know, on a single game, and then, you know, 5, 6 units on a Sunday. And, you know, it's just been piling up when it comes to the NFL, and it's just incredible to see, the team's success. But I myself did not have that success in week 1, especially week 1. And it it kinda trickled over into week 2, a little bit, and I only started to get right towards the end of week 2. And and then this past week, for for week 3 was just phenomenal. So but why why wasn't I in step with the team? Why wasn't I having the same success as everybody else? And, I think a big part of that, had to do with my headspace and where I was at. So I won't get into too much of the details here, but I had 2 major personal conflicts going on in my life. One of them with a friend, somebody who I'm in a fantasy football league with, the league that that is sort of my main league, so to speak.

Shane Mercer [00:25:48]:

And this all stemmed it it was essentially a very, very stupid conflict and fight that bubbled up and and blew up into something much bigger than it should have been over fantasy football. And I'll just leave the detail. I know. It sounds absolutely ridiculous to say it, to talk about it like that. But but let me tell you that the fight was real, and the the conflict with this person was very, very real, far beyond fantasy, at least for that time being. And we both sort of needed to take a break, but during that time, that conflict this is somebody I've known for a long, long time. Like, we're talking, you know, 20 years, more than that. You know, somebody that that, you know, I've had good relationships with over over time, and and this was also a very public fight as well within the fantasy group.

Shane Mercer [00:26:40]:

Okay? And so this was all following our our draft and so leading up to week 1. And so I had that, and and I didn't feel good about that. My headspace wasn't in a good place because of that. It was weighing on me this this tension, that that, you know, existed there. Now on top of that, you know, PACE, I'm married. I just marked 11 years of marriage with my wife. We've been together for 18 years, so long time. And as anybody in a long term relationship will will tell you, there are fights.

Shane Mercer [00:27:20]:

There are things that happen. There are things that, you know, can come to a head. And sometimes a fight, you know, can last more than a day. It might not get settled in the moment. And, you know, you may be able to go about everything else in life, but there's still that tension that exists there. You know? And and, you know, when we're talking about that sort of tension with the people we love, the people that are closest to us, that can have impact on us. And so not only was I having this fight over the stupidest of things in in a fantasy football league, but I was also experiencing a lot of, tension with my wife over something we were fighting about. And and, you know, I won't get into all the details about it all because no nobody cares about that.

Shane Mercer [00:28:02]:

But the point is is that I wasn't right with the person in my life that I love the most. And on top of that, I wasn't right with a good friend of mine. And so I had these conflicts weighing on me as I'm going through week 1, and I don't think I was in a great headspace for betting. And, you know, we talk a lot about how it's so important to maintain a positive, headspace and a positive sort of frame of mind as you're approaching betting and and how crucial that can be for making good decisions. Well, on the flip side of that, having, you know, a significant amount of negativity in your life or tension or unease can have very much the opposite effect. And I think I made a lot of bad decisions, especially in week 1, where where I was sort of have had all of that going on. So, I just sort of wanted to put that out there as kind of, something to share because I I think there's probably other people out there that, you know, end up going through things like that. And and, you know, I I want you them to know that this can impact your betting.

Shane Mercer [00:29:06]:

I think sometimes we like to think that that it's okay. That's over there, and this problem's over there, but now I'm gonna focus on betting. But betting can be a very emotional thing. And if you're not, I think, in the right frame of mind for it or if you do have a lot of maybe, you know, things that are just weighing on you or making you not sort of feel good, that it can certainly cause you to make some some bad decisions. And at least that was the case for me. So, I'm gonna try to be more mindful of that going forward that that maybe, you know, maybe the fight with the neighbor down the street isn't gonna have that kind of impact, but maybe the the the fight with the person that that I'm sharing my life with is gonna have that kind of impact. And, you know, maybe it's best to sort of get right before, you know, making, financial decisions in the betting world and and sort of placing wagers and that kind of thing. Anyway, it's something that I'm gonna be more cognizant of going going forward.

Shane Mercer [00:30:05]:

But I just wanted to put that out there and share that post week 1, week 2 really sort of started to get back on track. And like I said, week 3, boom, we're back, baby.

Andrew Pace [00:30:18]:

Yeah. I think the first thing is the whole, like, I don't think people care. I think people care more than you think, Shane. You know, when you have a raw, you know, sort of challenging moment in your life, the first problem you brought up sounded kind of stupid. I hate to be rude to you.

Shane Mercer [00:30:37]:

No. No. No.

Andrew Pace [00:30:38]:

A Fantasy football conflict. I'd be like, put your sports boy stuff behind and focus on real problems in life. But the second problem is real. I'm not saying the first isn't because I don't we didn't get the details. But the second problem is one that's gonna really hit home with a lot of people, especially people that, you know, do bet full time for a whole weekend. Yeah. Right? And that's always something that's extremely difficult to navigate separately of that. It doesn't matter what the issue is.

