Risk of Ruin
Audio documentaries about risk takers.
Risk of Ruin
Movers
Curtis, Phil, and Reilly are professional sports bettors that provide the valuable service of getting down for originating groups. They are logistics providers in the gambling world. They talk about starting as casino APs, finding sports, and having several hundred thousand dollars taken from them by a sportsbook.
Find Reilly on X. https://twitter.com/ValleyBlitz_15
Support the show credit card links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YTMUqap_Z0D9832cOl5wYxUs16Byr6xx-iAZzrRL3VU/edit?usp=sharing
Email us: risk of ruin pod at gmail
Follow on X: https://twitter.com/halfkelly
Hey folks, just a quick note before we start the show. I've never run ads just because the ROI from having to coordinate with advertisers seemed pretty low. That doesn't mean there will never be ads, but so far it's kind of not worth my time. However, there is a way you can support the podcast if you want. In the show notes, there's a link to a document that contains referrals for credit cards. These are all cards that I have and that I use for various point hustling and travel hacking stuff. We just got back from a 16-day trip that took us through Singapore, Australia, and Thailand, and there's no way we would have done that without the credit card points. In the same document, I've also included some podcasts, websites, and other resources that are helpful for picking the lowest hanging fruit. So if you want to sign up through my link and you'll get a bonus and I'll get a bonus, that's fantastic and very appreciated. Anyway, hope you enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_01:He was bidding on the counter or over the counter every day and they had told him like, hey, you know, if you just put all the money in the app, it's the same limits and you don't have to come up to the counter. You can just do it all on your app. So he did that. And then, you know, after a week, we deposited, I think we started with 220,000 and we got it all the way up to about 490 within a week. And then they closed the account. He tried to go withdraw the money and they told him, oh, contact gaming. He contacted gaming and then we haven't heard anything since.
SPEAKER_00:You're listening to Risk of Ruin. I'm John Reeder. This is episode 38, Movers. Just so that you can make some sense of the clip from the top of the show, let me say that this episode is about a group of Advantage players that had hundreds of thousands of dollars deposited with a sportsbook, and the sportsbook just took it. Okay, and we're going to get into the whole story. I think that some listeners will be shocked that this could happen, and others won't be surprised at all. But we'll get into all of that in the second half of the show. Although, I also want to be sure to say that this episode is not actually about getting ripped off We aren't here just for righteous indignation, because if we focus too much on that one event, we would miss the rest of the story about an upstart group of bettors, guys that started out as advantage players in the casino, and now are betting hundreds of thousands of dollars every day at sports. The thing I really like about this story is that it has the common elements you might see in any venture. Someone notices an opportunity, much progress is made, some setbacks occur, oh, and and hijinks, right? There are always hijinks. Also, when we talk about betting businesses, we're not really in the world of MBAs or junior executive training programs. This is not the place for people who can climb a career ladder or navigate office politics. We're in the world of self-learners, people who might have hidden skills lurking just below the surface. We're going to meet three members of this betting group. So we're going to hear from Curtis, Phil, and Riley. Also, I realize that when we have multiple voices, it can be a little hard to follow. So I'm going to try to do a good job of calling out each speaker by name. But to understand how this group got together, we have to start with Curtis. Because his gambling story is also the origin story of the group. Here's Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I dropped out of college probably my sophomore year. And I decided I wanted to work at Nike like my whole life. I was like a big shoe guy, and that was going to be my career. I really, really wanted to work for Nike.
SPEAKER_00:I have said before that ARBs never sleep, which is just this idea that the people who find edges will find them in the weirdest spots. You know, while the people who are supposed to protect a system are getting their eight hours of shut-eye, the ARBs are awake, thinking about angles. When Curtis was at Nike, he was ARBing sneakers.
SPEAKER_01:Like my first advantage play ever really was when I was working at Nike, I could buy shoes with a discount, right? So if a shoe costs, you know, 200 bucks, a brand new Jordan, and somebody returns it, it might only cost after my discount about 50 bucks for me. And I could just turn right around. The second I buy it, you can go on an app like StockX or Go, and you could sell the shoe immediately for$180,$200, sometimes even more than whatever the original price was. And that's how I built my first bagel. You know, to sell a shoe right away, like before anybody even sees it on those websites, you have to have a complete box, right? So if you ever ended up where the box isn't, like the lid is missing or the box is beat up, you couldn't. couldn't sell right away you know you'd have to wait forever for somebody to see it or or sometimes stock x wouldn't even accept it you know they'd send the box right back to you so uh one of our managers kind of noticed that me and a couple of my friends were just buying non-stop and you know we went from working five days a week to three days a week to one day a week and we'd only go in you know to buy a bunch of shoes and so yeah they started you know saying oh you can't buy unless we rip the lid off or throw the lid away And that was kind of my first countermeasure ever.
SPEAKER_00:Curtis eventually found advantage play the way that most people do. His entry into Blackjack is prototypical. Actually, among APs, the story is so common, it's cliche.
SPEAKER_01:When I turned 21, actually, one of my friends, the first thing he wanted to do, we had the same birthday, and he wanted to go to the casino. That was the very first thing he wanted to do when we turned 21. So before we went, he had the smart idea of, all right, there's got to be some games that you might not lose at. You could probably beat the casino. And we'd both heard of 21, that movie and whatever. So he Googled how to beat blackjack. And the first thing that comes up is blackjack apprenticeship. And so we watch a couple of videos, we feel armed, we're ready to go to the casino, knock it down, you know, both take 200 bucks, lose it immediately. And then after that, he was like, I'm done with blackjack. And then I just kept on just watching more videos, you know, go back to the casino, just sit behind tables, not even really play too much, you know, just keep track of the count. Because at the time, you know, I didn't really have a huge bankroll. I was working basically a minimum wage job at Nike.
SPEAKER_00:I think I've made this point before that we are in the golden era of opportunities to lose your ass. I don't want to go through it all again, but just a quick rundown includes casino games, NFTs, Robinhood, sportsbooks, crypto, etc. But we also have incredible resources to guard against losing your ass. There are websites, apps, and YouTube channels that can help you navigate the world of risk. One of those resources that will give you at least a primer in understanding risk is Blackjack Apprenticeship, which is the brainchild of Colin Jones. BJA has been incredibly successful at utilizing the tools of the internet to teach people. And that's how Curtis got started.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I started with Blackjack Apprenticeship. And yeah, I just watched the videos all day long, practiced on their little trainer. And then me and one of my friends, we actually bought a whole blackjack table off of OfferUp. So we would just sit there all day long during COVID. And yeah, just deal to ourselves and practice. I started counting cards probably, yeah, it was December 2019. So I had a couple months where I was really in the beginning stages betting$5 to two by$30 in that kind of range. So really small EV, probably only 10 bucks an hour or something. And then once COVID happened, all the casinos shut down and that was really my... My goal was just to keep practicing, keep practicing, keep practicing. And Nike was paying me, you know, during COVID. It was like$250 a week or something. But still, you know, I felt like I could just do it full-time. That's really what it came down to. Yeah, and then I played blackjack for probably about a year full-time before I started getting into casino promotions. We would do basically trips between Arizona, California, and Vegas together. pretty much every week. We just went around in a circle. And once we kind of got burnt out from everywhere, I kind of decided, yeah, blackjack, you know, was the smallest edge really out of everything we were doing. So I kind of dropped that and got a lot more into machines and promotions.
SPEAKER_00:Curtis says that when he got into advantage play, his parents were initially skeptical and they would ask him questions like, Hey, do you think you might want to go back to school? But eventually Curtis bought his own car and, bought his own house, and he wasn't asking them for money, so their attitude changed. Also, he did not get there by beating his head against the wall, counting cards. He got there because he moved on to more profitable stuff.
SPEAKER_01:In the beginning of my career, I was still living at home, so my expenses were pretty much nothing. So if I was making, you know, if I went from making$10 an hour to$20 an hour, you know, I basically doubled my income, how much money I was bringing in. So I did, yeah, I did a lot of machine stuff. I'd say, You know, the first thing, the first big machine thing I ever did was a promotion at the Longhorn Casino. They basically said, if you got a spin on a slot machine over$500, they would just double it. And so, yeah, back then, like, my bankroll was tiny, you know. So, and then we came up basically with a way on a Kino machine. I got invited to this play and they kind of figured it out. And we could get$810 on this Kino machine. And we figured the EV was about$4,000 an hour. And so we all went out there. And yeah, that was one of the first experiences where I made a huge amount of money at once. So the promotion started at midnight. And it went all the way until about 7am when the morning manager came in. And he saw... 50 APs in this tiny room because the Longport Casino is not a big place at all. He basically told everybody, they kicked us all out. But the funniest part about that promotion was about halfway through the night, they had ran out of tickets because they would just, if you hit$810, you left it on the screen and they just brought you another ticket for$810. And they ran out of tickets in their machine. So they literally just started writing IOUs for$800. And then, yeah, when the manager came in the morning, he was like, all those are invalid. You know, we're not going to pay anybody. But eventually, you know, after a couple of calls with gaming, they ended up paying us out. So I ended up getting to that promotion before all my friends because they were all, you know, on the East Coast or in California somewhere. And I when my friend called me about it, I was in Laughlin. So I was only about an hour and a half drive. And I got there at 8 p.m. about four hours before the promotion started. And I sat there for, yeah, for the four hours. None of my friends really got there until closer to about midnight, like right before midnight. And I knew the play was good when Mike Shackelford sat right across from me at the queue across from me. Then I was like, all right, this has to be something.
