Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
There’s one key idea, and if you get used to it you’ll be
ahead of the game to start. Convert everything to break-even percentages. A break-even percentage (alternatively called implied odds) is
the percentage of time a bet must win for you to neither win nor
lose money making the bet over time. If someone offers you an
even money bet that a coin flip will land heads, the break-even
percentage is 50%. Not because those are the true odds of
winning, but because that’s how often you have to win to exactly
break-even on an even money bet. In other words, break-even percentage is based on how much
the bet pays, not how often it wins. If someone offers you 5-to-1 odds that a six-sided die will land
one, you have a 16.7% break-even percentage—and that also
happens to be how often the b

CURRENT SUMMARY:
There’s one key idea, and if you get used to it you’ll be
ahead of the game to start. Convert everything to break-even percentages.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The first time someone who’s never bet sports before walks into
a sports book and sees the board, they are inevitably
overwhelmed. “What do all these numbers mean? Sixty-sevenpoint-five? Minus-one-fifty-five? What the heck?”
In the United States, the most popular way of conveying odds
is by using what’s called American odds. (Surprise.) American
odds are represented by either a positive number or a negative
number, and the number is always at least 100. So, for
example, -165 or +215 or -310 are all valid in American odds
notation. The minus sign denotes that the bet is on a favorite. The plus
sign denotes an underdog. When the bet is plus (i.e., an underdog)
the number after the plus sign means how much money you
would win if you bet $100 on that market. So if you make a bet at

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The first time someone who’s never bet sports before walks into
a sports book and sees the board, they are inevitably
overwhelmed. “What do all these numbers mean?

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
odds can be listed as -100, +100, EV, or maybe something else
some sportsbook thinks is cute. Note I’m not talking at all about point spreads here. I’ll have
plenty to say about those later in the book. But for now it’s just
the odds—how much your bet pays. I really can’t overemphasize how important it is to get in the
habit as soon as possible of converting all these numbers in your
head directly to break-even percentages. Do not use the American
odds numbers directly in your thought process. Convert
everything to break-even percentages and work with those. Here’s why. The goal of all this is to make bets that win more
often than the break-even percentage. Given that, which is the
better bet? A -110 bet if the fair price is -130? Or a -340 bet if the
fair price is -380? I know y

CURRENT SUMMARY:
odds can be listed as -100, +100, EV, or maybe something else
some sportsbook thinks is cute. Note I’m not talking at all about point spreads here.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just about


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
People who learn to think in American odds often talk about
“cents” of value on a bet. If a bet “should” be priced -130 but
they find it for -110, they say they have “20 cents” of value. A bet
that should be priced -380 that they find for -340 is “40 cents” of
value. Naturally, 40 cents is better than 20, right? It’s, like, twice as
much. You probably know where this is headed. In this example,
the -110 bet is better, even though it only has “20 cents” of value. Look at the break-even percentages. The break-even percentage of -110 is 52.4% like I calculated
above. The break-even for -130 is 130 / 230 = 56.5%. So you’re
making a bet that breaks even if it wins 52.4% of the time, but it
will actually win 56.5% of the time. Pretty good. The break-even percentage of -340 is 340 / 440

CURRENT SUMMARY:
People who learn to think in American odds often talk about
“cents” of value on a bet. If a bet “should” be priced -130 but
they find it for -110, they say they have “20 cents” of value.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Sportsbooks make money via the hold. The hold is the spread
between what they will buy a bet for and what they’ll sell it for. Say you could buy something for $52 and sell it for $56. You’d
make money, right? That’s what sportsbooks do. They buy teams/bets at one price
and sell them at a higher price. Say there’s a Giants-Dodgers
baseball game tonight. The listed prices are Giants +130 and
Dodgers -150. That means you can bet on the Giants at a break-even win
percentage of 100 / 230 = 43.5%. Or you can bet on the Dodgers
at a break-even win percentage of 150 / 250 = 60.0%. If you buy the Giants at 43.5%, from the sportsbooks’
perspective, they’ve bought the Dodgers at 56.5%. That is, if you
bet $100 to win $130 on the Giants, then the sportsbook just bet
you $130 to win $100 (-13

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Sportsbooks make money via the hold. The hold is the spread
between what they will buy a bet for and what they’ll sell it for.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just about


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The sportsbook buys the Dodgers at 56.5% and sells them at
60%. If they can manage to buy and sell exactly the same amount
of this market, they will simply pocket the difference with zero
risk. Just like if you bought a bunch of apples for $56.50 and then
sold them for $60, you’d pocket the $3.50 difference. Of course the book almost never has the same amount of each
side, so they always have some risk at play as well.

24

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The sportsbook buys the Dodgers at 56.5% and sells them at
60%. If they can manage to buy and sell exactly the same amount
of this market, they will simply pocket the difference with zero
risk.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The hold percentage of a market is the percentage of all bets
a sportsbook would win if they had zero risk in the market. Let’s
figure out the hold percentage of the Giants +130/Dodgers -150
market. Say someone bet $150 to win $100 on the Dodgers to win. And someone else bet $108.69 to win $141.30 (stay with me here,
I picked these numbers for a reason) on the Giants to win. The total amount bet is $150 + $108.69 = $258.69
If the Dodgers win, the sportsbook pays out $100, but collects
the $108.69 bet for an $8.69 profit. If the Giants win, the sportsbook pays out $141.30, but
collects the $150 bet for an $8.70 profit. Therefore, they have a risk-free position (yes, I see that
penny), winning $8.70 no matter who wins the game. Since they
win $8.70 on a total of $258.69 bet, the hol

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The hold percentage of a market is the percentage of all bets
a sportsbook would win if they had zero risk in the market. Let’s
figure out the hold percentage of the Giants +130/Dodgers -150
market.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Even if no one bet on the Giants, the
market would still have a 3.4% hold. This is just how the term is
defined.2
This is a key point. All sportsbook markets have a positive
hold (except for promotional markets). But putting a hold on a
market does not guarantee that the sportsbook will win money
booking the market. They could lose because they took a
preponderance of bets one way or the other, and the game result
went wrong for them. Or, more importantly to you as a bettor, they could lose
because one side of the bet is clearly good for the bettor, one side

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Even if no one bet on the Giants, the
market would still have a 3.4% hold. This is just how the term is
defined.2
This is a key point.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
We Americans like to be different. We like our inches and pounds
and pints and Fahrenheit. The rest of the world thinks we’re a bit
nuts. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the rest of the world thinks
we’re a bit nuts about how we do sports betting as well. Instead
of the American odds system, they tend to use two other systems
called decimal and fractional odds. You may see these formats in
the US as well, so it’s worth a few paragraphs to become familiar
with them. Decimal odds are quoted as a single number, such as 1.9 or

CURRENT SUMMARY:
We Americans like to be different. We like our inches and pounds
and pints and Fahrenheit.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
You’re probably already familiar with fractional odds. If you
see something like 7/4 odds, it means if you bet 4 (the
denominator) you stand to win 7 (the numerator). In American,
7/4 is +175. In decimal it’s 2.75. You would represent -110 as
10/11 in fractional odds. Below is a quick-reference chart that converts all these odds
formats to their equivalent break-even percentages for a few
select numbers. We have a more extensive chart in Appendix A. Decimal
Odds
Fractional
Odds
American
Odds
Break-even
Percentage
100
99/1
+9900
1%
4
3/1
+300
25%
2.5
3/2
+150
40%
1.91
10/11
-110
52.4%
1.67
2/3
-150
60%
1.33
1/3
-300
75%
1.1
1/10
-1000
91%

CURRENT SUMMARY:
You’re probably already familiar with fractional odds. If you
see something like 7/4 odds, it means if you bet 4 (the
denominator) you stand to win 7 (the numerator).