Andrew Pace [00:31:09]:

If you have conflict or challenge in your life, it shows you that betting on sports isn't just following some dude telling you to take pics. Right? It's your decisions. Totally. It's your environment. It's your mental capacity. It's your headspace. It's your sportsbooks, your location. The list goes on and on.

Andrew Pace [00:31:28]:

Right? So I think it's a really powerful lesson. The first is when other people are winning, it doesn't mean that you are even though you're in the same group.

Shane Mercer [00:31:37]:

Yep.

Andrew Pace [00:31:38]:

And that's okay. How that that should motivate you and inspire you. On a podcast before it was behind the lines, with one of our long standing members of inplayLIVE, we interviewed someone who very much brought up, you know, that whole discussion in the grand scheme of their betting journey and how important it is to, you know, basically be completely right in order to be able to succeed long term and that you have to learn and go through those struggles yourself in order to to succeed. So, man, I I think that's I think it's really powerful recognition, on your side. And and, yeah, again, something that that a lot of people are likely, you know, resonating with to an extent. I'm actually I'm referencing, has Azaan been on the podcast with us on behind the lines?

Shane Mercer [00:32:34]:

No. He hasn't been on behind the lines with us. No.

Andrew Pace [00:32:36]:

But he he he was a guy who said, like, I did well, and then I stopped doing well. And I needed to take this more seriously because I knew other people were winning, and it motivated him. Yeah. Right? So it that drove him to go, hey. I can be better at this, and then he's, you know, arguably the best at it. Right? That's just something that's really, really important to recognize. So, yeah, good on you for doing all that. And then, the stuff with the wife, man, it's like, god, that's so important.

Andrew Pace [00:33:03]:

You know? Like, it's so important. Happy wife, happy life. But more than that, it's it's, you know, your guys' ability to support each other and and and your ability to succeed at something. And it's like you're not support if if things aren't good on one side and then it call it causes issues in the thing the very thing that you might be even even arguing about to an extent.

Shane Mercer [00:33:27]:

In this case, I might have had the the conversation I'd never been understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Other stuff.

Andrew Pace [00:33:32]:

Rather like pressures. You know, it it goes to show you that the compound effect of something like that where, you know, things are things are struggling here, and it's leading to struggles elsewhere as well. So, yeah, really, really good advice to everyone. Get your head in the right space and be ready to go. Or or or maybe maybe that's not the day for

Shane Mercer [00:33:49]:

you. And and, you know, for me, getting right meant getting right with those people and and, you know, solving those those conflicts with the people and and, you know, coming to terms and making amends. And and that's, you know, I think that's probably, you know, just as important as it you know, for for other aspects of life as it was for the betting aspect of life. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, wanted to share that. Got that off my chest. I'm glad I put put that out there to the community.

Shane Mercer [00:34:13]:

But, Pace, now I think it's time to move on, and we've got a guest joining us. So let's head over to Scott. Alright. We've got Scott, owner of VHP Proxy, leader of customer support at Spank Odds, an unfortunate Huskers fan. Gambling Twitter knows him best as Vegas horse Pools. Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Moyer [00:34:36]:

I thought this was gonna be a friendly get together here, but I guess not. I got some anti Huskers here. Go big red, by the way. Go big red.

Shane Mercer [00:34:44]:

It's just a tough time, isn't it? Like, I mean, you know, we gotta mention it. So it's gotta be a tough time for you.

Andrew Pace [00:34:49]:

No. They're back.

Scott Moyer [00:34:50]:

They're back. And here's the thing that you guys don't realize. The last time we had a Riola as a freshman on the team was 1997 national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers. It's deja vu all over again. We're going all the way this year.

Shane Mercer [00:35:07]:

Alright. We're officially saying they're back. It's been, like, 3 weeks, but they're back. Okay. They're back

Andrew Pace [00:35:11]:

This is the thing. Right? So we're recording this before Friday, September 20th, and this is their first real test of the season. Would you agree with that, Scott, or no? No. You think they got tested with Colorado?

Scott Moyer [00:35:24]:

No. They haven't been tested yet, and Illinois will not test them either.

Shane Mercer [00:35:30]:

Oh, okay.

Andrew Pace [00:35:33]:

I mean, Illinois is a well coached team. I know Brett Beliema is like you know, he's kind of a slow start, and I know I talk shit about him to a lot of whenever we I have a chance to talk shit about him when we're actually betting live. I do. But, honestly, like, I feel like he's done a good job with that program. They're playing good sound football right now as well. So you're saying that won't be a test?

