Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -1.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,444 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,602 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer futures picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL futures picks.
We have World Cup futures, where we owe you a bonus play, and today’s college basketball. On the World Cup side, we started the tournament with fifty units in our portfolio. Entering today’s plays, we’ve profited by 8.5 units and have five pending, meaning we have 53.5 in our current bankroll.
2022 World Cup
We’ve got outstanding units on both Croatia (+900 to reach semifinals) and Japan (+350 to reach quarterfinals), making today’s first game a non-issue for us. We’ll add these two, and it’s worth remembering again that while South Korea is highly unlikely to upset Brazil today, we’ve seen plenty of highly unlikely things go down so far these few weeks. It’s a numbers game, and we’re going to continue to take our shots.
Pick: South Korea to reach quarterfinals +665. Low confidence.
Pick: Morocco to reach semifinals +900. Low confidence.
Kent State @ Gonzaga
Troy @ San Diego State
One of the consequences of us making two plays a day in college basketball markets is that when we split the pair, we slowly bleed out units. With hardly any games happening today, and with no good value, we’re going to take a little risk and try to get some of that bleeding back. Kent State and Troy are each capable of pulling off the upset, but the market should be aware of that with Kent State, and the threat is small from Troy. Small enough for us to put this little bit on the line, with nothing else good to jump on.
Pick: Moneyline Parlay – Gonzaga and San Diego State to win -722. Medium confidence.
