Our NFL Luck Rankings have proven to be a highly successful tool for betting NFL sides and totals.
In the three seasons since we introduced the Luck Rankings, games that met significant thresholds for sides or totals have gone 135-89-4 (60.3%) against closing lines, the hardest lines to beat!
This year, we introduced Version 3.0 of our Luck Rankings as a way to continue to improve the methodology, as well as to simplify the thresholds and give you even better luck metrics.
As part of that, we've introduced something called the "Luck Score." This single number will tell us whether a game has a significant luck factor.
If the Luck Score is 1.454 or higher, we'll consider that a luck-based side. In addition, associated with each Luck Score will be a letter grade and a Luck-Based Cover% (LBC%). Anything with a "D" and up is playable, with expected improved results as we go up the letter-grade scale (from D to A).
Unlucky teams meeting this 1.454 Luck Score and D-rated threshold or better are 149-102-7 against the closing spread over the past seven years. That equates to a 59.4% cover rate when pushes are removed over a sample size greater than 250 games.
In Week 4, all three unlucky teams meeting the Luck Score threshold covered, improving Luck Sides to 6-3 ATS on the year. In these nine games, the unlucky team is covering by an average of 5.8 points.
For Luck Totals, the criteria is as follows:
- Luck Overs: Luck Total of +1.5 or above
- Luck Unders: Luck Total of -1 or below
However, there are even stronger thresholds for Luck Totals, which we'll call "strong" Luck Overs or Unders:
- Strong Luck Overs: Luck Total of +2.0 or above
- Strong Luck Unders: Luck Total of -1.8 or below
In Week 4, there was one strong Luck Under, which went 0-1 to the under, while the five weak Luck Unders went 2-3 to the under.
Overall, that puts weak Luck Totals at 2-4 and strong Luck Totals at 2-2 on the season.
As a whole, all sides and strong total bets are 8-5 (61.5%), while all bets, including the weak totals, are 10-9 (52.6%).
Based on our Week 5 NFL Luck Rankings, there is one side and four weak totals that meet the criteria. Let's dive in.
NFL Luck Rankings Week 5 Games
Week 5 Discussion
After a strong 3-0 Week 4, unlucky teams that meet the Luck Score threshold are 18-2 in Week 4 over eight years of Luck Rankings data. And that's part of a three-week strong point of the year for the Luck Rankings in Weeks 2-4, with unlucky teams meeting the threshold going 40-19-2 (67.8%) ATS.
But Week 5 is a different story, and really Weeks 5-7 as a whole.
In Week 5, unlucky teams meeting the Luck Score threshold are just 5-9 ATS since 2018, while in Weeks 5-7 they are 16-27 (37.2%) ATS.
Likely, it's because the market underreacts to luck in the first couple of weeks, then figures it out and possibly even overcorrects before long-term luck kicks in. Then, Weeks 8 to the end of the season are strong again.
But that doesn't mean we should just blindly avoid luck-based sides in these weeks. It just means we need to really analyze the matchup, price, injury report, and expected line movement to see if, or when, we should bet on the unlucky team.
We're also still in the Weeks 3-5 doldrums for weak luck unders that I talked about last week, and with all four totals being weak unders, we'll want to tread carefully.