Scott Moyer [00:35:54]:

I do not believe Nebraska will cover this week, but Nebraska will be in charge and will win the game. I know they're not gonna quite make the number, but they will win it. The biggest problem Nebraska has this week is the game is on Friday. And nobody in Nebraska wants them playing on Fridays. That's high school football day. So Nebraska tried to get that game moved several years ago and couldn't get it done. Nebraska wins this game handily, but they will not cover the number. So I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it turns out it's not.

Andrew Pace [00:36:27]:

I like that you know the outcome already.

Shane Mercer [00:36:29]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna say

Andrew Pace [00:36:38]:

And the people are gonna be watching this after the outcome, you're either gonna be a genius or just, something somethinga little bit different there. But, honestly, looking at their schedule, you know, you're never gonna have an easy you're never gonna have a cake walk, schedule with, you know, the Cornhuskers and and, obviously, their their storied past in college football. They're always kinda one of those teams. Mhmm. But there there's already a line on week 9 for Nebraska against Ohio State. Do you know that?

Scott Moyer [00:37:01]:

No. I have not looked that far ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:37:03]:

They are 26 point dogs.

Scott Moyer [00:37:07]:

Well, that sounds like free money. Take that.

Andrew Pace [00:37:13]:

So that is October 26, Nebraska in Ohio. That is a tough, tough game, but the spread early on is indicating that, Nebraska doesn't even have a chance. And Ohio State looks freaking unbelievable this season. So, that will be a test for you guys. If if, if you are back, I don't wanna say you'll win that game, but you'll stay in that game.

Scott Moyer [00:37:37]:

Oh, yeah. They'll stay in that game for sure. The big ten is really strong. I know miss Michigan stumbled a couple of, what was it last week with Texas. But, other than that, the big ten is really strong. That's gonna be a great game. I think you take the Huskers all the way. I would take the points in that game.

Andrew Pace [00:37:54]:

Yeah. I hear you. So the quarterback being a Mahomes, you know, impersonator, what are your thoughts?

Scott Moyer [00:38:00]:

That doesn't affect me. All I care is that he scores. I don't care who who he wants to be. He's doing it.

Andrew Pace [00:38:07]:

Through through week 3, he's he's done a great job.

Scott Moyer [00:38:09]:

He's done an outstanding job, and I love having his dad back in the stadium. Dominique's his dad. Absolutely. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:38:15]:

Cool stuff. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:38:17]:

So Scott give us a sense then, you know, of what kind of, a sports bettor you are. Obviously, you have a passion for college football. Do you mainly focus your betting on football these days? Are you are you betting all things football, and are there any other sports you're looking at?

Scott Moyer [00:38:32]:

Well, I pretty much bet every single sport. I try to not bet Nebraska because I don't wanna have a heart attack. There's a limit to how much my heart can take. Right? My heart's already all in in the game. If I had money, then it causes me problems. I stay away from Nebraska. But other than that, I have a huge advantage over everybody that you're gonna talk to. I have a full time job working for Spanky.

Scott Moyer [00:38:57]:

I'm customer support for Spank Odds. So my job all day long is to watch the boards. Hey. This number doesn't look right. We need to take a look at this book. So given the fact that I stare at the screen 12 hours a day, basically, 7 days a week, I'm a full time bettor too. Because when I see something that looks pretty tasty, I go ahead and bet it myself. And then I report it back to, to the programmers.

Scott Moyer [00:39:23]:

Hey. You may wanna take a look at this because this is way off. And then usually, we find is it's a book that's just really, really heavy on the other side. So I'm basically just trying to help them out if you will. But it's very, very hard to look at. For me. Yeah. I'm just trying to help people.

Scott Moyer [00:39:38]:

That's all I try to do.

Andrew Pace [00:39:40]:

I love it. Hey, Scott. You're in Vegas Yes. Obviously.

Scott Moyer [00:39:43]:

Yes.

Andrew Pace [00:39:44]:

Running your proxy service, you have to be.

Scott Moyer [00:39:46]:

You have to be.

Andrew Pace [00:39:46]:

So like, the betting landscape in Vegas being a full time sports bettor, If we rewind the tape, we go back to say, you know, 10 years ago, but let's say, 2010, it's like every pro bettor needs to be in Vegas more or less. I mean, I'm I'm maybe I should rewind the tape a little bit further. Because by then, you had some pretty good offshores that you could bet at in other countries and things like that. But just as a general statement, that that was probably accurate. Where do you how do how would you say that has changed in the last 10 years now to where we are with online betting today? And the reason why I ask is because with our community of bettors at inplayLIVE, Nevada really struggled out of the gate because they found it hard to do what we did, which is predominantly live betting on a lot of not it doesn't need to be regulated apps, but, you know, a a lot of live betting online.

