In their weekly AMA episode, Jay (@croucherJD) and Drew (@whale_capper) tackle questions on staying true to their process and how they size different types of wagers before handicapping Novak Djokovic as the favorite to win ATP Rome and price a potential head-to-head between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the French Open. The duo also reflect further on the events at Churchill Downs over the weekend and conclude with their thoughts on Mavericks vs. Thunder in Game 1, as well as PSG vs Dortmund in the 2nd Leg of the Champions League Semi-Finals. #NBCSports #SportsBetting #NBAPlayoffs #ATPTour
(0:00) – Welcome to Bet the Edge
(1:00) – Staying true to a process, least favorite sport to watch that is profitable, and sizing for different types of bets
(23:45) – ATP Rome outright + Potential Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal pricing at the French Open
(32:30) – Kentucky Derby roundup: Favorite cocktails and food at Churchill Downs, memorable horses, and parimutuel betting strategy
(37:30) – Tuesday headliners: PSG vs Dortmund Champions League Semi-Final, Mavericks vs. Thunder Game 1
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Sticking to a process, ATP Rome bets + Mavericks-Thunder Game 1 | Bet the Edge (5/7/24) | NBC Sports
https://www.youtube.com/nbcsports
all right welcome to bet the edge I’m Jay Croucher here with Drew dini recording Monday afternoon leading up to Nick’s Paces Timberwolves nuggets uh as we’re recording don’t know if Rudy goar is going to make it to the game um we have a group chat that is lighting up with potential flight paths from Minnesota to Denver which I thought we were passed after show haani didn’t sign with the Blue Jays but we’re back on flight path bet um today we’re going to tackle some question questions from listeners in our AMA then we’ll talk little Mavs Thunder and PSG Dortmund but let’s start off Drew with question from our friend uh the gentleman I know you mentioned rough patches but would love for you to discuss not losing confidence in your modeling or handicapping process versus fixing something that may be fundamentally wrong in your process uh well funny enough I watched the gentleman on uh the airplane out of Louisville uh great uh guy Richie movie from back in 2019 and leads into a new guy Richie series which is uh pretty entertaining as well that was my uh that was my U inflate entertainment going home after the Derby but uh it’s this is a really good question and I want to try to answer this in a couple of different ways uh and I’ll start out with uh saying that you need a meaningful sample size where you are still beating the market and you know kind of whatever your approach is that’s a little bit different that is getting you an edge um you know the market is still coming with you but the results that you’re doing as you are auditing your own performance are telling you that that you know you’re losing and you know it’s not luck right like that’s kind of the key is separating luck from results you almost never want to be results based entirely you want to have some sort of framework where you’re like okay um this was my expected Pace in this game this was my expected offensive and defensive efficiency this was my expected shooting percentages right like this is what we were expecting this is what happened and then you from there you can do a pretty careful uh you know put those two up side by side and say it was a good bet it was a Bad Bet and if you have enough Bad Bet stacked up but the market is coming with you then what’s happening in my mind is there’s probably somebody else out there who has figured out you know some other kind of key um you know aspect to um you know that when the market will eventually stop coming with you and that’s kind of the sign where it’s like okay know somebody else out there has the keys has sort of the um you know the more well functioning algorithm they’re crunching the data more effectively and uh that’s when it’s very important to uh pivot off your process right uh some losing streaks are luck based I feel like I’m kind of mired in one that’s somewhat luck based right now um you know if you lose if you lose a massive play on an under because the game goes overtime like you kind can throw your hands up like hey this happens right if you lose a tennis match when you know your your opponent had match point on serve and hit just an alltime serve and you know the the the the returning player just happened to get it back in in play and then ultimately then lets leads to a lose like you played a dog price you had a good bet you know you you live with those sort of things and so um it’s like you as long as you have a kind of a consistent process where you’re looking at results and you’re separating luck from um you know what’s actually happened from a result standpoint then I think you’re in pretty good CH you know pretty good shape to make some of those decisions and I’m always I’m constantly listening to other content of people who have what I would either consider an informational Edge an an ex’s and0 Edge or you know just in general are looking through at the game that I’m handicapping with a little bit of a different prism right it’s just a slightly different lens and uh you know the times where I’m questioning things the most is sort of when I lean into that the hardest just to sort of hear someone who’s not kind of in the