Newsletter

Last Monday, as Villanova completed their shredding of the tournament field and the last strains of “One Shining Moment” faded away, you could almost feel the collective depression of sports bettors across the land descend like a dark cloud. As they realized that football is five long months away, millions of gamblers took a few tentative steps outside and contemplated a summer filled with yardwork and household maintenance. Depressing, right? What if I told you there was another way? What if I told you that you would have DAILY opportunities to grow that bankroll? That there was more helpful statistical information available on this one sport, than the other Big Three combined. To quote the brilliant Martin Landau’s character, Bob Ryan, in “Entourage;” Is that something you might be interested in?

As savvy sports fans, you may have already guessed the sport I’m talking about. It’s baseball, of course. And before you say it, I know what you’re thinking: “Baseball games are long.” “Baseball is boring.” “The odds are weird.” “Too many massive favorites.” I know all the arguments. But, there’s one you’ve left out. Baseball is PROFITABLE. Bear with me and I’ll give you five reasons why baseball should absolutely be part of your sports betting repertoire.

#1 – Two words. Action, baby! If you like having the opportunity to select from 10-15 contests in order to pick out two or three good plays, baseball is your sport. Unlike football, where you have a maximum of 16 games in the NFL and maybe 40-50 college games per week, baseball gives you 90 games every week. Plus, the regular season in baseball lasts 27 weeks. Compare that with the 17-week NFL schedule and the 13 or 14 weeks of college football, and those extra games really start to add up. More games means more opportunity. More chances to pass on that borderline game. More chances to find that 5-star special. In short, more chances to be profitable.

#2 – Knowledge is power. It’s true in school. It’s true in the boardroom. And it’s especially true at the sportsbook. If you’re at all serious about betting on sports, you wouldn’t dream of putting down a wager on any game when you haven’t had a chance to review all the relevant stats. Stats are what fuels every single successful sports bettor in the world. They are what separates sharps from squares. They are the difference between eating lobster and eating Filet O’ Fish. They are the coin of the realm. And, no sport has more stats than baseball. But not just any stats. Advanced, relevant stats. Simply put, baseball is light-years ahead of any other sport in the keeping and use of advanced stats. Bill James, the father of Sabermetrics, or advanced stats, wrote the first Baseball Almanac in 1977. Most major league baseball teams employ at least one advanced stats person in order to identify tendencies, weaknesses, and adjustments that can be made to maximize the team’s chances of winning. There are so many fantastic places to find this information online, and, with the advent of Pitchf/x in every stadium, stats have never been so accessible.

#3 – Baseball odds are largely driven by one player: The guy who hurls the rock. It’s the reason the Diamondbacks can be a 5/2 favorite against the Giants on Monday, and a 8/5 dog against the same team on Tuesday. Zack Grienke against Matt Cain is a very different matchup than Patrick Corbin versus Madison Bumgarner. Imagine the NBA playoffs where Golden State is an 11-point favorite on Tuesday against the Rockets, and a seven-point dog on Thursday. Not very likely, right? It happens in baseball every day. And many times, when there is a wide variance from game-to-game, there’s an exploitable opportunity. The key is identifying the factors that will give you the ability to find those matchups. And the longer the season goes, the more confident you can be in your assessments.

#4 – Stadiums and weather can be factored in more easily than any other sport. In football, every single field in 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide. (Simmer down, Canadians) In basketball, every court is 94’ x 50’. And so on. Baseball is the only sport where every stadium is different. And it matters. A lot. A ball hit to right-field for a routine out in Kansas City, can be a game-winning three-run homer in New York. And a 420-foot frozen rope dinger in Anaheim, is just a long single in Boston. The key is knowing which side of the plate each batter hits from and their tendencies overlaid with the stadium they’re in. The other similar factor is the weather. Is the Wrigley wind howling in off the lake or is it a nice summer breeze blowing out to left? The difference affects how you bet the game. The bottom line is, correctly calculating the effect of the stadium and the weather gives you more exploitable opportunities throughout the season.

