Beating The Book: Captain Jack Andrews

of the prominent figures throughout the sports betting industry. Alan Boston, Rufus Peabody, Bob Stoles, just to name a few that I've had the pleasure of talking with during this time. Today. Similarly, a gentleman who I have been admiring from AFAR for a very long time. I think he just does everything right, comes from a great place, and it's just trying to make better betters out of every one who tries to get the best of the number in this business and

tries to beat the sports betting markets. A real consumer advocate for the sports betting industry in addition to being a pro better himself. It's Captain Jack Andrews. Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did right here on the Beating the Book podcast, It's a numbers game with your host, Jil Alexander untold us to believe in Adam lives.

It is a numbers game right here live at Visa of course serious except Channel two oh for the Vegas Stats and Information Network, the Sports Betting Network, Gil Alexander uh football game plus Sling. However, you're taking us in this morning, maybe with video at Visa dot com, the

Visa app. Thank you for joining us. As you know, during this pandemic, I have tried to profile some of the people that I'm most interested in in the sports betting industry to get a sense of how they started, how they became the betters and the men that they are today. Rufus Peabody has been kind enough to join us on the show in that vain Bob Stole, Alan Boston Uh and today one of the people who I

probably have admired the most from Afar. I may not have said that to him directly before, but it is definitely the case. I just love everything that he does. He's a professional better himself, but really a consumer advocate for everybody in the sports book industry, just doing good things all around. First time on the show and an honor to have him. You know him from Twitter as Captain Jack Andrews. Jack. Good morning to you man. How are you, hey, Gil, It's honor and a privilege to

be here with you. Thank you, Thank you man. You dressed for us, so we appreciate that as well. I'm not as spiffy as you are this morning. I apologize for that. I put on a collar shirt and took a shower. It's uh, it's Tuesday, Jack. I may not be wearing pants. I have no idea that's that's a possibility with all these during the pandemic. Let me start at the beginning where I always like to with everybody, which is kind of a logical place to start. Um,

where are you from? What was your background? How did you become so interested and so passionate about this industry? Uh? You know, I was born in New Jersey. I've lived here all my life. Um, so that you know, that's one strike against me, I guess. But I started out as a card counter and playing blackjack around or so I think, is when I got into that, and I was doing that for a while, just recreationally, and then I got into internet casinos, and there are numerous ways

to beat internet casinos back in the day. And then that sort of morphed into online sports books back around on that time period. That's back when we had aces Gold and bet on sports dot com and places like that. You know, crack Man's talked about those quite a bit in the past. It was all as good as it was, you know, rumored to be, uh. And I did that for a while, and that kind of morphed into other sports books, mostly still online off shore, and I played

them for a while. I got involved. I was I was always a big prop better back in that time, and I learned the hard way that sports books don't like prop betters. But I was still you know, still profitable with it, and I enjoyed it a whole bunch. I was still doing a lot of casino a P stuff, ap advantage player uh things, and and you know, I enjoyed that whole lifestyle. And at one point I decided, you know, I can do this full time as my

you know, primary source of income. I did. And then around two thousand ten, we got word that New Jersey was looking to legalize sports betting. I said, oh great, I will go headlong into sports betting. I will be ready for this when the you know, Atlantic City is gonna have sports betting. We didn't even really think about

online sports betting at that time. And in two thousand and eleven they passed the law and it was you know, full steam ahead, and then the Leaves got involved and it went into court for the next seven years or so. So in that time I was ready at any point to you know, be at the front of the line to make my first sports bet in New Jersey, and

it took much longer. And during that time I kind of got involved with learning about the regulation process and the legalization process and what's involved with the court fights. And I guess I got that ten thousand hours of experience in the legalization of sports betting, and that's how I've become a de facto expert on it. I don't like to consider myself an expert. I still have to do a lot of research with it to keep up with all the rules and regulations. But that's the path

from about to present day. Yeah, I mean, you certainly are an expert in man effect. When you were when you visited the south Point. I want to say about a year ago. Don't hold me to that. But some sometime around then and I sort of asked you, I go, what do you think the subject would be that if when you came on the show, that you would talk about that was sort of the go to thing for you. And I was a little surprised by that. I was like, Wow,

you really are super into that. I want to get into some of the nuts and bolts of, uh, your thoughts on how we've done post legalization, because I'm curious from a macro standpoint, how how someone like you would view it with a step back, um, if you could go back even further, like when you were a kid, Jack,

do you remember a moment or moments. Maybe it was an eight, Maybe it was someone who sort of steered you towards it where you were where it was like your first taste of gambling, and you're like, oh, this feels it's like a fitting, you know, my hand fitting in a glove. You know, I got I got two points for you there. Gil. Actually, when I was young,

I used to hear about Atlantic City. We had my family had a place at the Jersey Shore about thirty miles south of Atlantic City, and all the commercials would always be for Atlantic City, and I'd get the jingles in my head and I never really understood what Atlantic City was all about. And of course that was the mid eighties, and that was like the you know, the real boom boom period of Atlantic City. Anything was you know, happening there in Atlantic City. And I've always had that

miss mystique about it. And when I turned eighteen, which is still below the legal gambling age, uh, one of the things my friends and I used to do is we'd go down and we'd hang out in the casinos in Atlantic City. Not on the casino floor, because you know, we usually get busted into that. We just hanging around in the casino hotels, sit in the lobby, act like we're somebody sitting in the lobby of us big fancy hotel. I don't know. It's things you did in the early

nineties and New Jersey, I don't know. But but here's the second thing, and this is actually more interesting, is as a kid, I was big into computers. I was a bit of a computer nerd. And there used to be this show on the local PBS channel called Computer

