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Fox Sports
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Fox Sports
2025 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Best Bet: Back Bertoletti To Cover Spread
There's nothing more American than betting on the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest every Fourth of July at Coney Island. Last year's winner, Patrick Bertoletti, crushed 58 hot dogs and buns to win his first career mustard belt in a wide-open field without Joey Chestnut. The first hot dog "total" posted on Bertoletti for this year's event was O/U 49.5, an offshore number that felt way too low. DraftKings opened his number at 50.5 last week and their number is up to 53.5 one day out. Circa Sports is currently the highest on Bertoletti at 55.5. "He was the toughest eater to price," Circa risk manager Dylan Sullivan told me late Wednesday night. "He's been pretty inconsistent over the years, but I saw the direction his market was being bet and wanted to be high. I would rather build a cushion near the ceiling than get run over with Over bets." Patrick Bertoletti +17.5 hot dogs vs. Chestnut Truth be told, my "Bet Sweats" co-host Joe Ostrowski and I loved Bertoletti's prop at Over 49.5, but we won't have a single cent Over 55.5. Chestnut is back at the event this year after being banned last July for a sponsorship issue with Impossible Foods. The 16-time Nathan's champion is the unquestioned favorite, and he's as high as -2500 to win. That means you've got to lay $2500 to win a Benjamin. No thanks. Chestnut's total is very polarizing at O/U 71.5 because we've seen him eat as many as 76 dogs and buns in 2021, but only 63 and 62 in 2022 and 2023, respectively. "You would think he would be motivated to destroy the competition," one bettor told me. "But weather is the most important factor. If it's too hot, the pace slows down and if it's on the cooler side, the food gets cold." "Let's be real, you're gambling on a bet at [O/U] 71.5." Chestnut was on Barstool Sports' "Pardon My Take" podcast this week and said "it'll take perfect conditions" to beat his world record of 76. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 60s, so I have little interest in betting on him to eat 77 or more at a price of +300. As for the women's event, Miki Sudo is the clear favorite, and it's such a forgone conclusion that she'll win her 11th title that most sportsbooks aren't even booking a women's future pool. That's how dominant she is. Sudo's total is in the 45.5 to 46.5 range. I did eye Sudo (+115) against Nick Wehry in a head-to-head matchup at DraftKings. Sudo ate a women's record 51 dogs and buns last year, and I would much rather bet the best woman to beat the fourth-best man heads up. At the end of the day, I can't ignore this betting blitz on Bertoletti. The hot dog sharps have already spoken, gobbling up the Overs from 49.5 to 53.5, and I'm not as confident as the market is that Chestnut will reach 70. Let's see what happens. PICK: Patrick Bertoletti (-130) +17.5 dogs vs. Chestnut Sam Panayotovich is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and the BetMGM Network. He previously worked for WGN Radio, NBC Sports and VSiN. Follow him on Twitter @spshoot. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account , and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! in this topic
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Edinburgh festival 2025: kicks and tricks in this summer's dance and circus shows
