Content that isn't NFL Game Recaps or Survivor Strategies

 The Great Tout Experiment

Let's get to the boring stuff first. I was recently informed the RAS service has been evaluated enough times that no one has any interest left in it, so I don't want to beat a dead horse.

I don't know, I feel like I'm pretty plugged into the sports betting landscape as far as what generally gets written about, talked about, and analyzed by other bettors. If someone could direct me to a super detailed review of RAS since, say 2018, when the entire sports betting ecosystem was turned upside down with the repeal of PASPA, I would love to see it. Would save me a lot of time and word count. Seeing as how I don't recall coming across anything like that, and sports betting is just slightly different today, I guess I'll just keep up with this fruitless effort.

Here's the RAS and Tailgate Tent records through 5 weeks of the college football season. Release day of the week records also included.

RAS

Tailgate Tent

Thoughts so far:

• RAS needs to document their records as I have it above. FBS sides/totals are different from Extra Game (FBS vs. FCS) sides/totals, which are also different from FCS (FCS vs. FCS) sides/totals. We're talking about extremely different limits, different release days, availability of lines, and speed of line movements with each of those categories. Would be willing to hear why they lump everything under 'CFB,' but don't agree with their current practices.

• Tailgate Tent only does FBS games, which I think your typical pick buyer will appreciate as they have a greater understanding of that market when compared to Extra or FCS. I very much enjoy his later in the week releases. More outs are hanging lines and with bigger limits by Wednesday morning.

• RAS website is substantially better with their recent overhaul. Information is easier to find and presented in a more digestible format. The Tailgate Tent website could use the same overhaul to make it more user friendly.

• Hate having to log into the RAS website to receive the plays. It's an added step I don't want to deal with. Tailgate Tent uses Telegram, which is infinitely better.

• Release lines from RAS and Tailgate Tent are both widely available. After following touts for a little over a month, I cannot begin to describe how easy it is for them to release widely available lines and how easy it is to fact check 'widely available.'

• If you aren't sitting in front of a computer during either service's release, and you attempt to do it all from one phone, you're mostly screwed. Everything moves way too fast. Any sucker, like myself, with a 9:00-5:00 and isn't in front of a screen for every one of those hours is at a severe disadvantage. Operating with one device significantly decreases the likelihood of you getting their release number.

• Your RAS hate is misplaced. Well, I'm sure there are plenty of people who hate RAS for a variety of reasons. But most of you actually hate their customers. Let me explain:

• One of my main motivations for subscribing to tout services was being tired of hearing how they "wreck the market with releases on Mondays and Tuesdays" and don't wait until later in the week when the big boys make their opinions heard with larger limits. I wanted to see how true this was. Probably because I'm stupid, but I never considered why RAS operates as they do. Why are they releasing early in the week when all the big-dicks are waiting to bet $10k+ on Wednesday or later? Well, RAS is a service, and like any other service-based business, they gotta cater to their customers' wants. The customers get what they want, and if they don't, their money goes elsewhere.

• Side Note: In the future, for anyone that complains about RAS' early week releases, I would like you to post your $10k bet slips for every wager you place on CFB sides/totals, Wednesdays and later. Once you've posted these slips, then you have the right to bitch and moan about them ruining the market. "But Ferris, it's not about waiting for limits, it's about them taking all the best numbers on Monday and Tuesday!" So your argument is that if RAS doesn't release sides/totals on Monday or Tuesday, those lines aren't going to be touched until you and your genius brain are ready to hit them later in the week (for the previously mentioned $10k limits)? Sure, go with that. 

• If RAS goes through the process of soliciting customer feedback, and their customers want, or are at least indifferent to, early week releases, why in the world would you do anything differently? It's easier to beat early week lines and your customers aren't demanding anything else. So what we're left with is a real chicken/egg situation; you want to hate RAS, but really you hate their customers' preferences, but there wouldn't be customers to hate if RAS didn't sell their pick service package. I've never been one to tell others how to hate, so you do you.