Chronicles and Computer chronicles was I don't know. It was about a half hour show talking about uh sports betting or not, started talking about computer issues in general, and one of the episodes they had on this guy who had written a program that could manage the betting lines for Las Vegas casinos. And that person was a fairly young Roxy Roxburrow. He had the reddish hair and so um. Even though I had no real exposure to spending at

the time, I remembered that episode for some reason. And it's actually to the point that, you know, I've actually talked to Roxy about it and said, you know, when I was eight or nine years old, I knew about you, even though I didn't really know what you were doing or who you were. So that was kind of an early influence in some subtle way. Isn't that amazing how how certain things make an impression on you and you

can't really explain it. Have you yet to meet Roxy face to face, by the way, because you guys would get along splendidly, we've never met face to face. In fact, I was actually alt in Vegas the last time he was on your show, and I didn't realize it was gonna be on, and I if I would have known, I would come down to the studio and stood there by the window. But um, I we get to meet face to faceure zone. Yeah, pressing on the window. Uh oh, that's right. I do remember that you were saying, was

it was a near miss? Okay? And then, by the way, on Twitter, you could be followed at cap Jack two thousand for those who are listening, one of the great follows in the sports betting industry. Always interesting. How did you get the name? I guess it's incumbent upon me to ask this, how did you go with Captain Jack Andrews? Because that is not your real name. You are not a captain as it were, no no military service, unfortunately.

So I was signing up for a website back in the late nineties, member I was talking about card counting and there was this website b J twenty one. It still exists, and when I signed up, it was the kind of the de facto um community for card counters at the time, and they had a brief question there. You had to pick an alias to use on the site.

You didn't want to use your real name, obviously, and in ten seconds of thought, I thought Blackjack Jack, Captain Jack at the time, I was a Billy Joel fan, and you know, I ten seconds of thought came up with Captain Jack. It's stuck ever since. Uh. And then, of course people know me by my avatar on Twitter. Uh. And that's actually I did a Google search one day of Captain Jack trying to find an avatar, and of

course we got Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. Uh. You know, we got the Billy Joel song the Piano Man album. And I scrolled and scrolled and came across there's this uh, large black rapper from I think he was originally from Germany, but he was popular in the Caribbean, and his name was Captain Jack and he were this military costume and his red hat and there were a lot of publicity fixture pictures of him from the mid nineties. And so I said, oh, this is perfect, you know.

So that's what I've always used since then, and it's it's just an inside joke at this point. Yeah, people watching on Visa com and the Visa app might be startled to see that you do not, in fact look like the the avatar photo. So you you are an advantage player. You have always been one that is what you strive to be in whatever it is that you bet, So is it is it to follow then? Or am

I too? Then logically go to the next point, which is during this pandemic when it's Belarusian soccer and soccer and Nicaragua and table tennis and that sort of thing. E sports sims on Madden that you are not betting any of the above. Is there something you found a bet or what's your day to day life these days? Yeah, Gail, that's that's right. Uh, there's really nothing to be had

at this point. Uh. You know, even if I did the research to look into Belarusian soccer and ping pong and all that, the betting limits aren't high enough right now for me, it wouldn't be worth the time to do the research to bet, you know, two limits on these sports. So yeah, I've just been you know, not doing sports betting for a while. And the first week was really hard. Uh, you know, there was a it was a little bit of withdrawal symptoms going on here.

But since then it's you know, eased into it, and I've kind of enjoyed not having to wake up and you know, rush to the computer and look at the lines every day. It's It's been a little bit of a release me too. I chose to view it as sort of like a good thing here. The universe sort of helped us out in whatever way it decided it would I I I choose to view it that way as well. So the NFL Draft nothing either, did you dabble there? I actually did bet the NFL Draft for

the first time in years, probably in ever. I'm usually betting baseball at that time in late April or I'm wrapping up my NBA season, so I've never really paid much attention to the draft. However, this year I did. At the end of March, I decided to just do some line shopping. I decided to just look around, see I knew the sharp books on props, and I kind of played against their lines and found some weak lines. And and actually, I'll have to admit I stepped in

a trap that you warned people about, the Clavon Chasson trap. Um. I bet total linebackers in the first round under four and a half. There were four pure linebackers taken, and then Chason was taken by the Jaguars, and he is a edge rusher in a four three defense. He's alignment in a three or four defense. He's a linebacker. One book rated it as win, saying, oh, he's alignement, and one book rated it as a loss saying he's a linebacker.

And that book won't seem to change their mind. We've gone back and forth and you know, so predictable, Jack, so predictable. You just knew that was going to be a road bump for somebody. I'm sorry that it happened to you. So listen what you're doing now and for you know cutting too today. Um, you are doing a YouTube series and it is really about make if I could just put one big sense on it, on one umbrella, it is about making people better. Better's e er o

r um sports betting, education, if you will. And before we get even before we even get into the topics and some of the things you're doing, I just want to I just want to commend you because over the years, and I've done a podcast now for almost a decade and when people last of it years now everybody has a podcast, but back in the day, there were very few, and when people would ask, you know, what is it if you I'm doing a podcast like any any notes of advice that you give and the very you know.

I would only give two bits of advice because I was like, I listen, I don't know anything. You could be the greatest podcaster who's ever been. But the two things that I think I do know are, you want to get the technology right. You want to make sure it sounds good, um before anything, because you will lose more than of your people right off the top of

it doesn't sound good. And the other thing is you have to prepare to be good because if you're good, people are going to want and expect you to put out content on a regular basis, and it sort of takes over your life. May I just say that what you are doing on YouTube, sir, is I and I'm and you may object to this, but I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna do something with hyperbole here. Perhaps I think it is the best innovation, at least in our little corner of the world, that there's ever been. You are

doing a spectacular job with the technology. You have figured out how to take phone calls. How long did that whole process take for you? Like, how long before you were ready to actually put something out there? Well, thank you, Gil that is high praise from you. I really appreciate that. I actually have had this idea for about a year and a half, probably since late two thousand eighteen, been working at this, been trying to find a way to

make it work. And it was really paralysis by analysis for me because I would I'd make these videos and I just wouldn't want to put the content out there, and I'd nitpick little things and it just was it wasn't up to my standard. And then the pandemic hit and I had more time on my hands, and people started talking about this Zoom product, right, and you started hearing all these things about Zoom, and I said, oh, you know, I've used Zoom a little bit. Let me

