Domer, the Expert in Prediction Markets | Sponsored by Novig

On this week's Bet the Process Podcast, we have on Domer, who is the biggest prediction market expert better. He was just on 60 minutes. He's going to be on Novig's podcast also, and it's great because Novig sponsors this podcast, and if you want to go check out the best in sports prediction markets, go check them out and get a bonus by putting in the promo code BTP. Should go check it out, but I think it's a fascinating interview. A lot about the process of how he figures out things. So we live by our rule bet the process. And with that, let's start the process. Welcome to another episode of the Bet the Process Podcast. For Rufus is incredulous. He's just learned that the Bet the Process heater might be over. It's so we were one and two last week, Ruf. I literally thought I was like, I feel like I probably went three. No, I don't remember what Pix I did except Louisiana Monroe. And I know the other two weren't particularly cool. The other one. Because Penn State, but that Penn State line moved a lot. It ended at 14. Yeah, but Rutgers. I mean, Rutgers like kind of played better than Penn State did. Oh, yeah, they played well. And then Virginia Tech, I kind of all much it was really never in that game. Virginia Tech was awful, man. I watched part of that game. That was just so that was another one of your pets. They suck. But you Elman Roe was a was a was a banger for sure. Well, sorry. We were going to get a relatively short, because we have an awesome interview with Dohmur. I didn't really know much about him. Obviously, I'd listen to the risk of ruin. And I saw his thing about the JD Vance thing, which was really cool on 60 minutes. And then we found out that he was also going to be on NoVigs podcasts this week. So we're going to beat them out. But I hope that NoVig obviously sponsors this podcast. So we feel bad. That's fake rivalry content. But maybe we-- what's the name of their podcast? Pernictive programming. Yeah. So we'll just at least give them a shot. This is all for more. You want more. NoVig more Dohmur content after hearing the definitive best interview that he's ever done with us, with us period, or with us, more different best best interview, most bestest, most bestest interview. Asbestos. How's your week, Rufus? How was called football? Like, do you said you've had two great weeks, one amazingly bad week, and where was last week? We've had our fourth straight week that had a seven figure swing. This one was a good one again. Oh, nice. So very good. What was it fed by mostly? College basketball. Your back? More back. College football was solid as well. Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah, I had to-- And then, yeah, I've been doing a lot obviously in the market making stuff as well. And that's doing well for you. Is that size? Yeah, there's a lot of size there. OK. What for-- I'm not doing the size of our boy Golden Pants. He's like, did 125 million shares last week or something, and absolutely insane. I don't know how it's possible. But you did like, I don't know, 12 million or so. There's this whole world out there right and nothing about it. Yeah. Mr. Pants. And look, I hate to say this, but I'm kind of-- and Tom gives me a shit about it. But I love that there's a leaderboard, and I can see where I am on it. Well, it's not about money. It's about a scoreboard, right? It's interesting. And you and I can maybe have a conversation about this offline. But it's interesting that we talk to Don Merlor about therapy, and you were like cheering that he does therapy. It was like, hilarious, because he is incredibly self-aware. And I would consider you to be incredibly not self-aware. Are you serious? Yes, I am. OK. OK. I think we can agree to disagree here. That in itself is a true small point. But we can have a whole conversation about this offline at some point. It's just funny that I vehemently disagree. And I don't know what else to say. This is going to be one that's easy to know. Do you even know me? Do you even know me? Do you even know me? I do know you very well. OK. Yeah, I do. But we can have a real conversation about where I think your blind spots are around self-awareness. OK. Yeah. And it's not-- I'm not insulting you. I love you, buddy. But it's just funny, because that is-- when I listen to Don Merlor talk about it, I knew right away I'm like, this guy's been in some real therapy and understand. But it's interesting, because he was basically saying, this self-awareness came before the therapy, which I thought was really, really interesting, because, again, self-awareness to me is like-- What is self-awareness to you? Maybe that's a better question. What is self-awareness to you? Really understanding how you think about the world and where your faults are and what you-- and kind of just being OK with what your faults are, like an understanding that those faults are there and then having the ability to think about how to correct them. Yeah. And you don't-- OK. We can have a conversation about this. And I don't want you to get offended by it, because I'm not trying to offend you. Honestly, I am a little offended, Jeff, because I feel like that's-- I know one of the things that-- OK. I would say that I have-- I think I understand myself pretty well. I will give you an example of it off-air, and then we can go from there. Well, no, I don't want to keep this on air. What? Let's keep it on air. Why not? No, because then I don't want to offend you. We're in a good spot. We're not mad at each other these days. We're not fighting. I don't want to get in a fight with you. Fine. Now, you're mad that I won't do it on air. So now we're in a fight about us not doing it on air. No, it's OK. Two bickering couples. OK, let's give the kids what they really want, which is the Bethaprasis heater. There's not many college picks. So hopefully there's some value there. Yeah, yeah. So we have-- I mean, if it wasn't any surprise, we like Indiana. What were they-- Where were they when you bought them 5 1/2, I assume? 5 1/2, a little six. It's refreshing my score now. Good for now. It's for now. But I make it 1 1/2, 1/2. 