Sports Betting Success: My $30M Journey
Sports Betting Success: My $30M Journey
-In the 1990's, I was the largest sports bettor in Nevada, and possibly in
all of the United States.
-My initial big wins were at Bally’s sportsbook where I took them for
over $120,000 in one winning streak. Here I was just getting started,
and Bally’s sportsbook told me that I had wrecked their profits for the
entire year in baseball.
-I tried to go into Caesar’s many times during off-peak hours hoping to
sneak in my Round Robin bets at higher limits, but that only lasted for
so long. Caesar’s eventually told me how everyone’s phones were
ringing about me, and they had decided to cut me back to a total of
$1,000 on the round robin tickets whereas I was previously taking them
for a $1,000 a way. And when I went to play at other smaller casinos,
they flatly refused my action.
-I finally found the Mirage sportsbook where they were willing to take
my high limit bets. Here, I won my first million dollars from betting on
sports in my 20’s.
-Stories of my winnings made the Las Vegas newspapers, and the
Mirage was running marketing campaigns with copies of my winning
tickets. The Mirage would let me accelerate to as much as $20,000 per
parlay on round robins. I hit many round robins that paid over $500,000
a ticket:
-I successfully turned a $1,000 bankroll into tens of millions from sports
betting
-In my next big opportunity to wager at high limits in the later 2000’s at
a Las Vegas sportsbook, I won around another $1.2 Million.
Now, I want to share my sports picks to help others around the world
make money as well doing the same as what I’ve done for the last
several decades.
Cheers,
-The Sports Betting Whale
The Early Years
I have been watching sports and handicapping against the spread since
I was 13 years old. Before I became 21 years of age, I would form
opinions and offer them to adults who would place the wagers
themselves. I did not bet my money until I was legally able to.
Once I was 21, I started wagering in the Las Vegas sports books initially
with mixed results. After a few months of winning and losing with small
amounts, I started to develop more advanced theories for handicapping
sporting events. I remember going to the Gambler’s Book Store in
downtown Las Vegas in the 1970’s and buying as many books as I could
that showed five years of past results. This was a time period well
before the days of computers and Internet.
With past results of sports in hand, I could now test my theories to see
which ones had a long term winning trend against the lines. Most of the
theories showed marginal win/loss percentages, but I started to find
some that were consistently over 55%.
I also started to look at how teams do during winning and losing streaks
to determine if it was profitable to ride the current trends one way or
another. I soon realized there was a great deal of money to be made in
sports betting if I could develop a money management system that
allowed me to accelerate quickly during hot streaks and limit my
downside on cold streaks.
I experimented with all types of sports wagers including straight bets,
parlays, half times, teasers, totals, money line plays, and round robins.
Many times I lost my entire bankroll which was never much to start
with, and then I would hit a hot streak without any money left. These
times of emptying my bankroll taught me better money management
that to always keep me in action when the inevitable hot streaks hit.
Education
I had a somewhat normal education up until college. I was very good in
math and scored very high on national tests with anything to do with
math or logic. My ACT scores were in the low 90’s percentiles overall
and upper 90’s in math and story comprehension. I remember taking
some IQ tests that showed I was in the top 1% in pattern recognition.
When I was 13-15, I was the best table tennis player in the state and
one of the best in the United States for my age. I also was on the varsity
teams in tennis and golf as a freshman. I remember being the smallest
and youngest person at my high school to have a letterman’s jacket.
That was interesting.
The competitive sports taught me was the emotions of sports. I could
see how the energy and motivation energy levels I was playing at had a
huge impact on my performances. If I was playing someone the best of
three games and I won big in game one, I would not have the same
intensity in game two unless I had something to prove to that
opponent. If I lost game one, I would focus at my highest level. If I had
lost to them in another tournament previously, I would be at the top of
my game when we played again.
When I played in the tennis and golf tournaments the emotion was
different. I was good at tennis and golf, but not comparatively excellent
like I was in table tennis. I did not have the confidence in these sports
as I did in table tennis. With the lower overall confidence in my abilities
in tennis and golf, I would often underperform due to a lack of
confidence. I could get into slumps with very low energy and would not
bounce back after a poor performance. All of these experiences helped
me to become a better sports handicapper.
After high school, I entered college. I received a Bachelors of Science
degree with 152 credit hours in three years. Some semesters I took 35
units which I had to work around the universities’ maximum credit
rules. My degree major was in accounting which I could not stand. I
went along with what my parents wanted, but I was bored to tears in
accounting. The classes I liked and excelled the most in were finance
and economics.
