It looked for a while there like Michigan was going to bail out our college basketball futures. No luck, though, and after an 81.20-unit loss on those, we’re hurting heading into the rest of this fiscal year.
We’re starting MLB futures today, as well as MLB moneylines. MLB futures are part of our 2026–27 effort. The moneylines belong to this year.
NHL futures should return fairly soon, and we plan to do NBA futures again this postseason too.
AL Central
Our MLB futures portfolio is always a large, seven-month effort. We bulk up on favorites at different points in the year, but to start, we always grab value on longshots. Longshots such as? The Minnesota Twins, who aren’t this much worse on paper than the best of the AL Central.
One reason the Twins are available at this price is that they’re not expected to do anything that helps themselves at the trade deadline. The problem with that logic is that the rest of the division isn’t exactly an all-in kind of crew. 14-to-1 is too long. We’ll take it.
Pick: Minnesota to win +1400. 2.00 units to win 28.00.
World Series
The Rays are easier to believe in. They’re the Rays! And similarly, 100-to-1 is just too long.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +10000. 2.00 units to win 200.00.
Philadelphia at San Francisco
We’re probably being overconfident with our Kelly criterion here (we’re going with a 3% ROI), but we’ve long liked Monday winners on Tuesdays, and Cristopher Sánchez has been great so far. Robbie Ray hasn’t been bad, but the Giants are uninspiring right now. We’ll take the favorites.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –150. 15.86 units to win 10.57.
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These numbers are for the 2025–26 effort, which is currently scheduled to end at the end of the NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Final (whichever comes second). Sorry for the poor transparency. We’ll do a better job tracking the 2026–27 campaign, which is already underway with our MLB futures portfolio.
2025–26: –643.56 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 1,114 single-game markets plus seven 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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