SPEAKER_00:If you're not familiar, the Mike Shackelford in that story is the former actuary turned gambling writer. He's analyzed almost every game. on the casino floor. Even some APs, who are themselves also quants, will double check their numbers versus Shaq's work. Also, let me point out some other things about this play. First, how did Curtis find this play? Well, he knew people. Some of his friends put him on the play, which, you know, it's nice to have friends like that. And then, we should also note that the difference between an AP and a recreational gambler can be seen in each player's reaction to this play. A recreational gambler might think, well, On my favorite machine, almost none of the payouts are above 500. So this promo doesn't help me at all. And then AP thinks, well, how can we select for a machine where the payouts are weighted above 500? Maybe if we play higher denominations, that would work. And also a machine that has more variants. And then you could turn even a social security check wood chipper, like a Kino machine, into an ATM. But the best part of the story, at least in my opinion, is that this thing was a fiasco for the casino. Remember that the morning manager came in and put an end to it right away. But hold on a minute. What the hell was the night manager doing?
SPEAKER_01:He was so excited. He was like, because it was his idea for the promotion. So he saw all these people in here. He's like, oh, my gosh, like my promotion worked. And, you know, he was real happy about it for like the first hour or two until it was just like. nonstop. All the slot attendants were running back and forth. You know, we were like in bidding wars, basically just like, all right, well, if we tip her 20 bucks and I know that guy's tipping her 10 bucks, she's going to come back to me first. You know, played all those kinds of games.
SPEAKER_00:I met Curtis and his group at the sports betting conference, Bet Bash. And the thing I have to say about Bet Bash is that it is a lot. It's very high energy because everyone is super excited to be surrounded by other people just like them. Okay, and there are a bunch of events, like panels that you might see at any conference, and there's a speed networking thing, and various happy hours and cocktail events. I ran into Curtis and the guys at a happy hour, where, of course, there's a little drinking going on, and it's loud. So loud. It was all I could do to remember a few of their names, and they were from Phoenix. Also, they had a guy with them who was from Ohio, and they had just randomly picked up Ohio Guy in a casino, I think. And someone was dating someone else's mom. But who was doing the dating and then whose mom was it? I wasn't 100% crystal clear on the details.
SPEAKER_01:Phil's dating my girlfriend's mom. And so I've known Phil for probably about almost 10 years now. And when we started counting cards, you know, I kind of just came home one day to my girlfriend's house. And I had asked him, hey Phil, do you know anything about this Colin Jones guy? And he kind of smiled and was like, oh yeah, yeah. I've been watching his videos too. And so we talked about that for a while. And we both counted cards for a little bit. We did it for a little bit together, but just mostly traveling. And then once the slot stuff kind of took off for me, I didn't work with Phil as much until we started betting on sports.
SPEAKER_00:If you're doing the math here, and it seems like since Phil... is dating Curtis's girlfriend's mom, then Phil must be older than Curtis? That's right. Here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:I remember it was just one day I was over at my girlfriend's place, where Curtis's girlfriend lived also, and he came over and was saying, hey... Do you know who Colin Jones is or like Blackjack Apprentice? And I was like, yeah, I watch some of those videos, you know, and I had been like reading a little bit on on Blackjack and things like that. And so I was like, yeah, actually, I'm going to read this book on it. And then we started discussing it from there. And he's like, well, I'm going to go do it. And him and one of his other buddies, I think they went to South Dakota and like right when things opened up. And they were doing that. I was still working my normal nine to five W2 job. And then that was pretty much it. And we just discussed here and there a little bit. I'd go out on the weekend some with Curtis, you know, maybe a trip to Vegas or something like that, something close where I can get back in time for my work. And then from there, you know, we just started, you know, I'm sitting at work and he sent me pictures of chips and then it became purple chips and i'm like man i gotta go to a meeting he's out here just having fun counting cards you know so yeah it was kind of funny um so yeah i was i was working towards getting out of the the w-2 sort of job anyways you know in in multiple ways so yeah i was looking into card counting doing a little bit with him part-time and then I finally didn't make it through like the fourth layoff or fifth layoff, whatever they were doing. It was a huge worldwide company. And then I was like, well, they gave me a years of severance, so I'm getting paid. Might as well go and start it up, you know? So, so we kind of like, so I kind of helped with our bankroll and then we went from there and just started traveling around and counting cards. I was at my job for 13 years and stuff, but like I said, I was looking to transition out of that anyways, and become self-employed any way I possibly could, because really was not feeling the, the nine to five W2 sort of life, you know? So, so yeah, that's how I got my bankroll. Like, like I said, I had the free year of pay ultimately and a decent wage, you know, kind of thing. And then, you know, utilized, you know, property and stuff like that also to, to sort of build my bankroll, you know, and to contribute to the business. So utilize equity and, and that free money ultimately for not having to show up and work somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:So we've met Curtis and Phil, who knew each other before they became advantage players. Now let's hear from Riley. He's the third member of the group we'll meet in this episode. Riley got into advantage play sort of as an enrichment activity, like the way you might learn a second language. When he started counting cards, he did not harbor any illusions of becoming a full-time card counter. Also, Riley has a day job in sports medicine.
SPEAKER_03:During COVID time, I never stopped practicing. I practiced all through COVID. So I went to work every day just like normal. But since I'm in sports medicine, there wasn't as many live sports going on. I mean, yeah, sure, kids were practicing and playing. But because of that, my sports injuries took a drastic drop. So I had tons of free time and almost felt like if I wasn't at the office or at the gym myself, I was basically just being a bump on the log. So... I uh I've always liked to gamble like just uh just I bet from the time I turned 21 good buddies and me I mean sure we'd take a guy's trip to Vegas be there for a few days and I'd take a thousand bucks and do the the uh the the degenerate thing where you sit there and play and maybe I yeah sure I've won won some trips lost lost most trips and then at the end of the in the time I had fun and that's all it mattered and finally during kind of COVID time I was like well I really am interested in gambling, really interested in sports and sports was kind of getting bigger in Arizona. So I was, I mean, I'm, I'm just smart enough and have a see the edge to kind of beat some of the sports books on signup bonuses. So I was doing some things like that. And then I kind of fell down the rabbit hole and decided maybe I'll do some card counting. So I bought, I felt like every book on the market read through everything and kind of read a lot of war stories and, And I actually, I would say before I even started Blackjack Apprenticeship, which I definitely love their website. They taught me a ton. But before I got there, I would say I could already count cards before I started their software because I just had tons of reps and hours reading and practicing cards on my own just from basically all the books I'd read. But yeah, Blackjack Apprenticeship definitely took me to where I went from a So-so card counter took me to an advantage player for sure. Now I'm married and I've got a little daughter. But at that time, I was just basically married. Wife and me had pretty little money in the bank account. And she's definitely cool. She's my support staff. But I told her what I wanted to do with card counting. I told her, hey, I'm going to take$10,000. This is going to be my starting bankroll. And I had a day job. So my bankroll from the start was... more than replenishable for sure. But when I told her that, I mean, I'm not going to say she understood everything, but she definitely trusts me and was like, well, if you say so. And I had scouted all the games that I could play and then was going to kind of try to attack. And I just told her, hey, this is what I'm going to do. I don't want you to ask me if I'm up, down, sideways or whatever for this many hours. And she at least understood that. And she trusted me to a T whenever I hit my hour mark. I basically had more than doubled. And I knew at that point, like, of course, she was convinced that, okay, well, you're not gambling anymore. Because with your wife, I mean, I don't want her to think, hey, I'm going to casino and just having drinks and having fun and avoiding time at home, right? I wanted her to see it as I'm out working. And I think she understood that. And I think, of course, the fact that I did end up coming out where my EV was supposed to be, I think that just solidified the trust because Now, when I come home and we're watching a game and I say, hey, we have 20,000 on this game tonight, it's almost like I didn't say anything because she's just like, well, it's another day.