• Call this anecdotal if you want but I refuse to believe otherwise: RAS picks are going to cook your legal accounts (no shit). But more importantly, it won't take a few weeks, not after you get some good CLV, not after some winning plays. They're going to cook your legal accounts immediately after playing the releases. I had 3 accounts with 3 separate legals: Hard Rock, MGM, DraftKings. The accounts had been primed with square plays for months. Down slightly for the lifetime of each account. On 3 separate occasions, I played the RAS releases into these accounts and the account was limited when I went to place my next wager, sometimes as quickly as 30 minutes later. The results of the plays didn't matter as the results wouldn't be known for 4-5 days. As we've heard in interviews, trading rooms have tools to make it painfully obvious which accounts are making the same plays at the same time. RAS has always, and will probably continue to, greatly undersell this point because it shrinks their potential customer base, especially as they try to expand to new markets that legalize sports betting.

• And if RAS does have examples (that are also anecdotal) of customers who have had legal accounts last for an entire season, or even the majority of a season, I would wager a large sum those customers are BIG losers in everything else they play into the legal. To the point a legal is fine letting them play RAS because the sportsbook is going to get several multiples of that amount coming back to them. Of course, I'm also guessing RAS doesn't really dig into this when they do their customer surveys as it wouldn't support stories of customers getting 100% of their releases played into a legal. Or it would mean pointing out how dumb/bad of a gambler their customer is, directly to their customer's face.

• RAS customer service is extremely good. They are super responsive and willing to issue refunds (for unmade plays) if you aren't getting enough value from the service. I think it speaks greatly to their integrity and care for customer satisfaction. Tailgate Tent is also very reasonable through DM's, but obviously doesn't have the team RAS does.

• Tailgate Tent is already starting:

•  Just fucking stop. Yes, we have Travis Hunter to win the Heisman from before the season started at 60-1. But this has to be in my top 3 of sports betting pet peeves. I want everyone to please stop doing this. You sound thirsty/pathetic. And this is coming from someone who would win a good chunk of money if Travis Hunter won! Please don't think I've forgotten about you Jackson Merrill and Luis Gil apologists either. Do you really think your incessant retweets are changing the minds of the 80 year old, stuck-in-their-ways voters? Even if your bet does win, do you think it was your individual effort that made it happen? It just comes off as sad. Spankman voice: Be bettah bettas.

• Tailgate Tent does releases later in the day which I personally love. Why do a release during the typical work day if you have the option to do it at a time when most people have more flexibility in their schedules?

• Tailgate Tent puts a ton of time and effort into providing more value than just picks when you buy his service - you get write ups, stat profiles, box score stuff, etc. Seriously, the effort he puts in for his customers is impressive. But if your write ups are occasionally like this:

• "South Florida +6 vs Tulane: I'm not totally convinced that USF isn't the better team here and think they'll really be able to lean on their run game and control the pace of this one. Tulane has had a brutal stretch of games and think that this one could be one of the better games of the day. FG game here."

• You're probably better off not committing any time to those.

• Following pick services is awful and I hate it. Part of my issue is that I hate being on someone else's schedule. Unless you have the ability to drop absolutely everything you're doing and get plays in with speed and accuracy (and with multiple devices/screens), it's not fun at all. Even though the releases really don't take much time (maybe an average of 10 minutes?), it turns out to be a big ask when you have family stuff, work stuff, personal stuff, etc. I cannot understate how annoying it is to follow a tout service.

That's all for now. There are other points I want to discuss, but it makes more sense to hold off on those until the services are closer to wrapped up.

To The Good Stuff

Let's break character and get serious, just for a second. After this year's Bet Bash, I became hesitant to write anymore. I got to hang with guys I've met on multiple occasions, but I also got to meet a lot of people for the first time. People told me they really enjoy my writing. It's entertaining, it's easy to get through (I'm going to pretend this is a compliment and not a shot at my middle-school level writing abilities), and they appreciate the honesty. I get DM's with similar messages after each blog I pump out.