mud in the muck losing money like what is their perspective on what’s happening in this series what’s happening in this matchup what’s happening in this sport um and uh you know so I think those are kind of the tools and the uh kind of methodologies that I use to try to help uh stop a a losing stretch and um you know again like if it’s bad process and bad luck that are combining and you know you’re you’re really in hurt then I think that’s when you basically just need to take some time away from from the handicap yeah I think this question is probably more relevant for someone if you’re you know you’re basing your betting um career or interest off of you know trying to be lines and totals and doing you know player based models um and having to test um against the market constantly for someone like me who’s mainly betting um you know Futures markets and player markets and awards and like my like I’m betting Nar Reed at 150 to1 when he’s 13 to when I think he should be 13 to one so there’s a fair bit of margin for error baked in there where like if I’m wrong on that then like I’m very very wrong um and I think that it’s more this kind of process and evaluation of process is probably more relevant when you’re betting thinner margins um and I was talking um about this with someone at lunch just before actually about how like there’s basically there are two ways to win one is by solving the hardest markets with a lot of liquidity and the other is trying to beat softer markets and your struggle is getting the liquidity um and the former I think this question is probably more applicable to I think for the most part like you can generally evaluate you know post after the fact whether you got in good or not like uh last year I had a big bet after the Celtics went down 3 to the heat in the Eastern Conference Finals had a big bet on the Celtics at 25 to1 to win the title um just on the idea that this is a pretty solvable market now that you can just kind of multiply out what the projected money lines will be four times against Miami and then Boston’s average price in the finals and that bet ended up going down at hurdle four um after they lose game seven but based on what the money line prices were and based on what they were going to be in the finals that was a good bet just lost that’s fine um but that like evaluating going back like that I think is useful but yeah for for the most part um yeah this is super relevant when you’re dealing um with fine margins um anything else that you wanted to hit around this tour well I guess uh I should qualify my belly aing and being you know pity party that I’m throwing myself on our podcast now is somewhat exaggerated like I hit every series bit I made and R one of the NBA Playoffs that all caching has kept kept me you know fairly liquid without really much stress other than you know the um you know the the emotional toll that comes along with uh you know being wrong on an information market like the draft which is embarrassing being wrong on the Derby when you spend you know all of these hours handicapping One race and it’s horses and there’s 20 of them right like you know like there there’s there are uh you know certain aspects to being you know kind of a publicly facing part of the conversation when it comes to gambling that uh just it exaggerates it makes the winning more fun and it makes the losing tougher and um you know I think uh I’ve gotten to the place where I stick to my process and my my particularly my evalu Val ation of results looking at it through the lens of luck taking try taking luck out um and if you have a way to do that then I think you’re going to find that uh you know the the highs and lows start to flatten out a little bit right and that’s really all that you can ask for especially if you actually have an edge I think yeah it is funny being you know in in our position it’s not like and it’s not like with Leonardo DiCaprio walking down the straight in Los Angeles or whatever but when you do take kind of public stances you do in a weird way feel the wins and losses a little bit more I have people I have um sure you won’t mind me saying this you know Greg Rosenthal the NFL guy came up me in a restaurant being like sorry about Joe flacker like I don’t know I’ve never met you before like newest F to of My Life um and but at the same time it makes you know when you do get wins that you publicly talk about makes their more fulfilling um and it’s not so much the monetary aspects like there’s a lot of stuff I bet on that you know I don’t really talk about in a public facing Forum because no one really wants to hear about my bets on who’s going to get relegated in Syria or whatever but um those form as much of my portfolio as the as the nzed and Demar Hamlin stuff but yeah that is it is a strange aspect um which is a little artificial but certainly plays into how you feel about wins and losses the only other thing I want to say about this is that I will say in terms of process and losing confidence or not I think a big advantage that um I’ve developed or cultivated or improved over the past few years is that probably have more of a network now of just people to bounce ideas off where I can be like am I crazy that I think that Kobe white should be this price or NZ Reed should be this price or goar should be this price or whatever and then I will just kind of gain consensus from enough people that you know I’m not