SPEAKER_00:All of the guys have mentioned Blackjack Apprenticeship, which has a bunch of trainers and other tools to teach you the mechanics of card counting. But it also has a forum where APs communicate. It was through that forum that these guys got together. Here's Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:I saw or seen on the Blackjack Partnership Forum something about like an Arizona meetup. So I messaged one of the guys and he was, yeah, you know, come through to this this Mexican place. We're all going to meet up. So I ended up going. And during that week, Phil was on a cruise. So I just went by myself and I talked to there's probably like eight people there. And, you know, I had been in AP for probably about three years at the time. So they had a ton of questions because they were all, you know, brand new, red chipping. A couple of guys were traveling a little bit. So, you know, I was just answering questions, talking to them a lot. And I gave them all my number. And I said, yeah, if you guys have any questions, you know, reach out. and yeah i'd love to help you guys with anything and uh once phil got back from his cruise i pulled him up and beat up and he's all right well if there's anybody interesting that you know we might want to do some work with let's let's reach out to them so uh we reached out to everybody you know a couple guys worked out a couple guys didn't work out but definitely at the meeting riley was the most quiet out of everybody because it was pretty shy didn't really talk much and when i reached out to him yeah yeah let's meet up we met up and like instantly he was like a completely different person you know pretty talkative Really cool, level head, a really nice guy. I
SPEAKER_03:probably talked more than Curtis puts on that I did. But at the same time, when you go to something like that every once in a while, you have some guys that are some idiots and that just don't stop talking. And I just kind of always had the mindset, if you open up your mouth too often, then your credibility goes down. especially when people like that are talking. So sometimes I just play silent. But I'm probably one of the more talkative ones out of all, or probably I'm the most talkative out of all of us. I went to that blackjack meetup with pretty much zero hope for anything, just kind of took it open-minded. And I knew, of course, with my day job, I had been backed off and stuff from casinos. I knew I had a short shelf life. I knew I was not going to card count. forever. It just wasn't me. It wasn't my style. There was no way I could continue my daily practice. And then at the same time, there was just no offense to card counting, but I was never going to beat my EV from going to work every day. I just wasn't going to, right? So I knew I was going to be limited with card counting. So it was just a small stepping stone for me. But yeah, I meet Curtis there. And yeah, there were some other people there that that had some value and were worthwhile and were out doing the real deal and traveling and things like that. So it was cool to meet some of those guys. But Curtis was the only guy I reached out to afterwards, like after meeting everybody. And he's kind of the only guy that I personally saw value in.
SPEAKER_00:If you think that after Curtis and Phil met Riley, they subjected him to a rigorous due diligence process, then you would be wrong. If you think that they were just like, I don't know, he seems like at least not a psychopath, then you would be right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It was only like maybe a few weeks later, like we've only met each other, like maybe a few times. And it was kind of like, all right, you want to like, let's get sociable. You know, do you want to, you want to go to a chargers game in LA? And, uh, I was like, it was offered to me by a host to bring someone Curtis going to go for whatever reason. And, uh, and Riley's like, okay, you know, let's go. So yeah, it was kind of funny. Like, like me and him, I've met like maybe twice and it's like, all right, let's go fly to LA. And, um, get a hotel and and go to this chargers game you know kind of thing all free of charge you know so that was um from one of my accounts that uh just was just turned into a huge whale account ultimately and they were giving me all sorts of stuff and and that was one of them flight out there stay at a hotel and then car service to and from the game it was in the um uh, what's it called? The Betsy Bellows suite, I believe is what it's called. It's their in-ground suites that go around the field. And it was, it was crazy, you know, free food, free drink, lots of celebrities and stuff. Um, uh, I think I got a picture with, uh, Max Hama was there at one of the suites next to us, the professional golfer.
SPEAKER_03:I'd hung out with Phil, like had dinner, had a drink with him basically. But that was the first time I really hung out with Phil, like big time. And, uh, Phil, I think Phil came from Vegas to L.A. and then I flew from Phoenix to L.A. Yeah, basically meet Phil at the hotel. We grab dinner the next day. We've got like a DraftKings limo coming to pick us up, take us to the game. And just I mean, it was it was an insane suite, like just absolutely crazy. Our suite was right next door to Justin Bieber suite. We were definitely two guys that weren't supposed to be there, but were there. And, uh, we were the oddballs of the, of the Suite Life that day. That was the first day we hung out and we kind of like, uh, we didn't know a ton about each other yet. So it wasn't like, cause there was a pretty high, high rating DraftKings host there. So Phil definitely took it as, Hey, this is my friend. He's a pretty, pretty high roller. And just, we laid that foundation on from there and DraftKings just, they soaked it all up. And then, uh, That's how I kind of got my foot in the door with that company. But yeah, it's super funny in the fact that Phil and me were, I mean, just slightly more than strangers to each other at that time.
SPEAKER_00:So these guys found each other through a good amount of luck, some insight into the value of cooperation, and then just an attitude of, let's try it. What's the worst that could happen? But we're going to start talking more about sports now, so I need to do some housekeeping by establishing the current landscape for sports betting. I think you could imagine one way for the business to exist, which would be like a financial market. You know, the books would just put up markets for each game and let the flow of money determine where prices go. And bookies would just sit in the middle and take a cut of each market. Also, because the flow of money would be needed for price discovery, they would want as much liquidity in the system as possible. But that is not really how things work. In fact, all you have to do is pay attention to what these companies say to know they're not even trying to build that business. In their words, they're trying to make life more exciting. And I will translate that in a way that is mostly fair by saying that they see themselves as being like the operators of a carnival. They deal carny games. At a carnival, you're offered three chances to shoot at an oblong hoop. And at sportsbooks, they want you to bet the single game parlay. Everybody can probably understand that in the Super Bowl, for instance, you can parlay Patrick Mahomes touchdowns with Chiefs interceptions with Travis Kelsey receiving yards. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. On a random college basketball game in the middle of winter, and I'm talking some games that aren't even on TV, you can parlay the visitor money line with the power forward going over 10 rebounds with the point guard under 5 points. And these are bets with very high house edge. Earlier, I called a keno machine a social security check wood chipper. Well, the same game parlay might be the student loan check wood chipper. Actually, the house edges on these bets are so high that the CEOs of these gambling companies love to tell the Wall Street analysts how great these bets are and how they're planning to book even more single game parlays next quarter. And, you know, they have folks working around the clock thinking of new ways to promote the single game parlays. And Wall Street analysts, if you promote our stock to your institutional clients, they should have no doubt that we will continue to absolutely soak our customers with these single game parlays. Which is completely logical for a company that wants to make money. Okay, but if you're in the carnival game business, then maybe you don't spend as much time as you should on the markets you post. You know, there was an example recently of a very famous sportsbook that ended up with maybe hundreds of millions of dollars of exposure. on a single golf tournament because they let people parlay first place with second place with third place with fourth place and so on until they were dealing parlays where you could bet$20 to win three quarters of a million. There was just one problem. They kept taking these bets even though the outcome was kind of already set and they only got out of this fiasco by avoiding bets. But for better or worse... The books have forged the strategy of making their money by offering all manner of exotic bets and risk management is maybe a secondary consideration. Also, I think it's important to note that they see their futures as essentially marketing businesses. In fact, they are run by marketers. And so their energy goes toward trying to figure out how to get fresh new blood onto the carnival midway, which means a very healthy marketing budget. In the past, that budget has taken the form of free bets or bonus bets or whatever you want to call them. And that's how Curtis found sports betting. He was exploiting the bonuses, and that put him onto a bigger idea.
SPEAKER_01:Probably about six months before Debt Bash, I had really gotten into the sports book promotions. Back then, I couldn't tell you anything about sports. I watched a little bit of NBA, but that was about it. But yeah, like a lot of the risk-free bets, like at the time, Caesars was doing like a$5,000 risk-free bet. And then eventually it just became, you know, deposit$3,000 and they give you 3,000 bucks. So there was a lot of those promos. And I basically reached out to everybody I knew, every friend, family member, and said, hey, let me use your account. I'll use your bonuses and then that'll be it. And eventually I was just basically just arbing, betting both sides of the game. um just to get as many bonuses as possible and i figured okay if i'm betting on both sides of the game it's got to be probably plus more ev if i'm just betting on one side right so i went to phil and uh my first blackjack friend and i said all right well if we do this you know we just need somebody to point us in the right direction we have we have the money we have the accounts uh we just need somebody to point us in the right direction of what to bet
SPEAKER_00:I said that the sportsbooks prefer to see themselves as vendors of carny games, not as market makers. But they're certainly not dumb. These companies are run by incredibly smart people. They realize that neglecting the prices on their markets does leave them vulnerable. So what's their preferred solution to this problem? Well, they profile accounts to figure out who they think is smart enough to beat them, and then they severely limit those accounts. If I wanted to add a dusting of hyperbole, then I would say that they kick out winners. These two choices, the choice to be soft on the market making side and the choice to limit winners are the basic underlying structure that makes this episode possible because it means that sharp bettors, people who can win at sports, are in a never ending hunt to find accounts that can get down at these soft books. Enter Curtis and his group.
SPEAKER_01:When we got there, That was kind of what everybody was looking for. Everybody at Bitbash was looking for more outs, essentially. And that's kind of what we just branded ourselves as. It's like, hey, we have a ton of outs and we don't really know what we're going to do with them now that kind of all the bonuses have run dry on them.
SPEAKER_00:I should make a point here about the very attractive compounding effects of sports betting. If you can bet, just for example, college basketball with an edge, there are 350 teams. They all play about 30 games. There are games on 149 days of the year, and on 100 of those days, there are at least 20 games. 100 periods is a lot of periods to compound by, and that's just one sport. The problem is that between theoretical profits on a spreadsheet and actual money lies reality, and turning an edge into real profit requires a lot of logistics effort. Here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:We're ultimately a moving group, right? So we're getting bets from someone else just like, anywhere. The way that exists is ultimately these groups, if their information is good enough, they've probably burnt all of their bridges to be able to go bet it themselves, right? And also, you know, with wanting to grow as a company and want bigger and bigger volumes as bankrolls increase, you know, they need to reach out to other partners and stuff like that. So that's where we help fill that for our partners. We're just another piece in that puzzle to get down to help add to their volume that they want.
SPEAKER_00:So the underlying nature of the market makes it possible for these guys to serve a much needed role. Riley says that he understands that's how the system works. And you know what? He's in favor of it.
