I feel like everyone has an online Poker fantasy at some point in their digital lives. The dream of crushing the competition from a laptop anywhere in the world and making a damn good living from it was certainly intoxicating to a younger me. And I can’t be sure how it is these days with AI and the prevalence of GTO trainers, but my journey started roughly like this.

1. Raw dog online poker rooms until I learned the game properly
2. Learn the wrong way around about leaks and exploitative strategies
3. Realize that math and statistics are the only reliable way to win
   

Therefore, I was forced to learn math in the least painful way possible. Specifically and most importantly, Expected Value and Statistical significance. Or, “Is this thing profitable on average?” and “Is my data large enough to prove it?” Eventually, I understood that not only was my poker fantasy a bad idea, it wasn’t scalable. So instead I got sucked into the world of +EV sports gambling.

You must be thinking to yourself, “Jesus Christ, this guy has the brain of a monkey and the compulsion of a toddler,” and yeah, fair enough lol. But I still booked $8K profit across a few thousand bets, so let me walk you through the sauce.

The Strategy (skip to bottom for lessons learned)

1. Know how books make money

Most sportsbooks bake in “juice” (the −110 line on a true 50/50). Bettors A and B each lay $110; winner nets $100; house skims $10. Easy.

2. Enter Pinnacle—the sharp book

• Tiny spreads, huge limits.
• Pro syndicates pound it with algorithmic bets until the line is basically the market’s “truth” (average outcome odds, not a guarantee).

3. Exploit the lag

Other books copy Pinnacle but lag for three main reasons:

1. API delay/outage. Rare, but juicy.
2. Liquidity imbalance. One side of the bet is too heavy, so smaller books shade lines to even exposure. Most common.
3. Promos & mis-pricing errors (heavily policed, still exist).

4. Timing is everything

Lines whip around all day (weather, injuries, Twitter panic). Sweet spot: 5–10 min pre-kickoff.

Steps:

1. Compare your book’s line vs Pinnacle.
2. Remove the vig from Pinnacle (no-juice calc) to get “real” win %.
3. Plug both into a +EV calculator.
4. Fire only if the edge is positive and bankroll-approved.

Yes, this will eventually get you limited or banned. That’s the price of winning.

Lessons

Expected Value flipped my worldview.

Why am I driving 10 over the speed limit? My risk of getting pulled over goes up significantly and the reward of getting to my destination a couple minutes earlier (at best) is definitely -EV.

Why don’t I ask the cute girl across the bar on a date? The risk is she says no in a humiliating way, the reward is I meet the love of my life, VERY +EV.

Once you see the matrix—risk-adjusted payoff vs probability—you can’t unsee it. Poker hardened me, sports betting sharpened me, and now I weigh everything through the same filter. Next level? Risk-Adjusted Return but that’s a rant for another day.

Thanks for reading, Alec