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Jan 3, 2025
Best of A Numbers Game | January 3, 2025
Best of A Numbers Game | January 3, 2025
00:00
33:51
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Transcript
0:00
[upbeat music] The numbers tell the story, they always do. So all those idiots who believe in analytics- This is a numbers game with Gil Alexander on VSiN. Good Friday morning to you.
0:10
There's a numbers game at VSiN, the sports betting network, vsin.com, GamePlus, iHeartRadio, YouTube TV. Whatever you're taking us in, we appreciate it. It's Gil Alexander.
0:20
This, this gentleman to my left is, uh, Kelly Bidlin, everybody, producer number nine. So much more than a producer. How you doing, man? I'm doing great. How are you? I don't know.
0:28
I didn't hear you on the, I didn't hear your mic on. Oh, okay. There we go. Oh, hey. Hey. There he is. There he is. [laughs] Is that a, uh, is that a brand new shirt? Is that what that is?
0:36
No, no, I just don't wear it very often. Okay. Yeah. Maybe you're fitting into it now for the one- No, not one of those. Oh. I've got, I've got a couple of those, though, I'm sorry. All right.
0:43
Yeah, yeah, that have circled back, that have remade the rotation. What, you've been downplaying this. How many pounds have you lost? Uh, over 50. Wow. Over 50. Good for you, man. Yeah.
0:51
Are you going for another 50, or is that enough? Mm, another 50 would be nice. Oh, realistic. I'm gonna, I'm going for 25 at least more. I like it. Kelly Bidlin, everybody. At least 25.
1:00
Downplaying tremendous weight loss. Uh, on the show today, Paul Carr on the Premier League coming up here momentarily. We'll talk, uh, about, uh, the NFL Are We Sure segment. Estamos seguros.
1:12
We have that coming up as well. Uh, a little talk on the NFL number one draft pick for 2025, 'cause we touched on it earlier in the week.
1:19
Might as well take a, uh, a longer look at those odds, see if there might be some value. And then hour number two on a football Friday, usually it's Felika, Fezzik, and Dr. Bob. Today it's gonna be Fezzik and Dr.
1:29
Bob, uh, because, uh, Chris has been on this show, the Bear- [laughs]... 47 times in the last two weeks. We figured we'd give him a day off. [laughs] Yeah. So, you know, take the day off for Chris Felika.
1:39
But we will have Fezzik here in studio. Fezzik, who's already, uh, tweeting the show. He's hyping the show, uh, A, because he's on it, B, because he's also on it. Um, he said, uh, "Do not miss today's show."
1:50
This is him on Twitter. "I will reveal how one random discovery led to me making millions betting football." How about that? Oh, what a tease. Wow. What a tease from Fezzik. I wanna find out myself.
2:02
My God, what's he gonna say? You're gonna st- you have to stick around an hour and 15 minutes for that one, folks.
2:06
[laughs] It's a little prom- promotion of something a little more than an hour down the line, but we'll get to that.
2:11
Uh, we wanna start, of course, with the college football quarterfinal, the final of the four quarterfinals yesterday. Uh, I didn't have this one, Kelly. I was wrong. I had Georgia.
2:21
Oh, I've been wrong the whole, on every single one of them, Gil. You know what? Can I, can I be honest? Every bowl season seems to take the same trajectory for me, which is it's a really torrid start, right?
2:32
You go through the first week or so and you're like, "Ah, so good at this," and then it takes a turn. Yeah. It always happens that way for me. I mean- Seemingly...
2:41
this is, it, n- next week I'll have to pull up what my actual college football betting record is on the season because- Oh, boy... no, no, 'cause it's just a laughable small amount of games.
2:49
I, like, barely even bet it anymore.
2:51
But like I say, I texted you yesterday or the day before, it doesn't even matter at this point, where I was like, "If you just lifetime faded me on college football- You'd be doing well?...
2:58
oh, man, you would be doing well." [laughs] Well, uh, Dr. Bob will come later to talk about the two college football semifinals lines, uh, later on in the show. We'll get his expert opinion.
3:08
Um, but as far as yesterday's game, Georgia and Notre Dame, well, that escalated quickly- Yep... to, uh, to quote Anchorman. Um, my goodness, this was a, uh, a six, it, it was a three to three game.
3:20
A three to three game. Well, h- how did it get to three to three? Georgia looked like they were gonna take a lead. They matriculated the ball down the field, um,
3:32
up thr- up three to nothing, uh, or, or actually be, you know, three to nothing they matriculated the ball down the field.
3:39
When it was three to three or even before that, they had a drive, remember, where they got to third and one at the No- Notre Dame 16. Trevor Etienne hit by Shuler, fumbled, recovered by Jayden Ausberry.
