On January 22, 2021 Michigan legalized online gambling. As someone who was living by himself in the middle of a pandemic plus a huge sports fan who had long wanted to test his knowledge against betting markets, I immediately took my shot at it.
That day I browsed the newly legal bookie options and ended up making a $700 deposit on DraftKings because I found their promos and terms to be the most generous and straightforward, while their user interface was the most pleasantly navigable.
My original goal was to earn enough money to buy a PlayStation 5. One year later I had withdrawn more than I had ever deposited and had the following account balance.
I’m about to tell you how I did it in as much detail as possible, why it is replicable, my mistakes along the way, and how you can achieve an outcome directionally identical to it. While on a given night or wager there may be an immense degree of luck, there is little in what I accomplished overall.
However, more importantly I still do not own a PlayStation 5. Instead, I was able to donate the following to the Malaria Consortium, which was entirely pulled from my early spring and then cumulative over the year winnings:
This organization and amount were chosen because while there is a case to be made for just about any act of charity, I believe in strongly maximizing the impact that my dollars make. Unfortunately, many charities have little-to-no rigorous evidence they are actually able to meet their lofty goals, or they are unable to produce particularly inspiring evidence of the cost-effectiveness of each dollar they spend.
Thankfully, there is a non-profit dedicated to analyzing the cost-effectiveness of the world’s charities called GiveWell, and they summarize their findings of what charities they believe save or improve lives the most per dollar. I believe any of the top charities they listed are spectacular (and you can also choose to defer to the experts and donate to GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund, which makes the most cost-effective choice for you), but I’ve personally been most impressed by the Malaria Consortium and their seasonal malaria chemoprevention program. GiveWell estimates the Malaria Consortium requires only $4,500 on average to outright save a life, making it arguably the most cost-effective life-saving charity in the world. Hence my amount.
I don’t know you or your individual money situation if you are thinking about setting off to follow my gambling advice. From my salary I have plenty of ability to live comfortably on my own and rack up healthy savings to boot. It’s been weird thinking about the additional 5 figures I have on the side and while I have used the winnings to finance some frivolous things I otherwise would not have purchased, I don’t treat it as part of my budget and effectively pretend it is something I do not have. You’re the ultimate judge of where your money is needed the most, but if you do decide to follow my guide and do have success, I would encourage you to donate to the Malaria Consortium or any of GiveWell’s other top charities before treating yourself (or even tipping myself 😉).
If you are not interested in sports, how I achieved this, gambling tips, or are just short on time, I recommend reading my first and final (there are eight) sections because I feel there may still be useful information for you. This is a long read and I thought about splitting into many different posts and altering its structure, but I cannot because it is all too interwoven – I hope it makes as much sense outside my brain as it does within.
How to be a Successful Gambler
1. Don’t Gamble
This is the first and most important step, and I’m not just saying that to virtue signal or whatever. As great as gambling can be, it destroys lives, which is why in just about any advertisement for it you hear a helpline number of some sort. In Michigan that number is 1-800-270-7117, but beyond helplines there are plenty of other resources available for those in need.
If you are thinking about beginning this journey, ask yourself the following questions:
Are you patient? Are you disciplined? Are you mentally prepared to endure very bad runs along with the good?
Understand that bookies are willing to tolerate losses to folks like me because there is a hell of a lot more folks out there who are not and they squander any gains trying to recklessly chase even larger sums. The deck is beatable, but it is always significantly stacked against you. There are no sure things and a single act of greed wagering everything. is. how. you. lose. everything.
But I also want to emphasize my final question:
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
A huge amount of the groundwork required to triumph over Vegas is laid by the nature of who I am as a person. By that I mean I began betting because I already love hockey, football, and soccer and the analysts I am about to share are individuals whose content I already was consuming because of that love. I am most definitely not some stats guru, but I can read and understand those who are, and once upon a time I did take collegiate courses beyond Stats 101. My brain has also pretty much always lent itself to automatically thinking in terms of models and probabilities for, well, honestly just about everything.
There are also so many more important things…
That goober is a very happy me from January winning my comparatively low stakes home family/friend fantasy football league where I am the commissioner. This was my first championship in over a decade after coming close so many times in that span. It is also the first time I ever got to lift the trophy since it didn’t exist 11 years ago when the league was less competitive and nearly every current member was in high school or middle school. I’m a little embarrassed to admit how much of my gambling winnings I would have been willing to forego to guarantee experiencing this moment of elation of a tremendous weight being lifted off my chest – very thankfully, I didn’t have to give up any.
But even that is still just the realm of sports. To my admitted frustration, I have spent more than the past calendar year single and with scarcely another soul to mingle. I’m uncertain what sort of impact having responsibilities beyond being a sports-obsessive bachelor would have had on my winnings, but it’s almost certainly negative, perhaps considerably so, and I wouldn’t have remotely cared. There is so much more to life, and even I personally no longer log my non-hockey bets because once I saw they were profitable to a degree of which I was comfortable, I care more about my personal time than exploring any insights that could be inferred from having such a thing available.
Yes, even I, the calculating sports zealot who min/maxes everything up to and including my charitable donations often has better things to do than relentlessly grinding away at the online casino or sportsbook.
I’m unsure of the total amount I personally risked to win what I did was, but I do know it is at least more than $300,000 from hundreds (maybe even low 1000s?) of bets and casino promotions sprinkled across the course of a calendar year. If this path entices you solely as a source of easy additional income, seriously just get a part-time job instead.
2. Don’t Gamble: Redux
More often than not, the best bet is to not place one, but for reasons entirely different and critical to understand than what I mentioned in step one.
This right here is an example of the typical odds that are available to you at any given sportsbook, but in this instance are the current Super Bowl lines available at DraftKings.
In it, you can see a number of important things including how Vegas “cheats” and guarantees themselves to win money against the field of aspiring sports betters. The first thing to note is the moneyline, which reflects the odds the nerds at the bookie have calculated for an individual team to win a game straight up. Not all bookies build models to set these lines, in fact, most don’t, but it is easy enough for them to copy the sharp nerds at places that do.
The -190 means the Rams are clear favorites here, and you must risk $190 to win $100 if you bet on them. If you don’t want to do the math, this reflects a win probability of ~65.5%. The +160 indicates the Bengals are underdogs and betting $100 will net you $160 if they win. This reflects a win probability of ~38.5%. Do you notice something interesting about those win probabilities? They add up to ~104%, not 100%.
Those extra few percentage points are called the vig, the house edge, and it exists because Vegas is out here trying to win money hand over fist, and do! Teams as good as the Rams facing competition as decent as the Bengals are a winning bet more often than not, but not by a large enough frequency to where you can make money by betting all the favorites on the moneyline over the course of a season. Instead, you will maybe feel good about having more wins than losses mindlessly betting favorites all the time, but you will watch Vegas slowly bleed your money dry with their little extra juice.
Similarly, note the other popular bets that are available. Nerds at the sportsbook have crunched the numbers on these and decided they are essentially coinflips. “Total” reflects the estimated combined point totals of both teams. The spread indicates roughly how many points a team is better/worse than their competition, because sure, just about everyone agrees the Rams are the better team, but are they 4 points better than the Bengals? Agreeing or disagreeing with the spread is far more difficult than picking any matches’ outright winner because of how it handicaps favorites. On the other hand, if you do think the Rams are that much better it allows you to win an identical amount as the moneyline by risking less (or conversely, by picking the spread underdog, you lessen the payout but are more likely to win the bet).
