Update Feb 2013: rsigley now posts under the handle ProbablyRsigley

The Well:

A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Wednesday, you can shout any question down that well, and you'll be told the answer" .

The stranger shouts down several questions, and all are answered. The stranger is impressed, and after thinking a minute he shouts down: "Why not on Wednesday?" and the voice from in the well shouts back "Because on Wednesday, it’s your day in the well".


rsigley has volunteered to take the next turn. If you are interested in taking a turn in the well, or if you want to nominate someone, feel free to post in this thread or to send me a PM.

If you're new and completely unfamiliar -- any question goes, as long as it doesn't break the ToS. Of course, rsigley can always elect not to answer, but you're free to ask whatever as long as you're not breaking the rules or tone of the forum.

You can get a good sense by reading some of the previous instances, listed at the end.

-P



====

• Previous turns in The Well in Sports Betting:
• Performify - 02/02/07
• B00T - 02/07/07
• Thremp - 02/14/07
• NajdorfDefense - 02/21/07
• King Yao - 05/23/07
• YouTalkFunny - 05/30/07
• shipitkthx - 10/30/08
• crockpot - 12/12/08
• TomG - 07/14/09
• ProfessorBen -10/22/09
• rsigley - 7/6/10

Let me start with the usual opener:

What is your sports betting background and/or a quick bio?

#1 thing that has helped you become a winning SB?

You have a rep for keeping large databases and doing stuff with them. Can you go into the technologies you use (eg. MySQL) and how you like to do your analysis (eg. R)? How useful do you think the datasets are in terms of picking winners? picking off rogue lines?

I think it was you who were talking about getting a subway franchise. Did that happen and how is that going?

How much is currently owed to you in unpaid loan balances from individuals?

How much meat have you incorporated in your diet since I harassed you about it.

What percentage of bets are made online as opposed to vegas books and locals?

What's your approach to betting? Do you handicap yourself or look for off-market lines?

What's the biggest bet you ever made?

How do you deal with geting banned/limits cut? Do you rape a book for as much as possible until you get cut or try to bleed them slowly? Ever lose on purpose to keep an out open in the future?

Would you rather make out with your dad for 30 seconds or let thremp put his peen in your butt one time real quick with no condom.

Living in Vegas......

How many other advantage plays do you take advantage of promos/coupons/etc??

Is this the main advantage to living in Vegas (I assume you can get down as much as you need on the world wide interwebs)?

Pls. answer this one.

Also:


Biggest SB loss?

You don't eat meat? how about man meat?

It should be noted that I'm AIDS free.

liez

In college I just did bonus whoring instead of getting a job. Mostly poker/casino though but occasionally sportsbooks.

Got a masters in geophysics applied for schools to do a PhD but got rejected from most because I didn't have any experience in the field so I took a job in Antarctica for 3 years. When you work in Antarctica you get all your room and food paid for and have nothing to spend money on so I was planning on taking a couple months off and then go back in February [you usually either go from Oct-Oct, Oct-Feb, or Feb-Oct. you literally can't leave between Feb-Oct because its pitch dark 24 hours a day and non stop blizzards] but I had 200k burning a hole in my pocket and just started betting Wong teasers. It was the one year where they ran godlike and never lost and ended up doubling my money and I decided to start my own internet marketing company instead. Sports betting never really was full time thing, don't think emotionally I could handle that.

For sports betting I guess the time line is ->

Run godlike in Wong teasers -> do nothing for a year -> run godlike in Wong teasers -> crockpot!! -> crockpot gone and I have to figure out something on my own -> omg derivatives!! -> try to figure out baseball



I guess the basics. Like everything that has been posted in the FAQ and sharp sports betting still really works and makes money. It does get frustrating beating a closing line by a lot and losing to the point where you just pick a random game and type a really large number in the "to bet" but if you resist those urges then should be fine. It is very boring though just sitting in front of a computer all night waiting for some stuff to move to pick off rogue lines in derivative markets or waiting 10 minutes for 5dimes college football betting page to load because they offer 10,000 different bets per game and would be more exciting to just be like I'm awesome handicapper wake up and bet 50k on everything that's off and go about your day but I'm not really there and probably never will be.

In my house I have a very small computer I built (it uses one of the ion-itx boards into a small case usually used for HTPCs) that I use for all my data gathering. It's just basic mySQL databases and all my scripts to parse and gather data were written in php. I read perl is more efficient but php seemed easier to learn so I went with that route. On my PC I just have an adobe air application I wrote that constantly does what I want. There's just tabs to display lines, available bets out there, tracks the status of all my bets, one tab projects the 2H lines for all games as they're ongoing and beeps when the 2H line is posted and there's money to be had, etc. I spent about 200 hours between Feb/March rewriting everything and developing the air application to automate as much of the boring stuff as possible. As far as useful I think they are, but there might be cases of having too much data being a bad thing. Like I have every NBA line from like 91 to present day, but I only really look at the last 3-4 years. The game is played differently now, rule changes, strategy, etc. It's not so bad in sports like NBA/NHL/MLB where they play thousands of games in a year, but in football I tend to keep more data just because of the low # of games per year. I mean without it I think you could still pick off rogue lines, but derivatives would be impossible which is where most of my money comes from.

