Summer is here, and that means football season is upon us. A summer tradition unlike any other — grinding out research for football futures. I’m writing this one up a little earlier than I planned to, because the price is so fantastic, and I just don’t see how we don’t see significant movement here.
Follow along on Twitter — @julianedlow — for some betting analysis on both NFL and college football leading up to the season. Here’s one interesting parlay in the futures market that immediately jumped out to me on DraftKings Sportsbook.
College Football Futures Parlay
SEC West Division Winner: Alabama (-265)
To Reach BIG 12 Conference Final: Oklahoma (-335)
Parlay Odds (-127)
These are two of the most underpriced futures in the college football market, and the fact we can parlay them is an absolute steal. Before we get into the actual football aspect of the bet, I just want to start by comparing the odds.
DraftKings Sportsbook is giving us by far the best prices in the market here. Some other books have Alabama’s SEC West odds priced at -450 and Oklahoma’s odds to play in the BIG 12 Title game at -550. Those books don’t even allow you to parlay these outcomes, but if they did, that would put the odds at -225. We’re saving nearly a full dollar in juice by betting on DraftKings Sportsbook, which is practically unheard of. Aside from the rest of the books not letting us parlay these outcomes, a large majority also don’t even offer the division winners, simply the conference winners.
Alabama’s win total is set at 11.5 this season. Alabama’s toughest game will come at Texas A&M, where the Tide are 9.5-point favorites in the lookahead line. This team is priced at -167 to win the SEC Championship game, and we just need them to win their division and reach the game.
The structure of the BIG 12 is a bit different, with just the top-two teams reaching the title game. The Sooners have a win total set at 11. Their toughest test comes against Iowa State, where they are 8.5-point home favorites on the lookahead line. Oklahoma is -143 (DraftKings Sportsbook is offering a great price there too — the price is -170 or higher at other shops) to win their conference title, but again, we’re avoiding the need to even win the game, just reach it.
We could easily see a scenario where both teams go under their win totals (11-1 for ‘Bama and 10-2 for OU) and still reach their conference title games without much of a sweat. I’ll still be betting on both of these teams to win their conference title games, and it’d be pretty shocking if both don’t finish in the top-four in the country when it comes time for the College Football Playoff.
Could each of these teams slip up one game? Sure, and that could cost you a win total over, or a conference championship future if it winds up happening in that game. But I think this is the best way to back dominant regular seasons from these teams, while allowing some wiggle room just in case.
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All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
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