ROI Doesn't Matter? | Ep 43

Gp13 here for the quick Saturday episode . Hope everybody's weekend is going well . Update on the Pick'Em Expert episode . I fucked up the audio . Big apologies to Pick'Em Expert . He gave a great , great one hour interview and the audio is just so bad that it can't be used . So currently trying to figure out if he'll have time to re-record .

But do feel really bad about that , for both you guys and Pick'Em Expert should be something I can set up and get correct every time is the audio . So my bad on that one , but wanted to still drop a Saturday episode . You know anyway , and there's been a lot of talk on Twitter about ROI , like what's an optimal ROI ?

If you have a 30% ROI , are you leaving too much money on the table ? What type of ROI is good for your mental health as a better , and et cetera . And I want to just jump into the difference between ROI and dollars earned . So I tweeted out something recently , which was what was the tweet ?

It was like your ROI will only keep the lights on if it makes you enough money to pay the electricity bill . And the point of the tweet was that some people focus on optimizing ROI when really you should be focused on either dollars one or bankroll growth , or I mean both . They're kind of the same thing .

So bankroll growth is probably better because it's implying that you never go bust with your bankroll , right . So it's like bankroll growth with 0% chance of going broke would be what you're trying to optimize for , not really ROI .

And there's some good conversation that comes around this tweet and I saw in some other people's timelines where they were talking about yeah , if you have the 30% ROI , you're probably leaving money on the table , right , because , yes , take all your 30% spots , which are going to be your correlated parlays , are going to be a vast majority of the stuff that makes

up a strategy that has 30% ROI .

But if you're also not taking 5% spots where you can get down a lot bigger size , like aka , if you can bet a couple thousand on a 5% edge on a traditional sports book and you're betting a couple hundred on a 30% edge on a DFS site , or even 20 bucks on underdog NFL , then you might be leaving real dollars on the table , right Like if you bet $100

correlated parlays with a 30% edge , ok , so that's 30 bucks , right there . Right Like the expected value is 30 bucks . And then if you bet like $1,000 straight that with a 5% edge , the EV is 50 . So remember to not just think about your ROI , but to break everything down into what is the EV , the dollar EV of this bet .

And am I allocating my time properly ? And this is where I'm kind of psychotic because I try and allocate it , break it all down to hourly . So if it takes me a lot of time to put together the correlated parlays , which I mean it shouldn't , and actually that's a big , that's a big belief of mine on better , when everyone's like , oh , you just take unders .

This was before when you could have like 300 , 400 bets out on better . And you know , people may have seen the videos I posted of my open bets . That was like 300 plus . And people are like , oh yeah , you just take unders . Or do you find the optimal ? You know , do you find the optimal .

You know lines and Fandall and I was like , no , I just take unders , I don't care what the line is , because it's plus EV , and I just try and get down as many slips as I can .

And that increases my hourly because , right there , like , each slip is worth so much and the difference between like the optimal slip and like an easy to make slip that takes 10 seconds to make is so small that I'm just firing in the 10 second slips with tiny , tiny sacrifice to ROI .

But my hourly is going through the roof compared to somebody who's like nitpicking over the specific you know player prop lines and trying to figure out what's optimal , or trying to go back and figure out like , oh , am I going to go over or under is like . I'm just saying like I'm going unders because I know over the long run , unders are slightly better .

So I'm just going to use that information , pair that with the correlation and the only goal is to get in as many slips possible . So there , like , I didn't care about my ROI at all .

I was thinking purely in terms of hourly , which I think is important , because when you're talking about dollar EV or you're talking about bankroll growth , right , you also have to remember that , as humans were constrained by time , so in those conversations I don't think you can have those conversations without thinking about your hourly right .

We only have the same 24 hours in a day , so to optimally grow your bankroll you're going to have to allocate those efficiently to grow your bankroll the fastest right , like you're not just , it's not a theoretical exercise .

So a lot of the work I do in picking opportunities and me and Dave talk about this all the time it's like what are the highest value hourly opportunities ? Because there's so many opportunities that come along , like , especially having put myself out there a little bit more and talking to more people .

Often you know here , oh , we're doing XYZ and part of my brain is like , oh , wow , I want to go do that . That sounds like a great opportunity , like . But then I think , okay , it'll take this amount of time to set up and it's probably better to just do what we're doing and not sacrifice the hourly .

So it could be like a plus EV opportunity that would be minus EV for me and Dave because it takes up time that could be allocated to a better opportunity . So a long rant , but the point of this is that you have to get out of the ROI . You have to get out of an ROI focus , no matter what . I think it's like the worst thing to optimize for .

I think hourly is the best thing to optimize for , because I think we have to value our time and that time can be spent doing things we like elsewhere , like just like having fun . So you have to think about to have a long gambling career . You have to think about your life outside of gambling , your life off the table , and value that too .

That's why I care about valuing time specifically and hourly , because it helps me say no to opportunities and then go do something I like in the meantime . So anyway , I hope that is a valuable mindset shift for people who are looking to do this a little bit more seriously or create some more longevity in the space .

I think about this stuff all the time , so never be afraid to hit me up and give me your theories on this . I love being like a little gambling philosopher on this stuff because it's been a big part of my life . So I love hearing what other people have to think about this . So hit me up . Dms are always open , of course .

Best way to contact me is in the Discord . I'm pretty active there and appreciate everybody for listening . I will see you on the next episode .