Episode 28

Shane Mercer [00:00:00]:

They got to run that on ESPN. Like, dude, that was incredible. What a moment in that final. And welcome back to another episode of Behind the Lines. I'm your host Shane Mercer, and over there the founder of the greatest sports betting community on planet earth, Andrew Pace. This podcast the only one in the world purifying the sports betting industry. How do we do that? By teaching you and giving you the tools you need to navigate this landscape and avoid the traps deployed by the sportsbooks that are out there to take your money. They got all kinds of tricks. We're helping you avoid them while at the same time giving you the tools you need to succeed. So before we get into today's topic, I got to remind you all to like, download, subscribe, follow us on all the socials at inplayLIVE. And if you've got a sports betting story you want to share, something the books did to you, maybe that has you feeling a certain way, please share your story with us. We'll bring it up on the show. Who knows, we might even bring you on. All right, Pace, with all of that out of the way, let's get to today's episode. It's all about the power of community and man, that was on full force since we last spoke. For last week's episode, you and I actually met in person, face to face for the first time. Dude, it was awesome to meet you and Raj. For all of you out there who don't know Raj, mark Rodgman is Pace's partner with inplayLIVE, kind of the mastermind behind the scenes. So it was great to meet you and Raj and so many other members of the community at the third annual inplayLIVE pro retreat. Dude, that was an awesome know we're going to dive into it. But just off the top of my head, I just want to say thank you to you, Raj, Sabrina, the entire team at inplayLIVE for putting this on for the community. It was an awesome three day event filled with food, great food, awesome drinks, but more importantly, incredible company. It was just such an experience to connect with so many different people in the group, share conversations about betting, of course, but also just about life and a lot of conversations about how betting and regular life fit together and how people are making it work and finding ways to succeed over time. I learned so much over the course of 48 hours, maybe a little bit more than that for me because I had to split a little bit early to get back to coach some soccer. Again, all part of finding that balance in life. But, man, it was just such a rewarding experience. So again, just want to say thank you to you and Raj and the entire inplayLIVE team for putting that on Pace. It was remarkable. But give me the perspective as the person who was putting on the event.

Andrew Pace [00:02:59]:

