Masters Recap & Returning to "Sharp Taking" | Ep 151

GP tries to get back in the good graces of the sharp taking community while talking about the Masters. SP walks through the golf betting model he spun up just in time for the biggest event of the year. Some news goes the prediction markets way and the boys discuss their favorite books in the questions.

0:00 MASTERS RECAP & QUESTIONS

53:30 News

1:14:30 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.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We not we might not be wanting to get like long Brooks Kepka at sportsbook prices, but like by being the one the by being the like one of the bigger market participants who's high on him, like we just started getting long him. Like and it is very interesting. So we had like positions on people that we usually like we were like long some people we usually fade, short some people we usually back. It was it was interesting to see like kind of how the money flowed and where the positions kind of went, and managing it that through the week was you know kind of the whole game. GP and SP talking the number one prediction market sport, the event that did more volume than any other event in the history of prediction markets, golf, the masters. Um it was SP, he really wanted to talk about it. So, you know, why why do you why did you want to talk about the masters so much?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Well, I don't I don't know if this is a win for you or a lose lose for you. You know, on one hand, your your sport front, you know, biggest biggest traded ever. On the other hand, on a crusade the week before saying, you know, volume is gonna be cratered and and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

So I don't I knew you were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

We'll get into that. We'll get into that.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

My opinion remains unchanged or strengthened.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

I think this is one aspect we we wanted to talk about. We will get into the Desi Scent and how that impacted some of your stuff. But no, I thought this would I we usually do an interview, just full disclosure. It fell through sort of last minute, so we'll have an interview.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Um it's actually a yeah, it's a since nobody knows who is gonna be, it's a funny story. But the person who was supposed to interview, they sold their company.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, so that seems like a good congrats to them. Yeah, slightly probably more profitable than coming on our podcast. The deal process.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I guess they don't we don't want to blow their entire deal up. So maybe we'll get them later. But uh yeah, so now we get to talk about golf. Literally, good for them, good for us, because now we get to talk about golf. Um, and I think it's interesting because we were just briefly talking before the show, but you dipped your toes in too. So I think it's a good I think it'll be good to talk about it from like my perspective as is kind of our main sport, and then your perspective as like this is a generic, like big event that you know you want to take advantage of whether you kind of know golf or whether you're in golf every week or not, kind of how like we both were in the Super Bowl, even though you did football a lot and we basically like don't do any football. So it it is it'll be interesting to get both perspective perspectives here.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, so maybe you know, I'm sure you have more to to say broadly on the topic. So I'm I'm happy to talk about like what I was what I was doing, we can get into that, but maybe like why don't you kick it up, kick it off with like your overview, what what you were what was going on with you, your team for the masters, and how you were thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing uh to talk about is is how much volume the masters did. So I think uh call she tweeted out that they did like what was it, 550 million contracts on it or something, uh, which was the biggest sporting event. Yet obviously the Masters has some um advantages over some other sporting events to accumulate volume. The actual event takes place over four days, they had the market up for a while, so like I think the equivalent market to compare it to would maybe be like the men's March Madness like futures market, if you wanted to have something like kind of as close to apples to apples as you can get. But yeah, it's great. I think I'm very bullish on golf as a prediction market uh sport because there's just kind of a lot going on. People, you know, it's a natural lotto play where like anybody you buy to win is basically like it's just like an SGP. It's like kind of the same thing. It's like you buy somebody at three, two, four percent, whatever. Um, there's not gonna be many people outside of Scotty Scheffler who you would even really need to uh parlay with anything else to get the blood pumping. So I think that works. There's a lot of fluctuation in play, there's a lot of action going on, um, and the in-play window is quite large, so you get to see a lot of a lot of movement on the screen. So I think, you know, if anything, I just left this more bullish golf for for PMs compared to normal sports books. And uh I think the big first thing to talk about when it came to like what our strategy was was we the two things that were different for us in the masters compared to other events were one, we had worked to get onto other prediction market platforms before the master started. That was a big goal of ours in the background. Like that's what we were working on a lot, uh, specifically for the masters, and that was the the hard deadline. So and it it it it was Wednesday night at like 1 a.m. when we really felt like we had trying to get on poly or poly US, not not uh VPNing into to poly international. So and at like 1 a.m. on Wednesday, I felt like we were finally there. So we it was a real buzzer beater, and then the other thing is the death cent. So that was more like that was a surprise. We talked about it last week, and that was a surprise to us kind of coming into uh yeah, the masters, and it broke a lot of our our code. So I think the those are the two big differences, and it kind of and what I said in the tweet was like we were now sometimes in the spot to be a hashtag sharp taker. So this is also my podcast to redeem myself to the sharp taking community as well, SP.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah, we have we have a couple questions on that. So maybe before getting to to that part of it, I'm curious like on the um on the multiple on the multiple platforms. I think you and I both predominantly have been on like Couchi up to this point. Um and for me personally, a big reason is it's just like there's an endless number of things I I need to do and like would like to do, even just like on one platform, um, such that the idea of like jumping into another, you know, totally overwhelms me. So, like what what was that like trying to it? It just seems incredibly overwhelming on the master's weekend. Like it's not like you rolled it out on like I don't know, what's this week, the heritage or something? Like, you know, you know that's our state tournament. Oh, that's that's right. Um you didn't really have a test run to run it through. Was that was that overwhelming once it got up and running, or did you did you feel like the testing and everything was was sufficient?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

It felt like I was on fire the entire weekend. Like I don't know. If I was wearing like a whoop, my whoop would have probably like matched Royal Mac Rory Macloro's like whoop stats. His heart rate was low.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

I was I know I was really impressed by that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, Icy man. That's crazy. Like it highest it got was like 130 when he like punted it into the trees. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean I'm like mine was mine higher than 130. I'll I'll I'll say that. So yeah, I mean, I think one of the hardest things to do is right now, like if you're if you're kind of doing the automated stuff is to onboard. Onboarding takes a lot of you have to rewrite a lot of code. You obviously build your code for kind of the first place you join, and then even if you want to, even if you try and do it in a way where you're hoping to reuse a lot of it, like it never is as simple as like, yes, this is perfectly reusable. Um so yeah, we had started onboarding uh and it had taken us a good chunk of time, tested in some other sports, um, but we had never tested in golf before the masters, and then we were up showing, you know, big size, you know, right away with it was kind of like one of those situations where the spot was really good and nothing was ever gonna be perfect, and that's kind of why the spot was good. So like you gotta kind of go for it. So again, like I would still it's hard to say because I think if you do one sport, this this is kind of how I've changed my opinion a little bit. Like, if you do one sport really well, you should be more inclined to onboard onto other platforms. Um if your advantage is like doing a ton of sports and your process is less like yeah, is is less of like I know this market well, here's my numbers, everything, like then but you have a big tech advantage on like your current platform, maybe callshi, then you know it's it's good to press that as much as you can, I think. Um so I think it's a it's an interesting question, like when to onboard onto a second one. I don't really know the right answer, but it's kind of like for us, it was just we know the masters is gonna be the biggest event um of the golfing calendar. It always is, and like if there was a time to do it, it was now, so might as well do it now, you know. But it's hard, it's very hard. It it everything's different, you know, at every place you onboard too.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Yeah, yeah, it makes it makes total sense to me. That's why I was I was curious on like how how that went, if you know, asking selfishly if that was something I wanted to consider down the road, how how it how it actually went. So maybe let's go to the then the um the descent um and the sharp taker. Here's your your chance to redeem yourself and those you've alienated and um you know rectify the sins of the past.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yes. So basically what happened was on Colche and Polly US, there was descent pricing and the size being shown was crazy. Like we're talking about a million contracts a level. Um and you know, I don't think that I think in a spot like that I had mess, I think Rufus showed that like we tweeted this message I sent him, but I said, like, well, pre-market this descent is not too bad because you know you can kind of like bet whatever opinion you want, and um, there's all this liquidity, which either means like penny jumping somebody and posting or taking. But but yeah, I think we kind of came into the into the week knowing that we were gonna do a combination of of making and taking, and it gave us an opportunity to, you know, I don't there's yeah, there's spots to take like a million contracts on stuff that had no business being quoted a million contracts. Um so we had some huge sweats, the biggest of which was well, how tong Li, uh, who ended up uh making like a 10 on the 13th hole. But uh, you know, it was some good sweats.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

I you know, I saw you tweeting about how you got into that because I was speculating how you got into that. Okay, that was a take.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

That wasn't just like nobody wanted to bet on how tong li and no, but I would there that actually reminds me of something I wanted to talk about because of like how our positions kind of ended up going. So yeah, we took on how we we took on a lot of spots for big size at the smaller price levels where like we showed a huge edge, like over 100% ROI or stuff. I don't know if they were they were stale or I I don't know exactly what happened, but there's just a lot of mistakes left up. Um and Sam Burns first round leader is actually a take. So hashtag Sharp Taker. We won that one. So shout out to all my Sharp, all my fellow Sharp Takers out there, um, and and a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, so basically, like a lot of times what we're doing is we were we had our program, like our bot running for making, and then all I did was sit at the computer and look for swats to take like the whole day. And I think it did a couple things, like you want to make sure you want to basically kind of temper these other participants, be like, yeah, you can't just you can't, you're not gonna just be able to quote like two million here, like I will take you, and you know, make them kind of back off a little bit and put a little bit of the put a little bit of fear into them because you you don't want them like if you're gonna just sit there and be passive, then there's no reason that they're gonna ever like let you get Q or levels or anything until you start hitting them and taking them. So I think starting to take for size helped um kind of settle the market a little bit where we could be a little more competitive from a making set. Uh, and then obviously just getting in a getting stuff at like crazy good levels. So that was yeah, all of our biggest positions. We had a ton of lottoes that like the Sam Burns first round leader, I wouldn't call it like a like a lotto position. It was a very good position, but we had a couple like the Halatong Lee was like when I said I was gonna retire and play the champion store, I was probably not gonna retire, but it it could have been possible. So that that one was a a bit of a a huge lotto. I would I always think like, what's it like reverse sweating that position? Just sounds terrible. Um, but yeah, so on the making side, a lot of where we started getting filled, it was weird. Like it wasn't, we weren't. I I messaged um Claris this like halfway through day two. And I was like, you'll never believe like who is like right now our best result outside of like these random like lotes I've already told you about, like the best result of like the people who can conceivably win. And he just, you know, whatever, like he takes all his guesses, and I was like, no, it's Brooks Kepka, like we're long Brooks Kepka. And I realized it was probably because we're probably a bit higher on Brooks than obviously than Datagolf, but maybe even then a couple of the other bigger market participants. So when we're up on the bid, like sometimes other people are just gonna hit us. Like, so we we not we might not be wanting to get like long Brooks Kepka at sports book prices, but like by being the one the by being the like one of the bigger market participants who's high on him, like we just started getting long him. Like, and it is very interesting. So we had like positions on people that we usually like we were like long some people we usually fade, short some people we usually back. It was it was interesting to see like kind of how the money flowed and where the positions kind of went, and managing it that through the week was you know kind of the whole game, but it wasn't as straightforward as like oh we're backing like the five guys we always back and you know, fading these guys. Like we some weird things started happening basically.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, that is interesting. Sometime I'd I'd like to, you know, maybe a different show topic that that we could do sometimes is like managing um this is like a you know the the most fun topic in the world, but to me it is would be like managing like exposure in these in these types of things and and how you think about that, some of like the risk management stuff you and I are doing on um on the PMs. That's a good topic. People would like I think it would be interesting because like you know, I think people like the stories where like stuff goes wrong, and so you have one kind of anti-sweat that could have been bad. Well, I think like each each each uh lens we probably talk about, like some sort of risk management thing is probably because something went wrong before and it's like something we've layered on. So I'd be curious to talk about that sometime. But yeah, the so I maybe I can I can briefly describe like what I was what I was doing. So I was pretty busy the first couple days of the the masters. I I looked around to see what was that what was out there and whatnot. Um but most of the markets that I was seeing was like stuff that was on sports books, and I just figured if it was like on a sports book, like first round leader, obviously like to win. Like if I the way I'm thinking about these, and I I think the conversation we had with Foster honestly was sort of illuminating in this respect. And I've tried to be lean into this a little bit more of like, you know, whatever's like on the live tab to at least check out. And so, like, this is obviously like a really extreme example. I think one of the the things I think basically everybody should be thinking about is like for these huge events on Calci, like the Super Bowl, like the Masters, um to the ext to an extent like the NCA tournament. I didn't think that was that crazy personally, like in terms of like Calji's offering and whatnot. Um, and it's very spread out. But like these these offer, these things where like everybody's trading it. I think there's just good opportunities and they put up markets that like aren't really on other places necessarily. Because by like round two and onward, there was stuff that at least I like very very quick look didn't see like readily available, like something like there's certainly like round leader, I think, in like round two and stuff. And you could tell me if I'm wrong here, but like Calge had stuff like top 10 in like by the end of round two and whatnot, which was at least on like quick look of DK and FanDuel, I didn't see. Um, so there's like some more interesting, more interesting stuff. There's like whole score stuff. So by the last day, I did have some time and was planning on watching. So I fired up like some garbage, you know, half originated, half um. I love this. Whole sports? You know, like I have my own, you know, for other stuff, other sports I do, because this is the way I think about it. Like you have like your source of numbers for any of this stuff for prediction market, whether that's your own numbers or top down or you're pulling from somewhere or whatever, but then you have like your logic of how to interact with the order book. And so, like that second part, I you know, you can port over pretty easily for most things if you think it's good and make some tweaks specific to the market. Um, so basically pulled that over and then like you know, basically just grabbed like last round last round scoring distributions for like the past whatever five years, um, and just like tried to look. And I'm like, okay, the pins generally seem like they're in the same place to do some hold by holds.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

