Episode 85

Welcome [00:00:00]:

You're listening to Behind the Lines, a podcast presented by inplayLIVE and powered by Pinnacle, the number one sports book where winners play and never get limited. Go to pinnacle.com/inplaylive to sign up and get in the game.

Shane Mercer [00:00:28]:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines, a podcast purifying the sports betting industry and powered by Pinnacle. Remember to like, download, subscribe, drop us a comment. We wanna hear from you. If you got a betting story to share, let us know. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. We've got Andrew Pace, as always, the founder of inplayLIVE, a community of like minded sports bettors dedicated to long term success. And on today's show, we have the founder, owner, editor of the Smart Betting Club, Pete Ling. Welcome to the show.

Shane Mercer [00:00:58]:

Glad to have you.

Pete Ling [00:00:59]:

Yeah. Thanks for having me on, guys. I've listened to a few episodes lately, and you've had some illustrious guests. So happy to come on.

Shane Mercer [00:01:06]:

And now you yeah. Now you join that club of illustrious guests. So so thanks so much.

Pete Ling [00:01:11]:

No. A pleasure. Absolute pleasure.

Shane Mercer [00:01:13]:

Okay. So just I wanna start off. You know, it's always great to sort of get to know somebody early on in a conversation like this to get a sense of where they come from in terms of betting. I'm gonna guess that based on the accent, your focus is on Premier League Soccer.

Shane Mercer [00:01:31]:

Am I right about that? What did you first start betting on?

Pete Ling [00:01:34]:

Well, yeah, I was that's my main team, you know, my main sport. So, like, Sunday evenings, I've texted my friends, and they're all watching American football, NFL, and I've completely zoned out. But, yeah, like, I started betting. Yeah. Exactly. Like, I hit that sweet spot. So I think when the Internet betting boom was really taken off, I was at an age where, you know, I was taking a few risks. I was, you know, happy to get involved and interested in it.

Pete Ling [00:01:55]:

In in betting, we always had a lot of numbers. So that just, you know, factored in quite nicely to to sync up with betting. And, I had a, yeah, like I said, a long standing interest in that. Statistics and math, I was you know, I took my GCSE and a level math in in England, early because, I was you know, I had the aptitude for it. So always enjoyed all of that. So just natural about just the timing and the syncing of everything that had a interest in betting. And then, yeah, like, I, started the SmartBetting Club, like, almost 20 years ago now. I try to think back when we started.

Pete Ling [00:02:27]:

It was such a long time ago, and it's evolved since then. I bought that and my own personal betting has come on a long a long way. And, yeah, it's just a passion. You know? It's like when you do something that you enjoy, it doesn't feel like a job, and it doesn't feel like that.

Shane Mercer [00:02:41]:

Let's get into the why of of why you started the SmartBetting Club. Were you a winning sports bettor before you started it? And and, you know, why did you think that you needed to create this?

Pete Ling [00:02:52]:

I was I was doing okay. It was back 20 years ago. The markets are ever so different than what they are now, and I was betting a lot on horse racing, UK horse racing, which again has significantly changed. But back then, I lived in England. Now I live in in Canada. And, yeah. So me and my my initial business partner that I started the Smart Bank Club with, we're doing some betting together because he went to school together. So we, you know, bonded over many of the things that I enjoyed, like maths and statistics and numbers.

Pete Ling [00:03:19]:

So we did the betting, and then we I remember we got a newsletter. He got a newsletter through The Post, which is one of these betting it's like a betting review newsletter. And it was kind of highlighting services, which there's a few of them we're like, these aren't any good. We we we followed a few of these. We know that would say they're scams, but they were just, like, not not particularly not particularly good. And this review newsletter was highlighting bad products effectively. It wasn't actually being a genuine source for intelligence or information that would help you as a bettor. So we figured that we'll do it in a different way, and we knew there were some products that we were using that had an edge.

Pete Ling [00:03:53]:

And it just started from there. Like, so the first issue that we put out was just, you know, Microsoft Word. It was super basic, but we had the fundamentals of what, you know, we wanted to put out there. And just from that, it's it's just snowballed as as, like, an independent resource to help people who bet.

Shane Mercer [00:04:09]:

Yeah. Okay. So I I guess we didn't really make that very clear right off the top, but the SmartBetting Club, the the purpose of it is to identify bad services from good services, you know, you know, positive EV, tipsters versus those who lose long term. Right?

Pete Ling [00:04:30]:

Exactly. Yeah. That's a simple way of saying it. Yeah. Like, we we help you. If you enjoy betting, if you've got an interest in it, then we can help you with our, like, reviews, our recommendations, our you know, the we don't just do surface level analysis. We go in quite deep. And, yeah, we provide you not just reviews of services these days, but, like, you know, anything that goes alongside it, whether it be psychology, whether it be, like, bookmakers.

Pete Ling [00:04:49]:

We've just done some stuff on offshores. We've done a podcast with, someone who's crypto a sports trader for a crypto firm. So we're trying to keep our finger on the pulse, give people, you know, anything that pushes themselves forward, you know, their own betting forward. So, yeah, we're there. So if you have an interest in that and you're looking for someone that you can trust and think, actually, these guys, know, shortcut, they could help me figure out what's good and what's not. Like, yeah, we do that. We do it so much less on bad bad services these days just because there's so such little upside to it. You know, you find a scam and you're like, they're a scam.

Pete Ling [00:05:19]:

What can you do from there? Right? But when you find a good service, you can really you know, you can follow them for years to come. You can make some money, betting them. So that's generally our focus.

Shane Mercer [00:05:28]:

I wanted to ask you about that because it's like I imagine you come across a lot of shady shit.

Pete Ling [00:05:34]:

Yes. Yeah. You don't have to go far. Just open up x, you know, and you'll find, yeah, you'll find plenty.

Shane Mercer [00:05:41]:

I mean, yeah, you got all these people out there, like, you've mentioned, you know, AudX, Twitter, Instagram, any kind of social media that are, you know, putting pics out there on a regular basis and, you know, maybe they're tracking stuff, maybe they aren't. I mean, you know, there must be so much bad out there, but I would also imagine that the people that invite you to come take a look at them believe that what they're doing, you know, yields long term positive value.

Pete Ling [00:06:07]:

Yeah. Exactly. Generally, those people that want us to come and investigate what they do know that they have some finished substantial of of use to offer. You do get the occasional person who thinks they're better than they are. And when you get down to it, they're not quite as good. We have one recently like that. And then you have to publish that and, you know, sorry, but, you know, you are actually that good, and we should probably tell people. But, yeah, normally, like, there is that element of they want in that you know, because we've worked with a lot of people, a lot of websites who are very good, and we have that symbiotic relationship where, you know, we say to our members, hey.

Pete Ling [00:06:39]:

Go and check out this site. They're really good. We've reviewed them favorably. And then they go and tell their members, hey. You know, SmartbadClub have done a deep dive on us, and they've put some really useful analysis together. Go check it out. So it all works quite nicely.