I think, you know, with anything in life, roger and I in particular, I think we're really hell bent on continuous improvement. And we're the kind of people where I guess a lot of people, they see us on our live streams. And if you're not a member of inplayLIVE, perhaps you've Doven into this podcast to a certain extent and you've seen our Socials. I know, Shane, you just recommended people to follow us, but a lot of the things we're doing on Socials right now are almost like mini Behind the Lines episodes. They're like 62nd episodes, so they're really great to watch. But Roger and I kind of have a mindset, outside of a lot of the community stuff, of just if there's something that needs to get done, really, to just get it done. And then when we do something, we're very much trial and error type people where we'll have a conversation about business, right, about an idea, about a strategy. So this has nothing to do with betting, and we oftentimes come to the resolution of, all right, let's try it. We got a whole bunch of things that can even begin to start that are just sitting in the bottom of the garbage can, right? But I think what differentiates us is that we tried it. Robert Herjevik is all about the idea or execution. What's more important, he said that alluded to that on Shark Tank a few times, and execution is everything. You can have a great idea in life, and it's nothing without actually pulling the trigger. And the flip side to that is then if you do pull the trigger, recognizing that your first try isn't necessarily your best try. So we did this event three years ago as kind of inplayLIVE turns one, and that was very much during COVID It was the summer of 2021, so we had turned one year old, we had a nice little community, and about 26 people came out to Vancouver to hang out with us. And we didn't plan or do anything. It was just like having some buddies over 25 people. It's like having a party for just like a big group of friends. So that was more or less what it was super simple. It's like, hey, you guys want to have some steaks? It's very simple. But it was amazing. And what I didn't realize at that first event was that the impact of a lot of the things that you just touched on or alluded to were tremendous. I think first and foremost, like meeting people in the flesh, humanizes an online community with online communities, and especially when you take to social media these days, there's a lot of hateful talk, there's a lot of meaningless debate where there's two different sides to something and each is proving their point, knowing that their mind could never be changed. So you're engaging in discussion that actually is not necessarily productive in any capacity, but once you meet someone in the flesh and you do humanize who that person is inside of any given community, the way you interact with them going forward just has a little bit of a different touch to it. You're like, oh, that's the guy I met. And with that first inplayLIVE event, what we actually had was a lot of people that were in the group that didn't actually truly know that there were other people inside of inplayLIVE that had been successful sports bettors. And what I mean by that is they might see me on a live stream and only me on a live stream, because we didn't have a team of people streaming with me back in the day. And they might hear about my success, but if they're making some of their own bets or if they're not managing their money properly, they weren't getting a ton of access to people in their shoes that were struggling or succeeding because they didn't necessarily have those interactions. And what we found out at that first event is we've got a couple of seven figure guys hanging out with a couple of guys straight up betting a dollar to $5 units. And the people that were betting the dollar to $5 units were very comfortable with where they were at and just having fun in an online community. And it was life changing, truly meeting those 25, 26 people on that first event. And I was like, holy shit, I couldn't believe the stories that came from that. And a lot of those people that I'm referring to now are pretty staple individuals inside of the inplayLIVE community. Not that they're better than anyone else. It's just that they're the people that heads turn towards because they're like, oh, he did it first, or he's one of the first people that had that success, and you can actually reach out to him and he'll help mean after year that that was a real eye opening experience. And a lot of those guys said, whatever you do, you cannot miss Vancouver next year. And that's know, year two, we had no idea what we were in for. It was extremely overwhelming. We went from hosting basically what would be like a house party with your buddies, where if you wanted to, you could just Uber everyone food, to needing teams of people that we didn't have. Hundreds of people showed up, and over 100 people showed up, and it was extremely overwhelming. And I would describe those three days, aside from actual sickness or loss, three of the most stressful days of my entire life. But what was interesting is a lot of those one in $5 bettors came back with hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. And I could pinpoint that moment in time where they went to the first event being the mindset shift, because we weren't necessarily calling different bets at inplayLIVE. It was the way they were betting them and the way they were doing their other things, the bad habits that changed once they realized that other people had walked in their shoes. So yeah, I witnessed that all go down and that's where things were really powerful. And you asked me this is a long winded question about how things went from my perspective. Well, I go back to what I originally said about continuous improvement. We took that second year event that we were under prepared for, under equipped for, and didn't have the team for, and we more or less mastered that and really through a very efficient and organized event. A really good example being like the cornhole tournament that we threw. Everyone was playing the whole time. Everyone had food, everyone had drinks. There's music playing. As soon as someone wasn't playing anymore, we had things organized and got people right back playing again. And then that obviously led to the finals of our Cornhole Tournament, which was one of the most electric moments inplayLIVE history.

Shane Mercer [00:10:24]:

They got to run that on ESPN. Like, dude, that was incredible. What a moment in that final.

Andrew Pace [00:10:30]:

It was just insane. It was so intense and so competitive. So on the note of continuous improvement, we've already kind of had a little debrief, and we know already what next year's event is going to look like, and it's going to be that much better next year, and it's just going to keep getting better. But one of the coolest things, and this is something that a couple of those original members pointed out to me, they saw a large group of people come last year and they saw a large group of people come this year, but they saw almost an entirely different group of people this year. And there's tons of overlap, but there's also a whole series of new faces. Some of those new faces are old members that just were never able to actually make the first two events. And some of them are just new members that have embraced the community. And I think back to that first event and what it did for people, and then I hear your discussion on the impact that it had on you and some of the discussions that you've had with people. And I just know that that's happening on a really great scale that's really beneficial to a lot of people. And there are moments in life where you can be down in the dumps. I'm sitting there going, jeez, we're having a tough month. Members are talking shit about me. Members are leaving the group. Those are some sleepless nights for me. They really are challenging. And then I get a couple of people that come up to me and say some things to me at the event that really turn things around. And I'm not having a bad month or referring to that being that current time. Just looking back on the year where you can pinpoint some sort of darker moments and you get someone that comes up to you and says something to you about the impact that inplayLIVE has had on their life. And I take those comments so unbelievably deeply, and just one of them, one of those stories, I go, hey, the next guy's around the corner. Andrew, what you're doing is too important to stop. Not that I've considered stopping, too important to stop, and so important to keep going, because the impact of some of these stories, they're things that I could have never possibly even remotely fathomed of what's happened in certain people's lives. The power of the community and seeing what the community has done for people financially, relationship wise, mindset wise, it's infinite, man. And, yeah, it was pretty special. I thought things went really well, and yeah, it was really special.