look into that. And I said, oh, look, there's the ability to create a webinar. Uh. You know, I could do a webinar where people could just attend live and that would get me over my paralysis. I would just basically go live and turn on the camera and talk and maybe do a power point presentation on the side

of it. So that was kind of the genesis of it, of this kind of iteration of what I'm doing, and it worked and that kind of got me over that stage fright in terms of the prerecorded videos as well. So I put out one prerecorded video. I got another one coming out later this week. And they're very time intensive, you know. I said that the first one I did, it took me forty hours of actual labor to create

that video, seventeen minute video. And you know that's not sustainable if you're a professional sports better doing forty hours of anything else is not sustainable. Yeah, And I imagine when sports comes back, it may it may change how often you put these out. I want to get into I gotta take a break here, I apologize. I want to get into some of the topics that you've covered, uh, from something as simple as five ways you can trim the house edge which might not be simple as others,

to modeling. Coming back with Captain Jack right here on a numbers game of Visa v Sports petting up. Welcome back to a Numbers game with Gil Alexander. A numbers game here at Visa and proudly brought to you by man escaped dot com. Man Escape dot com as the tools for your family jewels, you can get off and free shipping with the code Visa at man escaped dot Com. That's off at man Escaped dot com with promo code v S I N. It's Gill Alexander live in San Francisco.

Captain Jack Andrews kind enough to join us UH for the hour and maybe beyond in fact from somewhere at an undisclosed location and UH in New Jersey. Uh, Jack, I wanna point out, and by the way, for those who don't know, you can follow Jack on Twitter at cap Jack two thousand, pro better consumer advocate for the sports book industry. This is a quote, may I quote something from this UH piece that was done about you

at us BET. I believe it was written by Eric Raskin, and I think this is a by the way, he did a wonderful job with this piece about you. But here's a quote from you which I think sort of covers it all the sort of place that you're coming from with all this quote, we need to flatten the

curve when it comes to sports betting losses. If we make consumers dollars last longer, we can have a more sustainable sports betting industry, one where sports books don't have to fear sharp money as much because liquidity won't dry up. Unquote explain that to someone who might have landed on this more of a novice better and it's gonna say what does he mean by that? Well, right now, we have a situation where sports books are just trying to

acquire customers in mass as much as they can. Marketing spend is through the roof when with a lot of these new s its books, and as a result, they're getting these these sports bettors in the door that are are fresh into sports betting or or they just have a recreational slant to it, and they're being encouraged to make bad bets. Uh. You know you always see on Twitter sports book promote like, hey, this guy just hit a nine team parlay. Well, you know what the odds

of hitting a nine team parlay or minuscule. The compound house sets that you're playing into when you're betting a high team parlay like that is massive. It's a bad bet. And when you encourage people to make these bad bets, basically what you're doing is you're accelerating their loss because the natural progression of any better is you're going to

chase your losses. So if you make a five team parlay and it loses, the next time, you're trying to make a seven team parlay to make up the difference, and then a nine team parlay, and you know, you can see how it would go. So we're all very familiar with these curves lately, unfortunately, and actually it has a good analogy to sports betting because a lot of sports betters are coming into sports betting and they're in

basically a really sharp curve. As if we had never done any of this social distancing, we all saw what that curve look like. Well, that's what a lot of these sports bedders are in right now. When they come into sports betting, they just lose their money fast, They flash out, and they're probably done until maybe next NFL season, or uh, maybe they're done forever. Maybe they just sour to the whole concept of sports betting. But if we

would let them sustain their money a little longer. In other words, you know, we all know sports betting is not easy to win at. And I'm not saying that I can create winners, but I am saying I can help you lose your money slower and make it last longer and hopefully increase your entertainment value of your sports betting as a hobby. As a recreation as a side hustle and make it less longer to the point where

you can replenish your sports betting bankroll organically. And the sports books would benefit from that because there'll be more sports bedders around, people engaged longer, people enjoying it more, and there would be It would be better for the sharp arps because now our action kind of hides a little bit more inside this massive liquidity that we have with sports betting, and will be better for the States because they're having a more sustainable product that would have

higher liquidity, which means higher tax dollars because of increased turnover. There might be even less problem gambling in this way because people wouldn't feel so manic about how their results have been in sports betting. And of course it benefits the operators because now there's just you know, more engaged people into their product. So you see, it's the tide that lifts all boats. Uh, It's just the fight is to try to get everyone to realize that and come

together and and work together to create that. And and how tough is that, Jack? We only have sort of like forty five seconds here for a response, But you make the point that sports books themselves should want that as well. Is it realistic to think that that won't trump agreed for some of these shops? You know that, Gil, That's the exact point. A lot of these sports books believe there is no end to the to the square money that is in sports betting, and they may be right.

I'd like to believe in a world where that's not correct and where you know, they want to sustain the people. But it's it's gonna be tough to tell. Yeah, No, I'd like to. I'd like to believe in in that worldview as well. On it. UM. And obviously some shops do these you know, some shops have a totally different business model than others. Um. You know we've we've mentioned them on this show many times. Which are the business models that we're probably talking about right now? No need

to sort of rehash that, um, but it's fascinating. We'll get back into some of the content that you're putting out on YouTube right now, uh, and get into your thoughts about the industry itself as you step back as someone who knows it better than almost anybody. How have we done coming back, Captain Jack Andrews right here on a numbers game at basis the sports betting NOWWK Welcome

