Think Like a Sportsbook | Ep 14

This is kind of following up on the under's conversation from last week , but just through a little bit of Twitter interaction and keeping my ear to the ground , I've noticed that one of the biggest mistakes people are making is they're not considering the sportsbook and their point of view and their decision making at all .

For me , it's almost the most important part . It's more important than a narrative , a write-up , a model . I'm considering the sportsbook all the time because you're essentially playing a zero-sum game against the sportsbook .

If you put this into poker terms , if you're playing heads-up poker against somebody and you're not thinking about what they're doing at all and their tendencies , you're going to lose Period . For anyone out there who's played heads-up poker , you know that you're doing a deep dive into each opponent's tendencies , leaks , any sorts of ways you can exploit them .

You're thinking about your opponent way more than you're thinking about your own game . With that in mind , I want to talk about what I'm seeing in terms of maybe ways to improve thinking about the sportsbook and how that can help you make more money . That's what we're all about .

First , let me backtrack a little bit and talk about what sparked the idea for this episode . There's two interactions I had on Twitter that highlighted that this episode has a need and can really help people . Number one big Twitter account said well , I think it was yeah . Big Twitter account said passing attempts are the most free slash , easy things to bet on .

I responded basically why is it easier for the better and not for the sportsbook ? Then someone responded basically talking about why it's easy to predict in general . Then I responded again saying that's great that it's easy to predict low variance , whatever you want to call it , but what makes it easier for the better and not the sportsbook ?

No one could answer me . The reason is they weren't thinking about the sportsbook when they wrote that tweet . They just said , wow , two things probably happened . One , they probably hit a lot of passing attempt props that day . They're overestimating their edge in passing attempts almost certainly . Then two , they're right about this .

There's not a huge fluctuation in passing attempts per game . It fluctuates way less than yards , way less than completions , right , but that doesn't make it easier , because the sportsbook also is trying to predict the same thing . It's also easier for them to predict . So just because something's easy to predict or consistent doesn't make it good .

Actually , I would say consistency is , in general , a bad thing , because the easier it is to predict , the less mistakes the sportsbook will make . A sportsbook might make a mistake and overreact to a high variance outcome like a high tail outcome . That's an opportunity for them to make a mistake .

For something like passing attempts , it's very hard for them to make a mistake . So , yes , it could be consistent quote unquote or it could be easy to predict , but that doesn't mean it's a good bet .

I would actually say , on the whole , all things else being equal , it probably makes it slightly worse of a bet for the better , because it just doesn't give the sportsbook a sportsbook an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot . Okay , now Twitter interaction number two same thing .

A big account posts what they believe to be the community play of the day , and it doesn't matter what the play is . What matters is the big account said . Cappers have been betting this since Thursday . This is the play of the day .

Now this is on a Sunday , this is an NFL play and this is what I wrote , because the play hadn't been removed and the line hadn't changed , so I wrote this back .

If cappers and their audiences have been taking over since Thursday and this hasn't been removed or moved and under is favored on DraftKings , seems like it's pretty obvious what you have to do here . And then it helped me that the play didn't hit . But it doesn't matter if the play hit or not , right .

But once the play didn't hit , then you know , my tweet got a little more love and whatnot . Being results oriented , that part , it doesn't matter . It's helpful because it helps people maybe come to a proper conclusion , but what matters is the thought process , right ?

So while everybody else is , you know , thinking about the narratives in their mind that's going to make this community play great and all of these , you know , cappers , I'm starting to just get really disillusioned with these cappers because they're just terrible . That's my rant . I don't like to say too mean things , but it's pretty bad how bad they are .

So they all are picking the same thing . What am I thinking about ? I'm thinking about who's booking that bet , who's taking on the risk of that bet , if the person who's taking the risk on that bet is just sitting there and collecting more and more and more and more and not moving the number , not removing the line .

