Episode 209: MyBookie.net and betting on pinball

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·21m 1s·analyzed·Jul 20, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

MyBookie.net brings online sports betting to pinball tournaments with $100 max bets and responsible gaming controls.

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews David Strauss from MyBookie.net about online betting on pinball tournaments, particularly through the Stern Pro Circuit. The discussion covers the legality of online sports betting, safeguards against match-fixing and problem gambling, odds-setting methodology using IFPA statistics, and various prop bets. While acknowledging pinball's historical gambling-related bans, both speakers frame modern regulated betting as transparent and community-protective.

Key Claims

MyBookie.net has $100 maximum bet limits per user account on pinball tournaments to prevent odds manipulation and match-fixing risks
high confidence · David Strauss explicitly states the $100 limit multiple times and explains the reasoning—lower information asymmetry in pinball vs traditional sports
Pinball players are prohibited from betting on tournaments in which they compete, with the same rule applied to officials and coaches
high confidence · David Strauss: 'They are not allowed to bet on my bookie or any place in a tournament that they're included in because then they would be disqualified' and compares to Ultimate Frisbee League requirements
At the 2024 Stern Pro Circuit, Andy Rosa won at 80-to-1 odds; a $100 bet on him paid $8,000, more than triple the $3,000 tournament prize plus a pinball machine
high confidence · David Strauss: 'the guy that won, I believe. Andy Rosa. He was at 80 to 1 and someone had put $100 on him. So that person won $8,000. I believe the tournament only paid $3,000 to Andy for winning it. Andy actually won a pinball machine as well'
Making a bet on offshore sports betting sites is legal in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces; no one has been prosecuted for placing a bet
medium confidence · David Strauss claims 'The actual making of a bet is legal regardless of where you are. No one's ever been prosecuted for doing it' and references gaming law expert Nelson Rose
MyBookie.net uses IFPA website statistics as the primary basis for setting initial odds on pinball tournaments
high confidence · David Strauss: 'We use the IFPA website. It's got a great statistics section to sort of determine who's good and who isn't, who wins or who gets in the finals. And then we just set the odds based on that'
MyBookie.net has lifetime bans and cross-site sharing protocols for users flagged as problem gamblers based on deposit patterns
high confidence · David Strauss: 'If you even mention a hint of a gambling problem to us or if we notice a change in your depositing and playing patterns that would indicate to us that you have a gambling problem, you're banned for life from our site and we mark you so that other sites know it as well'

Notable Quotes

“It lends itself very well to gambling because of the point system and the different levels you can achieve and things like that. So it really goes hand in hand with betting.”
David Strauss @ ~2:30 — Explains why MyBookie chose to enter pinball betting; highlights game design factors that facilitate wagering
“I just don't see a tournament director sullying his name to make a quick buck. You know, everyone in pinball, what I've learned over the past six months, they're very passionate. You guys love this sport.”
David Strauss @ ~12:00 — Expresses confidence in pinball community integrity despite acknowledging theoretical match-fixing risks
“The actual making of a bet is legal regardless of where you are. No one's ever been prosecuted for doing it. No one's been jailed. No one's even gone in the remotest bit of trouble.”
David Strauss @ ~14:30 — Claims legal safety of offshore betting; directly addresses listener concerns about legality
“I know it's an offshore website, as many gambling sites are... I just thought of the history of pinball and how it was once banned because there was some gambling issues.”
Jeff Teolis @ ~13:00 — Articulates concern about repeating pinball's historical gambling-related bans; frames modern betting in historical context
“People like these sort of things, to say the least. I think it has a lot to do with just, you want to tell your friends, hey, I bet on this, I bet on that a lot more than I took the Patriots to win or I played Keith Elwin to win Pinberg.”
David Strauss @ ~32:00 — Explains appeal of prop bets as social currency; reveals why unusual bets drive engagement and revenue
“I saw my name in there. And I was like, whoa, that's... I just thought of the history of pinball and how it was once banned because there was some gambling issues.”
Jeff Teolis @ ~9:30 — Personal reaction to being included in betting odds; triggers reflection on pinball's regulatory history
“With credit card, that's the usual place where you're going to spot these guys. And the pattern is basically they're the positive $100 every two weeks... But then all of a sudden, you'll notice maybe they've gone on a bad streak, and they start at $500 every week, and then it's $500 every other day.”