The Quebec company We All Fall Down got good word-of-mouth at last year's fringe with their show Papillon. This year they bring another fusion of music, dance and storytelling in a show built around conversations between co-creator Roger White and his Jewish grandmother, who grew up near Hamburg and fled Nazi Germany for Edinburgh in 1939. Summerhall, 31 July-25 August The Australian circus crew bring back their hit show Ten Thousand Hours, a demonstration of the kind of skills that such a level of time commitment can generate. A reminder of just how hard circus really is and all the jeopardy, risk and thrill involved. Assembly Hall, 31 July-24 August Always reliably good, Australian company Circa have heart as well as muscle, alongside strong concepts and choreography and finely honed circus skills. This latest show puts elegant grace to one side in favour of the raw, feral and ferocious, as the acrobatic performers are driven by animal instincts. The Lafayette at Underbelly's Circus Hub on the Meadows, 1-23 August Winner of the creative arts prize at last year's Proud Scotland awards, Dundee-based company Shaper/Caper tell the story of LGBTQ+ nightlife in the 1980s and early 90s under the spectre of Aids and widespread homophobia, and the people searching for sanctuary, escapism and community on the dance floor. Zoo Southside, 1-17 August A show that comes with trigger warnings and no coyness about its subject matter: sex, disability and kink. Self-described 'queer crip' Dan Daw takes control of his own narrative by letting himself be dominated in this unique duet musing on power, pleasure, care and consent. These are the last performances after four years of touring. The Lyceum, 2-4 August Very much in sync with one of 2025's talking points, choreographer Natasha Gilmore looks at the subject of masculinity in Wee Man. Inspired by Gilmore's own experience as a mother of teenage boys, it features a multigenerational cast exploring the shifting rules of masculinity through the ages with dynamic movement and tenderness. Assembly @ Dance Base, 5-17 August Longstanding Dublin dance company CoisCéim returns to the fringe with director David Bolger's latest work, Dancehall Blues, which boasts excellent reviews from its Irish premiere last year. The setup is a duet in a surreal dance hall 'where dreams and nightmares collide', with the atmospheric, movement-focused work moving between hope and dystopia. Assembly @ Dance Base, 12-24 August Three dancers are hooked up to electric muscle stimulators, which are triggered by a Midi controller backstage, with the help of Luxembourg-based experimental choreographer Isaiah Wilson. All sorts of questions about free will are thrown up in a mere 30 minutes. Is this an experiment in human-digital-algorithmic interaction, or a vision of a dystopian future where the machines have taken over? Assembly @ Dance Base, 12-24 August A first trip to the Edinburgh fringe for award-winning French choreographer Léa Tirabasso. In the Bushes tackles the absurdity of life, in Tirabasso's own quirky, surrealist, sometimes grotesque way. Don't expect to know what's going on exactly, but if you like to have room in your dance to do some intellectual/imaginative digging, this could be for you. Summerhall, 13-25 August The dramatic life and rule of Scotland's 16th-century queen, told through the prism of her relationship with cousin and rival Elizabeth I. Choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas are at the helm, with Sunset Boulevard designer Soutra Gilmour giving the Renaissance era a punky makeover. Festival theatre, 15-17 August Usually at the centre of the Bristol dance scene, Impermanence take their new show to Edinburgh, blending cabaret, dance theatre and strong physicality to tell the story of Mary Richardson, who went from suffragette vandalising a Velázquez at the National Gallery in 1914 to becoming a leading figure in the British Union of Fascists. Zoo Southside, 19-24 August This urgent yet poetic treatise on environmental destruction and other current crises is a collaboration between Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, Complicité director Simon McBurney and the fantastic dancers of Nederland Dans Theater. An atmospherically crafted work that's not afraid to tackle the big questions facing humanity today. Festival theatre, 22-24 August
Chicago Tribune
09-06-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Was horse's loss a metaphor for journalism's future?
