Episode 9

Shane Mercer [00:00:11]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind The Lines, the sports betting podcast that doesn't bring you any picks, predictions, or peer into a crystal ball in any way. No, we are here to help make you a better bettor by understanding the strategies and the tactics used by the sports. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. That is Andrew Pace, the founder of inplayLIVE, the greatest sports betting community on the face of the earth. He is a professional sports bettor with a lot of success. Pace, how are you, buddy?

Andrew Pace [00:00:43]:

Excellent. Got the bulk of March Madness behind us here. We got the final four and the finals left and it's been crazy and profitable for me, so I'm smiling.

Shane Mercer [00:00:55]:

Well, I got a pretty big smile too, so that should tell you how it's been for me. What a ride this has been the past three months. So much fun. And for all of you out there who aren't a part of inplayLIVE, if you want to join, we have a special promo code for you ‘BEHINDTHELINES’. All caps. If you want to sign up for inplayLIVE and find out a little bit more about what we're talking about when we talk about strategies and how we're betting and all of that sort of stuff. But with that to also remind you to like, follow us, download subscribe, you can find us on all the social media at inplayLIVE. So, Pace, it was a lot of fun over the past three months, especially with college basketball, that has been extremely profitable for us. It was just what an incredible ride it was. And along the way, we were watching a lot of games, and I'm talking high volume Saturdays, there would be easily 100 men's games on during the day, and that's just the men's side. Then we mix in the women as well. And we're talking about 200 games in a single day. And a lot of these schools, let's be honest, they're not big programs, they're not big name schools. They are smaller schools. But a lot of times they could provide a lot of value to us and we could make some real money off of some of these games. But watching them isn't always the easiest thing. And for what we do, it's very important that we're watching a game live, or at least we are following it live. And it's not necessarily the easiest thing even when we're talking about the highest level of professional sports. So today's episode is all about latency. So, Pace, I know this is something that has been a big challenge for you in your career. Talk to us about what is latency and how does it pose such a problem for sports bettors?

Andrew Pace [00:02:54]:

Yeah. So when Shane's talking about latency there, he's referring to us watching the game delayed. And that means the time that it takes from the actual event to occur in real time. If you're at the match versus when, where and how you digest that information in the comfort of your home. Something that was a very niche topic or concern of sports bettors that has now become at the forefront of, I think, a lot of people's awareness, because a lot of people didn't know about this kind of thing. And now with the rollout and legalization of betting, you're starting to realize, holy smokes, I'm digesting this information delayed and the sports books are not digesting this information delayed. And it's created a disadvantage to me as a sports bettor as a result. And I think that that's something that's extremely important for sports bettors and people to understand, but regardless of understanding it. So if I'm telling you something that you already know right now, there's still the harsh reality of being in a latent environment, knowing you're in a latent environment and still making disadvantageous decisions because of that latency, and the sports book is gaining an edge on you as a result. I have been exposed to this for a long, long time. And what's really interesting about this topic is that we are in a unique space right now where the technology exists for us as consumers of Sports Entertainment in any Capacity to watch it almost with Zero Latency, almost as if we were at a Game, match, event, whatever. Yet that hasn't been consistently delivered to us as a result of the technology in the world of TV programming and how we actually access any type of Television IPTV. These Internet stream TV providers have taken over to the extent that they have made significant dents and impacts on your traditional cable providers that you would have your monthly subscription to, to the point that the cable providers themselves aren't even using their traditional coaxial system that delivers the fastest content to the viewers. They have now switched to Internet streaming in a lot of cases as well, which leaves us, in a lot of ways, hopeless.

Shane Mercer [00:05:52]:

You just used a term there that I don't think a lot of people are familiar with. Coaxial. What are we talking about there?

Andrew Pace [00:06:00]:

Yeah, so I kind of touched on it. But technology is improving. Every single day it's improving. So I have high hopes for the future when it comes to everything on this topic today. I have really high hopes for the future. But I've also been saying that since 2017. So coaxial cable is the old school system, which is that cable that has a little pin in the middle of it that you actually screw on, that existed as long as I've lived, that you have in your wall that you screw right in, and the coaxial cable other end goes into your cable box. And that's how you watch cable TV. That's the method of delivery that it appears. Now that is the fastest I shouldn't say it's the fastest, but generally speaking, that is the fastest way to get the most live feed to your TV of anything that you're watching, whereas using the Internet, the technology exists to actually get it faster than a coaxial cable. But that isn't what is being delivered to us.

