Tag: Golf Gambling

2021 Puerto Rico Open matchups and prop bet predictions

Check out the best matchups and prop bet predictions for the PGA Tour’s 2021 Puerto Rico Open.

An alternate PGA Tour field is in Rio Grande this week for the Puerto Rico Open. The tournament runs alongside the marquee WGC-Workday Championship, which has all of golf’s biggest names in attendance. Below, we’ll look for the best value bets in the 2021 Puerto Rico Open odds, with tournament matchups, placings and other PGA Tour prop bet predictions.

Odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Wednesday at 9:55 a.m. ET.

Matchup bets

Ian Poulter (-135) vs. Matt Wallace

The two biggest names in this week’s field are two Englishmen coming over from the European Tour. Wallace has four wins on his home circuit with three coming in 2018, but none on the PGA Tour. Poulter has three career PGA Tour wins and 12 on the Euro Tour but has won only the 2018 Houston Open since 2012.

Poulter has an edge in the Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings at No. 51 to Wallace’s No. 76, and he has made two past appearances at Grand Reserve Country Club, while Wallace makes his debut.

Thomas Pieters vs. Byeong Hun An (-110)

Both An and Pieters are making their debut in this event. Both are notoriously poor putters in search of their first PGA Tour victories, but Pieters has four wins on the Euro Tour.

Pieters excels off-the-tee, while An has the superior approach game with 0.60 Strokes Gained: Approach on the 2020-21 season. He’s also better around-the-green, and those are the more important stats for this venue.

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Placing bets

Top 5: Will Gordon (+800)

Gordon has been largely unimpressive since a surprising T-3 finish in a strong field at last year’s Travelers Championship. This will be the weakest field he has played in since, and he tied for 20th in this event last season. He’s gaining strokes off-the-tee and on the greens for the 2020-21 season.

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Top 10: Scott Brown (+450)

Brown’s 32 career rounds played at Grand Reserve CC are tied for the second-most in this week’s field, and he has averaged 0.55 strokes gained on the field in those appearances.

His lone PGA Tour win to date came at this event in 2013. He also tied for 10th in 2019 and his experience is a big edge in the weak field.

First-round leader

Josh Teater (+5000)

Teater finished as the runner-up to Viktor Hovland last year and gave an emotional concession speech after watching Hovland claim victory from the clubhouse. With Hovland graduating to the WGC event, the 41-year-old veteran has a shot for his first pro win since the 2009 Utah Championship on the Nationwide Tour.

He’s a frequent contender in these alternate-field events and should come out with a hot start before the bigger names in the field round into form.

Get some action on the 2021 Puerto Rico Open by signing up and betting at BetMGM. If you’re looking for more sports betting picks and tips, access all of our content at SportsbookWire.com. Please gamble responsibly.

Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

What do some PGA Tour pros think of legal sports betting?

How will legal sports betting affect the PGA Tour? Three golfers in the field at the Phoenix Open were asked for their opinions.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Sports betting is now legal in 21 states and another five recently passed bills.

Media outlets are spending more time discussing wagers and new TV shows are springing up to promote the odds and ends of sports gambling.

This week, during the live TV coverage of the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Golf Channel and NBC, streaming service Peacock Premium will debut what it’s billing as the “first-ever betting companion show during a PGA Tour event – a live second-screen experience entitled NBC Sports Edge BetCast.”

NBC will have 10 hours of this content – 2 ½ hours a day – spread out over the four days of competition. A big focus will be how golfer’s odds change throughout the course of a round or the week.

Arizona is not among those states were betting is legal, so fans on site at the Phoenix Open this week won’t be legally betting on a particular golfer.

But beyond this week’s event, how will legal sports betting affect the PGA Tour? Three golfers in the field at the Phoenix Open were asked for their opinions.