Journalism took another hit on Saturday. The big bay horse, named for the profession of reporting and editing, came in a close second at the Belmont Stakes after being the favorite. Sort of like the career many of us have chosen over the years. Close, but no cigar in the winner's circle as the number of news operations and organizations continues to wane and lose their track records. I was so certain that Journalism, the thoroughbred, would take the eight-horse field at the Belmont, the third leg of horse racing's vaunted Triple Crown, that I wagered an amateur's $10 across the board, meaning to win, place or show. That Journalism would win its second Triple Crown outing would be a celebration of the business, a vindication of unwarranted attacks on a free press. A resurrection at the very least. It was in the cards. Turned out, it was a punter's Runyonesque dream. Journalism's rival, Sovereignty, came from behind into the final eighth of a mile of the race at the track at Saratoga Race Course in New York, drew even and surged past onto victory. The race was a mirror of the Kentucky Derby, where Sovereignty bested my three-year-old, who had smashingly won the Preakness Stakes, the second jewel in the Triple Crown. Even naming a horse Journalism is an odd choice among breeders, who usually anoint clever puns or cute monikers for their equine charges. Co-owner Aron Wellman, a one-time sports editor at his high school newspaper at Beverly Hills High, gave the horse its name. 'So journalism is something that I value very much, and I appreciate responsible and diligent journalists,' he told USA Today. Besides a few members of the administration of President Donald Trump, who doesn't? They might have placed their bets on Sovereignty. Yet, finding a place to lay down that $30 bet turned out to be harder than expected. Traveling to the Circa sportsbook at The Temporary casino in Waukegan's entertainment zone at Fountain Square was a wasted trip. Seems at the Circa you can wager various parlays on all sorts of sporting events, but not horse racing. That monopoly belongs to the Hawthorne Race Course, with the closest betting shop in Prospect Heights. I know where Mount Prospect is and Round Lake Heights, but Prospect Heights? Where's Arlington Park when you need it? Gone to perhaps becoming a football stadium. Next, a check of some of the online betting sites, like Twin Spires, owned and operated by Churchill Downs, Inc., where the Kentucky Derby is held. Too many questions to fill out and fees. Fortunately, Highrollin' Pete from Libertyville was on his annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas, staying at the iconic pyramid-shaped Luxor on The Strip. He placed the bet through the hotel's sportsbook. The one-time favorite, Journalism, paid $3.20 to place and $2.30 to show, on a $2 across-the-board wager. My meager math skills translate that into $27.50 in winnings on a $30 bet. A loss. Which is what is happening to newspapers and journalism in general. It's acknowledged that the U.S. has lost 3,200 newspapers, more than one-third, since 2005. That's when advertisers began turning to online marketplaces instead of print advertising, which at one time generated about 80% of a newspaper's revenue. Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative has reported that obituaries for 127 newspapers were written in 2024. You've heard of food deserts? Some communities are now considered news deserts, especially in rural areas, where local news outlets have gone the way of rotary-dial phones. A study from the Evanston university discovered that almost 55 million Americans have limited access to local news. That's a scary number to consider when these same folks are left to rely on information from biased cable news programming, online and social media privateers, and Artificial Intelligence-generated news and feature stories. Newsies at one regional newspaper — through no fault of their own — were embarrassed recently after a features syndicate provided a special section with AI-generated material, some of it downright false. That should be a wake-up call for the profession. Along with the loss of print newspapers, an estimated more than 7,000 journalism jobs, including some in broadcast media, disappeared between 2022 and 2023. Many editors and reporters have taken buyouts as companies seek to trim payrolls in the face of declining readership and advertising. Lester Holt, a former Chicago television news anchor, signed off on his last NBC Nightly News offering at the end of May after a decade anchoring the network's half-hour evening news segment. 'Around here, facts matter, words matter, journalism matters,' he said on his last broadcast. That's also true around here, too. Despite Journalism coming in a sad second-place finish, for journos, there's always the next race and the possibility of winning on the nose.
Time Out
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Lucien Baked Goods
Lucien Baked Goods is the baby of Parramatta 's most celebrated café, Circa Espresso (just a ten-minute walk away), which has won People's Choice award for Favourite Café in Time Out's Food & Drink Awards several times, including in 2025. Lucien opened in late 2023 as a hybrid bakery-café where you can come witness the pastry wizards at work while munching on oven-fresh croissants and sipping locally roasted coffee served in beautiful rustic mugs. I highly recommend the almond croissant. Light, flaky, buttery pastry encases a dense almond filling, and it's topped with a handful of crispy almond flakes and a dusting of icing sugar. Prime real estate is reserved in Lucien's pastry cabinet for fresh pastries and cakes, which are baked on-site multiple times during the day. If you're having lunch, grab one of the generously-packed bagels from the display, or if you're after a sweet treat, there are canelés, choux buns, seasonal tarts, danishes and Lucien's signature pistachio scroll of croissant dough, filled with pistachio cream and decorated with pistachio praline and rose petals. Good luck stopping at one. Cakes are available whole or by the slice including a burnt Basque cheesecake, gluten-free raspberry and almond Persian love cake, Russian honey cake (medovik) and hazelnut brownie topped with gianduja. Or make more of a meal of it by ordering a croque monsieur or madame, or a sujuk and egg wrap, off the menu. The selections lean into the Middle Eastern flavours that Circa regulars would recognise and love. It's no surprise that coffee is Circa's locally-roasted beans (which makes arguably the best coffee in Parramatta), and there are also house-made drinks like a lemon squash, chai lattes and Egyptian iced tea. You can take a slice of Lucien home with grab-and-go baked sourdough, baguettes and brioche; raw honeycomb; housemade chilli oil; jams and relishes. Atmosphere-wise, this place steers away from the converted warehouse chaos and quirks of Circa Espresso – Lucien has sleek, clean lines, earthy tones of natural wood, and natural daylight spilling through floor-to-ceiling glass windows. We sit at a table on the pavement because we're there on a nice, sunny day. The all-day bakery is backed by Circa's owner Aykut Sayan along with the café's head chef, Tom Clunie, and its pastry chef, Adeline Ribis (the café is also named after Clunie and Ribis' two children, Lucy and Bastien).
