Moneylines, Point Spreads & Wednesday Free Pick 2/9/11

I often talk about the point spread being "a great equalizer." Teams can "back-door" into a win ATS -- or the game can just be closer-than-expected. Of course, many times, the underdog gets completely thrashed -- but I think of sports betting as a "numbers game" where you try and put the numbers and probabilities on your side.

Yesterday's pick, So. Ill +16, happened to be an outright winner -- and some back-of-the-envelope analysis has shown that the point spreads and moneyline odds are fairly efficient. That means that if you you want to diversify, you can sometimes split a small portion of your bet and do some moneyline action in addition to the point spread.

In today's sports activity, I like a play in the NHL: Phoenix Coyotes (visiting Dallas) at +130.

Cinco de Mayo

It is Cinco de mayo -- and baseball is in full swing. Baseball is one of the best sports for finding contrarian value. I believe that baseball is one of the better sports for professional bettors and syndicates (some call syndicates the "smart money") for a few reasons:

• MLB is still the "National Past-time."
• Although the NFL is hugely popular, there are many more games in the MLB schedule.
• Baseball also seemingly has more randomness to the sport. For instance, NFL champions often go 14-2 (.875) or 13-3 (.813) -- while the best teams in MLB play about .600 ball.
• The point spread is a great equalizer -- as is the moneyline. However, I believe that many sports fans don't understand the moneyline very well -- and instead, count up their wins and losses (and wonder why their bankroll is decreasing).

If we see more interest on the blog, we'll continue to post more information and more selections. Thank you for reading.