SPEAKER_03:Or if they want to limit me, then you know what? I've got lots of friends. I'm going to come and I'm going to come with a new account, a new name, somebody else. And I'm going to hit you from 10 different angles. And guess what? While I do it, I'm going to get a bonus when I come in the door to do it, right? I'm going to hit you for the bonuses. Then I'm going to hit you for the same bet. And if they would have just straight up said, hey, you know what? We'll let you play. These are your limits. Well, I probably would have been happy with it and would have kept going, right? But the fact that some of them can kind of go the dirty route or just the Play the, hey, you know what? We only want losers. Well, you know what? I'll make you an account for you. Thanks, loser. And then I will just royally beat you up until you decide that you don't want this loser playing anymore, right?
SPEAKER_00:Here's Phil again.
SPEAKER_02:For the larger groups, they need people that can get down, right? You know, some originators... they're not good at getting down and all their accounts are limited. So they're, they're like, Oh, we need more accounts now, but I don't know anyone else to get accounts. So, so they look outside for people to get accounts for them and make those bets. And then, you know, they, they take that concession of, I don't get a hundred percent anymore. I get 50% or whatever it may be, but you know, a hundred percent of zero is, is zero, you know? So like if you work with people, you can, you can grow a little bit more and stuff like that. So yeah, So, yeah, we're definitely filling in a spot for for volume for those larger groups that definitely want something there. And if we can if they're partnering with these other groups that know how to be able to provide that volume that they're looking for, whatever that amount may be, you know, then then it can be a good, good relationship, you know, so and hopefully profitable for everyone. For a few of the groups we know for sure, like, you know, soccer is their focus. Another group, you know, they do multiple sports, but, you know, their focus is only two or three of them, you know, like college basketball, any professional sports better. They're probably always betting college basketball just by the sheer volume of what's going on, how much you can turn. So the other thing is some of the smaller groups, they focus on only– like one of the individuals we work with and help with some of their stuff is golf and like UFC stuff. They don't ever send anything else to us, you know, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:If you go back and listen to the archive for this series, you will hear a number of episodes where the edge was almost entirely related to opening accounts for friends, family, et cetera. You can hear this in the credit card episodes, and it was also true in the heyday of the internet casinos. So the question for someone whose income is driven by the number of accounts they have is why, What's the perfect balance? How do you keep your edge high in the account alive? If you're never burning accounts, then you're probably not going hard enough. But if you treat accounts as completely expendable, then it can become ridiculous. I mean, do you really want to spend your day explaining to Aunt Edna why she has to open a Bet365 account? And also, no, this isn't a scam. Why would you think it's a scam? No, it's definitely not a scam. Here's Curtis again.
SPEAKER_01:We kind of bet differently than a lot of people that I know, at least, where we really only wanted, you know, main markets, sides and totals was all we really cared about to keep accounts alive a lot longer. Whereas we knew tons of people who were betting props or betting first halves or live second half totals or anything like that, you know, that gets your account cut immediately. We tried to stay as far away from those as possible. Like in the beginning, we fell into traps. Oh, you know, this guy says he's really good at props, you know, We'll do it until an account got cut or, oh, let's bet this overnight college basketball and then accounts get cut. So we eventually kind of just figured out like this is the stuff that keeps accounts alive. Let's stick to it and find people who can win doing that. And here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's in general, like smaller market stuff, you know, like a lot of the props, if you're on a, DraftKings app or whatever, you know, kind of thing. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, any of those major apps, they're going to cut you pretty quick, you know, with it. Or at least your volume's not going to be there, you know. So, I mean, if you're trying to move only a couple hundred dollars, it probably doesn't matter to you, you know, and that's what you do. But if you're trying to move thousands and thousands, they're not going to allow you to get that volume, you know.
SPEAKER_00:These guys are getting all of the plays from their partners, which means that when they bet the over on St. Mary's versus Pepperdine, they don't actually know why. At best, they might know a little about their partner's method of generating plays.
SPEAKER_01:Before we even start working with somebody, that's one of the first questions we ask is, hey, are you Originator? Are you doing top-down? Are you getting these bets from somebody else? And you can find out pretty quick, usually, if they're making the stuff themselves or if they're just sending you somebody else's picks. If you know that guy, too, and you're getting them an hour later, then you kind of can figure out where they're all coming from.
SPEAKER_00:Obviously, the fact that the guys don't know why they're making the bets doesn't matter most of the time. As long as they trust their partner and the data shows they're winning, who cares? It's sort of a Jesus take the wheel kind of thing. But this not knowing has put them in some interesting spots because they're not all massive sports fans. Riley loves sports and watches games, but Curtis pretty much only watches sports when they have action. And Phil only watches live and in person. So not only do they not know why they have a particular side, they don't know basic elementary stuff.
SPEAKER_03:We were at a fan duel and we make a bet. This was, I guess, two years ago. Curtis made a bet. Curtis goes up to the counter to make a bet on, it was the... Oh man, it was the Hornets were playing at home versus the Warriors. So Hornets are a huge underdog in that game. I don't remember exactly what the odds were, but roughly like plus 400-ish or something, right? This is a pretty good-sized bet, and it's basically a bet to win around$100,000. And the guy working the counter at FanDuel is like, oh, wow, as he's taking the bet, like the ticket writer. And he's like, is the Mellow playing tonight? And Curtis is like, I had no clue, absolutely no clue if somebody's playing or not that night. Meanwhile, he's betting a massive amount on this game, right? And then after we make the bet, Curtis and me leave. And then 10 minutes later, the FanDuel manager is calling Curtis. And he's like, hey, I just saw your bet. I want you to come watch the game with us tonight. So we're like, all right, sweet. Yeah, we can come over there and watch the game. So they have like this particular fan who's got like a VIP lounge. So they blocked off the whole lounge for Curtis and me. And then he orders, the manager orders takeout from like a steakhouse right across the street. So Curtis and me are sitting there watching the game. The manager's kind of coming in and out, watching with us. Of course, we're yelling and rooting on the Hornets. There is a hilarious and also
SPEAKER_00:kind of infuriating part of the sequence, where the casino employee figures out that the bet they took isn't from a total corpse, and they're kind of offended they were misled, like, Hey, I thought we were friends. Here's Curtis again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You meet scummy people. You know, you meet some guy who says he's like a manager of a sports book says, Hey, you know, if you, if you give me your bets, I'll raise your limits and, you know, be a nice guy to you, this and that and whatever. And then you go to bet and he's like, yeah, sorry. You know, your limits 50 bucks, get out of here. And so you, you deal with people who flip flop like that. And here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:We had another place where we had taken advantage of one of their sports betting promotions, ultimately. And we ran a lot through that sports book, betting NFL stuff. And then they ultimately figured it out and was like, oh, shoot. And were very, very angry with us about it. And when I went in, they were the manager was he definitely wasn't happy with anything. They were trying to get us to. federal forms and stuff like that because he's like oh it's this and i was like it's not over ten thousand dollars and he's like oh you know he was he was kind of like mad that i i knew what the legal amount was for to fill out forms for the for the federal government right and the w-9 ultimately and and um He's like, fine, just give it to him. Tell him to tell her and stuff like that. And he was like, because it was like one of my buddies in with me getting his. And I was like, well, that's his amount. And this is my amount. We're not betting together. Those are his bets. These are my bets. And I guess he was trying to put us together. He's like, well, you have$6,000 and he has... 5,000. So, you know, whatever it was. And I was like, no, those are his, like, those are my bets. That's what he made. These are mine, you know? So it was just kind of funny and stuff. And I was like, so if all these lost, you guys would have returned our money too. Right. And he's like, well, of course. Yeah. Like our, our system, there was an issue with it, you know? And you guys like, tried to capitalize on it. I was like, we played your promotion the way you set it up. Like, what's the problem? You know, kind of thing. You knew there was a mistake. I'm like, we don't know there's a mistake. You guys are the ones that set this thing up, you know? So it's just kind of funny sometimes how they backpedal and decide, oh, shoot, you know, we got caught with our pants down.
SPEAKER_00:You've heard where these guys started. I think it's fair to say they started at square one, but they keep doing better and better.
SPEAKER_03:When we got into... sports, of course, your bet size is a little bit different, right? I wasn't starting to sweat when I was pushing a black chip out there or anything. It was like there was no such thing as that, right? You're immediately going to the four-figure chips when you're doing sports bets, or at least for us. So at first, yeah, it definitely took a little bit of a learning curve to not necessarily stomach things, but just get used to the amount of variance and fluctuation that was coming because you weren't You weren't up or down 1,000. You were up or down 10,000. And then things, I mean, of course, have progressed to where, I mean, 10,000 feels like a drop in the bucket at times now. But the variance and fluctuations, you get accustomed to pretty quickly. And it can almost make– I mean, it's not the best thing, but it can almost make cash seem meaningless at times because the numbers are so big. And it just– especially with high-volume betting, you– I mean, yeah, you can finish up huge, you can finish down huge, but if you're doing so right and you're continuously making EB bets with the high quantity of bets, by the end of the week, you usually are about where you should be, right? And yeah, you have losing weeks here and there, but months usually aren't losing and you're definitely not really losing years.
