Rob Pizzola Gets Honest: The State of Circles Off | Presented by ProphetX

[00:00:00]I want to do something a little different today. No guest, no interview, no deep dive into market mechanics, just me talking to you directly about where this channel is, where it's been, and some stuff that's really been weighing on me lately. Now, if you've been here a long time, you know I've done an episode like this before. A couple years back, I did one we called the state of sports betting.

[00:00:26]It got a really strong response and I wanted to make this more of a a regular thing. Not, you know, the the polished educational stuff that we do, just a video where I could get something off my chest when it's sitting on my mind. And this is going to be one of those videos.

[00:00:42]Right now, there's a lot on my mind.

[00:00:44]Some of it I'm proud of. Some of it frustrates me to no end. And some of it I just haven't said out loud before. So, this is going to be me being honest.

[00:00:52]Maybe more honest than I I typically am on camera. Let's get into it. Let me start with feedback because that's really what inspired this whole video.

[00:01:02]We get a lot of feedback here on Circles Off more now than ever before. And I know there are creators out there who never really read the comments on their own channels. They don't engage with other people. They they just let the audience talk amongst themselves. Now, I'm not that guy. I read the YouTube comments every single week. I read my DMs. I actively participate and respond to people in our Discord. I value the feedback, all of it. Even when it might seem like I don't. Now, that does not mean I'm always going to change my opinion on things. I will be the first to admit I can be stubborn. I can be stuck in the mud sometimes. But every now and then, I do take a step back. I actually think these things through. And lately, honestly, I think I've been on a bit of a feedback overload. And that's a big part of why I'm making this video.

[00:01:56]We just crossed 25,000 subs here on Circles Off, which is a milestone that I don't take for granted at all. I will make this the one shameless plug of the video. Get it out of the way early. If you get value of what we do here, please subscribe, hit the like button. I'm not just saying that as a throwaway. I'm a very datadriven person. I look at everything. I know that when I choose not to ask for a like in a video because I hate doing it. There is a tangible, measurable difference in how that video performs. So, it actually matters. It helps us reach more people. Please like and sub. That is the honest truth of it.

[00:02:36]Now, to understand where we are, you have to understand where all of this started. When this channel first launched, it was myself and Johnny from Bet Stamp and it was actually his idea.

[00:02:48]He came to me with a format. He said, "I think we should be doing this. There's a gap in the market for this." We ran with it. We loved it. The educational stuff, interviewing guests together, breaking down the space, and it had a really good run for a long time. For a while there, I will borrow a phrase from another better. We kind of cornered the market.

[00:03:11]I'm not going to sit here and tell you every sharp better in North America was listening to us. That is not realistic.

[00:03:18]But we were one of the go-to podcasts for sharp sports betterers. We had a real audience of serious people. And then we plateaued. It just kind of stagnated. It felt like we had reached the population that we set out to reach and we couldn't figure out a way to grow beyond it. And here's the thing nobody tells you about doing a show like that.

[00:03:40]You do a couple hundred episodes of interviews and educational content and you just start to run out of things to say and it became very formulaic. I I'm not going to speak on behalf of Johnny, but I I don't think he was excited about doing a lot of those episodes towards the end and neither was I. We tried some things to break out of it. I'm not proud of all of them.

[00:04:05]I'm not here to throw anyone under the bus. I'm not naming names, but people will probably know what I'm talking about if you've been around long enough.

[00:04:13]We brought on some guests who were outside the Sharp world trying to reach a different audience. And looking back, I think those episodes just alienated the audience that we already had while chasing one that that was never really ours either. And that plateau and the frustration that came with it, it really set the stage for everything that changed next. Because right around that time, a few things happened all at once.

[00:04:43]Johnny eventually wanted to move on from the content game altogether. Producer Zack, Zack Phillips, who a lot of you would remember, he moved on to a role where he could be more hockey adjacent.

