As I’ve posted before, I believe in making sports bets that are sure things. I look for arbitrage opportunities so that I’m going to win no matter what happens. However, certain betting situations just don’t lend themselves that well to that kind of play. For instance, as an enticement from one of the sportsbooks I joined, they gave me a free $25 bet in the middle of the NBA season where I had to pick the eventual winner of the NBA championship. There was really no way to ensure that I got free money, so I had to make an old-fashioned wager.
Now, I know that the proper approach to making free money wagers is to bet on long shots. You don’t want to take favorites because you don’t get good enough leverage from your money. I’ve explained this in a previous post, but the upshot is that your EV increases for long shots. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to pick Portland even getting 2 million to one. So I had to look for a team that seemed like it had some kind of chance, but was getting nice longshot odds.
I decided to concentrate on the Eastern conference, where I thought there was a better chance of a longshot coming through. At the time I made the bet, no one in the East was given a serious chance by the oddsmakers but Detroit. At the time, Cleveland and New Jersey were the next favorites and Miami had a very nice longshot price, so I took my free bet on Miami and more or less forgot about it.
Now, I’m feeling pretty good about the chances of getting Miami into the finals, but I’m thinking I’m going to have to lay off the free money bet with an arb on San Antonio or Phoenix in order to ensure that I get some cash out of the deal.