And then you go over to other sportsbooks and you see that the under is actually favored , while all these cappers are betting the over and their whole audiences are betting the over . Whose side am I going to be on ? I'm going to be on the sportsbook side . They're sitting there happily collecting their money on this bet and they're not moving this at all .

That means that they have an incredibly strong belief , because you can bet that their action on that prop is so incredibly lopsided , like if that prop hits the over , they're going to lose a fuckload of money . If the prop hits the under , they're cashing in .

And if they were worried , or if they were even on the fence about their opinion on that prop , then they would have moved it just because it wouldn't be worth it . If they felt unsure , they would just move it , they would collect the middle or whatnot . Try not to be too exposed , but you know what ?

They just held tight and they collected bets from cappers and their audiences from Thursday until Sunday . So that tells me , they're incredibly confident . And you know what , if I'm picking between the sportsbook there and some Twitter cappers , I'm picking the sportsbook and it helps again that the sportsbook was right in this situation .

But the real lesson there is that you have to take a step back from the actual sport sometimes Because , remember , betting isn't playing the sport . Betting is a game between you and the sportsbook . So always remember to remove yourself from the process a little bit . Start looking at the people who are involved in the game of betting .

That's the other betters , that's the sportsbooks . You know it's good to have your modeling , good to have come to a conclusion on your bets , but that alone it won't do enough to really make you a consistently profitable bettor .

It's hard for me to stress enough how important it is to consider the sportsbook in every part of your betting process and for every bet you make , and this is why the sportsbook is a sophisticated bettor and it's one of the only sophisticated bettors that you can basically see their whole model and see their whole process laid out in front of you .

Like , I'm never going to post my model and other sharp bettors they're never going to just post their model for free and they probably won't post it for a paid amount either , but the sportsbook has to because they have to accept bets on every available event that they want to offer , whereas a sportsbetter gets to pick and choose more like a sniper , going after

the weak spots . It would be doing yourself a disservice and throwing away some amazing free information if you weren't considering the sportsbook as a sophisticated better whose information you want to use Most of the time . The thing I recommend for beginning betters . When they ask me about modeling , I say don't even worry about it .

What you need to do is you need to . There's so many good models out there and these models are the sharp sportsbooks and they're giving them to you for free . If , before you start to go down a road with your own model , I would just use the free ones out there and compare those to the weaker sportsbook lines .

That's a very common practice in the industry and it's not groundbreaking . But there's a reason that a lot of sharp betters will recommend that to people who are just starting out , because you can have very high confidence in those books lines and those books have these data science teams , trading teams , everything .

To just dismiss them as they don't know what they're doing is a mistake , and it's a mistake that I'm guilty of all the time , more so when I was younger than now . Eventually you learn to respect the market a lot , just because you have no other choice if you want to have longevity in trading in sports betting , whatever .

There's certainly a ton of times when I'm like those people are idiots or XYZ and then I realize , oh wait , I was fucking something up and that cost me money . Just respect your opponent . See them as the opponent and tailor your strategies embedding with that in mind , with looking at them as a tough opponent . The sportsbook is a tough opponent .

There's a reason why not many people win betting . There's a reason why these companies are worth billions of dollars . They're tough opponents . So you treat them like that . If you treat them like that , treat them with some respect , but also put yourself in their shoes I think your betting results are going to really take off .

Anyway , I just wanted to go over that quick little episode on a couple tweets and how it got my mind moving about just making sure that people are even thinking about betting from the sportsbook's perspective , because betting isn't necessarily the game that's being played on the field on the course .

Bending is the game played between you , the sportsbooks and then other bettors , so I hope that's useful . If you have any questions , you know where to find me . Join our Discord . It's 100% free .

We're getting a lot of new members in and I'm getting a lot of positive feedback , so I have no reason to not believe that it is a free Discord better than any paid Discord out there . It's a great deal . No reason not to do it . And if you do , hop in please . If you have any questions , send me a message .