Welcome to my Week 21 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 20 Betting Report. There is also useful analysis in my 3rd Quarter Betting Report.
If you’re looking for a big picture commentary on the
last 3 years of hockey betting, you should check out my new book; breaking it down by team, by category, by strategy, by season. There is
plenty of useful information for bettors of all skill levels. It covers
pre-pandemic, peak-pandemic, post-pandemic. What worked, what failed. Lessons
learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. What impact did the pandemic
have on hockey betting? The market differences between these 3 seasons are
discussed at length, and there's a lot to talk about. To read more, visit
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My Weekly Profit: -$301
My Season Profit: $15,695
Navigating the slippery slope of estimating betting
probabilities in the aftermath of such a tumultuous trade deadline has been
challenging, as it might be time to erase the 2nd quarter of the
season from the data being used by my line value algorithm. So many players
were transferred from bad to good teams, every fiber of my being is telling me
to bet favorites, but the prices are driving me away. It’s hard to trust my formulas when the data
might be tainted by player movement, but it became clear by Thursday night that
underdogs +1.5 goals was emerging as the best post-deadline category.
One of my deadline reactions was the desire to bet
Chicago opponents -1.5 goals for the remaining games, given that they sold
everything of value they could move, but they covered +1.5 in 3 of their first
4 post-deadline games. I pumped the brakes on my “big short” of the Hawks when
they pumped the red-hot Senators 5-0. Oddsmakers are charging very expensive
prices for the privilege of betting Chicago to lose, which means you’re getting
great value betting them to win or cover, it just feels gross to have money
riding on a team tanking that hard.
Road teams performed well Monday to Friday, returning
$258 if you bet $100 on every visitor moneyline. Lately I’ve been noticing
strong visitor performances Monday to Thursday with home teams striking back on
the weekend (when theoretically crowds are larger and louder), but that was not
the case this week, as home teams went 6-10 on Friday and Saturday (they did go
5-3 Sunday). It’s still on my “to do” list to investigate home-road betting
returns by day of the week, but that might have to wait for the offseason.
The main driver behind the success of road moneylines was
underdogs, as betting $100 on every road dog netted $470 of profit. You could
have done even better by betting them +1.5 goals instead, like with Chicago. Granted,
it wasn’t just road dogs delivering pucklines, as home dogs also made a
significant contribution, there’s just fewer of them because hosts tend to be
favored. Dogs +1.5 goals was the best category overall this week, banking $1,298
if you bet $100 on each ($894 road, $395 home).
The biggest underdogs north of +200 only won 3 of 17
games, but they covered +1.5 goals in 11 of those. If you bet $100 on every
moneyline greater than +200, you lost -$685, but
if you bet them all +1.5 goals, you banked $605 profit. That’s also why I had a
sensational week betting heavy favorites moneyline, but lost a considerable
amount -1.5 goals. There was an unusually high number of 1-goals games in the matches
with the biggest disparity between favorite and dog. Longshots moneyline had a
great 3rd quarter, but are volatile post-deadline.
The aforementioned Ottawa Senators hot streak came to
an abrupt end, as they went 1-3 after winning 5 straight. That little win
streak lured me onto their bandwagon, but it broke down at the side of the road
shortly after boarding. Though I disembarked in time to successfully bet
Calgary to beat Ottawa on Sunday, but the Sens being tired and Flames being
rested was the deciding factor. Ottawa was the most profitable team in the
whole league to bet against this week, so my apologies if I convinced anyone
else to board the wagon with me.
Another previously hot team that could have cost you
some money this week was the Boston Bruins, who had a losing record (1-2), so there was a
lucrative opportunity if you were betting them to lose, which I’m sure very few
people were. You would have been far better off betting the tanking Arizona
Coyotes to win, as they went 3-1, which
surely had the General Manager banging his head against the wall. Clayton
Keller has scored 24 PTS in his last 16 GP and may need to be healthy scratched
going forward.
One of my better teams in the trade deadline aftermath
was the Anaheim Ducks, who defeated the Calgary Flames on Friday night. I
posted a Tweet on Thursday night confused why Calgary was a -350 favorite when
both teams had 4-6 records in their last 10 games. I bet Anaheim +1.5 goals and
won, but they also covered -1.5 at +700, which would have been a far better
wager. A little under half of the $1,298 profit posted by dogs +1.5 goals was delivered
by Anaheim, Arizona, and Chicago, three of the most aggressive deadline
tankers.
My Week 21 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly
$100 on every outcome.
It was another bad week for my algorithm betting
over/under, which I’ll continue to blame on the recent data being tainted by such
an active trade deadline. We’ll see though as there will be very little
pre-deadline data feeding that formula by the end of week 22. That excuse has a
limited lifespan. It does feel like one of the reasons my returns on over/under
have slowed the last few weeks is that oddsmakers have been very smart about
setting the proper line. They’ve done a far better job than me at determining
proper line/price.
