Gambling Thread

Finally had a good day on college football after six middling ones and one miracle (a money line three-teamer last week that got back about half of what I'd lost this season with one $5 bet).
Hit Mississippi State U19.5 against Alabama; UNLV +26.5 at Notre Dame; and Syracuse +14 at Clemson.
All of them came home pretty comfortably, even. The UNLV game didn't look good, but I was out cutting grass and it was on Peacock so I didn't see a single play of it, which might have been for the best. Notre Dame was up 30-7 at halftime and I wrote it off as a loss. By the time I got done with the yard and checked the final score, UNLV had gotten its act together and managed to squeeze out a cover.
Had a four-teamer that didn't come home (Okie State and Tulane did their part, but ML bets on Purdue and UCLA were toast early on), but thankfully I clustered all of my shitty picks into that one ticket. Sometimes even bad luck is good luck. This is usually the time of year when I start getting on a roll, so hopefully this is a good sign.

 

A toke of appreciation to the Falcons. Looks like the magic will end today. ATL was on a Doosan Bears 2020 over run before today. 6-0 against the spread.

 

As I was looking for bad lines on Russian table tennis to exploit between three different books. And I made about $1100 just off table tennis over two months.

I suppose I was an easy mark. “This guy is a $22 unit better but is getting $450 down on Vladi Olag in the 4:35 pm match”.

I would be on the anchor desk for the newscast, watching the live scoring on FlashScore. What a degen.

It’s not a problem if you’re in the black.

 

Ugh. The dangers of teasing.
The line on Oregon-Cal when I put in my bet on Friday was -17 with a -107 vig, so I moved the line up to 18 to get to +100. Oregon is in control most of the way, up 35-10 in the fourth quarter. Then Cal scores a touchdown. Oregon answers with about 3 1/2 minutes left to make it 42-17 and I feel safe again. Except Cal hits a long touchdown pass a minute later, and then both teams are content to bleed out the last two minutes and change and go home.
Final score: Oregon 42, Cal 24.
At least it wasn't a loss, but sometimes trying to squeeze out those extra couple of dollars just ain't worth it.

 

How do you turn a winning day into a losing day?
Teasers!
After the Oregon debacle, the next game on my card was Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M. The line was Ole Miss -1.5, but I figured they would wax a struggling A&M team so I pushed that bad boy out to -6.5 to really goose the odds — up to a healthy +163 — while still keeping the spread at a reasonable amount.
Ole Miss did not wax a struggling A&M team. They got up 10 in the fourth quarter and then A&M starts driving. A questionable roughing the passer penalty gave A&M a first down inside the 10. A game-sealing interception in the end zone was waved off because the DB put his right foot out of bounds and didn't re-establish himself before he caught a tipped ball. Aggies score on the next play to make it 31-28, which ends up being the final.
So what should have been a 2-1 day that won a bit of money is now an 0-2-1 day because I decided to get cute. Cue the DJ Khaled meme.

 

An 8-leg futures parlay back at the start of the season. First 7 hit.

Colts to make the playoffs is the last leg. This is hell. Absolute hell.

 

Fucking colts.

 

I generally don't bet on Oregon games -- as an alum, don't want to be in the position of being mildly annoyed when they win. But when they were trailing after I quarter I checked the spread and it was down to -13.5. I jumped on that. I saw it as low as -11 before the Ducks started kicking their asses.

 

When my state puts up its gambling system, I am down. I got a flavor for gambling when I went to a neighboring state.

 

I'm like that with LSU, my alma mater. If I bet against them, I feel a little dirty. If I bet against them and they win, I get mad. If I bet on them and they lose, I'm doubly mad.
It's like the old saying about passing the football, where there are three outcomes and two of them are bad.

On Oregon-Cal, I probably should have known better. Cal seems just good enough to stay within about 17 points of the good teams in the Pac-12. I probably should have made it a stay-away, but I'm getting bullish on Oregon and figured they'd take care of business for me. They did, and I didn't let them.