The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Favorites - Special Mailbag Edition

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Questions have been pouring in for Action Network hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter, so we've put together our favorites for a special mailbag edition of the podcast. Together Chad and Simon answer questions about bankroll management, how to spot a loser in the sportsbook, who would win in a "Freaky Friday situation" and so much more. Plus, another round of "What Are The Odds" with beloved predictive analyst Nick Giffen! #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me.

Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes,

creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Cliford show on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The Favorites podcast is presented by Fandual Sportsbook. There's no better place to make every moment more than with Fandual.

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Welcome to the favorites, the podcast from the Volume Podcast Network. I am Chad Milam. Chief Content Officer of the Action Network, big, big things today, folks. Later on in the show, I'm going to be joined by my BFF, my companion, my compadre, professional better, Simon Hunter. You guys have been sending us a boatload of questions. We're doing a mailbag today. You've been sending us questions about everything from bankroll management to what are our

days like Simon and I during NFL off-season to do we like our jobs, what else would we do, all those kinds of things. So we're excited to answer those. They're really thoughtful questions. We love when you guys send those in and we love being able to give honest, forthright answers. But first, Simon, we got another what of the odds segment. For those of you who don't remember, we have started a new segment called What Are the Odds? Where listeners send in their most inane coincidences, ironies, whatever you want to call them. And we have our expert, Sean Croner and Nick Giffin of our predictive analytics group, figure out what the odds are of something inane and crazy happening.

And then they come on, they tell us what the odds are, and they explain their math. you can send all these in podcasts at actionnetwork.com or just send them directly to producer Matt Mitchell, old boy, Uncle Mitch, uh, on Twitter. They're great. These are phenomenal. I love doing these. Simon, how much do you love these? It's hilarious. It's just hilarious hearing the stories and hearing what the actual odds are for that said story. It's just amazing because we'll read this story and this one is freaking insane. And then Nick Giffin is going to join us over the phone from the Wilds of Virginia. And Nick, by the way, has more math degrees than you and I have fingers and toes combined. And yet somehow he's decided that what he wants to spend as I'm doing is,

instead of solving the world's problems with math, he wants to spend it on this. And we're happy to have it. Here is the question. This is from Christopher Frost, listener Christopher Frost. Listener Christopher for Frost. I read this and I was astonished. I'm meeting lunch with two colleagues at work making conversation. None of us are particularly close and we don't know each other particularly well. So as we make conversation about sports, one colleague Mitch mentions that he has a massive collection of Sports Illustrated magazines dating back 40 years. Mitch remarks that one of his first and favorite Sports Illustrated has Michael Jordan on the cover back when he was at UNC. When he mentions this, the other colleagues sitting with us, Roger, Googles the cover,

and then tells Mitch to look at the letter to the editor's section of the magazine when he gets home. Because when Roger was 12 years old, he sent a letter to SI about a hockey player who was suspended for accidentally tripping a referee, which was published in that edition. Mitch was amazed. And when he returned home, he found the magazine, opened it and saw Roger's letter right there in print from November of 1983. The following day, I run into Mitch. This is Christopher, who is the I. He tells me he had just spoken to Roger and discovered something even crazier. Mitch had a daughter who was a junior at Ohio State. Remember, Mitch is the guy who collects the SIs, not particularly good friends with any people he was talking to. Roger is the guy who wrote the

letter to the editor that was in this S.I. Now, Mitch has a daughter who is a junior at Ohio State, Roger had a son, also a freshman at Ohio State. And when Roger called the son and mentioned the crazy Sports Illustrated Coincident work, his son said that he might actually know Mitch's daughter. So now two guys who work together who barely know each other, find out that one is collecting Sports Illustrated, that the other one had written a letter to the editor when he was 12. And now it turns out their kids both go to Ohio State and know each other. What are the odds on that, right?

Here we go. as it turns out, Roger's son was pledging a fraternity Ohio State and as part of the process, he was required to create a daily puppy pledge pick, which was a picture of a puppy with a positive motivational message. And he must send this puppy picture to a designated upperclassman sorority student in a partnering process that is entirely random. You guessed it. Roger's son was partnered with Mitch's daughter, a fact they never ever would have learned if the topic of old sports illustrated covers hadn't come up.

