Week 1 of the 2025/2026 NFL season is in the books. I have never been less interested in a new football season as I was going into this year and to be honest, I wasn't planning on doing any real betting at all. However, come this past Sunday, I found myself at my battle station and settled right into my old routine. And I must admit, it actually felt good. I had somewhat of an internal resurgence for betting, and I didn't even have a good week! That's how I know it was real. So something I think I'll do this year is make a post on Mondays or Tuesdays detailing how the prior week went, betting wise. I'll detail my exact positions (for the most part) and we can all go on this little journey together. It occurred to me the other day that after every slate/week, I mostly just delete everything on my pending sheets and start over for the next slate of games/week. I of course keep very good records of win/loss in every category as well as overall ROI, but the actual positions I took and the bets I made get lost forever. So this will be a good way to keep something like a betting journal. I have no idea if people are interested in this but my gut tells me yes.
First off, I am unfortunately working with only two books right now, plus Robin Hood futures which we'll get into later. I expect to have at least one or two more eventually, but for now all I have is one really good, beefy PPH account that I've had forever. They don't let me bet anything other than straights and teasers but have massive betting and credit limits plus I have never once had a problem with the agent in over a decade. That's my main book, plus I have a Draft Kings account. Very much like last year, my main thing this year will most likely be Wong teasers, off-market straights, alt lines, and the occasional prop/parlay on DK. I am planning on taking Live betting more seriously this year too but we'll see how that goes.
First thing I did on Sunday was look for Wong teasers. Aside from getting Atl teased to +7.5 early in the week, I actually missed the 1:00 slate completely (having a two year old at home makes locking yourself in front of your computer all day on a Sunday impossible) but I got into gear for the afternoon games. Except for LAR/HOU, every single game after the 1:00 o'clocks was Wongable. So I had Sea, Den, Det and Buf in a bunch of 3 team, 6 point teasers (at +170 which is decent and slightly better than two teamers at -110). I actually usually don't really do that; that is, having teasers with teams playing at the same time. I like to have them playing at all different times so I can hedge/middle each one. I decided to mostly let them ride this week though and just bet smaller amounts. I also tied Chi +7.5 into a bunch of them as well. A couple I did fire big on - for instance this teaser: Den -2.5, Buf +7.5 and Chi +7.5. They were all on different times so I was able to hedge/middle each one.
I managed to get +120 on Detroit ML where Pinnacle was at -100/-110, so I maxed out Det +120 and hedged most of it out with GB -110. I also got Det +2.5 -110 which was arb-able with Pinnacle with GB -2.5 +116. (This is from that same mythical PPH account that I've talked about a bunch on here before. The one where the agent moves lines around way into arb-able territory for seemingly no reason at all. And another instance of him being right. He wanted action on Detroit and he got it from me. And wouldn't ya know it, they got blown out by Green Bay. I've mostly learned my lesson on this now though and generally just take the free money, though I did have plenty of exposure to Det. With the ML and spread being arb-able PLUS being in Wong range, it couldn't be avoided.) Anyway, all the Wongs won except for Detroit. If Detroit had covered +8.5, I would have had an amazing week.
I got a little too cute on my hedge on the Titans against Denver. I had Denver -2.5 in every single teaser so I knew I wanted some action on the Titans. I could have got +9 -110 but I always try to pay as little juice as possible on hedges, so I went with +7.5 +107 instead. I also bet Titans ML at +370 which was a good price. My nightmare scenario was Den winning by 1 or 2 and they were winning by exactly 2 deep into the 4th quarter. I panicked a little bit and hit Den to win straight up live betting on Robin Hood a few times late into the game which worked out but wan't a great play. Denver ended up winning by 8 so even though it all worked out, it should have been a lot better.
Seattle was only in a handful of my teasers so I let that ride and they covered +7.5.
