Bet Like a Lawyer & Lumberyard AP Strategy w/ Alex | Ep149

Today we welcome Alex to the podcast (https://x.com/Landtrader8375). In his first podcast appearance he tells us about leaving his 9 year career in law for full-time betting, how he comes to a hypothesis on big spots that is rarely "wrong", and many fun dead edges and AP shenanigans that include ending up selling lumber after trying to get into real estate.

0:00 Intro

19:15 First 1st down bet that launched his career

34:00 What it takes to be a "Rort" finder

53:30 "The Lumber Edge"

1:02:15 Dead edges

1:17:15 Sizing & dealing w/ opposition

1:25:30 Career outlook

1:33:10 Listener Q&A

Welcome to The Risk Takers Podcast, hosted by professional sports bettor John Shilling (GoldenPants13) and SportsProjections. This podcast is the best betting education available - PERIOD. And it's free - please share and subscribe if you like it.

Follow SportsProjections on Twitter: https://x.com/Sports__Proj
Follow GP on Twitter: https://x.com/goldenpants013

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And I and I and like the thing I've started to do now to address that leak is like I just come up with my worst case fare. I come up with my worst case fare, I type in like the most conservative estimate of my bankroll in to the Kelly criterion calculator. I set it to half Kelly, and I'm like, if you don't like, if you don't bet this amount, you can't respect yourself anymore.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

GPSP and Alex. Just a normal name in here. I can't, I think we're I might have to shell that that bit. We just had like a historic run of like other like XP, like certain something P or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I mean I counted. I counted. This is Alex, by the way, everyone. Uh you know, it's eight of the 26 letters make it work. So it's not that unlikely.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Okay. See, this is already it's like this is very this is very AP already. I like it. It's like the birthday thing. Like how little it's like you go into a room, how many people in there do you need to have it be like a coin flip for your birthday? It's like what initials do you need to have to make the this intro work? Well, maybe uh maybe next week. But uh yeah, thanks for coming on, man. I'm we're very excited to have you. It's our favorite, um, I would say like you're our favorite type of guest, which is like hasn't been on a podcast. So thank you for coming on ours. Or actually, I don't think you've been on a podcast, have you?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

No, I've never run on a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

There we go. At least I did my homework. But uh yeah, I mean, we uh you know we connected via Twitter, and your background, I think, is very interesting. It's risk of ruin-esque, I would say. Like we'll get into the lumber deals uh that I hinted at over Twitter, but maybe just uh to kick us off, why don't you tell everybody kind of who you are and how you got started with Advantage Play?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, so uh yeah, I'm Alex. Um I was uh I was a lawyer for like nine years at a big law firm that if you're like into the law firm thing, you've probably heard of. Uh and you know, I I I first got I first got started with Advantage Play, like in terms of advantage gambling at least, uh in law school. I basically had never played poker before, but I or at least never played seriously. But the law school had a poker club uh where everyone would meet, everyone in the club would meet once a week to play a$10 unlimited rebuy tournament for you know unlimited rebuys for the first hour or so. And I uh got completely sucked the first couple times I played, but I'm just a naturally competitive person and don't like to suck at things. So I basically read like all the poker books to so I could beat people at$10 poker. Uh read Supersystem, like Dan Harrington's books, uh Sklanski's books, Ed Miller's books. Um, and that was enough to be the best player at my law school's poker club. And so I won like$1,000 from uh$10 buy-in tournaments, and I took it way too seriously. Uh, I also started doing stuff like taking the bus every couple weeks to Atlantic City, like the Greyhound. Saw some weird, weird stuff. Can I say weird shit? I saw some weird shit.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

You guys aren't you guys like aren't monetized or anything, so that's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

No, we are not.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, I saw some weird shit on the on the greyhound. Saw someone uh engaged in indecent acts in the back row once, which is kind of like the you know, kind of like almost like a rounder's experience going to law school and like having this CD like just by themselves? Yeah, like very literally. I mean, it's like almost the exact same thing, right? But you know, I was probably not as good of a poker player as Matt Damon. Uh I was uh I was able to beat, I was able to beat like the one, two, and two, five games in Atlantic City. Uh never really moved up beyond that because I like spent my bank account to zero every month living in New York City and going out to restaurants. But that was like that was kind of like the first time I'd ever made money at gambling or even thought about making money at gambling was playing poker in law school.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

So you go into law school, you presumably you know have a a bright, bright young career in front of you. What hooked you to want to go um on these seedy greyhound buses and and go play poker?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, I'd say it was uh it was just very satisfying to have something so directly connected to my own efforts, right? Like if you have a if you have a normal job, you you get paid. You know, you can get fired if you do a bad job, and maybe you can get promoted if you do a good job. But it's just very satisfying to have something where it was like it's all my decisions, it's all my effort. If I put more effort in, I'll make more money. Uh if I make bad decisions, I'll lose money. I find that whole thing uh just very, very satisfying.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Do you think that there is like an aspect to it where you're going to law school, like there's a perception of lawyers as like super buttoned up, but then you're living like this like Batman-esque like second other life, like going to AC and whatnot, like kind of doing something a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah. I mean, probably just a high openness person or whatever. I like to I mean, I like to experience you know, I like I like experiencing unique things like that. Um that probably that probably was part of it. It was just, you know, it was interesting to see like, you know, the other side of humanity or whatever, uh, outside of maybe the more staid world of law.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Okay, so you're you're you're starting to play, you're starting to play poker. Maybe set me up like what else was going on in your life. Are you are you married, relationship, anything going on like broadly? What age are you at this at this time? And then how do you like what what happens after you're maybe out of law school and what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, so I was 20, I was 21 uh at the time. I like I went I got through college pretty quick. But maybe that was uh my first AP thing, was that I I graduated college uh in like two and a half years because I I took AP uh I took AP tests that I was not enrolled in the courses for because I was like, you can pay like a hundred bucks and get three college credits, it's a really good deal. Um but yeah, I got like 21 when I enrolled in the law school.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I was just gonna interrupt you. This says a lot about the difference between you and I. I I also came in with a lot of credits, but I just hung around for an extra year and a half and took a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I want to regret it because it's such an awesome time in life to be in college. Uh had a great life in college.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Just one up, all of you. I came in with credits and then I just still took the classes in college because it would be easier. Yeah, no, literally. Because I was like, this will be easier. So that's the ultimate idiot move.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I don't know. I mean, one thing I learned about law school is that like it doesn't matter, or at least admissions to law school, is it doesn't matter how easy the classes you took were all that matters is that you got an A. Like they just look at your, or at least when I enrolled, it was like they just look at your LSAT and GPA. And like if you got A's and like the you know, like PE classes, that was good enough, as long as you got a good LSAT score. So I probably should have done what you did, just retaking all this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

That was my worry, is I was like, I can at least lock like get started with a decent GPA.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And I had no, I was under no illusion of like graduating early. So I was like, you know, let's pad the stats up front.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Okay, sorry to interrupt. You keep going. So you're you you're you're you're in law school and you you start to wrap that up.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Oh yeah, I was in law school. I was like 21. Uh I lived with my girlfriend at the time who's not my wife. Um yeah, that was like my living situation at the time. We have three, we have three kids now. So yeah, family man, gamblers.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

So when when you are wrapping up law school, I you sent a brief excerpt that got, you know, to GP that got forwarded to me. Did you, once you got out of law school, did the gambling sort of get put on hold?

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Is that yeah, I mean, I can basically completely forgot about gambling. Like I didn't think about it at all. Like the most I probably the closest I got to anything AP related for maybe the first three years I was uh I was at the law firm was like credit card points. But it was like it was it was just totally out of my mind, uh like totally out of my head at the time. I was just like, you know, I make like$30 an hour playing one, two, no limit. Why would you even do that? Like just like focus on the job, advance, like make money that way. Um so yeah, I didn't think about it at all uh until like so I basically the first the first couple years I was there, I was in like the M ⁇ A group at my law firm. Uh and then I went to London from like 2018 to 2019. Um and there I like they had betting shops everywhere, and I thought it was like kind of interesting. Like you have like uh like whatever, like Coral or like William Hill type places, and I thought it was like interesting that all these places were on the street, but I never like actually went into any of them. Um maybe I played like poker once at one of the London card rooms, but like yeah, like when I was there, I was just like all in doing like debt financing deals nonstop, uh just focused on that. Um and then when I came back to New York at the end of 2019, uh like that's kind of when I got back into gambling, uh, back into AP stuff. Um so on like at the time, I think Paspa had just been repealed. I didn't know what PASPA was even, but I saw ads for DraftKings and FanDuel on the subway that were all like, you know, like deposit$2,000, get$2,000 in bonus bets, or like$2,000, like the like the$3,000, whatever the whatever the risk-free bet was at the time. It was like, I saw these things and I was like, it must be a scam, but it's at least worth investigating. So I like read through all the terms and conditions of these bonuses and created a spreadsheet. I like went on the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement website and just like copied down all the names on the spreadsheet, read all the terms and conditions of all the bonuses, and then like wrote out the EV and strategy to to milk all these things. And then so I like signed myself up for all these accounts, went to Hoboken, played through them. Then I taught my wife how to how to do these bonuses, and like I taught my friends how to do these bonuses. Well, like with my friends, like I I like I I would I wasn't even like bearding with my friends, I was like just literally I was just like literally like giving them my spreadsheet and being like, guys, there's like$8,000 of EV if you want to go get it. Um yeah, so I like did that for a couple months, had some good times. Like, you know, when I like after I'd sent my friends the spreadsheet, we all went to a bar in Hoboken together and just played Black Track all day. Uh like I think the group made like 20 grand or something like that. I didn't take any of the money, but like I didn't take any of the money. We just like sat in the bar playing black track. Group made like 20 grand.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I think I This was on like an app.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

They should have at least paid for my drinks for showing them this. But yeah, it was like, yeah, we just went through every single casino bonus basically.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Uh okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah. Yeah, it was like, you know, from like the the DraftKings one that was like 2,000 deposit bonus or 2500 deposit bonus, like on the high end, down to like Bally's like hundred dollar like 24 hour rebate where you just like put it on a roulette number and if you don't get it, you get like 100 cash back and can withdraw it. So it was like we just did all those casino bonuses, did some of the risk-free breath that's for sports. And like, you know, I'd get the follow-up bonuses and I'd do that, but I like ultimately I had thoughts of trying to scale something like that and like you know, trying to get everyone I know to sign up and like take a cut. But you know, I was you know, I I was I was thinking about like my my future and like the possibility of like having gaming police arrest me, so I didn't really pursue it that that much. I just kind of was like, uh it's a cool thing for someone who's like more risk tolerant than myself.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Um oh sorry.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I was gonna say, yeah, was that day in the bar like the highlight of your gambling career? Like that sounds like so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, it was like certainly to that point, it was the highlight of my gambling gambling career. It was awesome. Yeah, it was like I think it was like five of us together. We just like yeah, just sitting in this bar in Hubbook and basically from like 10 a.m. to like 11 p.m. Uh like a DJ came in and like started playing music, but we were still like on iPads at the table while everyone's like dancing around us.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

You don't you don't get those those stories in the uh Atlantic articles, you know, about gambling. You don't you don't get the uh the five bros bonding over of it?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

One business idea I had at the time, like almost like a bachelor party experience for people where you like take them, you like take them to New Jersey and like they gamble, but they actually win. But I don't know. I was like, I just had other things going on and I I I didn't like really take it that seriously. And if I had like that, my job a lot earlier.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Do you think people would like like that? I don't know. Like this is from the. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it's it's fun, like it is funny because like doing these like free rolls or whatnot, like I think anybody would be lying if they didn't say like it was it was fun and it was just it wasn't literally just EV. Like having a free roll is yeah, one of the best situations you can be in because you get to gamble and you can't lose. So like I see what you're saying. Like, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, I mean people love yeah, a lot of people when they're in a sort of party situation, like want to gamble, but it it really I don't know, it's never been fun for me to lose. I've like never never enjoyed gambling and losing. So maybe other people would enjoy more if they gambled and won. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

