DraftKings will continue its up 7, up 10 early win promotion for Week 2 of the NFL season.
Last week, the Action Network made picks on all 16 games and netted a profit of $383.50 for $50 maximum wager bettors. For VIP bettors with $500 max wagers on this promo? The Action Network's picks netted them over $3,800.
When factoring in our pick on the Chargers +160 on Thursday night, $500 max bettors would have netted over $4,600 over the last 10 days on this promotion alone.
The promotion allows bettors to win their moneyline wager if the team you bet on goes up 10 points or more at any point during the game.
The moneyline will cash, too, if the team you wager on wins but never goes up 10 points.
The sportsbook offers the promotion for Thursday Night Football but for an even better price. A mere seven-point lead there will cash your wager.
The max wager is as high as $500 for VIP accounts and those with Diamond status at the sportsbook. Most accounts will see a max bet per game of $50 or $100, but maximum wagers will range everywhere in between, depending on how much you bet with the book.
DraftKings has run this promotion for other events in the past, namely during the 2022 NBA Finals, when both sides cashed during a topsy turvy Game 1.
For this week’s promotion, the Action Network went about analyzing which teams to pick by looking at every game from 2009 to 2018, which is the last year betting data of the sort is available.
Our main thesis was to discover whether favorites or underdogs were the better play.
The results were clear: underdogs are generally the better play.
Teams below .500 saw an increase in win probability of roughly 8.4%. Meanwhile, teams .500 and above only saw a 5.5% probability bump from the promotion.
The strength of the relationship between a team’s winning percentage and the probability bump they received by applying the promotion is high. That’s reflected in a correlation coefficient of -0.35.
In effect, that means the worse a team was, the better a pick they were for this promo.
I won't be taking underdogs for every single pick on this promo, seeing as there isn’t much of a difference between a small favorite and small underdog. For instance, if DraftKings has a valuable line for a small favorite, I may be more inclined to take it.
However, I will be looking to take every sizable underdog based on the aforementioned information.
Teams that were very bad saw statistically substantial probability boosts to their "win" percentage with this promo.
This method isn't perfect and certain games will have higher or lower EV depending on over/under of the game and other factors.
One note is this week has more longshots than last week did so there's a bit more potential for variance (a really good or really bad week),
My picks:
- Chargers +160 (Seven-point promo – tweeted out a few days ago)
- Dolphins +160
- Jets +230 vs. Browns
- Washington +105 vs Lions
- Saints +120 vs. Bucs
- Panthers +110 vs. Giants
- Steelers +110 vs. Patriots
- Falcons +390 vs Rams
- Seahawks +320 vs. 49ers
- Jaguars +165 vs Colts
- Cowboys +270 vs. Bengals
- Texans +390 vs Broncos
- Cardinals +205 vs. Raiders
- Bears +370 vs Packers
(A note that this week, only Thursday and Sunday games will be eligible for the promotion. Both Monday night games — Titans vs. Bills and Vikings vs. Eagles — aren't valid for this promo.)
