A heartbreaker for Houston. In the end, we finished close to even this college basketball season, but only thanks to NIT futures oddsmakers not realizing Chattanooga would play at home in the second round even after the location of that game was announced. So: Probably not the most sustainable strategy, and we didn’t even quite end up even.
Thankfully, the Nationals beating the Dodgers last night put enough wind in our sails to get us back within 100 units of even on the year. It also, for better or worse, has us ready for baseball to be the primary focus.
Minnesota at Kansas City
Our approach leads us to the Royals this evening, where Cole Ragans has exceeded high expectations in his first two starts of the year. KC’s short on bullpen after heavy usage at the back end these last two days. That’s easy to overblow. We lean aggressive in measuring bullpen unavailability, and even with a 2.3-WAR reduction in the Royals’ projection, this is a good price in our book.
Pick: Kansas City to win –112. 15.00 units to win 13.39. López and Ragans must start.
AL West
We’ve been saying the AL West is open. This is how open we mean.
Pick: Anaheim to win +3000. 2.00 units to win 60.00.
World Series
And a little more Royals, for good measure. The AL Central’s looking fun. The Royals are part of that.
Pick: Kansas City to win +4000. 2.00 units to win 80.00.
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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: –99.22 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –3% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 255 single-game markets plus one completed futures portfolio)
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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