PromoGuy covers +EV odds boosts, promos and more for Action. Follow him on Twitter and in the Action Network app.
DraftKings has resurfaced its "early win" promo, this time for MLB. If the MLB team you bet on the moneyline ever leads by 2+ runs in the game, you cash your bet no matter what. And you'll still win even if they never lead by two and end up winning the game.
You can use it on one game per day, with a max bet of $50.
DK has offered something similar for the NFL in the past (up 7 points) and the NBA (up 10 points).
As I have said in the past, the key to this promo is finding the teams/profile of teams that maximize the value of the offer. The way to do this is to see how often certain teams win our bets due to the promo when they otherwise would not have.
The conclusions, as I predicted on Twitter before diving into the numbers, are these three:
1. Take away teams
Away teams in 2022 saw a 12.3% increase in win probability with this promo vs. without the promo, meaning away teams blew 2+ run leads in 12.3% of games. Home teams on the other hand blew leads in 7.3% of games.
By picking road teams, we are increasing our chances somewhat significantly of having our team cash due to the promo (5% more often). This makes sense because away teams bat first, so they're actually more likely to gain an (early) lead and lose it when the home team comes up to bat. By batting first they have first crack at scoring runs in each inning.
2. Take underdogs
A constant theme in all the "early win" promos has been, and will continue to be, underdogs.
Underdogs saw an 11.3% increase in win percentage when applying the promo while favorites saw an 8.5% increase. So the difference is about 2.8% in picking underdogs vs. favorites. Not nearly as important as picking road teams, but still helpful.
3. Take games with high over/unders
It's easier for teams to get 2+ run leads in games where lots of runs are expected. The difference here wasn't large because many games have similar over/unders in baseball, but was more stark at extremes. Games with above-average totals saw a 10.5% increase in win percentage when applying the promo vs 9.3% increase for games with below-average over/ unders (1.2% difference).
4. Find Favorable Lines vs. Other Books
A bonus thing to look for — it helps to pick teams with favorable lines at DraftKings compared to other books, as this always helps the EV.
Conclusion
In a perfect world, we would ideally find a +1000 line for a road team in a game with a total at 200 where we'd win almost every time since they would score 2+ runs the vast majority of the time in the first inning. Unfortunately, that won't exist in MLB.
We will have to settle for worse scenarios than this but with a 9.8% win probability on average and revving that up for the ideal team makes the EV very large for this promo.
If we take a 30% win probability team and get a decent line for them (say +225) and we expect them to win 42% of the time (purely using the away team's numbers – a high over under would help more obviously) the EV is 36.54%
You get that by doing (+225 – +138) x .42 = .3654.
This promo is available at DraftKings in the following states — Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.