[00:04:55]And for me, all of that lined up into a moment, an opportunity to to reinvent the channel around the stuff I was actually interested in because again, I'll be honest with you, the weekly interview format had gotten very stale for me. the whole process, finding the guests, all of the prep I'd put into every single one, which was a lot, it stopped giving me the emotional satisfaction that it used to. I love doing content when I love doing content, but I I wasn't loving it anymore. Circle Back was an idea I'd been wrestling with for a while and it just felt like the right time to pivot to something new to make content I was actually more excited about. Talking about the space, reacting to stories, letting a bit more personality come through than I think the old format allowed. And stuff like that, frankly, is just more fun for me to make. And I want to be straight about something because I know it doesn't sit well with everyone. A lot of you have been here since the beginning.

[00:06:01]and watching the channel evolve into something pretty different from what it was when you found it. I know that's jarring for a lot of you. I get that feedback and I take it seriously. There are people who helped build this channel and I I always want to do right by them.

[00:06:18]So, that's a real struggle for me. But then I also hear from people who just found us recently. people who say they just discovered this channel, that this is the best sports betting content out there, they didn't know that something like this even existed. And I'm trying to balance all of it. And the honest reality is I'm never going to be able to appeal to every demographic all at once.

[00:06:43]It it just it's not possible. And that balancing act, it gets even more complicated when you factor in something that most people watching never even think about, which is that this is not just a channel, it's a business on top of it. Circles Off is part of the Hammer betting network. I'm the CEO of the Hammer. I own a significant portion of the company and we have a board of directors. So, it's not just about me and what I feel like doing on any given week. There are other people who own equity in this company, content creators, employees who own equity in this company. And I want to do right by all of them as well. And I want to give you some context on how much this business means to me because I don't think people realize the level of investment here. I didn't pay myself a salary for over three years. I poured basically all of my free time into building the hammer while still betting for my actual income on the side. This is not some passive thing that I just dabbled in. I bet on this company with my time and my money for years before it ever paid me back anything. So when I talk about wanting to do right by everyone involved, that comes from a place of having truly put everything into it. So, when I'm making decisions about this channel, I'm trying to balance a lot of things all at once. Am I happy with the content? Is the existing audience happy with the content? Are we bringing in a new audience? Is the business healthy? All of that has to factor into the equation.

[00:08:21]And I wrestle with that constantly. It really does weigh on me that some of the people who were with us from day one might not love what we have going on right now, but I found a groove here.

[00:08:33]And I have to be honest about that. To me, the right rhythm now is circle back on a regular cadence, talking about industry topics, reacting to the weekend in sports from a betting perspective, mixing in an an educational video regularly, still doing occasional interviews, still doing a Q&A or a different format, having guests in studio. That blend, that's what feels right to me right now. And we have other ideas that we're workshopping. Some will work, some of them won't. And if they don't, you, the audience, will let us know. That's how it goes. And honestly, part of what makes this era of this space exciting to me ties right into the sponsor of this video, ProfitX. So, let me talk about them for a second as well, because it actually fits the whole theme of what we're doing here. We have this whole budding prediction market world in the space right now. It is a completely different landscape than what I came up in. It's completely different than even a few years ago. And that's a big part of what pulled me back into being excited about content. Profitex is a prediction market where you're trading against other people instead of a house.

[00:09:46]It's federally regulated. It's CFTC backed. And it's exactly the kind of new frontier that got my curiosity going again. And here's the actual pitch to you on it. Football season, it's right around the corner. That's the busiest, highest volume stretch of the year for I want to say all of us, but a lot of us.

[00:10:06]If prediction markets are new to you, now's the time to get familiar before the season creeps up and you're trying to learn a new platform in the middle of a Sunday slate. Get comfortable with it now so you can hit the ground running when it matters. You can sign up with code circles off. Trade $10 to get 20.

[00:10:24]The link is down in the description below. Now, I want to get into the part that actually matters most to me.