So probably the most common questions we or like the most I was I was going through the questions before this. I think the most common thread or theme we got, and obviously it was based on the little excerpts we give with we gave away was about you leaving law and and um getting out of that to do this full time. So maybe let's start to talk about like the seeds of that. So I think in general, like people, um, you know, you you bet have a presumably quite a high paying job relative, you know, to the average person. What what is bringing you like what brought you to to get in back into this after all these all these years of sort of pausing while while law, like beyond because like relative, I'm sure it was like free money, you said you saw it, but like relative, it's probably not changing your life a whole lot at that point for the most part. Um yeah, what got you what got you into it again? And then like how did the wheels start turning of this is maybe more than just like a hobby or I want to do it more seriously?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, so like after the initial going through all the bonuses phase, you know, yeah, it's not like it's not like you can make a living just doing the sign-up bonuses one time for yourself and then never doing them again, right? Like it's nice, but it's it's not like enough money to retire on or anything. So, so yeah, I mean, like, you know, that was 2019, like getting into 2020, COVID hits. I'm like still working my job. Uh I leave New York City because at that point I'm like living with my wife and one-year-old daughter, like in a one-bedroom apartment across the street from a hospital. And I just like didn't want to continue being in New York at that time. So I ended up working remotely back uh in Minnesota where I'm from. Uh and and yeah, like, you know, at that point, there's like no legal gambling in Minnesota. I just like I I had once again kind of forgot about gambling as like a path. And you know, for the next three years, I you know, I worked, let's see, I I was I start I was working in like a restructuring in the restructuring group at this point of my law firm. And like COVID was COVID was like probably the busiest the restructuring industry has ever been. So I was just like working nonstop, like moving from like my parents' and parents' laws, like houses to like cabins, just like moving all the time, working my laptop, not having any kind of like remote work setup. Uh so yeah, I just like I was just like sitting on my laptop all day, like writing briefs. Uh and I eventually kind of got burned out, burned out from that. Like I was the most like I was the most senior associate in my group, and I had like all this responsibility dumped on me. So I actually ended up like quitting my my law firm job in like 2022, and I worked in my family's business. Then I decided that was a mistake, so I went back to the law firm. I just like asked my boss for my job back and he gave it to me. Went back to New York again, you know, had this gap of like four years where I basically just didn't gamble. Um and I was like listening to this odd lots podcast. I don't know if you guys know that podcast. It's like a finance, it's like a Bloomberg finance podcast.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

They had uh they had a sports better on the on the show and he talked about uh how he made like a hundred grand or something like that, just by like tracking who won the NBA like the NBA tip-offs and then betting on that team to score first in the game. And I was thinking like you know, there's maybe there's still stuff like that. Like, so I just I started like looking through Diraff Kings like every every menu, um and like kind of what got me back into sports gambling and like maybe sort of like made me think it was worth it to invest time in it um was like I came across this bet. It's a it's kind of dead now. It's dead, it is dead now, but it was who will get the first first down uh in this NFL game. I started looking like at week one of the season, and like so I was just like, okay, this seems like something where there could obviously be an edge, right? Like if the team chooses to receive and the other if one team chooses to receive most of the time and their opponent chooses to defer every single time, the team that chooses to receive the ball is gonna like score the first, is gonna get the first first down uh way more frequently. So I like I was just like looking into what the 2023 trends were were. I found out that like the Packers towards the end of the season always chose to receive the ball, their opponents, and then whatever the first week was. I think it was like the Eagles always chose to defer when they won the toss. So I just like bet I bet like 20 grand on the Packers to get the first first down. I'm like, this is like a lock. Well not a lock, but I mean it's like it was minus one, they had the price like minus 120, and the fair value is probably like you know, minus 250 or something. Like because or maybe it's a little bit less than that, because maybe they don't choose to receive 100% of the time, but it was still like good for sure. So I bought like 20 grand to that and I won. And I'm like, alright, I gotta start tracking this for all the other teams. Uh and then I found out like over the course of the season, like basically it was like the Packers, the Falcons, the Cowboys always chose to receive the ball, and I just like kept betting as much as I could. I was just like doing it on one DraftKings account too. I was like, uh I I don't know if it was just because I was like a posty and didn't want to risk too much, or if it was that like I didn't want to kill the edge. Maybe it was a little bit of both, but I was just hitting it on one account each time, and then like if I got limited, I would advise other people uh as to the existence of this edge. Uh and like basically between like when I started and like when it got shut down, I made I made like a pretty good amount on I made a pretty good amount on that edge. Um It got basically the edge died in 20 like 2025 football season uh because somebody somebody DM'd a barstool reporter about it, and they just like tweeted. We did it out like, oh yeah, the Colts always choose to receive. You should bet on them to get the first first down. And so it just yeah, it just disappeared, unfortunately. But um, you know, it obviously extends to you know, it obviously extends to other things that probably still exist. So yeah, you know, whoever's listening to this 2026 NFL season, if you can get first punt or first score for for those teams, it's it's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

They're gonna be like, and then this guy went on this podcast that nobody listens to and said this, and he actually fucked up the punts for all 2026.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah, I mean, I think actually Caesars, Caesars was the only like reliable place I found them to take even a little bit on first punt. And I think even they took it down near the end of the season. Just because once, yeah, I mean it's kind of an obvious inference. Like once you know the first first down bet's good, then you know the first punt's good. But yeah, that was like it's such a simple edge, but it made me realize that like the sports books aren't incredibly smart, or maybe they are incredibly smart, but like there's just too much surface area for them to price everything correctly. So I just started looking into other things and I was able to find a lot of other edges that you know, some of which are still around, some of which died. But um, you know, that was the thing that kicked me off and made me realize it was worth it to do this.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

So I had two two follow-up questions. One, um uh around the first sort of like bet size and getting that size. So like up until that point, your gambling has been, you know, you said pretty small, like at poker, and then some of the the bonuses, which is obviously pretty risk risk-free. So I guess like I assume like a lot of money was made just in terms of like working in law for three whatever years. So probably that has some to do with it. But I'm curious, like a psychologically, like how you just sort of brilled up and and bet 20k um on this, if if it was sort of like getting back into it, and maybe there's some some lead up we didn't really talk about.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, I mean, there's probably some lead up we didn't talk about. Like, I mean, I think I like at some point, at some point, I'd I think I had like done odds jam for a little bit, but I just like I didn't pursue it that long because it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

You can admit it.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

No, yeah, I tried admitting it. Like it was like I did that for like maybe like a month in 2023 or something like that. And I was just like, oh, you know, I keep like all the places I win kick me off right away, and all the places I lose. Like I was doing probably the the classic rookie mistake of just like betting into these FanDuel Islands, like where like FanDuel would be FanDuel would be off from the market, but like they were actually moving on to action, whereas like all the other places were just keeping their openers. So I was like, I was betting into those enough to lose any. And I was like, okay, like I don't know, like you know, maybe maybe you can win doing this, but like, is it worth putting up with this volatility to get, you know, not that not that huge of an edge? Um, so I just I just like I just kind of like put it aside after doing it for a month unsuccessfully. You know, I like continued and I continue to do like the casino stuff, and that's probably where the tolerant risk tolerance came from. Because like to like the casino stuff I knew, like I knew was good, like there's not the same uncertainty that you have with sports betting. Like sports betting is a matter of opinion. And like just because one place has odds that are different than other places, like, unless it's an arbitrage, you know, if it's an arbitrage, one side has to be good, right? But like if it's or at least one side has to be good, but like if it's simply like devigging the line, you know, there's at least a chance. If it's simply devigging a line and like, or devigging the market and like seeing that one book is off, that's not necessarily enough to know with like certainty you have an edge. So so I did like I did continue to do casino stuff because I knew I I knew I had an edge there, and like sometimes it required you to take pretty high volatility strategies to get full EV. Like, yeah, like if you have like a 24-hour full loss rebate, like the smart thing to do it on a thousand dollars, the smart thing to do is like put the whole thousand dollars on like a single numbered roulette, right? Like, so I think I'd done stuff like that before, probably lost every single one of those roulette spins, but like I at least I at least was like open to the idea that like I was like at least used to the idea of like bet it betting a lot of money on something.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, that makes sense, and that probably answers part of my second question. Is like I don't think people today certainly can't, you know, to to the best of my knowledge, roll up and just bet 20k on something like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah, no, I I wasn't naturally born with that ability. And definitely one of those.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

The casino play probably helped just in terms, not even the psychological, but just in terms of like the logistical draft kings or fans were willing to be like take that bet.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I think it was like doing casino helped. Yeah, like the full like I should say full, like I think it was like let me be more precise. I mean, it was like 12k on DraftKings. I think that was the max they took. Like they they took like really big bets on this prop, I think, probably because like it's not like a player prop where they were probably used to getting burned. It was Well, were you playing casino on DraftKings? I think I'd only I'd done the bonuses, like okay. Yeah. I mean, but the thing is, like, I like when I told friends about this edge and they opened up like a brand new account, like they were also taking like 10k, like 10 clay, 10k on this prop. I think it's because they perceived it as just being like a coin flip. Like I think that they just didn't at the time at least, they didn't consider, they didn't even consider like the the coin toss angle. Like they just thought it would be something like they thought it'd be something like along the lines of like like odd even or something. Yeah, odd even, exactly. Like you can't have an edge on this. So I think that's yeah, I was kind of thinking that it's like sometimes and this was a while ago, so yeah, 2024, and like I guess that isn't really that long ago, but I mean I guess in gambling years it was a long time ago. Like in 2025, the most they'd take on it was like 5k, maybe on an brand new account. Um, and they just kind of like lowered it throughout the season until they just killed it at the very end when the Barshell guy tweeted out the edge.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

So, okay, so you the to me it's like you this was kind of like the big break of like you go from stuff that feels not scalable to something that feels scalable.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

So at this point, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, GP. To get to go back to my earlier clarification about the 12k, like it was 12k on first first down, and then like another 8k on like first touchdown. That's that's how I got to the 20k.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Got it, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Not first touchdown, first score, which is better than first touchdown.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Really more correlated. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. So so anyway, so you're you find something you feel like is kind of scalable, aka and um then you decide. So right now you've you were at your law firm, you went to work for the family biz, you begged your boss for your job back, you figured out that you could just gamble on first first down, and then you say, See you later.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I mean, I really wish I knew what I knew knew back then already now. I would have made a lot more on that edge. But uh, you know, whatever. Uh yeah, that then I would have been totally set. Because it was like it was like a monster edge, and I made way too little on it based on how good it was. Um whatever.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

So walk me through how you jumped from that edge to like viewing this as more sustainable and then maybe you know getting out of law entirely.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah, so I think I think from there, I just I just became it opened my mind to the possibility you can make money betting on sports. Um, so I just started, I basically like read every single sports betting book that had been written, and like some of them were actually pretty good. Like uh like one that I actually made money, like just made money off of the ideas within it was uh this book 2020 Sports Betting by Logan Fields. I don't know if you guys read that one. But he is I like that book. You read it as yeah, I read that book and you know, like he just thought sort of in a similar way as how I think, but he had done I mean it was like I think it was like a guy that had just been like basically beating up on Bavada for for decades. Uh and he just wrote about how to be props, more or less. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, if you if you read everything else, you know, gambling spirits that you're you're a better man than I for calling out a good one. There are there are some good ones for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

But yeah, like the Ed Miller, the Ed Miller and Matthew Davido Davido ones were really good.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Uh I would say for each good one you read, you read about I have, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

I think I've read any bad ones actually.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Like I can have to give you a full list of the bad ones. You know, I have them all all behind me. So wait, really?

