Conference tournaments can provide an interesting futures bet. Because they are a tournament rather than a full season bet like most futures, there is more than one way to approach them. The odds betting works the same, as a season long futures bet if you want to bet, say Butler at +600 to win the Horizon League Tournament, in that if they win you get paid off at 6 to 1. However, since it is a single-elimination tournament you are essentially betting a string of money line parlays on Butler to win the entire tournament.
That thought process of a string of money line parlays goes, that if you bet Butler to win each game and then take you original bet plus your winnings and bet on them in the next game and each subsequent game you're doing the same thing as betting Butler at +600 at the beginning of the tournament. What are the advantages of betting it this way, as opposed to just betting Butler at +600? There are two, savings and flexibility.
The first advantage is savings. Books (whether online or offshore) often have a higher hold (what the book takes out of the total pot of tournament futures as a % of total bets) on futures bets than they do on game to game money line bets. Books are basically charging you an extra fee to only have to make one bet, instead of a bet each time Butler plays. The only risk from this approach is if Butler were to play teams that pulled upsets before beating the Bulldogs. This may lead to the Dawgs having lower moneyline odds than you were expecting making it more difficult to get a full 6 to 1 payoff, then if they were to win each game against top opponents as you rolled your bets over.
The second advantage of this approach is flexibility. Once you place the pre-tournament bet on Butler, you're locked in to it for the duration of the tournament. Yes, it is possible to hedge or try and middle portions or part of your original bet throughout the tournament. We however find it easier to make that decision on a game by game basis.
Think about this illustration. Bulter has opened up as an 11 point favorite against Wright St., which converts to about a -500 moneyline favorite. You want to risk 1 unit to win 6 with Butler as a champion in a futures bet. So you risk 1 unit that Butler beats Wright St. and you win 0.2 units. You now have 1.2 units. You now risk this 1.2 units when Butler plays assumed opponent Wisconsin Milwaukee in a game where they're likely to be -110 on the money line (both teams were favored by 4 at home, making a neutral game a likely pick'em). Butler wins this netting you a total of 2.3 units.
At this point you could quit betting and take your 2.3 units home as Butler faces off against top seeded Valparaiso at Valpo. Butler as lost to twice this season to Valpo. You would keep 1.3 units of profit. Butler was recently a 1.5 point underdog at Valparaiso and having lost to them twice this year, may open as a 3 point underdog, and say +160 on the money line. This gives you a bunch of options.
The first option is, you could put 1 unit on Butler on the ML and keep 1.3 units you have guaranteeing yourself a return, but with a chance to win 1.6 more units on this game. You then could roll over the winnings and bet the championship game. Assuming Butler were to play #2 seeded Cleveland St where they're likely to be a slight underdog and maybe +130 on money line you could roll the 2.6 units (1 unit bet +1.6 won) into the +130 bet. If the Bulldogs were to then win the championship you would win an additional 3.4 units, when added to the 2.6 you risked, you have 6 units. At the same time, you also took 1.3 units (guaranteeing you a profit of 0.3 units had Butler lost) off the table. You now have won 6.3 units (1.3 off the table + 6 units from the championship game - 1 unit bet to start) and were "free rolling" the last two games.
A second option is to continue to have faith and keep rolling your winnings over. Under this scenario, if Butler beats Valpo the 2.3 units becomes 6 units (2.3 + 3.7 won on +160) before even betting Butler in the championship game. You then could roll those 6 units into the +130 bet against Cleveland St. netting you +1277 (6 units +7.7 won on +130, -1 unit originally risked) as opposed to the +600 you bet before the tournament started.
A third option if Butler beats Valpo under the scenario above is to go back to the first and second options all over again. You could walk away with 6 units, risk part of the 6 units, or risk all of the 6 units.
The options above are just an illustration and obviously dependent on picking the right team that can make a run. Also, the growth nature of the bet helps if the team you bet continually plays and beats the higher ranking teams as opposed to playing a team that upset a Valparaiso or Cleveland St. Either way, we think this illustration shows the flexibility you have in playing tournament futures this way, as opposed to just betting them before the tournament.
Below we have a breakdown of the Big South and Horizon League. We've used two sources that project the chances of the teams to win the tournament,
TeamRankings.com and
Ken Pom who utilizes a Log5 analysis. We've then converted these chances into odds and compared them to some current odds offered. If a team is positive it shows that the odds offered would turn a profit based on either sources predicted chances. We hope this may help show you where value maybe found, and where you may want to employ our strategy described above. As you can see below, Campbell in the Big South provides the most value based on the chances of
TeamRankings.com and
Ken Pom.
