The Toronto Blue Jays took a bit of a dip in World Series futures in recent days at BetMGM Ontario Sportsbook. That’s not a surprise when you look at their starting pitching over the first 10 games.
Yes, Toronto went 6-4 on a season-opening road swing, and the Blue Jays have their home opener tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern against the horrible Detroit Tigers, currently 2-7. And the Jays have last year’s Cy Young candidate, Alek Manoah, on the mound.
But according to BetMGM, after opening at +900, the Jays are now +1200 to win the Series in Ontario sports betting. That puts them behind the Atlanta Braves (+650), Houston Astros (+650), New York Yankees (+800), Los Angeles Dodgers (+800), San Diego Padres (+1000) and New York Mets (+1100).
Tampa Bay Rays Off To Hot Start
A big spotlight today is on the Tampa Bay Rays, who went from +2200 opening odds to +1200 today. The Rays are 10-0, riding a starting pitching staff that has a 1.70 ERA. That’s first in all of baseball – and they don’t even have Tyler Glasnow back yet. He’s recovering from an oblique injury and could be back in early May.
The Jays, on the other hand, are 25th in team pitching with a 5.28 ERA, which is why those World Series odds are slipping.
The Rays are in town for a three-game set with the Jays this weekend at the Rogers Centre. So there will be a lot of eyes on that series from fans and for bettors at Ontario sportsbook apps.
On the player futures end, according to BetMGM, the Anaheim Angels’ Shohei Ohtani is the runaway so far for AL MVP betting – with the highest ticket percentage at 13.7 and the highest handle percentage at 20.9. Ohtani, incredibly, is getting the highest ticket percentage to win the AL Cy Young (12.2).
Blue Jays On AL MVP Odds Board
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the top Jay there; with current odds +1500 for AL MVP, he’s generating 9.9% of tickets and 7.9% of handle. Only Ohtani (+180), the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (+600), the Angels’ Mike Trout (+1000) and Houston’s Yordan Alvarez (+1100) stand ahead of Guerrero, according to BetMGM.
At FanDuel Ontario Sportsbook, Toronto’s Bo Bichette (+6000), Matt Chapman (+10000), George Springer (+10000) and Alejandro Kirk (+13000) are among the other Jays MVP contenders.
Jays starting pitcher Kevin Gausman has odds of +1600 to win the AL Cy Young at FanDuel. Manoah is currently at +3000 and Jose Berrios, with his poor start, is +20000. Chris Bassitt is +15000.
Interesting Proline Bets
On the interesting betting front: One Proline customer turned $60 into a $17,495 windfall on a 10-team parlay: Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, Florida Panthers, New York Islanders, Los Angeles Angels, Edmonton Oilers -1.5, Kansas City Royals +1.5, Rays -1.5, and New York Mets -1.5.
Not surprisingly, the Masters was the top Proline event of the week, with eventual winner Jon Rahm a popular pick to win it all. He came in at 8%, behind Rory McIlroy at 12% and Scottie Scheffler, at 11%.
Jays Jersey Swap Hosted By theScore Bet
Speaking of baseball, theScore Bet Ontario Sportsbook is hosting a four-day jersey swap at Stackt Market, a short walk to Rogers Centre off Bathurst St., starting this Thursday through Sunday. Fans can exchange any professional sports jersey for a brand new 2023 Blue Jays jersey.
The event benefits Jays Care Foundation with participants asked to make a minimum $15 donation to receive a new jersey.
Geocomply: Ontario Attracting Fraud
Amid all the handle and revenue numbers released last week as the Ontario online casino and sportsbook market celebrated its one-year anniversary, there was this from Vancouver-based GeoComply, the company that provides clients fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions that detect location fraud and helps verify a user’s true identity.
Aggregate data from the company’s services to its Ontario operator customers over the first 12 months showed that more than 500,000 users attempted to log in 11 million times to Ontario operators from around the world. More than 54,000 users from within the United States have attempted to log in 305,000 times to Ontario operators, and more than 3.3 million location spoofing (masking your location) attempts into Ontario operators have occurred from around the world.
The standard age to place a sports bet in most U.S. states is 21. In Ontario it’s 19.
GeoComply also revealed over 219,000 devices have been prevented from gambling on Ontario casino apps for fraud reasons. The company has detected 1,045 fraud rings affecting multiple operators.
“Ontario is such a large market and the opening of any market results in bonus offerings attracting fraudsters,” said GeoComply’s senior director of risk services, Danny DiRienzo. “This, coupled with the traditional gray market operations in Canada, resulted in experienced fraudsters hunting bonuses from Day 1, as anyone with a set of stolen identities could collect bonuses from several operators.”
