#ICYMI - Inside Sports Betting

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. Place your bets! Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore the ins, outs, ups, and downs of sports betting with sports writer Brett Smiley, statistics expert David Beaudoin, and Todd Fuhrman, FS1 contributor and host of the Bet the Board podcast. Photo Credit: Baishampayan Ghose [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:03Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Sport has always been about numbers. And one of those numbers is coming out of the shadows. And that number is 150 billion.

• 0:15Chuck Nice?

  I'll take it.

• 0:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, which is the total of US dollars that is waged illegally on sports bets every year in the US.

• 0:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 0:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 0:24Chuck Nice?

  And in 2018, the US Supreme Court gave the green light to legislate sports betting. What is the downside? And who will ultimately win? Well, to give us his considered opinion is Brett Smiley, a sports writer and a former commercial litigator from New York, who will certainly know a thing or two about it.

• 0:42Gary O'Reilly?

  We will also hear from David Beaudoin, a PhD in statistics at Laval University in Canada, who developed a program to determine the outcome of both NBA and NHL games. So stay with us and certainly pay attention. And rounding off our perfect trifecta is Todd Furman, the co-founder of the podcast Bet the Board, an FS1 regular and former Vegas oddsmaker, who will no doubt shed some light on AI's use in the mysterious world of sports betting.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  So right now, let's get into our first guest. Brett Smiley, Brett, what's happening, my friend? Hanging out, glad to be with you guys. So Brett, you know, before we start the show, I just want to make it clear to people who are who are listening, and especially those that know me.

• 1:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  Because they'll be like, oh, man, really? You're doing this? Is that, you know, my father had a terrible gambling problem. And for some people, gambling represents some some really bad stuff personally. For me, I feel like it's a it's an activity. It's a it's a recreation. That can go horribly wrong for some people, but that's a very small group of people. Most people just do it for fun. But I think it's incumbent upon me personally to say that if you have a problem, there's no shame in getting help. And that you can go to gamblersanonymous.org if you know somebody with the problem. And I just think it's responsible for responsible of us to make that disclaimer upfront. But that being said, I'll let Gary jump into our show.

• 2:13Gary O'Reilly?

  No, 100% agree with you. Because of family situation that you encountered, you've got you're absolutely right to deal with that. All right. Having said all of that, Brett, um, sports handle. Just give us a quick breakdown on what sports handle actually is. Because you're the co-founder.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a website covering the sports wagering industry, you know, some of the stakeholders, the sports betting operators. I have a focus on the legislation and we'll get into that, but there's just a ton of things going on in state and the federal level and covering some of the business as well because that's, there's been a, an influx of activity there with, with Fox recently partnering and then their Fox Sports, which will be broadcasting the Super Bowl is also going to have a, a sports book operational through the Stars Group by the next Super Bowl. So we cover all those and yeah.

• 3:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, that's not, that's not unfamiliar territory for Fox because their British affiliate, Sky Sports, have Sky Bet. So they've

• 3:15Speaker 02

  It's not unfamiliar for you.

• 3:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, you're right.

• 3:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely, yeah. It's, it's something I've grown up with as a Brit, knowing that those two are a partnership. So what's happening is, as you said, the landscape here is changing rather rapidly.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, um, I, last I checked, I think about half or maybe nine out of 20 of the Premier League teams had a primary sponsor that was a sports betting operator. Uh huh. Uh, there's been a federal ban that was known as PASPA, uh, that banned full-fledged wagering in Nevada since 1992. Uh, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but that law was struck by the US Supreme Court in May of last year. And now what they basically said, they didn't say that sports wagering is now legal in the US. They said that states, should they choose, should their elected officials choose to legalize, they can.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  Where did this come from, this idea that gambling should be illegal? Because to me, it doesn't make any sense to make gambling illegal. It happens all the time. And, and so to me, it should be something where it's regulated and it provides income and revenue for states and municipalities. Because I don't care what you say, you're going to bet no matter what. I mean, whether it's a friendly wager between friends, whether it's an office pool, or whether it is legal, a casino, or whether it's online. So where did that come from? This whole idea of like, we've got to make this illegal?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  So let's go back into the time machine, literally 100 years, 1919. Yeah, the Chicago Black Sox scandal. And that was a scandal involving Major League Baseball back when players were earning very, very little. They still had jobs in the offseason. Basically, a couple of those players with the team that was in the World Series got caught up in a scandal and they threw the game. It became the movie, was it Eight Men Out, I think. But that led to the installation of the first commissioner in sports, at least in US sports, an MLB commissioner, a judge who was very hard-fisted. Fast forward to see the leagues now doing a 180 because they really don't have a choice. It's just kind of fascinating to watch.

