THIS IS A REVOLUTION

 Alright look, I've had this blog going pretty regularly for just over 5 years now. I started it with the original purpose of posting the bets I was making for the 2020 election which still to this day remains one of the most bizarre events I've ever bet on in my life. It was profitable ROI wise but it was tough to get a whole lot of money down where I was playing. There were so many massive, sudden, strange price moves all over the place that I felt compelled to talk about it somewhere. It has since then morphed into what is it today: a little place where I discuss topics I feel qualified to discuss. Sports betting obviously being the main one with the PPH world (pay per head sports betting accounts) in particular focus. I've thrown in lots of crypto and some economics and a little of my life. And while politics has always been in the background of everything, the only time I really get into it is when discussing betting on it, like with the 2020 election and a little bit of the 2024 election. The number of times I've mentioned Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, outside of talking about a bet, is probably less than 5 total. And while we're going to depart a little bit from this today, I do intend on keeping it that way. I am in no way an expert on the politics of the day, nor do I ascribe to be one. Being super plugged into everything that's going on is not only time consuming and draining, but I find that it's largely a waste of time. What do you do differently with the information? Just complain about it online? I think that is maybe a hard lesson we all got over the past 10 years or so. I know I did. Loudly posting your political opinions online doesn't do anything for you or anyone. That's not how you win hearts and minds, if that even is your goal. But at the same time, you can't just shut the world off. You live in it too, and there are decisions being made on your behalf that effect you. So there's sort of this line you have to tow toe where you're an informed citizen but you can't let it intrude on your life.

Anyway, that's all a long way of saying that I'm going to get into politics here but it will absolutely not become the focus of this blog. But one of the main focuses here has been to call attention to the absolute (say it with me everyone) waste, fraud, and abuse going on in this country. My specific flavor has always been looking at inflation from money printing, but it's all down stream from the same rot. This idea that your money isn't actually yours, which presupposes that your work and its production isn't actually yours, which presupposes that your mind and the workings of it isn't actually yours, which presupposes that your LIFE isn't yours. And finally, after all this time, someone is actually doing something about it. Like, really, actually, literally, doing massive, major actions with far reaching consequences, at break neck pace. It would be absurd for me not to talk about it. But I'm not going to really get into the day to day, nitty gritty of what Trump and Elon are up to. You can watch the news yourself for that. Rather, I'm going to talk about the overall big picture, why it matters, why you should care, and what I think is at stake here.

I don't want to sound hyperbolic or like too much of a fan-boy here, but I do think this is a bloodless Revolution. It's at least "Revolution-adjacent". We're talking major, major changes to the way our entire system works and the way OUR money is spent. Everyone knew the federal government was wasteful. It was one of those things where everyone just sort of shrugs and says 'well what can you do?' as they slowly get bled out, pretending not to notice the cut. Well we finally got someone in the Oval Office who had the balls and the brains to bring in the single best human being for the job right now to absolutely gut these little bastions of corruption, line by line. Every single day it seems there's a different headline that I would have been overjoyed to get in a whole YEAR. USAID being gutted, Social Security payments to people OLDER THAN AMERICA, a Treasury Department that quite literally never turned down one single payment request(!!) Having Elon Musk, a private citizen business man, giving a 20 minute speech from the Oval Office laying bare some of the most egregious instances of fraud that they've uncovered so far, while ALSO throwing out there that it's odd that a number of politicians have salaries that are less than $200k a year, yet have net worths of over $10 million (and some over 10x THAT). Where did that money come from, exactly? Like, just having that sentence uttered in the Oval Office alone, JUST THAT, would have been enough for me, honestly. Just for someone to finally and clearly say that sentence. And it was just one remark among many, in one speech among many, in one DAY among at least the next four years. The pace of this administration so far has been nothing short of breath-taking.

It's hard to describe the way I feel about politics and my country more broadly right now. I have never quite had this feeling before. I think I got a taste of it in 2016 when Trump won the first time, but that was so unexpected, even to him I think, that the shock of him winning alone was like half of it. When you consider how unexpected it all was, the opposition he faced his whole term, then a whole year wasted with Covid, it's amazing anything got done at all. But boy does this term feel different. They really hit the ground running and were more than ready. Seeing a solid, competent, confident, experienced man back in the White House, signing Executive Order after Exectutive Order WHILE taking questions from a hostile media for like an hour straight is almost jarring, especially after the last 4 years. It makes you realize how much they've taken. To simply have a competent human being actually doing the bidding of the American people, for no other reason than it is what they hired him to do, for that to be as quasi-revolutionary as it is, it really just shows how corrupted and sick and captured the entire federal apparatus of the United States has become.

As far as left-wing opposition, man, I gotta tell ya, there really ain't much. And I've been looking for it. I can't remember a time in my life when one of the parties was more down and out than the Democrats are right now. Maybe in 2008 when Obama trounced Mccain (which ultimately led to Donald Trump 8 years later), but even then the Right was at least making noise. They knew they had to go back to the drawing board and they did. Well maybe it was done for them, but the point is that the drawing board got brought back out. But now on the left it feels like there's a super old, geriatric power base that is unbelievably corrupt (even for modern politician standards), entrenched in their ways and in their base, and they aren't going anywhere. Then you have this super radical, younger faction of their party from which we have heard some of the dumbest fucking ideas I have ever heard in my life in the past decade or so. They took aim at Western society as a whole and really just unloaded the clip. Universities, media, art, labor, science, the government. They quite literally got their tentacles in just about everywhere. And their mission was always nebulous, at best. Increase racial diversity (which always kind of secretly but kind of not so secretly just meant less white men). More 'tolerance'. Defund police departments. Lots of weird sex stuff. Guys can be girls if they say they are and vice versa. Criminals don't understand that crime is bad so we shouldn't lock them up. Borders are bad, unless it's a border in a foreign country. Then it MUST be defended. I could go on and on. It's like we gave the keys to our world to the single worst fucking high school guidance counselor you've ever heard of in your life, and it almost worked! Can you imagine if we got four more years of Kamala Harris?! Some people were shocked at how much Trump won by. I was shocked that single person voted for Kamala Harris, but that's simply my opinion of course.

There was a great interview the other day on the CNBC morning show with the CEO of Palantir. He made a great point, among many, which was that the Democrats could and should be a part of this DOGE thing by Elon. They could get together and demand that they be let in on it, be shown exactly what they're doing and how and why. I think Elon would actually be receptive to that. If not, it's even better for the Dems as now you can really make the case that Elon and Trump are up to something shady. But instead they've backed themselves into such a corner that they have to fight Trump and Elon at whatever it is that they're doing, even if the American public very much likes what they're doing and wants them to do it. So at this point I really don't see any roadblocks in front of Trump, at all. I'm sure the left will lick its wounds and come back in a different form, and as hard a right winger as I am, I don't want any single party or person to ever get too much power. I couldn't possibly be any more pro Trump/Vance/Elon, but that doesn't make me a republican for life or anything.

But it is an odd feeling lately. Is it... civic pride? Is it being proud to be an American again? Ever since the fog of 9/11 lifted, I feel like this country hasn't really given us much to be proud of. It started to feel like one big strip mining operation, and we were the ones being strip mined. Did you know that cost of a house in gold has actually decreased over time? Read this  if you want to truly go insane. Despite housing getting insanely better over the last 100ish years, in spite of the average house size increasing 74% from 1910 to 2016, in spite of the cost of labor increasing dramatically, the cost of housing has actually decreased in real purchasing power. The average price of a house in 2020 (the latest date this info had. It's actually worse now) was $313,000 or 5.8 KG of gold. The average price of a home in 1900 was $4300, which was equal to 6.5 KG of gold. So if you sold your home in 1900 and received gold instead of cash, you could use only that gold to buy an average house in 2020 and still have more than 10% of the original gold. If you received the $4300 in cash instead, in 2020 you could maybe afford to buy one really nice couch for the house. Or put up about 80 feet of chainlink fencing.

