Show Notes from Knup Sports Show

Knup Sports Show (#239): Looking for the Ultimate Odds Screen with Rick Allec of OddsLogic

In this episode of the Knup Sports Show, host Ryan Knuppel sits down with Rick Allec, the founder of OddsLogic, to discuss his incredible journey through the sports betting industry. Rick has built and led multiple successful odds-screening platforms, including his time at Don Best and Sports Options. Now, with OddsLogic, he’s bringing a modern, data-driven approach to real-time sports betting odds, catering to both B2B traders and B2C bettors alike. His expertise, industry insights, and deep understanding of betting technology make this a must-listen conversation for anyone involved in sports betting or iGaming.

Throughout the conversation, Rick dives into the evolution of odds screens, the growing challenges of managing vast amounts of real-time sports data, and how OddsLogic differentiates itself from competitors like OddsJam. He explains how his platform delivers true real-time information, helping traders, sportsbooks, and bettors make the most informed decisions. Rick also shares his philosophy on customer-driven product development, emphasizing how his team constantly adapts based on real user feedback.

To wrap up, Rick offers valuable advice for entrepreneurs looking to break into the sports betting space, highlighting the importance of understanding bettors’ real needs and avoiding common industry pitfalls. He also discusses what’s next for OddsLogic, including new features like player props, alert systems, and expanded sports coverage. Whether you’re a sports betting enthusiast, a trader, or a startup founder in the gaming space, this episode is packed with actionable insights and behind-the-scenes knowledge from one of the industry’s most experienced minds.

Ryan Knuppel

Hey what’s going on everybody, Ryan Knuppel here. New Knup Sports Show episode, welcome to the show. Appreciate you tuning in and listening once again. It’s been a while since I’ve recorded one of these, might be the first of the new year I think it is, so first one of twenty twenty-five. Super excited for that.

Have another amazing guest doing amazing things in our world of sports business and gaming and all the above, so super excited to share his story and get you to know him a little bit as well. Yeah, so it was a great new year for us here. Got some time to relax and kind of wind down a little bit as we all should do over the new year and holidays. Hopefully you did too, but now we’re back at it, ramping up and ready to rock and roll.

So not a lot of housekeeping for you today. Lots of events coming in twenty twenty-five that I’m sure I’ll see you all at, but we’ll touch on those in later episodes. So for now, let’s go ahead and bring on our guest and let’s dive right in today. Today we have Rick Allec, Rick of OddsLogic. Rick, how are you, my friend?

Rick Allec

Good, Ryan. How you doing?

Ryan Knuppel

Doing well, man. Doing well. Just kind of, I can’t believe January’s already over. I’m starting to say like I’m getting adjusted to the new year, but like January’s over already. Crazy, huh?

Rick Allec

Yeah, it is crazy. I’m doing well. Doing well. It’s been a busy month. I did have a little bit of downtime as well. I got to spend some time with my grandkids, so that was a good holiday for me as well. But I’m happy to be here on the first show of the year.

Ryan Knuppel

Yeah, first show of the year. I had to reflect on that for a second. I’m like, oh, that’s crazy. But yeah, very cool. Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty-nine. I’m super honored to have you on, Rick, and I’m excited to learn a little bit about you myself and I’m sure our audiences. So why don’t we dive right in? I’d love to hear a little bit about your backstory first, Rick, and kind of what led you to where you are today.

Rick Allec

Yeah, sure. So I was born in Southern California. I like to say I was born into a family of gamblers. My dad was a poker player. He played the horses. I can remember as a young kid, making lots of trips to Las Vegas from Southern California. I remember sitting in the car with my mom when my dad ran into Churchill Downs to play sports bets. So it was always around me and it was kind of destined for me to go that way.

I took one little break out of my family business. I tried to be, I guess we call it legit, sold insurance for a while, worked some construction, got married. I married a small-town girl, and so I tried to stay out of it a little bit, but it was just always in my blood. I got back into sports betting, and over the years, I kind of worked in every facet of sports betting. I was a ticket writer. I was a sportsbook manager.