• 5:28Gary O'Reilly?

  So what pressure, what pressure has been put on the leagues for them to flip the way that you've just described?

• 5:32Chuck Nice?

  Or is it money?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  It's money.

• 5:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay. Enough said. There we go. All right, let's, let's look at this. We said at the top of the show, there's $150 billion illegally bet on sports every year in the USA. What kind of number are we going to look at here under the legal umbrella if this comes through and a number of states pick up on it?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that number 150, that may even be low. That's an estimate.

• 5:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  The number referenced in Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, in the 2014 New York Times op-ed, which actually was kind of a, a big moment for, for a, a big sport commissioner to be saying, hey, we should legalize and regulate because it's happened anyway, which we already covered. But the number he used, looking at some other studies, was 400 billion. That's, that's, so it's somewhere between 150 and 400 billion. Who knows? That is being wagered by US citizens, like you said.

• 6:30Chuck Nice?

  Cool. So let me ask you this. What's the, what's the biggest mistake that beginners make when they want to get into recreation or think that they can maybe?

• 6:41Gary O'Reilly?

  They know better.

• 6:42Chuck Nice?

  Make a little, oh, right. What's the biggest mistake that you make when you're like, okay, I'm doing this now, man. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a player.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Number one is probably betting with your heart, not your head. So don't just bet on your home team just because you want to see them win. Need to look at it objectively, mathematically. Try and find an edge. And the second biggest mistake is bankroll management. Everybody needs to bet within their means. If you're depositing a hundred dollars, don't bet a hundred dollars on the first game if you want it to last. It's better to break it up into what's so-called units. You know, maybe that's one unit. If you want to bet in one game, it's five dollars. If you feel really good, maybe bet three units, fifteen dollars on the game. And just be disciplined because you know, somebody bets X amount on the beginning of a day on the Sunday.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  If they're watching the Sunday night football game and often it's called chasing. They just want to catch up and try to make it all that up at once.

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  So if you're sitting at a table, that's called throwing good money after bad.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:45Gary O'Reilly?

  So now, now we're inside.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  You don't ever want to do that.

• 7:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Now we're inside a gambler's mind in terms of sports betting. How, they must be, the house must be so acutely aware of how a mind will be triggered. And they set all these goodies up for you to go chase, as Chuck was just saying. How, how do they play with the neuroscience that's going on in there for a gambler?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Well, there's, um, there's different incentives that are offered, you know, to get people in and get them interested in the first place. I mean, the sports books know that people by and large want to bet a little to win a lot. And that's what those accumulators are, the parlays, which means you got to get four, four games correct. And you'll win like 10 to one, you know, as opposed to a more reasoned and slower and steadier approach where you're winning X amount over a period of time. And somebody who's prone to addiction, it's a.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  It involves brain chemistry, dopamine, and it's a reward-seeking behavior and it's triggered, you know, sometimes by drugs, but also just gambling.

• 8:56Chuck Nice?

  Experiences.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  The thrill of being, oh, I'm gonna win ten to one and I'm gonna take my family to Denny's.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Hey, but listen, listen, and listen, for some people, they have a weakness for that. But when you said the four games, I gotta tell you.

• 9:11Gary O'Reilly?

  You're thinking.

• 9:11Chuck Nice?

  Something lit up in my brain and I was just like, that sounds fun.

• 9:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  Like, I wanna do that.

