My Behavior Bets betting model has found good value using these Buffalo Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals betting strategies, based on the projected final outcome. The confidence in these outcomes allows me to significantly lower my risk while increasing the odds I turn a profit.
This NFL season, the Behavior Bets model has turned a profit of 254 units with a 44% return on investment.* For this game, I’ll be using the betting strategy of “dutching” to find profit opportunities in the game props.
*Stats on the Behavior Bets model provided by Pikkit. Use code PFNBRETT at download.
Bills vs. Bengals Betting Strategies
The Bills are at home playing a Bengals team that is looking to move past them in order to defend their conference championship. The Bengals are projected to win, according to my model, by four points.
That is a nine-point swing away from the +5-point spread the Bengals are being given as an underdog. This can be a dilemma for those bettors who like the Bills to cover at home, or at least think they’ll win, but the Bengals will cover.
Likewise, some bettors may feel the game will, in fact, be an upset victory for the Bengals but are hamstrung by their heads which tell them the Bills are at home in what promises to be an emotional game. They may also be concerned that the Bengals needed a nearly 100-yard fumble return touchdown to beat a Lamar Jackson-less Ravens team the week prior.
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This creates an uncomfortable situation for the bettor who is now stuck between an either/or situation where the risk can be large enough to have the bettor pass on this game entirely. Either the Bengals win, or the Bills win. Either the Bengals cover, or the Bills cover.
Using dutching, we can spread that risk out across multiple outcomes by placing bets on different winning margins. So long as you’re working with plus odds (and with winning margin game props, you always are) and the profit of the lowest odds you bet on will cover your other losses, you have created a low-risk opportunity to turn a profit.
For these Bills vs. Bengals betting strategies, I selected three of the most confident margins of victory my model projected and placed bets on each of them.
Bengals Win, but Bills Can Too
I feel really good about a Bengals victory on Sunday. That said, there is a reason the Bills are favored, and it is certainly possible for them to walk away with a victory. This is a perfect reason to find a way to mitigate our risk and turn a profit.
Over at DraftKings, there are two winning margins that, based on the Behavior Bets betting model, give bettors the projected lowest risk of turning a profit. I added a third to account for the possibility of a Bills win. I have this game being pretty close one way or the other, so I removed a large winning margin to account for the Bills’ possibility of winning.
- Bills 1-6 points +275
- Bengals 1-6 points +425
- Bengals 7-12 +750
There are two ways to attack this Bills vs. Bengals betting strategy to walk away with a profit. Allocate your bets proportionally and bring home a fixed profit or bet an equal amount on all three and walk away with a profit based on the lowest of the odds that hit.
Allocate Your Bets Proportionately
With the first strategy, let’s say you had $300 to wager. You would want to do the following:
- $139.18 on Bills by 1-6
- $99.42 on Bengals 1-6
- $61.40 on Bengals 7-12
That would win $521.93 if any of those three outcomes occur, and you’re taking home a net profit of $221.93. You would be rooting for either team to win by 1-6 points or the Bengals to win by a touchdown.
Allocate Your Wagers Equally
With the second strategy, again assuming you have $300, you would bet $100 equally across the three outcomes. If the lowest odds hit (Bills 1-6), you would win $375, with a $75 profit. If the highest odds came in (Bengals 7-12), you would win $850 with a $650 profit.
With this strategy, you lower your profit if it’s a close win for the Bills, but up your profit substantially if the Bengals win decisively (but by fewer than 13 points). The key is that your total bet amount must at least double, triple, or quadruple (depending on if you are spreading your risk across two, three, or four bets) your money at the lowest odds if it were a single bet.
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If you bet $300 alone on +275 odds, you win $1,125. That’s more than triple. Now you know if you spread that $300 out equally across the three bets, if the lowest odds win, you break even. It’s all about comfort and educated confidence.
This is not risk-free, but it is low-risk when applying these Bills vs. Bengals betting strategies, especially when aided by a model like the Behavior Bets model.