I worked with some sports betting syndicates that came into the U.S. market in the late nineties. I showed up at the Stardust when they used to have the Stardust lottery. So you could bet the opening line, the real opening line. I was kind of around. But as the years went on, the industry that I was working in started to move offshore.

And I was married, had kids, really wasn’t looking to move offshore and figured, well, it’s time to figure out another way to make a living in the industry that I love. So I got into the software side of it. I did some software development for the syndicate group that I was working for. And then I wrote some accounting software for some sports books, managed that for a while.

And then one day, just kind of a chance meeting with the guy that was running Don Best at the time, a guy named Dana Corbo. And tragically, his dad, who was generally the founder of Don Best, Al Corbo, had passed away suddenly of cancer. And just as the business was starting to take off and it was kind of thrust upon his family and his family wasn’t in the gambling business. Dana was a lawyer.

We met. We talked about backgrounds. He said, I need someone to come help me run this business. I’m a bit in over my head. I don’t understand this industry. As I mentioned, my background, our joke was it had led me perfectly into that spot. And so I started working with Dana and that was in two thousand.

I worked with Dana and his family, enjoyed working in the family business until they ended up selling the business kind of at a peak. It was at a time when it looked like offshore was going to be the way to go. Offshore was at that time, getting close to being legitimate. It flipped quickly, but that’s what it looked like.

And so we were purchased by a company called Fun Technologies. Fun Technologies rolled in a couple other companies. We were talking about one of your previous guests, Rob Pythian. He had Fanball at the time, and they rolled in Fanball as well. So Rob and I worked together for a little while.

After a while, I realized that corporate world wasn’t for me. I left. I went and I kind of bounced around a couple other sports betting projects and posting forums and some startups. And then one day I said, well, I guess it’s time to start another odds service. There was no one else in the business. It was just kind of what we did. And so I started up Sports Options.

And one of the guys who had come along with me, Samuel Lalani, he wrote the original Don Best. He was their programmer from day one, all the way through. And when I left Don Best, he left with me and we worked on these other projects. We started Sports Options and we ran side by side with Don Best for close to ten years.

And by the time these ten years had passed, we had basically split the market and we were friendly competitors. We wanted the business, but we were still friendly, the two companies. And Benji Cherniak had came to me and said, “Hey, Rick, you know what, at this point, this is way before PASPA repeal even looked like it was a possibility. And he said, we’re just at a race to the bottom. Why don’t we join together? See how things work out. You know, and we can somewhat right-size the market and whatnot.”

It made sense to do this the way the market looked at the time. Shortly after that PASPA repeals, everything changes quickly. Don Best was one of the very first acquisitions to happen and it was by Scientific Games. That triggered a buyout for me. I went on my way. Did not think I was getting back into the odds screen business. I thought two times was enough for me.

I bought the iconic Gold Sheet newsletter and this was going to be just a side project for me. I turned and I merged my Gold Sheet company in with WagerTalk Media. We just combined them and I started running that company for a while. And then after a little while, I started getting calls from people asking me, are you starting another line service?

And it just seemed like the quality of line services had gone down. And when I talk about line services, I’m talking kind of an old school style line service. And so we thought about it. We kicked it around. And then one day I just finally got convinced to do it. And Sam Lalani had come along with me as well. And so I said, Sam, here we go again. And we started up another one and took off with OddsLogic.

And, you know, three times, third time’s a charm, I hope. And people ask me all the time, why are you into this again? And I just tell them it’s just what we do at this point. How else do I describe it?

Ryan Knuppel

It’s in your blood, it’s in your blood. I really relate with a lot of that, Rick. And I love, I think you and I could sit around over a beer or a drink and just talk about this industry for days because I relate with your whole story and just, it’s so refreshing when you’re sitting down with people that have been around from the beginning of all of this, right?

It’s crazy to see it all unfold and congrats to you for weathering all of the storms that come along with all of this industry. I mean, as you know, we can leave it at that. But weathering the storm and still in it today in your blood, that’s amazing. So congrats on that. Wow. Thank you. What a story. That’s cool.

