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Speaker 1: Gamble On Fellas gamble On.
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Speaker 2: Welcome again to gamble On weekly gambling podcast presented by us bets dot Com. I'm Eric Raskin, us bets Managing editor and media director, and I'm joined by our senior analyst, Pulitzer Prize finalist John Brennan, and it's time to find out how prone to sentimentality you are. John. This past Sunday, Washington football team third string quarterback Alex Smith got into the game after Kyle Allen went down. Smith went nine for seventeen for thirty seven yards in a losing effort, and the odds swung dramatically and Smith is now the minus three thirty favorite at FanDuel Sportsbook to win ANFL Comeback Player of the Year. Coming into the week, Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton were both way ahead of Smith in the odds, but he leapfrogged them both. John. As we discussed with Rafe last week, you used to vote on NBA awards, so this is familiar territory for you. If Alex Smith finishes his season nine of seventeen for thirty seven yards, no wins, and Roethlisberger and or Newton lead their teams to the playoffs. Could you see yourself voting for Smith?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to say eventually what everyone is thinking about Alex Smith, who, of course has survived seventeen surgery. He's nearly lost his life after fracturing his tibia and fibula and a horrific injury in twenty eighteen. It so happens to Jason Williams. Of course, he was Net's career in later manslaughter trial and other legal issues I've covered for more than fifteen years. Hit that same deli tibia fibula double in nineteen ninety nine. With knee surgery to boot. He spent twelve months working out ferociously. He got within one more full practice of returning to play, and that practice he blew out the other. Nay, how to call it quits, But that's a basketball player, not a quarterback. Anyone who saw Alex Smith get sacked repeatedly on Sunday had to cringe. I also happened to have attended the final game of Mets third base when David Wright's career a couple of years ago, a similar scenario of a year or more of grueling rehab. This was a major back injury. Instead but it was clear that Wright couldn't really make it all the way back, so he settled for one final meaningless game at the end of the season. His two year old daughter sort of throughout the first pitch as all family was on the field, played five innings, got a couple of at bats, left with one thunderous ovation after another. I mean, it was a great scene. I've never seen a happier athlete and David Wright that day. Well, Alex Smith, you two have done the impossible. So now, bluntly I'll get around to it. Yeah, I told you I would. I'm ready for something like a major case of turf toe or like a sore rotator cuff, nothing bad enough to cause long term issues, but just enough, for the love of God, keep him off the field for good. As far as come by Player of the Year, NFL should give him a special honor and let Cam and Big Ben battle come by Player of the Year official award for themselves. Although is there an integrity fees issue there, I'm not sure.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fascinating discussion because, like you're not supposed to grade, say, Coach of the Year on a curve, but people do anyway, you know, if a coach led a team that improved from four and twelve to ten and six, he has a much better shot at winning Coach of the Year than the guy who went thirteen and three, but also went thirteen and three of the year before that. So people great on a curve with Coach of the Year come back of the year grading and on a curve is implied in the name. You know it's a comeback. What are you coming back from? How deep are the depths you sunk? To George Foreman came back from a ten year retirement. That's a huge part of the narrative of what makes what he did so remarkable. So you do have to consider that Alex Smith almost died and was not expected to ever play football again, versus two other guys who each missed one season due to injury. But that said, I think the odds we're seeing right now reflect the sentimentality of this moment, and we have to bake in that a lot of weeks are going to pass. I don't know that Smith should be that big of a favorite. If Newton or Roethlisberger leads a team to like a twelve and four record and puts up good numbers and Alex Smith ends up having played just those two quarters, as you are hoping will be the case. You know, when it's time to vote, I don't know. I now might be the perfect time to bet Roethlisberger at plus four twenty. I personally would have a hard time voting for Alex Smith for this award if he isn't on the field for at least one win. You make a good point they should have a separate award for him because for this one. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a crusty, jaded old sports writer, but I can't see it off of one half of play.
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Speaker 4: Oh I agree with that. I mean say, it's just it's just tough to watch. I applaud him.
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Speaker 3: I could say he should learn a lot from David Wright and that again out a non contact sport.
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Speaker 4: But it was a beautiful thing. He should be thrilled. You know, his family.
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Speaker 3: I saw his young kids are in the stands and they all had Alex Smith jerseys on.
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Speaker 4: They're all cheering.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it's a beautiful, incredible moment of you know, perseverance, and he won. So now you can move on to the next phase of your life.
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Speaker 4: Alex yeah, all right.
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Speaker 2: Well, thank you to everyone out there for joining us for episode number one hundred and thirteen of gamble On. If you missed any of our previous one hundred and twelve episodes, they're all available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. We hardly ever miss a week, thus making us ineligible for Comeback Podcast of the Year.
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Speaker 3: Nicely played there. Coming up a little later in the show, we're gonna be joined by Bill Asher. He's the CEO of Monkey Knife Fight, undoubtedly the most creatively named company in the Delhi fantasy sports space, and a name that people have probably heard, but they may not be familiar with. They're gonna learn a lot from that. We're gonna talk to Bill about their origins and why as an audience for an alternative to DraftKings and FanDuel style daily fantasy sports.
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Speaker 4: But first, it's been a.
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Speaker 3: Not quite typically busy week in the world of gambling, so let's get to it.
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Speaker 1: Here's your gamble On news of the week and inside look at the biggest stories in the world of gambling.
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Speaker 2: Our first story is partially about news that's come in over the past week and partially about news that is coming over the remainder of this week, the topic is September sports betting revenue, and it's pretty much a done deal that this was going to be the biggest legal sports betting handle month in US history. August, a slower sports month most years, set the record at two point one to nine billion dollars, and with three states having reported so far, signs point to September beating August easily. In Indiana, handle was up twenty two point seven percent over August, from one hundred and sixty nine million to a new state record of two hundred and seven point five million. In Iowa, handle increased forty three point nine percent over August to seventy two point four million dollars, And in West Virginia, September's handle was seventy six point nine million dollars, up a massive ninety point three percent over August forty point four million dollars. As we record this podcast, were a few hours away from New Jersey announcing its September numbers, and about twenty four hours or so away from Pennsylvania's monthly press release. Those numbers, along with Nevada's, will be the most important in determining just how high the final national tally goes. But I took a shot at some estimates for an article this week on US bets and I landed on a total of two point seven eight billion dollars. That, however, was leaning toward the low side of my range of projections in most states. So if I'm setting a line, I'm going a little higher. John. If I say two point eight nine billion dollars for September, are you taking over or under? And what are you expecting specifically in your home state of New Jersey? When they announced this afternoon, I see that our friends Alfonso Stratton and Captain Jack Andrews put there over under at eight hundred and forty million dollars for New Jersey. Which way did you vote on their Twitter poll?
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Speaker 4: Yeah?
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Speaker 3: I did vote on the poll and I picked under. But those guys set tough lines every month, for sure, and I'm always hesitant. I'll double down under on your solid number as well. New Jersey Pennsylvania are a little bit of more mature markets. It's works betting. I mean, they're still preschoolers, but they're a little more mature. So I'm not sure that there are percentage is going to go up as eye as those other states and speculating a little bit of some modest cannibalization. I'd say, so many big sport events going on simultaneously, The sensible better doesn't go beyond his reasonable budget. He just allocates a discretionary income a little differently. So even the numbers you guys have are are factoring in a big boost already, so it's not like we're ignoring that. So I'm going under on both.
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Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I actually voted the over on their eight hundred and forty million dollars, and I see seventy three point five percent of respondents did as well. But maybe we all just fell victim to it's fun to bet the over. I think they certainly set a good line. As you said, it should be somewhere right around where they set that line September. Whatever it comes in at, whether it's two point eight billion, three billion, whatever, it should be the peak for a while. It figures to come down in October, with NBA and NHL now finished in baseball playing just a fraction of the games each day that there were in September. Not to mention those football betters who went big in September and didn't do well and aren't likely to reload their accounts or bet as big the rest of the season. Whatever the September number is, it should stand up as the record through the end of the calendar year, maybe until next September, even although I'd say probably not, because once Virginia launches and Michigan goes online, you know, hitting three billion dollars in the super Bowl month or March Madness, if there is March Madness, that's in play. And if it turns out the super Bowl and March Madness both land in March, forget about it, that's going to be the biggest month ever.
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Speaker 4: I think it might.
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Speaker 3: Super Bowl might land in March, and then, yeah, that would be the biggest network for sure. And in say is going to figure out some way to do something in March. It'll be madness for sure. I'm not sure it'll be after thirty two games a season, but yeah, it'll be madness.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, obviously we said we're keeping an eye on New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which are soon to report, but Colorado and Illinois are also interesting states to watch in that they're both still newbies and they're growing enormously each month. Those are states that could potentially double from August to September, and if they do, that goes a long way toward putting three billion dollars in reach. But you're taking the under on my two point eight nine billion overall for the country.
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Speaker 4: I'm a little nervous about it, but yes, okay.
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Speaker 2: Our second and third stories this week both involve product issues that are negatively affecting sports gambling customers. So the first of those two, we're going to look at a major glitch impacting DFS players. Over the weekend. Data provider stats Perform had a service outage, and this impacted several DFS sites, most notably FanDuel, which during college football on Saturday and NFL on Sunday, not to mention MLB and NASCAR contests, was unable to provide scores for anyone entered in any contest. If you've ever played DFS, you know that a huge part of the fun is being able to see the fantasy scores update in real time and know what you're sweating as you're watching the games, and know if toward the end of the games you have a big money sweat going. But at the same time, the scores are the scores and the fantasy results will be the same whether you know about it Sunday or have to wait another day or two. Right, Well, not exactly, because of the late swap feature. Using NFL as an example, when some of the players in your lineup are playing in the four PM games, you can make strategic choices based on how the one PM games went, But that element of the game, those switches and swaps, that's removed if nobody has a clue what anyone scores at any point in the day are. Although Draftkings's DK live app was affected, which basically just shows you the scores and the fantasy tallies for each game at each player, the actual games and scores on the DraftKings app itself weren't affected seemingly because they pay for a backup stats provider, so DraftKings avoided real issues. But Fandel had a mess on its hands and customers were pissed, and the modest site credits they offered players didn't seem to appease them. Our colleague, Chris Altruda, tried to get a comment from stats Perform, but they didn't respond to him. As disastrous as this was, from what I could tell, John the story didn't spread beyond DFS Twitter and the article that Chris wrote is DFS just not that mainstream anymore? And do you see anything changing as a result of this, Like will the major DFS operators hire their own in house stats and tech providers from now on?