Note, in a relatively high-scoring sport like in the NFL, 4 points may not sound like a massive total, but more than ⅛ of all games have a margin of victory of exactly 3 points, so 4 represents an actually huge chunk of win probability.
But again, regardless of what you may believe, these spreads and totals are roughly 50/50 propositions. Consequentially, it’s not hard for literally anyone to win (or lose) a few in a row, but at a -110 (~52.4% win probability) on both sides of the payout, bookies give themselves more than a little wiggle room to be wrong and rake in profits.
That is why it is very important to pick your battles wisely. Never force a bet. Most of the time you cannot overcome the “cheats” at the bookie. More often than not, the best decision on any given bet is to walk away and not place it.
That is why despite all of my betting and football fandom, like most games, I personally will not be placing a sizeable bet on the super bowl (unless I find a weird prop I really like and/or promotion that comes up). I thought there was maybe a blip of value on the Bengals when I initially saw them at +4.5, but it was far from enough for me to feel confident in it. Plus, as a lifelong Lions’ fan I love Matthew Stafford and want him to desperately be Super Bowl MVP and kick the shit out of Cincinnati. I couldn’t bet against him in a game this important unless I thought there was hefty value, but I’m also wise enough to know he probably shouldn’t be trusted to win this game more than about ⅔ the time.
Like most games, I’m probably not placing a stake in the Super Bowl. Unlike most games, the Super Bowl is also the most heavily scrutinized and most heavily wagered match of any game in the world. As a consequence, the idea that anyone may have a significant edge over the house on any of the typical bets I outlined should strike you as fantasy – bookies really don’t like being wrong, especially with so much at stake. Maybe you disagree on that specific game still. Fine, but still be sure to walk away most of the time.
However, even though opportunity does not typically exist, that does not mean it cannot be found…
3. Find where you would like to bet
Once you have decided you would like to pursue gambling and you solemnly swear to not harass me or any of the kind folks I’m about to recommend to you, you then have to figure out where you’d like to do it.
For reasons I will re-iterate, I really like DraftKings and use it more or less daily. They have routinely generous promos with straightforward terms and in my opinion the most pleasant user interface. Their support is generally responsive and I have never had a negative experience placing bets or withdrawing money from them.
As of publishing, you can join DraftKings with an introductory first-time depositor promotion that includes an offer to win $280 in free bets if you place a minimum $5 moneyline bet on the correct winner of the Super Bowl. I don’t have such an option personally available, but I would certainly be smashing $5 on the Rams at those odds.
However, your tastes may also be quite different than mine. You may want somewhere with a smaller house cut (DraftKings is generally relatively large in part due to their promotional generosity and popularity of their customer experience) or maybe you are such a degenerate you want a bookie that allows you to wager solely in crypto. Everyone is different.
Personally, the only other place I wagered real cash was at BetMGM because of their partnership with The Athletic that I was able to flip with joint March Madness promotions into not only a year subscription of The Athletic, but also like $750 in profit. However, other than the money it made me I quite disliked my customer experience with them for a variety of reasons and I have long withdrawn everything I deposited there.
Meanwhile, if you are committed to any particular bet, examine the odds available to you at all bookies. One way of doing this is an aggregator like OddsChecker. Books are generally aligned with one another, but sometimes the differences can be large, especially if there is important breaking news that at least one may be slow to correctly react against. That being said, I personally don’t do this because of the time involved; however, I would recommend it to anyone who’d like to maximize their odds of victory.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
4. Be Disciplined and Responsible with Your Bankroll – Only Bet What You are Honestly Comfortable Losing
No matter how certain you are, never EVER risk more than you are willing to lose. Not just on any given bet, but in your initial deposit as well. Despite my confidence at the start of my journey, I only deposited $700 because as I was getting my gambling training wheels sorted that was the amount I was comfortable with losing. In all my time and with a substantially larger bankroll now, I have never placed a bet of that amount and only had one that even approaches it (that bet, beyond being one of the most certain I ever placed, occurred with my winnings-fueled bankroll being around $10k and was also at a reduced risk because of a promotion where I received a “free bet” of half that size in site credit regardless of outcome).
Thank you Patrick, and screw you Tom Brady for not being able to come through at +105 moneyline odds to beat the Rams on my promotional $300 free bet.
The thing with sports is if their outcomes were easy to prophesize it would be quite boring to watch them. Instead, crazy things happen, sometimes many in a row. Gambling has honestly allowed me to appreciate those incredibly unlikely moments even more, but you must be fully prepared to be on the wrong side of them.
The methods and models I’m about to share have a history of beating Vegas. They symbiotically guide and are enhanced by my natural intuition from years of sports fandom. I wouldn’t be sharing any of this unless I’ve done the work and am confident you too most likely could win money and improve your life with them at your disposal. But the past is dead. There is nothing guaranteed about their profitability in the future. Or maybe we’ll all be profitable still, but you begin to follow along at a time of particularly poor variance (i.e. luck) and find yourself losing everything because you risked too much too soon.
My personal favorite model, which I have used to extreme success, is Dom Luszczyszyn’s NHL model at The Athletic. I wouldn’t have been able to write any of this without him or it. But even though blindly following his methods and model has been profitable every year of its existence, last season was especially volatile. You may start betting with it during one of its bad stretches and you must be fully prepared for that reality.
In addition, it should be emphasized the seemingly impossible does happen sometimes. I mentioned spreads earlier, and one thing DraftKings fairly routinely does is offer profit boosts (generally with relatively limited restrictions) that can be used on various bets, including spreads. To keep the math simple and to provide a real example, take a 33% profit boost on your standard -110 spread pick. This shifts the new odds to +120, meaning in the event of a win they are willing to pay you $120 if you risk $100 on essentially the outcome of a coinflip. I don’t care what sport or what teams are involved (and I recommend doing some bare minimum amount of research to maximize your chances), but at those odds that is a bet I strongly recommend you place. every. single. time.
You may think perhaps sometimes they are being dishonest with their lines, which would enable a bookie to do this, but you can always shop around elsewhere and confirm if these boosts are honest or not. You may then think well that is very generous of them, and it is, which is why they always limit the max bet on these to something like $25 or $50. Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely. Again, most people don’t, which is why DraftKings is more than comfortable to routinely offer these.
Getting to the point though, once upon a time this past calendar year I lost fucking 11 of these profit boosts in a row and I believe all were on spreads that I chose. That sucked and hurt my bankroll and spirit though I was still up thousands even with those losses. The odds of losing 11 fair coin flips in a row are 1/2048, about a .05% chance. By and large at the time this particular stretch happened these also reflected my most confident bets, meaning I think every given one actually probably had a bit more than a 50% chance of landing in my favor. But they didn’t, and they may not for you either. So always be fully prepared and willing to accept the most extremely unfortunate and improbable outcome.
My mistakes
Despite all that I said and have going for me, I would also like to emphasize my two personal failings on this step in hopes that you do not follow suit.
I will never forget this hockey game because it was the first and to date only time I made a sportsbook wager that was too much. It was “only” $65, which is an amount in hockey betting now so small to me I would only place it on an underdog with the narrowest of a bettable edge, but at the time, I don’t recall the exact circumstance, I thought it was extremely favorable against the listed odds. Dom’s model agreed, though not quite as much, but I still decided to place what at the time was a much larger than typical bet.
