Stealing Lines 2025 update

Some news on Stealing Lines for this year

Hey guys, Ben here first. I’ll have a note from Dalton in just a moment. Before we get to it, I want to apologize that you haven’t heard from either of us for a while.

Unfortunately, it’s been a tough August. I wish this post was a recap of how great of a 2024 we had at Stealing Lines, with both Dalton and I finishing up double-digit units across all of our plays, but that’s not where we’re at right now.

With the season approaching, I tried to get in contact with Dalton a few weeks ago, because we hadn’t talked for a bit over the summer. That proved to be somewhat difficult. Over time, I did get in contact with Dalton, and learned he was going through some stuff, and some things were in motion and happening quickly that created a lot of uncertainty.

I don’t want to preempt Dalton’s message too much, because I promised him I’d share it in full, in his own words. But because he references a lot of uncertainty with Stealing Lines, I do need to say that I’ve made some plans in the time since he wrote it, which was about two weeks ago now. Dalton knew and supported the next steps, including next steps for you guys, and he and I have a full understanding about the business. When I did get in contact with him, he and I talked on the phone I think four times over the span of just a few days, totaling a few hours (most of which was about life, rather than business, but we covered a lot of ground).

As you’ll see, Dalton needs to take some time away from Stealing Lines. What I wanted to note is I’ll clear up the details, and what that means for you, after his message.

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From Dalton:

In the back of my head I’ve been toying with the idea of how much I share about what is going on in my life right now with everyone.

There’s really personal things to me that are very hard and vulnerable to share especially to thousands of people who may be reading this.

But I’ve always believed in transparency.

Stealing Lines was built on transparency and showing everyone that being a profitable sports bettor was not all sunshine and rainbows.

It has its highs, but it also has its lows and I wanted to showcase all the parts of sports betting to show the truth about what it was about and the mindset needed to become a profitable sports bettor.

And that’s been very important to me and a driving force into every interaction and newsletter I’ve written.

And because of that I feel it’s the right thing to do to share what is going on.

The truth is I’m not okay right now.

I haven’t been okay.

I’ve dealt with mental health issues dating back to my childhood and has been a constant struggle in my life throughout my adult years.

Recently it’s gotten to the point where I had no more will to live.

No hope.

I had truly given up.

I didn’t want to get better and it genuinely felt like nothing was ever going to get better.

I had no motivation to do anything.

Nothing was exciting anymore.

I felt pure emptiness inside me.

It eventually got to a breaking point where I had to ask for help.

Not because I wanted to get help, but because I had no other option.

I didn’t have it in me to do something that would affect my family and friends.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m getting help.

What does that help mean?

I’m going away to a treatment facility for an unknown amount of time to truly get the help not only that I need, but I deserve.

I’m scared.

I’m nervous.

I’m anxious.

But I’m also excited.

I’m finally hopeful.

And most importantly I can’t wait to become a better and happier version of myself.

I’m sure you can put two and two together for how this may impact Stealing Lines this year.

I need to step away for now.

Will I come back?

I don’t know.

Will this be the last post I ever make here?

I don’t know.

Will this be even something I’m passionate about after this?

I don’t know.

And to be honest those questions aren’t important right now.

There are so many things I’m going to learn about myself during this time.

What I enjoy.

What makes me happy.

What I want out of life.

How to have tools to live a healthy life.

Not knowing what’s going to happen or what my life will look like is scary.

The unknown is scary.

But that’s where I am right now.

I’m walking into the unknown.

But the unknown is also exciting.

It can bring new possibilities.

It can bring new experiences.

As I’m writing this I don’t know if this is the last time I make a post for all of you here.

I don’t know if this is just one of many more posts I end up making in the future.

And that’s okay not to know.

Whether you’re hearing from me in the future as a brighter and happier person, or this is the last time I’m making a post here at Stealing Lines, I want to thank each and everyone of you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support throughout the three years.

It means more than you know.

I love you all and just know you’re never alone.

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Ben here again. Just to follow up, Dalton has indeed entered a treatment facility, and has been there about two weeks now. For the first week, he had no outside contact, but he’s progressed to supervised texting, and he and I have been in contact. I recently checked again that he wanted to share this message in this form, and he did. It’s obviously heavy stuff.

The reason that Dalton and I talked so much over the span of just a few days was that he was in the process of getting the help he needs, which I was obviously in full support of. But it was also the case that between Dalton first finding the strength to reach out to me and share his struggles, and the time when he entered the facility, only a couple days passed. Since then, it’s only been a couple of weeks, and for those of you who know all of what I do in the fantasy football space through Stealing Signals and other content, that has been basically the busiest time of the year for me.

My immediate focus was on Dalton’s wellbeing first and foremost, and then on making sure I’m doing right by all of you, our subscribers. One of the things that was clear to me during my conversations with Dalton is how strongly he feels about Stealing Lines. He loves this community.