I was gonna ask, I was wondering if you because Augusta has like the biggest pin effect.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, so originally, originally I just like you know, grabbed the whole tournament and I'm like, oh wait, I remember I don't know what this is at par three late in the round. Yeah, where it's like always trickling to the hold. So I'm like, okay, I definitely need to account for that. So then I just grabbed like the last round stuff and tried to like come up with some scoring distributions because they had whole scores on and I didn't see them at all until the last round. Maybe they were up and I just didn't see them, but they had whole scores like for the last round for some of the leaders. I think it was like Scotty, Cam, Young, Rory, and Burns. And so, and I noticed like when I looked in the morning, they were like super wide. Yeah, um, so I'm like, okay, I could probably do more narrow than that. I put them up. Only only fills I could get were on uh no birdie, basically. So I don't know if that was my prices were garbage, or that's just anything that people want to bet on. Yeah, like if I got a ton of no par or no, I would have been like, wow, these prices gotta be really bad. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

No par would be hilarious, or like yes par. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're getting, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

So I was like, I I didn't, I wasn't sure. They're probably still bad. Um, I think some of the I realized like halfway through the round that um the books were like having some of this up live and whatnot. So like I could I probably could have used like I could have anchored to prices better that way. Um, but I was just really trying to get get stuff up, and you know, honestly, I think it went okay. I think like the first the the challenge was I think I got was so totally overweight on the first couple holes. I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Um what sorry I I've just I I think this is like so interesting. So did they have every hole?

SPEAKER_02 21:22

They had every hole in Cal Shape. Okay. But when I looked, so when I looked at at least when I looked briefly at draft, and I don't you know peruse the golf menus, so I could not be looking at the right place because it's confusing because it's like some of it's a confusing menu, yeah. Some of it's live and some of it's pre-game. So I when I looked, all that DraftKings had DraftKings FanDuel and like all the other books I look at, they had up was like the first th maybe four holes. And so I wanted to get you know something priced out for everything. So I basically just ignored that and and built, you know, like my own thing. And then, like I said, like my the the way it interacts with the order book, you know, has some protections and what. Not to to make sure I'm not like out in left field. But um yeah, they had every hole. They had every hole, but I I I posted maybe they only had they had every hole for the like the four golfers I talked about who all teed off around two. And uh I post I got it up and running maybe about something like 10 a.m. And uh and I'd say the vast majority of my action was was before they teed off. So I had like a solid amount on the first three holes, and some of the dirty holes, like the the par five, two bet on. One was kind of I think it was seven. Also, people really wanted to bet on.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

I guess the pin was the seven had the easy pin, yeah. So wow, interesting. Some sure yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

So I mean, I definitely I don't I think I was probably getting you know pretty I think it was like five.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

I'm sure you were winning.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I'm sure if you were only getting no birdie, like I'm sure there's almost no way you were that feels like the side you would want to be on, so that's why I don't feel that bad about it. But um, yeah, I think Scotty birdied the first hole, which was rough. I think Burns birdied the first hole. He did, which was then he he helped you out. He doubled the the thing is I probably had more total shares on the first hole than I did anything else every other hole combined. Um I think interesting. So or the first three or so. So it wasn't you're right, it wasn't all all bad. Uh like net net. I don't exactly know where it came out, but like I I'm quite confident my biggest position was Scotty, no hole one by like a considerable amount.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

What a bastard.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

He always do you know how you head width affair of that is?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Uh we can talk after. No, I mean I mean, obviously Scotty. So I know it was playing a little easier, so maybe uh maybe he was like 18, 20, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Okay, I definitely got it. If that's the case, I that's yeah, I agree. I think I had it in I I think I was buying like in the 70s something. Like, no. Oh wow, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

That's good. That that's obviously good. Yeah. No, I think I so I was wondering about I think whole schoolers are are cool, like people would want to bet on them um as they come up. So like you got the first, you got a lot of action on one, probably because like that was the next hole that you're gonna play. And then it's like people would be people want that like quick bet.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

And a whole school is gonna happen. You you just sort of like I you could if I just looked at my cal she like orders, I knew what hole everybody was on. You know, I mean part of it is like is canceling, but yeah, it was just like all right, we'll miss it on the eighth, we'll get it back on the ninth. I'd be a good uh sorry, go. I was gonna say, I think it would have been better. Did I don't think they had them up all weekend? Someone can tell me if that's wrong, but I I'm pretty sure they only had them up the last round.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah, I I know I remember them going up some point during the tournament. Okay, but we didn't like we were just kind of all over the place. So but I I I don't think it started they started up. I remember I went through the menu at the beginning of the week. I don't think they were there. They had a big round score list, though. They had like everybody's round score. And it's funny because like round score was probably the prop when we were taking that, or not even definitely the our our high like the most money we made on any one market was round score when we were taking. But it's such a it's such a hard market to make because of that. Like you just remember you're like, yeah, like our ROI was like 14%, like, and it's not it's just like a really hard market to make because anytime like some information comes out about the course, you just get hit on everybody, so or like somebody who's doing a good job will just kind of hit you on everybody, like um, and so yeah, we were I was like, so you'd think like, oh, that's like one of my favorite markets, but they posted and I was like, no, not today, not today, Satan.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's why I tried to pick ones that because the thing is with with these big events and why I think it's really important to be in there, is like there's so many, and this is just like a broader point that I I'm I I think I'm noticing in the prediction markets is as the number of markets increase, like people have to put up the money, right? At least right now, to like to take the other side. And some of these markets are like very expensive to to put up. Because another one I had noticed was like stuff like top 10, like in a round or something, like to end round three in the top 10. I'm like, if you actually wanted to book that and you're like you, for example, like you probably have a ton tied up in just like the other stuff. And this one, like each site is probably different, but I believe I don't, I'm not 100% sure in golf, but like I'm guessing round two, top 10, it doesn't like net properly. Yeah, so like you're just gonna mean like it doesn't count, like you can't, it'll you have to put up enough money for everybody, right? Assuming you can lose every single market, and so it's just like very capital intensive. And so some of that was interesting to me where I like some of those where it's the capital intensive ones are obviously like a double-edged sword, because on one hand they're capital intensive, and so maybe that's not the best use, but I think there's like a uh there's a premium then on your you, you know, you you can achieve a higher return because I think a lot of people who are doing this really seriously like don't want to put all their money into these really capital intensive markets because then it can't turn over and do other stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

So no, you're I I think that's another good topic, like being capital efficient in predicts. Um, because you're spot on, like we actually like our the first thing we turn off whenever we feel like we're you know need cash is all of the top end stuff we call them top end markets, five, ten, twenty, because they don't net, right? But the outright and the first round leader net. So we net those are always like full go. Um, and I think somebody had a question about uh tying up money, booking no. We uh we can get to that, or we can say it now, but what what happens if you're betting no winner? If you bet, you know, you you basically you only have to post the max amount you can lose. So like let's say you had a a bet on, you bet no on Rory, Scotty, and Cam Young. Basically, what it does is like you calculate the situation of if Cam wins, you lose the Cam bet, but you win Scotty and Rory, and then do that for each of the three, and whatever the highest number is, that's how much capital you actually have to put up, which is lower than any of the individual bets. But it's just like what's the max your your portfolio on that market could lose at the moment. And that is like the biggest thing with why golf outrights and and round leaders is so nice, um, because you can trade so much volume compared to your bankroll, because you know, theoretically it could be infinity volume compared to your bankroll, as long as you're balanced enough, right? Like, so um, yeah, I think I think that's so so booking knows is capital intensive. It's funny, it's like on your first one, it's very capital intensive, but it it makes you it makes it smart to keep gambling.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yeah, I have I have some not golf, but I have some some sports and things where I'm doing where it's similar, where it, you know, it nets out. And um recently I got hit with like 70k shares all at once of something. And I'm like, well, I think that could be bad, but now all that means I gotta get 70k shares of everybody else, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, now we now it's the responsible thing to do is gamble more.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah, right. It's like, all right, you gotta line up and get uh a bunch more. So um yeah, I think it would be nice if more it I you know if if the calcium folks are listening, like it'd be really nice if the top I think you get a lot more liquidity and stuff like top three, top five, top ten, top twenty, if they netted to, you know, it doesn't seem like that much harder to add three people together rather than just like one, but um right.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Like what's the worst case scenario for who gets top three? If like all of the top three guys get top three, how much you lose? That's your new thing. Yeah, that that would be a good fix. I think that's a really good idea. Um, the last thing I wanted to talk about in our masters experience before, there's a lot of masters-related questions, so we'll hit those before the news, then hit the other questions, but is um like having your own numbers. So golf is a sport that we have our own numbers for. We we've done it for a while. Um and I've always been kind of going back and forth on whether like I think having your own numbers is super valuable right now in prediction markets. I've I think it's less valuable than having like great tech skills and trading skills at the at the moment, but I do think it's still very valuable. And I think this week kind of highlighted it where there's a lot of uh I would I my guess is like institutional participants in the masters, so you know, your financial firms, job sick, whatever, coming in. And it became pretty clear, like they did a really good job, I felt like in the order book and like being uh like sneaky and tricky and efficient. I've learned a lot, honestly, from watching the order book with them, but they did not have their own opinion. Um, and there that were there those were basically the times where we would be able to take really big in certain spots is like they wouldn't um they kind of yeah, they'd kind of leave something kind of leave something up there that was in our opinion like way off and and we could take. So I do think like there is I'm higher on the value of an opinion after this week because having a good opinion really like uh reigns in the other market participants and it makes them like it makes it a lot riskier for them to quote really big size. So you're able to kind of like police the order book a little bit more, but uh or battle or whatever it is, but it does it kind of gives you that extra umph when you're uh market making. Like you'd think like I think there is some uh a place for being a selective taker and uh you know kind of obviously combining everything together is all really good, tech and all of this. Um, but I'm higher on value of opinion. I'm I think there's a huge gap in like trading ability between us from the sports world and and those people, like that became clear to me, but I do think like the opinion is the weapon that we have right now.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

