Business Week reports on a sports betting hedge fund out of London seeking to raise 50 million euro in chunks of 100,000 euro (a euro is equivalent to $1.27 US). 

Centaur’s Galileo Managed Sports Fund is not really a sports betting fund, it’s more of a sports trading fund, as the fund, for reasons not apparent, closes out their positions on London-based betting exchange Betfair before their winning plays go final in most instances.  Strikes me that they’re purchasing an insurance policy that they’re overpaying for, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

While there is no evidence that these guys have an edge that will last, at least they can take a shot.  Regulators would not likely look favorably upon such an enterprise in the US.  But even if approval were to be granted,  there’s no question that such a fund wouldn’t succeed in the US, even in Vegas, as there is a gargantuan difference between the vast European sports trading market anchored by Betfair and the thinly traded American sports betting market.  There are opportunities for Americans with the right contacts to bet substantial amounts on football, basketball, and baseball, but the high limits don’t occur until closer to game time, by which point the sharps have taken the value out the best bets.

In the States even large Vegas and online sportsbooks are running scared with low limits on a great many propositions.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to Vegas and see the look you get from a sports book manager when you try to bet $500 on a baseball game on the overnight line, or get a bet down on a college football total on a Wednesday, or bet more than a couple hundred bucks on a hockey game.  While smart individuals can carve out a nice living betting, the casino corporations would very quickly cut off access to a sports betting mutual fund having any level of success on their way to a nine-figure bankroll. 

The exchanges are different, as similar to the Chicago Board of Trade, they permit bid/ask person-to-person wagering with a small commission in the middle.  With London having a long tradition of sports betting, Betfair’s low commissions generate substantial liquidity and opportunity. 

And sorry, no, you can’t bet through Betfair from the US.   Well, unless you get a cashier’s check from………you know, I really shouldn’t shouldn’t write about that, should I? 

Incidentally, few realize it, but Mark Cuban was not serious when he suggested the establishment of a sports betting mutual fund a few years ago.   He was not looking to launch such a vehicle, instead, Cuban was making a point.  He was merely comparing the shrouded-in-secrecy financial markets with the vast amount of information available on upcoming sporting events. In the financial markets you have cooked books, accounting tricks, and sunshiny revenue forecasts.  Compare that with the analysis of a sporting event, complete with legitimately generated stats, published injury reports (allowing for Belichickian subterfuge, of course), and video of past performances readily available.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Galileo Managed Sports Fund works, or if it just a bunch of wannabe sharps creating a great new opportunity for Britain’s smartest bettors.   But unlike here in the States, at least they have a shot.

Las Vegas’ M Resort, about 8 miles closer to California than the strip hotels, has an intersting sports betting model, as they hired investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald’s wagering unit, Cantor Wagering, to run their sports book.   

Articles in Fortune and the Wall Street Journal highlighted Cantor’s focus on in-game wagering and the innovative mobile eDeck sports betting unit that allows visitors to bet from anywhere within the casino.  But what the media is missing is that in an era of casino companies being risk averse in the sports book, the M is taking the biggest bets in town.   Serious bettors I know are spending a lot of time at the M.

Sports betting isn’t all the property has to offer.  There’s much more open space than most casinos and it’s clean modern design sets it apart from it’s strip competition.  A top floor bar offers superior vistas of the entire Las Vegas Valley.  Factor in the creative sports betting options and it is definitely worth a visit on your next trip to Vegas.

First, look to avoid all props that have multiple results possible. Turn the odds into a probability percentage (like 3-1=25%, 4-1=20%, etc.) add them up and some of these things are at 180% (an 80% takeout) or more.   Look to bet yes/no, over/under, team vs. team, etc. You can find good things even with 30 cent lines (the equivalent of -115 on both sides).  The juice built into bets like “first player to score TD” and “margin of victory” is enormous. 

Secondly, take your weak books and compare their props to what the lines are for the same props at strong books that have been hammered over mutliple days.   You can find bets that are -170 at a sharp book that your weak or local book has at -115 for the same prop.  I find good plays every year simply by comparing and contrasting. Good luck in the Super Bowl.

