Move The Line - How to Become a PROFITABLE Sports Bettor: PROVEN Strategies & Winning EDGES Revealed

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Unlock the secrets to becoming a profitable sports bettor with our comprehensive guide! In this must-watch video, expert bettors share their proven strategies and winning edges that will empower you to unleash your inner profitable sports bettor. Discover their research secrets, gain valuable insights, and learn how to make informed decisions to maximize your chances of success. Get ready to elevate your sports betting game to new heights!Timestamps:0:00 Intro3:05 What Should Your Goals Be9:20 Pre/Early Season Mindset13:50 Handling Sides & Totals 18:38 Market Dynamics25:08 Props & Closing Line Value27:34 Mid-season vs. End/post-season35:04 How to Deal With Ups & Downs41:42 How to Evolve45:43 Key Stats59:20 Struggles1:02:35 OutroShow Notes:Subscribe to 4for4's Betting Package 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/plansDeposit $5 With Promo Code 4FOR4BETS on No House Advatage to get a 3-Month 4for4 Betting Subscription 👉🏼 https://4for4.co/40CeWYa Deposit $5 With Promo Code 4FOR4BET on Vivid Picks to get a 3-Month 4for4 Betting Subscription 👉🏼 https://4for4.co/3NaBrzNFollow 4for4 on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4footballFollow 4for4 Bets on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4betsFollow Move the Line on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/MoveTheLineNFLFollow Connor on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/ConnorAllenNFLFollow Ryan on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/RyNoonanFollow Sharp on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/SharpClarkeNFLVisit our Website 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/Join our Discord 👉🏼  http://discord.gg/4for4Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3OupraJ4for4 Betting Strategy Hub 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3hm39cw4for4 Betting Picks 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3LUp0EaNFL Betting Odds & Predictions 👉🏼 https://4for4.co/3nsW9QU 

We're always so focused on teams and players, but today on Move the Line, I want to spend some time talking about the process a little bit. We're going to discuss what goes into placing a bet. How does it change over the course of the season? How does our process evolve week to week, year to year with more information that comes? And how do we parse through signal and noise? We're going to jump into it right now here on move the line let's dig in hello and welcome to move the line i'm ryan noonan joined here as always by connor allen and sharp clark clark start with you buddy how we doing this morning good i'm excited about this episode i had a friend say he wanted some evergreen content that he can kind of put back on in august or whenever he's ready to start thinking about the NFL again and I thought it was a good opportunity to do it so yeah I mean

we have a bunch of weeks to fill before the season gets here and again we we spend so much time writing talking about teams and players and you know bets to actually make and I think it's important to sometimes talk a little bit about all the sausages made and I think because we all come from you know different avenues and and starting points and end points to get to where we are I think it's really helpful to kind of talk through this and I think having you on the team even has been I think great for us because your process is so different but it's something that the more I've got to know it and understand it I really really respect and I think it makes me a smarter gambler and handicapper as well.

So does this gentleman would be doing this for a long time together and still learn from him all the time. Connor, how are we doing? Pretty good. Bet on golf for the first time in a while. And I mean, I've never felt better. You know, Wyatt Worthington, the second about to take home that 500 to one ticket. I put a dollar or the 5,000, 5,000 to win $5,000. Why not us? Why not us? Yeah, I can tell you a bunch of reasons why it will not be Wyatt Worthington the second this week. But, yeah, good on you. PGA is live and happening.

And I'm not even watching it right now. I'm not even looking at the scoreboard. There's nothing going on right here on my laptop. No idea what you guys are talking about. Totally focused on football right now. We're going to be here every week of the season, at least once leading up and giving you original content. You can also get lots of other great content here on the 444Bets YouTube page.

If you're watching, hanging out with us now, we appreciate it. Subscribe, like on the video helps us as well. Again, this is free content. So those little things go a long way in supporting that. Jump in the chat. Let us know what your approach, what do you look to in terms of handicapping games? What's evolved in your process over the years? We'd love to get an understanding of what our listeners, subscribers are doing as well. Also, obviously available, the podcast forum still, rate, review, five-star, all those things go a long way in helping us. And we really, really appreciate it. I'm going to start a long way in helping us and we really really appreciate it i'm gonna start with you clark and before we really jump into it i really want to

talk about at first i think it's really important for people to identify who they are as a as a handicapper who they are as a sports better what are your goals what you should do to turn you know your unit size and those things to make sure that you aren't having to redeposit every week, aren't having to put yourself in a really bad situation long-term. Because again, this is gambling. This can be problematic for some people. How has that evolved for you over the years and what's some advice in terms of say, really casual to I want to do this for a living. There's a wide range. Absolutely. It's really, really important. And everyone's going to be coming from a different place and has different goals. But no matter who you are as a better, there's one thing that I

think applies to everybody. And that is bankroll management, right? If you're not, if you don't have a effective bankroll management strategy, then you leave yourself open to having a bad time gambling. If your bets are too big, you open yourself up to problem gambling, addiction. You know, when you lose those big bets, you need to get that money back because it's so meaningful. It can really feed into that bad habit. Whereas if you have a controlled, you know, unit size that is a reasonable amount of your bankroll, then that pool doesn't come as quickly and strongly. So what I recommend is whatever you have set aside for gambling, each bet should be 2% to 3% of that bankroll. So if you have $500 in your sports books, you should be betting $15 a game, $10 a game. And you might say, well, $10, $15 doesn't, you know, it doesn't

really get me going. It's not enough juice for the squeeze, right? And the answer is, that's great, because one of two things is happening. Either you're a losing bettor, in which case betting smaller is going to be really, really good for you. It's going to keep you in the game and enjoying the, you know, active sports betting without losing your head, or you're a winning bettor, in which case you're going to demonstrate a track record of success over time. And as you know, active sports betting without losing your head, or you're winning better, in which case you're going to demonstrate a track record of success over time. And as you win, you can increase your bankroll size, both through the winnings that you make and, you know, depositing more only once you've established a track record of winning. And then your unit size can increase as your bankroll increases. So then you go to $1,000, now you can bet $30 a game. So that's

my advice. That's also what I've done personally. So each year I've increased my bankroll size. And so my bet size has gone up as I've demonstrated a track record of success that I can rely on and believe in and build on. So I think if you don't have a bankroll management strategy, then you need to go back to square one and do that before anything else applies. Sorry. Yeah. And after a while too, I think for me personally, with like bankroll management specifically, with using so many different sports books and having some limits you, some not limits you, and just kind of having different,

like more things in flux, like understanding what your total bankroll is, even if it's not necessarily deposited into your account, I think is really important. So like, you know, from time to time, you know, I'll only have whatever, a couple thousand in one book and then a couple thousand another, like you don't necessarily need to be betting a percentage of that, but it needs to be a percentage of your total bankroll. So just understanding where you are at all times is really important. Like you said, you don't want to overextend yourself. I mean, there's nothing worse than overextending yourself on something, losing and then being like, wow, like I went way too hard