Going into the late Buf/Bal game, I had a few teasers still alive, one being massive (for me). This is how my Sundays typically go; I end up with a huge position on the Sunday Night Game. This time it was Buf +7.5. I hedged with Bal -6.5 +190, some -2.5 +105 and -3.5 +145. I usually keep my hedges so that I still have a position on the original bet since that's where the EV comes from, but sometimes I manage to find +EV hedges which is like Indiana Jones finding that jewel or skull or whatever it was (I don't think I've ever actually seen Indiana Jones). I also managed to lock up some free money with small Live arbs on DK (I don't have the stats to back this up yet but I find that betting against the team that just scored a TD is usually a good play with live betting). So if Bal won by anything between 3-7 I would have absolutely cleaned up. As we know, Buf ended up winning by one so I made out ok but it was tantalizingly close to a dream week.
I tied Chicago +7.5 to a lot of these teasers as well, especially with Buffalo. So last night was similar to Sunday night as I had a big position of Chi +7.5 going into the game. I hedged with a mix of Min -3.5 +150ish, Min -1 -110, a nibble of Min ML, and then a bunch of Min +7.5 -125 and Min +3.5 +155 live betting in the first quarter when the Vikings offense looked like a high school team. The Vikings ended up winning by 3 which was a half point away from being absolutely ideal. If they won by 4-7 I would have won nearly every single bet I made on that game which would have been quite nice for me. I can't complain though, anytime your main teaser wins and you win or push on any of your hedges, it's a great outcome.
Looking ahead, I already put in a couple teasers for next week. One is Chi +7.5 (which won already) with KC +7.5, and the other is Patriots +7.5 and Colts +8.5. I like to take small nibbles at the start of the week and slowly ramp them up as the week goes on.
Like I mentioned up top, Robin Hood came out with Prediction Markets a few months ago and now they include sports too. Interestingly, they leave them up all game so you can use them for live betting. There's no spread or total so it's just moneyline betting, but it sure is intriguing. I imagine they'll eventually get spreads and totals and other things on there too. Robin Hood really does want to do it all; brokerage, credit card company, retirement accounts and now sports book/exchange, and so far they've done a really good job in my opinion. I've fucked around with it before and have a bunch of small positions on the price of BTC and ETH as well as how many cuts the Fed will make this year, but this week was the first time I was really digging into the futures and seeing exactly the price they were dealing after fees. Sadly, the fees are higher than they seem at first. Anytime I figured out exactly what they were dealing, it would be something like -120/-110. 20% commission. That will definitely need to come down if they want more volume but I could see RH being the next Matchbook. A highly liquid, small fee exchange that US players can play on. I had them and Draft Kings up at the same time with live betting and most of the time DK had the better price, but there were spots where RH was the best price/slower to move. Something to keep in mind.
Looking ahead to Week 2, there have been some pretty big line moves. It's interesting to see how the market reacts to the first week of the season. Buf is at the Jets and that spread moved from Jets +8 to Jets +6.5. Dallas went from -3 to -6 against the NYG. New Orleans went from +7 to +4.5 against the 49ers. The possible Wongable games are the Patriots at +1 against the Dolphins. That's one to watch all week to see if you can find a rouge +1.5 somewhere and tease it up to 7.5. Be careful with that though, the Pats are notoriously bad in Miami. Even during the Brady run when they were far and away the best team in the league and the Dolphins were terrible for like a decade straight, weird stuff always seemed to happen in Miami. This one I'll probably completely hedge/middle. KC is also +1, playing at home vs Phi. Same thing, look for a +1.5 to tease up to +7.5. Pats are on at 1:00 and KC is 4:00 so it's an ideal pairing. (Some books let you do open teasers which is an underrated option and perfect for stuff like this. With an open teaser option, you don't need both legs to be Wongable at the same time.) Finally, you have Ind at +2.5 -119 at home vs Denver. Definitely a good leg and one I'm jumping on small now. Other possibilities are Buf at NYJ at -6.5 if they get bet up to -7.5 or if you can get really good teaser odds and tease them down to -.5 and hedge with NYJ ML. Again, only if you can get really good numbers on both bets. That game a fairly high total though so not ideal. Lastly, TB is +2.5 +101 right now at Pinnacle as the MNF game. If TB takes some money during the week it might be a good leg to throw in as the last leg of a 3 teamer as a stand alone game. Fairly low total too which is good.
That's it for today. These posts will probably be shorter than normal. Please comment if you like these little wrap ups. Check back soon, I will have a longer post up. If you see the news (online) you probably know what I'm going to talk about. Bye for now!
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