Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Predict predictable predictions.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Predict predictable predictions.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Predictable. Predicted Predictable.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: Predictive programming. Episode 7.
Probably the most important guest in the history of any podcast, our close personal friend, Isaac Altman Sagan.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Good to be here. Definitely more important on a podcast. Guy exchanges in the guy who worked at cow in trading, for sure.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: It was like Obama on Marc Maron was a big deal.
What were some other important podcasts? Joe Rogan's had a few of them.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: He had Trump on.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: He had that North Korean lady that was making all this.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Oh, right.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: That was pretty cool. But anyway, we got Isaac. Isaac's an old friend of ours. We all go way back.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Way, way back.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: I think before times, for sure.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: You could actually make the argument that Isaac introduced you and me.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: And if you wanna make a really good argument, you could argue that Isaac actually got Henry this job in Novi.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Ye.
That is straight up true.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Not like North Korean women skewing stuff. Like, this is real.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: It's weird that you're the only one who doesn't currently work here.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: I tried to pull you in six months ago and you were at my house and my wife was like, wait, let's run some numbers. What are they offering you? What are you making? Betting on sports. When you told her how much money you make betting on sports, she was like, you gotta keep doing that.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: That's a lot of money. Yeah. Shout out to Mandy. Protecting me in the American dream. Cause I was, you know, I was live to come. I was live to come. And maybe another day.
I mean, I would have. However likely I was, I would have thought this guy was an even bigger long shot. So brick by brick would be.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: How's the first week, by the way? Because we're one weekend, right. Didn't we record an episode? Last week was like, brand new.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: I have a lot of respect for market makers. Now I realize how difficult it is. I would always complain and I would say, oh, the book should do this.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: They should do this.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: If I was there, I would make it all better. And I come in and I realize this shit is hard.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: How's your P and L week one?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Not good.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: We're down, I think. No, I think it's good.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Really cohesive trading team we have.
[00:02:06] Speaker C: Maybe Chris might personally be down, but the ship is going in the right direction.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: But we had a good week.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: We're not talking about ourselves. We're interviewing Isaac here. What are you currently doing on exchanges? You know, I do know that you're a novig user.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: What are you doing? What are you doing? On novig, a bit of everything. It's obviously a very different game than calcium polymarket, especially calcium. I mean I think you see a lot of people posting on Twitter having some sweats on a market that they're not actually making numbers for, but they're just, you know, fighting for that Robinhood liquidity.
And I think Novi is a much more fun game from an actual trading perspective.
You have to figure out how long you want to leave orders up for, what markets you're actually winning at. And it's fun to come in and post some decent amount of money, but then you get snap filled. You gotta think about, all right, am I actually, am I the guy here or am I not the guy here? And if you don't figure that out quickly, you're not gonna be the guy and you're gonna be the guy asking for a job at Novi.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: What are the markets that you're the guy on?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: I wouldn't say there are any markets that I'm the guy on.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: I just should be very clear. Go ahead. What do you think you're not the guy on?
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Well, I won't be sprint training. I'm not the guy. And that would be a problem.
So whoever that was, shout out to them.
I think people have said it before, but being able to pick your spots is really important and you get to do that when you're just casually making rather than you guys who have to put up prices for the whole board. I think there's some mob spots that I have at pretty good and I feel confident about those.
Some NBA, NBA props. Maybe some NFL stuff.
[00:03:51] Speaker C: Yeah, let's talk some numbers. How much volume did you do this MLB season?
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Still going on a little bit.
Some. Some memory figures that have to figure it out.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: No bigger. No. Oh well, you just mean no bigger.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: No.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: No. Total generally no. No, it def.
Definitely not. Yeah, it's already dark.
Just novik. Yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: You're not even gonna know.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. Something. Something around that I have to look at majority numbers. No majority subsides and derivatives and stuff like that.
[00:04:29] Speaker C: I've heard MLB sides are unbeatable. So how are you doing so much volume on them?
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Do a fair bit of volume and size. I wouldn't say it's a crazy amount of volume and size. And I think that's something that I've come to realize in the last few years is I think in this current ecosystem being, you know, solid to good, being able to price the harder stuff and then being able to bet a lot of Money on the stuff that's a little bit softer, but for most people, you can get similar amounts of money down is probably the better way to go. And you, Henry, you too, and our other friend Fig Sharp have talked a little bit about this. That not being stuck in your ways is an edge in itself, I think. Right. And so for most people, right. I'm not betting crazy amounts of money.