So you’re here today. Third time’s a charm. OddsLogic. Let’s dive in for those that may not be familiar with it or exactly what you’re doing. I’m going to pull it up on the screen. Why don’t you just give us kind of the high level idea of what OddsLogic is and kind of what it’s set out to achieve.

Rick Allec

Sure. So, OddsLogic is really split into two businesses. You have the odds screen and then you have odds API. So let’s just focus on the odds screen because that’s what you’re looking at. And that’s the more B2C product. And what an odds screen is, is basically just an aggregator. We have direct feeds from fifty different sportsbooks and we provide real time odds on our screen pre-match and live.

Along with that, we manage the schedule of information that’s on there. We’re showing people what games are being played, the time changes. We’re popping up if there’s anything that they need to know about the changes. There might be a pitching change in baseball. There might be a venue change, cancellations with weather and so forth.

And then we’re also managing injuries. We’re sending out breaking injuries as they happen. We have a team. And again, one thing you’re going to pick up is I like to work with the same people over and over. A team that’s been with me since way back at Don Best doing the information for our products is still with me. And so we have the fastest breaking injuries. We have the fastest lineups, lineup updates.

Our scores are fast and accurate. I used to say the fastest scores, but we’re not competing with the Sport Radars and so forth, but it’s a really quality score feed that you can count on. And this is just a quick way for people to get all the information they need to make their betting decisions.

You know, the one thing about the screen is it can be used in a lot of different ways. And when I say B2C, you know, we’re priced at B2C right now, but it really, an odds screen if done the right way is B2C and B2B. Traders are using the screen, sports bettors are using the screen at the same time. They just might be using it in a slightly different way.

Traders are using it. They just want to see what’s happening in the market. They want to be alerted when there’s an old school term, when there’s a steam play. The screen lights up and they see what’s going on. They want to see their odds compared to everybody else. When it comes to the sports bettors, the quickest, easiest way for the sports bettors to use the screen is to find the best odds to make their wagers.

An odds screen in its core is all about line shopping. But, you know, as you learn more about the odds screen, you learn more advanced features. You can have bet timing. You look at where the odds are moving and you can bet there. You have your arb alerts, you have your positive EV opportunities and so forth. And so it’s all there in the screen.

Now, along with the screen, what happens is you built out these feeds to power the screen. And eventually you have this powerful feed engine running. And it’s just another way to monetize what you’re doing. The interesting thing that happens is the most expensive part about an odds screen is gathering, managing the feeds.

And so what happens is we quickly realized, and we learned this at Sports Options. We were the very first company to offer a sports betting odds API. And we did that just to offset our cost. And we’ve just carried it over here. And what makes our feeds unique and also this goes into the screen is people don’t quite understand what real time means.

And being in the odds business and the odds delivery business, you realize real time, it really means real time. It doesn’t mean five seconds, ten seconds. It means a line changes at a sportsbook, it should be changing on your screen as well. And because of our experience with that and the team that we have behind it, we deliver true real-time information.

Rick Allec

And I think that the easiest way to see it nowadays is just on the in-play odds. If you’re logged into your DraftKings or FanDuel account, there’s times that the lines change quicker on our screen than they do if you’re watching them change on the odds page just because we have the direct feeds as well.

Ryan Knuppel

Wow, that’s crazy. What a cool tool. I mean, I can definitely see the use from both B to B and B to C. Very, very cool. I wanted to comment on something you made in there. You said you like working with the same people, same teams.

I mean, that’s called loyalty. You trust. That’s a good thing. That’s amazing that you’ve been able to kind of work with the same people. They must trust you. You trust them. And I love that. I love everything about that. So very cool. Congrats on that, by the way.

Rick Allec

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Ryan Knuppel

So very cool thanks for that thorough breakdown. I won’t even ask the basic questions of what sports and all the above because it’s all laid out here on OddsLogic.com. I want to get a little deeper with you, maybe a little more off track of the product.

