August 1, 2024 • 46 mins
Sean Brace & Evan Davis sit down with Brian Wyman, Executive VP from The Innovation Group.
A perfect guest for BTV as Brian & his team are professionals who have helped bring many of the world’s largest entertainment and hospitality developments to life.
Key Topics Discussed:
Press play & be sure to subscribe to Behind The Vig!
A perfect guest for BTV as Brian & his team are professionals who have helped bring many of the world’s largest entertainment and hospitality developments to life.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Keys to being a successful sports gambler
- Future Projects and past history with different states & regulators
- Sharps vs Sportsbooks
- Are Casinos in trouble due to everyone wagering online
Press play & be sure to subscribe to Behind The Vig!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Behind the Vegue, a podcast mini
series that takes you beyond the bets and strategies and
more into the business of the sports betting industry. Now
here are your hosts, Sean Brace and Evan Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, ladies, Jemmy, boys and girls, here we go
again another edition of Behind the Veg.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
You heard the man. I am Sean Brace.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He is Evan Davis. Evan super excited about our next.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Guest coming up here on this edition of Behind the Veg.
Same with me.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I've known Brian for a long time and uh, just
a really smart guy and are and a really great
guy too, So excited to chat with him about everything
he's done in his career and is doing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now, that's right, Brian Wyman from the innovationgroup dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
He's gonna join us on this episode of Behind the Vegue.
But this is great.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He is boots on the ground in Las Vegas. He
speaks at all these conferences, so do you across the globe,
and he knows a thing or two about a thing
or two when it comes to math slash sports gambling. Oh,
by the way, amazing Blue Yeah Michigan guy too as well.
So let's head out to Vegas and we are going
to be joined by Brian Wyman once again from the
(01:09):
Innovation Group. All right, without further ado, let's do Evan
behind the vague, another great guest here that we are
going to learn a ton about everything in our industry
here on all think sports gambling. Our first, doctor Evan,
Look at you. The rollo dex is deep, doctor Brian Wyman.
He is the executive vice president Operations in data Analytics
(01:33):
over at the Innovation Group. Check them out online everything
they have to offer. Learn more at the Innovation Group
dot com. Doctor Brian Wyman, how we doing it today?
Thank you for a couple of minutes and joining us
here on behind the big sir.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Well, thank you guys for having me. It's a beautiful
day in Las Vegas. We're finally not at one fifteen
to one twenty, so I'm comfortably living at one oh five,
one oh seven these days.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
So yeah, everything's great out.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Here, excellent. Yeah, boots on the ground in Vegas.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
As Brian told us before the recording, he was looking
up the window at the Lovely Spear. Uh so that
that place is just insane. Obviously it's got a ton
of fanfare out there.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Have you been yet, Brian, I've not been.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I I get to see the uh the sphere dressed
up as the moon or right now, it's still got
some lingering Fourth of July uh signage on the side
of it over there, but I enjoy it from my
office window enough.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
I haven't been in yet, Brian.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
When when you're living in Las Vegas, do you just
become like immune to all of what you know, tourists
deal with on a you know, Thursday through Sunday bachelor
party weekend or is that like, are you just living
that weekend and week out.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
I'm I'm certainly not living that in week out. That's uh.
That's that's a recipe for a short life and certainly
a short lived tenure in Las Vegas. I don't know, man,
Like Las Vegas is a normal Mountain West city, except
it's got the Strip right in the middle of it,
and uh and we have slot machines in our you know,
(03:10):
grocery stores and and gas stations.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
But I'll tell you that the biggest difference.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I mean, people move here and they go nuts for
six months and then then they settle down and they
get a house in the Burbs and it's like living
anywhere else except uh, you know, I'm raising two boys
here and you know, they will walk through the casino
to go to dinner.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
They don't even notice the machines, but they.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Do notice the billboard trucks when they drive by with
half naked women on them, and it's, uh, there's some
differences living here than live in other places.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
It's like the Vegas equivalent of the banner planes at
the Jersey Shore.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, yeah, ay, true story.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
My bald head was on one of those trucks driving
down the strip in Vegas promoting the skull Shaver that
I used to work a picture of you believe it
or not. Yes, yeah, make sure of my bald head
on the side of those trucks. So yeah, I'm sure
that people would prefer the other ones. But bottom line is, yeah,
that was a highlight a long a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
But Brian, we excited to get you on.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Of course, we got a lot to talk about, learn
more from the Innovation Group and your time of Pinnacle
and but as always here Evan, you know how we
start things off. You know, we never like to intrude
and and ask deep questions about somebody's age or you know,
and find out more on that avenue. But so instead
we like to tea things up and gauge our guests
(04:30):
as far as sports are concerned. So, Brian, if you
want to mind your youngest childhood sports memory, your favorite
childhood sports memory come into mind.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Is what sir oh so for for my youngest childhood memory.
I was having this discussion with somebody this morning in
preparation for this podcast, and he goes, man, you've got
to go with with Hulk Hogan, Body Slamm and Andre
the Giants WrestleMania three. I don't know, man, Like I've
(05:01):
got so many sports memories as a kid.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
I was trying to come up with my favorite Yankees memory.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
You know, I grew up in New Jersey and so
but I was in the New York centric side of
New Jersey, not the Philadelphia centric side of New Jersey.
So yeah, I don't know. The things that linger, you know,
in my mind are are you know, the World Cup
being here and and then the Women's World Cup, right,
I mean Brandy Chastain and but yeah, I you know,
(05:30):
the Yankees weren't very good when I was a little kid,
So I don't have a lot of great memories.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
They didn't get They didn't get good till much later.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I liked the whole Cogan one.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, old was strong. I was ready to hit. I
got the Hulk's theme music ready to go. I could
have hit it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I was ready. He's been in the news, yeah a
little bit, Brian.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so so Yankees fan grew up in New Jersey then, okay,
and yeah you brought up the eighties Yankees they were
not good. But then of course uh Steinbrenner started spending
a couple extra dollars in the nineties, and then you
guys went on heck of a run. Maybe some of
the best baseball teams ever created in those nineties run.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
As far as the Yankees are concerned, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
In those you know, pre teen and early teen years,
it was you know, sneak out, hop on the train,
get into the city, take the subway up, get bleacher seats,
and boy, you grew up fast in the bleachers a
Yankee stadium in those days.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That is excellent. All right, Brian, Let's go ahead and
talk a little bit about what's going on in your
life right now. As I got your LinkedIn page. As
we always do here, and we'll talk a little bit
about Michigan football National champion blew everybody out last year,
including in the National Championship game. But let's talk about
the Innovation Group and everything that they have to offer.
(06:43):
Like I said, you're over there now, how long you've
been with the Innovation Group? Brian, the executive VP Operations
and Data Analytics at the Innovation Group, how long you've
been there for?
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Yeah, I've been here about seven years.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
And you know, we really are full service industry consultancy.
We work with casinos and hotels on everything ranging from
from new developments, so brand new casino plopping down in
a new market, to what their operations look like today.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
And so given the.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
Last five or so years, I guess now it's six
closer to seven years, the industry has been so heavily
focused on sports betting and eye gaming. I mean, I
spend a lot of my time there. And also, I mean,
I'm sure we're going to get there. But I'm a
math guy. I've got a doctorate in mathematics. I'm not
like a real doctor that helps people. I have a
math PhD. And you know, so my friends out here
(07:39):
are a lot of poker players, a lot of sports betters,
and so I guess I have a unique lens on
the business from from that side as well.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
So, Brian, how do how does one go from getting
his math PhD at Michigan to saying, yeah, I think
I'm going to go go head into the gaming industry
and see where this takes me.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Oh, I know, I never said I think I'm going
to head into the gaming industry. That That wasn't how
this happened. It's sort of like all things in life,
you know, you just you get an opportunity and you go, ah,
timing's right, let's try it. And I mean I just
wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid,
but I found out I was good at math and
like solving problems, and so I did math and computer science,
(08:18):
ended up at Michigan getting a PhD. And then I
thought I was going to work for one of the
no name government agencies, you know, doing math there they
hired a ton of mathematicians and I'm filling out the application.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Asked me how much I want to make and I
have no idea.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
I make twenty thousand dollars teaching calculus to undergrads as
a graduate student.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
So so I.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Called a buddy and he said, ah, you should get
a competing offer. So I talked to a hedge fund
and got a competing offer at.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
The government agency.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
That's what it was.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
It was, And so I ended up taking that offer
at the hedge fund and spent four great years doing
finance and decided it wasn't for me and decided with
my wife, you know, hey, let's let's move to the
West Coast. And before we got there, a poker buddy
had this unique job offer in Vegas, building kind of
an advanced analytics.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Function inside a publicly.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Traded casino company that had, by the time I left,
sixteen properties throughout the US. And so I thought, well,
this sounds interesting. I've never worked for a large, publicly
traded company. I've never managed a team of ten twelve people, like,
let's give this a whirl. And so I was there
for a few years when I moved out to Las Vegas,
and then yeah, since then, I've been been on the
(09:36):
consulting side of the business.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
As far as the innovation group where you're currently at
right now, how many people are on your team?
Speaker 5 (09:43):
We've got about fifteen people in the group. Some part timers,
but most everybody's full time. And yeah, everybody's kind of
got a different specialty. And you know, I manage really
I managed casino operations, sports betting, ie gaming, and customer research.
