🐎 Horses And Stallions Dominate The Weekend's Betting Markets

A post-Cinco de Mayo early Saturday email? What a treat for us all, especially after I started drinking tequila at noon yesterday for the sake of Internet content. But there are probabilities to discuss, a hopefully FINAL timeline for us to have our Probly MVP finished and QA'd to get it in your hands, and who knows what else in between?We've got all the usual MLB, NBA Playoffs, USFL, XFL, and MMA Most Likely events to discuss and I'm also going to try my hand at some Kentucky Derby (even though their lack of fixed odds with lines that move even for placed bets does make it a different ballgame entirely...horsegame really). Either way, let's get it going with your Probly email for May 6th, 2023! - @ChrisSpags

• 👑 The most probable bets from the NBA playoffs, MLB, Spring football, a little Kentucky Derby, and more!

• 🔓 Probly Beta updates - Is there actually a release date for us???

For the first time ever, the USFL is on top. Perhaps not in terms of ratings, quality of football, fan attendance, casual interest, or even team names (ever since the New Orleans Breakers didn't name their mascot Splash in a collaborative marketing deal with our show football show Splash Play, they were dead to me).But a Birmingham Stallions win is the most probable event in American sports this weekend as they face off with the rudderless Pittsburgh Maulers. The Stallions have a 75.6% probability to win on Sunday, higher than anything in the competitive landscape of the NBA playoffs or the volatile world of MLB (though behind one particular UFC fight tonight that frankly didn't seem thumbnail worthy).Last week, we saw the Celtics blow their role as the favorite in a Game 1 with no Joel Embiid. But there's no James Harden emerging from the Maulers likely to turn the tables on this one, even if he does resemble their offensive linemen.🏉 The rest of the USFL top five most probable events that I am sure you have all been dying for: A Michigan Panthers win at a 69.2% probability, a Philadelphia Stars win at a 56.2% probability, a New Orleans Breakers win (boo) at a 55.4% probability, and Stars -2.5 at a 52.3% probability. Are the probabilities higher than the amount of viewers watching? Perhaps! But football is football!🏀 The top five most probable for the NBA as they continue their conference seminfals: Heat +1.5 (1st quarter) at a 63.8% probability, Celtics +2 (2nd quarter) at a 63.4% probability, Lakers +1.5 (1st quarter) at a 62.6% probability, Suns +2 (2nd quarter) at a 62.4% probability, and Celtics +2 (1st quarter) at a 62.3% probability. What this all means: You are going to see A LOT of competitive games in this round of the NBA playoffs with no real paper tigers or mismatches. There may also be a slight market correction from last round where some HEAVY favorites like Milwaukee and Memphis were slain. The NBA, particularly the Lakers-Warriors series, is crushing right now in terms of public attention but your money is going to be a coin toss unless you can find inefficient odds.❌ The XFL is off this week as they gear up for their Championship Game next Saturday night. Here's the current top five most probable for the matchup between the DC Defenders and the Arlington Renegades (we'll see how this changes in next week's emails): A Defenders win leads the way at a 69.7% probability, followed by under 46.5 points at a 50.7% probability, then the market line of Defenders -6.5 at a 50% probability, the cover at Renegades +6.5 at a 50% probability, and the inverse of the over/under with over 46.5 points at a 49.3% probability. So a coin toss that there could be a shootout with a game within a touchdown...could be a fun one!⚾️ The MLB top five remains an anathema to the interesting reading of greens we do here but we'll do it anyway for America's pastime: Orioles-Braves over 4.5 runs is the most likely in MLB at an 84.4% probability, Twins-Guardians over 4.5 runs is #2 with an 80.9% probability, Yankees-Rays over 4.5 runs is #3 with an 80.7% probability, Red Sox-Phillies over 5.5 runs is #4 with an 80.4% probability, and Braves +1 (1st half) has a 79.8% probabilty. The one thing I've observed from these over 4.5 lines is they tend to be a reflection of games most likely to see prodigious scoring so that may be the best way to use them (i.e. maybe these games you can dig more for a home run prop you like). We'll continue to watch MLB lines and see if there are unique angles to bring to the email in the coming weeks, especially when I no longer have the crutches of NBA and Spring football to fall back on for content.In terms of highest probability winner, it's an Atlanta win versus Baltimore with a 68.1% probability in a warm night in Atlanta that seems conducive towards hitters.🥊 UFC has two cards over the next two weeks so our current top five is a blend of the most probable from those (act surprised if you see some of these names come up again next week): A Mosvar Evoloev win is the most probable event in major sports currently as he has an 86.3% probability on tonight's card. Then we see a Jailton Almeida win with an 81.4% probability on next week's card followed by a Karl Williams win on that same show with a 78.3% probability. At #4, we have the guy with the coolest name KHAOS WILLIAMS with a 75.7% win probability and then a Carlos Ulberg win next week with a 72.4% probability. I learned while writing this that Khaos Williams' real name is Kailin Williams so this guy needs to go legally change that to continue to get my unbridled support here.🐎 Last but not least, it is in fact Kentucky Derby time. Horse racing is a weird spot since you can't really get favorable odds as the lines move collectively until the start time. Apparently there are some people hoping to change that but, as is the case of any legacy sport, we'll see if that happens. As of writing, here are your top five most likely winners: An Angel of Fire win has a 19% probability, a Tapit Trice win has a 17.6% probability, Derma Sotogake has a 12% probability, a Two Phil's win has a 9% probability, and a Verifying win has a fractionally lower 9% probability. The lowest odds? A King Russell win at a 1.9% probabillity. It also seems that there's a 10.6% chance that a horse wins the Triple Crown this year compared to an 89.4% chance one doesn't so keep that in mind if you're a horse guy who wants to sweat something for the next four months.

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.We've finally been given an expected timeline for our last sprint to sync up our data feeds and UX adjustments that are needed. It looks like our team will have this in our hands by May 17th so, as a result, I am hoping we can provide access to you guys in THIS VERY EMAIL that following Saturday two weeks from now.Once our Probly Beta/MVP is out, that's when we will begin a steady drip of short-form video content, some additional optional emails (which will be more of a data dump than the narrative ramble you get from me each weekend), and more. We've already started to soft shoe some conversations with investors again in the hopes that we can help our runway for launch. Candidly, the Football Outsiders situation you may have read about from a reporter who has hated Barstool for a decade — great fun for me, the person who overlaps with both these — has impacted our desire to bootstrap for now so we'll see what comes.The work is just beginning for us but your early support both in terms of using the product in a few weeks, paying for it when we flip that switch, and being active and providing feedback will be very helpful. This is genuinely my life's work and my life's desire to build something that helps people and gives me and my CTO/best friend, Edgar, the ability to create a culture that both adds value to the community and sparks joy for us. Here's hoping it does the same for you guys as well.

There it is, another one in the books. I'm glad to finally seemingly have an end date in sight after, candidly, a lot of delays that were outside of our control. We want to reward your faith as someone who may have followed this journey since last Fall and, most importantly, win everyone (myself included) some money along the way.Enjoy your Kentucky Derbys and silly hats, your competitive NBA playoff games, your USFL slaughters of ripoff Pittsburgh brandied teams, and whatever else is of interest for you in sports this weekend! Hope you guys have a great one and I'll see you soon.