Scott Moyer [00:40:40]:

Well, here's the the question. I get this question a lot at Spank Odds. I get every question in the world at Spank Odds, just so you know. And I've had this one before. They said, Hey, I'm thinking about going pro. Where should I live in the United States? Should I move to Nevada? I say, Absolutely not. This is not for you here. If you're gonna move, there's only 3 states you should live in.

Scott Moyer [00:41:02]:

That's number 1, New Jersey. Number 2, Colorado. Number 3, Arizona. So

Andrew Pace [00:41:09]:

I got them right in my head, dude.

Scott Moyer [00:41:10]:

Yeah. Those that's your top 3. Now, you might argue number 2 and number 3 are reversed, but those are 100% the top 3. Nevada is not where you wanna be. There's better opportunities in those 3 states. So that's where you should be.

Andrew Pace [00:41:25]:

Nevada has improved though, I'd say, in the last couple of years with some of the online stuff. Like, I know even just they were even slow you guys were slow just getting even kiosks to bet at.

Scott Moyer [00:41:37]:

Yeah. It's the gaming control here is really tight, which is a good thing, and it's also a bad thing. It's pretty much about, like, anything in life. There's good and bad to almost anything that you can say. And, our gaming control is really strict. We don't get a lot of new books added into our market. I really I'm trying to think the last book that was actually added to our market. But there's so many books out there available.

Scott Moyer [00:42:02]:

Like in Colorado, I think they got 25 books. And new New Jersey, they got 20 some books. And we got less than 10. So it's a it's a real problem here for that. We need to open it up more, and I don't know how they're gonna pull that off because you have to have a casino presence in Nevada. You can't just be an online book.

Andrew Pace [00:42:21]:

That makes it so challenging.

Scott Moyer [00:42:23]:

That makes it hard. Right.

Andrew Pace [00:42:25]:

So, like, WynnBet got bounced, like, WynnBet's done. Is WynnBet still in Nevada?

Scott Moyer [00:42:30]:

Well, see, when you say WynnBet, what I actually hear you say is win. Because Wynn Nevada is different than Wynn Bet. There's separate it's not the same. And WynnBET is WynnNevada is fine here for us. But WynnBET, I believe, is closing down everywhere if I understand it right.

Andrew Pace [00:42:51]:

And and our understanding, Shane, I think, was that WynnBET was the same lines as Golden Nugget. So do you still have Golden Nugget there, and do you have those those lines still?

Scott Moyer [00:43:00]:

We have Golden Nugget in Vegas. The problem with Golden Nugget is they don't have an app. So you can't bet it from the app, you have to bet it from the kiosk. We also have Treasure Island in town that does the exact same thing. They have lines, but it's a walk up book only. So people that are, trying to bet, via their phone can't play there. Wow.

Shane Mercer [00:43:25]:

Wow. Yeah. That makes things that makes things really challenging. Interesting. Scott, I got I want I wanna ask you about Spank Odds because, you know, I think it's relatively newer and, you know, it sounds like it's a it's a fantastic odd service. But tell me a little bit about what it is exactly, how it differs from a whole bunch of the other, odd services that are out there.

Scott Moyer [00:43:48]:

Well, I I don't know if it differs so much, but there's a few things that I think that we do better. We have a ton of books, and I think we have a very, very good, amount. I don't know. There's 60, 70 books that we have. We have 3 books, Pinnacle, the Chris, and we have Bet 365 that are only available to the paid subscribers. Because they kick out lines so often, they take up a lot of our processing time. So we've got to limit those just to the paid users. But you can use Spank odds for free, forever.

Scott Moyer [00:44:24]:

And I know Spanky's gonna love me saying this. You can use it for free forever. All you gotta do is go to spankodds.com and sign up. We give you every single feature that Spank Odds have. What I think is one of the most valuable things about Spank Odds that nobody else seems to to do is when you put your mouse over the odds on one of our premier books that give us the limits, the ones that give us the limits are like, Pinnacle, Chris, Bet US. Let's see what else we got. Circa. Would you hold your mouse over that? It'll tell you what the book will take.

Scott Moyer [00:45:04]:

Now this is a very important thing and Spanky's talked about this a lot and I definitely learned this from him. If you see a sports book and you could set this up in Spankot so it'll notify you verbally when this happens, when the lines move. If they've moved the lines, that means they've taken a bet that they're solid with, and they really like their new number. It gives you a chance if you're a top down bettor to look at that. So let's say Chris just moved their line. We just got a spank odds notification. You can look at the line history and see what it was before. You can see what it looks like now.

Scott Moyer [00:45:40]:

Now, you know, this is what Chris believed is a very, very solid number. Then using top down methods, you can look around and see where you can pick up the old number at because that number is profitable. That's a that's probably the best tip you're gonna get on Spank odds.