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The book makes money via the hold—a spread between what
they will buy a bet for and what they sell it for. If you’re like most sports bettors and don’t really have any
ability to find the good bets among the sea of bad bets on offer,
then it’s easy to estimate how much you expect to lose on each
bet by looking at the size of this spread. The first thing to note is that at almost all sportsbooks, this
hold can at first appear shockingly large when compared to other
gambling games like blackjack, video poker, craps, and even a

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The book makes money via the hold—a spread between what
they will buy a bet for and what they sell it for. If you’re like most sports bettors and don’t really have any
ability to find the good bets among the sea of bad bets on offer,
then it’s easy to estimate how much you expect to lose on each
bet by looking at the size of this spread.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
27
relatively player-unfriendly game like roulette. Let’s take the
“standard” hold where either side of a roughly 50-50 bet is priced
at -110. The break-even percentage of -110 is 110/210 = 52.4%. Going through the hold percentage math again, let’s say a
book took two $110 bets on either side of this market. No matter
which side won, they’d pay out $100 to the winner and collect
$110 from the loser for a net of $10 profit on $220 of total bets. Thus, the hold on this “standard” market is 10 / 220 = 4.5%. For reference, the hold percentages (when calculated in a
similar way) for games like blackjack, craps, baccarat, and video
poker when played in a reasonably skillful way are in the 1-3%
range. Of course one hand of blackjack lasts thirty seconds, while
one sports bet can keep yo

CURRENT SUMMARY:
27
relatively player-unfriendly game like roulette. Let’s take the
“standard” hold where either side of a roughly 50-50 bet is priced
at -110.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
So there’s
a little bit of apples and oranges comparing these types of
gambling I admit. But what this means is that if you throw darts at sports bets,
it’s not a great gambling game. You’re going to lose at a pretty
healthy clip. The saving grace—and it’s a big one—is that sports
betting is a multiplayer game, and if you play much better than
everyone else (including the sportsbook employees), it’s possible
to nullify this hold and get the edge on your side. There’s also another wrinkle to sports betting hold. The math
above assumes you never push your bet. Since sportsbooks return
the full bet on a push, the sportsbook hold drops as push
frequency increases. Compare a bet at -3.5 on an NFL game to one at -3. The -3.5
bet never pushes, so it’s priced at -110, and the hold is 4.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
So there’s
a little bit of apples and oranges comparing these types of
gambling I admit. But what this means is that if you throw darts at sports bets,
it’s not a great gambling game.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
which is an average loss of 4.5/110 = 4.1% of your bet. The chance to push the bet on 3 points dropped the hold from
4.5% to 4.1%. If you’re making random bets into a sportsbook,
the chance to push helps you. If you have an edge, it hurts you. Either way, you should be aware of it. Finally, most American books hang different holds on
different markets—and often will have different holds from game
to game even in the same sport on the same day. One reason this happens is thanks to the quirks of that old
American odds system. Books often calculate their hold in terms
of “cents” of American odds. In NHL, for example, you might
get “20 cent lines.”
If the two teams are evenly matched, they might each get
priced at -110, and the hold would be the 4.5% I calculated above. But if one tea

CURRENT SUMMARY:
which is an average loss of 4.5/110 = 4.1% of your bet. The chance to push the bet on 3 points dropped the hold from
4.5% to 4.1%.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Big difference between 4.5% and
3.4%. Books know all about this effect, obviously, so they will only
give you a break like this to a point. After a while they will switch
to “30 cent” lines such as -200 and +170. And then they will add
more and more cents like -300 and +250 as one side becomes a
bigger and bigger favorite. Again, working in cents is imprecise, and if you want to get
serious about betting sports, you should calculate hold
percentages in all these markets for yourself until they become

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Big difference between 4.5% and
3.4%. Books know all about this effect, obviously, so they will only
give you a break like this to a point.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let me try to break down what the user is asking for here. So, they want me to act like an expert knowledge assistant who's been provided with a series of excerpts from a sports betting docum


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
29
second nature. If you want to win, the difference between a 3%
and a 5% hold is very significant. As an exercise, try to calculate the hold in the -200/+170
and -300/+250 markets using the method I outlined. Once you get into this, you’ll see the huge disparity in hold
percentages. You might see a -160/+150 market in MLB (a 1.5%
hold) or a -120/-120 market on a prop (an 8.3% hold). Figuring
out the hold in every market is the first step in finding good bet. Multiway Markets

All the markets I’ve discussed so far have been simple two-way
markets. Bet on this team or that team. Bet over or under. Sportsbooks also offer multiway markets. In theory nothing is special about a multiway market. There’s
nothing fundamentally different about betting on one of three
outcomes or one of

CURRENT SUMMARY:
29
second nature. If you want to win, the difference between a 3%
and a 5% hold is very significant.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
They sometimes
obscure a very high hold. The annoying math in the last chapter notwithstanding, it’s not
too hard to look at a two-way market and eyeball the hold. If
it’s -125/+105, it’s a “standard” hold (in the 4-something percent
range). If you see -120/-105 then it’s a little higher (5-something
percent). If it’s -120/-110 it’s higher still (6-something percent). Okay in two seconds estimate the hold on this five-way
market:

+140 / +245 / +375 / +725 / +1325

Buzz. Once you get used to it, estimating the hold for any two-way
market gets to be second nature. I don’t know anyone who can
just look at a multiway market like the one above and make a

CURRENT SUMMARY:
They sometimes
obscure a very high hold. The annoying math in the last chapter notwithstanding, it’s not
too hard to look at a two-way market and eyeball the hold.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
31
quick and accurate estimate of the hold. (The hold in the example
is about 9.8%.)
This fact makes it more difficult to bet intelligently into
multiway markets, since the size of the hold in a market is one of
the most important factors in whether you will find good bets in
the market. Some markets are multiway by nature. Futures markets like
“pick the league champion” or “who will win the home run
crown” bets obviously lend themselves to multiway markets. But it’s become an unfortunate trend these days to take natural
two-way markets and convert them to multiway markets. I call
these artificial multiway markets. For example, one of the most popular ways to bet golf is to
bet a matchup between two paired golfers. Who will score better
in the tournament, Jordan Spieth or Justi