SPEAKER_00 31:24

I seriously, like, I feel like every book I read I got something out of. Um the Elohu Fusel books were all really good, we're both really good. Um, but yeah, like I read those. I like learned about how to use like all the unabated tools, which helps me figure out some things. Um yeah, I just like I just I just kind of went into it pretty hard and tried to learn as much as I could. Um and I just kind of like learned all the menus of all the different legal sports books and tried to pick out things that I'd be able to make good odds on or better odds on the sports books on.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

So you you come from a law background, you I assume you have little like math-ish, modeling-ish, coding technical background. So like what when you when you were sort of like set something like the your first, and maybe this will get into some of your betting strategy and and what like things you look for, like when something like the the first first down or whatever, I don't think you probably need like the sophisticated math background to to do decent at that. Is that were those the types of things you were looking for? Or because I know like in Ellie Who's book, for example, it's reasonably technical, at least the the second one, some of it.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Um but like what what was your strategy to to whereas the maybe the 2020 book is more like yeah, so I I mean I while like while I don't have a grade, I'm working on my coding ability uh and working, I'm now working with uh a guy, with a guy who's who's a software engineer on some stuff um that I think is is pretty close to ready. But uh no, I mean I actually did have like some some of a math background. Like I majored in economics in undergrad. Um, and I took like math through differential equations and I took like econometrics. Uh so I did so I mean I do have like some of a math and stats background. Yeah, I mean I at the like at I mean I would say that my method doesn't really rely on a model to identify bets, but for almost everything I bet now, I just like I find I find something I think is beatable and then I price it. Which I mean that's probably the the difference between me and maybe mo most people who'd call themselves originators, is like probably most of those guys start with start with model and then compare it to the market. And then I whereas I just more you know use the eyeball test to see if something might be good, and then I and then I price it more quantitatively. I try to figure out what's important, and then I pull the information I need to uh come to a price.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Do you feel like these are distinct sets of skills like so for somebody who was to attack it, like you attack it compared to somebody who um might come at it from uh I'm gonna build a sim and price everything, and then say like what are the skills that have led you to be successful pursuing that strategy and like what prototype of person should kind of do you feel like should go that route?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah, I I'd say that I'd say that probably the most important skill or the most important trait is like having a natural sense of probability. Like um like just just being able like if you were to if you were to come up with an estimate off the top of your head, like would you can you get pretty close to the odds of something, right? Like if you can if it's like if there's like a minute left in a basketball game and you know you know which team is possession, uh they're down by four, you know, that the the dog is down by four or whatever, like I think like I could just like probably you know, like I I could like think about it for a little bit and probably get pretty close to the to the fair value. Um maybe without even using a pen and paper. So I'd say if I'd say like if you just like sort of have this natural mind for like how to break something down, uh and then like understand how you would understand like understand how you would multiply the different probabilities to get there to get to the to the end goal, like it it's probably a viable strategy. Or if you're just good at identifying when something is is different than the than the standard, right? Like, you know, if you're like I mean, maybe if you're like the type of person that's good, you know, it's maybe it's similar to the type of person that's good at uh like interpreting, you know, interpreting a coach's statement about the likelihood of a player playing and like how much playing time they'll get. Like that's maybe another just, you know, sort of an ability to use your judgment to come up with a pretty good estimate of how much that player is going to play relative to his baseline. Um, those are important skills. Or, or even like just understanding, like understanding like how unique rule situations could uh impact impact the fair probability, the fair value of something. Like, you know, this is one that I made like a tiny amount of money on, and I know other people found it, but like on ruled baseball classic, they had this like mercy rule, right? Like if you're up by 10, or if you're up by 10 at the bottom of the seventh inning, or any point in the seventh, like if you're the home team and you're up by 10 at any point in the bottom of the seventh, like the game just ends. And you know, there were there were games, there are games from World Baseball Classic where like it would be it would be like nine, or it would be like nine to ten. And like I would get people to bet against, like, you know, some people would like bet against you, they'd bet over 12 and a half or something. Where like if the home team scores one more run, the game's over, right? Like, it's pretty hard to get to 12 and a half unless the unless they hit like a two-run home, like a two-run home run.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

So, yeah, being able to identify the score was like nine or ten nothing at that point, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah, like if the score was 10 to 1.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

10 to 1, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

10 to 1, it's like the bottom of the seventh inning, right? Like, you could theoretic like or yeah, like like you could like you could get over 12 and a half if the away team, you know, if the home team doesn't score in the bottom of the bottom of the seventh inning and the away team scores in the top of the eighth inning, right? But it's just it's way l, it's way less likely um than usual for for you to go over twelve and a half in that situation, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Right, because they're they're basically or your understanding was using their normal baseball sim to kind of price the Yeah, I'm not even sure if it's like a sophistic like uh somebody using a baseball sim, it's probably just Rex, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:32

But like still if you're able to like get under 12 and a half at like 50 cents, yeah, you could get that.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Oh, I see. So you're on like the PMs here.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah, yeah, it predicts markets in this case.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

You're predicting. Yeah, you're actually bringing the truth of the rules change.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

But um He's informing people of the rules. One thing I wanted to ask about on this, and I will come back to you sort of leaving the the professional career as a lawyer because I'm curious really about um I didn't know you had three kids. I'm curious like that move. Um and I like I said, I think we got a lot of questions on it. But while we're on the topic of like finding big spots and and that being your basic betting strategy or maybe your general betting strategy, like what what types of themes are like uh there's so much stuff to look at. Like it's really easy to to sit here and be like, you know, I just find the big spots and bed them. But what what is your framework process? Like, obviously not specifics, but like what what types of things do you think allow you to find these good spots?

SPEAKER_00 39:39

So I think it's I think it's um sort of two things. Like one is just like I have a list of things that I've found over the years, and I just like bet those sort of on a daily basis. Um that's like one part of it. That's just like maybe the bread and butter stuff. Uh and then the other thing is I just like have a calendar with like every big sporting event in it. And I think big events are the easiest places to find odds that deviate. I mean, I think those are the easiest places to find odds, situations where the odds are significantly off from the fair value and you can get a decent amount of money bet on it. Right? Like, so I mean, like, maybe probably like many people, like my favorite event is the Super Bowl, right? Because you have all these props that you know, maybe only like a few racks bet normally, but now tons of money's going into it. Um so you know, the the price is more likely to get pushed. Or just things that don't, or just things that don't get priced by the sports books on a regular basis come up, you know, come up during the Super Bowl, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

So the world baseball classic. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah, yeah. So I was betting, yeah, I was betting a lot on the world baseball classic when it was going on. I bet a lot on the Olympics. That was probably the thing that I made the most money on this year was uh betting on the Olympics. Um especially like the judged the judged events. Uh I did well on that stuff. And then uh my fate but my favorite one, uh my favorite one was one that Agsy, I guess, brought up, the dunk contest.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Yeah, so that was that was my favorite, that's been my that was my favorite event of the year so far. Um and like I had this, I I came to the exact same conclusion he did, which was that like Jace Richardson had no chance of winning. And like basically my process for that one was I looked at the combine stats first. Jace Richardson had like an 8-3 standing reach and a 38 vertical inch jump. And like all the other guys have like a nine-foot standing reach, or Carter Bryant and Kashad Johnson had like a nine-foot standing reach and a 42-inch vertical jump. So just right off the bat, and like this guy's gotta be a huge dog to at least those two guys. Like Jackson Hayes, the other participant in the contest, like he's kind of clumsy, but like he has a super he has a super tall standing reach and can get his head to the rim. So maybe he has a chance to, but probably not as much as Keshad and Carter Bryant. So yeah, I faded, I faded uh I watched every single dunk. I watched every single dunk that all participants in the contest had ever done in the NBA. I looked at like every dunk that all the participants had done in college, and like Jace Richardson could basically barely, yeah, you could barely dunk. He like did one 260 dunk once, but like it was like a rim razor.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

So what's the NBA thinking? Like to put this guy in. I mean, like I I would have probably been like the in the midwit, being like, well, you know, it's not actually about how high you could jump, it's like, you know, style or something.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah, I mean, I thought that was part of it too. Like, I didn't think he had zero chance to win, like, especially because his dad like won the contest. I thought, you know, maybe he'll get some preferential judging because it would be a good story that like this guy like followed in his father's footsteps and then won the dunk contest. Like he even tried doing some of the same dunks his dad did, but he failed. Um so yeah, like I I had like pretty big, like I had a pretty big yes Kashad Johnson position, and then I had like a smaller Carter Bryant position. And no Jackson, no Jackson Hayes position, because I like thought he was probably also like below where the sports books had in price, but I just didn't have enough conviction on it to fade him. And then yeah, I had a pretty decent uh I had a pretty decent bet on Jace Richardson to not win. And uh I think I was able to get a lot of action on it, like because there was a there was a YouTube video. If you Googled, um, or not Googled, if you searched on YouTube, uh Jace Richardson dunk contest, the first video that came up prior to the dunk contest occurring was a video of his brother, uh, of his brother in a dunk contest. And like, unlike Jace, like Jackson Richardson is a complete athletic beast. He was like 6'6, was doing like under the leg dunks, like between the legs 360 dunks. And I think all these people were searching, and and the title of the video was also Jason Richardson's son like dominates dunk contest or something like that. So I think all these people were searching Jace Richardson dunk contest and then seeing his brother pop up in the first video and then thinking he was a good bet. Like I actually stopped betting, I actually stopped fading him on Call Street because like a hundred like a 100k yes Jace Richardson bet came through. Like bet 15k to win 85k on uh Jace Richardson. I'm like, yeah, maybe maybe somebody knows something I don't, but in all likelihood it was just this guy like seeing the YouTube video, not investigating further and thinking Jackson Richardson was Jace Richardson.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Was it at the price like 15 cents?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Yeah, it was like 15 cents. Yeah, was he the I'm guessing he was the lowest priced guy? Yeah, he was. I think like what's weird is like people were betting him on bookmaker too. Like he was like at he was like a plus 200 on Bookmaker at close. Like wow, people just kept bet like he would get bet to like plus 400 and someone would bet it back to 200. So like somebody had high conviction that Jace Richardson was would win, and that made me a little bit that that probably prevented me from betting as much as I should in the situation, but like I I I actually like thinking back on it, think this guy, I think that some guy was just like deeply confused about who was actually participating in.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Maybe people were hedging their PM activity.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Yeah, well that's right. I mean that could have been it, but like yeah, but yeah, Jay's that at plus 300 at Bookmaker while you're fading in at like 85 cents on quality.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Yeah, there's uh one thing I've learned, uh, and we'll get into some of the prediction markets because you've been alluding to it. I think that's that's primarily what you're doing these days, is whoever the lowest, like in a you know, in a sporting event where there's four people and there's someone who's who's priced like the longest odds, that person um seems to get a disproportionate share.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah, like people love betting on things that have zero percent chance of happening. And at least they had the benefit in the situation of Jace Richardson having a greater than zero percent chance of winning.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Right. Right. I wonder if Eggsy thought it was I don't think eggsy, I think eggsy fair valued him at zero. So I fair valued him at like maybe like 10%.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Like I thought like the way I mean the way I often think about that sizing is just like what's the worst case fair value. Yeah. And I thought like the worst case was like 10%, at least somebody like got the 100k contracts. I mean, that wasn't enough to like make me get out of the position, but it was enough to make me stop.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

If you're the 100k better, please uh reach out.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean like talk to you. Yeah, I mean they're all joking up like a lot of money. Like yeah, I saw somebody like that was also something like during the Tyson Jake Paul fight, like right at somebody bet like a million on like over a million on Tyson to win on Polymarket. And I was like, what does he know? And it just turned out he was like a DJon. So sometimes Djang's bet a lot.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

The big yeah, I wanted to get back to I think like your your process is interesting considering your your background, but like I also think figuring out and like trying to figure out what the big fills are, like basically being like, can that be somebody stupid? Like, is it theoretically possible that person could be stupid?

SPEAKER_00 48:02

I'm probably looking, I mean, especially back then, probably before people figured out that you just like open up new wallets or whatever. Um I think the guy was actually up a lot of money too, because he was like a heavy Trump yes better.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

So yeah, like what I'm looking at is like this guy that's up four million on polymarket. Just rips tice. And then I'm like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Um but yeah, I I just want to get back to your process for a little bit because I think it's like very at least like what a non-lawyer would think a lawyer does. It's like you're actually you went through and watched every dunk. I mean, if there's one thing I know about having worked with lawyers, it's a lot of like being meticulous, you know, gathering your evidence, reading, watching, whatever, but it's like a lot of like consuming information, right? So you're actually watching every dunk, you figure out that there is a YouTube video that could be driving some rec flow. So you're like, this is a reason why there could be some rec flow, you know, these are all the dunks. Like, is your process always or usually that meticulous where it it seems like you sit down with a problem and and really go through it? Um, or was that like a more special situation where you operate that way and sometimes you kind of wing it a little bit here or there?