I mean, really think about that for a minute. That is how much inflation has stolen from us. I can't think of any other single metric that shows the true cost of inflation like that. I guess one of my main points in all this is that we really don't even understand how good we could and should have it here. The amount of raw wealth that has been slowly and quietly stripped out of the American public and given to corrupt bureaucrats all over the globe and to people in government with 'suction to the system' is truly astonishing. And it comes at the expense of your quality of life.

This is really what gets me the worst. How can anyone be against what Trump and Elon are doing right now? It is genuinely baffling to me. I understand the 'last thrashing' of the establishment. The dying, sick, gasping breaths of a bloated system finally collapsing on itself. The people that benefitted from this system, I can understand them hating it. They're utter parasites and deserve every ounce of contempt we can muster, along with serious jail sentences. But I mean, I can at least wrap my head around them not wanting their gravy train to end. But fellow citizens? People working normal jobs, paying taxes? How can anyone not want to stop themselves from being robbed? It's like covid all over again where I feel like I simply don't understand half the people in this country anymore. Imagine reading about all this 100 years from now in a history book. "Elon Musk cuts the US deficit in half, finding trillions of taxpayer money going right out the door, stolen, out of the country, into the pockets of some of the worst, most brazen criminals alive, living in countries that openly despise America and Americans. And some American taxpayers...didn't like it." It's bizarro world.

Random things:

-I would be remiss if I didn't mention this. I know it came out of absolutely nowhere, but this new 4 nation NHL all star format has been incredible. The best players in the world suiting up for their countries and to say they are taking it seriously would be a ridiculous understatement. During the first US vs Canada game, which was in Montreal, the home crowd booed our national anthem. So team America decided to beat the shit out of Canada in THREE fights in the first minute, then went on to win the game. WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK! 

-The rematch is tomorrow, Thursday 2/20. And here's a sneaky little play I'm considering. We know these teams consist of basically every teams best player and they are playing their balls off. Well, the tourney ends Thursday and the league gets back into action Saturday with a couple games going Saturday afternoon. Especially for the West Coast guys, that is a lot of traveling and a lot of intense hockey in a short period of time. I might look to fade some teams and/players on those early Saturday games. Especially if tomorrow nights game is especially intense/nasty and/or goes into OT. I have yet to really dive into the schedules but the idea is there. (See? There's always an actionable betting angle somewhere).

-I came across a great quote recently and I can't get it out of my head. This may be a prelude to my next post but I'm not sure yet. I need to really think about it more but the quote is "When you just want be left alone, you become a libertarian. When you realize they'll never leave you alone, you become something else." I can feel the libertarian in me slowly dying over the past 5 or so years. I think libertarianism and atheism have quietly taken a beating in the past couple decades. Something I'll definitely get into here at some point.

Well that about wraps things up here. Check back soon, I'm feeling very writer-y lately. Buy Bitcoin, store it yourself, and have a good day!

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Super Bowl/NFL Season Wrap Up

Quick little post to wrap up the Super Bowl and the 2024/2025 NFL season. I will have a meaty post coming up soon dealing with Elon Musk, DODGE, Trump and everything else. What has been going on the past couple weeks in politics has been breath-taking. It's astonishing. I couldn't love it anymore if I tried. I've been trying to consume some left-wing, Democratic content lately to see what their argument even is and I will have all that and a lot more soon. 

But today let's put a bow on the NFL season, tally up the bets I posted and talk some sports betting.

First things first, the bets I posted:

Mahomes under 1.5 passing TD +137 L

Hurts under .5 INT -141 L

Mahomes under 253.5 passing yards -112 L

Phi under 1.5 4th down conversions -130 W

Phi more first downs +100 W

KC under 19.5 first downs +120 W

Xavier Worthy u5.5 receptions -120 L

Juju Smith Schuster under 1.5 receptions +114 L

Little parlay: D Hopkins o1.5 receptions, over 12.5 yards +128 W

S Barkley over 13.5 rec yards -117 W

Then I have tons of NO on players to score TD's

5-5, -.25 units.

That was only a small fraction of my total prop action but all in all I profited about 2 units on props, which was pretty disappointing. The garbage time production by Mahomes and KC at the end of the game turned what would have been a really good prop SB into just an okay one. I was showing huge edges in all the first down, 3rd and 4th down conversion markets which all went my way, but I didn't quite get enough down. Most of my NO's on Player X to score a TD won too. I'm noticing that I seem to do a lot better on Game props as opposed to Player props so that may be something I lean on heavier next year. I have always felt more confident in my modeling of game props over player props in all sports anyway. 

I also am slowly changing my prop betting philosophy. I have always lived and died by the Justin7 motto of 'do a lot of props, quickly'. My prop action has always been TONS of bets, most of which have small edges. But now with the market getting harder to beat and having so few places to play, I've been leaning more towards less bets but more money down per bet, bigger edges per bet, and more time spent really zeroing in on a market/bet. For instance, in the bets above, I really did my homework on all the first down and 4th down conversion stuff and saw a few bets with huge edges, namely that under 1.5 4th down conversions for PHI (-130) and PHI more 1st downs (-100). So maybe next year I can give out one play a week or something that I really have confidence in and see how that goes.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I got down at +125 for PHI money line early in the week and spent the full two weeks slowly arbing it out as the price on KC came down all week. I ended up with a position of winning 4ish units if KC won and 20ish units if PHI won, which obviously worked out well for me.

Overall, it was a decent year of NFL betting for me. Teasers absolutely crushed. Straight bets and team totals I did fine on, props I made a small profit. I lost a little bit Live betting which I take as a personal challenge for next year. I lost one of my all time favorite, last man standing PPH account this year, which sucks. This was the account that let me buy through the NFL 7 for 10 cents per half point which was extraordinarily exploitable for years and years. I got kicked out of three books total this year which is about par for the course for me at this stage of my career. 

Side note: I made my first withdrawal from Draft Kings this past week, just a portion of my balance. And the money was in my account less than 24 hours later. I have to say, I have been quite impressed by Draft Kings ever since I opened an account. I am obviously completely unaffiliated with them or anyone so don't think this is an ad or anything, but I really think they're a great book. And have you noticed their stock price? It's waaay up the past few months. In my 'overall sportsbook handle' post a while ago, I mentioned that I thought DK was a good stock to buy or at least keep an eye on. My reasoning being simply that old school Las Vegas, brick and mortar sports books were able to make a good sized profit with 5% handles operating in one city. DK's handle is closer to 10% (and rising), they're strictly online and they can service half the country (and rising). So I would think that they can net at the very least whatever the old school LV books did, and possibly quite a bit more. 

That's it for now but check back soon. I have a doozy cooking, I promise!

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Super Bowl Sunday!

Well the big day is here! I'm up against it a little bit with time on the computer, a full house and 7 inches of snow on my driveway so I'm just going to post a few of my favorite plays so far and a couple other small things.

First off, for the props I posted last week, you can pretty easily see how they moved yourself on Draft Kings, even if you don't have an account. At a glance, they seemed to mostly have drifted towards overs which was expected. Juju got his receptions bet up quite a bit which is interesting. The QB markets didn't seem to move a ton, although Hurts completions and attempts got bet up a good amount. Both QB's had their passing TD's bet down a little bit.