CURRENT SUMMARY:
31
quick and accurate estimate of the hold. (The hold in the example
is about 9.8%.)
This fact makes it more difficult to bet intelligently into
multiway markets, since the size of the hold in a market is one of
the most important factors in whether you will find good bets in
the market.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let me try to figure out what the user is asking for here. They’ve provided a series of excerpts from a sports betting document and want me to extract the most important information, then for


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The book would hold about 4% in this market if there were
no pushes. Because pushes return the full bet to bettors on either
side, the chance of a push drops the hold percentage below 4. Some books don’t like low hold percentages and don’t like
pushes. So they’ve “solved” this “problem” by converting the
natural two-way market (Spieth or Rose, who do you like?) to a
three-way market. You can now bet Spieth, Rose, or… Tie? This is not a natural market. Who wants to bet on a tie
between two golfers?
“Yeah, man, Spieth’s putting has been next level. But Rose has
put a couple good tournaments together. I think I want to bet
that they will have exactly the same score after four rounds.”

32

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The book would hold about 4% in this market if there were
no pushes. Because pushes return the full bet to bettors on either
side, the chance of a push drops the hold percentage below 4.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Let’s be real. The main purpose for presenting the matchup
this way is to convert the pushes into wins for the book on both
golfers. And superficially they can make it look like the hold is
minimal. They could price the market Spieth -125, Rose +115,
Tie +1800 for example. If you ignore the tie and just look at the
two golfers, it looks like you’re getting a deal. If the tie pushed like a normal market, -125/+115 would be a
pretty good deal with about a 2% hold. But add in the separate tie
bet, and the hold balloons to about 7%. I’ll have a lot more to say about multiway markets later in the
book—including their inherent weaknesses that often allow you
to beat them despite the high holds. But right off the bat I wanted
to make two points:
•
Multiway markets almost always have h

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Let’s be real. The main purpose for presenting the matchup
this way is to convert the pushes into wins for the book on both
golfers.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
But right off the bat I wanted
to make two points:
•
Multiway markets almost always have higher holds than
two-way markets, so tread carefully.
•
Don’t be fooled by artificial multiway markets where the
push has been pulled out into a tie bet. This is almost always
done to create much larger holds for the sportsbook. Parlays

Parlays have been a popular sports betting product for a while
now. People like them because they give you a lot of leeway to
manipulate the risk profile of bets. If you want to bet a small
amount and have a shot for a big score, you can do that with a
parlay. If you want to bet big favorites but don’t want to lay a lot
to win peanuts, you can do that with a parlay. If you want to have
a chance to be in action all weekend with just one or two bets,
y

CURRENT SUMMARY:
But right off the bat I wanted
to make two points:
•
Multiway markets almost always have higher holds than
two-way markets, so tread carefully. •
Don’t be fooled by artificial multiway markets where the
push has been pulled out into a tie bet.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
A parlay is just a bet where
your winnings on one bet get rolled over into a bet on something
else. Say you bet $100 at even money on a morning MLB game
and then you plan, if you win that bet, to bet it all (i.e., $200) on
an evening MLB game at -200. If you win the second bet, you have $300 at the end. You have
the $100 you started with, the $100 you won on the first game,
and the $100 you won (at -200 odds) on the second game. A parlay bet is a convenient way of wrapping up this plan to
roll over winnings onto the next game. So instead of making two
bets (one conditional on winning the first bet), you could have
placed a two-team parlay in the morning for $100 and it would
have paid +200. Win both games, end with $300. Otherwise lose
your $100.

34

CURRENT SUMMARY:
A parlay is just a bet where
your winnings on one bet get rolled over into a bet on something
else. Say you bet $100 at even money on a morning MLB game
and then you plan, if you win that bet, to bet it all (i.e., $200) on
an evening MLB game at -200.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Teasers are parlays based on an alternative point spread. Teasers are particularly popular in football, and they let you bet a
more generous point spread at commensurately worse odds. Sportsbooks don’t treat all parlay bets alike. It’s important to
understand the house rules surrounding parlays, because they are
always different between sportsbooks. In general, however, here’s
what you should look for. First, there are off the board, true odds parlays. Let’s say you
want to bet on who will win four different NHL hockey games. Instead of betting each game separately, you either want a huge
payoff if all four win, or you want nothing. The teams you want
to bet on have the following prices:

-170, -220, +110, and +135

How do you figure out how much this parlay should pay on a
$10

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Teasers are parlays based on an alternative point spread. Teasers are particularly popular in football, and they let you bet a
more generous point spread at commensurately worse odds.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's tackle this step by step. I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It's more complicated than I initially thought—just picking a team isn't the only factor. There's something


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Well, one way is to pretend like you are rolling your winnings
over from each bet and find out how much you have at the end. So you bet $100 at -170 and if you win you collect $158.82
(your original $100 plus $58.82 in winnings). Then you bet $158.82 at -220 and if you win you collect
$231.01. Then you bet $231.01 at +110 and if you win you collect
$485.12. Finally you bet $485.12 at +135 and if you win you collect
$1140.04. You’re betting $100 to collect $1140.04. Or $100 to
win $1040.04. So the price of the parlay should be +1040. There’s a somewhat easier way to get the same answer. First,
you convert all the bets to their break-even percentages. Then you
just multiply the percentages together and convert back to odds.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Well, one way is to pretend like you are rolling your winnings
over from each bet and find out how much you have at the end. So you bet $100 at -170 and if you win you collect $158.82
(your original $100 plus $58.82 in winnings).

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just ab


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
35
That’s 0.630 × 0.688 × 0.476 × 0.426 = 0.0879
Convert to decimal odds by taking the reciprocal (which is
11.38) and then back to American odds if you like which would
be +1038. (The difference between the two answers is a rounding
error.)
Also, if you use decimal odds (like they do in Europe), you can
just multiply all the decimal odds together to get the parlay
payout. Pretty handy. The key idea here is that the off the board, true odds parlay
pays the break-even percentages of all the bets multiplied
together. Below is a chart that summarizes the parlay math on
various numbers of legs of 50-50 bets. No. of
Legs
Breakeven
Percent
at +100
Payout
at +100
Break-even
Percent at
-110
Payout
at -110
Avg. Mult.
2
25%
+300
27.4%
+264
1.96×
3
12.5%
+700
14.4%
+

CURRENT SUMMARY:
35
That’s 0.630 × 0.688 × 0.476 × 0.426 = 0.0879
Convert to decimal odds by taking the reciprocal (which is
11.38) and then back to American odds if you like which would
be +1038. (The difference between the two answers is a rounding
error.)
Also, if you use decimal odds (like they do in Europe), you can
just multiply all the decimal odds together to get the parlay
payout.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this sports betting thing. It seems pretty complex, more than just picking a team or something. There's something about odds and how they change, and it's not just