1/2.6. So I think there's value there on Indiana. Another one I like is BYU. They're getting 13 points against Texas Tech. And they're-- I don't know. The ratings just came out yesterday. I know BYU had gotten no respect last week. I wonder if they've gotten respect. I haven't actually looked. But we make that BYU game, let's see, a little shy of 10. So 13s can value. Anything else? Nope, we're just going to 2 this week. We only have nine games. That's a higher percentage of the slate than we've ever done. No, I love it. I love it. All right, everyone. Well, you wanted to pick in Georgia, Alabama, but I have absolutely nothing there. What's that? I know you wanted to pick in Georgia, Alabama, but I don't have anything. No, I think consensus is that that's a very-- consensus that that's a very-- Yeah, I'm like, I'm Georgia minus 1 and a half. Yeah. All right, we'll welcome in Domer to the Bet the Process Podcast. We now welcome in Domer to the Bet the Process Podcast. You've been pretty active these days, 60 minutes. That's kind of a big deal. Did you know anything about Anderson Cooper before you went on the podcast? Or were you just like, oh, some reporter, dude? I mean, yeah, I've been a big fan of reporters in general, and then Anderson Cooper specifically for a while. I mean, when you're in the prediction market game, reporters or reporters are a very big deal. Would how much money has Anderson Cooper personally made you over the years? Well, I mean, I'm not sure that he's that type of reporter with like the breaking news stuff. But yeah, I mean, I've been following him for a long time. Actually, when I was chatting with him, I talked about how I used to watch him on this channel called Channel One, which came into like some schools in the US. Like, that's how far back. It was like the early 90s, so it was pretty wild. So tell me a little bit about-- I like the story that you told there around how you picked decided to put a big position on JD Vance. I guess relatively big position. But give our listeners a quick background on who you are, how you got to be on 60 minutes, et cetera. Gotcha. Yeah, I mean, I-- prediction markets have been my whole career and that may sound impressive in 2025. But for a very long time, this was like not a lucrative type of thing. I was just kind of grinding. So I started as a poker player in the mid 2000s, like with the big online poker boom. And then I started to transition into something that I found a lot more exciting, which was like trying to predict who the next president's going to be, who's going to win best picture of the year, like things like that that are like very event-driven, and that you can research. So I've just been doing that for a very long time. And for a very long time, I was grinding and not making a ton of money. And it's only in the past few years like prediction markets have skyrocketed and, you know, I'm starting to become quote unquote known within within the small community that we have. I mean, how hard was it during the predicted days when you could bet? I remember betting I predicted for the 2012 election. I bet on all these elections, by the way, using like the Nate Silver stuff for years and then it didn't get me into trouble until, um, what was it? 20 well to this last election, 2024. Uh, but, you know, the 850 is the 850 dollar caps on positions? Like how did you get that? Well, so what predicted it so they had a 150 dollar cap that was imposed by the CFTC, but the way that they quote unquote got around that was instead of putting up one big presidential market, they had like 10 markets, like who's going to be the next vice president? You know, who's going to win the popular vote? Who's going to win this state? So they iterated tons of different markets that kind of got around the 850 limit. So you could, you could get down a significant amount, like not hundreds of thousands, but tens of thousands easily betting in one direction. When, when you think a little bit of like we've, we've had, um, Nate on those podcasts and there's been like an ongoing debate around political markets and, and how sharp political markets really are. As you, you think about political markets compared to other markets, financial markets or sports betting markets, how would you consider them to be? And I'm guessing they're revolving significantly, but back when you first started, you know, were they incredibly inefficient? Were they inefficient or are they pretty efficient? Uh, they would be incredibly inefficient. Like it would be very easy if you just had a basic understanding of math and, like, you know, how politics works to crush at these markets. Now it's a lot more sophisticated. Although I, I feel like, you know, US politics is very hard to quote unquote beat these days, but, um, there's a lot of international markets these days. And that, you know, it has less polling. It's more, you know, there's more X factors that play that's like solely relational to that country. So, so there's a lot of different functions within politics where you can still get a large edge without having to be like some expert on like modeling US states or whatever. Do you have any, do you own any stories of like political elections that elections internationally where you've gotten down a big position and it's worked out on it, sort of the reasoning? Yeah, I mean, I've hit a lot, I hit a few 100 to ones on foreign elections, especially like in like super chaotic countries that like really, really vacillate between like, you know, stable and like totally unstable. Like Italy would be a really good example where there was one year where they fired their prime minister and then he went to like one cent to be the next prime minister. And I was like, well, I don't think they're going to have any luck bringing anyone in. And so I bet on this guy to become prime minister again. And like, you know, two weeks later they couldn't find anyone and they made him prime minister again. That was like 100 to one hit. But like, you know, various things like that where, you know, people are used to US politics and kind of, there's a stability within US politics so it can be hard for people that are used to betting on a certain type of politics to transition to something that's totally chaotic or, you know, totally foreign to them. And then obviously there's a language barrier often. You know, I've been, I've had Google translate up on my phone. I'm like putting, you know, the phone up to the computer like reading kairons on like foreign, foreign TV channels and stuff like that. So yeah, it can get, it can get very intricate and very fun. And obviously, you know, it's super dynamic as well because you don't know what