Good Alerts == Lose Money???

Is there anything like the dread you feel when you say you saw a movie that you haven’t - and then someone starts referencing specifics?

That’s how I felt when we rolled out the market-based bet alerts in GP Academy. I never used market-based alerts (we have our own alert system that interacts w/ our golf simulation model). So when I started getting questions on how to best use the alerts - I realized I needed to learn them and create a strategy.

After analyzing the alerts, I came up with a dead simple strategy for maximizing your profits using them.

Why alerts? Aren’t you a pick seller now?!?

I had been hesitant to roll out anything that even smelled like a “pick” for so long that I kept going back and forth on implementing alerts.

But during my research into alerts that identify market discrepancies - I was happy to realize that someone could lose a bunch or money or make a bunch of money with the same stream of alerts coming in.

Yes - I am happy that people can LOSE money by blindly playing alerts. You read that correctly.

Why do I want there to be an avenue to lose a bunch of money? Because it means that skill will be rewarded - and teaching betting skill is backbone of GP Academy.

I want a GP Academy user to profit more than a standard +EV bettor when given the same alerts. Also, there are other discords with really good alerts - so learning how to best trade on this information has become an essential skill of 2024 sports betting.

What is an alert?

Here is an example of a GP MarketWatch alert:

This alert is a suggestion to play Kyle Bradish Over 4.5 Strikeouts at a price of -116.

A few key parts of the alert:

Odds | No Vig: The “Odds” (-116) are the odds that the site (BetOnline) is offering. The “No Vig” (-126) is the “fair” or breakeven price as determined by PropProfessor’s proprietary algorithm.

Site | Value: The site (BetOnline) is self-explanatory. But the value is the % return you expect to have on this bet according to PropProfessor’s fair value (-126). A bet that should be priced at -126 will return 4.1% on average when bet at odds of -116.

Market Data: These are the prices other sportsbooks are offering for the same bet. This is where a good bettor (hopefully you) will separate themselves from someone just mindlessly clicking bet.

THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY IS MADE!!

A Tale of Two Bets

It was the best of bets, it was the worst of bets…

Two bets can show similar value on the top half of the alert - but when you dig into the bottom half you start to see a very different picture. Let me give you two examples to show you what traps to avoid and what set-ups = $$$.

Bet 1: The Bad Bet

Why is it bad?

1. The book we are being recommended to bet into (FanDuel) is relatively sharp. They take big baseball bets and originate their own numbers.

2. The sites used in the market data section to support the No-Vig price are three of the most square books. None of these books are comparable to FanDuel in pricing ability.

3. There is no arb to bail you out. This bet isn’t a full arb to another bet. Meaning you couldn’t bet both sides and make money. This isn’t always necessary - and you should normally just pick a side even if it’s in arbitrage. But when a bet is in arbitrage - you know for a fact at least one bet is good. Here we can’t be sure both sides aren’t bad - which is a slight tip of the odds away from our favor.

Bet 2: The Good Bet

Why is it good?

1. Now we are being told to bet into ESPNBet - a square book.

2. The sites used in the market data section include FanDuel and Caesars, two sharper books.

3. There is a fat arb to BetMGM and a breakeven arb to Caesars. Most likely both the BetMGM side and the ESPN side are BOTH good. But even if you are only betting one side, you know that either both bets are good or at a minimum one bet is good. The odds are now tipped in our favor.

Other considerations

1. The displayed “value” or EV % isn’t indicative of how many data points have gone into the calculation. If only 1-2 sportsbooks are being considered in the Market Data section, you will have more fragile assumptions than if 5-6 are considered.

2. The varying sharpness of books across markets also isn’t considered. AKA if Fanduel is sharp at Baseball HR props but not sharp at Hockey Shots on Goal - knowing this will give you a major advantage when checking the market data.

3. One-way markets are less valuable than two-way markets in the market data. Having a quote on both sides gives us more confidence in calculating a fair value.

Even if you aren’t a member at GP Academy - I hope you can get max value using these strategies out of any alert system you are subscribed to.

One Ask (plz help…)

Please share this newsletter with someone. Maybe your friend who thinks they can go 80% on NFL bets. Or your old math teacher who liked building MLB models just for fun. Anyone who might be remotely interested would help.

Recently I have been having problems with my Twitter account - and as of right now I can’t log into my account and share this on Twitter. I would be extremely grateful if you shared this newsletter with one person.

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