HardballHarry

Kong,

What if you're a degenerate penny slot player who needs to have a scapegoat (with a beer), for all the things that went wrong in your life?

What's more important: propping up the ego of your worthless existence and getting the alcohol or treating people with respect and dignity?

For most, the choice is easy. For others, well, they're just degenerates, and pro's at that.

Went there Sunday night at 5:30. Hostess at the back of the line said it was about a 1 1/2 hour wait. But then she told us that for $15 extra you can jump the line. Was definitely worth it. We walked right in. $65 total per person. It's alot for a buffet, but we wanted to try it. Was good, freshly prepared food. Only complaint was that with lots of cooked to order items, lines at those stations can build up meaning another long wait sometimes.

Enough of that posting experiment. I'm going to lay low for awhile. I'll let you guys know how it's going after a little time goes by.

Early observations/adjustments though:

I was told a month ago by Cantor that I would see opening lines by 7pm and that the limits would be $2000 automatically but that I would get $2500 just for asking. The reality: The lines come out overnight and they are not even all listed. And worse, the lines have limits of $1000 for sides. Totals aren't even offered then. At least when the lines come out at around 8:30am on gameday, the limits are much higher and all the games are listed with totals.

So, (without much choice), I've adjusted to waiting until the gameday opening line. Of course, that means that there is a line out there in the market for 16 hours before I get to play it. This will have the effect of likely reducing the overall number of plays I have but hopefully the impact will be manageable. Actually, doing it this way greatly streamlines the process of getting the plays in and allows my business partner to productively use the rest of the day without having to constantly be checking to see if the lines are out for tomorrow yet. The whole process takes less than 30 minutes.

Now I have to leave it up to my algorithms and see what happens.

Nothing more I can do at this point.

I am hesitant to list the first (or any plays), but I will and see how it goes:

Cleveland Cavaliers +10

do or die now.

First off, if you don't (or are not willing to), give identifying info, you have to do things old school with the cash and carry, shoe-leather approach.

To leverage the current technology though, you need to let people know who you are. It's just the rules of the game if you want to play that way. Especially if you want the security and efficiency that comes with it.

Anyway, you hit the nail on the head. The real drawback is getting backed off. Cantor swears up and down they won't do that. I've bet $15k they won't. BUT, that was before the recent events. Now, I'm nervous. My plan doesn't work if I can only invest $500 or $1000 per event. I need to get action down to make money. I'll know soon enough, plays start in less than a week. I have a plan B if they have lowered their opening limits.

Ultimately, I see a type of day-trading operation where traders could rent Nevada space and then make their investment decisions legally and safely from anywhere. Then just have their Nevada office execute their investments. The trader is always (and is the only one), in control of his/her bankroll and investment decisions.

Anybody else see the potential there? The numbers could work for even the average day trader.

Thanks for the well wishes!!

Yeah. My uncle will be a challenge. I have definitely anticipated something going wrong. Like you said, it will inevitably happen at the worst time. I have tried a method similar to what you described (I used gotomypc), to be able to control the computer in this event. The problem with those methods is that the gaming app literally sets up a VPN between the pc/device and the gaming server. It effectively locks out the computer from doing anything else including being controlled externally. There may be a hack around that but, that is beyond my computer proficiency level.

Instead, I developed a work-around. I setup a dedicated webcam with video chat that has its own IP. I focused it directly on the pc screen. That way I can "see" exactly what he is doing as he does it, view the plays, see my balances, etc. and can actually walk him through any potential problems/questions that come up. I just tell him what and where to click.

Although he will have a week of hands-on training, I'm sure it will be like the first time once I'm not there.

Procedures and repitition will be one of the keys to success.

If this venture fails, I want it to be because of something I can't control. Like win pct or an act of god. Not something that I could/should have anticipated.

I might start posting them and see how it goes.

At this point in the season, I'm just letting my initial power numbers get more accurate and I'm building the database for this years teams and play.

I will only start making plays when the teams in a game have played a predetermined number of games. It looks like the first potential play would be November 11. From then, it will be only a few potential plays per day building until around November 21. At that point, all the teams have played the requisite number of games and every game can be potentially played.

Historically, I average about 7.8 plays per day for my season. Keep in mind, I will stop making plays once the season has been played 75% of the way. I expect 700-800 plays all told.

Opening day is here!

First plays in a week or two.

I just hope to get off to a good start. It sucks digging out of a hole early on.

I never told you guys what I love most about wagering on basketball. It's that I hate watching the game. I honestly could not name more than 10 players in the whole NBA!!

As a result, I don't go on tilt. I don't need to know how I lost a wager because of a missed layup. It doesn't matter. Just give me my plays and a decent win rate.

I just said 53% was profitable. My point was to show that it doesn't take much to overcome the costs of running a business like this. I didn't say that was my dream. Maybe you need a lesson in reading comprehension.