Shane Mercer [00:06:52]:

What does it look like when you go in and and somebody does invite you in? What would you know, what what does that whole process entail? How long does it take? And and how much, I guess, you know, how many files are you looking to gather from people? It sounds almost like it would be, like, a forensic audit almost. Yeah. Well, you said it's just Right?

Pete Ling [00:07:11]:

Yeah. It is. It is. You're right. You know, we have an actuary who works for us. So, you know, he's he loves data. He loves big data. And we just got one actually.

Pete Ling [00:07:20]:

Just 2 months' worth of data. I think there was 78,000 bets within this data site. So, you know, there's sometimes those are the chart, but we like that. You know, the this guy who runs that service just apologized. I was like, hey. This is great. You know, we we could really get into that. We have the ability to analyze that kind of big data.

Pete Ling [00:07:37]:

So, yeah, it's often a lot of that looking at the the records. That's the first port of call and just seeing, you know, what they actually do. And then also the practical issues of following a service. You know? You know, if you follow a good expert, they are gonna impact the market at some level, whether the speed of which is will vary and that, you know, the that obviously depends on the size of the market, how good they are, etcetera, but they will. So you really have to get a sense of, like, is it still practical to follow? Now if you're chasing Steam, you might have 30 seconds, and that's part of that particular game. Right? And you have to know that. You can't complain. But, if you're following some markets where a tipster's putting up a certain odds as being accurate and logging it as that, and you're getting 10% worse regularly even though you're super quick.

Pete Ling [00:08:23]:

Like, that's the type of thing that we'll we'll get into. So it can take time, and it all really depends upon the volume of bets, you know, the amount of data that we have, and, yeah, just getting a true sense for ourselves to to get under the bonnet of, you know, to get under the hood of the service and work out, you know, how it actually works. So when we write a review, we can speak we can do so with experience rather than just read the sales material. We can actually explain it ourselves.

Shane Mercer [00:08:55]:

Do you come across a lot of people that are, you know, they they invite you in? Maybe they think they're good or maybe they know that they're not as good as they say they are. And do you find people trying to, fudge their numbers or, you know, sort of cook the book, so to speak?

Pete Ling [00:09:11]:

You do, but we we kind of get to the part of that quite quickly. So less so these days, but, you know, it's funny. We reviewed the service recently, and we found that Edge was just based on boosts. Like, just, you know, like, concessions and stuff like that, which most people haven't got. And they weren't making that clear. So sometimes that's what that kicks in. Right? You you go look at it. Go, you couldn't feasibly follow this.

Pete Ling [00:09:35]:

I I mean, I think of other services whereby they had one really big, parlay bet that hit. So their record looks phenomenal, But then you dig into it and you go, actually, they had this ridiculously unlikely bet that landed 2 years ago, and they're still trading off the bat. So, most of the time you spot that from a from a little while out, but sometimes when you get into, like, the service with all the concessions, you really need someone to strip it all down to remove all of that, to get it back to fundamentals and then go, okay. There's no edge there, and that can take a little while. But, yeah, most of them are scared off, I think.

Shane Mercer [00:10:08]:

You know, you you mentioned sort of the people out there that are that are just doing this based on boost. I see a lot of that these days, you know, as I'm as I'm looking around people. Oh, you know, the this, you know, bonus promo here or, you know, you gotta take advantage of this over here to get the odds. And and you see a lot of people either posting a a hit rate or posting, a a plus certain number of units over over, you know, a certain number of time, maybe a week or a month or something like that or, you know, because let's say the NFL season where we're 4 weeks or 8 weeks and, 9 weeks, actually. You know, maybe just posting what their NFL record is so far. I I guess what I'm trying to get at is here. What would you advise sort of people who are looking for a betting service? What should they be looking for, you know, if they're going out there and they're they're, you know, being bombarded by all these different things and they wanna find something that works?

Pete Ling [00:11:00]:

Well, just look at the overall record. If a service doesn't have a record to show, if they're just telling you, oh, we won 8 out of the last 9 plays, well, you just know the 10th one didn't win. You know, the 10th one didn't win. And, yeah, get into the record. You know, if they're saying we've got an 80% strike rate this month for whatever. Like, what did they do previously? Look at long term. Go look at for 2 years, 3 years, 4 years. The more data you have, the better.

Pete Ling [00:11:22]:

And it's not that difficult to present that information. You don't have to go and look at a spreadsheet. Someone can just you know, here's here's a number of bets. Here's how much we staked, etcetera. And then the key metrics that Looker is, like, return investment, you know, how much the ROI actually is on the edge, that actually you would have with that service long term. And, if you can look at annual results, if you can look at how it breaks down, so you can also see, like, say, you're following a golf tip step. Right? A golf betting. Now golf, you know, what you might have a 2% strike rate, whatever it might be.

Pete Ling [00:11:54]:

So you could have a couple of winners, and I've seen this before. I had a golf, handicapper, golf tipster, like, in May, I think it was. They had 2 winners, like, bat to bat to one tournament 1 week, a 100 to 1 winner, whatever next week for another 100 to 1 winner. And they were given it, you know, all kinds of promotion online. But, actually, if you looked at their record going back two and a half years, they were just about breakeven. You wouldn't know that. So when you last for that kind of data and they you know? And if they don't have it, you have to question why because any good expert or service will have an idea of their edge. Even if they don't publish it, they'll have an idea of it.

Pete Ling [00:12:31]:

They'll have a record of some kind that they can show you. And if they don't, I think that's a big red flag straight away. And if they're just quoting you out of context short term statistics, I think you know what what what kind of site you're dealing with.

Shane Mercer [00:12:44]:

I I love that example that you used there because, you know, they they hit a 100 to 1 twice back to back. You go back and look at their entire thing, their entire record, and it's breakeven, which means if they didn't hit even one of those 100 to ones, they're losing bettors over the long term.

Pete Ling [00:12:58]:

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And it's just like a simple thing that you can do. You know? Like, you can just ask that question. And if even on x, a lot of these people just say, oh, what's your long term record? Great. You've boomed. There's only people boom the big winners as much.

Pete Ling [00:13:11]:

But, like, I know that's quite popular in certain certain parts of, like, the Internet. I mean, just talk about the winners. You know? Never talk about losers. And that's important as well. You know? You've gotta have some losers on there. Otherwise, it looks fabricated.

Shane Mercer [00:13:25]:

I I wanna say this in the nicest way possible, you know, because I think you're a great guy, Pete, and I love what you're doing with this work. But you you must have a lot of people that don't like you.

Shane Mercer [00:13:40]:

You must get into it, though, with people. Right? Are there people that wanna, you know, contest your findings or or dispute what you're doing or you know? You you must get a lot of a lot of blowback.

Pete Ling [00:13:49]:

Not as much as you'd think, actually. Not as much. Just because we do less on, like, you know, unveiling scams because they're so obvious and there's such little upside to it. I know, again, like, perhaps a lot of a lot of crap that comes from it. But, yeah, like, you do you get idiots just like you get, you know, on any walk of life these days, especially on social media. I just hit the mute button, the block button, and then and then they're just shouting into the void so I could look to them.

