The Road Less Taken

One of the principles of advantage sports betting is to target those opportunities that are difficult to make solid lines for. When the oddsmakers are forced to put a number up for events they deal with infrequently they have to really dumb down the process. They have to go with limited and very basic information to calculate their lines. This makes them more susceptible to mistakes in both data evaluation and assigning weight to event-specific integers. Whether it’s determining the value of a medal in the Olympics, an accepted penalty in the Super Bowl, or a hot dog in the Nathan’s Contest — oddsmakers often have limited resources with which to develop a solid line. Those are the events an AP bettor should take a close look at and that’s why it’s well worth it to regularly spend time examining these affairs that can be tough to bet and even tougher to make lines for. The road less taken can lead to strong potential profit as well as providing an unpredictable journey. This time of year that road often takes me to Northern Nevada.

The American Century Celebrity Golf tournament takes place July 14-16 in South Lake Tahoe. This years player list includes the likes of Steph Curry, Jerry Rice, Justin Timberlake, Aaron Rodgers, and Charles Barkley and offers easy access to the golfers (the autograph hounds annually show up in droves). Even though this event draws a big crowd composed mostly of visitors wanting to interact with the stars, it does take place right in the middle of a casino environment. That means the sports books in the hosting hotels are compelled to offer betting on the event to the scores of fans that show up as well as the high-rolling celebrities. It also helps that the event takes place during what is the slowest sports betting stretch of the year. There’s plenty of space on the betting boards so it’s a no-brainer for the local books to post numbers for the weeks biggest local event. You might not find lines for this tournament anywhere on the web but in Northern Nevada it’s one of the biggest weeks of the summer so that’s where the action is.

Harrah’s and Harveys are two of the hosting properties and they annually offer a full sheet of bets — some involving participants that may be real tough to handicap due to absolutely no data to refer to. There are many times during the year that I’ll be critical of Caesars sports books for taking the safe route and not offering nearly as much as they could on a betting event. This is not one of those times. For Celebrity Golf week they’re willing to put up lines on something that is very unpredictable and they’re very accommodating while doing it. You never know how good a casino customer the face at the window may be so it makes sense to treat them as well as possible and to take a bet that’s big enough to reasonably satisfy them. The cream of the casino player list shows up for this tournament and rejecting one of their bets could turn them off. It’s just good business to allow players to bet on the event that brought them to town. A laid back attitude is required by the book to handle this event and they understand that their role is that of a complimentary component to something much more valuable to the property.

Another reason for the relaxed environment is that there’s absolutely nothing that would prevent the players or their friends from making bets on or against them. It all makes for a pretty interesting weekend for those who can get in some action. Golfers love to bet and there’s nothing really stopping these guys from betting on themselves or each other. As for the public, they tend to gravitate toward the top-tier celebrities when going to the window. Looking to fade those name players is a good foundation for a betting basic strategy.

All lines are created by Harveys sports book and all wagers mid-week, no matter what the amount, have to be approved. But anything up to $1,000 should be no problem. When I asked if I could make bets between $500 and $1,000 the manager’s reply was “I won’t even blink at bets that size.” That’s the kind of thing you like to hear when betting into a niche market with little to no place for the book to compare their lines to.

Available for betting are odds-to-win, head-to-head match-ups, and various propositions. Many of the players are yearly participants so there’s some sort of track record to refer to when sizing up those bets. Some have no history though and bets involving those golfers are where the book has to make some significant assumptions. Players like Paige Spiranac and Blair O’Neal have to be evaluated with very little applicable information. Both are models/aspiring LPGA golfers so they matched them up vs. each other, but neither has ever played in this event or with this non-standard scoring system. Making a line for players like this is merely an educated guess with the emphasis on the guess part.

