Betting Guide CFP Semi-finals

Betting Guide breakdown for the College football playoff semi's. If you're looking for our semi-finals predictions find them here: https://aggregaterankings.blogspot.com/2025/01/college-football-playoff-semi-final.html

Our Bets

Moneyline

Notre Dame -118

Texas +185

The Aggregate likes both of the favorites in the matchups Thursday and Friday, but does that make them a good bet? The Aggregate's betting philosophy is simple we want to make more money than we lose. To figure that out. We compare how often we lose at a certain prediction percentage to how much we stand to gain. For the Notre Dame vs. Penn State matchup we need to look at a couple things.

Notre Dame	13-1	36	70.8%	-1.5		-118
Penn State	13-2	29	29.2%	+1.5	46.5	-102

In this game the Aggregate has Notre Dame as a 70.8% favorite. When the Aggregate has predicted a team has at least a 70.0%-79.9% chance this year that team has won 71.4% of the time. So it losses 28.6% of the time. So let's say we made this bet 100 times for $1 each time. we would lose most likely $29 dollars. To make a profit we need however much we profit to be more than $29. We will use $30 for this example. So for 71 winning bets we need to win at least $30 to make a profit. So to achieve a profit we need for each bet to win at least $0.43 to turn a profit. For a $1 bet we would need odds of at least -235 or lower. Since Notre Dame is just -118 then they are a great bet in our opinion on the money line. 

Ohio State	12-2	34	54.2%	-6.5		-218
Texas	13-2	33	45.8%	+6.5	54.5	+180

The best bet for the second game this week is to bet on Texas at +180. Teams who the Aggregate has predicted with a 40.0%-49.9% chance has won at a 39.4% rate this season. This means on a $1 bet we need to win at least $1.59 to turn a profit. +180 would give us a profit of $1.80. 

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Parlay

Notre Dame -118

Ohio State-225

+146 

Notre Dame	13-1	36	70.8%	-1.5		-122
Penn State	13-2	29	29.2%	+1.5	46.5	+102
Ohio State	12-2	34	54.2%	-6.5		-218
Texas	13-2	33	45.8%	+6.5	54.5	+180

As we discussed above Notre Dame's likeliness to win is 71.4%. Ohio State's is also higher than the projected chance to win by the Aggregate. When the Aggregate is projecting a team to have a 50.0%-59.9% chance to win they actually win at a 60.1% rate. So to get our chances for both teams to win we multiply those probabilities together. That gives us a 42.9% chance for the parlay to hit. That means we need to overcome the losses of 57.1% of bets. That means we need at least +139 to make a profit. Obviously a line of +146 is better than that mark which makes it a good bet. 

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Against the Spread

Notre Dame -1.5

Texas +6.5

Notre Dame	13-1	36	70.8%	-1.5		-122
Penn State	13-2	29	29.2%	+1.5	46.5	+102
Ohio State	12-2	34	54.2%	-6.5		-218
Texas	13-2	33	45.8%	+6.5	54.5	+180

The Aggregate has hit at a 53.1% rate this season at predicting against the spread. At that rate we would make a profit and so are smart bet here is on Notre Dame -1.5. The data tells us that the Fighting Irish should actually be favored by about 7. It's also at a little bit of a discount as the ATS bet right now is just -108 to make that bet at least on Draft Kings. 

Texas +6.5 is the second against the spread bet we're making here at the Aggregate. The data tells us that the Ohio State/Texas semi-final will be much closer than the Vegas line. Not only has the Aggregate hit at 53.1% in general in this category, but when the data is more than 5 points different than the line it's actually hitting at 54.2% of the time. 

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Over/Under

None

The Aggregate doesn't like any of the Over/Under bets this season based on the data. None of the parameters are present in these games where the Aggregate has made money on the over/under this season so we are not recommending any over/under bet this week.

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The Aggregate is not responsible for any decision any individual makes. Please gamble responsibly and if you need help reach out.