But I also get to hear about how I can be quite an asshole. I'm not here to argue that; I very clearly am OK with writing about others and being labeled an asshole, even if it means saying the quiet part out loud and making things uncomfortable. However, I'm human and would hate to miss out on the opportunity to meet someone because they didn't take kindly to something I've written. My last night at Bet Bash was some of the most fun I've ever had (at least gambling-related fun), and there's a chance it wouldn't have happened under different circumstances.

What's really funny, at least from my perspective, are the parts of my writing people want to point out and tell me they enjoyed the most. As you could guess, the parts people liked the most are when I am...let's call it honest. I say things they want to say, but they don't say it for whatever reason (which is usually a bullshit, cover-their-ass reason). And while it is funny for me to hear, it's also kind of a bummer. I get labeled as a jerk or whatever because of the content I write, which most people secretly agree with, but would never admit to. It can be a tough spot.

All of this to say: I'm going to keep writing how I've been writing. I just made you read two paragraphs of wishy-washy bullshit, only to say I'm good with whatever. In a way, knowing that people like the 'honest' parts a lot, but won't say anything publicly, gives me reason to continue staying the course. I mostly write for entertainment and to get things out of my head, as well as maybe have a reader think just a little differently about a subject. Hopefully, I can get a small chuckle out of you as you read about your favorite gambling Twitter personality getting deservedly roasted for some dumbass comment. But if I never get to meet one of my idols because of what I write, fuck you, you dumb reader.

Things That Probably Won't Go Over Well

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

Who would’ve thought that in a year in which Australia gave us:

And this:

And this:

It still wouldn't be their worst export. Instead, we get Sprotzbettor continuously telling the world how dumb we all are. Look, I really do respect Sprotz and most of the gambling Twitter trolls. I think it's obvious they know their stuff and make a living from betting on sports. At least Shipper has the balls to appear in some sports betting content and doesn't live to bash anyone who has an opposing viewpoint (only to rt turbo morons). Yet his little brother, who seems eager for his sibling's affection and approval, has never once seen someone else make a good point.

If you would have asked me a year ago what I wanted out of an organization like the American Bettor's Voice, I would have been all in on minimum bet limits, books being more transparent, and regulators coming down ridiculously hard on operators. After listening to opposing viewpoints from people who demand respect in sports betting, I've substantially dialed back my stance. By listening to and respecting opposing viewpoints, I've lightened my stance on limiting players and have arrived at what I believe to be an OK option - sportsbooks should keep doing exactly what they're doing, but they have to be incredibly honest and transparent when they limit your account. And they have to have it all documented for regulator review. 

But my point is that I took the time to listen to others. I kept an open mind and was willing to change my views on an issue I felt particularly strong about. It’s so hard to take someone like Sprotz seriously (I completely understand that’s not the point of his online persona) when they refuse, for even a second, to consider someone else might have a valid opinion. That it IS possible for things to run differently than they’re currently being run and it works out for both players and operators. If you consider the idea that the operators' current model of getting to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it, is wrong, Sprotz will jump down your throat like JoeA defending Will Levis. Do we all recognize that Sprotz worked for a major sportsbook? Of course. Was that sportsbook known for being anything other than a joke? Nope. I know I’m not the smartest person in the room. I know I don’t have 1/1,000,000,000th of the experience others have. But holy shit, am I tired of people unwilling to even try something because they can apparently see the future and know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it will cause chaos or fail.

Does Bryce Young meet Patrick Mahomes at midfield for postgame handshakes and explain to him the finer points of playing the quarterback position? He doesn’t? OK, maybe operators can try something different and the opinions of a trader from one of the biggest jokes of a sportsbook ever made shouldn’t be used to guide these decisions.

Glad we got all this cleared up. I think this throwback illustrates how how most of us feel when dealing with his constant pushback on theoretical progress.