3:49
That was the first sort of moment where you're like, "Okay, this, this might not be good."
3:54
The second moment prior to it being three to nothing was Stockton to Ariyan Smith for 67 yards, but sideline interference- Mm-hmm... called on old number 39, Parker Joe. Did his little Bart man moment. Yeah.
4:07
Let's hope it doesn't escalate, you know what I mean? They had to settle for the three to nothing lead at that point, so that's actually, that's actually a huge key to the game right there.
4:16
Whatever Georgia was doing right didn't work out, and if you were a Georgia backer or a Georgia fan, you were definitely thinking to yourself, "Okay, that's not good," 'cause how many points left on the board there?
4:26
You could argue perhaps 11 points, uh, left on the board. And so Notre Dame gets it to, it's three to three. Notre Dame then ends up scoring 17 points in a 58-second span of football. Yeah. Is that good?
4:41
It's pretty good. The, the field goal to make it six to three, a 48-yarder by Jeter, who by the way was great, three for three. Um, that made it six to three. Then first play ensuing drive, Stockton hit by R.J.
4:51
Ober and fumble's recovered by Junior Tuiasosopo.
4:55
That leads to the next play, Leonard to Beau Collins from 13 out, 13 to three, and then in the double dip, the ultimate double dip, they return the, uh, second half opening kickoff 98 yards, Jayden Harrison does, to the house, 20 to three.
5:07
And I don't wanna say Katie bar the door at that point, but it was Katie bar the door at 23 to 10 when Georgia failed on a fourth and five at the Notre Dame nine, Stockton incomplete, intended for Lawson Lucky.
5:19
And then the final dagger or the final nail in the coffin. By the way, by the way, have you heard that people are starting to call death knells death nails now all of a sudden? People are getting that wrong. Uh.
5:29
That's a new thing in, in the- Gil. Yeah. It's been about a whole seven months probably that, since I, uh- [laughs]... that I've known the difference now. The death knell was finally at that score.
5:40
No- Notre Dame three and out, and then they do the old let's run the punt team off real quick and put in 11 guys on offense.
5:47
And unlike the, uh, the Brett Bielema str- Bielema strategy, it's the let's run our defenders on as quickly as humanly possible, uh, and let's be all frazzled about it, and they jump offsides, and that's it And it leads to, instead of a three and out at 23 to 10, a 12-play, 41-yard drive for the Irish that took 7:36 off the clock, all the way down past the two-minute warning.
6:15
They actually punt with two minutes left in the game, and that's it. That's all she wrote. I- It just, Georgia, Georgia, bad things from beginning to end.
6:22
Yeah, I thought, I thought Ryan Leonard was fa- especially on that last drive, was, like, really impressive, though, picking up some of those first downs with his legs and, uh- The jump in the air. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
6:31
I, he, he was, it might not have been a huge statistical game, but, uh, a gritty performance by one of the better quarterbacks. Yeah. Gritty. I like that. Yeah. Gritty. It's true.
6:40
Uh, so we have the, the two semifinal lines, which again, we're gonna have to wait l- you know, a week for here. Uh, we have one on Thursday night, one on Friday night, so it's gonna be consecutive nights next week.
6:49
Texas, uh, as we talked about yesterday, is gonna be a six-point dog, or at least they are a six-point dog right now against Ohio State in one of the semis.
6:56
Notre Dame installed, once again, you gotta install it before you bet it, installed as a one-and-a-half point favorite against the Nittany Lions of Penn State. You got any bets, Mr. College Football?
7:07
No, I think I, I got nothing. I think I'd be looking under on that one. Uh, but man, that feels like a popular opinion already. And then Ohio State's playing six to Texas? Yeah.
7:17
Well, I mean, recency, the recency bias of the last two games will definitely get you there. Yeah. But that's the thing, right? It's recency bias. We'll see. We'll see. Um, and again, Dr.
7:27
Bob on the show later to talk about both of these. Uh, one last thing now here as we, we go to the semifinals, the bracket and the first ever 12-team playoff. Mm.
7:37
Here's how I know that the bracket has been fakakta with all the seedings.
7:41
When you talk about, like, March Madness and the 64 team, obviously there's two play-in games, but when you get to 64, once you see the bracket, if you're a, you know, if you're into college basketball and betting, you pretty much have the seeds in your head from that point forward.
7:54
"Oh, yeah, that's a 5-12 game. That's a, uh- Oh, this is a great call. Okay... that, that's a 4-13 game. Yeah, yeah. You know, that's a 3-14, that's an 8-9." Like, you get it, right? Yeah, yeah.
8:04
The NFL, even when they go from f- when they change formats from, you know, six teams to s- seven teams and now one team gets a bye, you still have it in your head.
