2022 Big Ten title odds: What it means to bet the big favorite

With apologies to those in Big Ten country, we broke down the basics of what it means to bet the conference championship market in college football's best league last week. However, with two favorites atop each division, the calculus is different in the SEC than it is in the Big Ten. Despite not making the Big Ten championship game last year, there's only one true favorite to win the title this season - but should you be buying now?

Big Ten championship odds

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Ohio State is the odds-on favorite for the Big Ten title after having its run of four consecutive championships snapped in Ann Arbor last year. Does this price make it a value for a bet, though?

A preseason investment on the Buckeyes at -200 may not look like great value in the most commonly used sense, but like any other conference betting market, we're trying to buy now at a price that might be much worse come the first Saturday in December.

If you convert -200 into a projected point spread, the Buckeyes would have to be bigger than 3.5-point favorites against whomever they'd meet in Indianapolis in the championship game for you to claim value that day. That's a shorter point spread than any of Ohio State's four recent trips to the Big Ten title game, so that's quite likely.

However, it's not that simple. As we learned last year, it's possible the Buckeyes get tripped up before clinching the East Division. As a result, we have to build in the probabilities from the results of their toughest games.

To ensure a division championship, the Buckeyes will need to beat Penn State at Happy Valley and Michigan at home in the 'Shoe. In the lookahead lines for the "Games of the Year" that we discussed recently, Ohio State is currently a 12-point favorite (projected -700 on the moneyline) at Penn State and a 13.5-point favorite versus the Wolverines (projected -900 on the moneyline).

Parlaying those two on the moneyline would result in a price of -370. Of course, the Buckeyes could get to Indy by winning just one of those games if they got some help along the way.

Working backward from our current available price of -200, a parlay with the Buckeyes winning the division at -370 would need another leg for the championship game. Here's how the odds work for that:

• -200 = -370 x -550

Betting on the Buckeyes isn't a bet at -200. It's more like a -700/-900/-550 three-leg parlay, with the last leg against an undetermined opponent. For -200 to be a good bet, Ohio State would have to be higher than -550 on the moneyline or -10 via the point spread.

Here's what the spreads looked like during the Buckeyes' four championship streak:

Three out of four years, -200 would have translated into some level of a value bet. However, it only matters what the opponent looks like come this December.

Sleepers

In our look at the SEC oddsboard, the strategy was to find a team that could topple a favorite early, setting up a hedge for a big payout late. When looking for a sleeper in the Big Ten, you'll want to head west to the division that has been the home for surprising runs to Indianapolis.

If you can pick the West Division winner, you might be able to delay the inevitable (a loss to the Buckeyes) long enough to potentially avoid Ohio State altogether - as was the case last year. Iowa was unable to compete with Michigan, but at least you may have had some value with a preseason Hawkeyes bet to win the Big Ten championship.

Wisconsin and Nebraska have the same odds to win the Big Ten. The Badgers have the better team and the tougher schedule, while the Huskers have good talent but have yet to do anything with it.

With plenty of time to figure out who the best bet is to win the West and secure a place as this year's underdog in Indy, at least we know what we're getting into when deciding whether to bet the Buckeyes at a heavy price.

Matt Russell is a betting writer for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on Twitter @mrussauthentic.