A Little Harmless Fun

A sports and gambling list:

1. Fuck you, Cliff Lee. You owe me 60 bucks.

2. My Ohio State Buckeyes are 44 point favorites this weekend at home vs New Mexico State. As far back as the data goes (1984), that is the biggest spread ever for OSU. And Jim Tressel still coaches for us. Yes, yes I am definitely wagering money against us. No, no I don't have even a shred of guilt at the moment.

3. As I've been saying for a few years now, the Big Ten is not very good and continues to get worse. Not only is it bad (most of the national media continually reports as much), but it is actually even worse than most people assume. Name recognition of the schools is the only thing separating the Big Ten from the ACC and--gasp--the Big East. It used to be we would argue with SEC folk over which was the better conference. The Big 12 has replaced us there (although the Big 12 ain't no great shakes right now either). The proud Big Ten is no better than the fourth-best conference this year, and every year anymore. Let's take a look at the Big Ten's games this year against other BCS conferences:
Illinois--lost to Missouri, a below-average Big 12 team
Indiana--got crushed by Virginia, an average-at best ACC team
Iowa--beat Iowa St and Arizona, a terrible and average, respectively, team
Michigan--beat Notre Dame (not a BCS, I know)
Michigan St--lost to Notre Dame
Minnesota--squeaked by Syracuse, a terrible Big East team, and got smacked by Cal, an average Pac 10 team
Northwestern--lost to Syracuse
OSU--lost at home to USC
Penn St--beat Syracuse
Purdue--lost to Oregon, a solid Pac 10 team, and Notre Dame
Wisconsin--way to go, Wisco, you didn't schedule anybody.
The totals: 13 games, five wins, eight losses. What's worse, the best performance belongs either to Michigan beating ND at home by 4 or OSU losing, at home, to USC.
That's fucking terrible. Vegas has mostly caught on to this, but since the Big Ten has more alumni than any other conference, the lines haven't totally reflected just how bad the Big Ten is. We'll just have to wait until bowl season, when Big Ten teams lose again as big underdogs (last year, six of the seven Big Ten bowl participants were at least 7 point underdogs).

4. As bad as the Big Ten is this year, the SEC is that good and more. It used to pain me to give any credit to this motley collection of institutions, but for god's sakes it is far and away the best conference. Almost all 12 teams are pretty good. The conference is so deep it's like playing an NFL schedule. But the most remarkable thing is that you might look at the standings and not exactly agree with me. That's because Florida and Alabama are off-the-charts good. Either of those teams could beat any other team in the country nine times out of ten on a neutral field. Sorry, Texas people, it ain't gonna happen this year. You're not even as good as Oklahoma was last year and look what happened to them. I hate them more than any team not called Michigan or Notre Dame, but Florida and Urban cocksucker Meyer have put something together that is obnoxiously unfallible. How Michigan beat them in a bowl game a couple years ago is a total mystery. They are stinking good. I'm not going to try to hope or convince myself otherwise anymore.
Alabama though might even be more impressive. In seemingly no time, they've become a juggernaut. And they play good defense. At least if I have to see Florida be dominant, I can unashamedly root for Alabama as a legitimate foil.

5. So yeah, I am gambling online again. Been at it for about five weeks now and am almost exactly at even right now. Started with a $300 deposit, received a $60 bonus for free, and currently I am sitting at $357.04.
I'm keeping track of all my bets on a nice spreadsheet. For instance, in that time, I've made 47 wagers, going 24-23 for a % of 51.1. For the football games, my average result vs the spread (or the O/U) is positive .60, meaning that I've beaten the spread by a little more than a half point per game. That doesn't sound like much, and it isn't, but any measure like that will tend strongly toward zero.
In college football games, I'm 10-8. With NFL, I'm 9-9. All the rest are baseball bets: 5-6.
Because of the vig (usually 10% extra that the house collects on lost bets), you need to go at least 52.4% with your picks to break even. I'm treading water with less success because my winning bets have so far been for slightly more money than my losing ones. In other words, be ability to place a proper amount of confidence within my bets is good so far.
As a control, since week 2, I've also been making picks without betting on every NFL game, plus ever Over/Under. Through 172 picks there, I am 90-79-3, or 53.3%. What this tells me is that I have not been getting particularly lucky with the specific games I choose to bet on. That's good. What is bad, though, is that I've left money on the table by not betting on enough games to let that 53.3% fully work for me.

6. Big lesson I've learned from gambling so far: baseball is too volatile to bet on a game-by-game basis. I won two series-long ALCS bets that were too obvious to pass up, but I've also been getting beat betting on individual games. The distribution of baseball scores is just too wide and random.

7. I fell asleep last night at 10:00pm while watching game two of the World Series. I woke up 15 minutes later and finished watching the game, but wow was that pathetic.

8. My plan with the gambling is as soon as I get above $500 with my balance, I'm withdrawing $200. Then at that point, the remaining $100 from my initial investment could be written off and the price of the enjoyment in gambling. In other words, the $300 that would be left in my account, I'd feel free to wager without worrying about losing it. That is how you win, by the way. You can't be afraid. For instance, one of the obvious ALCS bets I mentioned above was over/under 3.5 runs being the highest margin of victory in any ALCS game. The line was -200, meaning you have to wager twice as much money as you would stand to win, or $20 just to win $10. This was the clearest and most obvious bet maybe I've ever seen. I know the downfall of many a sports gambler is the bet that absolutely couldn't lose, but shit, there was no way that bet could lose. And yet the -200 line scared me off enough so that I could only stomach wagering $80. Because I was uncomfortable losing more than $80 in one bet, my winnings were restricted to $40. If I had already crossed the $500 balance level and been playing with house money, I may have put all of it on the line on that bet. And I would have won, of course. Everyone wants to win. Not everyone can be fearless with losing. Psychology plays such a huge part, even if sports gambling.

9. Last Sunday at about 12:30pm I was looking one last time at the NFL lines and I had a very confident feeling. I had already made three bets and was thinking about adding a few more. I wish could tell you know why I was feeling good so I could know when it returns, but I was feeling very good. I couldn't decide which games to add to my slate, though. Also, Sara was clamoring to go to the grocery store and I wanted to be back in time to see the start of the Pitt-Minn game. So instead of holding up the whims of my wonderful wife, I decided screw it I've already got three bets I'll be ok. So what happens? My picks go 18-6. Of the seven 1:00pm games, I hit six, all but one in blowout fashion. Of the three games I actually bet on, I went 2-1. Serviceable. But not the massive windfall I might have had. We got that butternut squash, though, by god.
The lesson here is clear and obvious: gambling and wives don't mix.