My algorithm has not been doing well on the games it
likes by more than 0.75 goals, where my procedure has been betting double on
those opportunities. Intuitively it feels like the algorithm would be
structurally flawed if it’s losing money on what it deems the best
opportunities, but perhaps those are cases of oddsmakers knowing something
that’s not factored into my algebra. Perhaps in the summer I’ll experiment with
using expected goal models to make over/under picks to see if that’s more
effective than real goals.
While my new algorithm performed poorly for back-to-back
weeks, I can take some solace that my previous 5-game model would have lost even
more money this week, so abandoning it after the All-star break was not necessarily a
mistake. It only looked back at the last 5 games instead of 8, so in theory it
should be faster at adapting to new trends/information. Maybe for the upcoming
week it would be prudent to temporarily tweak the formula to last 6 games minus highest and
lowest scores, to help eliminate pre-deadline data from my arithmetic.
Sure, I might have lost -$558
betting over/under this week, but that would have been $742 profit had I simply
avoided all games involving San Jose, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. San Jose unders
went 3-1 with me going 0-4 losing -$500. Whereas
the Oilers had 3 really high scoring games followed by back-to-back unders. Winnipeg
unders had been on fire for several weeks, then they hit 3 consecutive games
that were high scoring (two against Edmonton), before reverting back to low scoring. It’s interesting,
yet disheartening, that 3 teams can swing my results that much.
My Team of
the Week: Vegas Golden Knights, +$706
The Vegas Golden Knights topped my profitability
rankings in the last 7 days as they continued their winning ways, going 3-1. My
shorting Vegas after the Stone and Thompson injuries proved costly (thanks largely
to Jack Eichel), until I noticed what was happening, corrected my behavior, and
got on the right side. They did have an extended losing streak immediately
after losing Stone, which helped create some line bargains in the weeks that
followed after reversing course. I’m still not 100% confident they’ll sustain,
but I’ll continue cashing that value while it lasts.
Thatcher Demko is back from injury and once again providing
the Vancouver Canucks with strong goaltending. They have won 4 straight games
and are taking a serious run at the 13th pick in the draft. The
first few weeks of the Rick Tocchet regime did not lead to that “new coach bump”,
but eventually his message started to get through and he is in the process of
turning the team around and playing their way out of the draft lottery (when a
generational talent born and raised in Vancouver happens to be available).
My Worst
Team of the Week: Edmonton Oilers, -$850
One team that really kicked my ass this week was the
aforementioned Edmonton Oilers, with most of my losses coming from blown overs,
and betting $250 on Boston to win where Edmonton pulled off a come from behind
victory. Oiler overs were a big winner of the 3rd quarter, but that
could be in danger if Jack Campbell stops getting regular starts. Their back-to-back
against Winnipeg where 21 goals was scored created multiple problems for me
down the line both teams, as Oilers-Jets were two of my worst over/under teams the
following week.
Minnesota was my second worst team of the week. Their unders
were on a 17-1-1 run when Kaprizov was lost to injury, and have hit the overs
in 3 consecutive games since losing their best offensive player. Intuitively
that doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially considering they’re doing it by
scoring goals. Maybe the coach rallied the troops to take more responsibility and stop leaning on their superstar. That being said, they also played 3
struggling teams in those games, so I wouldn’t be shocked if we see their
unders re-establish dominance with Kaprizov expected to miss 3-4 weeks.
My 3 Best Market
Bets of Week 21: Overall Best Market Bets of Week
21:
1) Heavy favorites moneyline: +$759 1) Underdogs +1.5 goals: +$1,289
2) Road moneyline: +$617 2) Home underdogs -1.5
goals: +$495
3) Underdogs +1.5 goals: +$395 3) Road moneyline:
+$470
My 3 Worst Market
Bets of Week 21: Overall Worst Market Bets of Week
21:
1) Road favorites -1.5 goals: -$650 1)
Favorites -1.5 goals: -$2,154
2) Longshots moneyline: -$500 2) Road underdogs
-1.5 goals: -$940
3) Home moneyline: -$419 3) Home favorites moneyline: -$823
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 21: Overall Best Teams To Bet On:
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5
+ $100 PL-1.5)
1) Arizona Coyotes: +$570 1) Arizona Coyotes: +$1,067
2) Vegas Golden Knights: +$451 2) Vegas Golden
Knights: +$783
3) New Jersey Devils: +$359 3) Detroit Red Wings: +$717
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week
21
(over/under/hedges not included)
1) Ottawa Senators, -$375
2) Boston Bruins, -$348
3) Buffalo Sabres, -$300
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week
21: Overall Best
Teams To Bet Against:
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5
+ $100 PL-1.5)
1) San Jose
Sharks, +$331 1) Ottawa Senators: +$1,225
2) Florida
Panthers, +$313 2) Boston Bruins: +$883
3) Colorado
Avalanche, +$275 3)
Carolina Hurricanes: +$770
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week
21:
(over/under/hedges not included)
1) Pittsburgh Penguins, -$450
2) Calgary Flames, -$380
3) Chicago Blackhawks, -$357
Market’s Best Over/Under Bets In Week
21:
($100 wagers)
1) Seattle overs,
+$278
2) Dallas overs,
+$278
3) Buffalo
unders, +$205
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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