As I said previously, I would only consider it a successful business idea worth repeating if I can net at least 25k. That's a fair return on capital for 3 months given the level of risk and potential for max. loss. That's 8 grand a month (96k annualized).   

To win this amount, I need 53.6% for 700 plays at $2500 per play. My historical average is 55.4%. At that number I make over 85k after expenses (for 3 months!!)

Breakeven for me is 52.83% (after expenses). 

My goal is to show that diligience, bankroll and sound handicapping techniques can have an advantage. AND that those with an advantage can run it legally as a business to make large profits.

My dream is to make money. If it works, it works on my terms. I'll still eat if it fails. Not to brag, but it's only 50K I'm risking at most. Not much in the scheme of things. Plus, over half is accumulated winnings from the past couple years.

And, I'm helping the ecomony by starting a small business.

I can understand that position. I think there is a place for both types of operations. There will always be lots of people who enjoy the actual excitement of watching the game socially. For alot of people, it's as much about this social interaction as it is gambling. And for the casino, having people around is always a good thing.  

I also don't believe that all casinos would want to hand over their bookmaking operations to an outside company. It's not like it loses money. In fact as more books go to the "market" model of setting numbers, I would think that margins could actually increase in this area as it would necessarily need less overhead to operate. The books would just copy the market number when it moves. They will also have selectively higher limits (for some people) which would increase hold.

This leads me to what I believe is the bigger effect of Cantor and William Hill. They won't run EVERY sportsbook, but THEY WILL have the effect of greatly reducing the variation in numbers available. I don't think there is any way of getting away from that.

Once the number is not in question anymore, then books will compete on various things like limits, service, comps, etc. and bettors will pick and choose based on the experience they want.

Hate to tell you but...if your top gaming guy gets arrested for illegal bookmaking and money laundering, you will be investigated. That investigation was already announced by the NGC today. When someone that high up gets arrested on these type of charges, THEY HAVE to investigate to see who else in the company may be involved. You're right, they haven't been implicated, yet. It's been 7 hours since the indictment was unsealed. The investigation of Cantor was just announced today.

This is what Cantor has to worry about: Did Colbert funnel any money through Cantor? Did he use Cantor or Cantor employees in any way to further illegal activities? Did he direct action one way or another for his own personal benefit? And most importantly, did Cantor know (or should they have known) that he was possibly using the company in this fashion (if indeed he was)?

I would consider this biz a success (and worth doing again), if I can gross at least 25K. That's a fair return on capital for 3 months given the level of risk and potential for the max loss. This annualizes to about 100k a year if it could be done this way for 12 consecutive months (which is not likely).

As far as selections, I like my chances, I generate multiple power ratings that have proven to be heavily correlated to actual outcomes. It’s the day-to-day running of the operation that will be the potentially biggest challenge. Coordinating the daily routine/procedures, making sure plays are in as soon as lines come out, etc. All the things that will need to be done procedurally to make this work. If there is a future season, it will definitely be easier since the minute details will have already been figured out. I’ve tried to anticipate all the nuances of running something like this, but I’m sure there will be some glitches along the way. I am actually going to be spending the first week of plays drafting procedures and doing “live” run-throughs of what we need to do daily when I’m not there. I have given this alot of thought and testing and feel pretty good that we can execute this easily.

Ultimately, if I can make 50-75k per year investing in only NCAAb, NBA and MLB, I’d be happy. All told maybe 9 months of the year with time off in between. This is after expenses and assumes about a 200k bankroll. It’s definitely possible.

What makes it hard is the books’ resistance to basically just hand you money. Especially if you are not the type to leak away profits on other wagers. The smart books though are not turning away players, instead they are using that information. They are realizing that having winning players play with them is the same as buying information. That “bought” information can then be used to make even more money from those “less informed”.

That is what Cantor does.

Think of it this way: Cantor also has a securities trading division on Wall Street. Would they ever not do a trade with Goldman because Goldman is too smart? Of course not, what they would do is use that info and their past experience to determine what that means and how they can use that info profitably.  Cantor is just applying securities trading techniques to the sports investing market. The difference is that with the securities market, there is no opening number. The reason: One entity arbitrarily setting an opening number is inherently inefficient and can be beaten by smart people playing with different constraints. So how does Cantor combat that? By limiting how much they will pay for the info (i.e. betting limits).

Right now, that info is very valuable to them and they are willing to pay those who can provide it. We’ll see what mine is worth.

Cantor says they're different. They say they'll let you make the posted limit bets and they won’t back you off. Regardless of how you do. I have heard/read many interviews with them claiming that they want ALL players. They say that they'll raise the limits of players from the posted ones just by asking. I’m hoping to be able to put them to that test in future seasons.