I'm able to get.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: You're betting crazy amounts of money.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: All right, I'm betting real less money. Sorry, let me, let me. I'm betting real amounts of money and I'm still able to get, you know, fills largely in part to this guy and a few other people on stuff, on stuff that I want similar size on, on MLB size. And, and that's a very different game, right? You get to bet those markets with a lot more conviction. You get to make your fares. And then there are also, you know, second order effects and benefits. Like I get to bet a worse price or I get to bet this later in the day or whatever that might be.
So gone are the days where it's like, all right, I need to grind to be the best because I want to be able to bet, you know, so tens of thousands of dollars and we'll be sad. I don't have to wait until limits go up. And so I think being able to bet a lot more things is beneficial because I don't think I would super confidently be able to get that much volume inside and think I'm really getting. No, I'm really getting any good.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: But I think, I think you guys, when you get as serious as both the two of you are, you can almost forget just how much the constraints of size are affecting you. Right? Because I bet every night when openers go up on Bookmaker, you see all kinds of weak stuff that you're like, I could pick that off, I could pick that off, but it's not worth it for you, right? And that getting past that tier where it's like I see EV all over the board, but EV is not money. Size is money. And like learning to trust yourself about how long do I have and where am I actually going to be able to get volume quietly and still trust that it's good, like that's the metagame that's so hard. And I think that's where the good to great fall off happens. Right?
[00:06:54] Speaker B: It's funny, I remember one of the first, One of the not first, one of the bets that this guy Isaac sent me was when I had my personal Chris account That wasn't tagged as sharp yet. I had not been in. He sent me the spring training bet. It's overnight.
One came back. So most people would ignore it, but I just clicked it 24 times before. Before it moved. And I was like, all right, got this down.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: And now you realize, like, your point is true. It's like, well, now you. I'm out of move everything. So, like, all those limits matter, and you can't use your account for whatever.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Can I tell my favorite story in a similar vein, which was when I found an absolute roar on the number.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Of.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: Chiefs home games that Taylor Swift would attend?
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Did we tell you this? One of the best bets I've ever made to this day, regardless.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Regardless of result, the chief, the line was seven over under seven. It was like minus 40, I think one 40 on the other.
They only had eight home games, and one of them, she had a concert date simultaneous. Like, it was a night game that she had a show in a different town the exact same night. So it's like, unless she cancels a show and these shows are like her religion, she literally cannot go above seven. So seven is locked in, and we're free, rolling or missing one other game. And it was like, what was the max?
[00:08:12] Speaker A: $100.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
And I was like, this. You know, it's peanuts. But look, they have this mispriced line. And Isaac's like, well, just respond. Let me see if I can play it and not move it, because I never play NFL on bookmaker. This isn't NFL. This is like, yeah, Taylor Swift props.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: And he fires it up, and he.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Gets through without hitting the automover. And I think he did it, like, 75 times before they proved.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: I was sitting there for many, many minutes. I was prepared to. I was texting everyone I knew maybe, yeah, I mean, you're gonna move. You're gonna move on to MLB stand in Moneyline, but you're gonna let me get.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: They didn't win.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: They pushed.
We ran so bad, man. Dude, Taylor's too devoted to him.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Dude, it was the dumbest sweat because every single Chiefs game would be starting, and we'd be like, have they shown her? Is she in this stadium? Like, yeah, dude, she just came in. Custom sequin sweatshirt with Travis face on.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: It or thumbs up.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: But then the funniest piece of it was the next time I found an actual good NFL bet on bookmaker, I sent it to Isaac because my account moves NFL. And he clicked it, and he's like, it moved instantly. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. I'm like, oh, he's flagged sharp on NFL off of the Taylor Swift.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I locked the line for 20 minutes, reopened it. Yeah. He was like, this is the sharpest.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: Dude in the world. Like, we can't take any NFL action from this guy anymore.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: No more Taylor Swift.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
Unfortunate. Yeah.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: We deserve better.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: So, Isaac, when you're betting, you have a habit.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: I actually have no idea where this is going, but. He laughs immediately.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: So it's just air grievances.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: You have a habit of overselling how good a bet is from time to time.
And how do you think about how good a bet is in terms of the ev.
How much win probability it is, et cetera, et cetera? You know what I'm referring to.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. I get juiced when I find a good bet. To this.
To this day to tell.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Henry Eisenberg found this absolute wart.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: I'm like, okay. I use the word roar. I. Let's be very clear.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Great bet.
