With last night’s Hurricanes win, our NHL futures portfolio is back to being in good shape. We’ve got an effective 103.74-unit bet on Carolina that would pay 92.11 units. They’re the favorites heading into Game 5.
Our NBA futures portfolio is also in good shape. We’ve got an effective 60.48-unit bet on the Knicks that would pay 198.22 units. They’re the favorites heading into Game 4.
We’re going to let each portfolio ride for the time being. No new bets on either today. If the Spurs win tonight, we’ll reevaluate, but we’ll get to reevaluate within the comfort of two hedge-able situations. We could even make them one hedge-able situation if we wanted to parlay Las Vegas and San Antonio. Neither would be a positive-value bet right now, and that’s the only scenario where we could lose units on the two portfolios combined.
Seattle at Baltimore
It’s surprising that the Mariners aren’t favored here. Brandon Young’s having a good season, but George Kirby’s got the better FIP and xERA and should be expected to be better. And while Seattle’s banged up, it hasn’t seemed to hamper them much lately.
Pick: Seattle to win –103. 5.16 units to win 5.01.
ALCS
The Mariners are one of the four teams FanGraphs deems likelier than not to get a postseason bye. The Tigers are only four and a half games outside of playoff position, and their Skubal decision is highly correlated with how these next few weeks go, which makes the FanGraphs probabilities on them easier to believe.
Pick: Seattle to win +435. 2.00 units to win 7.70.
Pick: Detroit to win +2800. 2.00 units to win 56.00.
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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). We’ll track the 2026–27 campaign in more detail when it’s fully underway (it’s partly underway right now with our MLB futures portfolio).
2025–26: –688.99 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025–26: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 1,169 single-game markets plus seven completed futures portfolios and two partly 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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