Webb Simpson

Yeah, I’m not well-versed in this area. I’ve been in conversations with guys where the only thing it seems like most guys are worried about is while we’re playing, is there going to be more chatter before and after shots or before and after made or missed putts, guys out there gambling on us. Hopefully the PGA Tour has a very strict plan on that kind of banter from spectators to players. Hopefully they’ll put a strict plan in place that we’re not going to have kind of the comments from the bettors out there during the round. That’s obviously something we’ve never dealt with. Hopefully we don’t have to. That’s just one potential problem I see.

Justin Thomas

It seems to be the way, gambling and the live gambling on sports. Obviously as a player, selfishly, I worry about any sort of sketchiness going on with whether it’s communication within someone that’s out on the grounds and could potentially yell or do something to affect a person that would have, say, a wager or something and that’s a serious, serious concern. We’re out here playing. … this is our job and we’re out here trying to win golf tournaments and a lot of people are supporting families and supporting themselves. I would hope it would never come to that. But at the end of the day you can’t sit there and tell me that that’s not a realistic chance. I would hope that it wouldn’t happen, but I’m sure it’ll turn out great, and yeah, I’m interested to see how it goes.

Jon Rahm

I’ve never put a bet on a sports game in my life, so I have no clue about this. Like none whatsoever. … I mean, somebody having $20 on me making or missing the putt is not going to affect what I do. I can tell you that. I’m pretty sure most of us players have a lot more on the line by making or missing a putt. It’s not what I’m thinking about. It’s something that’s been going on since I was a pro. It’s been going on for a long time. A lot of times you hear fans and they’ll bet between each other. I mean, it’s part of the culture, I would say everywhere. I’m a person that didn’t grow up betting on sports, but it’s becoming bigger in Spain, bigger in Europe. It’s already big here. It’s part of the entertainment, as well. Again, I don’t know much about it, but, I mean, I don’t have a problem with it. Fans got to do what they’ve got to do to enjoy the day.

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PGA Tour partners with American Gaming Association to promote responsible betting

The Have A Game Plan campaign intends to help bettors set limits and learn of safe operators while learning the warning signs of gambling.

The PGA Tour has partnered with the American Gaming Association’s Have A Game Plan.­® Bet Responsibly public service campaign to educate and help protect bettors.

The Tour said it will develop content to help bettors “Know When to Lay Up” and bet responsibly. The co-branded content will appear on social and digital platforms along with public service announcements on PGA Tour Radio.

The Tour joins NASCAR and the NHL as partners in the campaign. Topics include setting and sticking to a budget, keeping betting social, knowing the odds, playing with trusted and regulated gaming operators, and learning warning signs of problem gambling and addiction. Monumental Sports & Entertainment and the Vegas Golden Knights also have committed inventory in support of the campaign.

“A key pillar of the PGA Tour’s sports betting strategy is responsible gaming and ensuring our fans are equipped with the appropriate resources so they are properly prepared and educated,” Scott Warfield, Vice President of Gaming at the Tour, said in a media release. “By aligning with the American Gaming Association in support of its Have A Game Plan campaign, we’re able to align our efforts and provide a consistent message focused on responsible gaming.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that sports gambling is legal, the Tour has licensed its live scoring data to IMG Arena to distribute to sports betting partners around the world. The Tour’s official sports betting partners include BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel and PointsBet.

Sports betting is now legal in 25 states and Washington, D.C. The media release said that between June of 2018 and November of 2020, $35 billion was legally wagered nationwide, generating nearly $2.5 billion in sportsbook revenues and about $330 million in tax revenue for local and state governments.

“The AGA is thrilled to welcome the PGA Tour to our growing responsible sports betting campaign,” Casey Clark, AGA Senior Vice President of Strategic Communications, said in the media release. “As legal sports betting continues to expand in both availability and popularity, it is imperative that responsible gaming education keeps pace. Today’s announcement is a testament to the Tour’s thoughtful approach to sports betting and marks an important step in continuing to engage all industry stakeholders in our shared responsibility to educate fans on safely and responsibly betting on sports.”