[00:10:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: I'm excited. I'm like, what is it? I'm like, I'll go bet it now.
[00:10:19] Speaker C: And.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Oh, it's a minus 500. Fair is minus 800.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: What?
[00:10:25] Speaker A: What are we doing?
[00:10:25] Speaker C: That's solid, dude.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so much. I should probably stop sending stuff.
He's gonna air grievances like this.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Similarly, I think once a week, I hear, this is the single largest position of my life.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yes. Everything hinges on this. Yes. That does happen.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: I think you actually are doing that.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: I actually. I say, actually, I'm doing that. You can't help in part, to conversation with this guy? Like, I make a really conscious effort, and this is for sure not good behavior. Rg. Like, in the past few months, I've made a big effort. I've made a big effort to give myself sweats where I'm, like, sick to my stomach on the beds.
That's right. And, you know, you have certain spots where you just have the money and really good. And. And you can get a lot of money down because it's more liquid than it should be, or someone's caught with their pants down, and you got to. You got to pile those in.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: Why do you have to pile those? And why do you have to feel sick to your stomach?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: First of all, love of the game. Like, you know, it's just elite.
But I think we talk about this as you are betting more.
There are, you know, constraints on how much you can get down or what you're betting or how you're betting yeah, Kelly.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: It's easy to go, Kelly when you have a 4 bank roll.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: 100%. Very good point. Right. Like, you know, you see people on Twitter post these big weekends, like plus 47 units and it's like, all right, you know, they had eight units at $15 a piece on this 40%, you know, 40 cent scalp to market.
[00:11:55] Speaker C: Eight real units. Like, literally 8% of my liquid net worth on something is terrifying.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Dodgers is not life changing. Dodgers is not. Yeah, it's life changing. Exactly. Dodgers is not that far off for that. And there were a few others in the past few months. Yeah, I think there's that you net.
[00:12:11] Speaker C: Need Dodgers outright right now.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Because I knew you were massive points.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Blue Jays just doing al, which is fun. Oh, yeah, yeah. But anyway, all this is. Right there's, there's a, you know, I don't know how many of these opportunities I'm gonna have where I can bet this amount of money at this age. And I'm really confident that's my edge. And it's very rarely going to be the, you know, it's not, I'm not going to say it's never the MLB side four hours before the World Series or playoff game. It's other stuff. And you're right. In those spots, you have to be the adverse selection. And realizing that is, you know, intimidating in a hurdle to get over. Right. You see a ton of money posted on an exchange and someone there is willing to take the other side. And not only that, they have a bunch of money, they've been putting it up. A lot of other people have seen that price and decided that I don't want to bet that price. And, and so you have to think that you have something they don't. And a lot of that is a sample of success. But also understanding the spots where you are, where you have competitive advantages, not just like, all right, I net out on top, but in this specific spot, I think there's something they don't have, or I'm confident that they are wrong about this thing. So isolating your edge or the spots where you have your edges, I think is really.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: It's like moving up in stakes in poker, right. Like, eventually you're going to run into a table, nothing but pros. And it's like, you can still beat pros. Like somebody has been someone is, but it's a much scarier proposition.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: And then, and that, you know, you know, they're always checking the turns when they bet river. You can check and check raise with, with People are going to have the counter to your counter and those, you.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: Know, the first time you go up you might have been wrong and you gotta like yeah, come back down.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: So I want to ask what do you think right now in your career has been the biggest EV win on an exchange? Because exchanges are obviously very difficult because when you find a war, how do you know it's because of adverse selection or etc etc. How often do you find something on an exchange doesn't have to be nova. It could be couch or anything else. You're like I got it in good. And not only do I get it in good, I got it for size. What do you think the biggest evidence bet you've made it didn't even have to be a winner. It could have lost.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: On, on the exchange stuff. It's.
I really respect the market obviously so on. On the money lines and on main stuff it's just like how well do it close maybe tonight on game three is up there.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: It's always this is the biggest.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. This is not the biggest part of my life. Let me be very. This is not known every day it's tonight. Well you know, are you playing the game the right way if it's not happening.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: Wait, wait, what's your. What do you think your EV is going into tonight? Game three on. On just on trades you made on Dodgers money left tonight or maybe on your position on World Series that dollars.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: On the one back game three.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Two candidates A lot gotten good size.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: At our dodgers at like minus 140 tonight because the.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: What wait, did you get on cash or nothing?
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Not a novik. I'm not gonna say anything else but not a nova. I'm not a no big but.
