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Written Monday February 1st, 2021 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (spreads/odds may have changed) Last year, I crushed Vegas sportsbooks by winning $8,330 USD on Super Bowl proposition bets. Will I enjoy the same success wagering online this year? First, it is critical that you understand HOW the picks are made. I have set up an Excel spreadsheet where I track the lines from 15-20 online sportsbooks on all possible prop bets. The file has several thousands of rows. This is a gold mine of information allowing me to find great bargains very quickly. I’ll do my best to explain to you how it works. The best way to do so is via a concrete example, so let’s dive right away into the first pick. SUPER BOWL PROP BET #1: CHRIS JONES OVER 2.5 TACKLES+ASSISTS (@130 odds with 10Bet) First, let me show you the lines on this market from five different online bookies: The lines from a given sportsbook can be converted into “fair odds.” Let’s look at the odds from William Hill Canada: +110 on the over, -140 on the under. What would be “fair odds”, i.e. odds if the bookie wasn’t taking a commission (also called the “vigorish”)? I do not want to bore you with the mathematical details, but the answer is: +123 on the over, -123 on the under. If you wish to know how I came up with those numbers, I invite you to read the following article I wrote a few years ago (https://www.professormj.com/pages/sports-betting-lessons-value-betting). Then, you can convert those “fair odds” into “fair probabilities.” Again, you can check out the article above for more details, but in the case of this exemple we obtain a fair probability of 44.9% on the over and 55.1% on the under. To make things clear: William Hill Canada believes Chris Jones has a 44.9% chance of posting more than 2.5 tackles+assists (and obviously a 55.1% chance of recording less than 2.5 tackles+assists). You can repeat the same process for each sportsbook. And then take the average across all sportsbooks who have lines on this specific proposition bet. In the Chris Jones example, the average true probability on the over is 47.1% versus 52.9% on the under. This is literally the average “opinion” of the numerous sportsbooks. If you convert those true probabilities back into odds, you get +112 on the over versus -112 on the under. Those are the critical numbers! They represent the break-even odds, or the minimum odds required to bet. The conclusion goes like this: Bet over 2.5 tackles+assists by Chris Jones if you get odds that are better than +112 (or 2.12 in decimal format); Bet under 2.5 tackles+assists by Chris Jones if you get odds that are better than -112 (or 1.89 in decimal format). Now, since 10Bet is offering +130 odds on the over, that’s a good value wager! Hopefully, your head is not spinning too much from reading all of those numbers. Thank God, I do not need to do these calculations manually for each prop bet! The lone task required is to enter the odds for each prop bet from lots of sportsbooks. My Excel spreadsheet does the rest! See what it looks like: SUPER BOWL PROP BET #2: SHORTEST TOUCHDOWN UNDER 1.5 YARD (@-138 odds with Bet365) Let’s take a look at the lines from a few online bookmakers: Clearly, Bet365 has a weird line on the under. That’s why I am taking advantage of it. SUPER BOWL PROP BET #3: NO ONSIDE KICK ATTEMPT (@-175 odds with Bodog/Bovada) Again, let’s take a look at the different odds on this prop bet: You can tell very quickly which sportsbook has a soft line: Bodog/Bovada at -175 odds on “NO”. Believe me, the Super Bowl becomes so much more exciting when you have 10-20-30 prop bets going on. I really had a blast last year. Enjoy the game my friend!!! Professor MJ https://youtu.be/0hZDE74Q7zA

Written Wednesday January 20th, 2021 at 9 a.m. Eastern Time (spreads/odds may have changed) After going 2-1 against the spread (ATS) in the NFL Wildcard Round, we went a perfect 3-0 last week! The playoffs have been very profitable to us so far with a 5-1 ATS record. Now, we have two great matchups on the menu for the Conference Championship games. I’ve got one official pick, and one lean for you. Also, I will conclude this article by telling you my plan regarding the Super Bowl proposition bets this year. Remember that I crushed Vegas bookies last season by coming back home with more than $8k in profit. Without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s picks for the NFC and AFC Championship games! CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME #1: TAMPA BAY BUCS VS GREEN BAY PACKERS (-3) As I was watching the second half of the Bucs versus Saints game last week, I was thinking that neither team was very impressive. Both teams had ups and downs, especially on offense. In my mind, the winner would probably end up losing in Green Bay in the NFC Championship game. I love anticipating what the point spread will be on each game. In this case, I was expecting the Packers to be 4-point favorites, and that’s exactly how the line opened. At that price, I was comfortable betting Green Bay. Now that the line has dropped to 3.5, and then 3 (as of Wednesday morning, which is when I wrote this article) I am definitely siding with the team from the frozen tundra. Here are four arguments favoring Green Bay in this spot: Argument #1: The rest factor. The Packers will be at home for the third straight week, while the Bucs will be traveling for the third consecutive week. Argument #2: The revenge factor. Do you really want to face Aaron Rodgers a second time after