Sports bettors searching for a straight-up moonshot payout found it Tuesday night in the NHL. Just who rewarded bettors with the desired upset cash?
The Coyotes!
Yes, the worst team in the NHL, the Arizona Coyotes.
The Coyotes posted a 3-2 shootout victory over the Avalanche and pulled off one of the biggest upsets to win in terms of betting odds in 16 years, according to The Action Network. The Avalanche were -550 favorites on the moneyline at SI Sportsbook, with the comeback on the Coyotes returning profits at +450 odds as underdogs.
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David Zalubowski/AP
The Coyotes, who entered Tuesday night with a league-low 10 wins and had lost five straight games, also ended the Avalanche’s home winning streak at 18. Colorado’s impressive run at Ball Arena ranked fifth in NHL history, five games shy of the all- time best home winning streak set by the Red Wings in 2011 at 23 games.
The Avalanche entered the night on a 10-game winning streak and had previously beaten their Central Division foe twice already this season.
Colorado, the favorite to win the Stanley Cup at odds of +500 at SI Sportsbook, was a cash machine for sports bettors in the month of January, posting a 15-0-1 mark. The impressive stretch, which tied the 2014 Bruins and the 2013 Penguins for the most wins by any team in league history over a one-month span, has forced oddsmakers to make massive adjustments in their pricing over the last several weeks.
Upon a deeper dive, we find that sports bettors were forced to lay overwhelmingly prohibitive odds if they desired to invest bankroll funds behind the Avalanche. Only three times in the last 16 games have oddsmakers at SI Sportsbook listed Colorado at less than -200. To put this upset in a bigger perspective: In those 13 other games, sports bettors were required to lay on average -390 in order to back the Avalanche in the month of January. Among those games were two matchups against Montreal and Arizona, when oddsmakers demanded bettors lay odds in excess of -600!
As sports bettors, we often scour the betting board in search of our next big win. Even if you may have missed this one, don’t worry because as we know in sports the next “big upset” is always right around the corner.
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