on that. You know, I just like, I really went outside my means of what I should have been doing there. And I mean, it's happened to me before. I don't, my means of what I should have been doing there. And I mean, it's happened to me before. I don't know if it's happened to you yet, but it's one of those things that feels horrible and it can destroy a good chunk of your bankroll and is not a good look. The other important piece too that I think is what Clark was saying is documenting. You have to have a documented success, but it's really important and really easy to just kind of like open the app, click away, fire away, and then hope that there's a little bit more in there once the games are done than there was before. You have to track this stuff, track the size, track the plays, track when you bet, depending on like if it's NFL size or

totals. I think it's really important to understand when in the week you were getting in. Did you, again, this is work, but like if you're doing it and you want to be profitable, I think it is worth your time. Did you get any type of closing line value? Did you beat the number? Did you lose anything? And how does that play out over time? The more information that you can gather to track yourself and put yourself in a better situation i think is is going to be more advantageous

to you in the long term and really understanding your goals too i think is really really important it's very easy to get caught up in screenshot life and see you know someone with this winning bat and you want to chase that and those things it's like you got to be really really smart and play within your means understand that you basically almost account for that to be a loss and then you're still going to be okay to play the next day um you're getting a spot where you have to chase like clark is saying it gets very very very dangerous so uh before we jump into a little bit more we just want to remind folks it is a great time to scoop a betting subscription at four for four our projections for the nfl season in terms of player

projections and rankings just came out on the site. Betting sub gets you access to that and literally everything else. So all of our off season plays, um, every tool article projections, everything subscriber discord is really where you want to be to get all of our plays. I think that's really the crown jewel of the subscription like-minded community that is popping off all the time. We have channels for every sport. If you're playing in any of the pick them sites, we have channels for that as well. Prize picks underdog,

no house advantage and vivid. And we've partnered with vivid to get you access to a betting subscription for just $5. You can head over to four for four.com slash plans and buy yourself a year sub. It's the smartest way to do it. Take you through the end of next football season. But if you just want to get a taste for three months,

that's going to get you basically all of our futures here. Most of the preseason stuff. There are sites out there, competitors that are fantastic. They're selling draft kits and stuff like that for 40, 50 bucks. Basically, you can get a draft kit at 444 for five bucks. Just go over to Vivid, Vivid Picks. You go to the app store, download Vivid Picks, use promo code 444BET, $5 deposit,

and you'll get an email on how to access our betting sub for three months. They'll match your deposit up to 200 bucks though if you want to play there a little bit more. It's a parlay pick'em site like some of the other ones that are out there. Check it out. It is an insane deal. $5 for three months of everything at 444. All right, Clark, I'll go back to you here. In terms of capping football, I know you're talking

a lot about doing more line origination, basically setting your own lines, being able to understand where your number is, comparison to the market. What goes into that into the preseason? I know preseason is different than the middle of the season, is different than the end of the season, depending on all the information that we have. I guess get us started with that conversation. Yeah, it's a great question. And I will start by at the outset saying there's two different ways to bet successfully. There's what sometimes people call the top-down approach, which is kind of like, you know, identifying where the steam means something and trying to get the best of the number,

trying to always make plus EV bets that are going to beat the closing line. And then there's originating, which is making your own number and betting lines that you think have value based on what you think the true outcome will be. And I only originate, so I can't help anyone that does top-down.

There's plenty of people out there that do that. That's a different method. So we're going to talk about originating. And what I do for the NFL season is there's basically three kind of sections of the season, and my approach shifts over the course of the season. At the very beginning, the number one thing to keep in mind is that we know less than we think we do about these teams. It happens every year.

Things change. So many things change over the course of the offseason. It happens every year. Things change. So many things change over the course of the offseason. Coordinators change, quarterbacks change, team makeups change. And we always underestimate the difference that we're going to see on the field. And so, for example, last year, in games where the spread in week one was higher than two and a half, so basically like three and higher, the underdogs went seven and four against the spread. And the year before in games where the spread was higher than two and a half,

the underdogs went 10 and two against the spread in week one. So underdogs tended to cover because we think we know enough about these teams to say this team's way better. Like they need to be favored by a ton of this team. And that's just not how it works. And so my first couple of weeks of the season are about not underreacting to what I see on the field, right? We tend to stick to our priors longer than we should. And what I've learned is that,

from charting it, is that my team adjustments after one week, over 90% of the time are directionally correct and not sharp enough, right? So like, by the end of the season, I look back and say, wow, I didn't adjust enough after week one. So I'm looking to adjust quickly in those first couple weeks. And then the second part of the season is sort of around week three, week four. This is when I try to identify, you know, where are teams being misvalued by the market based on specific circumstances that happened? So for example, two years ago, the Panthers were 3-0 with Sam Darnold. There was even some minority talk about Sam Darnold being MVP candidate,

which I think most people knew was kind of trash. But people were saying it, and it inflated the Panthers' value because they had played three really bad teams where the defense dominated and Darnold only played with a lead. And he's not the type of quarterback that can like will his way back in the game. He needs to rely on a good ground game and Christian McCaffrey specifically.

So that was a good opportunity to kind of fade the Panthers as they reverted to the mean, for example. The Jags last year too, they came out, especially with the preseason hype, they came out and played against Carson Wentz in week one. And then week two, they played against the Colts with no receivers. And then week three, they played the Chargers where they injured Herbert and a bunch of other injuries. And so everyone got on

the Jags train and it wasn't time yet. And so if you actually faded that initial move, you could have made money betting against the Jags in the middle part of the season before they really turned it on. So that's kind of the second part. And then the last part is all about my numbers, right? I'm watching every game. I'm creating an analytical framework for measuring performance. And I'm using those numbers to guide my process once we get to around week eight. And there's very little adjustments I make after that point for market perception, things like that. I'm just trying to identify like, because by that time, I know who these teams are. There's enough evidence and I'm following that. Yeah. And the preseason or early season, it's very difficult because we are going off of a combination of last season and then trying to properly wait to your point. What happened in the offseason in terms of roster construction, coaching changes, philosophy changes.

And then, you know, I think you've done a great job in the past couple episodes talking about strength of schedule. That becomes double counting in a way, right? Because we are trying to determine if the strength of schedule is bad or good based off of nothing except our own thoughts based off of what we had in the preseason. Connor, I know you don't officially bet a lot of sides and totals. I know you bet a little bit more on the side. You're not originating lines per se, but you, I think probably are pretty close to a dead even sides better, which most of us are. Clark is going to battle into the lion's den in terms of the hardest stuff out there in terms of sides and totals.

And it's profitable, which is incredible. Talk to me about your process, Connor, at all in terms of sides and totals, how you've done in the past or where you're at now. Yeah, I would say in terms of sides and totals, how you've done in the past or where you're at now? Yeah, I would say in terms of sides and totals, like, I don't know if advantage better is the correct term, but anytime I see like, you know, a stale PPH or something like that, where, you know, I, I, or have info that, you know, like Jalen hurts is going to be out, you know, like I can bet the opposite side, like, you know, those are things that I'll put, you know, multiple units on and like, really just kind of take advantage of that. And obviously my full, you know, record, your record looks a little bit different. And those are things that I'll put multiple units on and really just kind of take advantage of that. And obviously, my full record, your record looks a little bit different.