Zozo Championship odds, predictions and PGA Tour best bets

Feeling lucky? Check out the odds, predictions and PGA Tour best bets for this week’s Zozo Championship.

The PGA Tour remains on the West Coast but shifts south to Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, for the 2020 Zozo Championship.

The Zozo is the second of two events relocated from Asia for the Tour’s “super season” and follows up Jason Kokrak’s win at the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek. Below, we look at the 2020 Zozo Championship betting odds, and make our PGA Tour picks and best bets to win.

This event again features an elite 78-man field, including defending champion Tiger Woods, who has won five times at Sherwood. There will also be no cut this week.

Favorite

Odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 2:40 p.m. ET.

Tiger Woods (+2800)

Woods returns to play for the first time since a missed cut at the U.S. Open. He’ll defend his tournament title but at a different course after the 2019 event was played in Japan.

Few in the field have any sort of professional experience at Sherwood Country Club, but Woods unsurprisingly leads that small group. He has averaged 3.68 strokes gained per round on the field across 32 career rounds here, according to Data Golf. The last large event played at Sherwood was Woods’ 2014 World Challenge.

These small fields play to his favor with a shorter window of tee times. His last three victories all came in small-field events (Zozo Championship, Masters, Tour Championship).

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Contender

Bubba Watson (+3300)

Watson finished in a tie for seventh last week while ranking second in the field with 2.75 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green per round and third with 1.45: SG: Approach. A poor putting performance with 0.42 strokes lost per round on the greens did him in.

He has 16 career rounds played here with an average of 1.57 strokes gained per round. Sherwood was touted by Rory McIlroy as a good training ground for Augusta National, where Watson has two victories as one of the Tour’s best shot-shapers.

Long shot

Marc Leishman (+12500)

Leishman tied for 52nd last week in Las Vegas, following missed cuts at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. He has been in poor form since the PGA Tour’s mid-June restart with a top showing of T-40 at the Memorial Tournament.

Still, the +12500 odds are far too great of a value to overlook for a 12-time winner, including five on the PGA Tour. His last win was at the Farmers Insurance Open in January at Torrey Pines Golf Course in California and against similar top competition.

Get some action on the 2020 Zozo Championship by signing up and betting at BetMGM. If you’re looking for more sports betting picks and tips, access all of our content at SportsbookWire.com. Please gamble responsibly.

Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

Gambling’s place in golf is being cemented this week in Vegas — in real time

This is the first time that an official PGA Tour event is talking upfront about odds and gambling on air.

If you have been watching the CJ Cup on the PGA Tour this weekend, you have witnessed something you have never seen before.

No, not Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. That ultra-, ultra-, ultra-exclusive golf course has been on television before as the site of The Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

What you are seeing for the first time in a PGA Tour event is live betting odds. And not just running on a crawl at the bottom of the screen or quietly tucked along the side of the picture. These are odds that are being promoted and talked about and updated on a live basis.

As the PGA Tour and other sports begin understanding that there might be a revenue source with accepting gambling as part of the sports fan’s experience, the organizations have started forming partnerships with gambling companies. ESPN and other sports outlets have also begun airing shows devoted entirely to gambling.

But this is the first time that an official PGA Tour event is talking upfront about odds and gambling on air. Yes, The Match in 2018 did have a lot of talk about which player would win this hole or that hole or the match entirely. But that was not an official tour event like the limited-field CJ Cup.

It is appropriate, of course, that the first open talk of gambling on a PGA Tour event is at a tournament in Las Vegas on a course built by casino owner Steve Wynn. You can walk into pretty much any casino in Las Vegas, find the sportsbook and put down a bet on who will win a PGA Tour event that week or even some proposition bets pitting one player against another for the day or the week.

None of this is possible in California, of course, as the state continues to drag its feet badly on legalizing sports gaming in the state. Yes, there are a few ways around that for California residents, but you can’t walk into a sportsbook or in a tribal casino and place a sports bet.