#5 – Shameless plug alert! Here at BangtheBook.com, we have Adam Burke, one of the top guys in the business when it comes to incorporating advanced stats into the sports betting arena. If you haven’t read his “<a href="http://bangthebook.com/MLBBettingGuide.pdf"><strong>2018 MLB Betting Guide</strong></a>,” you are truly missing out. It is a deep dive into each of the 30 teams, with an emphasis on “real world” applications of advanced stats. As a baseball bettor, it is 228 pages of pure bliss. It’s available on the site. It’s easy to download. And, best of all, it’s free. If you’re thinking about dipping a toe in the waters of betting on baseball, it is a must-read. And his twice-weekly podcast, “The Bettor’s Box,” gives listeners a few real-time picks and the rationale behind each of them.

So, that’s it. I gave you five great reasons to take a swing at baseball wagering. In reality, there’s a lot more. Many serious players have more success at baseball than any other sport. Is it hard? Well, due to the sheer amount of information out there, it takes a little practice identifying what is relevant and what isn’t. It takes some time to find those exploitable situations on a daily basis. But let’s face it. No one ever said being a successful sports bettor was easy. If it were, there’d be a lot fewer people grinding away in their cubicles 45 hours a week. The good news? It CAN be done. Once you learn how to harness the power of the information out there, baseball is a lot more fun. The games become a lot more enjoyable. More exciting. More PROFITABLE. The bad news? The yard may get cut a little bit less, and you may have to hire the next-door-neighbor kid to pull some weeds. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be able to afford it.

Wager on Baseball? You Bet!

BetDSI

Bookmaker

Bet US

BetOnline

Bovada

Major League Baseball (MLB) might not be the most popular sport in the world to wager on, but it still presents a really good betting option. MLB betting comes in many different forms, and this is a season that presents plenty of betting opportunities as well.

Major League Baseball was founded all the way back in 1876, but the league has obviously gone through some major changes since that time. Most of the major rules are still in place, but the way that the game is played is now much different.

There are currently 30 teams in MLB, and every team plays 162 games during the regular season. MLB games typically start at the end of March, or early April, and the World Series wraps up during the first week of November.

MLB teams are split up into leagues and divisions, but there is now more crossover games than ever before. The American League and National League now operate under the same basic rules, and that keeps things similar regardless of what league you are looking at.

Knowing the best MLB betting sites &amp; sportsbooks is also important if you plan to bet on MLB, and this article will explore that as well. By the time you are done reading this article, you should be ready to bet on baseball.
<h2 id="h-where-to-bet-on-major-league-baseball" class="wp-block-heading">WHERE TO BET ON MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL</h2>
Here is a look at some of the best MLB sportsbooks that are out there in the industry:

Best MLB Betting Sites & Sportsbooks

The UFC is back again and back in its Las Vegas home with UFC on ESPN 9, better known as UFC on ESPN: Woodley vs. Burns. Tyron Woodley and Gilbert Burns will meet in the main event of the 11-fight card that will take place at the UFC APEX training center.

Before we dig into the matchups, there is a potential wagering angle here. The UFC APEX Octagon is 25 feet as opposed to the 30 feet of the standard cage. That isn’t a new thing necessarily, as the ring size can be determined by the venue size, but with a little less room to move around, the more aggressive fighters may have an advantage, particularly in fights where the judges come into play. Those that like to keep pushing the issue are going to likely be seen in an even more positive light. UFC 250 next Saturday is also expected to take place at the APEX facility.

Using odds from <a href="http://bangthebook.com/sportsbooks/5dimes"><strong>5Dimes Sportsbook</strong></a>, let’s break this one down and see if we can’t find some winners.

We start in the featherweight division with Chris Gutierrez and Vince Morales. Gutierrez is the -115 favorite with -105 on the other side for Morales and a total of 2.5 with the over at -320. Gutierrez was a loser on the TUF 28 finale to Raoni Barcelos, but has a couple of decision wins since. Morales went back and forth in an exciting fight with Benito Lopez, but suffered his second defeat in three UFC fights and also lost to Domingo Pilarte on the Dana White Contender Series back in July. This is every bit of a toss-up, since it will likely go to the judges. There are better fights to bet.

