inplayLIVE Blends Stats With Some Old-Fashioned, Actual Viewing To Help Bettors

The gaming industry is bustling with innovative entrepreneurs ready to gamble on great ideas. In the “Start Me Up” series, Casino Reports explores newer, smaller companies either making it big or showing the potential to do so.

Andrew Pace never set out to revolutionize sports betting. The former poker player, who funded his education through his winnings, found his way into sports betting almost by accident. 

One successful parlay bet later, he was hooked by the different risk-reward dynamic compared to poker.

By 2017, Pace was consistently profitable in sports betting. When his high school friend Mark Rodgman approached him about the emerging e-learning space, a light bulb went off. Why not create an educational platform for sports betting?

The timing couldn’t have been better. Shortly after launching their initial masterclass in August 2020, coinciding with the NHL and NBA bubbles amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a member of their small private Facebook community asked for betting advice based on the course teachings. The bet won, and that moment transformed their business model.

“That forever changed our product,” Pace recalls. “That’s where we became much more than a masterclass and turned into live betting advice.”

Today, inplayLIVE has evolved into a 24/7 community focused on live sports betting, with over 600 members. The Vancouver-based company hosts regular Zoom webinars where Pace and a team of professional bettors provide real-time advice as games unfold.

What sets inplayLIVE apart is their commitment to transparency.

 “We’re trying to be a bright light in a very dark space,” says Rodgman.

The company recently addressed a challenging two-week stretch last November, acknowledging that losing periods are part of the process. 

“A lot of sports bettors can’t handle a losing week — forget that, they can’t handle a losing day,” Rodgman said. “We’re really in it for the long term. We call it long-term sports investing for a reason.”

Turn on the TV

Their approach combines sophisticated analysis with real-time observation. While they use modeling for specific scenarios, particularly in hockey, much of their edge comes from the human element of watching games live with minimal delay.

“All these people are ‘originators,'” Pace explains, referring to those who rely heavily on pre-game statistical modeling. “A lot couldn’t understand the concept of just watching the games live and finding opportunities as they happen. You can’t build an AI model that is going to, in those five seconds, be able to dictate what you’re seeing.”

The team studies specific tendencies that might not show up in traditional analytics. 

“A really good example is you might have one NBA team that just walks off the floor when they’re down eight points with 35 seconds left, while another NBA team plays those last 35 seconds completely differently,” Pace said.

Their success rate is impressive — Pace says the company maintains a 14% blended ROI across all sports for the year, significantly higher than the 3-5% edge typical of many professional bettors. Twenty-five members have reached seven-figure profits, though Pace is quick to emphasize this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. 

“A lot of people have been doing this full time — we’re talking 30 to 50 hours a week for four years,” he notes.

Looking ahead, Pace and Rodgman maintain modest expectations despite their success. They’re focused on sustainability rather than explosive growth, acknowledging that their ideal customer is “a needle in a haystack.” The right member needs not only capital but also significant time commitment and dedication.

“If we were just sitting here printing money, we might have 600,000 members,” Pace said. 

For now, they’re content with their mission of helping bettors make more informed and responsible betting decisions. As Rodgman puts it, “Survival is everything. We’re changing people’s lives one at a time. That’s a win in our books.”