Tracking Personality Promos On ESPN Bet: Even Worse Than You Imagine

Watch any game on ESPN or on its sister network ABC, and you will see them during just about every commercial break. 

They have become ubiquitous parts of the network’s sports programming. 

We’re talking about all those advertisements hawking ESPN’s betting app, featuring Stephen A. Smith, Mike Greenberg, and other assorted talking heads from the network’s lineup. 

A strong push like this from the Disney marketing department is not surprising. The media giant regularly uses all its tentacles to promote its various properties, and the synergy its sports personalities offer is a major reason why ESPN hooked up with PENN Entertainment following the gaming company’s divorce from Barstool.

Those recognizable figures are now prominently featured on ESPN Bet’s promo page endorsing certain wagers, most often with pre-packaged parlays and odds boosts connected to upcoming games airing on the network.

Promo wagers with names such as Stephen’s A-List (Smith), Seeing Green (Greenberg), and Mad Dog Specials (Chris Russo) will likely go unnoticed by seasoned handicappers. This group is well aware that books don’t like giving money away, meaning there are low limits and often negative-EV incorporated into promo bets.

However, in the ever-competitive legalized market, that group isn’t the intended audience for these promos. Instead, they are geared toward the recreational bettors — those most likely to be swayed by a familiar face and tempted even more with an odds boost to make a small wager with the hopes of it turning into something much larger. 

Sweetening the deal is the book arranging all these parlay legs together for them, saving a bettor the time and effort needed to do their own handicapping. 

Since Blue Light Specials were not part of brick-and-mortar sportsbooks in the past but now have become commonplace in the digital era, as a bettor myself and an academic researcher, I wanted to look deeper into what ESPN Bet is offering on its promo page besides brand name recognition. 

Namely, how many of these pre-packaged wagers (often coming with an odds boost) grade out as winning bets? Also, is this form of “sports celebrity” marketing leading less informed bettors down a road of consistent failure?

I conducted an analysis of the pre-packaged wagers listed on the promo page from ESPN Bet (accessed in New Jersey) from Nov. 13-Dec. 2. The promo bets posted on the app by 3:30 p.m. ET were the ones tracked. 

The basis of this examination is as follows: Identify the pre-packaged wagers, grade them as winners or losers, and keep a running ROI tally based on making a $20 wager — a reasonable parlay unit size for a recreational bettor — on each of them.

How did we do?

A hypothetical bettor following this format of wagering $20 on ESPN Bet promos would be down $437 over the course of the 20 days. Of 152 bets, 31 won and 121 lost.

This win rate is not unusual in the world of three-leg and four-leg parlays, and the bankroll avoided falling deeper in debt because a few of the higher-odds wagers did hit during this time frame, offsetting some of the losses.

While those big wins benefited our hypothetical recreational bettor’s bankroll, in reality, many fitting this profile likely would have bailed on making any more wagers after 19 consecutive losing bets occurred between Nov. 20-25. Here are some noteworthy stats from the experiment:

• Longest losing streak: 19
• Longest winning streak: 3 (two times)
• Highest bankroll swing reached: +$150
• Lowest bankroll swing reached: -$437
• Highest-odds winning wager: +950 (4-leg Nov. 25 NHL moneyline Odds Boost)
• Record of Mike Greenberg endorsed bets: 0-2
• Record of Chris Russo endorsed bets: 2-13
• Record of Stephen A. Smith endorsed bets: 1-3
• Record of Tyler Fulghum endorsed bets: 0-5
• Record of Molly Qerim endorsed bets: 0-2
• Record of Erin Dolan endorsed bets: 1-2
• Record of Joe Fortenbaugh endorsed bets: 0-1

Our takeaways

Although 152 wagers qualifies as a small sample for a serious bettor, the data observed over this modest sample size overwhelmingly represented a losing proposition. The negative results along with the target audience being those unlikely to understand how infrequently parlays like this cash is concerning. 