Shane Mercer [00:45:57]:

And and you're saying that you can you can move your cursor over it and you'll see the the limit?

Scott Moyer [00:46:01]:

Yes. The limit.

Shane Mercer [00:46:03]:

Really? Even on soft books, they'll they'll show you what their what their limits would be on that market?

Scott Moyer [00:46:07]:

No. You have to be a premier book. If you're if you're a soft book, that means you throw people out. We do not have limits for them. Here's why. Because at soft book number 1, your limit's a $100 and mine is $200. So what number would we display? So you have to be a premier book. And there's only a few premier books in the country.

Scott Moyer [00:46:27]:

Pinnacle, Chris, circa, Bet US, those kind of books. So that's about that's the only ones that we can display that for. And that's why they're those are the guys who don't kick you out. That's where you wanna do the majority of your betting and the majority of your learning.

Andrew Pace [00:46:44]:

Scott, there's something you said there too about the paid feature having certain books

Scott Moyer [00:46:51]:

Mhmm.

Andrew Pace [00:46:52]:

But the free version not having that because it took up too much bandwidth or whatever techno novel you said. So what I find interesting about that, just having used some of the other odd sites that are out there, is the sites you referenced actually don't even work on those sites, period. Let alone the whether you're paying or not, they don't work there.

Scott Moyer [00:47:13]:

Well, not every not every odds aggregator that you're gonna look, work with has all the same books. We all have different connections. Spanky pretty much has a connection with everybody in the world. So if they wanna be on an odd, odd screen, they're on our odd screen. And some of them that don't wanna be on an odd screen are on our odd screen, because if you make him mad, then he just does it anyway. So if you when you look at Spank Odds, we have all the premier books because they wouldn't be a premier book if we didn't because they're welcoming everybody. Therefore, they want more business because they know the secret of bookmaking. The secret of bookmaking is take all the bets.

Scott Moyer [00:47:58]:

When you take a bet, move the number. That's the secret of bookmaking. I don't care who you are. It's the secret. Because after you move the number, if somebody bets that number, you move it again. You're going to find the number really, really quickly if you have it open to everybody. Because if you have it open to everybody, you have the best in the world. So if you have a plus 10 and the best in the world is betting the plus 10, you probably better be at plus 9a half.

Scott Moyer [00:48:29]:

And if he fires back at the 9a half, you need to be thinking about 9 or maybe even 8a half. But you will get that number so much faster if you don't restrict people because your movement is going to be so much quicker and save the book money. That's the part that just blows my mind about books that are soft to think the right way to do it is by limiting or throwing people out. It's the worst thing you can do because what they do to you next is if you're a professional and you get thrown out of a soft book, you've got 20 friends. Now those 20 friends sign up and they give you their account. It ain't right, it ain't legal, happens, okay?

Shane Mercer [00:49:12]:

We wouldn't know anything about that.

Scott Moyer [00:49:14]:

Yeah, I know. This is all theory. On the highway, the speed limit's 65. But if you go 65 on the highway here in Vegas, they'll run you over. Because the limit's 75 here, okay? So if you're in a sports book and they throw you out, you call 20 people. Now the sports book doesn't know you're one of the best in the world. They know that there's 20 people scattered around the valley that are betting some side and they don't know why. Where they would be so much better off if they gave it to the pro, let the pro come in in his name, saw his name on it, saw he was willing to bet the plus 10, and moved it to the plus 9a half.

Scott Moyer [00:49:50]:

I'll never understand why you don't do it that way. I'll never understand

Andrew Pace [00:49:54]:

Especially to especially to if you're trying to get down, like, tens of 1,000 or even 6 figures.

Scott Moyer [00:49:59]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:50:00]:

You know, again, like, if if you're complaining that you can't get that kind of money down, no one cares. But if you're saying, hey. You know, you can still bet low 4 figures here, 1,000 or $2,000, and a lot of people think that's high, then at least it's a two way street. You're going, hey. I can get some money down here. It's reasonable. You know, it's keeping the lights on at home for me to an extent. You're getting the information.

Andrew Pace [00:50:28]:

Seems like a pretty fair trade off to me, but, I'm not the right guy to ask, I don't think, because my opinions are are extremely biased.

Scott Moyer [00:50:37]:

Well, mine are biased too and nobody cares what I think. But I'm not gonna give any advertisement to any book in Vegas. But I have a book here that will take $22 on just about anything I wanna bet. Well, there's nothing I wanna bet at $22. There's nothing. Therefore, they might as well have thrown me out. It makes no sense. But that's their business model, so I guess let them run with it.

