Wednesday Free Pick - MLB 8/24/11

In a late game, I am taking the UNDER 7 in the LAA-Weaver game.  I like having the safety of the 7 landing spot as a push.  Weaver and Verlander are having a great year -- and I like the Under as the season starts winding down.  - jc

NHL Salami

A quick update on the Grand Salami totals play. I am starting to collect data; the data is still very sparse, but the Over for the Grand Salami still seems to be a good play. At some point, I will develop some guidelines for when the value isn't there (for instance, if the grand total is set way too high).

NHL Grand Salami -- Totals

I have been toying with this idea about NHL totals (total goals scored by both teams for that given day's NHL games). Many sportsbooks offer a line for total goals scored in the NHL for that day. Some books call this the "Grand Salami."

I originally thought that since much of the public generally leans to "overs" -- that it might be good to take "under" for the entire Grand Salami. I didn't have a source of historical data on this type of bet, so I started to collect data...

After just a short while, it appears that you can capture the statistical "tail" in some ways. In any given game, the current total of about 5.5 goals is a good over/under line for the total. However, there is a certain percentage of games that might be 8+ goal games (and even higher).

This seems like it can skew the results to the over side a bit (you can have a 10 goal game for instance at 6-4, but you can't have fewer than 1 goal in a game).

this play is also fun because you sort of have "action" on every NHL game that day... We'll keep an eye on this play...