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expire soon. Gotta be twenty one and a resident, of course, where Quick Picks is offered once again, it's Quickpicks dot Com slash Visa Bonus start playing Quick Picks Virtual now Skill Alexander. It is Captain Jack Andrews joining us this more to talk about just his evolution, how he became the guy and the better that he became. Um, Jack, let's talk about sports betting media or content that is available out there, whether ESPN, whether Visa, whether other outlets

who uh really are immersed in sports betting. Um, what was the niche that you were trying to fill? In other words, what what was out there where You're like, well, I kind of like that, I kind of don't like that. This is what I'm really passionate about doing. Yeah, there was when I would search for sports betting content and you know, I'm one of these guys that I'll eat

up anything that's out there. I'll read anything, I'll watch anything just to see if I can find that one little nugget of information in there that I didn't know before. And I would search YouTube and the content was, yeah, it was you know, there was a lot of tents out there trying to sell you picks, and a lot of the content wasn't wasn't evergreen, it was it was people that we're making, uh you know, picks or or analysis of games gone by that you know you didn't

want to watch again because it was irrelevant. Uh. And then there was some there was some decent modeling content or how to use this and that, but it was all a little bit stale. It was a little bit slow, dry monotone. Uh. You know, the cameras pointed up the guy's nose and you see the ceiling in the background. It's does It's not good video. So I said, I can do better than this. Even if my content isn't smarter than this, I can at least make it more entertaining,

more engaging for the viewer. And that's what I kind of set out to do. And it's store an evolutionary goal here. Uh. You know, it's not to the point that I exactly want to have it yet, but you know we're on that path. Uh. Let me just commend you because again, some of the topics that I of the videos that I have not seen yet. Five ways you can trim the house, edge shop lines, avoid arlas and futures, don't pay for picks, don't chase fine promos. You did one on the five hacks to make sports

betting easier. You talked about the ones you did about modeling, which is pretty in the weeds stuff, but I think has a real real lure for a lot of people who are trying to do this UH in the right way or not in the right way. Maybe maybe that's a loaded phrase. Maybe just from that perspective, they decided that's how they want to approach sports betting. Maybe you and I would argue that's the right way, but others

might might differ on that. The one that I did get a chance to watch in its entirety UH is the is the webcast you did via zoom with the Rufus Peabody and Spanky, who are two very prominent bettors. They approach betting in very different ways. Rufus comes from

an origination standpoint handicapping UH. Spanky is a market guy who looks for inefficiencies in the market and is really really tapped in, and that's an under Damon has a network where he is really expert in that approach to UH winning at sports betting in a way that mere

mortals would take years to get to. UM. But they're fascinating guys, and I just want to say not only were they super honest, as as they tend to be when they're on any sort of sports betting vehicle, but the way you did it where you took phone calls,

you took you took calls. Uh, you read some questions and you logged it, which is not an innovative thing because some people do it with podcasts too, But there was something about the the platform of YouTube that when you did it that way, I was constantly engaged with it. But I could not commend you and those two guys more for that ninety minutes. I know you wanted to wrap it up at the ninety minute mark. I could

have listened for another ninety minutes. Yeah. Well, uh, there was a bathroom break that was needed by one of the participants and that was That was largely why that ended at the ninety minute mark. But you know, Gil that that was great. That was amazing to do. I'm lucky enough to call both of those guys friends, and uh, there's there's a real synergy when the three of us get together and talk, and I think it was great

for people to see that. And you know, they both did such a great job of describing their process because they do the same thing, but they do it vastly different and that's something that hasn't really been explored in terms of looking into sports bettors. So it was it was great to kind of have them together. My only regret is that I set the bar away too high for the next time I try to do something like that. How do you top those two? It's gonna be tough.

You fixed, That's right, You fix yourself. Do you do you ever have this thought when you're doing something that good? Because I struggle with it on a daily basis. Right, I have a platform, and I'm lucky enough to have a platform to do a show on sports betting five times a week. I am keenly aware of that sometimes, and this is a truism, maybe it's goes beyond sports betting into other areas of life. Sometimes the smarter it is that you of the of the content that you do,

the smarter it gets sometimes windows down the audience. And so if my goal on the show is to cast the widest net, there are choices I have to make, right my constitution may want to do the smartest thing every day, but it may not cast the widest net and may not be appreciated. Do you ever have that in the same way, do you ever have that thought when you're doing stuff or do you not? Like, no,

this is just me absolutely. Uh. You know, my my webcast that has garnered the least amount of views is one where I did the State of the States, where I went through all the states that have legalized sports betting. It's something I'm interested in. It's it's right in my wheelhouse, U, but not everybody's a cup of tea. Whereas something where I'm giving just five tips to trim the house edge has a greater impact on a wider audience and is

more alluring. But it's also, you know, something that is kind of not the cutting edge content that I want to be doing. Case in point, this week, my webcast is going to be tax and retirement strategies for gamblers. I know that, man, I know that's not going to

be a great audience. But the thing is, I want to put out this prerecorded video this this second in my series of making a modeler, and I know I need a little bit more time to focus on that this week, So I'm kind of doing another thing that's going to come to second nature to me. It's not going to be as large an audience. It's still gonna be informative. I can guarantee you it's gonna be informative. But I needed to kind of balance things out this week, and so I decided to do this UM, Tax and

Retirement webcast. But you know what, Jack, I will I will listen to it. I'm gonna listen to all of them because you have about eight total here um, one of which is prerecorded. The others that are that are webinars. I will listen to that topic because it has not been covered anywhere else. And they're so evergreen and they will live in perpetuity. Uh, and so that's what's so great about them. We'll come back more when Captain Jack Andrews next on a Numbers Game and Visa these sports

betting network. Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Jill Alexander. Now is the time. I'm a Visa Plus subscriber. It is free. You won't have to decide what you want to do, pay or cancel until at least one of the major sports returns. Just go to Visa dot Com slash subscribe to sign up. That is Visa dot Com slash subscribe to Kill Alexander and San Francisco Captain Jack

Andrews in New Jersey. So Jack, when this is past, the pandemic has gone to the other side, sports books are reopened, and you know, normalcy in some form, you know approaches. What is it that you are most looking forward to betting on? What's the sport that you believe you have the edge in that you're like off, I could just pick one, it would be this one. Yeah, that's a good question. I would you know, I'd have

to say I missed baseball. Even though I had come into the two thousand and twenty season swearing myself that I was going to bet baseball far less this year than in past years, I've kind of missed it at this point. I just I just really missed the pace of the action. Baseball is one of those sports where you can bet just about every game, and you can keep up with every game at the same time, and so there's something luring about betting baseball that I miss

at least certain parts of betting baseball. Do you think we're getting it back? I am so skeptical, man, I don't know, Gil, It's it's almost depressing to think about. I saw a story today that the NFL is saying that they may start postponed by a couple of weeks at best, so that that really puts a damper on things. Um, it's it's almost not worth speculating at this point. But I'm really hopeful to get something this summer. I agree.