That's kind of my So anything that's like marketing and
(10:04):
operations on one hand and then sports and eye gaming
on the other hand.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So when you say you manage this stuff, I mean
obviously without getting into like customer specifics, but what are
people asking you to do for them? Is it just
figure out our strategy?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I mean it obviously has got to be analytically driven
given your background and your team's background, But what types
of projects are you being asked to work on and
what what are you doing for your clients?
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean it really ranges.
I would say most of our team has.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
A background that's close to economics, so something quantitative, and
we get asked to prepare size of market studies.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
So one question is like if.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Sports betting turned on tomorrow in Texas or California, like
how much sports betting would there be? And you know,
similar question for if we were to drop in the
middle of Kansas, like what would that look like in
terms of revenue, and then we get involved in a
lot of the government relations questions there too. So, you know,
dropping a casino in the middle of Kansas, the Kansas
(11:12):
legislature might want to know, well, how much of that
gaming that's going to happen if this casino is new,
versus how much is going to other states today. So
these are kind of core questions that we get asked
on a on a day to day basis, and then
I guess more in my world on the sports betting side,
I get asked by you know, let's say a tribal
casino that that they don't have sports betting in that state,
(11:33):
like what business.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Model should we be thinking about?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Should we be doing this on our own, should we
be partnering with DraftKings, or should we be partnering with
some third party that will let us go to market
as you know, whatever casino sportsbook which will cost less,
but it won't come with the cachet and the marketing
that that DraftKings comes with. And so we kind of
walk them through all all those decision points and model
(11:57):
that out for them.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Now, when you say you're doing work with governments, are
you you're both sort of being hired by the governments,
but you're also testifying in front of government agencies too, right.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
We work on really all sides of the business, and
I think, you know, without touting the company, because I
don't know many of the listeners are going to hire us,
you know, but but yeah, I mean we we our
reputation precedes us, and we get hired by not just
the big commercial entities that I'm looking out my window
at right now, but also by lotteries, by state legislatures
(12:34):
that are interested in an unbiased view of how expanded
gaming will change various aspects of their state and how
it operates. We get hired by private investors who are
looking to you know, maybe make an acquisition of a
privately held company or you know, those kinds of things too.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
So we're all that.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I think that's one of the things that the public
often doesn't necessarily get great insight into, is they know, Okay,
you know, I live in Pennsylvania or I live in
New Jersey, I can bet on sports, or I can
play online casino. I go to another state and you know,
there's not I casino And in some of these states
there's no sports betting like or in Nevada where there's
(13:16):
sports betting at you know, you got to sign up
at retail, and people, I think get really confused, like
why do these states not just have similar laws or
why are the promos so different from what I can
get in one state versus another. But I think, you know,
you're at the forefront of being able to talk about
(13:36):
how their priorities are different and therefore their rules and
their laws and the regulations are all different, and it
creates this hodgepodge from a consumer standpoint.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I mean, and you say, you said it right, right,
Their priorities are all very different. So in some states
the only thing that matters is tax revenue, and so
those states are are the states where I casino, for example,
online casino is more likely to pass in the near term.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
You know, I worked for the State of Maryland last.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Year or thereabouts, and they wanted They had all sorts
of questions coming from the lottery but also coming from
state representatives and senators asking about, you know, what will
this do to the land based casinos. That was a
big hot topic. And this wasn't necessarily out of pure
concern for the land based casinos, but it's out of
(14:32):
concern for the.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Jobs that the land based casinos support.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And so, you know, that was a major question and
a major sticking point in the state of Maryland when
they went to introduce legislation last year. And I think
there will be some other bites at that apple in
the coming years. But people also don't really have a
good grip at this point on how much how dangerous
it is to have online casinos casinos in your pocket.
(14:58):
I mean, I won't ask you guys individually to respond
to this, but like, man, having a casino in your pocket, Like,
could that be a dangerous thing?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Like?
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I imagine so for a lot of folks out there, And
I think that's the general intuition, but the data doesn't
always prove that out. I mean, you know, the data
sort of seems to suggest that as long as folks
that have a propensity to problem game have an outlet
for it, it doesn't matter whether it's in their pocket
(15:30):
or whether it's at the casino down the road or
And so I think there's a lot of conflicting science
and there's a lot of work still to be done
in a lot of these public policy aspects of gaming expansion,
and so I think states look at that, you know,
differently state to state, and the stakeholders are different state
to state. You know, we've been very active working with
(15:51):
a client in Minnesota where they've been very close to
passing sports betting legislation and it never quite gets there.
And you know, the stakeholders in that state range from
the horse tracks, to the sports teams, to the tribes
who have the casinos, to the charitable entities that run
(16:12):
charitable gaming and want to be.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Included in such legislation.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
So it's not just as easy as like, hey, everybody
wants sports, let's pass it. You know, there's a lot
of a lot of horse training that gets done there
behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I can't wait to dig into some of the math
perspective here, but let me ask you this as far
as things that we could probably do them better, and
that state, the state, that's country wide, whatever. When it
comes to like you brought up the issue, Hey you
got a casino in your pocket, right, I know that
there are some people that complain about the During the
course of a football game. You see anywhere from fifteen
(16:48):
to twenty five sports gambling ads from whatever books it is.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Are we doing a good job? You know? Coming at
it from the other side, of course, I'm a gambler.
I love it. I don't have any issue of it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't like commercials in general, but you know, I
have no issues with DraftKings, fandor whatever along those lines.
Do you think we're doing a good job in that
category as far as, you know, being proactive with some
of the ads that are out there, and specifically during
football games, during sporting events.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
You know, I don't know whether I want to say
we're doing it good or a bad job at it.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
But I do think that there's a lot of attention
on this right now, both at a legislative level, but
also from the industry side. I think I think people
are really concerned, and it's it's twofold, right. I think
there is a legitimate question from the industry side about
how advertising affects players, and then I think there's also
(17:42):
a self serving aspect from the industry side about, hey,
we want to pass new legislation, so we want to
make sure to play nice and not, you know, not
be adversarial with the folks that are ultimately going to
determine that.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
You know, So I think we're we're thinking about it
the right way.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, Now that's a good it's a good, good answer
because I understand it. And and from what I understand too,
is that it's different across seas and these are some
of the some of the barriers that had been put up,
like I said, in other countries. So it's one of
those things where that I would imagine, uh, we might
see some things like that coming into play here in
(18:22):
the States.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
But all right, I was like, I'm looking at you guys,
and we're all the same age. So you know, we
had Joe Cammell on TV when we were kids, right,
and so somebody had to ask the question like, hey,
like everybody smokes, is it that big of a deal?
And uh, you know, somebody decided, hey, this is a
big deal and we need to make some decisions. And
(18:44):
I don't mean to compare gambling to smoking in terms
of its uh you know, impact on society, but like,
this is a public policy question, and I think you
know that this is why, this is why electing good
lawmakers and and and having good representative government is so
important because you know, those people are going to reflect
the views of the population and we're going to have
to decide as a as a society.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
Like what do we want out of this?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
So I don't think it's it's as much like all
of these people are implementing jack honey and laws and
all these people just want you know, gambling everywhere, and
it's a you know, it's a scourge.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
So I think there's there's a happy medium somewhere. We
got to figure out what that is.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Brian, I will say from my own experience working with
you know, a ton of players across the industry that
the push for responsible gaming is not just lip service.
I think it's authentic, and at least in my experience,
it's been exclusively authentic. And so I think that, yeah, look,
you know, there are the industry's obviously got some of
its own motivations. But but preventing problem gambling is I
(19:47):
think a universal concern across the industry, and and one
that they're now putting you know, a significant amount of
money and resources into combating.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
And I mean, you know, I work with top brass
across you know, the entire industry, and these are.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
By and large good people.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I mean, you hear you hear stories on the news
about the one or two bad eggs, But I think
there is an overall concern. A lot of the industry
lives here in Las Vegas, where you know, the opportunities
for for gambling are are so prevalent, and so I
think everybody kind of has that that uh concern uh.
And and I also think that if you're leading a
company like this, it's a bad look for you to
(20:32):
have massive problem gambling issues across the nation. And that's
also you know, you've got to be concerned about the
longevity of your player base and and and things like that.
So I think there's a lot of reasons to be
concerned about about this, and I think the industry genuinely
wants to curb problem gambling and and help to mitigate
(20:53):
it where it exists throughout the country.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Great answers, and couldn't agree with you more as far
as leadership is concerned and and and people do care too,
is Evan, I totally agree. It's what you had to
say as well on that. All right, Brian, let's go
ahead and talk a little bit about math. I'm curious
because you're in the heart of it, and you know
from a guy over here that will do some probability
and look at some other people out there that are
sharps and try and get into their heads, into their world.
(21:19):
For the most part, I am a gut player. I
am a guy that tries to steer away from my biases.
But of course, you know, I want to pick the winners,
and you know how it is with you know the
confidence there. But when it comes to math to find
the true edge in sports gambling, does it have to
involve math? Is there is there possible, you know for
sharps out there that do not use math, or is
(21:41):
it just strictly you have to have math.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
If you want to be a successful gambler.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Man I, I don't know. I you know, I think
you've got to have math. That's that's my view.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Man I.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I you know, I see too many too many folks
out there with hot takes. I don't think that shooting
from the hip is going to make you a profitable gambler. Look,
you've got to win, you know, fifty two and a
half percent of your bets, and those lines are sharp
out there. I know you know you had you had
John on from bet MGM a couple of weeks ago,
(22:13):
and uh and he was. He sort of laid it
out right, like we hang a number and then we
get told right away by sharp betters whether our number
was right or wrong, Like was it too low, it's
just going to get hammered in one direction. If it's
too high, it's gonna get hammered in the other direction,
and they'll have to it just and really that's you know,
(22:35):
that's how the market gets made. You know, these numbers
go up and then people bet them, and then by
game time the number is sharp. If you're betting an
NFL line right before kickoff, like you're not getting the
best of it, Like that's just you're flipping a coin
and you're you're paying a dollar ten to do that.