That makes sense. Let's get to some of the masters' questions um because we got a bunch of them. So I'll I'll combine a couple of these because I think two of these are sort of related and you can talk about them as as you want. So the first one from Fois, data golf seemed higher on Sam Burns and the market going into Sunday. Do you think they're not accounting for his in, or do you think they're sort of a double negative? Do you not think they're accounting for his inability to handle pressure? Was the first question. And then I'm gonna lump in the other data golf question from Young Bender. The data golf model is generally bearish on Scotty compared to the market. Do you think this is a function of public money coming in on popular players or systemic issue with data golf's model?

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Uh so to foe's question first. Yeah, I think it's hard to say. I think pressure is like a very interesting um pressure is like a one of the ultimate small data problems. Because like even someone like Scotty Scheffler, how many rounds under I mean, he he's kind of he's unique. So if you remove Scotty, most golfers have um very few rounds under Sunday pressure and few, way fewer under Sunday pressure at a major. I mean, like maybe I think maybe what uh Foes is referring to is Sam Burns' uh round at Oakmont when he had the lead on Sunday and kind of kind of fell apart. Um yeah, I think I think it's it's there's possibly a little bit of uh more nuance to be had. I mean what Datagolf does really well is like has something really robust that's generalized to like you know, generalized to the PGA tour player, but the man like there's some manual adjusts that we made during the week that were probably the biggest source of disagreement between us and data golf. And I'd say like generally when we would manually adjust, we'd end up closer to the market than Datagolf. So like it seems like there's other people kind of going that way. So I think there's definitely signal in the market um compared to Datagolf. Like that's important to look at. And the same thing kind of goes for Scheffler, but it's different. So Scheffler on uh PMs is just the he's the scary, he's like Freddie Krueger, he's the scariest thing on the planet because you put up an offer, you'll get filled unlimited amount of Scheffler. No, there's no end to it.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

As SP learned about yeah, I got my I was gonna say I I got dabbled my first uh golf streets, and I immediately got the you know taste of that. So yeah, I can attest.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

It's like a magic effect, like it's just like I I can't even explain the the difference. So I think like a lot of the pricing um is is it's kind of a little softer because like people can only compete and be top of the book on Scheffler for so long until they've they've had their fill. So I think it's a lot um a lot harder to be really aggressive opinionated on Scotty, and most people are are maybe juicing his price a little bit because of the amount of of wreck action. But I will say like we've broadly been higher than data golf on Scotty, and like this year, you know, didn't pay off as much. Last year we were out the Scotty train pretty hard. Um I don't know. You know, I think it kind of goes back to when you have these players who are um in these situations, like Sam Burns in the lead, or like Scotty by far and away you know, the best player that we've seen since Tiger, like the the manual stuff becomes more impactful because like Burns' win probability going to the last round is quite high no matter what you make his skill level. So like if you change his skill a little bit, that has a big percentage change in his win probability. And the same goes for Scheffler um just anytime. Like Scheffler's win probability going into Harbor Town or whatever is quite high. So even having a bit of a different opinion means a pretty big difference um in win probability. So I'd say that yeah, I don't know. I'd say that the Scheffler thing is a combination of both, and the Burns thing is probably just you know, kind of a trade-off that Datagolf has to make by being more robust instead of like a little bit more tailored to uh certain players or situations.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yeah, the the pressure thing always seems interesting to me. It seems like a um it seems like one of the areas where like the analytics people or whatever like will give an answer that's gonna rub like the normal person the wrong way because they're gonna be like, we can't measure it, we can't include it, or something like that. Um, when it's very evident to like watching a lot of times, like it seems or it seems very evident.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

It definitely matters. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Like it's clear that it matters. I don't know. So it's like uh, you know, that's like one of the areas where you know, hand in the dirt and and having a model or something, model or something that can be adjusted is is probably beneficial and not like so rigid.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, pressure is pressure is also that thing where people are like, oh, he can't win or he sucks under pressure. Like people would have said that about Scotty, you know, right before he won, but then it's like all of a sudden like he's great under pressure. So you also have to like kind of be quick with your updates. Like you can't just like have this like long, you know, baseline that like gently builds or whatever. Like it's um it's a really difficult problem. Like, certainly one that I we don't handle like close to optimally, but like it is because you're it also impacts these big spots, like people who have like 30-40 percent win probability in final rounds, like the rewards are high for solving that problem. So if people are out there looking for a good golf problem, I think that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

So I think we talked about the opportunity cost of both sides, and maybe we could talk about that more. Like if we did like the risk management type pot. Let's go to uh BDJ. I'm not you know, that's it's we're gonna keep it PG on the name. Um we'll go to BDJ. And he asked about the difference in price or fees for Betfair compared to Calci.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah, he retweeted a post from like board sports or something. But it was like showing two screen two screenshots of uh one was of Betfair's ladder and one was of Calchy's um, you know, whatever order book. And it was something along the lines of like McElroy on both, and you know, you could buy it was almost an arb, not including fees. Like McElroy, you could get a better price to buy, I think, on Call She and sell on Betfair. And I mean, this could be like an impact of obviously Rory's gonna be more popular, like have a more like more emotional support in the UK, which is where Betfair uh operates. So like it could be the Scotty Scheffler effect of like the US, where like you just you just have to like pinch his odds a little bit on the on the no. Um or it could just be uh what I what I saw was the difference in volume. Like the Betfair book had like something like 10k, 12k on the bid and the ask, and the call she book had like two million, like three million. So it's like you know, that that's a situation where um you know feels like the right price is probably call she at that at that uh at that size. So that could be a difference between the the prices. Like I just think like Betfair could be a little bit more inefficient there for two reasons. One, there's less men money offered, and two, like Rory's probably taking more action on Betfair than um he is on Calci. I don't know the difference in fees, like I don't know the Betfair fees, I'll be honest. Um, I know their ladder is kind of weird, like how many, like how they do ticks, because they do the ticks by the decimal odds, I think, instead of like by percentages. So I don't know if that like I don't know how that like actually like I've I'd have to go and like lay out a a a bet fair tick ladder compared to like a call shoe one, but there could be something there. Um I don't know. Do you know how they how they do their tick sizes?

SPEAKER_02 43:12

No, I have no idea. Yeah, there's enough tick size conversation as is I don't need to go across the pond to also talk about tick sizes. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

But yeah, I don't know. It it seems like it's it's kind of like a you know, you got your home home team bias and and maybe some lower liquidity there.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Okay, a couple couple more and then a couple fun masters, more fun masters ones. Um was there this one from Brooks asking about like court siders at the Masters and there being no phones. So was this like a beautiful, beautiful thing for the Masters having their phone?

SPEAKER_01 43:45

I said to the I said to on our call like before the week, I said, you know, one nice thing about Augusta is they don't let people bring their phones in. So, you know, we can uh we can maybe be a little bit more liberal with our. Quoting. So it was certainly something like we considered and were thinking of. The problem is the data from the masters is really slow compared to like other PGA events. So there's times when we could have gotten court-sided from somebody watching like the right feed, basically. Um so I would say it was more of an issue uh than I thought it was gonna be. But it should just be. Yeah, yeah. Scotty hit that shot around the tree or whatever it was, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

So I I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I thought I felt like the it was clunky, like the data is a little clunky this week. Uh I would say.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

We have just a couple questions. It seemed like the whole thing was clunky. Like what was going on with the the broadcast? It was a disaster.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

This was a bad year for the the broadcast, and it's certainly been brought up. Uh Kevin Kisner kind of laid into them too, and he's a broadcast guy. But uh yeah, I don't know. The broadcast was really bad. You would basically go to stuff where you knew what had already happened, um, based on like because it had happened like two minutes ago, and there you heard cheers or whatever, you missed shots. I mean, missing Roaries on 18 was crazy. Burns, you missed the whole second hole where he was just like out in the woods, and they're like, you're like, oh, he's actually putting for double. You're like, what? Um, yeah, it was it was it was the website was kind of I think it the website was kind of bad this year, and usually it's great. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure that Augusta will fix it together.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Yeah, yeah. All right, one one last one, uh, and then and then well, I guess we have a couple more here from Mike. Um, question on Brayson's 3D printed clubs. Is that gonna be a a plus-minus strokes gained over time?

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Uh I'm not uh I'm not smart enough to to answer this question.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

You're not printing the clubs, your own clubs in the uh garage to try and get to scratch at some point if it if it helps.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

If it gets desperate enough, you'll do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

I don't know. I don't know anything about like physics and you know, like metals. Um, but my guess is like it feels bad to be printing your clubs. Like, I don't feel like there's a like a robust, like um like a quality control process there, but I don't know. That's just my my guess is maybe slightly bad, but I don't know. What do you think? Like, just like off the top of your head.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

I I just feel like it can't be a good use of his time. Like that's probably true. Yeah, like I there's there's almost certainly higher leverage things I'm guessing he could do.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

I agree.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

So all right, from Dustin, how much of the master's volume do would you think was like retailed? And we sort of got a question, we got some comments back and forth about this. I think we have a question later on about like sharp takers and how much they contribute. So I'm curious, like, was it basically all retail? Do you think?

