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 6,311 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 basketball; NFL; college football futures. We’re very sad to not have any bowl games today upon which to bet moneyline underdogs. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 26–30. We’re down 6.13 units, but we’re 5–3 over our last seven, with average odds on those close to even.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 20–29–8, and we’re down 11.11 units. We’re 3–2 over our last five, though, and 11.11 sounds like a lucky number.
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.
Arizona State @ Cal
Sweeping their opening conference road trip would be a big deal for an ASU team that was getting categorized as a contender for 12th place in the Pac-12. We think they’re gonna do it, though.
Really, what we believe here is that Cal is being categorized as feisty when that isn’t consistently going to be the case, and while ASU’s underlying numbers are bad, its wins and losses aren’t. Sometimes, we think the market can shift too far towards the underlying stuff and ignore things like how a team plays when it thinks it can win compared to how it plays when it expects to lose.
Pick: Arizona State to win +150. Low confidence.
LA Chargers @ Denver
What a sad game.
The Chargers offense has enough weapons to make noise against a Broncos defense whose head coach might be trying to lose. The Broncos offense might run into some points against a Chargers defense that’s been among the league’s worst. We enjoy cheering for points, like so many do.
Pick: Over 37.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Sugar Bowl
We don’t like that the line moved a little shorter here, but we’re sticking to the gameplan, which has us betting enough on Texas winning the Sugar Bowl to cover our Alabama bets. We now have about a 66-unit swing riding on the Sugar Bowl, and it’s going to get that much bigger tomorrow. 7 units.
Pick: Texas to win –175. Low confidence. x7
CFP National Championship
On the Rose Bowl, our swing is down to a unit. It still favors Michigan, but we’re planning on flipping to a few units in favor of Alabama tomorrow. It’s easy to make too little of what Georgia did to Florida State yesterday. 4 units.
Pick: Alabama to win +200. Low confidence. x4