Wow. Nick Giffin. Come on in, brother. Give us your take. Hi, everybody. Hi, Dr. Nick. This one's a doozy. We essentially have a three-parter here.

We have the magazine coincidence. We have the going to Ohio state coincidence, and then we have the fact that they knew each other through this random process. So we'll break down all three of those. First, let's start with the magazines. And given that this was a collection from over 40 years ago and these guys are working together, we can assumedly put this in an age range where these men are in, let's say, the 45 to 60 age range. If I'm wrong, I apologize if I've overestimated ages. But given that's what it was said in the story, we're going to go with about 45 to 60-year-olds. So how many 45 to 60-year-olds that are alive now were there in the 1980s when this Michael Jordan cover was out there?

And we also have to count for the people that are no longer alive today because if they had written a letter to the editor, this coincidence may not have come up. So we came up with a population of 45 to 60 year olds alive today, between 30 and 35 million. And then if you count those that aren't alive, we stretch it up just to be conservative to 50 million and also to have nice round numbers. So let's say we're working with a population of 50 million, which would put a hard cap on the magazine number. That still doesn't answer our question. Let's say, you know, we've got several years of Sports Illustrated magazines and they came out, what, weekly? and there's maybe two to five letters to the editor per magazine. And a lot of these people could have written multiple letters to the editor.

So we put it about potentially 250 unique writers out of a 50 million population. So we would take 250 to buy by by 50 million. But then how many times has he told this magazine collection, Sports Illustrated magazine collection, Icebreaker story? So we put it over a five-year frame of maybe around 100 people have heard this story. So when you take 250, divide by 50 million, multiply it by 100. For the magazine part, we get about 1 in 2,000 chance of, you know, this guy having a collection and the other guy writing into one of these not magazines. Now, we could boil it down further and say, well, what are the audios as exact favorite?

But I feel like it probably would have come up in general if we have a sports illicitory collection from the 80s and this guy wrote into, you know, SI in the 80s, they probably would have figured it out as well. So that's why we're sticking with 1 in 2000 on that part. So now we need to go to the fact that their kids both go to Ohio State. And this is where Sean and I, we tried to throw a lot of cold water on this. But the fact that they both go to Ohio State and they work at the same place probably means they're located in the same place.

I would guess in Ohio, that seems to be most likely. So Sean and I rolled with that assumption. Doing that, we were able to calculate the population of, you know, in-state kids and who goes to Ohio State, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What we found out is that there's about a 1 in 20 chance in adult male in the 45 to 60 age range has a kid, if they live in Ohio, has a kid going to Ohio State. However, that's a random sample. That would include if you ask the farmer in the middle of the country, or, you know, ask people of various income levels, et cetera. So the fact that they're at this specific job, the kids pledge sororities and fraternity,

you know, there's a little bit of a selection bias here. And we're referring to last week's story where we're going to call this the chop house factor or the chop factor. There's a lot of underlying chop here. So, you know, we just have to kind of guesstimate as best we can. Instead of one in 20, we think the fact that they're working in the same. place. You know, they're all sports fans. The kids went to sororities and fraternities. There's probably a lot higher chance than one in 20 that two random adult men would both have kids going to Ohio

State. So we put it at one in five for each. So one in five times one in five is one in 25. So that's the probability of both of these men who have now connected through this magazine, also having kids that went to Ohio State. Now we need to figure out what's the probability those kids knew each other. And yes, this was a randomized sorority process, but we also would have brought this story up if they had had a class together or they had a mutual friend in a dorm together, et cetera, et cetera.

