Hi, this is Dr. Ossessa Leverett with another episode. The Way to College podcast and I never knew where the podcast was going to take me. There was definitely an intent to collect stories and to share those stories with students, to show them the path to certain careers and opportunities, but also to remind them that for the most part, most of us don't have it figured out, certainly not at 18-19. And so if you do, that was always, it always seemed kind of rare to me. And so I've enjoyed collecting these stories, but like I said, I never knew where they were going to take me. And so today, today's guest, today is, all of the guests are special, everybody's great. But today's guest is different, I think it's a little unique because I think certainly much more popular sort of in, instead of the popular culture sphere. And so what I'm going to do because it's clearly I'm botching her introduction, so I'm going to let her introduce herself. So Pamela, would you mind introducing yourself to our audience out there? Hi, yes. My name is Pamela Maldonado. I am a sports betting analyst with ESPN, tennis channel, sharp football analysis, and I love to solve puzzles and sports betting is a puzzle. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. I never thought of sports betting as a puzzle. It's always fascinated me and I love, I'm not much of a gambler. I think it scares me because I think it can be intimidating and maybe you can dispel some of those myths a little bit. But it's certainly something that's always fascinated me. I love movies about gambling and sports betting. And so I'm eager to get into your story, Pamela. So with all of my guests, I ask all of my guests, if you had to identify a starting point for your educational journey, where would that starting point be for you? The first starting, that's hard. That's a hard one. Let's try to simplify this a little bit more. The journey to where I am now or the journey to where I, how I became this version of me. And that's just who I am now. Because it's kind of two starting points. Okay, let's go to the starting point to this version of you. This version of me. My moving in 2012 from San Antonio, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada with absolutely zero plan, a zero job in a time where Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. That's the starting point. I've had, I've had a lot of guests that have talked about that have done something similar where no plan, right? I'm just going to up and move maybe just finishing college. I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to do this that. What led to that move? Well, my ex was a professional poker player and he had been a professional poker player for a few years at that time. In April 2011, the state of online poker seized to exist. It became illegal in the country. And so a year later, he was like, okay, well, I got to move. Would you like to move with me? Sure. Let's go. And I was like, well, since you have, since you're playing poker, I was like, maybe I could do something in poker as well. Everything that he learned as a professional gambler, let's call him a gambler, but he was a professional poker player. Everything he learned, he taught on to me. And so I said, I know the game so well, maybe I can get into the media space. I didn't have any journalism background. I hadn't been ready for anybody. I literally was like, I'm going to go do this. And I had no plan. And it wasn't until we actually moved to Vegas, like we're there. Our bags are in this new apartment. And I reached out to one media company, pokernews.com. And I essentially just pitched myself. It was a cold email. I emailed everyone that I could from this company. And I said, you know what, I don't have any journalism experience, but I'm a workhorse and I can teach myself anything and everything. And my guy is a professional poker player, so it quizzed me on anything poker I can tell you. Every game imaginable. I knew Badoogie, Badaisy, all of these ranges of poker that probably oblivious to most. But I was like, I hear everything that I can do for you. Is there anything open and a good timing? Somebody that was working with pokernews.com. Her name is Lynn Gill-Martin, and she's now the World Poker Tour host. And she has been. That was the week. She was like, I'm on my way out. I just admitted this notice. I'm working for WPT. Come right in. And then they started me as an intern. And their very first assignment that I had on my own mind you was covering the NBC heads-up cash game tournament on NBC. And so essentially you're watching it on television, but they had a written version of it that you could go to their website and follow the progress of what's happening. And I had to do that all on my own. And ever since then, they're like, cool, you nailed it. Good job. Would you like to work for us full time? And so I did. And I was with them for nine years. And that is my that. Yep. Where? Where does that confidence come from? That confidence comes from what else are you going to do? You have no other option but to figure it out and find a way to succeed. Because if you don't, it literally means