The state of sports betting content

You ever have a concept you want to flesh out but don’t really know how to organize your thoughts? That’s what this blog is: an attempt to wrangle up my loose ideas and corral them into an organized, digestible piece of writing. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I’ve been consuming sports betting content ever since sports betting became legal (outside of Las Vegas) in 2018. Actually, “consuming” isn’t the right word. I’ve been seeing sports betting content. I was consuming it at first, as my young, naive mind was deferent to the ideas of those I trusted. I already had exposure to sports betting terminology; I knew what point spreads, totals, moneylines, parlays, teasers, etc. were. But with the repeal of PASPA I was introduced to new concepts: ticket percentages, money percentages, steam movement, sharp vs. square action. I was impressionable and inclined to believe what I read.

My senior year of college I had an internship at a then year-old media company called The Action Network. My time there was great, learning media practices while also training my sports betting and social media skills. I started noticing new twitter accounts devoted to covering a burgeoning industry. Sports betting “experts” popped up left and right, giving picks and the reasoning behind these picks. Old tout services expanded their reach, Stu Feiner’s screaming face couldn’t be avoided during a twitter scroll. Arbitrary trends were used in game previews, most of which had zero legitimate correlation but sounded pretty good in an article or a tweet.

I finished my internship with The Action Network prior to spring 2019 (it was a wholly positive experience) and focused my sights on post-grad work opportunities. Alas, my baseball playing career was on its final legs. I sat in the back of lecture halls applying to every job that had the word “sports” in it. Apparel, data analysis, media, business… you name it, I applied. I finally got a bite on my line and ended up taking a job in the sports betting world at a company called Kambi, which provides odds and risk management services (among other things) to sportsbooks. I learned the bookmaking ropes (though some professional bettors on twitter will vehemently argue against the legitimacy of European bookmaking practices) and more importantly began to understand most of what I was seeing in sports betting media.

With a few notable exceptions (what’s up @SportsbkConsig) the sports betting media landscape is all a spectacle. That is to say 90% of the analysis and picks you’re seeing have no substance. Most of the sports betting content I see on a daily basis is picks or “analysis” filled with personal opinions, if statements, and my least favorite: arbitrary, cherry-picked trends. Here’s a tip: if a trend has a time horizon of 17 games, that’s likely because if you expand the range to 18 games (or a statistically significant sample size) the results don’t sound as sexy. All these are are tools to justify someone’s pick, which is more about their perception of the game than the actual probability of the outcome.

I want to make it clear I don’t blame anyone for this. Many see this as an opportunity to expand their reach and I absolutely, 100% understand and respect that. I’m writing about sports betting right now, trying to insert myself into the conversation, which would be completely hypocritical if I was against sports betting content on a whole. I’m not. All I’m trying to say is two things: first, be careful when reading sports betting analysis, and especially careful when tailing someone. Hot streaks are very real, and very deceiving. The numbers you read are most often (not always) specifically chosen to support the author’s pick, much like people using outlier events to justify their stance on the COVID vaccine.

An extension of this is the use of buzzwords which have been championed by sports betting media while not really acknowledged by sportsbooks or professional bettors. If a total has steamed down from 137 to 133.5, it doesn’t mean you should bet under 133.5. Consider that the sportsbook has more information than you (specifically what people are betting) and their decisions have reasons. Just because someone says “reverse line movement” doesn’t indicate the sharp bet, it just indicates what the books viewed as a sharp bet at the previous line. The nuances here could save and win you a lot of money. I don’t think sports betting content creators are trying to deceive anyone, I just think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how odds work… which is a large reason why “the house always wins”.

The second thing I’m trying to say is the “picks” and “analysis” market is incredibly oversaturated right now. Everyone is capable of making a pick and giving their reasoning. For every person laying 5 on twitter I could find someone taking 5, both of whom will passionately defend their side as a lock or a winner. In my opinion, this type of content just isn’t valuable and isn’t how sports betting content creators will succeed in the future.

Which brings me to the question that inspired this entire tangent in the first place: where is sports betting content headed? Who will crack the code? The answer, of course, will only come with time. There are so many ways to use sports betting concepts to create compelling content, and many people (just not most) are doing so. A few examples are:

• Sam Panayotovich examining the hypothetical betting odds in Rocky IV
• My friend Dave Sharapan telling his bookmaking origin story
• Legendary bookmaking moments such as The Mirage offering odds on “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” in The Simpsons circa 1995
• Jeopardy! legend James Holzhauer explaining how his Jeopardy! strategy applies to his career as a professional sports bettor

Those are just a few that come to mind. There are so many ways to tell stories through the lens of sports betting, I just think people are trying to figure out how. Eventually people will become more educated on bookmaking/odds and content will move away from simple picks and confirmation-biased analysis. If you’re out there trying to make sports betting content, please don’t let this discourage you if you’ve made picks in the past. I just think creativity will go a long way in this category, as there isn’t a lot of it right now. Best of luck to all of you and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!