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Speaker 4: Well?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is pretty bad, and I do think they're going to have to react to this as quickly as possible. You know, this is the kind of thing that can make a few players frustrated enough tri sites like well Monkey Knife Fight as listeners either already can imagine or they will after they hear the interview coming up. So something's got to be done. They can't. They can't have this in this day and age. I mean there's plenty they have plenty of funding, you know, they can They can afford to do this, and not spending the extra money on having you know, backups and fail safes is.
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Speaker 4: A losing proposition, and I hope they learn from this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I understand, DraftKings uses sport Radar as a backup, and so that's how they avoided FanDuel like disaster. But yeah, Fando's definitely in a tough spot here with regard to refunds and such. I think they are going to get sued by some players, and they're going to lose some customers. I think they need to make changes to their stat system, and they need to announce those changes very publicly and to sure players this won't happen again, because I wouldn't pay money to play DFS on a site where I'm not confident I can track my scores all day. And the fact that stats Perform was still having issues a few days later is really troubling here. But I guess FanDuel and DraftKings, even though this didn't happen to them, I guess that they are lucky this happened now and not in twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen, because there would be a whole New York Times expos on how the companies behind that deluge of Sunday advertisements are ripping off customers. YadA, YadA. You know, DFS is definitely outside the mainstream sports conscious now. It's all about sports betting, not DFS, and so in a way that works to their advantage on this one that this disaster seems to be contained mostly to the DFS community.
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Speaker 3: I agree, even though you know Obviously, DFS has not gone away with sports betting.
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Speaker 4: It's still a huge industry.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree that the focus and the attention is gone from them, and they're definitely lucky in a case like this because you know, no such thing as bad publicity. I think this would be better.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. All Right, our final story, the other sports gambling product issue we're going to cover this week, is potentially more nefarious, at least if the accusations some pro sports betters are making. Our accurate noted pro sports better. Bill Krackenberger, a New Jersey native who lives in Las Vegas and was featured on the showtime Docuseriies Action, tweeted over the weekend will Hill definitely cheats on live wagering, and our former podcast guest Rufus Peabody amplified it with a tweet saying William Hill has a long and storied history of this practice. The prolonged spinny wheel lets them accept slash deny bet based on what happens on the field. This should be illegal. Exclamation point. Krackenberger expanded to Brian Pempes for a piece that may or may not have published yet on sports Handle by the time you hear this quote, William Hill is the only book in Las Vegas that uses the spin hold in q delay process. What that does is it gives them a chance to look at your bet then check to see if they are in line with the market. He added that William Hill will sometimes quote delay the customer and not accept a bet after watching the next play if it's in the player's favor. Conversely, if the next play works against the player, they will accept it end quote. So if you've ever live bet on any site, you know that the site presents you with odds, and if you decide to place a bet at those odds, well, you know the odds are constantly updating. So by the time the bet processes a few seconds later, sometimes the odds change and the site will typically ask you if you still want to make the bet at the new odds. What Krackenberger and Peabody are alleging is that William Hill intentionally takes advantage of that delay. Today nine customers the bet if it swings in their favor, and take the bet if it swings in the house's favor. We have no idea what is actually going on at William Hill. And whether these accusations are accurate. And one of the top minds in the industry, author Ed Miller, told Pempes that William Hill's intentions might be pure and the lag time is just a technical issue that the industry needs to improve. But John, if a sports book is intentionally rejecting good bets and accepting bad ones, that should be a major controversy, right.
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Speaker 4: Oh.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, And if there's concrete evidence put forth that showed that pattern, I believe that would run a foul in New Jersey regulations and likely a number of other states as well. You know, images everything, as Las Vegas resident poet Lauri Andrea Augusty once said, And Yeah, William Hill definitely has this image. I reported about eighteen months ago when a company executive was challenged on this issue at the Sloan Sports Conference at MIT in Boston. I really want to see this question resolved, chips falling wherever they may.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you. I'd like to see this looked into and then look, it's all a big if. For now, let's be clear, we are not saying that William Hill is manipulating anything or taking advantage of anything that it's necessarily anything other than a lag. We don't know the intention behind it, but if they're doing what Crack and Rufus are saying, that's something the gaming commissions need to put a stop to immediately. You know, if it's true, that's the biggest scandal in legal US sports betting to this point by far in my opinion. You know, if I'm on the app and I see the Saints at plus two hundred while trailing the Chargers on Monday night, and I try to bet the Saints and the wheel spins and the Saints are running a play and they pick up a first down, and now it rejects the bet. But if Drew Brees gets sacked, it accepts the beta. That is a full on scandal right there. So yeah, I'm with you that, you know, David Reebuck, the folks in Nevada, any state with a William Hill sports book, you have to look into this. In game betting is big and getting bigger, and the book already had it's baked in advantage as we know in the viig This would be a major problem for the industry if books are trying to add to their advantage in this way.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder if this puts things over to top.
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Speaker 3: I feel as if William Hill over the last couple of years has kind of slapped this away of like, oh, it's all exaggerated or just a bunch of disgruntle betters and that sort of thing, and it's no big deal, and thinking it has not reached a critical mass. But I think this is the critical mass. I think they have to take this head on publicly and either explain what they are or not doing, including whether tech has something to do with it, rather than something else that may not satisfy you certain people, but at least to address it.
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Speaker 4: That's what they need to do.
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Speaker 1: Agreed, it's time to welcome a special guest from the world of gambling. Let's get to the gamble On interview.
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Speaker 2: Given the massive popularity of sports, betting and fantasies, it's only natural that some of gaming's most creative minds have been brainstorming ways to tweak fantasy sports in ways that might broaden its appeal. One such mind is Bill Asher, the CEO of Monkey Knife Fight, a rapidly growing fantasy sports site that has built around player props, and he joins us now to explain Monkey Knife Fight and discuss the state of the industry. Bill, Welcome to gamble On.
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Speaker 5: Thank you, Eric, very excited to be here.
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Speaker 2: So I'm going to start with a two part question for you. You've said coming up with the name Monkey Knife Fight quote involved a bottle of tequila, So I have to know what brand of tequila, so I know for future brainstorming sessions. And then the more serious question is how did the idea for Monkey Knife Fight develop.
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Speaker 5: Well, let's start with the important stuff. I wish I knew. You know, we've lamented the fact that we don't have the empty bottle of tequila around as some kind of memento. I do remember I drove down to my liquor store, the bottle shop, and and I remember it was a cheap bottle of tequila because I thought to myself, three shots in, I'm not going to have the difference. This is not the time to spend money on fancy tequila. I'm not trying to press myself. As far as the more serious part of the question, the idea for HIMKF from Monckie Knife Fight came about because I'm a sports junkie and you know I love my teams. I'm from Illinois, so it's Bulls and Bears and Blackhawks and Cobs by the way, And you know, I just wanted a fantasy sports product I would play. I tried Draft Kings and it fell like a math test, you know. It's something you fill out. It takes hours, and you got to pick a bunch of players and you got salary caps. It was no good for me. And I hadn't met this guy named Nick Sulski, who ran a company called draft Day, had that same fantasy sports thing that Draft Kings and FanDuel had, And I told him, I said, this is this is terrible, Like I don't get why people like this, even though millions of people play it, you know. And Nick said, yeah, he got that also he felt the same way. So we just sat down and said, look, what technically is fantasy sports? What can we offer people that is technically legally fantasy sports, but it is more fun for the casual fans where you can make, you know, easy predictions on your favorite players in the game you're gonna watch, and then you know you kind of win or lose based on your skill, not just based on someone else having a computer program that can beat you. And so that was the way it happened, and we just launched it and rolled it out and it was popular.
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Speaker 2: Okay. And then and then just as far as doubling back to the name, just sort of in your tequila induced haze, was there was there at the time a connection between Monkey Knife Fight and and the product or or was there was it always just this is a cool name. It doesn't have to really connect to what we're trying to do here.
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Speaker 5: Well, you know where it does come from is it comes from The Simpsons, the cartoon, and it is about when Homer takes mister Burne's yacht out beyond in the international waters and basically anything is legal, and famously he puts on monkey Knight fights for people to bet on. So there is a there is a time I wish I could say that that was our brilliance. It was really probably just tequila induced you know, comedy. Then day later on we were like, hey, it's a great name, and there is a reference from the Simpsons, that's where it came from. But nothing that brilliant.
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Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, yeah, Bill, tell us about your background. But whether it's in sports or out of sports, is running particularly entrepreneurial. You've done before that, you know, gave you the experience that would lead you toward you know, this thing coming about or it's just like completely out of your comfort zone and something that any nothing like you've ever tried before.
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Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, I am an entrepreneur and I've been fortunate enough to have a few successes in my background. None of them, however, have anything to do with sports or gaming of this kind. You know, I did have different businesses that were had similar demographics, if you will, you know they you know, I've always kind of sold products to predominantly guys like me, things that I could understand, whether it's bars and sports, bars and nightclubs or adult products or whatever, and this just was the same thing. This is something where I went, yeah, I like sports, and so you know, you're trying to find something that you're comfortable with, and to me, it was, you know, I like sports, I don't like Draft Kings and FanDuel. Therefore, I'm going to create something that I would like, which is what I'm always trying to do as an entrepreneur. And that's what I did. I mean, it's amazing that as many people feel the same way as I did about what was available in fantasy sports and what Monkey Knife Fight offered them, and the fact that it was pretty much exactly what they were looking for.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that just kind of reminds me of for young writers, they say, right, well, you know, you know that's something you have experience in and you can talk about that other people don't know as much about, and that's lit will be more compelling than trying to sort of pass yourself off in some world but you really.
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Speaker 4: Don't understand what's going on.
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Speaker 3: So this is, like you said, you're making something for you and there's a lot of people like you.
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Speaker 4: It makes sense.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, what do you do at night? What is your passion? What is your pastime when you go home at night and you have free time?
00:25:32
Speaker 4: What do you do?
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Speaker 5: In my case, I crack open a beer. I watch sports. So for me, it was something that was very natural for me to say, let's create something for me to do while I'm watching sports and having a beer.
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Speaker 2: So, continuing on that sort of topic of creating something that appeals to you and people have a similar mindset to you, You've said a couple of times DraftKings wasn't for you, FanDuel wasn't for you, you didn't quite get it. And one thing that I would push back on there is, you know, you talk about how Monkey Knife Fight an advantage for that over DFS is it takes the work out of building lineups. I would counter that building those lineups, you know, figuring out where the value is and how to stack players and making all the pieces fit under the salary cap. For me, that's half the fun of DFS. But so I'm curious, have you observed that there are a lot of DFS players who are of the same mindset as you. They want the sweat and the fun without the work. And how would you sell someone like me who does enjoy DFS on Monkey Knife Fight?