Proposition wagering on the Super Bowl grows in popularity every year, but props are being released extra slowly this year. While some Vegas casinos have finally started releasing them, offshore and online sportsbooks have been a lot slower in getting things cranked up this year.   I had planned on releasing some props to my customers by now, but there just isn’t a lot out there as of yet.   When it comes to posting props, offshore sportsbooks are at least a couple of days behind compared to where they’ve been in past years.

The reason?   Here’s one theory. Offshore sportsbooks largely have a smarter clientele than they did a few years ago when more people were playing online.  The serious bettors are still around, while the casual, less-informed players have largely gone.   So the online sportsbooks want to let the value seekers in Vegas take their shots, and then when the lines get straightened out, the offshores will largely just copy the props they want to have out there.  

We’ll give you a “no-handicapping” prop strategy on Monday.  So keep your eyes open for that and have a great weekend.

A few notes worth noting for those interested in betting on the AFC and NFC Championship games this weekend.

Jets at Colts:

• There was some Colts -7 early, especially laying -115 or so, but the line has been bet up to a flat 7.5.
• The big mover of the football weekend is the total in this game.  Opened at 41, which didn’t last long, now down to 39. 
• When the Colts famously benched their starters in Game 15 they were outgaining the Jets 296-154.
• The Jets are practically a reincarnation of the Super Bowl champion 2000 Ravens.  A ferocious, disruptive, turnover-creating defense, a solid running game, and a quarterback that they’re terrified of trusting.  
• Mark Sanchez, recently compared unfavorably with Jamarcus Russell, has averaged 5.6 yards per pass attempt or less in 3 of his past 4 games, and he has 14 TD passes and 21 interceptions on the season.
• While it’d be nice to have the perpetually injured Bob Sanders around, the remaining pieces of the Colts defense are pretty healthy.

Vikings at Saints:

• The Saints opened as a 3.5-point favorite, which was bet up to 4, and is now back down to 3.5 in most places.
• The total has been a pretty solid 52 in Vegas, but is heading upward in the desert, and has crept up to 53 at some offshore and online sportsbooks.
• The AFC Championship game is not the only game featuring Buddy Ryan’s influence. Both defensive coordinators, the Saints’ Gregg Williams and Minny’s Leslie Frazier, are Buddy Ryan disciples.
• The Vikings were the only NFC team to go undefeated at home, and their last 5 wins have been by 17 points or more.  The road has been a different story, with losses in 3 of the last 4 trips being losses, all by 6 or more.
• The Saints of the first dozen weeks of the season and last week were dominant.  If you can forgive the final month, and there would be reasons to do that, this team something special.
• As fantastic has Favre has been all year, you would think he would come up with a big game, wouldn’t you?  After all, this is what he came back for. 
• The Saints are a lot healthier than they’ve been for a while.  Vikings DT Kevin Williams hasn’t been practicing (knee), but will go on Sunday.

Hopefully, something here at least gave you some food for thought.  While there are only two games in football, we anticipate a lot of value in the basketball this weekend.   Call 770-649-1078 to take advantage of our hard work and experience.

One of the greatest publicity gambits you’ll see has struck again.  Irish bookmaking firm Paddy Power has paid off backers of Republican Scott Brown in the special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy in the US Senate.  

Unless you could project their press releases in advance, there is no way to profit from this, and even then Paddy Power doesn’t take bets from US citizens online.   I just admire the clever gimmick.   How much are Irish bettors putting on this election to start with?   Any limited exposure that the firm has as a result of Brown’s possible loss is more than made up for in the publicity that exposes them to folks who live in jurisdictions that have more enlightened laws on online gambling than we do here in the states. 

Paddy Power gimmicks haved a long history, as you can see in this 2003 article.

Good craic, Paddy Power.  Good craic, indeed!!