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah, I mean, I I think it just depends on the bet size. Like, right, if it's some like you know, if it's some situation where I think it's like the most I can bet is$100, I might just trust my gut. Like, I might not even like try to calculate something with precision. I might just be like, oh, that's off. I can bet$100, I'll do it. But like, yeah, if it's like a if it's like a more significant bet, then I'll be more thorough. Um, I mean, situation like two, like it's not like I mean, like anyone, I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you just like don't bet ARBs.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Like if like don't bet at least one side.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like if there's an arb, like and I have access to both books, like I will bet it like every time. Like I will make a judge, like I'll if it's like a thousand dollars, I'll if it's like a thousand dollar limit, I'll just like make a quick judgment as to which price is more likely to be profitable, and I'll just bet on that side. And if it's like some situation where you can get like an unlimited fill on call she and like there's massive limits on like one of the sharp offer books, I'll just like take as much exposure as I can on call she and then like hedge off anything beyond what I'm willing to risk on the offer book. Like, so yeah, I mean like you know, not not every single not every single bet I make is just like rots only. Like I, you know, I bet anything that I think is profitable. It's just my favorite thing. My favorite thing is finding rots.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Could we ask about the judging? Like, I don't know if this is something you want to talk about or not, but you mentioned like you like to bet on markets with with judges. Is there like a reason?

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Um Yeah, so so on on the markets that I did did well on, it was like it was actually less about the judging and just more about knowing the sports. Um so like the ones that I like I basically bet on all the slopestyle and big air for like men, men's and women's uh skiing and snowboarding. Just because like those are sports that I actually actually like and sort of follow, especially skiing. So like I actually had a pretty good idea of like the relative strengths of the competitors and like especially in men's big air, like it it was an interesting situation because the field had like an incredible amount of parody. Um and so and and so basically I was just like betting certain of the docs, yes, fading the big favorites, um because like like literally like these guys were like incredibly close, and if any of them crash, like if any of them crashes on one of the runs, like they're not gonna win. Uh so I I thought all the favorites were overvalued. Um and like a few of the dogs were undervalued, and I like hit a plus 3300 where I got scammed by uh one of one of the offshores. They they redid the odds, they redid the odds after after I won. Uh the guy that ultimately won the contest, Tormont Frostad. Um so yeah, I hit him at plus 3300 and he wins. Uh and then I then what they pay. Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Is it like is that not normal? Is it usually like there's one or two people who are like truly at a different level?

SPEAKER_00 53:02

And then yeah, definitely. So like uh yeah, I mean in skiing in skiing, uh in women's skiing and snowboarding, like usually, usually but not always, like there's only like one or two competitors that actually have a chance at winning. Um in men's half pipe. That was like the one event I lost. And it was a situation where like I thought there was one guy that was way better than everyone else. He gets knocked out of the competition. Um but I'd already like placed big bets on. He he he basically fell and broke his collarbone in the preliminaries. So I like lost my big bet yes on him. Um he had like won every every half pipe competition like all year and was like getting like three feet of air beyond what anyone else would out of the pipe and like having rotations beyond what anyone else could do uh for strict. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

So I I think this is a good time to bring in the um your you maybe your Twitter handle slash the the the the lumber what is what is in our outline is the lumber edge. I don't know much about this beyond that. So why don't you know because I I think we're talking about like finding good spots and all this. So why don't why don't we branch out really briefly on this this lumber uh play and then we can hit any other dead edges or things you want to you want to talk about as it relates to that?

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, like kind of when I was getting my backstory, I mentioned how I moved back to Minnesota during COVID. Um I was working from home after like the initial wave of bankruptcies from COVID. I had I had a little bit more free time. Um and so you know, I was like thinking, like, how can I like get better than my market returns on my money? So I started looking into real estate and I sort of honed in on one county that I was pretty familiar with, like geographically, because like I had kind of gone hunting there when I was younger. My dad had some land up there that I visited every now and then. So I kind of knew where everything was and like just had general familiarity with this place. And I like was just like looking through all the listings on Zillow and I found one place that was it was an 80-acre parcel of land listed for$60,000. So you're like getting it for less than a thousand an acre. Um, I like looked at the arrow map and saw that it was like densely forested with aspen trees, and like you know, I tried to figure out how much aspen trees are worth. I just like looked at the county timbers auction records and like used that to estimate how much it would be worth per acre. Uh and I thought it like it would probably be worth around like a thousand dollars an acre of like mature aspen. I like then got this app called Onyx Hunt, which allows you to like you can like draw lines on a parcel of land to like estimate how much area is one type of land versus another. So I like looked at the map and saw it was like 50 acres of a mature of mature uh aspen. So I figured that the land out of like just the trees had to be worth like 50k on their own and the lands listed for 60k. Uh and so I think the reason it it was listed it was listed for so low so low and had been sitting on the market for so long, because right, it's like cheap land, it's on the market for three months, is that the only apparent access and the only access to the land that the uh owners knew about was like an ATV trail. Like they didn't think you could drive a car to the land. They thought it was just like this remote access parcel um that you could only get to with an ATV, which obviously depletes the value of a lot-ray. Like, land's worth more if it's located on a road than if it's like located through a bunch of dense forest with no legal access. Um but like looking at the aerial maps, it appeared that there was like one road that led up to it. Um it led up to the railroad grid that the ATV trail was located on. So I like basically went to the county land office and I like asked them for a list of like all the roads and cartways. Like cartways are a form of legal access. Where it's like it's not a maintained public road, but it's something somebody, it's something that's like publicly dedicated that someone can use to get to remote access land. So they sent me like the map of all the roads and cartways, and it turned out that like this this road wasn't a private road as the sellers thought, it was a cartway. So I then knew that I would be able to like get to the land and harvest the timber if I bought it. So I like put in an offer for 50k, the seller snap accepted it. And then like that was like summer, that was like in the summer of like whatever year, like 2022 or something, and then like winter of 23, I was able to like basically sell off the timber, get logging trucks out there, and then get paid like the full amount of the land, the full amount that I paid for the land back from the logging company. So yeah, so I still own that land. I basically got it for for free. It's probably worth like 50 to 75k now.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

But yeah, yeah, it's logging fruit, right? This is where our guests are usually like, yeah, it's just logging fruit.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Yeah, well, there's two.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Two comments. One, like it's funny we've had the people on who are like, yeah, I started in Rindescape, like selling you know virtual lumber, and here you're a real man of the people selling actual lumber and selling huge piles of uh wood. So I like that. But secondly, I think exactly where GP was going is where what I wanted to ask about. Like it it seems a matter of fact as you were describing this. If I have the timelines right, like you still have a law job. I don't know how many children you have, but you're almost certainly married at this point. Like what what free time? How are how is this like coming across your desk or free time to do these types of things at this point?

SPEAKER_00 59:08

Yeah, I mean, I just set up I had set up a Zillow alert. Like I knew I thought that I wanted to get into real estate, so I set up a Zillow alert um to just send me every new listing that came up in this county, and I would just look through them and I like but I mean this one it was like a backlogged one, right? It was just like sitting there. So yeah, I would just I would just keep up with like the listings as they were coming through. Um it was just like pretty passive. It would just come into my inbox in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Um sure, that part is passive. Getting trucks out to the land.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Yeah, I didn't get the trucks out. All I I mean, what I did was I called up a forester and I just I had him run the auction and I paid him a commission. Um, so yeah, he handled all the logistics of it. Yeah, it I mean, honestly, I probably could have done it myself because like this in this county in Minnesota is like basically right next to one of the paper biggest paper mills in the country. I probably could have just like called up the forester at this paper company and been like, hey, how much do you pay? Like, I I have this land, here's the access. How much will you pay me per quart of wood? And they probably would have just been like, they would have been they probably would have been honest to deal with. It was like a big public company. They probably would have been honest to deal with it and probably would have done it, you know, just given me a decent price and and done it. But I I just I went through a forester, he handled all the logistics, he made sure that they were being honest about how much the wood weighed, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

Yeah, this is it's funny. This is SP might get into this, you know. He's in the he's putting mulch down in the backyards and whatnot. For me, I'm like, oh man, I have I would I think that's the thing with like any of those, like I think like if you're trading like you know, anything physical, um, lumber, land, like yeah, land, whatever. Like there's all these other considerations that like I think sometimes scare away, like I at least people in our industry who are so used to just like clicking a button and that's the edge, and like the money kind of moves from here to there. But like there are a lot of I mean, I think we talked about beforehand like the Riskarin podcast recently with the uh person who is doing like the cottage clusters in in Portland or whatever. It's like, oh wow, like that's such a sick edge. But then you actually have to be the person who like builds that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Yeah, I mean although I mean a lot of it is just like you just have to like open up the phone book and call a guy that knows what he's doing. Like as long as you know that there's enough fat on it to support both a profit margin and like advisor costs, then you know, it makes it easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

It's amazing how much of a barrier to entry. You know, you say that, and it's true. Like it is probably as simple as opening the phone book and calling someone to handle it, but it's amazing how much of a barrier to entry. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

Yeah. Yeah, I hear that. I'm like, that's so scary.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Yeah, I mean, there's like a lot of people. But yeah, on the other hand, you know, I hear about how easy it is for you guys to get set up on the coffee RFQ or whatever, and I'm like, it seems so challenging. Like, but yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

I guess we all have our our things. I guess on that topic, like while we're on that topic, were there any other like, you know, maybe coming back to sports or whatever, like big dead edges spots you wanted to talk about? Because I think next I wanted to you've alluded to it, but I want to jump to some of the exchanges and prediction market stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

Yeah, for sure. Um okay. This one, this one is not really, it's not really like a dead edge. It was just a one-off, it was a one-off market that I thought was really fun. And I'm actually gonna I'm gonna turn the interview back on you guys and I'm gonna run a short test on you. Wow. I'm waiting. So this was do you guys remember this? Young Mantis.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:57

Uh when he shot the college down.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

Yeah, like okay, so it was this contest. So it was this guy's called Young Mantis. He's like some social media influencer, and it was about how long it would take him to hit 150 free throws in a row. And the last free throw had to be blindfolded. Um, so he was like extremely good at shooting free throws. He had previously hit a hundred in a row on a hundred in a row on stream. Um and uh basically the way that it worked is like the contest started at 8 p.m. Uh when he took his first shot, and the contest is like over whenever he hits the last shot. And the strikes were basically you know, will he complete the challenge in one to five hours, six to ten hours, and so on, like down to like five hundred hours. There's like all these different strikes for how long it would take him to complete the challenge. And he's locked in the gym until it's over. So here's the here's the the question. If he has a five percent chance of completing the challenge in hours one to five, what odds does he have to complete the challenge in hours six to ten?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

I mean, the the first thing I've got to my head is is I don't what time did you say it's starting? 8 p.m. 8 p.m. Yeah, I mean obviously there's gonna be like a worn out component to this of like getting tired, and I also don't know when he's sleeping. So I don't I don't know anything about this, but like there's there's gonna be like it's gonna go in waves, right? I would imagine, like where the first hour is probably his best chance, right? He's the freshest, or maybe second hour or something like that where he's locked in. But yeah, like I've shot, I'm I you know, I'm I'm well out of my prime. I'm I'm no young mantis, I assume, but like I've shot a basketball for 30 minutes and I'm sore for like a week now. Yeah, so I can imagine after five hours of shooting basketball, I'd be very, very sore.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:57

Yeah, so like yeah, this so this wasn't like a massive edge, but basically the price, the price, the market price, which was like juiced full of liquidity because they had liquidity incentives on this market, it was like five percent. The market price was like five percent in hours one to five, and it was like four percent in hours six to ten. And I was like thinking just like hour six starts at like two a.m. and hour ten ends at like seven a.m. Like he's gonna be sleeping this entire time. I thought it was like like I thought he had just such a such a low chance of completing it during that bracket and all the other brackets when a normal person would be sleeping. And I was convinced that I was right when he he posted on Twitter like I woke up angry today at 10 a.m. So I'm like, if he's awake at 10 a.m., like there's no chance he's shooting a basketball at two a from the hours of two a.m. to seven a.m. So I was like, I was very heavy on all these levels. Like no brackets. Um and I you know, and I won I won it, and he was asleep during the old bracket, during that old bracket. He like won it in like the third time period or whatever when after he woke up. Um yeah, that that was that was a fun one. Uh I I think I like that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