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
No. of
Legs
Breakeven
Percent
at +100
Payout
at +100
Break-even
Percent at
-110
Payout
at -110
Avg. Mult.
2
25%
+300
27.4%
+264
1.96×
3
12.5%
+700
14.4%
+596
2.87×
4
6.3%
+1500
7.5%
+1228
3.74×
5
3.1%
+3100
3.9%
+2436
4.57×
6
1.6%
+6300
2.1%
+4741
5.36×
7
0.78%
+12700
1.1%
+9142
6.12×
8
0.39%
+25500
0.57%
+17545
6.85×
9
0.20%
+51100
0.30%
+33585
7.54×
10
0.098% 1023/1
0.16%
+64208
8.20×
11
0.049% 2047/1
0.081%
1227/1
8.83×
12
0.024% 4095/1
0.043%
2343/1
9.43×
13
0.012% 8191/1
0.022%
4474/1
10.0×
14
0.006% 16383/1 0.012%
8541/1
10.6×
15
0.003% 32767/1 0.006%
16307/1
11.1×

36

CURRENT SUMMARY:
of
Legs
Breakeven
Percent
at +100
Payout
at +100
Break-even
Percent at
-110
Payout
at -110
Avg. 2
25%
+300
27.4%
+264
1.96×
3
12.5%
+700
14.4%
+596
2.87×
4
6.3%
+1500
7.5%
+1228
3.74×
5
3.1%
+3100
3.9%
+2436
4.57×
6
1.6%
+6300
2.1%
+4741
5.36×
7
0.78%
+12700
1.1%
+9142
6.12×
8
0.39%
+25500
0.57%
+17545
6.85×
9
0.20%
+51100
0.30%
+33585
7.5

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let me try to figure out how to approach this task. The user has provided a detailed query asking me to act as an expert knowledge assistant to refine a knowledge card about sports betting. T


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
“Never bet parlays. They’re for suckers.”
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how often I’ve heard that advice. It’s not good advice. Because while it’s certainly true that “suckers” (just people
who bet sports recreationally) love to bet parlays, it doesn’t at all
follow logically that it somehow makes them bad bets. A lot of people think parlays are bad because they hold a lot
for sportsbooks. And that’s sort of true—the average three-leg
$10 parlay might hold $1.25 on average for the book, or 12.5%. But the reason the parlay “holds 12.5%” isn’t because
parlaying bets together somehow takes good bets and turns them
into terrible bets. All a parlay does is blow up the betting volume. Let’s take a simplified example of a three-leg parlay. The
“standard” payout on a three-leg parlay of 50

CURRENT SUMMARY:
“Never bet parlays. They’re for suckers.”
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how often I’ve heard that advice.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to wrap my head around this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because th


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Therefore, if you were to bet this for $10 eight times, on
average you would win $60 once and lose $10 seven times for a
net loss of $10 on the $80 in action. That makes a “hold” of
12.5% on the parlay.
“Hey,” you might say, “a 12.5% hold sounds pretty bad. After
all we’ve been talking about 4% holds. And you warned me about
markets with a 6% or 7% hold. And now we’re at 12.5% and
you’re going to say something different?”
To understand what’s going on, let’s break the parlay down
into its constituent parts. Let’s say you bet a three-leg parlay on

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Therefore, if you were to bet this for $10 eight times, on
average you would win $60 once and lose $10 seven times for a
net loss of $10 on the $80 in action. That makes a “hold” of
12.5% on the parlay.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The parlay pays out only if the last one happens—all the
others end up losers. But the path to losing is different for each
of the parlays. In the first four cases, the first bet loses, so your total betting
volume is $10. In the next two cases, the first bet wins, so after that game you
theoretically have $19.09—the original $10 plus the $9.09 won on
the first game. The parlay then demands you bet that entire $19.09
on the next game, which loses, so you get zero. But in these two cases, your total betting volume is actually
$10 + $19.09 = $29.09
In the final two cases, you win the first two bets, so you have
even more betting volume. Your $19.09 bet on the second game
wins $17.35, so you then bet $19.09 + $17.35 = $36.44 on the
final game. And your total betting volume for thes

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The parlay pays out only if the last one happens—all the
others end up losers. But the path to losing is different for each
of the parlays.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Therefore, your average betting volume for the $10 parlay isn’t
really $10. It’s

Volume = 0.5 × $10 + 0.25 × 29.09 + 0.25 × 65.53
= $5 + $7.27 + $16.38
= $28.65

Over the course of the eight bets, you haven’t bet just $80. You’ve actually bet $229.24. And of that $229.24 total bet, you
lose $10. Which works out to a 4.4% hold. Which is roughly the same old hold we’re always looking at on
straight bets. Parlays don’t hold more. They make you bet more money. Okay before I move on there’s an exception to this concept
big enough that I have to mention it. What I said is true for off
the board parlays, where the sportsbook calculates the payout
exactly as if you simply rolled all your winnings on the previous
bet over to the next bet. But sportsbooks often like to short pay parlay

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Therefore, your average betting volume for the $10 parlay isn’t
really $10. It’s

Volume = 0.5 × $10 + 0.25 × 29.09 + 0.25 × 65.53
= $5 + $7.27 + $16.38
= $28.65

Over the course of the eight bets, you haven’t bet just $80.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
They might
pay +600 on three-legs, but only +1100 on four-legs and +2000
on five-legs. Paying these legs fairly at -110 for each leg would
make the payouts +596, +1229, and +2436 respectively. So yeah,
if you’re betting into a short pay parlay like the four- and five-leg
examples here, then the parlay does hold more. But not because
it’s a parlay. Because the book is short paying you. Other parlay type bets that often have short pay scales are
teasers and parlay cards. Sportsbooks these days are offering more alternative point
spreads as straight bets, and therefore instead of betting a shortpay teaser, you may be better off parlaying the alternative spread
bets to get the off the board pricing.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
They might
pay +600 on three-legs, but only +1100 on four-legs and +2000
on five-legs. Paying these legs fairly at -110 for each leg would
make the payouts +596, +1229, and +2436 respectively.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
39
Parlay cards are kind of their own animal (and a very beatable
one at that) so we’ll discuss those more in the final part of the
book. But if you avoid getting short paid, parlays are not in any way
sucker bets. They’re just a way to increase betting volume. And if
you have some winning bets you’d like make, a sneaky way to
increase volume can be very handy. Market Making

Okay we’re done for now with the nuts and bolts math stuff. There will be a little more of it later, but let’s talk about something
a little more fun for now. Sportsbooks these days have lines for everything. If you live
in a state with legal mobile sports betting like Nevada or New
Jersey, you can sign up for an account, download a phone app,
and find markets on literally hundreds of sporting events each