I'm I'm out of the speculation game because you know, I've said from the beginning, as I know you have, you had your light in the sand that you drew. My thing is, I'm forgetting about all these other sports until football. I think college is delayed. I think NFL

is our shot at getting in on time. We shall see U. One of the topics you talked about with Rufus Spanky, which you know is close to those of us who are in Las Vegas under normal circumstances, is the impact that circus sports has made on the industry, and you guys banded about I think was an interesting take on it, which and I don't know that we discuss it enough on Visa because perhaps we're too close to the sun on it because those guys are our friends,

Derek Stevens, Mike Palm, Matt Metcalf and everybody who does such a great job at Circa. They have been such a breath of fresh air from a philosophical standpoint. There their approach to wanting to cater to sharp betters, to their contests, which are innovative and are being copied by others.

Not to mention, of course, that they're going to try to build this shangri la uh new sports book at Circle beyond what they have now at Golden Gate in the D. But um, you know, one of the worries which we don't usually talk out out loud, but you guys did, which I think is a real valid one, is can that be a sustainable business model? What say you about that? Yeah, the circuit is great. Uh, you know, I know they're working to try to come into New Jersey.

I told them I will stand at the bridges and the tunnels and pay their tolls for them as they as they come into town. Um. But yeah, you know, this, this this low margin, high vovolume model that they want to do, which I think we've all kind of referred to it always as the Pinnacle model, is is going to be tough to do in a in a world where marketing spend is kind of ruling what people are using to as their barometer as to a book success.

You know, we've we've seen that in New Jersey. Is it was just a big marketing free for all and nobody's thinking about profits. They're thinking about getting the biggest customer base that they can. And you know, Gil, honestly, the reason these companies want to get a big customer base is because it makes them more attractive for mergers and acquisitions. That's kind of scary as a sports better is we have a lot of options here in New Jersey, but a lot of them are actually looking at a

short game, not a long game. They're looking to build up valuation so that they can sell themselves off to somebody else at a premium and and take their their golden parachute. Um. So, you know, when you see a company that comes in like Circuit, who are they have a long game vision. They want to make themselves as the market maker for the US legal sports betting market. And they're doing a fantastic job of that in Nevada. They're going to do a great job in Colorado and

any other state they go to. Uh, It's it's actually up to us, the Sports Better to really support things like that because this is the sort of company we want to help propagate and to have other companies come in and say, oh, that's the model we need to do, because that's going to make it all better for for everyone, whether it be the recreational better who, like I said, is going to lose slower, or the shark who's going

to have more outs to apply their action. Uh. And it makes it even better for the states to encourage action like that because it makes a more sustainable injury industry for the their state as well. Isn't that what's so interesting about this uh little corner of the world

we've chosen. And you know, it's one thing from the betting side of it, if you're if you're really sharp, better part of your you know, day to day calculus is well, I could crush this one book, but I want them to exist as long as possible and extract

money over time. One day it may end, but you know, part of it, it's like a game within a game there, and you're referring to sort of in the opposite direction now or not opposite direction, but just in a different way of you know, doing that with a with a model and people in circle that we know is so great for the business, and it is incumbent upon us to make that last or do everything we can to

make it last as long as possible. Those kinds of decisions are made by sharp bettors every day, and I'm not sure the casual better is necessarily aware that that happens. Absolutely, you know, I can think of a lot of operators that I've taken it easy on in the past, and other ones that I probably have gone a little too aggressive with that I should have taken it easy with. It's You're right, it's a cat and mouse game. It's also, uh,

there's reminded like the Nash equilibrium. You know, there's an equilibrium when it comes to sports betting. There's an optimal way to approach this, and sports bettors everywhere, sharper recreational always have to be thinking about that that equilibrium, as do the operators as well. Captain Jack andrews with us on a numbers game at Visa and uh kind enough to hang out with us today at Cap Jack two thousand. You can find his YouTube channel. I'm sure you link

it out on your Twitter a lot. Is that correct? Yes, it's linked on my profile there and Twitter. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't let me have like cap Jack two thousand, So it's it's just a long string of characters. You're better off just finding that link, So go to the Twitter get the link. You you alluded to this on your webcast with Spanky and with Rufous Peabody. I'm not sure if you elaborated on it, though, Uh that you expect

more consolidation in this business. Did you mean in legalized jurisdictions? Did you mean off shore? What did you mean by that? Probably both, gil uh In. You know, I was actually saying back before this pandemic that April was going to be the start of the contraction and consolidation in New Jersey. I think there's some some books that probably are going to say, Okay, we got our stamp of approval in New Jersey. That'll be good for other states. We can

pull out a New Jersey now. And you know, this is just too competitive of the market for us. We don't have the marketing spend that other books have. So I thought we were going to see some consolidation. Now with the pandemic, that may be pushed back. I think we'll still see it. In fact, we might see it

in a more accelerated way. But all shore as well, you know, and the pandemic kind of force that hand is I think we're going to see some offshore books that are going to say it's not worth us trying to compete anymore. The nice thing about offshore books is there's this kind of this etiquette of how consolidation happens.

For the most part, you sell yourself off to another book and they take over the liabilities, and hopefully that continues to be the case offshore, so that people aren't stuck with, you know, lost balances and and hey, I'm not saying there's any one major book or anything. I'm not naming names that are going to go under soon. I don't have any of that information. So I don't

want to cause any kind of panic. But I do think that there's consolidation coming offshore as well as in some of the legal states that have been around for

a year, such as New Jersey. So as far as legalization and now post legalization is maybe maybe a pandemic is the right time to take a step back and sort of assess no one is more into the weeds of how each and every state that has legalized sports setting in the different ways that they have and all the different rules that um they've decided to choose state by state. No one is more into it than you are.