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Speaker 5: Well, first of all, you know, when I say it's not for me grafting the fandle, it's clearly for millions of people like yourself. But I don't think it is either or I think that they are. Really they're both, you know, legally fantasy sports, but they're very different products and some days you're going to want to do one in some days other. So it's not that I'm steeling you away from my competitor so much as if you like their product great, Sometimes you're in the mood to do that, and other times not for you. The fun occurs putting together the lineup. Once the lineup put together, and then at that point the odds are as you well know, you're likely to lose your money, and it's somewhat hard to follow as you go through. The idea for Monkey Knife Fight is that the fun kind of starts once you make your pick. So let's say you're gonna watch the Lakers play Gold in the State and you've got strong opinions on how Lebron's gonna play, and how Steph Curry is gonna play, and how ad is gonna play. So you're gonna watch that game. You're gonna go into Monkey knife Fight. You're gonna make some predictions on Lebron. You know, our simplest game is just more or less, Well, you have more or less than twenty six points, how about Steph Curry more or less than four to three porters ad more or less than ten rebounds or whatever. Then the fun starts because then you put down your money, you make these predictions, and then you turn the game that you're gonna watch. You we're gonna you know you're a Laker fan or you're a Golden State fan, You're going to watch that game anyway. Now you have the fun I'm actually watching and you know, you know that you're going to win and lose based on if you're right. So when you're watching Lebron shoot, you know if he hits a three pointer, now you're seventeen points. You know you got nine more to go. It makes a game more enjoyable. So it's for people who are going to watch those games anyway and they just want to have a little extra fun, you know. So it's a different fan than does who wants to put in the I think it's they say six point nine hours on average to play traditional fantasy sports per week. So it's a different person, or it's the same person on a different day.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: You know.
00:28:45
Speaker 5: I think that they're very different products at all, but they both have their.
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Speaker 2: Place, right And yeah, I see what you mean about these sort of Sometimes it can be the same person on a different day and in a different mood, you know, Like I like to play online poker, but where there where there is some level of skill involved, but it also can be a bit of a grind, and then you have those moments where you're like you know what, I'd rather play online. Black Jacket's going to be a quick hit and there's almost no skill involved. But I'm in more in the mood for that, and so so I get what you're saying that. It might just kind of depend on your mood and whether you're you want to sit down and put in those hours of work or you want to kind of make some quick decisions and then sit back and watch the game.
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Speaker 5: I love your your background, Eric, You're you're you're a poker player, You're a fantasy sports guy, and you've even got an highly degree. I'm not sure what a guy like you doing a place like this with guys like us. Maybe you know you made a wrong turn somewhere, it's up here the podcast. But any rate you're correct, sometimes you want Monkey Knight Fight and sometimes you might want DraftKings.
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Yeah I made I made a few wrong turns, But how much what's it take three three wrong turns to end up making a right turn?
00:29:55
Speaker 4: Something like that?
00:29:58
Speaker 3: Can you talk about you know you've got an umber of partnerships now, it's famous professional sports teams that are teamed up with something called monkey knife Fight. So if you can talk a little about you know who you've got, And then I just wonder if it was it more of a challenge for you to explain the name at first, or was it the concept that they might have struggled with, or did they already do their homework before you even call them?
00:30:19
Speaker 5: You know, well, let mean this is the part where I rattle off the list of my partners. So any of your listeners who might be fans of these teams, maybe they'll give me a second look.
00:30:29
Speaker 4: You know.
00:30:30
Speaker 5: In baseball, we got the Brewers, the Twins, the Padres and Marlins, the Giants and the Rangers or all our partners. Football, we got the Dolphins, the Chargers, the Buccaneers, the LA Kings. In hockey, they're putting our logo in the ice as we speak for the new season, we got the LA Galaxy and soccer so we've got a lot of Charlie Hoffman and PGA. We've made a lot of partnerships. And as far as your question, what's easier to explain than the name of the concept, Well, nowadays all sports teams know who we are because we have so many partnerships. We've talked to virtually every team in every league about the potential so everybody knows who Monkey knighte Fight is. When we started down this path and we were less well known, and we talked to a couple of I think we started a baseball team or two, and later on I even heard the story of them trying to explain to their boss that they were talking about a partnership with called Muggy Knife Fight and people questioning whe or not. First of all, it was a joke and what it was we were selling. So at that point it was much easier to sell our concept than our name. Now, obviously the name is known, and so as the concept. The concept though, is relatively easy. These teams have all done deals with duel and DraftKings in the past, those have been usually been their fantasy sports partners, so you know, it was relatively easy to understand that, hey, there's a new guy in town and he's been making a name for himself and he wants to reach your fan base. And so whether it is the Dolphins in Miami or the you know, the Twins in Minnesota, or the Padres in San Diego, we just we just want to come in and introduce our fantasy sports to those fans. And I'm sure with the season the Padres just had, you know, everybody, all their fans in San Diego heard our name, and same as the Minnesota Twins had a great year, you know, and and and such. So it's it's been a lot of fun having a partners and I think now they're used to our name and our concept.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: Right, really interesting stuff. And yeah, I think any anyone in the industry would agree that it's always great to have innovation and new companies coming out and trying new things and you know, building momentum the way you have. So it's it's very cool what what you're building and looking forward to two more from Monkey Knife Fight going forward. But it's been it's been great talking to you. Bill, thanks so much for joining us on gamble On this week.
00:33:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, Eric and John, thanks so much.
00:33:04
Speaker 4: Thanksgillating.
00:33:06
Speaker 1: Two men, two men, ten thousand dollars. Will they run it up for blow it All? It's time to check in on the gamble On bank roll.
00:33:17
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:33:22
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:33:23
Speaker 2: We'll get to the fast five shortly, but first let's update our shared bank roll. And you're not gonna believe where the role stands right now. We came into last week up by one hundred and ten dollars with seven hundred five dollars on holding futures bets. I made a forty dollars futures bet on Aaron Rodgers for MVP, so we're now at seven hundred and forty five dollars in futures bets. My other bet was a cross sport parlay boxer Emmanuel Navarette to win, which he did by unanimous decision, and Lebron James to win Finals MVP, which he did on Sunday night. We risked one hundred and sixty one dollars and one hundred dollars. John lost one hundred dollars on his bet on Colin Morikawa to finish in the top twenty. Morikawa had a bad tournament and missed the cut, and John also dropped one hundred and ten dollars on Florida giving six and a half points versus Texas A and M. The Gators lost outright, so we were plus one hundred and ten dollars coming into the week. We lost one hundred ten dollars, and that means one hundred and thirteen episodes into this experiment, we are exactly two the dollar dead. Even now because we have seven hundred and forty five dollars on hold in futures bets. That means the amount available in our bank roll to bet with is not ten thousand dollars, it's two hundred and fifty five dollars. But in terms of wins and losses, we are exactly break even. John, How amazing is that?
00:34:42
Speaker 4: Well?
00:34:42
Speaker 3: You know, I still say that on a long stretch of wagering with a ten thousand dollars bank roll, I think par is kind of also known as true mediocrity would be minus.
00:34:51
Speaker 4: Five hundred bucks.
00:34:52
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're under par which is good, although so was the Calamara Kawa at minus six after two rounds in Las Vegas. That score, guy, you inside the cut line for every PGA Tour event for more than thirty years in a row, but not this one. Tied for sixty seventh and a cut of sixty five and ties. Meanwhile, Florida giving six and a half. They're up seven with four minutes left of the game at Texas.
00:35:13
Speaker 4: A and M throws a.
00:35:14
Speaker 3: Pass of the end zone at the exact same millisecond. Both a defender and I have an epiphany, Let's go hero and make this interception to steal the game, who chose poorly instead of more sensibly slapping the ball away and probably coming away with the win. The graphic glory led to a lunging miss and an A and M catch for a game time touchdown. Then there was a fumble, and I don't know, I think the even designation after two full years here is awesome enough that I'm okay with losing those two beats.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, all right, Well we are starting over in a sense now, we're even steven, trying to build ten thousand dollars into something more than ten thousand dollars. Although, as you said, in a way we could look at ourselves as winning betters to this point, but technically, in terms of dollars, we are absolutely even. So here we go, starting over, and I'm up first this week, and I'm gonna get it going. With a three team seven point NFL teaser using DraftKings odds, the Patriots are minus ten against Denver at home. Cam Newton is expected to play. We can tease them down to minus three. Feels fairly safe to me. The Dolphins are minus nine and a half at home against the hopeless Jets, with Flacco starting instead of injured Sam Darnold. We can drop that one to Miami minus two and a half, and then for the third leg, I'll use an over under. I wanted to include the Vikings Falcons game, but that's off the board for the moment due to COVID uncertainty, So instead, Rams forty nine ers has an over under of fifty one points. We can take the over and get that down to forty four. I know the Rams defense only gave up nineteen points the last two weeks, but that was against Washington and the Giants. I'm confident these two teams can go over forty four in what is just about a must win game for the Niners. Add it all up and it play pays plus one p thirty one. So let's bet one hundred dollars to win one hundred and thirty one dollars, and after I make a parlay or teaser bet, I always like to check in with you, John, is there a leg you hate in there? Or do all three look reasonably solid to you?
00:37:12
Speaker 4: Now?
00:37:12
Speaker 3: I think it seems really really plausible, So I expect you to win two of those three actually and deposit minus one hundred dollars in the bank.
00:37:18
Speaker 4: Ross. So we'll be off to zero. There we go.
00:37:22
Speaker 3: So let's see, I've absolutely straddled around the exact line. Speaking of straddling around the exact line, last three weeks of college football pick so I have one ten to win one hundred a Notre Dame over Louisville at minus sixteen and a half points. I thought I've ever taken the fighting Irish. Don't get me started the nickname or even worse than that stupid leprechaun mascot, because the public loves dam and their stupid mascot too much. But Notre Dame's home. Louisville's awful, especially awful against the run. Notre Dame can run. So it's a blowout city in this one.
00:37:50
Speaker 2: Okay, For my second bet, I'll stay in the NFL Regular listeners might have expected a bet on the Lomachenko Lopez fight on Saturday, but I can't quite find one I love, so instead an NFL Futures bet on an end of season award, not the Comeback Player of the Year award we discussed at the top of the show, but rather Defensive Player of the Year.
00:38:11
Speaker 4: Somehow.