Overall though, my prop action for this game is not nearly as big as it used to be. I can only play props at Draft Kings now, plus my confidence in them is fairly low as we've discussed on here many times. Sadly, DK doesn't have cross sport props either which is a real bummer. I really used to absolutely crush those. I didn't see a whole lot of Novelty/Fun props in general this year. 

The game line was oddly steady for the whole two weeks leading up to today. On Pinnacle, KC opened at -1 -109, got as high as -1.5 -115, and is currently at -1 -101. The KC moneyline opened at -117, got as high as -132, and is now at -110. The total opened at 49.5 and is now at 48.5 -110 on the under. So really not too much movement at all.

Just basing it on market-handicapping, it seems that the sharp money is on Phi and the public is on KC. Phi is the far superior team on paper but KC and Mahomes have the God-mode factor in their favor. My last standing PPH account put up +125 for Phi money line all week so I obviously maxed that out and have been slowly scalping it out all week. I'm glad I didn't jump all in on KC -122 when it opened. I put Phi ML in a lot of parlays the past two weeks (which my agent was not thrilled about but this feels like the last week I'm going to have this account anyway) so I have a lot on Phi money line. I've slowly been scalping it out all the way from KC -122 down to -109 today. So I have a really nice position on the game tonight. I win money no matter who wins, but if Phi wins I do a lot better.

OK so on the props. Again, I don't have near the confidence in my prop edge that I used to and I am very clearly not selling you anything here or giving you advice or anything. But even though my prop edge is largely gone, the Super Bowl is a whole different ball game. The numbers get whacked around by the public enough to make them pretty clearly +EV, even if you don't love your model. Anyway, here are some of my favorite bets so far:

Mahomes under 1.5 passing TD +137

Hurts under .5 INT -141

Mahomes under 253.5 passing yards -112

Phi under 1.5 4th down conversions -130

Phi more first downs +100

KC under 19.5 first downs +120

Xavier Worthy u5.5 receptions -120

Juju Smith Schuster under 1.5 receptions +114

Little parlay: D Hopkins o1.5 receptions, over 12.5 yards +128

S Barkley over 13.5 rec yards -117

Then I have tons of NO on players to score TD's

Normally I'd have a lot of NO's on Overtime, two point conversions, safety's, etc. But like I said, I am very up against it with places to play and raw powder to fire with. I have yet to really price the running backs either, which I will probably get into here soon. So check back before the game starts in case I find something I really like.

That's it for now. Good luck tonight and if I don't make another post today, check back early next week as I have an NFL season wrap up post cooking.

Super Bowl Prop Openers, My Super Bowl Process, And A Quick Econ Lesson

Just one game left in the 2024/2025 NFL Season: The Super Bowl. Today I'm going to post some prop openers that Draft Kings put up this morning. It'll be fun and quite interesting to track these and see how they move during the next two weeks. I will definitely be betting props for this Super Bowl and will post some of my favorite plays here in the run up to the game. Big time, one-off events like this are gold mines for prop bettors and just about everyone involved in sports betting should be looking to get down some money somewhere in this game. If you're a noob or a low level bettor, you really should be licking your chops. Books tend to lose their minds a little bit for the Super Bowl and will put up all kinds of original, in-house markets where the price gets set by literally like one or two guys. My all time favorite market to bet on is cross-sport props so be on the lookout for some of those plays posted here (for free, as always of course). Cross sport props and unique low limit stuff are the low hanging fruit of the sports betting market. So unless your bankroll is so big that $500 and $1k max markets are way below your pay-grade, if you call yourself an advantage gambler (or even an aspiring one), this should be a busy two weeks for you.

For me personally, in the next few days I will be really updating my NFL models. The first step is to get all the league averages dialed in, taking into account the most recent playoff games. I'll probably weigh early games as less important as the most recent ones when coming up with averages. Double checking everything in the model since I didn't use it a ton this year. I'll be consuming as much useable content as possible, using Youtube and DFS articles and channels. Try to get as familiar with each team as possible. I will also track all the major markets and see how they move. This year is a little different than normal for me as I didn't do much prop work at all this season. But the Super Bowl is too whacky and potentially profitable to sit out prop-wise, even though my prop edge has largely diminished. I doubt I'll have nearly the amount of volume in play as I have in the past, but I will for sure get a decent amount down. This time next week is when I'll probably start to price everyone and start sprinkling in some bets. The majority of my bets will probably go in on Saturday and Sunday though, as I usually have a lot of Unders and No's, and those prices will probably be best as close to game time as possible. If I see any glaring Overs or Yes's on anything I will probably look to get those in early in the week.

OK so on to the prop openers. The following bets are all from Draft Kings and are from this morning (Monday Jan 27th). Again, these will be very interesting to follow and I will update them as close to game time as possible to see where and how they moved. If anything moves big during the week I will try to update that as well.

QB's: (If I don't put down any juice assume it's roughly even for both sides)

Completions / Attempts / Yards / Passing TD's / INT / Pass+rush yards

Mahomes:

23.5 -120 over / 35.5 -121 over / 252.5 / 1.5 -188 over / .5 -117 under / 287.5

Hurts:

17.5 / 26.5 / 210.5 / 1.5 -179 under / .5 -160 under / 257.5

Receivers:

Receptions / Yards

AJ Brown: 5.5 -143u / 71.5

T Kelce: 6.5 -135u / 64.5

Worthy: 5.5 -140u / 57.5

D Smith: 4.5 -138u / 50.5

D Goedert: 4.5 -141u / 46.5

M Brown: 3.5 -135 over / 42.5

Hopkins: 1.5 -147 over / 17.5

S Barkley: 2.5 -160 over / 14.5

Juju: 1.5 -119u / 13.5

N Gray: 1.5 -117u / 12.5

Hunt: 1.5 -144u / 7.5

Perine: 1.5 -225u / 6.5

Pacheco: 1.5 -211u / 5.5

Draft Kings does a weird thing with yes/no on 'will this player score a TD?' They have one sided "yes" on all players to score a TD, score the first TD, and score 2 or more TD's. I hope that if you're reading this blog, you know that one way markets are almost always terrible and you should almost never bet into them. I actually have found value on the "yes" for anytime TD's in some spots, but by and large, markets like these should be avoided. (If you don't know what I mean by one way market, it simply means that you can only bet on side, the 'yes' in this example. Markets like these are generally terrible because they can put up any number they want without having to worry about anyone taking the other side).

However, they also do this thing where they put two or sometimes three players together and offer normal 'yes/no' on will either of them score a TD. I have found some good value in this market. 

Some quick ones:

Barkley and Hurts: Yes -650 / No +425

Barkley and AJ Brown: -450 / +310

Hurts and Kelce: -260 / +195

Kelce and Worthy: -250 / +155

Hurts and Mahomes: -180 / +135

D Smith and Kelce: -145 / +110

Some random ones:

PAT made: 

Elliot: 2.5 -112 over

Butker: 2.5 -115 under

Kicking points:

Elliot: 6.5 -132 over

Butker: 7.5 -124 over

KC total first downs: 19.5 -145 over

PHI total first downs: 20.5 -130 over

Total first downs: 40.5 -150 over

Total players to have a passing attempt: 2.5 -270 under

Obviously I could go on and on but those are the major ones, for me at least. I'll make at least one more post here before the game (probably more than that) and I'll update those bets to see how they moved.

