Daily Sports Betting Preview 4/28/2020: NBA Sims, NFL Sims, Korean Baseball

• The simulated Denver Nuggets are -3.5 points on the spread against the simulated San Antonio Spurs.
• The simulated New England Patriots are -4 points on the spread against the Chicago Bears.
• Baseball is back in Korea, and there are five games that are open for betting.

LAS VEGAS - Today’s edition of the Daily Sports Betting Preview starts with simulated games, taking a look at multiple types, and then takes a look at one of the leagues that has started to return.

The first sim game on the docket is simulated basketball, in the form of NBA 2020 simulations.

After that, the Preview examines another 2020 simulation - NFL 2020 sims.

Finally, the Preview checks in over in South Korea, as their preseason baseball is starting to ramp up, and live baseball is hard to find these days.

There’s a lot to cover today, so let’s get started.

NBA 2020 Sims

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many sports betting websites have given simulated sports a greater amount of prominence.

Simulated sports and virtual sports betting have existed for a while but were often overshadowed by the real deal, so to speak.

However, the pandemic knocked the real deal out of commission for a while, and that has led to a world in which the front page of some of the biggest online sportsbooks in the world shows simulated NBA and NFL games as one of the day’s main attractions.

The games are simulated using the NBA 2k20 series, with both teams set to Hall of Fame level CPU play. Quarters are six minutes each.

Today’s most interesting sim game is between the San Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets.

The Spurs are mild road underdogs, entering Denver 3.5 points down on the spread, and +140 on the moneyline.

For their part, the Nuggets are -3.5 (-120) on the spread, and -185 on the moneyline. The Nuggets should be the better team in this game, with an all-around better roster, but they are notably inconsistent.

This inconsistency is perhaps the reason why they are not larger favorites in this game, despite being built around one of the most unique offensive threats in the modern NBA in the form of Nikola Jokic.

The Over/Under line is set at 107.5 points. It is important to remember that these games are simulated, and are not real games, so 107.5 is a fairly average Over/Under line for a game like this.

Overall, this is surely an interesting matchup, and bettors would be well served by paying attention to simulated NBA games.

NFL Sim 2020

On the subject of interesting 2020 simulation games, there are NFL 2020 simulations going on today as well. These games are simulated using the Madden 2020 video game.

There are four games available to bet on as far as NFL 2020 simulation betting goes, and the most interesting of them is probably the game between the New England Patriots and the Chicago Bears.

One thing to keep in mind - rosters for these games are updated to the end of the 2019-2020 season. This means that there will be no draft picks in the game, and that major free agents who left certain teams will still be on those teams in the simulation.

Both teams will be controlled by the CPU, which will be set on All-Madden difficulty. Quarters will be 15 minutes long, and the game starts at 7:00 p.m. EST.

The Patriots enter the game as four-point favorites on the spread over the Bears. On the moneyline, the Patriots have -185 odds to the Bears +140 odds. The Over/Under line for this game is set at 51.5 points, with both sides of the bet having -115 odds.

Given the quarters are 15 minutes long, and the teams are set to play on All-Madden difficulty, this is a fairly realistic Over/Under line.

This simulation will have as much time to play out as an actual game of NFL football, which is an interesting wrinkle to add to the simulation betting genre.

Korean Preseason Baseball

Baseball has been a very hard sport to find, and it is one of those sports that tends to not be missed until it is gone. Luckily for the baseball fanatics amongst the readership of this column, there is some live baseball to be enjoyed.

Over in South Korea, there are five games of baseball set to be played as part of the South Korean KBO preseason. There’s just one catch for US-based bettors - the games all take place in the middle of the night.

All five games air at 1:00 a.m. EST, on April 29th, 2020.

The most interesting of the games is the clash between KT Wiz and SK Wyverns, two teams that are both owned by telecom companies, interestingly.

The Wyverns are favored by one run, but there is significant shading away from them on the spread. SK -1 has +110 odds, while KT +1 has -145 odds.

This demonstrates that the game might be a bit more even than the spread would seem to imply at first glance.

On the moneyline, KT have even odds, while SK are -140 favorites to win. The Over/Under line is set at 9.5 runs for the game, which is a little higher than some of the other games that are set to be played.

Overall, beyond just being glad baseball betting is back, baseball bettors can be glad that there are some decent games to bet on as well.