2% max recommended unless otherwise noted. 1% max recommended for soccer.
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SportsPicks
All your sports information for those investing Vegas-style in the outcomes of sports games. Predicting games against the line in all sports, especially football, American and English style.
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SportsPicks@SportsPicks
March 20, 2023
March Madness Report: Monday, March 20, 2023
Recap: The bad beats of all bad beats -- or the biggest break for the luckiest of gamblers -- finished off the first round of the NCAA tourney, as a rolling ball with less than a second left from out of bounds somehow ended up in a near mid-court 3 pointer to give TCU the late-as-possible backdoor cover. The best game of the day though was a battle of kitty cats in Kentucky versus Kansas State as Kansas State took down mighty Kentucky once again as a tourney underdog in a tight to-the-wire finish. This tourney may turn out the most profitable for bookies in decades, as the public favorites on Sunday -- Kentucky & Indiana -- both fell. Bookies were toasting all weekend to the sorrows of their gamblers, but not sportsPicks subscribers who, thanks to First Four picks, Live chat picks, and a big, big 5% win on Friday, are still in the black heading into the second leg of the tourney for the second straight year.
Preview: We will put up a full Sweet 16 preview tomorrow. Early Vegas leans show the public favoring the favorites in this round, with the public leaning almost all chalk so far in the early action, with only one dog getting love -- Miami, the team the public bet heavily against in the first 2 rounds. From a seeding perspective by historic tourney performance, the over-rated teams are Michigan State, Tennessee, Texas, San Diego State, and UConn, with 4 of those five public favorites as well. A little trivia: 8 and 9 seeds have a winning record in the Sweet 16 against higher seeds.
Last, but not least: remember you can message me here at SportsPicks, and get helpful, useful tips like this I gave pre-tourney to a bettor thinking about taking Duke and Virginia to make a run.
My pre-tourney advice:
"Duke. Rookie coach. Not a top-20 offense (not even in top 40). No elite scorers (10+ points/58% true shooting). Only 1 good 3-point shooter (38%+). An atrocious record away from home against tourney-type top 100 teams: 3-8 straight up. Recipe for early exit.
Virginia. Underperforming coach in tourney. Not a top-20 offense (not even in top 60). No elite scorers. Only 1 good 3-point shooter (38%+). Average record away from home against tourney-type top 100 teams: 4-4. Unlikely to make a deep run."
Honor the Madness.
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Potential Draw - Chelsea vs Liverpool
This is another Premier League fixture I am keeping an eye on in the run up to the weekend. Chelsea vs Liverpool is a fixture which ends in a draw surprisingly often. Even when one side or the other is not in great form, a common pattern is that Chelsea will take the game to Liverpool but lack the critical knockout punch to finish them off, which normally allows Liverpool to steal a point. This tends to happen more often at Stamford Bridge (where Chelsea are at home) or in cup competitions, which tend to go to extra time. At Anfield, Liverpool have a more decisive edge.
This weekend's game has Chelsea trading at about 33%, Liverpool at 43% and the draw at about 26%. I'm sceptical that Chelsea to draw at home should be trading that low. If I can finagle an entry at 25c somehow (such as via the synthetic draw, which I have posted about recently), I would be tempted to take that position. Chelsea are well capable of taking a lead into the final ...