you don't get paid. You don't get fed. You don't have a place to live. So it comes from you have no other option but to make it work. And I think that household culture of me being from Texas, being from the Rio Grande Valley, being from, you know, part of this lower income family of always having to figure it out, you kind of are pushed to, yeah, I'm down to do anything. What do I got to do? It's just kind of having that mental mindset of, yeah, what needs to be done? And so I did. And I took, it wasn't just nine years and that was an easy wave. It was, all right, you're starting as this, but then you're going to do that. And then they pushed me into marketing and then they pushed me into social media. And these were all things that I didn't know. I literally had no clue. I was an academic advisor before I moved to Las Vegas at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Also, you need to have a master's degree for that is one of the requirements. I did not and I got hired. I think I'm a really good salesman for myself. And why did I succeed in this role within poker? Because I taught myself if I wanted to grow our social media platform from scratch into, I think I ended up pushing it to about 90,000 followers or so was because I taught myself marketing. I taught myself graphic design. I went to the College of Southern Nevada, which is the local community college in Vegas, and I got a certificate in graphic design. So that way I can make our Instagram look nice and pretty. And I was like, Oh, what's ESPN Sports Center, Barstool, what are all of these companies doing well? And I was like, and how do I do that? And so I taught myself kind of their strategies, a piggybacked off it, but made a poker. And well, then what else was there? Well, now we want you to do video. Well, what does that mean? Now you got to do video graphics? Cool. All right. Let me learn how to use, you know, like Photoshop tools and all these other things. So I really just had the curiosity and the want to learn and grow and expand. And it's trial and error. And you trial and you trial and you trial because you're going to have a lot of errors. And then you just trial again. So it was one of those things where you don't give up because if you give up, there's no other fall back. Wow. So take me back here. I'm going to go back a little bit. We're an academic advisor. You take UTSA, correct? Right? It is at UTSA. Yeah. You also talked about you're from the Rio Grande Valley. Real Grande Valley Pamela. What did she want? Because we all get asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? What did Rio Grande Valley Pamela want to be when she was in high school? How is this like a therapy session, man? What are we doing at 1130 in the morning? Okay. That's it. I think you might be the first person that's ever asked me that. Let's see. I think to a certain extent, I've been playing golf my whole life. I've been playing since as long as I can remember. And I believe from what my parents say, I think I started around seven years old. And I think for the longest time, there was, there's two versions of Rio Grande Valley Pam. One of them is I want to play golf or living. I want to do this all day, every day for as long as I can. And it had nothing to do with money. It had nothing to do with fame. It had everything to do with this is the heart and soul of who I am, the game of golf. And then there was a version of me as I got older, my mother worked for the district attorney in Edinburgh. And so I was always spending a lot of time at the courthouse. And so I was spending a lot of time with bailiffs, the attorneys, judges. I worked with nonprofit organizations like Casa, court appointed special advocates, I worked with the juvenile system. And so that version of me was, well, maybe I want to go into law school. So that way I can become part of like the Supreme Court and change the world. And so there's two versions of like one is entirely self fulfilling, because there's this hobby that brings me joy. And there's this other one that's like impactful for world outcomes, positivity and neither of which I did. Obviously now I'm sports vet, which is a contribution to society by nothing. But that younger version of me, you know, had dreams and then I got a little older and realized, well, I don't believe that change can actually happen by going into law school. So I changed my mind on that and going into playing golf. I actually did have scholarship opportunities and I chose, you know, I was went into college 16. I was so young and I left, I left home at 16 and turned 16. And then by the time fall started, I was 17, because my birthday's mid-May. And it was more so of just like survive, do what you got to do, get a degree, get out, because I was the first one in our family to get a degree. And all those dreams and aspirations that you have as a child, they really alter based off of what's available to you at the time. And so I think a version of our GVPAM came to fruition when I realized what I didn't have in college was somebody to tell me, you don't have to stay gridlocked into this one path. You can explore. I didn't