The Qualitative Way to Win

One of my favorite parts of writing this newsletter has been getting to know other excellent bettors and hearing about their journey to success.

Readers loved my profile of NBA props wizard Calvin, and more recently our live masterclass with #1 ranked bettor sXeBets and top-20 ranked Jumane.

Today I’ll build on that theme by profiling a rising betting star on the Juice Reel platform: Markot.

Markot told me about how his passion for basketball (as a player) and fantasy football (as a commish and tough competitor) directly play into his rising betting skill.

We’ll talk through his observation-based approach to finding betting opportunities, what he sees as critical for beginner bettors, and share some specific actionable tips for readers.

As always, we’ll close with our Bets of the Week — today coming from our featured bettor (!!).

Let’s get after it.

Betting Credentials

Before getting into our discussion, here is Markot’s betting record:

Since football season began, Markot is up over $13,000 at an impressive 9% ROI.

He’s risen to #26 on the Juice Reel platform, and is top five in both NFL props, and NCAA Basketball sides/totals.

Our conversation focused heavily on his process in those markets — let’s get to it!

Background

Markot is from upstate New York, and finally landed in Denver in 2018, after stops in Charlotte and Houston. Betting is part-time for him; with two kids, he’s balancing a demanding job with evenings spent honing edges and improving his betting process.

He came to sports betting through two adjacent passions — fantasy sports and team athletics.

At 15, he fell hard for fantasy, starting in baseball, teaching himself sabermetrics, building his own rankings, and quickly beating adults in paid leagues. “I started kind of creating my own rankings super early, found success against a bunch of adults, and it became a crazy passion,” said Markot. To this day, he wins a lot of money doing paid “best-ball” football leagues on Yahoo.

On the court, he was a legitimate hooper — turning down two full rides in D2 basketball to attend and play at an engineering school. He leans on his personal experience to skillfully handicap college teams.

As a bettor, he started small, making $10–$20 “fun bets” through a friend’s offshore account before he began taking things more seriously by handicapping the NFL.

“I got a gig writing about fantasy sports — pickups, commissioner series, draft — and when I said ‘hey, I want to write spread picks’ they told me to go for it”.

Interestingly, Markot didn’t become “sharp” until last winter after discovering how to track his bets and line shop religiously using Juice Reel and other tools.

I found his story inspiring and instructive for new bettors who have a depth of sports knowledge but need the skills to monetize it through wagers.

Betting Methodology

Markot has been really successful betting both college basketball and NFL football props. His process differs for each:

Approach to NCAA Basketball:

1. Markot keeps a personal ranking of teams in the big four conferences he watches most. This incorporates KenPom and recent game data.

2. Before checking prices, he makes his own number in his head, then compares to the board. If it’s off, he will dive in to understand why.

3. He categorizes his diligence: “Now I’m going into their last 5 games. Where was Team 1? Where was Team 2? Have they gotten blown out a couple of games? Do they have an injury? Are they going West Coast, East Coast, back to West Coast? Who is their coach? How is morale?”

4. Markot trusts his instincts because he played college ball, and looks for cases where a talented team seems like they’ve gelled or turned things around. “I lock in on players and teams that I know very well, and will bet my perceived turnaround for multiple games in a row.”

Process for NFL Player Props:

Markot’s approach to identifying edges and betting NFL player props follows a weekly cadence. Here’s a look behind the curtain:

• Monday — “I start with NFL Week +1 lookahead lines to see if anything sticks out to me. Ten percent of the time I take the line I love, ninety percent of the time I write down the sides/totals I like on a sticky note. I also note potential player props before lines are released to compare to on Thursday after injury reports start coming out and props populate.”

• Tues/Weds — “Spot check my favorite NFL lines to see if there is movement. I’m listening to at least one fantasy football podcast a day which gives me injury news, performance updates and takes to build up a bank of knowledge heading into the week.”

• Thursday — “The make or break day for injured players. If there isn’t clarity by Thursday’s practice, I stay away from that player (and sometimes that game depending on how important they are to the team). I start to set lines in my head on passing/rushing/receiving stats to check odds against, and look for sound bites. For example Jameson Williams’ offensive coordinator last week saying ‘I’ve failed him, we need to set him up for success’. I had his line pegged around 48.5 yards. Went to check and saw it at 45.5 and had to pounce.”