crazy and then that kind of reinforces that all right I’ve been betting for x amount of years I’ve won at X percentage so that gives you a certain confidence and then you know other people who also win and have done over a long period of time and then you’re if you’re all arriving at the same consensus process is probably pretty Rock Solid so I think that developing a network of people who win and who you respect um is very important because it’s a lot it’s a lot more difficult doing this in isolation no I go is a really great Point um final on this and the public this is sort of going back more to the public facing aspect of it like um the other thing that you end up the more reps you do of this sort of talking about what you bet the better you get at articulating your point right and there may be some there are some edges we talk about where I’m like I think this is an edge right but you say it like the Super Bowl’s a great example right like this you know the the edge between the Chiefs and the ners you everyone who watched that game I would hope came out of that saying wow that was really close right everyone who came out of the previous Super Bowl against Eagles I hope they would say wow that was really close and like you you you do enough interviews that week that you’re just like snowball rolling downhill and the last interview you do it may sound like the most confident bet anyone’s ever made in history just because all of your points are so finely detailed you know what has landed what it hasn’t and when you’ve talked to other people and so now you have like this airtight like closing argument you know so to speak for the jury and uh I always kind of try to cool it down at that point because somebody’s going to listen to that and they could listen to your conf level of confidence and be like wow well they’re absolutely right I’m gonna get a little bit more involved than I ought to in this game because that was so compelling and uh I think uh you know I would hope that everybody who’s kind of listening to us recognizes at least that you know we do our best to um talk about this from a probabilistic standpoint we’re not ever really ever I’m never blowing smoke on I think this is a bet and then not actually betting it myself or at least you know kind of coming up with uh you know ways to what capitalize on what we think our edges so um yeah it’s it’s uh it’s fundamentally uh tricky uh doing this but it’s also uh hugely fun when we do get things right and uh hopefully that’ll be uh sooner than later in the CBA playoffs yeah I think it also like it depends on the market type like if you know we say that we like C Series price against the magic like we’re talking about minus 190 onus 225 fair or whatever whereas there are going to be other markets like you know we will talk about certain Niche cycling events or I’m sure there’ll be lots of stuff in the Olympics where it’s like you know this is plus 300 in the market and we think it should be like minus 180 or something um and I do think you know not to blow smoke for us but like when we do take strong positions like we do generally back that up with our own money and we we do lose um substantially if we are wrong about something Celtics Warriors is a very recent example that was and that is one where third quarter of game four I was ready to freaking start hanging banners man I I was like it’s coming like this is it they’re gonna win this game and it’s coming and then Steph Curry flips the switch and it was over and I will go to my grave and I will bet that edge every single time it comes along and you good percentage of those times Steph Curry’s not going to turn into the greatest player of all time for that quarter and really flip the game so um yeah and this that kind of goes back to the key point of this all which is you gotta have a post you have a you have to have a post result process that takes the actual result out of the picture and really just looks at what was luck what was real what can you take mov going forward yep no for sure and I think like the biggest thing is simply that uh I can’t remember the exact qu but Peter King interviewed Eli Manning after the second Super Bowl where he throws the pass to Mario Manningham and Eli just gives a variation of the idea that you know you have to be okay throwing the pass knowing that there is a chance that it’s going to get pick sixth in the Super Bowl and you’re going to go down in flames but so long as you made the right decision at the moment it’s pretty easy to live with the consequences so ultimately like all we are doing is just trying to We’re just trying to flip slightly loaded coins um and balance prob they’ll land in their favor and really the key is is just trying to find as many coins as possible and then hopefully some um are heavier um than others all right uh question from uh dunga Jin what’s your least favorite sport to watch but you have the greatest advantage in oh um not this is gonna sound crazy but at this moment it’s the NFL I thought the NFL product last year was terrible I thought there were a lot of unw able games I had a lot of uh you know my most favorite part of the NFL process last year was really just watching the condensed you know Recaps and finding specific parts of games to kind of key on instead of sitting through the uh you know the slog of some of the uh some of the stuff we had particularly the uh the Thursday