Episode 29

Andrew Pace [00:00:00]:

$17 billion is spent by corporate America during fantasy football season on stolen time. That means the office time thief. Fire that man. Yeah.

Shane Mercer [00:00:28]:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Lines, the only podcast purifying the sports betting industry. I'm your host, Shane Mercer. That guy over there, Andrew Pace, the founder of inplayLIVE, only the greatest sports betting community on planet Earth. And if you like this, you like the content, well, remember to like, download and subscribe, and you can follow us on all the socials at inplayLIVE now. Also, if you have a betting story, you want to share it with us, drop us a note in the comments below. We'll try to bring it up on the show. Who knows? We might even invite you to come on. All right, today we are talking all things fantasy football. Chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you're among the something like 40, 50 million people in North America who participate in fantasy football. Pace I just did a draft last night. It's one of four I think I'll be doing this season. This was the first one so far leading up. So I've got another sort of week, week and a half ahead before kickoff on that Thursday, where I will be looking at average draft position ADP. I will be evaluating who I want, what stacks I want for the season, who I like, all of those things. I was really excited yesterday when I did this first draft because guess what? I got the number one spot, first pick overall. And as a Vikings fan, well, who do you think? I took it's pretty easy. Justin Jefferson, the gritty king himself. I was really, really happy with that. The draft, I think, went really well. I'm very excited about it. And as I mentioned, I'm participating in four this season, and that's kind of been my sort of max capacity for fantasy leagues because I do like to give them a lot of attention, the attention that I feel they deserve. But I don't want them to be somebody who's doing like, 20 fantasy leagues at once because it just becomes a little too much to handle. And then I'm not giving the right amount of attention to each roster that I'm managing. But I absolutely love it. I've been doing it for, I don't know, about close to 15 years, I think, now with fantasy football. And it's a lot of fun, and that's what I think it should be. Pace what's your experience like with fantasy football?

Andrew Pace [00:02:41]:

Jeez well, we always say on this podcast, no crystal balls, no predictions, things like that. And then when you talk like, hey, we're talking fantasy football, we could be like every other podcast out there right now. It's just telling you who to draft and why. Now, my experience with fantasy football has been one that has been an overall catalyst in my betting success, because fantasy football sort of keeps me with a finger on the pulse as it relates to the personnel in the leagues themselves. I think I have done one season with four leagues and I absolutely hated it because I found that a lot of my players were playing against each other, which was always frustrating. And then I found myself cheering for one league over another, and then that ultimately actually meant I was cheering against myself in one or two of my leagues. So I always do two leagues. One is a dynasty league and the other one is a redraft. It's just a ton of fun. That's really all it is. It's a ton of fun. It's a way to engage with your friends. I find there's a lot of negative shit I can say about fantasy football. Like a lot of negative shit that I could say gosh and without trying to offend anyone too too much. Fantasy football becomes something that, like I said, keeps people connected, which I think is a really positive thing, but it also becomes the outlet for a lot of grown men to have a release from a lot of the stresses of their day to day lives. I think that's great, but I also think it's sad at the same time.

Shane Mercer [00:04:14]:

Why is it sad?

Andrew Pace [00:04:17]:

I feel so fortunate in the sense that at inplayLIVE, we have the same sort of time commitment associated with fantasy football in a much more productive fashion, in a fashion that hopefully is one that makes you money over time and is one that overall boosts your financial well being and hopefully teaches you some things outside of your financial well being that lead to your overall success. I don't believe fantasy football does that for the average user. I think it's a big waste of time. And I think that entertainment aside, like the entertainment part of it, is tremendous, but the time that goes into it relative to what you're actually doing makes no sense whatsoever. There's no logic behind it. And I think it's sad that a lot of people have this as their release, as opposed to actually, I think, being a little bit more transparent. I think it relates to a lot of the dark sides of the sports betting industry. And there definitely is a gambling undertone with fantasy football where fantasy football and gambling can be sort of like this hidden thing that you don't even do at home around your wife and kids because you're not allowed to, and you end up doing it at work to fill in the time. So I just think that that can be a little bit sad sometimes.

Shane Mercer [00:05:34]:

Yeah, absolutely. I can follow you in some of that thought process, especially when it comes to the idea of daily fantasy football where it's not season long and it's maybe not necessarily for fun and you're trying to make money at it. I know a lot of people kind of have gone down that hole. I mean, I've tried it and played a little daily fantasy football in the past and I mean, yeah, it's fun, but there's a real element of addiction to that. Whereas kind of the season long fantasy football stuff, I find it's a great way to, as you said, stay connected. I have a circle of friends that I've known for a long, long time, and we're in a fantasy league that's running well over a decade now. Another one with old coworkers and another one with family, like brothers and sister and relatives. And so that one's a fun one too. And it gives us something at that Thanksgiving and Christmas to kind of joke about and have some fun with and that kind of thing. But that sad aspect that you brought up can certainly be there. And like I said, I definitely think when it comes to daily fantasy football, that can be a major problem for a lot of people out. You know, I think that really gets into the gambling side of things.