And so but I think if you have I also
(22:59):
don't think you need an advance degree in math to
to gain a little bit of an edge.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
And I think there's there's.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
A few things that I see sharp guys across the
space doing pretty consistently. And look, there's no free lunch, right, Like,
there's no like Brian comes on a podcast and says, oh,
you do this and then you're winning sports better, right
like that that just doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I'm going to edit that part out just everybody else.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
We'll snip that, and now, if you want to be
a successful sports better, it is.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
That's right, you know. The The first thing I would
say is you've you've got a shop.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
A lot of people only have one or two books
on their phone, but they live in a state where
they there's eight books out there.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
And it's a little bit painful because that means you
have to have.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Money on deposit at you know, eight books instead of
one or two books. But I think first, even before
you get to that, like you've got to decide am
I doing this just to have fun on Sunday? And
I don't worry about wasting a couple dollars if I
don't get the best number out there? Or am I
trying to do this profitably? Like if you decide that,
(24:07):
then you've got to be ready to go on whichever
book has the best price, because there's no sense embedding
the Giants.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Well, you're not gonna bet the giants anyway.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
If you want to be a profitable sports better, But
no sense in betting the Eagles on Sunday at at
minus one ten if you can get at minus one
oh five. So I think I think shopping you got
to do. And I think you've got to look at
the offshore prices too. I mean, the offshore books are
going to have numbers that aren't available to you to bet,
(24:38):
but it's where all of the biggest action on the
planet is occurring. And so seeing what those betters are,
are you driving the price to be offshore? I think
I think that's really really important. I don't know a
couple other things. I guess for a while there a
lot of people were making a lot of money with
(25:00):
with what we call steam betting. So if I'm watching
six or seven books, you know, in a couple hours
leading up to kick off on NFL Sunday, and the
world is at six and a half, and then all
of a sudden, five of the seven books I'm looking
at are at seven. Boy, I'm really really eager to
grab that six and a half. At books number six
(25:22):
and seven that are slow to move to the number
that the world is moving to. It doesn't mean that
you're always going to be right, but it's a pretty
good indication when the entire world moves. Now you have
to be careful, of course, because books will books will
see you do that, and they don't take kindly to
And I don't know if we want to get into
getting banned from sports books for being a sharp better,
(25:43):
but that's a thing to worry about.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, well, let me take you through two of those things.
That's one, But the other one is what why is
it or how is it that in your example, five
books are moving their line and two are sort.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Of slow to react. Is it that, you know, just the.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Folks sitting in the trading room are looking at a
different television screen at the moment it takes them an
extra five minutes, or is there something else going on?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Well, I guess the short answer is it's not.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
Not that some books are slower than others.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
But really, I mean a lot of it is just
the traders have to react to tons of information coming
in at one time, right, So it's injury information, it's
weather information, it's it's whatever it is. But they're also
reacting to the volume of wagers that are happening in
their book and trying to maintain, you know, a balanced
(26:40):
book so that they're not exposed massively on one side
or the other of the number. And so if they're
getting just you know, buckets of action at six and
a half. Then they're like, well, maybe this should be seven.
So that's that's probably more what's driving that.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Than than other things.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And then on the other point, you know, tell me
about obviously we've we've talked about it here and Shawn's
talked about it in a variety of different context. You know,
people who are being limited by.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
By sports books.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's a it's a somewhat unique question for this industry,
right because in most sort of retail establishments, you don't
see customers being banned for just being you know, high
volume customers, right, I don't. I don't know that Amazon
is looking at anyone and saying, you know, you're you're
buying too much, too much cookwaar from us. We're we're
(27:32):
cutting you off, or we're limiting you to one pot
a month. Right, So so this is a this is
a somewhat unique industry in that regard.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And and I.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Think therefore the issues that come about are not things
that that we've really seen seen come up before.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
You know, I think that.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
And this isn't a perfect parallel, but I think if
you asked the books that do this and they don't
like to talk about it, and that was evident. There
was a a hearing schedule in Massachusetts a couple of
months ago, and none of the books showed up to
respond to the questions from the from the commission, and
so they really it's not an easy topic to talk about.
(28:13):
But I think they would look at it more as
a person that comes into the store in your to
continue your example, evan, a person that comes into the
store examines every item on every shelf and every day
buys the two or three items that got mispriced by
(28:33):
the clerk overnight and insisted like, hey, you guys put
a price tag on it, so I get to buy it.
And you know, I think the betters would take issue
with that characterization because it's like, well, hey, don't don't
don't hang numbers and you know that you can't take
action on. But I think you know these books, a
(28:55):
lot of the books that are out there right now
in the States especially, you know that they're interested in
low value retail play, they're going to be high, that
they're looking for players they can reinvest in and kind
of create this fun experience, and that they really don't
want people that are there to make money obviously, And so.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Yeah, I think it's a challenging situation on both sides.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
My other parallel to this is when I was in
high school and my buddy and I got thrown out
of a food establishment for overstaying or welcome on all
you can eat crowd legs.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Stop it. Well, crowd legs are good. They are good.
That is great, Brian.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You know you brought it up, and not to get
into specifics because you know, like you said, it's a
challenge across the board. But from that that meeting that
took place in Massachusetts, I definitely was reading up on it,
and like I said, all this stuff is interesting to
me being in this space. But we do have a
couple of famous sports gamblers out there that do present
(29:55):
themselves as the voice, as the sports gambler. I think
they are legitimately somewhat of the voice. And I did
see that there was a nonprofit organization just created, I
believe in Las Vegas, the ABV America's Better's Voice. Anything
on that is. Do you think that that's got to
be good? At the end of the day, there will
be communication, correct.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I think it has to be good. You know.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Look, I think that in order for this industry to
to survive, in the long term and to thrive in
the long term, there's got to be information, you know,
between the books and the players. There has to be
a healthy relationship there. I mean, you think about what
(30:41):
your favorite casino in Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
You don't hate them, you love them.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
They exist to win money from you, but you think
it's a great place.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
And like, this kind of relationship has.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
To happen between the sportsbooks and the players, which is
which is part of why it's like, Hey, these books,
with their promotions and with their advertising and with their
celebrity endorsements and things like that, they're trying to create
fun and they can do that for you know, the
retail better, but it's a little bit harder when you've
got these guys out there that are just you know,
(31:13):
the difference is like the book has to hang a
number on every event that's out there. But if I'm
the better kind of lurking in the shadows and I
want to make money, I get to pick and choose right,
so I get to just wait for them to make
a mistake and pounds. And you know, that creates this
kind of adversarial relationship there. And I think the betters
would say, hey, listen, like, if you know that I'm
(31:34):
that guy, just take my action, kind of suck it up.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
You made a mistake, use the fact that it was
me that bet it to say.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Hey, maybe maybe we made a mistake here and we
should rectify it. Right, So like at the same time, yeah,
I got some value out of you, but you got
some value out of me, which is information. And so
you know, I think in the long term there's going
to be a nice, healthy relationship between them.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
But we're early days this industry.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
You know, Passpo was twenty eighteen, you know, so we're
we're six years into this industry.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
It's a it's a baby.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So it's so true.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's a great segue to what I was gonna what
I was going to ask you, which is, so we're
six years into this, where are we going to be
six years from now?
Speaker 6 (32:17):
What?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You know, you're you're kind of at the at the
forefront of this. I mean, you're talking to companies. That's
what your clients want to know, right, like, where are
we going to be in six years? And how do
I get there before anyone else? So where are we
going to be and what's going to be some of
the biggest difference.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Well, I think what you're seeing right now is a
and I'll keep this kind of on sports for the
for the moment. You're seeing a massive consolidation of the
sports betting industry right now. You're seeing a lot of
players that launched early on with huge ambitions and they
(32:54):
are taking their ball and going home and they you know,
this is this is a tough indus street to make
money in. It's low margin.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
You know, it's just again like if you if you
have to differentiate yourself from every other book with the
menu of things you're offering up to be bet on,
as well as having you know, great technology that presents
a great user experience, it's tough. I mean during the pandemic,
(33:25):
I don't I don't know if you guys remember, but
like the only things out there that were sporting events,
and therefore the only things that you could bet on
were like Japanese sumo wrestling and Russian ping pong.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Russian ping pong. Baby, I was a sharp.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
Everybody was a sharp at Russian ping pong.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
But but that's the thing, right, It's like books are
hanging lines on Russian ping pong, guys, like somebody's following that,
it's expensive to have experts on you know, sports worldwide,
you know, like I don't know third division Croatian soccer
and whatever. And it's like, you know, and there's people
that are gonna want to bet that, and so the
(34:07):
person that's betting it for sure knows more about it
than you do if you're hanging lines on that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
So when you said at the beginning or earlier on
that you know NFL lines are are pretty much as
perfect as they can be by the time Sunday rules around.
Is the opposite that true? Like, if you're looking for
an edge, it's betting on some you know, NC double
a game that the teams that nobody's heard of because
you think, you know, you know, you think you've got
(34:33):
an edge on figuring out something about one of their
styles of play, and and that line's more likely to
be flawed than you know, for example, like the Duke
Kentucky lines.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, absolutely right, there's so you if you want to
make money sports betting and you're serious about this, like
you shouldn't be trying to attack you know, the Tennessee Titans, right.