Finally, changing gears here, one quick econ lesson. This is a very basic premise that goes back to Milton Friedman. It's very simple but the first time I heard it, it was very eye opening for me and maybe it will be for you too.

There are only four possible ways to spend money. First, you can spend your own money on yourself. You will care about price and quality. Second, you can spend your own money on someone else. You'll care about the price but won't care as much about the quality. Third, you can spend someone else's money on yourself. You won't care about price, but you will care about the quality. Fourth, you can spend someone else's money on someone else. You won't care about price or quality. And what does the government do? What is the ONLY thing they can do? The last one. Spending other peoples money on other people. It will ALWAYS be inefficient, at best. Just a neat quick little lesson that always stuck with me.

That's it for today but be sure to check back soon as I will for sure have a post or two in the next couple weeks. Also, don't forget to follow me on X for updates on new posts @poogsBLOG.  Bye for now!

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Why It All Matters

If there is one positive thing to come out of the pandemic and the past 5 or so years, it's that the term 'inflation' has entered main stream consciousness. Americans are way more cognizant of the national debt, the rising prices and the general economic malfeasance going on in our country. People still by and large do not understand exactly what inflation is, why it happens and why it's so bad and how it effects them in nearly everything they do. But I think the general population is way more aware of it today than they were 10 years ago. But in all the discourse I see about inflation, there is one point that I think gets missed. Which is; why should you care? Why does it matter, really? Whenever inflation gets talked about, you'll invariably see a lot of graphs and acronyms and big words. Lots of numbers and percentages. Which is all fine, but they miss the WHY of it all. 

"I get that they're printing money, I sort of intuitively understand that that's a bad thing, I get that prices are going up but my income is going up too. And if some rich guys in the government print money and give it to some bank who use it to give out loans, why should I care exactly?"

Well in this post I'm going to try to tell you why money printing is so evil and why you should care without diving into graphs or making you do math or writing words like 'heterodoxy' or 'verticals'. You won't need ANY special knowledge to understand this. So much of economics is made far more complicated than it needs to be and I don't think that is an accident. 

First off, inflation is when the money supply increases. THAT IS IT. What happens after that is the 'effect' of inflation. Rising prices is not always inflationary, but inflation always causes rising prices. A healthy, stimulated, buzzing economy is not inflationary. And listen, you already understand this, even if you don't realize you do. For (a ridiculous) example, why don't we have Christmas once a month? Everyone loves Christmas and if we all wanted to, we could celebrate it every single month on the 25th. But we sort of all understand that one of the great things about it is that it is only once a year. If we added even just one more Christmas somewhere in the year, it would cheapen the real one. But why, exactly? Nothing about the original Christmas will have changed. The only thing being affected is the total number of Christmas's.  It's scarce. 

Let's say you save up and buy an ounce of gold. You put it in your safe and hope the value appreciates. Overnight, it rains gold and the total supply of gold doubles. What would happen to your gold bar? It would become worth half as much, overnight, with nothing about it changing. The only thing that would be different is the total amount of gold everywhere else.

Have you ever bought or been around high end art? Whenever my wife and I are on vacation, we almost always end up in an art gallery. All the higher end stuff almost always has a "155 out of 1000" on it (or something similar). Why would the value of a piece of art hanging in your family room in Massachusetts be affected by the total number of identical pieces hanging in a show room in Montana? And why would the price be higher if the total amount of pieces is lower?

I could go on and on with examples like this. You already understand inflation if you understand the examples I just gave. So why do we all intuitively understand this concept when it comes to holidays or gold or art but not with money? The total amount in supply matters! Of course it does! In fact, it's the single most important aspect of any currency. Every single dollar that gets printed cheapens the value of every single dollar in existence. There is no amount of graphs or acronyms or econ classes you can take that can change or disprove that. (Fun fact: we never really need to print ANY money at all. Just about any total amount of money in circulation would work fine, and the only limiting factor is the fact that a dollar can only be divisible down to a penny. The only difference is that prices would look a lot different. If there were only ever, say, 1 million dollars in existence, nothing much would change at all, expect for the fact that things would cost A LOT less. Like, .000000001 cents. This is again something that the founders of bitcoin foresaw and which favors bitcoin; the fact that one bitcoin can be divided up to 100 million times. So never listen to anyone who says money printing is necessary. It is, in fact, not.)

So OK, we know that money printing leads to inflation and we know that inflation is bad. But how bad, really, and why?

First off, let's talk about money for a second. What is it, really? Money is stored energy. When you really understand this concept, the rest falls into place. When you work for a day, either for yourself or for a boss, you are trading your time and energy for something in return. You're essentially balling up the energy you used that day, either mentally or physically, and saving it for a later date. Before there was currency, people used the barter system. I would provide you clothes, you provide me food. Something like that. The basic idea here has not changed, we just have the advantage now that instead of getting a set service or good in exchange for our work, we get 'currency' that we can spend on whatever we choose, whenever we want. But the basic idea of a free market is the same. We trade our time and energy for someone else's time and energy. Money is just a way to account for that energy more efficiently.

So think about what the government is really taking from you when they print money and cheapen the money you've already made. They are taking your energy. And what is life, at its most basic form, if not stored energy? Money printing is quite literally sucking the energy right from your body. It is death. 

It's all so convoluted-looking and it's all done by these old, harmless looking people in suits in these big offices in Washington DC with these fancy degrees from these fancy colleges, and they all speak in riddles and seem like they know what they're doing. It all feels like business as usual as they casually announce another $6 billion printed and shipped off to another country BY MISTAKE. They talk about the national debt being OVER 36 TRILLION dollars, (which is 122% of our GDP!) like they're reading a grocery list.

It all looks and seems normal but that is precisely why it is so EVIL. At least with taxation, you're getting something back. One can argue about what we're getting back and if it's worth it and if taxation really is theft, but it's at least an argument and you at least have some say in your tax rate. And it's done openly. But inflation has the same effect of a tax, only you get nothing in return, you have no say in it, and it's a secret, for all intents and purposes. 

When money gets printed and ends up in the hands of someone who doesn't deserve it or didn't earn it, a tiny piece of that is from YOU, specifically. Like I mentioned before, think about what is really happening when money gets printed and given to someone. It's pieces of paper getting printed and inked and then sent elsewhere. That's it. So why does anyone value that paper? Because you, the American worker/taxpayer, will get up and go to work tomorrow. It's a check cashed in on YOUR back. On your work, on your effort, on your intelligence, on your innovation, on your time and energy, on your LIFE. What would happen to our money if everyone in America just decided not to produce or go to work anymore? It would become worthless eventually. Like confederate money from before the Civil War. It may have value as a collectors item, but only due to the extremely limited supply and the standing of modern America. Money printing is absolutely no different than someone stealing money right out of your pocket. If anything, it's actually worse. At least a thief doesn't pretend he's helping you. 

One concept I heard from Milton Friedman is that there really is no such thing as 'The Government". There is only people, and some people have jobs in the government. So when you think of 'the government' printing money, you might picture a hazy, shapeless, faceless blob conjuring up money out of thin air like a witch with a cauldron and sprinkling it around. But what you should picture, the much more accurate scene, is a fat, sweaty, balding man in his sixties who no one voted for and has never had a real job or done anything productive in his entire fucking life, giving you pat on the head with one hand while he picks your pocket with his other hand. Or a gigantic row of printers, feverishly firing off hundred dollar bill after hundred dollar bill, with damp, itchy men standing by, watching impatiently, like junkies watching their dealer cook up a batch of heroin. And again, it's all being done with your sanction and your blessing, whether you like it or not.