And those are things that we do better put in the Discord sometimes. But other than that, it's not something I found a tremendous amount of success with overall. It is still, I think, important, though, to break down games. And there are specific points to find advantages, though, throughout the season. I think, like Clark said, the most important thing that he said there was that we don't know very much early in the season. And I think that's reflected in the prop market. That's reflected in, you know, the sides market. I mean, there's multiple teams last year where, you know, I think we were pretty high on the Colts coming into last year. We were pretty high on, or at least I was pretty high on the Broncos. I thought the Russell Wilson would make

a big difference. And like, those are things that we saw pretty quickly. We're like, this is, this just isn't it. It's not going to work. And so like, like Clark said, making an adjustment pretty early, I think is important. But on the other hand too, like we do see teams that,

you know, like the Panthers and other teams that come out hot. I mean, even the Jags, they lost to that, that commander's team. I mean, when it's rallied and,

and, you know, ended up scoring whatever, like 10 points, there's 14 points in the fourth quarter and winning that game. I mean, Wentz rallied and, and, you know, ended up scoring whatever, like 10 points, there's 14 points in the fourth quarter and winning that game. Um, but overall, I think that coming in with coming in with priors is important, but like contextualizing who they play early is also very important. And then specifically in the prop market, like usage is, is really important. Betting unders, I think early in the season, something that personally I don't do enough.

It's something I went, I was looking back through my records last year, records year before, you know, I mean, I was about dead even on overs and I was hitting like 60 plus percent on unders. And,

you know, it's one of those things that reflecting on the process is like, we just know way less than we think we do in terms of usage, in terms of coach speak, in terms of how players are going to be leveraged. So that's just something that I was like, one of my main takeaways in terms of like in terms of coach speak in terms of how players are going to be leveraged so that's just something that i was like one of my main takeaways in terms of like pre-season to early season yeah i like that early season unders and others in general i mean we know that we're um you were we're prone to i know at least i am be honest i mean i'm prone to want to

root for things to happen i think to me it's easier to identify a situation that i think is advantageous in a game matchup wise and be like, oh yeah, no, this, this player is going to exceed expectations in that game. And that's, I think pretty common in terms of in terms of prop betting for, for me, I probably bet you know, the middle amount of, of sides in this group. And I would say I'm more in line with what Clark's talking about in terms of top down. I'm more concerned with market dynamics and trying to essentially beat what's going to be the closing line. And most of the size totals that I get down on are early in the look ahead line window, basically trying to predict where I think the line is going to move. And it's something that I've done a few years here on the site.

I write a look ahead line article. I think Clark and I are going to do some more look ahead content this year because the way I've looked at it, Clark, I'd love to get your thoughts here is essentially a parlay in a sense, which again, we may be going to parlay discussions as well. But I'm basically trying to think of like, all right, so I'm in the middle of the season. It's week nine.

If I feel like I have a really good handicap on the middle of the season it's week nine um if i feel like i have a really good handicap on a matchup or a team in week nine i feel like depending on looking at the spot in week 10 i might be able to get ahead of where i think the line is going to move after week nine happens try to get into that you know working around key numbers as well and i think key numbers are absolutely vital we could talk about that as well if you think that that's you know noise or if those are shifting with two-point conversions and things like that but if I think I'm on the right side of a key number and I can take this before that moves those are times where I'm looking to kind of ape in a little bit into

sides versus what's going to happen on uh you know Thursday afternoon Friday just you know 48 hours before kick definitely sitting on the sideline for that stuff. So talk to me about that, Clark. Look aheads, market dynamics, stuff like that. Yeah, key numbers definitely matter just to get that out of the way. Yeah, okay. They matter. I thought you thought that, but, you know, I don't know.

You are a little contrarian sometimes, and I like to get your – Yeah, they play a bigger role in my betting process than I think most people's. So I don't want to get into more specifics, but anyway. Yeah, they play a bigger role in my betting process than I think most people's. So I don't want to get into more specifics. But anyway, so let's talk about the market dynamics, because I think that gets at the answer to your question. I think a lot of people don't understand fully how the NFL market works. And so I'm just going to briefly talk about it. When most people on Twitter are talking about betting limits, they're talking about like,

oh, hey, DraftKings limited me to $15. You know, like there's another way of talking about limits that's much more relevant to originating. And that is understanding how limits change over the course of the week at the market making books. So there's several books that take big bets from professional bettors and they start the week taking smaller bets. And over the course of the week,

they increase the limits that they'll take on NFL sites as they, you know, get more information from the market and get more solidification on injuries, etc. And so what that means is that as the week goes on, more market participants, people betting meaningful amounts, enter the market and add their opinion to the marketplace. And so as the as the week goes on, the line becomes more efficient until on Sunday morning, these books are taking $100,000, $200,000 bets on NFL sites, and everybody who has a voice in the market has spoken essentially. And so you have this efficient line. So if you're waiting until Sunday to make a bet, you're betting against people who are very, very smart, are putting a ton of resources into analyzing the gains and predicting the outcomes. You're probably going to be losing on Sunday or betting 50-50 basically. But if you have

a good process and you're betting early in the week when the limits are low, you're not going head-to-head against every professional better out there. You're only going head-to-head against the people who are betting at that time at those limits. And so if your bankroll is small and you're not betting a ton, you can capitalize by betting early in the week. And that applies to lookaheads as well, right? Lookaheads are even less efficient than early week lines. And then early week lines are less efficient than midweek and mid, et cetera, et cetera. So that's kind of my advice is like, if you're not betting a lot, you want to be getting in early because you have a higher chance of making bets that are going to be good in the long run. And then the simplest way to measure that is, like you said, does it beat the closing line? If I bet the Jets at minus

two and a half, and then the game closes Jets minus three and a half, that's a significant closing line value bet because you've got that three that the closing line bettors aren't getting. So that's a good way to measure your process is if you're betting early and getting closing line value, then you probably have a process that's pretty good. So that's kind of my spiel on the market and why betting early when you have a lower bankroll is really good advice. And to get it out of the way, I mean, I think we all believe closing line value matters in sides and totals, correct? Yes, it matters. Yes. I know Clark had some, I guess, I don't even know what

you want to call it. Twitter, Twitter battles about closing line value. And I think that most people misunderstood his point last year. I think that you understand, I think that you think that it matters, but just it's, I don't know, needs context at times. I think that's probably how I would describe it. Is that fair to say? Yeah. So I think the closing line represents the market consensus on that game. And that's typically very, very, very, very good indicator. But the market participants don't have a perfect view of the game. There's just so many variables and so many things that are unknown. And if you use a system like I do, that measures things very differently than any of the widely

available stats that are out there, I'm going to have a very different view on the games that might be plus EV in the long run, but doesn't match up perfectly with the way the market closes. And so like historically, for example, my winning percentage doesn't go up when I get closing line value. Like my process is independent of the market. And so in not all cases does it indicate the true value of the bet, but it's a good indicator in the long run

if you're getting and i do get closing line value at a very high rate so that so i'm not saying that i don't get it um it's just it's not a perfect indicator it's a it's a very good indicator yeah sometimes i've heard over the years push back on some folks when they're talking about getting in too early getting ahead and playing heavy in the look ahead mark and again like heavy is relative. The limits are lower, but I think we talk about that and you hear that a lot. And it just doesn't actually really resonate with a lot of our audience in terms of being limited, even in early week size and totals. I just don't think we have a lot of folks that are impacted by what

