John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His columns will appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.
Vegas Odds: Season Edition Vol. 2
January 6, 2009Vegas Odds: Season Edition Vol. 3
February 10, 2009John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His column appears on Tuesdays throughout the season.
Could it really be that, as of this coming weekend, we are only five weeks from Selection Sunday? That means we’re only four weeks from putting crowns on the heads of conference tournament champions and even closer than that to anointing some regular season champs. It doesn’t seem possible, but here we are. I think this also means the Ivy League announces its tournament representative, like, what, tomorrow?!? OK, maybe not that quickly. But it’ll all be here pretty darn soon.
After much cunning, good timing, and top-flite negotiation, the boys and I have made the Vegas hotel reservations (deals abound like you wouldn’t believe) and locked in our flights (deals aren’t as great as ya might be hearing) for the annual Vegas excursion for the first two rounds. The Vegas-related e-mail chatter has increased. Ah, how I love it. And since I’m here in the RTC Midwestern Compound, all this Vegas talk provides a wonderful antidote, a perfect bridge from now to the first tip in March, over what we hope are the last strains of what’s been one hell of a winter.
That said, let’s take another peek inside the collective head of the Vegas oddsmakers and see what they’re thinking. Most of you probably know, but for the untrained, the way the money line works is that if you see a team with, say, +1000 beside them then that means if you bet $100 on them, you get $1000 back, plus your bet. The lower the x is in +(x), the bigger the favorite. If you should ever see a team with a negative (-1000) that means you have to bet $1000 on them to win $100. That doesn’t apply to this list, though.
The last time we checked this was early January…here’s the latest from The Greek:
Yep, it’s still Carolina. They’ve given up another $30 since the last time we checked, going from +220 to +250. But it looks like someone in Sin City has found something to like about the oft-bewildering Connecticut Huskies, since their value has been cut in half from +1000 to +500. Odd that Vegas would basically feel twice as good about UConn, seeing as how the Huskies seem to lose focus so easily at times. It can’t just be about the #1 ranking, because the last time we looked at this, UNC had just taken their first loss and actually extended their lead as favorite over the next-closest contender. Connecticut is a fine team and undoubtedly a title contender, but that’s a big move. I wonder what else it’s based on?
Call me crazy, but I still think Louisville is an attractive option at +1800 even though they’ve been “demoted” a couple hundred bucks since last time and they have the occasional problem staying focused, as well. The chance to win 18x your money isn’t a bad value for the current #5 team in the country, eh? I also think UCLA is playing better recently than the mere $200 bump Vegas has allotted them (+2000 to +1800). Heck, even Memphis (+2000 from +3000), a very athletic bunch playing very well of late, can’t be ignored; come on, like you wouldn’t plop down a little dough for the chance to win twenty times your cash on that team. But as far as I’m concerned, along with Rick Pitino’s Cardinals, I think the best bet on the board comes in the form of the Oklahoma Sooners (+1500), a current #2-ranked team that Vegas will give you fifteen times your money for if they take it all. Not a bad deal for a team that has who I consider the national POY (in spite of, uh, THIS) surrounded by an incredibly athletic and hungry surrounding cast. The only thing in the college basketball world bigger than the value you can get for the Sooners and Cardinals is perhaps Andy Kennedy’s head.
Another interesting matter is the continued presence of Gonzaga and an unranked Georgetown team high on the list. I was all about Gonzaga earlier this year — and why not? They have a good coach, exceptional guard play, solid inside game, what we thought was a budding star in Austin Daye…and yet they can barely stay afloat in the Top 25. Everyone thought this was going to be the year Gonzaga, as a program, took that next step into adulthood…what happened? True, the season’s far from over but all the evidence we have up to now has to make you wonder why they’re ranked 19th in the AP poll but still sit as the 9th favorite according to Vegas. And for some reason here sits Georgetown, careening downward like an Acula class submarine, GONE from the Top 25 but still perched here as Vegas’ 12th choice. These oddsmakers usually know their stuff — I wonder what they still see in the Zags and Hoyas?
One final thing I definitely have to mention…even with all of the lines up there that it seems strange that they’d even mention (Georgia at +50000? Texas Tech at +17500?), maaaaan…to just throw more dirt on Indiana like that, actually bothering to list them at +99999?!? That’s got to be classified as cruel and unusual!! Haven’t they endured enough for one year?
The next time we check this will probably be in a month, as we take a final look right before the tournament starts. My hombres and I have our suite waiting and our sportsbook seats reserved, and we’ll be touching down the night of the play-in game…so hey, if you see something on the odds board you like, feel free to send us some dough, and we’ll put it in play for you, ya know? Come on…you can trust us!