My wager was thankfully on Washington, and I joked as a coping mechanism in real time with my friends who were aware I was doing this about the emotional roller coaster I was on. But what wasn’t a joke was the utter feeling of despair I can still remember of watching those Islanders lead 3-0. A little nerves and sweaty anxiety are fine, the introvert in me has to fight through similar sensations sometimes from just talking to people. It’s okay and to be expected to some extent – it’s part of the trade. But in this moment, I had clearly bet too much and my nerves were strained well beyond the point of wanting to vomit. I was not comfortable with the idea of losing $65.
Thankfully, Washington got their act together and stormed back to a convincing victory, but even with half a game to go coming back from a 3-0 deficit is rare in hockey. I was fortunate, and afterward, I ensured I was better disciplined and mentally prepared for even all of my bets on a given night to go bust.
Only bet what you are honestly comfortable losing.
My personal greatest error actually occurred during a moment of weakness in a blackjack promotion with high expected value, but could also easily be applied to betting on anything else. A math-savvy, but ultimately ignorant, person may hear the concepts of spreads and coin flips for the first time and realize, “Hey, if you keep doubling your bet staked in the event of a loss, you actually can’t lose money.”
This is:
- Theoretically true, albeit odds dependent.
- In the real world impossible because casinos and bookies have bet limits on any individual stake to limit the damage you are able to wreak not only on them, but yourself.
- Exposing yourself to a potentially enormous world of hurt no soul is prepared for.
I never disclosed this to anyone until now out of a sense of shame, but I knew all of this and was a fairly savvy gambling vet up I think around $8k or $9k at the time. However, in a moment of weakness and wanting to quickly playthrough the requisites of a blackjack promotion that had positive expected value, I decided to screw around, break my rules, and committed to that doubling down strategy anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?
The worst is sometimes you lose 11 consecutive coin flips, and the odds of winning a blackjack hand are meaningfully worse than a coin flip. For me I believe I saw $5 become $10, then $10 become $20, then $40, then $80, then $160, then $320. This is the excruciating embodiment of the gambler’s fallacy.
The past is dead. It is very improbable to lose 7 coin tosses or hands of blackjack in a row, but once you find yourself in that place the present probability and casino do not care how many you lost prior. Suddenly I was in deep shit. At the time I had placed only a few sports wagers above $160 that I believe I had significant edges on, but nothing near $320. To date, I have only placed a handful of $300+ wagers, and promotional $600 Mahomes + free bet aside, these have been exclusively substantial favorites and/or enormous perceived edges and that hand of blackjack.
I was fortunate enough to win all but one of those (smdh Tom Brady…), but with the exception of that blackjack hand the process was sound with high expected value and I was fully prepared for the event of a loss. Now let me explain with no exaggeration the horrible sensations I felt in that moment of blackjack and feel even now to a large extent from just writing up my recollection…
I have almost never been more aware of my own heartbeat. It’s pulsating with such intensity I feel I may choke. Time has come to a crashing halt, and while I mentioned the desire to puke from that NYI-WSH game, if I don’t mentally change states soon my stomach is in such turmoil and I very quickly actually will vomit. Buckets of sweat have arrived from nowhere. I am desperately overwhelmed to such an extent I am actually physically shaking because I understand that in this next hand the most probable outcome is I am about to not win, but I feel helplessly committed to placing it anyway…
That is an extremely fucked up place to be – even if just for a few moments. It should not have happened, it must not happen again, and has not happened since. I am confident I immediately learned my lesson having clicked place bet on that hand and in the event of a loss I would’ve stopped and eaten my unforced $635 walloping out of nowhere. You may not. Thankfully I did win it, but I needlessly tormented myself for a net $5 and in my shaking aftermath I felt nothing like a winner. In that moment I had tip-toed well into the darkness that can be experienced from gambling. It was a sensation I can’t imagine inflicting on anybody and my fear of unintentionally inviting it upon a single other soul is my only hesitation in writing any of this.
Only bet what you are honestly comfortable losing.
It may be at $3200, $320, or even just $3.20, but fundamentally know your limits on everything. Some (maybe all?) sportsbooks/casinos will even allow you to hard-set those limits yourself. There is no shame in hard limits, placing only small bets, or – as I say in my first two steps – placing literally no bets at all. No wager is after all the best decision more often than not.
And no matter who you are or how many successful wagers have been placed prior, it only takes one very bad and undisciplined moment to bring you to ruin.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
5. How to Pick your Battles Wisely – Understand Models
Whether they realize it or not, everybody is using a model of some sort. Not solely for predicting sports, but just about everything in life. If I turn my shower handle left, that action will make my shower spout warm water. That is my very crude understanding and model of how my shower functions. If it for some reason does not, I may need to have a maintenance worker take a look. Their model of the shower is much more intimate and accurate than my own, and consequently they have much more knowledge of the causal mechanisms behind making warm water fall from the same shower faucet.
Therefore, whether they have been fully mapped out or not, everybody is using a model. Sportsball games and forecasting their outcomes are no different. Some models just happen to be more useful and predictive than others.
You do not need a formal model to be successful in predicting outcomes – whether in sports or anything else. I certainly don’t have one. However, the more formal of a model you are able to build – at least in your mind – the more you will be able to be patient, disciplined, and available when a juicy opportunity presents itself. Not only that, but you will become more open to recognizing and correcting mistakes when you may have been over/underconfident.
It annoys the hell out of me when I see somebody dissing a great model along the lines of “sportsball isn’t played on spreadsheets, maybe you should actually watch the game.” I can assure you that not only do the folks I’m about to recommend love and watch their respective games more than just about anyone saying this, but from that love they have constructed a more useful and predictive model that is able to “watch” thousands of games at once. These mathematical models should not and are not thought of as dogma to be blindly followed by their authors, but rather as being tools that open the ability for certain insights that virtually nobody can deduce on their own…
It’s not just that some models happen to be more useful and predictive than others, but their authors happen to have the receipts to prove as much. These are my favorites that I was able to use to success in informing my bets this past calendar year.
1. Dom Luszczyszyn’s NHL model at The Athletic
As of writing, so far this year blindly following Dom’s model would have yielded a return on investment of 16.1%, or ~29.6 units with a 105-79 win-loss record on bets. 29.6 units means if you treated $100 as your betting unit (and on certain bets based on the model’s confidence in outcomes relative to Vegas you sometimes risk multiple units) you would have made $2,960 so far this season. My personal record using this model as my intellectual backbone is 129-84, with an ROI a bit higher as a consequence.
Dom has my highest praise because I believe literally anyone can blindly follow his advice of how to follow his model and earn a profit, which it has yielded every year of its existence. He posts daily updates of it to be used against that day’s slate and has written his own betting guide of how it should be used. Its innermost workings are obviously a bit blackbox, but he has discussed it extensively enough over the years I believe I have observed its core through osmosis. The model is player based, and he is also kind enough to provide player cards and team depth charts you can use to guesstimate the impact of unexpected roster news before the bookies’ odds change to reflect that news. He also ends each season with a review of how well the model’s prediction held up. It has always been impressively well.
This chart is nerd speak for Dom has the most accurate publicly available model and predicts win probabilities occurring at their real-world outcome at a rate better than even Vegas.
I personally follow Dom’s betting guide very closely. The reason why I have more plays than the public version of his model is primarily because my brain is able to run a much cruder version of it that can sometimes recognize plays the night prior that his post the next morning will confirm. I know he also has many more private plays with it because the sooner I log odds for my purposes there is virtually always more line movement I observe in his direction. However, I have never placed very confident bets flying blind this way even if come the next morning the model says I should’ve – I have never regretted it either. Meanwhile, if the model says my brain’s version of it has placed a bad bet the night prior, I have always cashed out or hedged.