Coming down this path three times, I’d love to talk about maybe some of the challenges that you’re seeing now or that you saw now launching OddsLogic that maybe you didn’t see back three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. Like what are some of the challenges working in today’s fast-paced environment that we all live in?

Rick Allec

Well, one, you just mentioned fast-paced, but the other way, it’s just the sheer amount of data. You know, we look back, if you look back in this long history, there were times when at Don Best, we would look at things, different sports, different leagues, and so forth. And we used to make the joke, never, we will never put those on the screen, never.

And then when we got to Sports Options, and one thing that we have done, and I’ve been fortunate to be able to do this as I’ve done this now three times, often people think, oh, you just copied what you did before. It’s actually the opposite. We’re in a spot where we can learn what’s new, learn from mistakes and so forth.

And so this time around going into it, I had an idea already that there was going to be this large amount of data. But even me, who had been in the industry for so long, I had missed a little bit of exactly how much data that we were talking about. And the amount of the props, the amount of leagues that are covered, the amount of derivatives, and then everything is also in play.

The amount of data that we’re processing today in one week has it. I haven’t looked at this, but I’m going to assume in one week we process more than we did in three months before. And so when we sat down to work on this, we really built that now. It was a challenge.

And what it did for us is we sat in beta testing mode for probably nine months longer than I would have liked to because I like revenue. But what I said is we’re not going out there until I can sit here and stare all day long at one of the top books, DraftKings FanDuel, and see our odds changing, everything that we’re covering and so forth.

But one thing that we did do is we’re stepping into this a bit because of these challenges. Our system’s built to handle all of the data. But what we’re doing is stepping into it a little bit slower than some of the other companies have done it.

So at the other end of the spectrum, from what we’re doing, I think Odds Jam is a good example. Odds Jam took the approach of everything all at once. And it’s a good approach. It’s just harder to manage that amount of data in a way that people need it managed whether you’re looking at a screen and making a decision if you’re a trader or if you’re getting a direct API from us and you’re ingesting this information and making decisions it has to be robust.

So we’re stepping into it a little bit. I don’t want to downplay what we do as you brought up on the screen we’re covering tons of markets tons of leagues and we’re adding more and more as we go along but that was the biggest one.

The next one that took me a little bit by surprise was the difference between the two kinds of what I call the two kinds of screens. You have the old school screen which is what we’re what you would see more like ours what Don Best did and a few others have opened up and then you might have a new school product and again I’ll use Odds Jam as that new school product where all they care about is sending out the alerts.

And what we did is we built a product where I said well, let’s start with what we know, the old school type of product, the classic kind of product, old school is the wrong word, the classic kind of product. And then I said then, but let’s build it in a way where we can produce all this information and spit it out.

And so one thing that we’ve done with this is, and this was a key part for us is that as we were building the team, yes, all my old people, all the old school people are with me, all the people that have been with me in the past. But we have connected with a couple of new ones.

And the most key connection I’ve made is with our soon to be CTO, James Piet. And James has a PhD in statistics from Wharton. James has been in the sports betting industry for a decade. He has been in the analytics side of it.

And when James came on board, we were able to take some of his knowledge and build out the math we need for the alerting and everything else to make it just a little bit easier. So that’s going to take us to the next level. So I think that where we sit is figuring out what is the same in sports betting and what is new in sports betting and how do we blend that all into one product.

Ryan Knuppel

Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s very cool. So where are you at from a product side? I mean, I guess from a business side, you know, it’s out here. I see only ninety-nine dollars a month. Try a seven day trial. Talk a little bit about the logistics of getting it, where it’s available, you know, just where it’s at from a launch side.

Rick Allec

Yeah. So, you know, standard odds screen pricing again fall back on Don Best. There’s a couple out there. They all fall in about the same price range of about five hundred bucks a month. And they all generally have two services, five hundred bucks a month for real time. Ninety-nine dollars for delayed. You can see the value of real time just by that price discrepancy.

What we’re doing is we will have these two levels of service. But we came out of the gate. We’re real time. You’re getting all the injuries, but we don’t quite have all the features there yet. And so what I said is, listen, let’s just come out of the gate at ninety-nine bucks. Get as many people looking at it as we possibly can and get as much feedback as we possibly can.