On the NFL season, betting every underdog is ever so slightly profitable, even with the juice.  This is despite the fact that blindly betting road favorites in the NFL, is also ever so slightly profitable, even with the juice.    Favorites enjoyed a 10-6 mark on the week just past.   The weekend started with the Steelers outright loss at Cleveland.  With losses to the Browns, Raiders, and Chiefs, Pittsburgh has now lost outright as a double digit favorite 3 times in their last 4 games.  Throw in their loss to the Bengals the week before that and you have 4 outright losses in 5 weeks as a better than TD favoirte.  That’s gotta be historic, doesn’t it?

Monday night was a 7/11 game for the Cardinals, 7 turnovers and only 11 first downs.   The Niners got a nice win even though they passed for only 3.9 yards per attempt with a pair of interceptions themselves. Take away the Alex Smith kneeldowns, and the Niners rushed for over 5.8 yards per attempt, which is pretty impressive.  Back to the Cards turnovers, one was a fumble on the final play of the first half at midfield.  No harm done.  It seems as though there should be special categories for turnovers.  A first and goal interception in the opponent’s end zone is debilitating.  But on third and long an interception 45 yards down the field is likely a better net result than what you’d get on a punt on the next play.  I’m sure somebody’s doing a “situational turnover” number.  I just haven’t seen it yet.

Similarly, the Jets/Bucs game wasn’t all that different than the Monday nighter.  The Jets had scoring “drives” of 9, 22, 31, and 7 yards as the Bucs had 3 turnovers and a grand total of 6 first downs in the game in which they averaged 2.2 yards per play.  Not per rush, per play.  First downs don’t always tell the tale, as the Titans had only a 19-15 first down edge in their 47-7 whipping of the Rams.  The Titans had at least 5 plays of 30 yards or more from scrimmage in that game, and any team with the blazing speed and big play ability of Chris Johnson and Vince Young is not going to have a lot of choppy drives.   In fact, their first two TD’s were on a 4-play, 65-yard drive and a 2 play, 82-yard drive.   The Titans/Rams game was an interesting case of a team that started the season 0-6 being favored in a game by nearly 2 TD’s later in the season.   But that tends to happen when a team on a winning streak is facing a team quarterbacked by somebody named Keith Null.

All 12 scoring drives in the Giants/Eagles game were of 59 yards or more.  The Eagles gained “only 374 yards on Sunday night in scoring 45 points.   They were massively efficient, with their 7 non-scoring drives gaining only a total of 15 points.  That does include taking a knee to end both the half and the game, but is still meaningful.  Philly opponents average more possession time than the quick-strike Eagles do.  Yet Rick Gosselin points out that the 2006 Colts were the only team to ever win the Super Bowl without possessing the ball longer than their opponents.  Incredibly, it was as recently as the Sunday before Thanksgiving that the Giants had the league’s “#1 defense” as judged by yardage per game allowed.   Now they rank 15th in the more accurate yards per play allowed, and the New Yorkers have permitted 32.3 points per game over their last 8 contests.

Our newsletter, the Maximum Profit Football Weekly (aka “The Max”) is on a nice hot streak of 59-33 (over 64%) against the pointspread.  Our Bowl Max comes out this week with a full analysis of every bowl game. Every NFL playoff game will be covered as well.  This week’s NFL Max is waiting for you when you call 1-770-649-1078 to subscribe. 

The Packers hot streak is no big surprise.  They have been very impressive both offensively and defensively on the line of scrimmage, and have started to clean up some of their problems, like getting sacked, poor special teams, and being the most penalized team in the league.  Aaron Rodgers has now been sacked only 6 times in the last 4 games and the Pack committed only 4 penalties for a total of 30 yards in their win over the lifeless Bears on Sunday.

I’m told that the sports books in Vegas seem painfully slow lately.  It will be interesting to see what the Nevada Gaming Control Board numbers indicate for the football season.  Online and offshore sportsbooks are still doing better than most realize, though they certainly aren’t enjoying the kind of hypergrowth they once did.   No matter where you’re betting, go beat them this weekend. 