SPEAKER_00:In the credit card world, there's a term which is probing, and it just means trying stuff to see if it might yield an edge. In the world of advantage play, the same thing is called scouting. These guys are always scouting for new opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I would say it's probably about 60% in person and then 40% on apps, just a little bit more in person. Usually we have a couple guys who will travel around the country just trying to find the best outs possible at these retail books. So at any given day, we have three or four guys kind of just going around scouting, going to different books, trying to bet to see what we can get down. And then at the same time, we're using apps and kiosks that are local to us that we know what we can get down on. I
SPEAKER_00:think you can imagine some people, even professional gamblers with years of experience, might not be that crazy. about this part of the job. It's turning over a lot of rocks to find something that you know will be temporary. But Curtis seems to actually enjoy this stuff. Okay, for our first interview, Riley and Phil had their cameras turned on, but Curtis had his turned off. And do you know why Curtis's camera was turned off? Because he was doing the interview from the sports book.
SPEAKER_01:I love driving. These days, you know, Phil hates it. But yeah, I'll go anywhere. I pretty much... This last week, I flew into D.C., met up with Ohio Mike and Jordan, and then I drove from D.C. to Chicago, picked up Phil. We went down to Louisiana for this promotion, drove up to Tulsa, and then flew home. So I have no problem driving.
SPEAKER_00:While these guys are out looking for sportsbooks, sometimes they end up finding other plays that are good.
SPEAKER_01:I would say 90% of what we do is just betting, and then... yeah if we find if we're out you know scouting new books um meeting with people and then we see something in the casino that we think is profitable that we have an edge in we'll definitely go and do it the other day me and phil we were down south at a casino and you know i found this game that was worth like about 700 an hour and uh we just sat there and played all day so we still go out and do stuff like that every once in a while but not not too often most of the time we're just betting on sports
SPEAKER_00:You could say that this group works with other gamblers who exist both upstream and downstream. Upstream are the originators who decide what to bet. And then the guys also work with folks that I am saying are downstream. And these people also help make the wagers.
SPEAKER_02:Especially if they're a full-time card counter already, they've already been around, they're traveling, they're doing that stuff, they're a little... more free spirited you know they have the ability to travel if they need to so if we do find one of the spots while we're traveling around we can say hey get over here you know they have a good app over here or they have a good whatever you know like somewhere to bet um and and card counters are already most of them well you know that are doing it full-time or nomadic you know already so um they they're able to do that and and go from there and then it's just pretty much showing them hey this is where the edge is at for this and then this is our process this is how it works this is how we'll give you information and then this is what you do you know and this is how you get down for us or how much you bet or or whatever it is and like if this line is good or not you know and then we have like the constant communication with them obviously we're not just sending someone out and going go make bets you know so um we're definitely providing that information to them and um giving them a primer on how to go about it because, you know, it's online, you know, is, you know, you're kind of anonymous, I guess, to a point, or you're not having that interaction. But also, like I said, if you're starting to make large wagers, you're going to have host interactions, right? So, you know, you got to have that story for for them. You know, you can't say, oh, I'm a professional sports better. You know, they're going to be like, nope, you know, kind of thing. So you got to you got to kind of play that game, you know, especially if you're like making a bet in person, you know, you. Like if you're going up there and being very like, like card counters, you know, the ones that are sitting there being very robotic and stuff, you know, like they're going to get picked out a little quicker than someone that's, Hey, they have a beer in their hand, even if it's filled with water or whatever, you know, kind of thing, you know, and, and, you know, can kind of talk with the pit boss and, and stuff while you're still playing, you know, you seem more natural. Right. But, but yeah, the card counters have been so far, we have two, two main guys that, besides Curtis, Riley, and myself, and then a third guy that is kind of coming into it. He's helped a little bit, but he's not really full-time into this yet because he's working on a few other plays that he has for himself and things. But yeah, the card counters have seemed to work out the best so far.
SPEAKER_00:Keep in mind that if you try to explain to someone how advantage gambling works, it's not going to be a super straightforward conversation. But the card counters at least already understand things like randomness, variance, etc.
SPEAKER_03:With card counters, in terms of anybody that we as Valley Analytics ever works with, you don't have to be a card counter or anything like that at all. But the fundamentals that card counting taught me, I think, are just beyond valuable because... If you're a numbers-related guy, and I'm not going to act like I'm a numbers expert, but I understand numbers quite well. And the fundamentals that come with it, it's simply math, right? So if you trust math and you listen to your numbers, they eventually work out, right? Now, is it always exactly as EV? Like, no, of course, your AV fluctuates a little bit. But the fundamentals that you get to it really transfer well to kind of everything else.
SPEAKER_00:When this stuff gets boiled down to a fun episode of stories, some shenanigans and winning money, then the work these guys do could seem overly glamorous. But Curtis says that their number one problem when trying to find people to help is that not everyone is crazy about the actual work.
SPEAKER_01:In the realm of AP, you know, like card counters can be a winning card counter and make a bunch of money by themselves. People doing promotions and stuff like that can do well financially. being by themselves and with a couple other people. But I think if you really want to make a really good living at sports betting, you need to have a really solid group around you of good people and people willing to work. That's usually what we run into the most is like people who aren't great people and people who don't really want to work or do much. One
SPEAKER_00:way to describe these guys is that they have a sense of urgency. They see the opportunity in sports and they don't want to let it pass them by. So they take it seriously.
SPEAKER_01:Usually the first person to wake up is Riley. He gets up 4 a.m. or so, and he'll make sure everything's good from the last night, go through, grade all the bets, put stuff into the spreadsheet. And then usually I'll wake up around 9. This is the first time Riley will call me. Whenever we get a bet or something, Riley will call me and say, hey, it's time to get up. This is the first problem of the day. And then from then until usually about 6 p.m. at night, It's just getting down whatever the originators need. And we don't really have too much of a set schedule, but it'll be whatever they need whenever they need it.
SPEAKER_00:And here's Riley.
SPEAKER_03:I'm usually up and at them around 5 every morning. And I'm in the gym, get my shower done, head to my office. And then that's usually about the time where we have a morning check-in with our groups. And it's just a simple check-in, basically just a, hey... Good morning. Here's the figures right here. Make sure our end matches their end and check mark there. And then we're on for the day. And it really depends on the day. Right now, of course, we're definitely in a busy season. But if it's a slow day, then yeah, you know what? It may be quiet for the next few hours. You may not hear anything for a while. And we may all of a sudden get bombarded and phone starts blowing up. And then it's kind of like, hey, we're trying to get going immediately. But on our end, after that morning check-in, we're kind of doing our own little mental game plan of, okay, this is how many bets I think we're going to make today. This is how much money we're going to need in this location, how much we're going to need in this location, who's available, who's not available. And what's going to be our plan of attack? Are we going to hit this sports book first on these? Are we going to hit this sports book last? And where are we going to go in order to maximize our value for the day? Because each day it kind of changes a little bit differently. Some days we have a smaller amount of people working. Some days we have a pretty wide network working. So that's something that we kind of are like factoring in, I would say, in the morning.
SPEAKER_00:I always like to spend part of each episode on what I call the greasy details, which are details... that practitioners know. The knowledge that can only be accumulated through experience. In the case of this episode, I am fascinated by the actual work of getting the bets down. Because keep in mind that I am recording this in the year 2024. Every sportsbook has an app that has been optimized by the greatest designers and programmers that money can buy. And in theory, these apps are connected to the world's electronic financial system. But our guests are operating on a parallel tech stack which includes instant messenger apps and PayPal and spreadsheets. And they drive to sportsbooks in a car and bet over the counter, which means they handle paper money in the year 2024.
SPEAKER_02:Telegram signal is the main are the main ones, you know, that that can be utilized, I guess, for like quick messaging. So the but yeah, it's just in the morning, depending on the schedule. Like right now, it's college basketball, you know, so so we can see what the schedule is and and know how how much volume we're going to probably be doing or how busy the day is going to be. You know, today's kind of a light day on a Friday. Saturday, Thursday is pretty heavy normally. The but yeah, we we get messages. I say, hey. what's available. We, we let them know where we have people in place, you know, so what outs are available. And then, um, and then they start sending bets, you know, okay, we'll do this. And then we have a little bit of chatter back and forth. It's like, Oh, we're going to do, we're going to do totals. We're going to do sides. We're going to do, do this. Let's try this. If we're trying to do something different. Um, and then, uh, some of the other groups like, like, well, that's one of the major groups. It's more of a structure to a point, like, um, Daily, ultimately, we're doing bets and then we'll do some NBA and stuff, too. That's still going. So some of the other groups, it's just sort of like, hey, here you go, like just randomly. And we just say, OK, where is this at? You know, let's find it. And then and then we find it and and report back saying, you know, some of them will give us amounts. Some say max. And depending on who it is, the max could be. you know, a couple thousand dollars to lots and lots of thousands of dollars. So, yeah, you know, it's just depends on the group. Some of the smaller groups that we work with were individuals. We just let them know when we're at a have a spot available, ultimately, that we know that they use. And then they're just, OK, here you go. And then they'll start sending stuff through. And we already have established how much action they want on it and how much we're going to have and and go from there. At this point, we are still pretty new with it, so our group isn't that big. We have a few other team members and stuff that help with the day-to-day of actually getting the bets, but all three of us are boots on the ground, still going out there and doing stuff. also either through apps or you know networking getting bets so we're still out always looking like so we're none of us are too detached from any one uh item um i know uh curtis definitely like i said uh jumps in and has that forward thinking uh process like hey how can we do this better or or get this figure you know and stuff like that like what's what's the best uh best path to go down, you know, as things are going to be. Because it's always evolving and stuff. So it's always some outs are going to dry up. Where can we find other outs? So we do a lot of traveling. Riley has a regular job also right now, so he can't do too much of the traveling. But Curtis and I have traveled all over the country looking for other outs and just seeing what's available. Networking, you know, meeting up with other people. And then also we're doing our other AP stuff while we're do that, obviously, too, you know. And then, but yeah, I mean, I'm dealing with the lawyers and the CPAs and taxes and stuff like that, you know, some of the spreadsheets. We've got a couple of team members where one of them is very well versed in IT and things like that. So we're trying to get him on board to help with some more efficiencies and things like that, you know, so. That makes our lives easier where we can focus more on the betting rather than the day-to-day admin sort of stuff. Curtis's girlfriend helps out a little bit with some of the data entry. And then Riley helps with some of that. I do some of that. So yeah, I mean, for the most part, we're all contributing to the overall goal. And
SPEAKER_00:here's
SPEAKER_02:Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a lot of tedious record keeping. We keep record of every time. There's money transferred from one person to another every time we make a bet, at the end of every day, how much all of our accounts have. And so, yeah, it's kind of a tough process, but we try our best to make sure that everything is kept track of from person to person and into the sportsbook and out.
