Monday, April 25, 2022

2021/22 NHL Week 26 Betting Report

Welcome to my Week 26 NHL Betting Report, featuring my Gambling Power Rankings, results by category, my best bets, and my best/worst teams to bet on or against. It should be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. If you’re betting with real money, you should not be betting on every game, only the games you like the most. Whereas I’m betting on every game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis. Click here to see my Week 25 Betting Report.

My Weekly Profit: $303
My Season Profit: $21,504

The NHL regular season is nearing its final day, with playoffs soon to follow. This is my 3rd season placing a fake wager on every single NHL game, with by far the best results. Most of the credit goes to writing a weekly betting report. Doing an autopsy of my performance every 7 days really helps illuminate what’s working and what’s not, while also helping uncover league-wide trends. I first reported on the increasing goal trend in week 8 (on Dec 6), when November had been a low scoring month. My spreadsheet does most of the work for me.

For the last 2 weeks, I’ve done very well betting home favorites on the moneyline, and had been doing well on road favorites heading into week 26 (until getting crushed by Edmonton and Colorado in the last 7 days). Favorites have been performing well down the stretch. If you bet $100 on every moneyline favorite from April 1 to April 23, then you won $1,364. The rate of return on the extreme favorites is low because their moneylines are getting prohibitively expensive, but the category as a whole has been a big winner in the last month of the regular season.

Favorites -1.5 goals on the puckline performed poorly from March 21 to April 10, but have been crushing it for the last 2 weeks. If you laid $100 on every favorite puckline since April 11, then you are up $1,829 (although $1,082 of that came from just 3 teams, the Rangers, Hurricanes, and Flames). Home faves -1.5 goals were the best category to bet this week, but I did not lay a single penny on any of them. I’ve been playing conservatively with pucklines, and missed an opportunity this week because of it (though did bet a few visiting favorites -1.5 goals, for a profit). I’ll be more aggressive with pucklines in the final few days of the season.

I’ll be honest, my own pick selection was clouded by my fantasy hockey championships, with something I’ve nicknamed “fantasy hedging”; where I’ll deliberately place wagers on outcomes that are bad for my fantasy team so that I’ll have something to feel happy about it if that outcome happens. And yeah, I’m a superstitious former goaltender who sometimes feels like I can harness the power of the butterfly to "reverse-jinx" desirable outcomes. This malady can afflict me at certain points in the NHL regular season, but intensifies in the fantasy playoffs. This will come up again in my “best and worst team of the week" sections.

You might very well read the above paragraph and think that’s a completely absurd strategy and that I should not be trusted for betting advice. Well, there was some logic behind the curtain, given that I was up against Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jacob Markstrom, Darcy Kuemper, and Jeremy Swayman, who are the #1 goalies on some of the league’s best teams. Meanwhile, my own goaltending situation was shaky at best. It was actually a smart move, even if the logic was foolish on the surface. While I was big loser on Kuemper (helping one of my fantasy teams to victory), Vasilevskiy, Markstrom, and Swayman (plus my own shaky goaltending) led to a $777 profit on reverse jinxes (thanks to a big Sunday).


 

My Week 26 Results

*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride lately with my over/under algorithm, losing money in week 26 mostly due to a freakishly “under” Tuesday night where it went 1 for 8 (with a push) and lost -$1,200. Unders went 7-2-1 that evening, so there must have been a full moon or something, as the algorithm posted a respectable return on the other 6 days (where it produced a $719 profit). I’m not going to lose any sleep over the algorithm having a losing week. Bad nights happen, and betting every over/under certainly isn’t “risk free”.

Speaking of which, one of the hot promotional trends in the growing sports betting market are something called “risk free bets”. Sign-up with an online sportsbook, and you’ll get up to $1,000 of “bet insurance”. Lose your first wager (up to $1,000) and you get a free bet (or multiple smaller bets) equaling your initial wager. Here’s the life hack; if multiple companies are offering the same promotion, sign-up for both and make $1,000 bets on opposing moneylines of the same game. If you pick a game where both teams are -110, you are guaranteed to win exactly $1,909 on your $2,000 wagered. For $91, you’ll ostensibly get $1,000 worth of bonus wagers. That’s more risk-free than getting a chance to maybe win back your initial investment.