The Saints and Colts are undefeated in two very different ways.   The Saints have scored 24 points or more in every single game thus far this season.  After their brutal 17-15 win over Baltimore, the Colts have now won four games where they scored 20 or less.   The Saints and Colts were a combined 0-6 to the pointspread in the month of November before both covered on Sunday.  Throw in Denver and the three teams that were undefeated on November 1st are now 2-10 against the spread since then.

Nice effort by the Redskins on the road.  As we first wrote about when the Broncos moved into their new building and spoke of a diminished home field advantage in the middle of the 2001 season, these big new buildings don’t always offer a ton of home field edge.  They offer comfort instead of intimidation, and road teams have done pretty well against the pointspread.   The Cowboys are 4-1 straight up at home, and 3-2 against the spread, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if they underperform in Jerry’s Palace as so many other clubs have.  No surprise that discounting pushes, road teams are 86-70 against the spread by one count.

Cowboy CB Terence Newman shoved assistant coach Dave Campo on the bench Sunday, but it doesn’t seem to be a big deal in Cowboy land.  And the issue certainly wasn’t the defense on Sunday.   Statistically the Cowboys offense wasn’t dreadful, gaining 305 yards in 60 snaps.  But you would think this team would score in the first 57 minutes of a game, which it has failed to do in each of the past two weeks, almost by accident. 

The Seahawks gained 4 yards on 13 rushing attempts at Minnesota on Saturday.   And remember, that in the NFL sack yardage is not counted against the rushing yardage. Good thing they proactively locked up that Jim Mora to a deal as an assistant before anybody else could get to him, huh?  Looking at Mora and Cleveland’s Eric Mangini, it probably is not best to immediately scoop up the young coach who has already failed as a head man.  Let ’em get some seasoning back in them. 

If Nevada sports betting is really only down 10% in volume, they should be counting their blessings.  Casino players I know say that the offers to entice them out to the desert are staggering.   People out there the weekend of the Pacquiao/Cotto fight told me that the town was comparatively all but empty. Despite the downturn, expect New Jersey and Delaware to continue to push for full-scale sports betting, as those states remain hungry for revenue.

If someone offered you an over/under total of 33.5 on the Browns/Lions first quarter with no limit, how much would you have bet on the under? Tough push for Packer bettors.  Green Bay outgained San Francisco by 200 yards, earned 26 first downs to only 11 for the Niners, led 30-10 with 11 minutes left, yet only won 30-24 laying 6.  Some smart shoppers could’ve turned it into a win with -5.5, available in spots on Sunday.

I was fortunate enough to go 4-0 in the NFL for the second consecutive week with my Strategic Sports Publishing handicapping service.  In both weeks I went 3-0 with sides and hit a teaser, for a combined 8-0 mark the past two weeks.  This past weekend also had a 4-2 college football week.  If you’re interested in the rest of the football season and/or college and NBA basketball you can call 770-649-1078 for rates and details.

Thanks for reading this far.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

When a guy who enters the game 10-25-3 against the spread in conference play over his career at a school, you really shouldn’t be surprised by poor decisionmaking.  But it was truly inexplicably stupid game management by Les Miles and LSU.  Just stunning.   Miles, with his head-scratching game management, has dodged a lot of raindrops over the years, but his longtime cavalier attitude to game strategy bit him deeply on Saturday.  Understandably, he’s taking a lot of heat in Baton Rouge. Ironically, he’s taking the most heat for a decision that was a pointspread cover, he now has 11 SEC covers in nearly five full seasons in the league.

Stanford’s winning streak came to an end at the hands of rival Cal, 34-28.  The Golden Bears outgained the Cardinal 484-345. Those of us who suffer from the corporate battle between DirectTV and Versus couldn’t watch what was one of the only attractive games of the weekend.  This weekend isn’t a whole lot better, with only game between Top 25 teams being the battle for Beehive State supremacy between Utah and BYU, which is attractive, but hardly worthy of top billing. 