Andrew Pace [00:06:53]:

Well, first and foremost, DFS is actually there's a lot of overlaps with DFS with what we do at inplayLIVE. You can make money consistently from DFS. It is a different ballgame, it's a different arena. I haven't done it myself from a profitability standpoint, but I know you can make consistent long term money from DFS. Now, as for the other side of things, I really don't want it to be like, oh, this downer thing where we're bashing fantasy football. I just think that if your release in life is fantasy football and that's your way of getting away from the stresses and things like that, there's a lot of positive in that. But at the same time, we try to encourage people to do things that they love in life. So fantasy football can be a complement to the things that you love in life, as opposed to the only release or that sort of freedom that you hope to get. And a lot of people on Sundays, they're not allowed to be watching the games or not allowed to be hanging out with their friends and betting with them, for good reason, I would say. And then they're refreshing their fantasy feeds all day long. They didn't actually necessarily watch the games, and it's just like, oh man, sometimes I think about that lifestyle and it gives me anxiety just thinking that, quite honestly, a huge reason why inplayLIVE exists, so that people can actually dedicate time to these types of activities that are much more productive than the actual fantasy leagues themselves.

Shane Mercer [00:08:15]:

So let's talk a little bit about that then, because I like the idea you brought up of when you had four teams, because like I said, I'll be running four teams this year and I've been doing four for a little while now. And I don't mind necessarily cheering on one side or cheering against another side. In fact, most of the time I'm just interested in watching a good game. If I'm watching the games and sitting down and just happy to sort of see great plays and highlights and all that sort of stuff. And if my fantasy team wins, great. If it doesn't, oh, well, there's one league I take a little more seriously than the others. So that one always has a bit more priority for me. But I think that this idea of, hey, wait a minute. There might be a way, though, because I am spending all this time thinking about players rosters, team tendencies, that there's a way to translate that.

Andrew Pace [00:09:10]:

Totally. Totally. And I think that that would probably bring us to an Instagram reel that we recently made. We do them on TikTok, Twitter, everything, so you can follow us on any of the social channels and you'll actually be able to see, I would say, what I would call them, like mini Behind the Lines episodes. So we did one on fantasy football this past week, so I'll just run that right now and then can chat a little bit about it here.

Andrew Pace [00:09:34]:

It's fantasy football season and everyone on social media is telling you who to draft. Here's what they're not telling you. Your knowledge of the NFL and the personnel in that league is being underutilized. And there's a much better way to spend your time if you're one of the 75 million Americans spending an average time of 6.9 hours per week on your fantasy team, even if you won your league, the median payout is only $350, valuing your time at roughly $3 per hour. I love fantasy football, but I use my fantasy football knowledge to wager and invest in sports live through great personnel knowledge that I capitalize on in real time. For more information on this, click the link in our bio and as always, follow us for more betting tips.

Shane Mercer [00:10:22]:

Wow, what a great little reel, man. These are awesome. It's like you said, it's exactly like that. It's a mini little Behind the Lines episode in 60 seconds. And right there, I love that idea, right?

Andrew Pace [00:10:33]:

So I'll talk about some stuff that kind of led to that video and I think that there's a lot of really good information for this. And again, I want to be so clear right now. I said it in that reel. I love fantasy football. So the tone to start might be like, oh, he hates fantasy and he's making fun of people that play. That's not it at all. So I'm going to run through some statistics. So I was going to make this video here and I was like, okay, let's use $100 buy in as an example. So there's going to be $1,200 pot, and usually the average payout there would be about $700 to $800 for first place and then second and third or whomever divvies up the rest of it. So I was going to use that as an example. And I was going to be like, okay, well, how often do people actually play fantasy football? Like, how many hours do they spend a week involved in this? And then I was going to go, okay, let's pretend that you win your fantasy league and then let's value your time based on that, which of course is the best case scenario, right? So some people play in eight and ten man leagues, but let's use twelve man. One of the twelve people is going to win, but the other eleven, obviously their time is then valued at far, far less. And doing this for $100 buy in, a twelve person league with a $700 payout, it comes to like $5.96 per hour based on this study. And the study says that 75 million people. You said you started this if you're one of the 40 or 50 million people I know.

Shane Mercer [00:12:02]:

I was thinking that jeez, 75 million now, because I know that I'm referencing a number from like ten years ago too.

Andrew Pace [00:12:08]:

Shane just in the United States.

Shane Mercer [00:12:10]:

Wow, that's unbelievable.

Andrew Pace [00:12:11]:

Okay, so you said North America, it's 75 people playing fantasy football in the United States. Okay, that's the number of people. So not the average buy in, which is the median league buy in. So you might have some crazy leagues that are one off leagues that really don't affect a median that might have a $10,000, $10,0000 buy in, like some crazy stuff like that. But when you actually look at the bulk of the data, the median is so the average might be higher than this, but the median being the middle number is $50. So I just said $5.96. Well, at $50, the median prize is $350 for first place. So this is where the data that I was really looking for was. The 6.9 hours per week is what the average? Not the median, the average of those 75 million people in the United States spend. And that's where I was like, okay, well, I wanted to use the average data and I was going to guess 100, but let's actually use the average data because much to my surprise, it was even less. And I know disposable income is at a premium, I know that. But if you do the math of $100 to play for 17 weeks and you look at it from a weekly cost, I mean, it is far less than $10 a week. It's like 6-7-A week to play fantasy football if it's a $100 buy in. So $50 buy in, of course, is even less. So I was like, okay, let's use the actual median. Now, here's where things get really interesting. 96.6% of fantasy football players spend time at their job working on their fantasy team. So this is where I was getting back to your family life, and the quote, not allowed to be working on your team. So people are taking time out of their corporate jobs to work on their fantasy football team. So not only is the time cost extremely inefficient for you, the player, but you're also now costing your employer money. And I'm not here to judge you for that, but in a separate study, there's multiple of these. It has been estimated as high by fortune and money that $17 billion is spent by corporate America during fantasy football season on stolen time. That means the office time to fire that man. Yeah. So that was from 2016. Now, that is the highest number I've found, but everything I've found is in the ten to $17 billion range. And I believe that number has probably gone up because last year Patrick Mahomes against Jalen Hurts was the most watched Super Bowl in the history of football. So the popularity of the sport has continued to grow, and for good reason. It's exciting as hell. It's an amazing sport and amazing time of year. My point being is that, yes, people are hiding it from their spouses, they're doing it at work, they're not able to actually watch the games necessarily on Sunday. And that's leading to this whole sort of system of what I believe to be sort of supporting the whole non purified gambling industry where maybe you do get away from home for a little bit. Not only are you now following your fantasy football, you're also probably making some parlays and doing some gambling as well, which tends to just not be an approved activity from our spouses and our families as a whole. So the whole fantasy football landscape is one that doesn't make a lot of sense. And this is where my real question comes in. So if you're valuing your time with the highest upside, the highest upside of $3 per hour for the duration of your season, 17 weeks, 7 hours a week, and by the way, I think that 7 hours is low because I know my own situation. Shane, you just touched on yours. And some of the people in my league, some people will laugh and say more like 7 hours a day.

Shane Mercer [00:16:20]:

You know you're not including the off season as well, where I'm in a league where there's a lot of off season work that goes totally, totally right.

Andrew Pace [00:16:29]:

And yeah, when you put that all together, you go, okay, there's something else at play here, because people aren't thinking logically as it relates to the monetary cost associated with their time. So then you go, okay, there's an entertainment aspect which we go see a movie. We don't go, hey, you just valued your time at zero to negative, whatever dollars an hour because you went and saw a movie. So there's an entertainment aspect to it where it's not about the logical time cost, number one. But number two is this release.

Andrew Pace [00:17:00]:

This, I'm getting to build my team. It's the bragging rights, it's beating your friends, it's the competition of it all. It's taking pride in something that, quite honestly, anyone can do. But feeling that level of pride, it's your relationship with one or two players or maybe your whole team where you feel a special bond to Jamar Chase, you feel a special bond to Joe Burrow. And it's one of the reasons, quite honestly, why the NFL is so successful. And then you take fantasy sports, you apply them to all the other sports. So baseball, hockey, whatever, do they exist? Yes. But having direct knowledge of this, having worked with someone from FanDuel, who was involved with FanDuel's marketing team for specifically their times before they were legalized sportsbook and they were just a daily fantasy product. They said that in the NFL season all of their customers come in and then they spend the rest of the year trying to keep them playing. So hockey and baseball and all these other fantasy sports, they don't do even remotely close to the same level of success in this landscape as football does. And I think personally, I think the football is more entertaining and exciting. But that aside, I think the reason for it is because you're prepping for one single day. You're getting your team, your rosters and everything ready. I know there's Thursday Night Football, I know there's Monday Night Football, but you're getting it prepped and ready for Sunday. And from that standpoint, it allows you to prep all week, research all week, put in a bunch of time all week. And it isn't just roster setting. Like it would be an MLB where everyone plays every single day, or hockey where everyone plays every other day, or basketball where they play every other day. Right. So that's a huge actual part of the formula for success. Which is crazy because the NFL itself is obviously, of all the major North American sports, has the least amount of games, yet is by far the most profitable and the most profitable in the world.

Shane Mercer [00:19:01]:

Yeah, it's interesting, right? I think we have some supply demand dynamics at play there, right? When it's available all the time, it's like, yeah, maybe I'm interested, maybe I'm not. But when it's only available on Sunday in a major way, it just drives up that demand. It's a really interesting kind of marketing tactic there. Okay, well, we are spending all of this time focused on our fantasy tunes. We are putting in the 6 hours a day or whatever the stat is there. We're doing all of that for $3 an hour if we're lucky enough to be the champion of our league. There must be a better way, there must be a way to take this knowledge and make it work for you while the games are on.

Andrew Pace [00:19:54]:

Totally. And it isn't a one for one translation. It isn't like, hey, I won my fantasy league, let's go make some money betting on sports. There's a lot more to it than that. But first, why don't I run this? This is an old inplayLIVE ad. Why don't I run this ad and we can talk about it to give us a little insight on how we do the opening of the conversation of how you can actually make some money from this.

Rodge [00:20:22]:

Hey Dude - So who are you going to pick up off the waiver wire this week?

Andrew Pace [00:20:25]:

Some of the guys that I made over $10,000 betting on this past weekend.

Rodge [00:20:28]:

What are you talking about?

