On the bright side, last night’s All-Star Game was awesome. On the dark side, we lost another bet. We are getting smoked, but that’s why we’re keeping the unit small. Football season will come. Futures will pay out. We will survive.
We’re doing a little British Open betting today. I don’t know that we’ve ever listed these before. They’re dumb, but possibly fun?
The Open Championship
We need to start this with a confession: I paid so little attention to the U.S. Open this year that I didn’t know who J.J. Spaun was before today. Been out of the loop on everything but baseball. Maybe I’m out of the loop on baseball too, even. Anyway, hopefully that illustrates the kind of confidence you should put in this approach.
A few years ago, I started betting the golf majors through the following method: Open the World Golf Rankings and find the highest-ranked American I didn’t know. There was some logic to this—I think bettors sometimes discount American men in tennis, which now that I say it out loud isn’t logic at all—but it’s silly. That said, it worked extremely well in 2023 when Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman won the U.S. and British Opens.
This year, I’m ashamed to admit the method leads us to Spaun. Since I absolutely should know who Spaun is, though, we’ll add Ben Griffin as well. For units, we’re betting 1% of the Daily Bets bankroll on each to win, and we’re then betting the necessary amount on each to make the cut to pay for those bets. That’s the other part of the approach. We’re trying to not lose money.
Pick: J.J. Spaun to make cut –185. 0.22 units to win 0.12.
Pick: J.J. Spaun to win +12500. 0.12 units to win 15.00.
Pick: Ben Griffin to make cut –200. 0.24 units to win 0.12.
Pick: Ben Griffin to win +9000. 0.12 units to win 10.80.
World Series
We’re seeing worthwhile value on the Blue Jays, Mariners, and Brewers, plus some fringy value on the Phillies and on the Dodgers to win the NL West. That Dodgers payout is pretty small, though we might come back to it tomorrow. We already have a lot on the Phillies. We also have a lot on the Mariners and Brewers—more than we have on the Blue Jays. As we continue to wait out the All-Star Break, we’ll double up on Toronto for today. As we wrote yesterday, they’re in a great spot.
Pick: Toronto to win +2400. 4.00 units to win 96.00.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025–26: –488.27 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –8% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 490 single-game markets plus three completed futures portfolios)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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