Golf betting is blowing up. Look no further than the PGA Tour’s recent partnership with the Action Network for evidence of that fact.

With the calendar reshuffle, The Players Championship now kicks off the meat of the golf season. The most serious golf bettors have been placing wagers for months of the 2020 season already, so to get the more casual wagerers among us ready for the big betting events of the year, we’re talking with a professional gambler.

We’ve talked with Dave of Top Market Sports, the only sports advisory site in the world that’s owned and operated by real Wall Street traders and analysts, on two occasions, and he always has plenty of betting wisdom to impart.

Check out our conversation below.

Q. What are some challenges that you face as a serious golf bettor?

Betting on golf for a living is like trying to hit a moving target. It’s very niche, so it’s worlds different from betting on something like the NFL. The hardest part becomes finding fair places to bet. Here’s a good example. There are a bunch of major bookmaking operations that are now capping golf futures at 50/1. Meaning that 50/1 is the deepest they’ll price a guy to win a tournament. They just don’t want the liability given how thin the market is. Like this week, Chez Reavie is being offered for 50/1 at some places. That is the definition of outrageous. I bet him last night at 200/1 offshore.

You can’t be playing carnival games with these people. Not if you want to turn a meaningful profit doing this. So, I guess that’s my biggest challenge lately, being forced to become a global citizen in order to have proper jurisdiction and access to bookmakers across the globe. It’s funny, people assume you can bet on anything under the sun here in Vegas. In reality, the golf betting scene in this town is pretty dead. There’s one new shop attempting to breathe some life into it, but the jury is still out. As a result, the lion’s share of bets I’m making on The Players Championship this week will be placed offshore.

Q. You seem to never bet on the big marquee names like Rory McIlroy to win. Why?

A. Betting single-digit futures is bankroll suicide. Single-digit futures are anyone with shorter odds than 10/1. In fact, I’m actually making a conscious effort this season to not touch anything lower than 25/1.

The sports betting market, as a whole, underestimates the possibility of an unexpected event happening. For example, the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup last year after being priced at 250/1 midway through the season. Leicester City won the Premier League as a 5000/1 long shot a few years ago. Five thousand to one! My point is that in sports, the unexpected happens all of the time. And in golf, this phenomenon is amplified even more.

If you’re feeling strongly about a player at the top of the board like McIlroy, just bet him in matchups. Then all you have to do is beat one guy, not a full field of 143 killers. Pretty much everyone in this Players Championship field is capable of tasting God Mode on any given week. You want to bet against an army of 143 with a 6/1 shot? Be my guest, but you’re in the wrong business.

Q. Speaking of matchups, how do you split the action between matchups and futures? And how did your selections fare last week at Bay Hill?

A. Matchups are the meat and potatoes. You have to be able to sustain yourself on matchups while waiting to smash a gravy train future. About 75 percent of my play each week goes into matchups, and the remaining quarter gets pounded into deep value outrights.

Last week we played McNealy (100/1), DeChambeau (25/1), Scheffler (70/1), and Cabrera Bello (100/1) in the outright market. Despite whiffing, it was encouraging to see both DeChambeau and Scheffler in semi-contention for all 72 holes.

Our huge matchup play at Bay Hill was Harris English -120 over Jason Kokrak. This was one of those spots where clients were advised to hammer until they couldn’t hammer it anymore. It really was stealing! I beat a Costa Rican outfit for a Cadillac on that one. Fading Kokrak has been a windfall these past couple years. The wannabe-wiseguy-leather-jacket crowd can’t get over him for some reason. We also cashed DeChambeau +112 over Fleetwood and Scheffler -125 over Niemann. The only match we lost was Howell -111 over Cauley. On the whole, it was a satisfactory week.

Q. Nice work! How about a pick for this week?

A. The matchups I’m going to reserve for my client base, but here’s another future. I already mentioned Chez Reavie at 200/1. Shane Lowry at 90/1 is also worth something. Sentiment has really reached a boiling point on him. His extended liquor-soaked British Open celebrations are a cute narrative, but couldn’t be further from the truth at this point.

He’s been striking it beautifully for months, but has been held back by some trouble on the greens. After a workmanlike top 25 at Honda, he took Bay Hill off for a hard reset of the putter. Sometimes, a putting shake-up can pay immediate and shocking dividends. People inside the ropes tell me he’s 100 percent golf-focused, locked down practicing with the flatstick in recent days, preparing for this week’s championship.

Shane now fancies himself a big event player, as he should. That British Open bink seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality it’s only been seven months. The win proved he’s capable of being a rockstar threat on the biggest stage. And with TPC Sawgrass being as pressure-packed and high stakes as it gets, this gives him a mental edge on the majority of the field. Knowing he’s done it before is the type of intangible Pokemon power card that could come in very handy if he’s able to slide into contention down the stretch on Sunday.

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