have that. I wish I did because I probably would have gone into stats doing something with data science. I'm super nerd for numbers and patterns and puzzles. And I wish I discovered that in college or even for journalism. I didn't have a journalism degree and I wanted to explore that these things, but I didn't have anybody to tell me that you could. And so I got into academic advising because I was like, I don't want these, I don't want people to make the same mistakes that I did. It's okay to take your time. And so that RGV version of PAM to a certain extent did fulfill some of those aspirations by being an advisor at UTSA. Wow. I was really looking forward to this interview because other than what I've seen on social media and on ESPN, I've seen sort of the articles. I've seen a couple of articles about you being from the Rio Grande Valley, but I haven't read them. Because purposely, when I ever do these interviews, particularly with people I don't know, I kind of want to know, I kind of want to learn as we go. So one, thank you for walking us through that and for indulging in that question. I know sometimes it's tough to unpack some of these things, but I appreciate you doing that. And I appreciate you being really honest about having somebody tell you, right, you don't have to be gridlocked into these things. And I appreciate that because I think, for me, that was sort of the impetus for the podcast was because of the young people that I work with, they all come in with blinders on, like, this is what I'm going to do. And then they get frustrated or experience a setback and they just kind of walk away. Like, I'm not, I'm just checking out, I'm not going to continue. But also, I'm not even going to try really something else, something that I might be interested in. And so I appreciate you talking about that. So, wow. My life has been a series of fortunate events. Well, I mean, yes and no, because I mean, I feel like you took action. Yeah, I mean, I think that's certainly a theme that has emerged from all these conversations, people saying, maybe similar to your situation, I had no other choice, right? If I want to eat, if I want to, right, I'm going to do this and I'm going to pitch myself, I'm going to go out on a limb and try this thing. I'm going to teach myself, somebody that I interviewed recently talked about, regardless of the situation, be prepared, like do the homework. And so, you know, for you, all of the studying and learning and teaching yourself, whether it was the graphic design, the marketing, all of that stuff, right? I mean, that's certainly a theme that has been consistent with all of my guess is be proactive and sort of take responsibility for that. Because you can have these opportunities being given to you, but then it's how, what do you do with those opportunities? And I think a lot of people are like, oh, cool, I made it, I'm here. Okay, what are you doing to keep it? It's like, I've gotten myself to this position, I've worked hard to get here, but now how am I going to work hard to maintain this for longevity in the industry? For whatever it is that you're doing, not necessarily me particularly, but it's just one of those things where opportunities will come about. What action are you taking next? What are you doing with those opportunities? So, on that note, here you are, you're sort of found your way into the sports betting and doing this work. How do you find your way to ESPN? Well, that's a whole separate path because I didn't do, so I got into sports betting as a hobby, purely as a hobby. I was living, eating, breathing, poker, nonstop all day, every day, it consumed my life. My friends were poker, my job was poker, I would play poker, our date nights for poker, it was poker, poker, poker. And then I was like, oh my God, I was like, I'm feeling the burnout. What can I do that's not? And I play golf, so I was always playing golf, yes. But even then, it was like, we're talking about poker. I'm playing golf with poker friends. So sports betting was in a way something for me to do, that was mine because I loved the Big 12 Conference, I loved Longhorn Football, and I loved Texas Football. So it was a way for me to, well, let me go to the sports book, let me kind of have an escape since it was on the West Coast, NFL started at 10 a.m. to start at 10 a.m. So I would be there at 7 a.m. to make sure I had a seat, I would pack my little lunch bag so I could have breakfast and I would wait until kickoff. That was my escape from the poker world. And by default, what's right next to the poker room? The sports book. And so when I would talk about, when I would talk about football, people were like, oh, you're really good at this. Have you ever, what bets do you have this week? And I'm like, I don't know. And then they're like, and then I started, and then it took a while, it was a process to create the process for how I was analyzing games. And then I started posting plays to Twitter. Literally, I'm doing the exact same thing now that I did then. Now I'm just having to be on national television for it. But I was posting, I was, I've never, I've never been that person to