Entities

MyBookie.netcompanyDavid StrausspersonJeff Teolisperson Stern Pro Circuitevent IFPAorganization Andy RosapersonJosh Schulteperson

Signals

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business_signal: Problem gambling risks and ethical implications of targeting niche communities (pinball, eSports, Ultimate Frisbee) where data asymmetry may be high and community oversight minimal; death pool betting particularly controversial
high · Jeff Teolis expresses offense at death pools: 'People are degenerates if they're betting on that'; David Strauss acknowledges ethical gray area but frames as acceptable risk; $10 death pool limits acknowledged as token
?
business_signal: MyBookie.net described as 'fastest growing company in the industry' with year-over-year growth; entering niche markets like pinball to establish early foothold before competitors
medium · David Strauss: 'We're the fastest growing company in the industry right now... It's also sort of a niche growing market, and we try to get into those early before anyone else does'
?
community_signal: Historical concern about repeating pinball's 1930s-1940s gambling-ban era; Jeff Teolis explicitly references this as interview motivates concerns, suggesting some community anxiety about legitimacy regression
medium · Jeff Teolis: 'I just thought of the history of pinball and how it was once banned because there was some gambling issues... And now we're seeing this again'
?
community_signal: Pinball community largely pro-integrity; David Strauss expresses confidence that tournament directors would not risk reputation for match-fixing payoffs despite theoretical incentives
medium · David Strauss: 'I just don't see a tournament director sullying his name to make a quick buck... they're very passionate. You guys love this sport'
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.063

0:00

Hey, Fred, how about a game of marbles? Marbles? Come right in, boy. I need somebody to practice with. I have to get real good. Hey, tell you what, Fred. We'll play for a nickel if you want to bet. Bet?