you have crushed him earlier in the year? I don’t think so. Back in Week 6, Tampa hammered Matt LaFleur’s team by a 38-to-10 score. That’s the only game all season where Rodgers did not throw a single TD pass. Oh man, he will be super focused to get some payback! Argument #3: The matchup. Tampa’s defense ranked number one in the league against the run. That’s great, but they finished 18th in terms of passer rating allowed. That’s very bad news when facing Rodgers and company. I know that they held them in check earlier this season, but it’s not going to happen again. Argument #4: The extra day. Green Bay gets an additional day to rest and game plan after playing last Saturday’s first game of the day, while the Bucs played the late game Sunday. I could have added the cold weather, as it is expected to be -6 degrees Celsius at Lambeau Field. However, Tom Brady has played many games in the cold with the Pats, but the rest of his teammates might not enjoy the weather too much, though… So I guess that could be argument #4B! I do like the Packers enough to put some money at risk. Official pick: Packers -3 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME #2: BUFFALO BILLS VS KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (-3) Here is how my point spread prediction went for this matchup: I was expecting the Chiefs to be favored by 6 points if Mahomes plays, while I anticipated K.C. to be 2.5- or 3-point favorites if Chad Henne is the starter. For this reason, I was shocked when the line opened at 2.5 since, in my mind, Mahomes had a 50-50 shot of suiting up for the AFC Championship game. Since then, the line moved to 3, but it is back at 2.5 with some sportsbooks. That completely changed my strategy. If the Bills had been 6-point underdogs, as I expected, I was going to put my money on them. But with such a small point spread, I believe the value lies on Kansas City. Don’t get me wrong: I believe Buffalo has enough talent to beat the Chiefs, even with Mahomes on the field. However, the Chiefs’ QB holds a 25-1 record since November 2019. That cannot be ignored. K.C. players also have more playoff experience. I wouldn’t mind betting Buffalo +6, but I don’t think putting money on Buffalo +3 is a good idea, let alone +2.5. Still, there are quite a few things going Buffalo’s way. First, they post a 7-1-2 record against the spread (ATS) as road underdogs. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are just 1-7 ATS in their last eight games as favorites (including 0-4 as home favorites). Also, don’t forget the famous revenge factor. Back in Week 6, Kansas City topped Buffalo 26-to-17, thanks to 245 rushing yards. The Bills simply couldn’t stop the running game. They have improved since then (as shown last week against the Ravens!), but that is still concerning. So, my final decision is to stay away from this game from a betting perspective due to conflicting arguments. However, if I was forced to bet, I would go with the Chiefs -3. At the time of writing, Sports Interaction has the Chiefs -2.5 at -112 odds, which is pretty tempting. Lean: Chiefs -3 CRUSHING SUPER BOWL PROPOSITION BETS Do you remember last year’s “Crushing Super Bowl Proposition Bets Project”, where I flew to Vegas a few days before the big game, so that I could place bigger bets and shop for the best lines? I had posted a series of seven videos where I detailed my adventure and showed you my betting tickets. Just to refresh your mind, I ended up making 11 bets; four of them were favorites, while seven were underdogs. In other words, my expected record on those plays was 4-7. Things played out almost perfectly as I finished with a 9-2 record, while racking up $8,330 USD in net profit. Some of you have already emailed me to ask whether I was going to do it again this year. That was the plan without a doubt, but COVID-19 will prevent me from making the trip, unfortunately. Do I really want to spend 3-4 days in Vegas without my girlfriend and kids, and then having to isolate myself for 14 more days without seeing them? Sports betting is a passion to me, but my family is important too. That being said, in terms of proposition bets, the Super Bowl is like Christmas to me. There are so many things you can wager on that sportsbooks cannot keep odds that are accurate on each bet all the time. Every year, there are TONS of weak lines that can be exploited. It’s pretty common that when the kickoff of the Super Bowl comes, all of my online sportsbook accounts are empty because I have wagered all of it on numerous proposition bets. And to be honest, I don’t remember a Super Bowl where I ended up with losses on those bets. Even though I won’t be headed to Vegas, I will still be keeping track of the lines from many online sportsbooks on all prop bets. I always use an Excel spreadsheet where I enter the lines from 10-20 bookies, which allows me to estimate accurately fair odds. It is then easy to spot lines that are out of whack, and therefore exploitable. Those are the lines that we want to hammer. I will find plenty of bargains for sure again this year. I will share a few of them via YouTube videos (maybe 3-5), while also offering the option of subscribing to a package where you receive ALL proposition bets that offer amazing value, as soon as I find them. I cannot promise a specific number of value wagers, but it should be at least 15-20. If you’re interested, you can sign up now by following this link: https://www.professormj.com/products/super-bowl-lv-proposition-bets Have fun this weekend! Professor MJ https://youtu.be/PQvZiu6Z-6o