00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Let's talk about something that's become kind of a theme in sports betting content lately. Absolute advice Stuff like never parlay or only use your free bets on a certain price, or always chase closing line value. You see these rules everywhere online and they always sound definitive, like the commandments of sports betting. But here's the thing none of them are actually universal. There's no one size fits all piece of betting advice. Now let's start with the tweet that sparked the idea for this video.
00:32
Someone quote tweeted a guy who used a free bet on a short favorite and said you should only ever use a free bet at plus 300 or better. And look, that statement isn't entirely wrong Mathematically. It's good advice. If you have a hundred dollar free bet and you use it at plus 300, the expected value, or the EV as we call it, is about $75. That's because if it wins, you profit 300. If it loses, you lose nothing. It's a free bet. So 25% of the time you win 300, 75% of the time you win $0, 25% of 300 equals $75 of expected value. If you compare that using the same $100 free bet on something that's minus 150, well, that pays out $66.67 in profit, but it only wins roughly 60% of the time 0.6 times 66.67. That's $40 in EV. So, yes, using free bets on longer odds is statistically better. You get more value over time. But that's only part of the equation.
01:50
See, sports books aren't dumb. They know who's optimizing bonuses and who's not. If you use every free bet in a perfectly efficient plus ev way, well, you might get flagged. You might win the battle for value, but you lose the war for longevity. Because if your goal is to keep an account alive, hammering every bonus in a mathematically optimal way is basically announcing to the book that you are a sharp better. And sports books a lot of them don't want that. So there's a trade-off. If you're a casual, better doesn't care about limits, you just want to squeeze maximum value out of one signup bonus.
02:32
Sure, go for the plus 300. Take the higher EV. Makes a lot of sense. But if you're a sharp, you're trying to fly under the radar. You're trying to build volume. Over time, that same advice is actually going to hurt you. The best move might be to use your free bet on something that's closer to even money. Maybe. Don't even use a free bet and not set off sportsbook alarms in their system. That's the broader point that I want to try to make today.
03:00
Betting advice only makes sense when you know what game you're playing, and most people giving advice online have no idea what your goals actually are. Take parlays, for example. Everyone's heard it Never bet parlays, they're a bad bet. And yeah, for most people that's going to be true. Sports books make a very high hold percentage on parlays, but that doesn't mean parlays are always bad. If every leg in your parlay is a plus EV bet, then the parlay itself can also be plus EV.
03:34
The key is correlation and whether that correlation is properly priced in. In some instances Like, let's say, an NFL starting quarterback gets ruled out, but the player prop markets are still up and they haven't adjusted yet Well, you can bet a handful of correlated props wide receiver unders, maybe team total under, rushing yard overs potentially and parlay them before the lines fully move. You're capturing value in the short window before the market catches up. That is an example of a smart parlay. It's the same logic that sports books use to build margins. You're just flipping it back on them.
04:13
Most bettors don't have access to that speed or information, which is why the blanket advice of don't play parlays. That rule is fine for the majority of people. But context also matters, and not all parlays are created equal. Same thing applies with other concepts. Bankroll management is one of them.
04:33
You'll often hear people say always use the Kelly criterion when betting, and mathematically the Kelly criterion is the optimal way to grow your bankroll over time. But it assumes you know your exact edge, that you can always get the price you want and that you can instantly scale your bet size with perfect precision. In the real world that's not how things work. Sometimes you're betting fast. You're just trying to grab a number before it moves. Sometimes you're betting into a very low-limit market where you can't even get your full stake down. Sometimes you're not a hundred percent sure what your true edge even is. Maybe you're just estimating. So while Kelly is theoretically perfect, in practice it can often be overkill. Most sharp bettors end up using some version of fractional Kelly or something entirely different just to balance the risk, variance and practicality as well. But doesn't mean every better needs to use that.
05:37
Then there's closing line value, the Holy grail of gambling, twitter and the betting world the idea that if you consistently beat the closing line, you'll be profitable long-term. That's true, but like everything else, it's not absolute. There are plenty of bettors right now who are actively trying not to get closing line value. Their goal isn't to prove that they're sharp. Their goal is to stay alive and maximize earnings. They're betting right before the game starts, grabbing off-market numbers that haven't been copied yet, and they avoid detection by doing that. Some people are even manipulating the market right before post, trying to move the line temporarily right before the game starts so that in-game algorithms are anchored to an inaccurate closing price. It sounds wild, but believe me, it happens. Now to be clear, I still think CLV is a great indicator of skill.
06:35
If you're new to betting, focus on beating the close Track it. Learn from it. But as you evolve you'll realize there's more than one way to measure success and sometimes your best move is to not look like a winner. Same thing goes for same game parlays. You'll often hear these things SGPs, they are such a ripoff, don't touch them. And again, for most people it's probably correct.
07:02
The correlation is already priced in aggressively. The hold on these are massive, but every now and then books overpriced that correlation. I mean there was a period of time where sports books were going way too far adjusting certain things. Look, look at receiving yards and reception props as an example. There was a point when you could bet a receiver's over on receptions and under on yards, or vice versa, and still find a valuable bet because the correlation was priced too heavily in one direction. It still happens. It's rare, but it shows why blanket statements fail in the betting industry.
07:42
There's nuance in everything. Buying picks another great example. I did a full video recently on buying picks. Don't buy picks. You can watch that right up here and generally. This is great betting advice. It protects new bettors from scams.
07:58
But there are exceptions. If you're betting into liquid markets and you know a pick service that consistently moves lines that information might be worth paying for, you're not buying the picks. You're buying access to information before the market adjusts. Again, it depends on who you are and what game you're playing. Even with bankroll management going back to it, you hear people say never risk more than one to two percent of your bankroll per bet. That's safe and reasonable for most people. If you're betting into a market where something is extremely mispriced, only betting 2% on that wager can actually be malpractice. On the flip side, if you can't replace your accounts easily, even 1% of your bankroll might be too aggressive. There's no universal right number here, only what fits your reality.
08:51
And let's talk about live betting for a second as well. Everyone loves posting their live locks. You know second half edges, all that stuff but in reality live betting is a pretty hard way for an average person to win. You're betting into an algorithm, one that's been trained on millions of plays, of historical data. You're trusting your eyes, which are reacting on delay to beat code that updates in milliseconds. That's not impossible, but it's extremely difficult. Some people can do it, some people don't. When you see some people posting live bets like they found a cheat code, take that with a grain of salt. This all leads to the same conclusions here. Right, there is no universal rule in sports betting.
09:37
Good advice simplifies things. Great advice adapts to things. Every piece of betting wisdom you see online always bet early, never buy picks, avoid parlays, only use your free bets on underdogs. They all depend on who you are and what your goals are. The difference between a recreational better and a sharp better isn't just information, modeling it's application. It's knowing when a rule helps you and when it hurts you, and that's the real skill in betting. It's not memorizing a list of rules, but it's understanding why those rules exist and when it's okay to break them.
10:23
So before you take anyone's advice as gospel, I would suggest asking yourself two questions Number one who is this advice meant for? And number two what problem is it trying to solve? If you can answer those honestly, you'll start thinking more like a pro, even if you're still learning to bet like one, because at the end of the day, there's no single way to bet right. There's just what makes sense for you, your goals, your bankroll, your risk tolerance and how long you plan to stay in this game. If you found this video useful, please hit that like button down below. Subscribe to the channel here. Drop a comment below as well. I'd love to hear which betting rules you've been told that that didn't actually hold up in practice before, and share this with a friend as well who still thinks in a matter of absolutes. They might thank you later.