Shane Mercer [00:07:11]:

Yeah, I think for most of us, or most of the viewing public, they've been watching their sports through basic cable, like that coaxial cable where it's plugged into the wall and it goes out your house to a local cable box. It's been pretty efficient. But now we are getting to a stage where, as you mentioned, technology is always changing. It's changing rapidly, perhaps not rapid enough for you. You mentioned look into the future and hoping for a long time, but it is changing very quickly and the providers are also changing. Right. It's no longer your local cable company necessarily that you're subscribing to, but it's a streaming provider, whether that be DAZN or Fubo or YouTube, now a big player in the game. So give us a sense at where do you turn to for you your own viewing? What are you usually looking at?

Andrew Pace [00:08:16]:

Yeah, it's a huge challenge to get that information in real time or as close to real time as possible. What you're seeing from these cable providers with respect to the dent that they've taken from these Fubos and YouTubes and Hulu's and Sling and all these streaming services is that they're going, okay, well, we'll just do that too, rather than recognize their position in the market. So many of you that are viewing this may have recently signed up for a cable program, or may already have a cable program where you've been offered their new boxes and their new boxes do not have coaxial connection and they say there are new, sleek, high speed, blah blah blah blah blah. You can strap them right onto the back of the TV and it sends a signal without a cable to your TV and all this kind of stuff. And they say they're live and in real time. Well, I don't know what the definition of live and in real time is anymore, because the difference of time from that IPTV, an internet provider TV service can be ridiculously substantial to the tune of even 2 minutes of latency. So we're not talking like, oh, these guys are worried because they're watching it 3 seconds later than I am. No, we're talking about significant time. And many people that aren't even sports bettors have found this out the hard way, where they didn't know that they were watching something delayed. So you're watching the Super Bowl at a party and you're cheering for a team and someone texts you about what just happened and you haven't seen it yet. You're playing fantasy football with watching the feed on football on Sunday and you get a notification that one of your players scored and you haven't seen it yet. This is one that some people, not as many people necessarily experience. You live near a stadium and you hear the horn of a goal go off and you haven't seen the goal and you don't see it for another minute, but you can't tune out the horn of a stadium or the cheer of a stadium right near your place where you've already been exposed to that event.

Shane Mercer [00:10:29]:

Yeah, I've had that happen with friends here in Toronto at the SkyDome, or the Roger Center as it's called now. But Big Dome, it's wide open and there's all these condo towers right around it and you can actually see the field in a lot of cases from some of these condo towers and you can see the crowd celebrating a home run. But meanwhile on TV, the pitcher still has the ball. It's really funny to kind of watch and see and I think we actually have a visual example here for all of you out there. And so Pace, while you go ahead and queue that up. I'll just explain why this is so important, though, because a lot of sports bettors out there might be wondering, okay, well, whatever, it's 30 seconds or it's a minute. Big deal. It's a little bit delayed. No, it can be a very big deal, especially when you are actively focused on betting live, because live betting provides an edge, or at least it can provide an edge. And we can find a high amount of value by specifically focusing on live scenarios. And as the game changes, that will change how you want to place your wagers. And so a minute to 30 seconds can be the difference between a winning bet and a losing bet.

Andrew Pace [00:11:50]:

Oh, yeah, I think that that's something we're going to need to talk about after I run this here because we can really get into some of the differences and mistakes that bettors can make when not getting up to date information. So you can see the screen in front of me here, Shane.

Shane Mercer [00:12:03]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:12:04]:

Okay. So if you are not watching on YouTube, I'll try to provide you guys with a visualization as best as I can, but I definitely recommend checking out this clip visually if you're only listening to me. So I take things pretty seriously. As you can see by this screen here, this is my living room TV setup, which is a three by three video wall. Those are computer monitors that can be arranged in all different formations. And I can have nine games on at once there if I would like to. For the sake of this video, I'm going to just explain what everything is here. So in the bottom middle where you see that KPMG logo is Sabrina, inplayLIVE community specialist that works with us and does a phenomenal job. We sent her to the game last week to give us a real time feed of the Canucks game here in Vancouver.

Shane Mercer [00:13:01]:

Wow, what an assignment. Look at that.

Andrew Pace [00:13:03]:

It was actually her first game at the Canucks. Won 6-2, which if you've watched many Canucks games, the fact that you get to see them win is usually I don't know if it's a blessing or a mirage or what it is, but she got to see them win. So that bottom middle, that is the real time feed. Above that, the four screens all in one, that's what I would refer to as a really good cable feed. That's a coaxial feed that is going to be delayed from the event, but we're going to get that information, I would say as close to real time as it gets. Then in the bottom right, that's actually Kenny the Golden Goose FaceTiming me with his fastest hockey feed that he can get access to in the United States when games are not on cable. And that's using a streaming service called ESPN Plus. And then in the bottom left, that is your NHL TV if you're in the States or Sportsnet now in Canada, which is advertised as the fastest and best way to watch hockey live in real time. So I would call that false advertising at its finest. We're going to run the clip here.

