Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I just this week found a formula to compute the parlay payout when money lines are involved. Obviously, if you pick two 10-point favorites to win in a parlay, you shouldn't get as much of a payout as if you picked two 10-point underdogs to win. Picking favorites to win outright isn't as profitable as picking underdogs to win. But, here's an example that might be compelling. Let's say that you have two 5 or 6 point favorites in college basketball. The money line on those favorites should be around -250 or so. If you pick those favorites to cover in separate bets and win both bets ($50 each game - $100 total), you'll win $95.45 total. If you put those two teams in a money line parlay for $100, they don't have to cover (just win), and you will win $96. Obviously, they both have to win to win the parlay. But you get the cushion of "just win" instead of covering the spread.

A couple of the bets from the first round of the NCAA tournament had some crazy finishes. Trailing favored Notre Dame by five in overtime, Butler's Kameron Woods dunked with two seconds left to make the final score 67-64. The Irish were 4.5-point favorites. "Last night was nuts with the ending to the Notre Dame game. Heartbreaker for the [betting] players," Jay Rood (vice president of race and sports for MGM) said Sunday. "That was a seven-figure swing." That means that the betting public (more often going with the favorite, in this case, Notre Dame) could have won $1 million plus more than the sports book won. The sports book doesn't always want a 50-50 split on the games. Sometimes they get these outcomes and pocket more money. As another example, Georgetown's Jabril Trawick dunked with one second left to polish off the Hoyas' 84-74 win over Eastern Washington. Georgetown was an 8-point favorite. Jason Simbal (CG Technology vice president of ...

Illinois lost in the first round of the NIT last night. That makes 3 losses in their last 3 games. They lost by 5 at Purdue to end the regular season. Then they lost by 18 in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. And the kicker was losing by 21 to Alabama in the first round of the NIT. Illinois was a 3 seed and Alabama was a 6 seed, but the game was played at Alabama because of construction going on at Illinois' stadium. They have a pretty good recruiting class coming in next year. Here's hoping they can make it back to the NCAA tournament and do better than a 19-14 record.

Today is my dad's 87th birthday. For someone who we thought wouldn't make it to his 86th birthday (see  update  here), this is pretty remarkable. His old house has been on the market for a week now - no news yet from that front. We would ideally like to sell it quickly to have that done with while he's still living.