SPEAKER_01 47:38

For you know, for in terms of taking or yeah, in terms of take, if you split this into taking, I would say I would say like compared to a normal event, it was it's funny, like maybe the percentage was less retail just because you can have some really big clicks from uh betters, like sharp takers on this on this event compared to others where you wouldn't really have as many. Um yeah, I would say yeah, I don't know, maybe I think what that guy said in the we'll get to it, but like what Jay Dougie said about 35 or 30 being sharp, like maybe that's a bit high, but maybe like 2025. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Like Desi Scent if it changes it at all.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, I Desi Sent it goes up, like there's more sharp taking under Desi Scent for sure.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Okay, and then the last question, the most important question of the masters. Every year it goes around, you know, like would you win the masters if you were on the green? You started on the green, furthest part of the green, and you know, you you you just started from there. Um, and H mass bets asked, How much is a bankroll would you put on yourself to win the masters under those circumstances where you're at the farthest part of the green on each hole at plus 250?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah, so I checked with my team, and everybody's approved of the full 100% bankroll nuke plus loan. So like I tweeted this out being like, This is so stupid, and I I won't get on the soapbox for too long about this, but it's so dumb. Like, like people like so people are like, oh, the furthest part of the green. Yes, you're gonna start on a flat part of the green, and the pin is gonna be on a flat part of the green in a legal pin location. Your ball is sitting in a spot where it can't just start rolling. So the furthest part of the green also doesn't consider that like the furthest part on like 12 or 15 or all these like hard greens that roll into the water is always gonna be putting across the green. So you're not putting into the water. So there's just like all these considerations. Um that like I think this to me is my my biggest test yet of like like just truly not gonna make it. Like if you really believe that like a single digit handicap couldn't win the masters, star in the green, like you're into the realm of like magical thinking.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Well, you just put a big, big qualifier in there that is important, like the single-digit handicap. Yeah, I I so like you no doubt, like you you clearly are gonna do this because I did the math. What you you basically have to like three point seven five putts.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Because like, you know, you could go 16 under, and that's not like a lock, you win, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Yeah, there's a there's a year or two you would have lost, but in those years you'd probably have less less puts.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

So like I I would take the bet, I'd probably go full, you know, everything I'm worth and loan too, but like I'm not sure. Yeah, like if someone like like I sort of have golf throughout my life, I'm I'm not gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

I would bet on you still, as long as I got to be your caddy. Well, that's even fine.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

Am I I haven't played a good round of golf in like over six months. Am I just like walking out there and playing?

SPEAKER_01 51:02

You get to practice, you get to hit practice butts on the green, but you can't play the course, or you can't put on the course, but if I would still yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Two rounds of golf anywhere, even like not I I would absolutely take myself. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Because I think the addition is like who would you just have to think about it? You have to consider like what you're actually trying to do, which is exactly what you said, is like what is your actual target number of putts. And what you need to do then is not aim at the hole on your first putt sometimes. You have to lock up a four every time you step on the green, and then you'll be fine, and you can do that, but you just have to go into the green and think for 30 seconds of like how can I lock up a four, aka how can I, when I hit my first putt, not have it roll a hundred yards into the faraway, and then once you figure that out and you're fine, you're fine. You there's uphill putts at Augusta, it's like a golf course, like it's it's it's not like it's not like like some like video, like some like unlocked level and like Super Mario that's like impossible to beat. Like it's a golf course, they play golf.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

It's grass, it's not like it's grass putting on marble, you know. Like it is, it is grass, like right.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

So like this to me is like I think the biggest this is the test. Like, if you really believe that that can't be won. And I've seen like people who are kind of intelligent say the single digit handicap, or who I thought before were kind of intelligent, say the single digit handicap couldn't win.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

And I well, so I'll I think single digit is like a lock. I think like 10 to 20 is not a lock, but extremely likely. Yeah, and like basically anybody with a handicap, I think, is extremely like if someone hasn't played golf in like five years, 10 years, I don't think it's a lock. I really don't know.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

There there's people out there that I would not bet on this for. Yeah, and I think there's like some for sure spatial awareness, general coordination um that and like matter, like some restraint and some strategic thinking, like some just probably you know, like you do kind of have to think probabilistically, what are you trying to accomplish? Plan it out, like but yeah, there there's if Augusta wants to um host me before the masters next year, uh happy to happy to do this for you know a lot of money. Happy good content. Should we hit the news? Yes, let's hit the news. Okay, so Ohio. I thought this was funny. Like Ohio introduces they introduced two bills actually, but one of them was the gist of the the one that's more likely to pass is they're banning parlays and prop bets and betting on college sports. So I think it's so funny. It's like we are in the time of like the most competition with the prediction markets. What should we do? You know, let's ban every single thing that people like to bet on.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

These like are so I mean, we joke about it with Massachusetts, who you know, like if I am being charitable, Massachusetts is probably like trying the hardest with some of this stuff as anybody, but like they're just so far behind. Like, that's why this, you know, when we've talked, we've talked about these types of stories for like over a year plus now, basically since we started the podcast. And it's like the idea that these people are gonna figure out like how to you know set like bands of limits and like oh, it need to be five times for like a major market, like these people are not gonna be able to define any of that and like have no idea what's going on. You know, they're they're just so far behind. Um, and like there's no way they like I don't even understand the points of these bills. Like, the it feels like these bills get like brought up in the news all the time. This is probably just like me not understanding like the optics of of politics, but like there's no way any of this is gonna pass. It's like what is what like what are we doing here? Like, why are we coming forward with these like ludicrous proposals? You know, like just yeah, waste everybody's seriously, like signal? I don't really understand.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

Or is it like maybe they have a donor who's uh land-based casino or something? Because the the bill was like especially penal to mobile betting.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Uh but yeah, but like how stupid is the donor if they're like, oh, you know, they're really this is my dollars going to good base, they're putting forward a bill that's like never good. Like, are they that like I'll just do this garbage and get them off my back? Like maybe it is. I I don't honestly know.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

It feels like it can't be efficient. Like the the answer wouldn't be satisfactory to like to us if we heard it. Like I can't imagine it being like a reasonable answer. So anyway, so that that's where the uh that's where the the other half of the industry is. Um, but we can talk about the yeah, the two halves. So Colche joined a self-exclusion service. I forget the name of it now. It's like I think it's called like self-exclude or something. And they are joining it with, I think it seems to me that Polymarket Robinhood and Profit at least will be joining, and maybe there was some recent ads that that I don't know about, but I could imagine like a Novig joining and and and whatnot. But this is a nationwide um exclusion. So if you put yourself on the self-exclude, you are excluded from not just Calci, but Polymarket, Profit, Robin Hood, assuming that they are actually joining. I didn't get the confirmation of that, but uh you know, I I love it, I think it's a good idea. Like I think the the best what we need to do here is to be like, this is a good way to offer sports and just generally like speculating or betting on things, but we're also aware that like this type of product can be addictive, and we're allowed to say that and create a self-exclusion thing without getting like our whole business nuked because the gambling lobby will be like, I told you it's gambling, it's gambling. It's like, yeah, well, like we're doing a better job with it, and like this is part of that. So, you know, I think like having like a day trading self-exclusion list would probably also be kind of smart. Like, like, like I'm all for this. Um, I think it's great. Uh, I don't know. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 57:49

It it poses the age-old question should uh you know, should we allow someone to opt out of you know, truth seeking if they want? Like, you know, given that no, I think this is not like truth seeking. It is it is gambling, and I think it's also great. I I didn't realize it was like across all the companies. Yeah, um, I think that's something that um frankly, like the state model probably does a bad job of. Um, and it being centralized would improve uh if if you opt out of one or like um exclude yourself, like you should be excluded from everything. It seems ludicrous that someone would self-exclude from FanDuel and then go to DraftKings and that, you know, and I know like people like to attack the companies for like, you know, problem gambling and the way they react to it. But like if the alternative is they're just gonna go to your competitor, then like you don't really have an incentive to get people on those lists. I think companies would have much more incentive to get them on the list if they know, yeah, we're loot missing out on them, but also we're not just patent. Like the first person's life's still gonna be ruined by gambling and they're just gonna be at our competitor. Um, so I I think it's I think it's good. I think um they they should lean into this and shouldn't allow the fact that like we're not gambling, like to shy away from it. I mean, yep. I I one time talked to on on Twitter, like DM'd with with um, I won't name names or like a guy who's pretty high up at one of these exchanges. Uh not not one of ones probably people think of, but high up at an exchange. And you know, he had made the claim like nobody would have a problem with problem gambling if margins were really low, like zero margins. And that's like an issue that gets conflated all the time is like yeah, like gambling problem has to do with the margin of the product. And I just like could not disagree with that more. Right. Like a zero margin product, there would still be people who totally destroy their life gambling, or a positive margin, like Kelly exists, right? Yeah, like there's there's those experiments where they um it's like a coin flip that's that pays out, it's like five percent EV, and like a quarter of the people go bus, you know, like people would ruin their life, like positive. So um, yeah, exactly right. So I I think that sort of thinking is really bad if people are thinking that way, of like we just get the margin down to zero, and then nobody's like, you know, nobody cares about problem gambling anymore. I think that's so wrong. And so I think uh I think this is a good step in the right, right direction here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

I saw one uh pushback of like I think it was uh I I forget who's who, like who kind of is representing which uh side, but I think it was someone from the sports books side, but it was like, yeah, if you do a national self-exclusion list, like people are less likely to exclude. Well, yeah, because if they were on the non-national, they exclude from one, knowing they can just go gamble at another. That's like what at least this works, like the stupidest thing I heard, um, besides the masters uh thing this whole week.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

I I I honestly think, you know, with when we had Alex on, I think his idea was like obviously like never get I did that, it's never gonna happen. I honestly think like you know, some people should be putting their heads together about other ways of that that people could get on the self-exclusion list besides just just themselves. I know that's a very, very tricky problem for a variety of reasons, but um that's that's sort of funny that you know we don't want to discourage people because they can just go to a different site, you know. Ours, you know, they don't they don't feel the punishment of doing ours because there is no punishment.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

There is no punishment, so they'll do it more. Like, yeah, no fucking shit. That's that's crazy. It's like business tries to make money breaking news.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

Um speaking of Alex, like I don't know if you follow like on Twitter, he has all these great like solutions. He'll like he'll always like reply to like certain things with this like really creative solution that will never never like get put into work, but it like you can't argue with like its effectiveness. Uh so that's one of my favorite parts of Twitter right now. Um okay, so US judge basically so Arizona had gone after, I don't even know if we cover this or not, but they had gone after Call She in like the normal ways, but also like tried to bring some criminal prosecution against them. And basically uh a circuit judge or district judge blocked this attempt, and Callshi can you know continue to operate in Arizona for now. Uh yeah, I think it's just like kind of the current, it's always ups and downs, but like Cauchy and the PMs are kind of riding the upwave right now. It feels like it's all been kind of settling in their in their favor in the courts.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Yeah, I mean, this honestly has some similarities to that bill of like that we just talked about on Ohio. Like, I don't know why. Like, this is clearly not a criminal criminal issue. Like, right. I think anybody with a brain can and eyes can see that. So, like, I don't know why they're wasting their time, effort, tax dollars, all this on like garbage like this. Like, fight it in the courts, like right, like where it's actually gonna be determined, and we all know this is gonna be determined.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Take it to the Supreme Court, just wasting time on this.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Like, what I mean, there'd be good memes if like uh, you know, the the the Calci founders were like behind bars or got perp walked or whatever. Like that would be I'm not saying I want that or whatever, it would be funny for a little bit, but um it's always tiger. Don't waste your time with that, and like you know, your constituents' time and tax bellaries and stuff. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Yeah, it does feel like a semi-emotional, like instead of practical.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:59

It's it seems like like a scare tactic, or you know, like trying to intimidate right instead of.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