So we just wanted to calculate the probability that two people, two students at Ohio State would know each other. And we said, well, given that they're both in sorority fraternities, they probably run into a lot of people over their time. So we took essentially the population of Ohio State said they've run into around 300 to 400 people that, you know, they could probably recall knowing and came up with about 1 in 133, 1 and 150 chance that they would know each other. So you take 1 in 150 times 1 in 25 times 1 in 2,000 and we come up with a number in let's say the 6 to 7.5 million range, but we're not done there.

we think there's still some underlying chop, right? Like the fact that they're in sororities and fraternities probably means they're more likely to be sports fans, that they're more likely to be sports fans, their parents are more likely to be sports fans. That means their parents are more likely to have Sports Illustrated magazine collections and more likely to write in the Sports Illustrated magazine.

So all of this underlying chop is something we can't really quantify, right? There's this correlated factor, but it probably brings it down to around, we would say three to five million range. So one in three to one and five million range. And I'd actually even err towards a little bit lower side than that. But we are probably talking close to a one in a million events. All right.

I'm really glad you said that because Matt Mitchell, you know, I love this segment. I think it's great. The problem is outside of sort of my professional life, whether it's as a media executive, a content creator, someone who is in the betting community. I want mystery and romanticism.

I want impossibilities in my narratives. I want wow in my storytelling. We get a story like this from Christopher Frost, which is amazing. And then we got like the fucking geeks coming on and pouring cold water on everything. I'm glad that we. stayed in like the north of one million chances.

Because if you had said to me at the end of the day, we really think it's like one in 10,000, I would have had to reach through the phone and, you know, been unpleasant. Nick. Yeah, well, thankfully we don't get the unpleasantries here because this is, I mean, like I said at the start, this one is an absolute doozy and it really is a three-parter. And when you add all these extra factors,

you start multiplying them together, that really starts to almost exponentiate the odds here. Simon, do you have thoughts on where we landed on this? I was honestly hoping for the ending of being like, and now they're married. It's heartbreaking that my man couldn't close the deal, like serendipity. He had all the signs pointing to it. And it didn't happen, I guess. So I'm a little heartbroken. I was waiting for a better ending, Chad, but it's still pretty interesting.

Dude, the kid's 18. He's 18. she's probably 20, 21, there's still time. And by the way, you know, I love love, huge fan of it. Nobody loves it more than me. Like, it's a very good possibility that the dad, that Christopher Frost, hears this story from the podcast, tells his new best friend, Roger and Mitch, about the relationship to the odds and the magazine and their kids.

And then the kids start hanging out together. And who cares that she's a little bit older, or that she might graduate while he's a sophomore. And then it could be two years of a long-distance love affair. Maybe she's going to get a job in Cleveland. Maybe she gets a job in Cincinnati. Maybe she gets a job in New York. And he goes to visit her every once in a while.

Who knows? Who cares? That's the beauty. This could be the beginning of the romance. You're the best, Chad. It's such a romantic. I am a romantic. By the way, you said a key word here,

serendipity, which was an incredible movie with, John Cusack, and I believe it was Kate Beckinsale, who is phenomenal. Is that where she writes her number in the book? Yes. I remember that. And I feel like we have to have Nick and Sean. They got to figure out the odds for that because that is actually a friend of one. Matt Mitchell, can we get Nick and Sean to do that?

Sure. Sure. Our audience has been begging for it. I feel like we can be expanding this to, you're such a stickler for what the audience wants. We could be expanding this into like fictional realms. Couldn't agree more. Sounds great. Oh, my God. Nick, I know you're waiting. Find me in.

Nick is totally in. Yep, sign me up. Nick Giffin, predictive analyst and math maven for the Action Network. Oh, my God. I'm so glad we're doing this. Nick has one of the best media setups when he's in his home, and I'm super excited for him to relocate and get it all settled again because he's the true pro, and I appreciate you coming on, buddy. Thanks for having us, as always.

These are super fun to do. so keep them coming. Keep them coming. Listeners, what are the odds? Send them along. Podcasts at actionnetwork.com is the best way to do it. You can always DM me, DM Matt Mitchell, but that's the best way to do it.

