The NHL playoffs are where underdogs profit. So far at least. Through the first five days of the Stanley Cup Tournament, the underdog is 10-9. But that just above break even mark carries a lot more profit than the record suggests. Had you been wagering a unit on all the dogs so far, you’d be up 9.15 units. Thats some major money in less than a week’s time. Wins by Montreal, Nashville, Colorado and Ottawa in the opening games of their series each basically netted 2/1 or better payouts, accounting for most of the profits.
The NHL playoffs are always known to be topsy-turvy. No first round result is really surprising. Top seeds cant take advancing for granted. It seems every year at least one of top four top 2-seed conference seeds goes down in the first round. To that end, I thought maybe an easy profit could be made by putting a unit on each seventh and eigth seed. As it turns out, it wasnt mathematically possible as the 2/7 series in the East between the Devils and Flyers only paid a shade less than 2/1 for underdog Philadelphia. So I lost track of the idea. Betting the other three, however, would net a profit of at at least 41 percent with just one series win. Since all three dogs stole home ice advantage in the first two games, we’d be giving it an exciting run. Regardless, there is going to be some anxious and killer swing games in Montreal, Denver and Nashville this weekend as five games in the next four nights will be spend on the road, their seasons in the balance, after spending the long, marathon schedule branding themsevles as Cup contenders. I should have also just gone ahead and pulled the trigger on the flyers for the series. A 2-2 record would have been needed to pull a profit, but the Flyers owning a 2-1 lead, we’re ahead of the game with home ice in every series as we head in the middle of the first series of games.
But I never once thought to just play aggressive and blins every dog in every game on the board. If you squint, off in the distance, you can see the clouds of dust kicked up by the money making bandwagon that passed us by without stopping. Sigh. I felt like I should have been all over a reckless sounding strategy that involves every single game. Well, not every game. The Phily win over the Devils last night in OT doesnt factor in since the closing line against each was -104 last night. It was a tried and true pick ‘em that the Flyers won, yo. But the question is can we will draft of this train and pull in some bucks. Of the three games tonight, two give us underdogs. With -102 and -106 odds on LA and Vancouver respectively we push that one aside. The others would five us Montreal at +156 and Buffalo at +125. All we need is one win to profit. Usually you need 54 percent to profit. Here we need 50 percent. With two games. you would need 100 percent in most cases to make money. Here we need 50 percent. This isnt exactly how wiseguys define value, but it is how you shift some of the odds into your favor. After our 2-0 debut foray in the 2010 playoffs with last night’s twitter posts, we’re game to join the party, even if the top shelf goods are already won.
Book Montreal and Buffalo tonight.