8:12
You're like, "Oh, yeah, okay, the winner of this game will play the winner of this game," uh, so on and so forth. Um, name your sport. The NBA, the 1-8, 2-7, like, you get it. You, and you have it.
8:22
Once it's, once it's etched in your mind, you know it throughout the, the, the duration of that post-season because you're a fan and you're betting. This one, Kelly, it's only 12 teams.
8:34
I swear to you, I have to keep consulting this bracket a million times, and that alone tells me they got all of this wrong. Ah, I love that you bring this up.
8:45
I, I mean, I guess I don't know if it means they got it wrong, but I, I was laughing when they, when, when Brendan and Savannah put up the bracket earlier and I was, like, reading the seed numbers. And I'm like- Uh-...
8:53
you could've quizzed me on which one- Right... I wouldn't have got... I don't know if I would've gotten a single one right. And I get the rules, right?
8:58
The k- you know, where you have four conference winners, and then the fifth best one gets in there. Right. I get all that.
9:03
But I'm just saying, if you, if us as sports fans and sports bettors have an issue, uh, just assigning it to memory in your brain after decades of getting ev- you know, being like, 1,000 and oh, 1,000 and 0 in having this okay with us, it says something's wrong about the bracket.
9:21
Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just from a mechanical standpoint. Yeah. Like, I keep have to going back, I'm like, "Okay, who played who again? Oh, yeah, Texas, ORS." Sure. Anyway, that's just it.
9:27
Well, this is also kind of like, I, I guess it's kind of similar to me is, like, if you could just ask me a bunch of NBA teams' records, I'm like, I probably wouldn't know them off- Right... or I'd be close. Yeah.
9:36
I wouldn't know them off the top of my head, but- I don't know... I could tell you what they've done in the past week and a half, 'cause that's what I've really been handicapping. You know what I mean?
9:42
Like- Well, that's a different, that's a different thing. I'm just talking about, like, as lifelong sports fans and lifelong sports bettors, right? That stuff is second nature to us. Yeah.
9:52
This, over and over again, I'm like, "Okay, they play who again now?" Because the seedings are all jacked up as they have been. I am very intrigued to see how this plays out over the next few years. Yeah.
10:02
'Cause I, I, I'm fairly c- I, I'm fairly confident in them,
10:07
uh, making some changes, and, and being willing to, I think, is the most important part, which they sound like they're willing to make changes to this if they need to. Sounds that way. So that's, that's good.
10:17
But [laughs] I think I was in the camp of, "I don't know if this is really gonna work that well" [laughs] since the beginning, so we'll see. We'll see. Give it another year or two. We'll see.
10:24
All right, wanna start some are we sure? Sure. Let's get it going. Are we sure NFL week 18? All right. Um, I'm gonna jump down a little bit 'cause I might have made a bet yesterday. Are we sure
10:37
Kelly won't lose money betting [laughs] Joe Burrow will come back Player of the Year? [laughs] By the way, I should say estamos seguros with a question mark on each side. [laughs] I did that very poor inflection.
10:45
That's right. There you go. Uh, uh, are we sure, phrase that again, are we sure that Kelly won't lose money betting on Joe Burrow for Comeback Player of the Year?
10:52
Are we sure Joe Burrow's gonna win Comeback Player of the Year? No, I like it the way, for the first time. Okay, yeah. Uh, no, I am not sure you're not gonna lose money. Me either.
10:59
Because I think, I think what we learned, that the AP is accepting ballots on Sam Darnold despite their guidelines. We have no idea if voters are gonna comply. I think Sam Darnold's gonna win this.
11:12
You know the one, so I go to bet this yesterday in the bettors mindset, right? It's the, "Okay, I'm betting into an award that we've been going crazy about for a couple years.
11:19
I'm, this is not gonna be a huge bet for me, but I'm going to bet it 'cause I think this nu- I think this number's silly on Joe Burrow." And you found this in town yesterday. Yeah, MGM posted. MGM, yeah.
11:27
Yeah, yeah, MGM posted, add -175, so I did end up betting that.
11:31
And then y- but then you think about it, you go, so I'm like, "Okay, I have no, I have a rough idea how much I'm gonna bet on this," and then you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
11:37
But how do I know this number's not gonna [laughs] move more in my direction?" So, like, then I hold back a little bit more even, 'cause I don't know after this week.
11:45
Whetting your appetite with are we sure, as Flatter would say. We got more of that on the other side. It's the Numbers Game at VSiN, the sports betting network A numbers game on VSiN, the sports betting network.
12:02
This segment of a numbers game is brought to you by ZYN nicotine pouches. There's only one number one draft pick.
12:08
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12:16
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12:30
Maybe Jason Weigart should be all about the ZYN. Maybe he should be. Uh, we get tweets at Beat the Book, always appreciate the feedback.
