A golf fan makes a bet as Collin Morikawa stands over a tee shot at the BMW Championship.
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A few days from now, Matt Fitzpatrick will complete his final round in the keeperand a bettor will either be very upset or a little pleased with the result. That’s because that bettor has bet $9,791 that Fitz will make NO win the tournament this weekend in Hawaii.
Welcome to the world of no bets, the big money golfer’s playground. With the right platform and the right bankroll, bettors can bet on specific players not to winearning mouthfuls of profits against odds heavily tilted in their direction. And with the golf season starting again this week, those bets are back again.
Thanks to the automated tracking account Sporttrade Whale Tracker, which records every bet of $3,000 or more, it is clear that the Sentry tournament is ripe for these bets. The following bets have been placed in the last few days:
Collin Morikawa to not win: $9,325 to win $562
Sahith Theegala not to win: $9,573 to win $320
Ludvig Aberg to not win: $9,474 to win $417
Akshay Bhatia not to win: $9,750 to win $245
Robert MacIntyre to not win: $9,800 to win $196
Patrick Cantlay to not win: $9,500 to win $450
Nick Dunlap to not win: $9,791 to win $106
Sungjae am not to win: $9,533 to win $359
Did you get the point? That’s a lot of money to earn a little. The trend became more popular this summer when golf bettor Rufus Peabody tweeted about losing a large chunk of change when Bryson DeChambeau won the US Open in Pinehurst. DeChambeau’s win cost Peabody $360,000 in a trade where he would earn $15,000 from any other result.
Peabody figured DeChambeau’s odds of not winning were roughly 97%, and grabbed odds that suggested the expectation was more like 96%. We’re talking about a 1% difference, but that 1% (and even less than 1%) is what gamblers are after. This advantage over time can mean a lot of money if you have the opportunity to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Peabody followed surprisingly similar odds during the following championship, the British Open at Royal Troon, where he bet $330,000. Tiger Woods not win. He was rewarded for that feat with a grand prize of $1,000. Combined with seven other similar bets, Peabody wagered nearly $2 million, and of those bets received $35,000.
Was it worth it?
Absolutely, Peabody has said in various interviews. These bets can work within the gambling portfolio to strengthen a bankroll. Just don’t expect to find them on typical gambling sites. DraftKings, FanDuel, ESPN Bet and others do not offer “no-win” bets. Rather, these bets are accessible through betting exchanges, which operate similarly to stock markets.
On an exchange, other bettors (or a group of bettors) are made available to buy, sell and trade gambling options – even with automatic price triggers, much like stock markets. That’s where the beauty of golf gambling comes in, as there are often 156 players in the field of popular tournaments. The fact that many theoretical winners make it extraordinary unlikely that any specific player will win, making it especially attractive to place multiple “no” bets.
The hope here is to nail the “no” bets at an almost 100% clip, which gamblers often believe is more possible given golf-specific factors such as weather, draw or course conditions or even pin positions that can inject (or cancel) chaos into one. event, influencing in accordance with its predictability. Taken across multiple bets and dozens of tournaments, the small differences between the odds offered and the expectation can add up over time.
Take this week’s example, the one that started this article, taken from that Sporttrade Whale Tracker account.
A bet $9,791 on Matt Fitzpatrick NO the Sentry wins. The payout is only $106.70, given the odds of -9174, which means that Fitzpatrick is expected to not win 98.92% of the time. But DataGolf, the prominent golf analytics website, lists Fitzpatrick’s winless percentage at 99.3%, suggesting a nearly 0.4% change in odds versus what DataGolf expects to happen. This is an advantage.
That advantage won’t matter, of course, if Fitzpatrick wins. Let’s see what the weekend will bring.
