I think no one on earth has a reliable profit win rate for 1.5 odds (you need to win 2 out of 3 just to break even). Much better to go for closer to 2/1 odds on games you're very certain about, or using some kind of price boost. I don't normally go for them except on big games where I want to pad another more important match.

Sportsbet has a daily price boost that gets 1.8 to 2/1, that's where I'd bet my daily big bets. In fact, even without the price boosts, they tend to have better odds than Stake (which is where I'm assuming you bet).

Juice is so important, every little small percentage edge adds up, so it makes sense to shop around.

Just checking in here to see how we're all doing for new season. I'll probably need to check in La Liga too, to sort of drum up support and remind people to get some money ready for new pools, yeah?

Season starts a week after EPL -- it feels like we have to wait longer and longer now for season starts (in my mind it's always July) so maybe it's just my hold on calendar start but apparently this is actually an early start for Italy. Which explains why the new schedule isn't out yet.

It can't be Napoli again, too soon to talk about Juve's relegation and Lazio wild card?

Papa Steve, uncles jeremypwr and hilarious, thank you all. Really special news to hear, and a whole lot to play for. As KTChampions says that 3 mbtc freebet can be serious money if played properly, it's all you need to win to get your entry fee back. $15,000+ pot. Who'd have thought this would grow so much, eh?

Now, if I could only look into the crystal ball and see if Luton Town will do well early on. 42 days till kickoff -- I'm ready to pay!

Man you guys, so quick. VAR. Love it. Don't worry if implementation is shit, experimentation tends to be high on the shit count Though with your track record, I don't have any reason to think it will be.

The recap and update on Sportsbet. Love it even more (only read it today haha). I actually remembered to go on Clubhouse TV chat today but seems like there was no session -- maybe tomorrow?

About keeping updates and news secret? Now I even don't mind giving tips on the forum (like someone did with de Minaur) -- because I could also be naughty and give a bad tip. Hint, hint, watch out guys...


Ah, I already read them on my notification (I get PMs to my email also, the magic of tech!) so I didn't even open them on forum. I might have even avoided reading the email msg if you did have boobs... I got your sidebet money, don't worry it will be put to bad use.

No surprise. After they (the board, whoever it was also in control of assets) didn't stop him from buying even more when he almost got margin called all those months ago, I fully expected him to continue in fashion.

I know it's not precisely on-topic, but I'm actually much more interested in how much Bitcoin the Norwegian sovereign fund added along the years. Been at least a couple of years since they made the news. Or did they sell at the 2021 peak?

When you've got a kid who's 18 and ready to shoot off to college/uni with all kinds of expenses racking up, along with inflation, coupled with parents reaching ripe golden age that also requires increasingly taxing medical expenses -- and you don't come from a welfare state (I'm guessing the way you phrase retirement without a mention of pension means you're not from one), then 16 years is not disturbing, it's probably the least you can do to be responsible.

Personally, I hope I have a long and healthy life to be DCA-ing in 2040 but 20% of salary should set him up for life.

What's disturbing for me is if it's all-in. I'm all for Bitcoin but I'd really recommend setting aside even 10% of his salary for a sizable insurance/pension plan while he's not too old to get one. Too risky to just dump everything into Bitcoin, really.

Another easy day for RB, does that mean a 1-2 finish for them as well though? Really tempted to pick that finish but for now am putting Perez just off the podium in favour of Hammie. Have also been wrongly predicting Mercedes big wins so this time, I hope to get that right, one on podium and Russell to come close.

Am completely basing this off arbitrary understanding of the Austrian track and that Max does well there heh heh.

I actually really hate posting in the same thread back to back but the activity here requires it sometimes, and just to say, first time in my life I'm following U19 football minute by minute, so well done Cro2 for making me waste my evening on TEXT commentary football haha.

I was in a real bind here. France scored the 9th goal of the night with 10 minutes to go, which took me 1 point clear against vd309 as I selected "9 or 10 goals" ... on the other hand, I had a 10/1 acca that hit only if Italy won. But for them to have done that, they'd have needed to score 2 goals, taking my point away and giving this round's advantage to vd309 who picked 11+ goals for his question.

In the end, I actually feel much, much, happier to win this point, rather than the $100 I'd have won if Italy managed the comeback. See how much I prioritise this league?

Back to the Joker issue -- I want to clarify my view is that that it is a very minor thing, and we must see the cost-benefit. It would add complexity to Cro2's job, and while I personally enjoy the idea of them working hard every night to make us happy, I would rather seamless competition overall to sacrifice the small likelihood of the Joker being legitimately useful (you know, the way I prefer VAR to be gone and suffer the rare consequence rather than put up with VAR delays every game).

