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Welcome back to the Ledger Recap, I'm Alex Mercer, and across from me is Marcus Webb.
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Marcus we've got a big tape to review today, 29 positions, a mixed bag of wins, losses,
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and a few that are going to make us uncomfortable.
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The good kind of uncomfortable, the kind where you learn something.
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Quickhouse keeping for anyone new to the desk, we track in prediction market units.
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If we buy a contract at 60 cents, we're risking 0.60 units to win 0.40, pure risk-based accounting,
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no point spreads, no juice, just implied probability and price.
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Session record, 17 wins, 12 losses, 0 pushes, 29 positions, and the PNL, plus 3.3 units
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We're all we're sitting at 283 and 249 on the year, plus 5.0 units total.
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And I'm going to say it before you do, 17 and 12 is a 58% win rate and we made 3.3 units.
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That's fine, but fine isn't the goal.
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We are consistently buying contracts at 45 to 55 cents near coin flip prices, which means
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even when we're right, the upside is capped.
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We're winning the thesis battle and leaving alpha on the table.
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We'll get into specifics.
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Let's go to the film.
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First up, Detroit Pistons versus the Lakers.
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We had two positions here and both hit.
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This was a clean read.
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We bought Denise Jenkins shares at 52 cents, his points over 13.5, and we bought the Pistons
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Moneyline at 46 cents.
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Jenkins goes for 30, career high.
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But here's the why, and this is the part that matters for the playbook.
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Jade Cunningham is out, collapsed lung, Marcus Sasser is out, hip.
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Jenkins is the only healthy, true point guard on that roster.
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When your starting point guard is also your only point guard, the usage doesn't just
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The entire offensive infrastructure routes through him, every pick and roll, every transition
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push, every late clock creation, it's all Jenkins.
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The market priced him at 52 cents like he was a role player, he was the engine.
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In the Moneyline at 46 cents, the market had the Pistons as slight underdogs against
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Which, given the injury context on Detroit side, makes sense on the surface.
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But the Lakers were also playing without key contributors, and Jenkins usage spike essentially
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gave Detroit a de facto all-star level performance from an unexpected source.
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Pistons win 113-110, both contracts settle at $1.
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Now aggressive alpha review, were we too conservative?
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If we had conviction on Jenkins and we did, that's why we bought the contract.
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We should have sized up.
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We risked 0.52 units to win 0.48, that's a near even money position.
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Given the injury intelligence, this was closer to a 70 cent thesis dressed up in a 52 cent
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We should have gone heavier.
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Missed alpha, call it 0.3-0.4 additional units if we'd sized appropriately.
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Next up, Nikola Yokich, Nuggets vs. Sons.
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This one's beautiful and painful at the same time.
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We had three positions in this game.
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Yokich rebounds over 12.5 at 52 cents, win, he finishes with 17, Aaron Gordon rebounds
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over 5.5 at 52 cents, win, he finishes with 6, and Jamal Murray points over 23.5 at 52
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Murray finishes with 21.
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So we went two for three in Denver Phoenix, what happened with Murray?
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Yokich posts a 23, 17, 17 triple double.
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That's not a typo, 17 assists.
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When Yokich is operating at that level of playmaking dominance, the ball is moving through
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Murray's rule shifts from primary creator to off ball cutter and catch and shoot option.
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He's not initiating as much.
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In a game that close, they win 125, 123 on a Yokich game winner, Murray is being preserved.
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He's not forcing volume in a tight game when Yokich is the closer.
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So Yokich's historic playmaking actually suppressed Murray scoring ceiling?
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We were pricing Murray like Yokich was going to have an average night.
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That's a thesis error, not a bad beat.
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We should have recognized that when Yokich goes full maestro mode, Murray's point total
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is the most correlated casualty.
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Now the Yokich rebounds win.
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Aggressive alpha review?
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We bought it 52 cents over 12.5 rebounds.
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The market had him at essentially a coin flip.
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Given that Phoenix plays at one of the fastest paces in the league and Yokich is the MVP
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front runner, averaging well over 12 boards, we should have looked at a higher line.
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Over 14.5, maybe 15.5 at a lower price.
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We took the easy money.
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Missed alpha on the Yokich rebound position, probably another 0.2 to 0.3 units if we'd
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gone to an aggressive alt line.
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Now let's talk about one that stings.
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Ryan Rollins, we had him twice this week and the results were completely opposite.
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This is the one that requires intellectual honesty.