Shane Mercer [00:13:26]:

Okay, so a lot of that I want to dive into there and kind of dig into a little bit that you touched on. So first thing, execution, dude, you guys nailed the execution side. I mean, it was seamless, and there was never a moment where it was like, what the hell are we doing here? What's going on here? No, it was just like it was a good time right from the beginning till the end, and there was never a moment of, wow, these guys don't know what they're doing or they don't have it together. No, it was like, wow, this is just awesome. The other side of it, you bring together 100 guys, over 100 people together in one sort of area, one group, mostly strangers. Yeah, and they might know each other through discord or know each other through a handle or on a one name basis kind of thing, but they don't really know each other. And you bring all these people together for several days, and you would think that you might have some conflicts, some issues arise, especially with a lot of drinks flowing and that kind of thing, that it could lead to some problems. There was none of that. It was just a great time enjoyed by all, and there were no real problems. Or if people wanted to have disagreements about things, they did it in a very respectful way. There was a lot of mutual respect between everybody, and I thought that that was really impressive. It exists in the discord and sort of within the group on Facebook, but to sort of see it translate over into real life again, with so much else going on, people are traveling. Things can get stressful sometimes. But when everybody was together, it was seamless. And a lot of the people, it was almost like, wow, we've been friends forever, I've known you forever, or it had that kind of feeling. It was just easy to talk to people and get to know each other. And so I think from that side of things, you guys really executed in a major way. I want to get into the aspect of stories and hearing people's stories and whether they were super successful or not, that whole environment of story sharing and really getting to sort of embrace someone else's experience and allowing it to maybe illuminate your own experience a little bit was just that's priceless, right? To be able to kind of hear how someone else became successful and here's how I did it and here's how our lives might be similar and here are some ways that maybe you could do it too. Just an incredible opportunity for growth, for learning. I know myself as a dad, it was great to connect with other dads that were there, that are sort of finding that life balance between they're working full time jobs, they're dadding full time and they're betting and our sports value analysts full time and they're fully successful doing all three. And that was just incredible to sort of share those stories and strategies for how to kind of find that balance. And you mentioned how in the early days you were kind of doing it on your own, you were the only person on a stream making know and then it kind of grew. You added Kenny, but I think over the past year, you guys really kind of grew the presence during the stream to bring in these other pros, the flock. For all of you who aren't part of the inplayLIVE. Community wondering what that's the name of the group of the guys that are on the streams on a regular basis making calls to meet some of those guys and get to know them on a better level and sort of understand how they're arriving at their calls during a live stream while the games are on again. Just absolutely priceless to be able to make those connections and to just really learn and grow from those people. Just an awesome opportunity. And so if you are part of inplayLIVE and you're part of the community already, I encourage you join pro just so that you can go to the pro retreat next year. Because I learned so much just in that short amount of time, it made it totally worth it.

Andrew Pace [00:17:55]:

Yeah, I think to touch on some of the things you said there, this is a really powerful message, I think, for anyone that is listening to this that is not a member of inplayLIVE or is a former member of inplayLIVE. I think the single thing that I'm most proud of from year two to year three, from the event standpoint, we didn't have any conflicts in year two. And believe it or not, we actually had a conflict in year one. The single thing that I'm most proud of is actually looking at the community as a whole and it builds off of what you said relating to having no conflicts at the event and how sort of I don't mean like minded where everyone's the same. I would say people that have the right head on their shoulders and the right mindset. And I'm not going to bring up any names, but there's a person that showed up at the event this year that would have been someone that I would have put in a bucket in year one, because this is a long standing member that I would have said isn't the right fit for this community. And that person is now so level headed, so right minded, so successful and so grateful for the life that they live and everything that they do within the community. So what I'm most proud of is after going through some really challenging times with the community this past year, getting everyone into a mindset of long term sustainable growth, positivity and success and that doesn't mean that we don't have conflicts. That means that there's a way to approach them where you do humanize the other person in that online community to the extent that you rather than look at a conflict from the standpoint of I'm right, you're wrong and my goal right now is to prove you wrong. But look at it as we are both in this to beat the sports books. There is no other real reason that we are here besides that. Yes, you have friends, yes, there's the community and all the other aspects but at the end of the day at the very top in the middle is we are here to beat the sports books. That's why we came here in the first place. That presents a learning opportunity if there is a disagreement. So you can look at said person and go, hey, you know what? I'm just trying to understand your side of things. And then if you have data or if I have data that I can show you to help you, we're going to leave this conversation in a much better place. And from a business standpoint, every single member is a subscriber. They pay a subscription fee. So you might take a wrong minded member and go hey I'm going to work on this with this person or hey I'm going to ignore this with this person because ultimately they are a part of the success of the business. But one of the biggest learning lessons for me and it sounds so simple but this is one of the biggest flaws that a whole series of businesses make. You might have a top performer that isn't someone that's trustworthy, that buys into your values and the toxicity that that top performer provides to the rest of the group, the team and the issues that that particular person brings to that ecosystem are actually a net negative despite the performance. So we have learned in the community really just a no nonsense approach. Like if you're the kind of person that comes into our group and you make fun of someone you use hate speech or anything problematic or anything like that. It's really simple for us. It's like, see you're out of here. And by taking that approach, it's crazy how much these really great people have felt comfortable again being themselves inside of the community. And that's where we've really seen some of these great stories that have led to a great event like what you're referring to that is more or less conflict free and yeah, every single person, a lot of people could sit there and say, listen to me, which is what they do in the community a lot. And especially on this podcast, like right now, you guys are listening to me if you're listening to this. But for me, just going, hey, broaching, a subject of any kind, and then letting someone else talk a little bit and maybe guiding it in a certain direction or asking a few probing questions, the amount that I can learn from the community is remarkable. And I think the most powerful part of that for me was when we started inplayLIVE, we weren't like, hey, we're going to start the world's greatest sports betting community. That's our goal. What we did was we were like, hey, we know that we can help the betting industry. That isn't even a question. We have excellent materials, resources and education that the average bettor could benefit from. Tremendously community didn't really cross our mind. It was a part of the discussion, but it wasn't something that we believed to be the discussion. And as the community grew, what was so crazy about it from my standpoint is I'm the guy saying, I'm the one with the tools, the education and the resources to make you a better sports bettor. But I didn't realize that the community would provide me with all of these resources as well to make me that much of a better sports bettor. So from the standpoint of this continuous improvement mindset, the community has made me who I am, let alone the people that it's made as well. It's been incredibly humbling and something that I'm infinitely proud of, to be a part of.

Shane Mercer [00:24:11]:

And I'm infinitely grateful to be a part of as the host of this podcast, because I get to probe guys like you, but also the other members of the flock, guys we've had on the show before taw john DK. Randy. Kenny. Of course. Right. And not only do I get to probe them here on the show, I get a benefit out of it 100%, but I'm trying to get a benefit for all of our viewers and listeners out there, our entire audience. And just to be able to connect with them in person makes me that much more comfortable to maybe dig a little deeper when we have them on the show again in the future and sort of be able to extract that much more value from them. So very much looking forward to that. Okay, I want to look forward now, but before we do, I got to ask you, is there anything that you would have done differently from this past retreat?

Andrew Pace [00:25:13]:

Jeez no, I think it went really well. And I think just from the standpoint of continuous improvement, I'm not upset about anything that we did. I think more than anything, it's just changes that will happen for the next event. And one of the things that I really love that we did was we had events set up after our events, each of the nights, which provided for some real great late night stories and fun, which we'll definitely set up again next year. So what I'm referring to for any of you that like to indulge in late night activities, beverages and events and things like that, we had some of the top Vancouver nightlife spaces booked out for us. So had some really great experiences there.