00:38:11
Speaker 2: Aaron Donald, the favorite to win the award, is plus four hundred at FANDEL. He leads the league in sacks with seven and a half. Everyone on the planet considers him the best defensive player in the NFL. If he stays healthy, this award is his. I don't get how Russell Wilson is now even money for MVP, but Donald is plus four hundred for DPOY. I consider Donald at least as comfortably in the driver's seat as Wilson is. So let's risk fifty dollars to win two hundred dollars there, all.
00:38:40
Speaker 3: Right, I'm gonna shake off that more cow a pick. I fared better in my weekly golf pool. Still have dreams of rallying for a repeat title. With four events left and what has become our handmade golf schedule ending with the Masters next month. This week's CJ Cupp in Las Vegas has removed from South Korea for COVID reasons, a field to just seventy eight golfers no cut well A top twenty are Uber Studs minus Dustin Johnson and Tony Final COVID positive. The shallow end of the field is not so dangerous, so I'll be a little ambitious here. Hirable Daniel Berger at one hundred to win two fifty for a top ten and ten bucks on Burger to win it all for two ninety.
00:39:17
Speaker 2: All right, I like it, and let's wrap things up with the Fast five, where, unlike our shared betting bankroll, I am very much not break even through five weeks, I have yet to post a winning week. I went two and three last week, which I guess is good by my standards to drop to an ugly nine and sixteen, while John, you had a strong week. You went four and one to improve to fourteen ten and one. Look, I know I shouldn't beat myself up over it. It's just some stupid NFL picks. It's a reasonably small sample size of twenty five games. There's there's variants. I'm still over five hundred across the last three years, if I want to look back that far. Had a little bad luck on a couple of the picks and so forth. But it's hard not to get a little down on yourself when you're on a bad run, hard not to let it get into your head and bum you out a little. But I'm going to try to embrace it, make a positive out of a negative, And here goes Forget that stupid fade rovail gimmick.
00:40:13
Speaker 4: If you want to get rich.
00:40:14
Speaker 2: Betting sports, obviously, fade Raskin is the root you take to get there. If you had bet one hundred dollars against all of my picks, you'd be up like six hundred bucks right now after factoring in the veig. I'm doing a public service with my crappy picks. So you know, John asked a few weeks ago for people to let him know if they'd made money shadowing his good picks. I'm asking you to let me know if you've gotten rich fading my lousy picks. Fade Raskin. It's the best strategy in sports betting through the first five weeks of the NFL season. Anyway, John, you are up by five and a half games on me through five weeks, and you're up first with your picks this time.
00:40:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:40:51
Speaker 3: So I'm sixty one, forty three and six and twenty nineteen twenty from a regular season picks fifty eight point one percent, six and five less postseason fifty four point five percent, and it may all slip away in a heartbeat. Deeric, So, I got a crow while the getting's good, But I'm nervous that I can feel, you know, footsteps. I'm hearing footsteps. But so far, so good. It's all favorites this week, as it happens, and that's where my muse took me.
00:41:15
Speaker 4: First off, won't surprise you.
00:41:17
Speaker 3: Panthers minus one point five points over the bullspit Bears, who'll pull the rabbit out of the hat, and beating the superior Bucks last week. Bears have outscored five opponents. It was a combined record of seven and seventeen by a total of five points. Nick Foles shiny object, ooh yeah, Panthers have won three in a row, and well they're better. So also, Giants minus two and a half points. First football team. I'd give any spread Westgate offered if Dwayne Haskins was starting for the football team.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: He's that bad. Kyle Allen is not that bad.
00:41:50
Speaker 3: But the Steelers, Rams and Bears combined twelve and two scored a total of sixty points. First the g Men defense this year, so it's tough to see beyond the fog of an aptitude on the field. I think the Giants have themselves a real head coach, so is Ron Rivera, but you know he's a couple of decades older. I think the no practice to no real traditional preseason hurts him more than a younger coach, So I think the Giants are a bit better than the football team. Next up is a Steelers over Brown's minus three. I don't see a signature victory on the Steelers dance card. That worries me a little bit. But Baker Mayfield is a sore chest, maybe even a rib, and this ugly rivalry means that chess will be even more sore at halftime, maybe too sore to play. Brown did a decent win against the Okay Colts last week, but got crushed in the opening by the Ravens. And I'm not sure either these teams are elite despite their combined eight in one record. But give me the Steelers another minus three, another possible push Rams over the forty nine Ers, This one I'm much more comfortable with. Don't let anyone tell you that no NFL team got a preseason this year. The Rams already have swept the entire NFC, least their other game. The real game was a referee blunder outcome and the loss of the Bills, So small samples as opponents who can fog a mirror. But the Niners two wins are against the oh to ten Metal Lands football teams. They gave the Eagles their lone win. Their crushed by the Dolphins last week, so I'm really surprised at that line. So you know, I would have thought six and a half. So I like that one. Finally, speaking to those mammals. So that crush the forty nine ers the Dolphins minus eight and a half versus the Jets. The Fins don't have any dismal results so far in five games, and the Jets have lost every game by double digits.
00:43:26
Speaker 4: That trend continues.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is really interesting because I get to pick second this week. I specifically came in with the game plan of I'm gonna avoid head to heads. I believe I'm one in five in the head to head so far this season, so I actually came with seven picks to choose from. I had the five that I liked best, but then I had two backup options just to avoid any head to head possibilities. And as it turns out, we don't have any head to heads. We actually have two picks in common, so I'm gonna start.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: Not good for me though, right, that's true.
00:43:58
Speaker 2: If you want to change any of your pick after I'm done, let me know, so I will take first off. This is not one you had. I'll take the Lions minus three at Jacksonville. The Jags have a lot of injury problems, and I've let that Week one upset win over Indy mislead me long enough. They are the crappy team we thought they were. The Lions coming off a bye, should be able to cover the field goal here another field goal favorite, and this is one of the ones we have in common. I'm taking the Steelers only minus three at home against Cleveland. It's minus three and a half elsewhere, but West Kate has given us a nice short line. As you said, Baker Mayfield ribs chess. Something's hurting there, and I think the Browns are getting a little overrated beating up on mostly subpar teams. I'm not expecting Pittsburgh to blow them out, but I think they win by more than three. Next one here my riskiest pick. I think I like my Eagles getting seven and a half at home against the Ravens. The Eagles should be getting one or both of Jeffrey and Jackson back. I am still worried about the offensive line health. But speaking of being worried about health, I heard a source in the No on A podcast say Lamar Jackson is playing through some injuries and that's why he's not running as much the last couple of weeks. I think if he's at ninety percent, the Eagles defense is good enough to keep this one close. I just think more than the touchdown at home, it is a little too much. So I'm taking the Eagles now. I was tempted in the Green Bay Tampa Bay game to go against the trend line and say that the Bucks are undervalued coming off their flucus lost to the Bears, and the Packers are due for a letdown game. But then I looked at the injuries and it's all pushing me in the other direction. DeVante Adams should be back for Green Bay. Tampa Bay has a lot of key guys nursing injuries. They lost a couple of important pieces on defense. Some books have the Packers favored by a point or two, but it's a pick them at the super book. So I'll take the Packers here. And it's funny, you know how a couple of weeks ago you predicted I was going to take a Cardinals game that I didn't up taking. I would have bet just about anything. You were going to go with the Packers here, but you stayed away from that one and then my last one. That leaves one still that we have in common. And I kind of hinted at this during the bankroll segment. The Dolphins only giving eight and a half at Westgate at home against the Jets. Flacco is a downgrade from Darnold Fitzpatrick is playing well. It's an average team against an absolute mess of a team. I'm not even too scared about the back door cover. So I'll take Miami here. So now here's your opportunity. Do you want to get aus with Pittsburgh or Miami because I took them? Are you gonna play?
00:46:34
Speaker 4: Vade Raskin? No, I'm thinking about it. To me one more one and four week and we'll talk.
00:46:39
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Well that will do it for this episode of gamble On. Thanks everybody out there for listening, and thanks again to our guest Bill Asher. You can find me on Twitter at Eric Raskin and John at Berg and Brennan and follow us bets at us Underscore Bets. Go to us bets dot com for all the latest news and analysis from the world of gambling, and subscribe to this podcast on SoundCloud, podcasts or Spotify. And with that, John, please do your thing and take us out.
00:47:05
Speaker 3: Well, Eric, you know I'm playing hurt this week. Attended the wake of a artistic League Baseball rival of more than thirty years on Wednesday. Doesn't help that as a year younger than me and attended the same high school.
00:47:15
Speaker 4: You know. For those who've been in a.
00:47:16
Speaker 3: Fantasy league with a lot of old pals for a while, all I can say is try to keep it together whatever the sport. You know, if life and often that's you know, getting married, raising children of the real adult stuff has some owners thinking of hanging up. Well, fellow commissioners consider making rules changes. Keeping the nucleus together is far more important than it'sting on a level of commitment that just isn't realistic for a lot of the players.
00:47:37
Speaker 4: You know.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: Mike com padre Mark had all kinds of severe health issues over the last five or six years that took away a.
00:47:42
Speaker 4: Lot of the outdoor activities that he loved.
00:47:43
Speaker 3: But old school Rotista League Baseball rules men, he could stick with our league because there are no weekly lineups, no head to head play. You know, you can take two weeks off in the summer and shut down the internet. You're not necessarily losing any ground.
00:47:54
Speaker 4: You know.
00:47:54
Speaker 3: Last year we even get rid of what I called the pounce rule, where whenever someone was called it from the miners, who wasn't anyone's farmhand beforehand? When first come, first served any owner with a natural opening, so you're always looking around to pounce. Now moves were only made once a week. Lowest ranked team of those claiming gets the players. I voted against it, but as usual my league mates were right. You know, fantasy sports league results don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but we have well, we'd had twelve owners who've been in this league for a minimum of eighteen years and an average at least twenty five years. And what does mean something was marked being able to field the team an engage in side league banter that often harken back to the nineteen eighty and nineteen nineties when a lot of the rest of his life was not quite still the same. You know, these leagues ultimately aren't about stats, They're about people. So I say, you know your format, and buddy league should be whatever the collective wisdom wants.
00:48:43
Speaker 4: Now.
00:48:43
Speaker 3: If the more ambitious owners want to answer more intensely competitive.
00:48:45
Speaker 4: Leagues elsewhere, I think they should. But keep your buddies together.
00:48:50
Speaker 3: Trust me, you'll be glad you did. After this rough week, I now understand that more than ever.
00:48:55
Speaker 4: So with that, until next time, gamble on everybody inta
Speaker 1: Gamble On Fellas gamble On.