post, oh, I'm taking Texas minus six and a half. I would always give a reason, and that hasn't changed. The analysis was always a thing for me. I wanted my predictions to be what, oops, not even set me apart. I wasn't trying to build a resume. It was just a hobby. It was just like, Hey, here's why I think I like that, why this game is going to work. And I was really good at it. I built a little following from the poker community. And because I was doing so well, and then sports betting industry, sports betting people in the industry reached out to me like, oh, you're really good because I had back to back 70% seasons. But also when I say that, it comes with a huge caveat of in an entire season, one, one season, I had 30 wagers total, total between college football and NFL. Now I'm making 200 in college football alone. So that's the difference between being a content creator and being a sports better. But I had success early on and it was a hobby. And so people reached out and one day I quit the poker scene cold turkey. I was in Mexico and I said, I don't want to do this anymore. So I made it my two weeks notice and I was like, this isn't a notice. I'm done. And I again, I had no plan. I had no plan because I did it on a whim. And so I was like, well, that's cool. I was like, I should probably figure some stuff out. Not even, you know, a couple of weeks later, sports betting media site called Audshark, based out of Canada, reached out or like, oh, you're a free agent. Come hang out with us in Vegas. And I hung out with them in Vegas and it ended up being like, Hey, here's your contractor you like to work with us. I was like, Oh, oh, this is a job. I was like, Oh, cool. And yeah. And then again, I had no experience. I didn't was never on camera. They wanted me to do on camera stuff. So I hired a coach. I hired a coach. And as she coached me up for about three years, I've been utilizing her to all right, here's all of the reasons that I have. Here's what I like. Here's what I can do. Now let me deliver it in a way that you can understand. Let me actually be a media person. And writing was easier for me writing something that I've always done. So I was writing in poker. I was writing in Audshark being on camera with something new. So I developed all of these skill sets, continue doing my hobby with Audshark.com. And then I built up a additional reputation because yes, my sports stuff was doing well, but also 2020 during the pandemic, I was probably one of two people who was doing political betting. And it wasn't just who's going to win the presidency. It was all aspects of it was every state. It was, you know, the courts, it was everything. It was everything. And so I had a weekly podcast and made some MSNBC spots. So I was built a little reputation doing political wagering. And then it just, it's kind of snowballed, right? I went from, it's been three companies. I went from Audshark to Yahoo Sports from Yahoo Sports to ESPN. All of which, and I would like to preface with this again, good fortune because the people that I knew at Yahoo Sports who hired me on, I met through poker. They knew who I was from the poker industry. They knew my work. They knew what I was able to do through social media, through the marketing, through my writing skills. And somebody who was like, you know what? Yeah, we love what your analysis is great. You know your stuff and work with us. And then from Yahoo, the same thing, my editor now for ESPN, I met him. He's been an ESPN editor for 20 years. And I met him for the first time in 2013. 2013, the World Series of Poker 2013. We've been friends ever since. And he was in a position to where he was in a hiring role for ESPN and said, I've obviously been following you all this time. I've seen your progression. I know what you're capable of. I want you to join my team. Now I had to still go through an interview process and things, but it was through connections that I built from poker. Wow. Oh my gosh. So, I mean, a couple of things. One, congratulations. Thank you. A number of things stand out, right? You, I mean, all through this process, you've talked about one, utilizing a variety of skills with its writing, your love of numbers and data, the teaching yourself things, taking classes, the multimedia, the marketing, but then also hiring a coach, recognizing, you know what, if I'm going to be on camera, I should probably get some coaching, get somebody to help me with that. So, I appreciate all of that because I think, because I'm sure somebody, there is somebody who might see you and say, oh, she loves gambling or, of course, you know, the stats or something, but there's so much nuance to it, right? There's so much there and all of these skills that kind of you've developed throughout this process. One thing that they think stands out to me is the networking aspect. So, was that something that you've been intentional about, you know, maintaining those relationships, making sure that those relationships are always in good standing? Tell me about networking. I never meet people with the intention of, oh, hi, my name is Pamela. What can you do for me five years from now? That's never