[00:10:31]Because underneath all the format changes and all the business stuff, there's a reason that I keep doing this.

[00:10:39]The thing that tilts me the most in this entire space, or as my friends would say, the thing that puts me in orbit, so to speak, is the unwillingness of people to seek out their own process. It rattles me. People who just want picks.

[00:10:54]And listen, if you're a purely recreational better and you just want picks for fun, that's totally fine. I have no issue with that at all. But when when we get into people who actually expect to bet and make money and every single one of them is looking for a shortcut, that gets to me. I am so sick of getting direct messages that just say, "Who do you like tonight?" And here's the thing, every one of those DMs actually does the opposite of what the person intends. It inspires me to keep going with the educational content because I know, and I don't care if this sounds cocky or arrogant, I know that there are people who are going to find this stuff and they're going to get rewarded for it. Not every video is going to be a hit for everyone. There are going to be sharpers who watch and get nothing from it, maybe because they already know the concepts. that's fine.

[00:11:48]But there's going to be people, and I know this because it's already happened, who find these videos and it's eye opening for them, who start thinking about betting in a way that they never did before. Who start building out their own process, who realize that they were on a a bad path, a path that was going to lead somewhere really bad. That is the biggest reason that I'm doing this.

[00:12:13]And I've said it a million times before, but I started out as a terrible better.

[00:12:18]I built up a lot of debt when I was young just from not being good at this.

[00:12:23]And listen, it's corny. It's corny as hell, honestly. But I don't want people to go down that same path. I understand the push back. I have sharpers that tell me, "Rob, you can't make a living betting if you're, you know, if there's not people losing. It's dog eat dog."

[00:12:41]And that's true. That's how the e ecosystem works. But here's my answer to that. Not everyone in the world is going to find these videos. A very, very small subset of betterers is ever going to find this stuff. So, I don't think I'm single-handedly dismantling the ecosystem here by teaching a few thousand people who care enough to seek it out. If anything, I just feel like it's my mission to do it. And I have to be honest about the flip side of that mission as well, because it's a big part of what fuels it for me. the frustration I feel when I look at some of what else is out there in the space is it's actually hard for me to put into words.

[00:13:18]Now, let me be clear about what I'm I'm saying and what I'm not saying because this gets misinterpreted constantly. I'm not sitting here saying that we what we do here is better than what everyone else does. That's not it at all. There are a lot of people out there doing great work and not everything in this space needs to be educational either.

[00:13:41]There are fantastic daily shows that are pix driven but they're funny. There's a great vibe between the hosts. It's entertaining. That's quality content. I have zero problems with that. If you're making something fun and you're honest about what it is, more power to you. No issues with that. What kills me is different. What kills me is the educational stuff on the internet that is just flatout wrong. And I don't mean wrong as in I have a different opinion on it. Look, a lot of sports betting is opinion driven. Risk management, bankroll strategy, tons of topics where there's no black and white, where you can argue either side and both are defensible. I'm not talking about those.

[00:14:25]I'm talking about the stuff that is clear-cut, black and white, mathematically bad advice. And there is so much of it out there right now. And to watch that kind of content pull the viewership that it does, it's honestly hard for me to stomach. To read the comments on some of these videos and realize these people are headed down a very bad path. It's it's dark, honestly.

[00:14:48]And people always ask me, "Why do you punch down? Why do you go after other people's stuff?" And my answer is because it's wrong. It's wrong. Think about it in any other field. If you're a doctor and you take your profession seriously and you see medical information going around that's completely broken and makes no sense and is not rooted in reality and could actually hurt people. It's going to bother you. You're not going to be able to just let it slide. That's exactly how I feel. It rattles me and it's personal for me as well because I fell victim to this stuff when I was younger. I believed in people who, you know, looking back clearly had no idea what they were talking about. Whether they misrepresented themselves as experts or they were just phony or they didn't know any better, it doesn't really matter.