0:14

Bet? It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. and please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. I don't know about you, but I know that I have played pinball with friends for years and years, and sometimes we do little dollar games. In Canada, we call them loony throwdowns, where somebody who wins might take the loonies. Is it on the up and up? I don't know. It's fun. It's what friends do. Something else is now being done, and we saw this at the Stern Pro Circuit. You can actually bet on pinball players online through mybookie.net, and David Strauss from mybookie joins us right now. Hi, David. How are you? Hi, Jeff. How are you? Thanks very much. So what got you and my bookie into pinball, of all things? Well, it lends itself very well to gambling because of the point system and the different levels you can achieve and things like that. So it really goes hand in hand with betting. It's also sort of a niche growing market, and we try to get into those early before anyone else does. So it was a good option. There's a good community. The IFPA is a very robust site. There's a lot of people involved in it, so it's a good thing for us to do because people are excited about pinball already, and we add the odds. I think it adds excitement to it. As I'm sure you've seen, there are rules for the players themselves. They are not allowed to bet on my bookie or any place in a tournament that they're included in because then they would be disqualified. So what did you think when you heard that rule was put in place? That's common for anything. I mean, we're doing Ultimate Frisbee odds as well for the Ultimate Frisbee League, Again, before we posted the odds, they made sure that all their players had signed a document saying that they won't bet on the games. They made sure that the officials signed the same document and the coaches and things like that. So betting on the game that you're playing in is taboo regardless of what the sport is. Now you mentioned something about officials. That's one thing about pinball. There really aren't officials per matches in a sense. It's kind of self-policed. The players in a group of four or a head-to-head match will maybe watch over each other, maybe not. Just honor system in that way. Is that a concern at all? You know, it makes me wonder. I look at some of the other things you can bet online. You can bet on the big four sports and hockey and baseball and basketball and football. Those are all officiated. Now, we also know about what happened in the NBA years ago where the referee got 25 years in jail for point shaving and fixing games. So I guess the refs aren't always on the up and up, but let's just assume they are. In pinball, there isn't any refereeing. There isn't any officiating other than tournament directors who are also likely playing in the tournament. With the validity of the results, I think this is what the question is gearing towards. I find, so first the limits aren't high enough that anyone could fix a pinball tournament and walk away a king, shall we say. You can bet $100 on these events. If you hit a long shot, you will for the Stern Pro Tournament, for instance, the guy that won, I believe. Andy Rosa. He was at 80 to 1 and someone had put $100 on him. So that person won $8,000. I believe the tournament only paid $3,000 to Andy for winning it. So there are situations where, yes, it could happen, but I think that with the community that pinball has, for someone to do that, they would be ostracized from it. I think the chances are fairly low that it would happen. Andy actually won a pinball machine as well, so he won well over $8,000. So that being said, though, you've just given the scenario where it could be beneficial to tank it. And, yes, the maximum bet is $100 on one user account. There's nothing really preventing anybody from having a few bets on a person. With multiple accounts, I mean, the thing that prevents that is my bookmakers are very skilled, and they spot that very quickly, and you wouldn't get the same odds. So the first bet would come in at 81. The next one would be 60 to 1 and 40 to 1 and so on. So we react to everything that comes in. So the odds do change. Yep. So for Pinberg, there's been a lot of action on Escher. We dropped him from 25 to 1 to 12 to 1. Okay. That being said, I was in that Stern Pro Circuit, and much to my surprise, I saw my name in there. And I was like, whoa, that's... I just thought of the history of pinball and how it was once banned because there was some gambling issues. There were concerns that the game was not a game of skill. That was probably the biggest reason. But there were gambling issues. And now we're seeing this again. And let's just be honest. Like, MyBookie.net was the first to do it and, you know, very, very proactive in doing that. eSports, all other sports, people jump on this kind of stuff. Whether it's online or not, betting has been happening. I gave the example of loony throwdowns. This stuff happens all the time. Friendly wagers between friends, if you will. So when I saw my name on there, I was wondering, oh, I didn't know how to feel because I thought, okay, I certainly have no interest in betting on myself. I also have no interest in betting against me. As a person who could make somebody benefit or lose money, there was an awkward feeling for me personally. And I wonder, have you had any feedback from players? Example can players opt out They could in theory If they contacted us we would take them off They would just slot into the field auction though So we have