Circles Off - Sports Betting Podcasts

Calvin explains how to tell an early season fluke from a real change in the NBA, why more injuries are actually good for sports bettors, and why overnight lines are getting sharper every season and how a full-time bettor adapts. He also answers mailbag questions on going full time and when an edge is dead, gives his rant of the week, and shares his plus EV and minus EV moves of the week.

Jacob Gramegna hosts Off Script with Calvin, a full-time NBA bettor who specializes in player props.

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Why Rob Pizzola won't give out his picks, and what he does instead. He explains why timing matters more than any single selection: why he gets his bets down early in the week, why a number that holds up as limits rise has been tested, how to read a Friday number, and the one late-week situation where betting late is fine.

He also covers the difference between betting for fun and betting to win, why the same principle holds across the NFL, college football and the NBA, the one piece of sizing advice he...

LeBron James is going after an AI sports betting app, and the cease and desist letter raises a question the industry hasn't answered yet: how much of a famous name can a betting product borrow before it crosses a line? Then French police are investigating a series of bets that predicted the exact order of the top five finishers in last month's Ballon d'Or, which puts insider trading and prediction markets back in the spotlight. The Circle Back crew of Jacob Gramegna, Rob Pizzola and Geoff Fienberg reacts to it all live.

We also...

How AI is helping sharp NBA bettors connect their models and find more plays than ever. After a full offseason working with AI, Kirk Evans breaks down how his props, futures and awards screens, sides and totals, and WNBA series sims now feed each other, why he can act on smaller edges with more confidence, and why you should never let AI make its own decisions inside a betting model. Then, Kirk explains why he called the NBA's new ban on same-player under parlays, "first of" markets, and unders on low-minute players a nothing burger, and whether anything has...

How do pro bettors find their biggest edges, and what do they do differently once they have one? Pro Sports Bettor and Trader Chris "Flup" Dierkes breaks down how he got paid at 30-1 on a futures price closer to 10-1, then found correlated parlays priced as if every leg were independent. He explains why he spammed it all season without getting banned, the masking mistakes he'd fix today, how throwing junk legs into a parlay hides a 100% ROI edge, and why bringing other people in to get more money down would have been the real move.

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Would you lay the Cowboys at -200 after they closed -340 against the Cardinals? We break down a viral take on heavy favorites, what professional bettors actually do when the price gets that steep, and why it's the kind of betting advice you should never follow. We also react to NFL Week 8, get into Saquon Barkley selling his stake in a prediction market, and run through the rest of the weekend: F1, Beat Luke Littler, the WNBA Finals finishes, Kucherov's trade request, and Indiana vs Minnesota ending with two 60 yard field goals. Then we read comments from last week's...

Why is right now the golden age of same game parlays? Professional bettor and trader Rishi breaks down how he finds correlated outcomes with nothing but game knowledge and no model, why prices on prediction markets are beating what he sees at sportsbooks, and what the new NBA prop unders mean for his approach. Plus, the Thursday Night Football position he took when Christian Watson went to the hospital, the Bermuda Championship cancellation that cost a market maker $185K, viewer mailbag questions, what grinds our gears, and the +EV moves of the week. This is Off Script hosted by...

China breaks down a NASCAR edge from a time when betting meant calling in plays on a recorded line and almost nobody had an odds screen. It was a loophole built on how one bookie priced the races, and it turned into one of the best spots of his betting career.

In this episode of Legendary Loopholes, recorded at BetBash, Jacob Gramegna sits down with China to talk about what betting looked like before line movement was a thing and how that edge shaped the way he thinks about betting.

One of the most shocking weeks of NFL survivor carnage, led by the Texans' overtime loss to the Giants, plus NFL Week 7 reactions and the rest of the weekend recap, including the World Series Game 2 check swing that may have been the wrong call. We react to Raheem Palmer's take on middling NFL games and whether risking 10 cents to win 2 dollars is worth it, go through your comments from last week's show, break down a viral post from a bettor who is down about a DoorDash lunch after 7 years of betting, cover Dr. Jesse Morse retiring from NFL injury...

Peanut breaks down how he rebuilt his NBA player prop model from the ground up into an automated dashboard, what changed from the old manual process, and how he decides which assumptions to adjust when a player's role or shot profile changes. He also explains the futures and awards model he's building, how to account for voter behavior, and the early season question every NBA bettor faces: how much to react to a team's first ten games, how to tell a real change from noise, and how to read rookies and later picks who start hot.

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Most same game parlays lose because bettors stack two good legs that have nothing to do with each other. In this episode of Legendary Loopholes, full time NBA bettor Calvin breaks down the same game parlay that paid +4000 when some sportsbooks priced a rookie center's blocks and double double as if they were unrelated, and shows how to find correlation the market hasn't accounted for.