you're going to be doing one week to the next. Who, who are your counterparties do you think on, on like the Italian election market? Well, okay. So I mean, the markets get popular because they get into the news, right? So maybe it has popped up on CNN or Twitter or whatever that the Italian Prime Minister has resigned. Right? And so people take it as face value. Okay, this guy is out for just to use that previous example. So, you know, this one cent is free money. I'm going to get paid one cent and, you know, two weeks from now or whatever the case may be. So there are people that react to the news. So that's kind of usually your counterparties is people maybe they're not super sophisticated and they're seeing a news headline and they're betting on the news headline. Now, you know, nine times out of 10, the news headline will probably make the money, but you want to find that maybe 10th time out of 10 where you're creating some edge that they're not seeing betting on just straight news headlines. But this is mostly actually peer-to-peer. You're saying rather? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah, sorry, sorry if I misunderstood you correct. Yeah, so it's all peer-to-peer. I mean, in the current meta, it's peer-to-peer. Now, there could be, you know, very sophisticated companies coming into this. But as of right now, it's me against some other random person and some other random spot in the world. Right. With Kashi, like, I realize a lot of my volume, like, the majority of the volume I'm doing is coming from order flow from customers on Robinhood. Which is, right. And I can sort of see when I get hit for 17,000 contracts at once. Here, I'm like, okay, this is clearly not someone from Robinhood. And then I've noticed patterns and bots and stuff like that. Have you, I mean, I guess, well, we don't know. I was going to kind of not go to this place yet. But are you going-- You're going both-- I mean, Colcheng Polymarket are incredibly different. And in terms of, like, market making and taking. And how does your approach sort of differ there, given the different fee structures and tick sizes? Yeah. So I mean, almost all of my market making in the past has been on Polymarket, which is no fee. And you can-- it's very, you know, even though crypto kind of obfuscates who your counter parties are, it's very transparent in the fact that you can see, okay, this is a brand new account or this is, like, you can see who's betting as to at all times because it's on the blockchain and there are addresses and stuff like that. So there's a degree to which Polymarket is easier that you can see, like, who's doing what? Like at all times. And even if it's like a new account that also factors into it. Whereas, Calche, it's a little bit harder. You have to kind of either use context clues as you were saying earlier or talk to people and kind of figure out who is on what side of the transaction. So yeah, I mean, and then obviously at Polymarket, which is crypto, you know, your counter parties are almost always going to be crypto-centric people. Obviously, it's not like new people are discovering crypto and like, you know, getting on Polymarket immediately. There's like a little bit of a learning curve there in terms of getting onto Polymarket as of right now. Whereas Calche, you know, anyone with a Robinhood account can use Calche right now. So there's a much lower barrier to joining. And obviously, there's a lot more casual people that are betting on Calche. So, you know, if you're hit on something on Calche, you're a lot less worried than if you're hit on something on Polymarket. So yeah, there's a lot of differentiations along those lines as of right now, although I imagine over the course of the next at least year two, the lines are going to blur quite a bit on that. So if I did take it then, like, is I know you've said that you do most your process is mostly manual. Are you mostly taking or making that on Polymarket? Yeah, I mean, I would be doing mostly the make it, I mean, it depends. It depends. So I would start off making right now. There are spots where I will do taking and I think that's one thing that's very beneficial to me about doing like very large scale market making is your exposed to a lot of different markets and maybe markets that you wouldn't have otherwise stumbled upon and you're doing research, just trying to do some very simple market making and you're like, okay, actually, I think I can find an edge in this market and then you switch to being like, okay, either aggressively making like trying to move the price and trying to get people to match you or just straight up taking other people's offers. But yeah, so it's a mix of the two. It really depends on the type of the market and then in terms of like whether I find an edge or not. I mean, if you're doing this without sort of like in it not doing an automated way and you're a lot of it is sort of news and information driven like are you not worried about positions that are up when you're asleep or getting like adversely selected? I mean, yeah, I think I was a lot more worried about that in the past and I feel like I've just kind of let go of that to some extent because almost always nothing happens, right? It's not like it's not like you wake up someday and like 15 things have happened. Like maybe one thing happened overnight or maybe while you're at the movies, you know, a couple things happen. So it's very sequential and yes, I sometimes get hit and yes, sometimes I lose money just by being away from my computer. But you know, I don't really stress about it too much because one thing about, you know, liquidity and the current meta is that both sites are incentivizing liquidity. So they kind of pick up some of that risk for you. You're kind of being paid for taking on that risk. So I don't really lose too much sleep over it. When you think about like the counterparty stuff, like how much does that influence your decision making, how much do you have to know the players in the market? I'm curious about how many other players there are in the market that are of the size and sharpness that you are. Yeah, if we're just sticking with Paulie market, there's probably a few hundred people that are smart. So, I mean, it's not super easy to just be like, "Okay, there's like six people that are smart, and I don't need to worry about anyone else." They're obviously a lot of people that are smart. And then even