packages which were just a real rough hang last year so um some of it was the quality of quarterback play and hopefully that as these young players come in and start thriving and get better than all of it flips on a dime but at the current stand Edge for NFL relative to how much I enjoyed watching the games last year didn’t really tie um I love watching tennis I I will sit down and watch Tennis every morning with my coffee and and the European clay it has been just a very very fun spring in that regard uh and uh NBA I I would say that would that’s that those are the only three Sports I have an edge on if we’re being honest and so I have to pick one of three I’m picking the NFL uh I would put the NFL ahead of the NBA only only if uh you know the quarterback play gets better otherwise the NBA is tough for me to watch just because I don’t have underpinnings of understanding what’s going on on the court the way I would with Tennison and NFL so um it’s a it’s a close call but for me right now quality of the product in the NBA feels very good other than Mavs C other than Cav’s magic but uh but the NFL needs to needs to pick it up a little bit it’s funny because I think my favorite sport to watch that I have um a large bet on is now actually like NHL playoffs just something about the kind of cadence of the sport the fact that it’s three periods the periods go by fairly quickly and action is continuous it’s not stop start like football or or basketball it’s like continuous and obviously there are breaks but it feels continuous within the period and then you get a 20-minute break to Exhale and it’s 20 minutes and then you back in it for real Pace uh and so just kind of know what I’m signing up for it’s going to be exhilarating it’s going there is going to be swings that happen rapidly out of nowhere um games don’t really just kind of Wither into nothingness unless it’s Leafs Bruins game seven um so that is kind of weirdly become my favorite my least favorite to watch that I may have an advantage in sometimes is college basketball like I just like the level of play I’ll never forget having a bet on needing the UTSA road runners to win um against the team that escapes me but I don’t think they hit the rim in the last five minutes of the game it’s like what the hell is this like ABS it’s not a good product at this point and some college basketball is a great product March Madness is a great product but lower level college basketball which is often where the biggest edges are um can be very not fun uh if you’re betting on a team that just absolutely melts yes all right next question yeah real quick sidebar uh the only sport that I will watch and love and I have 0.0 Edge on is golf sure the Masters was I I watched so many minutes of the Masters and I loved it even though it was a terrible result for me and I’m gonna do it again next year yep all right there you go question from Steven gett without using real dollar amounts I’d love to know how each of you thinks about sizing different types of bets thanks um I think of uh basically I’m trying to time um my entry into markets with uh decent enough liquidity on a single bet before without Market moving um and uh and then getting in before the end bosses get in that close that’s all that really matters to me and I’m just basically playing uh single limit uh midweek NFL mid morning NBA uh for sides and totals and with the limits that I have access to and if I really feel strongly about something I’ll hit it more than once um but uh you know for the most part almost everything I bet will move on screen um and those in NBA and NFL at least I can find more fun ways to get down in tennis Without Really wrecking prices but um you know fundamentally I have um uh in my staking uh and just the way limits work uh I have put about the same amount of liquidity into a given in the NFL as I would uh into a given week in the NBA as I would into a given week in tennis and it’s not the same number of bets um but it is uh uh it’s pretty much just kind of overall that’s uh kind of what I’m comfortable risking at a given week um and when it comes to Futures markets bets I very rarely am ever um getting enough of a stake down on a single click that I’m really that excited about that that’s more just sort of fun stuff to have on the side to root for from what I can you know kind of best I can explain it um and I’ve thought hard about should you know if if if I have strong performance in the Futures markets uh over a given time I’ll think hard about do I need to find ways to get more money down on this like Jay does or do I need to uh you know just kind of live with what I can get because uh you know again like the mechanics of betting at some point become challenging for a professional or even a semi professional player uh and uh I just kind of take what I get yep for the stuff that I’m betting for the most part I’m just trying to get down the maximum that I can um and usually that’ll pop out at you know x amount um but for the most part like I’m not betting as much on like I think at this point I have a pretty good idea on what I have edges on and what I don’t uh and I’m pretty confident in being able to calculate fairs for what I’m betting on and if I’m bet on you know something that is minus 115 in the market when I think Fair should be minus 130 then obviously I’m going to stake significantly Less on that relative to something that is 