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Sports Betting Apps Are Even More Toxic Than You Thought

Pro bettors have taken to disguising themselves as gambling addicts
so sportsbooks keep the free money flowing.

[-1x-1]
Illustration: Nathan McKee for Bloomberg Businessweek
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By Ira Boudway
September 27, 2024 at 7:00 AM EDT
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Among the main challenges for a pro bettor is finding places that
will take your money. If you show signs of being good, or even just
highly methodical, most sportsbooks will drastically limit how much
you can wager. But there are ways around this. Sharps, as pros are
known, often employ surrogates to place bets on their behalf in
exchange for a share of the winnings. Or they "prime" their accounts
by making wagers that a casual bettor, or square, typically would.

"If I open an account in New York, maybe for a few weeks I just bet
the Yankees right before the game begins," says Rufus Peabody, a pro
bettor and co-host of the Bet the Process podcast. If this trick
works, the book sees these normie, hometown bets as a sign that it's
safe to raise his limits. That gives Peabody a bigger purse to work
with when he switches to making bets he thinks will pay out--and that
the book will likely recognize as coming from a skilled player. The
idea is to win as much as you can before the house catches on.

 
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