One of my philosophies, and I’m going to chalk this up as somewhat of a secret to success, is I’m price sensitive to the users. We’re lucky and that we are self-funded. So I don’t have to answer to a bunch of investors. So we’re putting out price points that are going to be fair.

Here’s what I say about our products. They’re always going to be cheaper than what you’re going to get someplace else. And they’re always going to be better than what you’re going to get someplace else. So right now, what I’m getting is I’m trying to get as many people in there looking at it. Get the ninety-nine bucks, help cover our nut a bit and get as much feedback as we can.

Probably we’re probably two months away from splitting the services and the big things that we have coming that we don’t have right now that will be coming in February. First one is going to be our props offering. We don’t have player props up there right now. What we do on the back end. But we haven’t released that yet. So we’ll have a full player prop offering that, again, will be the same speed, the same robustness as everything else.

And then also our alerting system will be coming out by the end of February as well. So some of the alerts I talked about, the ARB alerts and whatnot. And I think that once we hit that spot where we truly are is we are in that spot where I mentioned a product that covers everybody from somebody that just wants to bet a few ARBs to a trader at any of the top sports books to be able to use the same product.

Ryan Knuppel

Every time the word or the phrase ARBs comes up, it just makes me reflect back to like two thousand and two. It’s like when I got my like this aha moment in sports betting of like, oh, that’s a thing. I got to figure out how to deal with that. Right. And so like people are like, what are you talking about? It’s ARBs and arbitrage and all this stuff. But I relate to that, the ARB alerts and knowing when, because that time is hot. They’re going to be gone within a second.

Rick Allec

Oh, yeah. I’m fairly certain that we were the first people, and we did it at Sports Options. We did it a little bit at Don Best, but we carried it more when we did Sports Options, that we were the first company to launch a true middle alert feature. That’s what we called it at the time, was middle alert. You could go in there and you could set up all the settings and so forth.

And, you know, what was interesting at the time when we built it was, again, using the same theme of B to C and B to B was I found out that sportsbooks were using it to monitor their own lines. So, you know, it was one of these tools that we had no idea. That’s one of the things that you find about the odds screen is when you sit down with someone that’s been using your product for a long time, you find a whole new way of using the product that you built and you thought you knew all about, and then people show you different ways to use it. It’s pretty entertaining to see that.

Ryan Knuppel

Well, Rick, you answered all my questions as you went through all of this and what’s going on in the future. You’re answering them all, so thank you. It’s like you knew the script ahead of time or something, but thank you for that. I do have a couple final questions here before we get off here.

Again, I just want to tap into your business mind because I think people that are watching this can really see you have the experience and truly expertise in this field. Two questions. One is more on the advice side. So looking to advise young entrepreneurs, people that are out there trying to make a way, trying to start something in this crazy world that we live in of sports betting or iGaming or even just sports business. They have some idea, right? What’s some advice you’d have for them to get started based on all your experience of work?

Rick Allec

One thing that’s always worked for me is I don’t tell customers what they want. They tell me what they want. And I think that if you spend time, there’s enough resources out there to spend time in groups of gamblers. You know, whether you’re on X, whether you’re in discords, wherever you may want to go, you will find out what gamblers want and what they’re looking for.

And I think that I’ve seen this mistake happen multiple times in our industry as things really, really boomed. And it was people coming in saying, oh, you know, here’s what sports bettors are going to want. And, you know, sports betting is a very basic practice. And when you look at it, you think about that.

And I always look at it and I say this, the majority of sports bettors, even the ones that are trying to get trying to make smarter bets, it’s a hobby. This is what they do for fun. And I look at it and I say, how do I make someone’s hobby more fun? Well, there’s different ways you could do it. One is make it easier, make it a little bit more profitable, make it a bit easier to follow.

