July 11, 2019: Futures

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with a look into the crystal ball. Yes, being out in Vegas, I always grab the futures bets. I never really play them… well, I did bet on the Cubs to win the 2016 World Series, and that worked out OK. Would I fire some money off on the Bears to win the Super Bowl?

The odds aren’t that great there, meaning, there are only 2 teams, the Pats and Chiefs with better odds to win the Super Bowl. This doesn’t make much sense though. Sure, it makes sense to me; I really like the Bears this year, and I do think they are a legit Super Bowl contender. But when you look at the over under win totals on the year, and the Bears have a win total of 9, it makes me nervous. Sure, the Bears always have a lot of public money coming in on them, which doesn’t help the cause either, but you know what, I don’t think it matters. Yeah, I know the whole kicking situation isn’t figured out, but other areas of the team are looking very strong. Lots of talk about Trubisky of course… at 30-1 odds to win MVP, I was tempted there. That would surely be a homer pick, but with Nagy pulling the strings on an offense that may throw the ball 40 times a game, it’s a solid, not impossible, long shot bet.

On the flip side of things were the outlooks for the Bulls and Blackhawks. The Bulls are currently 125-1 to win the NBA Finals. With the NBA being more wide open this year than most, could the Bulls possibly pull it off? Not likely. I do think the playoffs are in their future, maybe this year, and if they do get in the playoffs, with the East pretty much wide open, could they get there? And if they got there, could they pull it off? I feel like I’ve walked down this miraculous path before. Let’s just start with improving on their win total from last year… I didn’t see the over under win totals for next year. I remember writing about them last year, and how the Bulls total seemed like a slam dunk, but it wasn’t. Yeah, that’s Vegas. As far as the Hawks go, they started at 40-1, and now sit at 35-1 to win the Cup for the 4th time in 11 years. Is that worth a bet? I was shocked the Hawks traded Henri… wasn’t he supposed to be the future on defense that we’ve been waiting for? Well, I guess we’re confident in the boys coming up, and think we can pull a Strome by acquiring this new guy.

Finally, the Cubs and Sox… if you’re all aboard the Sox bandwagon, and you think THIS is the year, then you should jump on it… at 300-1 to win the World Series, now is your chance. Of course the Cubs have slightly better odds at 7-1, which is an improvement from the opening 9-1 odds, but are still not as good as the Dodgers who sit at 16-5. The real money sits with the Royals, Tigers, and Orioles at 10,000-1; feeling lucky?

Well, I passed on them all; almost put a little dough on Wimbledon, which would have been a pure guess, but would have satisfied my sports gambling bug for the moment. Yeah, we may not have to be in Vegas to place a legal wager on sports for much longer…