About Gambly

“Bet Sam LaPorta to be the second tight end taken in the draft.”

That piece of advice from a friend of Gambly co-CEO Cal Spears was one of the catalysts for us creating the company.

Cal wanted to make the bet, but it was painfully difficult to find. Once he found it on DraftKings, he wanted to know if it was available elsewhere, and if there was a better price out there. NFL Draft bets weren't listed on any of the various odds comparison websites, so he had to dig around on the sportsbooks just to try to find the bet, if it was even available. The whole process of finding the bets and their current prices was such a headache with so many pain points. As they say on Shark Tank, “We just KNEW there HAD to be a better way!”

The Gambly Vision

The vision for Gambly started as a way to find obscure wagers, compare prices across the market, and get to the bets of your choosing as quickly as possible.

To accomplish this task, we knew there were four crucial components:

1. A rock star engineering team

2. Amazing data/real-time odds

3. Betslip integration to make finding a bet as simple as a single click

4. A means of efficiently getting from the data to the betslip

We solved the first problem by bringing on Kevin Cassata as CTO. Kevin was my co-founder at FantasyLabs and he’s an absolute all-star partner who has helped build an incredible supporting cast.

Our current team is composed entirely of unbelievable engineers and AI architects, including Will Hester, who was one of the earliest employees at DraftKings and part of the original team that worked on the company's sportsbook product. He's also the former VP of Engineering at Sports Info Solutions.

Before launch, we also acquired a site called HuddleChat that offered a product similar to Gambly in the area of advanced sports data. More specifically, we really wanted to work with the founder, Ben Dominguez, who’s one of the top young AI-focused engineers around.

For the second hurdle, we immediately partnered with Unabated. This gave us instant access to not only real-time odds, but also a ton of data science from pro sports bettor Rufus Peabody. His work on edge calculations and derivatives–comparing a -6.5 line to a -7 line or a full-game spread to a first-quarter spread, for example–helps propel Gambly’s ability to show “best bets,” or those with the highest anticipated ROI based on current market structure.

For number three, we built a system that allows users to click a bet on Gambly and load it directly on the sportsbook of their choice. So instead of searching all over for that LaPorta bet, Cal could have just typed something like “LaPorta second TE off board” into Gambly to see all the current odds, then made one click to go directly to DraftKings or elsewhere with the bet automatically loaded for him.

And for the final element, we decided the most efficient means of getting from Point A to Point B would be natural language, a.k.a. AI. In that way, we don’t consider ourselves an AI company that’s searching for problems to solve, but rather sports bettors with pain points who are leveraging recent AI advancements to help solve those issues. We’re constantly iterating here (and the AI is continuously learning), so expect lots of improvements over time.

The Value of Gambly

You can read more about Gambly in the FAQ, but in the process of solving our initial pain point, we noticed a variety of other use cases for AI in sports betting.

In addition to finding obscure bets, we realized Gambly can be used to set alerts. It’s kind of wild how many people will constantly monitor a Discord or Telegram waiting for word that, say, NFL props have been posted. Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell Gambly “Alert me when any Chiefs props for Week 1 are posted on DraftKings”? We think so.

We also offer edge calculations for most bets, making it easier than ever to find quality wagers. “Show me the top five strikeout props today” gets you the best bets and their expected ROI based on real-time market structure.

Our betslip integrations let you get from idea to bet within seconds, and we realized this could be combined with bet sharing to transform how people bet together. When you share with friends and followers, they can load a bet or your entire betslip onto sportsbooks with just a single click.

Gambly’s Origins

I’ve wanted to work with Cal for about a decade. We’ve toiled away together on a few smaller projects, but our former companies–his RotoGrinders and mine FantasyLabs–were semi-competitive.

What’s funny is that FantasyLabs was acquired and became a component of Action Network, a sports betting site that was sold for $240M to Better Collective, which is the same company that later bought RotoGrinders.

In standard entrepreneurial fashion, Cal and I both left soon after our sales, so we never worked together at Better Collective. As with most acquisitions, we were forced to wait out non-competes before being allowed to get back into sports betting.

During that time, I had a bunch of business ideas, but none that really hit home. I’m sure glad I was patient–a.k.a. lazy–because once Cal’s non-compete was over, we were free to start a sports betting company together. And after meeting in Key West and coming away with a few different ideas, we soon settled on the vision for what would become Gambly, your sports betting copilot.

So those are the origins of Gambly, a company I believe is not only the best idea I’ve worked on, but also a puzzle that Cal and I (and the whole team) are uniquely qualified to solve. Whereas we were more naive when we started RotoGrinders and FantasyLabs–well, Cal was a lot more advanced and it was me who was a bit of a wannabe-entrepreneur just learning the ropes–we now have a wealth of experience in building sports betting companies and far more connections and respect in the space.

The Future

Our hope is that what you see on Gambly at any given moment, whether using desktop, mobile web, or the app, is something that will look much different from future versions. In addition to AI progress, we also have so many ideas for how to improve our offering. It’s our job to make that vision a reality.

Ultimately, our goal is to constantly iterate and evolve. Better data, superior odds, more features, and greater value to you.

We hope you join us in the journey toward making Gambly the most exceptional product it can be.

 

Jonathan Bales
Co-CEO, Gambly