12:36
Uh, Christian Marge, "Been on the same line of thinking as you, Gil, in regard to the Rams.
12:40
Bet them the day after they knocked off the Bills at 55 to one to win it all with the thought this team could outscore anyone in a given game and can get hot value there, if nothing else."
12:49
Christian, I'm, uh, with you, and I think, uh, I will be adding. I only have a couple, uh, Super Bowl match-ups that both involve the Lions. I think I will be adding a Rams Chiefs and a Rams Ravens here at some point.
13:03
Uh, New York Mess 16, "How good of a game does Trubisky need to have to take some MVP shade from Josh Allen working on the recency premise?" Oh, that's interesting.
13:12
So if, uh, the thinking being there that if Mitch Trubisky threw for 400 yards or something, that somehow Josh Allen would be diminished in some way, I guess, is what you're saying.
13:21
Saying, "Oh, look, if Mitch Trubisky can run this offense even better than Josh Allen can." Uh, it would... I don't think the two are related.
13:27
I think, I think those that are gonna vote for Josh Allen will not be swayed, and those who are not will make that comment, but it will be kind of an empty comment.
13:33
Uh, D Gen, Southern Gen, "I'm surprised Grizzly didn't come to mind [laughs] alongside Copenhagen and Skull. Uh, not insinuating a gentleman such as himself was a dipper."
13:41
Oh, for Kelly, he said he didn't, he didn't, he... is surprised he didn't come up with that.
13:45
"Not insinuating a gentleman like Kelly is a dipper, but I'm sure he was surrounded by a number of devoted Grizzly fans in the swampier places [laughs] he's lived." Wow, that's interesting. It is, it is built on a swamp.
13:57
Uh, you, you do, you do have it li- literally correct. Uh, it's Gil Alexander. At this time of week, we love to do Football Friday.
14:04
We would've, would've had Felika on already by this time, but we gave Chris the day off 'cause he's been on the show, again, 47 times in the last two weeks.
14:11
But that doesn't mean Steve Bezek's not back in studio, and he is. The only back-to-back winner of the Hilton Super Contest, he joins us now. How you doing, man? Quite a contrast.
14:21
One year ago, we were sweating out Survivor the last week- Yeah... with Greg Jones, and, and my goodness. You know, it sounds so exciting, and it is, but w- how stressful was that last week? Yeah, last year, you mean?
14:34
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of last year. Well, you, you and I, because we were talking about it all the time, "Meet me at the Caesar's gym, I have to talk to you about Survivor." [laughs] Yes.
14:42
And so that, but Steve's one of these guys where if you're on treadmills at the same time, he wants to talk to you the whole time. You're like, "I can't talk right now, Steve. Can't really talk.
14:50
[laughs] Can't talk about this." But it was... Are you happy? Do you feel unburdened by not being involved in it this year? Well, it's a mixed blessing, right? Yeah.
14:57
It's like I'd much rather have the burden of a big payout possibly, but it's certainly a little less stressful. I'm, I'm hanging around in one, there's one contest left that I might be able to win.
15:09
Oh, the season wins one. The season wins. So the resume I'm gonna submit to the Westgate- Yeah... right now has 23 wins with the possibility of 24 if Houston goes over nine and a half.
15:19
So will 24 and eight win the Westgate season win contest? I'm gonna predict it will, because think about that. That's like going three and one- Yeah... in every division. That's gonna be tough to beat.
15:31
Did you say Wes Reynolds was i- was in this? Wes Reynolds won it two years ago. He won it two years ago.
15:36
Two years ago, and w- and, uh, famously, that's the year there was only 30 teams because the, the, the, the Hamlin year, so- Yeah... Buffalo and since he got disqualified, they didn't count. That's right.
15:45
And so Wes r- pu- he punched in 21 out of 30 points. Wow. So that's why I'm thinking 23 gives me a good chance. I got a good tie break, too. I got Kansas City with 13 wins.
15:55
Which brings to mind one of the things that we've talked about here on the Numbers Game for years now. We give Drew Dincic the credit for this. He deserves the credit.
16:03
Which is the pre-flop alternate season win totals markets before the season starts. And Drew's line, which I, which resonated and we've repeated many times, was the notion, and I'll, I'll paraphrase.
16:15
The, the notion that those are priced correctly is totally false, right? It, it's probably a complete fallacy that those are priced correctly.
16:25
And you believe, we, you, we teased because we talked about your, uh, how you hyped up the show, how you're gonna talk about how you exploit one thing and you, you made a million dollars betting.
16:33
But that's one of those things that would apply, right? Yeah, and the Whale Capper nailed it here. So the way to win betting sports, the best way, is identify something that nobody else has identified.