Yeah, I failed. Uh I said I said nope. I I just thought he had more heart than that. Like that he was a real competitor and wasn't gonna let sleep or any human elements and he's just gonna compete. Yeah, that's a number. He's locked in this gym, dude. I mean, I'm trying to get out of the gym, but I understand like you gotta sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Yeah. And then another uh another this is this one's also more of a fun one or a sad one, uh, depending on how you look at it. And it's also not something that I made like I actually think I I lost money on this one, but um like my probably my favorite angle generally is just like fading DGens with like ridiculous ideas about how the world works. And like a few weeks ago, um, there's this like tweet that sort of went viral on DJen gambling Twitter about Ryan Conway, like the Louisville guard's girlfriend cheating on him. Like they were like circulating all these rumors that Ryan Conway's girlfriend cheated on him, and for that reason, he's gonna score way more points in the next game. So, like on profitable, there's just like points line steamed up. I mean, it steamed up, like it wasn't like insane. It went from like 17 and a half to 19 and a half, and I was just like the 17 and a half accurate faded all of his unders, then he like hits like four threes in the last like five minutes of the game. But like, but yeah, like I don't know. And and like people like this always comes up with like Paul Skeens, like people always speculate that like his girlfriend is cheating on him, and for that reason he's gonna throw a ton of strikeouts. I mean, I haven't like that one, but it's just this weird thing that like this weird idea people have that like your girlfriend cheating on you, instead of making you depressed to make you better. It's to make you like just go all out and you're gonna like have the game of your life. Like this Hollywood thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Or it's like this idea that like this guy who's the best pitcher in baseball who's dedicated his whole life to the pursuit of striking people out, is gonna be like, oh well, now I'm gonna strike people out, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

Yeah, the the Paul Skeen one comes up every year that like like Livy, like Livy Dunn like takes like some Instagram picture of the guy and they're like, Yep, Paul Skeens has gone off. It's gonna I don't know if that one steams or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:42

Well, it's like Tiger Woods flipped his car. I had that tweet about like everyone betting him to on call sheet to win the masters. It's like he flipped his car at the like, oh now he's gonna be really, really angry.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Yeah, like their value of playing is one percent, and people are betting to win at one percent.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

Exactly. So, you know, people will bet, dude. People need narratives, I guess, is the maybe the takeaway.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

So let's let's jump to the the exchanges then. When did you get started on them? Which ones are you on? Um, are you primarily doing like like all the same stuff you've been sort of been talking about, looking for big spots, taking arms when they're there, um betting some some stuff on the the regular sort of day-to-day. Like when did you get started and what does that look like currently for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

Yeah, so I mean I'm on like I mean, yeah, exchanges of like I got on Call She during the election. Um you know, during the 2024 election, and I like bet on that, but I didn't really use it much until sports came onto it in like sort of like September 25. Uh I was on I was on Novic too. I did like I did pretty well on Novic, but it was like still maybe like only 10% of my volume, and it was mostly just post- Yeah, I was just posting ARBs to posting ARBs to like fliff or whatever, and having people fill your order. Uh and then I was also, you know, stealing everybody else's. Every time somebody else posted an ARB, I would just like bet it on whatever soft sports books I had access to. So that was like that was like my early exchange experience was like on Novae and Profit doing doing that stuff, just posting on Dryden edge and stealing people's edges when they posted ours. Um yeah, and then you know, it's probably so it probably went from like 10%, 10% of my act like action in like 2024, it's probably like 60, like 60% now, with the other 40% being like offshores kiosks. Um I actually have like a yeah, I have a pretty good kiosk situation near me. Um and like, you know, the the legals if I can get people. Like I'm not in a legal state, so I have to do entirely like send play stuff, but I'm not and I'm also not like technically sophisticated enough to like get around geocomply or whatever. So um, so yeah, it's just like send plays on legals, bet in kiosks, or like have someone in a bet on kiosks, and then bet on off like you know, bet on all the offshores. That's like the other 40%, um, 60% at this point, probably on call chain. I imagine it's gonna keep going up just because it's kind of the path of least, like as long as there's soft money in it, it's kind of like the pass of path of least resistance. There's so much less in terms of logistics you need to get done. Um so it's just to me, it's less trustful to do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

So I had a question because you talked about it bookends in here nicely, because you're saying, you know, you see the PMs, call she, et cetera, going up. We had a lot of questions about your betting split. Um, I think you answered there, but you said you're bringing or working with somebody who has more of a technical background. So like what kind of inspired that generally? What are you you working on? I assume it's a fish for marketing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

It's incredibly recent. So yeah, I guess I was just skiing in uh Winter Park. I was skiing in Winter Park like uh over the past week. And a friend of mine, I was with like a friend of mine and some of his like engineering school friends, and like one of them, one of them is like uh a Fang, a Fang engineer who like told me that he had built a hyperliquid bot, and he was like obsessed with he was like he was just like obsessed with creating new projects, and I was like, Oh, I have something for you to work on. So I'm like working on with him on uh some ideas I have for profitable automated trading strategies on Call Street. I and we actually we ended up making like a pretty good amount of progress. Like we were able to like you know see all the RFQ flow and get ideas about how to deal with that. Um so yeah, like I I don't know, I don't know how long we are from getting that online, but I think I I mean I think we're both into the project, and I think we'll probably get it online soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:15

Is that the first sort of like form and you know it's it sounds like it's still early stages, but is that sort of the first like formal person you've worked with in the the sports betting world? Or have you, you know, worked out?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

I mean yeah, sort of. I mean we're still still early stages uh with with him. Um but like I mean beyond that, the only people that I've ever worked with are like people I send plays to.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:42

So on the exchanges, are you are you pri because you it seems like you're you're uh a man who's willing to go where the money is, you know, whether that's the lumber yard or you know, the RFQ backend, are you primarily focused on sports on the exchanges right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

Like what would what would the split before 70% like 70% of the money I made on college went on sports? And obviously 100% on like Novig is sports. Um that'd be pretty impressive if you did something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:15

Yeah, I mean 70%. That's they had Oscars.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:18

They had Oscars on Noveg and I like did some steam chasing on those guys, and like I think I'm up like$30 on non-sports.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:26

Well, what's the what's the non-sports stuff you're doing on Calchy?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:29

Like the that's a pretty big non-sports split, I think, for people who come on this podcast. So yeah, that's significant.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:37

Yeah, so yeah, I mean, really, it's whatever is getting like the biggest things are just things where there's a lot of public interest, or things where I mean to be totally honest, like a lot of it's just bonds where like I know the like I know something is impossible to happen by a certain date, and so I'll just like post a bunch of liquidity at 99, um know at 99 or whatever. Uh so yeah, it's like some mixture of bonds, just like finding things that finding things that are getting a lot of interest. Like I guess I would think that the young mantis thing actually counted as non-sports, for example. Um a good one last year was uh a good one last year was like will Trump attend a football game, which also I think got categorized as non-sports profit. Um and basically he had gone he had gone to the Army Navy game like something like every year but one of his presidential years. So I was like buying yes at 66 and then he surprisingly went to an NFL game, so I cashed it. Uh and then after that they posted a market like will Trump attend another football game in 2026, 2025? Um yeah, not 20. Yeah, it was all 2025. Like, will Trump attend another football game in 2025? And I was like, okay, it's good at I'll keep buying at 66 on this one too. And then like Thanksgiving hits, and there's just like incredibly incredibly little. I was like following the market and like getting news updates anytime the Army Navy game got brought up just because I wanted to like be the first to move. Uh, but I think I was like the first call shoot trader to see this video where he told the troops at Thanksgiving that he would be at the Army Navy game. So I just like started buying as much as I could and like I pushed the price up a decent amount and people started betting against me. Um and then once the video got once the video got wider play, I I I kind of backed off on it because I figured the edge was no longer there. Um and then, you know, the there was Ukraine-Russia negotiations going on at the time. So I I was like a little bit scared that he would have to leave the US during the Army Navy game and have and attend those, but fortunately he did not. So I cashed that I cashed that one too. But that's just, yeah, I mean, like just kind of dumb stuff where like I basically anything where I think Rex will be, I will try to make a fair value and get on the right side of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

So how do you deal with like opposition? So in that situation, I was pretty sure. Well, are you because it could be optimal? Like you're saying, like, yeah, I should have made more, but someone bet a hundred a million bucks on James Rich.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Yeah, 50 55k that did. Yeah, no, like I'm definitely too much of a I think I'm too much of a wimp and like don't trust, don't trust myself enough. I'm at like my biggest leak is that I like way under bet everything. Like even on that like first first down edge I was talking about where I bet like 20k or whatever. Like if you actually typed into a a cal like a Kelly criterion calculator how much you should bet on that, it would say like I don't know, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm guessing it would say like you should bet like 15% of your bankroll, right? It's probably it would say something in that range. Like I mean, I just like never get close to getting like that much in play on stuff. And I and I and like the thing I've started to do now to address that leak is like I just come up with my worst case fare. I come up with my worst case fare, I type in like the most conservative estimate of my bankroll in to the Kelly criterion calculator. I set it to half Kelly, and I'm like, if you don't like if you don't bet this amount, you can't respect yourself anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:42

That's honestly fair. I mean, yeah, I was gonna say, like, yeah, you you I thought it was good, and then then you half Kelly'd it that I I think you can not half Kelly it if you're doing those two.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

No, you totally could not half Kelly it, but like like this is the bare minimum you have to bet if you if you respect your your like assessments at all. I mean we've talked about it. And even those amounts are like huge, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

Like Yeah, I mean you're looking at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:06

I was I've been working in Big Law for like nine years and I like kind of lived like a monk the whole time, right? Like, so it's like yeah, like you have to like bet a ton.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

Like well, especially now with PMs where like in a spot like this, if it's yeah, like if it has any interest, like you could actually get Kelly. Like, I think that was something we all dodged for a long period of time because like my biggest edge could have been in like golf strokes, and like we could have had 10 people, and it's still like the logistics of getting down there would have never you know gotten near.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:41

But now, like Yeah, like I could have better millions on Jace Richardson not to win the dunk contest. Right. Just like, all right, like I've got like I've got like 40k on no wrist, and I have like all this money on various other yeses. I'm like that that's like I was like nervous, right? Because it's right it's just weird to bet that much on stuff, even if the math says you should.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:07

I feel like there's probably like there's probably a outsized edge right now for people who can like actually just like stomach it and and I mean like the thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

Yeah. I don't know. Like I was listening, like I I didn't another one where I didn't come close to betting enough, like I was way too small on it, was like the Anthony Joshua fight, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

Yeah, we had a question about that. So maybe you can just answer the question. It was like what percentage of your role or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:36

It was like I risked I risked like one percent of my bank roll on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

No, no, no, no. But like on the money line?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

Yeah, on the money line. It's just humiliating. Oh wow.

unknown 1:20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:49

Yeah. But it's like still, right? Like it's like it's just numbers that it feels weird to risk on stuff, right? Like, I think I underbet it way too much. Like, I should have had probably like at least 10% on it. I mean, like the Kelly criterion probably would have said to like have 90% of your bankroll on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

But like right, if you set fare at like 98 or 97.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

So I was like listening to all these people talk about it. Like there was various like spaces, calls, or whatever, and like like like like Fluff, I don't know him personally, so but like he he said he set the fare at 99, right? Like he thought there was like a one in a hundred chance Jake Paul wins. And like I don't like, and from what else I've gathered from him, he has a lot more than a million dollars, and he says that he always bets a Kelly criterion on stuff, but he only had a million dollars risk. He should have had like eight million risk if he actually was betting the full betting full Kelly on this, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

Or whatever is why did you only put one million? Yeah, that's what he posted on Cowship. Who knows what he put on like the Novig? That's true. Yeah, he could have put the entire Novig business up.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:03

Yeah, they were like actually the reason they raised money was they had sent out decks when uh Jake Paul looked pretty good in the first round.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:16

But uh it's a fair point, I think, to some extent.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

When you get to like big numbers, everyone probably underbets their bank. I'd like we underbet everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:27

Well, because Flop Flops bet was the biggest public bet posted by a lot, and like you know, I think that just shows everybody underbet that spot for what they would have said their fair was.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

Yeah, for what you set your fair at and for like what the Kelly criterion calculator says you should bet, probably like everyone underbet it, except for like, you know, there's probably some small bankroll people that went all in, and that's awesome for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

I love that. That's where you would go, but I think that's a good point because it's like in FLEP's case or in you know our cases or whatever, like if you like if you lose, I understand it's like seemingly almost impossible, but like it puts your entire operation at risk if you bet yeah close to what you think Kelly is.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:12

For sure, yeah. It's like kind of terrifying. Like the idea, like I'm not stressed out right now. Why would I put myself in a situation where I would have to be financially stressed? But like still, I could have like spared a lot more than what I bet on it. I massively underbet it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

