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Sports Betting Gone Bad
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I know in some of my previous posts I’ve mentioned that I don’t bet on sports and I never plan to bet on sports again. It has been nine years (1999) since the last time I made a wager on a professional or any other type of sporting event and I plan to keep it that way. To be honest, I’m no good at picking these games against the line. It seems as though when I don’t place a wager I’m dead-on and when I have placed wagers in the past I couldn’t hit a game if my life literally depended on it. Maybe its the anxiety involved or the amount of pressure with making the correct decisions. On the other hand, it could be the fact that I’m not supposed to bet on sports. Who knows? I enjoy the games enough that I shouldn’t have to place wagers, but I wanted to share this funny but sickening story with my readers.
It started in the 1999 National Championship game between Florida State and Virginia Tech. Critics were talking Virginia Tech, everyone was talking Virginia Tech, and like the wise guy I am I decided to place the biggest wager of my life ($2000) on Florida State. Naturally, I won and proceed to make NBA wagers for the rest of the week and I couldn’t wait for the NFL divisional playoffs to begin. Prior to this Florida State game I had already gone 4 for 4 in the NFL’s wild card weekend so on Tuesday evening (at a poker game) I picked up my envelope which contained a grand total of $5200. At this point I’m a pro and considering I was playing poker full-time at the time I was like Vince Young “cain’t nobody tell me nuthin”. Little did I know, there were about thirteen different occasions where I needed someone to tell me ’sumthin’.
I picked up my envelope on Tuesday and decided to call it quits. I was cool for the year. I knew I wouldn’t bet on the Super Bowl, besides I didn’t need to place a bet considering I had already posted a winning season. I did well all week by not posting another wager on NBA or anything else for that matter and then comes the weekend and the NFL divisional playoffs. I immediately came out of retirement.
Once again I had every “lock” on the board. In Dan Marino’s final game of his career the Dolphins were definitely going to dismantle a young Jaguars team. The Dolphins lost 62-7 and it was the beginning of the end. I lost the every game that weekend. I can still feel that squeamish feeling, you know, the one when your intuition is telling you that you’re headed for disaster no matter what. Well, my intuition was correct, I eventually lost 13 straight wagers on both the NFL and NBA. I’ll repeat, 13 straight games beginning with the Jags embarrassing Dan Marino and his Dolphins in the final game of his career all the way through the rest of the week on NBA games. The bleeding was so horrendous that Tracy Murry (Wizards) hit a line changing fall away three in the coffin corner with no time on the clock in a game that the Bulls had already beaten the Wizards. Normally they turn around and head towards the locker room. I lost that game by a point. So, to make a long story short it was an awful week and one that I would love to forget. I won’t go into how much money was involved because I was married at the time and I’m still married to the same woman today.
The reason I wrote this post was to share a sick story on betting sports, however, I’ve continued having fun pretending to bet against the line without actually placing a wager. If you have ever read any of my “Fantasy Game of the Week” articles you’ll see that I was 100% this season during the weeks I wrote those articles. Another reason I wrote this is when I looked at the lines for this weekends NFL games my jaw dropped. Not a single game opened with a point spread less than eight points. I feel like I have a few locks this week, but I won’t place a wager.
