Key to the Kingdom – Single Elimination Games

Sometimes sports wagering can be done without any handicapping, at all. But not very often and don’t tell anyone I said that. But sometimes it’s true. There are situations in sports where winning is the ONLY thing that matters.

THE FALLACY OF MONEYLINES

Now that sounds kind of goofy because the object of playing a game is to win, right? But, in a long season like major league baseball, professional basketball or professional hockey, dropping a game here or there is not as meaningful as, say, losing a college football game. In a short season, like college football, one game matters every bit as much as the next. If you lose, you are probably out of the four-team playoff, unless of course you are Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and a few others.

The same urgency applies to the Major League Baseball Wild Card Playoff Game and any single-elimination tournament. Win and you advance…Lose and you go home.

The Key to the Kingdom is this: You can often find tremendous value on underdog moneylines in single-elimination situations.

Consider the baseball Wild Card Playoff Game, mentioned above. The more-or-less fair closing line on the Colorado Rockies versus the Chicago Cubs was Cubs -135 / Rockies +125. The Rockies won in a 13 inning thriller, paying Rockies bettors a 25% premium for betting the underdog. This morning, as I write this, the Boyd Gaming moneyline for the American League Wild Card Game is: New York Yankees -190 / Oakland Athletics +170. This is where we can disregard handicapping and just bet the underdog moneyline. But first, let me also mention this…

Boyd Gaming here in Las Vegas, NV, posted their World Series Odds for the teams still playing. It is not necessarily important what the odds were for all the teams, but at the time I saw the odds they were:

• New York Yankees: 8 to 1
• Oakland Athletics: 8 to 1

The World Series odds were telling me, from the perspective of Boyd Gaming, that both teams have the exact same chance to win the World Series: 8 to 1. But, they hung a Wild Card Playoff Game line making one team, the Yankees, a big favorite (-190) and the other team, the A’s, a big underdog (+170). Yet they are telling us both teams have the exact same chance to win the World Series!!!

I know that the Yankees are a huge public team, whom the public loves to bet. And the Athletics play one state over in California, so there might be a little “cooking” going on with these World Series futures, but not enough to matter for the Wild Card Game betting purposes.

Without hesitation, I bet the Oakland Athletics! Why? Win and you are IN. Lose and you clean out your locker!

Both teams, no matter the starting pitchers, want to win this game. Their motivation is EXACTLY the same for this one game. This is not some lazy game during the dog days of summer. Hell no! This ONE matters more than the 162 games previously played!

When you see an opportunity like this, ALWAYS bet the underdog. You are always getting the right price because the moneyline on the game should realistically be +100 for each side.

As some of you read this, the example I provided concerning the Major League Baseball Wild Card Playoff game might seem a little stale. Perhaps you are reading this in January, prior to the college football playoff or in the middle of March getting ready for March Madness. Certainly, let’s not throw handicapping out the door entirely. There is still much work that needs to be done, because handicapping, coaching and other factor still matter.

Yet, the betting wisdom here is exactly the same for single-elimination tournaments – all of them – Look for a reason to bet the dog! You might not always find a reason and must bet the favorite, or not bet at all, but never pass up a big moneyline underdog because you think “No way can this team win.” In sports, upsets happen all the time!