The Well: youtalkfunny

[youtalkfunny]

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How old are you?

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I'm 40.

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Did you ever see The Runner with John Goodman? Is anything in that flick accurate at all?

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Remember the part where the guy crapped his pants while on a date with Courtney Cox? And he couldn't conceal it from her? And she still agreed to go on a second date with this guy?

Well, that was the most realistic part of the film.

(Actually, runners do exist, or at least they did in the '90's. And they do, from time to time, disappear with big chunks of money, or pocket money if they think their boss was going to bet it on a loser. Beyond that, forget about this movie. I did.)

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How come no sites are able to duplicate what Pinnacle has done?

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Because it's not easy.

When you put a bet on the board, the goal is to offer a line where both sides are -EV for the bettor, and +EV for the house. There's no way to know what that number is, you can only give it your best estimate.

Ever see the range game on The Price is Right?



See the shaded purple area? You want the price of the item to be within that window.

In bookmaking terms, going from a 20-cent line to a 30-cent line gives you a much bigger window, and makes it more likely that the break-even point of any particular bet is within that range (ensuring that both sides of the bet are -EV).

Pinny uses an awfully small window, yet they still manage to avoid offering +EV bets to everybody. It takes talent to do that.

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This goes along with the above question, how are square sites so square? Can't they employ 2 people for $200k a year and save that much in a month?

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Square sites had to spend a ton of money on advertising to get the squares in the first place.

The small offshore book I worked for skimped on advertising, and relied on free posting forums, and word of mouth from the players. In other words, we had sharps, and they told their sharp friends about us. We had almost no squares, so again, it's not hard to see why we didn't last a year. We had some very talented bookmakers and oddsmakers, but we were booking to the wrong crowd, and never stood a chance.

Square sites are making plenty of money as is. Why would they want to change anything?