Gambling is a terrible thing, according to the NCAA.  It becomes decidedly less terrible when a casino is ready to buy advertising, like the casino signage visible in the exciting Oregon/Arizona game.   I was pretty lucky with both Arizona +6 and Connecticut +6 to +6.5.  Though both underdogs played evenly, they each could have lost by 7 in overtime. UConn was fortunate to win at Notre Dame in double overtime, as Randy Edsall, a top-notch coach, exercised Miles-like clock management at the close of regulation, settling for a 47-yard field goal attempt, which narrowly missed, when he could have used his timeouts to get closer.     Perhaps the Husky mentor was spooked by the phantom “holding” calls that the officials were using to keep his club out of the end zone and feared more flags taking his club out of field goal range.

Those who have correctly determined all season that Iowa, though a solid, well-coached team, isn’t as good as their record, have had horrific luck fading the Hawkeyes.  For most bettors it was the same on Saturday.   Iowa gained only 171 yards in 60 snaps, less than 3 yards per play, yet covered for most in a 12-0 win.  Extraordinarily patient Minnesota bettors were rewarded, however, as the Gophers were available at +12 for the push in the half hour before game time, and a few Gopher bettors may have scrounged out a pointspread win in the 5 minutes or so before game time.  Minnesota outgained Iowa 201-161 and I hope you didn’t watch it.

9 days after waxing South Florida, looked as bad at Syracuse on Saturday.   Outmanned Syracuse, down 10 starters including best offensive player (by far) Mike Williams and best defensive player (by far) Art Jones, absolutely smashed the Scarlet Knights, outgaining RU 423-130 in the 31-13 Syracuse victory.  Just last week Rutgers drilled South Florida 31-0 on yardage of 354-159.  All of this happening within a 9 day span proves definitively that Syracuse is 49 points and 488 yards better than South Florida, who, ummmm, beat Syracuse 34-20 on October 3rd.

Actually, believe it or not, the above paragraph actually has a point to it.  Bowl season is coming, and when trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of teams from different conferences it is very tempting to look at how teams did against common opponents, or how they did against fellow bowlers.  And there’s some value in the process of doing that.  But you really don’t want to put too much stock in that form of analysis.

If the number looks short for Arizona at Arizona State this weekend be aware that Arizona running back Nic Grigsby is out due to injury and the Wildcats are thin at that position if backup Kaola Antolin is also limited.  Two difficult losses in a row for Mike Stoops’ crew but they should be able to get up for their rival, shouldn’t they?   Arizona State lost only 23-13 at UCLA despite a 6-0 turnover disadvantage.  Other than the TO’s it was a pretty evenly played game.   UCLA takes on USC Saturday night at 7PM local, 10PM Eastern Time.  Shouldn’t there be a law that that rivalry is played only in the sunshine? 

Sad to see the stories of the flack that the Weis family takes at Notre Dame and the Hawkins family takes at Colorado.  I understand a lot of people attach a lot of their emotional happiness to the performance of their college football team but do the families really deserve to be roped in?

North Texas has outgained their last two opponents, Florida International (by 255) and Army (by 160), by a combined 415 yards, yet lost both games.  The Mean Green have now outgained 5 opponents in losses, sporting a (-15) 13 to 28 turnover deficit on the season.   The once mighty Georgia Bulldogs would dream of such turnover numbers.  They have turned the ball over 28 times yet only forced 8 turnovers themselves.  Amazingly, UGA has recovered exactly one opponent fumble this season. 

Giants NFL’s #1 Defense: It may surprise you to learn that the NFL’s top defense is the Big Blue stop unit of the New York Giants, who are on an 0-4 straight up and pointspread streak.  In fact, the NFL’s #1 defense allowed their last 4 opponents to average over 33 points per game before their bye week. 

It’s true.  The NFL ranks their defenses by total raw yardage allowed per game, and the Giants permit opponents to gain only 274.4 yards per game, 3 yards better than the #2 Steelers D.   If you’ve seen the Giants play, you understand this to be a crock, and more accurate stats prove that.  The Giants allow 5.1 yards per play, which is 12th in the league and sounds about right based on their good start and poor recent play.  Amazingly, the NFL’s “#1 defense” is the leagues #21 scoring defense.  