Scott Moyer [00:51:01]:

But let but let's Go ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:51:03]:

Go ahead. No. Go ahead. Say, let's go back to Spank Odds. So let's go back to Spank Odds. So you said that one of the biggest differentiating, pieces is, you know, that cursor and that information. And I'd I'm the last thing I'm gonna do is is debate with that. I think that's tremendous.

Andrew Pace [00:51:18]:

Is there anything else that you would throw on top of that where you go, this is why, you know, you should head over the site? You obviously said it was free. That's cool too.

Scott Moyer [00:51:25]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:51:25]:

Or can be free. Yeah.

Scott Moyer [00:51:26]:

Well well, here here's the free. The free is for your recreational gamblers. This is probably 90% of the population. Spanky thinks it's closer to 97. I think it's a lot closer to 90. So you're probably gonna believe him. But I think it's 90. They're they they can live with a 5 minute delay.

Scott Moyer [00:51:45]:

The price is right. It's free. We have a step up. It's a little over a $100. It's only a 2 minute delay, which is still too slow for a pro, but it allows you to get the pinnacles, the Chris, It allows you to be able to save all your settings because you're gonna find on Spank Odds there are so many tools that you wanna tweak. For example, there's only 5 books that you wanna see when you log on. Well, if you're on the free version, you've got to set those 5 up every time. Where if you're if you just step up one level, pay about $100 a month, the books are the books automatically save for you.

Scott Moyer [00:52:20]:

But then when you want to be for you. But then when you wanna be a professional, you step up to the professional level. There's a lot more tools that we have. For example, we have line history of previous games. That's available to pros, which is a really good feature. Because last week, somebody was playing and you wanted to see what every line move was at circa in the Steeler game 2 weeks ago. Well, if you're a pro, you could do that on Spank odds. But the the the free members, to access that database.

Scott Moyer [00:52:56]:

That's a huge advantage for you to see stuff like that. It all comes down to what you want to do. Spank Odds is set up by Spanky. It was designed by Spanky. It's done the way he thinks things should be done. So, you know, this wasn't somebody in an ivory tower just spitting stuff out to this. This is the stuff that Spanky really believes is the good stuff. Yeah.

Scott Moyer [00:53:23]:

That's where you're gonna find game alerts. I just got another question about this, yesterday. Somebody wanted to know, hey. I wanna know when there's opening lines or at circa on college football. Well, we have a feature for that. You go down to, to opening alerts, and Spankaj will yell at you whatever you wanted to say when the opening lines come out on circa on college football.

Shane Mercer [00:53:52]:

Alright, Scott. That that's all awesome. What the work you're doing with Spanky and and Spanko, it sounds like a fantastic service, especially to to professional sports bettors out there. But I gotta ask you because I know you're heavy into Survivor. And these first, couple weeks of Survivor, NFL has been an absolute gong show. People are getting booted left, right, and center. Tell me a little bit about what you do in the world of Survivor with, with circus sports.

Scott Moyer [00:54:22]:

Well, I have a company called VHB Proxy. And, actually, this is my 2nd year running it. Last year, I got flooded with messages on Spank Odds saying, hey, I wanna sign up for, the circuit contest and use your proxy. So, of course, I called Spanky and I said, hey. Are you running a proxy service I don't know about? Because I've got a bunch of people that wanna sign up through us. He says, no. I I don't run it. I don't I don't wanna run it.

Scott Moyer [00:54:50]:

I don't wanna start it. I've got enough to do. I said, okay. What do you want me to tell these people? Because we've got a lot of people that wanna sign up. He says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to an attorney tomorrow. I want you to start a company. I want you to run a proxy service.

Scott Moyer [00:55:07]:

I want you to name it. I want you to do it. I don't I don't have time to have anything to do with it. I said, okay. I'll make an appointment with an attorney. We'll get this thing done. So last year, I ran the proxy service. Very simple.

Scott Moyer [00:55:20]:

I had a Google, Google, forms that you would fill out. It was very, very simple. You'd put your pics in. At the end of the night, it would kick me out a report. I would enter everything. So what I did over the course of the year is I wrote down every problem or every question that I got from customers. And this last off season, I went to Spanky and I said, Hey, am I doing this proxy thing again? He said, yeah. Let's do it do it again.

Scott Moyer [00:55:49]:

That was great. I said, okay. Well, they're here. I had all these questions. Here's the first question that you should have if you're gonna hire a proxy. Do you trust the guy? Because if you don't trust the guy, you should not hire him. I don't care what he if he's doing it for free, it's too expensive. You're talking about a $12,000,000 prize.

Scott Moyer [00:56:09]:

You've gotta have somebody that you're willing to bet $12,000,000 that they're gonna do the right thing for you. So I'm that guy. I'm easy to reach. You can reach me through at spank odds because I run customer support there. You can send me a message on at Vegas horse pools. I'm there 12 hours a day. So that was the first thing that I think you need to worry about with a proxy service. The second thing that I found is you need to have confirmation that I got your picks.

