Join Ryan Knuppel and Brian Goldstein as they talk about the new odds comparison tool, AbeBets.com! Brian is the CEO and Founder of Abe and talks about where this free tool is at and headed in the future.
Show notes from Brian Goldstein of AbeBets.com Interview
Ryan Knuppel: Today, Brian Goldstein, the CEO and Founder of Abe joins us to talk about his Odds Comparison site at AbeBets.com.
Ryan Knuppel: Everywhere you turn, it’s the same old sports talk, the same headlines, the same news and the same pouring information. This podcast is here to change all of that. We bring you hot sports takes, winning sports betting strategy and picks, reliable gaming industry news and breaking interviews with some of the biggest names in sports business. My name is Ryan Knuppel. Welcome to the Knup Sports Show.
Ryan Knuppel: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Knup Sports Show. I’m your host Ryan Knuppel here with you each and every time. Thank you so much for joining in another episode, another edition of this show. We like to talk sports. We like to talk to people in the industry. We like to really look at some of these services and some things that are really making waves in the sports betting space. And today we have another special guest for you. I have Brian Goldstein of Abe on the line with me. Brian, are you here?
Brian Goldstein: I am here. Thanks for having me, Ryan.
Ryan Knuppel: I really appreciate you joining me, Brian. I appreciate it. I think the audience is really going to enjoy hearing what you’re doing and what Abe is. So why don’t we jump right in and you tell us a little bit about Abe and where it came about and what it is.
Brian Goldstein: Sure. So Abe is a bedding intelligence platform that helps users bet more effectively and we really created the company based on the premise of a simple question, which is that users today, consumers, when they go online, before they buy anything, they’re engaging in really two activities. One is price comparison and the other is reading reviews. And you really do that before you buy anything else online. And we think your sports betting should be no different. And so with the proliferation of sportsbook in the US, over 15 now operating in New Jersey, each of these books offer different odds and different events and also different promos both for signing up and odds, boosts related to specific contests. And we want to make it easy, the easiest possible for users to find the best odds on any event, quickly transact across that sportsbook and also discover any odds, boosts or promos related to that bet that they’re looking to place.
Brian Goldstein: This Odds Comparison engine, which is what we’re calling it is really just the first step. And what we’re looking to build is really this one-stop sports betting research platform that users can visit before placing a bet and make sure they’re armed with all of the information they need to bet the bet a smart way as possible.
Ryan Knuppel: Yeah, that’s amazing. Because I mean, any average to experienced sports better knows that price comparison and finding the best odd is really key and critical to profitable sports betting. Right? I mean you can bet at one place and you can have fun doing it, but if you really are going to take it seriously and try to make money at this, you really need to compare your odds, find the best, I guess, position for your bet. And a comparison site like this is definitely the way to go and a way to just help you. Almost a tool in your tool shed to help you make the best bets.
Brian Goldstein: Exactly. And even looking at, for example, if you wanted to bet on the 49ers at the Super Bowl this weekend, if you’re based in Jersey, there are lines on the money line from +112 at FanDuel who’s currently offering the best odds to +103 at Caesar’s. And so when you’re thinking about an activity where you’re generating 10, 15% returns you’re doing pretty well, there’s a 10% differential alone in kind of the odds for this bet. And so if you’re not getting the best odds, you really don’t stand a chance at making money over the long term.
Ryan Knuppel: So tell me a bit about your background. Have you always been in the gaming space? You personally, you’re the CEO and Founder of Abe. What was before Abe? What got you into the iGaming, sports betting space?
Brian Goldstein: Yeah, absolutely. So my career was actually as an investor. So I spent 10 years as an investor in New York, really specializing in tech, internet and software. And towards the latter part of my investing career, really focusing on situations with kind of complex legal or regulatory change. And with the Supreme Court [inaudible 00:04:06] in 2018, I started really digging into the sports betting space.
Brian Goldstein: And I kind of had this realization that while there was a proliferation of sportsbooks, there really was no good tool that was intuitive, easy to use to help users find the best odds and actually manage their online personas across all these disparate sportsbooks. So starting in middle of last year, we set about to create Abe, which is really kind of a single platform to help you find the best odds, research bets, and then also manage your presence across the various platforms.
Ryan Knuppel: That’s amazing. So what all sportsbooks are you working with? I mean, I’m assuming you’re jumping in with any sportsbook that’s going legal here in the United States, but are you closely affiliated with a number of them or how does that work on the sportsbook selections that are part of Abe?
Brian Goldstein: Sure. So we really pride ourselves in our independence and objectivity and we are looking to partner really with any sportsbook that wants to partner with us, but we’re also including a lot of odds from sportsbooks we don’t currently have partnerships with, just because we want to put the user first and make sure that users on Abe can always find the best odds. We currently have commercial agreements with all the big guys, FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM, PointsBet, Borgata and SugarHouse, amongst a few others. But as we kind of continue to build out the platform, our goal is to have a completely comprehensive offering so that you can always find the best odds irrespective of who’s offering them.
Ryan Knuppel: Sure, sir. So is it just a website or do you have an app that goes along with it? What’s the, I guess, user experience like? And a followup question to that, I guess, how would somebody sign up? Is there a cost to this? Is it free? Give us a little bit more information for the end user, how they would get going on and how they get started with it.
Brian Goldstein: Sure. So it’s absolutely free. You can visit us at AbeBets.com. It’s A-B-E-B-E-T-S.com. And yeah, it’sfree to the user. We also offer a daily newsletter called Abe Insights that summarizes kind of all of the odds, boosts and other deals of the day along with any betting related information that you need to know about. And yeah, our product today is really a piece of software that’s accessible via the website. It’s really designed mobile first, so you’ll see if you check out the site on your phone, it’s a really clean, intuitive, easy to use experience. We are building an app and we are planning to have that released ahead of next NFL season.