Yeah, I uh what I was gonna say is I feel like the prediction markets have challenged like some of the common pit, not pitfalls, but like just uh heuristics that betters have, like around some of that stuff around like hedging and getting out of bets and all this stuff, but also like bet sizing that they you know it's like they've they've betters have had this false like cage around them in terms of limits for so long that they don't know what to do when it's been like lifted and they can actually bet as much as they want. Um, yeah, and it's like you know, it it's it's causing people to reevaluate that and like you're not gonna talk about you where are you, you know, type of deal.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

So yeah, I mean maybe the key is just you gotta set the bankroll number at an amount where it's like this is the amount where like if I lose it, my life like my life doesn't feel like it's over.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:24

And then we nobody's talked about this is like the the bankroll assumption is maybe the most challenging of any of them. I mean they're all interrelated, and if you're conservative on one that's you know mathematically equivalent to being conservative on something else, right? But um, yeah, yeah, no, it's it's uh it's a challenge. And um, you know, there's the the the good news about being over con you know conservative is is you know you can you just crush it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:54

Sleep at night, that is huge value.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:56

Yeah, sleeping, yeah. Apparently sleeping. I don't it feels like you don't sleep that much, but like they say it's good for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:02

I actually sleep, I sleep a ton, uh just not recently. Where's this time? We're gonna have to talk about the time anyway. Like I guess my wife is like the best woman in the world. So that's where part of it comes from. She's like supremely confident. No, I'm competent at handling like the affairs of the house, um, which leaves me some more free time, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:25

So I can ask about that. I I didn't forget about that. I do want to ask about like the jump you made and like your family's interaction, you know, thoughts on that, friends and all that. But maybe to um wrap up some of the questions on like career and betting and some of the stuff before you go to listener questions. Like, has any like what do you see the next like one to three years looking like for you? I know you said like more and more on the exchanges. Are there other things that interest you? Um just maybe like walk me through what you what do you see the near-term future for you looking like?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:04

Uh kind of kind of lame, but I'm going to ski a ton. Uh that's definitely gonna be part of whatever the plan is. That's like my probably my biggest non-family, non-money-making passion. Uh so to some extent I'll build my life around that a little bit. Um, but also I think for in terms of like gambling and whatever whatever else I do professionally, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going on, you know, sports betting until it gets to the point where I don't think I can I can beat it or I don't think I can beat it for an amount that makes it worth the effort. I mean, I think it's compared to like any other career where you can like make a decent amount of money, it's like you have you have a lot of flexibility in how you set up your life, which is really nice. Um like you know, what other what other profession that you can make good money at can you like, you know, just decide on like a random Wednesday to to fly somewhere, right? And then come back when it suits you. You know, I'm like a limit a little bit limited on that because I have like a family, but but still like if my wife's good with it, I don't have like I don't have to check it with anyone else. And you know, it's on me if I'm like if I'm missing days or I could be making a lot of money gambling, but but you know, it's nice to have that fully up to you. And I guess other entrepreneurial paths, you know, can can can maybe provide some more flexibility. And I would, you know, I I always have my my my mind open to to taking other opportunities if I think they'll be good. Um, but but yeah, my immediate plan is to to keep going on uh gambling and predicting and just trying to get better at it, trying to learn new technical skills that will give me more longevity and more upside.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

Yeah, I coming into this, I was I was wondering like, oh, you know, maybe you'd consider going back to a normal law career or whatever. But hearing like the lumber yard story or whatnot, I just kind of feel like you're gonna you're just gonna find better spots, you know. Like even if it's not in bedding, like is there a certain confidence that comes from like having found spots outside of bedding and all this other stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:29

Yeah, I'd say so. Um like I feel like I feel like all like it's a combination of that and the fact that like I don't like I don't really like lead a super fancy or expensive life. So like to me, I don't know, to me, my like freedom like comes at such a such a high price relatively to like what I'd have to pay to give that up. I mean, yeah, I feel like look at like I didn't work at this particular firm, but like if you look at what the profits per partner are at Kirkland and Ellis, there were some stories around it coming out about that. They make like, yeah, it's like$11 million a year per partner at this firm. And so it is like to some extent you know, like a big financial sacrifice to not go down that path, but those guys have to pay a huge cost in order to get that kind of money. Like, you know, I it's so rare to see a big law lawyer that's like healthy, in shape, has a good relationship with their wife and kids. Like they exist, but it's like few and far between. Um, like none of those guys are skiing as much as I do. I felt that I feel like you know, there's there's paths where I can make enough money. There's I feel like there's always gonna be paths where I can preserve my freedom and make enough money to like live a good life.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:52

Hell yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:55

It was funny how you were like, you know, it's simple. I I don't ski, so I don't know. I I my impression is it's not a cheap hobby. You bet you're like, you know, oh it is okay. It wouldn't be very if you get like in South Carolina, right? Yeah, I don't think it would be possible, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:10

No, well, you can fly somewhere, right? Like you'd have to fly. And then so like I think the reason people think skiing is as expensive as it is is because they're like they remember when they flew to Vail, they stayed in the ski and ski at lodge, they bought$300 tickets at the window, they bought skis they used one time, and so it's like holy shit, it's like eight thousand dollars per person to go on a ski trip per year. That's insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:34

So, like you had to ski like for two days.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:36

Yeah, exactly. But like, I mean, like, yeah, like I have like you know, like I have like the Epic Pass, like the Epic Ski Pass, which is like$800 to ski at like all these resources as much as I want. Like I have the Frontier credit card, so I can check my skis for free on Frontier flights to Denver. And I have like the Go Wild Pass on Frontier, so it's like basically free to get to Denver or like$100 or something for a trip,$150 or something for a trip. I can like stay with a friend or in a hotel. Um so yeah, like I could get out to like the Rockies really cheap, and I like live really close to a ski hill. So like my average like cost per day on the hill was probably something like$30 or$40, I'd guess. Because I ski I skied like 40, maybe 40 times this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:24

I want to tack onto that because like it's the same thing with golf. Like I think people think it's really expensive, and it is expensive to like buy clubs, but the same thing, like I have a you know, a membership like for you know, pretty young. So the membership was obviously there's expensive golf memberships, but there's places where you can be a member and not pay that much, and the actual monthly cost or cost per round like goes down if you really like it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:52

Yeah, the local par three near me sold a three-year unlimited golf pass for six hundred dollars. Three year, three-year unlimited golf pass. Like you had to keep it in bags, like you didn't get a cart with it, but like still you as much as you want. Yeah, I know it's a par three course.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:06

But I feel like parting a par three course is actually like sacrilegious, like just walk to the green, it's not there.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:14

Yeah, and like if you really love golf, like you have fun golfing or par three, and like if you really love skiing, you'll have fun skiing on a small hill.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:22

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's just something about like committed, like if you have a hobby, I think like people sometimes try and have too many hobbies, but if you find something you like and you it could be expensive, but if it's like your only hobby and you're diligent about it, like it's so worth it too. Yeah. Not to derail this entire thing. But that really struck records because I have like one hobby, but like yeah, private aviation.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:51

I mean, that's like a hobby that's like that. You can probably do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:56

That's like Tom Cruise's hobby. Flying helicopters.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:01

Um let's get to the questions, though, let's do anything else. GP sounds good to me. Good. All right. No, let's ask the first one. This this one, I think I'm gonna ask like probably a series of questions. It's all around some of the uh leaving uh leaving the law career for gambling. This one, though, I think sums it up. Uh from Geter. I'm curious why people leave professional careers for gambling. When you stepped away from law, did you have a timeline in mind or just taking it a year at a time? That was his question. The parts I would add would be like, I'm curious like how that went with your wife, your how many kids you had at the time, um, you know, family, I don't know, you know, friends, you know, meeting parents, you know, siblings, whatever. Like, was that a challenging thing to maybe even your coworkers, like what that whole dynamic was was like?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:50

Yeah. So I mean, the easiest part of it was was with my wife because she could see, I mean, the part a big part of the reason I left was because I was I was kind of I was getting burnt out by it. Like I had this path in front of me, I was exhausted by it. Like, and like I didn't want to do what I would have had to do to like reach the the goal of making a partner because like that's not and that's not even the end of it, because you have to you know you're not even really safe until you you're not even really safe if you don't keep the link um and you don't keep getting clients. So I you know, I I I was like I was kind of like, okay, I like have I like have enough money where I feel like I can pay for my current lifestyle uh indefinitely or whatever. So I'm just I I'm gonna try to do something that leads I'm gonna try to put myself in a situation where I'm like going down a path I like actually wanna go down. Like I could see kind of the I mean I I could I worked with like all these these partners every day and I was like not really sure I wanted their life. So why would I kill myself why would I like kill myself by working these hours and dealing with the stress in order to get to a destination I don't even really want to get to? I definitely had thoughts of like, you know, I like maybe the hatch fund world would be good. Um and you know, maybe under certain circumstances in the right place it could be. But I I kind of had this like other more open path that led to a good lifestyle available to me and and chose it for that reason. And I think my wife would I think my wife was good with that because she she saw how unhappy I was, which obviously it doesn't make her life any better if I'm like unhappy. So I think she was supportive of me. Um and like I think and I think I think all the people close to me were also you know, they they at least didn't question me or think I was insane for wanting to like quit my job and just like live off of gambling income and investment income. Because like a lot of those people I had helped make money gambling, right? Like you know, if you show if you show someone like how to like make this money and like they've actually made money as a result of things you told them, like that they'll believe you if you tell them that you're gonna like just do this as your job now. They'll like believe that you're that you can win and that you're not just like some like delusional person with a system.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:24

Yeah. I mean, shout out to uh shout out to your wife for for you know understanding and and and whatnot. I think that that's a huge part of it. And then the thing about having everybody like if you beard through all your friends, they'll all understand, I think. Um let's talk about actually I'm gonna flip this. Let's go with Mr. Nobody's second question first. So he um he asked, Why have you I said when I posted the Twitter thing, I was like, you know, he's been in the shadows. I was just kind of trying to think like you didn't you hadn't been on a pod and you weren't really active on Twitter. So I was like, let's get some questions for this guy, but how are we gonna do it? But so I said you're in the shadows, um, not actually in the shadows, but just kind of not having a public profile until now. So he asked, like, why uh kind of have you kept less of a you know a public profile, or what's kind of stopped you from maybe being a little bit more more public, maybe on Twitter and whatnot, and like why yeah, how has that kind of changed your mind with you know agreeing to come on the pod?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:37

I mean, yeah, the the biggest reason I was in the shadows was like inertia, it's so lame. But like, yeah, I was I was actually I was planning on going to Bet Bash last year, and then I like tweaked a neck muscle and was like laid up in bed and had to miss it. So I was kind of sad, I was kind of bummed about that, but I was like, yep, like now I've like I've quit my job, I'm gambling full-time, I'm gonna go to Bat Bash and meet people, and then I like just couldn't physically. Uh and then like after that, like I I had met a couple of people in New York. I like I played in a poker game with some betters and like kind of got to know some of them, or at least a little bit uh through that game. Um and but yeah, like I I don't know, it was mostly just like I kind of like things are working okay enough. Like it's like work to reach out to people and meet people, and so I just kind of like through inertia stayed in the shadows. But I don't think that's like that's certainly not optimal. It wasn't like it was like this rational decision, like I have all these I have all these secrets, I'm gonna keep them to myself. It wasn't it wasn't like a rational calculation thing, it was just like I just kind of didn't feel like putting the effort in. And I uh you know, I heard your call for guests at the end of one of your shows, and I'm like, time to put a little bit of effort in to to meeting people.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:02

I will say you did a good job of like explaining your story in a way that it was clear like you'd be a good guest. Yeah, raw background.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:14

I wrote like 1500 words, I think. It was it was too much.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:18

It was good. I it was it was like a clear slam dunk.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:22

Like I spent I spent nine years of my life being a professional writer. I mean, hopefully I was gonna say somewhat well.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:28

When I when I read You're a lawyer and then read the rest of it, I was like, okay, it it checks out. But yeah, I I think like that is a big misconception in gambling where people are like, oh, all of the best gamblers, like you don't know who they are. It's like that's certainly true of some people. That's there's certainly like there's some truth to that, but there's also a lot of value. Like, even if like somebody like Jelko is like secretive, like we all also know who he is and like worship the ground he walks on for doing like you know, a hundred million dollar Texas lotto plays. Like, there is that value to to being known as someone competent and whatnot and making connections.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:05