Calvin walks through the Portland Trail Blazers' Donovan Clingan, his foul trouble, and why four blocks means four contested shots with no foul, which means more minutes. He explains...

A Grandissimo entry worth an estimated $513,333 never got its Week 6 pick in, and the player says his proxy forgot to submit it. That left 14 entries chasing the $7.7 million winner-take-all prize, and then the Rams lost to the Cardinals and the Colts fell to the Titans, wiping out more than half of the Survivor field. Over 1,600 of 2,908 entries were gone in a single Sunday.

We also ask whether LA is a fraud, break down Cam Skattebo seeing zero touches after his fourth fumble, and dig into the NBA and sportsbooks agreeing to ban same-player under...

How does a professional NBA bettor get ready for opening week? Pips NBA breaks down how he gathers information from the 30 teams in 30 days series and preseason film, turns it into minutes and rotation projections, and focuses on the teams that changed the most, where he thinks sportsbooks are most likely to be wrong early in the season. He also explains how matchups, defensive schemes and coverage types help him find mispriced player props, walks through correlated same game parlay reads, and covers how AI cuts his research time. Plus, how he reacts when a line moves against him...

Beating the closing line is the best long-run sign you're betting well, but a lot of what gets called CLV isn't, and even great numbers lose all the time. I used years of NFL and college football line data to show what CLV actually measures, whether the market really gets sharper as kickoff gets closer, and whether you should fade or follow big line moves.

Line data: Betstamp (Rob is a co-owner). NFL scores and historical closing lines: nflverse.

🟠 Track your bets and your CLV with Juice Reel, our net...

Everyone says AI can help you win at sports betting, but there's a right way and a wrong way to use it. We cover why more context beats a better prompt, why you should always check the steps behind an answer, and how to test a betting idea before you risk anything. Plus, the NFL's latest push on prediction markets at the Supreme Court, viewer questions from our most-watched AI video, and this week's plus EV moves.

Isaac Rose-Berman, a sharp sports bettor and responsible gaming advocate, joins Jacob Gramegna on Off Script to...

Sharp bettor Thon Misser breaks down the MLB same game parlay angle that kickstarted his betting career: a pricing bug that turned round number totals into a free half run. He explains how adding any second leg to an over 6 moved the price to over 6.5, why he paired it with an under on triples from hitters who almost never get one, how it played out until a couple of unlucky days and a burned account, and what he would do differently today.

This is Legendary Loopholes on Circles Off, the series where sharp bettors...

Victor Wembanyama put his foot down this week, declaring he will never endorse a prediction market or sportsbook. That bold stance opens up a massive conversation about where the line should be drawn when athletes take those exact deals. From there, we jump into a wild NFL Week 4, unpacking the Patriots shocking the Bills and what Lamar Jackson's ankle injury means moving forward. We also react to that viral post raising alarms over high school students and gambling, before tackling a classic debate: is winning a survivor contest actually skill, or is it pure luck? Plus, Matt Kalish quietly...

Teams playing on Thursday after a Sunday overtime game are 7-29 against the spread since 2000. I’m not a trends guy, so here’s exactly how I work through a stat like this, step by step: checking how it’s counted, finding the right comparison, looking past the win-loss record, testing the explanation, and asking whether the market’s already on it. This one held up better than most. Here’s why you still shouldn’t bet it blindly, and I want your theory on why it happens.

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NFL Week 3 delivered chaos, the Steelers upset the 2-0 Bengals in Pittsburgh, Josh Allen and the Bills survived five turnovers to beat the Chargers, and Drake Maye's turnover problems continued in New England. Over in golf, Team USA pulled off a historic comeback at the Presidents Cup, erasing a four-point deficit to win 17-13 at Medinah for their 11th straight title. Plus reaction to the MLB regular season wrapping up and the postseason field taking shape.

On the industry side, a federal appeals court dealt a major blow to prediction markets, ruling that Ohio...

Thon Misser joins Off Script to break down the NBA season simulator he's been rebuilding this offseason, how it prices different tiers of players, and what changes after a summer that saw the Raptors add Kawhi Leonard and the Sixers bring in LeBron James. From there the conversation moves into the latest push to bring margin trading to prediction markets and what that means for how those markets get used, from pricing futures to gauging elections.

Plus a mailbag stacked with viewer questions, this week's Grinds My Gears rants, and the usual EV Moves...

Can sharps actually beat a prediction market maker? Chris "Flup" Dierkes breaks down what market makers really do, why new exchanges need in-house liquidity, how auto-movers and traders manage directional risk when the flow hits one side, and what the CFTC's proposed bona fide market making rules could mean for the role. He also takes on the biggest misconceptions, including whether market makers can see who they're trading against.