00:00:25
Speaker 2: Welcome again to gamble On weekly gambling podcast presented by us bets dot Com. I'm Eric Raskin, us bets Managing editor and media director, and I'm joined by our senior analyst, Pulitzer Prize finalist John Brennan, and it's time to find out how prone to sentimentality you are. John. This past Sunday, Washington football team third string quarterback Alex Smith got into the game after Kyle Allen went down. Smith went nine for seventeen for thirty seven yards in a losing effort, and the odds swung dramatically and Smith is now the minus three thirty favorite at FanDuel Sportsbook to win ANFL Comeback Player of the Year. Coming into the week, Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton were both way ahead of Smith in the odds, but he leapfrogged them both. John. As we discussed with Rafe last week, you used to vote on NBA awards, so this is familiar territory for you. If Alex Smith finishes his season nine of seventeen for thirty seven yards, no wins, and Roethlisberger and or Newton lead their teams to the playoffs. Could you see yourself voting for Smith?
00:01:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to say eventually what everyone is thinking about Alex Smith, who, of course has survived seventeen surgery. He's nearly lost his life after fracturing his tibia and fibula and a horrific injury in twenty eighteen. It so happens to Jason Williams. Of course, he was Net's career in later manslaughter trial and other legal issues I've covered for more than fifteen years. Hit that same deli tibia fibula double in nineteen ninety nine. With knee surgery to boot. He spent twelve months working out ferociously. He got within one more full practice of returning to play, and that practice he blew out the other. Nay, how to call it quits, But that's a basketball player, not a quarterback. Anyone who saw Alex Smith get sacked repeatedly on Sunday had to cringe. I also happened to have attended the final game of Mets third base when David Wright's career a couple of years ago, a similar scenario of a year or more of grueling rehab. This was a major back injury. Instead but it was clear that Wright couldn't really make it all the way back, so he settled for one final meaningless game at the end of the season. His two year old daughter sort of throughout the first pitch as all family was on the field, played five innings, got a couple of at bats, left with one thunderous ovation after another. I mean, it was a great scene. I've never seen a happier athlete and David Wright that day. Well, Alex Smith, you two have done the impossible. So now, bluntly I'll get around to it. Yeah, I told you I would. I'm ready for something like a major case of turf toe or like a sore rotator cuff, nothing bad enough to cause long term issues, but just enough, for the love of God, keep him off the field for good. As far as come by Player of the Year, NFL should give him a special honor and let Cam and Big Ben battle come by Player of the Year official award for themselves. Although is there an integrity fees issue there, I'm not sure.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fascinating discussion because, like you're not supposed to grade, say, Coach of the Year on a curve, but people do anyway, you know, if a coach led a team that improved from four and twelve to ten and six, he has a much better shot at winning Coach of the Year than the guy who went thirteen and three, but also went thirteen and three of the year before that. So people great on a curve with Coach of the Year come back of the year grading and on a curve is implied in the name. You know it's a comeback. What are you coming back from? How deep are the depths you sunk? To George Foreman came back from a ten year retirement. That's a huge part of the narrative of what makes what he did so remarkable. So you do have to consider that Alex Smith almost died and was not expected to ever play football again, versus two other guys who each missed one season due to injury. But that said, I think the odds we're seeing right now reflect the sentimentality of this moment, and we have to bake in that a lot of weeks are going to pass. I don't know that Smith should be that big of a favorite. If Newton or Roethlisberger leads a team to like a twelve and four record and puts up good numbers and Alex Smith ends up having played just those two quarters, as you are hoping will be the case. You know, when it's time to vote, I don't know. I now might be the perfect time to bet Roethlisberger at plus four twenty. I personally would have a hard time voting for Alex Smith for this award if he isn't on the field for at least one win. You make a good point they should have a separate award for him because for this one. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a crusty, jaded old sports writer, but I can't see it off of one half of play.
00:04:53
Speaker 4: Oh I agree with that. I mean say, it's just it's just tough to watch. I applaud him.
00:05:00
Speaker 3: I could say he should learn a lot from David Wright and that again out a non contact sport.
00:05:04
Speaker 4: But it was a beautiful thing. He should be thrilled. You know, his family.
00:05:08
Speaker 3: I saw his young kids are in the stands and they all had Alex Smith jerseys on.
00:05:12
Speaker 4: They're all cheering.
00:05:13
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a beautiful, incredible moment of you know, perseverance, and he won. So now you can move on to the next phase of your life.
00:05:22
Speaker 4: Alex yeah, all right.
00:05:24
Speaker 2: Well, thank you to everyone out there for joining us for episode number one hundred and thirteen of gamble On. If you missed any of our previous one hundred and twelve episodes, they're all available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. We hardly ever miss a week, thus making us ineligible for Comeback Podcast of the Year.
00:05:42
Speaker 3: Nicely played there. Coming up a little later in the show, we're gonna be joined by Bill Asher. He's the CEO of Monkey Knife Fight, undoubtedly the most creatively named company in the Delhi fantasy sports space, and a name that people have probably heard, but they may not be familiar with. They're gonna learn a lot from that. We're gonna talk to Bill about their origins and why as an audience for an alternative to DraftKings and FanDuel style daily fantasy sports.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: But first, it's been a.
00:06:05
Speaker 3: Not quite typically busy week in the world of gambling, so let's get to it.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: Here's your gamble On news of the week and inside look at the biggest stories in the world of gambling.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: Our first story is partially about news that's come in over the past week and partially about news that is coming over the remainder of this week, the topic is September sports betting revenue, and it's pretty much a done deal that this was going to be the biggest legal sports betting handle month in US history. August, a slower sports month most years, set the record at two point one to nine billion dollars, and with three states having reported so far, signs point to September beating August easily. In Indiana, handle was up twenty two point seven percent over August, from one hundred and sixty nine million to a new state record of two hundred and seven point five million. In Iowa, handle increased forty three point nine percent over August to seventy two point four million dollars, And in West Virginia, September's handle was seventy six point nine million dollars, up a massive ninety point three percent over August forty point four million dollars. As we record this podcast, were a few hours away from New Jersey announcing its September numbers, and about twenty four hours or so away from Pennsylvania's monthly press release. Those numbers, along with Nevada's, will be the most important in determining just how high the final national tally goes. But I took a shot at some estimates for an article this week on US bets and I landed on a total of two point seven eight billion dollars. That, however, was leaning toward the low side of my range of projections in most states. So if I'm setting a line, I'm going a little higher. John. If I say two point eight nine billion dollars for September, are you taking over or under? And what are you expecting specifically in your home state of New Jersey? When they announced this afternoon, I see that our friends Alfonso Stratton and Captain Jack Andrews put there over under at eight hundred and forty million dollars for New Jersey. Which way did you vote on their Twitter poll?
00:08:18
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:08:18
Speaker 3: I did vote on the poll and I picked under. But those guys set tough lines every month, for sure, and I'm always hesitant. I'll double down under on your solid number as well. New Jersey Pennsylvania are a little bit of more mature markets. It's works betting. I mean, they're still preschoolers, but they're a little more mature. So I'm not sure that there are percentage is going to go up as eye as those other states and speculating a little bit of some modest cannibalization. I'd say, so many big sport events going on simultaneously, The sensible better doesn't go beyond his reasonable budget. He just allocates a discretionary income a little differently. So even the numbers you guys have are are factoring in a big boost already, so it's not like we're ignoring that. So I'm going under on both.
00:09:01
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I actually voted the over on their eight hundred and forty million dollars, and I see seventy three point five percent of respondents did as well. But maybe we all just fell victim to it's fun to bet the over. I think they certainly set a good line. As you said, it should be somewhere right around where they set that line September. Whatever it comes in at, whether it's two point eight billion, three billion, whatever, it should be the peak for a while. It figures to come down in October, with NBA and NHL now finished in baseball playing just a fraction of the games each day that there were in September. Not to mention those football betters who went big in September and didn't do well and aren't likely to reload their accounts or bet as big the rest of the season. Whatever the September number is, it should stand up as the record through the end of the calendar year, maybe until next September, even although I'd say probably not, because once Virginia launches and Michigan goes online, you know, hitting three billion dollars in the super Bowl month or March Madness, if there is March Madness, that's in play. And if it turns out the super Bowl and March Madness both land in March, forget about it, that's going to be the biggest month ever.
00:10:15
Speaker 4: I think it might.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: Super Bowl might land in March, and then, yeah, that would be the biggest network for sure. And in say is going to figure out some way to do something in March. It'll be madness for sure. I'm not sure it'll be after thirty two games a season, but yeah, it'll be madness.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, obviously we said we're keeping an eye on New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which are soon to report, but Colorado and Illinois are also interesting states to watch in that they're both still newbies and they're growing enormously each month. Those are states that could potentially double from August to September, and if they do, that goes a long way toward putting three billion dollars in reach. But you're taking the under on my two point eight nine billion overall for the country.
00:10:54
Speaker 4: I'm a little nervous about it, but yes, okay.
00:10:57
Speaker 2: Our second and third stories this week both involve product issues that are negatively affecting sports gambling customers. So the first of those two, we're going to look at a major glitch impacting DFS players. Over the weekend. Data provider stats Perform had a service outage, and this impacted several DFS sites, most notably FanDuel, which during college football on Saturday and NFL on Sunday, not to mention MLB and NASCAR contests, was unable to provide scores for anyone entered in any contest. If you've ever played DFS, you know that a huge part of the fun is being able to see the fantasy scores update in real time and know what you're sweating as you're watching the games, and know if toward the end of the games you have a big money sweat going. But at the same time, the scores are the scores and the fantasy results will be the same whether you know about it Sunday or have to wait another day or two. Right, Well, not exactly, because of the late swap feature. Using NFL as an example, when some of the players in your lineup are playing in the four PM games, you can make strategic choices based on how the one PM games went, But that element of the game, those switches and swaps, that's removed if nobody has a clue what anyone scores at any point in the day are. Although Draftkings's DK live app was affected, which basically just shows you the scores and the fantasy tallies for each game at each player, the actual games and scores on the DraftKings app itself weren't affected seemingly because they pay for a backup stats provider, so DraftKings avoided real issues. But Fandel had a mess on its hands and customers were pissed, and the modest site credits they offered players didn't seem to appease them. Our colleague, Chris Altruda, tried to get a comment from stats Perform, but they didn't respond to him. As disastrous as this was, from what I could tell, John the story didn't spread beyond DFS Twitter and the article that Chris wrote is DFS just not that mainstream anymore? And do you see anything changing as a result of this, Like will the major DFS operators hire their own in house stats and tech providers from now on?
00:13:09
Speaker 4: Well?