 

My Team of the Week: Calgary Flames, +$1,157

The Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks made a substantial contribution to my over/under algorithm not getting completely devastated. Calgary hit the over 6 times in their last 7 games and have been a big winner for me in the month of April. The Flames won 3 of 4 games this week, and I bet the correct outcome in all 4 (with their only loss coming on the 2nd half of a back-to-back). Coincidently, they were beaten by Juuse Saros, who is on both my fantasy teams; but I only bet the Preds because the Flames were on short rest. My biggest winner was a $500 bet on the Flames home moneyline to beat Dallas, who was also playing on short rest.

One of the reasons I was laying so much money on Calgary was due to facing Jacob Markstrom in fantasy and attempting to reverse jinx the team. That’s also how the Tampa Bay Lightning finished as my second-best team of the week. My opponent had Vasilevskiy, and I was trying to inflict bad luck, which was unsuccessful. I’d love to claim that I picked Tampa and Calgary because I’m smart, but it was more a function of irrational superstition, which was accidently profitable.

 

My Worst Team of the Week: Colorado Avalanche, -$1,498

The Colorado Avalanche officially ended their 2-week streak as my best team to wager,  following up a 9-game winning streak with a 4-game losing streak. While Nazem Kadri returned to the line-up, Mikko Rantanen was lost. I took notice of what was happening after the first two losses. You would think losing to the Kraken would splash cold water in my face, but I still bet the Avalanche to beat Edmonton on Friday. Normally I might pump the brakes on my Colorado enthusiasm with the loss of one of the top scoring wingers in the NHL, but one of my opponents in the fantasy championships has Darcy Kuemper. Call it an attempted “reverse-jinx” or purchasing sadness insurance, I felt compelled to double down on Kuemper even as I was losing money.



I was also crushed by the Edmonton Oilers, thanks in part to their victory against Colorado on Friday. That win vs the Avs gave me the confidence to place a large wager on Edmonton to beat the struggling Blue Jackets (without Werenski or Laine) on Sunday, with Columbus pulling off a big upset victory. That may have just been Elvis Merzlikins punishing me for dropping him on both my fantasy teams after their loss to San Jose… (again, I can be irrationally superstitious from time to time)

 

My 3 Best Bets of Week 26:                                 Best Market Bets of Week 26:

 
1) Home moneyline: +$1,268                                1) Colorado to lose ML+PL: +$1,016
2) Reverse Jinxes: +$777                                       2) Home favorites -1.5 goals: +$979
3) Tampa to win ML: +$648                                  3) Dallas to lose ML+PL: +$724
 
My 3 Worst Bets of Week 26:                              Worst Market Bets of Week 26:
 
1) Colorado to win ML+PL: -$1,350                     1) Underdogs +1.5 goals: -$949
2) Seattle to lose ML+PL: -$664                            2) Colorado to win ML+PL: -$800
3) Under: -$536                                                      3) Montreal to win ML+PL: -$800
 
 

My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 26: (over/under not included)

 

1) Tampa Bay Lightning, (+$648)

2) Calgary Flames, (+$445)

3) Carolina Hurricanes, (+$388)

 

My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week 26: (over/under not included)

 

1) Colorado Avalanche, (-$1,350)

2) Edmonton Oilers, (-$500)

3) New York Islanders, (-$300)

 

My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week 26: (over/under not included)

 

1) Montreal Canadiens, (+$615)

2) Arizona Coyotes, (+$392)

3) Dallas Stars, (+$356)

 

My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week 26: (over/under not included)

 

1) Seattle Kraken, (-$664)

2) Edmonton Oilers, (-$350)

3) Columbus Blue Jackets, (-$329)

 

Team By Team Power Rankings


These power rankings are based on the sum of all my bets per team, including where the money was won or lost. Each week my new power rankings will be based on all the games in the season, not just what happened this week.




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