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Dave Bontempo

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PlayNJ’s Battle Of The Books Tournament Kicks-Off With A Shocker!

March 17, 2020
battle of the books

AHA!

The first Battle of the Books produced the first upset, by a mile.

TheScoreBet, seeded eighth in the first round of competition, nailed 70% of the votes and defeated DraftKings according to Twitter followers on PlayNJCom and NJBetting.com.

The rousing result got the Battle of the Books off to a sizzling start. Round two unfurled Tuesday, with 888 Sports taking on Caesars.


Fans decide their top sportsbook among the 16 New Jersey heavyweights entered.

Did sports-betting pioneer DraftKings look past the group that was launched in Canada? Did the Score’s previous reputation as a Canadian network resonate with voters?

For DraftKings, a stunning tweet defeat.

The performance had fans recalling March Madness upsets. Yeah, Villanova was an 8th seed and won it all by beating Georgetown. Maybe the Score book is for real.

What message does the DraftKings loss send d to FanDuel, another industry pioneer going against BetAmerica on Friday.? All bets are on

Another interesting matchup unfolds Thursday, with Golden Nugget and odds-optimizing PointsBet looking to establish position.

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Looking ahead:

Wednesday features Bet MGM versus Resorts.

First-round matches run until March 23.

That will cut the field to eight. Second-round contests bring the field to four. Semifinals and the finals follow.

How To Enter:

Anyone who participates in the voting on Twitter will be entered into prize drawings for a chance to win free bets from several of the top NJ online sports betting apps. 

  1. Visittwitter.com/playnjcom and follow us
  2. Check out the latest #BattleOfTheBooks poll on our feed
  3. Vote for the sportsbook you want to see move on to the next round
  4. LIKE the post. (If you don’t like the post, we won’t know you voted)
  5. And that’s it. You’re entered to win the prize in that specific voting matchup.

Place your votes at @PlayNJcom 

How To Win:

  1. At the conclusion of each matchup, we will randomly select winners from the pool of voters for that round. 
  2. Each winner will then receive a DM from us with how to claim their FREE BET
  3. You can vote on every match in every round, for the maximum chances to win.
    • So make sure you follow our PlayNJ twitter page
    • And turn on the notifications for our page so you’ll be notified each time we start a new poll.

DraftKings vs TheScore

Monday, March 16
11AM (EST)

Monday, March 16
11PM (EST)

888Sport vs Caesars

Tuesday, March 17
11AM (EST)

Tuesday, March 17
11PM (EST)

BetMGM vs Resorts

Wednesday, March 18
11AM (EST)

Wednesday, March 18
11PM (EST)

Golden Nugget vs PointsBet

Thursday, March 19
11AM (EST)

Thursday, March 19
11PM (EST)

FanDuel vs BetAmerica

Friday, March 20
11AM (EST)

Friday, March 20
11PM (EST)

UniBet vs FOX Bet

Saturday, March 21
11AM (EST)

Saturday, March 21
11PM (EST)

William Hill vs bet365

Sunday, March 22
11AM (EST)

Sunday, March 22
11PM (EST)

Borgata vs SugarHouse

Monday, March 23
11AM (EST)

Monday, March 23
11PM (EST)

FOXBet Entices Bettors To Wager On The Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury Fight

February 20, 2020
wilder fury promotion

Boxing has hit the bonus board with a Wilder, Fury promotion!

The Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury heavyweight championship bout in Las Vegas has accomplished something few fights do. It encouraged a gambling outfit, FOXBet, to use boxing to drive a bonus.

Wilder-Fury 2, a rematch of their electrifying 2018 draw, prompted a small, but symbolic, move by FOXBet.

Here is the pitch.

FOXBet Wilder, Fury Promotion Offer – 3 Minutes to Win it!

If the Fight Goes Past Round 1 – Bet $25 to win $50

  • Register and verify your account using this EXCLUSIVE LINK
  • Must have made a deposit to qualify. The promotional bet has to be your first bet.  
  • Bet on 3 Minutes to Win it – If the Fight Goes Past Round 1 – Bet $25 to win $50
  • Your $25 Free Bet will be credited on Monday, February 24th, 2020 by noon EST.

FOXBet is confident of providing the $25 bonus. Wilder is 33-1 and Fury 66-1 to win in the opening round.

wilder fury promotion foxbet

 

The bonus amount may be small, but the symbolism is not. This is a betting breakthrough for boxing, which has struggled to lure gamblers on most fights because of the absence of a point spread.