So there’s all these different things that you can do right now. If I was to give advice to somebody who is looking for something as a startup, I would say, number one, you look at the startup graveyard for sports betting and see what didn’t work. And number two, I would look at it and I would say, don’t think that sports betting is looking for someone to reinvent the wheel.

One thing that has stuck out and I sat back to watch to see what was happening. I had an opinion that sports betting is sports betting was going to stay about the same. I watched it and I watched it come in and I saw a few things pop up here and there. But in general, it’s sports betting at its core.

The last thing I would say is look for something that’s sustainable. One thing that we’re looking at with our product, right before we got online, I saw an ad that popped up in one of my social media feeds. And I didn’t look at what product it was. But their banner said, get your accounts closed. And they were bragging that they’re going to win you so much money that you’re going to get your accounts closed.

The problem with that is, what if you just want to bet sports? Like why is that a good thing? And so I think that there’s some things on here where you look at it and you’ve got to think about the longevity of it and how people are going to do it.

Last thing I’ll say is that I think that some products have come out and have made it too much work for sports bettors. Sports bettors, again, if you look at what my philosophy is that they’re generally – this is their hobby. They’re here to have fun. You can’t give them too much homework.

Ryan Knuppel

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Great advice. Great advice. And then lastly, Rick, what ask would you have of the audience? So people watching, you know, other business owners, other people just interested in this space. What do you guys need? What are you guys looking for? Where are you at from an ask side?

Rick Allec

That’s a good question. You know what I always ask of our customers is tell me what we’re doing wrong. Tell me what we need to do differently.

I joke on our weekly meeting every now and then and say, maybe we’re too nice because no one’s telling us what we’re doing wrong. I know we’re doing something wrong. And so I’m always begging for people to tell us what we’re doing wrong, what needs to be different, what’s missing for them and so forth.

But you know what? In all honesty, when I look at it, I just back up to what I just said. That’s asking them to do homework. You know, it’s my job to figure it out. It’s my job to gather this information.

But I’m always looking for something that is missing in the odds screen side of it and what we could do differently. I don’t want to suggest that we don’t get some new stuff popped in every now and then. We do get it. But that’s one thing that I would like to hear from customers a bit more.

Ryan Knuppel

Amazing. Well, Rick, really appreciate your time here today. Thank you so much. If people want to get a hold of you or check out OddsLogic, obviously OddsLogic.com. But what’s the best path to get to you?

Rick Allec

For me, it’s email. It’s Rick@OddsLogic.com. You can get our OddsLogic on X.com as well. I answer all the DMs on X.com. I try and be really responsive with all the customers.

You know, if you’re getting an email from OddsLogic, it’s probably coming from me. So you get directly to me, direct access, and I’m always looking to have conversations with people.

Ryan Knuppel

Amazing. Well, I appreciate the time today. Good luck in the future and a really amazing product. I’m excited to see where it heads.

Rick Allec

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Ryan Knuppel

Thanks, Rick. Take care.

Rick Allec

Thanks, you too.

Ryan Knuppel

All right. That was Rick Allec of OddsLogic.com episode two hundred and thirty-nine in the books. What an amazing product. We’ll put all those links and everything we talked about in the show notes. So you’ll be able to go out there, click on them, don’t have to scramble and write them down.

Man, a lot of nuggets in that interview, a lot of nuggets in that one. So that was one I could probably go for an hour on. But anyway, maybe we’ll have Rick back on later on and kind of revisit what they’re doing in a year or so. But I hope you enjoyed that one as well. I urge you to check out OddsLogic.com and see what they got going on over there.

All right, that’s about all I got for today. Hey, we’re two weeks from the Super Bowl. I’m still cheering for the Chiefs. I know many aren’t cheering for the Chiefs, but I’m still cheering for the Chiefs. So go Chiefs. I think it’ll be a great Super Bowl, though, man. The Eagles are playing amazing. So we’ll see what happens.

I’d love to hear who you’re cheering for. So comment in the show notes and comment wherever you find me. I’m Ryan Knuppel. That was episode two hundred and thirty-nine. Thanks for everything. Talk to you soon.

Relevant Guest Links

More Knup Sports Links

To Top