LAS VEGAS — The “20-unit” action first drew my X attention, and not in a good way. I dug deeper to be transported inside “The Producers,” the 1967 silver-screen gem by director Mel Brooks.
Fabulous actor Zero Mostel’s Max Bialystock peddles 25,000% of a play’s interest, hoping to flee to Rio de Janeiro with the embezzled funds.
Max’s partner Leo Bloom, played by the magnificent Gene Wilder, said, “Max, you can only sell a hundred percent of anything!”
On Dec. 11, the “The Bookie Crushers” site on X trumpeted a 20-unit play on Nevada to score more than 76.5 points (at -115 odds, or risk $115 to win $100) against South Dakota State.
A 20-unit wager struck me as incredibly irresponsible, as expert punters typically operate in a precise manner in which they bet a unit, or 1% of a bankroll.
One hundred percent of a bankroll is considered to be 100 units. One-unit bets provide insurance and protection. Hopefully, the unit grows as the bankroll expands. The definition of professional success.
Rarely, I’ve been told, when solid information favors a hockey or baseball favorite, say, should that wager drift around 2%.
With a public note to Bookie Crushers, I inquired about the absurdity of a 20-unit play. I received a message admitting that such action isn’t common.
“Wish me luck,” he added. For this piece, let’s call him Max.
Nevada won 77-63. With 67 seconds left, 6-10, 240-pound junior Nick Davidson sailed in for a dunk and the Wolf Pack’s final points to win that selection for Bookie Crushers.
By half a point.
I excavated to find that on that Wednesday, Crushers also touted three other 20-unit plays, four of the 10-unit variety, plus other bets that would cost 19, 9.9, 9 and 8.3 units.
In that single day, Max seemingly promoted risking 146% of a bankroll.
It appeared Zero Mostel, who died in 1977, had a worthy protégé.
It’s wise to be leery about social media, to parse through the bet-speak and camouflage and trickery and seek the truth.
ESPN’s “odds boost,” how it pushes its sports-betting appendage, is a fine example. It’s a flowery term for “parlay,” without using “parlay,” what every pro punter avoids like a stinky restroom.
On their popular The Bookie vs. The Bostonian podcast, which celebrated its third anniversary recently, Dave Sharapan and Matt Perrault regularly smoke out such industry duplicity.
Sharapan reposted a Casino Reports piece that chronicled a hypothetical bettor, accustomed to $20 wagers, being down $437 on ESPN Bet over the course of 20 days by following its odds-boosting format.
In that three- and four-leg-parlay world, a theoretical bankroll would have avoided further losses because of some high-odds wagers that did hit.
However, Casino Reports contends that such a profile of a typical recreational bettor wouldn’t have had the stomach to endure, to patiently await those winners, during a streak of 19 consecutive losing bets between Nov. 20-25.
I’ve also had several chats with Sharapan about NBAer Kevin Durant, who somehow was given a FanDuel platform to offer weekly NFL picks.
Commence widespread giggling.
After fans criticized his losers, Durant barked back, “When u [sic] lose, there’s finger pointing. When u [sic] win, there’s gloating about how smart you are about seeing the future. No gratitude to the service workers like myself.
“I’m sick of it.”
I’m sick of Durant’s carnival-barker posturing. He couldn’t possibly need the FanDuel money. Through this season, the service worker will have made nearly $400 million in the NBA, with another $106 million due through 2027.
Nor could Durant have believed that he’d fare well. We’d venture that he’d do just as poorly selecting NBA games. That, though, would violate NBA rules.
It should be illegal for any pro athlete to offer gambling advice about any sport, first. Second, FanDuel knows better. Then again, in that relationship, it’s the lone benefactor.
Which brings us back to Bookie Crushers, an X site for two years with 2,000 followers that boasts of winning “the long game.”
In my first DM to Max, he admitted that 20-unit plays “are rare and irresponsible,” but he is very risk-tolerant.
In fact, his 20 units are not 20 actual units. He operates on a scale in which 20 units represent 3%-4% of his bankroll.
It’s just easier, he wrote, and more aesthetically pleasing than dealing with decimals. Max said, “It’s an inflated/aggrandized scale.”
That’s fair. He sometimes provides nutshell analyses and deals with all sports. Max has followers who praise him for his work.
At random, I picked two recent plays, a college hoops side and an Italian soccer under. Both lost. It’s a free service, so bettors can fade or follow Max, betting what they desire.
But it definitely appears Max puts a lot more into this than Durant.
“It’s a passion of mine so it doesn’t feel like work at all,” Max wrote. “I also found that posting on X made me practice more discipline, because of the accountability factor, which helps me be more profitable in the long run.
“I love the challenge and strategy of navigating the sports-betting landscape. The research/breakdown process in finding plays and allocating appropriate sizing is usually even more fun to me than picking the bet or watching the games.”