Yeah.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: So I guess that's what I understand is like okay, are you not able to get like mid 5 down on like an absolute overnight? Like some like arbors are like not arbors. Oh, spamming. You like hasn't that spot come up come often? Like do you think you can get like a five figure plus EV win on an exchange without betting like you.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Know, without just having like 500 plus an EV now? Probably not.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: No, no, no. 10,000 plus it would be where you're not just betting like 10,000 or sorry half a million dollars and just being.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Like oh, it's a 3% edge on a single bet. Yeah, I mean I have to spend more than one second thinking about the math in my head before giving you a real answer. Sorry. All these like really, you know, this really Convoluted, super specific scenario that you have to like calculate on the fly what your exact EV would be.
Probably not. If you're not doing it like you know, not court siding and taking advantage of Kali having no delay. I think that would be really, really, really.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: What was that?
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah, has no delay. Of course setting. I don't know if the listeners are.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Don't use Kalshi in Italy.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Probably not. I have to sit down and think. But yeah, I think the size that I would have to take to get that, I would not. I'm not going to Let me ask.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: You a question in actual plain English.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Versus whatever this guy is doing. Thank you.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Let's train him in Is the ecosystem today better or worse for you in your pocketbook than it was one year ago? And do you think it's going to be better or worse for you one year from now?
[00:16:48] Speaker A: For sure. Better one year ago? Better than one year ago. Sorry, better now than one year ago. I think that it's also a little bit of a difficult thought exercise because a lot of times people are like, I feel like the game was easier this year than last year or vice versa. But there are a lot of other things at play. Right. You know, you, your network might be better or there are, you know, you have new tools, you're betting more markets and it's a very different game. Right. I've only been doing it full time for a few months and then you know, betting basically full time or full time adjacent for a year and a few months. But I think definitely a lot better just because I have a lot more time and there are a lot of new opportunities and it's nothing new to say, but being early to things gives you such a massive advantage and your margin for error is much, much higher. And I think that was a good realization. Right. Like, you know, being early to exchanges or doing certain things for to markets is good, but like what that actually translates to into, you know, raw EV or upside is just so massive. Like, you know, I'll give the example like the mob went to earth movie positioned that tonight.
I'm not going to be able to get that position in eight months and more on production edges. I'm not going to explain why I won't be able to get that. And it's not okay. It's Robin users.
But you know, I just had a. I had it. I hadn't even fully fleshed out my fair. There were different factors at this game. Things have changed. But I just knew that this was really, really off and Someone was doing something they shouldn't be. So I think those things kind of start to disappear. I think it's better now.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: I feel like 20, 22, 23, 24.
Everybody just kept talking about how like, oh, the party's over, this is drying up. That they're like, why is this? Because there was this post pass but like spend every dollar to get a customer, never limit anybody. Like this surge. And then there was so much negativity for so long and this is the first year that everybody's been like, oh, it's better. It's, it's actually evolving in a good way.
And I, I wonder if it's a, a blip of optimism and I feel like it's not. I feel like we're still.
Things are getting better for the buy side user rapidly for sure.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: I also think it's kind of, it's a fun and interesting question because like the retail stuff is objectively worse. That doesn't mean it's not still great. Yeah, but there are very quantifiable ways that you can see that retail stuff has gone down. I mean, you see in flutter zones or if you want to go like super macro, like Flutter's reducing promotional spend. You know, bonuses aren't as big. Like I'm going to Missouri for a few weeks when they open up and I was curious what the bonuses might be like. And it's gonna be a lot worse than it was when I came back from study abroad to Illinois for the super bowl where they were like, all right, three grand scores, touchdown scores, and your list goes when you play them.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: And crazy 9k and get 2x limits.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: And those things would last, right? Like FanDuel's gotten better and doing stuff differently as a lot of the other retails and places shut down. But the prediction market stuff is just such a massive opportunity. And anytime ICE invests $2 billion, not the ICE that's creating problems on the ground in America. The stock exchange ICE is sorry, we can cut that, we can cut that anytime ICE investing $2 billion, they are bullish on the long term side. And that's also a big swing. Let's do this day. That's why.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Don'T win.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they're here to stay and that's really exciting. And yeah, I think there is still a lot of good opportunity, especially if you're trying to evolve and willing to try things and figure out new things.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: All right, more random questions. I'm going to give you two companies. You have to buy one and short the other.
Vandal and DraftKings.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: This is easy.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: I don't think it's easy.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: I mean this is like classic information asymmetry. Like you guys are probably thinking about this.