I went to a top finance university in Texas one year and had a well-
known professor. He had told the class that no one in his teaching
history had ever earned a 100% on the final and answered all of the 5
bonus questions correctly. To answer the bonus questions accurately,
the students would have to read the Wall Street Journal and other
business/finance newspapers. I really enjoyed the class and challenged
myself to be the first student to ace the exam and the bonus questions.
When the professor announced the test results, he told the class that
someone had answered every question correctly on the exam and the
bonus questions. I wondered if it was me and it turned out it was. That
was fun.
After finishing my business degree, I went on to law school. My grades
were decent at school, mainly A’s in the non-accounting classes and B’s
and C’s in the accounting classes. It goes to show us that we should
focus on what we like and have a passion for. Fortunately, I received a
very high score on the LSAT (law school SAT’s). The LSAT tests the
students’ abilities to quickly read and comprehend information.
I was quickly bored at law school, so I left and went on to my life in the
gaming industry and later as an entrepreneur. Handicapping sports
events and building businesses have always been passions for me. I put
a lot of energy into both and have had some tremendous successes due
to my passion and energy for what I enjoy doing.
Beginning of My Career as an Auditor
and Analyst in the Casino Industry
When I was 23 years old, I was hired as an auditor and analyst at a Las
Vegas casino group. I was very familiar with all of the odds with the
casino games and realized that the only way to continually beat the
casino is in games where you are playing against other players, not the
house. These two games of skill are poker and sports betting. When
you play slots, blackjack, keno, roulette, craps, the big wheel, or any of
the other games in the casino, you are playing against house odds.
Blackjack can be the exception if you are a skilled card counter. Those
days are mainly over with the large shufflers, the fact that the casinos
cut half of the decks and the pit bosses are on to the counting practices
of altering the bets when the deck is rich with tens and aces.
Interestingly, even many casino workers don’t realize why the house
has an advantage in blackjack. It seems that the player has all of the
advantages including 3-2 on blackjack, the option to hit or stand,
splitting of cards, and the double down opportunities that the house
does not receive. So why then does the house win? It is very subtle. The
house wins because they win in instances where the player and dealer
tie. This tie occurs when the player and the dealer both bust. What
happens when the player busts? The house takes their money
immediately. The dealer does not wait for to see if they bust first. This
scenario makes for a very large house advantage. Think about how
many times the player and the dealer both bust. All of those hands go
to the house to create an average advantage of 2 hands per hour.
The casino wins an average of two hands per hour played and, 17% of
what you start with when you sit at the table. The average slots win 5%
on most machines (that is each time you pull the handle or push a
button). Other games average a healthy win for the casinos. They will
give you complimentary food, hotel rooms, services, etc. based on your
play. Typically, you will receive 5-10% of the theoretical loss given back
to you in comps when you play. Everything is automated now, so it is
down to a science.
In the 1980’s when I was working as an analyst for a large casino group,
the gaming industry was not yet computerized. I was the first
operations analyst hired by this major casino group. Here was when I
noticed that the frequent flyer clubs were taking off with the airline
industry. I would go on to implement the first slots rewards club at our
casino group. Slot rewards clubs soon became an industry standard,
thanks in part to my effort of popularizing this incentive.
I also used my math skills to make some multi-million-dollar increases
in slot wins by changing the metrics for analyzing slot machine
performance. Before my study, the popular metrics was to report on a
win per day per machine. By changing the success to looking more at
machine utilization, our group increased overall slot win by millions of
dollars per year.
I worked with the sportsbooks as well and made many suggestions to
increase the overall win for the house. Back then, the books were
excessively paranoid about receiving a lopsided amount of wagers on
the sides of any particular game. This led to them being prone to
moving the lines quickly when they received large-sized bets. As a
result, the sportsbooks created situations for themselves where they
were getting middled too often, thus losing to almost all bettors in
scenarios where the final score settled in the middle of the lines.
Here is an example: In football, the line opens up for the favorite -2.5
points. The bettors go hard on the favorite, and the sportsbook moves
it to -3.5 in which the money comes on the dog. If the game lands at 3,
they lose to the favorite bettors at -2.5 and the dog bettors at +3. I
made the argument that they have to be very careful to avoid the
middle on key numbers like 3 and 7.
With sports and poker, the house is looking to rake the vigorish from
the action between the players. It is much cleaner with poker, where
the house has no exposure to loss. They simply take a percentage of the
pots as a fee. With sports, it is much more complicated. The house
wants to find the spreads and odds that even out the bets amongst the
players. When a player makes a straight up bet, they have to lay 11
dollars to win 10. The house keeps the full amount on the losing bets
and pays only the 10 on plus the 11 bet on the winning bets. The
amount they keep for booking the bets is called the vigorish.
