The sports spread betting blog

NFL, the season so far - 29/10/09

Green 34, Omaha, Omaha, hut hut hut! Yep, the NFL season has been back up and running for several weeks now and has been as fascinating and unpredictable as ever. Betting at the start of the NFL season can seem like a lottery at time, but having had a decent amount of time to look at and evaluate the leading contenders, I’ve identified a couple of value bets – in theory at least! – on the Super Bowl Outright index.

Just to clarify, the Outright Index awards 100 to the eventual World Champions (sic), 70 to the runners-up, 50 to the Conference finalists, 33 to Divisional Play-offs losers and 20 those who only reach the Wild Card Play-off. Phew! In short, 12 of the 32 NFL will ‘cash’ but not necessarily enough for buyers to get their whole stake back.

1) SELL NEW ORLEANS AT 50

Getting against the New Orleans Saints? Sounds mad I know. And their early season form has been extraordinarily good. 6-0, including convincing wins against the Eagles, Giants and Jets. Drew Brees is looking like a shoo-in for season MVP, the defence is the best they’ve had in years, while the offence racks up 45+ points on a stunningly regular basis. What’s not to like? Well, you could point to the fact that the Saints have never reached the Super Bowl in their history and have a group of players who are yet to show they can handle the extreme pressure of the NFL play-offs. And then there’s the fact that the defence, while leading the NFL in turnovers and having generally played out of their skin so far, still rank in the bottom half of the NFL in points allowed. If the offence doesn’t fire in the play-offs for whatever reason, can they really be relied on to win the Saints the game?
But my main reason for selling is historical. Simply put, every year in the NFL there’s a team who over-perform at the start of the season only to revert back to type later on. Last year it was Tennessee, who went 9-0 only to lose in the first round of the playoffs. A few years before exactly the same happened to Kansas City. If a team are going to stay hot, it helps if they’re used to being up top. The 2007 Patriots were; the 2009 Saints are not. Selling at 50, I’m willing to take my chances that New Orleans eventually fall back down to earth with an early play-off exit.

2) BUY BALTIMORE AT 18

The Baltimore Ravens were subject to a pre-season gamble and this looked justified as they charged to a 3-0 start. With sophomore quarter-back Joe Flacco leading his offence like a wizened old pro, it seemed that for the first time in many a year, Baltimore were strong on both sides of the ball. Since then however, the Ravens have skid to three consecutive losses and currently lie third in a horribly competitive-looking AFC North. Furthermore the Baltimore defence is looking far shakier than usual. It has been suggested, or whispered rather, that the renowned unit featuring Ray Lewis, Ed Reed et al. isn’t what it used to be. The stats bear this out: they rank 16th in points allowed and 19th in total yards. So why buy them on the index at all, never mind at a still high-ish looking 18? It’s all about potential. This team, potentially, is one of the very best in the NFL. If the defence can sort out their recent issues and revert to the previous form, and the offence keeps firing as it has been, then 18 could look cheap in a few weeks time. The two teams above them in the AFC South, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, are both two games ahead at 5-2 but neither has looked unbeatable this season, and Cincinnati, especially, could find themselves pipped by the Ravens to a wildcard spot.

So we can add the Saints and the Ravens to the long-term portfolio which already includes Aston Villa, Man City and Burnley. It’s been a decent start in the Premier League so far, so here’s to more success in the NFL.

JW

O'Sullivan v Higgins - World Grand Prix Snooker, second round - 7/10/09

In theory, random draws are a wonderful idea. Think of the excitement that FA Cup third round day brings, or at least used to. Minnows getting rewarded for early round success with a plum tie away to a giant club, or local rivals clashing in the cup for first time in years; all this from the random union of Trevor Brooking’s #35 with Jimmy Hill’s #63.

There is, alas, a problem with such a format which is particularly accentuated in a small competition rather lacking in star names. Such as, say, the World Grand Prix snooker. The hook of this 32-man event is the random draw that follows each of the first four rounds. Unlike all other snooker ranking events, the cosseted top-16 ranked players are not protected from each other. And so it came to pass that the 2009 Grand Prix’s two recognisable stars, Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, clashed in a 2nd round contest that pitted the reigning World Number One against the current World Champion.

From a sporting, and spread betting, point of view the contest was intriguing. The market consensus had O’Sullivan as a warm favourite against Higgins the hometown hero. In my humble punting opinion, this didn’t sit right. Higgins has experienced considerable success against Ronnie over the course of their careers and is clearly one of the (few) players that the Rocket truly respects in the game. True, their only meeting this season, in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals, had resulted in an easy 6-1 win for O’Sullivan, and when pricing up any Ronnie match you always have to factor in the possibility that he will come out in such a mood that makes him simply unplayable.

Nonetheless Higgins looked in far better nick than O’Sullivan in their respective first round matches, and is simply the more reliable player from a punting perspective – far less likely to have an off-day or play half the match left-handed to make snooker more ‘fun’. And if that wasn’t enough, you only had to read O’Sullivan’s interview to see how mentally unstable he is feeling at the moment (sample quote: “The longer I can stay playing the game without feeling like I want to commit suicide, the better”).

While O’Sullivan can be prone to melodrama, this isn’t the most encouraging thing to hear before backing a player. And so I quite confidently SOLD O’SULLIVAN’S 25:0 AT 14.25 – a fixed-odds type bet with only a win or lose outcome since, as fun as supremacies markets such as the ‘10/3’ can be, they’re downright scary when you’re getting against the most talented player to ever grace the game.

The match itself was a nip and tuck affair, featuring both impressive break-building (such as the 131 from Ronnie to open up proceedings) and some surprisingly poor misses. They went into the mid-session interval at two-apiece and before Ronnie took a 4-3 lead with a typically fluent 67 break. At 50-6 up and only a couple of pots away from the match, Ronnie cued across an unbelievably simple, straight red handing Higgins a lifeline.

I later found out that O’Sullivan had traded at 1.01 for the match on the betting exchanges just before this miss, leaving some short-odds backers feeling very green indeed. Higgins, consummate professional that he is, capitalised on Ronnie’s mistake, sealing the frame 58-56 before compiling a quite magnificent 94 break in the decider to squeak the match 5-4.

I’ve had a few bets trade at 1.01 before losing in the past, so it was wonderful to have the opposite occur for once. In the grander scheme of things, the match was a fair indicator as to why O’Sullivan, as supremely skilled as he is, can never be considered the type of ‘banker’ Phil Taylor or Tiger Woods represent in their own sports. In many ways, it’s impressive that a man who has admitted suffering from demons has managed to carve out such a memorable career in this most mentally challenging of sports. But as distasteful as it may seem to link mental health with betting profit, this does mean there’s never such thing as ‘free money’ when it comes to Ronnie O’Sullivan.

JW