What to Bet On Now that the Super Bowl LII Is Over (Part 2)

Just because the Super Bowl has come and gone doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of things for sports betting enthusiasts to consider. We featured an article on this topic last week and suggested the NBA All-Star Game, MLB futures wagering and the upcoming Academy Awards. In this installment, we have put together a few more suggestions for you to consider as you plan your wagers for the coming months after Super Bowl LII.

What to Bet On Now that the Super Bowl LII Is Over (Part 2)

😴🌛 안녕히 주무세요! Good night from @PyeongChang2018 Olympic Village! #2DaysToGo pic.twitter.com/UYvrU2OsVv

— Olympics (@Olympics) February 6, 2018

The Winter Olympics

Friday marks the opening ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Winter Games in South Korea. Temperatures in the area are hovering around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and the U.S. athletes entering the opening ceremonies will supposedly have jackets with battery-powered linings to keep them warm. There may be some connection between that inability to deal with extreme cold and the predictions that have the United States failing to win the medal count. The ice hockey will be different this year, as the National Hockey League has not opted to shut down their season and let players participate, so having amateurs on the ice could lead to some interesting outcomes. But there are a variety of prop bets, not just on medal counts but on all the individual events. Even curling can develop a bit of suspense if you have cash riding on the spinning of that rock and those Olympians wielding brooms to get it to stop on the right target.

March Madness

Sure, the Super Bowl brings in tons of gambling action. Indeed, four different seven-figure wagers were placed on Philadelphia to upset New England on the moneyline. Five huge bets on the Eagles were placed by the same bettor who cost the casinos over $11 million during the 2017 MLB postseason. But March Madness — the 68-team NCAA men’s basketball tournament — is a huge betting event too. In 2017, more than $10 billion was wagered on this tournament. Last year, more people filled out brackets for the tournament than voted in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, so we see how widespread the action is. Most of this gambling takes place in informal office pools, but the books in Vegas still handled over $300 million in action last year. This year, there’s a lot of inconsistency in the college ranks. Virginia, Villanova and Purdue have won consistently, but a lot of your other usual contenders, such as Kansas, Wichita State, North Carolina and Duke, have shown the tendency to take some bad losses this season. The fact that Xavier could emerge as one of the 1-seeds in this tournament shows you how many of the traditionally elite programs are struggling. But there are few more suspenseful runs than the opening weekend of the tournament, when 68 teams are winnowed down to 16.

The Masters

The Masters takes place from April 5-8 this year, and this is one of the majors on the PGA Tour. This will be the 82nd edition of this tournament. Sergio Garcia emerged out of relative obscurity to take the green jacket a year ago and is expected to enter the field again. Other past champions who are expected to compete for the jacket are Danny Willett, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Charl Schwartzel, Phil Mickelson, Angel Cabrera, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson, Tiger Woods, Mike Weir, Vijay Singh, Jose Maria Olazabal, Mark O’Meara, Bernhard Langer, Fred Couples, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle and Larry Mize. You’ll want to follow PGA trends in the weeks leading up to the tournament to see whose play will do well in the relatively tight confines of the course, which can penalize those whose drives skew long but who lack the accuracy to land in the right spots.