Also, money printing always leads to more money printing. You can read history for countless examples. Once any society starts doing it, they get addicted to it. The market starts to accept and expect it and it becomes impossible to stop. "Bail outs" lead to more bail outs. 

This is the number one reason why I got into Bitcoin and why I support it as much as I do. Forget all the tech stuff, the layer 2 and 3 stuff, the alt-coins, the rug pulls, etc. It's a real, hard currency that takes the government and the Fed completely out of it, and it has a hard max supply of 21 million. Bitcoin is LIFE and money printing is DEATH. Do with that information what you will.

Some random stuff:

-Sorry about not posting any props the other day. I've been in this weird cycle with props for like 3 years now. I look over my last couple years of results and see that I haven't made any money betting props for a while, don't have nearly the time or the will to really dive back into them, and essentially give up betting them. The season goes along and I do fine betting other stuff, but I still check props and sort of keep up with the scene from afar. Once in a while I look for prop arbs which is generally not worth the time. I make some small bets on easy stuff, like 'no' on will there be a 2 point conversion, do the math for it quickly. I dust off my old excel NFL prop models and start tinkering. I think to myself, there is no way this model is not profitable against Draftkings prop markets. I update everything in the model to the current season and start pricing QB and WR props, the only ones I really have confidence in. I find lots of good spots, spend hours on the models and on betting. Reading DFS stuff, listening to podcasts. Think to myself "I'm back, baby!" And then I lose like 2 units. Over and over. I can't keep doing this! So don't expect any prop plays from me. Sorry but they wouldn't even be worth anything anyway.

-I recently did a re-watch of True Detective Season 1 and ho-ly shit. It was even better than I remembered. I like watching really good shows and movies twice. I always get something out of it the second time and it sometimes feels like I'm watching it for the first time. I think you also have a different perspective when the element of surprise is gone and that can show how good a show or movie really is. For instance, Breaking Bad went down a little bit in my rankings on a re-watch. That show relied on surprises and shock factor more than you might have realized. But it was quite the opposite with True Detective. Even though I knew how it ended, it didn't make me enjoy it any less. If anything, it made me like it even more. The first time around I watched it live and I got so caught up in trying to figure out what was happening and looking for all these 'clues' every episode. When you completely let that go and just let it unfold, it's a much different experience. The episode where Russ is undercover in the biker gang and they invade the stash house in the projects is probably the single best episode of any TV series of all time. The meat of that episode is one long take in the middle and I just cannot get over how outstanding it was. Important nugget though; watch it with subtitles. It's a lot of mumbly southern accents so you really don't know how much you miss without subtitles. I was hanging on to every word of that season and there really is not a wasted second in there. Highly recommend giving it a subtitle re-watch if you haven't already. Same with The Leftovers which I recently re-watched as well.

-We're obviously getting a new President here in America on Monday, and it feels like the start of a new era. We'll see how all this shakes out in the next couple of years, but you can feel the shift. I think the Obama/DEI era is officially coming to a close and something new is about to start. I love it but you never really know how things are going to turn out. We're getting a lot of promises so it'll be interesting to watch.

-There are some rumbles about a big UFO disclosure event coming this Saturday on News Nation. One thing I've never talked about here is aliens. I've been reading a ton about it lately and I will probably make a post about it all soon. It's some of the most bizarre and disturbing stuff I have ever read. Aliens are real, they're here and they've been here. That really isn't even controversial to say anymore which is wild.

That's it for today. Bit of a different post but you never know what you're gonna get here. Bye for now!

NFL Playoffs

Another short little post here, just wanted to touch base about betting on the NFL in the playoffs and maybe give a nugget or two.

First off, I hope you all cashed in on my correlated parlay nugget from my last post. The Bengals won that week 18 game I was talking about (but didn't cover -2.5 by a half point! Hence why I said to do the money line and why line shopping is so important) and the Chargers went from -4.5 to -7 and even -7.5 at some places after the Bengals win. So you could have rode naked on it and been happy, or middled it with Raiders +7 -105ish or +7.5 -115ish. Or you could have taken Raiders +4.5 at about +130 for a little bit for the nice scalp/arb. My initial bet was bigger than I wanted as I did plan on hedging at least a little bit and that is what I did. I took a little bit of Raiders +7, got a nibble at +7.5 and took a little bit +4.5 +130. I had way more exposure to the Chargers though who won and covered easily. The Raiders ALMOST pushed on +7 too which would have been sick.

This past weekend was a great one for Wong Teasers. Buffalo was in Wong range most of the week and somehow closed at -7.5 (there was a LOT of late money coming in on Denver for some reason). Draftkings actually put the Ravens at -8.5, who were 9/9.5 everywhere else, for a little while yesterday and I put them into a few teasers. 

I've mentioned it before, but DK's teaser odds are generally bad. -120 for two teamers, +160 for three teamers and +260 for four teamers. What you really want is -110 for two teamers, +180 for three teamers and +300 for 4 teamers (or better, obviously). You used to be able to find those odds (or even better sometimes) just about everywhere a few years ago. But the public slowly, very slowly seems to be finding out about these so we've seen the odds get worse and worst over time, very gradually. If you're paying the DK odds, or worse, and not playing Wong teasers absolutely perfectly, you're going to torch money. However, there are some spots that come up where they can be +EV. The example from the Ravens game yesterday is a good one. Generally, it's where DK has a team a half point or a full point off from market, putting them in Wong range. They actually have one up right now. They have the Bills at +1.5 -120 where most of the market is at a pk. Pinnacle is actually at +1 -109 now, so it isn't as great as when they were -1 +102 this morning, but still a good leg. It's the Sunday Night game too, so you can put it as the last leg in your teasers and then go for a nice chunky middle, scalp some or all of it out, or just let it ride. Either way, you should have some attractive options.

Speaking of Wong Teasers, every single NFL game with a line right now is Wongable if you look hard enough and have a little bit of creativity. Right off the bat we have a nice one tonight with the Rams being +2.5. I jumped on this one early last week when I found a +1.5 when everyone else was at pk or +1. But then the game got moved to Arizona due to the fires, so the line went to +2/2.5. I put this one in as the last leg in a lot of my teasers from last week, so I have a big position of LAR +8.5 and +7.5 tonight. I'm scalping out of some of it with Min -2.5, -4.5, -7.5, and a little bit of -9.5, but still exposed for a good chunk on LAR.

Next up is Washington/Detriot. This opened at Det -8.5 -105 and is currently Det -8.5 -113 on Pinnacle. Just about everyone else has -9 or -9.5. If you can find a -8.5, I highly suggest putting it in some Wong teasers. I whacked Draftkings on it pretty good this morning and they moved to -9.5 right after. (When that happens, I will usually take the other team at +10.5 for at least part of my hedge, buying through the 10 which is generally worth it at 10 cents per half point.) It's hard/impossible to predict NFL line moves, but I would imagine that this line will not go any lower than 8.5. So my plan is to get in at -2.5 with Wong teasers and take nibbles on Washington throughout the week at +9, +10.5, +7.5 reduced juice, and the money line. I think the best time to bet Washington though will be right before kickoff. I was listening to a good podcast this morning and they were talking about Washington this year and how 'lucky' they've been. They have run very hot on converting 3rd and 4th downs, and have scored an unsustainable chunk of their points on drives where they've converted a 4th down. Not something I'd exactly take to the bank but worth considering. With the high total, this is a spot where I'll take nibbles on +9 and +10.5 etc like I said above, but will probably bet Washington ML and +3 as my hedge instead of going for the big middle.