I probably, I want to say. You'd say by. I want to say by FanDuel for drafting. But I think.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Okay, I'm not going to get it.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Absolutely correct answer.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Second, second question. Polymarket. Kalsh.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: I think I would say Poly Market. And that's going to be by polymarket. Yeah, bypali Market. That's probably a bit, you know, controversial and I expected like over the next year for sure. Kalshi.
I think it will be very.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: But over a longer term.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:27] Speaker C: And I'm saying more upside because we haven't seen them like legally after the U.S. yeah.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: A few things. One, I think that we know Kalshi has something really, really good with Robinhood and that relationship is great.
But I think the polymarket agreement opens up a lot of doors.
I'm curious to see what their current fee structure leaves. Like a lot of optionality and flexibility.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: Which is no fees at all.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Which is no fees at all. Right. And I'm sure that will change. That won't last forever.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: I mean Kelshi can just go to no fees.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Kouchi can go to no feasts. Well, but I think it's a lot more, it's a lot more challenging when you're making money hand over fist on those fees to be like, all right, we're going to change the structure and your liquidity is going to go down. Right? The liquidity is going to go down a lot. There are serious protections in place for market makers, whether it be intentional or not or super conscious or not that they can post massive liquidity because they know they're protected by 2%. It's not that fancy of a game.
[00:22:23] Speaker C: It's really weird. It's Nagranu more rake is better. Where the take fees are so insanely high that oddly enough you can post makes that you really can't under their rules at all offer. Except for that only buffoons are going to take anything.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: You, you are so well protected and I, I'm sorry. Besides having, you know, big daddy money from the stage of the world, it's not that impressive besides having, you know, a billion or a few hundred million dollar bankroll to be like, all right, it's, you know, 11:30 on a Sunday morning. Injury reports are really clean. We're going to post a lot of money where our customers are getting 2% worse. Right. Like I Don't. I don't think that it's that cool. And I think that logic being applied to, you know, some other markets where that logic should not be applied to is part of the reason why there are still maybe some opportunities on the take side if you look around or whether you can, you know, shout out.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: The ATP tour, dude, let's have some real sports.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Yes.
Your guy John is there at Newport.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: Oh yeah? Is he still playing tennis?
Wait, what did he do? What happened with this nerd in Newport this year?
[00:23:26] Speaker A: No, not this year. Didn't you love. Because that was his local term. Yeah, he used to kind of.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I love playing this game.
Maybe sitting on the sun.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: I would disagree with your take. I would buy calcium short Poly. Because I think Poly has built a reputation of insider information.
Crypto. Crypto Bros. It's not legal, et cetera, et cetera. Skirting it with like VPNs. I mean, no one could really use Poly in the US but everyone used using Poly in the US.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: I didn't even know Poly was thinking.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Of course. Of course.
[00:24:02] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: But Calsheet was first and they have a reputation now of being more legal. And I think that gives them such an advantage. I don't see how Polymarket is able to compete with it. And all these things of like, their deal with Robinhood is so beneficial. Why would Robinhood want to trust Polly? Like, Paulie doesn't have to offer such a ridiculous deal that I don't even know if Polly can afford a deal that would make the make Robin Hood go to Cowshi. I think the only way they. They really get overthrown is like if a company, I don't know, maybe that's.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Sports focused, enters the space with a few specials offerings.
All right. I don't know.
I'll say this. I think that's part of my answer. Why, you know, next 12 months or 24 months would be slightly different. And maybe part of my bias is I just can't stand some of the calls you stuff that I see. Of course, I didn't know I was coming on to this until literally 20 seconds before we started recording. Thought I was just coming by to say what up? I'll say like, this is how we talk to everybody. This game. This game is a lot like, is a lot longer than people think it is. Right. And that might. That early first mover advantage for Kalgi might be super strong. And the fact that they have, you know, some established base in the Robin connection, like there are other ways for Polymarket to gain access to that retail pool or really appealing retail pools. Right. Like cash money is king. If, if Kalshi thinks they can make additional revenue from a Polymarket agreement or whatever that looks like they will explore that. I, I don't think there's some like, hey man, Tarek, love that you beat Polymarket to the country by eight months. Like I'm going to give you a big hug and just like decline, decline, you know, many tens of millions of dollars. Polymarket also right. Like just got a $2 billion tax deduction and these, these valuations are, are going up by billions of dollars weekly. Right. I don't think that if there is access to really appealing retail flow where there's some, you know, I don't think that that would be the, that would be that big of an obstacle.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: I do want to ask you a little bit of a random question, but do you think you as a better are going to be in a better spot or worse spot if either Kalshi Polymarket or novig succeed and one of the three or the combination of three achieve like 100 or 200 billion dollar evaluation and they truly do eat the world of a DraftKings or a flutter, Maybe they still exist, but as shells of themselves. Are you in a better spot or a worse spot?