So sort of I feel that like the thing is the biggest drawback of doing this for a living by far is like the lack of social interaction, at least the way I do it. Like, I mean, you you work with other people, uh John, but like, you know, and so you come into social con you know, you have that social contact, but like you know, right now I just like I don't have like I had like no professional contacts, right? I'm just like I have my friend group, but it it's just isolating to be doing something by yourself too long. It's nice to it's nice to like have people you can talk with and you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:44

Yeah, yes, certainly. Like I do miss of all the things I miss about going like doing a job in an office, like just going in and kind of like literally bitching about the job with my friends who work there is probably the thing I miss the most.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:01

Yeah, being being you know, being part of some project with other people or having this thing in common that forces you to interact socially is like generally benefit.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:12

So I wanted to ask, we've talked a lot about like dead edges and good spots. I want to talk uh this was from Daniel, and I think it's a great question. Largely just a loss on something you thought was a roar but wasn't, and what what caused it?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:26

Great question. Great question.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:29

Yeah, it's a great question.

unknown 1:41:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:32

I was thinking about it. I didn't see that question beforehand, so I have to it was a it was a recent, it was one of the most recent ones before, and usually I don't throw them in, but I saw that one now.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:42

We can ask a different way. Okay, no, I mean like to I'm gonna be totally real. Like, I mean, okay, so like on that first first down one, right? Like, I didn't win it every single week, so like I did have like weeks where I would lose like 20k or whatever. Like, other than that, like I if like I've never like seen like if I know your roars have you if I'm laying like 400, like four to one, like I've like never lost one of those, which shows that I've like been massively underbetting this whole time.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:13

Have there ever been a situation?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:14

Like there have been situations where I've like, oh, I have a 3% edge on this minus 400 and I've lost, like obviously, but like any place, anytime I've like I've gone heavy in, I've like usually one, and I've like been kicking myself because I didn't bet close to enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:30

And like the situation where like your hypothesis of what's happening in the market has been like like you you you like the that uh Jace Richard Richardson example, he goes out and he actually like just has like infinite or the crowd violently. Yeah, is there the case like like that or something?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:50

Um I mean it's okay to say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:56

No, I mean yeah, like it's not really like yeah, I've lost bets, obviously, but like I think I think it's like pretty rare to like just be completely wrong about something. I mean, like I'm like I'm pretty conservative on this stuff. I'm like a huge net. I'm I'm a net, I'm a bum hunter. I just like like I don't win the most money, but like I like never I kind of like never lose.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:22

Like you have the best sharp ratio.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:24

I've had like one I had one downswing playing like I've had like one downswing, like and it was a result of like playing casino promotions that were probably low edge. Like it was like this DraftKings thing where it was like you play 500,000 of blackjack and you get like a$3,000 credit and it was like 0.3% edge, and like I lost 40k playing 250 ends of blackjack, which is like insane to me that you could lose that many units. But yeah, it was like that, and then I like ran back for a couple weeks on NBA props, and then it was like that was like my one downswing.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:01

Okay, if you had one down swing, we gotta get you betting more.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:06

Now I've spoken on your bet.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:07

Yeah, like my call she ROI excluding bonds is like nine percent, but yeah, I also don't certainly don't have the highest profit. I would much rather be I would much rather have like one percentage and like hundreds of millions of volume, right? Like that's way better than like being in knit and only getting an engine.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:24

Maybe uh we have huge tons things, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:29

You got both ends of the spectrum on the the show, I think. So yeah. Yeah, no, but that that makes sense, you know. If if that's like your strategy, you uh it sounds like you know, why you're you know you're aware of it and trying to get better at it, but like you you don't really make mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:44

Like if if you're conservative, it's not make bad bets, but I probably packed on too many good bets as a result of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:49

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I certainly had some wicked bats. I would love to come back and maybe we can do that. Yeah, we could do a whole episode unlike our things we thought were roared when you're getting roarded instead of roarding. You could do a whole shot. It was like that tweet Tad said about Fliff. He's like, I'm I assure you Fliff got pads more than pads got flipped. Um all right, so we got we had a couple questions. So we have this one from Fervent Flaneur, and there are a couple other questions, but the gist of it is like, has have you used your legal background to get paid? Have you felt like there was like some violation of of law? We hear like gamblers obviously go to um get in conflict with sports books over getting paid and laws and made-up laws. Like, has that ever come into play?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:46

I mean, only once. It was like Tropicana. Like I played a bunch of casino bonuses on Tropicana, and they were trying to like they just like weren't opening my account. They just like kept it closed for like months, even though I like sent all the IDs and stuff. Like it was like my own personal account, it wasn't bearding or anything. Yeah. I like sent I like sent like a notice to like New Church's Department of Gaming over it, but that was like the only time that I've actually like kind of used any legal background to get paid. Like otherwise, I haven't been like in a situation like yeah, like sportsbook, like that one off her sports book like changed the odds on me or whatever on like that Tormon Frost I bet I mentioned earlier after the thing was concluded, but I'm not like I don't know what can do. Maybe it was maybe it was a palp. Like they're not gonna like I'm not gonna like write a letter to the like Costa Rican gaming authorities to get them to like reinstate my odds. Yeah, like the cursor, like yeah, I just think haven't been stiff for enough to like make it worthwhile or been stiff for enough and think that I have a chance to like reasonably recover what I'm owned to like use my legal background to get paid.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:56

Kind of like a corollary to that. One thing I've found when we've brought in like partners or beards or whatever you want to call them, like the lawyers are the most willing, like ask the least questions and just want to start firing. Like I think it's kind of like people think maybe it's the other way, but it seems to be like people who are more familiar with I let's just in general call it the law, seem to be like, yeah, this is fine, you know. I don't know. Is that like did that play into you like working with other people or like feeling comfortable?

SPEAKER_00 1:47:28

Yeah, like I mean, the the best the best of my partners was like a hedge fund person.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:35

He was just like immediately understands like plus he beat bets versus minus E V bet. And like he's like, no, no qualms about like betting on something and he thinks it's gonna win, and he's not like a wimp about like who's gonna pay the taxes, like he's smart enough to know like you you pay the taxes on what you owe, and like if the IRS asks questions and you have a paper trailer, you're probably gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:58

Like not that that's right. I I found like that is a big step though. Like the lawyers are all okay with it, yeah. Like that's not trivial, I found when we're working with people.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:10

Yeah, I have like one lawyer friend that's that was kind of a nit on like the taxes stuff, but ultimately you just got over it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:16

Yeah. So a related question, but slightly different from Benny. Like the the question is how often do you leverage your background in terms of law to gain an advantage? And so the way I read this question, at least is like not actually like Oh, like not actually like making someone pay you what they owe you.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:34

Yeah, but like reading contracts is immediately. There's a couple of edges on Call Street that I that I have as a result of like legal knowledge that I can't disclose. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:44

Fair enough. Um, SP is gonna be like in the in the markets with like reading law books.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:54

Yeah, I mean, I mean, just with with Cal Sheam and like the production markets, it's like intro we've talked about it, like it's introduced this whole new set of like rules being important.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:04

Oh, yeah, rules interpretation. I was actually I actually meant like my substantive legal knowledge, but uh yes, like rules interpretation. And like that's I think I'm relatively good at at dealing with rule situations.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:16

Oh, I I would guess what you were saying originally. You were okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:20

I guess both. I guess both you got both. You have a couple of spots that are like what yeah, I was gonna say like all knowledge. Yeah, we'll call them uh whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:32

I don't want to let's not plug your spots in. Okay, I think I think we answer that question. We don't we don't gotta get it. Good morning. Okay, should we do the Mr. Peanut better question? Okay, so he also changed his name on Twitter to like peanut or something, which is like totally unacceptable, and he needs to change that that back. Um, but he asked, Are there more wheels or doors in the world? Uh you said wheels, but there's been some doors pushback, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:59

Oh, I think. She provide I think he said he was on Team Wheels too, but he also gave he gave the case for doors.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:05

I don't know if there are subsequent people that came in and said Yeah, Clay there Clay came in and said he thinks doors because of the cabinets in the US.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:13

And and I was like, you know, I was in this this shower thinking about this, and I was looking like in my bathroom. I'm like, there's a ton. If you count like cabinets, yeah, like my house has way because at first I'm like, I have like roly chairs, like the chair I'm on right now. But then I'm like, there's so many cabinets in my kitchen and my bathroom and you know, like closet that like you know, in general, a car well cars are the car is a red herring, like well, it's a wash because it's yes, it's like a wash, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:40

Four doors, four wheels. There's the rear entrance, there's like the the trunk or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:44

But that's yeah, well, there's a turn door, there's a turn or whatever. But some like semis have like more of a wheel. Right. So if you consider cars broadly a wash, like at least the same order of magnitude.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:55

I don't think not hearing is cars are such a small proportion of the doors and like wheels in the world. I think you're supposed to think about cars, and that's like what leads you to this back and forth. But I think the answer is easily wheels because like if you go into a Walmart, right? Like in the children's toy section, there's like thousands and thousands of wheels just in the children's toy section of Walmart.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:17

I was thinking of like manufacturing toy.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:18

Yeah, and manufacturing plants. Yeah. I don't know if you count a bearing as a wheel or whatever, but like most like there's still like a huge number of wheels, like propelling things within a manufacturing plant, like children's toys, right? Like um, like uh a Hot Wheels car has four wheels and no door, no doors, and there's like massively more Hot Wheels cars than there are like real cars, right? Yeah, I I I didn't I didn't know that. But if you get well, it's like a they have like sealed chassis, you can't like open up the doors on it. So I can't you can't count you can't count to painted door as a door, in my opinion. So I think it's easily yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:58

I mean it goes to that. Like, is it gear a a wheel?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:01

Sort of, but not really. Yeah, I wouldn't consider gear a wheel, but I just think there's so many wheels in the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:06

Like I I I think it's the idea of like is a bearing a wheel is important.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:10

Like I wonder what the order of map like to me, the more interesting thing. I think most people would answer wheels, but like are we talking you know, like 10n? Are we talking n squared?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:20

Are we talking like I guess it would be like n squared would be crazy, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:26

I don't think it's yeah, I think it's like uh you're sorry, like 10n. Yeah, that feels great. I mean, there are a lot of doors. I think there's massively more wheels, but 100 times. If someone has the hard answer, you know, if someone's counted, let us let us know.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:41

Um okay, we got uh uh interesting name. We got the the Lord of Candy or Chaos with a Ka E O S. Operationally, what has been the most observed changes, um observed changes year to year? Um I think PM and I think he mentions like is it you know prediction markets, you know, popping up out of nowhere. I think the question is is is basically like where have you seen um what have you seen to be like the biggest change maybe in the last year in the ecosystem and what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:53:20

I mean, you guys, you you probably in particular, John, have like a better sense of that than me. Like you're further in the trenches and further like and into the infrastructure of it than me, but my own observation is just like the main markets are trading way tighter than they were previously. Like the bots are way faster. Um like that's I think that's to me the biggest change. Um yeah, like but like the thing that makes it continue to be worthwhile is just like there are still a ton of wrecks. There are way too many markets for the the bots to price everything well and to trade well. Like there's there's just continues to be spots as a result of the huge number of markets, the unique situations that come up all the time. But yeah, my my answer is definitely like, yeah, I feel like you could you could beat college football live on Call Street at the beginning of the season, like and at the end of the season, if you were just like clicking, you had no chance.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:18

I think that's interesting. Yeah, I mean maybe if you're like really good, you had a chance, but I No, I don't I'm not somebody who who is is there SP maybe is is in there, but yeah, I I think like quality I think now it's kind of getting more pub like more consensus, but like Colchi, maybe like Polly to a certain extent, like are quite sharp.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:43

Yeah, for sure. For sure, especially in like the big low-goid markets, like right, and like I don't know, like I I would like I would love to to get to that stage and I'm like working on things to to get closer to that, but like for now at least, I mean there are still a lot of soft spots, like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:03

Speaking of soft spots, question from S91. What's the longest period of time of Mort lasted for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:55:11