When it comes to the big stars, none is probably bigger this year then Steph Curry of the NBA Champion Warriors. Since Golden State is a very popular team to back in these parts it’s a pretty safe call that Steph will be among the most heavily bet players in the tourney. Along with the odds on him to win the tournament is a prop that offers an OV/UN total on his final score added to his father’s score. Del Curry and Steph are lined at 81.5 combined points. The last time they competed here they totaled a combined 57. The jump to 81 is partially fueled by the fact that Steph has shot as high as 64 back in 2013. Then there’s most likely some star tax added onto that number as well. I took UN 81.5 without much thought. They’ll both have to have real nice scores to get into the 80s. One good score won’t cut it.

Tony Romo is back after missing the event the last four years. Romo finished second three consecutive times from 2009-2011 and also finished fifth in 2012. Earlier this year, he tried to qualify for the U.S. Open, but failed to make the cut so he’s a borderline pro in some peoples’ eyes. He has a very good track record though so they made him the co-favorite to win the event.

The opening lines on Romo are where you can see an example of a book trying to manufacture bets to offer without thinking things through. On the futures chart Romo is listed at 2-1 to win the tourney. Elsewhere on the sheet there’s a prop that asks “WILL TONY ROMO FINISH IN THE TOP 3?” YES +150/NO -180. Now, if forced to bet either Romo +200 to win the tourney or Romo +150 to hit the Top 3, it’s pretty obvious that you take the +150 and collect if he finishes 2nd or 3rd too. That one sort of jumped out and as a result has been bet down to YES +100. At +100 it’s still probably the superior choice but whether it’s plus EV or not is the question.

Soap opera actor Jack Wagner is a 2-time champ here and one of my favorite guys to bet on. He is very consistent from round to round and year to year. Wagner has finished 3rd, 6th, and 4th the last three years, with scores in the 60s each time. He’s as close to a sure thing to be in the top five that there is and he’s matched up against Mark Rypien. Wagner outscored Rypien 67-45 in 2016 and 61-42 in 2015 but the line for the match-up is Rypien -120/Wagner -110. Rypien did win the event in 2014, outscoring Wagner 76-64. I’ll still side with the rock steady Wagner who’s won by an average of 20.5 pts the last two tourneys vs Rypien.

The first bet I made this year is Sterling Sharpe -120 vs Brian Urlacher. Sharpe has averaged 50.75 over the last four years with a low variance range of just 46-53. Those same four years Urlacher has averaged 40.75 with a range of 33-50. Both are very consistent, but Sharpe appears to be a notch above Urlacher here.

The non-standard Stableford scoring system penalizes those who have bad holes and awards those who can avoid them. A par for a hole gets you a point and a bogey on a hole is no result. A double bogey or worse results in a loss of two points.
The complete Stableford scoring system is as follows:

Double Eagle +10
Hole-in-One +8
Eagle +6
Birdie +3
Par +1
Bogey 0
Double Bogey -2

Once a player double bogeys that’s it. They get -2 and the hole ends there so it doesn’t get any worse. Some players have no shot at finishing in the positive. Charles Barkley, for example, finished the 2014 event with a score of -98. That means he double bogeyed 49 of the events 54 holes. The 5 holes he did not double-bogey he bogeyed so he never earned a plus score on any hole in the three rounds of competition. The following link will take you to last year’s leaderboard where you can see the golfers hole by hole scores for the 2016 event.

2016 Results

The sheet at the bottom will most likely be in the bins at the eight Las Vegas Caesars sports books properties but they are definitely in the computer system so using the bet numbers listed will enable someone in Las Vegas to bet on the event. Once again, bets may need supervisor approval and no max bet limit has been established.

Whether you’re able to bet on Celebrity Golf or not, the principle of seeking out non-standard sporting events should be pursued whenever possible. A part of any APs basic strategy is to aggressively target weak opposition. The easiest path to profit is to focus on finding the best game conditions possible. Those opportunities can regularly be found when you travel the road less taken.

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17th tee – Aaron Rodgers fan boat ⛵ in position

**Wed night I found a sheet at William Hill so there are now over 100 sports books all over the state where you can bet this event. There has been a lot of money bet on Tony Romo thus far. Saw Romo in the sports book and he was told how everyone was betting on him. His reaction was not positive. Unsure whether that was genuine or a guy just being humble.