10 to one that I think is you know plus 350 fair or whatever um when I’m betting and also just always more reticent to go bigger on more liquid markets because I think you have to have a kind of fear of the boogeyman there that there is someone out there who is smarter than you who knows what they’re doing whereas there are other markets where I’m pretty confident that you know it’s just mispriced um and there’s not enough liquidity in the market to arrive at anything resembling truth whereas yeah I’m not interested in blasting into an NFL total uh on Sunday at 104 a yeah there’s there’s fear of the boogeyman at close that I don’t want to compete with uh and then there’s other funny fear of the boogeyman stories real quick that I could tell like um these this never works out never in fact I would I I wish I had an actual list of uh when this you know what what these are but and maybe it’s just mental you know it’s mental games I’m playing with myself but uh I feel like if you if I’m betting into a Futures Market or a series price or whatever and the market moves and I’m now looking I’m like man I didn’t get as much as I I didn’t get as message somebody didn’t get as much as I wanted on blank uh was Grizzlies Lakers last year was a good example right like oh man I wanted some Grizzlies at likeus 120 on the open and moved to like 135 140 and you know I’m blabbing up man I wish I could get more Grizzlies and somebody shows up in your mentions or your you know your messages who you know and they’re like I heard you want more more Grizzlies like yeah I did yeah I did say that like I’ll give it to you at this price right and those deals almost always go have gone against me even and you know some of them it was bad bets on my part and somebody on the other side had a very good uh you know kind of point of view on the handicap cap of a gamer series playoff games NFL another good example where this has happened where you’re doing big free matches with other very skilled players and that’s big game hunting and it’s uh it’s it’s it’s tough and um you got to be a little careful Stak wise with those type of bets because you don’t want those to decide your your season your postseason whatever um because uh yeah you get a little uh get a little loose yep I think the biggest thing with bet sizing is just being cognizant of what Market you’re betting into uh and having the confidence that you are right um relative to your fair um versus more liquid markets um which are gon to be harder to be all right question from Dr Jeff e cat in Rome who is meeting Joker in the final dra well Jay doesn’t matter this Joker’s gonna beat him um it’s probably gonna be cispus uh I like what I’m seeing from him right now uh I know there is Big public news that everybody is hanging on the uh you know hanging on the uh the Twitter timeline for details on but uh cisos and Paul BOS J Amic amicably broken up um so Steph is amicable yes it was amicable yes they’ve they had a great time they live they learned they learned a lot they loved A lot it was it was a Happy Happy Feelings all around uh that said uh the focus that he’s had so far on this clay cycle has been impressive he’s playing at a high level and I think um his bottom half of the draw uh I I wish I could tell you that it was uh Nadal uh but honestly him putting together consecutive top level performances has been elusive to this point uh in his clay comeback and if he’s not doing it with extra rest in best of three um you know I’m worried about his uh ability to sustain at Roland garos but in Rome jokovic is on top he’s gonna have to go through a little bit of a tough test rud on in his quarter he he’s likely going to have zerov in the semifinal and then if I you form my money I I think it’s probably going to be sisas in the final um and ultimately I think it does not matter because jokovic plus 250 is a bet at at that price if you can find it and I think um uh this is sort of where he rounds into form for Roland garos if he ever does and um you know he may have some don’t lose confidence if he doesn’t look great in his first couple of matches as he sort of gets his uh playing legs under him but uh I think the semi quarterfinals semi-finals finals here against you know high level competition those three young guys in particular if that’s who he plays um he gets wins there and I think he’s probably your he’s going to go off as your clear favor for Roland gas considering what’s going on with CER Health considering what’s going on with alcarez health considering what’s going on with Nadal in terms of uh stamina okay well speaking of Nadal question from Zack Palmer if jovic and Nadal were to play today at R and Goos against each other let’s infer some health from the do um how do you see the match playing out so if this in this setup this is like it’s exhibition but it also probably has sort of like finality for Nadal right like this is this setup is kind of like the last kind of most important match of his career and he di digs deep in moments when his body is failing him so uh it’s tough for me to doubt that Nadal is going to be able to put up a fight um but the um the realistic price for a match like that is something like jokovic minus 250 Maybe higher um maybe minus 280 uh best of five I’m assuming we’re doing here and uh I think the most likely outcome is probably jokovic 31 uh and uh really it would be more like jokovic lets Nadal