that ends up looking like. And those people aren't really the people that need our advice, you know, right? Like the people that are getting limited are probably sophisticated enough that this isn't really news to them. Yeah. I think I heard a great term on a deep dive the other day with a whale and Andy and everything. So they basically put it like betters into three different buckets. So it's like rec, like recreational rec plus, and then like pros. And I think the majority of our audience kind of falls into that rec plus, uh, you know,

bucket of like people who bet they think that they can make money to think that they can follow short people and actually do something sophisticated. And I think that that's where I would say a large part of our audience. And I would say most of us kind of fall into at this point, maybe on the higher end of that, considering how much we're putting into it, because I don't think any of us would describe ourselves as like professionals, uh, or at least putting in enough resources to, you know, do this full time. But I would say kind of like somewhere on that border and our audience maybe is on like the other border of like rec, rec plus. Yeah. And we're trying to provide,

you know, not only picks, but also tools, right. It is, I think our approach here at 444 is a little bit of a teach a man to fish type of situation because we want to be able to present our thoughts, how we came to these, but then also provide you with the ability to access stats and tools you might not have everywhere to be able to help formulate those plays for you as well. Because I think that that's really important. Not just coming to us as solely a pick service. We're a, you know, a content provider that also has picks and, you know, layered into all the other things that we offer as well.

So yeah, I think closing line value, getting into the early market, you know, with someone who's not betting, you know, four digits on NFL sides, I think it's the right way to go. Yes, you'll get into occasionally you might get bit by an injury bug. And, you know, part of your play that you made on a Thursday afternoon, you know, 10 days out, you know, you lost a player that's impactful there on Sunday beforehand. That's going to happen. For the most part, it just, it doesn't. So I think being able to get on the right side of the number around the key numbers, as we talked about, I think is really, really, really crucial. Otherwise, like, you know, you wait for the for the lines to come back out late Sunday night, early Monday morning. Then you're actually really, I think, more competing with what Clark's talking about is some of the other people that are going to

be shaping the market here early, looking to get down when those limits are a little bit higher than they were in the look ahead line timeframe. Whereas taking shots Thursday, Friday in the look end market, you're really out there kind of swimming by yourself. It's a lot more open. You're not really in a spot where a lot of people are coming at the same time to compete and move those lines. Connor, you talked about a little bit on the prop side. Where are we at in terms of closing line value in props? It's obviously a lot more noisy. Those are less efficient markets to begin with. So in terms of like saying you're on the right side of it because you got closing line value, I think is probably a little bit noisy. You'd obviously rather have it than not though, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think the issue is that it's just such a steam-based market. Like, you know, imagine you bet, I don't know, whatever, AJ Brown over 65 yards, you know, and we bet it at 65. There's a couple outs, you know, on Friday. And then on Sunday, you know, and you, we bet it at 65, there's a couple outs, you know, on Friday. And then on Sunday, uh, you know, Twitter capper, Joe Schmo with 150,000 followers tweets out that he loves AJ Brown over 67 yards. Cause it's already moved a little bit off of our steam. That line goes up to 75 years. You know, like, do we really think that the opinion of Joe Schmo matters like to the point where that closing line value is significant in the prop market? I don't think so. And so like, I think it can matter. I think that like having multiple influential people in the market, you know, saying that they liked the same over the same under probably means that

you're on the right side of something. But like, I just don't think it's quite as much context as the sides and totals market where, you know, they're taking a lot higher limits. They're moving off of, you know, significant action, especially mid, mid in the week, later in the week. So that's kind of my take. It's like, I don't like the more I've been thinking about it, the more I've been, you know, pondering on like the prop market specifically, this is just something that like, I don't think that we should necessarily be judging ourselves off closing line value for props specifically. Obviously it's nice, but at the same time, our handicap is just based off of like the number we're getting specifically. And if it goes up or down, you know, reverses of what we want. I mean, it's worth considering reevaluating, but

I know it came from that random Twitter guy. Like it, to me, it just like, doesn't matter at all. And I'm actually more apt to like go against that again. And like trust our own process instead of like being scared off and saying that you know buying out steam's way more relevant in the prop game than anything they were having happened on sides and totals where where clark's involved in mostly um clark how about like the total situation uh game totals team totals um this what's the process look like in terms of early season mid- season, late season and originating those lines as well?

You know, I don't have a robust totals process. That's something that I want to add. And you'll notice that my plays are maybe 90% sides and 10% totals. It's a pretty big split. But I'm basically looking for... So one of the things that I do is I measure performance in each game and I try to pick up on trends. Like the way my brain works is like it performance in each game. And I try to pick up on trends, like the way my brain

works is like, it's very pattern oriented. So when I identify performance numbers, like looking at my charts, like, okay, so look, they're they outperform against expectation against every team that runs a heavy blitz defense, and they underperform against expectation against every defense that doesn't blitz a lot. And then I then I think about the team, I think about the quarterback, the structure, why that might be the case. Is that just noise or is there something there? And if I can identify it, then I'll kind of use that as like a specific matchup advantage. And if I see, for example, a matchup advantage on offense for both teams, I'm more likely to kind of look towards the over and maybe bet it. But I will say that totals are much more for me about CLV than sides are, because I don't have a robust origination process for totals. It's much more, hey,

this number is not right. I know how these teams, the pace of play of these teams and how likely they are to succeed and importantly convert in the red zone. That's one of the most important aspects of betting a total. When I project that to be higher than market, I'll bet over, when I think that to be under market, I'll bet under, but it's not a big part of my process and those bets are smaller than my size bets. Another place that the key numbers are very, very relevant, team totals.

I've shifted Connor over the last couple of years to even more team totals than game totals because I think you're able to, even though like how the teams interact go a long way in determining the outcome of the game and in the total of the game I do think if you're able to isolate a team total you're more likely to be able to kind of mitigate how the other team impacts some of that stuff too right whereas sometimes you need if you're chasing it over in a game it's high tide raises all ships type of situation whereas no I really like this team and how they match up offensively against

this defense, the way that they play scheme, how they're trending efficiency and all those things. So I'm just going to take their team total and I expect them to over underperform based off of that. I think it's also a lot easier to get key numbers and team totals too, because oftentimes books move the team totals like automatically with the spread and total. So it just kind of like moves together and they're not really paying attention to like, Oh shit, I shouldn't hang a 24 and a half on this team when reality, like I should probably just hang like a juice 23 and a half and then like, kind of just sit on that action. So like, I've been able to see like Caesars does it all the time. DraftKings does it plenty where like, they're just not paying attention like midweek or so. And I'll send you a message and be like, Hey, like,

this is not right. Like, you know, we're getting jets 17 and a half. Like this is an easy under, like, you know, they're, they're, they're no way they're scoring more than 17. Uh, and so like, and then it closes at like 15 and a half, 16, because by the time the market settled, like they're like, or they will adjust it like later in the week when they're taking a little bit bigger limits. But again, like, I mean, we're not trying to, I'm not trying to pump in thousands into the team total market. You know, it's, it's usually just like, you know, a couple hundred here and there when we can, when we can get it in without, you know, completely destroying our account. So I think that's worth noting as well. Yep. I found that I found the limits come a lot quicker and

