Ok. Double MLB futures today, and with that we’re all the way back to our routine.
Cincinnati at Chicago (NL)
This is pricey, but at the end of the day, we’re Andrew Abbott truthers and Jameson Taillon’s had bad home run luck.
Pick: Chicago to win –165. 11.97 units to win 7.25.
AL West
The A’s are newly valuable in division markets, at least since the last time we did this. The Mariners are valuable too, though, and we need one more on them to keep them a profitable AL West outcome for our portfolio.
Pick: Sacramento to win +550. 2.00 units to win 11.00.
Pick: Seattle to win +100. 2.00 units to win 2.00.
NL West
Hopefully our last time doing this for a bit, but it’s the safe play while we catch up our portfolio tracker.
Pick: Los Angeles to win –1100. 4.00 units to win 0.36.
Eastern Conference
It’s rare for such a conventional wisdom favorite to offer us good value. Granted, we have a higher opinion of the Cavs than the Pistons, relative to the market at least, which flips the home-court piece of the equation in the hypothetical Conference Finals. But it still looks like the market might correct on this, and in the meantime, we want to grab what we can, even if it exposes us again to a Sixers punch to our gut.
Pick: New York to win +120. 2.00 units to win 2.40.
Stanley Cup
Gelo (our NHL model) absolutely loves the Sabres, so we’re going to throw it a bone and follow it here. I think a big piece of that love is the home-ice advantage this round.
Pick: Buffalo to win +1100. 1.00 unit to win 11.00.
Western Conference
On the other side, this just doesn’t add up the longer you stare at it. The Wild aren’t even 2-to-1 underdogs tonight on the road, but they’re more than 4-to-1 underdogs to come back and win the series, and this implies they’d be a tossup in the Western Conference Finals even if they did win the series. If the Wild win this series, they’ll most likely play a team that lost more regular season games than it won. And they’ll have been good enough to beat maybe the best team in the NHL.
Pick: Minnesota to win +650. 1.00 unit to win 6.50.
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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: –678.13 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 1,129 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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