• 9:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Back in the UK, they're called ackers.

• 9:19Chuck Nice?

  Ackers?

• 9:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Ackers, yes, accumulators.

• 9:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, accumulate, okay.

• 9:22Gary O'Reilly?

  And the guys will load up on seven, eight games.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:25Gary O'Reilly?

  And the adrenaline. If the first three come in, you're peeling them off the ceiling.

• 9:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. All right. Hey, Brett, thanks so much, man, for joining us.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  My pleasure, good to be with you guys.

• 9:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Pleasure's ours, thank you. Right, we're gonna take another break. When we come back, David Beaudoin, this man is a PhD in statistics from Laval University in Canada. He actually developed his own program for predicting games. Now, if that's not gonna keep you listening, nothing will. I expect your company when we come back.

• 10:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is our sports betting special. Right, our next guest, David Beaudoin, is a man that's been developing programs to determine the outcome of both NBA and NHL games. Something that is of interest to a lot of people, and in particular Chuck and I. So, Chuck, let's speak to David.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Well, thanks for having me.

• 10:29Gary O'Reilly?

  No, thank you. For soccer, particularly in Britain and in Europe, there is such a sophistication of the betting landscape. I can bet on the number of corner kicks, the number of yellow cards, the number of sending off red cards.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 10:46Gary O'Reilly?

  As well as the score itself. I can bet at the score at a certain stage in the game. I can bet at the score at halftime. I mean, whether the markets are sophisticated like that in hockey, David, I'm not sure. But the destination of David's bet is the outcome. What I would love to know is how he constructs the journey to that destination, because that has to have an awful lot of sophistication and nuance in his thinking.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Well, it's a mix of a statistical model and other information that I get like injuries or who's the starting goaltender. So I run a statistical model that tells me, okay, well, Team A has a 57% chance of winning. But considering I know a good player is hurt, maybe I'm going to reduce that to 52% or 49. It depends on how good the player is. So it's a mix of numbers and other key information.

• 11:46Gary O'Reilly?

  See, remember we did a couple of hockey shows a year or so back?

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:52Gary O'Reilly?

  They talked to us about different arenas in different parts of the league having different types of ice depending, say, in California? Yep. The ice would be different as opposed to Canada.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Yes, or in Denver, they have hair that is tin or it's harder to breathe for people who are not from Denver, so they may have a bigger home ice advantage.

• 12:19Gary O'Reilly?

  You came up with a program that analyzed why or the relevance of pulling a goalminder early or at a different stage in the game and that the coaches themselves weren't aware of that kind of analysis, is that correct?

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Exactly. The article was published in 2010 and at the time, the coaches were waiting until there was like one minute or 45 seconds left before pulling their goalie. Whereas today, they are not shy to pull their goalie with two, three minutes left in the game. So the philosophy has changed since then. I don't know how much my article has helped in this regard, but I sent the article to several general managers at the time and a few of them called me, thought the article was was nice. So, so right now, the the head coaches have changed the way they coach. They do pull their goalie earlier.

• 13:18Gary O'Reilly?

  What made you focus on that particular aspect?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Uh, because I'm a Montreal Canadiens fan and I was upset when they would wait until there was like forty seconds left to pull their goalie and I was like, that's too late. You're not going to score a goal in thirty, forty seconds, so why don't you pull it earlier? It doesn't matter if you lose two one or three one, it's still a loss, so give it a shot.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Uh, there you go.

• 13:43Gary O'Reilly?

  It was born from the heart of a sports fan.

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  There you go, and it's common sense too, it makes sense. What difference does it make if you're not gonna, if you're not gonna win, you're not gonna win at that point, right?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  So if you're gonna throw a hail mary, you might as well make sure that you can actually get the ball to the end zone, what difference does it make, you know?

• 13:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Bring on all your tall players.

• 14:01Chuck Nice?

  Right, put them in there. Pull all your tall players in the game, what difference does it make? I, I gotta ask you this, cuz I've, I've seen this, uh, kinda people say this, uh, when they're talking about, you know, dealing with betters or come bet with them, a one hundred percent risk-free bet. Is there, is there any such a thing as a hundred percent risk-free bet? And then if it is, is it really a bet? Well, what do they mean when they say that?

