Mikey, Leo, And Griffin Walk Into A Bar — Who’s Picking Up The Tab?

Bells starts tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day depending on conditions (for a deeper overview of the event, click here).

Regardless of when it runs (or what the waves look like), there are some Round 1 heats that we simply won’t miss. They include:
– Men’s R1H4: Griffin Colapinto v. Leo Fioravanti v. Mikey Wright
– Men’s R1H5: Filipe Toledo v. Samuel Pupo v. Mick Fanning
– Women’s R1H1: Lakey Peterson v. Gabriela Bryan v. Courtney Conlogue
– Women’s R1H6: Malia Manuel v. Tyler Wright v. Bettylou Sakura Johnson

There are also a few heats that, at least on paper, look like a virtual inhale of chloroform.

But that’s why god invented surf betting.

Surf betting’s been around since the first boat of convicts set foot in Aus, but in the US — a place where you can go to war at 18 but can’t invert a beer until 21 — we’ve just been granted our first (legal) bite of the pie.

I for one am thoroughly engorged.

To celebrate the occasion, we’re opening our wallets and teaming up with the best (only?) US surf betting site on the market, Betonline.ag, to provide regular picks for this year’s CT season. 

In this year’s first event at Pipe, I turned a $500 investment into a $400+ gain, due in large part to my $55 bet on Moana Jones to win the event at +800 (if you want a reminder of how betting works, numbers and otherwise, check here).

I took a breather at Sunset and Portugal but am back for more at Bells, and I think I found a few windows of opportunity in Round 1. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s pick some event winners.

Event winner picks

Lakey Peterson at +800 (I bet $20, to return $180)

Griffin Colapinto at +1400 (I bet $10, to return $150)

Filipe Toledo at +700 (I bet $40, to return $320)

Johanne Defay at +1600 (I bet $25, to return $425)

Leonardo Fioravanti at +8000 (I bet $5, to return $405)

Jordy Smith at +800 (I bet $30, to return $270)

Steph Gilmore at +400 (I bet $20, to return $100)

Ethan Ewing at +1000 (I bet $25, to return $275) 

Total spend: $175

When it comes to picking event winners, you need to be strategic.

In a risk vs. reward sense, I don’t see much value in picking outright favorites for the overall event win. Sure, Carissa is probably the most likely female to take the W at Bells, but as she’s only paying +300, I’d have to spend a whole lot of money to make any significant return. The way I see it, there are way too many obstacles in her path to take that risk.

Alternatively, you don’t want to pick underdogs just because they pay well — chances are, they’re never gonna win. Your best bet is to pick people in the middle-to-top of the draw who stand a reasonable chance of emerging victorious. And as with any investment, don’t be afraid to pick a few ponies and diversify!

Of the eight potential event winners that I picked, six of them would surpass my $175 investment if they were to win. Let’s hope that happens, at the very least. The dream is to get both the male and female winner in the same event and take home some real fat cash.

Round 1 picks

Kolohe Andino over Jack Robinson and Jadson Andre at +150 (I bet $20 to return $50)

Gabriela Bryan over Lakey Peterson and Courtney Conlogue at +400 (I bet $10 to return $50)

Bettylou Sakura Johnson over Malia Manuel and Tyler Wright at +325 (I best $5 to return $21.25)

Leonardo Fioravanti over Griffin Colapinto and Mikey Wright at +300 (I bet $5 to return $20)

Samuel Pupo over Filipe Toledo and Mick Fanning at +450 (I bet $5 to return $27.50)

Jackson Baker over John Florence and Connor O’Leary at +350 (I bet $5 to return $22.50)

Joao Chianca over Conner Coffin and Caio Ibelli at +275 (I bet $5 to return $18.75)

Molly Picklum over Steph Gilmore and Brisa Hennessy at +250 (I bet $5 to return $17.50)

Total spend: $60

You’ll probably notice a theme here — I picked pretty much all underdogs in Round 1. This is a questionable strategy. Some would call it amateurish.

In my mind, I’m exploiting blind spots in the data with very little risk (mostly $5 bets). And at the end of the day, all I need to do is win three of these eight heats to regain my $60 investment — anything beyond that is money in the bank.

To be fair, I flunked super hard in the first round at Pipe using basically the same strategy (all but swearing off betting on three-person heats after that). Nevertheless, here we are again. Let’s see how it goes.

My bread-and-butter are the man-on-man heats, so stay tuned for updates throughout the event. Until then, stay clean!

If you’re from the States and want to get in on the action, I highly recommend checking out Betonline.ag. They’ve got some sweet sign-up offers, and the entertainment that betting brings to otherwise dull events is worth its wait in digital gold.