if you're just seeing somebody that's new, that's been against you in size, if it's like a market that's super specific, you have to be worried that you have not researched this specific thing to the end of the degree. So, usually when I'm hit, whether it's a smart person or someone that I haven't seen before, my first step is like, "Okay, let me research." Like, "What did I miss? Like, what? Let me talk to people." And so, it's definitely a learning process in terms of trying to react to people butying against you. Do you have a good example of when that's happened and you've had a process to go back? The name of our podcast is called "Bet the Process." So, understanding this process of how you go back, because in sports betting, which I think a lot of our listeners are, there is a lot of this idea. Like, when the market moves with you or whatever, and you're like, "What am I missing?" And ultimately, going back and figuring that out is interesting. Explain a little bit more about that and maybe even an example of when you've uncovered something like that. Yeah, so let me use a very specific example. This is one where I lost money, but I really could have made a lot of money because I was very close to being right. But so there was a market when CZ, who's the head of finance, he went to jail in the US, and there was this very obscure market. What would happen first? This air drop of this certain token or CZ getting out of prison, right? And CZ was sentenced to, let's say, six months in prison. And so, people assumed that six months from now, he would get out of prison, and then this air drop was known at a very specific date of September 30th. Let's say. And so, people assumed, "Okay, CZ is going to prison, he's going to get out around August or something like that." And then, so it's like a lock that CZ is going to get out before this air drop happens. There's like a month delta. And I was, you know, betting a little bit, and my counterparty was like this super smart, very wealthy guy. And he was betting a ton of money that CZ would get out of prison before this air drop. And my inkling was that there's some time delta. There's some delays here. Like, maybe he won't go to prison right away. Maybe there's like a protracted process. And so, like my initial bias was that, you know, this is not quite as straightforward as he thinks it is. And so, I was starting to bet against him. And he kept moving the price closer to like 100. Like, he was just aggressively betting me. And at that point, I was like, "Okay, like, I need to like, figure this out." So I found like prison experts. I was like researching this thing. I was like calling people. And I was like, "Okay, I think he's going to get out of prison right around like September 30th." Like, I think this is really close to 50/50. And because there was like delays in terms of paperwork and processing and all of this other stuff that we don't need to get into. But, you know, I was really, really, really researching it. And this guy just kept betting and betting and betting and betting and betting. And I got to the point where I was like, super sure that I was getting, because I think the mark was at let's say 80. That this guy was betting 80 cents and I was betting 20 cents. And I thought it was worth like 50. Right? And so I was like, "Okay, I want to get as much money as I can as possible." And I think I had like over 100,000 shares. Which, you know, in the grand scheme, it thinks it's not a huge bet. But, you know, it for me, it was a big bet at the time. So I think I had maybe around 20,000 to in 80,000 or something like that. And I thought it was worth 50/50. Well, low and behold, he ends up getting out of prison on like September 29th. And then the air drop is like October 1st. So I lost by like a couple days. But I was really, really, really close to being right. And like, I put in a lot of work. And I did a lot of due diligence and like, you know, it ended up being a little bit of, "Unlock, you know, not the dice going my way on that one." But like, that's just an example of something where the person is just seeing something. They're very sure of it. They're not doing a lot of follow-up research. And I'm just trying to get ahead of them. Right? So let's say, you know, if you imagine like a race, like, "I'm trying to be the faster runner." Right? I'm trying to find out this information about, you know, there's delays in this process. Faster than he figures it out so that I'm continuing to make really, really, really good bets on the smarter bets. Because, you know, these markets are like 1v1 combat, as you guys know, right? It's me versus someone else. Right? And you want to be the smarter person in every single transaction. So as you're ramping up, you just want to make sure that you're ahead of your counter parties. Well, I want it to be me. Well, Riff is, can I ask a follow-up to that? Yeah. So, so how, when you go through that process, how do you keep yourself from confirmation bias? Because I would assume that like any time that you start doing this, like, you have this natural inclination to have a prior that you believe. And then as you talk to more people without like a completely regimented analytical process, like confirmation bias must naturally like have a seat at the table. Yeah. So I think that's one thing that I'm very, very good at is bearing in mind all the biases that I have. Because like biases are like literally they're trying to brainwash you. They're trying to lose you money at any given moment in time. So you're just really just need to have it at the forefront of your mind, right? So one way to deal with confirmation bias is just by trying to figure out, put yourself in the shoes of your counter party. Why are they doing this? And then if you can figure out why they're making their bet, and then you can figure out why they're right or they're wrong or whatever, then in that way you can kind of get ahead of confirmation bias. So it's not necessarily that I'm just like, oh, I'm in love with my position and then I'm looking for, you know, rose colored glasses like, oh, this is why I'm right. This is why I'm right. It's more the case that you want to put yourself in the other position and figure out exactly why they're doing it and exactly why they're right or wrong. Do you have any concerns about information asymmetry? Like when you were telling that story, I was thinking you were going