Andrew Pace [00:14:12]:

I gotta jump in here because it's it's really interesting that you bring that up. My my first reaction about the whole scam side of things, and Shane, you saying, like, you know, people must not like you or you must deal with a lot of a lot of junk and filth in the tipster industry. None of those guys I I don't wanna say none, but the majority of those guys are not gonna come and try to validate themselves as a at a service like this, because they they they know that it won't stand up. Pete, they probably would just try to offer you some sort of a deal for you to promote them, and then you'd probably pass on it almost. I'm well, do you pass on it?

Pete Ling [00:14:42]:

All the time. Yeah. All the time. You know, get emails, saying, go if you get behind my I'm doing a special promotion for this month for whatever. I'm doing, like, a special deal ahead of this particular betting event. We'll offer you 50% quote. But, you know, it's important to say that we are independent. So if we were to review any service, it will be based on the fact that no money has changed hands.

Pete Ling [00:15:02]:

So if a 100 people go and join it or nobody joins it, we don't actually know. It's funny. You get people come to us and say, how many members can you send to me? I'm like, well, it depends how good you are. Well, I don't have any control over that. Right? If it depends, this really goes down to how good you are, the edge in the market, the interest in it, and then people will come to you if you do have that.

Andrew Pace [00:15:21]:

So the best service that you've ever reviewed, let's just say you sent them a 100, a 1000 people, whatever it was, you didn't receive a dollar in compensation for having those people go and join them.

Pete Ling [00:15:33]:

Yeah. Exactly. There's one site that, we have, like, discount codes for. So if you're a member of our service, you get a discount on us. And I think I had somebody email the the 200th person ask for that discount code, recently, and I sent it to them. Yeah. So I I just messaged the service, say, hey. We've had we sent 200 people your way.

Pete Ling [00:15:52]:

How's it going? And, you know, they were they were pleased, and, obviously, they've got put to our members, but there's been no money that's changed hands. It's just that's the only way I know that we've had that because, you know, to make sure that those people were members of my service, they had to email me and ask for a code and then go to that third party service and and use it. So

Andrew Pace [00:16:10]:

Right. So I was I was getting to a point here. I wanna talk about one of the things that I was exposed to, before I started ininplayLIVE, and it was the, showtime documentary called action or action show showtime documentary called action. And the reason why I bring this up is because the market itself almost craves that degenerate scamming tipster, and it's awful. And I don't know how to get rid of that. And I think that your service is phenomenal from the standpoint of being able to weed those people out, But we're talking about the people that would never come to your service in the 1st place, both on the tipster side and on the actual consumer side. And it baffled me because it was so obvious when I watched this documentary that Vegas Dave I don't know how the hell he got put on this damn thing. But he's sitting next to freaking Bill Krakenberg.

Andrew Pace [00:17:02]:

He's sitting next to Bill Krakenberg. He might as well be sitting next to Billy Walters in this documentary. And it's like, how the fuck is he getting this level ex of exposure as someone who is one of the biggest con men in the industry? And it it shocked me. So, like, what's your take on the industry from what I just kinda said? Like, you know, are you still seeing that kind of stuff happening in the industry, and are people successful with it?

Pete Ling [00:17:28]:

Unfortunately, yes.

Andrew Pace [00:17:28]:

And for how long? And for how long? Like, how long does it last for a guy like him?

Pete Ling [00:17:33]:

Well, I mean, as long as he can regenerate and build upon his publicity. You know? Unfortunately, I've because I've seen that, documentary series, and I think they did a great job in giving me, amplifying his profile. So more people will fall for his his scams and his methods in the future. And some of these guys are very good on, you know, whether it be I've seen it on Instagram, TikTok, some of these other platforms. And I've seen that, you know, more recently, and there's some complete degenerates, down to outright comment who have taken advantage of it. So I think it's part of the human psyche. It's part of what people crave. The fact that most people don't have a clue about probability.

Pete Ling [00:18:10]:

We're We're calling this a day before the US election. How many people are going to be putting forward opinions based on all the betting markets are wrong, all these polls are wrong without a actual understanding of probability and what betting odds actually relate to. And that goes across, you know, the entire most of the adult population. They just don't understand, the fundamentals behind probability and on odds. And there's this, you know, idea that it's easy to win at betting when it patently isn't. And even if you are a winner, you know, you come across so many of roadblocks. So, unfortunately, I just feel like, yeah, we're never gonna eradicate that, but maybe sites like ours could just chip away and help a few people, a small percentage of those who are willing to to, you know, to listen to to size their cars.

Andrew Pace [00:18:56]:

Right. Yeah. Well said.

Shane Mercer [00:18:58]:

I wanna ask about because when you started the Smart Bedding Club, did you start it in the UK. Right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then you sort of brought it over here to to this side of the pond. And, you know, we've talked about this sort of, you know, quite a bit on on this podcast in in the past with other guests, but sort of the UK being a a much more, developed, betting market, shall we say, than the North American betting market. How would you describe the difference between UK bettors and North American bettors? You know yeah. Just I'll I'll leave it there.

Shane Mercer [00:19:32]:

How would you describe the difference?

Pete Ling [00:19:34]:

I think one of the main differences that struck me is how much more people are willing to bet in America in North America. They'll put a lot more money down on on bets than they will do in general, and the average stake will be higher. Okay. People will pay a lot more for for betting advice. You know, if they were, they'll pay a lot they'll pay, you know, I don't know what, 100 of dollars for maybe just a few plays. And Vegas Dave charges eye watering sums. But, you know, the even without him as the outlier, like, you find people will pay a lot of money. And I think as well, it's because the size of some of the markets they're betting into is so vast.

Pete Ling [00:20:08]:

You know, like, the main 4 American sports are really large liquid markets. Whereas some of the UK ones are perhaps not quite as. You know, you'd be betting on would be Premier League Football. It would be League 2 Football, which is, you know, quite a smaller market that you can manipulate quite quickly and bookmakers are wary of. So I think that's part of it as well. So, yeah, I think as well, like I say, it's a more mature market in the UK, so there's a lot more issues these days, like betting restrictions. We've even got affordability limits, these days kicking in.

Andrew Pace [00:20:40]:

Can you can you elaborate on that?

Pete Ling [00:20:43]:

So yeah. So the affordability limits.

Shane Mercer [00:20:45]:

Yeah.

Pete Ling [00:20:46]:

Yeah. Okay. So the issue in the UK, and I imagine I can only foresee it coming to North America the way that the market is. There's a strong anti gambling lobby in the UK, very much, caused by bookmakers taking advantage of people with VIP programs, encouraging people to lose far greater sums than they should be able to lose. And the knock on effect is tragic. Sometimes, you know, it's with suicides and people's lives ruined. So that's the narrative, and that's quite a strong narrative. And, and for what's happened since then is that there's been a consistent pushback against all forms of betting that is bad.

Pete Ling [00:21:25]:

Rather than just tackling the root causes of these issues, you know, for example, bookmakers behaving badly and trying to have a regulator that oversees it and makes it fair, it's still imbalanced and there's a pushback against all betting being bad. So we have to limit how much people can lose. So there's a deposit affordability limit might be, you know, you open a bookmaker account with Bet 365. You can't lose more than £500 in a month. So what would be that? 800, 700 US dollars Yeah. 900 Canadian, something like that. So you can't lose more than that. So it limits how much you can lose.

