Baseball Playoffs Betting Strategies
The optimal time to get into profitable positions on the Major League Baseball playoffs is right before they begin. Hey, that’s now! Most sports bettors only think about futures wagers earlier in the season, but the best opportunities from a risk/reward standpoint often occur right after the playoff schedule is set. Usually there will be an over-hyped team or two that is just begging to be bet against. This can be effectively accomplished by a couple of different ways if you have a Tradesports account (as you should).
The first way is to simply sell the over-hyped team. Very often this is the best way to go. That way you have every other team in the playoffs working for you. Right now that would be the Chicago Cubs, currently priced at around 40 to win the National League pennant. Considering that there are four good teams all competing for this spot, giving the cubs a 40% chance to win it seems a bit optimistic to me.
The Cubs are also priced at around 20 to win the World Series, which makes them the clear favorite. This is consistent with the pennant pricing, but if you sell the series contract you have one extra team working for you. However not every team has their series price consistent with their pennant price - and this creates another opportunity.
The most glaring example right now is the Red Sox pricing. They are at 17 to win the series but 28 to win the pennant. Since the series price should be half of the pennant price, something isn’t jiving. It doesn’t matter which one is off if you are interested in the arbitrage trade. Simply sell them to win the pennant and buy them to win the series for an equal number of contracts and you cannot lose. If they lose the pennant you pick up 9 points of profit. If they make it to the world series they will certainly be priced at least 45 to win it, so you can cover before the series begins and get your money back. This is a classic freeroll trade.
Always look for the over-hyped team at the beginning of any post-season in sports. Because their pricing will be skewed it will create opportunities all over the board. Sometimes the best play is selling the over-hyped team, sometimes it means buying every other team, and sometimes you simply want to play a longshot or two that are getting exceptional value. But it’s the hype that creates opportunities in sports betting, one way or another.
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