Shane Mercer [00:14:19]:

Yeah, show us the proof.

Andrew Pace [00:14:21]:

I'm just going to walk you through it. So let's start out by looking at the bottom middle here, and this is the real time game. Let's all look at that bottom middle. The Canucks are on a power play. They're right in front of Sabrina at the game here. And they're passing it around. And they pass it back here. And the Canucks are about to take a shot on goal. There's the shot on goal. Let's go to the top left here. Now you see they're passing the puck around. This is the good coaxial feed here. The coaxial feed looks like it's a little bit delayed. And the Canucks shoot the puck.

Shane Mercer [00:14:50]:

Okay, that was a good 15, 20 seconds there.

Andrew Pace [00:14:53]:

Let's go to the bottom right here. The Canucks are just gaining the zone now. We're on ESPN plus. They're starting to gain. They're passing the puck around, passing the puck around. This is the ESPN Plus feed and they've shot the puck. Okay, now let's go over to NHL. TV or sportsnet? Now your very fast, high streaming service. That is the best way to watch the game live and in real time. The Canucks have just gained the zone. They're passing it around. They're passing it around and they've shot the puck. Now they've shot it while in the real feed, we are two whistles ahead and the play has resumed, whereas in the streams, the puck hasn't even dropped from two whistles ago.

Andrew Pace [00:15:33]:

So there's the latency in real time, we are two whistles ahead and the play has resumed, whereas in the streams, the puck hasn't even dropped from two whistles ago. So there's the latency in real time.

Shane Mercer [00:15:52]:

That is unbelievable as you watch that to see, okay, the live game, and then you've got the coaxial, which is delayed by about 15 to 20 seconds. And then we see, I guess, the ESPN Plus, where that was a good 30 to 40 seconds delayed. And then the last one, that would have to be 90 seconds. And you mentioned the one that was just before that the SPN plus one. That is Kenny Huber, a professional sports bettor, one of the best there is out there, who has the money to spend on the highest quality products out there available to him and he still can't get something that is right up to speed. That is live, right? 100% live.

Andrew Pace [00:16:47]:

Right. And he was filming his TV wall as well. So he's got the infrastructure, he's got the set up, he's got all that kind of stuff. And yeah, like you said, it's really challenging. Now, hockey might not be the best example because of the fact that it isn't as big of a sport as say, the NFL or the NBA in the United States, but that latency that we just showed exists across all platforms in sports. And it is really a challenge, regardless of if it's one of those quicker coaxial feeds or something else, that same challenge exists across the board. I'm just going to show you another clip really quickly. And this is March madness. This is two different basketball feeds.

Shane Mercer [00:17:34]:

We have another high paced sports game here.

Andrew Pace [00:17:36]:

Yeah, really good point, Shane. High paced sports game, right.

Shane Mercer [00:17:41]:

Like hockey is a very, very fast game. So is basketball.

Andrew Pace [00:17:45]:

Exactly. And I want to caveat this. We don't have someone at the game for this one, right? So the bottom right here we've got TSN one, which for me in Canada is a really good coaxial feed. It's not my best feed, but it's a good one. And beside that on the left, we have YouTube, TV, and that's really significant, which we will talk about after I run this clip here, but I'm just going to let some play go. And you can see 1540 915 47 on the right as the clock's ticking down. And over on the left, you see a solid 30 seconds of latency. But what you realize is that was on the clock that was running and now on the left, the clock has stopped. So it's way more than 30 seconds latent. And you can just let this run for a little bit here and see. And this is your IPTV service that people are relying on across the world to watch their live sports.

Shane Mercer [00:18:39]:

Wow. It's unbelievable to think that it could be that far behind. And just imagine you're sitting there and you're waiting for a moment to place a particular wager and you're waiting for an event to happen in the game. A moment, whether it's a basket or it's a foul or it's a turnover or something like that. And to be that far behind, the sports book, wow. Do they ever have a significant advantage over you.

Andrew Pace [00:19:07]:

No kidding. I'm just watching this and see we're on commercial here. And on the left there, we just finally saw Noel get a little bit of an ankle tweak there. Who is one of the stars in March Madness this past.

Shane Mercer [00:19:19]:

What a superstar, that guy. Unbelievable. To watch him.

Andrew Pace [00:19:22]:

Yeah. So there's a visual for everyone of what I'm referring to when we talk about latency. And I think that now we can really get into, okay, what are our options and how limited this gets us. Right.