What’s going on here?  Turnovers for one.  Giants opponents have gotten some cheap points.  The other aspect is that Giant opponents have run only 482 plays, which is 48 fewer than anyone else in the league has faced.  Does that speak to the pace of the game?  With several Giants games being blowouts with little urgency late does that contribute the slow pace?   Whatever the reason or answer, it’s odd.  

Quirky Schedule: The Giants and their “#1 defense” host the Falcons in the swamps of Jersey.  Atlanta has lost 3 of 4 and is just as desperate as the Giants. If it seems like Atlanta’s on the road a lot, you’re not imagining things. Falcons season ticketholders probably envisioned being at more than two home games between September 20th and November 29th.  Bettors can sometimes get an edge by downgrading the importance of statistics generated by teams that have played nowhere but on the road, though that concept is not a tight fit right here, as the Falcons did open with a pair of home games.

“Year of the Favorite” Update: The 10-4-1 performance by NFL dogs (six outright upsets)  brings the underdog record to 40-25-2 over the past five weeks.  And yes, that includes the ”week of the favorites” last month, which saw chalk go 9-3-1, allegedly almost blasting ”Vegas”, the euphamism for the sports book world, to smithereens.

Why does everyone say “Vegas” when they talk about the sports betting industry?  I have never seen a legitimate estimate from an industry person or academic authority that sports betting in Vegas makes up any more than about 2% of the market on sports betting.  I’d be surprised if it was 1%. So why “Vegas”?

One Terrible Bet: The one push that we list this week should actually be a favorite cover for Minnesota supporter with a clue.  The Vikings, who were 16.5 all week long, beat the hard-tryin’ Lions 27-10.  If you waited until the weekend to bet Minnesota at -17, you need one of two things, a new hobby, or some educatin’.   If the latter is your answer, you can find what you need here.

Great Moments in NFL Television: The TV time outs just kill NFL games when you attend them in person.   Fox left the Cowboys/Packers game for the first quarter intermission with a official review under way.   When viewers came back, the play had been reversed and 20 seconds put back on the clock.  A punt followed, and Fox ran their change-of-possession commercials at the 10 second mark.   One play later it was the end of the first quarter and….you guessed it….an encore performance of the “end of the quarter” TV time out.   And if you were annoyed by the three full commercial breaks on TV for 20 seconds of “action”, imagine how the fans sitting on their hands in Green Bay felt about the matter.    Incidentally, this was just a few minutes after Fox’s Curt Menifee had reported in a cut-in that the Eagles led the Chargers 14-7 when in fact the Chargers led 7-0.  The error was corrected by Fox a minute later.

Bad Team News: How does a team turn things around?   In their initial five losses, the Titans lost turnovers 18-8.   In their three straight wins, the Titans have won turnovers 8-0.  In other “we got off to a dreadful start” news, befitting their position in the standings, Oakland and Green Bay combined for a stout 0 for 18 in 3rd down conversions in the first half on Sunday, improving drastically in the second half by combining for 3 for 13 on those key plays.

Underdog Home Improvement: Another sign of Vegas and online sports book health is the performance of home dogs.  Sports books are usually rooting for road favorites to fail, and they’ve failed lately.   Home underdogs have battled back from their dreadful start and are now 21-24 to the spread.  

NFL: Phone Your Million Dollar Lobbyists: The newly elected governor of New Jersey will need to make a decision about whether or not New Jersey should get involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Government designed to free states up to make thier own decisions regarding sports betting.  The struggling Atlantic City casinos fear an exodus of players to Delaware for their new offerings, which include NFL parlay and teaser betting.

Thanks for reading this far.  We had a nice 4-0 NFL card this past weekend on my late phone service and are about to start basketball, which is annually a profitable venture, particularly in November/December.  If you want more information on these services call 770-649-1078.