Welcome to my Week 2 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 single 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. If you followed my weekly reports last season, one upgrade is that I’m now logging alt pucklines for every game, favorites +1.5 goals and underdogs -1.5 goals. Click here to see my Week 1 Betting Report.
My Season Profit: $652
It seems like an eerie coincidence that Halloween is nearly upon us because this was an undeniably spooky week of hockey betting. Somebody let the dogs out, and not just any dogs, really, really big dogs. Longshots of +200 and up on the moneyline performed remarkably well. Arizona kicked off the party with a stunning upset against Toronto on Monday along with Montreal beating Pittsburgh, then Buffalo and Philly hit on Tuesday, then San Jose and Buffalo (again) hit on Thursday. Then the Kraken beat the Avalanche in Denver where they were 21-5 when favored by at least -200 last season.
Maybe I should dress up on Halloween as a giant dog, or perhaps as the superhero Longshot. (Spoiler alert, I don’t and won’t dress up for Halloween. Just want to clear that up.) While I was on the Sabres bandwagon for their entire road trip, I’m not here today to tell you about my outstanding success betting these games, but rather I was on the losing end of the other upsets. The first week of my betting season produced a respectable profit, or at least the last 2 days of it. That was until somebody decided to let the dogs out, with heavy favorites laying a giant terd in week 2, destroying me on the puckline -1.5 goals especially.
My big short of the Arizona Coyotes last October was extraordinarily lucrative and allowed me to play with house money for the rest of the season. Following that same blueprint for Tank-A-Palooza 2022/23 burned me in the last 7 days. My default when a heavy favorite moneyline is prohibitively expensive is to take the puckline -1.5 goals. But there were plenty of instances over the last 3 seasons where that strategy has backfired, and I’ll back away from pucklines completely. It’s a category that has been both my best friend and my worst enemy at various points in my betting history.
The big question I’m asking myself right now; is this performance just random variance, or should I be betting underdogs more aggressively? Before we get too exciting and betting every underdog, it was only the big dogs that thrived, which is somewhat paradoxical. Teams that were favored by at least -200 went 5-9, while all the lesser favorites combined to go 26-12 for a strong 17% rate of return. That was actually the category that carried me, while heavy favorites stabbed me in the back. Rangers, Avalanche, Rangers, Bruins, Panthers, Avalanche, and last but not least, the Leafs.
This has been one of the most profitable weeks to bet NHL underdogs since before Covid. There are still a lot of games left to play on the weekend, but the profitability of dogs (especially longshots) is the primary focus of the 1st draft of my week 2 Betting Report. #BettingTips
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 22, 2022
What’s even more bizarre about this particular paradox is that on Monday I wrote a DM trying to convince somebody that larger favorites were a good investment on the moneyline (at least until the -400 threshold), because last season they were. It was among my most lucrative demographics in the second half. The Leafs had just lost to Arizona, so my guard should have been up, but what’s the probability that I’d write that on a Monday and heavy favorites would go on to get destroyed? At least -150 to -199 was safe. It truly feels sometimes like I have the power to affect the outcome of NHL games (as an ex-goalie I can be vulnerable to superstition).
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This week could have been nothing more than a freak confluence of crazy variance that we’ll never see again, but it also inspired me to take more dogs on Saturday with some success. Some of the credit goes to a new experiment, placing 4 small bets for the very first time on road dogs -1.5 goals (St. Louis +265 vs Edmonton, Philly +400 vs Nashville, Islanders +360 vs Tampa (which lost), and Buffalo +330 vs Vancouver. Three of those were winners. 75% of the wagers were placed on the moneyline, then sprinkled a little something extra on the underdog alt puckline -1.5 goals. I have 2 more scheduled for Monday (Pittsburgh and Washington). This might become a thing.
As an aside, I did have an additional -$164 of week 2 losses, in what I’m calling my “hedge
fund”, a separate worksheet of strictly hedges. When a team that I’ve already bet has
the lead and there is some value on the other side, I’ll attempt some hedges
with a fraction of my projected winnings. Some of them are creative and you
feel really smart when they hit, but I still would have been better off
sticking with my original wagers. My hedge fund was a net positive in week one
and currently has a balance of -$77. None of
the hedges are included in any of the numbers you’ll see below, but there will
be more analysis on hedging throughout the season.
I bet the Sabres moneyline at +230, they went up 3-1, so I took half my projected winnings and put it on the Calgary live line at +150. Now I'll profit the amount of my initial wager regardless of who wins. I'm improving at live hedging. Last year my "hedge fund" was a big loser.
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 21, 2022
My Week 2 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
In week 1, overs did edge out unders, posting a modest 5% rate of return, then in week 2 the floodgates opened and overs really caught fire, at least until cooling off on the weekend. Unders went 11-7 on Saturday-Sunday, with me taking 6 unders those 2 days, hitting 4. There were plenty of goals scored on the weekend (6.5 per game on average), but oddsmakers started trying to nerf the returns on overs, which had been booming again. Overs got more expensive; it was not a matter of goal scoring collapsing (though it was 6.9 Monday to Friday when overs went 21-12-2).