When a player places a parlay or teaser bet, the payout has built in
odds for the house. For example, on a two team parlay the house pays
2.6 to 1 plus your money back. The odds of hitting two in a row in an
even situation is 4-1, so you can see when they pay you a total of 3.6-1,
they are making 10% on that parlay. The same is true with the returns
on the three-teamer where the odds are 8-1, and the player receives 6-
1 plus their money back.
Where the bookmakers get the players are on four teamers. The true
odds are 16-1 of hitting four in a row of even bets, but the house only
pays you 10-1 plus your one back for a total of 11. Four teamers in
football and basketball are huge winners for the house. This large win
percentage on four teamers has held true for bookmakers for as long as
I have been wagering. It is a sucker bet to take a four teamer if the odds
are all -110.
With baseball, the odds are different than the standard -110 as is
common with basketball and football. These differing odds allow the
players to create four team parlays that are fairer.
Now that you know a little bit about my history as a casino analyst and
how the odds work in the casino, I will transition to my history in
betting on sports.
I would finally come face-to-face with Steve Wynn when walking down
the fairway at the Shadow Creek golf course. Steve Wynn recognized
me immediately and asked:
Steve Wynn: "You are "[my name]! I've heard about you and your
success. Who gives you your picks?"
Steve Wynn: "Wow, that's very impressive. I've never heard of that
before!”
The difference between me and other high rollers is that while others
usually gamble for the entertainment, I do it for the profits. When I was
allowed to accelerate to maximum limits when betting on sports in the
90's, I had so much winnings on my hands, it was tough to know where
to store them all.
In the mid-1990’s I was most likely the largest sports bettor in Nevada
and possibly even the world – and I did it all from an original bankroll of
$1,000.
I cashed out $560,000 in one single bet
Interestingly, this wasn't even close to some of my biggest wins. Some
other tickets have paid out to me for $700,000 or $800,000 and more.
The Mirage sportsbook used my betting tickets to run ads for their
casino to get people to more excited to wager large amounts at their
sportsbooks.
It was not unusual for me to win a million dollars in a weekend from
betting on sports. In fact, I remember times when I would feel
disappointed when I only won $200,000 in a day, as some key bets did
not come in.
There were even some days where I won a million dollars and didn't
even feel much emotions because I had become so used to the feeling
that it almost became numb.
One of the most memorable stories that made the newspaper involved
the 1995 Rose Bowl between undefeated Penn State and Oregon.
The story begins with me in the luxury suite upstairs at the Mirage with
my then-wife and children. I had $150,000 in sports and casino chips in
the room. My children were very young at the time, and did not know
about the value of my casino chips. They played with these chips by
putting them down the vents, thus costing me fortunes. When my wife
saw what they were doing, she locked all of the money and chips in the
hotel’s safe.
My wife at the time and I did not always get along very well, and so an
argument that ensued an hour before the Colorado and Notre Dame
and Penn State and Oregon games were going to kick off was very ill-
timed. I wanted to wager a huge amount of money on the games, but
she refused to open the safe to give me the chips. Frustrated, I left with
$500 in cash in my pocket and decided to drive home.
On the way out of the casino, I decided to bet the $500 on one hand of
blackjack. Back then you could bet the cash and they would leave it out
on the table. Nowadays they grab the money and give you chips. I
played the $500 and won. I let it ride and didn’t take the $500 back
until I was up over $10,000. I started playing $5,000 a hand on two
hands and ended up $175,000. When my host came by and asked the
pit boss how much I was in for, the pit boss said nothing since I had
taken my original $500 cash back.
With the $175,000 winnings, I went to the book and took a two team
parlay of Penn State and Colorado. Colorado was first playing Notre
Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. They won easily 41-21. The next game was the
Penn State/Oregon Rose Bowl for all of the marbles. I was laying 17 ½
points. Penn State was an excellent team that year. The halftime score
was 14-7 Penn State which did not make me too happy. We outscored
them 14-7 in the third period to take a 28-14 lead. Then the fun began.
With 4:24 to go in the game, Penn State scored to go up by 24 points.
All we needed to do was keep Oregon from scoring a touchdown, and
we win. We played no defense and Oregon scored a touchdown with
2:44 to go in the game to make it 38-20 with the extra point pending.
The Oregon placekicker was very good and rarely missed easy field
goals let alone extra points, and there was no way Penn State would
score again, so all of this was for nothing.
