Sunday Best Bets
Welcome to our “Tuley’s Takes” Best Bets column for Sunday.
In case you missed it Wednesday, we’ve started splitting our daily column (that has been running for the past 19 months since September 2021) into two separate pieces: there’s a FREE article where I recap the betting action from the night before and update league-wide ATS stats in the various sports, and then this one where I look for the best betting opportunities on today’s wagering menu.
Links to both articles should be found on the VSiN.com home page, though I advise my regular readers to also bookmark my dedicated page at https://vsin.com/news/dave-tuley-columns/.
Saturday Best Bet Results
Saturday was another roller-coaster of a day in the Tuley’s Takes home office.
I was juggling our regular sports-betting action that you see here daily in these columns with my weekly horse racing column in “Team Tuley’s Thoroughbred Takes.” If you think I love underdogs and long shots here, it’s nothing compared to how I bet the ponies. This can lead to long losing streaks, but Saturday was one of those days when it all came together for yours truly, Dave Tuley.
I hit my first Best Bet of the day with Verstappen winning the Elkhorn Stakes in Keeneland’s 8th race at 16-1, paying $34.30 to Win and $12.50 to Place. That race was also a part of a qualifying tournament for the National Horseplayers Championship and put me into contention that was giving away 3 automatic bids to the finals next March 15-17 at the Horseshoe (formerly Bally’s) here in Las Vegas. You can’t buy your way into the NHC. I used to cover it every year for the Daily Racing Form and wasn’t eligible to qualify as an employee of the title sponsor (it was the NTRA/DRF National Handicapping Championship at that time).
I went on to win the tournament (a freeroll for NHC Tour members with a field of 2,373 entries) as I racked up 6 winners in the 15 contest races, scoring $191.54 on mythical $2 Win and Place wagers, winning by more than $22 and finishing nearly $29 ahead of the fourth-place finisher as 4 of my winners were between $27.40 and $35.60 (Get the Candy in Gulfstream’s 8th race).
I didn’t bet all those horses separately, but had a very good day in addition to earning the NHC entry that is worth around $10,000 plus four hotel nights during the finals (I don’t receive the $500 airfare allowance since I live here).
As for my sports bets here, it was a losing day as I dropped my top play on the A’s +1.5 +105 at the Rangers as they were blown out 18-3. I also lost with the Orlando Guardians +9.5 in their 53-28 loss to the St. Louis Battehawks in the XFL and the Clippers +7.5 in their 112-110 loss to the Suns in Game 4 of their NBA playoff series.
Fortunately, we cut our sports losses on with the Maple Leafs-Lightning/Avalanche-Kraken First-Period Over parlay hitting at +209 as both flew Over 1.5 goals with 4 and 4 goals, respectively in the first 20 minutes of those games.
NBA Sunday Best Bet
Kings +7.5 at Warriors: In the first two games of this series, it looked like the Kings were the better team, then the Warriors won Game 3 at home and the whole world is back on the defending champs’ bandwagon. We’re counting on the Kings to bounce back in the “zig-zag” role. There is something to the Warriors’ home/road dichotomy and I know that SU winners are 24-1-1 ATS so far in this year’s playoffs (and 26-0 ATS vs. opening numbers), but we think the chances of the Kings covering this big spread – even if they lose the game – are enough to make this a great bet.
MLB Sunday Best Bet
Royals +1.5 -110 at Angels: This is a “swagger play” as the Royals snapped a 7-game losing streak on Saturday as they rallied with 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Angels 11-8. We’ll also take the Royals +250 or better on the First 5 Inning money line as it’s pretty much a coin-flip with KC’s Jordan Lyles (0-3, 3.91 ERA) vs. LA’s Reid Detmers (0-1, 4.50 ERA), though I’ll probably also search out a +0.5 First 5 Inning line though I wasn’t seeing any overnight before posting these plays.
XFL Sunday Best Bet
Vegas Vipers +8.5 at Seattle Sea Dragons: We gave this out last Sunday on “The Greg Peterson Experience” along with the losing play on the Orlando Guardians as two plays fading the XFL’s two teams in “must-win situations.” In addition, the Vipers have been playing better since switching to Jalan McClendon at QB and took Houston to the final gun a week ago Saturday. This line is up to +10.5, so be sure to shop around as we’re still backing the Vipers to play spoiler and at least keep this within one score.