What are they gonna do? Stop running call she like they raised all this money and have like 20 billion valuation, all this backing. They're not gonna be like, oh, okay, we're actually quitting culture now. Like that scared me. Like they're in, they're pot committed, like it's not right. It's kind of it. Um, this was just before we recorded, but I saw Elizabeth Warren tweeted um that she was gonna be pushing for an investigation into insider trading on the um Iran missile strikes. And like yeah, I like this is the this is kind of the one to me, like um issue that needs to be dealt with on this. I know the CFTC is like really hands-off, but there there's going to be a breaking point with like the insider trading stuff, and it's a really bad look for the industry. And like there's a there's a lot of uh you can borrow a lot of insider trading like regulations and whatnot from obviously you're gonna have to tailor like the definition of insider a little bit, but uh, and it's not a easy, it's not an easy thing to solve. Like we've talked about why it's like not necessarily like incredibly easy to solve, but yeah, there's this is always gonna be the thing that like these polit these mainstream politicians are gonna, you know, the ones who actually like are thinking about something like reasonably, like I don't like that's a reasonable thing, like to say, like, hey, look, like there's clearly like somebody like somebody bought a ton of like us bombing Iran and then we bombed them. Like, I don't know if I like that. It's hard to argue, like, no, that's that's great, like that's really, really good. Um, it it it let Iran know we're gonna bomb them. So like like there's No positive from this, so it's like I think this does need to get reined in. Obviously, it's a complicated problem, but in my opinion, like this is kind of the one bugaboo right now. Like stuff's going well, but like this is gonna be the thing that keeps popping up because it's gonna grab headlines. Like you know, it's it's obviously like interesting, and people are gonna have their own opinions of like what this looks like. Like, oh, some shady insider. Like this is gonna the the image and the thing like people are gonna paint in their head is gonna be way more nefarious than I think like what's actually going on. So it's it's just something where we gotta start. There does there does need to be some insider trading crackdown.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

I think you nailed that. I think the the insider trading thing is like the the true fly in the ointment with the whole prediction. Like if I see a path, you know, two years from now or whatever, when this is getting argued in the Supreme Court and all this stuff, like the narrative, I'm not saying that's what the Supreme Court's gonna consider or whatever, but like the narrative of why prediction markets are bad and like the public sentiment and like what politicians are gonna talk about is gonna be this. And so I've been saying, like, you got two years to to lock in if you're you're these companies. Like, I would be very wary of posting anything that could have insider trading with any materiality. So like I would just steer clear of like any of this stuff. If that means less money today, like in my opinion, Cal Shee, Polymarket, if they survive, you know, five years, they're gonna be all everybody's getting involved is gonna be richer than they know what to do with. Um, the the the way this ends poorly is like greed and excess, and like we got to acquire every single customer today, and we have to have every single ridiculous market today. Um so yeah, I I mean, like I would drop the because they sort of have two arguments about it when this comes up. One, you know, like on one hand, they say we're doing all this stuff to stop it. And I think like that's decide to lean into the part they need to stop talking about is like, well, actually, you know, insider information, like or insider trading gives us information, and like who knows if it's who knows what insider trading really is, and like, you know, like just you need to stop that. Nobody Yeah, get rid of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Start working on the thing that's not that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

Just just that was like a good bit for a little bit, but that has run its course. Um, and and you know, like sort of like the this isn't gambling, like just you know, sort of let that die and focus on the other aspects. This whole like like uh yeah, I mean, it's it's it's people here inside and trading, and like you're not gonna convince people it's it's it's actually good. It's like trying to convince people that stealing is okay. Like their whole lives, they've had a negative connotation around that. They're not, you know, like it's just not gonna happen. So just focus on like, no, we stop it, and and don't offer markets where like every time I'd be putting up a market, if I was Calci at this point, I'd be like, is this market gonna be like New York Times front page at any point? If yes, I'm not putting this up.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

That that that's the that's the that's exactly right here. And I think that there's a big line because it's like the um Cardi B or whatever Super Bowl ones, like that to get press, but I cannot imagine like Elizabeth Warren like tweeting out about the Cardi B market.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

No, no, those are like those are like those have other reasons I probably wouldn't do them, but like in terms of insider sharing, like fine, but like sensitive political stuff and yeah, you know, business stuff. I risk it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Think about what the risk, the actual risk is on that, like what you're making compared to what you're risking. If you're you're sitting in their shoes, it's like ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Like, you no need, no need. What how much fees do you generate from the the I'm sure that was a big market, obviously, like because it's something that happens.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

I think it's probably fees. I think there's like probably true zealots in the company who have to come to the realization that that believe, like, this is why we started this company to provide information on what's happening in the world and the economy and politics.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

Wrong. Now it's to make money.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:14

That's what the money's for, sir. Get back to work, you know. Like that that is um that is what I think is happening, right? Like, I don't think it's a conscious fee. To some extent, it probably is like a marketing thing, but like like the Cardi B thing or whatever. Yeah, like this other stuff, there's no way anybody, you know, like can look at the fees and and downside and make sense of it. So it's just gotta be like like you just gotta lock those zealots in a room for like five years, and maybe they can come out at that point. But until then, like we're doing sports.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

Like, how long can the zealots stay in the room? Like, over right. So, yeah, yeah. I think you're yeah, I think yeah, it's important. Like, that's something like anytime I see somebody like super mainstream tweeting about PMs, it's usually not good. So, like that obviously will never be will shift majority good, I don't think, but like we could get a bit better of a a ratio than we have right now. Um, FanDuel CEO, so you you added this. I actually didn't see this. Um, PMs said PMs give us an opportunity to safely reach consumers where sports betting is illegal.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:22

Yeah, I just thought this was funny. I I I I'm envisioning, I I want to get like fast forward to the world where you know FanDuel, DraftKings, and these other companies who just want to offer sports betting and just like just sports betting um in the way that they offer sports betting currently are like in these states. And I am excited for the next wave of um, you know, CFTC prediction market bickering to be like, well, these guys aren't actually an exchange. Like you need to do something about this, you know, like because you know, there's no the just like with limiting and all this stuff with regulations, like there's no way the government is gonna be able to, or regulators or whatever, is gonna be able to like come up with sensible rules about what constitutes an exchange. Like you can just structure your fees or like you know, uh incentivize market makers in a way such that like you're basically booking all the action. And like is that really like the the zealots of the world that work at the Calesh's the polymarkets are not gonna be happy about that? And it's gonna, you know, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

That's where I need the zealots to kind of campaign for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

Well, I mean, I I think it's to me, I think it's good if you know you have both models and they can compete and whatnot. But um yeah, I mean, obviously, like we we both would have a vested interest in like having open markets. Um But it'll be you know, it'll be interesting because I think I think that'll change the um tone of the conversation when you have, you know, like a effectively just pure sparks book, like where it's it's just a sparse book. There's no like yeah, like it's extremely challenging to place a limit order or impossible. Like what is the are they gonna like regulate that you must allow like API access and this is what it looks like, and there's gotta be limited, like they're just never gonna do that. There's like one guy that works at the CFTC, like he's not gonna draft up that language, I don't think. Um right. So it'll you know, it'll be like a game of regulatory capture uh in the next couple of years if if is if it just keeps going, of like who can win that over.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

Yeah, yeah, I think that'll that'll probably you're right. I think that's gonna start to become the new uh friction point, the new battle. You know, it does feel like again, these all change on a dime, but it's starting to feel like to me the PMs are that path is starting to win like pretty handedly the last couple weeks. I mean, this is all this is all back and forth. I can't wait till two weeks from now.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Yeah, we're like it's all over.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:07

But uh anyway, yeah. So anyway, yeah, I think you get spotted. I think that's gonna be interesting to see because it's like, well, they're not a true this, they're not true that. I'm gonna be saying that again. I always just lobby in my self-interest, so I'm gonna say certainly not a true prediction market if they're not offering API access in an open order book. Like, come on now. But yeah, that'll be that'll be interesting. Um, yeah, anything else on on the news before the cues?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:33

Uh no, no, nothing else on news.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

Okay, we have a question from Lord of Candy uh asking to break down the decision construct. So just quickly, like the way that Call She and used to offer golf, like I think a lot of this kind of came to the forefront with golf and it was just the masters or whatever. So this is there's this applies to other markets, um, but it was all just by one cent. A cent basically is just one percent probability. So you can think of like a 99 cent contract as something that like is saying it should happen 99% of the time. Um obviously there's fees in there and you know that that changes, but broadly speaking, like each cent is one percent percentage point. You can buy a contract from one cent to 99 cents and they resolve at either zero or a hundred and you make the difference. So if you bet on something, if you buy something for 99 cents and it wins, it sells to 100, you get the difference between the 100 and what you bought it for, which would be you made one cent profit. Decents is basically breaking each cent down into a tenth. So now you can buy something for 99.9 cents. If it sells to 100, you get you don't get one cent, you get 0.1 cent. So that's the big difference. But it, you know, so you break, or you can it basically breaks probabilities down, if you think about from the probability side, into instead of 1%, uh 0.1% changes. Um and I don't, you know, we've kind of talked about maybe the implications here or there. So I don't want to get too into like my opinions on it, but that's just broadly like what it means.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

I think you nailed it. Uh let's go to the next one from Mr. Nobody. Do you think there is a potential for a new type of mover in the prediction market era? Someone with great trading skills that understands how to get down a lot without signaling others on prediction markets and deploys capital for originaires that lack the trading skills as an example. So I I definitely think this uh this is like a skill and there is a potential for this person, this type of person. I think our guest, I don't, I didn't know a ton about him, but I think this is effectively a little bit of um some of what we were gonna talk about. So hopefully eventually we could we could get them on. But yeah, there's like I think there's a bunch of different people and or companies like that are trying to focus on this, like the sort of execution of trades rather than maybe like the the price of trades and sales. I think I said earlier in this podcast, I view like the prediction markets as really two things, like getting the number and then executing the number most effectively. Um, I think in like traditional sports books, it was really like getting the number and then betting the number, which sort of sounds the same, but like the things you need to do in traditional sports book is like not get limited and get accounts and churn accounts and all these things. Whereas in the prediction market, I think it's more just about like the execution and efficiency of like getting best number and getting maximum fill and all these things. So it's definitely a different skill set. Um, and I think like it's it's an area I would be well, I think like everybody, I think it's everybody wants to be like sort of good at this. I think some people are gonna get like very good at this, and that's gonna be like all they do. Um, but I think it's it's beneficial for everybody to have like a little bit of ideas of of how some of this works. Um, because that would just make you better with working, even if you work with other people, of like what what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

Yeah, I love this question because it takes like it takes a role in the sports betting ecosystem. And I where I wanted to go with this kind of was uh Flupp's uh little intro, his intro to Substack. If you got I think he posted it today, um you might have been you might have been at the at the nine to five. I don't know if you read it or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

No, I I read it. I've read it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I read I posted the meme, you know, like you're oh right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:47

