The Phillies gave us hope. The Blue Jays gave us a little win. Missouri State gave us a 0.5-point victory in Conference USA.
All the football futures today, plus more baseball and a couple football spreads. Big one.
NLCS
More of this. The value’s still there, even if it’s easy to see the path towards the Dodgers losing this series. Markets are underrating how big a favorite the Dodgers will be if they do reach the NLCS, and the Dodgers remain our biggest vulnerability.
Pick: Los Angeles to win –105. 4.00 units to win 3.81.
NLDS: Milwaukee vs. Chicago
Our second-biggest vulnerability is the Cubs, and there’s value on them as well. Some of this might be that we’re not incorporating bullpen fatigue—the Cubs burned a lot last night—but since we’re vulnerable on them anyway, we’re going to take this little shot. We have plenty of Brewers upside to spare.
Pick: Chicago to win +316. 2.00 units to win 6.32.
Super Bowl
We generally approach NFL futures with the idea that anyone can win their conference but only top-tier teams can win the Super Bowl. This year, though, that top tier is muddy, especially on the AFC side. So, we’re expanding our bounds a little today, adding the Colts and Broncos in addition to the 49ers, a more believable winner. This leaves us with eight profitable Super Bowl winners, with the Bills, Eagles, and Packers our big holes right now.
Pick: San Francisco to win +1800. 1.00 unit to win 18.00.
Pick: Indianapolis to win +2200. 1.00 unit to win 22.00.
Pick: Denver to win +2200. 1.00 unit to win 22.00.
AFC
One more unit on the Broncos in the AFC. There are ten believable AFC playoff teams. We have at least something down on nine of them. Again, we want to find value on the Bills.
Pick: Denver to win +1000. 1.00 unit to win 10.00.
NFC
More on all three of the Niners, Bucs, and Commanders on the NFC side. If you include the Bears, there are twelve believable NFC playoff teams. We’re only missing the Packers and then the three fringiest contenders—the Falcons and Vikings, plus those Bears.
Pick: San Francisco to win +850. 2.00 units to win 17.00.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +1300. 1.00 unit to win 13.00.
Pick: Washington to win +1300. 1.00 unit to win 13.00.
NFC South
We’ll park our last four units this week in Bucs division stock. It’s not can’t-miss, but it’s good value and high probability.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win –325. 4.00 units to win 1.23.
Philadelphia at NY Giants
When FPI likes a team who we assume the public likes, we get excited. Sometimes this goes badly for us—we’re still not sure whether the success of our FPI-only approach comes from fading the public or following FPI—but we get excited nonetheless.
Pick: Philadelphia –7 (–120). 3.96 units to win 3.30.
College Football Playoff
We’re feeling good about our Heisman portfolio (Beck and Moore are both profitable for us), and we’re still in a spot where if Oregon, Miami, and Indiana all make the playoff, we’re only a few units short of profit even in the event every single additional bet misses (this is hugely unlikely, considering we have about twenty unique bets out there beyond those three). So, we’re going to add a few more playoff shots this week, then turn our attention to the national championship.
For at least the next couple weeks, Notre Dame isn’t going to be as safe a playoff bet as Miami, Oregon, or Indiana. But the Irish really benefited from Penn State and Texas’s losses. It’s almost inevitable that those two will get to three losses each.
Elsewhere, UNLV is the second-likeliest team to win the Mountain West, and if anything our model’s tended to underrate the committee’s perception of the MWC in recent years. Our model really likes UNLV’s chances if they win the MWC and Memphis goes down.
Duke has a pair of losses, but they aren’t an absurd bet to win the ACC, drawing both Georgia Tech and Virginia at home. Both those defeats were in nonconference play.
Could Duke get left out as the ACC champion? Yes. But our model has that happening more than 20% of the time when they do win the ACC. So we’ve covered that.
Pick: Notre Dame to make playoff –120. 3.00 units to win 2.50.
Pick: UNLV to make playoff +1600. 1.00 unit to win 16.00.
Pick: Duke to make playoff +1800. 1.00 unit to win 18.00.
CFP National Championship
All of that leaves two units for the national championship, and our basic philosophy there goes like this:
Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas all have the talent to win the title. Oregon might. Beyond that, it gets really dependent on teams staying healthy or drawing an advantageous path.
Of those four teams listed above, Alabama and Georgia have tough paths and Texas isn’t playing well enough. If we were setting this market’s prices, we’d put the Buckeyes at 2-to-1. Sportsbooks should not be giving this affordable a price away on Ohio State.
Pick: Ohio State to win +450. 2.00 units to win 9.00.
Louisiana Tech at Kennesaw State
Kennesaw State’s having a great year relative to expectations. Louisiana Tech’s having a better one. Give us the Conference USA favorites on the road.
Pick: Louisiana Tech –5.5 (–110). 1.82 units to win 1.65.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.
2025–26: –426.95 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –6% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 825 single-game markets plus three completed futures portfolios and one partly 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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