Recorded at BetBash, Jacob Gramegna sits down with Chris Dierkes, Pro Sports Bettor and Trader, for a look at the other side of the counter...

NFL Week 2 sports betting reaction gets broken down live on Circle Back, alongside a New York Times report alleging a sportsbook used an AI model to score customers by expected losses and aim bonuses and free bets at them, which the sportsbook disputes. Is +EV overrated? We debate expected value betting and whether the hype matches the results. We also react to Vanderbilt vs NC State and what's being called the biggest UFC upset ever, then run through Chopping Block quick hits including the Off Script debut and a comedy tier list.

Jacob Gramegna...

A College Football Playoff simulator reveals the real tension in sports betting: when do you trust an algorithm's clean number, and when does a sharp bettor's read on one isolated spot beat the model? Shipper joins Jacob Gramegna for the very first episode of Off Script to break down algorithmic decision-making versus human intuition using live betting, prediction markets, and expected value examples. They then move into two major current events: the proposed repeal of the 90% gambling loss deduction cap, and the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS's new push for permanent bans on bettors who threaten athletes and...

The CFTC has proposed new rules that could reshape how market making works across prediction market platforms, from fee treatment for in-house market makers to limits on the positions they're allowed to take. The proposal touches everything from single-market liquidity to how combos and RFQs get priced, and depending on how it's implemented, it could change who's able to compete as a market maker at all.

Pro sports bettor and trader Porter of BA Analytics joins Circles Off to break down what the proposal actually changes, why the fee and positioning rules matter more...

The NFL, under Commissioner Roger Goodell, has taken a major step in its evolving relationship with prediction markets, and the crew breaks down what it means for sports betting going forward. Week 1 of the NFL season brought plenty of storylines, including a reality check for the Los Angeles Rams following their 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, and a betting-adjacent ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney has sparked its own conversation about how brands are approaching this space.

Jacob Gramegna hosts this episode of Circle Back alongside Rob Pizzola and Geoff Fienberg, part of...

The LeBron James next-team market became the second-largest market prediction platforms have ever seen, trailing only the World Cup, with over $240 million traded. Peanut, aka Peanut Bettor on Twitter, joins Circles Off to break down how a market this size actually moves — why $500,000 walls formed around teams like Miami and Minnesota, and how a trader decides whether to jump a wall or wait it out. The conversation gets into steam versus noise — how a single tweet or Sportscenter hit could send a team surging with zero new information behind it — and why LeBron's notoriously tight-lipped camp made this market especi...

Do quants ignore motivation? I tested the most famous motivation angles in football, revenge games and blowout bounce backs, against 20+ years of real NFL closing lines. One of them was legitimately profitable. Then the market found it. This is the full lifecycle of a betting edge, tested live against 20+ years of real NFL closing lines.

🟢 Sponsored by ProphetX, America's #1 Sports Prediction Market. Sign up with promo code CIRCLESOFF. Trade $10, get $20: https://www.prophetx.co/

📅 New episodes of Circle Back every Monday, Interviews/Industry Insights/Standalone videos every Wednesday, and new ep...

Sharp bettor and responsible gaming advocate Isaac Rose-Berman joins Circles Off at BetBash to break down a tennis edge hiding in plain sight. Because of the way tennis scoring works, a player who falls behind by two breaks in a set will often stop competing entirely to conserve energy for the next one, but sportsbooks don't always adjust their in-match pricing to reflect it. Isaac walks through how to spot the trigger, which players are most likely to give up a set, and how the same logic applies well beyond tennis, including a similar spot to watch for in...

In this episode of Legendary Loopholes, China joins Circles Off to break down one of the most unique player prop edges of the last decade. Starting around 2016, China built a reputation moving college football player prop lines at a major sportsbook, sometimes 60 to 80 props a week. When a second sportsbook entered the market and began scraping those openers days later, it created a two season window where China could rebet his own moved lines at their original stale price, all while getting labeled a "fish" and handed higher limits instead of getting cut off. It's a look back at...

NFL weekend chaos, Week Zero heartbreak, and plenty of drama. Aaron Donald is back — so what does that mean for the Rams and their futures? Plus, Jacobs lands on the commissioners list, a fantasy league debacle unfolds, and we investigate the very real possibility that the “49ers guy” is completely fake. We break down the brutal Hawaii beat from Week Zero, roast Knish for celebrating way too early, dive into the Ninth Circuit’s Kalshi ruling, and ask why “pros don’t want to share.” Plus: Storm Buonatony on sports media salaries, the latest GRP saga, and another edition of the Choppin...