You had the best meme. It was like, no, should we stop? No, yeah, that's right. Um, but it's it's kind of kind of what Flop did or does. It's like he was you know one of the best to do it as far as the old uh school version of it, which was making accounts last a long time, um getting in good relationships with people who have good numbers getting down. He talked about kind of working with Kirk on the Novig um posting arbs, so I guess you know, as the intro to exchanges, but I think like that is a still a super important skill, and there's two reasons why it's important. One is it's a different skill than originating, so it's the same as like the sum of the parts, whatever is uh the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The other skill is having a ton of money, like having a lot of money on prediction markets, it's a very important skill, yes, is very valuable. So, like if you're a mover with a lot of money, you understand, and even better if you have some automated ways to do a couple things, and you know, you could you could plug people in to similar uh trading systems, but like that's a huge, huge opportunity for the right person who can you know find somebody who has a good number who might not be or who has a process for generating numbers that will work for you in terms of actually getting the numbers at the right time in the right format um for the right things into your system, or you could do it by hand. And then, you know, they're probably gonna be uh happy to work with somebody who has a bunch of money on prediction markets because the sizes start to make more sense. I think one one reason why like the mover originator relationship wasn't always good is because like oftentimes you would just be able to make more money betting for yourself with most people, like someone like like Fluff obviously like solves that by having a ton of you know, you're getting accounts and getting these big bet sizes and whatnot, but not everybody can do that. But like all of a sudden the math starts to work out where the amount you can get down on prediction markets is huge. So if you're working with somebody who who has the bankroll, it could it starts to make sense for even like a maybe a medium-sized originator to to work with them instead of their on themselves if you're able to bet five, six X, you know what you would you would take. And there's certainly that ability to get filled passively for those those huge sizes. So having that bankroll in today's world is is I think more valuable than it's been.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:35

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you you mostly talked about it through the bankroll like aspect of it. So I really think you could even boil it down to like the the interacting with the exchanges. Like there's even two parts to that. It's like the bankroll part, and then it's like the skills part. Because like when you know when I'm talking about like I think there's there's different people are gonna be better at like like you could give someone the same numbers, basically. Like let's say I had someone has the same numbers on NBA props or whatever, and someone is gonna make like a hell of a lot more money on the exchanges if they like are really good at it than if they're not, and they could have the exact same numbers. So I think there's like two, you know, obviously, you know, the money aspect, but I also think there's like a skill aspect with it, you know, to each exchange and like how to best interact with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

Yeah, and and anything that you build, like you're the mover, but you're building, you know, you should also be building what you can that could be applied to other people who would want to come and work with you. So there's that like there's that leverage effect of like, or like as as SP would say, like almost like that horizontal scaling where once you get one, like you can, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:48

Well, that's that's the thing. Like if you know, for me, like when I was moving over, like I'm continually refining like what I would consider that part of like my calcium um stuff, but like when I have that, I can move that over to something like um whole scores in round four, and I think it can be okay, even with okay numbers, you know. So I think there's like a huge value in getting that part dialed in to how you like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:15

So that's a great question. Thanks for that one. That was that was really good. Um, we have Jack Heavy. Can you come up with any markets that can't be modeled, like one-off mentions, culture markets, etc., where descent pricing makes sense? Yeah, I kicked this around. I was like, well, does it really matter if it can or can't be modeled because of descent or not? And I think like from what I'm seeing is I was thinking of culture markets and some of those Super Bowl culture markets, it's just like the order books are a lot thinner, even at one cent. Um, and if you have a more uncertainty around what a fare is, like people are, you know, people are already gonna be kind of like twitchy in the one cent model and not trying to show too much or get hit or or whatever. So like there's not really a reason to to go to DeScent was kind of maybe where I thought he was going with this question. Um but yeah, I can't really I mean yeah, I can't really think of one like one that would be like a one-off with low liquidity, just because like to me, something that like has maybe like lower liquidity shown, um not maybe volume traded, like you could still have a high volume trade market with like lower liquidity shown. Uh yeah, I can't see those really ever going to des uh having a case to go to Desi Sent because it would just like make the order book even worse.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:51

So I didn't I didn't fully understand the angle the question was coming from, but like would the presidential election not be like an amazing Dussient spot? Because like who's betting on Oprah at one cent? Probably nobody, but who would be betting at Oprah at like one tenth of a cent? Probably more people.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:11

Yeah. So I can probably include that in can be modeled.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:16

Well, that was the other part of the question. Like anything can be modeled. Yeah, right. Like so, like I don't know what what you define as can be modeled, like because anything, like how good the model is, there's probably a finite cap on certain things. Like anything can be.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:32

Um like no semblance of historic data.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:37

Like, how are you modeling Oprah being the president? I don't really you just say no. Right, right. Or uh, you know, the blocker being I think anything where you the way I would think about it is anything where people would be willing to bet at like under a cent, but not at a cent, is where you want descent because it just increases liquidity. So something like a presidential election or anything where there's like actual long shots that people want to bet on, where because the other key part is and maybe this was the hypothesis of the question where then I was reading it. This is sort of what I thought the hypothesis of the question is, is like if you can't model it and it's like these really ambiguous or uh unclear probabilities, like does it really matter if it's one percent or like a fourth of a percent or whatever? Probably not, but like for something like a presidential election, like people understand that the rock is not one percent to become president, but they might be they might not know he's not like one one hundredth of a percent or whatever, you know. So I I I think anything where you like you actually want to you know have people bat on tail outcomes would be like a good good. I I think it's good to have it, makes sense to me to have an anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

Yeah, yeah. Like you could say that for the halftime show too, like Obama to perform the halftime show, like or something. But they're not like listing people like that, right? Yeah, but well, so this is why I don't like I just don't like that price regime because the cost of capital is so high from the maker side that like I would never make Oprah to be president no 99.9. Like I hope.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:24

No, I think the only people who are probably making that are people who can net other positions, yeah, who would net like their whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

Yeah, yeah. So it'd have to be like a winner take all type thing where there's some position netting. Yeah, I think that's probably a good, that's a good, yeah, because you never if you were just laying. So actually I have a funny mass. This is something I forgot I want to talk about, but we I had a big Tiger Woods no position to play the Masters that I started getting pre car crash and then like obviously like added to post car crash. But I I I bought out I bought him to play the masters for a scent. Because it was too expensive to keep the capital tied up. They like didn't settle like when he released his statement or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:07

Yeah, that's the other thing I was gonna say is is about like getting out of positions is so expensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:13

Right now. So it would have been really nice for you to not have to pay one cent and you could have got an outfit.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:18

That's the flip side. That's the flip side. So that that that is the flip side. Um yeah. I do feel like having the netting is is important here, though. Seems important.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:29

Yeah, no, I agree that yeah. Like who's who's gonna tie up their entire bank role for the year on opening?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:35

It's like not even better than yeah, it's not better than doing anything, like literally anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:40

No, no, like the the catastrophic calcium closing risk probably doesn't even spot. Right. I don't I don't know what to I don't think that's a high probability, but yeah. That doesn't matter from a goose. You guys have mentioned how Sharp takers aren't valuable customers.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

That's SP. I'm actually a Sharp Taker now.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:59

As a market maker, isn't a lot of your value to the exchange dealing with Sharp Takers? If exchanges make it very hard to be a Sharp Taker, what do you think the effect on makers is? So I actually think this is a really strong point. Um, and like I I don't I don't know if I've thought about this too much, but when this question was asked, I I 100% agree with it. Is like the whole point, like the service that makers are providing is if you think of like why they're valuable, they're not valuable just because they're putting up lines and taking like volatility from recreationals. Like there's tons of people who would be willing to do that. The reason they're valuable is they're putting up liquidity to please the recreational customers while dealing with the you know the the flies and the gnats of you know the sharp the sharp takers, right? Like that's the service they're providing. Um, so I like I think I've said this a couple of times. Like I I'll speak for myself. I can't speak for GP, you know, like he says bad things about you, Sharp Takers off the pod. But like it's not that like I have any issue with with you like the Sharp Taker crowd. It's that like the the point I was I think when we first talked about it is that the exchanges like probably have the least incentive to please that group, is is all I, you know, is like my only point about it. I don't think they should like I it's not a matter of opinion of like what I think they should be doing or whatever. Just if I was in those shoes, like the Sharp Taker is like always going to be there, like in any market. Yeah, like Sharp Takers are like in you know, credit card point systems and all these, like you can't get rid of the Sharp Taker ever in any system, like someone finding loopholes and trying to exploit them. So that's why like if I was, you know, one of these sites, I would just be trying to to focus resources and efforts on the other groups, because that's like really the lifeblood of the company, in my opinion. But I a hundred percent agree that like the whole like if you if you just if you got like if you could just snap your fingers and get rid of the sharp takers, then at that point the makers are like useless. And if you're Kelchi, you just want to book the action you want to make. Yeah, right. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:17

That's exactly the that's exactly kind of the thought I went through when I when I heard this. Um so a few things. One was there's like the sub that we talked about this, it was like 35% of fees are generated from Sharp Takers or something. And you know what? So I I wanted to touch on that. Like the difference between a fee from a Sharp Taker and a fee from a Square Taker is the fee from the Square Taker is 100% additive to the exchange, where the fee from the Sharp Taker um will essentially like lower liquidity and it's not it's not fully additive to the system. I'm sure it is additive, but it's different than a dollar from a square or a recreational. The recreational dollar is completely um is not like it doesn't, it's it doesn't replace anything. Like the Sharp Taker, the quartz adder, whatever, is gonna now hit the market makers, they're gonna lower um liquidity live, you're gonna lose a little bit of um you know value from recs who can't now buy because the liquidity is a bit smaller, whatever. Like each additional dollar from a sharp taker doesn't add up to one, basically, whereas a rec it does. So that that's a big difference um in like just going based off fees, but I think this point is is spot on. And you know, I mean, as a as a Sharp Taker, like you know, we need to be we need to have some value.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:52

You can't you can't join this this this movement after one week. I'm not I won't allow it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:58

Um okay. No, but but it to be to be serious, like I do think like you know, I think they're I think you should be able to I think you should put something up and you know back your opinion, and and that's important. And the the point isn't just to have like an open feast. I think the the the points where I've pushed back are like on courtsiding. It's like, well, what are we gonna do? Like, you know, it's like I'm happy to put my opinion out there in golf and have somebody hit me for you know a hundred thousand contracts or whatever and like be wrong. And I accept that. But it's like they're like, okay, your your job is now to to deal with courtsiders. It's like, well, that might be your job. Like you might have to put up a delay or the CFTC might have to say you can't bet at games or whatever it is, but it's like that doesn't feel like my job as a market maker is specifically to like deal with courtsiders, but I think in general, like, yes, you need to you need to be willing to uh post an offer and take a bet, and that's it. You take a bet, and there's no whining, there's no complaining, there's no limiting, like whatever. Like you're you're up there and like you're up there and you could get hit, and you're not gonna get the person banned. Like, I don't think anybody should be banned from PMs because they're winning. Taking, like, that's ridiculous. So, like so for me, like I yeah, I don't uh A, I'm not anti-Sharp taking. I'm going to I'm going to revamp my image um to that crowd. But uh B, like I I just the when I'm talking about sharp takers, like I think what SP said is like having you know it's part of your job is to deal with this. And I think just the one the one kind of the one kind of thing that I've been on is court siding where like I I don't think that's my job to deal with personally.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:03

Yeah, no, I I think that's fair. I mean there's if you think of like a financial firm, like is their job to deal with insider information? No. Right? Right. I mean yeah, no, so all right. Next one from Magic's Skull Bus. How much value do you put being direction correct versus just having plus EV at the close? For example, an MLB money line moves throughout the day from minus 130 to minus 150 for the favorite, but no plus EV plays on the favorite and a 4.5% edge on the dog. Do you bet the dog or stay away?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:38

I see. So the dog was like plus 125 and it closed plus 140, and you see that as an edge. So do you bet it? Is that how you were reading this?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:48

I think that's how I would interpret this, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:51

What's your answer? Because I'm gonna copy your answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:54