Andrew Pace [00:22:00]:

Wait as in for every user? What if, like, what if I can afford to lose that?

Pete Ling [00:22:06]:

Well, that's that's the very difficult proposition because you have people of extraordinary wealth who don't maybe have a a general income or, structured way that they're a 9 to 5 job whereby they can afford to lose more. So what you have to do is you'd have to provide a series of documentation to go, I can afford to bet to lose this. I earn 200,000 a year, so I can afford to lose more than £500 a month because of my income. Or I own assets to this degree. I can afford to lose it. Or I'm a grown man. I can decide what I like to bet and how much I wish to lose. But then you, deal with bookmakers who are very risk averse because they're so fearful of large fines and the negative publicity that comes in.

Pete Ling [00:22:48]:

So they often will always take a very safety first approach. So you've got you know, it's I work with a syndicate at the moment, and a lot of what this syndicate group is doing at the moment is moving outside of the UK for this. This is one of the key reasons is that, you know, when they're using people to move money for them, they they just can't get it down in in the UK due to things like affordability limits.

Andrew Pace [00:23:12]:

So, Shane, we've had this discussion on stream, but I don't know that we've had it on the podcast. But there's going to continue to be, in my opinion, a real movement to some of these crypto books and these offshore books, and more and more gray market stuff because it doesn't matter if you're a degenerate gambler that shouldn't be losing money or a winning or that shouldn't be losing as much as they are or a winning player. You have to look for outlets that that you can obviously get money down on. And, you know, this is sounds like it's making it increasingly difficult. Does this protect a losing player in your opinion?

Pete Ling [00:23:53]:

Well, no. It doesn't because they go to the black market. And and what you see is that the black market is directly targeting people who are problem gamblers. So for example, there are, there's a gambling, it's called Gamestop. You could register with Gamestop, and you're not. You can't sign up and join a bookmaker. You know, if you're on that list, a bookmaker cross referenced and says, no. We can't accept your custom.

Pete Ling [00:24:17]:

So what, you know, black market bookmakers do is they SEO target people who are Gamstop, searching for Gamstop, who have, you know, Gamstop blinks or whatever and and directly target them.

Pete Ling [00:24:31]:

But there's a there was a report out, I think it was earlier this year. I was researching it, and it showed the direct targeting of people who had problem gambling issues.

Andrew Pace [00:24:42]:

Do you think someone like myself could sign up for the Gamstop thing in the UK so that I would be targeted by these books?

Pete Ling [00:24:51]:

Quite quite quite naturally. It could be. It could be the case. That's right. You know?

Shane Mercer [00:24:57]:

It makes sense from a business point of view. Yeah. Exactly. He's like Bring it on.

Pete Ling [00:25:02]:

When you're on these books. Yeah. Yeah. When you're on them, like, you're off all of them. Right? So if you sign up, you're you're out of all every licensed firm has to abide by the rules. Right. So there's people trying to take advantage of that. And, yeah, so black market operators don't care about your people with a gambling issue.

Pete Ling [00:25:21]:

And you might say the cynic might say, licensed bookmakers want those people to go offshore because it's it's not their problem anymore, and they're not gonna come to them and helps create a better atmosphere for them to work with people who can afford to lose or can have

Andrew Pace [00:25:36]:

The cause and effect of certain things is just mind boggling. Like, I think about that, and I'm just like, gosh. The the different outcomes that can occur from something that seems so simple or so positive, you know, giving gamblers an outlet to to stop betting, and then this is the result. Now, obviously, as a winning player, I always look for for different outs. And I think to myself, jeez. If I'm in the UK and in my name, I've cooked every single book that I could have possibly had access to, could I put my name on this list now and, and open up new avenues of sportsbooks that will give me a longer leash thinking that I'm a a a really optimal customer for them that's gonna lose more than I can afford.

Pete Ling [00:26:18]:

Well, I mean, you don't you don't have to. You you just go on the search for black market bookmakers, which is what they do. So

Andrew Pace [00:26:23]:

Oh, I got you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Pete Ling [00:26:24]:

So it's not like, it's just like SEO talk you know, what's got advertising, targeting people.

Andrew Pace [00:26:29]:

Yeah. Yeah of course.

Pete Ling [00:26:29]:

Who are searching for that. But, yes, I mean, it's easy enough, and a lot of people are moving to the bot market. It's an awful lot of that, not just people with a gambling disorder. Just general punters, like, going to offshore, going to, you know, these places in Curacao. And, obviously, there are some good offshore reputable firms, but there are quite a few that aren't. So especially casino ones. Right? So

Andrew Pace [00:26:52]:

Right. Right. You know, it's interesting though, Shane, because I think about sometimes in North America and the landscape and everything that we've talked about, they said this from day 1 in 2018. They're like, why aren't they looking across the pond for, you know, a little bit more guidance? And I'm sure they did, and I'm sure they do. But at the same time.

Shane Mercer [00:27:07]:

I dont know, sometimes, like, you know, Pacey say that, but then I go and I watch the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, for example. Right? And and there's that whole conversation on limiting. And guess what? They didn't even know that Sharp books exist. But, you know, like like, they didn't, like, you know, they don't they didn't realize that there's another model out there beyond the soft book model. And and so, you know, when when I hear that and people saying, yeah, you know, all of these experts must be looking over there, but then you see some of those experts and they're like, we don't even know that some of these basic things exist like an exchange, for example. You know, it it becomes like, are they? Like, are they actually doing any of that stuff? I don't think I think in a lot of areas, they're not.

Andrew Pace [00:27:47]:

Right. Unfortunately, too, with what does come with the the black market, I refer to it as the gray market because I like to think there's a little white in there sometimes. But, what comes with that is obviously the whole wave of sportsbooks that separately of trying to prey on a losing player. They just prey on a player, period. So it doesn't matter if they have a winning player come through the doors or a losing player. They are not gonna pay that that that customer out regardless. And there is so much of that. If you think about how many scams, you know, you get in a week or even a day, phone calls, text messages, whatever it is, a new a new job opportunity, head the head hunting scam.

Shane Mercer [00:28:27]:

That's the new one.

Andrew Pace [00:28:28]:

The list is just analytics. Right? The the the mail delivery scams, the, the phone calls from an AI, you know, AI pretending to be someone that you know. Like, the list just goes on and on and on and on. Well, you can prey on people in this capacity as well where if you get that deposit into into your sportsbook, it doesn't matter how well you play at that site. You can keep losing. They'll take all your money, and you can win, and they are not gonna pay you. So, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a dangerous, dangerous arena to to dance in, but I've certainly had a few a few bouts myself. And, yeah, it's a it's a risk.

Andrew Pace [00:29:01]:

It is. It's definitely different than operating in the regulated space. So, hopefully, we reach a point here in North America where we can learn from some of this stuff before it happens to us, which seems like an impossible thing to even bring up and and find a little bit more of a middle ground that's sustainable for for all parties. That would be a dream.

