The below assessment was posted to the Telegram Trading channel (https://t.me/tspfma) and is provided under the disclaimer at http://TSP.Live/trading-content-disclaimer/. Always consult with a licensed financial professional before trading.
I am posting the assessment here on the website because it illustrates so much that is important to successful sports betting…not just investing. There are always going to be critics when a bet loses or the content has a bad day, week, or month. True success in sports betting or investing is not achieved based on day to day or week to week performance. Anyone can be successful in the short-term…and many are. It’s who is left standing in the long-term that counts.
Below is what I posted to the Telegram Trading channel on August 4th, 2023…
Assessment: DraftKings (DKNG) reported earnings after the bell and did great…the stock then shot up 11.5% and as I am writing this the stock is now up 12.54% to $33.75. Back on January 3rd, 2022, I purchased this stock for $28.06. At $33.75, as of this morning, it is a gain of +20.27% over a period of 19 months. On the same day I purchased DKNG, the S&P 500 tracking stock (SPY) closed at $477.71. Currently, SPY sits at $448.84, or a loss of -6.0% during that same time period. So, my trade outperformed the S&P 500, the mutual fund benchmark, by +26.3%! Not too shabby.
The above trade does not include when I doubled my position down at $13.57, which dollar cost averaged me down. It is something I discussed doing in the FMA, but did not report publicly on Telegram. It dollar cost averaged me down to an average share price $20.82…thereby giving me an effective ROI of +62.2%. It won’t play into any public performance tracking, but just that I did not lose faith in the trade, even when it collapsed.
I easily received 20-25 emails which criticized my trade when DKNG was falling down all last year. I did not exit and held to my guns, including buying additional shares. I explained to these critics that I knew the gambling business…and especially the sports gambling business. I stated that when sportsbooks launch they spend a ton of money on marketing and promotion to acquire clients, It takes them heavily in the red, but that then they ramp this spending back dramatically…and still have all those clients and those profits to come without needing to continually market to them. A good drug dealer doesn’t need marketing once his product gets out there…and gambling is as good a drug as anything. So, for the critics, I told you there would come a day when you would see the value in the trade. I could not prove it to you all last year while you had your fun telling me I was an idiot as DKNG collapsed, and that I was chasing good money after bad or that the trade had no hope.
Yes, I am stressing a point here. I do not care about the criticism. I am not even here to flex on the trade. My purpose is to illustrate a point I try to make over and over again in sports betting…don’t sweat the short term. If you have a sound strategy, a time tested strategy, then you will always get paid in the long-term. You just have to be patient. There are people who quit the Telegram trading channel because DraftKings did not make money immediately. There are people who decided to buy when I did and then sold their shares at a loss last year, despite me saying this was ALWAYS a long-term trade…and remains one for me.
Long story short, don’t sweat the day to day, week to week, even month to month in any type of investment…stocks, options, sports. Stay the course, be disciplined and reap the rewards while the mental midgets who lack any fortitude or backbone continue chasing the “get rich quick” dream.
I’ll even bring up my story of the first big parlay I hit, which I have brought up a few times this week to illustrate a point. It was in September 2008 (https://tsp.live/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/TSP-Newsletter-Parlay.jpg). I started betting offshore in 1993 (yes, underaged) and was wagering $5 and $10. I dreamed of one day betting $5,000 and $10,000 on a bet. It took me 8 years (2001) before I wagered $5,000 and then $10,000 on a single bet. I didn’t do it regularly then either, just an NFL game I liked and then a bowl game I really liked (THANK YOU WASHINGTON! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Rose_Bowl)…and which I got information on from my connection to World Sports Exchange. It would take another 7 years before I started taking shots at six figure parlays and hit my first one. If you told me in 1993 when I was betting $5 and $10 that one day I would cash a six figure parlay, I would have been elated, but thought you were nuts. No, it did not happen on a “get rich quick” timeline, but after failures along the way and plenty of losses. Through a lot of effort, I finally got to the point of profiting in sports (around 2000…after working in the offshore sportsbook industry and learning a ton from my betting Yoda) and then cashed that first six figure ticket!
Don’t rush greatness…be patient, have a plan, stay disciplined, accept failures and you can get there. This is not so much about DraftKings, but the result in DKNG allows me to emphasize an important point in whatever you do. Don’t be a spineless mental midget, nothing great comes through weakness nor does it come fast. Put in the time, effort, blood, sweat and tears…and if you hold the line…and power through failures, because there will be plenty…you will be rewarded. To quote Teddy Roosevelt, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.“
Good luck in your trades!