Ryan Knuppel: That’s amazing. That’s really cool stuff, man. I mean it looks very slick. I was out there playing with it earlier. It does look pretty nice. I’d encourage anyone that’s just looking for a little extra help finding odds comparisons to go out and check AbeBets. It definitely looks pretty good. So what’s in the future for you guys? I mean, I know you said you’re looking into making an app and all of that. Are there next level things that could get added into Abe or is this it, it’s simple as this?
Brian Goldstein: No, absolutely more features to come. So we actually have a team of data scientists with backgrounds in machine learning, helping to build out some more analytical tools to help users bet smarter. You’ll see next month that’s introduced new features like including historical odds, so you’ll be able to see how odds have changed over time leading up to a game and even in-game, how those odds have fluctuated. We’ll then tie that into a data log of actual sports events. You’ll be able to understand what developments in the sporting world have caused certain odds and certain events to shift.
Brian Goldstein: And then moving forward, later this year we’ll be introducing a line prediction tool that’ll forecast how lines are likely to move over time. And what we’re really trying to do is bring kind of data and analysis to a space that I think is pretty much dominated by editorials and opinion. And so we’re all about providing users with insights related to the bets they want to make. What we’ve found is that a lot of the, I’ll say sports betting research sites out there, one, are very intimidating to new users. We want to help people who have never bet before gain the confidence they need to bet. But then also, for more experienced betters rather than inundate you with all of the data on the internet available for a specific team, we want to surface specific insights that are relevant to the bet you want to make.
Brian Goldstein: So this idea of kind of streamlining the experience so that you don’t have to go to 12 different sites to understand what’s important before you make a bet, you can go to Abe, type the bet you want to make into our engine and we’ll kind of tell you everything that you need to know before you place your bet.
Ryan Knuppel: Speaking of the type of bet you want to make, I got a question for you. So we all know the future here of sports betting is kind of going to be in this live betting markets and some of the live betting action that goes on. I can’t imagine it’s very easy having a comparison tool of live betting odds, but is that something that you guys have thought about or are going to try to tackle at some point? I’m not even sure if it’s feasible, if it’s something that can happen. But is that something that you guys have investigated or thought about it at all around live betting?
Brian Goldstein: Yeah, absolutely. So the way our application is built today is that we are integrated on the backend with the APIs of the various sportsbooks, so we’re actually pulling data in real time from them. Going forward, we’re working to strengthen our partnerships with them in order for them to push data to us in real time. And so you’ll see over the coming year us implement new features that we’ll have minute to minute live betting.
Brian Goldstein: Now what I will try and point out is that while I think the in-game will be huge, as a better myself, I kind of find to some degree it becomes distracting when you’re betting throughout the game. And so I do question whether in-game will become as dominant versus pregame as some people say.
Ryan Knuppel: That’s a good point. I mean I’m with you on that as well. I like to make my bet then go enjoy the game. But there is a crowd out there that really enjoys the engagement during game, right? And then likes to make their bets.
Brian Goldstein: Sure.
Ryan Knuppel: So, yeah, I can see both audiences there. And I think you bring up a fair point where it’s not going to take over everybody’s… it’s not going to be everybody’s thing. Certainly, I do, like you said, I just enjoy watching a game and not worrying about, oh, I got to be on top of it and make another bet. And what’s this line and what’s that line? But from terms of an odds comparison tool, I’m just thinking out loud here to you. I mean, that seems like a real opportunity because I can imagine the way those live odds change, there’s probably going to be quite a bit of variance between different sites and what the live odds show at different times. I’m guessing a comparison tool would be very handy maybe. May be very handy when we’re talking with live odds.
Brian Goldstein: Absolutely. And at the very least, even before we get to having a live odds comparison, we will be doing the analysis on which sportsbooks offer the best odds, typically in-game and be publishing kind of rankings of, if you want to bet in-game on NBA, who’s offered the best odds in-game so far this season kind of based on where the starting line was.
Ryan Knuppel: Very cool. Very cool. Well, that’s awesome. Well, if the audience wants to, I guess, get a hold of you or if they want to get out to AbeBets, I know it’s AbeBets.com and we’ll put the link in the show notes to this and everything, but is there any certain way to contact you or is it just through the website?
Brian Goldstein: Yeah, no, you could contact us through the website and if you have any feedback you can send us an email at crew@abebets.com.
Ryan Knuppel: Awesome. Are you guys going to attend any of the iGaming events this year or is it just head down and get working on this app?
Brian Goldstein: A little bit of both. We’ll definitely be at the Sports Betting Conference in New Jersey later this year and then kind of selectively deciding which others that we’ll be attending.
Ryan Knuppel: Amazing. Well, I’ll be there as well. I’ll be looking forward to meeting you in person sitting down, saying hello and hopefully by that time Abe is off and running and doing very well. So Brian, I definitely appreciate you joining me and we’ll let you go for sake of time, but I appreciate you being here.
Brian Goldstein: Yeah, great speaking with you as well and look forward to continuing the conversation.
Ryan Knuppel: All right everybody, that’s AbeBets.com. This was Brian Goldstein, the CEO and Founder at Abe. If you guys want an odds comparison tool, go on out there, check it out. It is a very good tool for you all to use. At the least, get on their email list and check out some of the stuff they’re doing. So Brian, thanks again. Listeners, thank you and everybody have a great day.
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