to say it turns out that my counter party actually knew someone in the prison who actually knew exactly what day that the SCGB getting out. Like are there, I mean, I saw something like today there's, you know, Spotify wrapped is dropping and there were markets on Colchee about that, but like clearly there's people that work at Spotify that already know these things. Like, like how much is that a concern for you or you're not operating in markets where you think there's any reasonable chance that somebody would have better information? So this wasn't really a worry until probably like the past year when these markets have really blown up and people are like, well, you know, I have this information on my fingertips. Like I can tell my brother or cousin and they can make money off of this because I think we've seen a few examples of this, but even with that being the case, I feel like almost all the time you're being that you're losing money in a market like that. Like someone has merely figured it out ahead of you. I think, you know, the Spotify Raptor actually really good example because one of the markets was trading at like 98 cents and if it was totally wrong, it flipped. Like in the past 48 hours, it went from 98 to 2 and the winner was totally wrong because it turned out that Drake was was faking like an absurd number of streams and he was no longer the number three Spotify artist. So anyway, that's just an example. But the like what ended up happening was not that it was some Spotify employee that had, you know, trying to make money, you know, trying to make 20,000 on the side or whatever, which is unethical, quasi illegal, but you know, obviously very possible. What ended up happening is someone had like found the exact images on the website. You know, they were like going through all these like advanced like web stuff and to that same extent, like the Nobel Prize winner was kind of leaked ahead of time because someone was finding images on the website. So it usually it's the case even still. Obviously there's someone who there's people who have the data ready and are betting at you, but usually it's just the case that someone has figured it out. Some smarter method than you. And so you can't really be too upset about that because it's, you know, that's the name of the game. Other situations where you've had a position and you see the market move against you so much and you're like, you know what, I think there's something I'm not picking up here. I think this is known or there's an you know, quasi insider information and you're like, I'm just going to exit my position right now. So this happens pretty frequently. Usually I don't exit my position. Usually I'm just like I freeze right not that I'm like panicking, but it's like, okay, the best move is not to make a move right now because, you know, you don't exactly know what's happening. And I think the market that I just listed the Spotify third place, I actually had a really big not like a huge but like a big position on Drake. And so I got I got BTF vote on that one. But it was fine. You know, the person beat me. But what I ended up doing in that scenario is I just stopped betting. You know, I was talking with other people. I was like, well, you know, because other people were like seeing the trades come in and they're like, well, I think it maybe I this person's being stupid. and I want to take the other side of it and I'm like, I don't know, this is like, it's so close. to the time that it's being released and the trades or like the person doesn't seem to care about the price. There are certain telltale signs that the person actually has the information, right? When they're not price sensitive, usually that means that they have the answer already and they're willing to move the price quite a lot. So yeah, usually I'll just not do anything rather than try and dump my position because it's only in hindsight do you figure out that the person has the answer, right? Sometimes it is someone who is really stupid and if you did panic, dump everything again, someone who is really stupid, like, you know, you were the dumb or party there. So usually I'll just not do anything. Do you track it? Like, I'm kind of curious, like especially given that you know your counterpart is on polymarket. Like, do you have this robust database of all these people and sort of like a sharpness index of them and like if this is my counterparty, you know, this is my level of concern. Not necessarily. Well, the other thing about polymarket is they make it very easy to see like the quality of your counterparties because not only does it show up right away who owns the other side, but their profit and loss shows up when they signed up. Also shows up, which is a very important thing, right? If it's an account that has signed up three days ago and all of a sudden is very interested in one position and one position only, that's a pretty telltale sign that they have maybe some some information. So yeah, there are a lot of like things that you can very, very, very quickly figure out without trying to do like, you know, some deep dive into whether this person is like an insider or not. Like, they're very quick telltale sites. Are there are there any markets that you won't trade? Because it's interesting, right? Like, it seems like you have this intellectual curiosity around trying to figure out these prediction markets broadly, right? And again, there's this broad category of prediction markets and now there's also obviously sports prediction markets, which no big is one of our sponsors is is the leader in and then there are, you know, the now there's like mentions and events and politics obviously play a huge role, but like are there markets that you won't play in? No, not really, but there are markets where I won't bet a lot in. I guess, which is a better answer to that because it's not necessarily because I do like the I do like the whole game of it, right? It's like it's fun to try and predict the future. It's fun to try and figure out what's going to happen, but stuff like mentioned markets, I'm not going to bet a lot of money because it's number one, it's a little bit silly and then number two, I mean, did you guys see what the coin base CEO did? Yeah, yeah, so, you know, you're worried about them knowing about the market and then either saying it or not saying it on purpose. So on those type of markets where it's super easy for someone