CURRENT SUMMARY:
39
Parlay cards are kind of their own animal (and a very beatable
one at that) so we’ll discuss those more in the final part of the
book. But if you avoid getting short paid, parlays are not in any way
sucker bets.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's tackle this. The user is asking me to refine a knowledge card for a sports betting document based on the provided excerpt. The excerpt mentions that parlay cards are their own thing and


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
You can bet on the American sports like NFL, college
football, NBA, college basketball, WNBA, MLB, NHL, and
PGA. On a college basketball Saturday, they’ll have lines on a
hundred different games from Duke-Kentucky to XavierCreighton. On top of all that, you can bet European sports also. Major
European soccer leagues, Russian hockey, rugby, cricket. For each of these games, they’ll usually have at least three
markets. Point spread (or run line for MLB/puck line for NHL),
moneyline, and total. For major sports they’ll have first halves. Second halves during
the game. Sometimes in-play throughout the game. Then there’s alternate spreads and totals, and for marquee
games, props as well. On any given day in Las Vegas, there are probably the better
part of a thousand different bets you

CURRENT SUMMARY:
You can bet on the American sports like NFL, college
football, NBA, college basketball, WNBA, MLB, NHL, and
PGA. On a college basketball Saturday, they’ll have lines on a
hundred different games from Duke-Kentucky to XavierCreighton.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's break this down step by step. The user has provided a query where they're asking for help refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. They've included a specific excerpt fr


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
41
And then they do it all over again the next day. On one hand, this is amazing. Because every one of these bets
has to be priced. Someone, somewhere has to say, “Yeah, Xavier
should be -2.5 against Creighton.”
Where does that number come from? And why is that the
number? Why not -3? Why not -13? If you ask this question on Twitter, someone will no doubt tell
you, “Sportsbooks just set the line that will get equal action on
both sides.”
How the heck do they know in advance what will get equal
action? Someone else will chime in, “Vegas makes the lines.”
I hope Vegas gets paid overtime because that sounds like a lot
of work for one guy. Another popular theory is that every sportsbook has an army
of math nerds crunching numbers all day long, accounting for
every variable to come

CURRENT SUMMARY:
41
And then they do it all over again the next day. On one hand, this is amazing.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
If you think about it, that would be quite the quantitative feat. There are hundreds of markets every single day, and every angle
from weather to injuries to recent form to evaluating rookies to
how tight referees are calling games and more is neatly analyzed,
modeled, and correctly weighed by the team of supernerds in the
back room 365 days a year including Christmas. And there’s a dozen give-or-take independent sportsbooks
just in Nevada, so that means twelve teams of…
Okay I’ll stop. This is not a thing. There aren’t thousands of
supernerds living in an underground bunker in Las Vegas
crunching numbers day and night to make the lines. But there’s a line. There’s always a line. Where the heck does
it come from? And why is it what it is? Sportsbooks copy their lines from other sp

CURRENT SUMMARY:
If you think about it, that would be quite the quantitative feat. There are hundreds of markets every single day, and every angle
from weather to injuries to recent form to evaluating rookies to
how tight referees are calling games and more is neatly analyzed,
modeled, and correctly weighed by the team of supernerds in the
back room 365 days a year including Christmas.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
That’s the answer. Okay it’s not quite that simple. There are three ways lines get made, and every sportsbook
makes their lines using a blend of the three.
1. A small army of supernerds
2. Copying from other sportsbooks
3. Price discovery
So yes, there are some supernerds on line-making duty. But
not armies of them in a bunker. Just a few here and there. Of the
three ways, the supernerds play the smallest role in the process. This is for a couple of reasons. For one, supernerd salaries are
expensive. For two, supernerds don’t make the best lines. This is due to an information deficit. Supernerds can be good
at turning the information they have in front of them into a line—
but the problem is they never have all the relevant information. They may know that Ohio State’s offense has

CURRENT SUMMARY:
That’s the answer. Okay it’s not quite that simple.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
They may know that Ohio State’s offense has gotten 6.2 yards per
play so far this year, but they didn’t watch the Buckeyes
quarterback limp around after a hit in practice. They may be able
to project the Orioles hitters well, but they don’t know that a
thunderstorm system just sprung up in Baltimore and the wind is
going haywire. The “quantitative analyst” (let’s be polite) doesn’t know all of
that—one person (or a small team) simply can’t know everything. But someone out there does. The crowd—the betting
public—always has more information than any analyst can. That’s
why even the best nerd makes not-so-great lines compared what
you get through price discovery. The main thing the nerds do is they make the opening line—
the first line any sportsbook publishes for a given market. (A

CURRENT SUMMARY:
They may know that Ohio State’s offense has gotten 6.2 yards per
play so far this year, but they didn’t watch the Buckeyes
quarterback limp around after a hit in practice. They may be able
to project the Orioles hitters well, but they don’t know that a
thunderstorm system just sprung up in Baltimore and the wind is
going haywire.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
43
all, if sportsbooks are going to copy from each other, someone
has to post a number first for everyone to copy.)
Once the supernerds are out of the way, copying and price
discovery takes over. I’ll explain price discovery in detail in just a
moment. My purpose for describing the industry workflow here is that
it is in my opinion critical for you to understand (in quite a bit of
detail in fact) exactly where all these prices and lines come from
if you want to try to beat them. To win long-term at sports betting
you need a working understanding of what I will describe here. Okay, back to the explanation. Download a random sports
betting app in a state that permits legal sports betting and there
are lines on hundreds of games from NFL to college basketball. From Swedish hockey t

CURRENT SUMMARY:
43
all, if sportsbooks are going to copy from each other, someone
has to post a number first for everyone to copy.)
Once the supernerds are out of the way, copying and price
discovery takes over. I’ll explain price discovery in detail in just a
moment.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's tackle this. I need to create an improved knowledge card based on the provided excerpt from a sports betting document. The user has given a specific format to follow, so I'll stick to t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
What’s a market maker? A market maker sportsbook is one that does more price
discovery and less copying than most other sportsbooks. A market maker in general is someone who does very
frequent, liquid business in a market, buying and selling, day after
day. A gold market maker, for example, does nothing but buy and
sell gold all day long. If you want to buy gold, they’ll quote you a
price. If you want to sell them gold, they’ll quote you a (lower)
price. If this sounds like what a sportsbook does, only with gold bars
instead of sports bets, you’re right. Let’s say you have ten ounces of gold that you want to sell to
your friend. You both have to agree on a price. What price would
you use? Chances are you’d do something like Google “price of gold”
and Google would say something li

CURRENT SUMMARY:
What’s a market maker? A market maker sportsbook is one that does more price
discovery and less copying than most other sportsbooks.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
forty-seven dollars for the ten ounces,” and your friend would
either agree to that or some bargaining would ensue. The price you got from Google would certainly be the anchor
for whatever deal you made. Where did Google get that price from? It’s the price as
discovered that day by market makers operating on a major
commodities exchange. The people who buy and sell gold all day
think $1,304.72 is a good price at this moment to get some
customers to buy and some customers to sell. Where did you get the price from? You copied it from the
market maker. Now let’s say just as your friend is about to buy the gold, he
realizes that he left his wallet with the thirteen thousand dollars
in it at home and says, “Let’s meet again tomorrow and make this
deal and I promise not to forget my wa