kind of get some of the get the some of the early momentum of the match and then he takes it away in uh set two pushes him you know really kind of asks him physically uh and then uh kind of pulls away in many sets three and four so um maybe I’m overrating jokovic right now because certainly we have not seen him play a lot of tennis in 2024 and we haven’t seen him really play any good tennis in 2024 so you could be like man you got a lot of confidence for a guy who’s just not playing very much or playing very well uh and I like my answer is like yeah I know but like he’s at the stage in his career where all he’s really caring about is slams he played too much into last fall which is why he was so poor in Australia uh and I think he specifically took that lesson so he could take his foot off the gas uh through the first first half of this year so that he’s going to be in Peak form when it gets to Wimbledon I’m sure he cares about rolling gas as well and he would love to double those up but uh I think it’s pretty clear at least he’s going to start ramping up here in Rome uh to try to take home a couple more titles before it’s uh you know it’s the next Generations turn to shine yep no uh that all makes sense to me all right with just two matches left Arsenal continue their fight to stay at top the table when they face man united at Old Trafford tune in this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. EAS and only on peacock all right couple more questions from uh Travis Tom admitted to deflate gate on the roast were you on the right side or wrong side of the Brady Pats era and which cocktail food won the Derby for you um I wasn’t really on a side necessarily during the Pats era uh I did lose decent amount of money on the Pats Ram Super Bowl um the the latter one was embedding on Pat’s Rams uh the initial one when I was like 10 years old or whatever um but the latter one uh was very that was a we talk about evaluating process it just a Bad Bet for me I was betting my opinion too much back then thought the Rams would win they didn’t they really come that close um so I think I’m a bit better of a better now that I am then but that was the only real I guess memorable position that I was on in The Brady patzi era uh and then which cocktail food won the Derby for you well what won Thurby for me uh um well we we actually yeah you weren’t really around for this initially but we went to a bad Buffet uh when we we had an option of a superior buffet and didn’t work out but I think the cocktail is the um the mid Jewel clearly um which is little little bourbon um but I’m not afraid of a little bourbon uh and overall was a positive experience but what about you drew um well the Pat Brady era uh I don’t know if people know this but the last teams that I was able really divorce myself from really being invested in the team success more than just the gambling implications was the Patriots and the Red Sox in football and baseball respectively um and I had connections to those teams because in my formative years we moved to Boston and um that was when Drew bledo and Bill Parcels got the Patriots to the Super Bowl against the Packers and I was like oh heck yeah this is awesome um and uh the first kind of winning Real Real Deal winning bet I ever had in my life was betting on the Patriot to to win the uh against the Rams in 2001 and I bet on Tom Brady in almost every playoff game he ever started uh The Only Exception was against the Chiefs where he beat him as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers uh were just an absolute machine that day um I don’t think there was a single other Playoff game including Tampa Bay getting throttled by Dallas in Brady’s last playoff game including Tom Brady getting throttled by Tennessee in his last home Patriots game I think I don’t think I ever played a bet against him in his entire career and uh he was he made be more money betting than any other player in football by far um and I think uh it was cool to see the roast and if you haven’t checked it out it was a it was a pretty cool overall thing that they pulled off I don’t know how uh but uh everybody had good everybody had good attitude go figure uh funny enough about the deflate gate part of it um I still will laugh To My Grave because the that market was very very high Andrew Luck and the Colts that day and they could they might as well have been playing with a rugby ball it did not matter like what the inflation pressure of those footballs was and whatever they were doing and all that time and effort and all that ink spilled and you know kind of the TA tearing down of the Brady uh you know kind of um uh icon iconic image like it’s it was all quite silly I thought and uh I’m glad he kind of bounced back and had uh some Super Bowls in him after that moment but uh best food and drink at the Derby was uh The Paddock Club um The Churchill Down spent $200 million uh renovating The Paddock area and The Paddock Club uh they also had the neighboring SI Club on either sides of the kind of the tunnel where they bring the horses out onto the track um and uh honestly I have never in my all the years I’ve gone I have never once been impressed by the food or the drink there they have always been underwhelming uh but it’s it’s like all you can eat all you can drink so I kind of was just like ah whatever I don’t care you know and so uh I just sort of laughed it off well the food