Andrew Pace [00:20:30]:

Well, the waiver wire studs that you put your claims in for every single week have incredible real time value on Sunday, and I profit off them all the time.

Rodge [00:20:40]:

Yo, you got to give me an example man.

Andrew Pace [00:20:42]:

Well, I mean, just think about the top waiver wire breakouts from the previous, know, guys like David Johnson, Tyreek Hill...

Rodge [00:20:52]:

Cheetah. I grabbed him in my league that year and I won...

Rodge [00:20:53]:

Ok, so I will go make a bet on them for this coming week.

Andrew Pace [00:20:55]:

Well, no, the value is gone by the time you've placed your waiver claim. It's too late. It's real time value that we see. We watch the games together. We see on Sunday. You're thinking, I'm going to put a waiver claim in for that guy, and I'm thinking, I'm going to make money on him right now.

Rodge [00:21:11]:

That's like insane

Andrew Pace [00:21:15]:

You anything you don't know already. Corporate America loses billions of dollars to fantasy football because people are putting so much time into it. That means you actually already have the knowledge so someone like yourself can actually profit like the members of inplayLIVE, where in one day we're potentially making more money than you would win in your entire fantasy football season.

Rodge [00:21:36]:

Holy fuck!

Shane Mercer [00:21:40]:

Love it. Love it. Rodge with the holy F bomb there. For all of you out there who don't know who Rodge is, that's Mark Rodgman. Mark is Andrew's partner. I like to call him the brains behind inplayLIVE. No offense, Pace, but Rodge an awesome guy and I love it. He drops that F bomb at the end. Pace. I got to say, I think that's one of the ads that I saw one of a few that I saw before I joined inplayLIVE, and it actually really spoke to me because, like I said, I've been in fantasy playing fantasy sports for a long time now. And I said to myself, I'm like, Jeez, that actually does make a lot of sense. And it sort of prompted me to investigate further. And sure enough, I got on the inside. And clearly inplayLIVE is everything that we thought it was or that I thought it was and even more. But what an ad. What an ad. And I love the Rodge appearance in it.

Andrew Pace [00:22:34]:

So I guess that kind of segues us into your question where you're like, okay, so what can you do? And this is going to be like a masterclass in fantasy football knowledge, translating to sports betting profits. So there's only so much we can give away on the podcast. So for those of you that don't know, we have a whole masterclass suite of videos inside of inplayLIVE that really are a great way core philosophies and curriculum of the mindsets of how we profit over seven figures from betting on sports in real time. And then we do get into the actual not the mindsets and the philosophies, the actual strategies themselves inside of our community. And then, of course, we have our live streams that are the real time execution of those. So you can wager with pros like myself in real time and really tail some of the great betting minds in the world and hopefully profit from it as a result. Now, when it comes to fantasy football specifically, it's funny because there'll be times where because of my sports set up, which if you guys have followed this podcast, you've seen on another episode, I'll have people in my room that are watching the games recreationally. They're not betting, or maybe they've made a pregame parlay, maybe they're having drinks. But maybe they're having a couple of drinks. They're cheering for their fantasy teams. And a lot of them are actually in my league. And their personnel knowledge is far greater than mine. That ad that we shot, we shot that the week after some inplayLIVE OGs will remember this the week after that, we had just hit Travis Fulgam anytime touchdown for the Philadelphia Eagles at 20 to one. So the reason why we bet on this Travis Fulgam was because he was able to step up into a role which is a big part of fantasy football. So I'll kind of walk you through the Travis Fulgam touchdown, but before that, I'll walk you through the mindset of what some of those fantasy guys in the room were doing and then what I was doing in that same moment. So you see the cart come out the stretcher. If you're using Sleeper app for fantasy football, it's the top app in my opinion. You turn your notifications on news on Sleeper and you watch it in real time. And we're on the live streams right in these moments, right with the whole members. And it's like, oh fuck. I don't know who got hurt in this particular example, but it's like, oh fuck, AJ. Brown's hurt just using another Philadelphia Eagle. AJ. Brown wasn't even on the Eagles at the time. So you see he's hurt, and all of a sudden a ball gets thrown to Travis Fulgam and you're like, who the hell is that guy? Do a little research on him. Oh, six foot six, six foot four, whatever. Fast, young, all this stuff. So that Travis Fulgam's now gotten his chance. And then the notification pops up on Sleeper, AJ. Brown carted off the field, or AJ. Brown limps to locker room, something like that. So that notification has now come up. And then what happens on sleeper app for any of you fantasy football experts, all of a sudden, the next guy in line goes to the very, very top of the trending waiver wire pickups. So even though you can't pick them up yet, you have to clear waivers on Tuesday. You haven't been able to, or I think it's Tuesday at midnight Pacific, so you have to clear waivers on Wednesday.

Shane Mercer [00:25:49]:

All depends on your league.

Andrew Pace [00:25:51]:

Yeah, but I don't think that you have that full Tuesday after Monday Night Football. So even though you haven't cleared waivers or picked him up, the app detects the activity of those next players being picked up. The other one, that was a big one. I actually lost this wager, but Travis Homer, I think I would have had $45,000 if Travis Homer got a touchdown anytime touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks. It was first and goal at the five, and they ran the ball with him four times in a row, and he got stuffed on all four downs, and Travis Homer went shooting up on the sleeper app for the trending players. I don't know who got hurt. I got to think maybe it was Rashad Penny, maybe it was two guys, and maybe it was the starting back and the next back, and then you're getting just a crazy probably Chris Carson.