Pretty good stuff. It makes me happy, Simon. You would nerd out on that. I kind of got lost midway through it because there's just so many numbers on probabilities starting around, but then I came back around. The NBA finals are here,

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Gambling problem. Call 1-800 Next-step or text. Next step to 53342 in Arizona. 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia, 1-888-789-77-777, or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, 1-800-2707-117 for confidential help in Michigan. Call the Tennessee Red Line,

1-800-889-9-9-9-7-8-9 or visit 1-800-gambler.net in West Virginia. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand-new podcast. The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations

with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations,

stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes,

follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J.

And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now.

Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Simon.

Yes, sir. It's time for us to get to our reader questions. It was a great mix. It was a great mix of people who wanted to know real nitty-gritty stuff and people who wanted to know some more personal stuff. I already know that like Matt Mitchell likes this to be a very focused podcast. He does not like when we veer off topic. You can tell by the fact I wanted to do the odds of synagipity and he's like, I fucking hate you.

So I'm forcing him to let us include some more personal questions because if it was up to him, it would only be very utility driven stuff. Okay. That's fair. Here we go. I think this is a good one for you. This is from Mo. It's a bankroll management question.

I had a winning NFL record last season going 76 and 64. I still lost money. I bet too much on losing favorites and not enough on winning underdogs. Wondering if my distribution is off. If you had $100, how would you distribute between a minus 140 teaser, a minus 120 parlay, a minus 110 straight bet on a favorite and a plus 130 dog. Or, we know the answer to this question. Should I stop playing parlays and teasers where I typically lose the most?

Let me answer the first question. Let me answer that last question first. And then Simon, I want you to get into the distribution. I'll give you a second to do the math. 100% stop playing the parlays and teasers. Last year, when I played only the games that were straight bets, where I felt like I was going with my principles based on conversations Simon and I had, based on what I know about the market, overvaluation on one side or the other, et cetera.

I was winning. And I was down for much of the year because I was spending way too much on parleyes and teasers and way too much on like these money line around Robbins that Simon and I would do. And I was giving back all my winnings. And it wasn't until the playoffs where I went side to player props and just, individual bets that I made it all back and ended up having a winning year, I say get out of the parlianties your business. Yeah, I mean, it's all about what you're looking for, Mo. It's a tough question, buddy. I advise people just to bet straight because personally, that's what

works for me. And I would say about 90% of other professionals, but I don't know, I doubt you're trying to bet like a pro, but if you are, that's how it is, man. It's not some sexy get rich scheme. a grind where yeah if you're starting out i would just do one unit so if one unit to use a hundred dollars i would just do everything you're doing that one unit maybe bump it up when you think you have a good read but to me i broke it down here i'm a dog better with NFL NFL NFL's very unique in that sense and i'm a big believer if you're trying to keep it simple throw three units on the number so plus six plus seven whatever you're going to get and then you throw half a unit or one unit on the money line. And like that, if you just stick to that and you pick your spots,

you build a bankroll. It's really not that hard. The hard part is you, like say we win really big for the first three weeks. Then you start up and up your steak. Then you start doing these parlays and you start doing more teasers again. You start just messing with your money instead of sticking to what got you up for those first three weeks. So when it comes to money management, there's a million different ways to do it. But if you're just starting out and you're just trying and build a bank roll, I would take it nice and easy and just do one, one unit at time because you're kind of just trying to figure out the rhythm of the sport you're betting. It's like most pros that do it for real five years into them being professional better, they really start

getting the money management down. So like they might have lost 10 years before, then came a pro and it took another five years to really figure out how to manage their money. So there really is no one answer, sadly, Mo, but I would say be patient and just understand. you're not going to get rich quick. It's just a very grinding, grinding thing to do, sports betting. From Mite-O and from our friends at Full Slate, two related questions. I think this are better for you, Simon. Is there an industry standard on how runners are compensated?

And have you ever had a major issue with a runner, miscounting, theft, incorrect wage replacement, etc.? Of course, to the second one. Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be little issues here and there. but I would say it's always with the new people breaking into it. That's why it's really hard to get in as a new person as a runner because some of these people are being handed bags of cash and they've never had a bag of cash in their entire life. And, you know, it's easy to pull a runner.

