Hot Seat... Week 1 .... VANZACK

1.  Depends on the season and the sport, and even the year.  This past football season looked something like:

Capping 80% and everything else 20%

and 5 years ago looked something like 50% capping and 50% everything else.

Luckily, last year I had soccer - which carried me for 12 months running.

2.  This is always tricky.  Outside of about 5 friends, nobody knows.  So the friends outside of the very inner circle think I work from home, and I am very vague about it - they joke that I am a secret agent - and I really do nothing to tell them otherwise - so they drop it.  People I meet, or say when I am asked on an application (like my sons school app), I say or put "entrepreneur" and if it goes further I just say I own a couple of businesses - people generally get the idea I dont want to talk about it and let it go.  The school stops asking when they see you can write a 15K check without flinching - then you could be Hitler and they wouldnt care.

Nah - dont like to tie up money for that long.  Rick Perry is too right wing IMO.  I dont think he is electable, but who knows.

Personally, I hope you lose this bet.

But I do think Obama will be re-elected no problems - and the current price of about -160 is a steal.  And Im not opening up the conversation to personal politics, I just dont think there is any Rep that can beat him.  I dont think it will be close.

Quote Originally Posted by OnlyGod:



Can't say I blame you   I imagine you think quite clearly, do you ever have a juice week ?

I dont know about thinking, I do know about my health.

It is 1000% better than it used to be.

So it works for me.

Never had a juice only week, I like to eat too much.  Tonight had a salad from my backyard, my wife has taken up a suburban garden project - and we ate organic lettuce, zuchini, tomatoes, onions, and herbs - really cant beat it.

Van- I'm assuming you play draws in soccer as the line warrants it a play. But my question is "Do your line projections also come out with 3 way betting lines?" If so, I gotta give it up to you man pretty damn impressive.

I've wondered for years the science/psychology of draw betting. Personally, I believe there is a slight overlay on draws as people cap games with instinct to one team or the other. However, Is the draw just a middle for the price between the two sides or its own seperate entitity so to speak? Like to hear your take on this.

you can go 10+ years ....

that means you have around 1 mil real cash

you should be able to get 5 solid street books and 5 people in vegas to work for you.

10 solid lines for ea bet has to enough ... no?

The issue on a 3 way line of any kind is that the house has an almost hidden way to increase house hold, or vig.  It is very rare to find a 3 way line that is the equivalent of a 8 cent 2 way line, like you can get at pinnacle, or less at betfair or MB.  One of my non-breakable rules is to only bet in to markets that have as low house hold as possible.  That eliminates all kinds of things like horse racing, 20 cent MLB lines etc - and it is very easy for books to make a 3 way line the equivalent of a 40 cent 2 way line without most people even realizing it.

So with soccer, every bet has to be looked at individually as there are so many ways to bet the same thing.  Want to bet a team +.5?  You have the+.5 line, but you can also bet the draw and win in the right combinations that might make you a better price.  When I had 20 books in my arsenal, I often got a win bet one place, a draw bet another, and a win bet on the other side at plus money overall.  The three way line has some strange nuances - and you have to get used to them.

I do agree with you, and had a thread here about the draw several years back.  I agree with the psychology of picking one side or the other, and therefore draws inherently have value.  And to some extent, in certain leagues, this is true.  I run the numbers every year - and if for instance in the premier league if you eliminate any home favorite over -200, and bet every other draw, I think there was about a 5% profit return in 2009, and last year was slightly even better.

I often bet draws in low scoring leagues when there is no clear favorite, just for the reason you state.

After 20 pages of this thread, and all of my other posts - you should know that Vegas does almost nothing for me.  Low limits, and high house holds, with difficult logistics of getting the best line all of the time, risk of having 5 runners with cash - and expense of having 5 runners.  That is not my model.

Street books are the same issue.  20 cent lines, and meeting someone in a parking lot with a brown bag of cash doesnt meet my criteria of low risk, low margin gambling.

I said it before and I will say it again, I am not a good enough crystal ball handicapper to make money with tons of operating costs and risks.  The difference between having Neteller, and 20 books on 6 computer monitors in my office - and being able to react in 10 seconds to having no money at a book, to having a big balance and hitting a line - and the situation you describe is enormous.  I had virtually no cost, and very little risk - your solution has high costs and high risks, with even worse betting options.

Good for some, but that is just not my model.

I went to a casino (and wrote a review here) that had 500X odds on craps.  That was the last time I "gambled", or in other words - placed a wager that I KNEW had a negative EV.  I hated it for the most part, and had conversations with myself about why I was doing it the whole time.  But I was with friends, and it was for small money, so it was a social thing - but my OCD almost didnt let me do it.

I used to bet on anything.  I could make the worst covers degenerate look like an altar boy.  I wrote in this thread about how I met a nameless faceless guy with a shaving kit packed with 100 dollar bills - and that was because of a terrible run on stupid shit like quarter bets in football, parlays, props etc.  I also wrote in this thread that I figured out the scoring system for dancing with the stars in season 1, and figured out mathematically with a very high certainty who was going to win, and won a couple of G's on that - I felt very good about that.

I stick with what I know.  I dont know parlays, and I know that if I stick with my thin slice view of the gambling world - I make money.  I dont want to expand that, because there is a learning curve and risk.  I want to repeat what works over and over, and for me a parlay just isnt part of that - and I am very lucky in that I do not have urges to bet for entertainment - I have the opposite - my preference is usually NOT to have a bet if I dont really like a side.  Sure sometimes I get bored and put a fun bet out there - but for real money - almost never.  I spoke earlier how I got loose on the WC final, because I was so red hot, and I swear to you I have thought about why I bet too much on that game EVERY day since.  That was in July of last year.  And it has nothing to do with the money, or losing my rent, or losing period - it has to do with the fact that I know for a fact that I bet too much because of emotion - and that bothers the shit out of me.

i'll give you that ... gambling for an income is pretty hard ... nevermind the overhead of runners etc ... didn't read the 20+ pages just skimmed ... just surprised you don't have a few locals with a very extended line of credit at this point.  bol

Just for conversation - let me give you an example....

These guys like Billy Walters or others like him will say something like "bet the Eagles all the way up to -3" when the line is -2.

To me, the difference between -2 -105, and -2 -110 is enormous, and might be the deciding factor in me not betting that game.  For him and those like him, they essentially LOVE a side in a game, and are price insensitive.  I am the definition of price sensitive.

So maybe Billy Walters is a great crystal ball handicapper and can do that.  But I am not.  And I am the guy betting the Giants +3 after he moves the line, because I feel like I am getting 10 cents too much.

There is an enormous difference in those two approaches.  I am shopping at the dollar store with coupons, and he is shopping at brooks brothers.  I make my money by making ten bucks on a bunch of transactions, where he and others make theirs by making 10K on one transaction.  So where a vegas setup, or street books, or credit situations might suit him - they dont me.  Price and risk sensitivity is the key.

I understand what you are saying, but wouldnt having a few guys on the payroll to scour the vegas book work for you? It would be the closet thing to the online betting you knew 5-10 years ago. I know it comes with a whole nother set of headaches and it would be difficult to sell out of a game in time etc

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