Louis Smolka is a big underdog at +225 to Casey Kenney at -265 in the bantamweight division. The over is again juiced heavy at -265 to the over 2.5. Kenney just suffered his first UFC loss back in February to Merab Dvalishvili to bring him down a couple of pegs. He was a champion and a main event fighter in LFA before beating Ray Borg and Manny Bermudez to start his UFC career. Smolka is 2-1 in his second UFC stint. Kenney got humbled last time out and that could end up being good for him. He should get a win here to get some swagger back, as it looks like this is a match set up for him to get a nice win over a good name.

Brandon Royval is +145 against Tim Elliott in the flyweight division with another fight juiced over 2.5 at -135. Elliott is -165 despite losing three of his last four fights in rather ugly fashion. He tapped out twice and also got beat up pretty good by Askar Askarov back in January. Royval won the championship in LFA back in November after losing his first title shot to Kenney in November 2018. Royval may not have the experience of Elliott, but one is on the rise and one isn’t and this is a big opportunity for the bigger flyweight in Royval and he gets the nod here.

Jamahal Hill looks to stay unbeaten at -125 against Klidson Abreu with +105 on the take back. The total for this one is again juiced to the over 2.5 at -185. The 6-foot-4 Hill has a big size and reach advantage in this light heavyweight tilt, but this is very much a step up in class. Hill impressed Dana White on the Contender Series last July and then won his first fight by unanimous decision over Darko Stosic. Abreu has dropped two of his three UFC fights, but he’s the best fighter that Hill will have faced in his young career. Abreu’s two losses in the UFC have come to taller and lankier fighters than him and that looks like the expected outcome here. Hill at -125 is good and Hill by decision may not be a bad grab to get a better price either.

Big opportunities are present for Billy Quarantino and Spike Carlyle in their featherweight fight on Saturday. Quarantino was a Contender Series find and he beat Jacob Kilburn by submission following a dominant Round 1. Carlyle bested Aalon Cruz back in February in impressive fashion with a first-round knockout in just 85 seconds. This should be a pretty good fight of two very hungry fighters. Quarantino is -145 with some higher-profile training, but this could be a war of attrition with two aggressive combatants. Whichever one blinks first will lose. This is a tough call and one of the tougher ones on the board.

The first of two back-to-back women’s fights profiles as the more competitive one as Katlyn Chookagian is +115 against Antonina Shevchenko at -135. The over is the juiciest one on the board at -535 to the over 2.5. Chookagian might have an advantage here in that she just fought and lost to Antonina’s more accomplished sister, Valentina, for the flyweight championship. The Shevchenko sisters should certainly have very similar styles and tendencies. However, Antonina is still pretty accomplished in her own right, with her lone loss to Roxanne Modafferi by controversial split decision last April.

Chookagian has done well in fights to impress the judges in fights that have gone the distance and she certainly has all sorts of motivation here at a short price. I’d be interested in her.

&nbsp;

<strong>Hannah Cifers (+345) vs. Mackenzie Dern (-430); Total: 1.5 (-160/140)</strong>

The biggest favorite on the board is Mackenzie Dern for this strawweight fight against Hannah Cifers. Dern is coming off of a pretty surprising loss to Amanda Ribas, but that fight ended a 17-month layoff for Dern and she showed all sorts of rust coming back from the birth of a child. Cifers was beat up pretty good by Angela Hill last time out in her second knockout loss. The other came at the hands of Maycee Barber. It would appear that the expectation is for Dern by stoppage here.

I’m not so sure. Dern is more of a submission artist than a striker. Cifers has lost once via submission. This looks like an over bet to me, even at the -160 price tag. There should be a feeling out process here. Dern should eventually win, but it may take some time.

