Transcript: RAS pro bettor joins VSIN's 'A Numbers Game'

Michael Craig chats college football, promises a live release next show

Professional bettor Michael Craig, RAS team member, joined Gill Alexander’s program, “A Numbers Game,” early Tuesday. The segment lasted about 10 minutes and the two briefly discussed the sports service industry—including how hard it is to win at betting—and then went through a couple of college football games. Michael also shared the releases from the RAS service this week and touched on one of them in a bit more detail.

Transcript below.

To see the show replay, check the VSIN website.

Gill Alexander: I’ll see if you agree with this, but the pick selling industry gets a blanket bad name. But I would argue there’s two pillars of it. Right Angle Sports and Dr. Bob, for me, some people might have someone else, but for me, those are two pillars that have been tried and true for years and years and years, do things completely honestly, move markets when you release picks. Would you agree that that’s perhaps, would you acquiesce to those two being very well respected.

Michael Craig: I would 100 percent agree with that.

Gill: Now, you’re back with Right Angle Sports, you were there for a long time, you were not there, and now you’re back with Ed and RAS. Hopefully in the future, maybe next week or the week after, we will do a live release and everyone can see just like we did with Carl Sack, when he did NBA with Dr. Bob, how the markets move on a release. With college football, we’ll do it with you guys. Let me just talk generally, before we get to college football thoughts from you, you’re about to do a podcast or a chat (Twitter Spaces) tonight about how difficult it is to win betting. Talk to us about that, because it’s not something we often delve into.

Michael: Yeah, so Eddie Walls and I, it’s Tuesday nights, 9 pm EST, we do a Spaces on the RAS Twitter feed. We discuss general topics and this week Eddie wanted to talk about how difficult it is to win. You know, with social media, the perception is always that it’s so easy, everyone is posting winning tickets, nobody is posting losers. But it’s more difficult than people realize. To your point of Dr. Bob and RAS being kind of two of the pillars, one of the other things to touch on specific to the tout industry, is there’s a big difference between winning for yourself and helping other people win and giving value to other people. I think that’s really where those two services differ from the rest of the market. I’m not saying there’s no other good services out there. But in terms of a long-term track record, I don’t think anybody can argue that those are the two pillars as you said and have a tried-and-true reputation.

Gill: And so the Twitter Spaces is when again, tonight?

Michael: Tonight, 9 pm eastern, yes.

Gill: As far as college football specifically, moving ahead to this weekend, let me just talk about one or two of the bigger games. Alabama-Texas. Alabama obviously is a huge favorite in this. Is that number playable to you? Maybe the total?

Michael: It looks like the total just got hit upwards. Alabama is kind of a tough one sometimes because they’re blowing teams out, you kinda have to separate out the garbage time because there’s probably more garbage time in Bama games than there are anyone else’s games in the country. I don’t know how you play Texas here. I’m not dying to play this game either way, but I feel like Bama is probably the right side. I don’t have too much else to say other than Bama seems to do very well in these games, and Texas I’m just not sold on. Every year, Texas comes in with all this hype, and it just doesn’t seem like they ever come through. Then you’ve got the new quarterback. I didn’t actually watch the game, but some of the other RAS guys did and the overall impression was that maybe the new QB wasn’t going to live up to the hype. So, lean to Bama and lean to over at the current price point.

Gill: Let me go into your backyard, the Pitt Panthers, who did get it done against West Virginia in a roller coaster football game this past Thursday night. They get Tennessee, who just rolled Ball State. I don’t know what you can really learn about Tennessee when you roll a team like Ball State. Tennessee is favored (by 6.5) at Pitt, any thoughts about that game?

Michael: You didn’t tell me which games we were going to talk about, but I’m kinda glad you brought this one up. I’m not dying to bet Pitt here, and I like this Tennessee team in general and I think they have a chance to be a 9-win team. But I agree with you, I don’t think last week proves anything, Ball State is pretty down this year. Pitt, I think, probably underperformed a little bit. Definitely got lucky on a late pick-six to come back and cover that game if you had -6.5, but it pretty much landed on the number for most people. But I have a hard time getting to Pitt being this big of a dog. I definitely have interest in Pitt if it gets back to plus 7—I doubt that happens—but last year, you’d have Pitt as a small favorite here, so to have a shift of this many points based on one game … and I know Pitt lost Pickett … but they still have a good defense, the profile of a good underdog, they’re going to run the ball well. So, I would definitely lean Pitt at this number. If you lean Pitt, you probably lean under as well, because it probably becomes more of a run-based game. So yeah, if I had to pick anything there, it would be Pitt and under.

Gill: What game do you love this weekend?

Michael: Love is a strong word, but I can tell you yesterday we released sides at RAS. We released Syracuse -20 vs UConn, Mississippi State -9.5 and then Umass +31. So, I guess I’ll briefly go into the Mississippi State game. We’re pretty high on them just generally. I think some people at RAS have made the argument that they’re the third best team in the SEC behind Bama and Georgia of course. That’s a pretty strong statement, I don’t know that I’m quite there with them, but I do think that’s a really strong team. They dominated Memphis in the first half last week. Arizona overperformed of course, winning as an outright underdog, really dominating San Diego State who couldn’t throw the ball at all. We released -9.5, and we just couldn’t find a way to make this number less than 10. I think it’s a little bit of an overreaction to Arizona’s performance last week, and then of course we’re high on Mississippi State. And honestly, I think there’s still some value here at -10, but that’s an overview of why we liked it at a high level.

Gill: Alright, well let’s get you back on, let’s do some releases on air, can we do that?

Michael: Yeah, we talked about that for next week. If we do the same time slot here, I don’t know if it will be a side or total. One thing we always make sure of, we always want the market to be fully mature, and I think that’s one of the big differences between RAS and other services. There’s a big difference between winning for yourself, hitting openers, and then being able to help others win money in terms of being able to provide value when the market is mature. And it’s a very difficult thing to do right now, because there’s so many people betting early.

Gill: It’s getting harder and harder.

Michael: Yeah, and so a lot of times, we come into the week with a list of 15 bets, and by the time we release there’s four or five left.

Gill: Michael, we thank you. I’ve gotta run, appreciate you, we’ll talk to you next week.