Shane Mercer [00:25:57]:

Yeah, those are really cool out at the bar afterwards where people really let loose. Those are great opportunities to just grow those connections, build those connections. And I mean, seeing the beautiful city. Vancouver is such a beautiful city. We went on that boat, know, really got to sort of see it sort of from around the outskirts and kind know, enjoy all the beauty that Vancouver has to offer. What a city.

Andrew Pace [00:26:20]:

Ya I think there are things that remind me of why I do this that are so subtle, that make me push forward. And one of the biggest reasons that Play Live started in the first place. So I talked about having betting resources and all that stuff to be able to help people. That sounds all really nice and kumbaya, whatever, but one of the biggest reasons was the way the sports books treated me. I kind of took a bit of a fuck you, I'm going to war with you approach where I'm going. If you're not going to let me play on your site, I'm going to teach hundreds of people how to beat you. So there is an element to this as well, where it is like, hey, you know what, we're at war. But the flip side to that is also purifying the betting industry and the perception of sports bettors and sports gamblers. If you do this right, if you go up to the average person on the street and you say, I gamble on sports, they're going to think this guy's an idiot, right? So we got on that boat cruise. I won't name the company because this isn't really like something to be said maliciously. But to more give an example of the perception of gamblers we got on that boat cruise and they did kind of like a humorous announcement, like what are the odds of where people can find the life jackets? Or the payout for someone that can find the life jackets over the announcement instead of their typical safety drill, which I thought was kind of clever and fun and catered to the group, which I thought was a really nice touch. But anyways, we ran a tab for the group there on the boat and came time to pay for it, and I went up and paid. And my girlfriend was with me at the time, and she's right around me there. We watched the machine go, Approved. And then a receipt never printed out. And I'm like, oh, I need a receipt. So they never printed out a receipt for me. And I said, can you like I didn't say I need it right now, or there was no argument or anything. It was all smiles, and it was like, hey, do you mind just emailing it to me? Here's my email, and thanks so much, guys. We all left the boat smiling. And I got a call yesterday, which is four days later, got a call yesterday, and it's the owner of the boat, and he is irate. He's just losing it on me. And he's like, hey, Andrew, I know you were too drunk to pay your tab, and I know you walked out on your bill. And I was like, excuse me. I'm like, Excuse me. And he's like, yeah, I've got girls here that they've been crying all weekend. They haven't received their tips. You've stolen from them. You've stolen from me. And I'm like, what? So I'm really calm right now. I talk about, like, take the high road and all this stuff. I just fucking snapped on the guy. And basically what happened was the machine showed approved, and I think it shut down, and the transaction never actually went through. So I paid the bill yesterday, okay? I went and checked my bank statement to make sure that the bill was, in fact, not paid. And he was correct. It was not paid.

Shane Mercer [00:29:36]:

But it showed approved in the moment.

Andrew Pace [00:29:38]:

Oh, yeah, lace was right beside me. We both green checked Mark approved.

Shane Mercer [00:29:42]:

And I mean, the waitresses, too, would have said, yeah, okay, approved. Right?

Andrew Pace [00:29:45]:

The machine went black. They couldn't print a receipt. They couldn't turn it back on. So I'm like, okay, guys, well, we both saw it say approved. They weren't like, Get back here. They're like, okay, have a good day, thanks.

Shane Mercer [00:29:54]:

Not to mention, too, we're out in the middle of the ocean, so you could get some technical problems, connection problems and that kind of thing.

Andrew Pace [00:30:02]:

Yeah, totally right for me, say whatever you want to say, but I can't help but think that we were treated that way because we're quote gamblers. And that is definitely something that exists in the world and something that we at In Play, live from a community standpoint, are working on. And that stems way beyond the story that I just told you. It stems down to your families and your children, the perception of gambling, the dangers of gambling, the actual harsh realities of it. So I'm not saying tell them that's not true. I'm saying have those discussions. And let them know where inplayLIVE sits in those areas and then also recognizing of course you individually where you go, hey, I am betting on sports. There is an element of this that is gambling and that sort of gambling demon is always on your shoulder saying, trying to get you to make a foolish decision because that is sort of the nature of the psychology of the gambling landscape and no one's perfect. So there are going to be moments where maybe you did bet a little bit too much, and then the gambling gods don't let you win that bet. Or you did win the bet, but it created some sort of false sense of gratification for making that decision, where the next time around you will, in fact, end up losing for overexposing on a particular bet or chasing or whatever it may be associated with it. But when you have these honest conversations it eliminates the going to the bathroom to check the scores, refreshing your phone underneath the table at dinner, not being present with your family because of what is going on in the world of sports at that particular time. Casino gambling versus sports betting or sports investing. Like all of these discussions and as a community we have really proven that you can succeed at this. I met a whole series of people this week that I didn't know that had become full time, that had actually left their nine to five and are doing this for a living, which every time I hear that, I'm just in awe of the people that have been able to do that. And it's obviously hugely rewarding for me to hear, but also something that I'm just really proud of and also gives me that sort of reiteration or confirmation to be like, you know what, this is working for a lot of people. Keep going, don't worry about those people that it didn't work for because it obviously isn't for everyone. But yeah, that gambling perception and giving people that proper education, not saying that all those things don't exist and that you shouldn't be aware of them, but ultimately giving those education, those tools, those resources so that people do recognize there is a space to invest and succeed here. The house doesn't always win.

Shane Mercer [00:33:15]:

No, it doesn't. And there is a way to beat it on a regular basis. So let's talk about how the group is going to do that going forward. We have probably, well, definitely the biggest sport in North America is about to kick off and about two weeks from now I'm talking about NFL, of course. And Pace, I know that this is a time of year where it's almost like the beginning of a new sports season, right? So we just sort of wrapped up the inplayLIVE annual retreat. Now it's sort of time to start focusing on what comes next and well, what comes next NFL followed by NBA and NHL and college sports, and we get into a very busy time of the year. It's going to be awesome. I'm very much looking forward to it. But how is the community as a whole kind of preparing for it?

Andrew Pace [00:34:11]:

Yeah, great question. I think if you're a professional sports bettor or maybe that's not the best term, we like the term sports value analyst. But if you're someone who wagers on sports and you had a fiscal year, the fiscal year ends, I would say, at the beginning of August. And the new fiscal year starts at the start of NFL preseason. So we got week three of NFL preseason coming up this week, if you're watching this on time. And we just had a huge Monday night NFL preseason game with the Commandos against the Ravens, and the Commandos snapped the most meaningless sports betting streak in the history of sports.

Shane Mercer [00:34:52]:

What was it, 24 preseason games, something like that, for the Ravens?

Andrew Pace [00:34:55]:

Yeah, 24 in a row. And people on the Internet and stuff were saying like, oh, you had to play your starters for a whole half to snap the most meaningless streak ever kind of thing. And I'm just sitting there going like, you think our wallets care about what you guys are saying? I always laugh at the public perceptions of things because they tend to help or be contrary to how we capitalized on. Yeah. The new fiscal year starts now. Something you missed there, Shane, is that week zero of college football starts on Saturday. Week zero of college football is usually really bad teams, but they usually put one good power five school in there. I think USC is playing this Saturday.

Shane Mercer [00:35:43]:

Will we see an Army Navy game or something like that? Probably.

Andrew Pace [00:35:46]:

I think Navy's playing Notre Dame. Navy's playing Notre Dame. Okay. Yeah. So Navy's playing, know, USC is playing some terrible team, but we get to see the last year's heisman Caleb Williams, get back to work. But regardless of all that, yeah, it's an exciting time of year. It's a time of year where you get a lot of hype, you get a lot of new members, you get a lot of, I would say expectations that are, I don't want to say are unrealistic, they're too immediate. So you get a lot of people thinking, know, first day of college football, we're going to make so much money, or first weekend of NFL, we're going to make so much money. But if anyone's done this for long enough and a common question from outsiders are like, do you think the books will catch on to what you're doing? Or do you think this strategy will still be available next year? And the answer to the books catching on is yes. And the answer to will this strategy be here next year? Is maybe we never know. So what that means from a new season standpoint is that we have to adapt to what's going on so take the previous baseball season. We saw the first season with the pitch clock. We saw the first season with the bigger bases. Scoring is up, attendance is up, game times are down, right? So from a betting standpoint, put those same changes into any sport where you go, okay, we have these new rules in the NHL. We have these new rules in college football, which is the case this year. We have some pretty significant rule changes in college football this year. We went through an NFL season where pass interference challenges came and went. Pats went from the two yard line, so a 19 yard kick to a 37 yard kick. There are a lot of rule changes that come throughout sports. And if you taper your expectations to something that is realistic and you don't look at any one day, week or month as what will make or break you, you look at things from the grand scheme of the season, right? So approaching the season is a very exciting thing. It's something that gosh I think of back to school and the anxiety. Like, I would never have coined it as anxiety at that time in my life, but I remember walking through Costco or London drugs or whatever the case would be, and all the back to school stuff was out, and I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. Absolutely sick to my stomach. Like there aren't even words, literally. And now this time of year is back to school is the most exciting time of the year because it's like Christmas, right? You get college football and NFL, and if you taper those expectations, where you go, I'm not in this for this weekend. I'm in this to figure out this season and to make long term, successful, profitable sports betting decisions over the course of this season. You have a really good approach, but also you recognize that something that you were doing last year might not be what you're doing today. So that means that you have to take some of the game in without wagering or wagering really small. You take that game in and you go, okay, not much has changed. Let's let it rip. Responsibly or holy smokes. There's an impact here. I don't know if this is something we should be betting or not. We need to start testing it, right? And for me, testing it doesn't mean just writing it down. For me, testing it means betting it because I have to live it to learn. And that's kind of the approach. And there's been previous football seasons where you get so excited that you think it's just, for whatever reason, more profitable or something that you're not going to lose on. So you come out of the gate too hard and you kill yourself before you've even started. So yeah, really excited for the rule changes in NCAA football this year. Really excited for the NFL. And by the way, everything I just said ignores personnel changes and coaching. Know, Alabama no longer has, you know, Georgia no longer has, you know, there's all these new quarterbacks, there's all these new players in college football, but that also extends into the we've, we've got new quarterbacks, new coaches, all these types of things, and the impact that that has on the way that that team. Know, obviously the hype for the New York Jets is like absolutely through the roof right now. But that is an entirely new football, don't. And I'm the kind of person that is going to be the first to be like, do you really think they're going to be clicking and gelling on week one? Makes me think about the Bucks. When Tom Brady joined them, they weren't very good. They won the Super Bowl, but they actually weren't very good. They started really peaking in the second half of the season. They really started to get those wins clicking up and then they snuck into the wild card and won the Super Bowl. But it takes time to succeed. So any team or any situation where you have all this hype from a betting standpoint, I think you always want to look at that as where is this hype leading to a public overreaction or overcorrection in the sports books and is there a way that I can capitalize on the hype, not panning out? So yeah, those are some of the things we're looking forward to for football.

Shane Mercer [00:41:43]:

You know, I love that you brought up the jets there because I live in the Toronto area, just a couple hours away from Buffalo, same division, and a whole bunch of my friends are Buffalo fans. So I've been teasing them quite a bit. But I might be buying into the hype a little too much and setting myself up for some zingers back later in the season if the Bills sort, know, perform better than the jets because I'm kind of just bugging them, know, teasing them over and over again about the jets and the Dolphins in that division. But I want to get at something else you talked about there about the idea of new people joining the group at this time of year, which is great, right? We want people to join, we want people to come on in. And if you are thinking about joining, we have a promo code for you 'BEHINDTHELINES'. But managing expectations I think is so important because I'll admit when I first joined, especially leading up to the football season, I had been in for a couple of months already, but I was really looking forward to that NFL season and I was thinking in my head, man, first week we're going to crush it. And I thought I was sort of bent on my success being more immediate, know, perhaps I should have been in my headspace and I think that message of success not being immediate is so important and doesn't mean that you're not going to win wagers. It just means that you're not going to win a few hundred thousand dollars overnight or tens of thousands of dollars over a single weekend. Especially if you're betting responsibly. If you're following what's laid out for you in the course material, you probably shouldn't be winning tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a weekend. So I think managing those expectations is just so important. And now being somebody who's spent the past year within inplayLIVE and now coming into this new sports season, it's so interesting to look back and think about where I was at the beginning of last season. And now where I am at the beginning of this season as I kind of look forward to not week one or two or thinking I'm going to make a killing in any one of those weeks. But to look at it as an entire season of one sport. But then also knowing that I'm going to be rolling in other sports at certain points and really kind of planning out the year, the whole sports year, and developing my own plan that works for me and my life and my family and my personal life. It's really such a different perspective when you start looking at things with this kind of holistic view. So really looking forward to sort of drilling down on my own plans and then applying them over the course of the next year. I think that's going to be awesome and I'm really looking forward to that.