to have everyone accounted for in one way or another so that whoever wins the event we can result the market So if we take a person name out and they win, what do we do with all the other bets? So we can take them out and put them in the field. The New York City Championship is a good example. It wasn't known for sure whether Keith Elwin would be going or not. So the field bet wasn't that great of a payoff because if Keith's in that field, Well, the field just got a lot more attractive. Yeah, and we moved up fairly quickly on the field for the New York City Pinball Championships. Our information is fairly good. We're good at finding out these sort of things, so as soon as we know, we do adjust the odds. You talk about getting the information. Who sets the odds? Is that my bookie? Are you getting information? Are you going off of IFPA? What determines the numbers that you come out with? We use the IFPA website. It's got a great statistics section to sort of determine who's good and who isn't, who wins or who gets in the finals. And then we just set the odds based on that. Once they're done, I do have a few people who know pinball, and I send the odds to them just to give them a chance to look it over to see if we're really wrong anywhere. And if we are, they tell us, and then we adjust it. I know it's an offshore website, as many gambling sites are. In fact, mybookie.ag is, I guess, really the website, although you can get there through mybookie.net. Is this legal in every state, every province? Is there any issues? I know with the poker sites, for example, they ban those in the U.S. Is this something that is not an issue in any of the states or provinces? The actual making of a bet is legal regardless of where you are. No one's ever been prosecuted for doing it. No one's been jailed. No one's even gone in the remotest bit of trouble. And that's whether you're placing a bet with us offshore or your local bookie on the street corner. So the placing of a bet is completely above board. and there's you know if you look at nelson rose who's a gaming law expert um he's commented that and it's true that there's no federal law that makes it a crime to make a bet so for people playing it's totally legal there's nothing illegal about it nothing shady or things like that you know everything you're doing is above board david you mentioned the 100 maximum bet is that a way to kind of keep odds in line so that they're not always readjusting so that a lot of you know money gets put down on a certain thing. I mean, in a heavyweight fight, for example, if a lot of money goes on one fighter, that is going to significantly change the odds. And I assume that would be the case in pinball. It would. And the reason the limits are lower for pinball is simply we don't have the sort of information that we would have for boxing or football or NBA basketball. I'm also well aware that pretty much everyone in the pinball community knows more than I do. You know, I have to take that into account when setting the limits. So I'm not going to put the limit of $1,000, knowing that everyone betting has more knowledge than I do. I'm learning quickly. I am a quick study, but I'm not fully embedded in the lifestyle to know everything that's happening. In football, it's the same game every single time. Three points for a field goal, six for a touchdown. There's the point after. You've got 60 minutes, four quarters. It's 100 yards. It's the same playing field every single time. In pinball, well, you've got old machines. You've got some solid states. You've got wide bodies. You've got new machines. You've got machines that are just introduced. You've got some of the people actually coding and making the games in the contest. So, in a sense, if a tournament director was running a tournament and they may or may not have money on a person, they could legitimately say, well, I know that person really is good at this game or, conversely, horrible at this game. That could be influential in a way. Again, is that why you keep the bet at $100 maximum so that it's not something that's super significant? It could fly under the radar, that kind of underhand dealing. It's one of the reasons that regardless of the sport you're dealing, that possibility always exists. So for me, I mean, with pinball, I just don't see a tournament director sullying his name to make a quick buck. You know, everyone in pinball, what I've learned over the past six months, they're very passionate. You guys love this sport. I could not fathom a tournament director blowing everything they've worked so hard to build for a quick hit. I mean, as you said, it's self-police, so people would probably sniff out that something is amiss. Sure, but what if, and this is a lot of what ifs, what if it's my last tournament? I'm moving out of state, this is my last one. Might as well make a buck. I've been running this thing. I've been not making a dime. I've been sweating over this thing. There could be some kind of foul play in that sense. I know you have some people on the inside, and you use the IFPA stats, but there is a pretty good history of players still playing today that have been caught cheating, that have been maybe banned for some period of time, that have been banned outright. So it's not, unfortunately, a perfect community in that sense. It's disappointing that that exists regardless of the sport that you're in. Didn't they say in baseball, if you're not cheating, you're not trying? I think that's true in all sports, to tell you the truth. Probably. You know what? You're probably right.