“Ask not what your country American Bettor’s Voice can do for you – ask what you can do for your country American Bettor’s Voice.” - JFK Joe Brennan

It’s been discussed enough, but seeing as how I had the pleasure of sitting through the actual seminar, I want to spit out my two cents about the ABV seminar at Bet Bash. Any good editor will tell you the best time to discuss an event is 2 months after the fact when no one cares anymore.

As I’ve gotten older and cared less and less about most things in life, it takes a lot for something to happen that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. This entire seminar made me want to crawl out of my skin. I don’t mind ripping jokes and giving people a hard time, but this is a spot where I do want to remain somewhat respectful as I truly believe in some of the ABV’s cause (and give established members of the community their well-earned respect). But let’s go over a few things:

• The seminar was scheduled for the very last time slot, on the last day of seminars, competing against 4 other seminars, right before the Circa Swim watch party. Bet Bash attendees are burned out or hungover or already drunk about this time. If they wanted this seminar to be an exciting culmination of the week and for people to care more about the content, they really should have thought more about the scheduling.

• The seminar began with a slide deck, and one of the first slides in that deck was Webster's dictionary definition of what a ‘roundtable’ is. General PSA - once you’ve gotten past the 10th grade, don’t ever start a presentation with a dictionary definition. You just lost your entire audience. Not only that, the chosen venue for this ‘roundtable’ was a ballroom that has a capacity of probably 2,000 people, while holding maybe 200 people for this seminar. If you want your audience to contribute to a discussion in a free flowing manner, maybe don’t choose a setting in which a microphone has to be walked 40 yards to one of the few people willing to raise their hand.

• Richard Schuetz is a legend in the sports betting industry. Worked at the Stardust, has the respect of so many people, and I’m sure has worked his ass off to be in the position he finds himself in today. He is one of the main voices of the ABV and is passionate about what they’re trying to do. With all of this said, his command of that seminar is not what I expected in the least. I do not know if he was caught off guard, or had different expectations, but I would hope the ABV’s meetings with regulators are very different from what the audience experienced that day.

• Let’s go back to those few people willing to raise their hand. There’s this poor guy that I think Joe Brennan knew and singled out to speak on his personal experiences with being limited at sportsbooks. This guy is caught off guard and stumbles through (this is not a dig at all, we all felt for this guy in the moment) a half statement, half question before the microphone is ripped from his hands and the real fun begins. If anyone knows who the guy was, please reach out. I think he was wearing an Argentina jersey and I want to buy him a beer next year.

• Joe Brennan goes JFK on the audience and the rest is history. All of us got our brains blown out and the people at the pool, or those shaving their chests, took some strays. What would have been really nice is if Mr. Brennan handled that very differently. Maybe read the room a little and realize how DOA this seminar was? At first I thought it was his attempt to inject a little life into the ballroom, but quickly realized this was going to be the rant of a man with some bottled up thoughts/feelings. Listen my guy, everyone in that room just wanted to hear what the ABV had already accomplished (knowing it’s very little at this point in their brief existence) and what some of their key action steps were for the future. After having a clearer understanding of what actions the ABV planned to take, audience members could then figure out how, or if, they could contribute. Instead, we got berated about god knows what. Seriously, I sat through the yelling, and I’m still not exactly sure what to make of it. The more I’ve thought about this seminar, the more I’ve realized I wouldn’t change a thing. It was perfect. Perfectly cringeworthy in every way.

Things That Might Go Over Well

A Pivotal Moment in History

There are times throughout history in which society can come together and prevent something disastrous from happening. Times when the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. It takes courage and determination. Strength and integrity. Accountability and discipline. We, as a collective, can take the steps to ensure the next Twitter monster does not fortify his position as lead moron and capture the attention of a reasonably-minded nation. The man I am speaking of is none other than JoeA_NFL.

Some believe he was the result of a one night stand between a Twitter troll and hot take prognosticator. Some say he’s the spawn of Satan himself. No matter the circumstance, it appears JoeA is steadfast in his attempt to become the next thorn in the side of reasonable sports discussion. He’s never spit out a take he would shy away from or an outlandish comment he couldn’t support. In his pursuit of becoming an NFL GM, he will stop at nothing to push the boundaries of stupidity and unreasonableness.