A loser can’t really “cover”, which is a prime ingredient for betting.

Slowly, gambling sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, William Hill, PlaySugarHouse and PointsBet have incorporated group-rounds betting and round-specific methods of victory to enhance the menu.

That’s the same ideology for FOXBet Sportsbook. The book will hook new customers with the Wilder Fury promotion bonus that exposes bettors to other options across all sports.

Beyond the bonus, for example,  there are interesting plays here.

FOXBet has group-rounds wagering. Wilder’s odds are between 6-1 and 11-1 for anyone picking the three-round period in which he would stop Fury. Numbers are 12-1 to 25-1 in group-rounds betting for Fury to score a knockout.

Will both fighters go down? Interesting prop. It’s 7-1 for yes.

Wilder, Fury Promotion Odds Boosts

wilder fury promotion foxbet


Gambling Background

This is a great moneyline betting fight. Wilder is slightly favored, but it was close to pick-em for most of the past two weeks. Wilder was inching up toward 6-5 status late in the week. But for much of the wagering period, the moneyline rivaled that of an NFL spread. Close to -110.

For Wilder-Fury, select the right fighter and one is practically guaranteed to double his/her money.

Yet the props are also tantalizing.

  • Wilder winning a decision pays in the 8-1 and 9-1 neighborhood, even though the fight is considered even on paper.

Props reflect the belief that Wilder’s victory is a knockout and Fury’s is a decision. It would not be “Wilderly” contrarian, however, to pick him by decision.

Fury was cut badly in the third round of his last fight, a 2019 win over Otto Wallin. He gamely survived for the last nine rounds but would probably not be able to hold Wilder off that long. A similar cut would put Fury dangerously in the path of Wilder’s powerful jab.


Fight Background

This is a battle of undefeated heavyweights who have 71 wins. Wilder has been the WBC heavyweight champion since 2015, when he won by decision vs Bermane Stiverne at the same MGM Grand Arena where he’ll fight Saturday. 

Wilder had never fought past four rounds when he went 12 and won by decision vs Stiverne, a highly unlikely successful jump in rounds.

Two years later, Wilder fought Stiverne in a rematch. And stopped him in one round.

  1. Wilder is 42-0-1 with 41 knockouts.
  2. Fury is 29-0-1 with 20 knockouts.

Fury became prominent at the same time as Wilder. He toppled Vladimir Klitschko, the world’s top heavyweight, in 2015.

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Fury is 6-foot-9. Wilder is 6-foot-7. They both had to box more than a slugfest in the first fight because neither had a real height advantage. Fury outboxed Wilder and was en route to victory but Wilder knocked him down in the 9th and 12th rounds. What propelled this rematch was Fury bravely getting up from what appeared to be a finishing blow in the 12th.

The winner of this fight will be lobbying Anthony Joshua, who has three of the four heavyweight belts, for a fight this year. If either fighter wins in dramatic fashion, a battle with Joshua would be enormous in terms of public support.

While other books did not follow the FOXBet route, they are promoting the fight in their weekly dispatches.


 DraftKings – Expectation of a KO

  • DraftKings pays +120 for the fight to go the distance.
  • Odds of not going the distance is -162, meaning a bettor essentially lays 8-5.

Rather than do that, one may be enticed to select the right fighter for the knockout.

  • Wilder is +125 and Fury is +550.

A Wilder decision pays handsomely within the context of this rivalry.

  • It returns 9-1, while Fury is +170.

Their first fight went 12 rounds and Wilder was outboxed before stealing the draw with two late knockdowns. This prop reflects doubt that he can box and win, but that’s nonetheless quite a return.

Wilder received 71% of the money and 76% of the tickets by mid-week.


William Hill – Wilder’s The Man

Similar sentiment unfolds at William Hill, with 75% of the moneyline tickets and 70% of the money on Wilder.

This book has a unique approach to rounds wagering, a series of over-under bets determined in half-rounds. That breaks the three-minute round into a pair of 1:30 blocks.

Think of the anxiety and intensity for a bettor watching a referee on the verge of stopping a fight somewhere near the 1:30 mark of the round you’ve picked as a knockout round.

  • A stoppage at 1:29 rewards the under.
  • At 1:31, it pays the over.

PlaySugarHouse – Fast and Furious

Here’s an electrifying prop. Will the fight end in the first 59 seconds?

That’s 66-1 at SugarHouse Sportsbook

The site has an interesting bet of whether either fighter an be dropped and still win. Fury would pay 5-1, Wilder 9-1.

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