My brother and I are watching the game and see that the Oregon coach
calls for his team to go for two instead of kicking the extra point. We
had a chance. The Oregon QB throws a perfect pass to his receiver
angling at the goal line, and the receiver and defender were knocked
out of bounds right at the goal line. It looks like he made it over the line
to my brother and me. But in the game, the players hit the ref,
disallowing him from getting a good look. He looked around to the
other refs to no avail, began to raise his hands for a score, but on the
last second waived it off. No good! Thank God there was no instant
replay back then. The ticket paid over $600,000. Within just hours, I
had taken $500 in cash and turned it into $630,000. That was one of
the most unusual and exciting several hours in the casino I had ever
experienced. Days later, I took this $630,000 and turned it into over $1
Million dollars.
I took $500 and ran it up to $630,000 in one day. A few days later, that
turned into over $1 Million.
This run lasted until 1996-1997. I had some huge wins and some cold
streaks that wiped out over half of my bankroll, but I was always
playing with house money. In 1997, the Mirage sports book made some
management changes, and I moved to Florida with my family.
My sports and casino betting at the Mirage is unlikely to ever repeated
in Las Vegas again. It certainly has not happened then to the best of my
knowledge. That’s because nowadays, the sports books are afraid to let
anyone run up the action on the round robin plays once they get hot.
Winning $4 Million at Pinnacle Sports
In late 2006, a friend of mine introduced me to Pinnacle Sports. He had
a high limit account with them. He knew of my history of winning
millions of dollars using my round robin and half time systems. He
loaded a new account with $50,000 and asked me to go for it. I sure
did.
I started out with some round robins for a total of $10,000 each. The
first two hit and the account were up to over $200,000 right away.
Next, I wagered a series of halftimes at $20,000 to $25,000 each which
all hit. I was off to a fast start. I was amazed at how much I could bet
and then turn around and take the same bets again without moving the
line much or at all. I remember being able to get $200,000 down on a
series of halftime bets and $25,000 a way on round robins if I placed
them multiple times.
It turns out that Pinnacle was one of the largest sportsbooks in the
world booking billions of dollars a year. The word is they were booking
more than the whole state of Nevada combined. It makes sense when
you realize they were taking action all over the world.
The mid-2000’s run I had at Pinnacle was the hottest run I remember. I
won 92 of 100 bets over a four-day period, growing the account from
$50,000 to over $4 million in 4 days. Many of the bets were on the
same teams or combinations, but I still won an extremely high
percentage of my selections.
After winning millions of dollars betting on Pinnacle over a 4-day
period, I gave access to my betting account to my friends to let them
wager with my winnings for fun. They ended up squandering hundreds
of thousands of dollars of those winnings.
Another Run at a Las Vegas Casino
After the Pinnacle run, I went looking to see where I could play
somewhat big amounts and progress in Las Vegas. One of the major
casinos allowed me to place decent size sports bets if I played in the
casino. So in order to play big at their sportsbook, I had to play cards,
high limit slots, and craps at their tables. I played enough to qualify as a
casino player worthy of high limits in the sportsbook.
The sportsbook managers did not know my history and I came in from
the casino management side, so I was good to play $10,000 on major
half times and $4,000 a way on round robins. They did not let me
progress on the round robins, or I would have won much more, but
after less than a year of playing, I won $800,000 on half time bets and
close to a million on round robins.
After the wins, I was limited back to $1,000 a way on round robins and
$3,000 to $5,000 on halftime bets. At these low limits, it was not worth
all of the casino wagering I had to do just to maintain those lower
limits, so I stopped.
Since Then
Since my big winning days at the Las Vegas casinos and Pinnacle Sports
while it was still open to me, my friends and I have taken relatively
small amounts of money ($1,000) and run it up to over $100,000 by
going to multiple sportsbooks over a few week period. I have lost the
$1,000 seed bankroll probably 30-40 times and won back $400,000+ on
the runs over the last years of playing.
In addition to the successful sports handicapping career, I have had
several large successes with businesses I have started. Everything has
not always worked out as planned with the businesses, but when you
start as many as I have, things will go well sometimes and not so well
other times. A lot has to do with the timing of the economy and the
markets.
With sports handicapping, the macro events of the economy and
markets do not impact team results and patterns, so I find sports
betting to be more reliable as a way to take a small amount of money
and turn it into a large amount. Businesses can have huge upside as
well if you are right on the businesses you launch, but often require a
much larger risk of capital.