This is this is a situation where you have to
understand which bets are the most attack as a better
because the sportsbooks couldn't focus enough time on hanging good
(35:06):
line to start with, and there's not enough attention on
the game that the price discovery, the market, you know,
naturally has kind of gotten the game to a good place.
Speaker 6 (35:18):
And I would go a step further than that and.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Say that if you're looking at any college basketball, any
college football game, like those lines are pretty sharp, man,
if you're looking at sides and totals of those games,
like somebody out there in the world is betting those profitably,
and like there's not going to be a ton of
opportunity for you. But where there is a ton of
opportunity is on the kind of derivative bets, the props,
(35:46):
you know, those kind of things. And you can kind
of thinking about math for a minute. You can kind
of take those sides and totals as ground truth now
that the market has kind of aligned on them and
gone okay, even that it's you know, the line six
and a half in the totals forty eight, what should
how many passing touchdowns should that be in a normal game?
(36:09):
And is this game going to be more you know,
passing touchdowns or fewer passing touchdowns than average because of
the individual players, because I promise you the books you know,
are not able to make all of those minute adjustments.
They're kind of going, okay, it's six and a half,
it's forty eight, that's going to equate to I don't know,
four passing touchdowns or three passing whatever that number is.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Brian, give it.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Give it to me in one sentence with some math LINGO.
Give me T values and S values and standard deviations
and stuff.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
I'm not a statistician, I you know, I speak, I
speak in concept. I'm a consultant. Now, Guys like, I
don't do that. I don't do the analysts work anymore.
But yeah, I mean the idea is like, figure out
the things that the books couldn't possibly be getting right
one hundred percent of the time. And that includes in
game lines because like in game lines, live lines, there's
(37:01):
no time for price discovery to happen, Like you don't
have sharps for a week before the game, beating up
that line and arriving at the right line, like there's
a feed from somewhere. And guys went, Okay, our best
guess at the number is this some algorithm and they
feed that line to the book and the book runs
with it.
Speaker 6 (37:21):
So yeah, you know, figuring that out.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I think anybody that wants to do this seriously should
read a great book by by good good friends of mine,
Ed Miller and Matt David Out called The Logic of
Sports Betting. They have another one called Interception they just released.
I think Ed has a really great way of I
(37:46):
guess his exposition is really natural and really easy to read,
and he's.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
A super perfect Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
No, he's great.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
And then I real quick, I'd be remiss to say
that the other thing that sharp betters are doing right,
and this is part of it is figuring out what
lines you can be.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Part of it is actually staying under.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
The radar from the books and being able to get
the money down. And so there's this whole uh, there's
this whole world of using beards right disguises. But there
there are other people to bet, uh you know, to
bet on your behalf.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And so you know, Billy, Billy Walters.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
Maybe runs the most well known sports betting syndicate out there,
and so there's there's several books about about what Billy's
done and and and even a journalist wrote a book
not too long ago about being one of one of
Billy Walter's beards, and and uh yeah, that's that's fascinating
as well.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Let's keep it moving here, Let's get Brian whyman, fantastic stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Hey Brian, one more from me.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Uh because I am I'm a guy that came up
and casinos.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I love Atlantic City, I love brick and mortar.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
With the with as we pointed out on your cell phone,
has the brick and.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Mortar industry taken a hit? Is? Have they been able
to figure it out? Work it both ways?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
What's your take on that is some of these casinos,
the brick and mortars not so much in trouble, but
can they do more?
Speaker 6 (39:15):
I don't think brick and mortar is in trouble anywhere.
And I think a couple things.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
So, first of all, I would say that sports betting
served as a catalyst for casino more than anything. Think
about your your stereotypical your prototypical sports better.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
It's guys that look like us.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Now you said you grew up in Atlanticsit are growing
going to Atlantic City. And so maybe as a young
guy you went a couple weekends a year or whatever.
But like when you looked around the casino, was it
a bunch of people that looked like you, or it
was a bunch of older.
Speaker 6 (39:49):
Women on slot machines.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Like the casino customer is a fifty five to sixty
year old woman and you know, maybe and her husband,
but it's not young younger guys. And and so sports betting
kind of put it was. It was a breath of
fresh air into the casino industry. I will say that
online sports betting crushes retail sports betting. You know, in
(40:15):
states with both, online tends to be you know, well
over ninety percent and in some cases, like almost the
entire you know, ninety nine ninety eight percent of the
betting that happens in the state. And I can say
that in Maryland, which started with retail only and then
online came in, uh, you know, retails doing like a
third or less of what they were doing before online
(40:37):
came in. And so online is a big deal on
the casino side. You know, I said, we did a
study for Maryland, and you know, I think online casino
brings a ton more casino revenue to states. I think
that's that's inarguable, and so it should increase taxes and
(40:58):
things like that to the to the state, but it
does take a bite out of out of land based casinos.
So I think there's some land based casinos that are
advocating for online casino because they think they will run
the best online casinos in the state. Therefore they kind
of earn a win win situation. But there's some other
casinos that think that, you know, between maybe not having
(41:22):
the best online presence and also because they're they're concerned about,
you know, the jobs that they currently support and having
to lay off staff and uh and and their commitments
to their to reinvest in their local communities, and they
worry about being able to meet those obligations that they
promised when they built the casino without without contemplating, you know,
(41:44):
the effect of online.
Speaker 6 (41:45):
So I think there's there's kind of multiple sides of
this question.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, excellent stuff, A great conversation across the board, Brian
and uh Man. You're out there, You're you're speaking at
Summits up in Canada. You're doing a lot, So what's
next on your calendar? Where are you going now next?
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Well, I definitely have a trip to the Upper Midwest
and I am right now finalizing details for a trip
to the Far East, so both work related.
Speaker 6 (42:12):
And that's all I'll say.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
But I spent about eighty to one hundred nights on
the road a year, so yeah, tough with the kids,
but but look, it's it's it's great to be out
there and interacting with everybody that's moving and shaking in
the industry, and you know, hopefully run into you guys
at some point next time I'm in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what your voice is needed
in this space. Very educated and exactly from all angles.
So this was a really good conversation. Can't thank you
enough for being our guest here on behind the vigue.
I know Evan speaks at a lot of these summits
as well, so maybe you guys might be able to cross.
But I'll be the guy in the in the third
(42:56):
row with the notepad right now notes.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Bran and I have been known to find ah and
cocktail bar somewhere in the vicinity of the conference and
grab a quick drink.
Speaker 6 (43:05):
So I'm real good at buying beers, guys.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So all right, Evan, another excellent conversation. I mean across
the board. That is a gentleman that knows.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
A lot in this space.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Man, And you know you'd made a joke about dumbing
it down where he was saying that, and it's like
not to say that he just knew how to connect, right,
not to say he dumbed it down. But here we
are in a podcast form, an interview form, and he
kept it interesting and we hit on everything. Brian Wyman
from the Innovation Group, that was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
What I think that really showed something I've known now
for years is that this industry is made up of
so folks from so many different backgrounds, right. And you
get people that have sort of come up through the
ranks and brick and mortar casinos. You've got people that
are coming in from the sports and media world now.
But you got folks like Brian who have a PhD
in math and found his way into this industry sort
(44:00):
of through the analytics angle as well. So you know,
this is not a one size fits all industry where
everyone's kind of cut from the same cloth. It's a
you know, diverse from a dictionary diverse, right, people just
from all over the place with all these different perspectives,
and you know it's why I've enjoyed working in it
so much.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, and like me just being interested into space. I
spoke about, you know, the brick and mortar, and that
was one of the concerns I had from the beginning,
was like, Okay, everyone's gonna be gambling online. That means
that somebod these casinos are gonna fall. And don't get
me wrong, that's probably their own issues and so on
and so forth. There's a million and one reasons why
a brick and mortar might fail, is my point. But
(44:41):
that was interesting to hear his thoughts, like, hey, there,
it's kind of separate entities at the.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
End of the day.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
So yeah, I think that's the goal, right, is to
just build the industry, not cannibalize anything, and say, you know,
we're gonna there'll be a little bit of cannibalization, but
to minimize it and say the experience that you get.
I mean, it's look, you know Netflix, Does Netflix cannibalize
movie theaters? I mean, maybe, yeah, a little bit, but
it's different. It's a different experience, and there's reasons why
(45:09):
you want to sit at home watch movie.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
There's reasons why you want to go to the theater.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
So I think that's the idea, right, is the casinos
are always going to offer things that you can't get
on your phone.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And finally, for me, it's not to say it's refreshing,
because I don't think books needs people speaking on their behalf.
But he was giving me some things that I haven't
heard before. Right when you hear about the Gambler, you
hear about the Sharps and how they're being faded and
how they're being excluded, you know, not being able to
get their action, and like that's always front and center
(45:38):
because it's the loudest voice in the room. Let us
take on the timeline. You don't really hear that from
the book's perspective, right, Like I guess it might be
their own fault too, not getting out there, not being
transparent with some of their takes, right, like not showing
up to that meeting up there in Massachusetts, like he
pointed out. You know, it's just there's got to be,
you know, a smoother way that we can go ahead
(46:00):
and being this together. And another point, I think it's
come up a lot throughout the course of these episodes.
We're six years into this bad Boy brand new yep.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Right, it seems like it's been here for a while,
and at the same time, you know six years and
go buy in a heartbeat. I you know, I'm just
upset you didn't ask me. I would have told you
all about having won my high school math competition in
upper Saint class.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
That doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me at all. No,
that doesn't surprise I mean that in a good way.
