Bears And Patriots Picks Show Value Of Shopping NFL Draft Lines

• The New England Patriots selected DB Kyle Duggar with the 37th pick in the draft, which was their first pick.
• The Chicago Bears selected TE Cole Kmet with the 43rd pick in the draft, which was their first pick.
• These teams both had odds on which type of player they would pick first, and these odds demonstrate the value of shopping lines.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Patriots selected defensive back Kyle Duggar with pick number 37, their first pick in the draft.

The Patriots surprised many by trading out of the first round on Thursday, flipping their 23rd overall pick into a second-round pick and a third-round pick.

Thus, the odds on who the Patriots would select first were still on the board at many major online sportsbooks entering Day 2 of the 2020 NFL Draft.

However, these odds can teach many sports bettors a lesson: the odds of the bet depend on what online sportsbook they are at.

As an example, here are the odds for the Patriots' first selection in the draft, at two separate major sportsbooks.

First, at Bovada:

This is an example of a sportsbook playing it safe. They aren’t sure what direction the Patriots will go, and they don’t want to take a major loss.

Next, take a look at the odds on MyBookie:

This is an enormous gap - and one that worked to the detriment of the sportsbook, most likely. The Patriots, of course, ended up drafting Duggar, a defensive player, and MyBookie’s +225 odds on that occurrence are much more rewarding to those that bet on it than Bovada’s odds.

This is not the only time throughout the night that a situation like this occurred.

With the 43rd pick in the draft, the Bears made their first selection - tight end Cole Kmet out of Notre Dame.

Again, take a look at the odds on Bovada:

Compare these to the odds on MyBookie:

Once again, MyBookie had much wider odds on this situation occurring, although this time, they ended up being correct - the Bears did select an offensive player with their first pick in the draft.

The big takeaway from these scenarios is the value of shopping lines. With the Patriots pick, if a bettor placed $100 down on them taking a defensive player at Bovada, they’d walk away with $90.91 in profit. If they made the same bet at MyBookie, they’d walk away with $225 in profit.

In the second scenario, if a bettor placed $100 on the Bears taking an offensive player with their first pick at Bovada, they’d walk away with $66.67 in profit. If they placed the same bet at MyBookie, they’d walk away with $35.71 in profit.

This is all to say, neither of these sportsbooks are necessarily giving better lines than the other, but by using both of them, a bettor can find the best betting line for the NFL Draft that they want to bet on.