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yes, it does exist, it's called arbitrage betting, which is exactly what brought me into the online sports gambling in the first place back in nineteen ninety-nine. So, suppose Team A is playing Team B.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  If, if the odds between two sportsbooks are significantly different from each other, you could bet a certain amount of money on Team A with the first sportsbook, and you bet another amount on Team B with the second sportsbook, while guaranteeing yourself a profit at the end of the day, no matter who wins.

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh my goodness.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  So you are going to win one bet and lose one, but maybe you lost one thousand bucks with the first sportsbook, but you won one thousand and forty dollars with the second, so overall you are up by forty dollars.

• 15:24Gary O'Reilly?

  How many of those are available? Um, I mean, bookmakers are quite sophisticated these days.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  You came up with that?

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, twenty years ago.

• 15:36Chuck Nice?

  Twenty years ago, you came up with that? That's amazing!

• 15:39Gary O'Reilly?

  But they will have shut that down by now, for sure. Or does that still exist?

• 15:43Speaker 03

  There were many, many such opportunities in 1999, but not anymore today, unfortunately. You can still find a few, but it was great, twenty years ago. I had a lot of fun.

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I bet you did. You probably made a lot of money, too. Yeah, which I call fun.

• 16:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 16:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I call money fun.

• 16:03Gary O'Reilly?

  So if I said to you, you were... All right, if we said, sat down and said, right, we're going to prepare to make a bet on a certain game. Maybe it's NBA, maybe it's NHL. How much data and how many hours would it take for you to go from that thought to completing and placing a bet?

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Well, every day I analyze games, maybe for maybe an hour. It depends, of course, on the number of games.

• 16:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  But I run some numbers for... I've got programs already written, so I run some statistical models. I look at the information about the injuries and stuff like that. So it can take quite a bit of time.

• 16:51Gary O'Reilly?

  How many people operate in a similar way to you?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Hmm, that's a good question. I'm certainly not the only one. I'm sure there are many, many other people doing this, who are good with numbers.

• 17:10Gary O'Reilly?

  When you were analyzing a player's injury,

• 17:14Gary O'Reilly?

  sometimes the organization won't let out that the player is injured, and that player turns up on court or turns up on ice. But it becomes obvious somewhere along the line that they're not playing full on. I mean, for instance, in the recent NBA playoffs, Joel Embiid from the Sixers, sorry, Chuck.

• 17:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Gary O'Reilly?

  It was obviously he wasn't playing at full tilt. But we knew he wasn't in a good place. But sometimes that happens without people knowing. How do you make a change? Can you make a change with your betting? Or is it trapped in?

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, you really need to do your homework and make the appropriate research. So we are in the information age, so you need to use it to your advantage. And I believe that following the right people on Twitter is a good way to go. You'll be up to date on the key injuries.

• 18:06Gary O'Reilly?

  How interesting. Twitter has now become a massive, massive indicator and part of the construction and anatomy of a sports bet.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, as well as politics and everything else.

• 18:20Gary O'Reilly?

  It's used in politics since when?

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  You know what? It's a new thing, but it's catching on from what I hear. That's right.

• 18:30Gary O'Reilly?

  So where do we go? So from where you kind of entered into the market into the late 90s and saw the value that was intrinsically there, where can we go from here, this point in the 21st century? How sophisticated is our betting patterns, our betting techniques?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Well, I do like to find patterns from historical data. So, but that being said, I'm aware that past trends may not be indicative of what's going to happen in the future.

• 19:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  But if I feel like a past trend is likely to repeat itself in the future, I'm going to use it. So, well, on my website, I've got, I've published some specific betting strategies on baseball, and they are all based on past trends. But here's the key thing. These trends needed to be in accordance with what my initial intuition was. So, for example,

• 19:34Speaker 03

  I think that the general public tends to rely too much on the most recent games. So they will be overly influenced by what has happened recently. So I was thinking, maybe if Team A is undergoing a fairly long losing streak and facing Team B who is riding a fairly long winning streak, well, maybe you should bet Team A because most people will remember the most recent games. They will be, they'll put money on Team B. That's going to move the line, and then there's going to be value on Team A.