You're a smart man, Evan Davis. Hey, and you're even
better at booking these guests. Great get fantastic stuff, and
behind the vague we are just continuing to cook once again.
If you missed anything, please download our podcast, download and
subscribe at foxphl Gambler dot com
You are listening to Behind the Vegue, a podcast mini
series that takes you beyond the bets and strategies and
more into the business of the sports betting industry. Now
here are your hosts, Sean Brace and Evan Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, ladies, Jemmy, boys and girls, here we go
again another edition of Behind the Veg.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
You heard the man. I am Sean Brace.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He is Evan Davis. Evan super excited about our next.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Guest coming up here on this edition of Behind the Veg.
Same with me.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I've known Brian for a long time and uh, just
a really smart guy and are and a really great
guy too, So excited to chat with him about everything
he's done in his career and is doing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now, that's right, Brian Wyman from the innovationgroup dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
He's gonna join us on this episode of Behind the Vegue.
But this is great.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He is boots on the ground in Las Vegas. He
speaks at all these conferences, so do you across the globe,
and he knows a thing or two about a thing
or two when it comes to math slash sports gambling. Oh,
by the way, amazing Blue Yeah Michigan guy too as well.
So let's head out to Vegas and we are going
to be joined by Brian Wyman once again from the
(01:09):
Innovation Group. All right, without further ado, let's do Evan
behind the vague, another great guest here that we are
going to learn a ton about everything in our industry
here on all think sports gambling. Our first, doctor Evan,
Look at you. The rollo dex is deep, doctor Brian Wyman.
He is the executive vice president Operations in data Analytics
(01:33):
over at the Innovation Group. Check them out online everything
they have to offer. Learn more at the Innovation Group
dot com. Doctor Brian Wyman, how we doing it today?
Thank you for a couple of minutes and joining us
here on behind the big sir.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Well, thank you guys for having me. It's a beautiful
day in Las Vegas. We're finally not at one fifteen
to one twenty, so I'm comfortably living at one oh five,
one oh seven these days.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
So yeah, everything's great out.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Here, excellent. Yeah, boots on the ground in Vegas.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
As Brian told us before the recording, he was looking
up the window at the Lovely Spear. Uh so that
that place is just insane. Obviously it's got a ton
of fanfare out there.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Have you been yet, Brian, I've not been.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I I get to see the uh the sphere dressed
up as the moon or right now, it's still got
some lingering Fourth of July uh signage on the side
of it over there, but I enjoy it from my
office window enough.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
I haven't been in yet, Brian.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
When when you're living in Las Vegas, do you just
become like immune to all of what you know, tourists
deal with on a you know, Thursday through Sunday bachelor
party weekend or is that like, are you just living
that weekend and week out.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
I'm I'm certainly not living that in week out. That's uh.
That's that's a recipe for a short life and certainly
a short lived tenure in Las Vegas. I don't know, man,
Like Las Vegas is a normal Mountain West city, except
it's got the Strip right in the middle of it,
and uh and we have slot machines in our you know,
(03:10):
grocery stores and and gas stations.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
But I'll tell you that the biggest difference.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I mean, people move here and they go nuts for
six months and then then they settle down and they
get a house in the Burbs and it's like living
anywhere else except uh, you know, I'm raising two boys
here and you know, they will walk through the casino
to go to dinner.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
They don't even notice the machines, but they.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Do notice the billboard trucks when they drive by with
half naked women on them, and it's, uh, there's some
differences living here than live in other places.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
It's like the Vegas equivalent of the banner planes at
the Jersey Shore.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, yeah, ay, true story.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
My bald head was on one of those trucks driving
down the strip in Vegas promoting the skull Shaver that
I used to work a picture of you believe it
or not. Yes, yeah, make sure of my bald head
on the side of those trucks. So yeah, I'm sure
that people would prefer the other ones. But bottom line is, yeah,
that was a highlight a long a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
But Brian, we excited to get you on.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Of course, we got a lot to talk about, learn
more from the Innovation Group and your time of Pinnacle
and but as always here Evan, you know how we
start things off. You know, we never like to intrude
and and ask deep questions about somebody's age or you know,
and find out more on that avenue. But so instead
we like to tea things up and gauge our guests
(04:30):
as far as sports are concerned. So, Brian, if you
want to mind your youngest childhood sports memory, your favorite
childhood sports memory come into mind.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Is what sir oh so for for my youngest childhood memory.
I was having this discussion with somebody this morning in
preparation for this podcast, and he goes, man, you've got
to go with with Hulk Hogan, Body Slamm and Andre
the Giants WrestleMania three. I don't know, man, Like I've
(05:01):
got so many sports memories as a kid.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
I was trying to come up with my favorite Yankees memory.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
You know, I grew up in New Jersey and so
but I was in the New York centric side of
New Jersey, not the Philadelphia centric side of New Jersey.
So yeah, I don't know. The things that linger, you know,
in my mind are are you know, the World Cup
being here and and then the Women's World Cup, right,
I mean Brandy Chastain and but yeah, I you know,
(05:30):
the Yankees weren't very good when I was a little kid,
So I don't have a lot of great memories.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
They didn't get They didn't get good till much later.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I liked the whole Cogan one.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, old was strong. I was ready to hit. I
got the Hulk's theme music ready to go. I could
have hit it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I was ready. He's been in the news, yeah a
little bit, Brian.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so so Yankees fan grew up in New Jersey then, okay,
and yeah you brought up the eighties Yankees they were
not good. But then of course uh Steinbrenner started spending
a couple extra dollars in the nineties, and then you
guys went on heck of a run. Maybe some of
the best baseball teams ever created in those nineties run.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
As far as the Yankees are concerned, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
In those you know, pre teen and early teen years,
it was you know, sneak out, hop on the train,
get into the city, take the subway up, get bleacher seats,
and boy, you grew up fast in the bleachers a
Yankee stadium in those days.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That is excellent. All right, Brian, Let's go ahead and
talk a little bit about what's going on in your
life right now. As I got your LinkedIn page. As
we always do here, and we'll talk a little bit
about Michigan football National champion blew everybody out last year,
including in the National Championship game. But let's talk about
the Innovation Group and everything that they have to offer.
(06:43):
Like I said, you're over there now, how long you've
been with the Innovation Group? Brian, the executive VP Operations
and Data Analytics at the Innovation Group, how long you've
been there for?
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Yeah, I've been here about seven years.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
And you know, we really are full service industry consultancy.
We work with casinos and hotels on everything ranging from
from new developments, so brand new casino plopping down in
a new market, to what their operations look like today.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
And so given the.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
Last five or so years, I guess now it's six
closer to seven years, the industry has been so heavily
focused on sports betting and eye gaming. I mean, I
spend a lot of my time there. And also, I mean,
I'm sure we're going to get there. But I'm a
math guy. I've got a doctorate in mathematics. I'm not
like a real doctor that helps people. I have a
math PhD. And you know, so my friends out here
(07:39):
are a lot of poker players, a lot of sports betters,
and so I guess I have a unique lens on
the business from from that side as well.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
So, Brian, how do how does one go from getting
his math PhD at Michigan to saying, yeah, I think
I'm going to go go head into the gaming industry
and see where this takes me.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Oh, I know, I never said I think I'm going
to head into the gaming industry. That That wasn't how
this happened. It's sort of like all things in life,
you know, you just you get an opportunity and you go, ah,
timing's right, let's try it. And I mean I just
wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid,
but I found out I was good at math and
like solving problems, and so I did math and computer science,
(08:18):
ended up at Michigan getting a PhD. And then I
thought I was going to work for one of the
no name government agencies, you know, doing math there they
hired a ton of mathematicians and I'm filling out the application.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Asked me how much I want to make and I
have no idea.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
I make twenty thousand dollars teaching calculus to undergrads as
a graduate student.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
So so I.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Called a buddy and he said, ah, you should get
a competing offer. So I talked to a hedge fund
and got a competing offer at.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
The government agency.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
That's what it was.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
It was, And so I ended up taking that offer
at the hedge fund and spent four great years doing
finance and decided it wasn't for me and decided with
my wife, you know, hey, let's let's move to the
West Coast. And before we got there, a poker buddy
had this unique job offer in Vegas, building kind of
an advanced analytics.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Function inside a publicly.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Traded casino company that had, by the time I left,
sixteen properties throughout the US. And so I thought, well,
this sounds interesting. I've never worked for a large, publicly
traded company. I've never managed a team of ten twelve people, like,
let's give this a whirl. And so I was there
for a few years when I moved out to Las Vegas,
and then yeah, since then, I've been been on the
(09:36):
consulting side of the business.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
As far as the innovation group where you're currently at
right now, how many people are on your team?
Speaker 5 (09:43):
We've got about fifteen people in the group. Some part timers,
but most everybody's full time. And yeah, everybody's kind of
got a different specialty. And you know, I manage really
I managed casino operations, sports betting, ie gaming, and customer research.
That's kind of my So anything that's like marketing and
(10:04):
operations on one hand and then sports and eye gaming
on the other hand.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So when you say you manage this stuff, I mean
obviously without getting into like customer specifics, but what are
people asking you to do for them? Is it just
figure out our strategy?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I mean it obviously has got to be analytically driven
given your background and your team's background, But what types
of projects are you being asked to work on and
what what are you doing for your clients?
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean it really ranges.