CURRENT SUMMARY:
forty-seven dollars for the ten ounces,” and your friend would
either agree to that or some bargaining would ensue. The price you got from Google would certainly be the anchor
for whatever deal you made.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Now let’s say just as your friend is about to buy the gold, he
realizes that he left his wallet with the thirteen thousand dollars
in it at home and says, “Let’s meet again tomorrow and make this
deal and I promise not to forget my wallet this time.”
So the next day you bring your gold and he brings his cash,
but he says, “Hey, let’s check the price of gold today.” And he
Googles “price of gold” and it says $1,273.99. And he says, “Hey
I don’t want to buy it for thirteen thousand and forty-seven
dollars anymore I now want to buy it for twelve thousand seven
hundred and thirty-nine dollars and ninety cents.”
And you, annoyed, say, “Why? Yesterday you thought thirteen
thousand was fair?” And he shrugs and points to Google. “Price
went down,” he says. What’s changed between yester

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Now let’s say just as your friend is about to buy the gold, he
realizes that he left his wallet with the thirteen thousand dollars
in it at home and says, “Let’s meet again tomorrow and make this
deal and I promise not to forget my wallet this time.”
So the next day you bring your gold and he brings his cash,
but he says, “Hey, let’s check the price of gold today.” And he
Googles “price of g

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
45
published. Same with today’s price. You liked yesterday’s price
better. Your friend likes today’s price. What’s gold worth? It’s a hunk of yellow metal. At the same time, if you’re like most people, you’re probably
thinking that today the price went down, so if you’re going to do
the deal today, unless you had a firm commitment like a contract
signed yesterday, the “fairest” price is probably whatever Google
happens to say right at this moment. In the end, you copy the new price from the market maker and
finalize the deal with your friend. Twelve thousand seven hundred
and thirty-nine dollars and ninety cents it is. Sportsbooks price most of their markets in just this way. If
they want to know what to price a bet, they look at the screen,
find a price at another sportsbook (us

CURRENT SUMMARY:
45
published. Same with today’s price.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
If most sportsbooks copy their lines from market makers, who
are the market makers? And where do they get the lines from? Market makers are sportsbooks that operate under a different
business model than most. Let’s say I’m a sportsbook and I want to make markets for
college football. I’m not going to copy lines from anywhere. I’m
going to discover a price through the market making process. First thing I will do is post all this week’s college football
games to the betting menu and seed each game with an initial line. Let’s assume that, unfortunately for me, I don’t know the first

46

CURRENT SUMMARY:
If most sportsbooks copy their lines from market makers, who
are the market makers? And where do they get the lines from?

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
thing about college football. Is this Alabama team good? Impossible to say. I’m also way too cheap to hire any nerds. So I just post every game with the same line—PK (PK, which
stands for pick ’em, just means a point spread of zero). I put each
game up -110 on each side and start taking bets with a posted
limit of $100. Customers start betting. What do you know, the first guy
wants to bet on Alabama for the maximum, $100. I accept that bet, Alabama PK -110, and then move the line to
Alabama -1 -110. The next guy also wants to bet on Alabama. I warn him that
I’ve moved the line to -1, but he seems undeterred. So I write him
an Alabama -1 -110 ticket for $100 and then move the line to -2. Eventually once Alabama’s line gets to -38.5, my customers no
longer seem so eager to bet on Ala

CURRENT SUMMARY:
thing about college football. Is this Alabama team good?

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
I do the same for the entire menu of games—take bets and
move the line on the action. After a while, the lines start to settle
in, and the action slows down. That’s when I raise the limits. Now
you can bet $1,000 at a time. There’s another little flurry of action at this point. Customers
who can’t be bothered for a $100 bet now jump in and pick off
the lines they like. The process is the same. Take a bet, move the
line. Keep doing that until the action slows down. Raise the limits again, take a bet, move the line. By Saturday morning, the action will have knocked all the lines
pretty well into place. I raise my limits to the maximum I’m willing
to take and continue to move on action all the way until each
game kicks off.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
I do the same for the entire menu of games—take bets and
move the line on the action. After a while, the lines start to settle
in, and the action slows down.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
47
That’s how market making works. When the market is mature,
I will have a pretty good line for each game, and by placing a hold
on the market, I ensure that I will end up keeping a percentage of
all the bets made into the mature market. Not only that, but once
the market has settled in, I don’t really have to have a decision on
the game that’s more than a few limit-sized bets either way. If
someone bets one side, I move the price until someone else bets
the other side. (The corollary to this is that if you hear a
sportsbook employee report that they have “heavy action” on one
side or a “big decision,” then you know that to some extent they
were not using price discovery. They were taking bets and not
moving the line.)
I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about college footba

CURRENT SUMMARY:
47
That’s how market making works. When the market is mature,
I will have a pretty good line for each game, and by placing a hold
on the market, I ensure that I will end up keeping a percentage of
all the bets made into the mature market.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
They were taking bets and not
moving the line.)
I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about college football,
yet by Saturday morning I have prices good enough on every
game to put relatively little more at risk, and still expect to win on
each new bet against my customers. But I had to pay up to get to that point—I wrote a whole lot
of really bad $100 bets. That guy who got Alabama PK -110 was
basically stealing. Same with the -1 guy. I can limit that expense if I put a little bit of effort into making
openers. I won’t open every game PK. I’ll use some method to
try to get each game in the ballpark before I put it up. There are
many methods to do this. This is where the nerds come in. Or I could save some money,
not hire anyone, and just use my experience watching markets all
d

CURRENT SUMMARY:
They were taking bets and not
moving the line.)
I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about college football,
yet by Saturday morning I have prices good enough on every
game to put relatively little more at risk, and still expect to win on
each new bet against my customers. But I had to pay up to get to that point—I wrote a whole lot
of really bad $100 bets.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're easy t


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
breathless reporting about how far a market has moved from the
opener.
“The game opened -6 but now it’s all the way down to -3.5 as
sharp money is absolutely pounding the game.”
Not necessarily. The opener may have been -6 because that’s
what whoever did thirty seconds of math and opened the market
threw up. It may have moved because a handful of guys with
spreadsheets mashing the refresh button bet $100 to $300 at a
time to move it there. That “sharp money pounding the game”
could be less than a few thousand dollars in total volume.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
breathless reporting about how far a market has moved from the
opener. “The game opened -6 but now it’s all the way down to -3.5 as
sharp money is absolutely pounding the game.”
Not necessarily.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's tackle this step by step. The user provided a query asking for help refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. They included a specific excerpt and a current summary, and