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PGA Tour chasing the gambling dollar

The PGA Tour is all in on the sports gambling trend. The tour has deals with Draft Kings, Fan Duel, PointsBet and BetMGM as partners. The tour has said that it may provide an area at tournaments in states where gaming is legal so fans can make a bet on site. And now comes the official talk of odds on the golf course, either to win the tournament outright or to be the low player in a pairing on the day.

It will only be a matter of time before different players on the tour are sponsored by different gambling companies. You can see big billboards springing up the week of a tournament, saying, “Hi, bet on me at BetMGM!”

Should there be a concern about making betting on the PGA Tour or any sports so open and above board? The sports clearly don’t think so. There was a time when sports organizations avoided talk of betting and Las Vegas like the plague. Now the NFL has a team in Las Vegas, as does the WNBA. More and more sports are approving sports gambling in some form seemingly by the month.

And the sports have worked hard to ensure there are protections against the issues that caused them to run away from gambling before, issues like point shaving and crooked players or officials.

You may never place a bet on a sports event in your life, other than perhaps an annual lunch on who is going to win the big college rivalry game. But golfers are a different breed. A golfer can probably think of a dozen better games in any aspect of the sport. If might be fascinating to get four top pros together and have them play a televised game of Wolf. That might drive the books in Las Vegas crazy.

So look at the odds this week and do with them what you will. Ignore them or find a way to put them into action. But don’t think this will be the last time the PGA Tour talks about odds on a broadcast. This might just be the beginning.

Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at Sun.@Larry_Bohannan. Support local journalism: Subscribe to the Desert Sun.

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Was this the greatest golf bet of all time? See what a $1 wager netted

The weekend’s biggest winner was a gambler who used a single dollar to net a massive return on a 20-leg wager.

There were plenty of big winners last weekend.

• Martin Laird knocked in a 23-foot putt for birdie on the second playoff hole to win the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on Sunday, netting a check of $1.26 million.

• Sei Young Kim didn’t take her foot off the gas one bit on Sunday, winning her 11th LPGA victory and her first major in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which earned her $654K.

• Tyrrell Hatton secured his first BMW PGA Championship title on Sunday, which is also his third Rolex Series win, and with that came a prize of $1.15 million.

But the biggest winner — or perhaps the most improbable — had to be a gambler who, according to sportsbet.com.au, used a single dollar to net a massive return on a 20-leg wager. Among those picked were Hatton, Patrick Reed and Tommy Fleetwood.

The reward was $679,894.66.

While others have hit it big, they’ve often had to put up big numbers, too. For example, James Adducci, a 39-year-old self-described day trader from Wisconsin, hauled in nearly $1.2 million when Tiger Woods won the 2019 Masters.

Adducci described how he flew to Las Vegas earlier that month, took a bag he’d purchased at Walmart filled with $85,000 and made the bet. But that’s a much bigger chunk of change.

A single dollar netting that kind of return is special, but of course, gambling and golf have a long, interesting history together.

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Phil Mickelson on U.S. Open wager with potential $3.375M payout: ‘I’m going to play hard for him’

Phil Mickelson is 75-1 to win the U.S. Open next week, but that didn’t stop a fan from making an outrageous bet on him to win.

Phil Mickelson has a fan who has pushed, if not all his chips, a good chunk of them on the left-hander to win the 120th U.S. Open next week at Winged Foot Golf Club.

On Thursday, a bettor placed a $45,000 wager on Mickelson to win at 75/1 (+7500) odds at one of William Hill’s Southern Nevada Sports Books. If Mickelson claims his sixth major, and first U.S. Open after six heart-breaking runner-up finishes on Sunday, September 20, the bettor would reap a net win of $3,375,000. The wager represents the second-largest liability for an individual golf wager place in the U.S. in William Hill history.