10:10

So for those players, that's just a risk that we're willing to accept, that it may happen. We'll take the financial hit. that person will take the hit to their reputation and their tournament and everything else. It's not much risk compared to what someone else would put on the line, you know risking selling their name There will be one or two people willing to do it but I think by and large most won David I asking these questions just as I thinking of what people are thinking as they listening to this interview Myself, I've got money action on almost, I do, on every single football game in the NFL season. I bet on every single game. I'm in different pools where, I'm in a pool where you bet the spread on every single game, and it's basically $10 a game, and at the end of the year, you go up, you go down, or whatever, and that's kind of how it works, and it's, did you beat everybody in the pool? There are fantasy pools. And I know mybookie.net is not a draft or fantasy website, but I've got money on World Series winners. When I was just in Vegas at Pin Masters, I made sure I put a couple of bets on. Well, people want to know who I picked. I picked Philly and Atlanta as long shots. Those are the ones I thought might get out of there, but they've got to get by the Dodgers. It could be tough. Anyway, that is a side note. Hey, listen, I bet. I obviously have not touched pinball, but there are a lot of people that have, and this has grown from the Stern Pro Circuit. Now you have some very, I found, comical prop bets. I saw the little podcaster streamer one I was included into, which I thought was a little silly and funny. And I'm personally not offended. It doesn't do anything to me. I am somebody that bets. I'm also responsible. And I do know that there are people that unfortunately have lost a lot to gambling. In Canada, in Ontario, where I live, there's a thing called responsible gaming. You can sign up for it. It's voluntary. and you're not allowed to go to a casino, whether it's facial recognition, ID, whatever it is, you can't go into a casino when you have a problem. There are Gamblers Anonymous and things like that. Is there anything preventing those type of people from the website? If you even mention a hint of a gambling problem to us or if we notice a change in your depositing and playing patterns that would indicate to us that you have a gambling problem, you're banned for life from our site and we mark you so that other sites know it as well. I'm curious, and it's none of my business, but I am just curious that you said that. What is something that would flag somebody, like obviously going deep into credit card? I haven't signed up, obviously. Is it a credit card that you sign up with? Is it a bank account? How does this work? Credit card, or you can do an e-check transfer or Bitcoin bank wires. So with credit card, that's the usual place where you're going to spot these guys. And the pattern is basically they're the positive $100 every two weeks. So on payday, they're clearly putting $100 in and get a little bit of action down. But then all of a sudden, you'll notice maybe they've gone on a bad streak, and they start at $500 every week, and then it's $500 every other day, and then it's $500 every day. So that person right there probably has a problem. So we're going to call them up and say, hey, what's going on here? Why are you betting like this? Would you contact the credit card company to see, you know, are they maxed out or anything like that? They wouldn't share that with any casino anyways. Okay. There's no point to call them, yeah. I wonder if the credit card companies would do that. They tend not to, is the best way to put it. They'll let people, as long as they're paying their balances, they'll let you buy whatever you want. A credit card really is too restrictive on what you can use it for. Yeah, that's a whole other topic about how they make money and how they keep people in an endless cycle of debt. And just, yeah, just do the minimum payment. It'll take 47 years to pay it off mathematically. But let's talk about some of the things on there. So for Pinball, for Pinberg, what are some of the weird ones you got? Well, I think the group odds have gotten the most sort of attention because we grouped them with the Dead Flip group. There's the Podcasters group, the Best in group, which is your top players. So those have gotten attention. I've seen them being talked about. The USA has also been pretty popular, and Josh Schulte, the Finnish second, is taking quite a few bets, actually. I totally feel responsible for that bet being made, that prop bet. Of all the harassments, I mean, all the brilliant observations that I've made about Josh, and now that's something that's on my bookie. So, yeah, that's kind of funny. Anyway. I mean, the props, our goal is to get people talking about it. Okay. These are a little more fun to debate versus just the straight odds to win. And if you check throughout the site, we have these props regardless of what the sport is. For instance, golf, the British Open this week, we did Phil Mickelson to hit his patented backward shot. People love the prop bets. and I was first aware of them obviously with football. How long is the national anthem going to be? Is it going to be heads? Is it going to be tails? Are they going to receive? Is the first point going to be a safety? All those kind of bizarre things. It's really gone on, and it's not just in major sports now. We're talking about pinball, but something that's been really big over the last several years, betting on politics, so you can bet on who's going to win the U.S. presidential election in 2020.