So, I mean, we've talked a little bit about it, like getting guys' drivers license, getting their parents' home address, getting their parents' phone number, like people that care about. I mean, it gets a little murky, but they're talking about a lot of money. people handing a lot of money. So, yeah, I mean, I've had my own drama with runners, but nothing compared to other people in this industry. I've been very lucky where I've either had runners that worked with other pros.

I knew them already. They're good people. Or I've hired people personally. They're just very loyal to me. So, yeah, nothing too bad for me. How they're compensated individually different for everyone. What are you looking to do? Do you want to run just NFL?

Do you want to run all? four major sports. You want to only run soccer and cricket, which means you're all up at weird hours of the night all the time. It's kind of hard to say. I'll say if you're just trying to get into the industry, I ran for picks. Like I honestly,

I was offered money, but I would just rather run and get really good professional better picks and use their picks to build my own bankroll. Now I talked about it with Chad on the show. I went broke a bunch of times doing that. But I was, again, I was just new into the industry. Again, getting my feet wet.

I was trying to figure out my own style. So for me as a runner, I didn't get paid probably for like a year or two, at least when I first started out. Most guys, if you're lucky, you know, you might get a salary. But I would say most workoff tips, like you're running a bag of money. They're going to take care of you. But again, it's just hard getting your foot in the door. But most these guys, if they're willing to spend money on a runner, they're going to take care of you. So I would say at worst, at minimum, you might get 20K for running one sport for a season.

We got, we got so many good questions. Matt Mitchell, we're going to have to do a second mailbag pod. This one's from Conrad. Simon, you and I are going to have completely different opinions on this. are NFL all day NFTs complete junk or something fans will appreciate and trade for years to come. You have thoughts on NFTs,

I have thoughts in NFTs, you go first. I think NFTs are cool. They maybe someday will have value. Again, values all what people give this stuff. I mean, everything, nothing really has value unless we give it value or it takes incredible work. to make said product.

So I don't know what to think of the NFT stuff. I mean, me and Chad love the basketball stuff, but that fizzled out very quick. I just still think we're just so far ahead of what they're projecting for this stuff. But, yeah, for me personally, if I'm investing money into hard cards, like buying Pokemon cards or baseball cards or baseball cards, I'm still doing hard to copy over digital. Like I still bought every year I do the same thing, which is no secret.

I buy all the rookie cards I can of the quarterbacks drafted. So the five quarterbacks drafted last year, I got all of them, year before, which is looking like gold, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Tua, Jalen Hertz. I mean, that to me is keeping it safe. But the NFT stuff, not for me right now with investing my money. Simon mentioned, like, for a minute, we got really into NBA Topshop. And I think when it comes to sports NFTs, you got to think about them the same way you think about the hard cards, as Simon just said.

By the ones that you think are interesting, by the ones that you think you would like to own, don't think about, oh, this will be a great investment one day. Don't overspend in a hot market thinking you're going to turn that over because it's way too unpredictable. It's way to event-driven, career-driven, and honestly, taste-driven, and it's not something that has real underlying metrics or fundamentals that you can rely on as an investment. So for me, it's not a question of, are they complete junk? I think it's a question of if you love the NFL, you want to be a part of sort of the next phase of collectibles. and a price you can afford,

then you should do it. I loved opening the top shot packs, but I just got sick of seeing the pricing and the market being so frenzied, and then it cratered, and it's just not that interesting to me anymore. So you can't do it because you think you're going to get rich off it. It's like betting.

That's my take. And when it comes to the other NFTs, forget about it, board apes or whatever they are. Like, I know people love them. To me, it's a, it feels so arbitrary. It feels so driven by a taste for something that I don't see. I get crypto. I'm in crypto.

I'm not uncomfortable with crypto. The other NFTs, like, it's just not my bag personally. It just, again, it's, yeah, we'll keep it moving. But it's just different where we don't get NFTs because it's too early. It's the same thing with the internet. It's like, you ever seen the old news clip is that I'm talking about? AOL and the internet in the late 90s, early 2000s, they're like, what is the internet? It's the same thing right now, the NFTs.