SPEAKER_00:I think of the way that money moves through this system as being sort of like the financial plumbing. And like actual plumbing, not everything goes smoothly. So Phil and the guys have had to figure out how all of the flows work.
SPEAKER_02:In general, with like banking stuff or whatever, you know, like PayPal is kind of finicky on things sometimes, you know, so depending how you utilize them. So there's definitely a way you could do that and a way that they don't like, you know, just because gambling in general is frowned upon, you know, so when they're seeing stuff like that, they're not happy with it, ultimately, because you're not paying their fees as a business i guess you know is what they're doing so they have terms and conditions where they can freeze your account and they they do it they've done it to us and done it to other people that we we had warned about and so luckily it was just one account with us and um pretty much you just have to play a waiting game it's like a six month waiting period or something like that then they go okay here you go and they got freeze it you know so uh yeah it's just you know a thorn in your in your paw ultimately you know like Just like, shoot, this money's held up now for six months, you know, kind of like, so no access to it.
SPEAKER_00:Keep in mind that because these guys work with other people to make bets, they don't always have perfect control of every account. So they've had headaches because someone fat fingered a withdrawal or did something even worse than a fat finger.
SPEAKER_01:One time with FanDuel, we had an amount, it was about, I think it was like$35,000. that one of the guys who was working with us, he tried to withdraw the money from the app. We said, hey, can you withdraw the money from this Fandle app? But it was the wrong account. It was somebody else's account that he had on the phone. And so then he tried to put it back into the account right after he withdrew it. Or sorry, he tried to withdraw it right after he put it in. And they claimed money laundering and just kept the money. And never paid it out. And they, yeah, we never got it back. So the sad story with that is that guy's account, we were trying to work through and have him talk to FanDuel support to get the money out. Well, he ended up stealing$5,000 from another account and going off to Mexico for two weeks. And he blew all the money in Mexico. And we were just trying to get a hold of him and say, hey, man, like, we don't care about the$5,000 you stole. If you could help us to get the$35,000 back. And he just, you know, never Never wanted to deal with it.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe it's just me, but I guess I am pretty entertained by the sportsbook's attitude towards suspected fraud. For example, if you deposit and then withdraw immediately, that raises a red flag. But if you deposit and lose the money on the Cowboys money line, well, you will never get a note from the book that says, hey, we realize the money you lost to us may have been from shady sources. How do we undo all of this? I mean, that's preposterous. So deposit and bet the money, we're good. Deposit and try to withdraw, no good. This is amazing because even though I sort of do not credit these books with taking money laundering seriously, if they did take it seriously, then they are also advertising that their fee to launder money is just minus 110 odds. That's it. Just pay the vig and come on in, Skylar White. Also, as long as you're here, have you ever had a sweat on a same game parlay? Curtis says that they have figured out how to cut down errors in this department.
SPEAKER_01:Now we've kind of realized that if you put money into an account and say you have an old DraftKings and you want to put$5,000 in and see what your limit is now, if you go and try to bet and they say, all right, your limit's$10.15, normally a lot of the books now will let you do a refund. You just have to message support. and say, hey, can I get a refund on my money? But if you tried to withdraw it, they would flag you and try to hold on to your money as long as possible.
SPEAKER_00:Some of the earliest people into Bitcoin were gamblers, because most gamblers know the pain of trying to move money through the financial system. So the idea that there has to be a better way is very familiar to these people. Riley says that the speed bumps and bottlenecks are a regular consideration. I
SPEAKER_03:can... drop a plan that's going to be the best attack to get money into this account and money out of that account. And it always doesn't work out. It never is that way. It's pretty simple in terms of betting in person in cash. I mean, basically, we'll just have to transport cash to one place or another where we're driving or flying across the country, whatever it is. That's simple, right? We basically travel with our documents, letter from your attorney, and proof that you're a professional gambler. Just your records that are your safekeeping. And that's pretty simple. Carrying cash across the country is honestly easy. Now, when it comes down to, okay, well, let's put money in this account. And even if we want to put... 10K or 20K, whatever it is, in an account, well, somebody else's bank account may not be very primed to do so, right? My bank account's pretty accustomed to large transfers. Well, my cousin, his account might not be primed at all, right? His biggest transfer may have been a$200 credit card bill. So when it comes down to that, that can be difficult. So there's a few different ways you can go about things and to do so safely. But There's never a fast option with that stuff. Sometimes the transfer, like say an account gets limited or it gets cut and it's not worth your while anymore. Or on the flip-flop, an account all of a sudden is elevated to VIP status and they're pretty much saying no limits on this. Well, of course, we immediately got to say, okay, this account is our baller account today. How do we get money in it ASAP? So those become headaches sometimes. And if it's... account where you can put cash in at the counter, that always is going to make it easiest. We can just basically have somebody go in and basically take advantage of it and put cash in right there and boom, it's loaded up. It's ready to go. And then you have some other times where, yeah, you may have to take 48 hours and wait for a transaction to clear.
SPEAKER_00:Time really matters to these guys. Every day that the money is tied up is a day they can't bet it.
SPEAKER_03:I had an account recently where It was in my name. I don't know why they did it, but they just absolutely opened the floodgates and said, play as you want. It became an account where we ran it up pretty high, and we had to have a pretty high balance in it. because it was letting us bet pretty big pops. But we were honestly restricted by how much we could get in that account. I couldn't put half a million or a million cash into that account immediately. It's not logistical in that sense. But that account just let me go ham on it. And next thing you know, we run that account up to half a million. And then it does finally get limited, which it lasted way longer than it ever should have. I still don't understand why. It was a home run. But And at that time when it gets limited, well, it's like, okay, well now we have all this money in this account where, how do we get it to work working for us? Because sitting in an account, it's not working. So thankfully, uh, like, well, this, it was a headache with, with my day job, but I was pretty much in and out of every bank. You could think of transferring money, wire wire transfers. I got, we basically got that. I would say 400,000 of that transferred into working in seven to 10 days. which was a pretty big feat to get it to where it went from useless to us to all of a sudden, okay, now it's still working. And that was a pretty crazy story. But yeah, that company is still sending me to the Bahamas here in a couple months. But it's insane how some of the accounts just let you play at will and just unleash all the restraints from your account and just say, hey, have at it. I had a bank account that was... It was actually my primary bank account too. Of course, I have a handful of bank accounts, but my primary bank account just randomly sent a letter and just said, hey, just a heads up, you got 14 days before your account's closed. And I've had that account for 10 years. So it wasn't like there wasn't anything fishy going on. It was just simply, hey, you're putting in and taking out too much money and we don't like it. And that was all there was to it. There's no explanation, no reason, just we don't want your business anymore. And even them, the bank, I mean, that's my money, right? I should be able to go to the bank and withdraw money. And they made it the biggest headache possible. I mean, I went to numerous branches, talked to multiple managers, and it was like, yes, you can get cash and we'll have it ordered. But At the same time, I'm racing the clock because if that two-week window comes up where they said they're closing my account, if the money is not withdrawn from there, then they're going to send me a check, right? Which in that might take two weeks, four weeks, however long it takes for that check to come in. And it's a significant balance on there. But you should be able to pull something out and you go in and they're like, well, we can only give you$5,000 of it. And I'm like, well, what good does the$5,000 do? Or they're like, well, we can give you$10,000, but it's in 20s. And it's just like, that just makes no sense, right? And they they try to make it as big a headache as possible. And then it even got to the point where they put a restriction on that account. And they said, like, customers not allowed to withdraw cash. And it was not for anything. There was nothing illegal. There was nothing done wrong. It was just simply, hey, we don't want a business and just make it as hard as possible.