Shane Mercer [00:26:35]:

Probably Carson at the time.

Andrew Pace [00:26:36]:

Yes, I think it was Carson and Penny in this particular example. So we were getting an even bigger underdog in that particular, you know, AJ. Brown goes down, and you think like, oh, I'm going to bet on AJ. Brown not to get any more receiving yards books.

Shane Mercer [00:26:55]:

Yeah.

Andrew Pace [00:26:55]:

Can you slide some of that stuff in sometimes? Sure. So the guy tours ACL, and here we are, a bunch of absolute assholes trying to make money. Bet is under on yards, right. And that stuff's largely covered up, but what isn't necessarily always covered up is that next guy coming in. So the sleeper app is trending for waiver wire pickups, and everyone thinks they're so sharp. But meanwhile, you can place that waiver wire on Tuesday once you see everyone else doing it, and potentially beat the person that was first in to the waiver wire claim because you have a higher waiver priority or a bigger fab budget to actually purchase that player or get him before. So what was the upside for my budy on the couch who was the first to put that waiver wire in and help him trend up on sleeper?

Shane Mercer [00:27:45]:

What upside?

Andrew Pace [00:27:46]:

There's no upside whatsoever. I can sit there on Tuesday and go, oh, I'm Travis Fulgam, my guy. I've just made ten grand off this guy scoring an anytime touchdown, and my whole fantasy payout for first place is $2,000. And these guys are living and dying by the sword on whether or not they can pick this particular guy up. So there is real. Time value on these personnel changes. And not only that, the difference of me going, okay, this guy's on the field, he's getting looks, okay, it's not just one snap, it's not a one off. He's the guy you still have to get lucky to have hit that wager. But the point is that if you play that scenario out 100 or 1000 times, odds are that he's going to hit at a rate higher than what the odds are being implied at giving you what we refer to as a value wager. So that's happening all in real time. But this is what's really funny is the player goes down and there'll be a guy in my league in the room where I'm like, who's the next guy up? And he answers it immediately because his personnel knowledge is so much better than mine. Who's the next guy up? He might already have waived him or rostered him to a certain extent or knows of him and kind of has him on a radar of some kind. And they gave me the information that I needed to profit. Not that it was that urgent because I'm going to eventually see the guy on the field anyways, but yeah, I just think that if you took your approach to fantasy and translated it well, it's not a one for one translation. There are opportunities there. And that, to me, is a really nice segue or bridge into the rest of the successful betting world, be that anything else in the NFL college football. Which then if you love fantasy football and you start watching college football and you're profiting on it, I'll build a little list where I go, Holy shit. Who's this guy? Deuce Vaughn? My God, is that guy electric? Let's put him on a little list and put him that's a great candidate for a Dynasty pickup next year. Or a great late round pickup for a redraft of this year. So it's almost like it flips where you go. My fantasy knowledge brought me into this arena. I'm now making profits way beyond this, hopefully, in theory, making profits, I can't guarantee you profits, hopefully making way beyond this theoretical $3 an hour bullshit. That's your highest upside of your other league. And then it's spitting back at you because you're engaged and because you're watching the games. Your personnel knowledge and your knowledge of the game heads into the college or collegiate level, which is your next wave of talent coming into the NFL. And then of course, the actual NFL knowledge itself and what you're seeing, where you don't necessarily need an analyst to tell you about who was looking electric and why you should target those particular players because you saw it yourself. And then you take that a step further and that spills into profitability in basketball, hopefully in baseball, in hockey, in tennis, in soccer, and the list goes on and on from there.

Shane Mercer [00:30:52]:

Yeah, okay, so a lot that I want to dig into here, just sort of speaking from my personal experience and kind of journey through inplayLIVE. So first I'll pick up on the college football aspect. So I never watched college football before. I might watch a game here or there, a really big game or something. If I'm at home, throw it on. But college football was never something that I really followed much before I joined inplayLIVE. And then, of course, I joined and I realized, wow, this is a big thing for this community and they're really into it. And I'm like, okay, let's start watching it. Well, sure enough, like you said, heading into this fantasy season and during the offseason, as I mentioned, there's a fair amount of work offseason for fantasy football. Kind of crazy when you think about it. But heading in to this season and during the offseason, there was so much more that I knew about these rookies coming in and so much more information that I had on them. And like you said, I tested them, I'd seen them play, I've seen how they move. And so I had guys marked down like, oh, this could be a nice late rounder over here. This is somebody who could have a breakout rookie season. And so having watched college, that really kind of had informed some of my decisions as I prepared for this upcoming fantasy season. So that was something kind of new for me over the past year. Now, you also mentioned the idea of you asking the guy in the room, right, who's up next? What do they know? Here's something else I sort of experienced on the live streams, being a part of the inplayLIVE community is that during the live streams, well, there are hundreds of other guys participating in the chat during these live streams with you, right Pace? And you've got a whole community of people that you can lean on to say who's up next? And sure enough, somebody knows instantly somebody's in that chat instantly, they know exactly who's up next. Not only that, but they've watched them in college or they know who they are and they know how good they are and what the talent level is. And they're able to inform you very quickly about what the upside might be of a play or what that person's talent and capabilities are. And it's a really kind of remarkable thing to kind of watch it in real time and see that. So it really sort of speaks to the power of community, which we touched on on our last episode last week. But to sort of see it in action in that way is really kind of something to behold. And then the other aspect that comes from the stream and kind of pace, you sort of alluded to this, but you've got you and several other pros on there making calls. But in a lot of ways, you're sort of explaining the calls, too, or you start to identify a pattern in those calls. And it really kind of helps everyone else who's following along on the streams and paying attention to learn how you guys are thinking and how you're analyzing the game and how you're arriving at those calls. And before got, you know, Travis Homer queued up, ready to go and I'm just waiting for you to make the call because I know that that's kind of where your brain is going for that next big player prop or whatever it might. So, you know, it just really speaks to the power of the community and how much you can learn on those streams live while watching the game with an entire community. It's really something powerful. And so for all of you listening out there, if you're not a part of inplayLIVE, we have the promo code for you 'BEHINDTHELINES' that will give you access to the streams. But if you're a part of inplayLIVE already, and you're part of just members, you have access to some streams, but not all streams. And I really encourage you right now there's a promo going on for Pro. Check it out. I highly, highly recommend joining Pro. You get access to every stream out there. On top of it you get access to the discord. And the discord is a place where the community just explodes and there's so much valuable information sharing going on on the discord that to say it's worth it is an understatement because the cost is minimal relative to how much money and how much profit you can turn by being part of the community. I just sort of wanted to touch on all those aspects that you kind of got into there. Let's talk about though, what happens when you're watching the game and you do see certain players or aspects of the game change, like, let's say a quarterback goes down. How big of an impact does that have on your wagering decisions?

Andrew Pace [00:35:31]:

Massive. Yeah, I mean, it really depends on the league and the sport. Quarterback, obviously, I think we're only talking about one sport, but really there are two different, you could argue there's three different football, American football, sports that are not, they're not the same sport. CFL, college football is different rules than the NFL, but I would put those two together and then CFL is totally different. And then now you have these three point conversions and all this bullshit and the USFL and XFL, right? So quarterback goes down in the mean jeez, there's times where you're just like, holy smokes, the guy's way better than the starter and the starter sucked. The guys way, they're just the same, like they're interchangeable, more so than other leagues. College football, we've seen Florida did this, I think it was last season, but it might have been two seasons ago. And it's really relevant to bring up right now because it was two seasons ago it was anthony Richardson was one of the two quarterbacks who was obviously the Colts starting quarterback heading into this 2023 NFL season. They gave Anthony Richardson one drive and then the next drive they gave their other quarterback, which I should know his name and I don't. So at the time, what we were doing was capitalizing on the Richardson drives and betting against the other quarterback for Florida on his drives because Richardson was really playing well at the time. So I guess what I'm saying is depending on the league and the sport, you might not even need an injury. But there's these crazy situations. So week one of college football is coming up this week. I'm under the impression as it stands right now that Alabama hasn't decided on their starting quarterback yet. They're playing a not so formidable opponent and there's potentially a rotation of three quarterbacks through each drive that could be coming up this Saturday. So from a betting standpoint, you might not know that information. Information is power. One of the most common statements that we make here Behind the Lines. I also have one liner that I say the less you know, the better. And the reason for that is the preseason noise and the headache associated with it and letting that sway your live betting versus what you're actually seeing. So they're both in context, but you come out and you throw on the Alabama Crimson Tide game, oftentimes going to be the main broadcast on CBS maybe not this week with the -40 spread or whatever the hell it is that they have this week. But Alabama comes out and you see quarterback one fly down the field and you're like, holy smokes. Like, I got to get in on Bama -46 before they score again because the game started at 40. And now it's -46 and the next quarterback comes in and you're like, where the hell is our guy? Who the fuck is this? The guy gets sacked, punts, throws a pick, fumbles, whatever. And then you see the third guy come out and he's electric. And you're like, what is going on right now? Meanwhile, you've deployed some of your own personal funds on a game that is very chaotic beyond the normal levels because of this new element of who the hell's playing in the game. And then, yeah, there's injuries where you go, hey, Patrick Mahomes knee just dislocated. I remember that game as clear as anything. And if you guys remember, Patrick Mahomes did a quarterback sneak. His knee popped out and he had to leave the game. And I remember I'm pretty sure it was against the Detroit Lions, but I'm not 100% sure. And by pretty sure, I would say 60% confident. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who it was against. You literally watch in real time the spreads and the lines just go fucking ballistic for the opponents. The Lions. Everyone's betting on the Lions like crazy. Meanwhile, we haven't seen the backup come in. The Chiefs are already up in the game because they're the Chiefs, and there's a serious mountain to climb to cover the spread, let alone the money line. And not only that, if you weren't the first person into that wager or the first percent of people into that wager, sports betting lines being dynamic. Another chapter of Behind the Lines that you can check out our dynamic lines chapter. You're buying a ridiculously public inflated price on a theoretical investment. And I think it was the first play or the first drive. Pick six from the Lions quarterback. So the Chiefs were up like 14. Now they went up 21. And we destroyed that game betting against the Chiefs, but we didn't bet on the Lions. And that's all I'll say on that particular topic. But the whole message is opportunity awaits with personnel changes, and fantasy football can be that gateway.

