2% max recommended unless otherwise noted. 1% max recommended for soccer.
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.
New York Mayor Democratic Primary Update
Well, things are getting interesting.
Most of the polls up until now have shown Andrew Cuomo with a clear lead but today Emerson dropped a poll with Cuomo narrowly leading Mamdani on a first pass but after all the rounds of ranked choice voting had Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by 4. When this poll came out Cuomo's price took a plunge from mid 60s to mid 30. Later in the day a poll from HarrisX / Fix The City came out with Cuomo winning comfortable. Many are skeptical of the poll because of its crosstabs. Nonetheless, Cuomo rebounded and now both candidates are close to 50c each with the election day being tomorrow.
This has been a difficult race to read. Mamdani's momentum seems to be everywhere now, almost to an absurdly astroturfed extent. At the same time, his momentum seems to be primarily among affluent whites who are very vocal online whereas Cuomo hasn't really had a ground game but has been blitzing the TV networks. Cuomo is also polling better ...