00:13:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is pretty bad, and I do think they're going to have to react to this as quickly as possible. You know, this is the kind of thing that can make a few players frustrated enough tri sites like well Monkey Knife Fight as listeners either already can imagine or they will after they hear the interview coming up. So something's got to be done. They can't. They can't have this in this day and age. I mean there's plenty they have plenty of funding, you know, they can They can afford to do this, and not spending the extra money on having you know, backups and fail safes is.
00:13:41
Speaker 4: A losing proposition, and I hope they learn from this.
00:13:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I understand, DraftKings uses sport Radar as a backup, and so that's how they avoided FanDuel like disaster. But yeah, Fando's definitely in a tough spot here with regard to refunds and such. I think they are going to get sued by some players, and they're going to lose some customers. I think they need to make changes to their stat system, and they need to announce those changes very publicly and to sure players this won't happen again, because I wouldn't pay money to play DFS on a site where I'm not confident I can track my scores all day. And the fact that stats Perform was still having issues a few days later is really troubling here. But I guess FanDuel and DraftKings, even though this didn't happen to them, I guess that they are lucky this happened now and not in twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen, because there would be a whole New York Times expos on how the companies behind that deluge of Sunday advertisements are ripping off customers. YadA, YadA. You know, DFS is definitely outside the mainstream sports conscious now. It's all about sports betting, not DFS, and so in a way that works to their advantage on this one that this disaster seems to be contained mostly to the DFS community.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: I agree, even though you know Obviously, DFS has not gone away with sports betting.
00:15:04
Speaker 4: It's still a huge industry.
00:15:05
Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree that the focus and the attention is gone from them, and they're definitely lucky in a case like this because you know, no such thing as bad publicity. I think this would be better.
00:15:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. All Right, our final story, the other sports gambling product issue we're going to cover this week, is potentially more nefarious, at least if the accusations some pro sports betters are making. Our accurate noted pro sports better. Bill Krackenberger, a New Jersey native who lives in Las Vegas and was featured on the showtime Docuseriies Action, tweeted over the weekend will Hill definitely cheats on live wagering, and our former podcast guest Rufus Peabody amplified it with a tweet saying William Hill has a long and storied history of this practice. The prolonged spinny wheel lets them accept slash deny bet based on what happens on the field. This should be illegal. Exclamation point. Krackenberger expanded to Brian Pempes for a piece that may or may not have published yet on sports Handle by the time you hear this quote, William Hill is the only book in Las Vegas that uses the spin hold in q delay process. What that does is it gives them a chance to look at your bet then check to see if they are in line with the market. He added that William Hill will sometimes quote delay the customer and not accept a bet after watching the next play if it's in the player's favor. Conversely, if the next play works against the player, they will accept it end quote. So if you've ever live bet on any site, you know that the site presents you with odds, and if you decide to place a bet at those odds, well, you know the odds are constantly updating. So by the time the bet processes a few seconds later, sometimes the odds change and the site will typically ask you if you still want to make the bet at the new odds. What Krackenberger and Peabody are alleging is that William Hill intentionally takes advantage of that delay. Today nine customers the bet if it swings in their favor, and take the bet if it swings in the house's favor. We have no idea what is actually going on at William Hill. And whether these accusations are accurate. And one of the top minds in the industry, author Ed Miller, told Pempes that William Hill's intentions might be pure and the lag time is just a technical issue that the industry needs to improve. But John, if a sports book is intentionally rejecting good bets and accepting bad ones, that should be a major controversy, right.
00:17:30
Speaker 4: Oh.
00:17:30
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And if there's concrete evidence put forth that showed that pattern, I believe that would run a foul in New Jersey regulations and likely a number of other states as well. You know, images everything, as Las Vegas resident poet Lauri Andrea Augusty once said, And Yeah, William Hill definitely has this image. I reported about eighteen months ago when a company executive was challenged on this issue at the Sloan Sports Conference at MIT in Boston. I really want to see this question resolved, chips falling wherever they may.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you. I'd like to see this looked into and then look, it's all a big if. For now, let's be clear, we are not saying that William Hill is manipulating anything or taking advantage of anything that it's necessarily anything other than a lag. We don't know the intention behind it, but if they're doing what Crack and Rufus are saying, that's something the gaming commissions need to put a stop to immediately. You know, if it's true, that's the biggest scandal in legal US sports betting to this point by far in my opinion. You know, if I'm on the app and I see the Saints at plus two hundred while trailing the Chargers on Monday night, and I try to bet the Saints and the wheel spins and the Saints are running a play and they pick up a first down, and now it rejects the bet. But if Drew Brees gets sacked, it accepts the beta. That is a full on scandal right there. So yeah, I'm with you that, you know, David Reebuck, the folks in Nevada, any state with a William Hill sports book, you have to look into this. In game betting is big and getting bigger, and the book already had it's baked in advantage as we know in the viig This would be a major problem for the industry if books are trying to add to their advantage in this way.
00:19:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder if this puts things over to top.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: I feel as if William Hill over the last couple of years has kind of slapped this away of like, oh, it's all exaggerated or just a bunch of disgruntle betters and that sort of thing, and it's no big deal, and thinking it has not reached a critical mass. But I think this is the critical mass. I think they have to take this head on publicly and either explain what they are or not doing, including whether tech has something to do with it, rather than something else that may not satisfy you certain people, but at least to address it.
00:19:40
Speaker 4: That's what they need to do.
00:19:41
Speaker 1: Agreed, it's time to welcome a special guest from the world of gambling. Let's get to the gamble On interview.
00:19:56
Speaker 2: Given the massive popularity of sports, betting and fantasies, it's only natural that some of gaming's most creative minds have been brainstorming ways to tweak fantasy sports in ways that might broaden its appeal. One such mind is Bill Asher, the CEO of Monkey Knife Fight, a rapidly growing fantasy sports site that has built around player props, and he joins us now to explain Monkey Knife Fight and discuss the state of the industry. Bill, Welcome to gamble On.
00:20:24
Speaker 5: Thank you, Eric, very excited to be here.
00:20:26
Speaker 2: So I'm going to start with a two part question for you. You've said coming up with the name Monkey Knife Fight quote involved a bottle of tequila, So I have to know what brand of tequila, so I know for future brainstorming sessions. And then the more serious question is how did the idea for Monkey Knife Fight develop.
00:20:47
Speaker 5: Well, let's start with the important stuff. I wish I knew. You know, we've lamented the fact that we don't have the empty bottle of tequila around as some kind of memento. I do remember I drove down to my liquor store, the bottle shop, and and I remember it was a cheap bottle of tequila because I thought to myself, three shots in, I'm not going to have the difference. This is not the time to spend money on fancy tequila. I'm not trying to press myself. As far as the more serious part of the question, the idea for HIMKF from Monckie Knife Fight came about because I'm a sports junkie and you know I love my teams. I'm from Illinois, so it's Bulls and Bears and Blackhawks and Cobs by the way, And you know, I just wanted a fantasy sports product I would play. I tried Draft Kings and it fell like a math test, you know. It's something you fill out. It takes hours, and you got to pick a bunch of players and you got salary caps. It was no good for me. And I hadn't met this guy named Nick Sulski, who ran a company called draft Day, had that same fantasy sports thing that Draft Kings and FanDuel had, And I told him, I said, this is this is terrible, Like I don't get why people like this, even though millions of people play it, you know. And Nick said, yeah, he got that also he felt the same way. So we just sat down and said, look, what technically is fantasy sports? What can we offer people that is technically legally fantasy sports, but it is more fun for the casual fans where you can make, you know, easy predictions on your favorite players in the game you're gonna watch, and then you know you kind of win or lose based on your skill, not just based on someone else having a computer program that can beat you. And so that was the way it happened, and we just launched it and rolled it out and it was popular.
00:22:43
Speaker 2: Okay. And then and then just as far as doubling back to the name, just sort of in your tequila induced haze, was there was there at the time a connection between Monkey Knife Fight and and the product or or was there was it always just this is a cool name. It doesn't have to really connect to what we're trying to do here.
00:23:04
Speaker 5: Well, you know where it does come from is it comes from The Simpsons, the cartoon, and it is about when Homer takes mister Burne's yacht out beyond in the international waters and basically anything is legal, and famously he puts on monkey Knight fights for people to bet on. So there is a there is a time I wish I could say that that was our brilliance. It was really probably just tequila induced you know, comedy. Then day later on we were like, hey, it's a great name, and there is a reference from the Simpsons, that's where it came from. But nothing that brilliant.
00:23:42
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, yeah, Bill, tell us about your background. But whether it's in sports or out of sports, is running particularly entrepreneurial. You've done before that, you know, gave you the experience that would lead you toward you know, this thing coming about or it's just like completely out of your comfort zone and something that any nothing like you've ever tried before.
00:24:00
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, I am an entrepreneur and I've been fortunate enough to have a few successes in my background. None of them, however, have anything to do with sports or gaming of this kind. You know, I did have different businesses that were had similar demographics, if you will, you know they you know, I've always kind of sold products to predominantly guys like me, things that I could understand, whether it's bars and sports, bars and nightclubs or adult products or whatever, and this just was the same thing. This is something where I went, yeah, I like sports, and so you know, you're trying to find something that you're comfortable with, and to me, it was, you know, I like sports, I don't like Draft Kings and FanDuel. Therefore, I'm going to create something that I would like, which is what I'm always trying to do as an entrepreneur. And that's what I did. I mean, it's amazing that as many people feel the same way as I did about what was available in fantasy sports and what Monkey Knife Fight offered them, and the fact that it was pretty much exactly what they were looking for.
00:25:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that just kind of reminds me of for young writers, they say, right, well, you know, you know that's something you have experience in and you can talk about that other people don't know as much about, and that's lit will be more compelling than trying to sort of pass yourself off in some world but you really.
00:25:19
Speaker 4: Don't understand what's going on.
00:25:21
Speaker 3: So this is, like you said, you're making something for you and there's a lot of people like you.
00:25:25
Speaker 4: It makes sense.
00:25:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, what do you do at night? What is your passion? What is your pastime when you go home at night and you have free time?
00:25:32
Speaker 4: What do you do?
00:25:33
Speaker 5: In my case, I crack open a beer. I watch sports. So for me, it was something that was very natural for me to say, let's create something for me to do while I'm watching sports and having a beer.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: So, continuing on that sort of topic of creating something that appeals to you and people have a similar mindset to you, You've said a couple of times DraftKings wasn't for you, FanDuel wasn't for you, you didn't quite get it. And one thing that I would push back on there is, you know, you talk about how Monkey Knife Fight an advantage for that over DFS is it takes the work out of building lineups. I would counter that building those lineups, you know, figuring out where the value is and how to stack players and making all the pieces fit under the salary cap. For me, that's half the fun of DFS. But so I'm curious, have you observed that there are a lot of DFS players who are of the same mindset as you. They want the sweat and the fun without the work. And how would you sell someone like me who does enjoy DFS on Monkey Knife Fight?