For statistics I did dual major in statistics/geophysics so one of the classes I had to learn SAS and when I was in Antarctica someone installed it on my laptop and gave me the CDs incase something went wrong so I use that. I just have to set my computer to 2004 or it'll expire and I have to reinstall. If I didn't have that I would use R though since it's free. I don't really remember much about statistics though just the basics.

I owned 3 subways in Las Vegas. They're pretty good money makers but the $/hr wasn't that great since there are large franchise fees to buy one. Two of them were making mad bank but one was just bleeding money due to a poor location. Some guy approached me about buying 1 and I just asked if he would be interested in all 3 and he was so I sold them to him and made about 50k profit off the sale. I bought, ran, and sold tons of internet businesses and brick and mortar sucks. For some reason I have no problem paying some guy in Romania $100 to do tons of work that should cost $1000, but when you're paying some guy $7/hr and then have to see them face to face it's horrible.

$0, but a company owes me > 100k from affiliate marketing in 2007. In 06-7 a lot of shady people jumped into the game and screwed a lot of people at the height of the "acai berry craze". It was more greed on my part, a company that was reputable was offering $40 per signup, unknown company were offering $70. They were able to do that because they had no intention of paying. Usually you settle every 14 days but when that time came they just disappeared and no one got paid.

I used to offer credit to certain clients, but after the economy collapsed I stopped because debt collectors went from buying debt at 70 cents/$1 to 30 cents.

Not really much. I bought a gyro once and I didn't like it. Steak once and that's it. I have gone beyond the point of no return.

Like 99% online. It used to be more in Vegas when I lived in Panorama Towers since I was right there, but I moved 2 months ago and now its like a 10 mile drive that takes an hour and I don't think my car has air conditioner [I turned it on once and it made a weird squeeling noise so I never bothered to try again] so I don't bother much anymore. I didn't move here for betting, but I did have this illusion that Vegas sportsbooks just hang horrible lines compared to Pinny, etc. but that isn't really true. Occasionally they do hang ridiculous prop lines where you know its off just by looking at it, but most books have the pinny line with added juice.

I handicap MLB and WNBA, derivatives/off market/props for everything else. I do my own projections for baseball players, but I also cross check with ZIPS and CHONE. At this point in the season I just use their stats to this point with some adjustments for going forward, I believe ZIPS has a similar thing but some of their numbers are ridiculous IMO. Pro/College Football are the two sports every year I try to handicap but always fail, maybe this year.

Biggest bet/profit I guess would be the superbowl between Giants/Patriots but it was more because of being lucky. I was living in Manhattan at the time and planning on placing a huge bet on the Patriots ML. A local bookie who I was betting with during the year called me and asked if I'd be interested in taking up to 75k action on Patriots -300 [the line was much better than online]. He seemed desperate so I said I'll let you know. Like 10 minutes later he's like what about -275. Eventually we made some deal where I'd put 35k on -225 and 40k on -200 which was ridiculous [I had my friend Mr. Sub call him and try to place a bet on Giants ML and he was offering Giants +150]. I don't keep 75k on me [not baller] so we arranged that if I lost I would pay him the next morning which was a little odd because this guy gave credit to no one. So I ended up pounding Giants +260 or so online to lock in the money and just watch the game for fun. Giants win, so the next morning I try to take out 75k from the bank and they make me fill out 40 forms and wait 5 days because its "suspicious". I go to tell the guy and his phone is going straight to voicemail so I stop by his shop and dude was just cleared out, nowhere to be found. He just screwed tons of people and left town. I guess that is why he just let me post on credit cause he had no intention of paying anyway.

I never did anything special to avoid getting cut which is probably why I have very little outs now. Just max bet, run bad and still get cut. I wasn't very smart when it came to that aspect though I did used to cheat by opening multiple accounts during the neteller era. If Jazzbet books go out of business or I get cut at 5dimes I'd be pretty screwed and have to maybe reapproach how I bet. Never lost on purpose.

My dad is a pile of ashes now but I guess when he was alive I'd have to take thremp because he had a huge moustache and I'm guessing it would be irritating.


I have like 2,000 drink tickets but I don't drink. I used to get that magazine where they send you tons of matchplay/cheap buffet coupons a month and just go from casino to casino betting BJ but it really wasn't a good use of time. When I used to bet more in a casino I'd just play breakeven video poker for like 8 hours a month and get enough comps to buy lunch for the entire month. About all I took advantage of.

And I didn't move to Vegas for the betting. I used to live in NJ then NY then NJ and both states are really bad for small business owners. NJ has the highest property, small business, and state taxes in the nation. Nevada has the 5th best. Out of the other top options (like Idaho, states you never heard of) Nevada seemed the best so I ended up renting an apartment at the Panorama Towers for a year or so until I bought a foreclosed house for insanely cheap on a street where 12 of the other 13 houses are vacant due to foreclosure.