It's just, we're very early in it. So I don't have an hour to talk about it, but it's, it's whatever you make it. It's art is whatever someone's willing to pay for it gives it the value. All right. We're going to do two more questions. And then we will do another mailback because we have so many more. From Sheila, Simon, you start. What interested you most about a career in sports betting?

Are you satisfied with how it has turned out? What interested me in it? I always was into it. I can tell you that. I mean, my earliest memory, I think I talked on the show, was the Tennessee Rams Super Bowl. And I had Tennessee on a bet against my brother. Again, it might have been for a dollar.

I was a little kid. And the Tennessee guy got tackled at the one-yard line. And I just remember it just being pure mayhem, where it was just like a rush. As a little kid, I remember feeling that rush of like, I don't care about either of these teams, but I cared about winning that dollar and I got stopped with the one yard line.

So I definitely, I think that was something that started really young for me with sports betting, but I was always into sports or grow up playing sports. So it just came together where as I got older, I loved math. And when I met my, you know, my handler, my boss, Bob, it was kind of like,

not that he had a time machine, but he pretty much described it that way. It's like it's all in the numbers. It's like don't, don't look at the schedule or the teams or what their record is. It's like just take it week by week, look at the numbers, look at the matchups, and that's how you find the value. So it's definitely gone way better than I could ever imagine. And that's why when people ask me how to get into it, I say don't do it because it's like,

I don't know if I came in with 25 guys, there might be three of us left that are doing this for real. and only two of us are doing like pro shit. The one guy is a grinder, like living in a one bedroom studio in Vegas, driving his shitty car he still has had from 2002. It's like not everyone makes it the same way. So it's, it's tough. If you had told me dream out your best scenario, I could never have dreamed the way my life embedding has turned out.

I mean, it's just been, again, a lot of work and sacrifice. I mean, I don't come on here a bitch about my life because I know people have real shit going on. but it's not easy. But yeah, it's like I couldn't have dreamed a better way for my life to go in this whole betting spear. How about you, Chad? I would say, I've told this story before. So I'll keep it as succinct as possible.

I was an editor at ESP in the magazine in 1999. Someone assigned me a story about who was setting the point spread for March Madness in Las Vegas. And this is right when offshore internet online betting was becoming popular. So the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, which was the hotel that was featured in the book in the movie Casino, like it was the premier destination for sports betting. You'd get lines out the door for people wanting to bet those lines. And that was what sort of set the agenda for the entire country. There was a domino effect. Whoever set those lines, that's what the rest of the market followed in Vegas.

And then outward, every illegal bookmaker all around the country, right? So I wrote a story about this guy, Joe Lupo. and Bob Scucci, who used to be the co-host of the pod years ago. And that story became the book The Odds in which I spent six months in Vegas tracking the bookmakers and a professional better named Alan Boston, who at the time was the best college basketball better in the world, literally betting more than a million dollars a day on college basketball. And I was into it, not because I was into betting, I loved, as I noted before,

the romance, the language, Wise guys, sharps, betting dimes, betting nickels, like all of that was fascinating to me. And I loved the interplay between the bookmakers and the professionals and sort of there was a $400 million market, $400 billion market, I mean, that was living in the shadows that everyone around the country was impacted by, whether they knew it or not. That's what interested me. And that just evolved into writing columns. I was at ESPN, writing columns for ESPN.

dot com, doing the podcast for ESPN, doing stuff on television for ESPN. Then when I became an executive, you know, launching the betting beat at ESPN and hiring people to do it. And then ultimately getting called by the Churning Group to help them launch action, which has been just a crazy, incredibly satisfying experience from a personal perspective, professional perspective, financial perspective. So I'm very pleased with how it turned out. And it's funny how you worded that where it's like, I honestly had no idea there were professional sports better I'd seen, whatever, is it two for the money, whatever the movie was, McConaughey and Al Pacino. I got to say, if I learned anything, it's that gambling is not your problem, not even close.