How has legalization gone then, like when we when we take a step back, obviously some states do it better than others. Are you you know, are you thrilled, are you okay, satisfied? Are you disappointed? Are you terribly disappointed? Like what's the what's the broad stroke on this? You had Roxy on back in the beginning of March and he said something to the effect of, it's a good thing we let New Jersey go first because they had

taken the most time and preparation into this. They had about seven years to prepare for this, So it's a good thing we let them go first because they can set the example. The downside is other states didn't follow that example. So whereas in New Jersey we do have a very rich competitive industry, and I think it's good for all parties involved that there is open competition basically

in New Jersey. Uh, we haven't seen that in some other states, and that's really disappointing because you know, if you're a sports better, you need outs, you need competition, you need at least a little bit of uh you know, play to shop lines with there are guys that are you know, existing in states where you have just one vendor, and that's just really not fair. And even if that vendor is the nicest, most benevolent vendor there is, there's still only one choice for the consumer and and that's

just unfortunate. Uh. You know, we've we have in Colorado starting in later this week. Actually they first there's gonna be seventeen sports betting apps on day one, or at least within the first month. That's amazing, that's great. That's more than Nevada has. Yeah, so you know, there is hope. So there is states like Colorado that seemed to be getting it right. They're going to have mobile registration, They're gonna have mobile depositing and withdrawals. Uh, it's it's going

to be a great state. And the best part about Colorado is you have the Nevada operators that are coming into the state and then you have the European operators that are coming into the state. And so that's gonna be the real battleground. We're gonna see kind of which

model works. I have a feeling the European marketing departments will outspend the Nevada based marketing departments, which might unlevel the playing field a little bit, but we're going to see what the consumer decides to choose when they have when they're given this option between the European model and the Nevada model and real quick Jack, because we only have a few seconds, d C among the worst. Would you say d C is the worst of the of

the bunch. It's so bad. You know, one day, maybe when you're back in d C, I'll come down and we can commiserate together over what's going on in that state, in that district so so bad. We'll get into uh Jack's thoughts on the town industry and what he's trying to do about it. Coming back, Jack Andrews Captain Jack on a numbers game at Visa and the Sports Betting Network. It's a numbers game with your host, Gil Alexander. Believe in as our number two of a numbers game right

here at Vison Vegas. That's an Information Network series Exit Channel two oh four, Visa dot Com, the Visa b bost League game Plus it is Gil Alexander live from San Francisco. Michael Lombardi still to join us A little more though, with Captain Jack Gandrews, who has been kind enough to hang out with us this morning. Um, this is from thought Criminal. We get tweets thought criminal on Twitter. Fascinating guests today. I can't wait to listen to his stuff.

Captain Jack may just be the easiest to understand and follow of all your professional gambler guests. I love his story. Great job, Gil, Well, thank you for that really great job to Jack. And I should have probably lead with something thought Criminals said there, which is, it's not just that you've managed to get the technology right. It's not just that you've managed Jack to do things I think innovatively, and that you come from this great place where you

try to make better betters out of everybody. It's that you are and I strive for this every day. You speak and in a very linear fashion and logically and melding really good knowledgeable gamblers with the ability to sort of articulate and pass along information is not a huge subset of humanity. You have done it as well as anybody, sir. I'm a simple man, Gil, and I guess I just think simply, I don't know, no, but you know you're being modest but you know what I'm talking about. Like, listen,

gamblers are fascinating people. And when I say fascinating, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They are eccentric, um, maybe spectrumish if I may even get there in many cases, um or just you know whatever, but the ability to sort of be both things. Look, this is not the easiest information to convey if you're trying to do it in the right way, and again, you do a spectacular job of it. So please take a bow. For God's sakes, it's I don't have to be modest on it. Thank you, Gil.

And you know what, while we're having this little love fest here, I leave your show is also key for any developing sports better, aspiring sports better. You basically teach people more than any other show on this network how to become a better better, and I think you should be commended as well. So right back at you, sir, Well, for God's sakes, I didn't expect that to but thank you.

I appreciate that very much. If I asked you, Jack, what is the biggest thing, and this is I didn't prepare you for this question, but it's sort of a macro question that I'm sure you've gotten and you did. Uh. One of the webcasts you did on five ways you can trim the house edge and I mentioned, uh, you listen them, shop lines, avoid parlays and futures, don't pay

for picks, don't chase find promos. But what's the one thing even when you dispense that advice, what's the one thing where you're like, man, they keep making this mistake over and over again, and no matter how many times I say, it keeps happening. You know, that's a tough question, Bill, because there are many mistakes that keep being made by betters and the kind of the industry in general. I would have to say that the parlays and futures people

just don't understand the math behind parlay's. It's it's compound interest people. It is basically the same reason why you know you want to invest in something is because the interest compounds over time. Well, as you add an extra leg to a parlay, and we're assuming that you do not have an advantage when you're making these individual bets into this parlay. As you add extra legs into a parlay, you're compounding the vig that's involved. So you know your

standard three team parlay which pays six to one. The true odds of that are seven to one, and that's a twelve and a half percent house edge. So while we all get up in arms whenever we see a company come in and try to do minus one vague into what should be minus one ten lines, we all get up in arms about that. But at the same time, we're still betting into these three team parlays that have

an oop. I think we've had have lost Jack right there, Jack, we have you back, okay, Uh, yeah, there you go, Jaguar, How my god, I got in, We got we got a lot of it in about about compounding with parlay's and I'll let you finish your thought here. Um, what I thought you were gonna go to was just a guess. I thought you were going to go to the chase because it involves human human instincts. It's it's uh, it's Gill Alexander, it's Captain Jack Andrews. It is a numbers

game right here at Visa these sports betting network. Please continually thought about the parlay though you were most of the way through that, I believe. Yeah, so you know, I'm not sure where I dropped off there. I sorry. I got multiple kids at home that are doing home schooling, so sometimes the internet gets a little laggy during the school day. But the point being is you compound the interest when it comes to betting parlays, and basically it's