• Friday and Weekend — “Taking everything I’ve built up through the week and putting it into practice. Jumping on lines I’ve watched since Monday, translating fantasy football knowledge into prop bets, checking which boosts I have left available across my sportsbooks and building parlays that align to the minimum requirements.”

To close, I asked Markot for some memorable stories from his betting career, and advice for new bettors.

Betting Stories and Advice

I asked Markot to go deeper and share some memorable moments, here’s what I heard!

“Four weeks ago, I went to hedge the last leg of a boosted $100 parlay that was on pace to win $1,000. The last leg was totally on track in the first half, with Titans-Cardinals at 17-7 and I needed over 37.5. I meant to type $37.55 as my hedge bet, but I accidentally entered $3,755 while juggling kid duty and the live line. Full panic.”

“My VIP chat ghosted me, their support was slow and I am absolutely panicking. My unit size is typically $50. I got so lucky though, there was a score in the game and I insta-bailed for a $180 profit. Forty-five minutes of sweating, but this was my most memorable of the year.”

In terms of how and where he bets, Markot currently has access to ~12 books; healthy limits on DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars, but his growing sharp activity means Fanatics and Hard Rock won’t take more than $10 and bet365 is basically $1.

Markot’s axioms for new bettors include:

• Discipline is everything. “Stay disciplined for a longer period of time than you want to, right? Don’t chase wins, don’t change unit size, have some patience.” Play the best number, and adjust your stake if you’re late (e.g., if +price moves to -115, consider passing or bet a fractional stake). One of his most valuable lessons was learning not to chase bets with CLV he missed that no longer had value.

• Pick a unit plan and keep it. Don’t chase wins or change stakes after losses. He pre-sets any parlays (mostly boosted) to 0.5u (and 0.2u for ~+2000 ladders).

• Tail fewer bettors, smarter. Find 1–2 trustworthy voices (he learned EV betting from a boosts-maximizer), but don’t tail blindly — test a system over time and if you’re not having fun or it’s not working, recalibrate.

I found our conversation really inspiring!

There are a lot of haughty sharp bettors who believe math is all that matters, and that it’s impossible to find edge through qualitative methods.

Markot is living proof that going deep on teams and players, and applying discipline to pricing, can deliver an excellent ROI and pay for some nice vacations (!!).

Bet(s) of the Week

Last week we went 1-1 in this section, losing 0.25 units on the vig.

We won on Thursday when Derrick Henry cruised past 80 yards (or 88 if you bet at that line) finishing with 119 yards on the ground.

And while the Ravens easily covered the first leg of our Wong Teaser, this gutsy pass by J.J. McCarthy iced their win over the Lions and snuffed our hopes of a Detroit cover on our teased line.

Even so, since starting the newsletter, bets in this section are ahead 23.73 units, with a positive 20% ROI. We’ll update this regularly.

Based on his work, Markot is giving us the following plays this week:

• Jaguars Team Total Under 19.5 @-110 on Hard Rock for 1 unit

The Jags have been a very streaky team and now they will be missing their 2 biggest offensive weapons in Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter. They just traded for Jakobi Meyers but he’s no alpha receiver. Houston’s defense is improving — only giving up 18 points to Denver, a team who scores 25ppg. The Texans have only allowed 20 points to two teams: Seattle and Tampa Bay (both top-tier offenses). I can’t see the Jags get over 20 points in this game (or win the game).

• Justin Herbert Over 20.5 Rush Yards @-110 on BetMGM for 1 unit

Justin Herbert has been using his legs a lot this year, averaging 34 yards/gm. He’s eclipsed this line in 7/9 games — one of those being against Denver who is very stingy against rushing quarterbacks. Pittsburgh seems stingy as well, giving up 12 or fewer rushing yards in 6/8 games. Diving deeper, though, all of those games were against immobile QB’s and the two runners they faced (Drake Maye and Justin Fields) went for 45+ yards each game. Add in Joe Alt’s injury and this is setting up nicely for Herbert to have another 30+ rushing yards in what should be a close tilt Sunday night.