You see, most gamblers, when they go to gamble, they go to win. When we go to gamble, we go to lose subconsciously. But all I knew was professional poker players. Like, I watched World Series of Poker growing up, and I'll just never forget when I talked about me. That's what he told me he did. I go, what the hell do you mean? Like, you got the farmer's almanac? like how does one make a living off sports betting?

So that's cool that you came in from that angle of like you knew about the world before you even got into it where I literally didn't know a single thing about any of it until I got into it. This is how cosmically connected you and I are, Simon. It's why we are kindred spirits. When you were just a young boy barely getting rid of your English accent, moving here from across the pond and watching that Tennessee Titans. St. Louis Rams game and loving the excitement of it. That was one of the pinnacle moments in the

odds because I happened to be at the Stardust reporting in that season. That's the season that I did it. What year was that? Was that 01? That was a 99 season, 2000 Super Bowl. The Rams were 201. And it actually had a historical change to how bookmakers set odds on NFL teams because the bookmakers were so overexposed on the Rams. They ended up losing millions at even though they won the game because they had because the Rams covered they ended up losing millions of dollars and on the game and on the on the Rams. And so they started shrinking the futures odds and they really don't make teams that long anymore.

And they certainly don't take big numbers on those long odds. For context, that'd be betting Houston to win it all this year. Yes. That's how insane that is. That's how insane it was. And like you got to remember Kurt Warner was a backup quarterback. Yeah. So all right.

Last question. From Kellyn, what software does Simon use for his modeling? Excel, Python, something else. Oh, man. That's hard to say. Because like I did use to do sell, but I stopped doing that. I get a lot of model questions. I keep telling people that, I mean, the model is.

is important for sure to what I do. It is very important to get a number, get a baseline, and go and work off of those numbers. I mean, me and Chad talked about all the time. That's Super Bowl, that was a big deal this past Super Bowl. We made the line three. We believed in that line being three for two weeks. We stuck to it. And the game landed on three. Like that's the dream for building a system. But for most people out there, it's like, you have to be really, really smart with math. And I don't think enough people, like, especially people listen to the show, do that. So, like, when people ask me, what's the most basic system to do?

Rank all 32 teams. And, like, that's literally how most systems are done. Like, yeah, you want to break down like I do, what the get-off speed of different offensive linemen is on turf, first grass, or what D-Lignment have the fastest three-cone drill, and how does that translate to them every year being faster than the offensive linemen or which linebackers play better off ball or in coverage? It's like, that's murky.

So, yeah, I don't know. people ask me all the time about building out a system. And I told, I told people the basics for me is, you know, I use three different websites and I try to get a median number from all three for each number I use. And I use that just because if you're just using one site, you know, if you want to just use pro football, their numbers are great. I don't know. I like to have more than just one website because there is no one answer to all this. So yeah, for building out systems, people would keep wanting advice on that. I would say keep researching online and try to find a free one to use as a base and then build from there. If you eventually want to buy one off a website or buy off another person online, I would do it once you're ready to really build it out because it is very time consuming. Before we break, we're doing a speed around. Matt Mitchell, you've got a bunch of questions. Simon and I will answer with one sentence first reaction. Matt Mitchell, go.

If Simon could pretend to hold any college degree, what would it be and where would it be from? Oh, man. My dream used to be to go to Pepperdine and I would be, I guess, business major, just played safe. Oh, no. The answer is psychology major from Oxford in his home country. I don't know. I can't handle hearing people's problems all day. I don't know. There's nobody, listen, nobody is a better reader of human nature than you. You have nailed it every single time. Pretty good. We have a conversation on air or off about human nature. You and I are going to go, hang out in Philadelphia next week at the Phillies game. It'll be three hours of you giving me insights on everything that I hadn't even considered. Can't wait. Chad, if there was a good old

fashioned book burning and you could only save a single copy of a single book you've written, which one do you save? It's got to be the detonators because the detonators was the book I wrote that was about, it's a true story about a terrorist attack on New York Harbor in 1916, in which German spies blew up New York Harbor, destroyed the Statue of Liberty, decimated Manhattan all the way up to Midtown, right? Incredible story. Crazy fun book to report. One of my favorite books to work on. Nobody bought it. And it just crushed me, absolutely crushed me. I was supposed to be on the Today Show. And then Israel, Bomb Libya. I got canceled. And like, all the momentum for the book stopped. For like two years, I was depressed. I don't even know if I would ever write another book again.

