First post in over 2.5 years...here...we...go....
Anyone who's still reading this (which at this point I'm sure has to be like 95% people I actually know) is surely aware that over the last decade I have moved more and more into sports betting. It's actually part of the reason my blog kind of died, because I no longer really felt comfortable being 100% honest about what I was doing (both in terms of the activities and the dollar amounts involved, but I've decided to give fewer fucks about that going forward). The pandemic really pushed that even further along, as myself and a few other noted Gamboleros found ourselves out of poker work and joined forces a bit more formally to try to beat sports. And boy oh boy have we beaten fucking sports lol. Maybe I'll do a post on the general happenings of that, but right now I owe a story. So here it comes, this is gonna be really technical but I promised the hero I'd write it up for posterity.
A year or two back I had a sports account that was very...unique. The site let you bet HUGE money line dogs (we are talking like +5000, where as many other outlets stop posting numbers above even +400). I actually hit the nine overtime win by Illinois over Penn State on there for some just ridiculous number, like I wanna say they were +2500 and I had down like....several thousand on the game...for a win in the middling 5 figures. The site had another quirk, in that it was old school Vegas rules for the max bet, which means that when you fired, they'd (often, but not always) move the line. Once they moved it (even a single penny), you could re-fire the max cannon.
Now the combination of these two quirks resulted in some truly absurd sweats and positions, as you can imagine. Not only can you fire off the +2500 ML, you can fire it again at +2498 if they triple dog dare you to do so. And let me tell you, I am a big fan of accepting the triple dog dare. The first day I had the account was actually during the "winter wsop" event, and the dirty agent called me the next morning asking if I was drunk and gambling in Vegas because I smashed all big NFL ML dogs. I assured him I was not, encouraged him to keep his 50% of the action, and we eventually won a metric fuck ton of money. Then we lost about the same metric fuck ton of money back, then my dirty agent's connection (apparently?) went to prison and I lost the account.
Fast forward like a year and I get another one of these, and so does the guy I work with who writes, maintains, and runs our bot (lovingly known as Hal). Let us call this man, the "hero" of our story, Mr. White. So because of the way this site works (what with the moving of the lines after someone bets), Mr. White and I are effectively racing to get the best prices. Sometimes I get it in first and alert him, but MOST of the time Hal beats me, because Hal is a machine (nothing stop Hal). At first we are a little worried about getting pegged for having similar action, but that becomes kind of a non-issue after we just get utterly skull fucked for about the first 2 months. We are both steadily losing faith, and discuss the idea of just running the accounts sequentially (first using mine, then if/when we get shut down, using his). We talk about it, but I only have 50% of my account to start, so it really is hard to chop it up that many ways and we don't do it. Then we lose more. And more. We really just lose all the money, to the point that the dirty agent who got me the account decides to give up his piece. Lo and behold, I now have 90% of the action on an account that can get down $2500 (per fire, with re-fires allowed) on +5000 college basketball dogs.
So I'm flying home to visit the parental units for Christmas, and on my day of traveling I decide to open the conversation with Mr. White. We decide to combine forces formally; he will shut down his account for the time being and have Hal run mine instead. We'll split it up the action 60% me, 30% him, 10% my dirty agent. My account is more than big enough (and bigger than his anyway). We agree that Hal will never re-fire (as a general principle I was never re-firing on purpose anyway.....just sometimes on accident...and Hal was never firing a bet more than once cause Hal machine Hal makes no happy accidents). We also agree that on "big" college basketball dogs, defined by odds of +1000 (10:1) or higher, we would not fire the max bet of $2500, and instead just bet $1000. At this point the account was down, and I shit you not, about $220K in the previous 6 weeks. I had just been blasting away on these huge dogs and never winning a single fucking bet. The very first day of college basketball season I went 0-28. Mr. White was also buried under the very earth itself, and so we decided to tighten up, be smarter, and see if we could claw some back.
I eventually get to my Mom's house around 2am Pittsburgh time. I sleep. I wake up. I drive over to see my Dad (they live 10 minutes apart).
Mr. White texts me that "I think I fucked up" and explains that Hal fired the full $2500 unit on "a few" big college dogs. He asks me if I want him to keep the extra, I think very briefly and say no it's fine I'll just keep my piece (60% for me, and 10% for my dirty agent), whatever it's fine.
Me and my dad do some stuff.
Mr. White texts me again....apparently no only did Hal bet the max $2500, but in an effort to not bet the max (which he clearly already fucked up), he broke Hal's ability to refrain from re-firing. A few teams got bet more than once, and did I want Mr. White to keep the extra. I think (slightly less briefly but still briefly) and come to the conclusion that you know what, yeah, this is on you, you gotta keep it. We are talking about stuff like triple firing EASTERN ILLINOIS for $2500/click at +2500. So it is agreed that I will keep my 60% of the first play of the day on every team, but for re-fire Mr. White has his 30% + my 60% for 90% of the action (my dirty agent is not consulted, he only has 10%, he can deal with it).
I now take the time to explain most of this, as best I can to my father, and do not mince words, laying into Mr. White with colorful language and fervor befitting a man who just traveled for 15 hours, is short sleep, and on his first day home for the holidays. Many f bombs are deployed.
The day goes on.....I go back to see my mom, I don't really remember the details of when what what happened, but it was my understanding (and that of Mr. White) that Hal had fired three bullets on EASTERN ILLINOIS at around +2500.
Then they win the fucking game.
Mr. White had tried to hedge out. Tried to sell action. But really didn't get rid of much. He is elated and logs into the account, expecting it to be up something like $185,000. That is not a typo, that is how much you win when you bet $7500 at 24:1 odds or so. He logs into the account, and, turns out, Hal had not fired the game 3 times. He went and fired it....5 times. And it wasn't all in the 2400-2500 range. The first bullet went in at +5002
WON / MONEY LINE / BASKETBALL - 729 EASTERN ILLINOIS +5002 FOR GAME
Again, not a typo. The other 4 tickets won a bit less than half that each, making the total won on that game something like $365,000, the majority of which belonged to Mr. White. Most of the other re-fire bets lost (I think three or four of them), but we hit another +1000 for a triple unit, so the account won $416,000 in a single day. It did so because of the following parlay:
1. We got crushed to the point that my dirty agent gave up most of his action.
2. I decided to let Mr. White let Hal run free on my account.
3. We agreed to not bet $2500 on big dogs, instead just $1000, but that got messed up.
4. We agreed to not re-fire anything, but that got messed up and we bet this game five times.
5. EASTERN ILLINOIS pulled off the biggest upset in modern college basketball history.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. When I die, I think that will be the most absurd gambling story I have ever told.
