Welcome to my Week 3 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 2 Betting Report.
Tonight the final draft of my new betting book will be submitted to the publisher and become available in the Amazon store within the next 72 hours. It’s a comprehensive commentary and analysis of my last 3 seasons recording a wager on every single game, while also tracking the results of betting every moneyline and puckline. You’ll get a breakdown of market trends for different categories and strategies (moneylines, pucklines, favorites, underdogs, back-to-backs, etc) with 3 seasons on the same charts by day of schedule. It’s an expanded version of what you get in my weekly/quarterly betting reports.
Now back to the matter at hand, week 3.
My Weekly Profit: $219
Happy Halloween! If I were attending a costume party tonight, it would be dressed as a dog carrying a bag of money. The underdog trend that began in week 2 continued unabated, which any bettor with a voracious appetite for favorites could surely tell you. The playing field appears to be leveling, as Tank-A-Palooza 2023 is not unfolding quite as expected. Oddsmakers are making adjustments; in the first two weeks there were 14 teams that opened on the moneyline at +200 or higher. In week 2, there was 2. Somebody took notice.
Underdogs were the main theme of my week 2 betting
report, at least the ones we could define as “longshots” with moneylines in the
+200 or greater range. Though I was personally unable to maximize my profit on
this category, it was noted that I’d begun experimenting with underdog alt
pucklines -1.5 goals, stating “this might become a thing”. Well guess what, it
did. Last week it was the extreme dogs who pulled through, but this week it was
dogs of all shapes and sizes. Dogs won 51% of games, covering -1.5 goals in 31%
(with an average implied line probability of 24%).
If you bet $100 on every underdog moneyline of +190 and up this NHL season, you've banked $1,640 including 10 of the last 12. 😮 These teams returned $777 on the puckline +1.5 goals and $1,275 -1.5 goals. #BettingTips
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 26, 2022
For more on how this started: 🖱️👇https://t.co/WXRlJDXaNp
Despite my correct prognostication about that category, my week actually got off to a bad start. Dogs -1.5 were hitting all week, just not the ones that I was betting. I only hit on one out of my first 8 (Washington). Most of my bets on those alt pucklines were very small, so the losses weren’t costing me a lot money. My rate of return was much higher on the underdog moneyline than puckline -1.5 goals, but they were the top two categories if you bet $100 on every outcome (or at least those I’m tracking). This was a bad week for favorites no matter which way you bet them. Home, road, moneyline, -1.5 goals, +1.5 goals, all net losers (though technically home favorites -1.5 goals did turn a profit).
My struggles early in the week was mostly attributable to road favorites and overs. The problem being, my bets tend to be larger when laying it on a favorite, especially BIG favorites. I was having an increasing amount of success with underdogs, but some big favorites that I continued clinging to nullified my gains (amplified by some lost overs). What dug me out of the hole was hitting the jackpot on underdog pucklines Saturday: Montreal +550, Seattle +330, Los Angeles +285, and Washington +230 (not sure why they were underdogs against Nashville).
In the second half of last season, which began with favorites on fire, we started to see their betting lines get considerably more expensive. You can read about it in my book coming out this week. Those expensive prices continued in October 2022, but are starting to come down after this most recent surge by underdogs and longshots. It’s hard to say if this new trend will continue much longer, but in the meantime be careful how much money you’re laying on heavy favorites. The best teams to bet against -1.5 goals have been Nashville, Columbus, and Anaheim.
The most exciting moment of the week for me was the Montreal upset of St. Louis. Clearly oddsmakers screwed up when they set the Blues as a -300 favorite. Getting Habs -1.5 goals at +550 might be the longest odds that I’ve ever hit on a hockey wager. That also vaulted the Blues into the top spot in my Power Rankings. They played 4 games this week, going 0-4, but it took me a few games to join the feast. If you had bet $100 on St. Louis opponents -1.5 goals in all 4, you walked away with $1,310. Just a friendly reminder, Jordan Binnington sucks sometimes, and Thomas Greiss mostly sucks. One of the “lessons learned” in the conclusion of my new book: “Never trust the St. Louis Blues whether betting them to win or lose…”
My Week 3 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
This was not my best week for over/under betting.
Overs started to surge early in week 2 and a few pundits prognosticated about
the scoring boom, but last weekend unders took the advantage and it spilled
over into week 3, beginning to look more like a trend than random variance.