• 20:14Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 20:15Gary O'Reilly?

  It is.

• 20:15Chuck Nice?

  A little contrarian, but at the same time psychologically it makes sense. Huh.

• 20:20Gary O'Reilly?

  All of the factors have to be brought in to bear and not just the day before.

• 20:25Chuck Nice?

  Right. Yeah.

• 20:26Gary O'Reilly?

  A lot of things. And I mean, then players change, head coaches change, ethos and approach to a style within different sports can always have an effect.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:38Gary O'Reilly?

  And I was, I was look at, say, oh, 10 years ago, so and so beat so and so. I said, that's great. That's great for historians.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Right. That was a different team.

• 20:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, it's a different team.

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:47Gary O'Reilly?

  On a different day.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:49Gary O'Reilly?

  And there you go. Deal with this one. But it does, there are certain resonances, certain things that can be in play that are consistent.

• 20:55Chuck Nice?

  Like, like, like, uh, like he said, will, will move the line.

• 20:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Wow. This is, I gotta tell you, sometime I'm listening to this whole show, I'm, I'm like,

• 21:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Chuck Nice?

  I, I wish I gambled.

• 21:07Gary O'Reilly?

  No, you don't.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  God, I wish I gambled.

• 21:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't. David, thank you. Uh, it's been a pleasure having this time to talk to you. Um, and we wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you're still fun.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 21:19Gary O'Reilly?

  No, hopefully you had fun and enjoyment.

• 21:20Chuck Nice?

  I hope you find another like, uh, mechanism that you found 20 years ago, uh, with the 100% risk free betting. I'm sure you're working on it. And when you do, please email me. Before you go public with it, please email me.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Yes, I'll give you a call for sure.

• 21:35Gary O'Reilly?

  He may not have told the truth then.

• 21:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Which I expect and respect totally. David, thank you.

• 21:44Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 21:45Gary O'Reilly?

  David de Bodoin.

• 21:46Chuck Nice?

  Beaudoin.

• 21:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Beaudoin.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Beaudoin.

• 21:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Levalle University in Canada.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Beaudoin, right?

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Yes, Beaudoin. Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate a lot.

• 21:55Gary O'Reilly?

  No, the appreciation is ours. You say it far better than I do. Thank you to David Boudin. Um, interesting. The amount of data, the amount of time, the amount that has to be spent just to get to grips with one particular bet.

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not something for those people who think, oh, well, what's, pass me the paper. I'll look to see who's.

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Gary O'Reilly?

  No, it's not.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no betting was so fascinating. I gotta tell you, I'm learning so much today.

• 22:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, it's becoming a sport. Now, that's it. David Boudin, thank you so much to him. We are going to take another break. When we come back.

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  Todd Furman.

• 22:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Todd Furman, yeah. Uh, this guy is a former Vegas oddsmaker.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Gary O'Reilly?

  So if there's a wrinkle anywhere.

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  He knows it.

• 22:37Gary O'Reilly?

  He knows it and he knows how to iron it out.

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Stick around and we'll be right back.

• 22:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science and our sports betting special. Yep, new legislation, as we said earlier on, has opened the floodgates, potentially. Uh, we have to speak to somebody who knows intimately what it's like to be behind.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Gary O'Reilly?

  The curtain.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Someone involved in every aspect and we've found just the right guy. Todd Furman.

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Gary O'Reilly?

  The co-founder of the podcast Bet the Board, a regular on FS1. And this will really blow you away, a former oddsmaker in Las Vegas. So when it comes to shedding a light to what is happening, past, present and future, we certainly have the right guy. Todd Furman, welcome to Playing with Science, sir.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  Hey, thank you guys for having me. And after that introduction, this interview is only gonna go one way and I think that's straight downhill. So we'll do our best.

