Weekend planner (all times ET)
9 a.m. – VSiN College Football Tailgate Show with Tim Murray starts an hour earlier this season. >>Full schedule.
10 a.m. – EdgeBoost Average Joe Contest deadline for Week 1 entries. Enter picks here. Having troubles? Here’s a troubleshooting guide.
9 p.m. – Circa contest consensus picks announced on The Football Contest Show. Last report on entrants: Million 5,472 (still an overlay), Survivor 18,074; Grandissimo 64. We’ll post the contest picks after 9 here.
The battle for bragging rights begins
I usually focus on the contest selections from the Circa Friday Football Invitational in Saturday’s newsletter during the football season.
I do it because I think it’s rare that you get to see what happens when 25 professional handicappers and bettors, many of whom either sell their picks or don’t talk about their picks, go head-to-head. Sure, there is $30K on the line, thanks to Circa owner Derek Stevens. But this is about pride and bragging rights.
With that, let’s see what they liked the most, among 175 total picks, for this weekend’s college and pro games:
8 picks on the Falcons (+2) vs. the Bucs
7 picks on the Seahawks (+2) vs. the 49ers
6 picks on the Texans-Rams Under 43.5
6 picks on Duke (+2.5) vs. Illinois
5 picks on Arkansas (-23) vs. Arkansas St.
The contest picks are all posted here.
If you missed Friday’s Circa Friday Football Invitational show, presented by Omaha Steaks, you can listen to the replay here.
College Football Week 2 Best Bets
We have Best Bets columns from VSiN’s experts . . .
Zach Cohen has plays on the Illinois-Duke, Iowa-Iowa State and Michigan-Oklahoma games.
Josh Appelbaum will post his CFB Sharp Report later this morning.
Everything we do on Week 2 is posted here.
Other CFB resources:
>CFB Power Ratings for today’s games from Makinen.
>CFB Betting Splits for DraftKings and Circa. (If you aren’t sure how to use the splits, read this.)
>CFB Picks page (collected from our hosts and their guests).
NFL Week 1
You know it’s a busy day in sports betting when we’re this far along in the newsletter and we’re just getting around to the Chargers’ 27-21 victory over the Chiefs in Brazil. The Chargers were 3-point underdogs and the Total just nudged Over the closing 47.5.
Looking ahead to Sunday, we have these Best Bets columns:
Adam Burke offers his advice on player props, first TDs and survivor pools.
Everything we we do on Week 1 will be posted here.
Quick Hits
MLB: Greg Peterson has Best Bets for today’s MLB menu.Steve Makinen and Adam Burke will post their daily contributions later this morning.
U.S. Open: VSiN tennis analyst Zach Cohen has his play for the women’s final. Gill Alexander has one pick on the Sabalenka-Anisimova match.
Horse Racing: Mike Somich and Aaron Halterman share their picks for a big weekend at Kentucky Downs on the VSiN At The Track podcast. Mike will have a couple of plays at Del Mar later this morning. Horse racing coverage is sponsored by 1/ST BET. Get your $250 sign-up bonus.
UFC: Lou Finocchiaro has his picks for Saturday’s UFC Paris card. Britton Hess will have his plays later this morning, but not too late because the pre-lim card starts Noon ET. Britton joins Dave Ross and Rob Moreno on First Strike, VSiN’s UFC betting podcast, to break down the Paris fights. >Listen now.
