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 –0.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,305 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly 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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
Active markets today: College football; college basketball; NFL; college football futures. Here’s the context on each.
Single-day college football bets: On the season, we’re 87–94–3. We’re up 1.74 units on the year, and we’re up 10.78 units on FBS bowls so far strictly through betting moneyline underdogs.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 26–29. We’re down 5.13 units, but we’re 5–2 over our last seven, with average odds on those five winners shorter than –110.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 20–28–8, and we’re down 10.11 units. Again, though, a positive trend: We’re 3–1 over our last four. Not a bad few days overall.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 22 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets unless we explicitly mark them as a hedge. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Bowl Games
Bowl game moneyline underdogs, bet blindly, are up 10.78 units for us across only 32 games. We’re seeing a little market adjustment—FSU’s moneyline could probably be longer—but we aren’t seeing a lot. We continue to roll with it.
Pick: Mississippi to win +185. Low confidence.
Pick: Maryland to win +167. Low confidence.
Pick: Florida State to win +800. Low confidence.
Pick: Toledo to win +172. Low confidence.
Virginia @ Notre Dame
Creighton @ Marquette
We’re crossing conferences with today’s moneyline parlay, taking Marquette to win their Big East home opener and Virginia to not lose to one of the worst high-majors in college basketball right now.
Pick: Parlay – Virginia and Marquette to win (–113). Low confidence.
Detroit @ Dallas
This line feels way too big, and that’s part of why we’re taking it. I think the industry term for this is “stinky.”
Pick: Dallas –5.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Sugar Bowl
We’re changing our tack a little bit with the college football futures approach, but the backbone—that we’re betting on Texas to win and then lose—remains the same. Six units on the Longhorns for today’s batch.
Pick: Texas to win –170. Low confidence. x6
CFP National Championship
And here’s the change. What we’ve found is that we can, before Monday’s games, get ourselves to a spot where we profit in 41% of our model’s simulations if we switch off of picking Alabama to beat Michigan and onto picking Alabama to win the national championship. Previously, our moves were: Michigan to win the national championship, Alabama to win the Rose Bowl. Now, they’re on both those two to win the national championship, and it’s just about tinkering with units to maximize profitable scenarios. After Monday, we’ll determine what hedges are necessary, and what they can all get us. Five units on the Tide here.
Pick: Alabama to win +200. Low confidence. x5
