Behind BetOnline’s "Hold the Line" Promo with RAS
Dave Mason, long-time brand manager, joined Elf Spaces to discuss new show, which airs at 8am PT today.
On Thursday night’s X Spaces with Elf, BetOnline brand manager Dave Mason joined to discuss the sportsbook’s new “Hold the Line” promotion.
The discussion revolved around speculation that BetOnline introduced the promotion—allowing viewers to place a $500 max bet on an RAS release at its exact release price for up to 30 seconds—under the assumption that RAS cannot win. Mason directly tackled these concerns, clarifying why this belief is flawed and outlining the broader strategy behind the initiative.
“If we didn’t respect them, we would offer full limits on this promo,” Mason added later on X. “Listen to the Elf spaces for the way we see it.”
Below is a transcript of his responses.
Editor’s note: RAS releases in the 2024-25 season are 361-303 (+27.2 units), including college basketball, which is currently +11.45 units.
Q. The theory is you are holding the line for the RASPicks users because you think you can beat them, otherwise why would you? Could you comment on that?
I get it. I have seen that comment out there too. I know RAS is very respected and we were supposed to do this before football season. We had to pull the plug on it because someone here didn’t want to do it. We brought up the idea again now and we went for it. But that is not the case. People are saying they don’t have an edge anymore, but I mean how long has that been the case? Did they just have a bad season or what? Are they still beating the closing number? I think they are still beating the closing number at a good rate and that tells the tale. Anyone can have a bad season. I am not touting them, I don’t know how well or not well they have been lately. But you have a marketer on the phone now too.
We do stuff like this because first of all, we like loyalty in our players too. A lot of books these days just want to turn and burn their clientele and have them go away. We know for being in this business so long that loyalty means a lot. We sacrifice money here and there to keep players happy as well. Do we like lighting money on fire? No. But we do stuff throughout the year that is going to lose us money but we hope to get that back in not only loyalty, but new players.
Just looking at it from a standpoint of you guys think you can beat RAS, that’s short sighted. I get it, but it’s a nuanced situation. We are not that dumb. There are a lot of sharp people betting this stuff, we take a lot of sharp action from it, a lot of sharps are betting the promotion, that tells me a lot about it. I talked to the odds guys tonight about it because we had a glitch and stuff with the back end and I was getting his thoughts on everything and he still respects them a lot. It’s not an ego thing for sure where we are going to beat them. It is a lot more nuanced than that.
Q. Can you ever run a promotion against users you think you would lose to long term? My assumption would be you think you are going to earn off of RAS customers whether they are betting non RAS stuff or you are going to earn off RAS stuff.
It’s a good question. I am sure we are going to analyze the players to see who is betting it, are they sharp and do they have long-term value? But the idea is that we get a lot of customers in betting, some win, some lose betting some stuff. But it is a wait-and-see. If it turns it out it was all sharp action then I would maybe question what are we doing here? These guys win enough, we give out enough value across the board, why the hell are we doing this? We are hoping to get some, I don’t want to say recreational but not long-term winners. Anyone who listens to RAS gets it to some point. We are not going to get some total recreational guy. It’s going to be some maybe not super sharp, but guys like me, I am not a long-term winner, I am not going to win long term, but I get the value, I get the numbers, I get the math. So I think that is what you’ve got with RAS. It’s the semi educated to the extremely educated bettors. We will see, it’s kind of an experiment. Have me on again in a few months to answer. But it’s fun, we like trying stuff like this. We have a great marketing team throwing wild shit against the wall and seeing what works.
Q. A lot of people thought that you could beat RAS, but it sounds like it’s a marketing thing?
A. It’s an experiment. We might get our teeth kicked in. You don’t know until you try. I don’t want to say it is purely marketing, but there is that element, I don’t want to bullshit you either. It’s about trying to get new customers, trying to create loyalty. Those are all the marketing terms now. You’ve got the guys on the stage just looking at numbers, are we winning, or are we losing? Then they’ve got guys like me on the marketing team, KPI’s these days we call them, we are looking at acquisition, new numbers, loyalty, retention and all that stuff to keep these guys betting, keep these guys interested. It’s a competitive space man. I am not going to be here saying we are the best. Every book has its weaknesses and its strengths. We try to have the fewest weaknesses as possible. We want to cater to the most guys and try stuff like this. Like I said, you guys have me on here talking about it, but that is what the marketing team is going to be looking at. The odds guys are analyzing the numbers. How much are we winning, are they giving back in other ways. It’s definitely TBD if it is worth this.
Q. Would you do this promotion for other services? I don’t know if you can answer that, but, the point I am trying to make is you have a fundamental belief RAS is not as good as they once were. Would you do this promotion for a service that is running hotter?
A. I am going to plead ignorance. I don’t really pay too much attention to other services. But no, honest to god truth, we would be doing this promotion with RAS and you could believe me or not believe me and think I am bullshitting, that is totally cool. The fact that allegedly there are people saying they lost their edge or whatever, that has nothing to do with it. We’d be doing this. The opportunity arose before football season. We kind of dropped the ball there a little bit and now we are going for it.
Q. I know you said someone shut down the RAS promotion pre football season, and then you guys brought it back … What changed between not wanting to do the promotion before and doing it now?
A. Well shit, I don’t want to get in too much trouble I probably shouldn’t be saying this but basically someone was working here in the company kind of kiboshed it, and they are not working here anymore. Simple stuff, political stuff. We just need to work through this problem we are having on the back end here to tell you the truth, so the guys are on it. It’s a work in progress so far and we are having fun with it.
Q. Where would you rank the RAS customer in terms of a customer you’d want and would have loyalty?
A. They are an important part of the ecosystem.
Q. I mean in terms of profitability to your book. You think they are a customer you’d want long term?
A. Sure. Again, it depends what people are betting. If they are only betting RAS and not betting anything else, then you know…but if they are diversifying and betting other stuff then their value goes up. It’s just like a guy only betting a secondary sport or props, they are not as valuable to us as guys betting the meat and potatoes markets and props too. But that said, we still want them as a customer, it’s not like we don’t want them as a customer. There are levels to it, right?