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Setting intelligent openers is the first refinement market making
books make to the “take a bet, move the line” process of price
discovery to keep the cost of writing bad bets under control. The next refinement revolves around using information
intelligently. Information is one of the greatest assets a market making
sportsbook has. For every single bet placed at the market maker
book, the market maker knows who made the bet, when, at what
price, for how much, and also the entire betting history of that
player at their book. Any sportsbook hoping to copy the market maker’s lines
knows none of this—they only know the published line. Player profiling is the first way market makers leverage this
information. They go through all their customers’ betting
histories—literally every custo

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Setting intelligent openers is the first refinement market making
books make to the “take a bet, move the line” process of price
discovery to keep the cost of writing bad bets under control. The next refinement revolves around using information
intelligently.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
49
Let’s presume a market maker develops a very simple system
where they grade every customer’s account with a number one
through five. One is for recreational customers who make no real
attempt to try to win. Five is for their sharpest customers who
will probably be winners going forward. After a few bets, every customer gets a number. That number
is updated periodically as more betting behavior information
comes in. How should a market maker use these player profile
categories? Let’s say you have a market for the Knicks-Bucks game
tonight, and your total is currently sitting at 221 (-110 on either
side). Two full limit bets come in on this game at almost the same
time. The first bet comes from a category two customer whom you
know to be a wealthy corporate attorney. She bet o

CURRENT SUMMARY:
49
Let’s presume a market maker develops a very simple system
where they grade every customer’s account with a number one
through five. One is for recreational customers who make no real
attempt to try to win.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, let's tackle this step by step. So, the user is asking for a knowledge card based on a sports betting document's excerpt. The excerpt talks about a market maker grading customers from 1 to 5,


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
She bet over. The second bet comes from a category five customer whom
you know to be a professional sports bettor and who is active
daily in the NBA totals markets—and who has a winning history
in those markets over a period of years. He bet under. You took two bets of equal size on 221. One over, one under. Your job is to take a bet and move the line. But here the bets
cancel out. Do you move the number? And if so, in which
direction? Of course you move it—you move it lower. Because the
sharp guy who wins in this market bet under. Take a bet, move the line. But move the line faster and harder
when someone you know wins wants to bet you. Because the
sharp guy bet you, there’s a very good chance that under 221 will
win more than the break-even percentage of 52.4%.

50

CURRENT SUMMARY:
She bet over. The second bet comes from a category five customer whom
you know to be a professional sports bettor and who is active
daily in the NBA totals markets—and who has a winning history
in those markets over a period of years.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
That means the corporate attorney just made a really bad over
bet—not only did she pay -110 for it, but she will probably win
less than 47.6% of the time. But that’s what category two customers do. They make bad
bets. They make good bets too. But it’s random—they have no
ability to tell the bad from the good and so it’s a crapshoot
whether they picked good this time or not. The book should be happy they took the cancelling action but
should also use the information and move the line lower. That
way they won’t get hit by any more sharp bets on under 221. The idea is take a bet, move the line. But move more when a
known sharp bettor bets, because that bet carries with it more and
better information about what a better line would be.

CURRENT SUMMARY:
That means the corporate attorney just made a really bad over
bet—not only did she pay -110 for it, but she will probably win
less than 47.6% of the time. But that’s what category two customers do.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
When you see a sportsbook’s menu with multiple markets per
game on a hundred or more games each day, most of those lines
were created predominantly through price discovery. A
sportsbook somewhere in the world put up an opening line and
took bets and moved the line until it got to where it currently is. Then all the other sportsbooks copied that line. (And copied from
each other. And did a little price discovery of their own. And then
copied again.)
Different sportsbooks might serve as the primary market
maker for different sports. The book that makes the markets for
college football will likely be a different one than the one that
makes the markets for Australian rules football. To make a
market, you need active customers betting into the market every
day. Not many books have t

CURRENT SUMMARY:
When you see a sportsbook’s menu with multiple markets per
game on a hundred or more games each day, most of those lines
were created predominantly through price discovery. A
sportsbook somewhere in the world put up an opening line and
took bets and moved the line until it got to where it currently is.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
51
Most of the other books then follow the prices at the market
making book. If a line moves there, the other books move their
lines as well. This structure creates fragility in the system. Often, one
sportsbook moves a market based on a bet, and then a large
number of sportsbooks will copy that move even though none of
their customers made a bet. This behavior means the real market
is often much smaller and less liquid than it appears. It also allows
savvy bettors to manipulate the market. Worse, it makes game
integrity problems harder to spot. The best weapon in defense of
game integrity is a large liquid market, where nonsensical
movements stick out like a sore thumb. Sportsbook Business
Models

This book is not about the nuances of the industry side of sports
betting, so

CURRENT SUMMARY:
51
Most of the other books then follow the prices at the market
making book. If a line moves there, the other books move their
lines as well.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Sportsbook Business
Models

This book is not about the nuances of the industry side of sports
betting, so this chapter will be brief and somewhat oversimplified. But just as you must understand how market making works if you
want to bet intelligently, you also must understand a bit about the
business models of various sportsbooks. It’s not possible to be a
long-term substantial winner at sports betting without a working
knowledge of these topics. There are dozens of independent sportsbook operators, and
obviously they all have slightly different business models because
they occupy different niches in the industry. This chapter isn’t
intended to describe any single operator. Instead we’ll talk more
about concepts, and in being aware of these concepts you will be
able to underst

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Sportsbook Business
Models

This book is not about the nuances of the industry side of sports
betting, so this chapter will be brief and somewhat oversimplified. But just as you must understand how market making works if you
want to bet intelligently, you also must understand a bit about the
business models of various sportsbooks.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Market making books need betting volume. Lots of it. They tend
to operate with low margins and rely on very high volume to
generate revenue. (In the gambling industry world, revenue
means how much the business wins betting against their
customers. This is not profit, as all operating expenses including
rent, salaries, vendor payments, and so on must be paid out of
revenue.)
Because they need volume, they try to place as few restrictions
on betting as possible. They make their betting limits high. They
let all customers bet, even those that they think will win over time. They also try to keep their hold percentages on the low end of
the spectrum. Low holds mean that recreational bettors who tend
to lose at the rate of the hold percentage (or sometimes even
more) will be more lik

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Market making books need betting volume. Lots of it.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
First, you don’t have to pay
a vendor for your lines—you make them yourself. Second, you often don’t have to spend much on marketing. Because you take all comers and offer high limits, you can
cultivate a loyal customer base that will bet with you for years and
years. Many of these customers are trying to win. (Though even
if they win overall, it doesn’t mean they win against you, which is
a critical distinction. They can and often do lose to the market
maker book but win it back and more against other sportsbooks.)
But many of them are just recreational customers who appreciate
the high limits and no-nonsense approach of the market making
book. Third, market making allows you to manage risk effectively.