Of all the hockey bets I have placed in the past year, there has been exactly one occasion where I actively faded Dom and wagered on the opposite end of a recommended bet. That was an Edmonton Oilers game against the Seattle Kraken where, despite a lot of movement in my favor from my bet placed the night prior, the model said a small bet on the Kraken was still justified. I lost my bet that night.
Where to find it
All that is required to access the king of hockey predictions’ content is a subscription to The Athletic, which runs $7.99 a month or $71.99 for a year and grants a world of sports content beyond just Dom or even hockey.
2. PFF’s Greenline (NFL and NCAA) and Players Prop (NFL) Tools
I’m honestly unsure of how well PFF’s models are doing so far on the season. A recent article said, “Both the NFL and NCAA betting dashboards are plus-30 or more units on the season against early lines and are positive against closing lines as well.” However, I admittedly haven’t had the chance to go and monkey around with their data too much myself, but as I said, I stopped logging my personal bets once I found my use of them was sufficiently profitable.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
These models have several inputs, but a key component is individual player modeling based on PFF’s own player grades. Essentially they have football analysts review how well literally every single player did on every single snap and these grades have more predictive power than just about any other stat in existence. One in-season feature they also added that I really enjoy is the ability to edit their tools with the odds you may personally find at your bookie(s) so you can see how that changes the perceived edge.
I’m also honestly a little unsure of what to make of their player prop tool and have used that much less than Greenline. However, I think I definitely use it in conjunction with certain perceived values that are highlighted by PFF’s analysts and if you recall, I was willing to make my single largest wager that Patrick Mahomes Over 2.5 TDs prop. One word of caution is as of this moment, PFF has 57 Super Bowl bets that are listed as plays and almost all of those are player props. It may in fact be they are correct about that, but because those bets are all occurring in the same game they are pretty correlated and derivative of each other. Because of that, betting all of those values – especially in a one-off game like the super bowl – is exposing yourself to an awful lot of risk in my opinion if the game just doesn’t happen to break down that way.
I have personally used PFF’s models with much less blind adherence than Dom’s, but that does not mean they are unhelpful. I personally bet primarily with my “gut intuition’s” model, but that’s extremely heavily informed by consuming a wave of content from PFF’s analysts. Based on nothing else I often have placed small wagers on occasions when Greenline says there is some value and it doesn’t spook me. I generally will not place a big bet unless at least one analyst and Greenline agree with me. I have often also deferred to it and placed no bet or a much smaller one when Greenline’s predictions are on the opposite end of my own because I think I am operating on some false assumption that it can recognize in a way I cannot. All this also means I made a lot fewer NCAA bets than NFL ones because even with all of PFF’s great NCAA content, I just don’t follow much outside of Michigan’s schools that closely.
Where to find it
PFF provides a reasonable amount of content for free outside of their paywall, including all of their many podcasts that are available on Youtube and your favorite podcasting app. Beyond that, they have multiple subscription options. The cheapest is a premium “Edge” subscription that runs $39.99/yr and will grant you all sorts of premium content including articles, fantasy football guides, and NFL draft guides. I personally had been on it for awhile. However, if you want access to their betting dashboards and premium stats, you need an Elite subscription that costs $199.99/yr. I have found that price to be well worth it.
3. Any others?
Readers with unusually good memory may recall I said, “I began betting because I already love hockey, football, and soccer.” Long story short, having spent quite a bit of time searching and monkeying around I truly have not found any other publicly accessible model that passed my evidentiary standards I feel is worth recommending in a capacity that I feel confident can win you and me money. For soccer or anything else.
Despite being an unusually attentive follower of MLS and a USMNT diehard, I also have scarcely placed a bet on the sport in the past year beyond the occasional promotional one.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
It’s not a be all end all, but I strongly believe without having a formal model with a proven track record to consult those tenets become drastically more difficult in predicting sports. As per steps one and two, oftentimes the best bet is to walk away. Maybe it won’t forever be the case, but in soccer the past year I have walked away from betting. I don’t remotely regret it.
My mistakes
Although I find sports gambling has strongly enhanced my joy and knowledge of hockey and football, I think it is quite difficult for a person who has no baseline enjoyment or understanding to find success even if they have a model. Maybe your experience will vary, but I think without that sparking of joy you can’t develop that symbiotic relationship of the model informing your intuition and vice versa.
I’ve made quite a lot of NCAA and NBA basketball bets that I know I have profited on, but only because that has typically been the most common DraftKings promotion. I’m sure I’ve been profitable overall on those still, but only because of the great odds of those promotions. It’s not because I’m anything special or I can find myself strongly caring about the sport, even with $50 or whatever on the line. Ditto for baseball. Even with an incredibly sharp model to guide me, I’m unsure I could ever find success outside of hockey, football, and soccer.
However, with the exception of soccer, none of those sports are played in the summer, which left me with a void I felt I wanted to scratch. This ended up being a quest to try to find myself a MLB model that passed my evidentiary standards…and I couldn’t…
I don’t even remember where I heard about it, but on that quest some folks I thought to be sharp recommended “Sports Model Analytics” for its soccer and baseball models specifically. Having gone to the site, I was a little concerned that the whole place and methodology seemed a bit buzzwordy. Although I do not know the exact underworking of how PFF and Dom’s models work, I do know they are both open and honest enough with it and their results I could grok enough to feel good about them.
But it had some praise, was having clear in-season success, and when I visited their historical results for the sports I cared about they looked like this:
An attentive person will notice the minimum value of 2 is skipped.
I figured I’d eat the one-month subscription cost ($100 oopf) to get access to their data and predictions. I never used it to inform too many bets and I honestly don’t even know if I turned a small profit or not on the bets I used it to wager. In any case that would’ve been too small a sample to draw much of a conclusion. Maybe I got lucky and got that $100 back, I don’t know.
What I do know is that the site was unwilling to actually share prior seasons’ data, which wasn’t the impression I was under when I signed up. What I do know was that beneath a seemingly solid stretch of predictions in the current season those minimum values reported in the thresholds like in the above pic were clearly manufactured in a way to give the impression that as the model was more confident that it became more accurate, when that clearly wasn’t the case in any of their current data for any sport. What I do know is when I started emailing the site about their justifications behind this and other methodological concerns, I was met by silence and some eventually cagey responses. What I do know is after these events I very quickly stopped using the site to inform literally any bets and told everybody in their chat about my concerns and why I was immediately canceling my subscription. What I do know is that having returned to the site just now for the first time in many months they no longer even list soccer as a sport they model and have nothing listed about their MLB performance this past season.
I do not know the inner hearts of the individual(s) running that site. However, some may say that they are essentially operating as p-hacking utter frauds and practically a scam.
For the uninitiated, p-hacking is basically intentionally manipulating data to show there is a relationship that exists when in reality, one very probably does not. Because we can never truly be 100% certain, when statistically testing a hypothesis a p-value is the probability a given relationship seems to exist and is not a coincidence. A common p-value to determine a relationship exists and is statistically significant is .05, meaning based on the strength of the correlation of the relationship, there is only a 5% chance that it is a coincidence. If a person is intellectually honest, .05 or less is typically a finding good enough to publish in an academic paper. But this also means if you are dishonestly slicing your model’s data into hundreds of pieces or conducting hundreds of statistical tests, it is quite easy to find just about any damn result you want. For more, see this 538 interactive and the below XKCD.