[00:26:44] Speaker A: I'd probably say definitively worse. Like I, I think I get to succeed because there are a lot of ways to win and a lot of markets to bet on. And as that becomes more strained and bigger dogs come into the game like that becomes a lot, a lot harder. I don't, I don't think I do anything particularly great. I think I'm, I'm just willing to, you know, put money on my opinions. And the people who opinions I have to get to be better than right now are very different than I think those opinions might be a year, even if they're three and for sure different than if it's one big pool.
So yeah, I'd say it's, it's definitely worse. I'd be open to some other perspective. I don't really see how that's the case.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: He's wrong, right?
[00:27:36] Speaker B: No, I think you're wrong. And the reason I think you're correct.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Me wrong is I am white. You know, I'd be overjoyed to be wrong.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: You're wrong because you're the guy and.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: You know, you think it's, oh, they'd be better.
[00:27:47] Speaker C: The only way they're better is if they figure out that you're the guy and bring you in that's the reality.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: No, no, I think in all seriousness, it's all people.
No, no, in all seriousness, you think if like what it takes to be successful in sports and what it takes to be successful in finance are wildly different things.
Citadel, yes, their IQs and their team is way higher than myself or you.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: But.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Like if they enter this, what's.
[00:28:18] Speaker C: The shape of their other sweatshirts besides.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: The no big sweatshirt. Yes, their wardrobes are diverse.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: If they enter sports with billions of bankroll and they go immediately, oh, we're going to crush and they come in and they enter the space, I think foot up next year or two, maybe even three years, you're going to feast.
What happens if they post like, okay, we're going to just have tons of liquidity all the time and they post like half a million liquidity on like an MBA overnight or MLB overnight and you just get to gobble that up at like a ridiculous ROI and you're never getting that reward again. Sure, maybe they'll learn a lesson, but they're going to learn a lesson a lot of times and you actually just are going to be able to eat them alive in my opinion, for, for a short while. I will say that probably 10 years down the line if they're able to figure it out. It's. You're obviously like I'll be working, but I think you'll be have earned so much on them figuring it out that it'll be a bit better.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: Let me ask you another simple question.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: And then I want to respond to that.
[00:29:20] Speaker C: So you exclude all, all books that discriminate on size, your draftkings and fandoms. When I read just think about like bookmaker, Pinnacle, whatever, a handful.
There is far more open available liquidity this year than this time last year. Right. Like at any given time of the day, like T minus 12 hours to first pitch in a baseball game, the number of dollars that you can just go get without worrying about like what happens to your account is substantially higher right now.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: That's worthless. That's also worse than I think worth something. Like the, the stress of not worrying what I'm putting into certain accounts or being able to bet like that is worth a lot of money.
[00:29:57] Speaker C: Removing friction saves you a lot of money.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: A lot.
Yeah, a lot of it.
[00:30:00] Speaker C: Like that is roi. You can lose edge and still make more money from that for sure.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Big agree.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: Would you in theory, right. Like if the world was a theoretically correct place, that would correspond to the numbers being sharper at that time of day. Right. Like if it used to be 12 hours out. There was 10k in liquidity. Now there's 30k in liquidity.
Well, then we should have the accuracy of numbers that we used to have when there was 30k of liquidity, which is 3 hours after or whatever. You know, whatever the apples to apples comparison is.
Do you think it's apples to apples or is it. No, there's a lot more liquidity there, but the price is not correspondingly sharper. It's like people kind of riding with the softer numbers for more size because everybody's just trying to get in on it.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Great question. I say a few things. One, I would say that it's not apples to apples because a lot of times when you see, you know, corresponding liquidity spikes or like circa goes from 20 to 50k or whatever like that shout out to circa, right? Like that. That, that shows something about their opinion. That's a really conscious decision, right? We were at 20k. We got some bets or we have information and we're willing to go to 50k when, like I said, when other books are quoting, you know, penny prices, remember, for, you know, 30x in liquidity few hours before football, that. That doesn't mean those prices are much sharper. And I think that's, you know, a big part of Chris's point in terms of, you know, you can feast. My take is that if we get, if there's one huge liquidity pool into, you know, few hundred billion dollars company or whatever, like that process is expedited pretty significantly and we get to that point of increased efficiency and we. Someone in our chat last week, right, like it's not, it's on the exchange. It's not the game of the opinions, right? Like it's gonna. I'm. I'm very much looking forward to. But also probably some degree will ruin it because it'll be bad for me and other bettors when like someone comes on and they're willing to put up 500k on an orb to pinnacle, right? So you can orb my pinnacle. We're not there yet.