I mean, these, you know, I think these are good questions. I think the challenge with with questions like this is it's really hard to say, like without knowing these were like a prior on the person's process, I think is really important. Um, like for me, you know, uh unless like for me, unless I'm trying really, really hard and think I'm like doing something really, really good, I'm probably not betting MLB money lines at close, like under any circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:25

So like I I know this could just be like uh an example or whatever, but I think there's just like way more factors than just the line movement and like what your model says. I think it's dependent on how good you think your model is. I think it matters what market we're talking about, how long you've been doing this, what your results are historically. Like there's just far more that that I would personally take into account. Um, so to answer the the actual question, I I wouldn't be betting at the close, you know, like MLB money line, even if I showed like a four and a half percentage, because like I know I wouldn't, me personally, like I wouldn't be spending enough effort to generate an edge that big in a market as competitive as like MLB money lines.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:08

Yeah, it's funny you say that because immediately in my mind I replaced I replaced MLB money line. Because in my mind, I was like, well, obviously you don't bet MLB money line.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

Like I was like, think of something else where like it could move against you by that much and you would still consider it. So in my mind, I was thinking like, you know, we talked about, for example, like golf props earlier. Like there's instances where you know that could happen in a golf prop, and I would be interested. But these are things where like, you know, you could have a 15% ROI, and then if that happened, I would still be like, I don't know. So like even at this, I think like generally, like I'm very anti um kind of loading up there even on the high ROI stuff. But as SP said, there's a lot of variables that go into this, but like if I'm just gonna do like a gut, you know, one reaction, definitely uh passing.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:05

All right, next one was a DFS question.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:07

Yeah, this one let me ask you. Let me ask this because uh do you think DFS and DK will ever evolve? Oh, this is from Jim Viviano. Uh, do you think it'll ever evolve? Just thinking about upcoming NFL. I love DFS and obviously it's fading a lot, but for cash games, it just seems like tossing rake back and forth at this point.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:28

I think did like crazy DFS action from what I saw.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:34

Um yeah, shout out to also uh Nelson uh Attic for Banking the The Millie Maker. He always comments on my golf posts.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:43

So yeah, we'll we'll have to uh potentially get him on the pod sometimes because that would be that would be good. But yeah, it uh congrats to him. But I yeah, the the volume seemed from the people I followed, it seemed like everything filled super early, um, is what I heard. So like I think there's spots where where DFS is still like very popular. I think golf is like one of those spots. I think NFL is like always gonna have a spot. I think fantasy football is just like really fun. And so I think it's always gonna be popular. Like people play their normal fantasy and then it attracts them to like the daily style, too. In terms of like DFS as a whole, cash games, etc. Like I think it's like just a slow march or maybe a faster march to not a fast march to that. Yeah, I mean it's just so many options now, and DFS like has a bunch of things going against it, um, like compared to the the products it's competing against. Like DFS is like extremely complicated for a new person, like to like it's way more complicated than just like going on like prize picks or whatever and clicking three, you know, sides you like, and like you there's no salary.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:00

Yeah, it's like complicated to like be a wreck.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:03

Yeah, exactly. You're like, I want to play these three guys, and you know, the DFS is like, sorry, you're over the salary cap. It's like, what the hell? I just wanted to play those three guys. Like, why is this so difficult? So it's just like not for the new user. So I just never really see new users like there ever being a wave into this with the amount of like products and like um gamification of some of the other stuff that are faster, more exciting, easier, simpler, all this stuff. So um, yeah. I mean, I know there's like a lot of people still playing it, like seriously. Like, I don't I the thing is like DFS, the people who are like competitive there could do very well in a bunch of other things, in my opinion. I think because DFS is like very complicated, um, at least at the stage it's at now. So I don't know. I I I implore more of the DFS people to to go try something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:57

I think they'll have more success in other places, but and I implore them to stay right where they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:04

Well, it is fun. I I mean I I think it's one of the best sweats still, like not even really close. Like it's so much better than like a you know, like anything on the prediction. It's so much better than any like a SGP or something. Like it's it's it's it's still really fun. So I I get the alert from that that aspect.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:23

It was like we talked about it at last masters, but we had the Millie Maker sweat on the ended up getting like eighth or something because Shane Lowry. I went and looked back, Shane Lowry shot at 81 on the last day. That motherfucker. But I saw someone else, he literally screwed over someone else in the Millie Maker this year. It's like I've been there. Um I mean you could you could have like your entire bank role on like you know, prediction market stuff or whatever, but like you'll still find yourself sweating a$300 lineup, you know, like on your uh it was like obviously it's the masters, so we have so I I entered like a couple of lineups in like the whatever thing, like Millie Maker, like the higher stakes Millie Maker, because just because like and I asked you if I thought you thought I had an edge, and you're like, no, and I was like, okay, whatever, we're gambling a little bit, and uh so I don't even remember anything else we had on for that masters besides that Millie Maker lineup. I couldn't tell you one bet that we had, one bet. And I'm sure we had so many bets and opinions, and the only thing I remember from that masters is that Millie Maker lineup.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:33

It's it's it's a fun game still. So I don't think it's ever like gonna be like the big condos, big sports, like it's always gonna be there because it's fun, but um yeah, like the the niche stuff, the cash stuff, like what's the I don't want to speak about it. Yeah, that doesn't seem as much fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:49

No, no, I mean just like go bet like somewhere else, grow up and bet right. Um, okay, this one had a lot of uh back and forth, but yeah, so uh we could, you know, whatever. This is from C Rap. Do you think markets have gotten less efficient since sports betting became widely legal in the US? From personal experience, it seems like major big five leagues in UCL slash UEL. I hope you're including PGA in those big five. Soccer matches have gotten less efficient in the past few years. There's a lot of back and forth. There's like, well, now is it less efficient on Call Shi because you know you have a lot, a ton of wreck action. So like, and it's it's an example of like Scotty Scheffler price is a perfect example. Like Scotty Scheffler's price on Call Shi is is not likely to be his actual price because of all the wreck action you have to absorb on Scotty No, basically. So like there is maybe that aspect in certain spots, but like I would imagine there there feels like just from like a as the smart people would say, like a first principle standpoint, like there's no way it's getting less efficient. Like, I don't know. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:04

Yeah, my I like this would be a case where my prior would be very strong that these markets have not gotten less efficient over like the past eight years or whatever. Um, so I would have to see like overwhelming evidence to make me not believe that. And uh I've not seen that in any of the sports like I'm dealing with, so I would say no. I'm not saying it's like happens in no spots or whatever, but it just like yeah, I think you nail that like the it would just be extremely counterintuitive and against like what what I would think from like a prior. So um yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:42

If you want to hear more, like there's a lot of back and forth on that in the thread. If you want to check it out on Twitter. Um, this is my favorite question. So I love all questions equally, but I love this one more. Top two three books that helped you process as a better slash market maker and one nonfiction book unrelated to betting. So I don't know if how do you want to do this? You wanna each list our four?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:07

Or I can write off mine if you want. Okay, do you all right? So I I wrote down four sports betting books. Oh and then I wrote down a couple nonfiction, a couple fiction. Oh, okay, okay. All right, so I'm gonna add some on the spot. All right. So my four sports betting books um are well, it's actually more because there's some of them are pairs. So both of Ellie Who's books, Beyond the Odds and Conquering Risk, I think are good. Um, I think those help a lot. And I'll try and give a little background for like who they're for or like what what I think they're appropriate for. So I think those ones help um give some really basics about like some of the modeling and like thinking about building numbers. It's been a long time since I read the first one, Conquering Risk. Um, so I don't totally remember what's in there, but I remember liking it when I read it. Um Beyond the Odds, I think is is is the more recent one, and that one um can can help uh with some of the like derivative type calculations, which I think are interesting, um, to sort of get an idea of how numbers are built. So those two um The Logic of Sports Betting and Interception, I think are good books. I'm sure everybody listening to this podcast has heard of those, but those are Ed Miller and David Ow's books. Um, I think those are both good. Um Monte Carlo or Bust is by Joseph Bukdahl, I think is how it's pronounced. That's a pretty good book around um like understanding variants and whatnot. I will warn, you know, I you know, no flame to Mr. Bookdahl. It's a little dry, the book, but it is good, and I think it's important. Um, so I do like that book. And then last book, which it's I I've never heard it like talked about on Twitter, is or whatever, is uh it's called Winning Sports Betting um by the last name is Kanamoto.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:01

That's a really good book.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:02

That's one of the yeah, that one is like an underdiscussed book that I think is is quite good. So um I think that one has a lot of like interesting stuff. Um, so those are my four sports betting books. I guess maybe you give yours and then we can do one.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:17

So I I kind of left. Uh I think like I would obviously recommend if somebody was like, I need one book to learn about sports betting, I would recommend logic of sports betting. I don't, you know, I don't think there's really like one better like catch-all book, but I'm going to exclude, I wanted to kind of go a weird direction. So um there's a good book called Mathletics. I don't know if you've read this book.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:42

I have that book, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:43

Okay. So what I like about mathletics is it's good for people with like ADD because what each chapter is, it's like a different little like sports originating problem. And it's not it's not 100% sports betting focused, although they do have chapters towards the end that are very specific to sports betting, but it's a lot of this is like for people who are interested in originating their own numbers for sports. It takes you through a bunch of different sports um and a bunch of different like ways to evaluate players and all of this, and it's all kind of squeezed into short chapters that have different exercises. So I found that book to be as far as like kind of sparking ideas for originating to be one of the uh the best. The other was okay, so the second book is I forgot the name of it, but it's by Eric Eager and it's put it's football in Python or something. Um, do you know the book I'm talking about? I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:47

I was trying to see if I had it on my shelf down. It's like football analytics in Python.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:51

Yeah, football analytics in Python by Eric Eager and um somebody else. So I'll rectify this absolute disaster of giving them credit in the show notes, maybe. But this is a great book for somebody who's now trying to. I'd say like mathletics was good for sparking ideas and doing short, quick problems. What football analytics in Python does is it just takes you through kind of like the whole book kind of builds on itself and it takes you through some a lot of good work with like databases and using Python for data analytics and modeling and distributions and and all of this stuff, and it it starts um kind of with one problem, then it builds and dives deep into that problem and takes you through it in Python. I like if if I was recommending somebody like a book to maybe not exactly like the first thing you should do with Python, but if you want to do something to like help reset your brain from just having uh AI write all your code, going through Through these, like you see it in the book, and you can like write the code yourself or or whatever. And it it also helps you uh learn the NFL API, which I've actually used for certain things we've done. So, like there's there's practical uses. So that's the second one. And then I gotta shout out Andrew Mack. And I was he has two books that I've found good, but I would actually say I'm gonna kick kick it back to classic sports betting and excel. Uh, this is like more of the originator's checklist of of books, but that's another good one for getting started with making your own numbers where you're making something, none of the stuff you build from that book is gonna like win as is, but it's another good like first step in in learning originating. And then you can, since we can we're adding a couple books, you can do uh what is it, Bayesian betting and R or whatever? Very yeah, he has two of them, I think. That one is that one is very technical.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:03

Like I get there's off one because I thought you were gonna mention them, and two because they're fairly technical.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:07

Yeah, um the second the second one is way more technical than sports betting Excel, if I remember correctly. Um so that one's like extremely, extremely technical. And then if you want to have a non-sports one that is kind of Python-y and Bayesian, I say thinking Bayes is a good one. It's in the uh whatever that publisher that it's like the white Python computer programming books.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:32