This week on Circle Back, host Jacob Gramegna is joined by Porter, Isaac Rose-Berman, and Shipper to break down three stories shaking up the prediction markets and sports betting world. The crew dives into a New York Times report that Donald Trump Jr. privately urged a room of Republican state attorneys general to back off regulating prediction markets, arguing that state pushback was being driven by gambling companies protecting their own turf rather than genuine consumer concerns. The panel unpacks what this closed-door pitch means for the ongoing battle between state and federal oversight of the industry, and why...

This episode is presented by ProphetX. Our guest is ProphetX co-founder Jake Benzaquen — we address the relationship directly at the top of the episode.

Jake Benzaquen co-founded ProphetX eight years ago, long before "prediction market" was a phrase anyone outside finance used. In June, ProphetX became the first sports-native platform to win CFTC approval as a regulated exchange — and this conversation covers everything that came with it: the sweepstakes years, the $35 million raise, what's shipping on the product side this football season, and the affiliated market making debate that's dividing the entire industry.

Browns recap covering Deshaun Watson's postgame comments after getting booed plus the Sanders update, and Dae'Quan Wright's stunning exit from the NFL back to LSU; Ashton Jeanty's injury scare and what it means for fantasy owners; Scottie Scheffler playing through hand, foot & mouth disease at the BMW Championship and whether golf needs injury reporting; Establish The Run shutting down their pick-selling service; a separate wild stat showing MLB favorites went 15-0 in a day; the Raheem Palmer/Pam Moldanado interaction; plus Chopping Block. Drop your questions in the chat! Jacob Gramegna hosts this episode of Circle Back alongside Rob...

Prediction markets are having a moment of reckoning. Sharp bettors are starting to call out PM platforms for the same behavior that made traditional sportsbooks notorious: squeezing out the very winners who helped legitimize the space in the first place. From new maker fees quietly eating into sharp profits to a "pro gambler arc" meme capturing the entire cycle of boom, backlash, and burnout, this week's Circle Back digs into whether prediction markets are already repeating the mistakes of the sportsbooks they were supposed to replace.

Host Jacob Gramegna is joined live by Joey...

A post about an MIT professor's coin flip (win $125, lose $100) went viral claiming that refusing the bet was the smart move. The psychology is real. The advice is backwards. This is the difference between risk aversion as wisdom and risk aversion as a leak... and the one number from the story that proves it.

In this video, Rob breaks down why a single coin flip with a roughly 55% implied win probability in your favor still gets rejected by most people, why that instinct is completely rational at life changing stakes and completely irrational at...

NFL preseason line movement is under the microscope after a wild stretch of results: teams that have moved 1.5+ points or more on the spread this season are 0-8, and 23-51 since 2024, according to Big Al McMordie's numbers. That trend has reignited a fierce debate about whether closing line value still holds up as a betting principle, with some pointing to small sample sizes and starters entering games as the real driver behind the movement. Also on deck: reactions to Pat McAfee's surprise album release, plus the fallout from Circa CEO Derek Stevens' pointed comments questioning the legitimacy and tax...

Prediction markets and sportsbooks might look identical on the surface. Same lines, same moneylines, same spreads. But legally and structurally, they're nothing alike. In this conversation, Jacob sits down with Captain Jack Andrews to break down why prediction markets don't meet the legal definition of gambling the way sportsbooks do, walking through the "chance, consideration, and reward" test, the Wire Act's business-of-betting standard, and why the operator side, not the consumer side, is what actually matters. They also dig into the "Duck Test," the case that could eventually land in front of the Supreme Court, and why the outcome...

Rishi Bets has been posting on X since 2011 with over 35,000 posts and a following nowhere near what that volume would suggest, and it's exactly why the account works. He posts his bet sizes, his wins, and his losses in real time, no cherry-picking. Rob Pizzola sits down with Rishi for a full interview covering his case for prediction markets over traditional sportsbooks, the World Cup position that went horribly wrong and the choice to post the whole thing publicly, where the line should be on which markets can and can't exist, and a run of hot takes on the...

Rob and Jacob were on the ground at Bet Bash 2026 (August 4-7), and they're bringing back the biggest storylines from the event, including the fallout from Steve Fezzik's touting ethics seminar. Geoff missed the trip, and shares his perspective from watching it all unfold from home. The crew also dives into the latest out of the WNBA, from a player's claims of white privilege in the league to Enes Freedom and Royce White declaring for the WNBA. Plus, sportsbooks are taking an increasingly clear stance against prediction markets, and the guys break down whether it's coming from a place...

You project a running back for 80 rushing yards. The line is 72.5. Nearly eight yards clear — an easy over, right? By the end of this video, that same exact setup might have no bet at all.

Rob Pizzola walks through the full process of turning a raw projection into an actual price — not a vibe, not a gut call, a real number you can trust. Starting from a simple two-minute version anyone can use, then building layer by layer into how the market actually prices probability, why your model's mean and the market's median aren't the...