The edge that earned $1M: inside the Selene team's two-year run.
The sports betting landscape changed forever in 2018 when the Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports gambling. What was once a localized industry in Nevada has exploded into a nationwide market worth over $100 billion in annual handle. Today, the combined market cap of the major betting entities reaches into the tens of billions. This massive scale has turned sportsbooks into high-speed financial operations, each running its own models and managing its own risk.
While it might seem like the market is a single unit, sportsbooks are actually individual entities with different analysts and algorithms pricing the same outcomes. Since they are all essentially guessing at the probability of a human event, market disconnects happen constantly. As more action is taken on these lines over time, the market naturally moves closer to the true probability of an event, but the books are very careful about whose money they use to adjust those prices. When a sportsbook takes action from a bettor they identify as sharp, they move the line immediately to account for that new information; however, when they take action from a typical recreational bettor, they often leave the line exactly where it is. This distinction is vital because the sharpest books effectively signal the most accurate price to the rest of the world through these moves, but since not every book reacts at the same speed, that delay creates the opportunity.
The strategy behind the million
A few years ago, our group of friends started noticing that winning was not about being better at predicting games than the books. It was about being better at reading the information the books were already providing. In short, it wasn't about who would win, but about finding a profitable price on the bets we were taking.
Using our backgrounds in math and analytics, we began treating the sportsbooks as a group of select models. We followed a top-down approach where we used the sharpest books as a source of truth to identify edges on the books that were slower to adjust. To capitalize on these edges, we applied core trading principles to our bankroll. Instead of betting random amounts, we used mathematical formulas to determine our exact position size based on the size of the edge we identified. By combining this precise sizing with every available promo and bonus bet, we were able to scale the operation aggressively. Over the last two years, this systematic process turned into more than $1,000,000 in profit.
Following what moves the market
As we grew, we discovered that certain projection tools were also responsible for moving the markets. To stay ahead, we built our own internal tools to ingest these projections and compare them against the live lines on over 20 different books. This allowed us to line shop with total precision, finding the best possible price on player props before the rest of the market could react. We were not just guessing on outcomes. We were identifying exactly where specific books were objectively out of sync with the broader market.
Why we're building Selene
The reality of this industry is that over 95% of bettors lose money in the long run. Most people lose because they are betting on feelings or trying to pick winners rather than looking for value. But through our journey, we learned that winning is actually possible if you simply learn how to read lines and approach the market from a top-down perspective.
We built Selene to level the playing field. For years, we had to juggle fragmented software, private data feeds, and manual spreadsheets just to find an edge. We wanted to consolidate all of that into one easy interface so that casual bettors can access professional-grade information without needing a math degree or a massive technical setup.
Join the movement
This is just the beginning for us. We're going to continue building new tools, adding more books, and working with other sharp people in the industry to ensure our community stays ahead. This includes expanding our reach into prediction markets, where the principles of price discovery and market efficiency are even more critical. We want to be at the forefront of this shift, ensuring that our users have the data they need to navigate every corner of the betting world. Our goal is to create a space where everyone eats.
The house has had the edge for too long. It's time to start betting with the data.