My First Million - Ep 674 - Haralabos

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hagrinBPR Review Date: 2025-02-28 07:01:44
Rating: 7.75

Notes:
My First Million - Ep 674 - Haralabos

Bias - I was (maybe still am?) in a Discord crypto / poker chat with HBob. I maintain that it was his ~800 wBTC withdrawal at FTX that first sounded the final alarms on FTX and there's a lot of thankfulness he shared that with us at the time. He was also one of the first people to say publicly what I was saying privately - that 3AC were trying to scam BTC and so I have a lot of respect for HBob. That said, I also "grew up" in #cville and the ESPN story whitewashing of the origins, but it's been a decade, he's been very helpful to me.

1:30 - Gambling Beginning - Winnipeg, grew up around the racetrack, helping Dad make NFL picks. Goes to Vegas with Dad and just watches games in the sportsbooks and starts enjoying watching West Coast teams.

6:10 - Mentions seeing the sharps in the casino for the Stardust lottery where sharps would lineup, they would get to make a limit bet and then there was a lottery to determine order and then watching the line moves. 9:00 - First edge - Canadian football around the time of American expansion - roster rules, field dimensions for American fields leading to lower scores. Later mentions building his bankroll as an airport skycap hustling a good amount on getting travelers limos, cigars, etc. Was making so much money ($50-60k a summer) doing this that AirCanada has a cocaine bust and HBob was considered (? not sure how serious the consideration was) a suspect due to the flash he was showing at the time.

16:00 - Lakers Bet: $87k CAD at the time which wins. (Sadly the interviewers then go into a long Bill Burr quote about risk instead of letting the guy who you're actually interviewing talk about risk there which was disappointing).

19:00 - True, Untold Story: Away team gets to choose which basket it wants to shoot on. Most teams (~27) would choose offense shooting on bench side 1H, defense side 2H. This led to higher scoring 1Hs than 2Hs in many cases. 3 coaches didn't, famously Jerry Sloan, make 2Hs higher scoring. "This was the biggest, greatest edge in the history of gambling edges" (big claim here, not sure I have a list of my Mt Rushmore, legit top betting edges of all time, will have to think about this some). On the reverse games, with late game fouling and OT, 2H overs would print money. Was the Utah Jazz, WAS with Eddie Jordan and Byron Scott with the Nets. Mentions that MIN would do it only some games and then alludes that it's likely screwing over gamblers now so this edge is likely toast. 22:15 - Mentions that he had partnered with a big book "slash mafia guy in Montreal" who would get the money down for him and then settle later. Calls sharing this edge "His tariff to the gambling community" which is a good line lol. 23:00 - Made 10-12 million a year for 10-15 years minimum. Does mention he spent a lot (which thats a huge thing I see as the Older Guy now, it goes out as fast as it comes in for many of you).

25:00 - Does mention Billy Walters / old Westinghouse computers vs the bookmakers in those days likely the biggest edge / most successful gambler. 27:00 - "Nobody knew who I was because I wasn't the one making the bets". I didn't learn this specifically from HBob's story, but IMO, this is the way. 27:30 - Floyd was a beard "for like half an afternoon".

29:30 - "All in bitcoin in 2013 for like 160-170% of his net worth at times". Living in Canada, bank accounts getting closed. Leaves Canada and moves to Monaco. Gets exposure to bitcoin in two ways - 1) was betting with someone in China who was having issues paying cash 2) Vancouver is a Chinese money laundering operation through Vancouver real estate.

34:30 - "My customers are all breaking the law because they're bookmakers". (Still no mention of WS which it is what it is now 10+ years later. In fairness, I have to double check, but he does talk about this on Spanky's podcast).

36:45 - Soccer: Interestingly, working in the NBA made him no longer want to buy an NBA team (team valuations rising too high, stopped enjoying the league as much). Finds soccer a more complex game, more interesting.

40:20 - "I still do my basketball betting, I spend 0 time on it". Ended up automating all his processes, hires a few quants which doesn't go well. Talks to fellow poker player, Harvard prof Brandon Adams and introduces him to a student and this "Wiz" gets the operation humming. HBob leaves for the Mavs, turns it over to them, they don't do that great, HBob leaves the Mavs and they start up again. Bad year is 4-4.5% ROI, good years 8-9%. The host then says "shouldn't you have bought HVAC companies in private equity" and what a wild thing to say to a guy who has an operation that's automated that's making 8 figures a year lol. 47:00 - "Every dollar I have made gets reinvested into bitcoin". "I like Michael Saylor, he's kind of a savant". (This is where HBob and I part ways in a very severe way on crypto - HBob is directionally correct of course, but let's just say the flow of good ideas on crypto goes one way in that Discord). 48:15 - "My money is in IBIT". (Someone DM'd me about this exact quote which is why I ended up reviewing the podcast - this is absolutely a better option for many people than doing self-custody, self-custody is extremely hard and requires a skill set most people do not have. HBob is a highly visible person so physical security is a huge issue, he's in a foreign country, he's not a cypherpunk and isn't technical, it's actually cheaper trading IBIT than spot fees wise and sometimes spread wise too. There's no shame in buying IBIT, it's not Satoshi's Vision, but you can do much worse than buying IBIT in your journey through crypto).

Some biohacking talk, HBob mentions @ 51:50 he took TRT and it made him irritable and I find HBob on TRT a very humorous idea. 57:00 - Mentions he's very straightedge and that it's a byproduct of being a person wanting to be in control and this is the one character trait I greatly share with HBob.