Shane Mercer [00:19:35]:

Well, Pace, as I sort of sit back and watch and sort of see your nine screen wall and knowing that you have access to everything that you possibly could have access to, and to think that this is still a problem that even someone like you and someone like Kenny is struggling with. How is an average guy like me ever supposed to compete here?

Andrew Pace [00:19:59]:

Yeah, well, I mean, as far as competing goes, you do want the best and most real time information possible. But I think what's important before we even necessarily get there is, okay, so if you are watching it delayed, what does that potentially mean for you as a sports bettor? Right. So with my nine screens, it'll be an NFL Sunday and there's literally exactly nine games on. So there'll be other people in the room with me, and I'll have to say to them, hey, these seven games are live. And when I say live, I'm referring to a solid coaxial feed that's anywhere between sort of seven and 12 seconds latent from the real time event occurring to letting them know these two are IPTV, which means that we could be dealing with anything from 30 seconds to 2 minutes of latency. People will acknowledge that I have said that to them. They nod their head, they go, okay, got it. They react to something in real time. Real time in quotes to one of those delayed feeds, even though they know that they've been told it's delayed. And they make a wager and a snap decision immediately based on what they just saw. Little do they know the next play is an interception. So they saw value based on plays that hadn't occurred yet. Really good example. You get into baseball season. Let's say that it's the 8th inning there's, bases loaded with one out, and the total is one more run wins at plus odds. And you're looking at a game with bases loaded and one out going, oh, my God, this is amazing. I'm going to get my bet in right now. Meanwhile, you just made a wager when a double play had already occurred and there's only one at bat in the game left. You thought you were getting an edge and you were just hosed because you watched a latent feed that wasn't in real time. And I guess what my point is is that regardless of whether or not you know that your feed is delayed, your brain naturally will put yourself in a spot of making a poor decision because of the fact that you're watching a game and wagering on it.

Shane Mercer [00:22:22]:

In that example, too pace. I think it's important to point out that we're not talking here about the average recreational bettor. These are very sharp bettors that are sitting next to you who do see value based on what did transpire. The problem is that they didn't get a chance to see the next play, the next moment of the game before putting in that wager. So you have very sharp bettors who are still being in some ways duped into making a bad wager because of that delay.

Andrew Pace [00:23:02]:

Exactly. And the thing that we really haven't touched on yet is that the vast majority of people in North America are consuming their information now via this delay that we're referencing.

Shane Mercer [00:23:13]:

Well, so let's get into that because cord cutting is a thing, right? And it has been for years now and this is a big challenge for the traditional broadcasting industry. So we're talking about in the States, your NBCS, your ABCs and CBS and all those sort of traditional sports broadcasters because a lot of people are saving money by cutting the cord and they're canceling their cable subscriptions. They're moving away from that. They're watching all of their dramas and their comedy shows and all of that sort of entertainment on streaming services. And for everybody out there, this is nothing new. We've all been doing it right. We've all sort of made this shift towards streaming services and so sports and live sports is kind of the last holdout on that to make that transition over to the streaming services. In fact, the only reason I still have cable, coaxial cable, is because I want to watch sports live. And that's really probably the only thing that I truly use my own cable for anymore is to watch live sports. And so that is changing. Even sports now is moving into these streaming services. We've seen Amazon reach a deal with the NFL, I think it was this past season. They had the Thursday night games and a big deal that just took place sort of in the last couple of months. Is YouTube getting the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket? I think it's something like a $2 billion deal that Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, has signed with the NFL. So in the example that you showed us, their pace, the slowest one, the most latent was the one off of YouTube, correct?

Andrew Pace [00:25:07]:

Well, in the basketball feed, yes, that was the slowest. Now on our Instagram page, we ran a latency test in a golf match of YouTube TV versus Fubo. And YouTube TV was three or 4 seconds ahead of Fubo. But once we start talking about latency relating to those platforms, we're talking about the worst versus even worse. Apple has the Friday night baseball contract and yeah, I'm glad you brought it up, Amazon, because that'll be something that I want to talk about with respect to things that have gone really well in this area, which gets me excited for the future. But you also mentioned cutting the cable, and that being something that a lot of people have done. But I guess there's a further step to that, and that's people that haven't cut the cable that don't know that it's not live anymore. And the reason for that is because even on coaxial feeds, a lot of specialty services. So things like NHL Center, Ice, NFL Sunday Ticket, NFL Red Zone, NBA League Pass, the MLB Package, all of those that you can then sign up through your provider. All of a sudden. Now, if you look at them, they're a little bit different in their picture than if you watch the game on, say, your typical ESPN or TSN feed that's coming through nice and quick. Your ABCs, your NBCS, all those CBS, they're a little bit different. And that's because the coaxle feed is first picking up an IPTV feed and then distributing it to you. Then on top of that, they're replacing all the coaxial systems with these new IPTV boxes. So if you go to sign up for cable today, you're getting an IPTV box. If you have coaxial cable, you're getting some of these IPTV feeds through coax. And then on top of that, they are trying to actively replace all of the coax boxes with these IPTV boxes and they market it and just this, however it is that they package it together. And then the word live TV is just used constantly.