Andrew Pace [00:44:25]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Shane Mercer [00:44:27]:

I want to ask you one more thing though about The Flock, because I think this will be the first full sports season of the Flock in action. So talk to me about how you think having all those people around you is going to impact the season ahead.

Andrew Pace [00:44:48]:

Well, I think this is more about community again, which is obviously our topic today, than it is about them or me. I think it's just more eyeballs geared towards the same common goal, leads to just greater standpoint. Simply from my standpoint, you got to understand I'm in Vancouver BC. I don't have DraftKings, I don't have FanDuel, I don't have BetMGM. Do I have some of those lines available to me through other yes I do, but ultimately I don't have the big major regulated sports books. You know, the Flock, they're all from the United States, so they help to translate. So if I'm taking something here that applies to all the provinces not named Ontario, they can translate those lines into Ontario lines and lines available in the United States. So that's a huge impact for me personally, for the group. They're seeing things that I'm not seeing relating to those regulated sports. Know, we get one of the common questions from the outside. We'll get, can I make this work? I'm in X and I'm in X location. One of the good ones is I want to join, but I'm in canada.

Shane Mercer [00:46:18]:

Welcome.

Andrew Pace [00:46:19]:

I get that one all the time. I want to join, but I'm in Canada. Yeah. I think the translation of the lines is something that's really important, but more than anything is those eyeballs for value. So not everyone's on at once. The whole point of having that group of people is like, tonight is an example. We're shooting this on Tuesday. I know it airs on Wednesday. So Tuesday night, MLB, they'll have a couple of guys on tonight that have done really well with baseball. This really, really well. Randy in particular has just been lights out with his calls. They're few and far between, but the low volume, high success calls that he makes are tremendous. So he's going to be on tonight and that allows for me to focus on other things in the business, but also really focus on preseason NFL for this upcoming week. So The Flock is a really nice distribution. So when I think about the season, I think we've been referencing football, but where they really come in with value for me personally is I think about Gosu with NBA, I think about Schroeder with football. Preseason something that I'm not great at and that's a lot of college ball as well. I think about Kenny with NFL and specifically when he's betting in the NFL, something that doesn't cater to my strengths and my skill sets. I think about myself with hockey, I think about DK with hockey. I think about Randy for all things basketball, and DK is a really nice compliment for him. All things basketball and Kenny with college hoops. And I guess ultimately what I'm getting at is, especially if you're an outsider listening to this, is people's weaknesses being eliminated by their strengths coming together. And that is a community aspect of inplayLIVE. But also, obviously, who works with us directly, being those people that really do gel well together and ultimately provide a great product. So that if you can't bet on Tuesday, but you can bet on Thursday, the option is available in your subscription, especially if you have our pro tier to join in whenever you want to.

Shane Mercer [00:48:48]:

And really take advantage of all of these sort of different people with their different skills and strengths. It's really remarkable. I'm looking forward to seeing it all kind of in action for the first sort of full season of The Flock. I think it's going to be pretty awesome. Pace, before we say goodbye, anything else important you want to add?

Andrew Pace [00:49:06]:

Let's rock and roll, baby. Football season.

Shane Mercer [00:49:08]:

All right, budy. Till next week, keep beating those books. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Behind the Lines. Remember to like, download and subscribe. We are on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and everywhere you get your podcasts. Have a betting story or want to be featured on our podcast, drop a note in the comments below. And you want to join inplayLIVE. Use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'