Monday Morning Gambler: Lost On Whom To Bet In MLB? Try A Winning Team
By Dan Behringer for LVSportsBiz.com
It’s OK to bet on winning teams in Major League Baseball.
It’s perfectly acceptable to bet on teams that are crushing the competition. Often the price will be adjusted sharply to reflect the winning trend. But there are run lines and alternate (-2.5 runs) run lines. There are also team run totals that can be played if a team is hot.
And the New York Yankees are hot. At TeamRankings.com, they are solidly entrenched at the top of the leaderboard with a 58-22 record and a 72.5 winning percentage. They are winning games by an average of 2 runs. They are coming off taking two of three from the recently rebranded Cleveland Guardians, who obviously didn’t have their defenses up for the Bronx Bombers. The Yankees won by margins of 13-4 and 6-1 before losing 2-0 on Sunday, in a game where they rested several starters. The first two games paid bettors on the money line, the run line and the alternate run line.
Eventually, of course, it’s likely there will be regression to the mean, and the Pinstripes will cool off. Either that, or oddsmakers will jack the price up into the stratosphere.
But TeamRankings.com projects the Yankees will win 108.5 games. They peg the chances of them making the playoffs at 100 percent, chances of winning the division at 98.8 and winning the World Series at 23.1. The Los Angeles Dodgers, at 48-28, are projected to win 102 games, win the division 88.8 percent of the time and win the World Series 20.6 percent of the time.
“I feel like we handle wins and losses well, but I also think they get (ticked) off when they lose,’’ manager Aaron Boone told the New York Post after the Yankees 13-4 win after a lost to the Houston Astros a day earlier. “They take it a little bit personal.”
It will be a month before preseason football kicks off with the Las Vegas Raiders-Jacksonville Jaguars game on Aug. 4 in the Hall of Fame Game. (The Raiders are -1.5 and the total is 33.5. Did we mention we like the under?) The NBA Summer League is also underway. In the meantime, there is baseball. Plenty of baseball. And it’s OK to be on teams who are winning. It’s rare to find a ticket writer who, when cashing a ticket, will say, “Hey, don’t you think you had an unfair advantage in that game?”
(If for some reason you bet on a winning team and don’t encounter immediate success or any success, remember: It’s called gambling for a reason.)
Elsewhere:
— While you’re waiting for college and professional football, there’s professional hockey. A compilation of futures odds at VegasInsider.com puts the reigning Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the +400 to +500 range to defend their title.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are generally next at +800 to +900. You have to move further down to find the Vegas Golden Knights. They are generally +1200 to +1400. If longshots are your fancy, the Arizona Coyotes are roughly +50000.
The NHL season begins Oct. 11 with the full schedule coming later in July.
— Fading the Las Vegas Aces has been tremendous profitable — up until Thursday. The Aces had failed to cover in seven of their last eight games before they squeaked out a cover against the Minnesota Lynx. The Aces won the game, 91-85, narrowly covering -4.5.
But would you bet them in the rematch — also the last game of a road trip?
The line moved to Aces -5.5. The Lynx exploded to a 13-0 lead en route to a 33-15 first-quarter margin and finished off the game with a 24-16 fourth-quarter flourish. The final: Lynx 102, Aces 71. If you’re scoring at home, that’s a cover by 36.5 points.
“They played harder, much harder,” coach Becky Hammon told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the game. “They wanted the game more. They played smarter, so they won.”
The Aces may be 15-6 but they are 10-11 ATS, and they have now failed to cover for bettors in eight of the last 10 games.
They return home to face the New York Liberty on Wednesday.
— Laugher of the week: Jump on that total over 7 runs in Milwaukee Brewers game with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday? No bad beat stories to tell on this one as the Brewers knocked out 16 base hits and thumped the Pirates, 19-2. Officially, the total went over by two touchdowns and two PATs.
