Oh My Yosh!

Although I pretty much ignore the murky world of tipsters, this story of Darren Rovell appeared on my timeline and might be of interest to some of you familiar with the Action Network. 

Darren Rovell, the former ESPN sports business reporter who currently works for the Action Network, a subscriber-based sports gambling information website, found himself under intense scrutiny after gambling aficionados on Twitter posted evidence he’d edited his bets after they’d been placed. And those bets were originally larger by many orders of magnitude than his usual bet sizes.

The importance of measuring the success of a tipster or system against level stakes is highlighted, in particular by the use of "yoshing", a term I hadn't heard before, although the strategy wasn't new.

Why would a gambler place bets like these? According to one bettor knowledgeable about sports wagering who agreed to speak with me on the condition of anonymity, the practice of suddenly and randomly increasing bet sizing by several orders is commonly referred to as “yoshing.”

When a sports tout is facing a losing record at the end of a sports season, there’s not much downside in placing wild bets that, if they pay out, give the appearance of a positive year overall.

“If you win, great, you can claim you finished the season a winner,” the bettor said. “If you lose, who cares? You were already in the red.”

As noted above, Rovell denied he was yoshing at the end of the college basketball season, but rather blamed the error on his unfamiliarity with certain aspects of gambling.

To be taken seriously, anyone claiming success needs their results to be verifiable. This is easy enough for pre-off bets, since there are published Closing Odds or sports databases available, but it's a challenge for those who make claims about being profitable on in-play betting.

Aside from the time needed for the latter, there's no guarantee that money will be available at a value price (if you're using the exchange) or that the bet will be accepted (if using a sportsbook). 

If you can make money betting in-play, then good for you, but because it is essentially anecdotal, and unverifiable, it's really not something worth sharing.