lower on team totals than they do on regular totals. So I was really enjoying that aspect of getting the numbers that I like. And then it was like, nope, you can't do this. Yeah. Well, yeah, not on DraftKings. They're quick to find you. But yeah, I think that that's important too. Knowing what those key totals, key numbers are as well. You know, thinking about distribution of scores,

there's lots of things you can Google distribution of scores historically. But if you're thinking about, you know, think about the round numbers of football, basically 14, 17s, 20, 21, 24, those types of things as we crawl up, there are some other key numbers. And then game totals, there's some key numbers as well too. So Clark, you had something else? Yeah, I was going to say, whenever you're thinking about making a bet against the market, you have to have an articulated reason why that bet has value, right? And so with totals, another thing that I think doesn't get maybe factored in efficiently is NFL games are high variance by nature, right? There's 22 people on the field, there's a ball

shaped like a, you know, weird thing that bounces all over the place. And so what I try to do is I think about sort of outcomes as kind of splits, right? So like something happens early that's unexpected, how do the teams respond? So for example, you know, a team that is really good at passing the ball has a really good hurry up offense, you know, a quarterback that can really command things from a no huddle is much more likely to orchestrate a comeback, or at least put up, in a deficit situation than a quarterback who has less experience and is, is going to struggle a little bit with that aspect or like, like the Falcons this year, right? They're going to run the ball a lot. They're not going to ask Desmond Ritter to do too much. It's going to be a lot of rollouts, play action, you know, easy reads. And I think it's going to work, but if they get really far behind, like their whole offense is going to look a little

different. Right. So I think about that when I'm playing totals in terms of like, what are some ways that early events in the game or early game script situations could impact the total and try to play it that way. The Eagles and Ravens like previously are great examples of this, like towards the end of the games. I mean, Lamar Jackson and the Ravens like two years ago when they were health two, three years ago, like, I mean, he would have two pass attempts in the second half sometimes. Like if they're up by like 14 points, they would just run the ball endlessly. So that obviously matters in the prop market matters in the totals market, because like they're, I mean, they're slowing the game down. They're running the ball. Like it's just not,

they're probably going to be efficient, but it's not quite as efficient as them. Like just trying to pass every play. And I clark that's played into some of your analysis of the eagles you know at least in the past year as well in terms of like if they do fall behind can they pass to catch up and if they do go ahead like they're just going to sit on the game like they're just going to literally you know grind kenneth gainwell and boston scott and a couple of miles sanders carry sprinkled in here and just sit on a 20 point lead and call it a day yeah exactly yeah exactly. Yeah. We have a customizable stat database too here with like, you're able to do lots of different stuff with our team tools to be able to look at pace of play, depending on the score, you know,

run pass expectations, you know, pass rate over expectations when the team is, you know, up by seven or more, like those things really matter too in terms of game state to be able to identify how I think the game is going to play out and understands the wide range of outcomes, like Clark said, depending on how the game is going early and how that can impact, you know, maybe just some like raw overlie numbers that will tell you, well,

here's how this team's place from a pace standpoint. Well, it's like, well, if you break it down, they are significantly slower with a lead, which makes sense. But sometimes it's not always as intuitive as you would think. There are some teams that don't play slower when they have a lead or don't change their pass rate over expectation when they're up. And we try to provide you with some of that information, too, because I think it is really, really important to understand how each of these teams do that.

And it's hard because we come into the season and we think, oh, we know how this team does it. Then all of a sudden the personnel changes and a coordinator change here and there. And all of a sudden, some of these things are very different. So we're going to try to get to that later in the season here.

We get to coaching changes and how we think some of these things are going to be impacted by different stuff. How do we deal with up and down? Because it happens. This is, we're not always privy to these amazing groups that are out there and these people that don't have consecutive losing weeks. Congratulations. That must be awesome. I don't think it's real life for the majority of us, but there can be,

even if you're responsible within your bankroll, feeling like, hey, I thought I had a good handle for this week and I'm taking an absolute bath. And how do we get up off the like, hey, I thought I had a good handle for this week and I'm taking an absolute bath. And how do we get up off the mat, Clark, and jump back into the week five lines after week four was just an atrocity. Yeah. Some of this goes back to what I was saying about bankroll management, right? So last year I had a really tough start to the season. I think around week six or week eight, I can't remember which one it was, I was down 15% of my bankroll on my public bets. That's a large sample size to be losing, and it feels really bad. But if you trust your process and you have a long track record of seeing the process play out, and especially when a lot of those losses were, quite frankly, fluky, you just stick

to it. And you say, look, 15% of my bankroll, this is why I have a bankroll. This is why I only bet two to 3% of my bankroll on every bet. Right? So I just kept at it, you know, really, I didn't change anything. I didn't hit the lab for three more hours each week. Like, I think all that is really a bad telltale sign that there's flaws in your process. I stuck with it. I evaluated, you know, what am I missing about these teams? Like, what am I getting wrong? But ultimately, it was just, I think my process is working, I've just suffered bad variance. And then by the end of the year, you know, I was up, you know, 11% on on my public bets, you know, and so I made it all back and then some and that was like, good validation of the process working. Obviously,

I'd like to be better than that. I'd like to not be down 15 units at any point. But I think it all goes back to your bankroll management, right? I didn't feel like losing 15% of my bankroll wasn't that big of a deal because that's why it's there. And I think not getting emotional and not letting emotions dictate a change in your process is really important to having a robust, long-term workable process. And so that's kind of how I approach it is like not getting over-invested in individual results, but rather focusing on what am I doing wrong process-wise? What can I fix, if anything, and how can I sustain long-term success? And then in the off-season, I really get critical of myself. When I'm not betting weekly, it's a lot easier to be objective about yourself.

And so I've actually learned a lot after the season about why, why I had that deficit early on and things I'm going to implement next year to do better. So that's kind of my advice. Kind of the other element here that is, you know, a little bit newer to Clark and not as new to us, but on top of having to deal with it internally, we're having to deal with it

in terms of feeling like we let down subscribers, right? Feeling like, hey, we passed these plays along, we were tailed, and we have essentially a community of losses when that happens. And when that starts to snowball, that is harder for me to get up off the mat versus anything of my own doing. I can take it. I can take it. I can handle it. Again, I know I've been doing this long enough. I have budgets. I know what I'm doing bankroll wise.