16:44
Be the innovator, and I think Drew was. You know, he's the first guy publicly that talked about it. So I was playing around with the binomial. Warning, danger, there's a little math. Oh, no. Here comes the math, people.
16:54
Here it comes. So I just punched in 17 games, average team, 500 team. If you flip a coin 17 times- Yeah... all right? How many heads or tails should you get? So it's like a season win number, right?
17:06
How often are you gonna win exactly eight or nine games? It turns out it's 18.7%, okay? So if you... I'm taking a few shortcuts.
17:14
So if you played under seven and a half on a team lined on eight and a half, bottom line is your break even by this binomial distribution would be minus 217/-217.
17:26
You need plus 217 to break even, but here's the mistake, and you can get plus 217 oftentimes. Mm-hmm. The mistake is this is a fair coin that's correctly valued, 50% heads, 50% tails, and the coin doesn't change.
17:40
So there's two mistakes, inherent flaws to this. One is you could get a team that's a lot better or a lot worse than what the fair coin was thought to be. By example, this year, like the Vikings were a seven-win team.
17:53
Well- They weren't gonna land anywhere close to seven 'cause the Vikings were like a 10-win coin at least that was priced as a seven. That's factor one, mispricing to start the season.
18:03
Factor two, changes during the season. New Orleans Saints, yeah, they probably were lined right to win, you know, seven and a half games, but then boom- The state of injuries there...
18:12
Olave gets hurt, Carr gets smashed around. Yeah. And so they're a shell of themselves by the end of the year.
18:17
So because of that, and then let's go to Matt Balcolter, there's an inherent bias, and I knew about this also, towards, um, to, people wanna bet overs. In every sport, by the way. In every sport. Yeah.
18:29
But so in football, turns out- Yeah... if you just bet unders on all these season wins, and Matt has, has talked about this, you're pretty much gonna break even right off the bat.
18:38
So you wanna play these alternative totals, and you wanna go under. What's interesting is I think Matt recommended one over alternative, and it lost. Yeah.
18:46
And I, I was thinking, it's like, well, he went against his general guideline, and, and so he, he, he, he lost- A-... on general principles there... a lot of us don't follow our own advice. I don't- Yeah... as well.
18:55
The, the, uh, the way I used to do it in my baseball manifesto is, the way I used to say it is, "If your instinct is to bet a spate of overs, you're probably doing this wrong," right? That's the...
19:04
Because the, 'cause our, we are wired for optimism. We're wired for overs in individual games and totals, right? We're wired for teams to go over their season win totals, and that instinct is not a good one for bettors.
19:15
But it was good in football this year because in the NFL- Yes... the favorites and the overs, if you just bet them all year long, you got murdered in September, now you're up big.
19:22
They both are over 53% for the year, and if you spit that into a binomial calculator, within, like, like, you know, 99% confidence interval, something like that, it's like this is not random.
19:35
The, the numbers were too low and wrong.
19:37
And, and let's give a shout-out because the, the reason that you have become sort of r- recently here fixated on this notion of, you know, find one thing you're good at, find one thing that no one else is doing, find one thing you can exploit, and you can really, really be successful at this, is the segment that, uh, I did here with Gina, with Gina Fiore, who came on here, and she was great.
19:58
She was outstanding. She was. And you got super inspired by that.
20:01
Yeah, because, uh, but, but to summarize, if you missed the segment, so Gina was a hole carder, and like she said, and I agreed with her number, about one in 300 dealers will flash their hole card. Mm-hmm.
20:10
Helps to be short, helps to be in a wheelchair. Oh, right, my leg. [laughs] But the amount of time she spent scouting just to find those people. Exactly. Yeah.
20:18
And then you find someone, and it's like you, what you wanna do is you wanna have a team, you, because it's too obvious if you're, oh, you're peeking, and then you're betting big. That's right.
20:26
[laughs] So you have the, your peeker's- If you're-... just betting $5- That would, that would not be a good way to do it. Be like, "Hey, are you, are you showing a card there?" Yes. Yeah, that would not be good.
20:34
And so you have your, your confederate that is betting, you know, flat. They can flat bet.
20:39
They can just bet 500 a hand, and, and, and every time they get 16 against a nine, "Oh, I think I'll stay," and the dealer flips over a six. And when you think about it, it's so obvious.
20:47
Like, any, any casino, um, manager with a brain that is aware of this possibility, prob- and this is well-documented in the, in the movie Casino, right? Where they break the guy's- Right... you know, hand.
20:58
It's like, like, like, it, it, it takes, you know, the movie star like 10 seconds to figure out, "Well, something's amiss here. This guy keeps guessing right." And yet casino employees, they, they, they...
21:09
Remember, they see thousands of losing gamblers over and over and over again, and the natural reaction is like, "Eh, it's a casino. Someone has to win money, you know- Yeah... every now and then."
