Alan Boston: A gambler you need to know about
One of the things I hoped I would be able to do with my Substack is that I would be able to cover some content that I would not be able to cover in enough depth or with as much commentary on Twitter and today is one of those days.
I wrote this post in early January, but this is being posted after the Super Bowl but ahead of March Madness, when this person is at his best!
I hope you enjoy.
In early 2010, I was starting to get more serious about gambling and I learned about a book called “The Odds: One Season, Three Gamblers, and the Death of Their Las Vegas”. 1
The book is written by Chad Millman, who at the time was the main gambling columnist at ESPN. Soon thereafter podcasts became a thing and Chad had one that I listened to. Eventually March Madness rolled around Chad had one of the people from the book on and frankly I was hooked immediately.
Alan Boston was this man2 and I am not sure if he has been on a podcast that I have not listened to since that date. One of the reasons I find him so interesting is personal to me.
When I was a kid I was diagnosed with a learning disability3 and I was forced to undergo about 8 hours straight of testing every 3 years. After the first round of that testing, my family was given a report detailed that I was pretty bright but what made me really different was that my mind worked and processed thoughts very differently than “normal” people.
In the TV show Numb3rs, season 4, episode 10, “Chinese Box”, Charlie Epps frustrated with his inability to convince his brother of his plan to help save a friend laments to his father “I failed. I failed to make myself understood. Sometimes there are things in my head that are so purely what they are that when I try to turn them into words, there either are no words, or I just don't know how. And you can't imagine how that feels. How hard it is to have an idea and not be able to share it.” - This is how I have felt much of my life.
All you have to do is listen to Alan for about 5 minutes to realize he is one of these people too. Now, I am not comparing myself to Alan directly; he went to an Ivy League school (I didn’t), we have different upbringings / family situations and he has been WAYYYYY more successful betting than I ever will be, but his mind clearly works differently than most and I LOVE that every time I listen to him speak I learn something new or think about something differently.
The latest example of this was an interview he did on a podcast that I linked to below (from about a month ago) . In it he covers a range of topics (some of which I have covered in my posts before) but with nuance or points that are worth hearing such as:
His personal history
Setting your own line
Using your model vs using your gut / intuition
Something I covered for NFL a few weeks ago, but he does a much better job of describing why you would do that (Charlie Epps quote applies here for me)
Being part of a betting group / syndicate
Moving Lines
Closing Line Value
This to me was actually the most fascinating thing as this was a view point I have never heard of before.
I hope you will give it a listen and if interested look for more of his stuff. At one point last year he was doing youtube videos and I really hope he gets back to that.
EDIT NOTE: Hi! It’s me again!!! Of course as soon as I post this article Alan did another podcast so I figured I would share the link here:
It is a really well written book that looks at Vegas through the eyes of a young man coming to Vegas to become a pro, a seasoned Vegas veteran pro bettor, and the head of one of the major Sportsbooks. I highly recommend buying it and reading it.
Here is his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/bostonred88
This is why my posts / tweets often have grammatical mistakes in them, even after re-reading them 6 times.