Similarly, if you take any congregation of a large enough number of absolute morons and have them predict the outcomes of 100 coin flips, a noticeable quantity will have successfully predicted the correct outcome at a rate higher than the ~53% required to beat Vegas (recall a typical spread at -110 reflects 52.4% odds you must overcome) – some by substantially so. But how do you know they are expert coin flip predictors and not just lucky? Over a large enough sample anyone can win (or lose) 11 consecutive coin flips. That is why it is important to be disciplined and responsible with your bankroll – only bet what you are honestly comfortable losing…
A lot of people who slag models rip them for making some select number of incorrect predictions, which:
1. Is p-hacking of a sort because it’s choosing to ignore the whole history of all outcomes
2. Fundamentally misunderstands that all models are probabilistic, an outcome that happens 70% of the time is not going to happen 100% of the time.
Then this same person tends to say, “Well, I guess you’re saying every prediction is unfalsifiable because it’s impossible to know if a one-off event really ever happens 70% of the time.” But that’s also incorrect because you can go back and view the total sum of all predictions and validate after the fact whether outcomes with a probability of happening 70% are actually occurring at that rate. You can see that is indeed the case for Dom, and hockey stats nerds far more intelligent than myself have confirmed it, too.
For example, take Dom’s model’s track record from the past few seasons.
Anyone with a bit of statistical savvy can build a seemingly impressive model with outcomes they have p-hacked to all hell and put behind a paywall. What they won’t be able to do is validate their predicted outcomes for a meaningfully large stretch of time.
It’s not just that some models happen to be more useful and predictive than others, but their authors happen to have the receipts to prove as much.
This is a very important concept to wrap your mind around. I quite like 538 and have made money from their political forecasts. I have also seen many variations of even journalists rant against them in an almost identical way as the “hypothetical” from the prior few paragraphs. While I do not believe that 538’s sports models are good enough to consistently win money against Vegas’s extra juice, I do think they are much more accurate than anything I could create. They also are very transparent with their data and have constructed a fun section that makes it quite easy to validate their forecasts.
The greed in me was burned a little by chasing a too good to be true model once. Your experience may vary, but I at least trust the folks I have recommended in the capacity I have stated with my money.
6. How to Pick Your Battles Wisely – Recognize When Great Opportunity Presents Itself and be Brave Enough to Seize it
Mahomes promo bet aside, virtually all my other largest wagers have followed a near identical pattern.
1. Some very consequential unexpected news has broken.
2. My bookie’s odds have not yet moved or at least have not moved nearly enough to reflect this very consequential news. I know this because I am aware of the previous odds.
3. I do not formally consult any of the models out of concern it will likely take them too long to update to reflect this news. (Sometimes I DM or check Dom’s Twitter to see if he has an update already somehow and he is almost always gracious enough to provide a response at some point).
4. I am brave enough to place a wager well above normal and because the process is so sound, I am comfortable with the idea I may lose.
5. I intently watch the event unfold.
6. I usually walk away that night very happy. The odds I am about to engage in a little p-hacking of my own and inform at least one person of how great I am at gambling have increased significantly.
This sort of thing is very uncommon, otherwise I’d be very rich. Vegas does not like to be very wrong for very long. I have not won all my smash plays, and you can’t expect to either because crazy things happen sometimes – even with all the advantage in the world. However, I do know it is a hit rate well above my normal model-informed bet’s.
Most of this news is roster related. Perhaps a quarterback is out injured, or maybe a bunch of guys have entered or exited COVID protocols. In any case, the best way to catch these breaks is to have some relevant sports news on in the background (which personally drives me a little crazy so I don’t normally do unless it’s pregame coverage) and/or setup Twitter notifications of various sources that provide roster updates. For hockey I strongly recommend Daily Faceoff. For football I thought PFF’s betting dashboards do a good job of tracking injuries in a way that’s easy to visualize, but for breaking news I don’t have any recommendations because I found my attempt at notifications in multiple sports too annoying and distracting.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
But it’s not always injury news. For example, on Monday December 6th I was gearing up to at least half watch an interesting game between the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills that I already had modest fantasy football, normie football fan, and financial stakes in – including a small bet on the under placed much earlier in the week. I was preparing food and had pre-game coverage on in the background when I was alerted to this absolute ridiculousness.
I don’t recall what the under was at the time, but it seems to have closed at 40. I remember smashing the absolute hell out of whatever it was upon seeing that footage and nearly watching the Monday Night Football crew get blown over. Do you think there is a 52.4% chance two teams can score 40 points playing football in a winter hurricane?!?!
The game would finish 14-10 Patriots. Winning quarterback Mac Jones attempted 3 passes the entire game.
But I said virtually all my other largest wagers have followed a near identical pattern, not all. Sometimes I think if you do the research and are betting something kind of weird you can also find opportunity. During the NFL conference finals there were only two games and much less expected value on the board than nearly all season because of that. However, that also left me with more time on my hands to find specifically goofy things. I don’t believe any particular analyst mentioned this parlay, but for reasons that I think are abundantly clear from watching a full season of the Stafford to Kupp connection (and even just checking Kupp’s game log), him catching 9+ passes and the Rams winning are both quite common and very derivative events. It was time to smash.
This is by far the most money I have bet at such long odds. It’s also missing the accompanying similar, though much more probable, parlay of the Chiefs winning and Mahomes finishing over 2.5 passing TDs. That was a loss. Beware those who only show their victories.
I don’t think the most likely outcome was for that to have been a winning bet. What I am $200 damn sure of is that it was likely to happen at a rate drastically higher than the 26.6% implied probability I received courtesy of DraftKings.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
My mistakes
Even though not all of my most opportune bets have won, I don’t believe in this department I ever made a mistake.
When they lose, especially during an otherwise bad stretch, that really sucks. But it happens, there are no certainties. That is why despite having a winnings fueled bankroll well into 5-figures now my largest bet remains at a half-insured wager of $600.
Be brave enough to seize a massive opportunity when it presents itself. Be braver in being disciplined and responsible with your bankroll – only bet what you are honestly comfortable losing.
7. How to Pick your Battles Wisely – Do Not Chase the Fantasy of Large Payouts
In my lifetime of gambling I have never once felt the urge to buy a lottery ticket, play a game at the casino (online or in real life), or put money on some crazy parlay on all of the week’s NFL slate with a $1,000,000:1 payout. Most people who do so understand they are probably setting their money on fire, but they do it anyway because they are entertained by the fantasy of an enormous payout. Some people do get lucky, so why not you?
Every bet I have ever wagered may not be a winning one, but it is one that I sincerely believe I would make quite a bit of money on if I placed it 10,000 times (even if that belief is unfounded). Conversely, every game at the casino, lottery, and long-shot parlay makes you lose an awful lot of money the more you play.
There is nothing wrong with splurging cash in the name of entertainment, I do so often, but I am not remotely entertained by a fantasy of chasing a jackpot. There is nothing wrong with spending significant cash and time on a game if that’s where you find joy and fulfillment- even if that’s just watching for a few lines to match on a screen in the hopes that you’ll have the occasional thrill of a big payout. However, nobody buys a PlayStation 5 or a Detroit Lions ticket under the impression they may make money in the long run from doing so.