The RAS slack gave us Dan

And I did not speak out

Because I was not allowed to by a Nazi moderator

Then they gave us the boz/primer guys

And I did not speak out

Because I didn’t want them in my replies

Then the they gave us Zylbo

And I did not speak out

Because my records were not documented

Then they gave us JoeA_NFL

And it was too late

We must come together as sports betting Twitter and ignore this man. Do not take the bait; let him yell into the void. He makes up his own stats and uses them as logical, factual arguments - this man cannot be trusted. If we don’t let him gain a foothold in our ecosystem, we can stop this delusion from spreading. Imagine the time and energy we can save by not engaging with him? We could cure diseases. We could refine our models to become more profitable bettors. We could develop a tool to translate Gamberly’s tweets. The possibilities are endless!

TSHMOT Take

 

I’m not sure I’ll ever come across a worse take than what you just read above. We sports bettors shouldn’t be allowed to criticize sportsbook operators unless we care about holding every bad apple accountable in every industry across the globe? Imagine if we, as a society, actually applied this logic when living our lives?

• "Oh I’m sorry, I can’t donate to your organization raising money for cancer research. I didn’t donate to that ALS charity last week, or the diabetes charity the week before, so I’m not allowed to care about yours. I guess cancer wins this round!”

• “You’re polluting our local ponds and wildlife? Well the BP oil spill happened and I haven’t protested against Big Oil, so please, dump those chemicals, my friend.”

• “Did you hear about the uptick in local violence?” “I did, but Russia and Ukraine have been at war for years, so really, should we try to do anything about it?”

Caring about some things and not others is just fine. Everyone is human and does what they can. If we used Trench’s tweet above to guide our ethics or actions, no positive changes would be made in any industry for the rest of time. It’s an all-time take I don’t ever want to forget. Hall of Fame worthy.

Please, Someone, Help me Figure this Out

The tout debate will never end. The faster you accept this, the faster you can move past it if it populates on the timeline. I’ve lightly chronicled my experience following the RAS package above, but this goes beyond the basic argument of “never pay for picks.”

Steve Fezzik was (allegedly) good at betting on sports back in the day. Everyone and their brother will tell you this. It’s almost like there’s a law where you have to say he was good before shitting on something he’s doing today. I think he won the Super Contest back to back years at a time when a) the Super Contest had meaning and b) most entrants didn’t understand the contest was played using stale lines and c) odds screens weren’t widely available. I don’t know how much of that is true and I’m not doing the research because who he is today doesn’t warrant additional action.

My focus is this: how does a guy that sends out stale lines to his customers weekly, refuses to acknowledge his scummy behaviors, chalks up any pushback to “haters,” and over inflates his records with bullshit picks, constantly get a pass from everyone? For a while, people could point to Computer Bob’s tracking of his picks as a way to legitimize his betting acumen, but it turns out the watchers don’t really give a shit about watching the snake oil salesmen. It really calls into question how much effort he ever put into tracking his picks and whether there was any legitimacy to his process.

Fezzik gets invited on The Hammer Network’s NFL live watch shows every so often (I think, I can’t keep track of all of these companies’ show schedules anymore). He gets to lead a seminar at Bet Bash. He’s been on several “pro bettor” panels. I know the people giving him these opportunities will say “well, don’t take in his content if you don’t respect him.” Sure, I won’t. But my question to you - why are you giving this guy a platform in the first place? Why are you presenting him as a legitimate “expert” in the betting space when you see, just like all of us see, what he does on a weekly basis? Why is he any different than the Bookit crew, which everyone loves calling out and would never dream of doing real, informed analysis with on a show or panel? It can’t be “Oh LOL, there goes Fezzik sending out stale lines again! That rascal is up to his old tricks! Let’s see what he’s got going on Thursday and give him more of an audience.” You’ve got to have more of a backbone than that.

