🥊 A HIGHLY Likely UFC Winner + Soccer Betting Basics

It's another week here in the Probly email and, candidly, it has been a stressful week for me and our team. I was given a deadline of May 17th by our external dev team to have our Probly MVP sync'd up and done, mentioned it in this email becuase that is how you promote to a supportive audience something to get them excited, and I, unfortunately, have to come in here and tell you that they pushed us to a May 30th delivery date instead.I'm going to go off on that in this week's product update and explain my lessons learned because, again, this is an open process that I want you guys to see every bit of struggle and frustration that goes into our Probly MVP (and, really, this kind of bootstrapped process overall). And, of course, we'll dig into the world of probabilities across all the major sports (and the USFL) first with a very interesting Most Likely winner! Here's your Probly email for May 20th, 2023! - @ChrisSpags

• 👑 The most probable bets from the UFC, MLB, NBA Playoffs, and whatever else is interesting!

• 🔓 Probly Beta updates — Deadlines, Communication, and the Struggle

Once again, the true "Most Likely" winner lies abroad with a team name that might be better served as the setup in a MILFHunter parody but is actually an Australian men's hoops team. Yes, a Cockburn Cougars win tops all the events in the world with a 96.2% probability. I am sure they are a storied and credible franchise in Australia's NBL 1 West division but...come on.Of course, you're not likely to experience much Cockburn success at your local sportsbook unless you go into an establishment next door to a Vegas casino with some misplaced Icy Hot. So we turn to the UFC for our first ever most probable winner!This week, a Natalia Silva win is the highest of all the markets with an 87.1% probability that she holds off Victoria Leonardo. There's also a 54.8% probability that fight goes under 2.5 rounds so, if UFC DFS is a thing for you, she might be a fighter to build around in the hopes of a finish and the high likelihood of a win.🥊 The rest of UFC's top five: Loopy Godinez & Emily Ducote over 2.5 rounds is #2 at a 74.1% probability, a Guram Kutateladze win on 6/3 is at a 71.8% probability, Karolina Kowalkiewicz and Vanessa Dempolous over 2.5 rounds is at a 70.2% probability, and a Ludovit Klein win on 6/3 closes out the top five at a 69.9% probability.

⚾️ The MLB top five: Red Sox and Padres over 4.5 runs at an 81.6% probability, Astros +1 (1st half) at an 80.4% probability (which serves as a reflection of the confidence markets have of the Astros keeping the As closely within range), Dodgers and Cardinals over 5.5 runs at an 80.3% probability, Marlins and Giants under 11.5 runs at an 80.3% probability, and Brewers and Rays under 12.5 runs at an 80.1% probability. As we discussed last week, the "over X runs" on a low over/under tends to be a reflection of confidence of offensive production while the "under X runs" on a higher run total reflects the game's low likelihood of outlier production (i.e. it'd be shocking if Marlins-Giants explodes in a pitcher's park without outlier weather conditions). This is also one of the biggest favorites we've seen in MLB so far this season in that Astros-Athletics game. With -300 odds, an Astros win has a 71.8% probability that goes hand in hand with that Astros +1 line. With the variance that can occur within a single MLB game, this is still a much lower reflection of the matchup than would be in most other sports. But the Astros' success today does seem like the most likely thing you'll find in baseball odds.🏀 The top five most probable for the NBA is pared down by the day as the playoffs go on but it could bode well for Lakers fans to avoid embarrassment. A Lakers win leads the way at a 68.4% probability followed by a "Lakers in control" narrative Lakers moneyline (1st half) at a 68.3% probability. You then get Lakers moneyline (1st quarter) to continue that theme at a 64.1% probability, Lakers +0.5 (2nd quarter) at a 63.4% probability, and Celtics +1.5 (1st quarter) at a 63.1% probability as their series heads to Miami. The markets will push towards the Lakers and Celtics both making their series more competitive after both went down 2-0 but it does seem like there could be more concern for Boston to get there, despite the fact they're playing a play-in team in Miami.🏉 The Defenders blew their favorite status in the XFL title game as the sub-.500 Renegades won the XFL Championship last week. So now we're left with the USFL in our Spring football chronicles: A New Orleans Breakers win leads the way at a 74.1% probability followed by a Birmingham Stallions win at a 67.1% probability, a New Jersey Generals win at a 66.7% probability, a Pittsburgh Maulers win at a 57.6% probability, and Maulers -2.5 over the woebegotten but feisty Memphis Showboats at a 52.2% probability. ⚽️ This feels light on probabilities this week so let's do a quick hitter on Premier League. Soccer betting is weird with all the Asian handicap stuff that is VERY different from normal American sports markets but can be best explained by this graphic:

With that in mind your current top five (minus a live Aston Villa u1.5 pts line that leads the way at an 87.1% probability): West Ham continues their Ted Lasso heater with West Ham +1 at a 79.5% probability, Arsenal +0.25 at a 79.2% probability, a Brighton and Hove Albion win at a 78.5% probability, and Newcastle 0.0 (1st half) at a 78.3% probability. Soccer betting is weird but we will have lines for a lot of leagues when our product is live so I'll do my best to continue to educate myself and you on these lines. From what I've seen so far, I tend to like efficiencies in these lines slightly more than the weird baseball ones (for whatever that's worth).