I would say most of our team has.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
A background that's close to economics, so something quantitative, and
we get asked to prepare size of market studies.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
So one question is like if.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Sports betting turned on tomorrow in Texas or California, like
how much sports betting would there be? And you know,
similar question for if we were to drop in the
middle of Kansas, like what would that look like in
terms of revenue, and then we get involved in a
lot of the government relations questions there too. So, you know,
dropping a casino in the middle of Kansas, the Kansas
(11:12):
legislature might want to know, well, how much of that
gaming that's going to happen if this casino is new,
versus how much is going to other states today. So
these are kind of core questions that we get asked
on a on a day to day basis, and then
I guess more in my world on the sports betting side,
I get asked by you know, let's say a tribal
casino that that they don't have sports betting in that state,
(11:33):
like what business.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Model should we be thinking about?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Should we be doing this on our own, should we
be partnering with DraftKings, or should we be partnering with
some third party that will let us go to market
as you know, whatever casino sportsbook which will cost less,
but it won't come with the cachet and the marketing
that that DraftKings comes with. And so we kind of
walk them through all all those decision points and model
(11:57):
that out for them.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Now, when you say you're doing work with governments, are
you you're both sort of being hired by the governments,
but you're also testifying in front of government agencies too, right.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
We work on really all sides of the business, and
I think, you know, without touting the company, because I
don't know many of the listeners are going to hire us,
you know, but but yeah, I mean we we our
reputation precedes us, and we get hired by not just
the big commercial entities that I'm looking out my window
at right now, but also by lotteries, by state legislatures
(12:34):
that are interested in an unbiased view of how expanded
gaming will change various aspects of their state and how
it operates. We get hired by private investors who are
looking to you know, maybe make an acquisition of a
privately held company or you know, those kinds of things too.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
So we're all that.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I think that's one of the things that the public
often doesn't necessarily get great insight into, is they know, Okay,
you know, I live in Pennsylvania or I live in
New Jersey, I can bet on sports, or I can
play online casino. I go to another state and you know,
there's not I casino And in some of these states
there's no sports betting like or in Nevada where there's
(13:16):
sports betting at you know, you got to sign up
at retail, and people, I think get really confused, like
why do these states not just have similar laws or
why are the promos so different from what I can
get in one state versus another. But I think, you know,
you're at the forefront of being able to talk about
(13:36):
how their priorities are different and therefore their rules and
their laws and the regulations are all different, and it
creates this hodgepodge from a consumer standpoint.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I mean, and you say, you said it right, right,
Their priorities are all very different. So in some states
the only thing that matters is tax revenue, and so
those states are are the states where I casino, for example,
online casino is more likely to pass in the near term.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
You know, I worked for the State of Maryland last.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Year or thereabouts, and they wanted They had all sorts
of questions coming from the lottery but also coming from
state representatives and senators asking about, you know, what will
this do to the land based casinos. That was a
big hot topic. And this wasn't necessarily out of pure
concern for the land based casinos, but it's out of
(14:32):
concern for the.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Jobs that the land based casinos support.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And so, you know, that was a major question and
a major sticking point in the state of Maryland when
they went to introduce legislation last year. And I think
there will be some other bites at that apple in
the coming years. But people also don't really have a
good grip at this point on how much how dangerous
it is to have online casinos casinos in your pocket.
(14:58):
I mean, I won't ask you guys individually to respond
to this, but like, man, having a casino in your pocket, Like,
could that be a dangerous thing?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Like?
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I imagine so for a lot of folks out there, And
I think that's the general intuition, but the data doesn't
always prove that out. I mean, you know, the data
sort of seems to suggest that as long as folks
that have a propensity to problem game have an outlet
for it, it doesn't matter whether it's in their pocket
(15:30):
or whether it's at the casino down the road or
And so I think there's a lot of conflicting science
and there's a lot of work still to be done
in a lot of these public policy aspects of gaming expansion,
and so I think states look at that, you know,
differently state to state, and the stakeholders are different state
to state. You know, we've been very active working with
(15:51):
a client in Minnesota where they've been very close to
passing sports betting legislation and it never quite gets there.
And you know, the stakeholders in that state range from
the horse tracks, to the sports teams, to the tribes
who have the casinos, to the charitable entities that run
(16:12):
charitable gaming and want to be.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Included in such legislation.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
So it's not just as easy as like, hey, everybody
wants sports, let's pass it. You know, there's a lot
of a lot of horse training that gets done there
behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I can't wait to dig into some of the math
perspective here, but let me ask you this as far
as things that we could probably do them better, and
that state, the state, that's country wide, whatever. When it
comes to like you brought up the issue, Hey you
got a casino in your pocket, right, I know that
there are some people that complain about the During the
course of a football game. You see anywhere from fifteen
(16:48):
to twenty five sports gambling ads from whatever books it is.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Are we doing a good job? You know? Coming at
it from the other side, of course, I'm a gambler.
I love it. I don't have any issue of it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't like commercials in general, but you know, I
have no issues with DraftKings, fandor whatever along those lines.
Do you think we're doing a good job in that
category as far as, you know, being proactive with some
of the ads that are out there, and specifically during
football games, during sporting events.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
You know, I don't know whether I want to say
we're doing it good or a bad job at it.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
But I do think that there's a lot of attention
on this right now, both at a legislative level, but
also from the industry side. I think I think people
are really concerned, and it's it's twofold, right. I think
there is a legitimate question from the industry side about
how advertising affects players, and then I think there's also
(17:42):
a self serving aspect from the industry side about, hey,
we want to pass new legislation, so we want to
make sure to play nice and not, you know, not
be adversarial with the folks that are ultimately going to
determine that.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
You know, So I think we're we're thinking about it
the right way.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, Now that's a good it's a good, good answer
because I understand it. And and from what I understand too,
is that it's different across seas and these are some
of the some of the barriers that had been put up,
like I said, in other countries. So it's one of
those things where that I would imagine, uh, we might
see some things like that coming into play here in
(18:22):
the States.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
But all right, I was like, I'm looking at you guys,
and we're all the same age. So you know, we
had Joe Cammell on TV when we were kids, right,
and so somebody had to ask the question like, hey,
like everybody smokes, is it that big of a deal?
And uh, you know, somebody decided, hey, this is a
big deal and we need to make some decisions. And
(18:44):
I don't mean to compare gambling to smoking in terms
of its uh you know, impact on society, but like,
this is a public policy question, and I think you
know that this is why, this is why electing good
lawmakers and and and having good representative government is so
important because you know, those people are going to reflect
the views of the population and we're going to have
to decide as a as a society.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
Like what do we want out of this?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
So I don't think it's it's as much like all
of these people are implementing jack honey and laws and
all these people just want you know, gambling everywhere, and
it's a you know, it's a scourge.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
So I think there's there's a happy medium somewhere. We
got to figure out what that is.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Brian, I will say from my own experience working with
you know, a ton of players across the industry that
the push for responsible gaming is not just lip service.
I think it's authentic, and at least in my experience,
it's been exclusively authentic. And so I think that, yeah, look,
you know, there are the industry's obviously got some of
its own motivations. But but preventing problem gambling is I
(19:47):
think a universal concern across the industry, and and one
that they're now putting you know, a significant amount of
money and resources into combating.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
And I mean, you know, I work with top brass
across you know, the entire industry, and these are.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
By and large good people.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I mean, you hear you hear stories on the news
about the one or two bad eggs, But I think
there is an overall concern. A lot of the industry
lives here in Las Vegas, where you know, the opportunities
for for gambling are are so prevalent, and so I
think everybody kind of has that that uh concern uh.
And and I also think that if you're leading a
company like this, it's a bad look for you to
(20:32):
have massive problem gambling issues across the nation. And that's
also you know, you've got to be concerned about the
longevity of your player base and and and things like that.
So I think there's a lot of reasons to be
concerned about about this, and I think the industry genuinely
wants to curb problem gambling and and help to mitigate
(20:53):
it where it exists throughout the country.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Great answers, and couldn't agree with you more as far
as leadership is concerned and and and people do care too,
is Evan, I totally agree. It's what you had to
say as well on that. All right, Brian, let's go
ahead and talk a little bit about math. I'm curious
because you're in the heart of it, and you know
from a guy over here that will do some probability
and look at some other people out there that are
sharps and try and get into their heads, into their world.
(21:19):
For the most part, I am a gut player. I
am a guy that tries to steer away from my biases.
But of course, you know, I want to pick the winners,
and you know how it is with you know the
confidence there. But when it comes to math to find
the true edge in sports gambling, does it have to
involve math? Is there is there possible, you know for
sharps out there that do not use math, or is
(21:41):
it just strictly you have to have math.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
If you want to be a successful gambler.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Man I, I don't know. I you know, I think
you've got to have math. That's that's my view.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Man I.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I you know, I see too many too many folks
out there with hot takes. I don't think that shooting
from the hip is going to make you a profitable gambler. Look,
you've got to win, you know, fifty two and a
half percent of your bets, and those lines are sharp
out there. I know you know you had you had
John on from bet MGM a couple of weeks ago,
(22:13):
and uh and he was. He sort of laid it
out right, like we hang a number and then we
get told right away by sharp betters whether our number
was right or wrong, Like was it too low, it's
just going to get hammered in one direction. If it's
too high, it's gonna get hammered in the other direction,
and they'll have to it just and really that's you know,
(22:35):
that's how the market gets made. You know, these numbers
go up and then people bet them, and then by
game time the number is sharp. If you're betting an
NFL line right before kickoff, like you're not getting the
best of it, Like that's just you're flipping a coin
and you're you're paying a dollar ten to do that.