and drink at The Paddock Club was on a different level they had chillian Seabass they had main lobster tail um they had you know outstanding salads outstanding uh you know fair for you know it wasn’t like ballpark Fair it was like like Gourmet um they were popping French champagne they had French wine uh they had good California wine I was like okay uh this is this is quite quite a different life different level of experience so money well spent by Churchill Downs upgrading those and if you are kind of in like sort of the corporate uh world and you uh you’re getting treated to a derby experience I would ask for the P club uh first and foremost uh the access to just be able to trot down and walk right onto the rail and put your hands in the dirt was like also crazy you’re standing out there with the owners and you know the key trainers and everybody the owner boxes are right there uh and uh easy access to the um to the wager window and everything to get your bets in so that was a pretty unbelievable experience okay next question from Jordan based on what you saw at the Derby what are your early thoughts on the prus what you most this weekend uh was it torpedo Anna sure uh yes Anna was the most surprising for sure um I thought uh the Mystic Dan result uh was less surprising because we saw him do it once at the Southwest and he caught the Golden Rail uh and made the most of it and that some of that could have been a little bit true about torpedo Anna as well and you know the fact that you had the same jockey who his you know kind of played into his tactics uh you know kind of riding the rail at Churchill Downs and that it happened to be fast because of the rain that came through on Friday um maybe it should not have been a surpris but the Kentucky Oaks was very very fast off the first half and and I thought the horses on the lead were just going to get completely cooked uh and have a difficulty to close and some very very good horses were closing in on Anna coming around that final turn and entering the home stretch and she pulled away to a degree that I had zero clue so that she had in her so that was amazing for early look in the pness it starts and ends with Muth um he was one of the most impressive hses in the run-ups to the Kentucky Kentucky Derby he wasn’t allowed to run in the Kentucky Derby because bford is suspended for cheating uh he will run at the pness and he will probably go off as a uh I think he’s probably going to go off under one to one I think he’s going to be in like the one three to fiveish range would be my guess he’s going to be so heavily bad if you can get a Futures pool bet on Mo right now at any price better than plus 100 take it okay there we go and last question around the Derby from our friend producer Pete how do you alter your betting strategy for horse racing with the paramutual aspect of it no reward for getting ahead of a line no such thing as SV what changes in your approach I SK more to humans as we know Drew so uh what you take this one so his his point if you don’t understand is is a great question which is the param mutual pool means you don’t know the race the odds of the winner until the money’s been counted and it gets divided up based on the the number of Wagers and so you can have a late closing push on a given hearse that collapses that price and you think you’re going to get three to one and it’s something much shorter um the the uh interesting thing is uh you can play a lot of Futures pools I did that early and often this year as we talked about on the show with uh uh with Barry uh we played into a horse at 100 to1 who we thought you this horse qualifies for the race he’s going to be in the top three like let’s get 100 to one now uh and hope he gets there he didn’t but uh playing into Futures pool is a great way to lock in fixed odds to avoid the paramutual headache um similarly offshore they have Futures Wagers on the Kentucky Derby that you can lock in a price and um when I bet honor Marie to win it was off of news of a workout that happened a week and a half before and it was literally just like this horse is expected to be 20 to1 he just went how fast in the this workout that is very sharp it had progression signal that you know you know it’s going to be a popular one on race day um and so it was a pretty obvious answer to just go fire into that market at 22 to1 and know it was going to be shorter when you got to Derby Day um the on Derby Day itself when you start to see a horse that you have had eyes for like stronghold for me this year where he was drifting drifting drifting and like you know expected 20 to1 on the morning line and was just getting no attention drifted out to 35 to1 it was like basically like I didn’t expect to have a big bet on stronghold to win but here we are this is not the price that I think is fair so we fire away and uh ultimately he didn’t have a close in him but otherwise I thought the process was reasonable and um you know for those reasons I think you just have to have an open mind and not commit too early to the horse you’re going to bet on because the you know the race conditions change and everything changes so aggressively uh and the paramutual price matters maybe most of all okay the road to the Indianapolis 500 later this month continues this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern with the Indie Grand Prix on NBC and peacock find out who takes the checked