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 148-105-4 (58.5%) 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 157-106-7 against the closing spread since the start of 2018. That equates to a 59.7% cover rate when pushes are removed over a sample size of more than 260 games.
In Week 8, the five unlucky went 3-2 ATS, moving luck-based sides to 14-7 (66.7%) ATS on the year. In these 21 games, the unlucky team has covered by an average of 4.2 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
Luck Totals went 0-3 on the week, with weak Luck Unders going 0-2 to the under and the strong Luck Over going 0-1 to the over. Overall, that puts weak Luck Totals at 7-14 (33.3%) while strong Luck Totals are now 2-4 (33.3%) on the season. It's been a rough year for Luck Totals so far, and if that continues, it would be the first losing year for Luck Totals in the history of the Luck Rankings.
Overall, that puts weak Luck Totals at 7-14 (33.3%) while strong Luck Totals are now 2-4 (33.3%) on the season.
Thankfully, this week — Week 9 — is typically where the weak Luck Unders start to beat the market. Starting now, weak Luck Unders have historically gone 56.5% to the under. Strong Totals are still at quite a small sample size this year with just six games, so hopefully they turn around over the remainder of the season.
As a whole, all sides and strong total bets are 16-11 (59.3%), while all bets, including the weak totals, are 23-25 (47.9%).
Based on our Week 9 NFL Luck Rankings, there two sides and two weak totals that meet the criteria.
Let's dive in.
