MLB Betting Notes: Rangers best profit margin club

Rangers were first team to 50 wins on the season.

When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship, it gave Major League Baseball center stage by itself in Las Vegas sportsbooks and what a first week it was as the feature attraction.

Several storylines have popped up to grip the attention of the most casual of fans, at least until pre-season football begins in August.

The Cubs, Nationals and Mets have all experienced some rough patches lately while the Indians, Rangers and Astros keep winning. The Rays have shown you count on betting against them nightly with an 11-game losing streak through Sunday and Clayton Kershaw finally lost a game after 10 straight Dodgers wins behind him.

Dead part of the betting calendar year? That’s absolute crazy talk, especially if you jump on the wagon with some of these teams rolling through streaks.

The best thing about betting baseball is the 10-cent splits – eight cents at Aliante – and true odds in parlay payouts. Football and basketball have 20-cent splits with a pointspread and use pay charts on parlays.

This is the time of the year that sportsbook directors hold their collective breaths with hopes of escaping with a small win until preseason football starts. It can be extremely volatile when popular teams keep winning together.

Fortunately for the books over the past week, some of those top teams kept large parlay payouts to a minimum because the teams kept losing regularly in a June swoon.

Last Sunday the Cubs had the best record in baseball (47-20) after sweeping the Pirates, but then they went into a season-worst, four-game losing streak, including getting swept at home by St. Louis, and eventually lost six of seven for the week.

In the process, the Rangers were in the middle of winning 10 of 12 games and their 49-27 record is now the best in baseball.

Texas has won 18 of 24 June games for a profit margin of +13 units and their +29.1 units on the season is 12.1 units better than the second most profitable team, San Francisco (+17).

What’s amazing about the Rangers is they’ve been crushing June with three of their starting pitchers on the disabled list. The other thing bettors can trust with Texas is that they’ve won their last nine games coming off a loss.

It’s one of the best situational trends going.

The other trend to follow has been just betting on the Indians to win, especially when they play Detroit. Following the weekend scalping of the Tigers at Comerica Park by a 22-8 combined score, the Indians have now gone 9-0 against the Tigers this season.

Sunday’s 9-3 win was also their ninth win in a row and made them 18-6 for the month to extend their lead over Kansas City to five games in the AL Central.

Read More Here....Gaming Today

Cubs prop posted: 100 wins, lay -160 for OVER

Cubs fans loving the South Point props on their team this season.

LAS VEGAS -- The Washington Nationals had baseball’s best record (14-4) through Sunday, which translates to +8.4 units if betting them every game, which also is the best return on investment. But the really big story of April has been the Cubs at 14-5 and looking every bit like the best team as many prognosticators predicted.

Every year the Cubs are the team with the biggest World Series risk at sportsbooks, just because it’s a normal process for visitors to make the bets for friends and family. There is this love and fascination with the Cubbies because of a history that hasn’t seen them win a World Series since 1908. Also, millions of Americans watched them daily on WGN when cable television started get in everyone’s home in 1980. They partied with Harry Caray daily in the afternoon’s and it just stuck for most.

“Cub fans have been waiting since the (Leo) Durocher years to have a team this good,” said South Point sportsbook director Chris Andrews. “And this team is definitely legit. They have it all; starting pitching, hitting and solid bullpen.”

To capitalize on the popularity of the Cubs, Andrews posted couple of different props for the fans to chew on. One asks whether or not the Cubs will win 100 games or more with YES being -160 and NO +140. I’m starting to believe 100 is a strong possibility.

Initially, I thought 94 wins was a crazy thought just because of Chicago being in the NL Central with St. Louis and Pittsburgh, who both finished ahead of them last season. But Pittsburgh has been disappointing even though they’re 10-9. The past three seasons they had one of the best bullpens, but this year, it stinks. The Bucs pen has blown 3 of 8 save opportunities and has a 4.79 ERA – only six teams are worse. And the starting pitching hasn’t been getting to the seventh inning, so the pen has been worked hard every game. Because of the Pittsburgh rating being dropped, the Cubs become the beneficiary within the division.

Also Jake Arrieta is every bit as good as he was last season when he won the NL Cy Young Award. No way he can duplicate 2015, right? Think again, he’s won all four of his starts and allowed only two earned runs (0.87 ERA). He’s also thrown a no-hitter and even hit a homer. Throw in Jason Hammel allowing only two runs over his four starts plus the bullpen looking outstanding and you can see why I’ve changed my Cubs stance.

Andrews posted a prop on Arrieta asking whether or not he’ll throw a no-hitter again in the 2016 regular season, which he should have about 29 starts remaining. “We opened at NO -700, but the pros bet it up to -800. The public is taking the YES at 6-to-1.”

Still, winning three series makes it tougher than ever to win the World Series, unlike the 1908 Cubs that disposed of the Tigers in five games (4-1). No wild cards, no league championships, it was just one best of seven series way back then. And if the Cubs don’t win it this year, who will be the goat adding to the lovable loser mystique that no other sports franchise has? Have to blame someone, right?

Andrews is getting lots of Cubs future action and dropped their World Series odds from 4-to-1 down to 3-to-1 on Sunday.

Read More Here on NBA and NFL happenings............GamingToday.com

Cubs favored to win 2016 World Series; Diamondbacks respected by Vegas

Sensational race and sports book design at Green Valley Ranch.

LAS VEGAS -- The four-day MLB Winter Meetings from Opryland in Nashville have come and gone. Thursday was the final day of the sessions, during which baseball executives mingle with each other, create relationships and try to improve their teams via trades. The agents for 134 free agents negotiated to get their clients the biggest payday, or in some cases, just put in the best situation.

Las Vegas sports books have been keeping their eyes on the happenings in order to adjust team ratings and futures odds. There aren’t any games posted for wagering yet, but betting on the World Series and pennants has been open at most books since the end of October.

“We’re just watching the wire and looking at each team on a case-by-case basis,” said Station Casinos sports book director Jason McCormick of his staff‘s routine during the meetings.

“David Price (Red Sox) and Zack Greinke (Diamondbacks) were the major players requiring adjustments to both the team they left for and arrived from.”

See all the updated World Series odds.....The Linemakers.com