🧐 Can You Out-Research Sportsbooks?

There’s a lot of new users lately so, to each of you, thanks for signing up! Every week, I send this weekly Probly Email with our day’s content plus some bonus bets from Probly’s market data, updates about the company and our product, and pieces about betting and the industry.

The best way to learn more about Probly? Go to the new Probly.com and see some of our favorite testimonials as well as details on the product.

We recently made a new addition on there too: You can now get a 7-day free trial without having to be on the App Store! We’re confident you’ll improve your betting results enough that we want you to hop in and give it a shot.

So go now and get a 7-day free trial (and still get 50% off too with promo code FIRST).

Today, we’ll take another run through the day’s MLB bets, a revenge game for our email-exclusive WNBA bets and some interesting company and product insights. It’s your Probly Email for June 28th, 2024! - @ChrisSpags

• 🏀 MLB And WNBA Best Bets

• 🔓 Probly Updates: A Not-So-Shocking Marketing Lesson And The Great Paywall Debate

Last week I pointed out my fear of a bad day after a heater and a clean +5u the previous email. So, of course, we got hit with the rare 0-fer on our WNBA bets. I DEMAND RESTITUTION so we’ll do it again today.

It’s been a clean week in MLB, +6u thus far, including one 5-0 day on our Top 5 video this week. Summer baseball betting is a lot more fun with the amount of HRs hitting too so let’s see what’s good in this Friday’s top bets:

Despite last week’s absolute dud for the WNBA, the women’s hoops bets I’ve featured in this email are still above .500 on the year. So let’s say positive regression is due for these five:

Of course our best bets, probabilities, and PROBLY Scores are always updated all night and day so get more for yourself at Probly.com or on the App Store. Find the best bets on YOUR preferred sportsbook and win more in sports betting now!

If you’re checking out Probly for the first time, make sure to check out our post on optimal settings at the new Probly Blog.

The most interesting revelation of the week companywise seems to be how well people respond to recent messaging around “you can’t outresearch sportsbooks”. I’ve used it as my opener on YouTube and TikTok videos this week and it seems like the views and engagement have gone up largely due to that (some recent wins in the content picks and 5-0 days don’t hurt either).

It does speak to something I’ve long thought — a good portion of people are aware that they’re swimming upstream trying to research their way to success in betting. In reality, it’s a lot of time spent to achieve results that are likely not that dissimilar than you would get from picking blindly.

And for people browsing on YouTube or TikTok tailing people, they’re copying work from people who may not even be good at the research component on a base level. These people think previous matchups matter — they don’t, the sample size is entirely too small for a pitcher vs a batter compared to, say, how a batter does versus lefties in general — along with other bits of betting hokum that are the equivalent of old wives’ tales.

Some people will keep pushing that same boulder uphill while trading losses and wins while the juice kills their bankroll over time. Many of them will continue to do it because of the masculine pride of thinking you watch sports so you know more than billion dollar companies with real-time, brilliant algorithms.

But some of those people recognize that what they’re doing isn’t working . Those are the people we want to embrace something besides new ways to lose.

I say it a lot but even you were the biggest mush and you only followed our probability data and were aware of what the best priced odds are, you’d still have more success than you’ve ever had in sports betting. The -110 to +110 flips on bets happen so frequently and people fail to realize it. When you layer the real-time expected value calculations on top, even better.

So no, I’d say you can’t outresearch sportsbooks (real-time algorithms combined with pricing data from their own bettors and other liquid markets are among the key reasons why). But you can research data from the best sportsbooks and use it against them to increase your chances of success.

Similarly, productwise — We’re currently working on one product tweak that we’ve held off on for a while. Specifically: We are going to let the homepage stand on its own and fully paywall the Probly app.

We haven’t wanted to do it because I do like giving people something for free, even if it’s just them scrolling endlessly for a needle and a haystack of a +EV bet. That said, we’ve received a lot of guidance that you need to not only force people to pay — but also onboard them more directly about what the product is to have more success selling and keeping people happy — that we are going to make that switch in the coming week or so.

We need to know what our true capacity is to convert downloads into subscribers. It’s crucial for both for the revenue itself as well as the knowledge on how to optimize the business overall. And this is the only way to do it. Adding that into the fact that a lot of users don’t fully “get” the product before hopping in — which hurts their potential success and our conversions — and it’s likely something we should have done a while ago.

So we plan to add an “onboarding carousel” for users who download the App Store version or access the app via Probly.com. It explains the product, how to use it, and what to expect as simply as possible.

We’re hoping we’ll be able to add a “free for everyone” feature on top before NFL season that we think will add a lot of value, while still protecting our PROBLY Scores and core feature set. But coming soon, you will have to be a paid customer to see our PROBLY Score expected value calculations and everything else on the app itself.

These are the pains of trying to educate people while selling a product to them but we’ll continue to push for the greater good of both Probly and the people we want to provide value to.

If you guys encounter any issues not covered here or want to provide feedback, you can email me [email protected].

As always, thanks to all of you who read all the way down here. With a lot of people calling it early for the Fourth of July, your eyeball attention is appreciated even more than usual.

Speaking of!: It’s a great time to get your free seven-day trial of Probly+ on the App Store or get a free trial AND 50% off when you use promo code FIRST at Probly.com (under $100 for a first year or under $10 for a first month). You can’t outresearch sportsbooks — use their data against them instead.

Likely no email next week due to the 4th and 5th being off for most folks (though I plan on doing videos next week still) so I’ll see you guys again soon. Good luck!