Pete Ling [00:29:23]:

I I I think, though, the the issue often comes with the people who run the regulators or a part of them. Often, they don't come with any betting expertise or background. We see that. I've seen that in Ontario. Living here, like gaming in Ontario don't seem to be particularly good at what they do. I've I've the UK Government Commission, you know, in charge of such a big betting market. Like, I've spoken to their chairman. They've had them on my podcast, and I ultimately you know, I think that operation is not fit for purpose, unfortunately.

Pete Ling [00:29:50]:

And then we see, you know, obviously, Massachusetts who are doing a good job in trying to raise awareness, but plates blatantly don't understand the market or what they're trying to regulate. So you have these people trying to regulate massive bookmakers, huge companies. You know, with bet 365 is such a off of a company who have no idea. And whether it's just incompetence or whether it's something else, I'm not sure. But until you get better people than these regulators, I think you could have these problems, unfortunately. Right.

Andrew Pace [00:30:17]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's the that that's the truth.

Shane Mercer [00:30:20]:

Yeah. So, actually, it's very similar to the point that our our previous guest from last week, Richard Shoots, was on, from the American Bettors voices, essentially saying that, you know, FanDuel, DraftKings, you know, Bet365 that, you know, these it's those people that are in the states that are writing the laws, you know, that regulators are going to, you know, that enforce. And it's like, you know, it it it can't work this way.

Pete Ling [00:30:44]:

No. Exactly. And and then you look at Bet 3 65. That's a huge employer in the UK. Yeah. Huge employer. So you gotta you know, you start to try and challenge and calm down on them, and suddenly you've got all these people going, hang on. We have to be careful.

Pete Ling [00:30:56]:

We don't wanna send them outside of, you know, where they are right now or the country or whatever. We have to be careful because it's such an important, you know, important business for the UK.

Shane Mercer [00:31:07]:

Yeah. I wanna bring the conversation back a little bit to to betting, specifically, the Smart Betting Club and what you do, Pete. You mentioned sort of at the beginning of the interview that that creating the Smart Betting Club helps make you a better sports bettor. How many services do you subscribe to? And and, you know, how many do you use? Or or do you Uh-huh. Do you not use any, and then you sort of just do your own thing?

Pete Ling [00:31:30]:

Yeah. I I use a few now, but I I more of these days, I'm I'm heavily involved with the betting syndicate, so I work with them. So, that has taken my focus. So I still do use a few, and I certainly I have a few people that work with me as well who use a few others. So, let's say my, you know, eye is not on the ball. It's just I'm not using them as frequently as as perhaps I was a few years ago, so for my own personal betting. But because I work with the syndicate as well, I get a real good sense of, like, how the profitable betting world is working. And so, you know, if somebody's putting up bets, which clearly aren't type of things that I would see or I could talk with other people, I I get a a much more, behind the scenes sense of of where the value actually is and if somebody's, you know, actual good at what they do and, worth following.

Pete Ling [00:32:18]:

So, yeah, like, I still follow a few golf guys and a few tennis services as well and a couple of soccer ones. But, over the night, it's a challenge trying to juggle everything at the moment in terms of the betting volume.

Shane Mercer [00:32:29]:

Right.

Andrew Pace [00:32:30]:

Can I ask you a question about that, though, separately of you using them? I think the natural progression for a sports bettor is that there's going to be someone that's super sharp that is gonna have an impact on their betting journey that brings them to a place that they now become a winning player to some degree. And where things go from there, obviously, are up to that player. Some people move on from betting entirely. You know, they've got some funds. They move it to the the the markets. Some people, you know, maybe move on to a syndicate. Like, the the list is endless. So that that makes total sense to me, what you just said.

Andrew Pace [00:33:04]:

Now if you're vetting a service, what kind of time frame is necessary? Is that you mentioned the 78,000 bets. So, you know, being one sort of hard drive being almost handed over to you. Is there a minimum number of bets? Is there a minimum number of tie amount of time? What how much work goes into that side of things, to make sure you go, hey. They're vetted. Because, you you know, we know firsthand at inplayLIVE, there's there's not always it's not always winning. Right? It's not always sunshine and rainbows. And whenever we head into November, I'm always reminded of my darkest month of my betting journey. November 2022 was was a real bloodbath for us at inplayLIVE.

Andrew Pace [00:33:45]:

So what what would that look like, you know, if if you were to come into a service that it was a bloodbath?

Pete Ling [00:33:52]:

We'd expect that, to be honest. It's quite normal. You know, the longer you bet, the more you bet for, the the greater, the deeper that the bad losing ones or months are going to be just because that's the way it is. You're gonna hit that, really, really unlikely, losing period and unlikely winning period, no doubt. But, yeah, you just gotta expect to see some losing. And not we're not concerned about it. You know, if if we follow, let's say, golf tips and it has, you know, maybe a slightly losing year, it doesn't really matter. Because sometimes you're looking at maybe there's do only betting on the PGA tour or they're putting up you know, 3 or 4 bets per tour.

Pete Ling [00:34:27]:

How many tour events are at what? 30, 40, 40 a year? So really, there's not that many in the scheme of things when they're hitting a 2% strike rate. So short term losing is not a problem, and, we expect it. And actually, if we saw, you know, a service went to review and we just saw, you know, it's only sunshine and roses, and it was just a graph that went constantly up, and seemed a little bit, unlikely, we'd probably say, well, do you know what? This doesn't from our experience, nobody's beating the market this well. This is what's going on here. So, yeah, we we sometimes smell a rat when we see something that's a little bit too good to be true. So

Andrew Pace [00:35:02]:

Wow.

Pete Ling [00:35:02]:

Losing is part of it.

Pete Ling [00:35:03]:

Losing is part of the game. You know, we all have to get used to losing. So yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:35:07]:

Okay. So now let's say I paid for your advice, and I joined this golf tipster, and he has a losing year. Because I like the I like that you referenced a year as short term. In the investment space, a year is is short term as it gets pretty much. Obviously, there's day traders, but when you're buying a stock to, you know, Warren Buffett style value investing, a a year is as short term as it gets. Right? From a betting standpoint, I would view a year as long term personally. You you month to month. Like, a month is a long time in in our style of betting.

Andrew Pace [00:35:35]:

Right? Everyone's, of course, different. The golf reference is obviously super relevant there where you might not have a big sample size. But I'm a member subscribing to your service, and I just had a losing year following this this golf tipster that you recommended. Have you guys had to deal with any backlash relating to that kind of stuff? And and and how is that handled?

Pete Ling [00:35:52]:

Well, Joe, all the time, but we try and educate, members on what they expect to expect. So with, for example, a golf service, you might well, you need a patient. We have our ratings. We provide ratings to the services. We give a patient's rating. We might say 18 months to 24 months on average. And we'll in the review, we'll explain why. So we'll be this is why because it has a, you know, a 2% strike rate of winners and 10% strike rate of placed bets.

