How I Bet: PrizePicks
PrizePicks is a fun alternative to traditional books if your state doesn’t currently allow (legal) sports gambling. Their rules are unique in that there is no price/odds/juice; it’s just straight up Over/Under parlays across any and all sports they offer. You can bet on the typical major US sports, EuroLeague basketball, Esports and tons more.
Since there is no juice, your goal is simplified: Take the best plays. Regardless of price. Period.
So how do I do that? I trust the books.
That sentence alone probably makes any gambler cringe, but it’s the best way to consistently profit on PrizePicks (or Underdog or any other app that uses the Over/Under parlay model). Nobody spends more money on making their lines sharp, nobody has more insider info, and nobody has a better ever-changing algo than the books.
If 10 sportsbooks have Josh Allen’s passing yards prop set at O/U 265.5, and PrizePicks has him set at 235.5, that is incredible value on the Over and is worth taking every single time—regardless of matchup, weather, injury, L5, or anything else. It’s all already baked into that line set by the books.
The same goes for heavy juice. In Purdue’s last game, Zach Edey’s O/U on the books was right around 23.5 or 22.5 points. His Alt Points line of 19.5 on FD & DK was juiced to about -230. Prize Picks had him at 19.5, giving elite value (he ended up sailing over all of the lines, but it was extremely likely he would go for at least 20 regardless).
PrizePicks is pretty sharp in general, but there will be discrepancies you can attack on a nearly daily basis. You need to regularly check however, as they will move lines rather quickly if there is too big of an edge somewhere, or if a certain play's volume skyrockets. I have noticed as soon as both FanDuel & DraftKings have a certain prop juiced up above the -160 line, PrizePicks usually rolls that play over to the next integer. For example, if Rudy Gobert's Rebounds prop opens at 11.5 on PrizePicks, but it moves to -165 on both FD & DK, it very likely kicks up to 12.0 on PrizePicks. If you snagged it at 11.5, you immediately gained excellent value vs the field in regards to the expected outcome.
The easiest plays to catch these kinds of values on was the NFL's yardage props, but that is sadly winding down very soon. But there is still plenty of opportunity right now with the NBA and NCAAB (and MLB coming soon!). I personally do not play many NHL props—more on that in a minute—but values still pop there on a daily basis as well.
As for types of slips, I think it is important to use 2-man Powers anytime you have multiple strong values. This is a solid way to slowly build some bankroll so that you can continue to take shots on the best mathematical slips (your 5-man and 6-man Flexes). If I Tweet out a 4-man FLEX that I am on, you can know that I am also on one or more 2-man Powers as well. I very rarely take a larger play without at least one 2-man of my strongest props.
Now that you know the general idea, I wanted to point out one important discrepancy that I noticed over the last year. Certain props are naturally juiced higher on the books to begin with because of the lower barrier needed for it to cash. These have a much higher variance and lower hit rate on PrizePicks (noticeable enough over the last six months, that I mostly just avoid them now). The short answer to what I am talking about is: low number plays. This would include NHL Shots on Goal props below 2, NFL Tackles below 3 or 4, NFL Receptions below 3, NBA or NCAA Assists below 3, NBA or NCAA blocked shots and/or steals, NBA or NCAA 3PM, etc. You get the idea: low numbered plays are always juiced up on the books, because it just takes one or two for someone to cash. You will almost never see a 1.5 Assist prop with juice below -150+, so it will always flag as a value on PrizePicks, despite hitting at a lower rate than a 5.5 Assist prop with the exact same juice. The same goes for 1.5 SOG or 1.5 Receptions. Overall volume for a play matters.
So now you just need to know how to find the values before they move. (Where are my spreadsheet gurus at?!) You can pull lines from any major book's website in order to find the values and edges on the fly, but they are constantly moving in real time so you have to stay on top of it. If that sounds like a daunting task and you aren't interested in firing up a bunch of YouTube tutorials, there are multiple services that offer this for a price. OddsJam and OddsShopper are both popular options you can pay for. (I promise I am not a paid affiliate haha...) You can probably just google it and find many more beyond these two as PrizePicks continues to rise in popularity.
If I find an individual play or a slip that I love, I will try and Tweet it out before it moves. Sometimes the value will sit for an hour, and sometimes it will be pulled within 30 seconds. That is just part of the line shopping game we all play unfortunately.
If you have a question about my process after reading this, you can hit me up via email or Twitter anytime. Let's keep beating the books together!