Shane Mercer [00:27:31]:

And yeah, it's not yeah, I suppose there must be a certain standard in which they need to meet to advertise as live TV, right? So 15 seconds latent can qualify as live TV or 30 seconds, or whatever it might be. But to think that, yeah, it's not totally live. And I've even noticed this on my own TV, where here in Toronto, I'm watching an NFL game on CTV, the main broadcaster, and then a game on TSN, right? They're both owned by the same company, Bell, but one is faster than the other and you're getting one just a little bit quicker than the other. And it's just amazing to think and see that. Here we are in 2023 with all of the advancements in technology that we've had over the years, and the technology is improving and advancing at such a rapid pace, but we still struggle to get something 100% live in the moment.

Andrew Pace [00:28:38]:

Right, with the example of college basketball. And this applies to a lot of sports, but then there's also the whole discussion of there's a ton of games that you actually can't watch that you don't have a live feed of, it almost doesn't exist or you don't have access to. And then obviously with lots of games on, not a lot of people have nine TVs in their living room. But even if you did, there's more than nine games on. So getting access to information beyond what you can actually watch. This is a big aspect that doesn't apply to the public, but definitely applies to professional bettors. And I think that regardless of whether you're a pro or not, if you are live betting, which, again, we've done a lot of stuff in here on advertising. They are advertising the live betting, the sports books. Latency is something we haven't touched on yet. They are typically on par with a really good coaxial feed. So the books are oftentimes five to 8 seconds latent reacting to what happened in real time on the game, which creates the whole element of I don't know. If I want to call this a professional betting strategy, but what's called as court siding, which is a sports bettor attending an event to gain an edge in live betting. So spinning in next goal at a hockey game before the books recognized that that goal had gone in, you might be able to beat them by a 10th of a second before they lock and you instantly spun in. A winning wager, getting an end of quarter spread in a basketball game because you saw a three pointer get hit with just a couple of minutes left, which gave you a three point edge or three point buffer that you were able to spin beforehand. You see An Ace in a Tennis Match and that closed out the Game where you could Spin in Odds that you would never wager on something like A -2000 Game winner but you saw the Ace Occur and you got in a 10th of a second before the sports Books locked on that particular Market. So the flip side to the latency question is where the sports books stand in all of this. And like I just said, this sort of elusive courtsiding thing is something that a lot of pros have chased for a long, long time where they're trying to get in wagers ahead of the book because the book is actually the one latent. But to the average consumer that 5 seconds that the book is latent is actually 30 plus seconds ahead of you the viewer, which gives the book the edge, not you, the viewer. And Then you might listen to this and go oh, this whole Court Siding thing sounds really appealing if it works and that's a big if because oftentimes the sports books lock in time before you could actually make a wager. But if it works, you've just put a big target on your back where, in my opinion, you could make more money value betting on an account in a legitimate way where you gained an edge than if you did a short term thing. Like you went to one game, you made a little bit of money, and then you lost your account because they saw the pattern of the event occurring and the time of the wagers. They can see all that you're going to get caught, that's a guarantee. So you go Burn a bunch of accounts, yeah, you make a little. Bit of money, potentially, but then that gig is up. And I also think that when we're talking about technology advancing that that won't exist in a few years, I think that the books will be caught up.

Shane Mercer [00:32:21]:

Yeah, that idea of courtsiding poses a whole bunch of ethical questions as well. Right? Like what exactly are you doing here? Are you cheating? Right. Is that cheating? And I think that that is a debate for another day and another show. We can have that conversation, for sure.

Andrew Pace [00:32:40]:

Latency. It's relevant though, definitely.

Shane Mercer [00:32:42]:

But in terms of latency, it's absolutely relevant because you can theoretically get that advantage over the books. But there are other challenges that come with it. Also, too, when you are in a large group of people, it can be very difficult sometimes to use your phone, which we've seen. You can have a hard time accessing the Internet or doing things at a high speed because there are so many other cell phones in the area pinging off of the same towers and that kind of thing. So for anyone out there who's thinking about trying that, if you're going to a game for fun and you want to give it a try, sure, whatever. You might burn a book, as Pace mentioned, but for the most part I wouldn't look at that as a long term strategy for success. Right.