the case. It's just when the poker world is really small, and I'm speaking purely from this experience is it's a very niche market. As popular as it was back then, maybe still is, it's a very small industry to where you saw the same people over and over, especially every summer during the World Series of Poker. So, you're in this giant room in a convention center, and so you're kind of tight knit group of, y'all are doing the TV aspect, we're doing the writing aspect, and we see each other all the time. So, I just meet people because people are cool, and you build a connection from them, not because of the idea of what can you do for me, it's just a human connection. That's all it is. So, I would never have guessed that these relationships were fostered back then. When he reached out, I was like, wow, I was like, him and I have kept in touch, as I do with a lot of people in the industry, but it's more so like, hey, how you doing? Cool, great, keep in touch. Good job all done, but it's never like, you know, some of them have led to friendships, some of them have just been acquaintances, but it's really just, you talk to people, that's it, you just be you, be your authentic self, and if you wanted friendship out of it, that's great, but I'm not a transactional person, so it's not, I don't meet people with the idea of what can you do for me now, how can I be, how can I utilize you, what you do, who you know, who you are, down the road, it's more of like, hey, you have a cool story, what's your name? Then you go from there, it's literally just meeting people in the wild, and then, and then like taking that, taking that relationship and continuing on. Even the people from poker past, I still talk to them as friends, as friendships, or when I, in Vegas, we reconnect and go have some sushi or whatnot, but these are just like, you just foster relationships because you genuinely want to, not because you think you have to. I love that, I love that, thank you. You, I've got to know this, I've got to ask, at any point, like when you were on, first time on camera, did it ever feel imposter syndrome? Like, what am I doing here, you know, kind of thing? I've been with ESPN for almost a year, and I still feel imposter syndrome. I actually did this video where I work, I do a lot of my hits from home, very fortunate, but even here in my space, as comfortable as it is living in Austin, I still get nervous, and my TV hits are probably like two to four minutes long, and I have a little stress ball. And so what you don't see is right before, like I'm here hanging out, and they're like, okay, Pam, it's about, you know, 90 seconds, in those 90 seconds, I'm here, I'm like, oh my God, I have all of a sudden, I get this eye twidge, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm like stressed out. And then I'm like, okay, deep breaths. And then as soon as they're like, all right, ready in five, four, oh, and then I say my thing. And then all of that goes away. But the imposter syndrome is something that never necessarily disappears entirely, because I think that's just human nature. However, you do realize that you garner some of these tools that help you become better each time. And you, if you have the understanding that all it takes is reps, that's all it is, it takes reps and practice, and you're probably going to fail. And there's been times where I got out of my spot and I told my producer, I was like, holy heck, that was awful. And he was like, yeah, it was, but you rebounded and you finished strong. So you're going to make mistakes, but now you're better equipped because of all of those reps to handle it. So imposter syndrome is still there because it's still a pinch me moment. And I just didn't understand how like a hobby that I had from being a poker degenerate got me to be where I am now. But then I also do understand because it's like how you mentioned earlier, like I took the opportunity and I ran with it. I did what I needed to do. I got certifications, I learned how to do A, B and C. And then I didn't just learn how to do them, I practiced them and I hired coaching to make me better. And I've invested all of this money to becoming the content creator that I am now, time resources. So yeah, imposter syndrome is still there, but I also have a lot of times where it's like, yeah, I believe it because I know that I worked hard to get here. Excellent. I love that. Thank you. How much prep goes into your work? Well, that's a funny question because you see me on air for one minute. That prep takes hours. Because I'm especially for like, let's say college football. It's not just about stats and picks. I'm not the type of person that's going to go on air and be like, oh yeah, they're due. You'll never hear that from me. It's actual analysis of if I give you a prediction, if I say a team, do fade them on the road because they are going to get blown out and the score will end 45-0. That score ends 48-0. There's a reason why because it took hours of preparation and finding the flaws of each team, the strengths of the opponent and seeing its hours of research. I watch the games. Watching the games is preparation. I