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Against the clippers, we bought Rollins shares, points over 17.5 at 47 cents.
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With Portland, we bought him over 18.5 and he scores 36 win.
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Same player, same week, same roll, completely different outcomes.
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Here's the systemic read.
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Against the clippers, Milwaukee was getting blown out.
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When a game goes sideways by 30 points, the primary usage player on the losing team gets
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Rollins was in a garbage time situation in the fourth quarter.
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His shot attempts dried up because the game was already decided.
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The volume was there early, but the game script killed the fourth quarter.
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And against Portland.
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Janus is still out with the ehyper extension.
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Portland is a lottery team.
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The game is competitive enough that Rollins is playing full minutes, full usage, full
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The 47 cent price on the clippers game was actually fair.
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The 47 cent price on the Portland game, that was a gift.
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So the lesson is game script dependency.
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Rollins is ceiling is real, but it requires a competitive game environment to unlock.
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Add it to the playbook.
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When a usage spike player is on a heavy underdog, check the implied probability of a blowout.
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If the opponent is a 70 cent favorite, the primary option on the losing team is a game
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Now the one that's going to hurt.
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Kings versus Hornets.
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They had three positions in this game, and it was a disaster.
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Ugh, let's get into it.
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We bought the over 226.5 at three cents.
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That's a near certain position, basically a hedge.
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We bought Sacramento plus 16.5 at 34 cents.
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Final score, Charlotte 134, Sacramento 90.
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The Kings lost by 44 points.
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The Kings scored 90.
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The over on 226.5 at three cents, we barely lost anything there, minus 0.04 units.
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But the plus 16.5 at 34 cents lost.
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And here's what makes it a systemic failure on our part, not just bad luck.
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Sacramento was already a depleted loster.
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When a team is playing out the string in late March with nothing to play for, and they're
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facing a Charlotte team that's been on a run, the spread can evaporate fast.
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We were buying implied probability on a team with no structural incentive to compete hard.
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That's the root cause.
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It's not that the Kings are bad.
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It's that they had no competitive stakes in that game.
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Motivation is a market variable.
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We underweighted it.
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Let's do a quick hit on the college positions before we get to strategic evolution.
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Illinois over Houston, we had Houston minus 3.5 and minus 2.5, both losses.
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Illinois wins 65-55.
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Houston shoots 34% from the field, and the Alainai go on a 17-0 run in the second half.
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Houston was playing what amounted to a home game in terms of crowd proximity.
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When that crowd goes silent and a 17-0 run will silence any crowd, Houston's offense,
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which is heavily reliant on guard penetration and rhythm shooting, completely collapsed.
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They couldn't buy a bucket.
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Illinois held them to a season low.
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With our Houston contracts settled at zero.
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Bad thesis or bad beat?
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We trusted Houston's seed and their regular season efficiency without accounting for Illinois's
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elite defensive identity.
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The Alainai were built to do exactly this.
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Alright, Marcus, what do we learn for the playbook this week?
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What's the new rule?
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First, injury-driven usage spikes are systematically underpriced.
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Jenkins at 52 cents, Rollins at 47 cents in the Portland game.
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The market is slow to reprice when a secondary player suddenly becomes the primary option.
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We need to be faster and we need to size up when the injury intelligence is clean.
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Second, Yokic in mystromode suppresses Murray.
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This is a specific correlation we need to model.
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When Yokic's assist total is trending toward double digits, Murray's scoring upside compresses.
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Don't buy Murray's points over in a game where Yokic is the clear playmaking engine.
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And third, this is the big one.
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Conviction to aggression calibration.
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We went 17 and 12 this session and made 3.3 units.
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If we'd sized up on our highest conviction positions, Jenkins, Yokic rebounds, the
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piston's money line, we're looking at five to six units instead of 3.3.
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The thesis work is good.
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The position sizing is too conservative.
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When the edge is clear, we need to express it clearly.
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Buying a 70 cent thesis at 52 cents and risking one unit is not the same as buying it and
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And that's the gap between being right and being profitable.
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Being right is table stakes, being sized correctly when right, that's the edge.
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Not a great session.
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The algorithm is sharper for it.
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Before we go, remember, everything we discuss here is analysis of prediction market contracts
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on platforms like Polymarket and Colchie.
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We are grading our portfolio and refining our process.
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Iron sharpens iron every time.
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Opinions expressed are for informational purposes only, that responsible.
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