I was so upset. So it would have to be the detonators because it was my truest labor of love. If you guys switched bodies in a freaky Friday situation for one year, who would get the better side of that deal? I mean, I'm young, single, and I have tons of money.

I think Chad would have a great time to travel in the world spending my money. Yeah, this is a no-brainer. I treat my body like a temple. I'm an incredible shape. I have the heartbeat of an athlete of an athlete. And by the way, like, my wife is pretty hot and I've got a really comfortable lifestyle, a fair amount of money, and zero, like, not a ton of responsibilities because my kids

are older. So it's a pretty good gig for Simon too. But, dude, if I could live like a slavily NFL better for a year. Yeah, and just drink and do whatever, I mean, it's. And know that I can go back to my life after. It'd be amazing. As long as Simon didn't fuck it up and get me divorced. Is there any behavior from betters that makes you immediately think this person is a total loser? Oh my God. I mean, there's a million things. If I'm in line and there's a guy counting his tickets, all of his parlay tickets ahead of me, and it's a Sunday morning, I lose my mind.

Like, I just want to make my two bets and get out of there. And I have to wait for this guy to put all of his tickets down on the counter as he does his 30 different parlays. To me, that is the worst thing ever. It's like just doing the little kiosk. like booth or do it at one of the computer screens. Don't bring them up to the counter with the rest of the other betters. This is so easy. The single easiest thing to identify in an asshole better is someone who says they've got it

all figured out. Yeah. I've spoken to so many people and believe me, doing this job, most of my time is spent looking for talent. Can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who have been like, they think this is a hot ticket to get into because. they want to be famous, they want to be on TV, they want to be in sports media. Everybody wants betting.

I'll talk to people who'll be like, yeah, I've been doing it for six months. I totally got to figure it out. And finally, what action network personality would make the most effective U.S. president? I'd go leave off. I mean, I like a crazy and honest, honest, and he's crazy and he's honest. Like, that's to me, that'd be the perfect president. Sadly, we haven't had that in a long time. Wow, you know what?

I hadn't thought of Mike Leboff for that. I was thinking Stucky because he never sleeps. He's got a good, he's got a background in finance. He's risky, but still thoughtful about his risks, has, is great with analytics. But Leboff did run for mayor in his Long Island town. And he only didn't win when he was like 20. And I think he didn't win because he went to like some summer concert festival instead of showing up for a debate.

He would say he wasn't invited and then went to the summer festival. I don't know if that's true. But I do think Leibov has a lot of empathy. So maybe a Stucky Leboff ticket would be the way to go. Stucky. Oh, yeah. A sleep-deprived maniac with a financial background. Sounds like exactly the kind of person.

Yeah, very savvy. I feel like I would also put Raybon in there. Raybon is freakishly smart. If we wanted like the freakishly smart analytical ticket, we'd have to do Raybon and Kerner, which I also think would be a really good ticket. I look forward to Raybond's four-day state of the union address.

If he shows up because he is, because the day before he might have gotten so drunk, he couldn't even bother to show up in time to the state of the union. That's right. Yeah. He didn't know what time zone. Listen, these have been amazing questions and there's still more. Like, what do Simon and I do during the offseason? What are our on a Sunday ticket, moving to sort of a streaming service. What do we think about different contests to enter? So we will do another mailbag before the NFL season begins.

Again, if you have mailbag questions, send them to podcasts at actionnetwork.com. Simon, Matt Mitchell and I will also send out a tweet before we do our next mailbag episode, just so people can weigh in with questions directly. but we appreciate listeners. We appreciate you sending us questions. We appreciate you giving us feedback. This has been the favorites from the volume podcast network for Simon Hunter for Matt Mitchell. I am Chad Millman.

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