SPEAKER_00:If I make a trade in my brokerage account, I click a few buttons, you know, set the limit price, how many shares. And then that's kind of it. I don't have to talk to anyone. I have no idea who sold me the shares. And collecting is effortless. That is not how things work in this world. It's more of a people business.
SPEAKER_03:So our partners, I mean, granted, anytime we work with a new partner, it's a learning curve for both ends. Yes, they're trying to figure out, A, if they want to work with me. But at the same time, I'm interviewing them on the back end of, hey, do I want to work with you? Do I trust your stuff? Because... Yeah, you can kind of do some preliminary judgment, but until you really start getting down and kind of working together and getting some data, you don't always have the best answer.
SPEAKER_00:The guys say that there could be any number of red flags they might encounter in people they work with, from issues with payments to just someone who might not be a winner.
SPEAKER_01:There's definitely been times where we've worked with people that we came to a conclusion that we don't think they're winners. in the long run and we stopped working with them. Just from, you know, we build up a sample size or, you know, they're not getting enough closing line value to really win. And then we make the judgment of, yeah, we don't want to work with these guys anymore. You can tell semi-quickly how much you want to be in a partnership with somebody is or how much you want to work with them just by how they react to, you know, if you say, hey, can you settle up on Monday? You know, and they're like, Yeah, can I send you 15 different Zells or Venmos or cash apps? Usually those aren't the type of people you want to be in business with. That's usually my number one tell is, yeah, somebody says, hey, I can settle up with you, but I got to get all these people to send you different addresses. And, oh, do you take Litecoin, Ethereum, whatever? Usually if somebody can settle up with me with one type of transaction, that's the kind of person I want to work with.
SPEAKER_03:when you ask, Hey, what's our bat like to confirm a balance or something like that, they're kind of like, well, let me get back to you. Um, haven't done this month's figures. And I'm like, how are you? We're three weeks into the month. Have you not done your figures? Things like that. Or it's just like, yeah. Um, sorry. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm out to dinner right now. It's like, you're out to dinner on a Saturday and you're in college basketball season. Like there's still 32 games left in the day. What do you mean you're out to dinner? Like you just, you're, you're clocked out already. Right. And, um, After things like that, then I'm going to sit there and call Curtis and just immediately say, hey, I'm done with this guy. I don't want to work with him anymore. We don't share the same values, right? He wants to work when it's convenient to him and he wants all the stuff given to him in a perfect matter. And I don't believe that those people are going to last.
SPEAKER_00:I asked Riley, out of all of the points of friction that exist, which one creates the most problems?
SPEAKER_03:The number one answer out of those is having the network and the ability to get down. I mean, if you only have one person, say everybody's on vacation or you've got people that are not working that day, you only have one guy in a casino or one guy that's available on his phone. Well, you know what? You're probably not going to get very much action down. You're not going to generate any EV. So the ultimate answer for us is having a larger network. That's how we're going to maximize and be able to get the most down. Um, for our partners in particular, our thing is our downfalls are never the number of bets we have. Our downfall is how much are we able to get down before market starts moving or, or to do so quietly. Cause it's, I mean, a larger bankroll is always beneficial, but for us, it's, it's definitely the ability to expand and hit from all different directions, hit the, whether it's one sports books or 10 sports books out there, it's, The ability to hit them from the front door, the back door, the side door, come through the basement and get them from every angle possible for as much as we can before that bet's done and we're on to the next one.
SPEAKER_00:Riley and the guys met their partners at Bet Bash two years ago. And then since then, they've been establishing a record, proving that they can do a good job. Also, they realize they're essentially in the customer service business.
SPEAKER_03:Where we've made a name for ourselves with a lot of these partners is the fact that we're reliable, we're on call 24-7, so we're trustworthy, we're durable. We put together a work ethic that I think always strives to be second to none. And are we the biggest, the baddest, and the best out there? Absolutely not. There's always a bigger fish in the pond, and I think we understand that. But For our partners to continuously come back to us day in and day out, it's not for some special skill set we have. It's just that we go above and beyond. If they want something, we're going to do our absolute damn near best to make it happen.
SPEAKER_00:Here's Phil again.
SPEAKER_02:I think of it as we're new as in, like I said, we grew very fast or obtained lots of knowledge and connections very quickly. Because two years in business, I don't... I feel like that's very new still, even though we're pretty much like working with the top groups in the world, I guess, you know, ultimately, and then others. And we're doing a good job because we're still working with them. So they're happy, right? And here's Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:That's how we meet
SPEAKER_02:a lot of
SPEAKER_01:people, actually, is just from we're working with somebody and then they say, hey, you know, I got a friend who might be able to use Use your help. And then we work with that guy for a little bit. And then he says, hey, you know, I've got another friend. And that's usually how we meet new people that we decide to work with is just referrals from others.
SPEAKER_00:So now let's get to the story of the taken money. If you remember from the top of the show, one of the members of the group, this was actually their man from Ohio, a.k.a. Ohio Mike, deposited$220,000 into a sportsbook, after which time their bets ran hot for a week and then problems ensued. Here's Curtis again.
SPEAKER_01:This is probably one of the biggest spots we had been betting at in a while. So Ohio Mike had been going around, you know, he pretty much goes to every single casino he can find to go bet and just says, you know, I want to bet 30,000 on this college basketball total. And, you know, a lot of places will be like, Hey, no, we'll give you 500 bucks. And, you know, every once in a while, maybe every 20 casinos, you find one where they say, yeah, sure. You know, that's fine. And, um, Sometimes it lasts a day, sometimes it lasts months, where they just don't have a clue or don't really care and just take the bets. And so we had been betting there for probably about a month or so. Betting$200,000 a day, probably, if I had to guess, on average. And one day, he just was talking to them about the app because we were using another app to see... what they had and they had told us like, Oh no, use our app. You know, it's a little bit more accurate because there were a couple of discrepancies. And when he was talking to him about the app, he was like, Oh yeah, we have the same limits too. So if you just want to, I can just scan all your tickets right now and put all your money on the app. And, uh, yeah, I mean, we decided to be a better idea quicker, you know, like we can do anything, you know, we don't have to send somebody up to the counter. We just have somebody sit in their car and bet on the app. And that lasted for, yeah, I think about a week or so until we just had a really good day. And they closed the account and kept the money.
SPEAKER_00:I get the sense that when these guys tell the story, not every reaction is about the injustice of a sportsbook just confiscating money. Here's Riley.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and one thing that sounds crazy, like most people I know, I would think the same thing if I heard this story. I'd be like, well, what kind of idiot would deposit$200,000 into a sports betting account? And in our answer, it's the idiot that's betting through that 200k multiple times a week, right?
SPEAKER_00:I don't think it would be unfair to connect the dots to the various stories we have heard in this episode and say that the attitude of casinos is roughly, for losers, we give you the world. For winners, we double check our terms and conditions. Another way to describe that basic structure is that they are in the powerful position of having a free roll. Heads, we win. Tails, we'll get back to you. Here's Curtis again. They said
SPEAKER_01:that they had no proof he was inside of the casino. So for this app on Traveland, you have to be at the casino. But he was in the parking lot and they said, oh, we have no proof you're here. What time were you here? You know, show us where you were in the casino. But he was never inside. So that's kind of what gaming had said to him was like, oh, can you prove that you are here? And he was like, don't you guys have a million cameras? Can you prove that I was here?
SPEAKER_00:And here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what was really weird about it when we were first seeing it too, and they locked those accounts, normally they just like will void bets or, or just close the account completely. Right. They were still grading the bets, marking them as wins or losses. So, so like this account's locked, but we can still see the bets getting graded ultimately. Like, like you just can't do anything with the account, but you could still get in there and see it, you know, like kind of thing. Like, so it was like, so it was weird, like until they like actually lock locked it, you know? But yeah, it was like, dude, you guys are like grading these, like, like that's, that's admitting that it was a good bet. And it was placed correctly and you graded it as as per the outcome, you know. So so that was kind of frustrating. We were really hoping that they would realize that. But again, you know, like I said, they they'll take whatever they can from it and and go from there. Ultimately, they're like, well, we can avoid any bet that we want and say it's good or not, you know. So it gets kind of. Because I've heard of that happening and have kind of seen them try to do stuff or we called them out on it where it was saying like, you know, oh, well, what if all these bets lost? What would you be wanting to take it then or whatever? And they'd be like, oh, of course, you know, if we're going to avoid the winners, we have to avoid the losers, right? It's like, probably not. You would have returned my money, right? You know, kind of thing. If they lost, you're going to return my additional bet, you know, kind of thing.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This also all happened at a particularly terrible time. College basketball is big business, and it also happens during the time of the year when most people are paying half attention to work stuff.
SPEAKER_01:I really think that they just don't want to deal with it and are probably just kicking it down the road and saying, all right, we'll deal with it later. It was really unfortunate timing where it was right before Thanksgiving and The entire amount was
SPEAKER_00:held up for a couple of months. The guys looked for attorneys to help, and even that was hard. Because the casino in question is tribal, which means they can kind of do whatever they want. Any action you take against them ends up in their tribal court, so the odds of prevailing would be very long. But eventually the casino came back and released some of the money, just not the money won during the hot week.
