Your weekly curated list of sports betting tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
Dak Prescott passing yards – For the past two season, Connor Allen has posted analysis of NFL season long player props. One insight is that passing yards has gone under 74% of the time (43-15).
Please do not blindly bet under passing yards. However, this insight can help with finding value bets. Connor notes Dallas will have a lower number of pass plays for a few reasons:
- Coach Mike McCarthy has said he wants to run the ball more.
- The offense will no longer play at high tempo without OC Kellen Moore.
- Dallas is favored in 12 of 17 games, which makes it less likely that they throw the ball late game to make up a deficit.
Connor’s model projects 3,785 passing yards for Dak Prescott, and he likes under 4,000.5 passing yards (-110 at DraftKings). Follow Conner on Twitter and on 4for4 Football for all of his insights.
The Open Championship – Heading into the third round, Brian Harman had a five stroke lead on the rest of the field. While this lead suggests he should be a huge favorite, the analytics and markets suggest otherwise. Here are some numbers from before the start of the third round.
- Data Golf had Harman’s win probability at 48.7%.
- FanDuel had Harman at +150 to win, a 40% break even probability.
Harman is not one of the best golfers, as Circa Sports gave him a break even probability of 0.7% to win before the start of The Open.
Baseball strikeout prop – Data scientist Patrick Hayes has created the SP K Prediction app, and I’ve found the results in Over/Under Bets useful in my handicapping. His model considers strikeout rate and projected innings for the pitcher as well as the handedness of the opposing line up.
For Saturday, the model likes Tanner Bibee of Cleveland to go under 5.5 strikeouts against Philadelphia. In addition, ZiPS has a lower projection for Bibee’s strikeouts per 9 innings (8.2) than his results in his rookie season (9.1).
This suggest value in Bibee under 5.5 strikeouts (-115 at DraftKings is available for this game that starts at 7:15pm EST.)
Bet Bash – Want to meet and network with other sports bettors? Looking for more accounts? Bet Bash happens in Las Vegas from August 8-11, and tickets are still available.
Spanky joined me on the podcast to discuss the highlights of Bet Bash as well as other Ph.D. level aspects of sports betting:
- College football markets now that Matt Metcalf isn’t with Circa.
- Tricking the DraftKings algorithm that limits sharp bettors.
I also enjoyed hearing how he became a board game World Champion in a must listen episode of The Football Analytics Show.
Football humor – The refusal to pay NFL running backs is funny enough, but this tweet stands out for making the German Fabian Sommer (a must follow for his NFL analysis) die of laughter.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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While NFL and college football are the main focus, 5-Nuggets will continue to curate bets from the sharpest minds in the business all off season.
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