to influence the outcome, I'll probably maybe get involved with not any large extent, just more like a play money type of thing. Yeah, so, I mean, and it's also very easy to see when a market, maybe not very easy, but it's you're able to discern if a market can be influenced or can be inside or traded or stuff like that. So it's just it's a factor that you're that you're putting into the equation along with everything else. Are you doing any any sports betting markets? I don't really do sports betting, you know, first of all, I used to do live sports quite a lot, like a long time ago when it was not very sophisticated, you could use like, you know, calculators and stuff and get ahead of the game and then they, you know, I also remember getting banned from live sports betting like 15 years ago because I was listening to stuff on the radio and like, you know, so I, I used to do live sports betting because you can get an edge without being like a sports expert, but I don't do it as much anymore. I'm more focused on like awards and stuff like that, something stuff that's more qualitative stuff that you can like figure out rather than like whether the Dallas Cowboys are actually 62 versus 58 in any given game or whatever. So can you talk a little bit about the game of prediction market trading like are there are there any times that you've been up against a bot, you know, you realized it was a bot and you could figure out you figured out how to manipulate it. You kind of figured out like some edge case where it would react improperly. Oh yeah, yes, no, yes, especially as a market maker, if you're going against a bot, you're trying to figure out ways to manipulate that bot either to give you shares or to put the market at the wrong price. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of games within games that you can play, especially on newer markets. Obviously a market that's like super mature and has like a very deep liquidity. You can't really screw around on that, but like, you know, and a smaller market or a newer market, yeah, you can you can start to play around with bots and stuff like that. Do you have any good story of like where you sort of broke one? I mean, I don't think I have any good stories. Some bots are like very easy to break. Like, you can just move the market to like 80 cents and it's trading at 80 and then you move to 20 and it's still trade. So I mean, there's definitely a lot of examples where you can just screw around with a bot that's not very well made, but I don't think I have anything where I made like a ton of money or anything. Going back to that question on markets, can you give a good example of like a market that you knew nothing about, but you were like, this is going to be big. I need to get involved and then what your process was for educating yourself. You know, yes, there's a lot of markets like that because they come up every now and again, the examples that I'm thinking of maybe are kind of stupid, but like, one of the first really big markets on Paulie market was there was this boat that was stuck in the Suez Canal. Do you guys remember this? It was maybe like, I think it was during the pandemic. And it was such a big story because it like put a stop to like world trade. Well, obviously everyone on Paulie, nobody on Paulie market is expert on boats, right? Like we don't know Jack Shade about boats, about international trade, about tug boats because so it was it was a case where everyone was trying to race to get as much information as fast as possible. So that was that would be an example of one where I had no idea what I was doing and but I was trading quite a lot. Another one would be the case where Britney Spears was was trying to she was fighting a conservatorship against her father. I think that it was like, oh, she's not mentally stable enough and you know, she was fighting for to be released from that and that turned into a really big market. And I remember researching that a lot, you know, obviously I'm not an expert on any of this, but by the end of the market, you know, I was probably one of the top 100 experts in the world on conservatorship law within the state of California because I just read so many cases I had talked to so many people. I remember one time my my wife was coming home from some concert or something and I was just enraptured by this Britney Spears documentary because I was researching it and my wife was like, what the hell are you doing right now? And it's like, stop, stop, I'm working. I'm working. She's like, what are you working? You're watching Britney Spears documentary. So I mean, yeah, there's cases like that where you have no idea what's going on and you're just trying to educate yourself as quickly as possible. And you know, this stuff is interesting. And you know, it obviously it impacts the world, you know, even though we're not experts on what's going to happen with this boat. Like, it's actually impacting the stock market. You know, people are trying to figure out the answer to this question. So that there's a degree to which like what you're doing is actually kind of useful to other people in order to try and figure out what's going to happen. When you when you go into this research rabbit hole and you ask someone to like an expert like tell tell me how you approach that and what you say to them to get them to get on the phone with you. Well, okay, so two things happen usually almost always. Number one, they don't respond or number two, they're actually very excited to talk to you about this because a lot of these people like you say what you were doing, you're like no, no, no, no, no, no, I just act like I'm a very interested news researcher. I'm a student. I'm writing a paper. You know, I make it sound a little bit noble, I guess, or that, you know, I'm after something that actually they would be excited to participate in. So I do try and like, veer away from the fact that I'm betting money on this. But yeah, I mean, well, no, I don't use a fake name. No, I use my real name. No, I'm not trying to like, you know, be in a spy novel or anything like that. So sorry, you're in the middle of like finishing up that story. Yeah. So I mean, either they don't respond or they're like very excited to talk to you because it's like, even this is what they do in the world. Like, okay, someone is expressing interest in in boat captaining, you know, tugboats and the Suez Canal, like nobody ever