• 23:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Bye.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  Try and keep that bar raised.

• 23:43Chuck Nice?

  Hey, no, man, that's, uh, you know, at least, at least you let us know where we were going. And, uh, and as an oddsmaker, you know, knowing is half the battle.

• 23:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Todd, on the other side of the fence for, for a sports betting scenario, what's the first thing, what's the first thing a professional gambler will think when looking at a sports bet?

• 24:04Speaker 04

  Well, there's so many different components that go into it. And the one crazy part about sports, the same way as someone approaching the financial markets, there's a lot of different ways that individuals can be successful. Whether it's using some of the technical analysis and trying to watch the games, figure out the X's and O's and how all those are gonna play out in the course of a three, three and a half hour event. Folks out there who are looking to build math models and go, you know what? We can distill every player and every team regardless of the sport down to its bare essence and how those numbers will integrate with one another, creating some opportunity. And for me at this point, having been in the field as long as I had, I always come back to Malcolm Gladwell and thin slicing, that you just look at a number and you realize,

• 24:46Speaker 04

  hey, something doesn't feel right about this, or something is going to create an opportunity. And by the more you create that familiarity and the faster that you're able to try and process a lot of the stimuli, and there are plenty of them, because these games don't ultimately come down to being 50/50 propositions as people lead you to believe.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  You figure out a pathway and an ability to try and break down the numbers, distill it down to its bare roots and figure out where you can make an investment. But I think, guys, the one thing that people take for granted is to be profitable in this business, assuming that you put up $11 to win 10, which is traditional juice or vigorish on a football game.

• 25:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  You have to be successful 52.4% of the time. So if anybody wants to promise you delusions of grandeur of a 60% success rate or even higher than that.

• 25:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  Make sure that you check their balance sheet, because there's no way they have 37 beach houses across this great globe.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and you're absolutely right. I just love the fact that you brought up a Gladwellian approach to betting.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  I know.

• 25:45Chuck Nice?

  That's, but that should tell the people listening right now, the kind of person that you are and what you might want to be in order to be a professional better, or gambler. Here's, you know, here's the thing. So I don't, you know, we established this at the top of the show, you know, my father had a gambling problem. It was very, very serious and it scarred me in many ways, but I have no problem with gamblers and I have no problem with gambling. I think it's a good thing, to be honest. It's a form of entertainment.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Under control.

• 26:13Chuck Nice?

  It can be a form of a business for people, you know what I mean? But if you have a problem, please, you know, you need to get help and there's no shame in that. Now, with that being said, the song tells us that you never count your money.

• 26:27Speaker 04

  Oh, Kenny.

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  When you're sitting at the table.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  Kenny.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  There'll be time enough to count it when the plan's done. Now, what I know, because my father was this kind of gambler, and we're talking real money. A real gambler counts his money all the time. As a matter of fact, you like in your head while you're even at table playing, you better know exactly where you are because bankrolling what you're doing is a big part of of of being able to win. So what's your view on on knowing what's in your pocket when you're gambling?

• 27:04Speaker 04

  That is 100% an accurate statement and assessment of how a bet regardless of your if you're being a poker player, if you're in a professional sports or something else along those lines, you want to know exactly where you sit at any moment in time. So for me personally, I keep a spreadsheet of every single bet I've made over the last seven years that I can tell you by sport, what my win percentage is, what my dollars wagered are, what my ROI is. So I can constantly assess and reassess, hey, where do I have an edge? You know what? The WNBA hasn't been good to me this season with teams laying between two and five points on the road. Maybe I should maybe I should spend more time with NASCAR or IndyCar or my beloved

• 27:47Speaker 04

  NFL to try and figure out ways that I can maximize the opportunities that are out there. And I think you're spot on. Folks that are coming from a recreational component, they may set aside a few dollars and go, you know what? I have $100. I'm going to bet every single dollar every Sunday, win or lose. That's what I'm going to use to try and keep myself busy, the same way they would pay greens fees. And that's a kind of what you'll see in a similar mentality for folks that sit down at a roulette table, a dice table, or what have you. But bankroll management and discipline are absolutely essential if you're going to be able to turn this into a profession and make money in doing so.

