Week 6 NHL Betting Preview

A summary of what worked and failed in week six of the last 4 seasons (last 2 for over/under).

Week six of the NHL season is nearly upon us and my gaze is already focused on what worked best in past week sixes. Looking at my historical database from this stage of past years, I might be in for a rough ride. Apparently, this juncture of the schedule is among my worst, except on over/under. From Oct 2019 to 2022, the only categories producing betting profit for me this week are overs, unders, and Road dogs +1.5 goals. It may not be a coincidence that this time of year is when we get daylight savings that manipulate people’s internal clocks.  Whatever the cause, I think my regularly expected seasonal slump began on Saturday, getting slayed by some big upsets. I’ve been listening to Tubthumping by Chumbawamba on a loop this morning…

Before we go any further, it’s time for my obligatory *DISCLAIMER* it needs be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. My mission is to engage in a mass betting campaign, picking a winner of every single game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis, which can be shared with you, shedding light on what worked and what failed. I’m also tracking the results of betting every outcome, to help me (and you) uncover previously unknown or newly emerging profit vectors. What started as a thought experiment has evolved into much more.

If you’d like to read more about the first 3 years of this thought experiment, I wrote a 330-page book outlining the results from every angle. What worked, what failed. Lessons learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. To read more, visit the Amazon store. My blog has been moved to Substack this season and I’ll be repeatedly encouraging everyone to sign-up for a free subscription to alleviate my dependence on Twitter for traffic. I’m concerned that Elon will follow through on his threat to charge everyone for Twitter and ostensibly destroy his own company. Subscribers receive an email notification each time a new post is published, and even if Twitter stays free, the algorithm likes to hide Tweets with links so you don’t leave.

Saturday was a bad night for me, which some of you already probably know having received a picks email from me on Friday. That was also shared on my blog Saturday afternoon for non-subscribers, but that appears to be bad luck and may not be repeated. The good news is, sharing losing picks with my readers causes quite a lot of anxiety for me, but that anxiety is like fuel that strengths my resolve to be better. I’m getting right back on the horse and giving out picks for tomorrow if you scroll down to the bottom of this report. What can we learn from this? Not sure what I can learn from St. Louis blowing out Colorado, but let me dwell on that.

Another new betting model was added to my harem this week called “Game Sum”, which doesn’t describe what it does, but rather the worksheet that controls its decision matrix. I just wanted a voice on my advisory team that only cares about the current season, because the others don’t care at all (Tailing History does need to see the lines before making picks). Version GS 1.0 is just adding up the categories for say Colorado road games and Seattle home games. The bet sizes on the graphic below were all $100. It pretends teams playing in Seattle are Colorado, and visa versa.

So, for this sample of games, betting $100 on every visitor -1.5 goals (whether favored or dog) yielded $800 profit. It has the same $500 maximum as the other models (all fake money in a spreadsheet), so anything over $800 just gets logged as $500 (ironically Seattle -1.5 goals would be its second pick). Though it should be noted that Colorado has a 3-game road losing streak where they have been outscored 15-0. Me and my betting models are all taking Avs -1.5 goals tomorrow, but you should be aware of that little slump before deciding to join us. Let’s look at the history of week six from my historical database, logging every line for every game for the last 4+ seasons.

After getting punched in the face by favorites Saturday night and looking at my historical week six performances. I’m going to try laying off big bets on favorite pucklines -1.5 goals for at least the upcoming week. I’m just going to pay extra attention to my over/under picks and sniffing out value on dogs. Looking at the past line range results from week sixes, home longshots (at least +170 ML) did very well -1.5 goals, but every other dog -1.5 range was a big loser. Tailing History will have max bets on some home longshots -1.5 goals, but will be avoiding all other underdog pucklines -1.5 goals.

It is interesting to note that my best team to bet on in past week sixes was the Edmonton Oilers, who just fired their coach. We’ll see if they get a new coach bump, but they’re still attracting a lot of public money despite their struggles and I won’t be betting them to win any games this week. I swore an oath to myself that will not be broken…and this time I’m serious. Colorado was actually the best team overall and #2 for me, and I’m doubling down on Avs -1.5 goals tomorrow despite the St. Louis fiasco Saturday. I’m putting my faith in angry Nathan MacKinnon to bounce back relentlessly from that embarrassing loss.

Note that the table directly above is what’s used to derive the picks for Tailing History. Which line range was more profitable, or lost less? If the profit/loss was less than $100, then it makes a minimum $100 bet. If it’s above $500, it makes a max $500 bet. If the profit is $208, it bets $208. If that hasn’t been said before, it consults a different set of input variables for back-to-backs, as it is forbidden from picking tired teams. The others don’t care who played yesterday. Frankly I’m surprised how well “Tails” has performed this season

Betting Venues was introduced last week, and it just bets the most profitable outcome from the previous games between these teams in this city, with similar bet size parameters as the others. (matching my own minimum and maximum). Evidently my week would have been much better had I followed the recommendations from this model more closely, as it proved better then my own supposedly superior logical decision making. We’ll see, I’m jumping on board with its Colorado pick tomorrow, but disagreeing with Edmonton the beat the Isles. We’ll see who’s right.

The newest one is the aforementioned Game Sum. It had a bad first week, but that was from betting entirely too much money on road dogs -1.5 goals. The final results for all models this week will be posted in my Monday Report after the Sunday games. If G.S continues to struggle, it might get replaced with a different version that just bets line value. The name Game Sum doesn’t describe what it does but where it came from (where my “fair line estimator” can also be found). Even G.S gets to stick around, a new “Betting Line Fairness” model may be coming regardless.

There are 2 games scheduled for Monday, and I’m sharing all our picks. After posting my preview, I’m finishing the Shorting Travel model, which should be unveiled in my report tomorrow. At some point in the near future, I’ll be adding some more data to the pick graphics I’m making for individual games to include more over/under stats and the “fair line estimator” which admittedly is a little wonky right now due to small sample size, but every game that gets played going forward increases its certainty. So once again, sorry for a bad Saturday, but I’m hoping to make it up to you. I’m moving my “bet size” from units to stars. 1 star is minimum, 5 star is maximum. I may not have any 5 star picks knowing I’m typically bad in week six.

NYI @ EDM:

The Kraken let me down Saturday night, but that’s not enough to make me believe Edmonton has turned the corner. My foot is staying on the gas pedal, but I’m lowering my bet size from Saturday because the Islanders might suck too (I’m taking them +140, and it has already moved to +145 in the last 30 minutes since opening). Betting Venues crushed me last week and for the whole season. It’s jumping on Oilers -1.5, so be aware of that. My over/under algorithms voted 6-2 on under 6 goals, so that’s my pick.

COL @ SEA:

The Colorado Avalanche humiliated me Saturday when I encouraged readers to bet them -1.5 goals against St. Louis and they lost 8-2. But you know who else feels humiliated, the Colorado Avalanche and Nathan MacKinnon. Good teams generally come out flying after blowouts, so I’m going to double down. My models also liked Colorado Saturday, except Tailing History who had the Blues ML. Tomorrow, they are all taking the puckline -1.5 at +170, so I’m going to join them. Though, I’m not going “all in” because of their aforementioned slump. The Avs recently lost 7-0 to Vegas, then beat New Jersey 6-3 next game. We have another 6-2 ruling from the OU Council, this time for over 6.5 goals (though Colorado hasn’t scored in their last 3 road games, so there’s that).