This article is part of our Betting Advice series.
Qualifying games for the 2025 USBC Masters began on Monday with three squads of 130 bowlers each for a total of 390 competitors, including a lot of familiar names from the PBA Tour, some of the top amateurs in the world and at least a few who quickly learned that they had no business in the field.
After 15 games of qualifying the top 63 scorers advanced to the double-elimination bracket, along with DeeRonn Booker, who was an automatic qualifier as the returning champion. Similar to Booker's unlikely run to the title last year, relative unknown Gary Haines went undefeated in match play, including wins against PBA stars Packy Hanrahan, Tom Smallwood, Graham Fach and Anthony Simonsen. Haines will be the top seed on Sunday and will need to be beaten twice to lose the championship.
Simonsen earned the second seed for Sunday's show by making it all the way to the final Winner's Bracket match against Haines, where he lost 599-574. "Simo," a three-time Masters champion, was the second highest qualifier, averaging 221.5.
Bill O'Neill will be the third seed. He was the top qualifier (222.1 average) but lost in the third round of match play to Graham Fach before running through the Elimination Bracket. He captured narrow victories over Bailey Mavrick and Fach on Saturday's show on FS1 to advance.
Justin Knowles is the fourth seed. He was edged out by Simonsen in the Winner's Bracket semifinal 677-665 then earned his spot in the stepladder final with an impressive 255-199 win over Dom Barrett on Saturday.
For each PBA tournament, I'll analyze every win, spread, total and futures bet available on the BetRivers Sportsbook app and identify my favorite bets heading into the stepladder finals. So far, I am 9-6 in these articles this season, including a +400 winner.
2025 USBC Masters Matchups
Justin Knowles over Bill O'Neill (+115)
Bill O'Neill has the championship experience and Hall of Fame resume, but we're getting good value on Knowles. With his 255 game Knowles put on by far the best performance of the six competitors who bowled on Saturday on the TV pair of lanes. Meanwhile, O'Neill averaged 214 in two games on the pair.
Justin Knowles vs. Bill O'Neill under 450.5 (-117)
The four matches that we saw on FS1 on Saturday give us some insight into what to expect on Sunday. And what we saw was a total of eight games between six bowlers, where just one was able to top 220. Knowles had the big game with nearly perfect execution, but it will be tough to match that performance.
All odds via BetRivers Sportsbook as of March 29th, 7:40 pm CST
2025 USBC Masters Winner Best Bet
Gary Haines (-125)
This will be Haines's first time under the bright lights of any title event, let alone a major title on national television. It's only fair that his nerves get to him early, but he has the advantage of only needing to pull off one victory to win the title, while whoever advances to face him will have to beat him twice. When interviewed, he said that he bowled so relaxed and had never seen the lanes as well as he did this week, and he is confident that if he's rolling it off his hand the way he has all week, no one can beat him. At -125 with two chances at a victory, I like his odds.
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2025 USBC Masters TV Schedule
All times listed are local (Eastern Time)
Sunday, March 30
USBC Masters Finals (LIVE on FS1; Thunder Bowl Lanes, Allen Park, MI): Noon