The Saturday night game is Hou at KC. KC is -7.5 and feels like a 'licking my chops' kind of teaser. The Chiefs are kings of winning-but-not-covering this year and this game has a nice low total (41.5). The expected/implied score is KC: 24.5 HOU: 17 which is both under their average points scored per game. Lower scoring generally means less variance, so I love the play of teasing KC down to -1.5 and hedging with Hou +7.5 or even better if this line moves to 8 or 9. This definitely one where I'm not waiting though and firing on them today. I cannot imagine this line goes down or crosses the 7. Another one where I think the best time to bet Hou will be close to game time.

Finally, we have Baltimore at Buffalo. I already went over this game above, but definitely look for any Bills +1.5 and consider Wonging them up to 7.5. The great thing about the playoffs in particular when it comes to Wongs is that all the games are on at different times. So this makes middling/arbing a lot easier and way more clear. 

I dusted off my NFL player prop models for a couple games yesterday and even though I lost a few units overall, I felt like I was finding a lot of decent spots on Draftkings. They have more than a few unique markets which seem exploitable. I'm going to dive into them right after I make this post and if I find a couple really good props I'll post them here. So check back later today if you're interested. No promises though.

That's it for today. I have two really big posts still cooking so make sure to check back soon if you're into that sort of thing. And don't forget to follow me on X for updates @POOGSblog. Bye for now!

BTC price: $92k

BTC marketcap: $1.82 Trillion 

BTC dominance: 57.4%

Total cryptos on coin marketcap: 2.4+ million 

Correlated Parlay Nugget

 Hello there. This isn't really a post post, more of a nice little nugget for any of my regular readers. If you don't know, there are often good sneaky correlated parlays that you can play in the NFL in the last week of the season. Games can be correlated when one team needs another to win or lose to get into the playoffs or change their seeding. The NFL seems to be aware of this and makes the schedule so that most of the correlated games go off at the same time which mostly nullifies the correlation (although I wonder if you can find spots with live betting?) However, there is one really good one this week and I'm going to give it out to you guys here.

Parlay: Bengals money line with LA Chargers -4.5, and/or Steelers money line with LV Raiders +4.5.

You dont HAVE to do money line and spread but I think all things being equal, that is the optimal play. It depends on what kind of numbers you can get though.

Interestingly, Draftkings will let you parlay Bengals and LAC but NOT Steelers and LV. I'm not entirely sure why they let you do one but not the other. The vast majority of PPH books will let you parlay them both though which is good. They also look super square to anyone who doesn't understand it so they're good bets for cover too.

That's it for now. Check back soon as I might have another one of these later on today or tomorrow and I still have a couple of big posts cooking. One checking in on the logarithmic regression for BTC and another one about money that I think you will like.

Bye for now!

Practical Advice For New Dads

Hello everyone. Something I'd like to start on here is to do a blog about a completely different subject than normal around Christmas time. So here goes! Don't worry, we'll return to our normal programming next time. But I think a lot of my readers are youngish men who are just starting families or might be on the cusp of it. So this post will hopefully help you with some real, practical advice from a newish Dad. If this interests you, read on! If not, check back soon as I have a big post cooking.

My wife and I had our first child (a daughter) almost two years ago now. So obviously I am not an old and wise grizzled father of five doling out advice. However, the first few weeks/months are particularly challenging and unique, and I feel like a lot of parents seem to sort of forget almost the whole first 6 months and how hard it can be. I've heard this is actually an evolutionary function for parents to incentivize us to have more kids, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of this. As the parent of one, one and a half year old, I know I am far from being a 'Dad expert'. But it's all fresh in my mind and before she was born, I looked and asked around everywhere for advice and found the vast majority of it to be severely lacking. ("Sleep when the baby sleeps?" Great idea, on paper). It's all so daunting, there's so much emphasis on the child and the mother so the Dad can get left behind a little bit. So perhaps this can help a future or new Dad. I know I could have used something like this.

First off, the pregnancy. This will really have very little to do with you. She will have lots of appointments, will need special food and vitamins. She might be cranky and/or emotional. Just be a good guy here. Really not a whole lot for you to do except be as good of a partner as possible and prepare yourselves for whats coming. Read some books. (You gotta have the baby room ready in advance, obviously. And the car seat, stroller, etc. Car seats are harder to install than you might think. Make sure you follow the instructions, there is more to them than it seems. You'll be getting tons and tons of random advice and people telling you their (sometimes horror) stories. Don't get psyched out or anything. Just prepare yourselves for the first month, really. You'll have plenty of time to get the stuff for the months afterwards and you won't really know exactly what you'll need anyway.)

Next: the birth. When your wife is a month or so out from being due, get a go bag ready. Clothes, books, laptop, maybe some food. Prepare for 4-7 days in the hospital where you will be woken up about every 2 hours. It'll all feel like an absolute blur, almost like a dream. No one is sleeping except the baby. The doctors and nurses don't give a FUCK about you in there, either. You'll be sleeping on the 'Dad bed" which is barely even a couch. Do NOT complain. Just help as much as you can and keep the room tidy. I went for a drive every day in the morning to get us breakfast/lunch and to just take a breather for an hour everyday, plus give your wife some alone time. And you can report back on the outside world when you get back to the hospital. It's hard to describe, but it can feel really weird being cooped up in there like that. So take a break when you can, but again, this part is obviously all about her and the baby so just be there for them. I've heard stories of guys playing video games while their wife gives birth and bitching to her about the lack of accommodations. For the love of god, don't be that guy. (Side note: research and have a plan about vaccines before you get to the hospital. Unfortunately, you really can't just trust the doctors anymore when it comes to vaccines. They'll want to inject your newborn with stuff literally the minute he or she is born. I read a great book called "The Vaccine Friendly Plan" by Dr. Paul which I highly recommend. Don't be afraid to tell the nurses no, either. They can be pushy and it's all pretty intimidating, but know what you're doing before you get there ((like, really know it)) and stick to it. Trust me, you'll thank yourself later. You can always get a vaccine later if you want but you can't undo one.)

Next up: going home and the first two weeks. Leaving the hospital the first time will be utterly surreal. You can't even believe they're just handing the baby off to you and off you go. This is where you have to shine and where you'll be needed. Your wife will be all banged up (even a C-section does quite a lot of damage), more tired than you, and her hormones will be all over the place. You have to be a rock. If you're overwhelmed or anything, don't show it to your wife. She needs you to be strong here. Make sure the house is clean and ready for you guys, make sure you have food and drinks and stuff like that.

The simplest and probably best advice I got around here was just make it to two months. Have that as a goal in your head. The first two months will be torture. Sorry to say but there's no getting around it. The baby will be waking up all throughout the night, every night, and you will be beyond sleep deprived. You'll have a long tough day, finally get yourself into bed, and then you'll get woken up two hours later. Its 24 hours, non-stop at first. Just be ready for it.

You also get nothing from the baby at this point. They can't even really see you. It's shocking how much of a blob they are at first and something I was not prepared for. Just tell yourself "get to two months", and "literal cavemen did this". The days will feel long and will all blur together. I felt a connection early on, but don't worry if you don't. You will at some point, I promise. After the first couple weeks, it'll slowly get better and better every day. But make no mistake about it; during the first month you will think to yourself at least a few times; "Now I understand why they use sleep depravation as a torture tactic". 

