Betting on the NFL draft is the wave of the future
We’ve done puzzles and built legos. Watched movies, read books and played board games. All good, but … well, only so good.
So here came the 2020 NFL draft, held virtually from Roger Goodell’s basement. And here came a chance at a new pastime, one that marries a few long popular American pursuits — football, gambling and believing without good reason that you know everything.
It was time to gamble on the first round of the NFL draft.
Talk about Family Fun for All Ages.
The proliferation of sports wagering across the country has made this activity increasingly more common. Industry estimates had total bets on the draft more than double this year, although no one was really sure (there are still two more days to go). The closure of brick and mortar casinos left everything to mobile wagering, which is only allowed in certain states.
This is where the draft is headed, though. Mel Kiper Jr. will soon be offering betting odds while breaking down the vertical leap of that SEC linebacker.
Alas, where I live (Michigan) won’t allow mobile sports wagering until the fall — seems like it’s perfect for social distancing.
I was undeterred and in a nod to our current virtual existence, I pretended to place 10 bets ($100 a piece) using the odds on the BetMGM app.
Not as fun. Better than another puzzle.
Yes, gambling on a draft seems a bit odd. A game is one thing. Will this player step up and overperform? Will this coach design the perfect game plan. Was the other team’s starting QB in the champagne room until 3 a.m.?
But it doesn’t have the same pop when you ask whether some middle-aged general manager will take Clemson linebacker/safety Isaiah Simmons in the top six.
Desperate times.
So I pored through some mock drafts. Considered some franchise trends. Read pre-draft quotes — the New York Giants were definitely going to grab an offensive lineman, correct?
Then I went to work.
BetMGM had 130 different prop bets. The biggest issue with gambling on the draft is finding wagers that are possible but still have a payout. So much is already known. LSU’s Joe Burrow, for instance, was -10,000 to go first. Everyone knew he was going first and he did. To bet $100 on that would net you a whopping $1.
Might as well bust out a new Sudoku book.
The long shots were equally ridiculous. It sure would be nice to hit on Washington’s Jacob Eason going No. 1 overall at +50,000, but the chances of Jacob Eason topping the draft might as well be 50 million-to-1.
Buster Douglas could knock out Mike Tyson. If you were going to bet Cincinnati’s Mike Brown was going to pick Eason first overall, then you might as well parlay it with “Mike Brown will be murdered by angry Bengals fans.” You’d have so much money you could afford to be tested for Covid-19.
Once you get down in the draft order, though, nothing is certain. Crazy selections happen. So do trades. Sometimes pictures emerge of top prospects using a military-grade gas mask to smoke marijuana. That can affect things. Even in the NFL.
My first bet was that Burrow, Chase Young and Jeff Okudah would go 1-2-3 at the top of the draft. It would pay +185. Burrow and Young were near locks. The only concern was if Detroit traded out of the third spot, allowing someone to move up and grab quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. If not, they’d take Okudah.
There were reports all Thursday about Detroit having trade discussions with teams. That leak had to come from Detroit. Teams don’t reveal that they are calling looking for trades (that might increase competition). They do publicize that they are getting calls because they want more calls.
So this was a Lions ploy, and if you know anything about that franchise, their attempts at tricking the rest of the league almost always fail. There was no reason to believe it. (Indeed, the Lions later acknowledged they’d received no offers for the third pick.)
So Okudah it was. Just like that, I was up $185.
I soon hit on Tagovailoa being the second QB selected (-179), which was easy because no one who watched a lick of college football could possibly take Oregon’s Justin Herbert over Tagovailoa even if Tua only had one hip.
Also a win: Herbert to the QB desperate Los Angeles Chargers at six (+200).
At this point the easy money was flowing and the living room was alive with all the excitement that a fake gambling hot streak can provide.
The victories kept rolling. Arizona took a defensive player (bang, +220). There was a late run on wide receivers that pushed the total selections for that position over the 5.5 line (boom, -145). A couple of TCU players were grabbed late, meaning there were more than 3.5 Big 12 picks (even) and the Big 12 had more first rounders than the ACC (-104).
Best of all, three Ohio State Buckeyes were taken, one more than Clemson’s two. That head-to-head victory was worth +220.
Could it be this easy?
In the end I went 8-2 and my only losses I should have seen coming. The New York Giants did take an offensive lineman, but it was Georgia’s Andrew Thomas, not the one I predicted (Iowa’s Tristan Wirfs). Meanwhile, the New York Jets didn’t select Oklahoma wide receiver CeeDee Lamb even though QB Sam Darnold could have used him.
As generations of New Yorkers know … don’t ever bet on the Giants and the Jets. They’ll always let you down.
Not even the Giants and Jets could get me down, though. I finished +946 on the night and had a reason to care who Kansas City picked at No. 32 — as long as it wasn’t a Clemson player, I was good.
The kids cheered. Roger Goodell seemed like a friend. I felt like a know-it-all. As Quarantine Thursday Nights go .... not too bad.
Who needs actual football games? Just legalize this thing everywhere and stage a draft every Sunday.
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