In 2017, for the first time ever, I was persuaded to offer my winning
plays, systems, and money management programs to the public. It is
very gratifying to help others and I take the challenge and opportunity
very seriously. I tend to be more concerned for the audience taking the
plays then I am for my own.
Unlike many other handicappers that offer their selections to the
public, I put my money where my mouth is and take the same plays
myself. I know how things end up in the long run so I don’t sweat the
day to day results much myself. But I have been doing so for the players
following me. That pressure negatively impacted me at first, but now I
have adjusted and am consistently winning for the players as I am for
myself.
I truly care about people and look forward to helping people to enjoy
more financial freedom in the future through the Whale Sports
program.
How the Round Robin System Works
Round robin bets are essentially a betting strategy where you'll make
multiple parlays in a group of wagers. This is how I was able to take
$1,000 and turned it into tens of millions until the sportsbooks decided
to cut me off.
Let's take a look at my picks on February 7, 2017 for a closer
examination. On this day, I released the following picks:
Group 1: Round Robin by 2's and 3's:
Bet #702: UNDER on Charlotte
Bet #704: UNDER on Houston
Bet #705: Portland on the point spread
Group 2: Round Robin by 3's:
Bet #707: OVER on Alabama
Bet #713: Florida on the point spread
Bet #727: Rhode Island on the point spread
Bet #738: OVER on Clemson
In group 1, Round Robin by 2's and 3's means that you will make all
possible 2-team and 3-team parlay combinations in that group.
Therefore, the different combinations of 2-team and 3-team parlays in
this group are:
Parlay #1 between Bets 702 and 704
Parlay #2 between Bets 702 and 705
Parlay #3 between Bets 704 and 705
Parlay #4 between Bets 702 and 704 and 705
In group 2, Round Robin by 3's means that you will make all possible 3-
team parlay combinations in that group. Therefore, the different
combinations of 3-team parlays in this group are:
Parlay #5 between Bets 707 and 713 and 727
Parlay #6 between Bets 707 and 727 and 738
Parlay #7 between Bets 707 and 713 and 738
Parlay #8 between Bets 713 and 727 and 738
For any of the parlay bets to win, ALL the bets in that parlay must win.
For example in Parlay #5, if bet 707 and 713 won but bet 727 lost, then
the entire parlay bet is lost. In parlay betting, you must win every single
bet in the parlay in order for the bet to win. When you do win,
however, the payoff is tremendous. Winning a 2-team parlay gives back
$2.6 in profit for every $1 you risk. Winning a 3-team parlay gives back
$6 in profit for every $1 you risk.
The results of these picks on this day were:
For conservative bettors: Divide your bankroll by 2-3 so you can afford
to fully replenish a couple times if necessary. Each parlay starts at a risk
of 0 units and accelerates to 4 units.
For standard bettors: Each parlay starts at a risk of 0 units and
accelerates to 4 units.
For aggressive bettors: Each parlay starts at a risk of 1 unit and
accelerates to 4 units.
Refer to the chart above to determine how much of your bankroll you
should risk on each parlay. Remember that your day’s starting bankroll
will change each day as you win or lose. This means that your actual risk
amount will fluctuate as well based on the fluctuation of your day’s
starting bankroll.
If one round robin wins 4/4, then you can accelerate and move on to
the next stage (for example, go from a risk of 1 unit per parlay to a risk
of 2 units per parlay).
If another Round Robin wins after, you can then accelerate to the next
level again (for example, 2 units per parlay goes to 3 units per parlay).
To make bankroll management easy for you, I will recommend to you
the percentage of your day’s starting bankroll you should wager per
parlay when the picks are sent out each day.
Want a more recent example of my success?
On April 21, 2017, I took $7,340 and turned it into $23,337.55 for a profit of
+$15,997:
The next day on April 22, 2017, I pocketed $3,337.55, then used the
remaining $20,000 to bet. I turned this into $45,314.84 for a profit of
+$25,314.84 by the day's end:
The next day on April 23, 2017, I pocketed $12,314.84, then used the
remaining $33,000 to bet. I turned this into $88,898.98 for a profit of
+$55,898.98 by the day's end:
The next day on April 24, 2017, I pocketed $61,698.98, then used the
remaining $27,200 to bet. I turned this into $56,929.54 for a profit of
+$29,729.54 by the day's end!
You've just literally witnessed how in just 4 short days from April 21,
2017 to April 24, 2017, I took $7,340 and ran it up to $134,280.36!
What if YOU had wagered on the same exact picks that I did during this
run?How much money could YOU have won in just 4 days?
www.TheWhalePicks.com/go