asked me about this, you know, my they're probably like my kids. Hey, think my job is stupid. Like, oh, I'm glad this person in America, like, is really interested in what I'm doing. So a lot of people are like very excited to talk about, you know, their little expertise in the world and they're very happy to share that with you. So I do think that part is cool where you can like talk with someone about a very, very, very specific topic and kind of get a degree of knowledge that you wouldn't otherwise get because, you know, if you think about the world like 50 years ago, right, if you wanted to become an expert on boat captaining in the Suez Canal, it would be impossible. Like, you would have to fly to Egypt. You would have to buy textbooks whereas now on the internet, you know, you can become an expert or at least close to an expert in a lot of topics pretty quickly. And especially with AI and being able to talk with people and stuff like that. It's interesting though, obviously, because do you think that there is a lot of alpha still derived from that ability? to have that one-to-one conversation where that information is not available anywhere publicly? Yes, for sure. Well, yes. The short answer is yes, because, okay, let's think about me and 10 other people all researching the exact same thing. And one person that's talked to an expert and nine people have not. Well, all 10 people will have read the same big five articles, right? So, we will all have the exact same baseline of knowledge. So, if you're that one person who has gone the extra length, you will find out, "Oh, okay, that thing in the eighth paragraph, that's not quite. That's a little bit of exaggeration." Like, this expert is very skeptical about what they talked about in the eighth paragraph there. And that could be the linchpin of the market or whatever. So, yeah, I think there's a degree to which it is extremely helpful. In some cases, obviously, sometimes it's not. But yeah, I mean, and it's also it's fun. It's kind of a fun thing to do. Even if you're not, even if you've only made a thousand dollars on this stupid market, like, learning about it was like a cool thing to do. So, yeah. What's the market that you researched that you no longer bed in, but you still are passionate about? And it's become like some interest of yours beyond just the prediction market space. Like, are you now thinking about becoming a boat captain? No, no, no, no. Yeah, I'm not sure. Or maybe a conservatorship for a conservator for a pretty serious, young pop stars? Yeah, no, that's funny. I mean, I would say, I would say, you know, my interest in the Oscars, like in movies and stuff, was kind of like, mostly because of what I was doing. I was betting on box office. Initially, I was betting on who's going to win what awards. But I feel like that's actually like turned into like one of my actual passions in life. And if all these prediction mergers didn't exist anymore, and it was just me as a person in the world, I would probably still be like super into movies because I just, I really like the whole pageantry of it, I guess. But yeah, I mean, are there inefficiencies there still? Or is that pretty good? No, no, no, no. Well, so it's a very liquid market. Yes, but there are inefficiencies. In fact, there's going to be, we're recording this 90 minutes before the national board of review is going to drop. And so that's going to move the Oscar nomination prices immediately. And will that move it in a way that you think there's alpha there or that moving in a way that it just becomes more efficient? Well, I mean, both. Yeah, so I mean, immediately after it drops, that'll be alpha. And then I will make them more gets more efficient immediately. Got it. And are you the, are there any other big counterparties in there that you respect? Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's another guy. I don't know his name. I chat with him on Discord. In fact, it's how I think he's a big Oscar better as well. And we've been chatting quite a bit. And he's really into movies. And one interesting thing about this guy is like, you know, I feel like Twitter is such a big part of what I do right being able to track news in real time, being able to it's a very fast thinking, very fast process, very reactive. Whereas how is like one of the legendary traders on CalShi? And he like does not use Twitter. He's like a very slow thinker. He moves in like large size and in very granular markets like picks his spots very carefully, whereas me, I'll be in a thousand markets and I'm going to try to win 600 of them. He's like in like six markets and he's going to win five or six of them. So it's a very, it's a very interesting talking to him because I'm like, why I've seen all these movies is like, why haven't seen any of the movies? Like it's actually going to, it would make my process worse to like watch the movies because then I would have opinions. So it's, it's interesting talking to someone who does the process completely differently and so far outside of what you're doing. So are you really tethered to your phone then? I'm very tethered to my phone. Well, my watch is kind of gives me alerts that something's happened on my phone and then you know, if I get something important on my phone, I'm running upstairs to my computer. You know, my, my wife has been with me next to me on a couch where like something happens on my phone and I'm just sprinting up the stairs and I'm like, I gotta work. And it's like, well, we're watching a show. It's, it does a pattern. Like I'm upstairs right now. So yeah, there is a little bit chaotic sometimes. But yeah, I can be very tethered to tech, to technology for sure. Is there, is there any sort of burnout that comes from it? Because I feel like, like, can you imagine doing the same thing for another five or 10 years? Like, I feel like anything that's sort of, like you're talking to somebody who sports, but who sports bet for 15 years since then I, I definitely am not as gung ho as I once was and as I guess involved in, in day to day stuff. But just because, you know, you can't, I think is a trader. It's just really hard to keep it up for an extended period of time. I don't know what, what's been your experience? Yeah, no, it, it, if you're going to do it like very, very, very seriously and very passionately, it can be very hard to maintain that level for a long time because it just takes so much out of