I'm okay to play the next day, but it does feel really bad when I start to see people taking L's in the discord or stuff like that. So how do we judge? Because we kind of were right with Clark last year. Not a good start. Good rally to the end of the season, but it was rough there a little bit to start because it's just kind of how the game's played. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I, I feel significantly, significantly worse. Like when, uh, for our subscribers, when we lose, then I do with my own money. Like maybe that's just a disconnect of like my own money or whatever,

like there's not caring enough, but like when the subscribers lose money, I feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. Like I'm like so mad. I'm like ready to like, you know, like I get, I just so frustrated. And so like, that's the downs of it. Like the ups and downs is like for, I mean, anyone who tells you that they only win is just a liar. I mean, like, it's going to be a rocky season, you know, like always is. Obviously you'd like to start on a good note and then maybe like dip down and keep like, you know, work your way up. But like last season it was down and then up, up, up, you know? And like, it was one of those things that the start wasn't great. And for me personally, after a couple of weeks, I think it was after I lost like four or five

bets in the last like five minutes of a fourth quarter in like week five or something like that. I mean, I was like down, I was like, man, this is rough. Like what is going on here? And I looked at it and generally like kind of my process was fine. I think that obviously like, I don't want those things to sway it, but it's like, I just knew that like, I needed to be betting more unders because it provides more outs. Like those things, the things that I lost on won't happen if I had bet an under, like, you know, like you're not losing this on the last second. Um, you know, your guys and dropping the ball, like you're hitting that under, like there's just so many more outs for unders hit and props that like, it's one of those things that every, every year,

like I'm like slowly moving closer and closer to unders because I look at an over and I'm like, oh, our projections are higher. Great matchup. The market isn't factoring in X, Y, Z. And then it just like my overrate hits at like 53% or whatever, a little bit higher than 50%. Whereas like, I look back at my unders and I'm like, Oh, it's like 60%. Like, why don't I just bet unders? Like, you know, like what am I doing here with my overs? Uh, and so last year it was significantly worse than 50% on overs. And so it's one of those things that kind of plays into the volatility of the ups and downs. Uh, I mean, I can't say that it completely take the emotion out of it because again, like the subscriber aspect to me matters so much more than the money.

But at the same time, in terms of my process, I try and stay level-headed and just make sure that I'm betting the right amount of overs and unders each week. And that's why I think, and I think Clark referenced it earlier, there'll be times when I like to play. Just instinctually, I see a team total and i'm like nope i want i want to get in on this but then because i have to then write an article about it i have to post it in discord with reasoning i it forces my process to get better because i have to articulate outside of just here's the bet uh and no offense to you know to people out there that push picks or pick services through.

And here's the pick without any context. I feel like we're doing a really good job at trying to help you understand how we got there. And that gives the subscriber the ability to choose if they want to tail or not tail. You're not forced to tail any of the official plays that we make. We're hoping to do our best job to help you kind of bridge the gap, paint the picture of, okay, here's why they landed on the play. It's X, Y, and Z reasons. It's just not blindly chasing the number.

And sometimes it's harder. I'm like, oh, I really like that play. But then when I'm trying to think about how I want to articulate why that's a good play, well, I really don't have a great story for that. So maybe it's something I'll bet for myself. I won't push out to in and talk about it in the show or something like that versus actually making it an unofficial play for, for folks, because I'm really cognizant of that.

I want to make sure that I'm being really responsible for the subscribers to be like, okay, they're going to be able to read this. And if they didn't have an opinion, they're going to be on my side. Or if they were't have an opinion they're gonna be on my side or if they were on the opposite side maybe i'm gonna help them maybe slow down and think about where they kind of came on that game early and maybe pause them in the process so i think that's a big big piece of it too how do we evolve uh because the market changed last year in a big way and i know connor you weren't intentional in trying to start to bet more overs.

It just seemed like a more efficient process. And we're trying to do more efficient projections. I think that's a big piece of having really sharp and better median projections to help make those things. I know how we kind of evolve on the prop side, but how do you evolve, Clark, in terms of like there's a variety of offerings in terms of first quarter, first half, um, your sides or totals. Do you start to get into any of the ancillary markets outside of really just full game spreads or totals to try to find edges? How do we evolve in the process? I not, not really. Um, I mean, so my evolution,

like I kind of previewed a little bit earlier, occurs mostly in the offseason. And so when the offseason hits, what I do is I, you know, I've cataloged every bet. I've cataloged, you know, what the bet was, the date I made it, what the closing line was, what the result was, what the reasoning was at the time. And so I'm analyzing every bet, you know, what went into it, what, you know, and then after the fact, looking at what happened. And basically trying to identify, you know, were there patterns of things that I was consistently missing, or patterns of things I was consistently getting right, which teams did I have the weakest and strongest read on, and then, and then analyzing the data using a bunch of programs that, you know, it's like super complicated stuff, but basically, like, you know, hey, I have this idea, like, was this an

edge, and then I would like program to run that edge through every game in the season, and see if it led to any significant results and things like that. And then that's like a process that I do every year for like a month after the season ends. And during that time, sometimes I'll pick up on something really significant, and sometimes I won't. And then when I do, like this year, I picked up on two things really significant, I'll incorporate that into my next year's model, right? So I'm constantly evolving. Every season, I'm using a slightly different process than I was the year before, hopefully

a slightly better process. So I understand that this NFL sides market evolves over time as participants become more sophisticated, as more data becomes available and tools to analyze that data become easier to use with AI, for example, I want to stay ahead of that market efficiency, but even further in direction of the things that I'm doing that are not accounted for in the market. And so that's kind of how I evolve. It's a yearly process.

And then once the season starts, I'm focused on, I watch every game every week. By the time I've processed all that film and then run the numbers for the next week, like I'm pretty much like making those bets and then watching those games. And it's like a cycle that doesn't allow me a lot of time to make massive moves during the season. So that's kind of like my approach to evolution is a annual iterative process of improving, identifying edges and incorporating those edges appropriately. And every year I get a year's more worth of data to work from with my system. So that's kind of how I evolve.

And hopefully every year I get better. Once we get in season, Connor, we get stuck in like the hamster wheel of just like the churn of content and games and like our data downloads. And so it gets really hard. So I think doing this work now, going into the season is probably the right way to do it we've continued to evolve in terms of the statistics that are available to us on the football side how do you parse through irrelevant stats how do you contextualize a relevant stat to help formulate whether it's a prop bet or a cider total you know what are some of the key stats that you know listeners can use and find out that they have access to as well I think it's really there's a prop bet or a side or total, you know, what are some of the key stats that, you know, listeners can use and find out that they have access to as well? I think it's really, there's a lot of different stats that you and I specifically use, I know, but all of them

need context. And so I think it's important with noting, like, we don't look at, like, the stats don't really matter until we have a sample. And so like, I think that's a question that I want to throw to you guys first before I finish, like, how many weeks of data do you feel good about before you can be like, oh, like, I think that there's something going on here. I know Clark, you initially said like, oh, I need to make more moves initially based off of my original, you know, rankings or my original like numbers. But like, what do you think in terms of like, I guess just a regular stat. So let's say like, I don't know, EPA or whatever DVOA, whatever, if you cite anything else, like how many weeks of data do you use in the current season to feel like it's relevant? So I don't use, well, I don't directly use those stats in

my model, but there is an ancillary thing that I use. And really by week three or four, I've thrown out all priors. And so I'm using really just this season's data by that point. Even then I hold it loosely and it has to be contextualized against opponents, matchups, injuries, et cetera. And then really by week seven or eight, I'm really committed to what I've seen that year. And, you know, I can rely on it. But the idea of my system is to try to like see through those numbers,

right. And identify true performance. And for that, it depends on what team we're talking about, right? So the Chiefs, I'm going to hold pretty tight to my priors. Like if they have a rough first game, which would be surprising because they always show up in week one. But if they have a rough first game, I'm probably not going to overreact to that because we have such a strong sample size of the key pieces, head coach, quarterback, offensive line, et cetera. if they have a rough first game, I'm probably not going to overreact to that because we have such a strong sample size of the key pieces, head coach, quarterback, offensive line, et cetera.

