The Great Tout Experiment

I'm so bored.

It's the middle of July, we've hit the two days in the calendar year where zero major sports are playing, and there's just nothing to do. I see that Rob and Johnny are planning a low-effort, middle of summer Q&A episode for this week's Circles Off. That'll at least kill an hour or so.

Unfortunately, video games have passed me by and I can't get excited for the new NCAA release. Even though I claimed for 20 years that this day would never come and I would always love video games, I've thrown in the towel. The player base got too good, the game controls got too advanced, and obviously, other life priorities get in the way. But I'll say this much - if any of you want to bring a N64 to Bet Bash and enter the Thunderdome, I'll beat your ass in Goldeneye, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Perfect Dark, or Mario Party.

In my boredom, I've tried to "prep" for football season by learning who plays on what team. Then I realized I can't originate or beat CFB or NFL sides/total markets and wondered why I was wasting my time. I always get a good chuckle when someone says they are "prepping" for the upcoming season. What, you're reading through the rosters? Maybe perusing a few fluff pieces you found with a coach's quote about how they're going to "run the ball more and get tougher"? 99% of people who say they're prepping for a season have no clue how to quantify the information they're finding and are going to forget about it by Week 1. They'll open SP+ for their ratings, wonder why the lines are so close to what SP+ says they should be, then throw in random bets. Might as well get owned by some 12 year old kids on NCAA25 as your prep work.

Boredom has also led to me to contemplate reading some books about sports betting. The Prime Suspects podcast did a good job outlining books a sports bettor such as myself might find interesting. I've yet to purchase the books or take any action to make reading these books happen, but the thought is still in my brain, and that's what counts.

Lastly, boredom has led me to engage in some Twitter back and forth with our favorite sports betting tout, RAS. I normally have pretty good self-control as far as not responding to every dumb tweet I see, even when boredom has reached a tipping point. But every so often, you just gotta feed the beast and poke the bear a little bit. After my latest beef with Ed, I've decided to take a different approach with the "gold standard" of touting for this upcoming season.

Personal Thoughts on RAS

Before I get into my plans for this upcoming season, I want to make an effort to explain how I feel about RAS. Bullet points!

• Like all of you, when I say "RAS" I really mean Ed. Ed is the founder and head of Right Angle Sports and as their leader, he speaks for the company. And I mean that literally as he has control of their Twitter account and uses it as both a company mouthpiece and a personal outlet to voice his displeasure at any user in the history of the world who's ever written the words "don't buy picks," or some variation of that phrase. Ed using the RAS account to craft personal tweets is BONKERS. Talk about bad branding 101. How have none of the other RAS team members stepped up and asked him to create a personal account for his tout battles? I guess it's his right as founder of the organization, but it's something I've found increasingly odd over the last few years. Can you imagine if Donald Sterling had control of the Clippers' Twitter account back in the day. "Huh, the Clippers seem super racist.....not the best look for an NBA franchise!"

• Outside of Ed, RAS is a team of guys and I've said this before, but they seem like good people. I believe there's 2 Mike's, Adam, Eddie, Jeff, Parker, maybe a Matt....guessing I left some out, but you get it. I'm sure each team member has weighed the pros and cons of being part of the tout service and have determined it is in their best interest, at least financially. I can't imagine it is from a branding standpoint. And like any organization, I'm sure they don't all agree with everything that comes from the top, but I would guess the monetary aspects continue to outweigh perceived downsides. First beers at Bet Bash on me for any of those guys.

• I find Ed tough to take in and don't think I would get along with him on a personal level. I'm guessing the feeling is mutual. Like many touts, Ed has this extraordinary ability to make you feel as though you're not making any sense when you ask him a very direct, very straightforward question. He throws out phrases like "a bit off topic" or "let's move on" when he doesn't want to answer something that paints him or his service in a bad light. For someone who prides themselves on being in a different class of pick sellers, he tends to partake in a lot of the same deceptive/elusive touting practices as lesser thought of individuals. Additionally, the way he speaks to RAS' customer base you would think he's selling picks to the most sophisticated individuals and quant teams in the sports betting world. He comes up with all these side reasons a person would buy his package, as if the majority of his customer base knows how to fake a line, play a middle, use the information, or do anything other than bet the pick he sends out.

Who Ed thinks he's selling picks to:

Who Ed is actually selling picks to:

• I've never sold picks and I never will. What's super helpful is my inability to beat major market sides/totals. Really prevents you from cashing in on unsuspecting customers. Then again, that doesn't stop people like Fezzik, Las Vegas Cris, or any of the Pikkit crew from selling picks, so what do I know. Anyways...because I've never sold picks, I can't speak to what it's like to have that sort of pressure. I do not know what it's like to market your business as a positive investment. I have no clue how to manage customers' expectations. I don't know what it's like to get shit on by everyone and their brother when you're going through a losing streak. I've never had to attempt to pump out content several times a week to maintain audience engagement. But why most of us don't know how any of that feels is because we've made the choice not to sell picks. We didn't open ourselves up to these criticisms. And therein lies most of my problem with Ed and his business. 