Shane Mercer [00:40:36]:

Yeah, just having that knowledge. Now, there's another aspect, though, of this that I got to ask you about, because we talk a lot about the less you know, the better. You kind of brought that up or pregame noise, and you could probably group fantasy football knowledge into some of that pregame noise. And I think we covered this in another episode, in the March Madness episode where we belt our brackets. But you don't want to bet with your bracket. Right. Same thing for fantasy football, right. You might have a lot of knowledge, but you don't want to bet with your fantasy team necessarily. Right. And I think a lot of recreational sports bettors out there probably do a lot of that. Right. Or at least bet, know, the higher drafted players on their team, right, or their quarterback or their top running back or top wide receiver. They're thinking, oh, well, I've got Jamar Chase and I've got Joe Burrows. So I'm betting on the Bengals.

Andrew Pace [00:41:34]:

Right. I'm glad you brought that up. I wasn't going to bring that up. I would argue that that is one of the single biggest traps in the NFL for sports betting, and that is backing your fantasy team with emotion as opposed to deploying disciplined, value oriented wagers. So I'll give you a couple examples. Number one is taking your star running back or star receivers anytime touchdown. And then you cheering with your team. A lot of times these superstar guys are negative odds before the game starts to score a touchdown. And if you look at the highest scoring players, I'm talking specifically touchdown scoring. So last year, I think Jamal Williams was the highest scoring player. I remember the season when New England Patriots had LeGarrett blunt. They won the Super Bowl that year. He scored like 23 touchdowns in a 16. Now it's 17 game seasons, which opportunity I know it's the second season of 17 games, but more games equals more potential profit at inplayLIVE. So it's always so great to see that you look at a guy like LeGarrett Brunt Blunt in that season, jamal Williams in the last season, and they score 20 plus touchdowns. So they're averaging more than one touchdown per game, but they didn't score a touchdown in every game. Usually a guy like that might have a couple of two touchdown games and maybe a three, four, five, and even six touchdown game, right? So you could look at it and be like, oh, he scores every game. But when you're getting minus odds on something, it needs to be hitting at a clip higher than 50% to break even. And then when you put the emotion and all the public perception into a really good example of someone like this, it's not relevant for this season. But is Ezekiel Elliot, when he was on the Cowboys, the amount of money on Zeke Anytime touchdown was always so high. And it's a very profitable market for the sports books, regardless of how you did specifically because you're buying a bad number. The flip side to all of this is if you are setting your rosters with fantasy football. So now we're going to get into transitioning from a bad pregame bet to maybe where some opportunity can lie. Again, you're setting your rosters and you're a really savvy fantasy expert. So maybe you're following some of the top guys that are setting you like starter sit and why. A lot of times the rationale for why you would sit a really strong player relates to who's defending them and the statistics in that upcoming game relating to how the defense has played against that position. So just throwing something out there. The Green Bay Packers have shut down the tight end spot through nine weeks of the NFL so far. This is even more crazy to say, but we're going to be sitting Travis Kelsey this week. You'd never sit Travis Kelsey, but that being a narrative that's out there in the public and in the media, and you're looking at it, maybe you have some data yourself, too. Well, would that be an opportunity to bet on the tight end positions under on receiving yards that week, or have the books adequately handicapped that already? So what are the projected yards that are being put out by top sharp fantasy apps like Sleeper versus what the sports books are putting out there? You might have Sleeper being an accurate representation of a player prop, where the sports books don't have an accurate representation of the player prop because of the fact that it is a superstar player and people have bet on his over and receiving yards. Boosting that line where the theoretical coin flip, let's say, is 51 and a half yards in the air pregame. And then public perception has driven that up going. He's gone over that every single game this year. We have to bet on that. Meanwhile, that particular team has only allowed 25 yards in the air at that position. Average per game and it gets bought up and maybe it moves up to 5455-5965 yards by the time kickoff lands. And you're sitting here with that player on your bench because of your fantasy knowledge where you go, hey, the coin flips at 50 and a half. They're giving me 64 and a half or 59 and a half. I'm getting nine yards of theoretical value minus a couple of yards of vig. Hey, there's an opportunity here. You have a really good personnel knowledge, maybe a catching running back that isn't well known or well disclosed in his history in the NFL. But, you know, he's going to be getting reps with on third down all game long, and potentially it's a team that will be airing out the ball a lot and his over on receiving yards. Pregame for a guy that I'm referring to, could be as low as like, three or four yards. He just needs one catch. Right?

Shane Mercer [00:46:33]:

We've seen quite a few of those hit.

Andrew Pace [00:46:35]:

Yeah. But taking that stuff over and looking at some of those opportunities before the game starts is an amazing way to transition your personnel knowledge. And on that note, if you are doing something like that, don't go out there spending a bunch of money. Place one to $10 bets that are fully within your means, fully within your bankroll, fully within responsible betting and don't chase anything. Don't change your unit sizes. Track it and see how you're doing. Not over one bet, not over ten bets, but get a solid sample size, get 50 to 100 plus under your belt and then start to scale based on your success. And that's what it's all about.

