If you’re a sports bettors who just can’t seem to catch a break, BettorTakes might be the answer to your prayers. It’s a new app that analyzes your past betting performance to help you make informed wagering decisions.
he believes his app can help bettors win more
After a long period of development, the app is now live and ready to take the betting world by storm. Steve Rubenfaer, BettorTakes CEO, chatted with VegasSlotsOnline News to explain a bit about the thinking behind the company and why he believes his app can help bettors win more.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. Really, I’ve always done my own thing, taking ideas and starting companies from scratch. I’ve always been employee number one, hiring people and raising money or whatever you need to do for that business to get it off the ground.
Interesting. So do you have much experience in the betting space?
It’s a little new actually. I don’t have a lot of experience in the industry. But that said, I’ve been a sports bettor for 35 to 40 years, wagering on horse racing and sports.
How about your BettorTakes co-founders? Are they from the industry?
I founded this company because I started betting college basketball after it became legal in the US a few years ago. I was interested in how I was doing. I wanted to know in detail what my strengths were in different categories of betting. There was nothing like that out there so I said f*ck it I’m going to build it myself.
everyone in the team is somebody I have been friends with for 20-30 years
I started telling certain friends about it and they would tell me “yeah that’s a great idea, I’m in.” The team is really incredible. We’re mostly all in our 50s and everyone in the team is somebody I have been friends with for 20-30 years or more, or someone they’ve been friends with for that long.
We have a really diverse skill-set. I’m the startup guy and then one of my friends who I have known since I was 15 is a big time CTO of a public company. Another of my long time friends has a hedge fund but he is also a big name in the poker and daily fantasy sports (DFS) worlds. He brought in his DFS partner so we have two people who have a lot of experience in the industry. Another of my friends is a UX designer with his own company who I’ve known for years. Then we have a high-end digital marketing guy, a data statistician, and even some of their 20-year-old kids are involved.
How does the BettorTakes system work?
Our basic tool is a predictive tool where you tell the software what games you want to bet tonight. Say you want to bet Michigan State +5, our algorithm looks through your betting history for similar situations and distills a whole bunch of variables into one number that we call your edge score. This represents your proficiency in that particular bet, so it’s only calculated for that particular wager and doesn’t use any outside information. It’s just how you typically do in that situation.
you can make an informed decision on whether to make that bet
For your edge score, 50 would be like a coin toss, meaning you have no edge in that game. Depending on how above or below 50 you are is whether you have a strength or weakness. In this instance, if you said you like Michigan State +5 and your edge score is 57, that would confirm that it’s a good bet based on your past performance. If it’s a low edge score then it would inform you that it’s an area in which you’re weak and you can make an informed decision on whether to make that bet.
It really helps you win more. Telling you you’re great at something doesn’t have such an important effect, because you would have likely bet on it anyway. But when you find out that you’re bad at something it helps you self-correct and be more selective with your wagering. You can sure up those areas and improve your bottom line.
Is the app for the average bettor or are you aiming for high-stakes gamblers?
Well, it’s free and it’s really for anyone that wants to do better. The majority of bettors care about how they do and seek information in some way, whether it’s reading articles, joining discord, or looking at data. Almost everyone who bets joins some kind of community in the hope of getting better.
We do have a roadmap with lots of cool features on the way. For instance, our financial module will be coming out soon that combines the picks with your money management. Those will be behind a paywall. But if you’re betting $20 or $30 a game then that eventually adds up, so if we can improve your performance then paying for these features is worth it.
we do eventually want to make super cool products focused toward professionals
Although our product is for everyone, we do eventually want to make super cool products focused toward professionals. We want the high-end bettors to use us because that would be the biggest testimonial.
Are you focused just on the US market?
It’s available to anyone in the world but at the moment you can only use it for college football, basketball, NFL, NBA, baseball, hockey, and women’s basketball. But the algorythm works for anything, so we are going to add other sports soon, including European soccer because it’s a huge market. It’s also a more mature market in which you need us to have an edge.
Are you looking for investors?
Yeah, for the first time we are really looking for outside investors. We spent all this time in development and now that it’s live we are thinking about marketing. Now that our evaluation is higher and investors wouldn’t take such a high percentage of the company we are definitely open to that so that we can get the word out there.
What’s the roadmap for the rest of 2023?
We just launched in the Apple App store so we are brand new. You can download the app now for free on there or use a mobile browser. This year, we aren’t going to add too many advanced features. We’re just going to get stabilized, get a customer base, and get people understanding our mission.