Vegas is not trying to obliterate you. That is fun for nobody. They are instead trying to prey upon your psychology and slowly drain your cash away. Lotteries, slots, parlays – these are not beatable and sometimes they fool you into thinking you have developed some system in which you are having success. In reality, you are mistaking slices of randomness for patterns where none exist. Sometimes you lose 11 consecutive coin flips. I have no system to beat these, and have not, but I understand enough of them to have also won thousands of dollars at the online casino. I am certain for as long as I am permitted (and have the desire) I will continue to do the same.
7a. How to Pick your Battles Wisely – Do Not Chase the Fantasy of Large Payouts: Lotteries
I am confident I have won some positive number of dollars in my life from lotteries and I will continue to do so. It is because I have never once bought a ticket for myself or anyone else. Nor will I. I have never once asked for a lottery ticket either, but that has not stopped others from gifting one to me – including a small winning ticket from my school superintendent on a field trip once lol.
No tricks. No system. And some would say it’s unbecoming to go around asking for folks to fund your lottery wagers. But in the long run, that and rigging them are the only ways you can win.
7b. How to Pick your Battles Wisely – Do Not Chase the Fantasy of Large Payouts: Casino Games
Other than being a particularly talented poker player (which I don’t play), every game at the casino is one that you lose money to in the long run. Consequently, like lotteries, the only way to win is if somebody else funds your play.
No tricks. No system. And some would say it’s unbecoming to go around asking for folks to fund your casino wagers. But in the long run, that and rigging them are the only ways you can win. Thankfully, unlike your lottery ticket vendors, many casinos are willing to spot you the requisite cash to “win” themselves. Also remember, not all casino promotions are long run profitable. It may take a little math to be sure they are.
Understand that bookies casinos are willing to tolerate losses to folks like me because there is a hell of a lot more folks out there who are not that squander any gains trying to recklessly chase even larger sums. The deck is unbeatable and it is always significantly stacked against you, but sometimes casinos are willing to spot you some cash that makes playing their games profitable in the long run. There are no sure things and a single act of greed wagering everything. is. how. you. lose. everything.
There is no trick or system to change that. However, some games are much bigger losers than others. Casinos are also willing to spot players a bit of promotional cash because they are preying on the psychology of the masses. Too many people are too greedy or don’t understand the reality of the casino gaming model that renders this a profitable decision on the casino’s end.
It is true that I have no temptation to game at the casino, but I am certain I have wagered more there than at the sportsbook. I am also certain that with the exception of the occasional misclick or whatever, unlike the sportsbook, every single wager was placed with the backing of at least one promotion that had changed the odds meaningfully enough I understood if I made 10,000 of these bets in this exact circumstance I would make money – sometimes even a sizeable amount.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
Every promotion is different, and what I experienced in the past may not be offered again in the future; however, I can certainly explain how to maximize your odds of success when the casino is willing to spot you some cash.
The key is learning the house edge and variance of any game you may want to play. The house edge a.k.a. the return to player (RTP), is how much of your cash you are expected to keep of a game while you play it over the long run. Variance is a measure of the volatility in the total distribution of outcomes in a game – it can also be thought of as the exposure to risk/reward or luck involved as you play.
If you are confused, a typical American roulette wheel has a house edge of 5.26% for I believe nearly every bet. Therefore, regardless of how you bet, if you place a $1 bet 100 times, a player can expect a return of $94.74. Obviously, nobody in the real world is actually going to walk away with that amount in those circumstances. Some individuals will also walk away with way more or less because of the variance not only from the innate randomness of playing, but in how they choose to play. Placing a $1 bet 100 times always on black and doing the same on an individual number of your choice both have an identical expected outcome of walking away with $94.74, but the path to that outcome is very different. Correctly predicting black happens 47.37% of the time (2 of a wheel’s 38 numbers are green) and doubles your money, while correctly predicting a number happens 2.63% of the time and delivers a 35:1 payout. The long run outcome is the same, but the roller coaster of how you get there is very different.
The only way to sustainably make money from roulette or any other casino game is to play exclusively when the casino is willing to spot you enough promotional credit to where your expected return from play exceeds your bankroll – not even one round more. That means if a casino is willing to credit you $6 for every $100 you play of roulette, your expected return is actually $100.42, so playing is now expected to be a profitable decision provided you do not play more than that.
Now I personally have a dislike of roulette and am not remotely interested in playing through $100 of it with the expectation to win 42 cents. But there have been quite a few promos that are like playthrough $25 for $5 of credit (an expected net win of $3.42), or even occasionally that with zeros tacked on that I am willing to partake in depending on what else I may be up to.
Even though the expected values of placing roulette bets may be the same only you can decide how much of the roller coaster of variance you prefer. My preference is for variance to be as small as possible because I don’t like losing. However, I also have to tradeoff my willingness to expose myself to variance with the time costs of playing a game I have no particular affection for.
I value my time too much to play through 25 $1 spins and then 5 $1 promotional spins of roulette to expect to win $3.42, but your tastes may be different. You can also choose to play through 5 $5 spins or 1 $25 spin plus the $5 promotion and the expected win remains the same. Yes, you expose yourself to much more reward but also much more risk. In the long run you end up at the same destination, but how much-added bumpiness do you want to arrive there?
If you are curious about what games have the smallest casino edge and their respective variance, you can usually find that info with a little Googling. You can also tell what’s the most advantageous because many places will have promotional terms that restrict and ban certain games from meeting those terms, or they will subject them to a much higher playthrough requirement.
My personal favorite casino game is blackjack. It also happens to have a RTP of 99.72% and low variance even for a table game (you can see how it stacks up against some of the other most popular ones here). Beyond my personal enjoyment from it, that makes it an ideal play for a wide range of promotions. However, that extremely generous RTP assumes you are correctly playing blackjack as the solved game that it is and the rules are as favorable to you as possible. Does the dealer hit on a soft 17? Is the payout of hitting a blackjack 3:2 or 6:5? Can you split aces? Can you double down after splitting? Most importantly, do you know the math behind making the correct play in every scenario?
Being on the wrong side of those questions is how you take that tiny .28% house edge and multiply it by a factor of 2, 4, 10, or even 40 if you are a bad enough player. That is why it is important to understand that unlike slots or roulette you can’t just play blackjack – you must play it correctly. Thankfully, I don’t think it takes particularly long to ingrain the correct play the vast majority of time, but even I find myself consulting calculators when I’m uncertain after the occasional goofiness comes up (if a dealer shows a 3 and you hold an ace and 4 do you double down? (no)). Double thankfully, at least as you develop at the online casino from leaning on such a tool there is nobody around to harass you for it either.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
Some people dislike standard blackjack wagers because of their low variance and inability to produce a huge payout, but by that same virtue and having just about the smallest house edge at the casino, that usually makes it your best bet. Casinos are also aware of this, which is why many will prohibit it from certain promotions or subject you to 100x playthrough requirements or whatever, so read the terms carefully. The existence of a promotion does not suddenly render blackjack an automatic play – even for a perfect player. Still, I personally have probably made a few thousand dollars from it over the course of many thousands of hands this past year. I also know I must’ve accidentally done it a few times, but there has not been a single hand that I have intentionally wagered that was not tied to a promotion.
Similarly, despite my lack of interest in playing them, I am quite confident I have made a healthy amount from slot machines this past year. Again, no system. No tricks. There is no way to beat a slot machine. Unless it is somehow malfunctioning (in which rare case the casino will be quick to notice and correct), any patterns you think you are spotting are waves of noise in a vast ocean of randomness. Never kid yourself otherwise.