Pete Ling [00:36:18]:

And you only place in a 120 bets a year, a 150 bets a year. So just look at it from the probability standpoint. Like, you are going to have these runs. We put in, like, Monte Carlo simulation information into the try and, provide, like, context to it to explain what the ratings mean and how that how you should view it as a bettor. So you can you can get a sense of, like, what's my likelihood of a losing year. And it could be, you know, 30%. So if you've had to follow the service for 4 years, well, you should have had one by then. It might be 5% or 2%.

Pete Ling [00:36:50]:

At which point you might think, oh, okay. Is there something fundamentally wrong? Or is it just 2% chance this do happen? Right? Just as we see golfers win at 2% strike rate. So, just to provide all that context and information. And if someone wants to react, oh my god. I've I've had a losing year. And I'm like, well, what did you expect? We outlined what to expect, and we can't forge the statistics. And it comes down to sometimes if you're following something which is high risk, it's high reward, but it is high risk. Right? So you have to have that in mind, and maybe you need a portfolio.

Pete Ling [00:37:24]:

You need to spread things around. So, you know, go and bet on either if the equivalent would be in a stock market, go and bet on bet on developing markets or, you know, like, more high risk, kind of stock market options. And then go buy some bonds or some gilts or whatever, and just get the safety, the grind, you know, the 2, 3%. And then if you wanna hit shoot for the moon with some more high risk stuff, then add that in, but don't expect that to deliver on a regular basis. So that's generally how we try and frame it. But, you know, sometimes you deal with people who are passionate and a little bit emotional when it comes to to finances.

Andrew Pace [00:37:58]:

Yeah. Oh, well, sometimes sometimes.

Shane Mercer [00:38:00]:

Right? There's a reason why everyone's talking about the stock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:38:04]:

Right? There's a reason why the market that why why it was some crazy statistic. Like, more people sold stocks in 2,008 combined than, like, the previous decade altogether or something like that. And it's obviously the the absolute most optimal time to have purchased stocks in our in our lifetime, essentially. Okay. I I think patient it was called a patient's review or a patient's what was it?

Pete Ling [00:38:27]:

It's a patience rating.

Andrew Pace [00:38:28]:

Yeah. Patience rating might be my favorite metric I've ever heard in my life.

Andrew Pace [00:38:33]:

I think people need a patient's I I might use that with my family, guys. You know, the the patience rating with me, it needs to be high. Please. You know? Just, you know okay. So based on everything you just said, is it fair to assume that you have taken 3 to 4 years in vetting some of your services before you've written a review?

Pete Ling [00:38:55]:

Yeah. Well, we did a, NFL service to only put up, I wanna say, like, 50 bets per season. So, I think we we've been looking at it for some time. We just published it in September. And, yeah, we're just taking time to get to enough data to analyze it properly and to give a proper informed opinion on it because, you know, it takes time to build up the data. Like I say, we can get services that put up 50 bets a year, and I can get services that put up 50 bets in the morning. So everything has to be judged slightly differently, and you just need to get enough information to provide that informed opinion on, either edge. But also, you know, you can use closing line.

Pete Ling [00:39:35]:

You can use metrics to get a early sense of their edge, but the practical side of it is a little trickier. It takes a little longer to get a sense of how that impacts on the market and how you can actually follow it and how the service operates. Like, how do they handle you know, you had a bloodbath in November 22. Like, did you go until after that? Did you put up more bets? Did you stake less? Did you stake more? Sometimes you see people react to a bad run because and then sometimes it suggests whether they have the, you know, the ability to cope with the pressure, which can be quite a lot, so it's understandable. Or sometimes they don't have the faith in their own edge, and they Right. Scrub the other scrubbing around to try and find something that that that, can help them get out of that mess. So that's why I like to follow for a bit a little longer because you get more of a sense of the the people behind it and how they react to good and bad ones.

Andrew Pace [00:40:23]:

Right. Yeah. Really well said. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, Pete, everything we do on this podcast is all aimed towards helping a sports bettor at any level. Could be their 1st bet ever made, someone that's in you know, not not even at that level yet, but they're they're interested in doing it or, obviously, like, a a winning player. And it sounds like you've created a a hub for exactly that, which is really cool.

Andrew Pace [00:40:44]:

So big shout out to you, and thanks for doing that. So, yeah, where can people find you, Pete, if they wanna, you know, dive in a little more? It sounds like you have a podcast yourself.

Pete Ling [00:40:53]:

Yeah. That's right. Smartbettingclub.com, and smartbettingclub on the podcast. We've done episode, 80. Just recorded 8 to 1 couple days ago. That's all free to download. If I can, I'll give a shout out to, because I live in Ontario as well. I'm doing a not sure when this episode might go out, but on 20th November, I'm hosting a a meetup for people who live in Ontario.

Pete Ling [00:41:15]:

Oh, cool. So, you live here, don't you, Shane?

Shane Mercer [00:41:19]:

I'm in Ontario. I'm just north of Toronto. Oh, you go? The North End of York region.

Pete Ling [00:41:23]:

Okay. Great. Well, I was gonna mess I was gonna mention it after the show, but, you can find it too. It's gonna be I'm gonna pin it to my my social media, my personal social media. So I'm at Pete Ling 1. And I'm gonna pin that there. If people want I've already pinned it. Actually, if peep people want to come along to that, it's just like a gathering of people who live in Ontario.

Pete Ling [00:41:41]:

I figured I'd put it out here because, probably a good number of of Toronto and Ontario based people who who might wanna come along. But And,

Andrew Pace [00:41:48]:

smart man, Pete. I, right away, had to check the date. It's a Wednesday. You know this man bet when he books it not on a Saturday or Sunday during football season.

Pete Ling [00:41:57]:

Yeah. Could you imagine anyone else? Taylor Swift's playing the next night, so we had to organize it around Taylor Swift concerts.

Shane Mercer [00:42:04]:

Smart. Awesome.

Andrew Pace [00:42:06]:

Yeah. I mean, that's that's really the that's really the deal breaker there. Hey. I love it.

Shane Mercer [00:42:11]:

That's awesome. Well, hopefully, I'll take a look and see at my schedule, Pete, and, hopefully

Shane Mercer [00:42:15]:

I can make it out and, and meet you in person. That'd be pretty cool.

Pete Ling [00:42:17]:

Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks, guys. I appreciate me appreciate you having me on.

Shane Mercer [00:42:21]:

Hey. Loved having you. Alright, guys. Pete Lang. Check him out on Twitter where you just mentioned and the smart betting club dot com. Thanks again, Pete. Alright. Time now for the grid iron grind.

Shane Mercer [00:42:35]:

We've got John Wilson with us, the great Gosu, here again to break down another week in college football and, of course, the NFL. But, Pace, before we get to that, what a great guest we just had on, Pete Lang. He we might need him to vet your teasers, Pace, because I you've been crushing it on the teasers. Right?