Andrew Pace [00:33:26]:

Or if you do view that as a long term strategy for success, I wish you the best of luck in your one to two week venture.

Shane Mercer [00:33:33]:

Yeah, exactly. It's not going to last long. But on this topic, and a lot of people out there may not know this, but a lot of sports books, and it's not just one or two now, but a lot of sports books are offering the ability to watch a match, to watch a game, to watch something directly in their platform. So bet365 will offer will give you the opportunity to actually watch a game. And I know myself, I've watched some of the international soccer, some matches from La Liga or the France League or EPL or whatever, games that aren't typically broadcast on this side of the pond. And that gets into the whole conversation around rights and who has the rights and this and that. But the sports books are now players in the rights game.

Andrew Pace [00:34:23]:

Yeah, I think where you can watch a lot of the matches are where the rights aren't established, fully established in your area. So that allows them to provide you with those live feeds. Like, I know my buddy Herb, he was watching the NFL, NHL, MLB, et cetera, all the North American sports live through a betting app while he was in China. And when I say live, we're dealing with what I would call a bad coaxial feed. Typically, typically there are exceptions. A bad coaxial feed of about, usually about 15 seconds latent. Now you were talking about rights and things like that and you'll see it on a broadcast, right? You'll see ESPN, CBS and TSN, all logos in the same feed. And that's where someone has the rights in the United States, but then you're watching it elsewhere and the rights are purchased from that provider in Canada. So then you see the logo of the US rights and then it's then through Canada. And that's where the latency can get worse for any feed, whether it's an IPTV feed or not because of the fact that it's got to go through these channels from a right standpoint to actually end up getting delivered to you. But with respect to the books themselves, that is where we're starting to get into the conversation of the technology existing to deliver us live TV via the internet and actually have it better than a coax feed. Which is where I start to get excited for the future of betting and the future of live TV in sports.

Shane Mercer [00:36:03]:

So why is that then? Do you think we're going to get a product, a service that is 100% live? Do you see that on the horizon?

Andrew Pace [00:36:14]:

100%? I don't know if that's possible, but Amazon and Caesars have done a remarkable job in the last year. So I think that's probably a good thing to touch on now. Is there's a company called Sport Radar? We talked about them in our episode about odds providers. They are oftentimes providing the live data to a lot of books and they're oftentimes the company that's actually providing that live feed of the match. And again, that is typically in line with coaxial cable or a bad coaxial feed. Jeff Bezos recognized that latency was a huge concern in the world of cable cutting as it relates specifically to sports. And he came out in 2018 and he said that his goal will be to have live TV better than a coaxial feed. And his goal was 5 seconds of latency. Amazon got the rights for Thursday Night Football and we watched that last season. So we've gone through a full season of Amazon having Thursday Night Football and it was nothing short of spectacular. It was two to 3 seconds latent. And there's some people that are watching this right now that go, what? No, I was always delayed on Amazon. The device in which you watched the feed through was very important and your internet at home is very important. So if you have an Ethernet cable wired in with one gig of internet and you're watching it on an Amazon Firecube, you were going to be ridiculously live. So much so that now we're going back in technology again. One of the ways that you could get a live feed or the most live feed was with what's called an Ota antenna, which stands for over the air. So if I'm sitting here in Vancouver, I could have an Ota antenna attached to my roof and I'm going to get broadcasted any local broadcast faster than a coaxial feed and as close to live as it gets. So Shane, someone like yourself in Toronto, you're going to be getting Maple Leafs, Raptors and Blue Jays games really live with an Ota antenna. So we ran tests with the Amazon Prime Football Channel with people that had Ota antennas where the game was being played. So if Thursday Night Football was in Philadelphia, we had someone in Philadelphia with an Ota antenna watching that thing as live as video has ever been delivered to the user. And the Amazon Prime feed was ahead of it, which is where now I start to get really excited. Now you talk about court siding and all that crap. This is all morality aside. This is specific to latency. When you talk about courtsiding and things like that, that's where the books have to improve because they can't be the ones that are latent with these exceptional feeds now starting to come through in these next couple of years. And then you go, okay, but it's just Amazon. What about all the other providers? It wasn't just Amazon. Caesars in the United States offered live viewing of NFL primetime games only if they were on NBC. And the Caesars feed was as fast as the prime feed. That two to 3 seconds latent, which again was spectacular to have. So the technology exists, it's improved significantly. It just hasn't gotten to us yet. And that of course leads us to the deal with YouTube TV. YouTube TV has the rights to the NFL next year. Their latency is atrocious amazon prime figured it out for their big contract for just Thursday Night Football. So all of us are sitting here tooth and nail going, are they going to figure this out for us? And if they don't, how the hell are we going to watch NFL this season?