[00:15:37]The damage is all the same. So, when I see someone giving out advice that is objectively provably bad, I take it personally because I've been the person on the other end of that. So sometimes the best way to show people what good looks like is to show them an example of what bad looks like. And if people want to call that hating, that's fine.

[00:16:04]Honestly, I can own that. I I do hate. I hate terrible betting advice because it's detrimental to the entire space and it can have massive implications on somebody's life. There is real simple math involved in betting and a lot of what gets circulated out there doesn't come close to meeting the bar of being good advice. And I'm saying this as someone who's seen it from the inside. I used to work for sports books. I'm telling you some of the advice floating out around out there. If I got that passed around a sportsbooks trading team, they would laugh at it. Their reaction would literally be, "Okay, how do we find out which customers are watching this channel so we can profile them as square in our system?" That's how bad some of it is. That's not an exaggeration. Some of this content is literally a sportsbook's dream that's being produced out there. And I know how all this sounds. If you don't know me, maybe it doesn't land for you. Honestly, even if you do do know me, it still might not land for you.

[00:17:09]But I've done well from betting. I'll be 40 this year. I could retire comfortably right now just off of sports betting if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I like doing these things. I like running the hammer. I like having these things on my plate. It gives me a sense of purpose, a sense that I am providing value. We have a great team. We're providing jobs for these guys. Jacob, Jason, Mike, Jal will be coming on board our team. That means something to me. It gives me a sense of being.

[00:17:39]And I want to be honest about one more thing because I touched on this when I reacted to Ferris's blog a while back in a different video. I hate the content game. I hate how these algorithms are built. I hate that I know our click-through rate has to be really high in a specific window for YouTube to start pushing a video out to more people, which means the clickbait thumbnails, the titles, all of it. I hate that. It's the same with X. The likes, the subs, all. It feels so counterintuitive to me to have to structure a video around an algorithm instead of just around whether it's good. But I have to do it. And when I actually think it through, the decision is very easy for me because what's the point of making content if it's not going to reach anyone? I could decide not to optimize for these platforms, not to sell sponsorships, not to do any of the other stuff that I find distasteful.

[00:18:38]And you know what would happen? Well, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, they'd just not serve our content to people. It would sit there and nobody'd ever see it. Or I can do that stuff, play the game, and actually reach a wider audience. So, when you frame it that way, it's it's not even really a choice at all.

[00:18:59]And I get the criticism. People say, "Oh, you know, Rob, you're supposed to be this great better. You talk this big game and here you are making YouTube videos and chasing sponsors, playing the game." And to that, yeah, it's it's a business, but I also do this for the love of it. And the two are not in conflict with each other. You either play the game on the same playing field as everyone else, or your content reaches nobody. You might as well pack it up at that point. I'm not a billionaire who controls how these algorithms work. So yeah, I play the game. I just don't have to love that part of it. And believe me, I I don't love that part of it. So that's where my head is at. I guess you could call this maybe my midlife crisis playing out on camera. That's okay. We all go through phases of of introspection. Mine just happens to happen in front of a lens every now and then and you happen to be catching it in the in the middle of your Wednesday or where wherever you have got a spare few minutes to listen to it or watch it. And listen, I want to be clear as well. I'm not having some kind of mental breakdown or anything. Life is good. I'm thinking more clearly than I have in a long time. This is just me being honest about the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. The stuff that weighs on you that people don't usually see. the balancing act of keeping an old audience and a new one, running a business, staying true to what I actually care about, and doing right by the people who built this with me. I care about this stuff probably more than is healthy. And one of the few real advantages of having a platform like this is being able to say that out loud and know that there are other people who are going to get it. So, let me know what you think down below in the comments. Honestly, tell me where you think I've got it right and where you think I've got it wrong. If you think I'm full of all of it. I read all of it. And whether you've been here since the first episode with me and Johnny or you found us last week, I do appreciate you being here. Take care of yourselves. We'll see you next time here on Circles Off.