I was a net loser on unders, but did outperform the market rate. Overs were one of my best categories where I also outperformed the market rate. My algorithm was not consulted last week, but it came into use starting Monday despite a small sample of games being inputted. A few manual overrides were executed, but I was a net loser on those wagers, going 2-4. The algorithm was better than me, even without a full sample of input. It recommended 10 overs and 3 unders Saturday, then 8 unders and 3 overs Sunday and Monday (today).
If you bet $100 on the moneyline for every rested team to beat every opponent who played yesterday you lost -$25 (-$49 on the closing line). This was my own third worst category of the week after the Rangers on home ice failed to defeat a tired Blue Jackets team with their back-up goalie in net. They didn’t just lose, they got hammered 5-1. To read more about NYR, scroll down to my worst team of the week section. This category was a big winner in week 1, but oddsmakers were quick to compensate the betting lines, making some of them prohibitively expensive (like the 0-2 Senators closing as -135 favorites to beat the 3-0 Boston Bruins).
Home teams started strong in week 1, but the category
regressed in week 2, driven entirely by home favorites, including many of the
heavy favorites previously discussed. Home dogs still performed strong, though
there weren’t many to speak of. Home teams were favored 39 times, while road
teams were given the edge in just 13. Home team win rate only dropped from 60% to
56%, but the line prices were more expensive.
My Team of the Week: Minnesota Wild, +$1,229
In my week 1 Power Rankings, the Minnesota Wild opened in 30th place, after they fell short of my high expectations. But it did not take me long to course-correct and get on the right side, as they surged all the up to my #1 spot in just 7 days. My biggest jackpot was on their Colorado game, where I had sent a DM to one of my Twitter colleagues proposing a same game parlay of Avs -1.5 goals with over 6.5 goals at +475, which would have been a winner had I actually bet the parlay. But at least I had a big bet on the Avs puckline and on the over, so the game was a big winner for me even without that parlay.
After Colorado, I struck winning bets on Canucks +1.5 goals and the Boston moneyline, but more credit goes to the overs going 3 for 3 (though the last 2 barely hit by 0.5 goals as the goal prevention tightened up from their catastrophic start. This bankable futility may be coming to an end, but I’ve also lost a lot of confidence in Marc-Andre Fleury that may never return. All in, 6 Minnesota bets, 6 winners.
My next best betting team was the aforementioned Canucks, who struggled out of the gate. Perhaps more of the credit for the Canucks standing goes to the Buffalo Sabres, who soundly defeated Vancouver in their home opener, with me betting on Buffalo. Hint: they were my third best team of the week.
Some of my DMs this week. 👇 pic.twitter.com/U8hTF4b8n6
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 23, 2022
My Worst Team of the Week: New York Rangers, -$826
It was a tight race to the bottom for the dubious distinction of my worst team of the week, with the New York Rangers narrowly edging out the Detroit Red Wings (-$809). There was a point in week one where I was starting to look at futures odds on Rangers winning the President’s trophy and Stanley Cup, thinking there might be some value there. After hitting my first Rangers bet of the week -1.5 goals vs Anaheim, the blueshirts laid an egg on home ice against the dreadful San Jose Sharks, costing me -$500 (though I did hit the under). Then on Sunday at home again they faced Columbus on a back-to-back starting Danill Tarasov and got embarrassed 5-1, costing me another -$500.
Note to self: The New York Rangers may not be quite as good as I seem to think they are... 😔#NHLBetting
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 23, 2022
As for Detroit, those of you who have been reading my
betting reports for the last 2 years already know that I’m occasionally prone
to bipolar behavior when it comes to Red Wings wagers, with intermittent wild
swings of extreme optimism and pessimism. It’s been a lot more pessimism than
optimism, but sometimes I get a little too excited. Though I’m not sure that it
was crazy to make a large wager on Detroit to beat the tanking Chicago
Blackhawks. The indomitable Matt Murley was also big on the Wings there so I
don’t feel too bad, I just wish I had stayed on the Wings vs Anaheim in their
next game (though they are now without Bertuzzi and Vrana).
2) Over: +$588 2) Road underdogs -1.5 goals: +$820
3) Longshots moneyline: +$455 3) Longshots +1.5 goals: +$763
4) Underdogs -1.5 goals: +$448
2) Heavy favorites moneyline: -$1,018 2) Heavy favorites ML: -$679
3) Shorting back-to-backs ML: -$542 3) Under: -$675
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
2) Montreal Canadiens: +$432 2) Ottawa Senators: +$879
3) Philadelphia Flyers: +$425 3) Arizona Coyotes: +$735
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Detroit Red Wings, -$600
3) Carolina Hurricanes, -$339
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Columbus Blue Jackets, -$500
3) Los Angeles Kings, -$450
2) Toronto under, +$320
3) Ottawa over, +$260
4) Minnesota over, +$255
5) Washington over, +$255
Note to self: Toronto unders went 3-0 this week. 🤨 #NHLBetting
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 23, 2022
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. Hedge fund
results are not included in this table.
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