15:06

We are personally masters of the political prospects and that sort of thing, So we take a surprising amount of money. It seems that the more strange and scary it is, the more people like to bet it. For instance, our most popular Super Bowl prop was, will the first couple shown in a commercial be interracial or not? Wow. That took over $100,000. Are you kidding me? People like these sort of things, to say the least. I think it has a lot to do with just, you want to tell your friends, hey, I bet on this, I bet on that a lot more than I took the Patriots to win or I played Keith Elwin to win Pinberg I saw that you can even bet on who the next Pope will be That very popular again those sort of things Where there no I mean you have an idea of who it is based on the last Papal Conference So that's sort of how you set those odds, because you actually can see the results of the voting. And that comes in closer to when they do this selection of the new Pope. The money coming in, it's staggering. That sort of thing is popular across the world. It's not just our site. It's all the books in Europe. The amount of action that our next pope probably hits conservatively $100 million. Oh, my goodness. And that, with the exception of the past pope, really is determined by the death of somebody. But let's go on further. You've got a death pool on mybookie.net. I'm a little offended by that one. That's my little side hobby, shall we say, is seeing what sort of matchups I can put that are, I won't say the most offensive, but that make people think. So we have Charlie Sheen versus Magic Johnson, for instance, is one of the matchups. That's just you taking money. I mean, that payoff may not happen 50 years from now. The site may be come and gone. Let's be honest. That's the truth. You know, there's no denying that. Okay, people are degenerates if they're betting on that. I've said it. I'm not going to argue that point. But you'll take their money. So the limit on this is $10. Okay. So if someone is putting up $10 to basically tell their friends, I bet on Prince Philip to die before Queen Elizabeth. Stop. Oh, I hate it. Listen, I get the pinball thing. I get the eSports. I get all that stuff because it exists anyway. I understand that. So, well, I know you're sleeping at night, David. And, you know, it's on the up and up. It is legal in every state, as you had mentioned. It's grown in popularity because I've seen this. I think you've got some other events for pinball coming up. I know, I assume you saw a lot of action on the first pinball or enough to make it happen. I mean, really, it costs nothing for you to put up odds. Hopefully, you're within the right range statistically. I mean, so that you don't, you know, lose your shirt if everyone's betting on the same person kind of thing. But, again, the odds change. So it's all kind of a good formula for you in a sense to make a buck. And if people are going to spend it, I guess, you know, might as well do it on mybookie.net, correct? For us, we are, I think, the most fun online sportsbook that you can play at. We take a lot of risks. We push the boundaries of pretty much everything. And that translates well to the gambling community. So we're very popular. We're growing year over year rapidly. We're the fastest growing company in the industry right now. and I expect that to continue for many years to come. David, where do you take the big risks? Where are the big hits? I've heard some weeks in the NFL where the bookies in Vegas will say, we lost our shirt this week. Maybe it was 12 upsets or something like that. Are the upsets what hurt sites like yours? The upsets and parlays when people have all the favorites linked together and they all come in. But usually for an upset, when an underdog winning, that's generally very beneficial to us. No one ever bets them. Oh, okay. So the biggest football season is where we're going to see our biggest swings. Generally, like I won't lie, it's pretty positive for us. But you do have one week a month where it all goes to crap. But again, like the other three weeks make up for it, so you really don't dwell on it. If you are interested in making any kind of bets and you want to do it on mybookie.net, they have a promotion. They will match 50% of your first-time deposit. So that's basically free money. You just can't put it in and take it out. You have to obviously gamble that. And you know what? In some ways, I guess a lot of people talk about pinball wanting to become a real sport, a real hobby, whatever the case may be. We want to see the numbers go up on Twitch. We want to see it on ESPN. We want to see it grow and grow and grow. Well, Pinberg is the Super Bowl of pinball, if you will. Super Bowl has a lot of betting action. More than anything else, more people watch that thing than anything else. I guess it goes hand in hand that this was eventually going to happen. And it probably happened already underground. I know some great players that have been doing fantasy pinball and pinbird for not 20 years, but near close. So it's been around. Now it's just online. And you can do that at mybookie.net. David, I appreciate you giving us all the information. And thank you very much for coming on Pinball Profile. And thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. And I hope that with our odds, we can do our little bit to help advance pinball and push it more into the mainstream and grow the popularity of the sport. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. I'm Jeff Teolas. Born a natural loser. I can't recall the swear. Raised on cool and poker and a dollar here and there. Blackjack and dealer man, you better pay off that last debt. Two-bit hand of 21 is all I ever get. Go down, gather.