If you've missed the previous weeks of write-ups as we get to our product release home stretch, check our our previous emails on 1) the core functionalities on our Stories page 2) Our Explore page with power users, myself included, in mind 3) How the concept of Mathematical Probability powers everything we do at Probly (and should be how you approach everything in betting and fantasy sports) and 4) What makes our Probly product/aspirational company different than others in the space.So now: I vent. This has been the most frustrating week for me thus far in our process founding Probly. I take deadlines seriously. They are a key social agreement (and often legal agreement) that keep everyone aligned and allow you to trust the people you work with sans micromanagement. In my day job at Football Outsiders, I manage the entire staff. Marketing, tech, content, production, they all report to me. The way I kept them sane amidst a ton of tumult — including our most recent spell of not having payroll hit since the middle of last month, great fun as someone funding a startup and a one-year-old's day care and such — is the basic understanding that I will make certain asks of time and effort that are crucial to our business success. As long as those asks are hit, I will never be disappointed. It can always be improved and we'll sharpen the knife as we go but, ultimately, I believe it comes down to that trust and execution. It's a managerial style that has worked well for me (and got Football Outsiders the best results the site has had in its 20 year history, despite hemmoraghing staff last year and the recent financial woes). It works well for someone who can be combative but really never wants to be since I am acutely aware of every manager I've ever had and every indignity I've ever received from them.So when I press for a deadline from our external UX firm, a South American company whom we've gotten tremendous results with in our development process since a recommendation from one of our advisors last Fall, I expect the deadline to be hit (particularly when we are months behind our contractual deadlines due to admittedly some unforeseen cicrcumstances). Having our product out is important. Having the ability to market our product is equally important. And having your guys' trust when I say something in here that it WILL happen is the most important thing to me.

I'm not going to entirely throw them under the bus because I know a portion of this is on me. I should have pressed them more throughly when I sensed not enough of a feedback loop of progress. I should have stomped and yelled more when they gave us a half finished product prior to our initial Super Bowl deadline and expected that to be enough to move the ball forward with you guys on our list and with investors. Instead, I gave them the room to work and ultimately be disappointed by a lack of effort and communication until I had to call them to task this week about it.There's a lesson somewhere in here about communication and clearly articulating the wants, needs, and issues in every situation, whether it be business or personal relationships, before it gets to a point like that. As a non-technical founder, your desire is to steer the ship and stay out of the way of those doing the work that's not native to you. With the bones of our product functioning flawlessly and awaiting the seemingly "minor" parts of connecting everything on the backend/API level, I have probably not vocally demanded the rigor and process needed to have this product where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. And that is something I have to grow more comfortable with, to not be afraid to be the bad guy and be more of the person that the buck stops with. It was part of why I never founded anything else after I created Guyism and sold it off to Uproxx back in 2013 and, now ten years later with a world's more experience professionally and personally, there's no excuse for me not to be that kind of leader.The longer this product takes to get out, the more money it costs me personally. We pay roughly $2,500/month right now for our data access as well as our backend deployments through Amazon Web Services. I've also paid roughly $20,000 in development costs and thousands more on our various softwares and domains. I am ALL IN on this Probly product being a gamechanger for both my own personal career and happiness trajectory as well as for people out there who are betting blindly or with subpar products in the market right now and have no regrets about pushing all my chips in on this. But when you do that and you have to come to people who have patiently waited for your product, who might support you or spend money on what you're doing, and tell them you don't have a thing ready when you said you would, it really is maddening in a way that feels shameful.So now we wait until May 30th and I come to you guys with nothing but my most sincere apologies. Even if people haven't yet spent a dime on what we're doing, I believe strongly in that trust you earn from users as a content provider, as a product, as a platform. I also believe strongly in candor and talking about these things out loud as an illustration not just of what goes into our final product but also as a cautionary tale for those of you who may go down a similar entrepreneurial path one day.It sucks and it delays everything I hope to accomplish in terms of user acquisition, content creation, and raising funds. But I am resilient. We will deliver you the product as it is designed to be used. I am hopeful it'll be where it needs to be at that revised May 30th deadline. And if it isn't, you can rest assured that I will not back down until our Probly MVP is in your hands with me having the utmost confidence in it. That's the one thing I can control right now despite whatever frustrations I may have with the process.

Another one in the books here and now you know probably more than you need to about where things stand. I hate having to write this email each week without more updates in the vein of "Here's this new thing!" or "Here's this exciting new bet type that you can go bet right now on whatever sportsbook!" But I've said from day one that, at this stage, this Probly email will be as much about the journey as the product and destination so I hope that's interesting for you guys even if it's not as productive in live betting opportunities as I wish it were at this point.There's hope we'll have some more of that backend data available this week somewhere accessible for me to help keep things moving while we wait for the final product so keep an eye on our @ProblyApp handle on Twitter in case that comes through. Otherwise I'll see you guys next week with hopefully more good news and less of me metaphorically whipping myself and our team in the balls in print like that James Bond Casino Royale scene. Pray for us all, enjoy your weekends, and good luck!