21:18
And, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reference a tweet we just got moments ago, which is, "Is Steve gonna tell the parlay card story again?" Y- your, your vehicle to sort of exploiting, that was your thing back in the day.
21:30
Yeah, so, uh, epiphany, so 1992, forget South Point, okay? That's, like, the tail end of all this, okay? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back. I'm, we're going back in time. In 1992, I went, came to Vegas.
21:41
I was playing some blackjack, you know, screwing around. I don't have much of a bankroll, and I'm working a, a full-time job, and I'm studying to be a full-time actuary, taking all these exams, very strenuous.
21:50
So I don't, I don't have time to get to Vegas, but I look at this card, and I'm like, "What's this?" All the point spreads are, are, are p- are, are, are published, printed on Wednesday. They're stale. They don't move.
21:59
What's this? Yes, I love it. [laughs] What's, what's this? So I'm like, "Oh, well, the payouts are gonna be lousy." I flip it over, and it's like, oh, well, parlays are sucker bets, right?
22:06
Well, the three-teamer paid seven for one. That's the same as six to one. Those are true odds. It's like minus 110.
22:12
The six-teamer then, so if the three-teamer pays seven for one, the three, the, the six-teamer should pay 49 for one. It paid 54. The six to one was the one that, that was exploitable.
22:22
We've talked about this on the show before. That was the one where smart guys like you figured out, and that's the amazing thing. If you're smart like Steve, you will sniff out the value somewhere.
22:30
A- and actually, the 10-teamer was- Yeah... the best of them all, but you got taxed on the nine- and 10-teamer. I didn't want them to know who I was. Right.
22:36
I wanted to be anonymous, so I played six-, seven-, and eight-teamers, and we'll talk about that in a sec. Yeah, we'll continue that story, and then Steve's week 18 plays in the National Football League.
22:46
That's on the other side. Numbers Game, VSiN, the sports betting network. [upbeat music] A Numbers Game on VSiN, the sports betting network.
23:01
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23:10
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23:19
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23:38
I would think you'd be all over SportTrade. Yeah, I l- I love SportTrade. I've, I've talked to those guys.
23:43
They're really smart, and I keep emphasizing, I love when they say just, when they say minus 104 in each direction, that's just, like- Yeah, a general guide. You're probably gonna do better than that.
23:52
You know, you're gonna lay less than minus 104 on NFL at post. Well, and along those lines, I, I figured you'd be all over Profit X then. Ex- exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
24:00
And, and I actually, um, you, you, you put me in touch with Joe Pepe. We've already had conversations. That's right.
24:05
And, and I, I gotta tell you, the, the, the, these betting exchanges, they're gonna kill the, the minus 110 betting. It- I think so...
24:12
mark my words, because what's gonna happen is, at post, like all the time, every other expert loves every... I love, I love the Rams, I love the 49ers, I love... They give, they have like eight games they like.
24:23
I don't like anybody on Sunday. It's like I believe in the market being very efficient Sunday morning. I'm not laying minus 110 on the market number.
24:30
I'm not, I'm not good enough to win laying minus 110, but I'm good enough laying minus 102. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
24:36
As, and, and by the way, you say this all the time about, like, contests where you're betting into, like, a, a closing line. Like, you're not that great at that. I, I'm, I'm not. Yeah.
24:44
You know, it's, well, part of it is just that it has become so difficult, and that's why famously, like on your show, I've been giving out all year long, look at headlines, it's gonna be real hard to win this week, Kill.
24:54
[laughs] Yes. 'Cause there are none. There are none. There is no week 19. Uh, Pat Moran on Twitter, "This is insane," talking about our Comeback Player of the Year conversation.
25:02
"Based on this, Joe Burrow won't get shut out for an award. They'll give him Rookie of the Year." [laughs] He's very angry about it. SN Right, "Get Fez," oh, I noticed this too, Fez.
25:11
He said, "Get Fez to say New Orleans correctly. I believe he corrects people on Nevada. Just saying." It's New Orleans. It's not New Orleans. Carmel? Caramel? [laughs] Carmel? Uh, Terry Ray- [laughs]...
25:25
"As Charlie Munger said, you're looking for a mispriced gamble. That's what investing is, and you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That's value investing." Well said.
25:32
You know, if you watched The Big Short, this is, we're going back to the parlay cards. Oh, great book, great movie.
25:37
This, this, this is an example where they're, they're shorting all, all the banks and all these triple A and double A bonds that have never failed, right? And everyone's making fun of them.
25:46
So, like, going back to, to the story about the parlay cards, so it's like 1993, and this is the first score. And, and I'm, every- everyone who's a professional gambler, they lose.