Okay, those are good sports betting. I'll go quick through my non-sports betting. So I wrote down three nonfiction. I put them in the vein. I know it was like not supposed to be related to betting, but I'm sure we have many listeners who will not read anything that is not like in the general uh sphere. So my nonfiction, A Man for All Markets, it's the uh like biography of uh Ed Thorpe. Very good. Um, The Man Who Solved the Market, which sounds the same. That's the uh biography of Jim Simons, which is uh very good as well. And I think people who like betting would enjoy that. And then there's a book called What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars, which is uh a story of a like a finance hedge fund type guy, I think, who um I don't know. Guess what happens, but I think the story is uh is extremely helpful on perspective on losing. So I think those three are good nonfiction books. In terms of my fiction, I primarily read like science fiction, dystopian type stuff is like my main fiction. So I think a lot of people probably don't read fiction. I think the easiest on-ramp that I think almost anybody would enjoy is a uh collection of short stories. It's called The Wandering Earth. That's one of the short stories, but it there's a bunch of short stories in it. Okay, it's very easy reads. The short stories are maybe 20 pages, 30 pages, something like that. Um, it's the author who wrote Three Body Problem, which I've talked about on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:58

Oh, that's before.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:00

And um, if you like that show on Netflix or Three Body Problem is three very large books. Um, so I I'm recommending Wandering Earth because that's like a short collection, and I think most people would enjoy that. And then my last one is uh one of my favorite books. It's called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It's what um Blade Runner is based off of.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:21

So very good book.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:23

Um for those of you who might recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:25

Okay, I like it. I like it. Yeah, I can see Three Body Problem, the book version being very like uh well, there's a lot there, there's a lot going on in the books, yeah. Because there's a lot going on in the TV show, but um yeah, I love that. I did a little bit uh different well, I had only thought of my one nonfiction, but now I've I've thought of listen, I'm gonna list a few. So one of my favorite nonfiction books ever was or is something called the Willpower Instinct. It was by Katie McDonnell or something. I don't know, she's a psychology professor at Stanford, but I found like it was a really good book in understanding like how you can basically get yourself to do more shit, like trick your brain into like being more productive, I guess, for lack of a which I think helps in kind of anything, but it helps in bedding and and whatever. So to me, I know a lot of people like like grit or like uh I forget have the power of habit or atomic habits. To me, this was my favorite one. It's a little more scientific, it's a little less you know, woo-woo or whatever, because it all kind of it all is kind of structured on the back of experiments she's either done or you know, people have done. Uh so I thought it was quite good. Um in terms of like the uh kind of the more gambling related book, Reminiscence of a Stock Operator is a good old school story. Um it's a very short, quick read, and it's just about like a guy who was running it up and down back in the days of the bucket shop uh era. And yeah, it's quite it's quite good, quite good. And then my third, I'll I'll gonna give I'm gonna give uh sharp money a shout out. It's like that story about the guy who's like the runner for Billy Walters. If you want just like a fun, kind of mindless, but like interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:35

Oh, I was gonna recommend that that is a good like lead. Because there's there's some sports vetting books that are like not necessarily gonna help you win or whatever, but I are are entertaining and I would definitely consider that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:44

So I agree, I agree. That that one's like a really fun one. So if you just want to have a fun one, I think it's by Michael, is it by Michael Connick? I I I don't know. That's correct. Yep, I see it behind me. Okay, there we go. And then my fiction, I'm a big murder mystery guy. So if I'm gonna give a kind of a kind of deeper cut murder mystery, I would say the seven and a half deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a great, great uh murder mystery. And then I would give out my favorite golf book called Golf in the Kingdom. It's like a little, these are all kind of trippy books, like yeah. I don't know, like you're gonna if you read these, you'll be like, oh, he's like on acid. Like, no, but these kind of skew that way. And then third fiction book. Okay, I'm gonna do a real deep cut. It's like kind of a murder mystery, but it's this Irish book called The Earth Hums and Be Flat. If anybody's read that, I bet there's zero people who have read that who are listening, but I don't know why. But that book I just thought was was really, really good. Kind of weird. Um, but yeah, if if anybody's read the earth, hums and be flat, DM me. Because I don't think anybody has. I'd probably take the no on anybody listening reading it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:58

All right. I'm I'm hoping we have one. Um that was good. Hopefully, you you know, some some people enjoy those books. A couple other questions we have from this one from Bertha, new to modeling, have some models I want to test. What's a good way to start betting to see if the models are good or not? And that goes on to sort of talk about the situation and what uh they're betting that into. I think our general advice here is is just to start betting it and to um identify like where you're off market, why you're off market, do you like that, do you not like that, and and hone in from there. I think trying to like um I think betting small, like you had said, sort of in your question, is uh is the way to start. And um I I I think we've said it many times. I don't think you're gonna learn as fast any other way than just like betting it and figuring it out as you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:51

Yeah, I think yeah, the only thing I would add is like just always tilt the odds in your favor, so bet it at the best prices you can as early as you can, and whatever. And if you start winning against, you know, that you can then kind of go from there. But if you I think yeah, we always say just start betting, but start betting in the easiest way to win possible, and then your feedback will determine how where you go from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:22

Okay. Two more from Metro Mike. What pricing strategies did you utilize for Rory? Would say during his master's press conference. So I I wasn't in there, but I I do want to say I was, you know, I am creeping up the uh the mentions market wow leaderboard. So, you know, all you mentioned market traders, just watch out. I'm I'm starting to heat up. So I'm I'm I'm working on it, but I wasn't in this one. I I assume you were not.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:48

Damn. It's too bad that we didn't have this this last guest on before he sold his company. Because if we did, you probably would have started a company and sold it.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:00

With all my with all my mentions.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:02

Uh yeah, you just like any guest, you're just like, oh, here I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:05

That's a great idea. That's true. I would have just started a company and sold it.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:09

Yeah. Simple as that. But uh, yeah, I didn't know this happened. I would have loved it though, because I've watched a lot of golf press conferences. I actually feel like this is a spot I would just vibe really well. Like, I I I do think like no model, I would I would be a big favorite in this. Just I didn't realize it was happening. And I would love to, I'm gonna look out for it at the remaining three majors. You know, I you should. I mean, like I'm already watching, like I'm gonna keep, I want to watch the I want to tell it's really hard to explain to your wife why you want to watch the press conference after the sporting event you've been watching for eight hours. Now it's work, so this is at it's even if I don't make any EV, it's it's value. Um, and then we'll we'll do this one. Uh, this is kind of like a fun one at the end. Okay, you go on a walkout. This is from Peanut, who is Mr. Peanut better, but we're calling him Peanut. I don't know. It's it's all very confusing. You go on a walk outside and you see an owl. Later in the day from your house, you see a second owl. Very odd. You check, no migration patterns or anything else is happening. No one else is seeing excess owls. At what number of owls do you start to believe something paranormal is happening? Okay, I want to preface this by I had heard someone asked me this, are my friends, me and my friends, this at one of my friends' weddings last year. This exact question. So I guess maybe it's a popular question or not, but I hadn't heard of it. And the difference, the range was insane. So I'll I'll come back to what the range was there. But there is the range was was absolutely absurd. Uh, so I think it's a good question. So do you have a number?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:54

Well, I mean, if you're using your your you know typical Bayesian updating, like I think it's gotta be a lot of owls, right? Because you're you're prior on there being paranormal activities, I think for a sane person's quite, quite low as like a base rate. Yes. So I feel like it's got to be a lot of owls. I don't know exactly what that answer is. It's probably not like certainly not like single digits, I don't think. Um I think I I don't I don't really think I would think something parano paranormal is happening unless I was like standing next to you, being like, do you see this how? And they're like, No, then I would be like, okay, there's a problem here. Um but until that point, I don't I don't really think I'd think it's paranormal.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:39

Yeah. So this is where I went, and this is why I was really surprised. I was the same thing. I had the highest number of our group by far. I I said something like 50 or 60. Someone said two. I said, what? Well, I mean, they're like how often do you see an owl? I'm like, you're right. Like I don't see it often, but it's like, if I saw two owls, I'm certainly not like calling Ghostbusters.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:07

Like it's it's it's a classic, like uh you know, heuristic that if you ask like how many farm and how many farm animals are named Bessie, and then you ask the same question, how many cows are named Bessie? You know, more people are actually bringing there's gonna be they're gonna answer a higher number for the cows, even though it's a subset. So like I think there's like some sort like people don't understand this base rate thing generally, and you know, like how it works, like right.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:34

So I said something, and everyone looked at me like I had five heads. They'd be like, if you saw 10 owls outside, you wouldn't think like like this is the world is ending, or like I'd be like, no, I mean I would think to be clear, like I would be like, I don't know what's I'd be freaked out, yeah. I would say I would think something's happening, but it certainly wouldn't be like like if I saw 30 owls, I would say something's going on, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:00

That that's in order to do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:01

Yeah, that wouldn't be a normal day for sure, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:03:04

But it would to make it paranormal or whatever, like some you know, apocalyptic or however this is going on than just so you you're saying like there's no number of owls where you'd think paranormal. I I would I would I would start to get the heebie g like true like 10,000 owls, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:23

I would think something's gonna be wrong. Right. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:36

Exactly. Like a zoo, some truck, yeah, exactly. Like some zoo was like moving locations or something. I guess zoos only have a few owls, but it's like, yeah, you would owl farm, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:48

Yeah, I don't know if owl farms exist, probably not, but um but yeah, uh okay, yeah. So surprising that people had very low answers. I mean, people think paranormal things happen without they get like a cold gust and they think it's a paranormal thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:04:01

So that is a good point. That is a good point because if your prior was like paranormal things are happening, like I assume we're both coming at this from a general skepticism of the paranormal.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:14

That's exact exactly. If you if you think paranormal is like very likely, then you're you're then it's flipped.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:20

You're like two makes sense, yeah. So yeah, it's an interesting question. Cool. Um I'd love to hear someone said four in the comments. I thought that that was obviously on the low side, higher than two, but um didn't really hear from anybody else on what they thought. So if you when we post this episode and tweeted out uh number of owls, I'd love to hear everyone's number of owls that in the responses would probably be the thing I'm most interested in in hearing about. Um we can I I had a Bayesian update that I kind of already said, which was the originating is is more back, so I'm kind of out.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:04

Yeah, I didn't I didn't really I had we didn't we didn't get to cover the you know we we didn't talk about the the uh the Atlantic article going on the video. My update is uh I want to see I want to see the Atlantic do that same type of um experiment with like hard drugs, you know. So do that for six months and uh I want to I want to see how that turns out and like if it gets the same sort of public reaction because you know they they get equated right all the time. Yeah, gambling's a new like heroine.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:36

We will actually as a show pledge ten thousand dollars, but it has to be the same guy to buy hard drugs for that guy, McKinney copin or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:46

Um we're broadcasting this live from our pantry, so that was actually the funniest thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:55

The pantry thing. Um, yeah, so everyone thanks for thanks for listening. I hope people enjoyed the masters. Um and let let us know when I post this number of owls it would take for you to think something is paranormal. And then if it's a low or high number, you know, let us know what your prior is on paranormal beliefs. So thanks everyone everyone for listening, and we will see you on the next episode.