It started innocently enough.

At the start of the Arkansas football season, I was driving home listening to “Ruscin & Zach” on ESPN Arkansas when I heard an ad for Bet Saracen. Hearing Randy Rainwater – the longtime host of DriveTime Sports on Little Rock’s The Buzz 103.7 FM – during a commercial break on a competing radio show was jarring. But the tagline of his spot for Bet Saracen caught my interest: “Look for my Double R Specials. I pick ‘em and you win ‘em.”

My first thought was kudos to the copywriter who came up with that line. It’s catchy. 

My second was, “I wonder if you really do win ‘em when he picks ‘em?”

It was the week of the first Arkansas football game, so I downloaded the Bet Saracen app. (Full disclosure: I’ve had the Oaklawn Sports app since it debuted, thanks to having an Oaklawn Anywhere account for wagering on horse races since it was launched many years ago. Also, I bet with an illegal bookie for about a decade in the 1990s.)

Without having to create an account, I was able to see Rainwater’s Double R Specials for the UAPB-Arkansas game. He had mainly player prop parlays like “Braylen Russell over 7.5 total carries AND over 1.5 rushing touchdowns.” He included parlays on everything from Taylen Green pass attempts paired with pass completions to Devin Bale total punts parlayed with the distance of his longest one. 

These parlays boost the odds to make them more attractive to betters, but both things have to be true for the bet to pay off. For example, you can do a parlay of Chiefs -6.5 AND Steelers -6.5. If both teams win by seven or more points, you win the bet. If the Chiefs cover, but the Steelers only win by a field goal, then you’ve lost. The more legs (or outcomes) in a parlay, the bigger the odds. Put together a 12-wager parlay and you can win more than $10,000 on a $1 bet. 

Of course, those odds also mean they are less likely to happen. A study by UNLV’s International Gaming Institute found that over more than 30 years, casinos’ win percentage on football was 5.26 percent, but on parlays it was 30.88 percent. Obviously, the house wants you to bet parlays because they’ll make more money. 

Then I opened the Oaklawn Sports app and saw David Bazzel – host of the 103.7 morning show, creator of the Broyles Award and other things – prominently displayed on the app with his picks for the week. Bazzel was more traditional in his selections. He chose point spread selections for NFL and college football games like “Ohio State -48.5.” 

I quickly set up a spreadsheet and downloaded both of their picks for the week. For the rest of the regular season, I tracked their selections, wins and losses and profit/loss at an imaginary $1 per bet per promoted wager. Thanks to the confluence of sports media and sports wagering, I wasn’t about to try to track all the betting advice given on the various sports shows across the state. But if I opened one of the apps and saw a sports media member’s face, then those picks went in the spreadsheet. 

So how did they do? Did they provide a positive return on investment for users of these apps?

Over 14 weeks, Bazzel made 109 selections (just shy of eight bets per week) and got 64 of them correct. If you had put $1 on all 109 of his picks, you’d have turned a $15.73 profit for the year. 

(Oaklawn Sports, it should be noted, listed a different W/L record at one point. When I was using their app, Baz’s picks early in the season would often load as multi-team parlays when they were intended to be individual wagers. Oaklawn corrected that after Week 3.)

The Bottom Line with One Form of Sports Betting

Double R had picks for 12 weeks with nothing listed for Razorbacks’ bye weeks. In total, he touted 361 wagers (just over 30 per week) and he got just 56 correct. If you had put $1 on each of the 361 Double R Specials, you would be $192.50 poorer than if you’d not bet at all. 

Of his 361 touted wagers, just 53 were not two-leg parlays and 32 of those were listed in the last two games of the season. That’s fewer than the number of parlays offered on individual player tackles combined with either sacks or tackles for a loss. Of those 63 individual defensive effort parlays, six hit. If you’d put $1 on each wager he promoted, you’d be $45.55 poorer than if you had not bet at all. 

The number of weekly selections by Bazzel was pretty consistent – three or four college games and three or four NFL games chosen. Rainwater ramped up as the season drew to a close. 

Rainwater listed 15 Double R Specials in Week 1 (UAPB), 25 in Week 4 (Auburn), 33 in Week 10 (Ole Miss) and a whopping 55 in Week 14 (Missouri). From the outside looking in, it appears he was chasing losses by making more wagers as his picks sank deeper into the red each week. Here are a few of the most ridiculous bets that Rainwater had lined up on Rivalry Week.

• Malachi Singleton over 59.5 passing yards and over 14.5 completions
• Matthew Shipley over 3.5 field goal attempts and over 51.5 longest field goal
• Hudson Clark over 5.5 total tackles and over 0.5 interceptions
• Arkansas offense over 234.5 passing yards and over 159.5 rushing yards

Betting the overs on kickers and backup quarterbacks for a game taking place in a blizzard? Come on, man. For this season, it was obvious that Double R’s “I pick ‘em and you win ‘em” line was a great marketing phrase – but far from the truth. 

As always folks, please bet responsibly. And hopefully your definition of responsibility does not include placing 55 bets on a snowy rendition of the Battle Line Rivalry. Rainwater’s mountain of wagers is a good exercise in the entertainment value of sports betting – but, as expected based on studies, it’s the last method you want to turn to if you’re actually trying to improve your finances.

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Check out the whole spreadsheet here.

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