00:26:40
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, you know, when I say it's not for me grafting the fandle, it's clearly for millions of people like yourself. But I don't think it is either or I think that they are. Really they're both, you know, legally fantasy sports, but they're very different products and some days you're going to want to do one in some days other. So it's not that I'm steeling you away from my competitor so much as if you like their product great, Sometimes you're in the mood to do that, and other times not for you. The fun occurs putting together the lineup. Once the lineup put together, and then at that point the odds are as you well know, you're likely to lose your money, and it's somewhat hard to follow as you go through. The idea for Monkey Knife Fight is that the fun kind of starts once you make your pick. So let's say you're gonna watch the Lakers play Gold in the State and you've got strong opinions on how Lebron's gonna play, and how Steph Curry is gonna play, and how ad is gonna play. So you're gonna watch that game. You're gonna go into Monkey knife Fight. You're gonna make some predictions on Lebron. You know, our simplest game is just more or less, Well, you have more or less than twenty six points, how about Steph Curry more or less than four to three porters ad more or less than ten rebounds or whatever. Then the fun starts because then you put down your money, you make these predictions, and then you turn the game that you're gonna watch. You we're gonna you know you're a Laker fan or you're a Golden State fan, You're going to watch that game anyway. Now you have the fun I'm actually watching and you know, you know that you're going to win and lose based on if you're right. So when you're watching Lebron shoot, you know if he hits a three pointer, now you're seventeen points. You know you got nine more to go. It makes a game more enjoyable. So it's for people who are going to watch those games anyway and they just want to have a little extra fun, you know. So it's a different fan than does who wants to put in the I think it's they say six point nine hours on average to play traditional fantasy sports per week. So it's a different person, or it's the same person on a different day.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: You know.
00:28:45
Speaker 5: I think that they're very different products at all, but they both have their.
00:28:48
Speaker 2: Place, right And yeah, I see what you mean about these sort of Sometimes it can be the same person on a different day and in a different mood, you know, Like I like to play online poker, but where there where there is some level of skill involved, but it also can be a bit of a grind, and then you have those moments where you're like you know what, I'd rather play online. Black Jacket's going to be a quick hit and there's almost no skill involved. But I'm in more in the mood for that, and so so I get what you're saying that. It might just kind of depend on your mood and whether you're you want to sit down and put in those hours of work or you want to kind of make some quick decisions and then sit back and watch the game.
00:29:24
Speaker 5: I love your your background, Eric, You're you're you're a poker player, You're a fantasy sports guy, and you've even got an highly degree. I'm not sure what a guy like you doing a place like this with guys like us. Maybe you know you made a wrong turn somewhere, it's up here the podcast. But any rate you're correct, sometimes you want Monkey Knight Fight and sometimes you might want DraftKings.
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Yeah I made I made a few wrong turns, But how much what's it take three three wrong turns to end up making a right turn?
00:29:55
Speaker 4: Something like that?
00:29:58
Speaker 3: Can you talk about you know you've got an umber of partnerships now, it's famous professional sports teams that are teamed up with something called monkey knife Fight. So if you can talk a little about you know who you've got, And then I just wonder if it was it more of a challenge for you to explain the name at first, or was it the concept that they might have struggled with, or did they already do their homework before you even call them?
00:30:19
Speaker 5: You know, well, let mean this is the part where I rattle off the list of my partners. So any of your listeners who might be fans of these teams, maybe they'll give me a second look.
00:30:29
Speaker 4: You know.
00:30:30
Speaker 5: In baseball, we got the Brewers, the Twins, the Padres and Marlins, the Giants and the Rangers or all our partners. Football, we got the Dolphins, the Chargers, the Buccaneers, the LA Kings. In hockey, they're putting our logo in the ice as we speak for the new season, we got the LA Galaxy and soccer so we've got a lot of Charlie Hoffman and PGA. We've made a lot of partnerships. And as far as your question, what's easier to explain than the name of the concept, Well, nowadays all sports teams know who we are because we have so many partnerships. We've talked to virtually every team in every league about the potential so everybody knows who Monkey knighte Fight is. When we started down this path and we were less well known, and we talked to a couple of I think we started a baseball team or two, and later on I even heard the story of them trying to explain to their boss that they were talking about a partnership with called Muggy Knife Fight and people questioning whe or not. First of all, it was a joke and what it was we were selling. So at that point it was much easier to sell our concept than our name. Now, obviously the name is known, and so as the concept. The concept though, is relatively easy. These teams have all done deals with duel and DraftKings in the past, those have been usually been their fantasy sports partners, so you know, it was relatively easy to understand that, hey, there's a new guy in town and he's been making a name for himself and he wants to reach your fan base. And so whether it is the Dolphins in Miami or the you know, the Twins in Minnesota, or the Padres in San Diego, we just we just want to come in and introduce our fantasy sports to those fans. And I'm sure with the season the Padres just had, you know, everybody, all their fans in San Diego heard our name, and same as the Minnesota Twins had a great year, you know, and and and such. So it's it's been a lot of fun having a partners and I think now they're used to our name and our concept.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: Right, really interesting stuff. And yeah, I think any anyone in the industry would agree that it's always great to have innovation and new companies coming out and trying new things and you know, building momentum the way you have. So it's it's very cool what what you're building and looking forward to two more from Monkey Knife Fight going forward. But it's been it's been great talking to you. Bill, thanks so much for joining us on gamble On this week.
00:33:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, Eric and John, thanks so much.
00:33:04
Speaker 4: Thanksgillating.
00:33:06
Speaker 1: Two men, two men, ten thousand dollars. Will they run it up for blow it All? It's time to check in on the gamble On bank roll.
00:33:17
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:33:22
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:33:23
Speaker 2: We'll get to the fast five shortly, but first let's update our shared bank roll. And you're not gonna believe where the role stands right now. We came into last week up by one hundred and ten dollars with seven hundred five dollars on holding futures bets. I made a forty dollars futures bet on Aaron Rodgers for MVP, so we're now at seven hundred and forty five dollars in futures bets. My other bet was a cross sport parlay boxer Emmanuel Navarette to win, which he did by unanimous decision, and Lebron James to win Finals MVP, which he did on Sunday night. We risked one hundred and sixty one dollars and one hundred dollars. John lost one hundred dollars on his bet on Colin Morikawa to finish in the top twenty. Morikawa had a bad tournament and missed the cut, and John also dropped one hundred and ten dollars on Florida giving six and a half points versus Texas A and M. The Gators lost outright, so we were plus one hundred and ten dollars coming into the week. We lost one hundred ten dollars, and that means one hundred and thirteen episodes into this experiment, we are exactly two the dollar dead. Even now because we have seven hundred and forty five dollars on hold in futures bets. That means the amount available in our bank roll to bet with is not ten thousand dollars, it's two hundred and fifty five dollars. But in terms of wins and losses, we are exactly break even. John, How amazing is that?
00:34:42
Speaker 4: Well?
00:34:42
Speaker 3: You know, I still say that on a long stretch of wagering with a ten thousand dollars bank roll, I think par is kind of also known as true mediocrity would be minus.
00:34:51
Speaker 4: Five hundred bucks.
00:34:52
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're under par which is good, although so was the Calamara Kawa at minus six after two rounds in Las Vegas. That score, guy, you inside the cut line for every PGA Tour event for more than thirty years in a row, but not this one. Tied for sixty seventh and a cut of sixty five and ties. Meanwhile, Florida giving six and a half. They're up seven with four minutes left of the game at Texas.
00:35:13
Speaker 4: A and M throws a.
00:35:14
Speaker 3: Pass of the end zone at the exact same millisecond. Both a defender and I have an epiphany, Let's go hero and make this interception to steal the game, who chose poorly instead of more sensibly slapping the ball away and probably coming away with the win. The graphic glory led to a lunging miss and an A and M catch for a game time touchdown. Then there was a fumble, and I don't know, I think the even designation after two full years here is awesome enough that I'm okay with losing those two beats.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, all right, Well we are starting over in a sense now, we're even steven, trying to build ten thousand dollars into something more than ten thousand dollars. Although, as you said, in a way we could look at ourselves as winning betters to this point, but technically, in terms of dollars, we are absolutely even. So here we go, starting over, and I'm up first this week, and I'm gonna get it going. With a three team seven point NFL teaser using DraftKings odds, the Patriots are minus ten against Denver at home. Cam Newton is expected to play. We can tease them down to minus three. Feels fairly safe to me. The Dolphins are minus nine and a half at home against the hopeless Jets, with Flacco starting instead of injured Sam Darnold. We can drop that one to Miami minus two and a half, and then for the third leg, I'll use an over under. I wanted to include the Vikings Falcons game, but that's off the board for the moment due to COVID uncertainty, So instead, Rams forty nine ers has an over under of fifty one points. We can take the over and get that down to forty four. I know the Rams defense only gave up nineteen points the last two weeks, but that was against Washington and the Giants. I'm confident these two teams can go over forty four in what is just about a must win game for the Niners. Add it all up and it play pays plus one p thirty one. So let's bet one hundred dollars to win one hundred and thirty one dollars, and after I make a parlay or teaser bet, I always like to check in with you, John, is there a leg you hate in there? Or do all three look reasonably solid to you?
00:37:12
Speaker 4: Now?
00:37:12
Speaker 3: I think it seems really really plausible, So I expect you to win two of those three actually and deposit minus one hundred dollars in the bank.
00:37:18
Speaker 4: Ross. So we'll be off to zero. There we go.
00:37:22
Speaker 3: So let's see, I've absolutely straddled around the exact line. Speaking of straddling around the exact line, last three weeks of college football pick so I have one ten to win one hundred a Notre Dame over Louisville at minus sixteen and a half points. I thought I've ever taken the fighting Irish. Don't get me started the nickname or even worse than that stupid leprechaun mascot, because the public loves dam and their stupid mascot too much. But Notre Dame's home. Louisville's awful, especially awful against the run. Notre Dame can run. So it's a blowout city in this one.
00:37:50
Speaker 2: Okay, For my second bet, I'll stay in the NFL Regular listeners might have expected a bet on the Lomachenko Lopez fight on Saturday, but I can't quite find one I love, so instead an NFL Futures bet on an end of season award, not the Comeback Player of the Year award we discussed at the top of the show, but rather Defensive Player of the Year.
00:38:11
Speaker 4: Somehow.
