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 -1.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,395 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,602 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are 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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer futures picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL futures picks.
World Cup futures, college basketball plays today. For unit context on the World Cup portfolio: We started with fifty units. We’ve lost one so far, with ten pending before today’s was placed.
Fairleigh Dickinson @ Hartford
Woof.
Ok, the short version here is that although Hartford is worse than expected, possibly because of all the sudden-departure-of-head-coach turmoil, we’ve had enough time with them that KenPom and other ratings systems should have them properly assessed.
Pick: Hartford +7.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Florida A&M @ Florida
The magnitude of a blowout is different than the margin of a close game, but you do have to pick a number, and this number should be in the 20’s. Florida’s really struggled out of the gate, and while FAMU is terrible, they don’t tend to have the fastest-tempo games overall, something which should keep this close enough for our purposes.
Pick: Florida A&M +32.5 (-110). Low confidence.
2022 World Cup
Our options here were Senegal to reach the quarterfinal, with an eROI from SPI of 36%, or Croatia to reach the semifinal, with an eROI of 33%. The temptation is to take Croatia, since Senegal is such an immediate big underdog against England, but this is emotions. Croatia’s at +850 to make the semifinals. That’s less than half as likely as Senegal. Lower probability and lower value is not something we actually want.
While we’re here: Rooting interests today are Australia (whom we have advancing at +750) to at least draw, Saudi Arabia (whom we have advancing at +600 and reaching the semifinals at 100-to-1) to pull off the upset of Mexico, and Poland (whom we have reaching the quarterfinals at +400) to at least draw with Argentina, though there’s a coincidental hedging aspect with Poland where Saudi Arabia losing could also send them on. In France vs. Tunisia, I guess we’re Tunisia fans unless that gets to the point of affecting Australia’s advancement , since we have nothing down on France.
Pick: Senegal to reach quarterfinal +325. Low confidence.
