EPL: Premier League Best Betting Picks for Week 37

The English Premier League season is drawing to a close with just a couple of weeks left, and our EPL expert is here to make sure we enjoy the stretch run. He's back again with his Premier League best bets for Week 37.

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Measuring success is both an entirely straight forward and incredibly complicated exercise. In terms of gambling, the calculus is pretty clear - whether you made more money than you lost is a pretty simple litmus test for gambling (and, as far as EPL picks are concern, we’ve done that over the season here). But there’s a bit more nuance to it than that. We don’t just gamble to make money - there are far more stable and lucrative ways to do that - and we get additional utility from watching sports and trying to solve this puzzle. That’s not to say you can or should ignore massive losses in the name of “fun,” but I also see people who‘ve lost the ability to enjoy sports because of gambling, and that isn’t a great place to be.

Similarly, we’ve hit the time of the year where clubs and fans are starting to take stock of how things turned out. For some its pretty clear - City and Newcastle have a ton to be happy with while Chelsea, Spurs, and Southampton fans are pretty fucking miserable - but others have a bit more complexity to them (particularly those with their fate undecided). Arsenal are squarely in that spot, having massively overperformed only to give up the title late, while sides like Brighton and Brentford outkicked their expectations and clubs like West Ham are happy to have avoided a disaster and see another year.

What does that mean for us? Nothing really. But with two weeks remaining im starting to take stock of the year and avoid coping with the fact that we have almost 2 months off from real soccer, so I chose to write this vaguely thoughtful yet uninformative intro to reflect the fact that I’m burying a lot of emotions right now. Im nothing if not honest…

Now lets go see if we can build off last week’s sweep and hitting 8 of our last 10 EPL picks

Premier League Best Betting Picks - Week 37

Bournemouth vs. Manchester United - Saturday, May 20 at 10:00AM ET

Things have gotten ugly for United over the last month, and what looked like a sure spot in the Top 4 and a UCL birth is no longer quite so certain. Sure, they still have a lead on Liverpool, but any dropped points in this game would cause things to get way sweatier than needed. And, as much as I would prefer United to piss all over themselves, I don't see it happening here.

Bournemouth have, somewhat inexplicably, clawed their way to safety recently and they now are guaranteed a spot in the EPL next season. While a home match against United is always a big deal for their fans and they’re not likely to just pack it in for the Summer, the motivation is going to be slightly less than it would be if they were a side fighting for survival.

Obviously the numbers aren't quite as nice because of that, but I’m going to revert to an old favorite here and take 1H TT Over 0.5 combined with TT Over 1.5 for United to get us down to a comfortable -123. The Red Devils plastered Bournemouth 3-0 in January and the gap in talent is still fairly large. Add in that the Cherries have the second worst defensive record in the league (hence, my surprise at their survival), and I see United causing problems early and often.

PICK: Manchester United United 1H Team Total Over 0.5 Goals + Team Total Over 1.5 (-123, 1.25 units) 

West Ham vs. Leeds - Sunday, May 21 at 8:30AM ET

Speaking of desperation… Leeds are in a world of trouble right now and they cant afford anything besides 3 points. And, with a matchup against a somewhat motivated (albeit catastrophically flawed) Tottenham side in their last fixture, this is potentially the match that decides their fate.

Much like we did last week with Brentford, I like the chances of a side playing West Ham right now. Not only are the Hammers almost certainly safe from the drop, but they’re one of a small amount of teams still trudging around Europe, having played a home and away with AZ over the last 10 days on top of their EPL fixture last weekend. They wont have fresh legs or the motivation for this game, to put it simply.

I'm taking Leeds TT Over 1.5 here, and I think it works on a couple of levels. Not only do they have all the motivational/tactical advantages mentioned above, but Leeds concede almost 2 goals per game meaning the odds of them holding on to a 1-0 win are next to none. Even if they do score, they’ll know they need to keep the foot on the pedal, and I expect a fairly aggressive performance throughout. Based on their defensive issues it wouldnt be shocking to see West Ham find chances (and goals) here, but I expect Leeds do enough to cause problems and the price is a great return.

PICK: Leeds Team Total Over 1.5 Goals (+146, 1 unit)