And I want to turn my attention to the people who should care the most: other Touts. If I was a police officer and I saw all these headlines and stories over the last few years of the people in my profession not living up to the standard they should, I would do everything in my power to reinforce what it means to be a police officer. Speak out on issues and do my best to educate people on how a person should have handled a situation. This example is probably far too political, and my god do I hate politics, but hopefully I made a point. If I don’t want someone in my field of work to give it a bad name, to the point where I go nuts when someone says “don’t buy picks,” I’m going to point out the bullshit every chance I get.

So someone like Ed from RAS with your 33,000 followers - instead of spending your time going after Kirk Evans for taking issue with a Chernoff stream, maybe spend half of that energy consistently calling out the touts like Fezzik who make the phrase “don’t ever pay for picks” super valid. Try to clean up your own space instead of attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with the selling of pick packages or critiques one of your employee’s pieces of content. I think you could garner some goodwill if you did this and it might even provide you the chance to legitimize your own service to a higher degree.

Back to my original focus: why is everyone in a hurry to give Fezzik a pass? We have people like Diggs who are consistently calling him out, but unfortunately, many are willing to overlook his findings as he, sometimes, I guess you could say, is a little harsh with his feedback. Also, his legitimate criticisms of touts get buried beneath 12 retweets of a story involving Taylor Swift clogging her suite’s toilet in Arrowhead with a massive dump. Why does it take a “twitter troll” to shed light on a tout that gives the rest of the industry a really, really bad name? Why are other touts hesitant to do this? The cynic in me thinks that touts don’t want to hurt their own little pick selling ecosystem - negative publicity for one might mean negative publicity for all of them. A rising tide lifts all ships, so if people are willing to buy from Fezzik, maybe they’ll be willing to buy from others? I don’t know, it just feels like an easy way to clean up an industry that has enough shit floating around.

Bet105 Fiasco

We got a little throwback this week! We were reminded of what kind of power a player has when an offshore, operating in their own jurisdiction, decides how they want to handle a situation. Spoiler alert: the player has ZERO power. If the offshore wants to void bets, they get to void bets. If the offshore wants the player to deal with a customer service agent, who I assume has never passed the 3rd grade, the player deals with them. I’ve written about it before, but in cases where you’re dealing with an unlicensed sportsbook, you are always at their mercy. Reputational damage is the only real downside for the sportsbook, and boy, did Bet105 put that to the test this week. But it turns out reputational damage can be limited when you get sports betting bigwigs with large social media followings throwing support behind everything you do.

Wait, wait, wait. My bad, that was not an endorsement of Bet105. One could read it as an endorsement, but if that’s the case, it’s on the reader, not the Tweeter. I’m on record of how stupid I am and hand up, I really did think that was an endorsement of Bet105 sportsbook. I will be better.

I Have Takes. Please only validate my opinions.

Food

• Any food that has pickles on/in it has all other flavors overwhelmed by the pickles. Pickles are bad.
• Most sit-down, chain restaurants (e.g. Chili's, Applebee's) are fine and it's OK if you eat at one every once in a while.
• The top 5 foods, ever made, in order:
• Pizza
• Cheeseburgers
• Donuts
• Wings
• White Toast

Television/Movies

• The most rewatchable shows all-time are Seinfeld and The Office. Honorable mention - The Wire.
• The most rewatchable movies all-time are Goodfellas and The Shawshank Redemption. Honorable mention - Gladiator.
• Succession was an extremely average television show. Not special.
• The last season of Game of Thrones wasn't that bad.

Sports

• The NFL regular season having an odd number of games makes me physically uncomfortable. I acknowledge player safety, but don't really care, and I need an even 18 games.
• Referees should have to sit in front of the media 30 minutes after the conclusion of a game, re-watch their worst calls, and attempt to explain (on the spot) how they messed up pivotal game moments.
• All big sporting events should begin at 7:30 PM EST.

Until next time.

Ferris

@FerrisB_86