There was also a noticeable trend towards unders in week 3 last season, but
without the surge in overs from day 6 to 13. It looked like we might be on a
similar trajectory, until overs went 10-7 on the weekend. But in those 17
games, the public bet down the total or payout on the under in 14 of them. A
lot of money was being played on unders.
Last season #NHLBetting unders peaked on day 22 of the schedule before eventually collapsing. The new season has been a little different, at least from day 6 to 13, but the last few days feels very familiar. 📈 Overs did go 6-3-1 today (which is day 18). 🧐 pic.twitter.com/dO3Kdfx7A8
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 28, 2022
I was aware that unders had performed well Saturday-Sunday when publishing my Monday Betting Report and watched them have a good week, but continued using my over/under algorithm hoping it would catch the new trend early enough given that it looks back 5 games. I executed a few “manual overrides” but not nearly enough. It’s tough because often I’ll see a trend start to shift, but don’t want to overreact too soon in the event it’s just variance. My algorithm can take a few games before properly adapting to a new trend.
The Minnesota Wild seem to have pulled out of their
early nosedive, as their unders were actually one of the top over/under bets of
week 3. It was a nice run while it lasted. Vegas unders were the best O/U wager
this week, as their goaltending has proven to be very dependable in the early
going. The Golden Knights were my best O/U team by a wide margin in the past 7
days, though I’ve lacked effectiveness betting on their wins and losses, as
they’ve exceeded my expectation.
Note to self, Marc-Andre Fleury has 2 wins and a .943 SV% in his last 2 games. 📈 https://t.co/Cj2m3W6ecK
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 28, 2022
My Team of the Week: Washington Capitals, +$806
I’ll be honest, my expectations for Washington entering the season were not high. They have an aging core, key players with injury issues, and they were not a team that I was targeting heading into this week. The reason they were my best team is because they were underdogs against New Jersey and Nashville, which I disagreed with. In those two games, I got a good price on their moneyline, and put a little something extra on their alt puckline, going 2 for 2 (or I suppose 4 for 4). Though I did successfully bet Dallas to beat the Caps on Thursday, so not all that profit was generated from their wins.
Montreal finished as my second-best team of the week,
but all of that came from one game. They opened at +250 on the moneyline and
+550 on the puckline -1.5 goals against St. Louis, which seemed a little crazy
to me. I put a little on the moneyline and a little on the puckline, yielding a
jackpot. Clearly many others were on that ML bet, as Montreal closed at +205.
Montreal -1.5 goals vs St. Louis at +550 ✅
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) October 30, 2022
Whoever set the Blues moneyline at -300 clearly screwed up, bet down to -245 by puck drop. Don't forget, Jordan Binnington sucks sometimes. https://t.co/cw9PkBoT4F
My Worst Team of the Week: Tampa Bay Lightning, -$575
The Tampa Bay Lightning were my second best team to wager (whether on or against) from Oct 2019 to May 2022, but that was not the case in week 3 of 2022/23. The primary liability was their over/under, going 0-3 and losing -$400. The rest of the damage was done when they failed to beat the Kings in Los Angeles. This brought back bad memories from last season, when the Kings regularly killed me when upsetting really good teams. I also missed a $200 wager on the over by 0.5 goals, so one empty net goal and that game would not have been so bad.
The Minnesota Wild were able to find stability after
getting mauled in the first two weeks, but it took me a few games to adapt
(mostly because their line price was undesirable based on their awful start).
Minnesota games were priced this week as though the first two weeks never
happened. I was aware that they were settling down, but found the prices on
their opponents appealing.
2) Home moneyline: +$721 2) Underdogs moneyline: +$896
3) Under: +$616 3) Under: +$808
2) Over: -$508 2) Over: -$1,176
3) Road favorites -1.5 goals: -$250 3) Favorites moneyline: -$1,065
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
2) New York Islanders: +$544 2) Winnipeg Jets: +$834
3) Montreal Canadiens: +$450 3) Edmonton Oilers: +$690
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Pittsburgh Penguins, -$450
3) Chicago Blackhawks, -$450
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Vegas Golden Knights, -$450
3) Winnipeg Jets, -$350
2) Pittburgh under, +$215
3) Minnesota under, +$203
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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