The Circa Sports Value Proposition: Picking Value Over Promos
Adapted from this original post by Jeffrey Benson.
What is Circa Sports’ value proposition for a recreational bettor who doesn’t bet full limits and has no problem getting down at other places? It is a great question and one I found myself answering a lot the past few days as we expanded into Illinois. We have no app promos or bonuses planned. We’re more of a real sportsbook where the focus is attractive odds, high limits and exceptional customer service for everyone, even pros and long term winners.
Choosing Long-Term Value Over Short-Term Promos
We don’t do the deposit bonuses or typical promos that you see a lot in the market. Our philosophy is that we are looking to provide our customers with value every day they bet with us, not just the first week. This is frequently reflected in things like our money-line splits and futures pools (where we frequently have the lowest hold percentage in the market) and the minimum limits offered to all players – never cutting you because you are winning.
For example, we want you to have the ability to bet a golfer every week at 30-1 when most of our competitors have him at 20-1.
Why would we want to give a $100 chintzy free bet when we can just instead offer you better prices on almost every wager you’ll make? Seems like an easy decision to us. You are going to get way more value in the long run this way instead of the price gouging some other books do. Sportsbook bonuses and free bets offer players some money up front in return for what they give up tenfold by hanging worse prices than the competition. Whereas a bettor keeps much more money long term than what a bonus pays through the accumulation of so many better priced wagers.
I like to think about it like this: If Book X offers you free money, but then charges you higher vig on most bets, how much did that free money cost you to get? Nothing is free, you’re simply paying for the free bets elsewhere in the form of higher vig.
The Significance of Pricing in Betting Markets
To demonstrate how impactful playing into good prices can be for a bettor long-term, I’ve highlighted the difference between the money-line prices for a random baseball game between Circa and another sportsbook as seen below 👇
Hold in sports betting refers to the percentage of money that sportsbooks keep for every dollar wagered.
- At Circa, the theoretical hold for this game on the ML is 2.22% and on the RL is 3.08%
- At the competitor, the theoretical hold for this game on the ML is 4.16% and on the RL is 4.09%
Suppose a sportsbook has a House Edge of 4.16% on a specific market, as is the case of our competitor’s money-line price on the game above. If a bettor makes 100 bets of $100 (totaling $10k) over the course of a season the sportsbook would expect to win $416.
Conversely, suppose a sportsbook has a House Edge of 2.22% on a specific market as is the case of Circa’s money-line price on the above baseball game. If a bettor makes 100 bets of $100 (totaling $10k) over the course of a season the sportsbook would expect to win $222.
As you can see in the example above, the lower the theoretical hold (i.e. the better the prices are) the more advantageous it is for the bettor. They will simply win more and lose less. This can be even more pronounced in one way markets. Yet, we trip over ourselves to get a $100 free bet?
Balancing Fairness in Sports Betting Markets
What a business charges is important for the business to make a profit, but what some businesses charge is fairer than others. Just as it makes sense to look at charges to make sure you aren’t getting ripped off, bettors should also look at the theoretical hold in betting markets to make sure they’re getting the best deal possible.
Dressing up promos, free bets, and odds boosts with a nice bow and then price gouging people with the other heinous splits they offer I find to be personally disingenuous, but hey, maybe that’s just me.
As a bettor, you either want promos and bad prices or no promos and good prices. A lot of times these “odds boosts” aren’t even good relative to the market. They just dress up the sportsbook’s regular bad odds and make them “look” palatable.
We understand with this stance of offering no promos, we may not be the sportsbook for you today, but we certainly hope to earn your business in the future. And if you ever do get limited by these other more recreational books, we’ll be here patiently waiting to serve you.
At the end of the day it’s simple: Our prices are the promos.
And as always 👇
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That's it. That's the tweet.
— Circa Sports (@CircaSports) April 15, 2021
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