Scott Moyer [00:56:40]:

So on my new service that we had one of the Spank Odds programmers write for me, he wrote the the back end for me. Now when you log on with we have security now, you have to have a username and password to log on to my system. You put in your 5 picks for 1,000,000 or your one pick for survivor, depending on what you have. After you hit submit, it fires you an email and says, here are the picks that you made. We're gonna send you another email when Scott actually puts them into Circa. So then I get my report on Friday, and I enter the picks in there into the Circa system, and I tell the server, hey, I just put this pick in, and he immediately sends you another email. Said, look, Circa has just taken your pick. You're all good to go.

Scott Moyer [00:57:29]:

The next question that I would get from people is they wanted me to grade their picks. They wanted me to say, hey, you were 4 and 1 this week. You were 5 and o this week. You bought 5 survivors and 4 of them are still alive. Well, the new serve server keeps track of all that. When the football games are done, I tell it what the score was of every one of the games. It looks at the picks that you made and said, Oh, all your picks are in. I'm gonna send you an email and let you know you went 5 of and 0 this week.

Scott Moyer [00:58:02]:

Congratulations. You you had 5 survivors. 4 of them made it, 1 of them didn't. Next week, you'll be going with 4. It is so perfectly automated. The other thing that you need to worry about with a proxy service is getting your picks in and not forgetting. Every single person last year had 1 week where they had a problem and they forgot. Almost every single person.

Scott Moyer [00:58:29]:

Well, the new server automatically sends you an email about 12 hours before the picks are due. And then about 3 or 4 hours ago to go before the picks are due, if he's not getting he's got a bunch of people that haven't put picks in, he'll fire you another email, 3 or 4 hours. Then about 2 between an hour and a half and 2 hours to go, if he still hasn't heard from you, he sends you an SMS and said, hey, guy, just so you remember, we gotta have picks in tonight. And then, of course, at 7 o'clock when the picks are actually due, anybody who is missing, I make a phone call too. But the server has basically turned this in from to a one man job into a 2 man job if he's taken all the heavy lifting. So the only thing I have to do is take the report to give me and put them into the system. It's a pretty it's a pretty easy job. I really enjoy it.

Scott Moyer [00:59:23]:

It's a great net networking opportunity for me because I cater to people that go to BetBash and use Spankodds. That's who I cater to. I'm not catering to the 14,000 people that subscribed. I'm looking for that one niche because we're kind of like, we're almost like a family here with the group that I'm trying to deal with. And we're just trying to give you a little bit of something else. So if you want to play in the contest, I'll handle it for you. You want to listen to a podcast? Spanky's got Be Better Bettors. You want an odd screen? We got Spank Odds.

Scott Moyer [00:59:59]:

Just trying to keep everything all in one place and make it easy for people. I don't know. That's my thought about it. But these first two weeks have been absolutely insane. Because if you're the top pick or the second pick, it seems like you're going down. Luckily, the Texans survived last night, which I have to admit in the last drive when it was 19 to 13. I really could see a 2019 score coming up and whacking that one out too. But yeah, we've lost 2 thirds of the field.

Scott Moyer [01:00:27]:

It's crazy what's going on, but it's a fun time. And like I said, it's 12 plus $1,000,000. So somebody's gonna enjoy it.

Andrew Pace [01:00:36]:

Scott, we had, the survivor Atlas, Gabe on, our show, and he was talking about EV in survivor. So your knowledge of the picks in advance must create crazy EV. So how do you deal with, like, confidentiality and and and, like, you are you playing in it yourself, things like that?

Scott Moyer [01:00:57]:

Okay. That's a very good question, and I expect to get this question a lot. And believe it or not, people trust me enough that they don't ask me that, but I'll give you the answer. I have I have no entries, But I will also admit that I believe everybody that signed off offered me a chunk. And, I've turned them all down. So, well, I turned them all down but a couple, I guess, a couple of my had to do. But, no. I have no interest in any picks myself.

Scott Moyer [01:01:27]:

I think it would be a conflict of interest, and I just would not feel good. Imagine I won the $12,000,000. I would not feel good accepting it given the fact that I have a proxy service. I think that you should be separate. And so the only way I can do it separately is to just stay out of it. And that's what I've chosen to do. And I have more fun this way anyway. I can cheer for you guys.