And so but I think if you have I also
(22:59):
don't think you need an advance degree in math to
to gain a little bit of an edge.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
And I think there's there's.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
A few things that I see sharp guys across the
space doing pretty consistently. And look, there's no free lunch, right, Like,
there's no like Brian comes on a podcast and says, oh,
you do this and then you're winning sports better, right
like that that just doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I'm going to edit that part out just everybody else.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
We'll snip that, and now, if you want to be
a successful sports better, it is.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
That's right, you know. The The first thing I would
say is you've you've got a shop.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
A lot of people only have one or two books
on their phone, but they live in a state where
they there's eight books out there.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
And it's a little bit painful because that means you
have to have.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Money on deposit at you know, eight books instead of
one or two books. But I think first, even before
you get to that, like you've got to decide am
I doing this just to have fun on Sunday? And
I don't worry about wasting a couple dollars if I
don't get the best number out there? Or am I
trying to do this profitably? Like if you decide that,
(24:07):
then you've got to be ready to go on whichever
book has the best price, because there's no sense embedding
the Giants.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Well, you're not gonna bet the giants anyway.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
If you want to be a profitable sports better, But
no sense in betting the Eagles on Sunday at at
minus one ten if you can get at minus one
oh five. So I think I think shopping you got
to do. And I think you've got to look at
the offshore prices too. I mean, the offshore books are
going to have numbers that aren't available to you to bet,
(24:38):
but it's where all of the biggest action on the
planet is occurring. And so seeing what those betters are,
are you driving the price to be offshore? I think
I think that's really really important. I don't know a
couple other things. I guess for a while there a
lot of people were making a lot of money with
(25:00):
with what we call steam betting. So if I'm watching
six or seven books, you know, in a couple hours
leading up to kick off on NFL Sunday, and the
world is at six and a half, and then all
of a sudden, five of the seven books I'm looking
at are at seven. Boy, I'm really really eager to
grab that six and a half. At books number six
(25:22):
and seven that are slow to move to the number
that the world is moving to. It doesn't mean that
you're always going to be right, but it's a pretty
good indication when the entire world moves. Now you have
to be careful, of course, because books will books will
see you do that, and they don't take kindly to
And I don't know if we want to get into
getting banned from sports books for being a sharp better,
(25:43):
but that's a thing to worry about.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, well, let me take you through two of those things.
That's one, But the other one is what why is
it or how is it that in your example, five
books are moving their line and two are sort.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Of slow to react. Is it that, you know, just the.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Folks sitting in the trading room are looking at a
different television screen at the moment it takes them an
extra five minutes, or is there something else going on?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Well, I guess the short answer is it's not.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
Not that some books are slower than others.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
But really, I mean a lot of it is just
the traders have to react to tons of information coming
in at one time, right, So it's injury information, it's
weather information, it's it's whatever it is. But they're also
reacting to the volume of wagers that are happening in
their book and trying to maintain, you know, a balanced
(26:40):
book so that they're not exposed massively on one side
or the other of the number. And so if they're
getting just you know, buckets of action at six and
a half. Then they're like, well, maybe this should be seven.
So that's that's probably more what's driving that.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Than than other things.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And then on the other point, you know, tell me
about obviously we've we've talked about it here and Shawn's
talked about it in a variety of different context. You know,
people who are being limited by.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
By sports books.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's a it's a somewhat unique question for this industry,
right because in most sort of retail establishments, you don't
see customers being banned for just being you know, high
volume customers, right, I don't. I don't know that Amazon
is looking at anyone and saying, you know, you're you're
buying too much, too much cookwaar from us. We're we're
(27:32):
cutting you off, or we're limiting you to one pot
a month. Right, So so this is a this is
a somewhat unique industry in that regard.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And and I.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Think therefore the issues that come about are not things
that that we've really seen seen come up before.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
You know, I think that.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
And this isn't a perfect parallel, but I think if
you asked the books that do this and they don't
like to talk about it, and that was evident. There
was a a hearing schedule in Massachusetts a couple of
months ago, and none of the books showed up to
respond to the questions from the from the commission, and
so they really it's not an easy topic to talk about.
(28:13):
But I think they would look at it more as
a person that comes into the store in your to
continue your example, evan, a person that comes into the
store examines every item on every shelf and every day
buys the two or three items that got mispriced by
(28:33):
the clerk overnight and insisted like, hey, you guys put
a price tag on it, so I get to buy it.
And you know, I think the betters would take issue
with that characterization because it's like, well, hey, don't don't
don't hang numbers and you know that you can't take
action on. But I think you know these books, a
(28:55):
lot of the books that are out there right now
in the States especially, you know that they're interested in
low value retail play, they're going to be high, that
they're looking for players they can reinvest in and kind
of create this fun experience, and that they really don't
want people that are there to make money obviously, And so.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Yeah, I think it's a challenging situation on both sides.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
My other parallel to this is when I was in
high school and my buddy and I got thrown out
of a food establishment for overstaying or welcome on all
you can eat crowd legs.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Stop it. Well, crowd legs are good. They are good.
That is great, Brian.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You know you brought it up, and not to get
into specifics because you know, like you said, it's a
challenge across the board. But from that that meeting that
took place in Massachusetts, I definitely was reading up on it,
and like I said, all this stuff is interesting to
me being in this space. But we do have a
couple of famous sports gamblers out there that do present
(29:55):
themselves as the voice, as the sports gambler. I think
they are legitimately somewhat of the voice. And I did
see that there was a nonprofit organization just created, I
believe in Las Vegas, the ABV America's Better's Voice. Anything
on that is. Do you think that that's got to
be good? At the end of the day, there will
be communication, correct.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I think it has to be good. You know.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Look, I think that in order for this industry to
to survive, in the long term and to thrive in
the long term, there's got to be information, you know,
between the books and the players. There has to be
a healthy relationship there. I mean, you think about what
(30:41):
your favorite casino in Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
You don't hate them, you love them.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
They exist to win money from you, but you think
it's a great place.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
And like, this kind of relationship has.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
To happen between the sportsbooks and the players, which is
which is part of why it's like, Hey, these books,
with their promotions and with their advertising and with their
celebrity endorsements and things like that, they're trying to create
fun and they can do that for you know, the
retail better, but it's a little bit harder when you've
got these guys out there that are just you know,
(31:13):
the difference is like the book has to hang a
number on every event that's out there. But if I'm
the better kind of lurking in the shadows and I
want to make money, I get to pick and choose right,
so I get to just wait for them to make
a mistake and pounds. And you know, that creates this
kind of adversarial relationship there. And I think the betters
would say, hey, listen, like, if you know that I'm
(31:34):
that guy, just take my action, kind of suck it up.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
You made a mistake, use the fact that it was
me that bet it to say.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Hey, maybe maybe we made a mistake here and we
should rectify it. Right, So like at the same time, yeah,
I got some value out of you, but you got
some value out of me, which is information. And so
you know, I think in the long term there's going
to be a nice, healthy relationship between them.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
But we're early days this industry.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
You know, Passpo was twenty eighteen, you know, so we're
we're six years into this industry.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
It's a it's a baby.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So it's so true.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's a great segue to what I was gonna what
I was going to ask you, which is, so we're
six years into this, where are we going to be
six years from now?
Speaker 6 (32:17):
What?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You know, you're you're kind of at the at the
forefront of this. I mean, you're talking to companies. That's
what your clients want to know, right, like, where are
we going to be in six years? And how do
I get there before anyone else? So where are we
going to be and what's going to be some of
the biggest difference.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Well, I think what you're seeing right now is a
and I'll keep this kind of on sports for the
for the moment. You're seeing a massive consolidation of the
sports betting industry right now. You're seeing a lot of
players that launched early on with huge ambitions and they
(32:54):
are taking their ball and going home and they you know,
this is this is a tough indus street to make
money in. It's low margin.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
You know, it's just again like if you if you
have to differentiate yourself from every other book with the
menu of things you're offering up to be bet on,
as well as having you know, great technology that presents
a great user experience, it's tough. I mean during the pandemic,
(33:25):
I don't I don't know if you guys remember, but
like the only things out there that were sporting events,
and therefore the only things that you could bet on
were like Japanese sumo wrestling and Russian ping pong.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Russian ping pong. Baby, I was a sharp.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
Everybody was a sharp at Russian ping pong.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
But but that's the thing, right, It's like books are
hanging lines on Russian ping pong, guys, like somebody's following that,
it's expensive to have experts on you know, sports worldwide,
you know, like I don't know third division Croatian soccer
and whatever. And it's like, you know, and there's people
that are gonna want to bet that, and so the
(34:07):
person that's betting it for sure knows more about it
than you do if you're hanging lines on that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
So when you said at the beginning or earlier on
that you know NFL lines are are pretty much as
perfect as they can be by the time Sunday rules around.
Is the opposite that true? Like, if you're looking for
an edge, it's betting on some you know, NC double
a game that the teams that nobody's heard of because
you think, you know, you know, you think you've got
(34:33):
an edge on figuring out something about one of their
styles of play, and and that line's more likely to
be flawed than you know, for example, like the Duke
Kentucky lines.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, absolutely right, there's so you if you want to
make money sports betting and you're serious about this, like
you shouldn't be trying to attack you know, the Tennessee Titans, right.
This is this is a situation where you have to
understand which bets are the most attack as a better
because the sportsbooks couldn't focus enough time on hanging good
(35:06):
line to start with, and there's not enough attention on
the game that the price discovery, the market, you know,
naturally has kind of gotten the game to a good place.