Shane Mercer [00:40:22]:

Yeah, well that's exactly it. But you got to think that a company like Alphabet is going to invest in this. Now that they've got the rights. You've got to think that they're going to be making sure that they are going to provide as good, if not an even better service than what Amazon was providing. I mean, you've got to hope, right? I mean, nobody knows for sure, but you've got to think that this is going to be a big deal for them.

Andrew Pace [00:40:50]:

For me, I look at it and I go, okay, how have I handled these things in the past and what will I be able to do myself as a professional sports bettor if YouTube does not fix this? Which is not a lot, not a lot of people think that way, obviously, because they're not in the position that we are necessarily in at inplayLIVE relating to our sports betting. I'll figure it out and we'll be okay. But if you're in the United States and you're relying on YouTube TV as your NFL provider, they'd freaking better figure it out. They had better because I'm sitting here and I've got VPNs and Fire Cubes and Apple TVs and coax boxes and I've got every different way to consume a game here because of the fact that a lot of these broadcasts aren't readily available in Canada. So I've had to do a lot of stuff for my own personal setup to have access to this as an investment. And I've spent tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars to have that and it's returned me more so that I have that real time information. But yeah, to the average consumer coming into this, that is not the case. And we are sort of at mercy of whether or not these big tech companies do invest the way that Amazon has. And I will say just really quickly, the only feed that Amazon provided that live was Thursday Night Football. There are other live TV platforms. So like you could go buy NBA lead pass through your Amazon and you might watch this and think, oh, well, I'll be super live. If I do it on Amazon, it's going to be like a minute latent. So the only feed that they did that for was Amazon Thursday Night Football, not their other sports channels.

Shane Mercer [00:42:33]:

Good to know. So they had put an emphasis on that. Now, Pace, I've got to ask you though, because there's so many members of our audience out there who are listening and they're watching and they're thinking, I don't have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on all of these things. I can't invest all of this. But they want to make some money betting on sports. And we've told them now that there is value to be had in betting live, which there is. What do you say to them in terms of navigating this latency? How does the average sports bettor out there who wants to make a little bit of money, find their way around this so that the book doesn't have a constant edge on them?

Andrew Pace [00:43:18]:

Right, well, I think the first thing is if you're watching a latent feed, don't rely on it. That's the obvious one. Right. The second thing is that a lot of people, what they do is they actually turn to the sports books to be the provider of the information for them.

Shane Mercer [00:43:33]:

Funny how this is all sort of working in a bit of a circle here. Right, right.

Andrew Pace [00:43:37]:

So we just talked about the sports books having the edge on you if you're latent. Well, let's take it to another step, another level. If the sports book has the edge on you and you realize that you start relying on the sports book to give you the live information. So the sports books might not have the game live to watch, but they have the graphic and they have the score. So if you take a high volume scoring sport like basketball, points are going back and forth, and you're relying on that to see who has the ball, what the fouls are, what the three point percentages are, what the free throw percentages are. And of course, yeah, what the score is, how much time is left in the game, all that kind of stuff. And again, now we're going back to Sport Radar. They're a company that provides a lot of that data for not one sports book, but multiple sports books. And this is the beauty of inplayLIVE. We have the lens of hundreds of people all across North America in different areas, some that have the game live so that we can ask them what happened and they can type in and say, it's this team's ball with this much time left. It's on a timeout right now. And they're currently reviewing this and we know exactly what the situation is because of that. But what I'm getting at is that if you rely on the sports books for the information of real time sports data, not only are they wrong constantly, but they'll be wrong to the extent that that same error goes to multiple books at the same time. And that can be something that's reassuring to you as a bettor you're. Like, oh, William Hill, bet365, five and DraftKings all say it's this score, but FanDuel and Barstool say it's this score. Who do we trust in this spot? And that's where the only way to know is to have real time eyes on the game, right? So as far as your question goes, the answer is to never make a decision based on latent information and to ensure that if you feel like you've gained an edge because of what a sports book has told you, to make sure that you have verified the information to the point of confidence. Beyond that, sports books data provider, and that data provider can also be the same one for ESPN and The Score and other ones as well. Like they actually get the same data at the same time. That's where money management really comes into the equation, because you may have deployed an irresponsible amount of money based on false data and then lost it as a result of that. So really making sure that you have that most up to date data and what do I use for that if I don't have eyes on the game? It is a combination of sports books, it is a combination of apps like ESPN and The Score. And then it is the community at inplayLIVE that we all sort of lean on to get that information, but make the decision when the clock is not running. And the reason why I say that is because if you are 40 seconds latent and you get a TV time out, the clock still isn't running, you're on a two minute commercial break and then you have the real time information. So when making those really impactful big bankroll decisions, if you are latent or if you don't have the most up to date information, make them on a timeout when you had the time to gather the correct information. And if you lost the opportunity because of that time frame, at least you didn't lose your bankroll.