25:55
You know, you've gotta put in your dues, and you get better at it. We didn't lose. From the get-go, we, we just kicked butt.
26:01
I still remember my buddy John, my Northwestern pal, he, he came out, and he played, like, all these six teamers at the Riviera, and he didn't even bet that much. And he went, like, 13 and one on the 14 teams he used.
26:13
[laughs] Yeah. So literally more than half of his cards- [laughs]... paid 54 for one, and I did, you know, really well. And well, I, I think I won, like, 30,000. I still remember when we were cashing ticket after ticket.
26:23
We were nervous about it. You know, we read, you know, the beat-up card counters and stuff that do really well, and we're just cashing these tickets slowly, slowly, matriculating, you know, the, the profits.
26:32
And they're just laughing. They, they're like, "Anytime you guys wanna come back," you know? Yeah. It feels why, like, like we were just so, there's some random kid suckers that had just g- you know- Got lucky... lucky.
26:40
Lucky. And I, you know, c- c- um, shout out Joe Lupo, 1996. Joe Lupo. Joe Lupo- Yeah... ran the Stardust.
26:46
He's documented in the book by Chad Millman, The Odds, and with Alan Boston, and he was the first guy to recognize, whoa, wait a minute. Maybe this isn't just random luck as I'm playing again and again and winning.
26:59
And he was the first guy to back me up, and then ultimately to, he, he barred me for a year. He says, "Steve, no more bets for you," uh, and he, he thought about, "for, for the rest of the year," you know?
27:10
[laughs] He can't. And so I started- For the rest of the year. [laughs] So I started, like, plying my trade and going around, and, and every now and then you'd find a place that just hadn't gotten the memo.
27:19
And, and- You got into scouting mode, yeah... go in the scouting mode- Yeah... and, and famous, famous, like, like, blew up Prim once, blew up the Wild Wild West in, um, on Tropicana, uh, Wendover, Nevada. Yeah.
27:29
I still don't feel safe going back to Wendover, Nevada. Really? Wendover, yeah. Wend- literally Baldini's up in Reno.
27:36
Single-handedly, Baldini's became a Leroy's book two weeks after I got them in back to back weeks with parlay cards. You, you don't feel comfortable 'cause you think they'll remember you kinda thing?
27:47
Wendover's a scary little t- border town in Utah. It's- [laughs]... it, it, it, it holds its own secrets. I, I will say this though.
27:54
So we did this, and when I say we, I said you and me did this last, last year at the William Hill Caesars books.
28:00
We actually won big one week, but by mid-season it was kinda over because every time you would walk up there, and you and I just talked about this off air, every time you would walk up there, they'd be like, "Oh, those three games are not on.
28:12
They're not on the floor anymore." So here's the lesson. Yeah. The reason I'm talking about it, it's largely dead. It's dead, yeah.
28:17
It's basically dead, and, and, and William Hill was the last place that was still taking- Mm-hmm... some action, like, in the best way I can h- I, I, well, the, famously with the South Point, we talked about the story.
28:26
So I, I had a $200 10-team card at South Point, okay? Bert Osborne, who was running the book, shook my hand. He's like, "That's fantastic, Steve." Went ahead and paid me the 130,000 in chips and, and, and, and some cash.
28:40
Uh, le- h- helped me out with security walking me out, and then he did say, n- not in a negative way, and then he said, "Steve, I'm gonna need you n- never to win more than 50,000 any one weekend ever, ever again.
28:51
You understand? You understand?" Kinda like old school Vegas. [laughs] And then, b- but by contrast- Yeah, he wasn't happy... 10 years later, you know, Chrissy's running the book, and I play with my player's card.
28:59
I play 10 $90 parlay cards. Well, he's always sneaking in these cards. Well, let's, let's be f- They'd had enough of me... let's be fair, 'cause you were being a pig about it, right?
29:08
That's what- And that's what he would say about it... I, I used my player's card. How can I be a pig if I'm, like, using my player's card, disclosing who I am? Here, here's 10 cards during March Madness.
29:17
To, to be, to be fair, uh, Chrissy had, he had recognized I had the advantage, and he just snapped, and he said, "No more of that." Well, he just- Which is okay. That's his prerogative.
29:27
I don't wanna get into it, but yeah, okay. There's a difference of opinion there, let's put it that way, on how that went down. Yes. Fair? Okay. Yes. Fair. Absolutely. There's always two sides to the story.
29:36
There's always two sides. And, and, and it's a good point that, you know what, ev- everything's kumbaya, and all these, like, content providers are, like, huggy, huggy with all the sports book directors.
29:45
And I, and I gotta say I'm in good with Circa, and I love everyone at Circa, but that is not the norm in town.