U21s headed for low-scoring goals... and FIBA is going as expected, I made my picks including Canada despite getting third in their group, I thought they would easily meet Turkey, and it seems to be the case, where I'm hopeful they can beat the Turks. I'm actually 4 points out of 5, not bad -- but haven't even been tested because vd309 also has the same answers so far. Tonight's U21s headed for low-scoring affairs so we might draw on that (both not getting a point).

And yes, tennis. If I'm not dreaming, think I read somewhere Tsitsi actually chose this "easier" tournament to try and get a win and some confidence back. Backfired.

If you think he's a disappointment in the past year of BSFL, you're wrong -- he's been disappointing fans for much longer than that. Have even a personal history where I backed him more than most to take over as the new generation of greats. How wrong I was.

@cryptofrka I like the Hawkeye-inspired 3 chances per season. But since we have short rounds, and these are meant for emergencies, perhaps only needs 1 chance per season? Again, I hate overthinking and overcomplicating but it might be something useful down the line (I don't mind the current system, I think the risk of missing a deadline is big enough to not push too close even if I did take the risk this round). I really wish VAR in EPL was given this too. Manager can have 3 VAR reviews per game.

I was just mentioning ETFs recently, been so long I'd completely forgotten their names -- the memories of seeing the likes of Bakkt get mentioned in 4 out of 5 articles, all that pre-euphoria about "institutional" and then when the product actually birthed, the laughable volumes.

But back to the question: are the launches correlated with price action? I think so -- but not so much a cause-effect. I think ETFs try to time when they believe sentiment is right (so less about a bear/dip but a great entry before the rally they're predicting). And whoever's advising them to make their bets doesn't seem to understand that rallies don't come so soon after a fall.

Another massive drop after another ETF launch won't be terrible news for me though

Heh, definitely bet against me (though the odds aren't great against me). Georgia almost did it, didn't they?

Came in here right after putting my last freebet on, and nice to know we both actually like England and Italy today, though I've set it up with some other exotic fixtures to bring the odds to an arbitrary 11/1 (you know, because freebets don't return the wager, haha).

U21s I can't really tell to be honest but Pyramids feature every now and then in my Egypt picks.


Even if I didn't like Messi, I'd be killing for this shirt -- and judging from the RTs on this so far, the odds are pretty good. I left my fav Messi moment as Robbo smacking his head at Anfield (and then him smacking back). So I probably won't win, but hey

@darxiaomi what's your fav Messi moment, as an Argentinian, of course?

@Trofo I'll ping again when Iron Man finals are around near September, but also only if I can help figure out a useful way to make questions. I also really like casperBGD's Tour de France (I don't know shit about it but everyone remembers the famous Armstrong doping scandal), and that's probably easier to quiz.

Tour de France is just one of the three circuits leading to the World race (not sure what it's called). The aim is for a treble of Italia, de France, World titles. Could have all 3 if we have some super cyclist nerd (any Dutch guys in BSFL?).

==

Tennis question made me think (and I actually thought about it before last season but am reminded about it) -- could it be worth allowing a system in future where you can submit picks, and still change them before deadline?

It seems the fairest that someone who put picks in early shouldn't be penalised if something happens on the final day of submission, or are we deliberately asking people to submit as late as possible? The reminders suggest that we prefer people putting picks in well ahead of time (Georgia was why I submitted late, and it proved to be a helpful point), but then if we can't change answers, of course, we want to post as late as possible.

Another thing I wanted to clarify, not sure if already: what if we're trying to submit answers in the final hour and Googledocs is down or sheet is inaccessible? Fair rules probably say you would be allowed to give an answer, but probably to send an answer in PM to Cro2? Failure to submit should be ruthless, right? No excuses for "no internet" and all that? Could be useful to figure out some additional rules on deadlines.

==

I can't remember but the Tsitsi question didn't have him winning without dropping a single set, did it? I know he's not Djoko but...

Something tells me this has quite a bit to do with the recent woes Balinese police have had with certain types of remote workers who've made the island home ever since the pandemic. I was there a month recently and my local friends told me about this nuisance. Tourists are welcome there, for sure, always have been, and despite a high level of tolerance for terrible tourist behavirous, patience appeared to be wearing thin for the new breeds of long-term residents who act like tourists.

Specific nationalities were mentioned actually, but I don't like passing on rumours. However, because I also personally know from work crypto people remote working in Bali, and the kinds of behaviours associated, I feel there is some truth. Problem is, probably isolated incidents with entitled, cruiseship-trawling, cocaine-snorting, crypto brats who do scammy crypto startups from Bali. Giving a bad name to Bitcoin in general.

In any case, no big loss. In all my wanderings around the island, and even in the supposedly glitziest locations out of curiosity, I found just one shop accepting crypto.