Speaker 6 (35:18):
And I would go a step further than that and.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Say that if you're looking at any college basketball, any
college football game, like those lines are pretty sharp, man,
if you're looking at sides and totals of those games,
like somebody out there in the world is betting those profitably,
and like there's not going to be a ton of
opportunity for you. But where there is a ton of
opportunity is on the kind of derivative bets, the props,
(35:46):
you know, those kind of things. And you can kind
of thinking about math for a minute. You can kind
of take those sides and totals as ground truth now
that the market has kind of aligned on them and
gone okay, even that it's you know, the line six
and a half in the totals forty eight, what should
how many passing touchdowns should that be in a normal game?
(36:09):
And is this game going to be more you know,
passing touchdowns or fewer passing touchdowns than average because of
the individual players, because I promise you the books you know,
are not able to make all of those minute adjustments.
They're kind of going, okay, it's six and a half,
it's forty eight, that's going to equate to I don't know,
four passing touchdowns or three passing whatever that number is.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Brian, give it.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Give it to me in one sentence with some math LINGO.
Give me T values and S values and standard deviations
and stuff.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
I'm not a statistician, I you know, I speak, I
speak in concept. I'm a consultant. Now, Guys like, I
don't do that. I don't do the analysts work anymore.
But yeah, I mean the idea is like, figure out
the things that the books couldn't possibly be getting right
one hundred percent of the time. And that includes in
game lines because like in game lines, live lines, there's
(37:01):
no time for price discovery to happen, Like you don't
have sharps for a week before the game, beating up
that line and arriving at the right line, like there's
a feed from somewhere. And guys went, Okay, our best
guess at the number is this some algorithm and they
feed that line to the book and the book runs
with it.
Speaker 6 (37:21):
So yeah, you know, figuring that out.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I think anybody that wants to do this seriously should
read a great book by by good good friends of mine,
Ed Miller and Matt David Out called The Logic of
Sports Betting. They have another one called Interception they just released.
I think Ed has a really great way of I
(37:46):
guess his exposition is really natural and really easy to read,
and he's.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
A super perfect Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
No, he's great.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
And then I real quick, I'd be remiss to say
that the other thing that sharp betters are doing right,
and this is part of it is figuring out what
lines you can be.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Part of it is actually staying under.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
The radar from the books and being able to get
the money down. And so there's this whole uh, there's
this whole world of using beards right disguises. But there
there are other people to bet, uh you know, to
bet on your behalf.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And so you know, Billy, Billy Walters.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
Maybe runs the most well known sports betting syndicate out there,
and so there's there's several books about about what Billy's
done and and and even a journalist wrote a book
not too long ago about being one of one of
Billy Walter's beards, and and uh yeah, that's that's fascinating
as well.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Let's keep it moving here, Let's get Brian whyman, fantastic stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Hey Brian, one more from me.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Uh because I am I'm a guy that came up
and casinos.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I love Atlantic City, I love brick and mortar.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
With the with as we pointed out on your cell phone,
has the brick and.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Mortar industry taken a hit? Is? Have they been able
to figure it out? Work it both ways?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
What's your take on that is some of these casinos,
the brick and mortars not so much in trouble, but
can they do more?
Speaker 6 (39:15):
I don't think brick and mortar is in trouble anywhere.
And I think a couple things.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
So, first of all, I would say that sports betting
served as a catalyst for casino more than anything. Think
about your your stereotypical your prototypical sports better.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
It's guys that look like us.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Now you said you grew up in Atlanticsit are growing
going to Atlantic City. And so maybe as a young
guy you went a couple weekends a year or whatever.
But like when you looked around the casino, was it
a bunch of people that looked like you, or it
was a bunch of older.
Speaker 6 (39:49):
Women on slot machines.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Like the casino customer is a fifty five to sixty
year old woman and you know, maybe and her husband,
but it's not young younger guys. And and so sports betting
kind of put it was. It was a breath of
fresh air into the casino industry. I will say that
online sports betting crushes retail sports betting. You know, in
(40:15):
states with both, online tends to be you know, well
over ninety percent and in some cases, like almost the
entire you know, ninety nine ninety eight percent of the
betting that happens in the state. And I can say
that in Maryland, which started with retail only and then
online came in, uh, you know, retails doing like a
third or less of what they were doing before online
(40:37):
came in. And so online is a big deal on
the casino side. You know, I said, we did a
study for Maryland, and you know, I think online casino
brings a ton more casino revenue to states. I think
that's that's inarguable, and so it should increase taxes and
(40:58):
things like that to the to the state, but it
does take a bite out of out of land based casinos.
So I think there's some land based casinos that are
advocating for online casino because they think they will run
the best online casinos in the state. Therefore they kind
of earn a win win situation. But there's some other
casinos that think that, you know, between maybe not having
(41:22):
the best online presence and also because they're they're concerned about,
you know, the jobs that they currently support and having
to lay off staff and uh and and their commitments
to their to reinvest in their local communities, and they
worry about being able to meet those obligations that they
promised when they built the casino without without contemplating, you know,
(41:44):
the effect of online.
Speaker 6 (41:45):
So I think there's there's kind of multiple sides of
this question.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, excellent stuff, A great conversation across the board, Brian
and uh Man. You're out there, You're you're speaking at
Summits up in Canada. You're doing a lot, So what's
next on your calendar? Where are you going now next?
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Well, I definitely have a trip to the Upper Midwest
and I am right now finalizing details for a trip
to the Far East, so both work related.
Speaker 6 (42:12):
And that's all I'll say.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
But I spent about eighty to one hundred nights on
the road a year, so yeah, tough with the kids,
but but look, it's it's it's great to be out
there and interacting with everybody that's moving and shaking in
the industry, and you know, hopefully run into you guys
at some point next time I'm in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what your voice is needed
in this space. Very educated and exactly from all angles.
So this was a really good conversation. Can't thank you
enough for being our guest here on behind the vigue.
I know Evan speaks at a lot of these summits
as well, so maybe you guys might be able to cross.
But I'll be the guy in the in the third
(42:56):
row with the notepad right now notes.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Bran and I have been known to find ah and
cocktail bar somewhere in the vicinity of the conference and
grab a quick drink.
Speaker 6 (43:05):
So I'm real good at buying beers, guys.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So all right, Evan, another excellent conversation. I mean across
the board. That is a gentleman that knows.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
A lot in this space.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Man, And you know you'd made a joke about dumbing
it down where he was saying that, and it's like
not to say that he just knew how to connect, right,
not to say he dumbed it down. But here we
are in a podcast form, an interview form, and he
kept it interesting and we hit on everything. Brian Wyman
from the Innovation Group, that was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
What I think that really showed something I've known now
for years is that this industry is made up of
so folks from so many different backgrounds, right. And you
get people that have sort of come up through the
ranks and brick and mortar casinos. You've got people that
are coming in from the sports and media world now.
But you got folks like Brian who have a PhD
in math and found his way into this industry sort
(44:00):
of through the analytics angle as well. So you know,
this is not a one size fits all industry where
everyone's kind of cut from the same cloth. It's a
you know, diverse from a dictionary diverse, right, people just
from all over the place with all these different perspectives,
and you know it's why I've enjoyed working in it
so much.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, and like me just being interested into space. I
spoke about, you know, the brick and mortar, and that
was one of the concerns I had from the beginning,
was like, Okay, everyone's gonna be gambling online. That means
that somebod these casinos are gonna fall. And don't get
me wrong, that's probably their own issues and so on
and so forth. There's a million and one reasons why
a brick and mortar might fail, is my point. But
(44:41):
that was interesting to hear his thoughts, like, hey, there,
it's kind of separate entities at the.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
End of the day.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
So yeah, I think that's the goal, right, is to
just build the industry, not cannibalize anything, and say, you know,
we're gonna there'll be a little bit of cannibalization, but
to minimize it and say the experience that you get.
I mean, it's look, you know Netflix, Does Netflix cannibalize
movie theaters? I mean, maybe, yeah, a little bit, but
it's different. It's a different experience, and there's reasons why
(45:09):
you want to sit at home watch movie.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
There's reasons why you want to go to the theater.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
So I think that's the idea, right, is the casinos
are always going to offer things that you can't get
on your phone.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And finally, for me, it's not to say it's refreshing,
because I don't think books needs people speaking on their behalf.
But he was giving me some things that I haven't
heard before. Right when you hear about the Gambler, you
hear about the Sharps and how they're being faded and
how they're being excluded, you know, not being able to
get their action, and like that's always front and center
(45:38):
because it's the loudest voice in the room. Let us
take on the timeline. You don't really hear that from
the book's perspective, right, Like I guess it might be
their own fault too, not getting out there, not being
transparent with some of their takes, right, like not showing
up to that meeting up there in Massachusetts, like he
pointed out. You know, it's just there's got to be,
you know, a smoother way that we can go ahead
(46:00):
and being this together. And another point, I think it's
come up a lot throughout the course of these episodes.
We're six years into this bad Boy brand new yep.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Right, it seems like it's been here for a while,
and at the same time, you know six years and
go buy in a heartbeat. I you know, I'm just
upset you didn't ask me. I would have told you
all about having won my high school math competition in
upper Saint class.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
That doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me at all. No,
that doesn't surprise I mean that in a good way.
You're a smart man, Evan Davis. Hey, and you're even
better at booking these guests. Great get fantastic stuff, and
behind the vague we are just continuing to cook once again.
If you missed anything, please download our podcast, download and
subscribe at foxphl Gambler dot com
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