• High level sports betting is an extremely difficult, unforgiving, and lonely spot to be in. I'm not even going to pretend to be a part of the highest levels, or even the mid tier levels. I honestly have no fucking clue what level I am, but that's beside the point. What I do know is that when the majority of us lose, we lose. We don't have a safety net to catch us, no backup plans to save our ass, no subscriber base that already forked over a ton of cash to soften the blow. When we lose, we lose our money and it falls on us. None of us are rooting for each other - this is a zero sum game. If it comes down to you or me making money, I'm taking me 101 out of 100 times. But at least I can respect the others competing against me. The people who don't have a safety net waiting for them should they have a bad week, bad month, or bad year. So while I'm not rooting for anyone to win other than myself, I know there's this weird bond, if you will, that connects real sports bettors. We know what the pain of losing your ass feels like and we can all bitch and moan together. Touts don't get that connection because like the Spank man said, when they lose, they still win. Maybe there was a time when they went through the daily grind like the rest of us go through. They fought to get down as much as they could, they lost accounts, they went through losing streaks with no financial silver living. But somewhere along the way, they determined they were better than that; that they didn't have to do what most of us have to do to win at sports betting. And that disconnect never seems to land with Ed or any tout. "Why are people so mean and/or happy when a tout loses?!!" Because you didn't actually lose. You felt really bad for losing customers' money, but your feelings stopped well short of issuing a refund for any of those losing picks. Shit, say what you want about Rufus launching something like Unabated (no seriously, say something cause they burned a bunch of edges and it fucking sucked), but at least we know he's still betting his own, real money on golf tournaments. He will tell the world about it in excruciating detail:

I kid, but the hair does look great Rufus. Also, bonus Tweet that made me laugh way harder than it should:

• I respect the hell out of Rufus and all of the other bettors like him out there putting their own money on the line without a pick service to fall back on. Because when we have to look at our bank accounts, it's not filled with $3,000 subscriptions, whether or not our picks won.

Plans for this Fall

After writing hundreds of words about RAS and why I don't respect a lot of what they do, I am planning to purchase their subscription for the low low price of $2,995. Crazy, right?

"Ferris, no one cares and no one wants to see this. Ed gets the last laugh cause you paid $3k for these picks."

Cool, don't read anything of mine all season. Have fun listening to people's NFL survivor strategies in the middle of October. Or better yet, there will be a lot of social media political experts solving our country's presidential issues around that time. Gobble that up and try not to put a gun in your mouth.

What do I want to accomplish?

• I've never purchased picks and want to see what it's like. I'm somewhat well-versed in the sports betting space and have never once been able to find a detailed, accurate, or insightful account of what it's like to purchase picks from a pick selling service. As someone who is obsessed with details and sports betting entertainment, this drives me nuts.
• I plan to chronicle the entire season, with an emphasis on the following:
• Release days and times
• Type of bet (e.g. 1H, 2H, FBS, FCS, etc)
• Limits when plays were released
• How widely available the line was
• How fast/far did the line move
• How quickly was my account limited
• I'm taking this approach from the standpoint of an "Average Joe" customer because that's who marketing of picks preys on. The accounts I use will be "fish" accounts, meaning they've never been limited and the only plays that have gone into them were basic bets on major sports. All bets will be placed into legal betting accounts (e.g. FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM, Caesars, etc). I will attempt to bet $1,000 per game.
• I know how their bet releases work and will have an efficient setup to place the bets to ensure this process is fair.
• Maybe convince RAS their website sucks and that a simple Google Sheets tracker might be more efficient for capturing play data. 
• We need sports betting content in the Fall other than recapping every game, pick shows, and a guy taking super awkward pictures of himself with food while mixing in some dumbass notebook. This will not take up a lot of mine or your time, but it's something to do.
• I win no matter what. Either I win money betting the plays, or I get to write the definitive guide as to why a pick selling service like RAS is no good for most bettors and get to claim "don't buy picks" continues to work. There's a chance I get to do both!

What I don't want to accomplish?

• Fall madly in love with Ed.
• Arguing over details with RAS or anyone else on a weekly basis. Let the results speak for themselves and wait until we have substantial data.
• Give out the plays to anyone upon release. I will bet them myself and only myself. Chronicling bets will happen well after the release.
• Join the Betting Talk forum Ed created when he killed the RAS Discord. As a good friend likes to say, I would rather shit in my hands and clap with my mouth open than join that forum.
• Use the results of this one season to argue that RAS is or isn't a winning sports bettor. You can see the results for previous seasons on their website. Variance over the course of a full season can happen and their results will not prove either side of the argument correct.

Additional Plot Twist

I will also be purchasing Tailgate Tent's picks for $975. That's right you plebs, Ferris has $4,000 to spend on touting services. I'm purchasing the TT package to act as another data point in this experiment. I originally wanted to refer to his picks as a "control group," but I'm pretty confident I'm not using that term correctly. I don't know, science was always for nerds and losers.

There's also the chance my pick purchasing cherry has popped and the floodgates have opened. Maybe I'm just addicted to buying picks now? Can someone get me in contact with Sean Perry?

Why did I pick Tailgate Tent as the other service? Because I don't really know of any others. I'm sure I could scan Twitter and find 20 other scumbag services, but these two are the two I believe to be most respected and easy to follow.

I also have criticisms of Tailgate Tent and the way he's done some things in the past, but I'm not spending a bunch of time writing this in a blog as they're far lesser than my criticisms of RAS. Here's some quick hitters:

• He bets a bunch of guys to win the Heisman, but always gives the impression he only bet 1 when that player wins.
• He retweets every compliment tweet about the player he wants to win the Heisman towards the end of the season.
• I've never bought his package, but based on last season's results (he has been a winner just like RAS in the past), it looks like he was a very small loser on pre-game sides and totals, but won a good chunk on RSW and other stuff. The RSW and other stuff can be hard to get down on and it's in the offseason when people might not be paying attention. I plan on comparing pre-game sides/totals results with RAS using the same criteria I outlined above.

Good things about TT:

• Does full team previews with detailed write-ups and gives context to why he made a pick. Generally churns out content like crazy. I think both of these are examples why his content can actually add some of the value other pick sellers lack.

• Doesn't spend most of his time on Twitter like this whenever someone says "don't buy picks."

*This entire blog was written on a whim as I was bored. All statements are subject to change, especially if I get bullied too hard.

Until next time.

Ferris

@FerrisB_86