almost double the things you complain about. So you complain about minus one fifteen lines when it should be minus one ten. But at the same time, you're betting a three team parlay a plus six hundred when it should be plus seven hundred, and that's a double digit vague that you're betting into at that point. But you know what, your point about chasing bets is something that's highly applicable to any better, even sharp better is run into that

sometimes as well. Well I'll tell you why that leaps to mind for me because and again I think this is such a great point that needs to be made, can't be made enough, which is there are many ways to skin the cat in being a professional sports better. It is very difficult to skin the cat no matter how you choose it. So we just talked about Rufus being an originator Spanky who is all about the market and having just a network of outs. Then there's my buddy E who I refer to on this show all

the time. Uh. He is one of the two or three most successful sports betters I know. He is neither an originator nor a guy that looks for the best price on a constant basis, even though of course he like everybody, strives for that. He is about UM doing things his own way. He watches a tremendous amount of sports. He has found different angles in sports betting to exploit. I'll leave it at that, and just is successful in his own way. But he will admit that as successful

as he is, he cannot overcome the occasional chase. And so listen, no matter the successful better, negative variants will happen, Um, people will go on losing streaks and the ability We've talked about this many times before, the ability to stomach that and to overcome that and recognize just like, uh, if you go back to the M. I. T. Blackjack story, just like they would have bad stretches and realize, Nope, what we're doing gives us the statistical advantage, gives us

the house edge, or at least transfers the house edge to us when we're counting cards and exploiting it the way we are a successful sports better realizes or should realize that those those stretches are going to happen. But even he says, you know, as much as he can rationalize it in his brain, our human brains are just the way we're wired. It's like, even though we know that rationally, we still can't help ourselves, even the most successful ones can't. So for me, that's always the answer.

But I'm always I'm curious because that that, to me speaks to a human instinct, like it's so deep in our wiring that we can't control that in a way that maybe some of the others we have a better out of controlling. But maybe I'm wrong. Now I totally agree with that, Gil, And you know I've seen that from questions I get during these webcasts. A lot of people are like, you know, how do I handle it? If I lose five games in a row? Do I

bet more on the sixth game? You get all of it, So it's it's definitely learning how to win is paramount, but learning how to lose is just as important for

a lot of betters. Alright. So we mentioned in one of those UH five ways you can turn the house edge and your specific UH YouTube series webcast about that topic, don't pay for picks, And that's something that uh, you know, look, this industry has been rightfully um you know, criticized for and you know that the town industry has been largely, with some exception, right, with a few exceptions, um has

largely been a seedy side of this industry. You are actually, along with Rufus, Peabody, your buddy and my buddy, uh, you are doing something about it, or at least have plans to do something about right. So we realized that Rufus and I realized together that we had a common vision when it came to the future of the sports betting industry, and we said, the consumer needs a voice.

So when we see sports being legalized in all of these states, there's there's always these uh, legislative hearings, right, and they hear from the operators, and they hear from the anti gambling people, and they hear from uh, you know, the sports leagues, but they never hear from the consumer.

And the consumer needs a voice in all of this. So, you know, Rufus has had some dealings that we've we've all heard about with you know, a contest where he kind of got the short end of the stick, and you know that motivated him to want to put together a organization. So back in November or so, we decided we'd register the domain name of American Betters Coalition dot org.

We're on Twitter at American Better and basically we want to be this consumer organization to represent the consumer as well as train the consumer, educate the consumer when it comes to not only things like buying picks, but also when your state is thinking of legalizing sports betting. We'll read through the regulations and we'll let you know what the regulations say because a lot of these regulations some of the states are coming up with they're not the

best gill. I mean, they have some some weird angles to them. You know, the example being Tennessee where they mandated a a whole percentage for the for the sports betting industry, meaning the sports betting industry had to reach a mandatory hold that it was inorganic, it was not what would basically come about from regular sports betting. So we go through all these things, and you know, we're still a work in progress. This pandemic has unfortunately kind

of slowed the progress. We We have plans to be a nonprofit organization. We plan to you know, represent the consumer in in everything in sports betting. Unfortunately, we've had to take our foot off the gas pedal right now, but I think we're gonna have some information out in the coming weeks here to let consumers note we're still here. We still plan to do this. It's just the timetable has unfortunately stretched out a lot. Further understood by the

way I may step in it right here. And I failed to ask this if Rufus when he was on at did that Draft King's Sports betting Championship thing ever get resolved for him or were not allowed to talk about that. I don't believe it has been resolved. Okay, Well said jack Well said, alright, so baseball you missed the most. Aren't you a basketball? Don't you? Isn't basketball above the rest of it for you though? Aren't you that primarily? Yeah? NBA is where I've had probably had

my best success over the past six seven, eight years. Uh. You know, the funny thing is is I got started with NBA betting on props back way back when, and I found one day I found us words book off shore that was offering um props on fast baked fast break points and points in the paint, which is a kind of a you know, an obscure stat but you

can see it in the box score. So I built a quick model about fast break points and points in the paint because they seem to be very um, you know, you can model those because not all teams run a high temple offense. Not all teams have a big man down low that gets a lot of points in the paint, and I don't. I did fantastically well at that, and that kind of launched into my NBA betting and so I've yeah, I've focused on NBA totals for the past uh you know, seven or eight years. It's gone very

well for me. I think I have some metrics and angles variables that aren't being taken into account with the standard betting line. And as a result, I you know, I've been able to maintain my edge. The market hasn't been too efficient on me yet. So yeah, I definitely missed the NBA being here. But you know, we were for farther enough into the season March eleventh that I was sort of getting to the point I was like, Okay, I'm getting ready for this season to end. To move

on to the next thing. So I'm not quite missing the NBA betting is quite as much as I'm missing getting into that baseball betting. Is there a sport jack or a a betting vehicle. Let's say that you were super excited to exploit or bet and it just didn't work out your way and it continues to flummix you. Is there is there a sport that is just more difficult for you that others? Oh you you name it? I mean, I you know, look, any sports bettor who does a lot of betting knows that you you go