flag at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course um just quick thought on PSG Dortmund uh which kicks off 3 pm Eastern Tuesday uh the PSG are minus 210 favorites on the three-way money line they’re minus 165 to advance we’re talking about markets that are vulnerable uh invulnerable uh earlier on the Champions League money lines day again pretty hard to beat I’m not going to pretend like I have a massive Edge on PSG Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals the only thought I’d say is that just a a random soccer thought is that I think that when a team goes up against another that is is reduced to 10 men you get a really good insight into how well that team is coached I’ll never forget this well I’m going to kind of vaguely forget it now because I forget who they were playing but un am’s Arsenal came up against I think Watford with 10 men um in his tenure and Arsenal just had no idea how to break down 10man Watford and it’s like how what are you doing like what are you practicing like what is your team’s philosophy and I was very impressed unfortunately because had a lot of money on Barcelona but when Barcelona went down to 10 against PS G sometimes when you go up against 10 men it’s just kind of labored and you just don’t really have a plan PSG had a plan and it looked like they were going to score every time they went forward against Barcelona and I thought it was impressive how they just ruined Barca um in that stretch and look Dortmund were maybe a bit fortunate to get out of that PSG first leg with a win I suspect the PSG likely win um and then go through um as minus 165 favorites and then probably get the re well not rematch but they get the the matchup with Real Madrid and Killian mbappe’s uh likely new team next season well his new team next season all right before we jump out in two minutes Drew Mavs at Thunder game one Thunder three and a half Point favorites total 216 a half uh Thunder series price floating around from anywhere from- 115 to -130 uh what is your quick read on game one yes so uh Mavericks have a very very tough test to solve Defender defense in my opinion lud Dort especially being able to kind of really muck things up against Luca uh I’m excited to see and I think the Mavericks also have a ton of answers to solve defensively against a Thunder team that can spread you out with Chad Homen kind of being sort of the x- factor I think offensively for this series for the Thunder um now if Chad doesn’t have it if he’s if he’s stinking up the joint then uh the Thunder are going to have to do it ugly or they’re just really going to have to lean into uh SGA creating a lot of offense for this team but I think he’s perfectly capable of it with the matchups that he will be afforded and I think uh just in general um you know I’m I I would make this closer to four and a half uh personally and uh not a ton of rest Advantage built in for the Thunder to get that to that number um I just think this is a really well coach team with a defense that has to be upgraded based on uh what you saw in round one of this playoff series and if you can make you know if you can make life that difficult again for uh the guards and the you know the shot creation for the Maverick in this series if Luca is in any way limited physically um then this could be a short Series in favor of the thunder in my opinion I bet the Thunder series at this point I had Thunder features 5 to1 to win the West that I’ve heavily staked into and I think um this is going to be the team that I end up ride or dying with uh this year in the west unless um unless something weird happens in uh Minnesota comes through and I have to maybe rethink things but um yeah Thunder or pass here at 3 and A2 and I think the total is probably a little too high at 216 and A2 if you think back to the early series moments between Mavericks and Clippers and how that was just an absolute dead nut under of the series I could entirely see this being somewhat similar to start out um so I’m going to play Under 216 and a half on this Tuesday game as well okay yeah I think uh I lean Thunder as well with the series price I’m not sure like for the minus 115 out there I’m not sure that really reconciles with being three and a half Point favorite in game one unless you think the ratings are really going to change um for these teams I think the two things most interested in seeing one if Gafford and Lively can really punish OKC on the offensive glass which I think like those guys are both you know better than 90th percentile offensive rebounders and that is OKC’s flaw um in theory and then two just whether donic who held up fine um on defense against the Clippers whether he’s actually going to get exposed by the quickness um of Shay and Jaylen Williams to a lesser extent so those would be the two things I’m looking for uh I would like the MS to come out of the series for futures positions but do think that OKC um are the side and I think they are a bet if you can find some minus 115 to minus10 all right don’t forget to check out nbcsports.com for more information to help you with your wages thanks to those of you watching on the NBC Sports YouTube channel and if you’re listening to us in podcast form don’t forget to rate and subscribe also a reminder to find all your favorite NBC Sports shows on Amazon music just head to Amazon com/ NBC Sports from J Croucher and Drew din we’ll see you soon