<strong>Pick: Over 1.5</strong>

&nbsp;

<strong>Brok Weaver (+275) vs. Roosevelt Roberts (-335); Total: 2.5 (-190/165)</strong>

Brok Weaver steps up in class here as he puts an eight-fight winning streak on the line as a big dog to Roosevelt Roberts. Weaver, who bounced around lesser promotions before getting a Dana White Contender Series appearance last August, won his debut fight over Kazula Vargas by DQ. Vargas had been beating Weaver up pretty good with a huge advantage in strikes across the board. It was going to be a bloodbath that ended with Vargas’s arm raised in victory. That appearance is factoring into the price here, as Weaver draws another active striker in Roosevelt Roberts.

Roberts did suffer his first career loss to Vinc Pinchel last June, but bounced back to top Alexander Yakovlev by unanimous decision in his last fight. The 26-year-old Roberts has an emotional backstory and is a guy that UFC would love to build around. That factors into the matchmaking process and may be part of the equation here, too. Weaver is a good prospect, but Roberts is the biggest fighter and brings a ground game to the table that Weaver hasn’t seen much. Roberts is a more diversified fighter. This is his fight to lose.

<strong>Pick: Roosevelt Roberts</strong>

&nbsp;

<strong>Gabriel Green vs. Daniel Rodriguez</strong>

Kevin Holland tried to come back on 14 days after fighting in the last event, but his body would not allow it, so UFC newcomer Gabriel Green will step into the fight on short notice. Green is 9-2 in his career, including a stint in Bellator, and all nine wins have come via stoppage. Rodriguez is 11-1 with a 1-0 record in the UFC. He beat Tim Means last time out.

Odds were not posted at time of writing for the fight, but it looks like it will be an exciting one.

&nbsp;

<strong>Blagoy Ivanov (-105) vs. Augusto Sakai (-115); Total: 2.5 (-185/160)</strong>

The only heavyweight fight on the card is this one between Blagoy Ivanov and Augusto Sakai. Saki has a big size and striking advantage in this fight, as he is the more active fighter and the more accurate fighter, but Ivanov has a strong ground game that could really come into play with his lower center of gravity. Ivanov just went the distance with Derrick Lewis after wins over Tui Tuivasa and Ben Rothwell, which is why he gets the respect despite the size edge for Sakai.

This will be an interesting fight stylistically. Sakai has 11 knockout wins out of his 14. Ivanov has never been knocked out. Can Sakai score the first knockout? If he can’t, can he win via decision? Given that Ivanov has the ground game and could control the fight there, it could really tire out Sakai. I’m looking at the slight underdog here given that he’s had to show a lot more of a gas tank on the endurance side than the favorite.

<strong>Pick: Blagoy Ivanov</strong>

&nbsp;

<strong>Gilbert Burns (+155) vs. Tyron Woodley (-175); Total: 4.5 (150/-170)</strong>

The main event features Gilbert Burns and Tyron Woodley. Is a welterweight title shot in line for the winner? We’ll have to wait and see, but Burns is looking to build off of his first-round knockout of Demian Maia just before UFC shut down due to the COVID pandemic. That was Burns’s first knockout in nearly two years. He’s had plenty of wins and other modes of victory in that span, but it was nice to show some big striking power in advance of this fight with Woodley.

Woodley is back after a long layoff. The former champion lost to Kamaru Usman at UFC 235 and has not fought since March 2, 2019. Woodley had a fight against Robbie Lawler canceled when he hurt his hand in training and then had a fight with Leon Edwards canceled because of COVID. Now he draws Burns in a fight that, quite frankly, might be better for him than the other two, especially the Edwards draw.

That said, this has been a long layoff for Woodley and Burns has been fighting and has been impressive in the process. Laying the big number is tough here. Woodley does have more experience in the championship rounds, so he gets the nod, but there are better bets than laying -175 in the main event.