down a lot of paths and you fail. And trust me, I've failed at many things. I've built many models that have gone nowhere. I've I've taken tens of hundreds of hours developing data sets and finding trying to find correlation when there's just no correlation there that would make for a quantitative betting model. So my failures are too many to mention, Gil, But trust me, you know there's been plenty of sports where I just I just never had

the edge and I had to give it up. The modeling thing scares a lot of people, right, So most people who come to this are just like like most of us of us who are innately drawn to sports as kids were sports fans first, right, and then you know, somehow you drifted into sports betting. The modeling is something that would I don't know if scares the right word, but of sports better will be like, Okay, you've lost

me right there. And modeling. Could you say anything Jack that would ease those people's fears and say like, yeah, actually it's not that difficult. Yeah, you know, intimidating, Bill, that's the word I think you're looking for, because a lot of people are intimidated by modeling. They just think

it's math beyond what they're capable of handling. Uh. You know, the funny thing is is there are programs out there that basically shortened that curve, that learning curve when it comes to the heavy duty data science math behind modeling. There's plenty of tools out there. So the example I give in my series Making a Modeler, which is a blatant rip off on the Netflix Making a Murderer series. Um, but the blatant idea that I give is that modeling

doesn't have to be intimidating. You know, you can use Microsoft Excel to create a model and everyone has used Excel at some point in their life, so the idea of a spreadsheet shouldn't be that intimidating. I walked people through creating a Monty Carlo model in the first episode. I'm gonna walk people through creating a web scraper in the second episode. And these are things that you can do without any program experience. And what I like to do is I like to show you what it looks

like when you're doing advanced stuff. You know, when you're doing things in Python or are and advanced programming languages. Yeah, it's it's intimidating, it's there's a huge learning curve there. But then I show you what can be done in Excel very easily. Now, the stuff that I'm showing you is gonna win. That's the added part that the the user has to take and figure out how to make this win. So I'm showing you the basics. I'm giving you a fishing rod and showing you how to put

bait on the hook. I'm not telling you how to fish, and I am telling you that you're gonna need to learn to fish in order to sustain this and feed yourself going forward. I love it. Cap Jack Andrews again

at cap Jack two thousand on Twitter. Jack, I'll leave you with this, um and again, nothing we we talked about beforehand, but if you could sort of wave your magic wand here, so the pandemic we get to the other side of it, sports returns in some form in and hopefully in the form that we've always known in love next year. Um, what's the biggest thing in sports betting in this industry that you would like to see happen or what do you think is the most significant

thing that could happen? And I just sort of give it as a as an open ended answer. Is it for eights uh to you know, sort of come up, you know, to to get legalized with sports betting more in the way that New Jersey did it. Then say some of the other examples we we gave, maybe it's something else that we haven't mentioned here. What is the answer to that for you? So that's a great question, Gil.

I think definitely we need to see some states kind of step up and take a long game approach to their sports betting industry, not just be the quick cash grab. They have to understand that, you know, they need to foster competitive industry because when you have competitive industry, you'd also fosters innovation. Right these these sports books are going to need to innovate to stay ahead of each other.

It's it's a it's a model of capitalism. And what I want to see is that if we can foster the competition, we foster the innovation, we foster a better sports betting product for everyone going forward. The way that I'm going to be betting sports five years from now, I hope it's nothing close to what I'm doing today, you know, it's it's it's going to evolve and there hopefully there's gonna be things going on that are better and and more innovative than I can even imagine right now.

And that's that's what I'd really like to see, is that we take this evolutionary step forward when it comes to sports betting and it comes to sports bettors to make a product that just really works for everyone and it increases the level of engagement and then real quick. Secondly, the thing I want to see, and this is a cautionary tale to the industry, We're going to have a decrease in discretionary spending when we come out of this. You know, we have unemployment, people have lost jobs, People

aren't gonna want to spend money frivolously. Vegas is gonna have a hard time getting people back into casinos at the rate they used to. So we need to be able to say, Okay, we need to appeal to the value consumer. We need to have mobile betting everywhere we can, uh. And we need to make sure that people, when they spend their money, are spending it wisely and not and not frivolously when it comes to sports betting, because they value that money a little bit highly than they did

before all this. And I and I just worry Jack, and I'm sure you do too. Sort of follows from that that unless and we said this even before legalization, Unless they get it right, they meaning legalized sports jurisdictions in this country, get it right in the sense that consumers and betters themselves win, get the best of it, have a great experience, are treated fairly both uh, you know, mathematically and otherwise. Offshore is just just is just going

to continue to thrive, isn't it. The very thing that you're seeking to get people away from. It's going to have the opposite effect. And I just worry that the the European model for lack of a better catchphrase, catch all term. You know, I'm just worried that that is going to Maybe maybe I'm not worried. Maybe I don't care in the end, but maybe I'm just I just want to make the point that, you know, the more they behave, the way they behave, um, offshore is not

going anywhere, is it. No, that's right. You know, the legal onshore industry has the three CS in its advantage. They have uh confidence, which they definitely have over the off shore industry based on the recreational consumer. They have a competitive advantage of having things be uh you know, more competitive in the states that have competition, and they have convenience. It's far easier to get money into a legal sports book than it is to get it off

shore in most states. Nevada is getting there, but hopefully gets there soon. But if if the states can just focus on those three CS, they can do so much better. And uh, you know, if they really want to squash the offshore industry, they could do it. But at the same time, and this is my last point, Gil, we need to find a way to get those offshore people into onshore jobs. They're the smartest people in the room, Gil. They are the people that know sports, betting and booking sports.

That's the best and we need to find a way to get them into the onshore industry. Jack. I can't thank you enough, man, um it's I've always wanted you on here. I'm glad you've made the time. Thank you so much. Uh and you are, sir A credits to the industry. You really are. Thank you so much, Man, Thank you, Gil. It's a pleasure at cap Jack two thousand, Captain Jack Andrews do check out is YouTube Syria A mut