The Closing Line Report: June 2026
Issue No. 1 opens with two corrections to our own numbers, both logged permanently in the correction log on our methodology page. A July 2 audit found in-play prices stored as closing lines; re-grading against rebuilt pre-game closers dropped a matched set of 66 tracked picks from 51.5% to 32.8% against the close. An August 10 scoring correction then gave spreads and totals the same unchanged-number price tiebreak our player props already used, and June’s final read is 44% against the close (41/93 tracked) with average closing line value -1.80%. We publish the corrected month in full below, because a track record you only show when it flatters you is not a track record.
The Closing Line Report is our monthly self-audit. Every number below comes from the same public ledger behind our live track record, and the market data comes from the odds archive we capture ourselves. We publish the month whether it flatters us or not.
The Scoreboard: June 2026
In June 2026 our straight single-game picks went 79-57-2 (+6.23u at a flat one-unit stake) and we beat the closing line 44% of the time (41/93 tracked), with average closing line value -1.80%. ROI for the month was +4.6% across 138 graded picks. On samples this size ROI is mostly variance, so closing line value is the number we hold ourselves to.
Season to date through June 2026: 97-79-4 (-1.15u, ROI -0.7%) across 180 straight picks, and we beat the closing line 44% of the time (41/93 tracked), with average closing line value -1.80%.
Results by League
Results by Bet Type
Props and Parlays
Tracked separately from the headline: featured player props went 8-6-0 (+1.19u) and we beat the closing line 58% of the time (7/12 tracked), with average closing line value -0.60%; and parlays went 3-14-0 (-1.87u), settled all-or-nothing at combined odds; they are high-variance by construction and never blended into the headline record.
Best and Worst Calls of the Month
Ranked by closing line value, not by result: the market’s verdict on our number, before the game decided anything.
The market moved hard toward France after we published at -159; by kickoff our number carried +18.26% closing line value, the best of the month. France’s 4-1 win over Norway settled the grade, but the number had already aged well before kickoff.
We took the Brewers at -110 and the market ran the other way all day; by first pitch the number was 33.71 points of closing line value underwater. The loss stung less than the drift did: this was a bad number, not bad luck.
The Deep Dive: Anatomy of a Bad Number
The question this month: were the closing lines behind our own CLV numbers actually closing lines? For 87 stored snapshots the answer was no. Sportsbook boards do not go dark at kickoff, our capture job trusted the board, and a re-capture that ran after a game had started stored an in-play price as the close.
Sportsbook boards do not go dark when a game starts. Events stay quotable well into play, and the odds feed corrects its listed start time to the actual start only after the fact. Our capture job trusted the board: when it re-captured a game that was already live, it stored an in-play price as the closing line. In-play prices swing with the score, so the stored closers drifted far from the real pre-game market, and every closing line value computed against them inherited the drift. The contamination concentrated exactly where boards linger longest: of the 36 re-graded picks with changed values, 13 were soccer, 10 tennis, and 7 MLB.
The repair rebuilt every affected snapshot from our own odds archive, using the last capture taken before each event’s final settled start time. It was not uniformly punitive: 16 of the 28 re-scored picks with values on both sides had been flattered by the bad data and 12 had been penalized, with a mean inflation of 6.88 closing-line-value points, and 9 picks actually gained closing-line coverage from rebuilt snapshots. A separate same-day fix to how player-prop closing prices are compared flipped 3 prop verdicts in our favor. Corrections run in whatever direction the data says.
One row shows the whole bug. Our Jessica Pegula moneyline had been credited with +122.38% closing line value, a number that should have looked impossible, because it was: the stored closer was an in-play price captured mid-blowout. Against the true pre-game close, the same pick grades -1.82%.
What we could not verify, we voided rather than guessed. Two pre-archive rows whose stored closers were provably in-play, and provably flattering, had their closing line value voided outright. Sixteen older picks predate our odds archive entirely and cannot be checked either way; they are disclosed and left as they are. One fabricated-but-conservative row stays in the ledger with an annotation, because it penalizes us and removing it would be its own kind of flattery.
The fix is structural, not cosmetic: a snapshot that cannot be verified as pre-game is now discarded instead of counted, no exceptions, and the repair log lives permanently on our methodology page. Next issue: three full weeks of our odds archive, and where lines actually moved between our publish and the close.
Data Notes and Method
This issue covers every pick graded for June 2026: 138 straight picks, 14 props, and 17 parlays. Closing lines were captured for 93 of the 138 straight picks; a pick without a verified pre-game closing line is counted in the record but excluded from closing line value.
2 row(s) this month carry repair annotations from our July 2026 closing-line audit. They count in every aggregate above but are excluded from the best/worst spotlights, because a rebuilt or unverifiable number should never be showcased.
This issue was rebuilt on August 10, 2026 from the current ledger. Correction 002 on our methodology page changed how a spread or total that closes on an unchanged number is scored (the price now breaks the tie), which moved June’s beat-the-close rate from 36% (33/92 tracked) as first built to 44% (41/93 tracked). Game results and grading dates are unchanged.
Capture windows, the pre-game capture rule, grading definitions, and the full repair log live on our methodology page. Book odds are captured from The Odds API; prediction-market prices, when cited, are attributed inline to their source. All market figures are the markets’ own implied numbers, with the bookmaker’s margin removed where stated; a gap between markets is a difference of opinion, nothing more.
Download the derived data behind this issue: closing-line-report-2026-06.csv. Derived aggregates only, never raw feed rows; cite it freely with a link back.
Today’s slate is on our picks page, graded and added to the ledger every morning. Past results never predict future ones.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the questions we hear most about this report and how it is built.
What is The Closing Line Report?
It is our monthly self-audit. We grade every betting pick we publish against the final score and the closing line, then publish the full month here: record, ROI, closing line value, and the best and worst calls, plus one study built from our own odds archive. Wins and losses both stay in the ledger permanently.
What is closing line value, and why do you grade yourselves on it?
Closing line value compares the line we published to the final pre-game line. Over a small number of picks, wins and losses are mostly variance, so whether the market moved toward our number is the more reliable long-run signal of whether the analysis holds up.
Where does the data in the June 2026 report come from?
Everything is first-party: our public graded picks ledger and the odds archive we capture ourselves. Book odds come from The Odds API and prediction-market prices are attributed inline when cited. The derived aggregates behind each issue are downloadable as a CSV.