• 28:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Todd, you said you're a big fan of the NFL. I've got three other letters for you. O, C, and D.

• 28:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Is that is that?

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  I just got that. I was like, I was like, what league is OCD? Where do I see an OCD game?

• 28:35Gary O'Reilly?

  The Ontario Canadiens. Don't even start, right?

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  That was good. That was good.

• 28:40Gary O'Reilly?

  So is it actually, as in, as with some athletes, OCD is actually an advantage, not a disadvantage?

• 28:49Speaker 04

  I think you have to be diligent in what you do.

• 28:51Gary O'Reilly?

  That's different, yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  And the schedules that that bettors will keep to try and find their edge and take full advantage. If you don't know your positions on a particular sporting event or a future or anything else along those lines, you're doing yourself a disservice and giving the book a little bit of an edge. And for this business, when you have such small margins to kind of be successful and you aspire to maybe a six to eight percent ROI in some of the best seasons that are out there, I'm not willing to give that edge away by any means possible. So OCD definitely comes in handy. I will tell you guys, though, that being an OCD sports better and knowing the kind of time commitment it takes does put a little bit of toll on some of those personal relationships. And you have to have very understanding girlfriends, boyfriends and partners for anybody that does this full time.

• 29:37Chuck Nice?

  Just spend a little bit of the winnings on those people and they'll be fine.

• 29:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Todd, you go, I'll take you back to a younger Todd where you said, you know what? Wall Street wasn't quiet for you. You didn't feel that number crunching was your thing. But out of Wall Street, out of the hedge fund guys have come the algorithms. From the algorithms, the betting landscape has changed. How has it changed and where is it going?

• 30:05Speaker 04

  I think when you look at machine learning and AI, that's going to be a big part of the space as you continue to go forward and see how some of the smartest guys in the world that have been able to beat the most efficient markets out there, which essentially are the stock markets, whether it's domestically or internationally. You're going to see a lot of those components get translated to the sports betting market. Now, there are some inherent challenges, though, that don't make that quite an apples to apples comparison. Because in the stock market, no matter what broker you go through, you're able to purchase X number of shares for the same price anywhere, anytime, any day, based on the cap and some of the other limitations that are there. Sports betting is very different because I could go down the street right now

• 30:47Speaker 04

  and I can pull out my mobile app and bet at a Caesars or an MGM or a stations casinos, what have you. But I'm going to get very different limits extended to me based on who I am as an individual versus a player. That wants to come in and kind of bet this event over the counter. So the idea that I can get down if I had that bankroll, you know, seven figures on any particular sporting event. Uh, that's a pipe dream. So you have to be smart. You have to be creative and go, you know what? I'll take 500 here. I'll take a thousand here. And figure out how you can use some of those market conditions uh to your advantage. But when you look at some of the other opportunities that are out there, I think that's what the industry has seen. Some of the sharpest guys that used to be behind the counter, using those algorithms and trying to create the most efficient power numbers for the house go,

• 31:31Speaker 04

  hold on a second. If I'm on the other side of the window, I can take full advantage of it. And all I have to find is a sports better is one to two soft numbers on a laundry list and a grocery list of sporting events. Whereas if I'm the house, I have to protect my digital fortress in the English Premier League as effectively as I do the NFL, college basketball, NASCAR, IndyCar, cricket, and any other menagerie of sports that are out there. So it does create some challenges for the house that the player doesn't have to deal with.

• 31:59Gary O'Reilly?

  How are the house putting up a firewall here? How are the house stopping these machine learning algorithms, the AI attack?