Um, whereas a team like the Colts with a new offensive coordinator, a new head coach, a new quarterback, I'm going to move drastically after one week of data, right? Like that's, that's a, those are statistically significant to me that, sorry, that's a phrase that I don't, I don't mean to use that phrase that that's a meaningful, uh, uh, result to me that, sorry, that's a phrase that I don't, I don't mean to use that phrase, that that's a meaningful result to me because I have no prior, basically. Like, I have a very, very loose prior of how this Indianapolis Colts team is going to operate. So, so it depends on the team, basically. And, you know, over the first three or four weeks, I'm, I'm relying more on this season's data for variable teams and less for stable teams. And then by week, yeah, like seven or eight, I'm 100% the data that we've seen is the data

we got. And that's what we're going to do. And I'll add that since week eight in each of the last three seasons I've been doing this, I've had a really, really strong record from week eight on every season. So I think my process is working. It just takes a little while to get that hard data that I can rely on. And that's about seven or eight weeks. Yeah.

That makes a ton of sense. And I think statistically significant for the data nerds out there means a lot different than most of the other people. I mean, Sam happens, you know, just shaking his fist right there. Are you saying that? But otherwise I totally understand what you mean.

In terms of stats that I use specifically though, like I do think that understanding what they mean and like how of stats that I use specifically though, like I do think that understanding what they mean and like how to use them is really important. So like a stat like success rate is that means on a play to play basis, like, are you getting done what needs to be done? So like an 80 yard pass is the same as a 10 yard pass. So like that's, it's a yes or no binary. You either win one, that player you didn't. And so when is that important? I think that's important in certain situations if you're looking for consistency.

Like that's kind of like what that stat measures. But, you know, a stat like mixing that with a stat like explosive play rate, that obviously measures the percentage of your plays that are going for it's 10 yard runs, 15 yard passes, something like that. And so like understanding that, and then on top of that,

some of the more advanced metrics, EPA is heavily influenced by touchdowns. And so do you think that that on a week week basis is noisy? Do we think that that is, you know, re you know, regular and a lot of that plays into, uh, like the red zone efficiency that Clark talked about before. And so like all of these stats, I think, I think they have value in certain contexts, but like understanding when to use them and like what they mean is really important. So like I, that kind of correlates more to my prop betting and specific, like, okay, I want to bet a running back over running back under, you know, like, yeah, he, the EPA, this team might be really high, but that's just because they allowed three rushing touchdowns

last week. Their success rate. They're like really stiff. Like they're only allowing this many yards, you know, yards per attempt. They're not allowing explosive runs. They're not allowing like a really low success rate, they're like really stiff. Like they're only allowing this many yards, you know, yards per attempt. They're not allowing explosive runs. They're not allowing like a really low success rate. Like those three things can wildly range, uh, you know, specifically, specifically. So like understanding how each stat functions within like a handicap, I think is really important to us. It's something that I've been learning more about specifically because things

can be really misleading. If you just don't understand. You're like, oh, EPA is 28th. This run defense sucks after four weeks, whatever. I'm just going to blind bet it over. Yeah, the contextualized piece, Sharp, is everything, right? Yeah. So I'm going to give the people who are still here after 50 minutes, congratulations. I'm going to give a peek behind the curtain of Sharp Clark here. The way that I use statistics in almost every instance

is as a comparative tool. And the way that I do this, for example, is I have, you know, current year to date EPA per play on offense for passing plays for every team. And then I normalize and weight that on a scale from zero to one. So the very worst pass EPA team has a zero, the best has a one. And then every team where they fit within that is like scaled, right? I do that for all the main statistics that I use, you know, rushing EPA, rushing success rate, defense, offense, etc. And then what I do is I use those normalized values to create basically comparisons between teams. So a team with, for example, a high EPA per play in the passing game, but a low

success rate, to me screams reliant on big plays, right? Like they are, they are probably, you know, they probably had a lot of razor thin, deep balls that, you know, worked. And if they don't work, then that offense might be due for regression, or a team like that might be better against the blitz, right? Because reliance on big plays, blitzes lead to big plays. So they might capitalize against that blitz, you know, and you have to do a little bit more analysis than that. But that's how I use statistics is right. I want to have an archetype for every team based on what they do well relative to everyone

else in the league, what they do poorly relative to everyone else in the league. You know, is this the NFL's best rushing defense in both EPA and success rate? Are they going against a team that relies on the run for success? That can be meaningful. So that's kind of my approach to statistics without giving you any specific formulas that I use. I think that's a really good starting point if you want to get into it yourself. Start from that and try to analyze it in that way and play around with the numbers and see if anything works. Yeah, I think that's great. I think for me, like the note that I have for this, in my advice to anyone who's starting new,

looking at any individual statistic, it should then prompt a question in your mind to then look for something else. Okay, well, what is this? What does this lead to? Well, what was the situation? So you can't just look at anything in particular, everything should be leading to another question in your mind to go find another stat. It's a wormhole that can be, you know, starts to get really noisy if you don't know how to parse through it. But my point in it is that don't settle for just the one number and allow the one number to be confirmation biased to a bet that you're looking to make. It's like, okay, well, I know DVOA is really important. I hear people talk about it all the time. This is a massive disadvantage between

these two DVOA teams. Like it just let it lead to more stuff. You know, keep asking questions, keep looking for more answers. I mean, you know, understanding the context I think is, is really important. Pivoting is important. I had to pivot in the middle of last season because I was like, hey, what are we doing here? This prop game is getting a little bit harder. These books are getting smarter. It was really hard to predict when the books were going to put the numbers out. And sometimes you'd say, I really, this is a guy that I'm looking to get on the right side of this week. And all of a sudden that line is mushed in 30 minutes because it is so much more impacted by steam than side to totals. That led me down the tackle wormhole.

That got to a point where like the emotions of the tackles were more so than anything else because the expectation of the subscribers is that tackles don't miss. So when tackles missed, it was even more impactful for me because no one expected the tackles to miss because they didn't for a little bit so they don't miss bro they don't miss ah they won a lot and we're going to continue to do that this year but you know trying to always look at different ways to evolve and you know it became a matter of i want to find a way to get in good wherever we can and if we can have an edge and an advantage no one's doing this work you want to do this work so i'm interested to see where that takes us in the coming years of what happens in these markets, whether it's live betting opportunities, whether it's new avenues to bets, we start betting punts, penalties, whatever we need to do to find and get an edge as things continue to evolve. Connor, what's something that... Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say the prop market specifically, just a quick tangent here is something that i've been thinking about a lot is it's been really difficult because now we're looking at a point heading into this year where draft kings posts early fan duel wasn't posting till saturday mornings uh caesars was posting i mean whenever they wanted basically it's just like you know and mgm was as well but like the limits on those and focusing on i guess providing widely available plays to the point that we can get down on it to the extent that we want to. Cause you know, my unit size is significantly more than any one book will allow me to outside

of Caesars at this point. Um, and also being able to know that like, can our subscribers get down on it at the same time? It's a really important balance. It's something that I think necessarily we've struggled with, but our continue to evolve with over the years, because like, you know, know i two years ago we just

released whatever whatever we wanted you know like fan duels has an off-market line blast it you know it doesn't matter we'll get down what we need to get down and no one will care now at this point like draft kings is limiting most people to you know 20 bucks 25 bucks things of that sort so personally most of my players at this point are gonna come later in the week just kind of basically evolve in the market but for like a tackle, and I'm sure it's something you've thought about, like maybe those are earlier. Maybe those are middle of the road. Maybe we'll see how the subscribers go.

