Imagine a graph that I call the “U.” Plot the popularity of the sport with the American sports-betting public on the x-axis, and how profitable it is to bet on the sport on the y-axis; it forms a U-shaped pattern. For extremely obscure sports—Russian ping-pong became a fad at one point during the pandemic—it isn’t really worth the sportsbook’s time to price them to a high degree of precision. These sports are beatable for large theoretical edges if you’re willing to put the time in. The catch is that the sportsbooks will limit you from betting them as soon as you’ve shown the propensity to be
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