Once I was tilted and bet 20k on Jonathan Sanchez when I should of only bet ~4k and lost. I guess it's more of a push but that stupid Spurs/Lakers playoff game with the meaningless 3 for tacos went from a 18k win to a push. In CFB I lost 14k on the Colorado/Colorado state game where the dude tripped at the 3 yard line. My average bet is in the 3-8k range so not super baller

And I like women and when I first came to Vegas I banged a lot of prostitutes and tourists, but in the past 8 months haven't really cared for women or men or masturbating or porn. Sex drive is all gone.

wtf is wrong with you?

No meat?
No whores?
No sluts?

wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf

So tilted.

I know no alcohol too, no drug habit, no friends. I make more in a day than my car is worth brand new (2003 Kia boy).

It's like I'm anti-baller.

I own a car. Its like 7000 miles away. I walk and ride public transit without paying for it (incorporating RD to all facets of life). But no masturbating and no meat?

wtf wtf wtf

Like I'd still jerk off with an unlimited supply of young wet vaja to pound... because its awesome. Does not compute.

Its like saying you've been on a multi-year water fast or smth.

it's weird...it's like, some of these answers make me think you're an interesting dude, but then i sit back and ask myself if i'd want to hang out with you, and i think 'probably not'.

good answers so far, i'm sure i'll have a couple eventually.

General opinions on matchbook?

favorite thread of this year

What do you still get a rush from, if anything?

Given that the 'smart' money is starting to buy up lots and properties in Nevada/LV, have you considered investing there since you are local?

In his Well Thread, HBob said:

To what degree do you agree with him on the limitations of "database handicapping"?

What's your favorite sport to watch?

What's your favorite sport to wager on and why?

I guess this is related to my don't hang out with gamblers thing, it really just comes from one bad event in my life. I'm not really good at poker at all but somehow I donked myself to win a $10 rebuy on PS for 19k and then the Sunday millions over one weekend. For fun I used to play "competitive" street fighter and one of my friends was big on $200 sit n gos. He had good sharkscope stats but was always broke for some reason. He knew I won both those tournaments and asked me to stake him 10k. At first I said yes since it seemed like a good investment but then I did the dick thing and just disappeared and never gave him the money. Of course he must of found another staker and then ran insanely hot in SNGs, won like 10 entries to WSOP Main event, final tabled, won a million, drew a lot of attention to himself, and now is signed to Team Pokerstars. If I staked him I probably would of made tons of money off of the deal since he was willing to give me a very large %, but oh well.

If you can't bet at Pinny might as well bet at Matchbook since all the big offers on there are most likely backed by Pinny anyway. I tend to use it more for baseball since I handicap the sport and place bets earlier. Pretty useless for derivatives/smaller markets, almost all of my offers on WNBA never get fully matched. Needs more volume and I don't think that will ever happen unless the environment changes to be more internet gambling friendly.

Nothing really. I built an office in my backyard and my day is basically:

Wake up 4am and develop and market products or setup campaigns to sell others -> follow up with some people -> take advantage of people who have no idea about business by selling them my old businesses which the cash flow is going to significantly drop off -> eat lunch by the pool -> cash checks -> sports all night -> pop in a blu ray and fall asleep in my theater

It's really a boring and pathetic life.

As far as real estate I thought about it, but I don't feel right now I know enough to make good deals and not end up screwing myself. I'm fortunate enough to have money to buy up a lot of cheap houses, but I wouldn't know what to do with them.

Also if there anyway to get financing to buy foreclosed houses? I had to buy my house in cash which kind of sucked and I wanted to buy my neighbors house (and connect them in an underground tunnel which would be awesome) but the bank won't give a loan for it and only wants cash. I have the money but it's not really a wise investment.

Yea it's tough, I agree that 2H is pretty useless with regards to DB. I have my own models based on a bunch of factors that I use for the 2H line.

As far as 1H, 1Q, and other derivatives I disagree. The reason is mainly if you look at the lines the day before they're really unbeatable doing straight database handicapping. If the total is X and the fair line for the 1H total is Y -110/-110 almost always the total is Y -110/-110. But what happens is when it gets closer to game time and the total gets farther from X the 1H total doesn't move and that is where the advantage comes in. You see the same thing in alt totals, puck lines, runlines, etc. Initially they're set perfectly but as the main line moves those lines become less efficient. If DB weren't useful I don't think you'd see that trend.

I think [just an assumption no proof of this] 2H isn't as good due to motivation factors. Two different football teams could be up by 14 at half but their approach to the 2H could be entirely different. One could be content just to run run run punt and play defense whereas the other could be playing the game like it is 0-0. If you're doing straight DB then you really don't factor in those type of things and I don't think the sample sizes are relevant enough to the point where it won't matter.

I don't watch sports. Maybe 5-10 games a year and they're mostly WNBA. I follow a lot of baseball on Gameday but that is more for fantasy sports not betting and I never watched more than 2 innings of baseball at a time.

and baseball is the best to bet IMO because there are so many games and props every day that are beatable. or basketball i guess due to all the options (1h, 1q, 2h, 3q, 4q, etc.)