Andrew Pace [01:01:51]:

Well, the one thing that you could do with just from an information standpoint, I know that, you know, you're you're doing this you are not you're not taking a malicious approach in any way, shape, or form, but the information that you get even though the circuit rules are different. But you could go to the BetOnline survivor knowing, you know, where the majority of the picks are coming in at. But also too, if you are working with people from BetBash, arguably, you're getting sharper information from players that maybe don't represent the field as well as some of the other some of the public. That that other 4th let's call it the 500 versus 14,000. I think the 500 might be a little bit better off than the the rest of the field, but but I can't speak

Scott Moyer [01:02:27]:

to them. Yeah. I think you're very you're you're right on that. What I thought was funny, Adam and I talked about this on on the show that we do on Saturday at 4 o'clock because we go through the top picks for the survivor pool. And he talks about the inside information behind the book at Prime. Prime is one of those books where they don't limit anybody, so they get the sharpest of the sharp. And on Saturday night at 4 o'clock, we talk about all that and who the book needs. I I think that show is gold.

Scott Moyer [01:02:57]:

If you're gonna watch a show, I think that's a one to be on your list. Adam broadcast it on Twitter, and it's a great time. But I'll tell you this, the 1st week we did the show, we were 0.3 off on the percentages of the entries for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most popular. Wow. So we were dead on the number. 2nd week, we weren't nearly as close, but the 1st week, it was frighteningly close. It looked like I'd actually looked at the circuit information claimed that was it. But the one value that I give to all my clients is when you log on to the server, it'll let you go back into the past.

Scott Moyer [01:03:36]:

It'll let you go back into the past and look at week 1, percentage of people that picked each team. Or week 2, or whatever week you're on, you can go to the past and see those. Cool. And then at 4 o'clock on Saturday, when the picks go final, I turn that function on in the client. So at 401, 402, you can log on and you can see the HP proxy customers, which I have to admit, I won't even admit somebody is a customer. I have customers and I believe that's confidential. So the only thing you're gonna see is a percentage.

Shane Mercer [01:04:15]:

Alright. That was Scott from Vegas Horsepools and Spanko. It's great to have him on the show, Pace. Looking forward to possibly having him back on the show at some point, maybe, towards the end of the college football season.

Shane Mercer [01:04:24]:

It might be a fun time to bring him back and chat again. Yeah. He's, he's extremely well connected in this industry.

Andrew Pace [01:04:34]:

Really great guy. Unbelievably knowledgeable. And, I have to say it because we recorded that last week. We've seen the Huskers game on Friday night. Shane, you don't watch college football. Did you watch the Huskers game on Friday night.

Shane Mercer [01:04:47]:

I was paying attention to it, and then I I think it went a little late, and, and I had checked out.

Andrew Pace [01:04:52]:

Okay. It's crazy, though. You know? It's it's the the it's the the tail old fanship discussion, right, when it comes to betting. He he said he can't bet Huskers games because it would be too much. Like, his basically, his heart couldn't handle it.

Shane Mercer [01:05:10]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [01:05:10]:

And I I actually think that that may have not been a metaphor. Like, I actually think there there's a chance that it could have been detrimental to him. But separately of that, a guy of his knowledge, a guy a guy of his betting success, a guy of his connections in the industry working with guys like Spanky, knowing Billy Walters personally, all that kind of stuff. List goes on and on. He told us the outcome of the Huskers game. He said, they will win, but they will not cover. Not, I think they will. Right?

Shane Mercer [01:05:38]:

No. He was definitive.

Andrew Pace [01:05:40]:

Yeah. He was definitive. And he also talked about them going to the playoffs. He said that Illinois wasn't a real test. They lost. Right? So, Illinois looked great. That's why I just love to never have any bias going into a game. I love to head into that game going, this is the game.

Andrew Pace [01:06:00]:

I don't know anything about it in advance, and I don't want to know anything about it in advance. If someone's like, Aaron Rodgers isn't playing tonight. Well, I'm gonna see who's playing when when I turn the game on. A lot of people would argue against that, but I I really like to to not have that bias heading into the the game because it's impossible not to completely have bias. It's impossible. There's gonna be something that happened in the past that may help you in a lot of ways live betting, but it may also hurt you as well. So you wanna drop as much of that as you can. And, Scott, thanks.

Andrew Pace [01:06:32]:

If you're still listening, thanks so much for, coming on with us. And, your Huskers are, this is not their year, buddy, I don't think, in my opinion.

Shane Mercer [01:06:41]:

Oh, jeez. Wow. Oh, he's gonna he's gonna come back at the end of the at the end of the season, their pace, and I guess we'll we'll see where things are at. And Yeah. You know, somebody's gonna be eating some crow, I think. Yep. Yeah. That'll be great.

Shane Mercer [01:06:54]:

Alright. Well, that was a fun show. Great to have Scott on. Lot of, lot of fun, chatting with you as always, Pace, but I think that just about does it for us this week. So to you, to the sports bettors listening around the world, till next week. Keep beating those books. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download, and subscribe.

Shane Mercer [01:07:12]:

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.