I have to think about exactly how long I think that will take. My opinion is that if the Citadel.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: We are seeing our. Do you mean like game day.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: You're saying for a massive size.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: A.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Lot of the people who are posting major liquidity on these exchanges, right? I don't mean no big. Someone putting out, you know, $5,000 on Ty J. Spears under one and a half receptions. I mean the people who are putting up, you know, $50,000, $100,000 on overnights where if one of us or one of our friends wanted to come in and clean out the screen, they would move the market a point and a half on a spread and get, you know, 15 or $20,000 if they hit the lots. Obviously you can go about it differently than that.
What I'm saying is when someone comes in and it's, you know, Saturday night NFL and someone is getting their actual opinion, it's not some quant fund. Like that is when, you know, like the game has changed and when it might be a little bit closer to apples to apps, do you think?
And that right now is why you can make a lot of money. Because people are quoting and because the Citadels of the world come in a little arrogant me from traffic. Most part they should be arrogant. They're pretty sick. But with respect to this, they're not and have no business quoting size on events because they don't understand, you know, a lot of the betting market, which is, which is different in a lot of ways.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: I was going to ask a question, but it's like maybe two revealing questions. Well, I would say do you think maybe there's a little bit more of that happening of mass execution happening off of the market prices, but in semi obscure ways? And the answer is yes, yes, yes.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: And the other thing is, I was going to say, and I kind of got sidetracked answering Chris's question is that it's not one to one that like the global price I think is so much better. But I think there are certain spots where if you pay attention to things, there are prices, you know, obscurely around and you have to look and think about things critically and what's going on in a way that you do embedding, not in finance, that certain prices are going to be a lot better, are going to be really fucking good in spots a lot earlier.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: You know, in the nobody's the world we talked about and they might not.
[00:34:06] Speaker C: Show up as open interest, but they might show up as like Phil's correct. They might show up in Asian market.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Right?
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Like it's, it's really hard to hide massive size like I.
Or even big sizes or spots. And if you're really looking hard, you can. But if you're just like randomly watching, you're not always necessarily going to see it. Yeah, I agree.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: The stars sometimes have to align some of the stuff.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: And since you come across it randomly, there was one spot where I was like, wow, this is what's happening here is someone who really knows what they're doing and I was just purely accidentally doing it. And that kind of talks about you're just like in the weeds and doing things. You have some of these realizations at times where like, you're looking and you're like, there's a lot of money here. Is it good money or not good money? You spend a little time figuring it out. If it's not good money, you can make a bunch of money. And if it's good money, you might still be able to figure things out.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: I was talking to somebody about this. The weird thing is like that there's enough money out there now that being loaded up and ready to move in some spots makes more sense.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: You know what I mean?
[00:35:04] Speaker C: Like, there might be something to do with a half million dollars, but it's not necessarily something that's guaranteed to show.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: Up day after day after day that you can turn it over.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: It's more like things are changing so quickly. There might be some new opportunity and you don't want to get caught flat footed, but otherwise you might just have money sitting there, not generating anything.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:35:24] Speaker C: And that's kind of a tricky problem. So that like, sometimes, like I could point out on a bunch of different spots where I see theoretical flaws with pricing and sizing and process and it's like, why is nobody taking advantage of this? Like, well, there's always a gap between the theoretical and the practical.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Always a gap. And then also to your point, another thing is that I think it's especially just coming from betting. Like, you know, if you're, if you're originating or moving or top down, like you have a real routine in terms of, all right, I have these fares, I'm going to adjust these fares. Or I have this person I work really closely with and I know they're going to send these bets and I have these apps set up for it and I'm ready to bet at these times.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: And I.