Vegas Odds: Season Edition Vol. 1
December 16, 2008John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC. His columns appear on Tuesdays throughout the season.
It seems like we’re still feeling things out, getting our bearings, and getting to know some teams in this college basketball season, but believe it or not we are one-third through the 2008-09 campaign. Pretty soon it’ll be the Christmas-time tournaments and then conference play, at which point the season seems to accelerate until we get to those beautiful, life-affirming days of the conference tournaments, Championship Week, and the NCAA Tournament. I was browsing through some of the pre-season columns here on RTC and came across this one that talked about how the fair, wonderful, and beautiful people in Las Vegas saw the season shaping up. Specifically, there’s a pretty sweet table listing every Division One squad with even the most remote chance of winning the 2009 title, and the money line they were offering for each team.
(Note: My sentiments above regarding the gambling gods in Las Vegas have nothing to do with the fact that the yearly RTC Vegas field trip is coming up in March. I think those things are true, no matter what. Wonderful, good-looking people they are, all of them. Every one. God bless them. Seriously…)
Now, in case you don’t know how a money line works, here’s the deal. Let’s say you go to a casino in Las Vegas and look up at the big board at the sportsbook and you see something that says North Carolina +300. This means that if you think UNC will win the title in 2009, you walk up to the incredibly nice man at the front of the sportsbook and tell him you want to make that bet. +300 means that if you bet $100 and UNC wins, the man will give you back $400, meaning the $300 offered in the money line, and your $100 bet (minus a small commission). Often, you’ll see a negative number next to a team, like (and I’m just throwing this name out) Fordham –200. This means that if you bet $200 to win (money lines can be applied to single games, conference titles, national championships, whatever) on Fordham, and Fordham wins, the nice man will hand you back $300 – the $200 you bet, and the $100 offered on that money line. A positive number means that’s how much you’ll win if you bet $100. A negative number means that’s what you have to bet in order to WIN $100. And of course you can bet as much as you want up to the maximum, i.e. with UNC above, you can bet $10 and win $30, or you can bet $500 and win $1500.
The original article covered pretty much everything noteworthy about the accompanying preseason table, but a couple of other items stood out to me. First of all, the very top. Everyone knew how great UNC was going to be, but here’s Vegas, telling us that they’re willing to give us FOUR TIMES our money if we have the so-called guts to put some cash down on what might end up being one of the all-time great college teams. Yeah, that sound you’re hearing right now? That’s me kicking myself. And without recapping the whole original article – who wouldn’t take a shot on Louisville and Connecticut (+1200 and 1400?!?)? I also literally get dizzy and have to sit down when I see Pitt (+2000), Oklahoma (+3500), Gonzaga (+4000!!), and a pretty doggone hot and versatile Wake Forest team (offered at an abominable +8000). Hey, Cincinnati readers, you looking for Xavier? They’re not even listed. You’d have to have your bet cheapened by taking the entire field at +1200.
But of course this is all with benefit of hindsight. I had this information in the preseason just like everyone else and I just sat on it. So the question becomes, where are we now? What is Vegas offering? Is there any value comparable to what we could have had in the preseason? Well, wonder no more, my friends. Here’s the latest:
Vegas is still willing to almost triple your money with a bet on UNC, offering +175, claiming there’s a 36.4% chance that they’ll be raising the trophy in early April. It looks like they’ve woke up to Gonzaga and Tennessee as well, despite recent losses, but certainly not enough to put anyone off such a wager. But look at Louisville – true, they have a couple of things to iron out but that loss to Western Kentucky is far enough back in the rearview mirror, and since his days at Providence Rick Pitino has been the best in the business as far as 1) “learning” about his team from losses, and 2) getting his teams, and specifically the defense they play, to peak in March. Are you telling me that if one of your friends came up to you right now and said, “Give me $10 right now. If Louisville wins the title, I’ll hand you back $150,” you wouldn’t take that bet?
Obviously the story here is that, because of the sheer dominance of North Carolina and the way they’ve just eclipsed the entire college basketball landscape, most of the tremendous value that was on the board back in November is still there even a third of the way into the season. For some teams it’s come back a little (UConn, Oklahoma) but it’s still pretty inviting. For other squads you can get even better deals than back in November (Louisville, Texas, Kansas, Pitt), and you have the Tar Heels to thank for that. I mean, come on — they still don’t even bother to list #7 Xavier. Vegas is telling us here that any bet against UNC is basically a sucker bet. They might be right. But they’re certainly willing to reward you like crazy if you feel adventurous enough to bet against the Tar Heels, should they falter.