And I’ll be the first to say that Dalton is the backbone of this company, and that his absence will obviously be felt. As you guys know, I do sides and totals during the season, and will typically total about 100 bets in a season. Dalton has had seasons where he’s totaled 1,000. Your interaction with our content has been significantly tilted toward him, and my immediate response to all this was Stealing Lines can’t really exist without him.

Complicating matters about what comes next is whether doing this type of work is even good for Dalton. That’s not for me to say, but for what it’s worth I did have those conversations with him and got no indication that gambling was any sort of trigger. But I didn’t know this was something Dalton had struggled with earlier in his life, and to be honest as I think about the future as a friend, I have concerns. This type of work is very demanding, and most importantly I want to see Dalton get and stay healthy.

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Stealing Lines 2025

Figuring out what to do with Stealing Lines for 2025 has been difficult, especially given the short window before Week 1 that I’ve been trying to figure this out in. Obviously, shutting it down and issuing full refunds is a consideration. I don’t want anyone paying for something different than what they signed up for, and again, I’m aware how significant Dalton is.

At the same time, I know from interactions with many of you that you enjoy the community, enjoying tailing the plays, and wouldn’t be happier if things shut down. Some of you would prefer an alternative. To be frank, I don’t know how many of you that applies to.

I don’t spend a lot of time navigating props markets during the week, so that’s been a tough thing for me to work through. Dalton’s suggestion for Stealing Lines to continue was to lean on a name you guys know well, Mike Braude, who has done NBA props for us each of the three years we’ve operated.

One of the fun notes about Mike is he’s part of the origin story of this whole place — Dalton and Mike are friends in real life, and Dalton has helped Mike at times with Mike’s Apex Fantasy Leagues business, where he operates a platform that hosts leagues. I knew Mike from my early days in the fantasy business, as we were both contributing members at RotoViz roughly a decade ago now. For me, having worked with Mike and understanding he was a sharp guy, the connection helped validate that Dalton was someone I would be interested in working with, as well.

But the big reason Mike’s only helped in NBA over the years is his main business at Apex, and right now is definitely the busiest time on his calendar. Apex hosts drafts through Saturday after the opening Thursday and Friday night games this week, so Mike’s continued to be very busy. But I’ve been able to talk with him, and think through some things, and try to figure out how things might look.

Mike’s been a consistently profitable better in the NBA streets for us, which has been great. One of the things Mike has discussed with me as we’ve worked through it, is that while he does look at prop lines and could theoretically help with the NFL side of things, his approach would differ from Dalton’s. Mike’s not a ladder or longshot props guy, and would likely mostly stick to straight bets on overs and unders. That may mean far fewer bets in a given week; think like three good, well-researched bets. (You could obviously think through different ways to play those bets, like alts.)

If we do go this route, Mike will write a little more about his process early next week. Because of his schedule this week, it’s not feasible for him to have Week 1 plays available.

So here’s where we’re at, and what comes next.

• For anyone with an annual subscription that originated at any point in 2025, you can reply to this email and I’ll issue a full refund, no questions asked. For anyone with a monthly subscription, I’ll issue refunds for any months signed up for or charged after June 30. That offer is good through this Sunday, Week 1.

• Between now and Sunday, I’ll do some Week 1 sides and totals, as well as release some full season win totals I had been planning to get around to (before my attention was pulled in other directions recently).

• Early next week, likely not until Tuesday night or Wednesday morning after I’ve written Week 1 of my big fantasy football article Stealing Signals, Mike and I will make a decision about whether to proceed with a loose plan to operate a modified version of Stealing Lines for 2025. To be transparent, that will depend on the number of refunds issued. It’s going to become more work for both of us that we weren’t really budgeting for, and we’re going to keep open the idea of closing things down for 2025 (and issuing refunds for everyone) if that’s what the situation calls for. (Basically, we’re not promising a product if there’s only five people who are interested in a product that doesn’t have Dalton in it.)

I apologize for any difficulty this stuff causes. We’re all trying to work through it the best we can.

As a paid subscriber, let me know how you want to proceed. If it seems like there are enough people interested in a Stealing Lines product for 2025 that features me doing my normal stuff and Mike doing not a Dalton impersonation but his own version of props on a smaller scale, then that’s something we’ll make happen. If it doesn’t, then we won’t.

The key for me as far as this part of it is I don’t want even a single subscriber to feel like they were screwed, or didn’t get something they thought they were getting. So we’re going to be a little bit reactive to the feedback we get, and then we’ll go from there.

Either way, it’s great that football’s back. Should be a great 2025 season! I’ll be back soon with some plays for Week 1, and then we’ll circle back with more information next week, after we get the feedback.

A big thank you to everyone for your understanding, as well. Talk soon.