I mean, that first first down one lasted for I guess a season and a half of NFL. I've only been. I was gonna say when you were like, yeah, end of 2025, I was like, what the fu Yeah, it went on for like yeah, like a season and a half and like into the playoffs, even though there weren't really opportunity. It was like only one opportunity in the playoffs. Um but like yeah, I mean, I I have I have I've found some things that just like never have gone away. Um but those aren't I wouldn't consider those rewards, I just consider those like sustainable systematic errors that give you some small edge on the sports book. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:50

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:51

But I haven't been getting long, right? Like seriously, I've only been seriously sports gambling since like 24.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:57

So yeah, yeah, fair enough. I mean, I I was surprised by how I think like that first one, the first down thing, I I was pretty surprised by when you said like when it uh got tweeted out, I was like, wow, that that is way longer than I would have.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:14

It's like such an obvious one too. It's like you don't need to you don't need to be like a math genius to figure out that the guy that gets the ball first is gonna get the first first down more often.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:26

Right, but it's like data that doesn't exist, right? A lot of sharps are the NBA tip edge. Other people at the end of this, like in the second half of the season, other people figured it out because like the lines would move, right? Like even though the lines move, like DraftKings never they never just like fixed their openers, they just like kept the bad openers, let people bet it, then like after they got X amount of action would move it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:52

Interesting. Yeah, I wonder why they didn't back into that one, but uh, you know, some there's a lot to I mean, you know, there's a lot to keep track of.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:00

Yeah, I mean they were good on NBA first tip. Like I found a couple of edges there, but it was like I mean, maybe if I like spent more time like actually trying to like get all the jump ball data, I could have found more stuff. But like most of the time they had it accounted for, all right. Like when Wemby, like the Spurs, even if they were dogs in the game, would be like favorites to score the first points. Like they figured that out, so it's kind of surprising they weren't able to like immediately figure out like that the team that gets the ball first in football is gonna get the first down.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:33

Need to talk more between the uh different teams and DraftKings, you know. NBA team needs to talk to the NFL team. Um, all right, should we hit the uh hit the the outro? Okay, so you know we have two questions we always ask. The first one is what is a hot take that you have that you think like a majority of sharp gambling Twitter would disagree with, or sharp prediction market people who win at this, who they would disagree.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:05

Sharp prediction market Twitter might agree with me on this one. I get I guess since a lot of sharp gambling Twitter might disagree, but I think I think prediction markets, including sports prediction markets, are more beneficial to society than detrimental. Um and the reasoning for that, uh I wrote down the reasoning for this question. Let me see. That's how you really believe you can feel like nobody's forced to bet against like nobody is forced to make a bet, right? Like if you make a bet against someone, you're saying that they're wrong and you're right, and the person in prediction markets that's rational and clear-headed is gonna get the money, and the person that holds irrational views with too much confidence is gonna lose the money. And I think to me, that's like both aesthetically satisfying and I think just better for the world for the more rational, clear-headed people to have more assets. So uh, you know, people might find that offensive, but I think it's just true. I think it's bad that like there are people that have compulsive gambling disorders. I think that's like a sad thing. Um, this is not maybe maybe this is a second part of my take, but I think that there's an eat I don't even know if you'd qualify it as a hot take, but my proposal, my modest proposal to fix that, which I think has about a 0.1 chance of getting adopted, and that's only because the benefits of powerful lobby, is that you allow parents to place their adult children on a nationwide gambling exclusion registry, and the child is permitted uh to have their name removed from the nationwide gambling exclusion registry and and prediction market registry by obtaining either employer-provided health insurance or ACA exchange health insurance in their own name. And once they are able to provide proof that they've held that insurance for one year, the the administrator of the registry will take their name off the exclusion list. I think that would solve a majority of the problem gambling. Uh and we make the nature markets even better for society.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:05

I like it. Um honestly, I had the thought in in the past that like because currently it's just like the person can put themselves on the exclusion.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:13

Your wife should be able to put you on the registry. I think if you get like five people who know you, no, because people are gonna fuck you over.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:20

Like we all put Rufus on the uh exclusion registry.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:27

Yeah, that's uh a fake. Maybe not your wife, but your mom. Your mom cares about you. She's not gonna mess up your life unless like Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:36

No, it's it's I mean, it's the whole thing with gambling, right? I think uh relative to the number of people who who participate are really disproportionately impacted in a negative way, and it's really hard to find solutions that are gonna, you know, make it keep it a good product for everybody without you know putting you know, with helping those people who who actually need it.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:57

So yeah, I mean I like my idea because like it gives you a way off, but it requires like it gives you a way off the registry, but it requires you to like be a person that's like deliberate and thoughtful, which which type of person is less and and also the type of person who can afford health insurance, which makes it like I can already picture like the skeevy underground fake insurance.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:20

Yeah, right. Like that's that's the business I need to ten million dollar deductible, yeah. You know, get into that business. But um yeah, no, I I think I think it's uh I I think what's challenging about some of the to get to your actual you know point about the prediction markets and whatnot, like I think what's challenging is a lot of us believe like that they are like they have some net good to society and and whatnot for the re some of the reasons you said, but I think you know it's just it's so disingenuous on both sides of like how it's it's being discussed that it's sort of a shame that the way it's getting portrayed to people is like or marketed is like very bad, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:59

So I just think like having accurate views about the world should be rewarded, and like this provides a mechanism for it, and I think that's like a really good thing. And I think it's like good, like I don't know, it maybe maybe maybe it's just like my own personal like aesthetic opinions, but I think it's like really offensive when someone has this super strongly held view and they're not willing to bet on it, or like agree, yeah, you know, like bet on it or just like be quiet.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:27

Well, that's like the when someone those people are never gonna bet on it, right? Like, so you know, I I get that like having this is a way to I think when it gets talked about, like, oh you know, like would this will be a way to like have no differences of opinion or whatever, like know the truth, like yeah, you think you can still have differences of like uh you know like ethical opinion, like your best color or whatever. But yeah, no idea.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:55

Don't argue about whether or not the like I don't know, don't don't argue about like whose team's gonna win unless you're having fun doing it, right? Like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:04

Yeah, no, I I I agree with I like the uh you know, I think that you'd say like a normal in a normal company space, like your your pitch would never get adopted, but I could see some of the players adopting the like, yeah, this actually like takes money from idiots and gives it to smart people, like we're doing the Lord's work.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:26

Yeah, exactly. I could see that, you know, popping up in the when you put it that way, it is kind of offensive. But uh, I can't.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:34

I mean it looks like you need to be able to go into the arena and battle a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:38

Like, that's just like nobody's making you go on it, like you can just concede that you're wrong.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:43

Yeah, like I do feel like this, like everyone's like, Oh, you're you know, you're taking all this money. I'm not taking money from people, like it's a free marketplace. Like, I could lose. Like people who are good gamblers also tend to have some kind of like penchant for gambling. Like, it's not just like you're predestined to be cashing a check of every week, you know, of every unless you're Alex, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:12

But uh I mean I yeah, I I don't know, I don't always win. I just like just don't go on huge down swings. It's not it's it's it's a week though. It's a week to be clear.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:23

Yeah, you need to lose more. That's what we always tell people lose more, take more risk, etc. Um, all right, the the Bayesian update of the week. So the Bayesian update of the week is something that you've uh changed your mind on recently. Uh SP, should we we kick it off? Yeah, I can go.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:44

I didn't I didn't actually have one, but one just came came to me. Um like recently on Twitter I've been getting fed a lot of like um content of people like dunking on like the what are they like the WAP and what's the other the site with the the dub club dub club like all those people like dunking on them like whatever like losing bets and and whatnot. And I I my update is to implore those people to focus their their um efforts on or maybe they exist, maybe I just need it pointed to me. But like I think I've talked about before like how other industries all have this going on. And like, for example, like the fitness industry, I never see like these people who dunk on like the the like garbage claims that like a lot of the fitness influencers put out there. I'd love to see like more more dunking on on that stuff. Because like at the end of the day, like my opinion is that's probably like more important to to dunk on than like people, you know, joining some Discord community because they want like some sense of belonging or whatever and spending$20 on picks. Like at the end of the day, like I don't really think that they're hurting that many people. I know those those people who are just sort of like trying to protect people, are probably trying to do the right thing and whatnot, but like at the end of the day, it's not not that serious in my opinion. But like I'd like I like I guess I want like this the trolls of gambling Twitter. I hope they you know grow and multiply to to other industries as well, to like, you know, credit cards and banks and fitness and you know, all the other stuff that just gets like sort of a free pass, at least, you know, from my vantage point.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:22

I like it. Like, yeah, we should, we should not be fighting within, we should be fighting out. Look better by comparison. Um, mine was just a quick, I I don't know if you guys saw this. You saw the clip about uh Kirk Evans talking about how he doesn't want like to buy gifts basically. The gist of it is like, you know, yeah, I you know, I give you a gift for your wedding, you give me a gift for my wedding. It's like this whole, you know, uh passing money back and forth, which is something I've always thought and said. And I've I'm not sure if I think I don't think he's wrong. I think he's objectively right that it's like kind of absurd if you zoom out and look at it. But I think like part of why it works is like kind of the absurdity where like that's the point. Like you're in we're doing, you know, we're giving a gift, like that's kind of the the point. It's like it's kind of not efficient, it's not optimal, but like it's kind of the reason why it like means something to the other person is you know, you're kind of it's symbolic, right? So like I saw a lot of back and forth on it, and it just made me re-examine my my views. So like I don't think Kirk's wrong, but I think there's like a layer to it where the whole like the whole point is that it's like not optimal and efficient, it's more symbolic, and that adds some value.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:49

I I did see that, and I'm curious, you know, Alex, your your takes on it, but yeah, I mean agree with that. I mean if you spend your whole life trying to be like efficient or like like I think the AP, I because I've seen there's some Discord around this, like I think the AP mindset is like extremely prone to being unhappy if you take it too far. And that's an example. I mean, like you could you could extend that argument to a lot of things. I mean, this is not a perfect example, but it's like, you know, I don't want to go to Thanksgiving this this year and just bring like I'm just everybody just bring your own plate of what you're gonna eat because I don't want to I'm gonna make the the pie this year if you're gonna make like it's it's just bringing what you want. Yeah, right. Like just but no, I mean you know if if you take any of that to the nth degree, it's it's it's it's uh a recipe for for unhappiness, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:41

Yeah, I think having a like a vague, a vague obligation to somebody is uh it's good for building a stronger relationship with them. Like if you go out to dinner with your friends instead of put splitting the check, picking it up and expecting them to get the next one, it just it makes you it makes your relationship stronger. Uh because you feel sort of a mutual sense of obligation. I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:02

I like that. I think that was better said than I said it. So yeah, I I I I agree with that. Do you have an update, Alex, for us?

SPEAKER_00 2:09:10

Yeah, so I mean it this it's it's hard to really call it a Bayesian update, since like I would agree, I probably would have agreed with this at any point in my life, but maybe it's just more top of mind for me, but it like about how important it is to spend time around like ambitious and motivated and smart people. Like yeah, my skiing trip last weekend, I was around a group of people like that, and it just like it energized me and it just made me want to achieve more. And I think I just I need to put more effort into being around such people. It's just more top of mind. I it's hard to like if somebody like says just tells you like it's good to be around smart people, like it's obvious, it's like kind of obvious, you can't disagree with it, but I think what has changed is that I just now know how deliberate I need to be to make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:00

Well, you're definitely in the wrong place on this podcast, but hopefully we can get you sorted out in the rest of the week.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:05

I was actually so stupid. I was trying to think of uh something funny to say about it, I couldn't even think of it, so you're completely off there.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:14

You got the whole rest of the week to get part of the state.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:17

If anybody's smart who listens to this, reach out to Alex. Uh but yeah, man, I I you know thank you so much for uh coming on and making this the first pod. Like I think anytime somebody who doesn't put themselves out there much like comes on and does this show. We're always really well, we're thankful for everybody who comes on, but especially especially if uh you know you're making your debut here. So we really appreciate it. I think it was some awesome stories, very cool background. I said, like, you know, I feel like we got we got lucky stealing you potentially from Risk of Ruin, because you have a very Risk of Ruin-esque uh story. But yeah, thanks for thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:59

Yeah, it's an it's an honor to be on. I listen to you guys, I listen to your guys' podcast every week, and it's cool to be included in it. So thank you guys both.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:08

Yeah, sweet. Thanks for everybody for the uh for the questions, and uh we will we will see you on the next episode.