Couple practical things for the first couple months of night feedings: have a plan beforehand. My wife and I came up with a good system of simply every other. I'd do one feeding, then she'd do the next one, and so on. So many couples fight at this point about who should get up in the middle of the night. Another good piece of advice, don't both do it at the same time. The first couple of nights you probably both will, but once you get the hang of it, make sure only one of you are doing it while the other one sleeps/recovers. For the first few weeks, I felt guilty about sleeping while she fed, so I would get up with her and basically just stand there and watch her feed at like 2 AM. Get your rest while you can and if you're not helping, you're not helping.

A great resource we used for sleeping was the Ferber method. My doctor friend turned us on to it, but you may have heard of it from the movie "Meet The Parents." Some people still think it's a joke, but it's a great simple system of letting them cry for a little bit longer every night before you go in. Otherwise, you can start to train them that crying=parents rushing in as fast as possible. It'll be hard to let them cry at first but rushing in there is not doing them any favors. You can look up the Ferber method yourself for free. It's very simple. And I highly recommend using an actual timer and following it very strictly. You may think you can estimate 3 minutes, but I promise you that it's a lot harder than it seems, especially with your newborn scream crying in the middle of the night. (Side note: I remember reading somewhere that the ability for a newborn to 'self-soothe', aka put themselves back to sleep after waking up and crying, is one of the most important things for a baby at this stage and is an indicator of good life outcomes down the road. So do some research and have a solid plan around sleeping and stick to it). Have a solid routine for bedtime and stick to it every night. Our was: bath about every other night, PJ's and diaper, bottle on my lap in her room with the door shut and lights off, then a couple minutes of walking around with her lightly, burping her, then lay her down with her binky and wombat stuffed animal that she still loves. Good sleeping cues. Our routine is that I do the night time and my wife does the morning. You should help her in the mornings though and I do them at least once a week on the weekends. See what works for you).

After the first month, you should start to settle into it all. The baby should be sleeping better and you'll start to get some laughs and maybe even some eye contact. Baths in the sink can be fun. As stressful as it all is, don't forget to enjoy it. It'll go by fast and like I said, it'll all start to feel like a dream. But you're really starting to bond here and it will hit you that you are now DAD. Forever. It's heavy and you gotta give yourself a little bit of alone time here and there to just check in with yourself and clear your head. Lots of people will want to come over in the first month and while they all mean well, do not be afraid to tell them no sometimes. Protect your family at all costs here, and never forget about your wife. 

Once you get to two months, 3 max, the baby really should be sleeping a lot better. If not the entire night, no more than one or two wake ups where you only go in half the time or something. I've heard horror stories of couples with 6 or 7 month olds who are still waking up 4 or 5 times a night! (I also just heard of one couple in particular who is really struggling with sleep and that the mothers mother didn't get her children to sleep through the night for 3 years!! Always take any advice with a grain of salt and consider the source). If they're not sleeping through the night after 3 months, you're doing something wrong. Treat it like any other problem; identify it, do some research, and experiment. For us, the Ferber method was a life-saver. So start there. You might have to modify it slightly if it isn't working after a week or so, but it really should. One other couple I know had a brutal start until they found their baby was getting acid reflux, no thanks to their doctor. Another side note: doctors are not gods. Don't treat then like they are. A lot of them can be dismissive so don't be afraid to trust your gut and advocate for yourself and your family.

Once they start sleeping through the night, it will feel completely different. You and your wife will start to feel normal again, you'll start feeling like a 'real Dad', you'll start getting more and more out of the baby which will feel incredible. The first time they laugh at something you do is amazing. Personally, I didn't want to bombard her with too much shit at first. People will give you all kinds of toys and gizmos and whatnot. I felt it was good to get her used to silence as much as I could and not try to bludgeon her tiny brain with bells and whistles right out of the gate. Oh and get a good pediatrician, obviously. This is another tricky spot with vaccines. Some of them will tell you that you have to get every single CDC recommended shot or they won't even take you on. Do not let them bully you into shit like that. We found a great one that is super into healthy, natural stuff and didn't force any vaccines onto us. They are out there but you gotta look around.  Not to say we're 100% anti-vax and didn't get any, but nothing was forced on us. We basically followed the advice in the Vaccine Friendly book I mentioned. 

From 6 months to a year and a half, which is where I am now, is SO MUCH easier than the first 6 months. Once they start walking that's a whole other thing and you'll be chasing them around all over the place, and it can be draining, but it's a different kind of draining than not getting sleep. They start to develop a little personality and it really is fun. 

In closing; have a real, well thought out plan before any of it starts. Be flexible but not breakable. It is as hard as people say but it's not harder. And it is worth it. That's how worth it is...as brutal as it can be, the good does outweigh the bad. It's a huge, huge endeavor. To pluck a soul from the ether and thrust it into existence. Do not do it lightly but don't wait forever either. Make sure you are rock solid with your wife beforehand or else it'll all be so much harder than it needs to be. Give each other grace, too and remember that you're in it together. You'll both all over the place mentally. Talk about what kinds of parents you want to be and think about what kind of father you'll be. You will feel a lot different a couple months in. About yourself, your family, your place in the world. You literally become a different man and that is a good thing. Lean on support when you need to, but don't forget that you're a Man and a Dad now. You gotta be the rock that they come to, not the other way around. If that scares you, honestly it might not be for you. But if not, it's an awesome responsibility and if you do it, you jump in with both feet or you don't jump at all.

That's it for today I suppose. Bye for now!

Hi Draftkings...?

 Not really a post here but this was too funny/weird not to post.

So just now I got an email from Draftkings that I assume everyone else got. It says that they're "simplifying the way they confirm Sportsbook bonus offers! Going forward, if you claim a bonus offer that is awarded immediately-like a profit boost of bonus bet-you'll no longer receive a confirmation email. Instead, you can instantly check your claim status" and then goes on to show how you can see it in the app itself.

If you read my last post you might be thinking that that is quite the coincidence. If you didn't, read it now and see what you think.

It's noon on an NFL Sunday so I am quite busy right now but I do have a post cooking so check back soon.

Sports Betting. Crypto. A Big Look Around

Long time no speak again and lots to discuss so lets dive right in. 

First off: Sports Betting. 

It has been somewhat of a strange (couple of) years of betting for me, personally. Ever since I officially threw in the towel with props, I thought my days of betting were practically over. Props were like a good 75% or so of my total action. However, that really hasn't been the case. My volume is obviously a lot lower than it was when I was doing this full time, but very often in the world of advantage gambling and PPH accounts, when one door closes, another one opens. For me, it has been Wong teasers, off-market/alt lines, and team totals this year. I've always done these but not quite to the extent I am this season. It seems that I am FINALLY getting on the positive side of variance this year and have been doing quite well with Wong's and their hedges. I'm not sure how Wong teasers have 'officially' been doing this year, but I know that from my own sample I'm doing quite good. Lots of close games this year too it seems which is almost always a good thing for me. I've also really fine-tuned my approach where I'm doing a lot of three team Wong's which have slightly better odds than two teamers. (+170 on 3 teamers is better than -110 two teamers by a small amount. At +170, it's like having 3 bets at -255 odds. At -110, you have two bets at -262 odds.) I almost always include three teams that are playing in different time slots, so it's very easy to hedge/middle them. My main PPH guy stopped moving lines after I crushed him in the first few weeks of the season, but I'm still finding plenty of good spots.

