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NBA tip-off, Florida sports betting gets SCOTUS win, Purdy's noggin, D'backs-Rangers at +175000!

Oct 26, 2023

The beginning of the NFL season is a date circled by gambling company operators eyeing profit and politicians hoping to legalize sports betting in their state.

The NFL is America’s favorite sports league, and there are billions of dollars in interest in bettors’ virtual and overstuffed leatherette wallets.

But basketball rakes in more betting handle than football. The NBA and college basketball accounts for about 35% annually, and the NFL and college football around 33%.

Part of that is because there are so many more basketball games.

Part of it is because you like betting on basketball.

It’s time to stop ruminating over whether the Celtics will trip on it again this season, if the Suns can go all the way, and whether James Harden will just go away. (Philadelphians are not in the mood for this nonsense right now).

It’s time to watch it happen. And bet on it.

The Playbook presents a very bookmarkable NBA primer to prep you for that long slog to June.

NBA Odds Hub:

According to Caesars Sportsbook, the Bucks (+400) and Celtics (+400) are now the betting favorites to win the 2024 NBA Finals, ahead of the reigning champion, the Nikola Jokic-led Nuggets (+450). The Suns (+600) and Warriors (+1400) round out the top five favorites according to NBA betting odds.

Here’s a great big list of bettable NBA stuff from DraftKings (PDF):

125KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Saw it all the way

For those of you who bought futures bets back in April for a Texas-Arizona World Series, you’re lying, but just having either one win the fall classic is lucrative alone.

The Rangers were around +4000 to win the World Series on Opening Day at most sportsbooks. The Diamondbacks were upwards of +10000.

But what if you’d actually pegged the matchup?

At FanDuel, a ticket on an Arizona-Texas Series matchup bore odds of +23000 on Opening Day.

At BetMGM …. +175000.

Nobody bet that, though. The longest odds that hit for this matchup at BetMGM was a $30 bet at +25000 for a $7,500 payout.

Purdy significant

Brock Purdy’s entry into the concussion protocol demonstrates how much the sports betting community values the second-year quarterback despite the same questions every week.

How can he mess up an offense with Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel? And the defense will always bail him out, right?

Bettors clearly see him as more than a shorter Trent Dilfer. (A Super Bowl, MVP, by the way).

The 49ers’ Sunday matchup with Cincinnati opened with San Francisco as six-point favorites at DraftKings. Still, the public had bet the number down to -3.5 by Thursday morning, a day after his diagnosis became public. The money line had been winnowed from -238 to -175.

Where it’s ATS

The best teams against the spread through Week 7:

Chiefs 5-2
Dolphins 5-2
Jaguars 5-2
Lions 5-2
Ravens 5-2

Tampa sportsbooks news-ish

The Seminole Tribe of Florida picked up a win on Wednesday when the US Supreme Court refused to make a temporary stay of Hard Rock Bet relaunching in Florida permanent. West Flagler Associates was temporarily granted a stay as it prepares to ask the Court to take up its case.

West Flagler has promised its writ of certiorari by Nov. 20.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh - this one

- wrote the opinion. But he didn’t like the Seminoles’ and Department of the Interior’s case, noting some inconsistencies and adding that it probably needed to be settled in state court. Litigation is stewing in the Florida Supreme Court, also.

As we wait for the robes and gavels to settle it, I did some sleuthin’ at the Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa this week to check if the Seminole Tribe of Florida was preparing for possible good news.

Short answer: not that you can see.

But folks who spend much time in the casino in one capacity or the other have heard some things. Note: Management isn’t saying anything. We asked.

The sportsbook nook with the eight TVs plastered to the wall behind the escalator by the security desk may not be the main focus anymore as it’s tiny and incognito.
A more central, traditional sports lounge area is considered likely in the middle of the smoking casino near the hotel check-in.
Some think it’ll end up where the Plum Lounge resides above Council Oak.
The pool bar remains a prime location, as it already has TVs throughout and electronic games built into the countertops. Kiosks would be easy to add (shock hazard, though?), but the Hard Rock Bet app is easier anyway.

Our own prison?

DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello has had some fun with for-entertainment-purposes-only betting markets in the past, circulating mock Academy Awards lines years before some states began allowing them.

So The Playbook put the most pressing matter of the day to Avello:

Will Creed sing the National Anthem before a World Series game seeing as how the Rangers have - for whatever reason - adopted their “songs” for pump-up purposes?

Says Avello:

YES: -120

NO: Even

Note: You can’t bet on this.

WORLD SERIES ODDS

Colorado!?!

I’d already buttoned up my fantasy lineup on Sunday morning, so I sat down to peruse some Playbook stats (I know, get a hobby), and I noticed a few holes in our US subscriber map.

(First off, thanks very much to all you subscribers)

Weirdly, we have none in Colorado. Ghana and France, yes. Colorado, no.

Colorado has legal sports betting from Dinosaur to Campo, all the big four leagues, Russell Wilson, and Coach Prime to fade. But it needs The Playbook.

So if you know someone there … OK, off to get a hobby.

Tonali’s agent claims the Italian suffers from a gambling addiction. This adds an important layer to the issue, but players betting on games remains a worldwide problem. The US will not be immune.