And I don't want to answer the question for you because that's kind of your thing. But it's like one of those things that we're going to, I mean, it's just going to be tough to figure out and tough to parse through because like we answer a couple of questions for ourselves. Can we bet it is the number one question. If we can't bet it, then like other people probably can't bet it. If can subscribers to get down on this number as well. Like, is it going to move within five seconds? Like if it's gonna move within five seconds, we probably also don't want to push it out. Cause it doesn't make sense to release. If we can answer yes to like those two questions, then it's probably fine to play. If not, then it just, it's tough. You know, it's, it's tough where we're at

given the service we're at and everything. Now, that being said, there are plenty of services that are still able to release things on Saturday and do okay. And I think that we will do well as well. But that's just kind of where my head's at with the prop market as of now. I mean, we're at May 18th. I mean, maybe points bet and fanatics because something worked out and they're allowing $1,000 limits on everything.

I mean, I know I'm completely dreaming dreaming there but you never know so um that's just where my head's at noon have you thought put any thought into like the tackle props with this because i know towards the end of the season i mean you guys are getting chopped like pretty quick yeah it was um you know more so than that too it was just a matter of like the line moving so quickly um because it was i mean i definitely got flagged i think we flagged multiple accounts uh internally with our subscribers because we you know had a lot of success with it it's a matter of how many books are starting are going to start to get in in the game whereas last year was you know draft kings caesars and then if folks happen to have bet 365 they would have a lot

of bets so that was also a challenge um so you would love to see FanDuel get into the tackle game. They had a pretty extensive market in the Super Bowl that probably was a one-off. I imagine these books aren't dying to get into some of these alt markets and get hammered. But yeah, we'll see. I mean, the balance is also around content, around, you know, how much information to put out there before the market's out. How well are we informing the subscriber base in terms of being able to get these? Whereas they start to dictate the number.

They start to move it before I can get in on it because we're making them too smart. So that's a balancing act, making sure that we're doing that. But yeah, I mean, a lot of work goes into it. My goal is to be profitable, to help subscribers be profitable. So yeah, towards the tail end of the year, the majority of my work, especially on like Tuesdays and Wednesdays was really tightening up those, those tackle projections to be ready for whatever the books put out. Cause early in the process, it was like, Oh, Hey, like this looks like a matchup based

off of some of this early information that I have. i love to bet this guy and then he never got posted um and the pivot was okay i need to have a projection for literally everyone and i'm ready for whatever the books put out here and then we can attack the randoms that they put out um they decide they don't want to put out the big names um things like that we were ready for for everything so yeah that's a balancing act. It'll be a balancing act depending on how in sync the books are instead of it being just one place, knowing that we're going to crush that. And that does a couple of things.

That's going to hurt the number that comes out eventually at the other book. So if DraftKings is first, if we trash that line, Caesars is going to come into the market with a very different number as well. That balancing act is going to come into the market with a very different number as well so we want to be you know that balancing act is going to be really really tricky too so I think it'll be case by case depending on really bad numbers there are some really bad numbers even late in the playoffs so I'm I am still optimistic that we're going to get some some good stuff to bet now my struggle is I jumped in to this more aggressively mid-season, early mid-season last year. I didn't have anything pre-season.

So coming in, understanding playing time, you know, the number that really makes a lot of my decisions. How do I kind of set that number for people on new teams? How do I set that number for rookies? That's kind of some of the stuff I've already started working on that I want to have week one projections for everybody. that's kind of some of the stuff I've already started working on that I want to have week one projections for everybody that's going to be a struggle in trying to make sure that we're really dialed in early in the season but the problem is also I know that people are very thirsty for it

they're going to expect those you know from week one and hopefully we get off to a really good start but yeah I'm going to spend a lot of time between now and week one making sure that that number is as tight as it could possibly be. I saw that Dan asked about our process for futures. I think at the beginning of an episode that we do futures, we should have some dedicated time to talk about that. I don't think that we can address that in a rushed way. It's a meaningful question that I think we should spend some time on in a future episode. For sure. Good call. Yeah. We touched based on a little bit last week with our future plays, but I think getting into it and the bankroll management behind it and all

those things, and then really how to choose what to bet and what not to bet, I think is a discussion that can be 30 minutes onto itself. So you guys got anything else for today? I mean, one last thing here from the chat, Brian said, we'll circa being available in Illinois help maybe.

I mean, we talked to our buddy, Jeff Benson, see if they'll post anything i don't think that they necessarily post a ton of props just in general um but they do post some like closer to kick and so if they're able to post some with reasonable limits i mean i would assume that they would take you know whatever 500 a pop a thousand a pop and then just move aggressively like they do for most other props uh that'd be interesting but uh yeah i think it's kind of a wait and see thing i i don't know for sure uh but i think it helps with sides um because we have we have circa here in colorado and i find myself getting limited less by the other books and i think part of that might be because there's the competition so like if they're

overly aggressive with their limits they can like run everyone out of out of betting at their book um so i think on sides you um it it make a difference. I don't know for sure. Excited to see what the surfer offering is here in Illinois. And hopefully that should be up here by the time football season kicks off. So good stuff as always gentlemen, appreciate this conversation. Hopefully you did as well as a, as a listener or a viewer, because I think it's really impactful to understand how to approach it because there are

a lot of slippery slopes where it becomes very problematic. And there's a reason that a lot of, you know, podcasts or the bottom of articles have, you know, chunks of text to understand where you need to call and what you need to do if this becomes a problem and why, you know, the sports betting thing is relatively new in terms of being legal in the States is because there are, it's very easy to get into some bad habits and we want to make sure that we're bringing back people year over year they're coming back because they have not become a problem you know gambler uh that they are not in a spot where they're having to explain things to their significant other or to their

family or get into these you know start chasing the. Like it is very easy to do if you do not have a process set up. So we want to help you understand how important that is at the top here and hopefully help you understand a little bit of how we come to our bets and plays every week. So hope you also understood how important our subscribers are through that message as well. You should do so. Five bucks, promo code 444BETS on VividPix.

Again, gets you access basically to everything that's going on with us this preseason, all the future plays that we have. And we already both, all three of us have a bunch. You can find some of those articles up on our site as well. So good stuff as always from Clark and Connor. I'm Ryan. We'll see you all next time. Thanks, everyone. you