Andrew Pace [00:42:55]:

Well, I should note. I said I hope it gets up to plus 7a half for the Texans, which would have lost. But, thankfully, by the time it aired and for me when I bet it on Wednesday, it, a lot of people had plus 8a half on Houston and won, my leg pushed. So plus 8 pushed, and I I won the other 2. So, yeah, that's, we didn't that's 3 in a row for me now. So, yeah, teasers are becoming my, my lifeblood here, and I think I'm gonna change, badge of honor that I'm now a professional pregame bettor as well. But Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:43:24]:

If if he's vetting anything, I think the sample size is a little small. But, yeah, we're we're we're gonna keep we're gonna try to keep it going.

Shane Mercer [00:43:30]:

Hey. Hey. We'll build the sample size, and we'll we'll see how it goes. Alright. Well, let's let's kick things off on on, the college side of things. What are we looking at for this, this upcoming week here, guys?

Andrew Pace [00:43:40]:

Well, I think the rankings, are are coming out here, John. Anything anything you're looking forward to or or shock you there? I know you're always looking at the future side.

John Wilson [00:43:49]:

Yeah. I always like, I do my own projections, you know, for what the rankings what what I make my rankings, which are obviously, very different from where the the AP poll or even the coach coaches poll has. I think what I'm actually really interested in, is it so early. It's not really deterministic on, like, what's gonna happen in the in the playoff, but I I'm looking to see where they have BYU because I don't even have BYU, like, near my top 10, 12. I have them on the fringe of even being ranked at all in terms of just quality of football team. So I'm actually really interested to see where they put them knowing that they're undefeated in the big twelve right now.

Andrew Pace [00:44:25]:

And you know what's interesting is week in, week out, we see certain teams just continue to get tested. And you you don't know where that's gonna put them. Whereas, yeah, a team like BYU, you could make an argument that they they haven't been. John, so one of the cool things I thought from this last weekend on Saturday, by the way, we had another spectacular Saturday betting college football live, Is John knows the path to the playoff, which some people might not think is brilliant, but to me as a a nonpregame future guy as he brings this stuff up in real time, I found that to be hugely valuable where you were talking about Colorado. I know you said that the value is not there, but you in real time, you saw something there. Do you wanna touch on that quick?

John Wilson [00:45:04]:

Yeah. So the the big twelve situation with the tie breaker is interesting. Right? So Colorado only has one loss in the big twelve, and that's to Kansas State, and then BYU is undefeated. And prior to Saturday, Iowa State was undefeated, and Kansas State only had one loss to BYU. Well, Kansas State and Iowa State both lost, and Colorado is gonna be the odd man out in terms of the tie breaker. Like, they basically needed a lot of help. Well, they got a lot of help. So live, I was talking about, guys, we need to look at if you have anything that's gonna open here quick, I would check Colorado odds to win the big twelve because now they still need a little bit of help, with the tie break situation.

John Wilson [00:45:39]:

Like, I believe if Iowa State beats Kansas State in the last week, they're gonna win the tie break over Colorado unless some weird things happen, elsewhere in the conference. But, you know, BYU could get 2 losses. Colorado is gonna be favored in every game, for the rest of the season. So, you know, it was just you gotta keep an eye on some of those things, as the as the week goes on. Last week, we snagged Western Kentucky to win the Sunbelt or, sorry, Conference USA. I think we got 3.2 on that. They're now basically even money, just a week later. So it's really important to get those at the right time.

Andrew Pace [00:46:11]:

Nice. So just just kinda circling back with that stuff about Colorado. Isn't the liability to the sportsbooks with Colorado making a run, like, insane?

John Wilson [00:46:21]:

It's probably why the price has not really been there. You know, I I I bet it a couple weeks ago, but I was really just interested in them to make the playoff. And I was just thinking that Kansas State might beat Iowa State later, and that BYU would actually drop a couple of games. So I do think BYU is still one of those teams that I they could just lose every other game, and it wouldn't really shock me that bad. So it's just, you know, trying to find the value where it is. But, yeah, you can you can see it in the price.

John Wilson [00:46:49]:

Like, I think the fair price up 3.50. It barely got to plus 300, you know, like, when they went after the 2 big losses there for them. So

Andrew Pace [00:46:55]:

Okay. Sounds like the door is closed. No question in my eyes. The most exciting college football season of all time just from all the way the way it's transpired combined with the playoff. I love what they're doing. Any junk out games, John?

John Wilson [00:47:07]:

Well, so I I did on Colorado before we go to there. I would say Travis Hunter win the Heisman. I think he has a lot of value because I think he can win no matter what even if they don't get to the conference title game. But if they do, I think he's almost a lock, assuming he still has a couple big games because he'll be on that, like, the spotlight there right before the boat. So yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:47:24]:

What what's the price on that guy?

John Wilson [00:47:27]:

I think I got plus 250, on Sunday night. He I think you it's I'm sure plus 200 is is still out there. I still like it. There's just no standout statistical seasons from any quarterbacks, really.

Andrew Pace [00:47:38]:

Okay. Any games you like this weekend? Obviously, there's some big ones.

John Wilson [00:47:41]:

Some big ones, definitely, in the SEC. We have, Alabama at LSU, in the night game. So I I make this about LSU, minus 3a half. It's, they're they're a dog right now. So I'm way off on the market on this. I think LSU, deserves to be a favorite at home here, so I'm gonna try to get them at plus 3a half if I can. Number is not there yet, but I did already take a little bit on the over in this game at 57a half. Fifty eights are a really important number in college football.

John Wilson [00:48:07]:

So, there's still a 57a half out there. I'll try to get that. I think this number is gonna go up. Georgia at Ole Miss. I've I mean, I just I really know Lane Kiffin is gonna steal some of my money this weekend. I'm not gonna be able to stay away, from betting on Ole Miss as a short dog at home there. But I just have I have to do it. I still think I just still am higher on them than them on the market.

John Wilson [00:48:32]:

So it's it's gonna happen. But, I I don't I can't advise anyone else to put their hard earned money on

Andrew Pace [00:48:37]:

Bite my tongue, Georgia against Texas. I will not bite my tongue this time. Then you Ole Miss will get $0 of mine in that. Even in the game, like, even live, I can't do it with them. Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:48:48]:

Any other standout games for you this weekend?

John Wilson [00:48:51]:

Oh, I mean, I think the the the Kurt Cignetti wagon in Indiana keeps rolling their minus 14 at, at home against Michigan. Just wake up in bed, Indiana. That's I don't know why we even do any of these podcasts or analyze anything. It's just it's that simple. So

Andrew Pace [00:49:07]:

Hey. I did it this last weekend and, really appreciated the fact that I did. Okay. Let's jump over to the NFL here, and I'm gonna start because people probably are waiting on tooth and nail for these teasers here. And, I regret to inform you, there will be no teaser this week. And I think that it's a good lesson.

Andrew Pace [00:49:28]:

The reason why I say it is because there's only one game I like. Now there's 4 that fit the bill, and I'm not gonna say them because I don't want people to bet them. And the reason is is I can't do it for one reason or another. There might be a game where the coach is a guy named Doug Peterson that, like, fits the bill perfectly, and I I cannot do it. So the one game that I like to tease this week is the chargers at home, but I don't have anything to tease them with. So there is no teaser for me this weekend. John, standout games for the NFL this week. Let it rip.