What you can do though, is research the RTP and variance of every machine you may want to play for when the casino is willing to spot you a little cash.
Slots have a wide range of variance and RTPs to choose from and it is usually little trouble to discover them from Googling or sometimes even just consulting the in-game help menu. I’ve observed returns as high as 98% on low variance games (making them a better betting option for your dollars than, say, roulette) and I’ve seen certain machines like penny slots have returns as low as 85%. Keep in mind even the “low variance” slots tend to have an awful lot of volatility compared to something like blackjack.
Your personal tastes in slots may vary, but if you are a roller-coaster adverse min/maxer like myself I will recommend a few of my favorites. Additionally, a personal preference of mine as someone who always keeps my interest elsewhere while playing, note that I don’t even consider slots that cannot be autoplayed unless it alone is subject to an extremely high expected value promotion (for example, play through $10 for $10 in credit).
My personal favorites are Bloodsuckers and its sequel Bloodsuckers II. Both are low variance meaning payouts are regular. The former has a RTP of 98%, making it just about the highest available anywhere, while the latter is a still generous, but not as great 96.94%. However, like blackjack, their advantage is so comparatively beneficial to you they are often prohibited or heavily restricted from promotions – read the terms carefully! Additionally, I suppose even with restrictions the OG Bloodsuckers was enough of an annoyance to at least DraftKings they removed it some time ago and it’s no longer an option for any play.
The other thing to keep in mind is that even in high RTP and low variance slots, crazy things happen. Baked into that RTP is every cold streak of playing 100 consecutive virtually loser spins, every jackpot, and every one-in-a million super jackpot that you simply cannot expect to happen.
But over a large enough sample, those crazy things do happen.
Those are by far my two biggest casino payouts, they both came months apart amongst many, many rounds of exclusively positive expected value promotional play the past year, and they were both shocking moments that I did not chase and was fortunate enough to experience.
You cannot see any of the many more losses behind them. Maybe you’ll get incredibly lucky and have them immediately happen, that’s what the casino wants you to believe, but if you want to observe something with one in a million odds of happening you should anticipate it one in a million times.
I want to especially highlight the second photo and why it specifically is dangerous in my opinion. That game is Rocket, and it simply feels more…gamey…than just about anything else at the casino because there is a huge amount of player choice. In play, essentially the “rocket” takes off and players win a corresponding multiplier to their cash provided they bail prior to the rocket exploding, and it always explodes, except the one in a million times or whatever it doesn’t.
I tried researching and am genuinely a bit clueless of the odds of each of the rockets’ payouts (it sometimes definitely explodes immediately on launch and by my guess the median payout is almost certainly short of 1.9x), but there is more illusion of control and temptation to play greedily than I think of anything else at the casino.
As far as I have seen it is an option that is generally available for full playthrough on deposit promotions, and the reason for its existence IS NOT because Rocket is favorable to you or beatable. This particular payout happened I think on some low-stakes promo that was like play through $25 of Rocket, receive $10 in credit. I played that in $5 increments and more than doubled my money on each of those for the first few launches, so was like screw it, I’ll uncharacteristically increase my risk tolerance to riding this to the moon. And it somehow did get to the moon, but even I didn’t have the wherewithal to get there because as soon as my stones saw I was looking at $1000 I knew I would hate myself turning that down. I had to make that calculation in fractions of a second and I don’t remotely regret it. Nor with the exception of Rocket-specific promotions do I play it, I stay completely away, and strongly recommend you do the same.
Casinos offer promos because they are using psychology to prey upon your greed. Your experience may vary, but nothing there has mentally screwed with or tempted me as much as Rocket. I did not know such a thing could exist, and you may have many more Rockets of concern than me, but as long as you follow my advice you will very likely make money in the long run.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
My Mistakes
Insert my blackjack story again here (from my mistakes in section 4 if you skipped it). That was really, really bad and perhaps deserves a re-telling I do not have in me. But beyond that, I don’t believe I really have made mistakes of note.
One exception is I have not always read terms as carefully as I should have. Thankfully, at DraftKings that is generally straightforward to do (at least for me), but there have been occasions where I have not been as careful as I could’ve been and miscalculated. All of these miscalculations were not too significant and just about all remained positive expected value. Still, strongly consider the costs of time and risk from exposing yourself to thousands of dollars of losses by, for example, playing 6,000 rounds of a vampire-themed slot at $5 a pull in order, to what, expect to win a few bucks?
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
7c. How to Pick your Battles Wisely – Do Not Chase the Fantasy of Large Payouts: Parlays
A parlay is a single wager with a single payout dependent on multiple individual bets winning.
I am going to say this once as simply and impolitely as I can. Don’t get cute, and never do some really fucking stupid shit like this:
I only wagered a dollar because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to immediately cash out, and thank god I was because I don’t even want to incinerate a dollar to prove my point.
Now a parlay is not an innately bad play and I will explain how it can even be an advantageous one at times. However, virtually any parlay that is more than two or three legs is almost always mathematically guaranteed to be an enormously negative expected value play – even if you believe you have an edge in correctly predicting every match!
This ticket here is an example of a parlay bet that can be created from betting on a bunch of spreads you may like on an evening. That fat payout for risking so little is incredibly tempting; however, because the house edge is carried through each leg of the parlay – and EVERY one needs to hit in order to payout – a tiny house edge is ballooning into an epic one.
Recall that these are independent near-coinflips, but the casino is paying out these 50% events as if they are happening 52.4% of the time. If you bet $100 at -110 odds, you will receive a total payout of $190.90, but because more often than not nerds have figured out these are coin flips, you can only expect to win one out of every two bets. Therefore, you should expect a return of about $95.45 for every $100 you bet assuming you have literally no idea what you are doing (making it a better option for a blind better than roulette by the way). But that’s just for a one-off. As you add more legs things become gargantuanly grim very quickly.
The odds of winning six consecutive coin flips are 1/64 = Vegas odds of +6300. However, as you can see in my bet slip, the casino is actually paying out a 6 “coin flip” parlay at +4741 odds. The implied probability of correctly betting 6 consecutive coin flips is 1.5625%. That means yes, if you bet $100 on my parlay here it will payout an awesome $4841 when it hits, but given that it can only be expected to hit at that low rate, .015625 x $4841 = an expected return of $75.64.
It’s okay to not follow the math involved. Just know if I bet each leg of that parlay independently I could expect a return of $95.45 for every $100 I wagered. Meanwhile, if I bet them all together in a single parlay I could expect a return of $75.64 for every $100 staked.
That’s a worse return for your money than penny slots – even after assuming you are correct on having an edge on these games!
I rarely bet so much as a 2-legged parlay because for the aforementioned mathematical reasons, parlays are the favorite of sportsbooks. They are a bet for suckers. Do not chase the fantasy of large payouts.
However, one key thing to note in my 6-legged bet slip is that the outcomes of all these games are independent of one another. Many bookies will offer same-game parlays – like I did with the Rams moneyline and Cooper Kupp. I concede there likely is more opportunity to be found in same-game parlays because even though sportsbooks are very clever and provide themselves ample wiggle room, certain events may be highly correlated with one another beyond the recognition of their keen eyes. A savvy bettor may be able to find a mispricing significant enough to overcome an awesome house edge. Personally, I usually have better things to do than much snooping, but even with the occasional same-game parlay staked, I don’t believe I have ever played one with more than 4-legs.