54

CURRENT SUMMARY:
First, you don’t have to pay
a vendor for your lines—you make them yourself. Second, you often don’t have to spend much on marketing.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
There are some major downsides to market making, however. First among them is that market making is hard. In today’s global sports betting markets with diverse and
sophisticated bettors, market making is a highly skilled job that
requires heavy investment in talent and infrastructure. If you want
to be a market maker, hiring a sportsbook manager for low six
figures and a few traders for $60,000 a year ain’t gonna cut it. It’s
way too big and too difficult a job for that. Any book that’s going
to even think about becoming a market maker has to make a
major investment up front to do so. Second, that investment may well not pan out. If your market
making operation isn’t good enough, it’s very easy for a
sportsbook that takes all comers and has high limits to win at tiny
margins or e

CURRENT SUMMARY:
There are some major downsides to market making, however. First among them is that market making is hard.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
If your market
making operation isn’t good enough, it’s very easy for a
sportsbook that takes all comers and has high limits to win at tiny
margins or even to lose over time.
“The house always wins,” just isn’t true in sports betting. As I
described in the market making chapter, writing a certain number
of bad (for the sportsbook) bets is just part of the market making
process. Those bets cost the book money. And if the book
doesn’t make the markets intelligently enough (i.e., profiles
customers poorly, moves too much on action, moves too little on
action, moves too much on the wrong action, makes too many
plain old mistakes, sets limits poorly, and so on) the market
making book will offer too many soft bets to their customers at
limits that are too high, and they will get bea

CURRENT SUMMARY:
If your market
making operation isn’t good enough, it’s very easy for a
sportsbook that takes all comers and has high limits to win at tiny
margins or even to lose over time. “The house always wins,” just isn’t true in sports betting.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
It does not guarantee that they win. Only customers choosing bets at random (or without any skill at
all) can expect to lose their money at the rate of the hold
percentage. Any customers who are choosier with their bets will
lose at a lower rate or—with enough skill—will win over time. If the market maker does its job well, it will win a very small
percentage overall on a very large volume of bets. If the market

CURRENT SUMMARY:
It does not guarantee that they win. Only customers choosing bets at random (or without any skill at
all) can expect to lose their money at the rate of the hold
percentage.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
55
maker does its job poorly, it will win nearly zero or even lose on
a very large volume of bets—which as you might imagine is bad
for business. Third, market makers are extremely sensitive to how sports
betting is taxed. Because it’s a high volume, low margin model,
any tax on volume (rather than revenue) will hit them extremely
hard. In the United States, there is a 0.25% Federal excise tax on
betting volume. Any licensed operator must pay this tax, and it’s
a Federal tax. Yet more taxes and fees get tacked onto operators
at the state level. A 0.25% tax might not sound like a lot. But it’s 0.25% on total
volume, which is the key point. A well-run market making book will run on margins as low as
1%. If you’re only winning 1% of volume, and then you have to
pay a 0.25% tax on

CURRENT SUMMARY:
55
maker does its job poorly, it will win nearly zero or even lose on
a very large volume of bets—which as you might imagine is bad
for business. Third, market makers are extremely sensitive to how sports
betting is taxed.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Off the top. Then the sportsbook has to pay all its taxes and fees to the
state, which are generally assessed either as flat fees or as a
percentage of revenue (sometimes at very high percentages up to
50% of revenue). Then the sportsbook has to pay all its operating costs like
paying the smart people who work day and night to make the
markets. Then maybe there’s some profit leftover. But realistically there
may not be. When the Supreme Court decision came down in 2018 that
removed restrictions on US sports betting, the sports leagues
sprang into action immediately calling for a 1% tax on volume to
be paid to them as an “integrity fee.”
1%. On volume.

56

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Off the top. Then the sportsbook has to pay all its taxes and fees to the
state, which are generally assessed either as flat fees or as a
percentage of revenue (sometimes at very high percentages up to
50% of revenue).

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Given how much the 0.25% Federal excise tax costs a market
making book, think about what a 1% fee paid to the leagues
would do. The market making business model would be completely and
totally unfeasible. Which is fine—except someone has to be the
market maker. Those hundreds and thousands of lines on events
daily don’t just come from thin air. Someone must do the hard
work of being the market maker. Ironically, in the past when integrity problems have been
uncovered, market making sportsbooks have often been the first
to sound the alarm. They’re the ones with all the market
information, after all. They see all the bets. Their business is to
know their customers. And they are victimized directly when
games get fixed. The leagues managed to propose a “solution” to
integrity prob

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Given how much the 0.25% Federal excise tax costs a market
making book, think about what a 1% fee paid to the leagues
would do. The market making business model would be completely and
totally unfeasible.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
The leagues managed to propose a “solution” to
integrity problems that would make the entities that have been
most effective at combating integrity problems unviable. What happens if you do that is that the market making books
set up offshore and deal to customers in an unlicensed, untaxed
way with no oversight. Then all the licensed operators are
beholden to a few gray market making sportsbooks. Everyone
needs to know what lines to use, and the heavy onshore taxation
makes it impossible for someone to fill that role in the regulated
market. This situation is—fragile. In summary, the market making business model works on a
low margin and very high volume. These books take on all comers
and offer high limits. But it’s hard to do a good job of it, and if a
sportsbook tries to do i

CURRENT SUMMARY:
The leagues managed to propose a “solution” to
integrity problems that would make the entities that have been
most effective at combating integrity problems unviable. What happens if you do that is that the market making books
set up offshore and deal to customers in an unlicensed, untaxed
way with no oversight.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Okay, I'm trying to help refine a knowledge card about sports betting based on a provided excerpt. Let me read through the excerpt carefully first.

The excerpt talks about how the sports leagues prop


Question:
You are refining a knowledge card for a sports betting document. Extract the most important information.

EXCERPT:
Most sportsbooks don’t want the type of systematic risk that
market making books take. They don’t want to have to be the
figurative smartest guys in the room or risk losing to their
customers and going out of business. They want to sell sports bets like Barnes & Noble sells books
and count on making a profit on each bet sold. They can then focus on more traditional retail problems—
marketing, sales, product development, inventory, and so on. This is the retail sportsbook business model. Retail
sportsbooks care about their margins—they want bigger ones. Naturally they want to drive volume as well, so they are essentially
always trying to answer the question, “How can I get our
customers to bet more without sacrificing our margins?”
Here’s roughly how they operate. Since they don’t m

CURRENT SUMMARY:
Most sportsbooks don’t want the type of systematic risk that
market making books take. They don’t want to have to be the
figurative smartest guys in the room or risk losing to their
customers and going out of business.

Provide an improved knowledge card in this exact format:
Summary: <1-2 sentences capturing the main point about sports betting>
Key Points:
- <concise bullet 1>
- <concise bullet 2>
- <concise bullet 3>
Themes: theme1, theme2, theme3

Begin the card now:

Alright, so I'm trying to understand this advice about never betting parlays because they're for "suckers." At first glance, it seems like the person is saying that parlays are bad because they're eas