<strong>Pick: Tyron Woodley</strong>

UFC: Burns vs. Woodley Betting Odds, Picks, & Predictions

<p>Betting on today's Crimson and Crusaders game? Catch the action at Hart Center in Worcester, MA, as the Crusaders hosts this showdown at 6:00 ET on ESPN+. Harvard is favored by -3 in this non-conference contest against Holy Cross. The game's over/under currently sits at 139 points.</p><h3>HARVARD CRIMSON VS HOLY CROSS CRUSADERS BETTING PICK</h3><p>The Pick: Holy Cross Crusaders +3</p><p>This game will be played at Hart Center at 6:00 ET on Wednesday, December 4th.</p><h3>WHY BET THE HOLY CROSS CRUSADERS:</h3><ul><li>We have this one finishing with a projected score of 75-71 in favor of the Crusaders.</li><li>Not only will Holy Cross pick up the win, but look for them to cover at +3.</li><li>The over/under is currently sitting at 139 points, and we like the over with a projected 146 points.</li></ul><h3>Can Harvard Deliver Being Favored on the Road?</h3><h3>Harvard Crimson Recent Game/Games</h3> 

<p>Harvard fell to 2-6 on the season after a 77-64 loss to St. John's on Saturday. Despite being +25.5 point underdogs, the Crimson kept the game closer than expected.</p> 

<p>Harvard trailed 40-28 at halftime but managed to score 36 points in the 2nd half while allowing 37. The total points for the game were 141, just under the 144.5 O/U line.</p><p>Harvard's offense struggled in their last game, shooting just 36.1% from the field and 27.6% from three-point range, finishing with an effective field goal percentage of 42.6%. They hit 12 of 16 free throws, good for 75%, and grabbed 9 offensive rebounds, dishing out 13 assists as a team.</p> <p>RJ Luis Jr. led the way with 24 points and 10 rebounds, shooting 9 of 18 from the field, though he hit just 1 of 5 from beyond the arc. Kadary Richmond added 18 points and 8 rebounds, shooting 57.1% overall, while Chandler Pigge contributed 15 points, hitting 2 of 4 from three-point range.</p><p>Harvard’s defense gave up 77 points in their last game, with their opponents shooting 44% from the field. Inside the arc, they allowed 25 two-pointers on 43 attempts, a 58% success rate.</p> <p>From three-point range, Harvard held their opponents to 22% shooting, as they made just 6 of 27 attempts. The Crimson also sent them to the line 13 times, where they hit 9 free throws, shooting 69%.</p><h3>Taking a Look at the Crusaders Chances at Home</h3><h3>Holy Cross Crusaders Recent Game/Games</h3> 

<p>The Crusaders fell to 2-6 on the season after a 67-41 road loss to the Cavaliers on Friday. Entering the game as +15.5 point underdogs, Holy Cross not only lost but also failed to cover the spread.</p> 

<p>Virginia led 34-21 at halftime and continued to dominate in the 2nd half, outscoring Holy Cross 33-20. The total points for the game were 108, falling short of the 126.5 O/U line.</p><p>Holy Cross struggled offensively in their last game, scoring just 41 points with a field goal percentage of 33.3% (17/51). Their effective field goal percentage was 39.2%, and they hit only 22.7% of their three-point attempts (5/22), while shooting 41.4% from two-point range (12/29).</p> <p>At the free-throw line, the Crusaders made just 2 of 5 attempts (40%). They recorded 7 offensive rebounds and 7 assists. Dai Dai Ames and Max Green each scored 16 points, with Green hitting 4 of 7 threes and Ames going 2 for 2 from deep. Andrew Rohde added 13 points, shooting 3 of 5 from beyond the arc.</p><p>Holy Cross gave up 67 points in this one, with their defense allowing the opposing team to shoot 43% from the field, as they hit 24 of their 55 attempts.</p> <p>From beyond the arc, Holy Cross allowed 9 threes on 25 attempts, a 36% shooting performance. They also sent the other team to the line 12 times, where they converted 10 free throws.</p>

Harvard Crimson vs Holy Cross Crusaders NCAA Basketball Betting Pick & Prediction 12/4/24

BetDSI

Bookmaker

Bet US

BetOnline

Bovada