Shane Mercer [00:47:14]:

Yeah, tracking, tracking is huge. You know, I'm a big proponent of that. Talk about tracking all the time on this podcast and yeah, exactly. If you are going to do that kind of thing, we absolutely encourage you to track it and start small. And if you are seeing success over time, then sure, ramp it up a little bit slowly, gradually, and in a way that's responsible. All right, Pace, so let's just recap here for a moment. We're all out there, we're all playing fantasy football, especially if you're listening to this podcast. Chances are you're playing some fantasy football out there. Know that you can translate that knowledge, take what you know and apply it to in game live situations to make a lot more money than you would probably make if you won your fantasy league. That's number one. Two, don't bet with your fantasy team. There might be opportunities where you can, but don't bet emotionally with your team. Right. Is there anything else to recap? Anything I'm missing? I feel like I'm missing another really important point here Pace.

Andrew Pace [00:48:22]:

Have fun, always.

Shane Mercer [00:48:23]:

Have fun.

Andrew Pace [00:48:27]:

I'm sure we missed something, but there is actually something I want to touch on with. Number one, I know that sometimes in this podcast, especially if you're a member listening to this. There can be times where it sounds like we're selling our product, but I do want to put a little perspective into that time costing average $3 an hour to win your league conversation that you touched on. So preseason of the NFL is now behind us. We bet all three weeks. We had a remarkable preseason, we had a ton of fun. So if you're thinking like, hey, this group sounds great and I'm a previous member or I'm aspiring new member and I want to join for football next year, join for the start of August. There's a lot of reasons for that. Number one, the preseason is extremely profitable. Number two, we do really well betting on the CFL. And yes, that is a version of football, albeit not our first choice, right? And then number three is giving you that time to gear up and ramp up for football season through watching our masterclass, through getting the education that you need so that on day one of the NFL, you're much more prepared and ready to go versus having not done that. On top of that, from a personnel knowledge and from your own fantasy perspective and things like that, the preseason is remarkable for seeing what kind of talent is actually out there that won't be on the field come Sunday or at least starting come Sunday might be some of the guys we see backing people up. And I can tell you guys, we saw some really special quarterback play from Nathan Rourke who's behind Trevor Lawrence. We saw some real special quarterback play from Dorian Thompson Robinson who's going to be behind, who we called Tug Deshaun Watson for the Browns. So you start to see some of this talent emerge at a lot of the different positions and that can gear you up for some sleeper type draft picks for the actual NFL season, much like we were referring to with college. Now, with that said, tracking our live stream success and this is crazy, crazy statistic, we're betting a lot of times we're betting 1% of our bankroll, but because of the fact that it was preseason and we're just kind of getting our feet wet, a lot of our bets were zero point 25% of your bankroll. So if you had a $1,000 bankroll and you're betting 1%, those are $10 bets per wager, which is hopefully something that kind of resonates with a lot of people where they go, hey, I can afford $10 bets, right? The majority of the calls would have been $2.50 throughout the preseason. Last week we had eleven calls that would have been $10. We went ten for eleven on those and the 2.50 cent bets did very well. And betting at that level, you would have returned $280 of profit last week if you got in on all the calls and the live streams, which is more than the quarterly subscription. And in one week is nearing the median payout for fantasy football. Now, a lot of people you put.

Shane Mercer [00:51:25]:

It that way, that's hilarious, right?

Andrew Pace [00:51:28]:

It's nearing the median payout for your 17 weeks. Exactly. And that's $2.50 to $10 wagers. A lot of people and based on our teachings, would have done five to $20 for that $1,000 bankroll or ten to $25 for that $1,000 bankroll. We give you a few different money management options, and if you then put those numbers in, all of that doubles. So you've beat the median payout for fantasy football in America in just one week, betting ten to $25 units based on the call and recommendation that we do in real time. So football season is an amazing time of year. We just had NCAA football week. Zero, pass us. Week one is now starting tomorrow. As you're watching this if you're watching this, the day it was released and the rule changes we're going to touch on this next week, but the rule changes in college football were remarkable for us on Week Zero with a lot of bad games. Week Zero are bad, bad games. We believe this to be the single most profitable rule change we've ever seen in any sport since inplayLIVE was released. And I would say the single most profitable rule change I've ever seen. And this is in theory, this is not a guarantee ever in the history of sports.

Shane Mercer [00:52:48]:

Wow, what a statement there. But it's a huge change. And, yeah, we saw it in action over the weekend. And as Pace mentioned there, yes, next week we'll be talking all things college football and the week after that, all things NFL football. So we've got a lot more football to come, so please tune in, pay attention. Lots of football talk happening. You know, as we sort of talked about throughout the episode here, if you aren't a member and you want to join and see what it's like, we have the 'BEHINDTHELINES' promo code. And if you're already a member but you haven't joined Pro, there's a special promo on right now for Pro. Come make that upgrade. It's totally, totally worth it. All right, Pace, till next week, buddy. Keep beating those bucks. Thanks for tuning in to 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 comment. It's below. And if you want to join inplayLIVE, use promo code 'BEHINDTHELINES'