rewatch them to see what I missed. I read the injury reports. I study the matchups. I look at the trends. I look at the travel schedules. I look at the weather. Motivation is a factor. You can't have a line on that, but it is a factor. I look at line movement. There's so much that you look at throughout the week that it's especially during football season. That's the biggest one, especially during football season. It's a seven-day job. You work doing all of the research. Me, myself, Monday and Tuesday, I'm doing head-on research full between college football and NFL. Wednesday, Thursday, I'm making content. Friday, I'm doing podcasts. Saturday, I'm watching the games. Sunday, I'm watching the games. Then you do it all again. Monday through Friday, Monday through Sunday for six months. The prep is nonstop. It's building a case. Every number has to have a reason. If I'm going to put my name on something, I need to feel damn good about it. Does it take away ... Can you watch a game just for the sake of watching games? Does the preparation ... Does being an analyst ... Is that the question? Does being an analyst take away from being a fan? Does being an analyst ... That's a good one. Yes and no. It depends what sport. For example, college football, not even college football, just football. I absolutely can watch it all day, every day, 12 months out of the year, all the preparation. I feel like, yes, now I know exactly why this is happening. I love it. I love it. From a betting perspective and a fan perspective, both go hand in hand, I think. I think this is why fantasy football is so huge, because we understand the sport so much, and we're all legit fans. We will run through walls for some of these coaches that no. Now, other sports like tennis, I feel like I have such a deep interest, rooted love, genuine love and passion for the game. I think it's the most beautiful sport on the planet that I sometimes, especially when there was matches between the big three, Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Ovec Djokovic, especially when you're watching them, you're watching art in motion. It is a blank canvas from the start, and then they paint their strokes as the match goes on. I don't like betting involved when I'm watching those matches, because I want the purity of the game itself to not be tainted. More often than not, I'm saying, this is my prediction, I'm not putting money on it. I'm standing back and watching a fan. But I think golf, too, same thing with football. It doesn't matter. I like having money on it. It's not going to take away from the experience of watching it on a Sunday. Football never will. Tennis, I like to separate church from state from time to time. Okay. All right. Good. Good. And I want to be respectful of your time. I know you're incredibly busy. And so I think with all of my guests, I always ask, as we transition out, what last piece of advice do you want to leave people with? I think that it's okay to do your hobbies. I think people get into this mindset of, I need to do what I was raised to do. I need to go to law school. I need to be a doctor. I need to do A, B, and C. I was born on this path. I've been practicing for this path. But I think what the actual answer is, and I think the younger generation is realizing this, is actually do the things that make you happy, that bring joy to your day to day, and somehow, some way, and it may not be immediate, but it may, down the road, eventually these things, these hot, these things that you call hobbies, these things that do bring you joy, can end up being a thing that you do for a career. And I've seen like my, one of my friends is, she's obsessed with plants and she turned it into a business. My friend is obsessed with meditation. She turned it into a business. These are things that we, and maybe it's an Austin thing. Maybe I'm like blinded by the, by what I see in Austin, but I truly believe that hobbies, if you do the things that make you joy, that bring you joy, you wake up wanting to do it, you go to bed wanting like, oh, I can't go to bed because this is consuming, consuming me in a good way. Continue to do those things, and eventually find, it'll, it'll work out the way it's supposed to. So if you're in a position right now where you're doing something that you don't necessarily love and it is an actual job and it's a grind, let that be the income that you need to help you find the things that you love. Oh, I love that. I love that last line. That's powerful. Pamela, thank you. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for sharing your story and packing some of those things and, and, and just giving us some insight into, into your story. I really appreciate it. No, thank you. Thank you for wanting to listen. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, this concludes another episode, The Way to College podcast. Thank you to my guests. Thank you to all of our listeners and viewers out there. Please make sure you subscribe, rate, follow up that good stuff and do me the favor and share the podcast with one other person. I'd appreciate it. Thanks, and we'll talk again soon. Bye bye. you
