The Oilers came through for us, and while our NHL portfolio’s still in a hole, the path to profitability might be as simple as Edmonton winning Game 1.
Another MLB moneyline today, a Rockies return, our weekday MLB futures, and our daily NHL and NBA playoff futures. Off we go.
San Francisco at Miami
I’m guessing these odds are this long because Cal Quantrill left his last start in the fourth inning, pulled after 46 pitches. Clayton McCullough made clear that was the strategy (i.e., he wasn’t hurt), but even that’s concerning.
Is it really that concerning, though? The Marlins have a fresh bullpen tonight. They can handle an early exit. If Quantrill’s a four-inning guy sometimes, Quantrill’s a four-inning guy. Better to minimize the runs a pitcher allows than save bullpen, especially with two guys capable of going six innings coming up in the rotation tomorrow and Sunday.
Pick: Miami to win +151. 15.00 units to win 22.65. Harrison and Quantrill must start.
Colorado at New York (NL)
We don’t love that we’re only 2–3 betting against the Rockies on the run line. But the Rockies still aren’t winning, and they’re still failing to cover +1.5 in 70% of games year to date. That number’s worse if you exclude Sundays. Worse enough that we think there’s something there beyond just an underperforming team.
Pick: New York –1.5 (–145). 15.00 units to win 10.34.
NBA Eastern Conference
The Pacers should still win this series. They get another home game, they get two chances in total, and they’re probably the better team.
But we are nervous.
Pick: Indiana to win –340. 5.00 units to win 1.47.
Stanley Cup
Our portfolio profiting isn’t actually as simple as “Oilers lead 1–0.” For one thing, our model is higher on the Oilers than futures markets are, and it reacts more quickly to fresh results than futures markets react. So if the Oilers win, our model will probably encourage us to put even more down on them.
More importantly, the Panthers would probably only be a +200 underdog or so if they lost Game 1. They’re at +102 right now, and in a world where ever game’s a coin flip, teams drop from a 50% to 34% series win probability by losing the opener. With these five units placed, our portfolio is currently effectively a 55.14-unit bet on the Oilers to win the Stanley Cup, one which would pay 16.43 units if successful. Even if we did want to hedge, we wouldn’t be able to lock in a profit with only 16.43 units of upside to work with.
But.
The series doesn’t start until Wednesday.
If markets don’t change, we’re poised to place this bet five more times before Game 1. That would leave us with 37.8 units of upside on the Oilers and 80.14 units of downside on the Panthers. That still isn’t in the +200 wheelhouse, but it’s close enough that a small market shift towards the Panthers before Game 1 (giving us the Oilers at –110, say) or away from the Panthers after Game 1 (giving us the Panthers at +212 or higher) would make the hedge possible. I don’t think we’d go for it, but we might dabble.
Pick: Edmonton to win –117. 5.00 units to win 4.27.
World Series
The highest value today in futures markets is on the Cardinals to win the NLCS. We already have four units on the Cardinals, though, and those units would pay 300 units, and our portfolio’s only hopefully 750 units large. With divisions probably ending up somewhere around even, the Cardinals winning the NLCS most likely locks us into profitability.
So, we move to the second-highest value, which is coincidentally the team second-likeliest to win the World Series.
Pick: New York (AL) to win +700. 2.00 units to win 14.00.
NLCS
As for that NLCS market: There’s still value on the Phillies, and we’ll grab it while it’s here. Bryce Harper should be fine. The Phillies lead the NL East and are arguably the best team in that division on paper. It takes a lot of bets to make a team like the Phillies profitable in a portfolio as big as ours. We’d like to get ahead of it.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +550. 2.00 units to win 11.00.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –312.15 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 351 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio and two partly 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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