I also opened up a Draftkings account for the first time this season. I used to use the brick and mortar kiosks to bet at DK when I was doing props, and ever since I stopped with props I haven't really felt the need to use DK. Their lines are pretty much on-market and heavily juiced and their two-teamer teasers are -120, three teamers +160, and four teamers +260. So that makes them completely unusable for teasers. However, I have found some stuff on there that is worth playing. For one, they offer a SHITLOAD of stuff. The amount of offerings they have for every game really is quite impressive. So there are some little nuggets to be found. They let you buy and sell as many points as you want and their alt-lines are sometimes off enough to be +EV. Plus, they offer a really impressive amount of rewards/promos. All kinds of small little free bets and odds boosters, plus a nice little deposit bonus. They are definitely a rec book and I imagine the freebies will dry up for me soon enough, but I highly recommend Draftkings for any sports bettor. (I mentioned it before, but I also own some DK stock and I think that's a good buy too. Maybe not right now as they've been pumping pretty good the past month or so, but something to keep an eye on at least.)

Actually, on the subject on Draftkings and sports betting in general, I do think that there could be some regulation coming for it down the line. I've started to see things on X a little bit. They're really pushing it with the non-stop commercials and the amount of e-mails and promotions I get are a lot. One ad I saw on TV was supposed to be 'the voice in your head telling you it's parlay time.' I can see in the future something like a guy loses his life savings betting, kills himself or worse, and a lawyer looks into it and sees all the deposits and the direct-to-him promotions, basically non-stop. I'm sure it's something that DK lawyers have thought of, but who knows. I was watching an interview on the Circles Off podcast with a young kid who became a tennis betting pro. He was talking about his start and depositing big sums onto a legal book for the first time, and subsequently losing it. He said he was instantly contacted by someone from the book and offered a big bonus on another big deposit. He said he never once heard from the book about being a possible 'problem gambler' and he was going through big sums at the start. I could totally see some politician glomming onto to some cause like that. It'll probably be a lot of talk and no real action though, so it could be a possible good time to buy DK stock.

Up next: Crypto.

Man oh man, huh. Bitcoin just casually sitting at $92k $93k 99k right now! It really is insane how much BTC has pumped in the last year or so. And I have to say, it is nice to be proven right so utterly convincingly. It is seared in my mind the stuff I heard about BTC when it went sub $20k at the end of 2022. Everyone thought it was dead, people panic sold and everything about it was so negative. From my own friends to the entire crypto-space online, no one called the bottom and it was nothing but doom and gloom. It really was a great lesson to live through. THAT is when you buy, and buy a lot. Looking back at some of my crypto posts around that time, one thing I said that I heard from my favorite you tube crypto guy, Ben Cowen, was that "it always comes back and we're all going to wish we bought more." How accurate was that? I have to say, as happy I am about it, I will always, probably for the rest of my life, regret not absolutely backing up the truck and getting to at least one full bitcoin during the bear market. That really was probably the single best investment opportunity that we'll ever see and I was all over it. Everything pretty much happened as I thought it would but I just didn't quite pounce hard enough. That's another good lesson. Have conviction, goddamnit! It's all so easy in hindsight and my total stocks and crypto ROI is over 100% currently, so I certainly can't complain. But I feel like everything I have right now should have one more zero at the end of it.

Speaking of Bitcoin, even though it feels over-heated right now, it really actually isn't. I don't have the link but google searches for 'bitcoin' aren't spiking at all. Ben Cowen's logarithmic regression model, which I did a post about a while ago, still has BTC somewhat calmly in the bottom half of the regression band. It's approaching the very top green band which has a fair value of $103k. Every single cycle has seen BTC touch the top of the regression band (the red lines if you can see it) before coming back down. Right now, the bottom red band is $218k, and if you push it out into February, it's at $240k. The top band, which it has hit in cycles 2 and 3, is $350k in February. So believe it or not, but 200 and even $300k is in reach this cycle. Isn't that unreal? BTC was at $15k less than two years ago. That is a plus 600% return, right now. It's insane to think where it could be 5 or 10 years from now. Every single person reading this should have at least SOME exposure to it. I've been beating this drum for years now and I won't go into it again, but buying and owning BTC is not nearly as complicated as you might think. The best time to buy BTC was during the bear market, but the second best time is right now. 

An interesting part of this cycle is the absolute dominance of Bitcoin compared to alt-coins. Bitcoin is about $20k $30k higher from it's previous all time high and yet Ethereum isn't anywhere close. Same with pretty much every other alt-coin. They all bleed against The King. That will probably change in the coming months, as alt-season typically occurs in the second half of bull markets. But either way, it is quite the statement and a really big feather in the cap of the Bitcoin Maxi's. I heard quite a lot of snickering and shit talking about Bitcoin being 'Boomer Coin' a couple years ago. Lots of Really Smart Guys all thought Bitcoin was too old, too slow and they all found their little shit coin to invest in. Look at Matic right now. It's at less than HALF of its all time high! Same with Chainlink. With alt-coins, you take on more risk and get less than half the reward of Bitcoin. I really do think a big motivator of a lot of these guys is that they just want to be the smartest guy in the room. I don't know how anyone could possibly justify having exposure to crypto yet having very little or no BTC. It's The King, always has been and probably always will be. Why fight it?

Now, having said that, I actually do think that BTC dominance has likely bottomed out. So I have started buying/DCA'ing into ETH and LINK, the only other coins I really dabble in. (I do have small amounts of Litecoin and Matic. Matic I got stuck with and am just waiting to dump whenever the price rebounds this cycle. Litecoin I take tiny nibbles when it crashes and sell tops aggressively. I own less than $1k of it). ETH/BTC is at about .035 which I think will bounce from. We're already seeing some big moves from ETH and LINK the last couple days. Normally I would trade some BTC for ETH but I'm just buying ETH instead. I'm not planning on selling much BTC until things start to feel really over-heated and it doesn't feel anywhere close right now. 

It's actually surprising how quiet this cycle feels. Bitcoin is just casually about to cross $100k. Its market cap is $1.9 TRILLION. Banks are falling over themselves to get ETF's going, including possible ETH ETF's. Michael Saylor has become the de-factor BTC spokesman. This is as bullish a feeling as I can remember, yet according to Ben Cowen's "social risk" indicators, it still looks like a bear market! He tracks new subscribers to big crypto youtube channels, new follows to Twitter accounts, including exchanges and analysts, among other things. It's a good sneaky little indicator and follows tops and bottoms pretty closely. And while it is definitely starting to trend up, it's still relatively low. It's at .4 with 1 being the top which it hit during the 2021 peak. Last time it went from .4 to .5, aside from a quick spike during the FTX saga, was late 2020 when it rallied from $10k to $65k.

I have somewhat altered my stance on investing in BTC/crypto this cycle. I've always considered myself more of a trader than an investor and that is how I approached crypto. I made tons of sells, always looking to come back in at a lower price. And that did work out fine, especially starting out, but now I have moved more towards 'investing' in my journey. I'm not looking to sell much of anything anymore, just keep adding. I've also spent a lot less time and energy analyzing charts and trying to predict price moves. Because the bottom line is that the number just goes up. It's swingy and volatile but all you ever have to do is zoom out. Bitcoin was at $10k at the end of 2020, it's the end of 2024 and we're looking straight down the barrel of $100k. I think we'll see a million dollar BTC in our lifetime. So why sell at all? It has more than proven itself and it's done the hard work. We have ETF's, it is discussed on all the mainstream news shows like it's been there all along. We're a couple months out from the halving, we have a new President who is very business friendly and it has officially settled into mainstream consciousness. Bud, get on board!

BTC price: $98k

BTC market cap: $1.93 T

BTC dominance: 58%

Total cryptos on coinmarketcap: 2.4+ Million (when I started this blog I remember it was 8k)