00:38:11
Speaker 2: Aaron Donald, the favorite to win the award, is plus four hundred at FANDEL. He leads the league in sacks with seven and a half. Everyone on the planet considers him the best defensive player in the NFL. If he stays healthy, this award is his. I don't get how Russell Wilson is now even money for MVP, but Donald is plus four hundred for DPOY. I consider Donald at least as comfortably in the driver's seat as Wilson is. So let's risk fifty dollars to win two hundred dollars there, all.
00:38:40
Speaker 3: Right, I'm gonna shake off that more cow a pick. I fared better in my weekly golf pool. Still have dreams of rallying for a repeat title. With four events left and what has become our handmade golf schedule ending with the Masters next month. This week's CJ Cupp in Las Vegas has removed from South Korea for COVID reasons, a field to just seventy eight golfers no cut well A top twenty are Uber Studs minus Dustin Johnson and Tony Final COVID positive. The shallow end of the field is not so dangerous, so I'll be a little ambitious here. Hirable Daniel Berger at one hundred to win two fifty for a top ten and ten bucks on Burger to win it all for two ninety.
00:39:17
Speaker 2: All right, I like it, and let's wrap things up with the Fast five, where, unlike our shared betting bankroll, I am very much not break even through five weeks, I have yet to post a winning week. I went two and three last week, which I guess is good by my standards to drop to an ugly nine and sixteen, while John, you had a strong week. You went four and one to improve to fourteen ten and one. Look, I know I shouldn't beat myself up over it. It's just some stupid NFL picks. It's a reasonably small sample size of twenty five games. There's there's variants. I'm still over five hundred across the last three years, if I want to look back that far. Had a little bad luck on a couple of the picks and so forth. But it's hard not to get a little down on yourself when you're on a bad run, hard not to let it get into your head and bum you out a little. But I'm going to try to embrace it, make a positive out of a negative, And here goes Forget that stupid fade rovail gimmick.
00:40:13
Speaker 4: If you want to get rich.
00:40:14
Speaker 2: Betting sports, obviously, fade Raskin is the root you take to get there. If you had bet one hundred dollars against all of my picks, you'd be up like six hundred bucks right now after factoring in the veig. I'm doing a public service with my crappy picks. So you know, John asked a few weeks ago for people to let him know if they'd made money shadowing his good picks. I'm asking you to let me know if you've gotten rich fading my lousy picks. Fade Raskin. It's the best strategy in sports betting through the first five weeks of the NFL season. Anyway, John, you are up by five and a half games on me through five weeks, and you're up first with your picks this time.
00:40:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:40:51
Speaker 3: So I'm sixty one, forty three and six and twenty nineteen twenty from a regular season picks fifty eight point one percent, six and five less postseason fifty four point five percent, and it may all slip away in a heartbeat. Deeric, So, I got a crow while the getting's good, But I'm nervous that I can feel, you know, footsteps. I'm hearing footsteps. But so far, so good. It's all favorites this week, as it happens, and that's where my muse took me.
00:41:15
Speaker 4: First off, won't surprise you.
00:41:17
Speaker 3: Panthers minus one point five points over the bullspit Bears, who'll pull the rabbit out of the hat, and beating the superior Bucks last week. Bears have outscored five opponents. It was a combined record of seven and seventeen by a total of five points. Nick Foles shiny object, ooh yeah, Panthers have won three in a row, and well they're better. So also, Giants minus two and a half points. First football team. I'd give any spread Westgate offered if Dwayne Haskins was starting for the football team.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: He's that bad. Kyle Allen is not that bad.
00:41:50
Speaker 3: But the Steelers, Rams and Bears combined twelve and two scored a total of sixty points. First the g Men defense this year, so it's tough to see beyond the fog of an aptitude on the field. I think the Giants have themselves a real head coach, so is Ron Rivera, but you know he's a couple of decades older. I think the no practice to no real traditional preseason hurts him more than a younger coach, So I think the Giants are a bit better than the football team. Next up is a Steelers over Brown's minus three. I don't see a signature victory on the Steelers dance card. That worries me a little bit. But Baker Mayfield is a sore chest, maybe even a rib, and this ugly rivalry means that chess will be even more sore at halftime, maybe too sore to play. Brown did a decent win against the Okay Colts last week, but got crushed in the opening by the Ravens. And I'm not sure either these teams are elite despite their combined eight in one record. But give me the Steelers another minus three, another possible push Rams over the forty nine Ers, This one I'm much more comfortable with. Don't let anyone tell you that no NFL team got a preseason this year. The Rams already have swept the entire NFC, least their other game. The real game was a referee blunder outcome and the loss of the Bills, So small samples as opponents who can fog a mirror. But the Niners two wins are against the oh to ten Metal Lands football teams. They gave the Eagles their lone win. Their crushed by the Dolphins last week, so I'm really surprised at that line. So you know, I would have thought six and a half. So I like that one. Finally, speaking to those mammals. So that crush the forty nine ers the Dolphins minus eight and a half versus the Jets. The Fins don't have any dismal results so far in five games, and the Jets have lost every game by double digits.
00:43:26
Speaker 4: That trend continues.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is really interesting because I get to pick second this week. I specifically came in with the game plan of I'm gonna avoid head to heads. I believe I'm one in five in the head to head so far this season, so I actually came with seven picks to choose from. I had the five that I liked best, but then I had two backup options just to avoid any head to head possibilities. And as it turns out, we don't have any head to heads. We actually have two picks in common, so I'm gonna start.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: Not good for me though, right, that's true.
00:43:58
Speaker 2: If you want to change any of your pick after I'm done, let me know, so I will take first off. This is not one you had. I'll take the Lions minus three at Jacksonville. The Jags have a lot of injury problems, and I've let that Week one upset win over Indy mislead me long enough. They are the crappy team we thought they were. The Lions coming off a bye, should be able to cover the field goal here another field goal favorite, and this is one of the ones we have in common. I'm taking the Steelers only minus three at home against Cleveland. It's minus three and a half elsewhere, but West Kate has given us a nice short line. As you said, Baker Mayfield ribs chess. Something's hurting there, and I think the Browns are getting a little overrated beating up on mostly subpar teams. I'm not expecting Pittsburgh to blow them out, but I think they win by more than three. Next one here my riskiest pick. I think I like my Eagles getting seven and a half at home against the Ravens. The Eagles should be getting one or both of Jeffrey and Jackson back. I am still worried about the offensive line health. But speaking of being worried about health, I heard a source in the No on A podcast say Lamar Jackson is playing through some injuries and that's why he's not running as much the last couple of weeks. I think if he's at ninety percent, the Eagles defense is good enough to keep this one close. I just think more than the touchdown at home, it is a little too much. So I'm taking the Eagles now. I was tempted in the Green Bay Tampa Bay game to go against the trend line and say that the Bucks are undervalued coming off their flucus lost to the Bears, and the Packers are due for a letdown game. But then I looked at the injuries and it's all pushing me in the other direction. DeVante Adams should be back for Green Bay. Tampa Bay has a lot of key guys nursing injuries. They lost a couple of important pieces on defense. Some books have the Packers favored by a point or two, but it's a pick them at the super book. So I'll take the Packers here. And it's funny, you know how a couple of weeks ago you predicted I was going to take a Cardinals game that I didn't up taking. I would have bet just about anything. You were going to go with the Packers here, but you stayed away from that one and then my last one. That leaves one still that we have in common. And I kind of hinted at this during the bankroll segment. The Dolphins only giving eight and a half at Westgate at home against the Jets. Flacco is a downgrade from Darnold Fitzpatrick is playing well. It's an average team against an absolute mess of a team. I'm not even too scared about the back door cover. So I'll take Miami here. So now here's your opportunity. Do you want to get aus with Pittsburgh or Miami because I took them? Are you gonna play?
00:46:34
Speaker 4: Vade Raskin? No, I'm thinking about it. To me one more one and four week and we'll talk.
00:46:39
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Well that will do it for this episode of gamble On. Thanks everybody out there for listening, and thanks again to our guest Bill Asher. You can find me on Twitter at Eric Raskin and John at Berg and Brennan and follow us bets at us Underscore Bets. Go to us bets dot com for all the latest news and analysis from the world of gambling, and subscribe to this podcast on SoundCloud, podcasts or Spotify. And with that, John, please do your thing and take us out.
00:47:05
Speaker 3: Well, Eric, you know I'm playing hurt this week. Attended the wake of a artistic League Baseball rival of more than thirty years on Wednesday. Doesn't help that as a year younger than me and attended the same high school.
00:47:15
Speaker 4: You know. For those who've been in a.
00:47:16
Speaker 3: Fantasy league with a lot of old pals for a while, all I can say is try to keep it together whatever the sport. You know, if life and often that's you know, getting married, raising children of the real adult stuff has some owners thinking of hanging up. Well, fellow commissioners consider making rules changes. Keeping the nucleus together is far more important than it'sting on a level of commitment that just isn't realistic for a lot of the players.
00:47:37
Speaker 4: You know.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: Mike com padre Mark had all kinds of severe health issues over the last five or six years that took away a.
00:47:42
Speaker 4: Lot of the outdoor activities that he loved.
00:47:43
Speaker 3: But old school Rotista League Baseball rules men, he could stick with our league because there are no weekly lineups, no head to head play. You know, you can take two weeks off in the summer and shut down the internet. You're not necessarily losing any ground.
00:47:54
Speaker 4: You know.
00:47:54
Speaker 3: Last year we even get rid of what I called the pounce rule, where whenever someone was called it from the miners, who wasn't anyone's farmhand beforehand? When first come, first served any owner with a natural opening, so you're always looking around to pounce. Now moves were only made once a week. Lowest ranked team of those claiming gets the players. I voted against it, but as usual my league mates were right. You know, fantasy sports league results don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but we have well, we'd had twelve owners who've been in this league for a minimum of eighteen years and an average at least twenty five years. And what does mean something was marked being able to field the team an engage in side league banter that often harken back to the nineteen eighty and nineteen nineties when a lot of the rest of his life was not quite still the same. You know, these leagues ultimately aren't about stats, They're about people. So I say, you know your format, and buddy league should be whatever the collective wisdom wants.
00:48:43
Speaker 4: Now.
00:48:43
Speaker 3: If the more ambitious owners want to answer more intensely competitive.
00:48:45
Speaker 4: Leagues elsewhere, I think they should. But keep your buddies together.
00:48:50
Speaker 3: Trust me, you'll be glad you did. After this rough week, I now understand that more than ever.
00:48:55
Speaker 4: So with that, until next time, gamble on everybody inta
