Looking for sports betting action this weekend? Your curated list of sports betting tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
NBA player prop – There are fewer points scored in the later games of an NBA playoff series. For example, look at the total in the Dallas vs Oklahoma City series:
- 219 points for Game 1.
- 209.5 for Game 6 on Saturday.
In addition, I expect Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving to take a bigger fraction of the shots for Dallas in Game 6. This suggests value on the points props for the role players on the Mavericks.
PJ Washington Jr. had three consecutive games in this series with 21 or more points. However, he had an unsustainable 50% three point field goal percentage in those games (31.4% in the regular season).
Despite more minutes in the playoffs, Washington has been under 15.5 points in seven of 11 playoff games. There is value in PJ Washington Jr. under 15.5 points, -130 at DraftKings.
PGA championship – Scottie Scheffler got arrested for an altercation with a police officer before the second round of the PGA Championship. It didn’t stop the best golfer in the world from a -5 in that round.
By the live model of Data Golf (subscription required), Scheffler has about a 19% chance to win the PGA Championship despite a three stroke deficit to leader Xander Schauffele. The markets like Scheffler more than the model, as FanDuel has +300 for a win (25% break even probability) on Saturday morning.
The markets are less keen on the leader Schauffele, as he is +260 to win (27.8% break even probability). The Data Golf model has Schauffele’s win probability at about 34% before the third round tees off on Saturday.
The NFL team with a difficult 2024 schedule – The Pittsburgh Steelers seem like a below average NFL team, as the market has their win total set at 7.5 for a 17 game regular season. However, Pittsburgh plays in the AFC North, and division rivals Baltimore and Cincinnati have the third and fourth best Super Bowl odds for the 2024 season.
In my preseason NFL rankings, I take market win totals and calculate an implied rating for each team based on its schedule. Pittsburgh ranks 17th, right at NFL average. They have the second most difficult schedule by my numbers.
Soccer analytics – Two years ago, famous NBA bettor Haralabos Voulgaris bought CD Castellon, a third division Spanish soccer team. On ESPN, Kirk Goldberry wrote about how Voulgaris would use analytics to get the team promoted in Spanish soccer (subscription required).
In their second season under the ownership of Voulgaris, CD Castellon has secured promotion to the second division with two weeks remaining in the season. Analytics almost certainly played a role, and I wrote about how analytics suggests working on set pieces (corners, free kicks) as a route to winning.
Top 3 NFL schedule release videos – With the release of 32 videos by the NFL, it was too hard to isolate one. Here are three of the funniest NFL schedule release videos:
- New England – If you loved Good Will Hunting, you will love this video starring Julian Edelman. And who knew Gronk can not completely suck at acting? (3:46 run time).
- Los Angeles Chargers – Always a leader in schedule release videos, the Chargers use a video game to get their shots at division rivals Travis Kelce, Harrison Butker and the Las Vegas Raiders (3:20).
- Pittsburgh Steelers – Puns and a stoic James Harrison (3:02 run time).
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
- Valuable
- Concise
- Entertaining
Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet and a sample of predictions usually saved for paying members of The Power Rank.
To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”
Hello I did not receive my Email of the Power Rank this morning although I did receive one yesterday, I checked all my folders spam. It’s not there for today. I just logged into your site.