Shane Mercer [00:47:22]:

Yeah, that's a really great point. Timeouts can work wonders in the world of live betting and waiting for the there's nothing wrong with just taking a moment. You don't have to place that bet right in that moment and just wait for the time out because you can actually make a much more informed decision. And you also mentioned the sports radar and how if it makes an error, it will make an error across several books, which is why it's so important to have access to books that have other providers right. To sort of have those up at the same time. So you can verify that what one sports book is telling you is correct on the other, and that they're in line with each other because yeah, we've seen a lot of that, especially over the March Madness tournament from at least one particular sports book that is usually very reliable but can make mistakes. Right. These things happen. And I think it's important, too, to know that in this case, a lot of times those errors aren't malicious in any way. The sports book isn't necessarily trying to feed you bad information, so you make a bad bet, it's just an error.

Andrew Pace [00:48:32]:

Yeah. And that's just like a three ball that gets called a three on the court and the refs review it during a TV timeout and a point comes off the board where you, as the viewer, did not even see that a review was underway. Right. You may have made a wager based on that one point differential. Like a good example might be like a team to win the game where you think they're down two and now they're down three, or you think they're down three, which is one possession. Typically, you can hit a three in basketball. Well, now they're down four and now it's a two possession game. It's a totally different situation. You didn't do anything wrong. You're just at the mercy of the human error and the nature of sports in those situations. So that's, again, you go back to money management. You might have to say, hey, we made the wager based on information that include human error. Like you just said, Shane, that's an error. There's nothing we can do about it. All we can do is look back and decide whether or not we deployed the right amount of money for our situation in that spot.

Shane Mercer [00:49:40]:

Yeah. And you also mentioned the benefit of the group in these situations and the benefit of the inplayLIVE community. The benefits of group betting are enormous. We touched on it a little bit last week when we were talking about chaos and I referenced you look back on history and all the people out there who came up with great blackjack strategies, great horse betting strategies, great roulette strategies, they've all worked in teams. They've all worked in groups of people. It's never been an individual alone. And this is a great example of that in action where the individual alone trying to verify one, they're watching something latent, 30 seconds behind. The sports book is giving them one piece of information. Maybe another sports book is giving them conflicting information. They have no way of knowing for sure what has actually happened, what is the truth, what are the actual facts. But when you have that other group in that community and you have that person in that city who's able to verify that for you, I mean, that's priceless.

Andrew Pace [00:50:42]:

Yeah. Yes, sir.

Shane Mercer [00:50:43]:

Well said. So with that, let's just recap. We're just about out of time here, but on latency one, recognize that it exists. What you're watching is not live. Bottom line. It's never 100% live unless you are at the game and you're watching it with your own two lives. The latency can be different between your providers. Whether you're watching that on coax cable, traditional cable, you're watching it with that antenna that Pace was talking about, or you're watching it on a streaming service like YouTube or Hulu or any number of them or Amazon or whatever it might be, they are going to be latent to some extent. So if you are betting live on the game, know your latency, right? That's sort of a good rule right there. Know your latency, how far behind are you? And if you're going to use the sports books to provide your information, which they can often be some of the best providers of information, just make sure that you know that you are using sports books that have different data providers. So that way if there is any kind of discrepancy, you'll be made aware of it and you can at least take a moment to say, okay, wait, there's something wrong here. I can't base my decision on that particular bit of information because something's off. And timeouts, timeouts are crucial. Use those timeouts. Take a moment, take a breath.

Andrew Pace [00:52:07]:

Commercials aren't so bad after all, right?

Shane Mercer [00:52:10]:

It's a great opportunity to just evaluate the situation and place your wager. Pace. Have I missed anything? Is there anything else you want to add?

Andrew Pace [00:52:17]:

No, I think it's just again, I'm excited for the future. I can't wait to have nine super fast two second delayed feeds in my living room. That's so exciting. I've had that to a certain extent, but it is only going to improve from here. And let's freaking hope that YouTube TV has this ready to rumble for NFL this season.

Shane Mercer [00:52:38]:

Yeah, fingers crossed on that one. Come on YouTube, get it together. All right? We know you got this, all right? We're all counting on you. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of behind the Lines. Remember to like download and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and everywhere you get your podcast. Have a betting story or want to be featured on our podcast, drop a note in the comments below. And if you want to join inplayLIVE, use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'.