you. And especially if you have relationships with other people, I remember watching a sports betting documentary, like maybe 15 years ago, it was called maybe like the best of it or something like that. And it followed these like four or five sports bettors. Most of them, I think we're doing like college basketball or NFL or something like that. Where they touts. I don't think so, maybe, but it kind of immaterial to the story because what they were talking about is like, you know, if you're betting on this thing, let's say college basketball, you're so involved with it, you know, there's so many swings that it's really hard to maintain relationships. And like one thing they, one thing they were talking about is like, you know, I've had to get a divorce because of betting and do this. So this has always been in the back of my mind that like you really, really, really have to find a balance between going all in and being obsessed with it, but also making sure that you're taking very clear breaks and that there's, you know, light at the end of the tunnel that you're not just in a tunnel for the next 30 years. It's like, okay, you know, maybe six months from now, we're going to take a month off or something like that. So yeah, I'm very purposeful about that, especially, you know, in a relationship with someone because it can be very, very hard to navigate. And it's also it, you know, there's a jeergery to which is kind of addictive. And there's a little bit of a dopamine rush. And it's like, okay, I'm going to get up this morning and I'm going to see eight different new things. And I'm going to make, you know, X number of dollars. And then next day, you know, it's also very exciting. So that you can keep doing that for a very long time, but towards what end? So there has to be some, there has to be like pause points at least. And then maybe a short stop points as well. So yeah, that is definitely something that is front of mind. And then I'm dealing with and that I'm working together, you know, with my partner on for sure. Okay. I have one last question. And then Rufus, I don't know if you have one last one. But how did you become so self-aware? I feel like that's like a skill that you have the confirmation bias comment was amazing. And even just what you just said in terms of dopamine and like what drives you in the addiction, I assume that you haven't always been this self-aware. How did that happen for you? I don't know. I mean, that's a good question. Because I, so first of all, I, you know, and I'm not like ashamed as it is, but I go to therapy every once in a while, not because I'm like some super depressed person, but also, you know, just to be just to have maintained that level of self-awareness. And actually, my therapist was like, how did you develop? She asked me almost the exact same question. And I don't know. I mean, I guess I've just like kind of really thought about it. And you know, it's, I've also been in it for such a long time that you kind of get exposed to all the downsides and you kind of learn from it. You know, there's been a lot of 30-minute long super hot showers where I'm thinking about what went wrong, like what mistake did I make? How can I correct that? So, you know, it's, there's a degree to which you make, you make mistakes and you have to learn from them. Like, if you want to stay in this game, you have to learn from your mistakes. You have to think through what you did. You have to think through the mistakes that you made. And you can't make them in the future, I guess. And also, you just have to be curious about not only the world, but like the process itself. Like, yes, I've read all these papers and books about biases. And yes, I've, I've thought about, you know, dopamine and stuff like that. But like, you know, it's not like that was, that was given to me, right? I had to like seek it out. I had to be curious about it. I had to read it. I had to, and I had to do it of my own volition, right? Because if someone was just trying to tell me it, it would probably go in one year out the other. So, there's a degree to which you have to be very introspective and very into self-learning and self-reflection and going over these things over and over again and learning from your mistakes. Not sure if that's a good answer or not, but that's, I guess, what I've, what I've been doing. I mean, I was going to, I was going to ask something, but you basically just answered it. I was going to ask sort of whether you think betting, trading, whatever you're going to call it has made you a better, a better, more well-adjusted human being. And I think you kind of just answered that. Like, as you see the world in a different way, like, I think you kind of have to see the world in a different way, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I do see the world in a different way. And then you also, be being in this world, I think it kind of instills in you the degree to which luck is such a big factor in success. And not that I'm just some lucky person that wins best due to luck. But like, you know, you kind of create your luck to some extent. But there is luck that is involved here. I'm very lucky to be in this position. I'm very lucky to be doing what I'm doing. Like I could have easily fall, you know, not clicked on some random website and be doing something totally different with my life. So yeah. And I'm the other thing I am is together with my wife. We are debt zero. So that is, you know, as much money as we're going to make, we're going to exit this world with with no money. We're going to give it all away. And so that'll happen at some point down the line as well. Do you read Dive of zero? I don't think I've read it, but I think I probably internalized it. I think that's a great philosophy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Domer, thank you so much for joining us. Hopefully this is much better than the podcast that you did with those hack. No big guys just kidding. Sponsored people. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thanks for having me guys. It was great. They just tell you what they're truthous, maybe make them hot as fat ass, the bokees get thinner, give the information to lose the betters into Winners. Yeah, some huh, rap and rockers. Jeff Mines, Move It With P Body. Crouching All The Numbers. Messy P Body Rankin. Will-will-will-will-will-will, liquor for the edge. Analympically tripping. (upbeat music)