SPEAKER_02:They came back with, uh... pretty much the week that was on the app that they were questioning, they said, we're going to keep this ultimately. And so, so we got our initial deposit back. So it was about half of, of what the full amount was, you know, which wasn't the worst case scenario. So we were happy about that, but still not, not making everyone feel good still, you know, so still hurt a little, but yeah, we, we just got to, just like any other bump in the road, you got to learn from it and grow from it and just continue on. So casinos are casinos, right? They're looking to take your money any way they can. And it was just kind of a perfect storm where they had it locked up electronically and decided to say, hey, we don't think you were doing this per our terms and conditions. And And then it's kind of like, you know, it was a tribal casino. So you had to, like, they're the judge, jury, and executioner, ultimately, you know? So you're trying your case to someone that's biased, ultimately, right? So, and they're just like, nope, sorry, that's not proof enough for us. So we're going to do this. Like, we were really surprised that that first offer came through as that, what we thought the first offer was going to be. Oh, we're taking everything, you know? And then we're going to have to fight for the next, month or two or however long it would take to try to convince them otherwise. But yeah, they went with that. We all discussed it and said, you know what? This is probably the best we can do. That's what the lawyers had said. You probably shouldn't push it. From what I understand, Mike, they didn't have him sign anything. He's like, it was very easy. The lawyer went with him and stuff. And he's like, it was just the sportsbook manager that I've known because I was betting there too, you know, and, um, and the cashier manager just paying out another whale ultimately, you know, like, uh, and that was it. I was like, they didn't have lawyers there or nothing. Did it make you sign a trespass or anything? And he's like, nope. So I was like, okay, well, right on, you know? So I don't know if he'll receive something in the mail or not later on, but, um, yeah, as of that, it seemed like it was all very cordial and smooth and no, no issues, you know?
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_00:Even though the guys didn't get paid on that strong week of bets, they still paid their partner. Here's Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we really didn't go to our partner. I didn't want to be that kind of guy who was like, oh, hey, you know, we got stiff. Like, I don't want to pay you. It's our partner's job to send us the bets and win, and it's our job to get down and pay them when the bet wins. So we just, you know, fronted pretty much their portion of it.
SPEAKER_00:The legalization of sports betting continues. means that a good amount of this world is now out of the gray area it occupied historically, which I'm sure has been positive in a lot of ways. But also, when something is governed by the law, that means it is subject to terms and conditions and technicalities. That may be fine for the sportsbooks, but our guests still essentially operate in the gray area, which is governed by norms and custom and reputation. Here's Riley.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, we all know, and especially people People out there that are in this world, when we vouch that we got something or we're on something, that's the contract right there. Yeah, you know what? It may not be completely written in stone, but it was a contract. There was never any, hey, we need to talk to our partners and see what they say or how they feel about this. It was just straight up, well, all right, this is going to sting, but This is what we do, right? Because in the grand scheme of things, yeah, we lost a significant wager on that. I mean, we definitely took a huge L for that stretch. But at the end of the day, it's going to be a drop in the bucket compared to everything else we are in the next 10 years, right? We're going to look back and just say, hey, it stung at the time being, but it was a valuable experience. We made ourselves drastically better. But If somebody out there, it's no different than we would have gotten grouped in the same thing with a bad bookie out there. If you were a bad bookie and you're stealing somebody's money, then you're immediately going to be toast, right? You're not going to get the next referral or anything like that. And so for us... It was never even in question. It was, hey, we vouch for all of this. We're already on the hook for that. That's fine. And then on the further end of that, we didn't even tell our partners. I mean, that's our problem. It's not theirs, right? They're working day in and day out, just like us. And it sucked. But because also, yeah, it hindered us for sure. But we were still clocked in every single day, working all day long. So... You wanted to be able to tell them, hey, this is what's happening. I'm sorry. I'm a little scatterbrained right now. But you can't say things like that because you have a reputation to uphold as well. So our partners, yeah, they'll know about it one day when the time's right. But there's no sympathy or anything like that. It's our loss. It's our mistake. And there's no... There's no hard feelings on any end at all. I mean, my partners, the next day when they sent bets, I was going 90 miles an hour trying to get them. Throughout the whole thing, even the day we found out, I mean, we probably still bet quite a bit of money that day still, right? And every single day, we've been working every single day, the whole thing's going on. So we haven't slowed down at all. Now it's caused more headaches, but we're still working.
SPEAKER_00:I started this episode by saying that we are not in the realm of MBAs and junior executive training programs. Essentially all of the experience that you acquire in this world, you have to pay for. These guys are able to make money off their ability to navigate the not as straightforward as you would think world of legal sports betting. And if you get paid to solve the puzzle, then it's reasonable to expect that the solution won't be obvious all of the time. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Here's Curtis.
SPEAKER_01:We definitely don't have that much money in a singular account anymore. Just because, yeah, we don't want to lose it again. And we try to operate, you know, in a wider net. Whereas before, you know, we'd have a couple guys who were going to these casinos and betting huge. And now we just try to have, you know, a lot of guys who are betting, you know, only maybe$2,000,$3,000 a game.
SPEAKER_00:And here's Phil.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, with this one, it was just rough because we definitely were putting... a lot of stuff towards it because of how good it was, you know? So, so when that happened, you know, just like, like I, the example of like a PayPal stuff, yeah, your money locked up ultimately. Right. So, so we were operating a little thinner than what we normally could, you know, so we're still doing business, but we had a large amount locked up where, you know, it was harder to do business. Right. So, so just, just looking at it from that sense, like, okay, we're never going to have, no matter how good it is, we're not going to have everything there. One of the lawyers advised, he's a well-known gambling lawyer and stuff like that. He said, cash all your stuff every day, ultimately. You're never holding a large balance. It was Bob Loeb, I think, on Curtis told
SPEAKER_00:me that he never really expected to be doing this, but also just because it was unexpected doesn't mean that they're content to be here, you know, resting on their laurels.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I never thought we'd be doing what we were doing now at all. You know, it was kind of just like, you know, if we can do this and make, you know, make some money for now until the next thing comes along, then cool. Like, we'll do this. And then if we find some other form of advantage play, we'll do that. I didn't think we'd be doing this, you know, three years
SPEAKER_00:now almost. We have had other groups like this on the show before, and it seems like in every case, there's a member of the team who is particularly good at seeing past boundaries. Phil told me that Curtis is forward thinking and dives into stuff completely, all in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's something we talk about, you know, every day, pretty much daily. It's just, all right, how do we improve? How do we get more outs? How do we get more down? You know, how do we best position ourselves going forward? You know, what are we going to do? Remember
SPEAKER_00:that Phil said even when he had a normal job, he wanted to work for himself. Well, sports turned out to be that transition, but he says he's working harder than ever.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's not easy work. It's definitely hard. Like I said, I put in more hours than I ever have at another job, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, at the detriment of other things, obviously. But, you know, that's where I say we're still kind of new. We're still growing. We're trying to get more and bigger and better, you know. So, yeah, it takes a lot of time. I
SPEAKER_00:think there's something really interesting in what we've been hearing, which is try to count how many times Riley talked about about their future in the sports betting business and how they're going to build on the success they've had to this point. But he's the guy that still has a day job. Also keep in mind that he went from betting small at Blackjack to betting a lot at sports. So gambling has, over time, made up a larger and larger part of his income. I think this is all interesting because even though the cold and unemotional idea of being plus EV is at the center of every episode, ultimately these ideas are executed by humans. And humans are not that simple.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've teetered on that one a little bit because when you look at financial things, it makes it seem like A is better than B or B is better than A when in reality, it's not necessarily just about the money. Yes, I... I have a family. I do enjoy making money to support them. That's a given. But my day job, it stimulates not just my wallet, but it stimulates my brain. I legitimately love what I do. I get to work with athletes. I do sports medicine. I'm involved in things. Like I said, I'm a former athlete. I had my own injuries. I had great surgeons, great physical therapists that I worked with that helped me in order to get back on the field and be healthy and develop me kind of into who I am today. So the fact that I get to work daily with people like that, it definitely helps my life stay balanced because I would say at work, like, well, when I say work, my sports medicine job, I have pretty much zero stress. Yeah, there's things here and there, of course, but for the most part, zero stress. Now, in the AP world, there's ebbs and flows, right? And it's inevitable to have stress or to have headaches of certain things. And when I leave my clinic each day, my job's over with. I don't really think about it until I go back the next day. Whereas with sports betting, I am on 24 hours a day. I've Basically, I'm not doing something when I'm sleeping and that's it. But from the moment I wake up, there's an email to read or there's a message to respond to or there's accounting to be done. There's just something at all times, right? So the stress that comes from that is a never-ending stress. And it's good stress. When I say stress, it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It doesn't have to be correlated to negativity. But it definitely relates to my day job in a different aspect. So the balance of two separate careers, I kind of enjoy. Because yeah, I'm a worker. I definitely am always working, always doing something. So the fact that they're so different keeps me sane, keeps my brain working, keeps me sharp, but it also keeps me from climbing up on the edge of a bridge some days.
SPEAKER_00:Risk of Ruin is written and produced by me. Special thanks to the guests for this episode, Curtis, Phil, and Riley. I'm going to put Riley's Twitter handle in the show notes in case you want to reach out. If you want to support the show, you can check out my list of referral links, which I'll also put in the show notes. If you want to get in touch, you can email us riskofruinpod at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at halfkelly.