Server I asked said she never had a customer request though =)

I'm personally in favour of fewer prize spots -- it makes the prizes bigger, but have to say when it comes to the size of the pots here and in UCL, it probably makes it more fun for everyone to have more spots, even if those are just consolation prizes (it's a nice way to say, hey, here's your ticket back for next season). It might be my imagination, but people who feel they no longer have something to play for (ignoring that yellow caps themselves are fantastic weekly prizes) seem to drop out at the latter stages of the league.

Hate to praise Igebotz too many times in a year but he does have a potentially interesting solution in those freebets (as opposed to cash) for consolation. People tend to waste those freebets anyway, maybe even give them as a single $100 freebet or is that just exposure books hate? Haha.

Instead of the megajackpot, why not run a parallel league, just open another on SuperBru? Separate entry fee, possibly double or triple the regular fee, plus an additional requirement (a deposit of $100 at Sportsbet and 1x wager through the entire season)? Then they could cross-promo it the whole pre-season. Maybe a smaller sponsorship there but one winner-takes-all. That might offer hints at how a bigger pool with bigger fees might look like.

Having lived and work in parts of the unbanked -- in fact, myself being practically unbanked during those periods -- I can only concur, and have said so myself. Fintech's had great success there, and because they filled a need, without requiring people to have what they couldn't already access.

But I would disagree at least partially (again, based on the interest I experienced from people there about crypto) that popularising Bitcoin was a matter of fees. Fees is a problem as a mass p2p payment solution, but still will vastly superior as a remittance option, which is still what people need and mpesa didn't solve (mainly because it didn't work cross border). Even as late as 2017 the majority of these unbanked I worked with had, at best, SMS technology, which was all that mpesa needed. When using Bitcoin is as easy or easier than whipping out that GPRS phone, it might yet see more users.

I have never seen such intense discussions about esports! I don't have much take on it but I can honestly say I've been following DOTA more since BSFL, following F1 more because of SB but also because that's what my kid watches, and I believe one point of BSFL was to get people to discuss more about sports, banter is great, even welcome -- so objective achieved I should say, based on evidence of conversations here.

Go to most other discussion threads and it's crappy spamfest with rehashed news. Come to the pools and BSFL and you hear more passionate discussions. I love seeing people get mad about sports, it's fun

Not to "defend" Cro2 here but we do have to accept that as organisers, they must feel comfortable enough and confident enough to put questions that have as black-and-white answers as possible, with scoring sites that can back them up. Tennis and football, F1, are the ones I'm pretty sure tick the boxes, I couldn't really say for anything else.

As Jinetics1111 says above, bring it on! Come at me. Cricket? Women's volleyball? Arm-wrestling? Strong man competition? Iron man?

BTW World Iron man 2023 is in September and for me, it's the biggest endurance event in the world, and the most "level" competition because it's not about privilege (like F1 or golf) but about pure "I will outlast you". But it's a huge complicated competition with so many qualifying levels (essentially the whole world is one big group stage starting at country level, and you need to earn qualifying tickets from smaller Iron Mans). Would love to see a question on it from the qualifiers July onwards but it's a tough ask to get a question in...

Prize money's shit, though, I guess which is why it doesn't get a lot of TV attention.

Suggestions, not tips, I lose majority of my bets, if you haven't been paying attention heh.

Georgia's been punching way above their weight in today's U21 game (55/10), but I've been hammering on Caucascus teams in football ever since Nations League so I see great value v results.

Next week, America MG visit Atletico Mineiro in Brasileiro, price boost gets you 7/1 for the away team. I think that's only because America's in relegation spot, and have a bad record H2H but it's not like Mineiro's playing awesome football now anyway?

Champions League prelim qualifiers tonight though are eye-catching: the home teams are each 5/1 and 30/1 to win. Tre Penne is San Marino's champions and meet Icelandic champions, so you can understand why that happened but I try to remember that club football has more upsets than national football, and that Tre Penne is essentially Serie D (loads of Italian players) -- against Iceland's champs who're defending their title poorly, who knows?

1. Verstappen
2. Verstappen
3. Perez
4. 8 seconds

12. Abus Magomedov
11. Damir Ismagulov
10. Michael Morales
9. Ariane Lipski
8. Ismael Bonfim
7. Nursulton Ruziboev
6. Rinat Fakhretdinov
5. Joanderson Brito
4. Yana Santos
3. EGuram Kutateladze
2. Ivana Petrovic
1. Blagoy Ivanov

NOT go the Full Distance 6

Oi, the only spreadsheet I open these days is BSFL and my "Igebotz IOU" sheets of all the sidebets I'm winning from you. cryptofrka can you stop drunk checking?