• 32:07Speaker 04

  They're trying, uh, but I'm not sure some of them are doing it as effectively as they would like. Now they're going to impose limitations. So sometimes if you're an advantaged player, the reality of the business is, we go, you know what? We're in a business on one side of the counter to make money. We don't want to do business with a customer that consistently gets an edge. Or we would typically reduce his or her limits when I was behind the counter at Caesars. Now from my standpoint, I see that as a negative in the way the space is trending. Because I would go, hey, guys, you guys have a defined edge. I'm going to give you a certain amount that you're able to bet. Once you bet into that, I'm going to move the number in a corresponding fashion. And I'm more than happy to try and take as much action as possible on the other side.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Using those guys more or less as my research and development team, trying to guide the market before it gets there.

• 32:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely. You're using, yeah, yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah. Use the information at your disposal.

• 33:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  I think we're, we're heading to a spot where it's going to be very interesting in terms of what some of the professionals are doing to give themselves an edge. What the house is doing. And I think a lot of people go, well, wouldn't that lead to a more efficient market peer to peer betting or things of that nature? Uh, but I think in the next 12 to 24 months, we may reach critical mass and see a shift in the way people view this particular space.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Hey, you know something? You said something some of the sharpest guys. And so that just that this is attenuated, but it popped into my head. I've heard this term, sharp money. I have no idea what that is. What is sharp money?

• 33:35Speaker 04

  So what that term is going to mean is that every dollar in the sports betting marketplace isn't created equally. Uh, if you have a customer, since you have a track record and what we used to call booking to faces, that I could recognize someone and know some of their betting pattern, they would come up and bet with us consistently. Bet a thousand dollar bet from one customer, I wouldn't equate to a hundred thousand dollar bet from another customer. Because that individual that's betting the thousand dollars had the edge. So that was what I would call sharp money. And that's the term that's widely bantered about, uh, within the space. That it's not necessarily the amount bet on a particular sporting event. It's that individual that may be betting it, that you're going to put a lot more stock in his or her information.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  Then you will someone who may come down and plunk down a much larger sum of cash.

• 34:22Chuck Nice?

  So bets have quality and quantity attached to them, uh, like, like anything else, huh?

• 34:28Speaker 04

  E- exactly. And one of the things that that I lived by, uh, as an odds maker is you wanted to give the right customer, the right bet for the right amount at the right time. And it's no different than retail. I don't need to sell a pair of jeans for forty nine dollars if a customer is willing to pay eighty nine dollars for that exact same pair. And the same thing would apply in sports. That if I have a customer that wants to bet some of the biggest games out there and they're willing to bet the Patriots minus eight, instead of laying minus six that the number may be across the street. I'm more than happy to put them in a disadvantageous position to work in my benefit.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Yeah, there you go.

• 35:08Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, because it's it's all about winning and losing. And what you've just told me is sports betting is a sport in itself.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Gary O'Reilly?

  With with with technical execution and almost an artistic quality that gets referenced in terms of sharp money. So thank you to Todd Furman, a man who I will definitely not be buying a pair of denims from anytime soon or ever.

• 35:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, fascinating stuff, man.

• 35:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, isn't it? So, okay, go and check out his podcast, Bet the Board. Uh. It is, as we were saying earlier on. It's almost as if sports betting is like a sport itself.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Gary O'Reilly?

  The attention to detail is up there with the sort of attention coaches have when they prepare for other teams. Weaknesses, strengths, injuries, everything. And who knew Twitter could be your biggest ally?

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  Ah, yeah. I knew, I knew Twitter was gonna be my ally. Okay, I'm gonna stop.

• 36:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Please do.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna stop that right now.

• 36:03Gary O'Reilly?

  And talking of stop, that's it for our show.

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 36:06Gary O'Reilly?

  I hope the field of sports betting is now a little bit clearer for you. It is for me, it is for Chuck, I know. Um, I had a lot of fun doing this.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar. We'll be back next week with another show, and it's gonna be a stone gas, honey.

• 36:22Gary O'Reilly?

  You've been sat on that egg all show, haven't you? And it's finally hatched. Are you happy with yourself?

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  I am quite pleased.

• 36:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Thought you were, right. I've been Gary O'Reilly.

• 36:33Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 36:34Gary O'Reilly?

  No, he's not. This has been Playing with Science, our sports betting show. We look forward to your company very, very soon.