Thursday Best Bets, Wednesday Recaps
Wednesday was mostly spent going over more Super Bowl prop bets and continuing to monitor the Super Bowl LVII side and total as the Eagles remained 1.5-point favorites over the Chiefs at all Las Vegas sportsbooks and the Over/Under continued to climb to 50.5 points.
We also continue to hear more and more people tossing around historical betting trends that sound important but really aren’t, such as saying the winner of the Super Bowl is 46-7-3 ATS (82.1% since we count pushes in this case as the point spread coming into play), so the “point spread doesn’t matter – just pick the winner.” Granted, this is true on the surface. But a lot of people were saying the same thing before the wild-card round but then only 4 of 6 winners (66.7%) covered as the Bills (-14) failed to cover in their 34-31 win vs. the Dolphins and the Bengals (-7.5) failed to cover in their 24-17 win vs. the Ravens. As I said on “The Greg Peterson Experience” that week, that “ATS trend” is misleading because it’s in direct correlation to how high or low the point spreads are. The example I gave is that if every game was pick-’em, then 100% of winners would also cover. If higher like the Bills and Bengals lines, then of course it’s more likely the point spread will come into play.So, of course, with the line at 1.5, it’s more than 95% that the spread won’t matter in this Super Bowl, but that shouldn’t be used as a reason to bet one way or the other (though I guess it doesn’t illustrate that you shouldn’t waste pay an extra 10% in vig to buy a half-point to the Eagles -1 or the Chiefs +2). The points have mattered, however, as I lost my Best Bet on Wednesday for the third straight day, with all right around the spread. I lost my posted pick on the Magic +8.5 (I got +10) in their 11-point loss, 105-94, at the 76ers. I could easily be 3-0 ATS the last three days if we had received a key basket or a few free throws, but obviously our goal is to not be involved in coin-flip results like this. I certainly miss having more football games to play at a time like this (or NHL 1P Overs for that matter). We’ve made a lot of money the last six months, so we’ll continue to make daily picks, but limiting the units we’re giving back. We trust our followers are exercising money management as well. Let’s recap the reset of Wednesday’s action, then look for Best Bets for Thursday. Then, as has been our custom here, we’ll recap our NFL “takes” column from Wednesday with our early Super Bowl bets.
Wednesday Recaps
NBA: Faves/dogs split 4-4 SU & ATS with upsets by the Blazers (+6 in 122-112 win at Grizzlies), Rockets (+6 in 112-106 win vs. Thunder), Timberwolves (+5.5 in 119-114 win vs. Warriors) & Hawks (+1.5 in 132-100 rout at Suns). Home teams went 5-3 SU & ATS; Unders 5-2-1 with push in Hawks-Suns (232) game.
More NBA: On the season, faves lead 490-275 SU with 11 games closing pick-'em, but dogs still lead 387-359-19 ATS (51.9%). Home teams lead 464-312 SU and 398-361-18 ATS (52.4%). In totals wagering, Overs still lead 392-370-14 (51.4%).