Right, but with these opportunities, you have to be willing to move for a lot of size at one, at one time and execute really quickly or just execute. And that's like a, that's a different challenge and also really, really, I think, scary in certain spots. And you have to be willing to just get it in in a way that you're not. Right. You've four months of being like, all right, I can bet to FanDuel's NBA props at 1pm to feel good about it. It's a lot different than all right, I'm going to bet for 40 exercise or whatever that multiple is I literally.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: Have no idea who's showing up and.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: I have no idea what my counterparty is. And they're either. They're either a lot, a lot, a lot better than I am or they're a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot worse than I am. Right. So there's a lot of uncertainty there. And I mean, that's the example I was talking about before. Like, getting down massive in some spots where there's really no business being able to get down that or not massive, but like, pretty reasonably large. Like, you know, a max take on one of these books at post for a better price, I think.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: The point I was trying to make, and I think you illustrated well, is like, yes, you can get like, if you want a million down on like NFL Sunday, you can do easy, probably not even move the screen.
If you want like down like a million down on NBA overnight, you got to move the screen like seven points, like, good luck. But so getting 50k down or like 100k down on like 10, 15% edge is like, just as good as, like, the ability to get down like a million on NFL side because, like, those.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: EVs are the same, like, correct? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's actually significantly better.
[00:37:31] Speaker C: It's significantly better because of the bankroll growth.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: All right, I'll tell you. I'll see it. To answer your question. Let's see. I'll check right now what the EV of the position is.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: He's got his phone out. What are we doing?
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. I. I thought it'd be interesting for you to see.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: No, no, this is Chris's fault completely for trying to pin you down. Let's see, he's going to say like, 11,000 and you're like, whoa. Like, what are you getting at here?
[00:37:52] Speaker B: I'm just curious. I'm sorry for asking questions.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: He's smashing. The guy is smashing. I'm going to give him 10 seconds to finish this exercise. While I'm trying to.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: I'm asking questions and you're just like, what?
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Right now I'm trying to make this positive. Whatever. All right. It might take a little too much time to figure out, but I'll get your answer right now.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: Make up a number.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: I want to give you a pure answer for journalistic integrity.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: So you see any good movies recently?
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Henry, I asked a legitimate question.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: You're one battle after another fan, right?
[00:38:22] Speaker A: What the hell?
[00:38:23] Speaker C: You thought that was awesome?
You watch nothing but sports, huh?
[00:38:27] Speaker A: All right, all right. To answer your question, I said no way. Before maybe. I think the EV with the position is like, probably 6,500 bucks. That's very good. Yeah. So, yeah, I do that daily.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Big compounds.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: Yeah. We should wrap.
Yeah. Go hang a little bit here.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Will you get what's it over under on next year, next 12 months from now, what your highest EV position will be on an exchange by, like, when you make the bet, you would assign an EV value or like by club.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Okay. Because that's gonna be a different answer. Not, not that's gonna be a different answer because there's some spots where it's gonna be not this, not this scenario.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Where like, you have, you have a feeling that, like, okay, you bet hawks under because you think it's two points off. And then Trae Young randomly gets ruled out for personal reasons. And you weren't pricing that in. So now you have like a massive, like that. I'm not talking about you knew he wasn't going to be played in or you, you thought the EV was this when you played it.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: I mean, I'll say the quiet part out loud, right? You can, you can have information in spots that these people don't have to offer a lot. Right. Like, you see, you know, Baltimore game was uncertain this week. Chris is taking 50K on the, you know, charges, whatever game. And then the injury comes out in the rebound of 10K. And that might not be the same amount everywhere. And if you might have a really good hunch that Lamar is out or like, you might not be 100 sure, but you might be 98 sure. It shows.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Chris knew because they covered.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Chris new. Very well played, Chris.
Not this. Definitely not this. Chris. I think everyone knows something about that, Chris. Yeah, I just have to really make that clear. So, yeah, I don't know. I think probably somewhere in between, I don't know, 5K. I, I, I hope that we'll see how things change. That's other things, like these things are changing so quickly. I don't, I, I, I don't know. And I just want to be, I want to be ready when that, you.
[00:40:21] Speaker C: Know, 10,000 telly just started using a trading portal that shows his EV on every single position.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: I've never seen him, I've never seen him so obsessed with this guy. Actually, the last time I remember him being that obsessed with it was.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: All right, we got a wrap before.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Henry takes a position and it's showing everyone of the trailers, look how good my position is. Bragging about his EV the entire time I asked a question. And now I'm the bad guy.
[00:40:45] Speaker C: It was pretty good.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: I'm mad with this.
[00:40:47] Speaker C: I get.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: I get giddy about some good. Some good positions, too. Clb I get. I get. Yeah. I see the screen light up and I'm feeling good. Yeah.
[00:40:54] Speaker C: All right.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Pleasure. Thanks, guys.