When informed of the wager after his second round at the Safeway Open, Mickelson said, “I’m going to play hard for him but play hard for me first. I hope we both come out winners.”

Later, Mickelson hopped on his Twitter feed and posted the following: “Heard someone place 45k on me to win the open at 75-1 (pays 3.3 mil) Hoping for both of us I have a 3 shot lead on 18 tee.”

Mickelson’s self-deprecating humor is a reference to his double bogey at the final hole at Winged Foot in 2006, which blew his one-stroke lead and led to his fourth of six second-place finishes at the U.S. Open.

Mickelson also relied on humor to downplay one of golf’s most memorable collapses in a commercial for a Callaway Golf promotion in which he ends the ad saying, “When have I ever let you down at Winged Foot?”

Mickelson, 50, recently won his debut on the PGA Tour Champions and finished T-2 at the WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational. He would become the oldest player to win a major if he were to do so.

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BMW Championship picks: Prop bets, matchups and placings

Looking to place some bets on this week’s BMW Championship? We’ve got you covered.

After Webb Simpson withdrew in order to rest, a condensed 69-man field will compete in the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club just outside of Chicago this week.

The event is the second of three in the PGA Tour’s season-ending playoffs for the FedEx Cup. The final event is next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Below, we look at the best prop bets, matchups, placings and first-round leader bets for the BMW Championship. Odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Tuesday at 11:57 p.m. ET.

BMW Championship: Odds | Betting on Tiger | DJ back to work 

Matchup bets

Jon Rahm (-112) vs. Dustin Johnson

Rahm finished T-6 last week but was a distant 14 strokes back of Johnson at The Northern Trust. Rahm led the field with 1.24 Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee per round, according to Data Golf, and still ranks first in the Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings. He’s the play here as a slight underdog.

Rory McIlroy vs. Daniel Berger (-112)

Berger leads the PGA Tour with 2.77 total strokes gained per round over the average Tour pro across his last 20 rounds. The Charles Schwab Challenge champ has three finishes of T-3 or better in his last five events. McIlroy hasn’t finished better than his T-11 at the Travelers Championship since the PGA Tour’s restart.

Looking to place a bet on the 2020 BMW Championship? Get some action on it at BetMGM. Bet Now!

Placing bets

Top 5: Tyrrell Hatton (+750)

Hatton ranks fifth on Tour for the 2019-20 season with 0.749 SG: Approach per round, and his 69.654 scoring average through 34 measured rounds ranks 11th. He tied for third at the RBC Heritage and fourth at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Top 10: Corey Conners (+450)

Conners enters the week 54th in the FedEx Cup standings and needs a big week in order to advance to East Lake. He ranked fourth among those who made the cut last week with 0.75 SG: Off-the-Tee per round en route to a T-25 finish, despite a worse-than-usual iron performance.

Top American: Bryson DeChambeau (+1000)

These odds are greatly inflated for DeChambeau after a missed cut last week. He still leads the PGA Tour with 1.174 SG: Off-the-Tee per round on the season and is well-suited for the 7,366-yard, par-70 Olympia Fields.

First-round leader bet

Dustin Johnson (+1400)

This is a much better price than the +800 odds for Johnson to win this event outright in hopes he can continue his lights-out form of last week. He opened with a modest 4-under-par 67 last week, but he finished the tournament 60-64-63 and shared honors for low score in Round 4.

Louis Oosthuizen (+5500)

Oosty enters the week 70th in the FedEx Cup standings and needs to make the biggest climb in order to get inside the top 30 and move on to next week. He’s tied for fifth on Tour this season with a first-round scoring average of 69.00.

He’ll tee-off in the final group Thursday morning, but there isn’t nearly as big of a difference as usual in tee times this week with the 70-man field.

Get some action on the 2020 BMW Championship by signing up and betting at BetMGM. If you’re looking for more sports betting picks and tips, access all of our content at SportsbookWire.com. Please gamble responsibly.

Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

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Betting 101: How to bet on golf for beginners

From Sportsbookwire: We look at the best ways to bet on golf, along with definitions of key terms and an explanation of the odds.

Golf betting can be one of the more profitable ventures of the major sports, with upward of 150 golfers teeing it up each week.

The larger fields provide odds considerably longer than what are seen in any other sport.

Golf fans also have a variety of options from which to choose — the PGA Tour, European Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and LPGA. Below, we look at the best ways to bet on golf, along with definitions of key terms and an explanation of the odds.

Golf betting: Ways to bet

Access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list of today’s sports betting odds and lines.

  • Outright: Picking a winner from a field of 120-155 golfers isn’t quite as daunting as it seems. The Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings are an effective measure to compare different golfers, as are course history and statistics. Odds can range from +800 (8-to-1) to +30000 (300-to-1), though winners generally come from the +2000 to +10000 range.
  • Placing: Not as profitable as outright wins, but bettors can instead back multiple golfers to finish in the top 5, top 10, or even top 20 in order to ensure at least a moderate profit each week. These bets are best for long shots, as the outright odds for each golfer will decline according to the wider the range of their finishing position.
  • Matchup: Golfers from a similar world ranking or geographical region — or who share a tee time — are put in head-to-head or three-ball matchups, with the winner the golfer who posts the lower round or tournament score. Odds typically range from -150 to +150.
  • Groups: World rankings, notoriety or nationality can place golfers in groups of six to 10 for the lowest four-round tournament score. Odds can range from +100 to more than +2000 depending on the number of golfers included in the group and their world ranking.
  • Round betting: Instead of backing golfers for a full 72 holes, look for 18-hole leaders or placings at the end of the first, second or third rounds. First-round leader odds can be higher than the tournament odds for the favorites while dropping slightly for the long shots.
  • Live betting: Jump in on outright odds at any point after the first tee shot. Odds will be adjusted based on the current leaderboard and the positioning of the pre-tournament favorites. It’s often best to hope a favorite starts poorly relative to the rest of the field and back them once the odds spike.
  • Props: Generally the least profitable and predictable of the odds in golf; bettors can bet on whether a hole-in-one will be made, or the winner’s final score, for example.
  • Futures: Continuously scouting the futures odds for the Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, Open Championship or the Ryder Cup can offer great value. Look for changes among the world’s top-ranked values and back them to win a major following a poor stretch of results in regular tournament play.

Golf betting: Key betting terms to know

  • Favorites: Typically based on world ranking, but others with strong course history or on a hot stretch of recent top finishes can be viewed as a tournament favorite with odds lower than +2000. Be wary of low-ranked golfers with lower odds than they’d normally possess.
  • Long shots: Priced at +5000 or higher, golfers who generally haven’t won much or have poor history on a particular course. Value exists when spotting a top-ranked golfer who has slipped into this range in a particularly strong field.
  • Chalk: Referring to a heavy favorite priced at +1000 or higher. These golfers are never worth a bet as a broad rule, as the return simply isn’t worth the risk. Be cautious of a heavy favorite in an otherwise weak field.
  • Parlay: Just like grouping bets from multiple different games in other sports, bettors can back outright winners from different pro tours. It’s a good way to get value on the heavy favorites from both the PGA Tour and LPGA in the same week.

Golf betting: How do odds work?

As noted above, outright odds in a typical tournament can range from +800 to +30000, depending on how many golfers are in a field and the overall strength of a field. These odds mean a $10 bet can return a profit anywhere from $80 to $3,000.

Several golfers should be backed each week as an outright winner, with a larger portion of your bankroll being devoted to placing, matchup or group bets in order to ensure at least a small return on your weekly investment. There’s nothing worse than having your sneaky long shot finish second or third and not getting anything for it.

Get some sports betting action by placing a bet with BetMGM today. For more sports betting picks and tips, visit SportsbookWire.com.

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Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services.  Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.