New York Post
30-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Inside the seven-figure business of proxy betting in Las Vegas
Gambling content 21+. The New York Post may receive an affiliate commission if you sign up through our links. Read our editorial standards for more information. So, you want to be a pro sports bettor. The place to be, then, is Las Vegas. NFL season contests such as Circa Survivor, Circa Millions and Westgate Super Contest offer massive paydays — upwards of $6 million — at buy-in rates of $1,000, as the world's top professional bettors compete for bragging rights on top of big money. 'This is the crown achievement as a bettor to show you are the best,' Matty Simo, a founder at Football Contest Proxy, told The Post. 3 Big money is on the line at these Vegas contests. Getty Images Beneath all of the glitz and glamour of the contests, which include dreams of winning big and competing with some of the sharpest bettors, are the runners who make their picks at the counter of a Vegas betting operation. At Circa Sportsbook, picks need to be made at the counter, meaning the bettor needs to be in town. Even with the advent of smartphones and the growth of mobile sports betting, what seems like an easy task isn't readily available, paving the way for a whole different option. Proxy businesses have popped up throughout Sin City, allowing bettors to pay a fee — usually between $200 and $300 per season — to go to Circa, Westgate or other sportsbooks to make Survivor or against the spread picks each week. The odd ecosystem is worth in the seven-figure range each season. 'Twenty years ago, we only had 12 clients,' co-founder Toni Law said. 'Now, we have 3,000 and growing each year.' 3 Maxx Crosby stands at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Getty Images Participants need to be in Las Vegas to sign paperwork at the sportsbook for their desired tournament and then give permission to the proxy service to make picks on their behalf. The Circa Survivor contest had 13,000 entries last year, a total only expected to rise in 2025. It's not always easy, however, with non-football life happenings getting in the way at times. Betting on the NFL? During the COVID-affected 2020 season, bettors missed entries or didn't get what they were expecting as the virus wreaked havoc on NFL players and bettors, with spreads sometimes moving as much as six points in either direction. 'Wonky things happen sometimes,' Simo said. 'There are thousands of emails, tickets go in, picks are made, and it's a grueling schedule.' The fee for making picks varies by day of submission, with Saturday being the most expensive day for proxy picks, but also giving the player the most time to make a decision. 3 Jalen Hurts and the Eagles won the Super Bowl. AFP via Getty Images The schedule is through holidays, and oftentimes on Thanksgiving the casino treats the large set of Thursday and Friday games as it's own week, making it an even busier time for the proxy services. The 2025-26 football season should be a landmark one for the contest goers, as Circa announced a new contest for extreme sharps, with a $100,000 buy-in that guarantees a minimum $1.5 million prize pool. The Post's Doug Kezirian placed 14th in the 2023 Circa Million, among other strong finishes in the vast sports betting tournaments. Why Trust New York Post Betting Erich Richter is a brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt but he has a black belt in MMA betting. During the football season he's showcased massive profits at The Post in the player prop market the last two seasons. While constantly betting long shots, his return on investment is 30.15 percent since 2022.
