Unique Market Events

On Saturday, just before 10am, Twitter account @Ian361871781000 tweeted this:

“If anyone wants Auburn ML, you can get $400k down at +147 odds on @Kalshi, fees included.
If you’re fine with +130, you can get over $1M filled. No limiting on Kalshi.
Wild liquidity.”

+147 on Auburn ML was way off market and the liquidity far surpassed a combined click at BM/pinn/Circa/BOL and those sites had an average price of ~+125 at the time.

I heard rumors it was a trading firm behind the number, but I couldn’t confirm anything. The most plausible theory was that someone either had a massive Florida position and was looking to offload risk, or they just thought they had a monster edge on Florida and couldn’t get size down the traditional way. Either way, it wasn’t your average “line shop for a couple dimes” type of edge.

Naturally, I started digging. There’s a real argument for both siders of the bet here, Auburn way off market you should pile there, or someone clearly with lots of capital thinks Florida is a big edge. If it’s a book trying to offload liquidity from a whale then I’d love to just grab as much Auburn as I could, but if it’s a big sharp then I don’t really want to get adverse selected.

In the end, I passed on the bet. I think it was a group who thought they had an edge, and I’m not sure if they did. But this reminded me of a type of betting spot that doesn’t come around often: a perceived edge, size available, and a chance to fire big… if you’re confident enough to trust it.

That’s what we’re talking about today.

 Of course, were not talking about your model showing an edge on an NFL side at gameday, we’re talking about those unique spots where something odd is happening in the market or the actual market is odd. Some people refer to these as RORTs and I’ll go over a few examples today. There are a few qualifiers for these types of markets:

1: Typically, it’s a big stand-alone event, one with lots of betting activity

2: The edge should be somewhat obvious (you can have a non-obvious edge at post of course, but that doesn’t qualify for the examples I’m talking about)

3: Even more importantly the reason that its an edge at post should be easily explainable

 Last thing I’ll say before getting into the examples, typically these types of events you look back and think holy fuck was that obvious, but when you’re actually in it its still hard to have absolute certainty your right.

 Let’s start with maybe the most famous example of this kind of spot: Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor.

To preface at the time, I was an absolute square and didn’t know you could actually win money betting on sports. I bet on Conor. I was the fish.

In these types of spots, everything you know about betting kinda goes out the window. Pinn opened at -2500 and the market steamed hard to Conor. Normally you’d think that was sharp money, this was not normal.

By the time the fight went off, Mayweather closed around -300 at some books—implying a win probability of about 75%. That number was a joke. Floyd was 49-0, arguably the best boxer ever, and Conor had never boxed professionally. This wasn’t just a mismatch—it was two different sports.

But the market didn’t reflect that. Why? Because the public couldn’t get enough of McGregor. The hype, the promos, the “UFC fans vs. boxing purists” angle—it all combined to push around 90% of the tickets on Conor. It was one of the few times you’ll ever see that level of casual money actually move a market. Books just were getting unlimited Conor action and were willing to sell off some to willing buyers. By fight week, you could lay -400 or even -300 on what was, realistically, a -5000+ outcome.

Sharp bettors waited for the line to bottom out, then pounced. Vegas books took six- and seven-figure bets on Floyd from people who understood just how off this number was. In hindsight, it feels even more obvious, Floyd was the best boxer ever and Conor had never boxed! The fight itself looked exactly like what it was: a world-class boxer carrying an MMA fighter for a few rounds before putting him away. It was the kind of opportunity you almost never get at scale—and one I was too dumb to see.

Another more recent example came during the Ravens–Texans playoff game this past NFL season. ESPN BET offered Ravens -9.5 at +110 with a reported $1 million limit, and also boosted Ravens -10.5 to +140—both of which were arbs to the rest of the market. At the time, every major book had Baltimore around -9.5 at -110, it’s not that unusual for a soft book like ESPNbet to be off market, but to be offering a million limits was definitely unique. The Ravens number could be paired with Texans +9.5 at other books or exchanges for a clean arbitrage, and betting exchanges like Prophet and Sporttrade saw record volume as people flooded in to take the other side and lock in risk-free profit.

Now, unlike something like McGregor–Mayweather where the market was inefficient because of casual money, this one had more plausible signs of adverse selection. The story floating around was that ESPN BET had taken some massive Texans position earlier in the week and was trying to balance exposure by luring big money to the Baltimore side. And when a sportsbook suddenly starts offering +EV NFL playoff lines with million-dollar limits, there’s always the question: What do they know?

But also… it’s ESPN BET. This isn’t a firm known for hiding sharp action or executing on nuanced position management. It’s hard to believe this was some sophisticated trap. More likely, they just got buried on Houston from some whale. And for anyone paying attention, that panic turned into a legitimately massive opportunity—either to arb it safely or just fire a huge bet on a strong side at a mispriced number.

The Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight is another great example—and seems like a theme of mismatch boxing as a big RORT opportunity. I took a huge Paul position here, despite a bunch of people I respect telling me the value wasn’t that strong. But this was one of those times where I just didn’t care. Jake Paul is 30 years younger, actively training, and has spent the last few years fighting guys way better than 58-year-old Tyson. Tyson hadn’t fought professionally in almost two decades, and there were legitimate questions about whether he’d even pass medicals. And yet... the market just didn’t care. By fight week, Paul was sitting around -230. That’s about a 70% implied win probability. I don’t think that’s remotely close to reality—he should’ve been -2000+. The only reason the line looked like that is because people wanted to bet Mike Tyson. There were so many reasons as to this was such a banger. First off, Mike’s health problems were so serious he was quoted saying he was in a wheelchair like 3 months prior to the fight. Also, Jake had participated in many pro fights the years prior to this, and had consistently been priced in the -1000s. I just could not believe that if Mike had been swapped into those fights, he would have been anywhere close to -1000. People wants to bet on Tyson not because of any modeling, not because they had inside info—because he’s Mike Tyson. I’m in a betting group chat with lots of smart people, we all, to some degree, agreed that Paul was huge value. But throughout the week everyone panicked, were we missing something, or the big one: its rigged. I never lost confidence, somewhat because I’m enough of an idiot to have actually watched most of Paul’s prior fights. This was one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of public perception overpowering logic in a betting market. And if you could stomach laying juice on Jake Paul, the value was enormous.

There are more examples like these—some I didn’t touch on, like Biden vs. Trump in 2020, where Biden was a small fave heading in but had a huge polling average advantage. That one’s a little murkier, and I’m not sure it was as much of a banger as the ones I’ve talked about. But the point stands: when these spots pop up, they rarely feel comfortable in real-time. Whether it’s Tyson nostalgia, a panicked sportsbook promo, or a mountain of Conor money, there’s always a reason not to bet it. And in the moment, it’s hard to tell if you’re seeing the board clearly or about to get run over. But if you’ve done the work and can trust your read, these are the kinds of edges that can really move the needle. Or blow your fingers off. Either way, they’re worth paying attention to.

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