Andrew Pace [00:50:01]:

Let's start with Thursday night football. Bengals, Ravens. I mean, this is gonna be a fun one.

John Wilson [00:50:05]:

Yeah. Bengals Bengals, Ravens is a really good one. I I can't get there on the number. I think that's too many points for for a Bengals team against a bad Baltimore defense, but I'm just gonna kinda wait and get some more information.

Andrew Pace [00:50:17]:

Okay. Sounds good. Now we record this before Monday Night Football, but I think this one is big. Niners, Bucks, and Christian McCaffrey might be back. We don't have the information yet. He just got pulled off IR before we started recording.

Shane Mercer [00:50:30]:

Likely was the last thing I saw that McCaffrey would be likely to play that game.

John Wilson [00:50:34]:

Yeah. I mean, I think it really depends on what we see from Tampa tonight. You know, they're they're really down some playmakers. And if they just don't if they look lifeless, in Kansas City, I think this number is really gonna balloon. But I I actually still like the niners in, like, a teaser spot in this game if if McCaffrey or Mason are are going, like, if they're if they're full team head.

Andrew Pace [00:50:53]:

Okay. I'm gonna skip through some trash here, and bring us to the next exciting matchup of A lot of trash. The Steelers commandos, plus 2a half on the road.

John Wilson [00:51:04]:

Mhmm. Yeah. You know, it's it's tough to not take the like, just back the Commanders. I I definitely had some Giants money last week. Couple failed 2 point conversions, cost me on that one, but I still I still like I still think I had a good bet there. I'm I'll probably be back in the the sealers again. Mike Tomlin was just the most profitable coach both straight up and against the spread as a dog in NFL history. It's really not even close.

Andrew Pace [00:51:29]:

Woah. I can't bet that, the commandos are our guys.

John Wilson [00:51:32]:

He's 10 units more profitable, I think, as an underdog against spread than any other coach in his game. Wow.

Andrew Pace [00:51:40]:

Wow. And see it, again, this is why I'm not a pregame bettor. I just could not not take the Commandos at minus 2a half, but I'll I'll just bet them live as I always do. Yep. Okay. We're gonna pass through some more, dog shit here, and we're gonna jump straight to the Jets against the Cardinals. And the reason why I bring that game up is because both these teams now have a little bit of momentum.

John Wilson [00:52:01]:

Yeah. This is an interesting game. I I make it about a pick. The Jets side is plus 1a half, out there. You can find it. I actually went ahead and put them in a teaser, just to get that 7 and a half locked in on the 6 point teaser because I think that line's gonna move back close to a pick, and it might get kinda swatted around that one range in there. But I think it's just weird. So I I don't really have a play in this game.

John Wilson [00:52:24]:

I just like getting those points even though it's a little bit of a higher total for them.

Andrew Pace [00:52:28]:

Sunday night football, lions minus 3 in Houston.

John Wilson [00:52:32]:

Yeah. That's a fun game. I I bet I have a little bit on the Texans plus 3a half.

Andrew Pace [00:52:38]:

Oh, man. Betting against the lions again, John. You love punishment.

John Wilson [00:52:43]:

Back for more pain and punishment. Yeah. I know.

John Wilson [00:52:46]:

I had a rough week last week as favorites, I think, went, 12 or no. 11 and 3 against the spread so far. So, not not great not great for me, but, hopefully, this week is a is a little bit different. I think it was just value on the number. I make it lines minus 2a half, so I have to take the other side of that of that number and hope it gets down to 2a half, and it can get a little nice middle there too on the other way.

Andrew Pace [00:53:07]:

That actually is a good point. So some people will base, someone's pregame off of whether the bet won or not, which is shortsighted. Some bettors might base it off of the closing line value. So when you had bet the Packers last week, you had plus 4, and the line closed at minus 2a half. So you could have taken a middle, in that spot. I look at that, and I go, jeez. I could get the lions at minus 2a half when it was, minus 4. And and still, I still didn't bet on the lions, until the game was actually on, and then we we were able to capitalize on that game, to a certain extent.

Andrew Pace [00:53:40]:

Monday night football, Dolphins at Rams, plus 2a half and a total of 50a half.

John Wilson [00:53:46]:

Yeah. Interesting. I still think the Rams are still slightly undervalued. I think week after week, they continue to be, I make it 3a half, so I definitely, went ahead and took some Rams, there. So yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:53:59]:

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. You you that was one of the one of the ones you nailed last week. So, yeah, keep keep riding the Rams. You know what's crazy is that team. Like, you go from basically being right at the top of the division to, you know, being in a spot where you're thrown in the towel. I still can't get over that.

Andrew Pace [00:54:15]:

Any other games that you think are notable there, John, that I miss?

John Wilson [00:54:20]:

I mean, there's there's a lot of trash this week. I mean, it's you know, there's some interesting, like, maybe underdog money line type spots, like the Saints at home against the Falcons just fired their coach. You go you fire your coach. It just seems to work out that you play better the next week. You know, it's a trend. I think that number I have Falcons minus 3 and a half. I think that so that I'm on that number, but I think maybe that gets up to 4, 4a half. I I'd like that number there, but I definitely like them as, like, a money line play.

John Wilson [00:54:50]:

So that's probably the only one that really sticks out to me. That and maybe the Chiefs' game. Denver, I could see maybe the Chiefs' being if they really blow out the Bucks tonight, you their net number may go to double digits, which I think is probably too high. But I also think that the the Broncos are just not good. So it's you know, we'll we'll see. That would be but I think they're a they're a great live betting team to get, like, a big plus number on because they just don't stop trying to to score to the end.

Andrew Pace [00:55:16]:

So any futures in the NFL that you're looking at right now given the scheduling and strength to schedule ahead and what's going on with all the teams that we've touched on?

John Wilson [00:55:25]:

You know, the Rams number is still good, for the for the division. You know, it's like that that division is just so up for grabs. And, again, like I said, they just keep being undervalued. They get the Patriots next week. So, like, we I said last week on the pod, that take them before they play Seattle because I took them again that we we said the week before, take them then before. It's just I don't think the market's really catching up, so I still like them, to invest if you can handle anymore. And then also, Pittsburgh, I I I keep investing in Pittsburgh to win that division as well because you get one of the Bengals or the Ravens is gonna have a loss, even though the Bengals are pretty far out of it. They're not it's not totally done.

John Wilson [00:56:04]:

Woah. Hey. Easy. The Steelers are, short underdogs, and we think that they can win outright. So Tomlin is almost 500 as an underdog, all time. So

Andrew Pace [00:56:13]:

Sounds like you're riding. Riding.

Shane Mercer [00:56:16]:

Riding with the rest. Love it. Alright. Well, John, thanks again for coming in and and breaking the slate down for us. We'll have you back again next week. That, you know, I think, our audience is is really enjoying this. I've gotten some great feedback on it, so we'll so we'll keep riding here on the pod. Alright.

Shane Mercer [00:56:32]:

Till next week. Pace. John, sports bettors around the world. Keep beating those books.

Andrew Pace [00:56:37]:

Pinnacle.com/inplaylive

Shane Mercer [00:56:40]:

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