29:51
The norm, I would say, like, the, I have a really good relationship with the Wynn, but there's a lot of books that, like, barely tolerate me. You're like, "Eh, we gotta, I guess we gotta let Fez play."
30:01
You know, but part of that is my past. You know, when you're- [laughs]... coming in and you're cashing, like, at the Aladdin, one time I cashed five $9,000 parlay cards.
30:08
They literally had security, like, like, like, running after me. Okay, but you would agree, hold on. I gotta get you to make a concession here. Mm-hmm.
30:15
You would agree That you are physically incapable, Steve Fezzik, you, we get along fine, but you would agree that you are physically un- incapable of sort of restraining yourself if you, if you sniff any edge anywhere, and if they say to you, "Hey, Steve Fezzik, that's great that you did that, but maybe ratchet it back a little bit," that you are incapable, the fiber, your DNA re- you, you cannot stop yourself.
30:43
Well, y- you're correct. [laughs] But I'm not gonna say it's necessarily, necessarily a flaw. Let me say this. I'm not saying it's a flaw, I'm just saying that's where you run into trouble.
30:52
If you're a sucker, and I'll go back to Cal-Neva up in Reno, okay? In the 1990s, I don't know what's going on, 2:00 in the morning, people were coming up with green garbage cans full of parlay cards. Yeah.
31:02
Like they like, like in shoe boxes, and they'd be at the window for an hour and a half. H- what the heck this was, I don't know.
31:09
Um, but people would be like putting in bets for an hour and a half, tens of thousands of dollars of cards. None of those guys ever got backed off.
31:17
None of those guys, there's no questions asked, that money just went through the window. Well, I mean, it must be your warm and fuzzy personality that people see on Twitter all the time. Mm-hmm. That must be it.
31:25
That was before Twitter, Bet. [laughs] Well, that was what I'm saying. That was before Twitter. So I'm just saying, I'd love to give you the benefit of the doubt, but, you know, the evidence suggests- Fair, fair enough.
31:34
But what the, I mean, this happened with Gina, too. I'm sure she got, you know, harassed big time when s- like, like, like, like it's like Renegade, you know?
31:40
There's like, l- like I'm in trouble, the c- the coupe is up, right? You know? Right. It's like- But who would, who wouldn't...
31:46
Yeah, but y- you, sir, are not Gina, in other words, like in terms of the, uh, the personality you exude. Let's put it that way. Yeah, fair en- fair enough. Okay. Fair enough.
31:54
Just wanted to- But the lesson here, the lesson is- Yeah... find something like the Whale Capper f- has found- Yeah... with these alternative totals. Absolutely.
32:00
And a book w- wr- um, I've referenced this before, Logan Fields' 2020 Sports Betting: Think Like a Pro, documents how he beat golf, and he, and he explains specific- Yes... examples, including betting the field.
32:13
Now, this wouldn't work in tennis betting, 'cause the field never wins. Mm. Because the better tennis player always wins, but that's not true in golf. Total scrubs can win golf tournaments. Yep.
32:22
And you get 40 total scrubs in the field, and they can beat, you know- Well, they can't-... Laura Kah- Kawa and all these guys.
32:28
Yeah, in tennis they can't win the Slams necessarily, but they can win some of the 500s- Sure, sure... or 250s. Uh, real quick before you go, what do you got Week 18? So we're gonna go first halves, two of them.
32:37
We're gonna play the Bays in the first half. We're gonna play Green Bay -6.5, -120, and Tampa Bay -7.5, -115. The reason I like both games, um, Green Bay possibly playing for seeding. They hate the Bears.
32:50
Worried a little bit on the tail end. Green Bay tends to take the ball, ultra-motivated first half. Same with Tampa Bay. I think Tampa Bay obviously ultra-motivated to win the division.
32:59
They might put the, take their feet off the gas, make sure Mike Evans gets his 85 pass yards.
33:04
But Tampa should start with the ball first, not a lock, but they should start with the ball, um, which is an edge, and I also like both teams, and both teams have done very well in the first half.
33:13
So Green Bay first half, Tampa Bay first half. Easy enough to remember.
33:16
And yeah, the Mike Evans thing is he needs 85 yards to continue his streak of 1,000-yard receiving season, and Baker Mayfield and the Bucs are well aware of that.
33:24
Bold prediction, Mike Evans will get exactly 91 yards this week. [laughs] Because as soon as he gets over 85- Yeah... they got a playoff game to play the next week. Oh, man. If he gets 91. Thank you, Steve.
33:36
Appreciate it. Thank you, Gilly. Steve Fezzik, everybody, right here, kind enough to, uh, join us each and every Friday during the football season here on a Numbers Game at VSiN, the sports betting network. Dr.
33:46
Bob, also kind enough to join us, he's next on College Football. [upbeat music]
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