In addition, although I rarely bet so much as 2-legged parlays, there are certain tricks you can implement to manipulate them to your advantage. For example, consider in the NFL, the Wong teaser. Once upon a time this was a far more advantageous exploit, but bookies eventually caught on. However, that does not render it useless.
Essentially in a standard two-legged 6-point teaser, you can “buy” 6 points on the spreads at the cost of betting two games in a parlay (and because bookies fear the Wong teaser, they generally offer slightly worse odds now than -110). The points you “buy” have the same cost regardless of where you buy them (i.e., moving from -4 to +2 or from +1.5 to +7.5 have the same book odds). What are the two most common point differentials in the NFL? What is the difference of those numbers?
Recall our friendly chart plotting all margins of victory in the NFL:
It is most common for football games to end in scores of 3 and 7 while the next most frequent point totals occur nowhere near as often. Meanwhile, virtually no football games played by teams other than the Detroit Lions (the champions of not winning) end in a tie. Therefore, a 6-point teaser that passes through both key numbers of 3 and 7 such as moving from +1.5 to +7.5 covers drastically more win probability than movement from -4 to +2 (movement through zero also incinerates one of the points you buy, just don’t do it). I don’t know to what extent similar “exploits” may exist in other sports, but be certain to understand them.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
Unlike casino games or lottery tickets, if you understand how parlays function you do not need somebody else’s money to have success with them – unless you begin treating parlays as lottery tickets.
Still, more often than not it is very easy for the underlying math behind even a small parlay to erase one’s perceived edge. I recommend staying away.
Patience. Discipline. Pick your battles wisely.
8. Internalize Marcus Aurelius
I originally was going to end this post very differently, but when proofreading I couldn’t help myself from thinking, “Jeez, you sound like a degen Marcus Aurelius.”
It makes sense, I hardly have interest in philosophy, but I know his wise words have had a larger impact on me than nearly any other human being. His magnum opus, Meditations, is one of the only books I ever feel myself opening to a random page for the occasional burst of inspiration.
Marcus himself was a philosopher and Roman emperor and is widely recognized as not just one of the greatest rulers of Rome, but of all antiquity. Meditations is a loose collection of his profound innermost thoughts. It was not intended to have been read by any other soul. Thankfully, after his death it was and it has been inspiring countless ever since.
When I first read Meditations years ago as an undergrad it was an assigned cover to cover reading. I thought it was novel in that it reads exactly like an ancient poetic self-help book, but I didn’t think much of it. It was not intended to be read that way – I don’t recommend it – and in any case it’s very hard to do so. Yet, over the years it lingered in my brain and I gradually found myself returning again and again to absorb more and more. I rarely read more than a couple of pages (it’s hard to truly digest anything beyond that because of the style and the words often leave a real wailing).
While reading it is easy to understand why Marcus wanted to keep Meditations to himself. It is full of all sorts of useful mental crutches, immense gratitude, words of affirmation, and reminders of his shortcomings on his quest to become a better person. But beneath each page of poetic strength and tranquil wisdom there is a melancholy that exists only in a clearly struggling mind.
He never asked or probably even remotely desired to become the most powerful person in the world, and yet he was thrust into absolute rule. Then in such a position he only wanted the best for his people, and yet he spent much of his administration attending to the plague that would kill 10-33% of them. He was a man who craved the home and peace, and yet he would spend his days leading military campaigns on the empire’s outskirts. He was a husband and father filled with nothing but love for his 14 children, and yet he would outlive all but a few.
How can you survive, let alone enjoy, such a life?
Under such immense duress so many of us would crumble and bring the empire down in the process. In that inner turmoil Marcus takes a deep breath and pauses. . .Instead, he then sincerely reflects in melodious utter defiance that he is grateful to be alive and fortunate to have this burden.
Stoics like Marcus earn a reputation for being emotionless robots; however, that is a total misreading. The intent here is galaxies away from do not feel! Rather, do not allow yourself to become destroyed by emotions, especially if upon reflection what you feel is different than what you believe. His words can be direct and occasionally harshly honest (he is speaking to himself), but from them I feel more warmth, strength, kindness, and compassion than nearly any other source…
His lessons and virtues are far more valuable than any of my own, and they are far more applicable and capable of enabling a fulfilling life than anything I can say about gambling.
Endurance
“Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me—Not so, but Happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.” – Meditations 4.49
Future-orientation
“Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.” – Meditations 7.56
Honesty
“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – Meditations 6.21
Discipline
“Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to the perfect principles of art.” – Meditations 4.2
Gratitude
“Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens—that is enough.” – Meditations 9.6
Bravery. Responsibility. Patience. Wisdom. I could do this all day. After some digging, I realized I am hardly the only person to have connected Marcus’s stoic principles to gambling either.
It’s frankly a little bizarre to think of gambling as a near-daily pseudo-meditative reinforcement of stoic virtue, but upon reflection that is clearly what it has become to me. I can scarcely say you may have the same experience, but at least for me that habitual strengthening of those virtues has even helped forge me into a better person leading a happier existence. An extra $16.5k to boot certainly doesn’t hurt either…
Like life itself, gambling necessitates many times of loss. Sometimes you lose 11 consecutive coin flips. Spending considerable time and energy to end up with less than you had a few weeks prior is never a good feeling regardless of whatever happens in the long run. Its inevitability is why I hesitate to dispense with much gambling pick advice to anyone beyond the confines of this post. However, I know I personally have the wherewithal to weather any bad stretches in gambling and I hope life as well. I know I also have the internal gratitude to appreciate any good fortune I may have, too.
I did not and have not religiously tracked my winnings, but did my best to stitch an approximation of them together from memory and screenshots. However, even this graphic massively understates the volatility that comes on a night-to-night basis. With my current wildly expanded bankroll, in December through January it was not unusual for me to experience on a single night $700+ in winnings or losses – more than my entire starting deposit.
To what extent are you willing to become ruthlessly consumed by things as trivial as the causes and chances of winning a game?
I cannot control the innate variance to life or gambling no more than I can control the outcome of what the Lions do on any given Sunday (not win). What I can control is how I react when adversity or bad luck finally arrives.
There is a famous prayer (frequently misattributed to Marcus Aurelius) that Calvin is referencing here. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.“
I have seen so many people become remarkably agitated and utter a torrent of curses (or even make death threats) all because some guy couldn’t move a pointed leather prolate spheroid a few inches further or whatever.
I understand, I feel the same, and often have a hard time not to. That’s fandom even without money on the line, but in the grand scheme of things I think that particular impulse is a quite negative one. I joked about it much earlier, but I do not harbor any animosity towards Tom Brady because he lost me a bet. I harbor animosity towards Tom Brady because he peddles pseudoscience like drinking obscene amounts of water, spent most of his career thwarting my football idol (Peyton Manning), and has been suspended for cheating…………..it’s just a game. None of what I or Marcus have to say is dogma, but the latter’s advice is more useful and practical than any I have about gambling…
Maybe you are skeptical my success is repeatable. Maybe you are correct and my winnings will slowly bleed away into nonexistence. I have done my best to prepare, but the future is uncertain. What is certain is I have given $4,500 of my winnings to the Malaria Consortium.
It is done. A life is saved. Nothing can change that.
There was a throwaway line in an earlier caption, but on a note totally unrelated – or perhaps entirely related – this was me on January 26, 2022 having donated my kidney to a complete stranger a few hours prior. I was discharged from the hospital the next day and this blog post was written in the aftermath.
“No longer talk about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.” – Meditations 10.16