From a promotion standpoint, with the use of graphics highlighting the allegedly juicy odds and naming these wagers after the talent, essentially legitimizing them to the public, ESPN Bet is attempting to capitalize on the population of recreational bettors who want to watch the game and have some action going for extra “fun.” Still, fun comes at a price, and this research — again, over a limited sample size — shows compounding losses that aren’t fun for any bettor. (They may be fun, however, for those on the ESPN Bet side watching the financial numbers.)

In a sense, ESPN Bet is giving off the appearance of filet mignon on its betting menu but serving chuck roast.

After looking deeper into these bets, it is clear they are embedded with elements that aren’t conducive to long-term sustainable winning. 

First off, it’s the book directing bettors to the numbers instead of the customers shopping around. Often the promoted wagers included stale game lines, and the player props were centered around what stars were in action that night. Also, based on the time they were posted, the promos didn’t account for variables such as injuries, weather, or other situational aspects. 

Here are some other trends among these promo wagers that can work against the bettor:

• Some focus on player props for specific portions of the game that lead to a tremendous amount of variance. For example, there was one parlaying LeBron James, Victor Wembanyama, and Steph Curry to score 6 points each in first quarter; another requiring NFL teams to score in all four quarters; and some on specific NBA players scoring the first basket of the game.

• The props almost always center on players going “over.” During this analysis, there was only one promo bet that included player prop totals under: the First Take Triple Play on Nov. 14 that combined Jayden Daniels under 224.5 passing yards, Jalen Hurts under 1.5 passing TDs, and Saquon Barkley over 111 rushing and receiving yards. Interestingly, that was one of the few player prop parlays graded as a winner.
  
• Many bets use player props based on star players performing at a star level. For example, the NHL Odds Boost parlay on Nov. 17 was Alex Ovechkin, Artemi Panarin, and Filip Forsberg all to record 4 or more shots on goal, listed at +750. Individually, you could find each of these sharp shooters with a line of 3.5 shots; however, Ovechkin and Panarin were significantly juiced to the under.
  
• Sometimes the parlays used unidentified alt lines or stale lines. For example, on Nov. 17, the NCAA Basketball Odds Boost parlay of Mississippi State, USC, and Hawaii had all three teams at -7, whereas the closing lines had Mississippi State -6, USC -9.5, and Hawaii -5.
  
• The promo bets were often associated with ESPN/ABC games instead of incorporating a larger field of games/players.

Buyer beware 

Any bettor should have a degree of skepticism regarding a sportsbook willing to offer a “deal” to its customers. Nonetheless, the psychological desire some have to put down a little to make a lot — with the book offering even more upside with an odds boost — can impact decision making. 

Especially when a recreational bettor plans on watching the game and craves action at the expense of profitability.

Still, in this analysis, consistently putting down a little would have led to losing a lot on ESPN Bet’s promos.

There is perhaps no finer example of how ESPN Bet uses its promos wagers as a way to attract recreational bettors than the offering on Dec. 1. That was the day ESPN Bet promoted its “NFL Loose Change Parlay,” ostensibly referred to as this because it was an opportunity for bettors to put just a small amount of money on a bet that could lead to a big payout.

There were six of these promoted parlays, all with three to four legs consisting of marquee players eclipsing noticeable benchmarks such as scoring touchdowns, breaking 100 yards rushing/receiving, or going past 300 yards passing. The odds for these ranged from 70/1 to 300/1. 

None came close to cashing.

The win/loss record of the bets associated with the notable ESPN personalities was not impressive. The results of these bets, though, aren’t posted anywhere on the app. The book is likely hoping that on the rare occasions when those high-odds parlays actually do hit, the winners will go to social media to share the news.

Let these results serve as a reminder that taking betting advice from media personalities promoting pre-packaged bets offered by their employer isn’t the best way to build up a bankroll. 

Still, the few large parlays that did hit during this examination (+950, +900, +675) revitalized the bankrolls for those who played them and likely kept some of those people coming back.  

For those wanting to make these types of fun small wagers on multiple-leg parlays with the hopes of winning a big one, they would be better off shopping around for the best odds, taking into account multiple variables, and creating their own parlays, rather than having the book — you know, the entity looking to take their money — do it for them.