Gambling Thread

The chapter in Nate Silver's book about online poker is terrific. During the boom, he writes, it was easy money, because there were so many marks playing. When people exited, though, so did the easy money.

Sports are just insanely difficult. Such an efficient market.

 

If someone held a gun to my head, I'd have to agree with the Iowa +18. A couple of reasons tOSU MAY cover, though. Miller and Hyde have played less than 8 quarters together this year. If those two are healthy and rolling after the bye, OSU could start hanging some serious points. Second (if you take out the Northwestern game) Ohio State has rolled, as long as Meyer has kept the foot on the pedal. The had a healthy lead (17) in the 4th vs. Wisco, but chose to play Tressel ball & try to just kill the clock. It's getting close to BCS time, any depth they're going to build is built & I'm guessing Meyer will try to start hanging some bigger numbers. Last, it SHOULD be a decent matchup for the OSU defense. More traditional offense fr/ Iowa, OSU struggled against the pass from spread teams.

Of course, I may be completely full of sh*t, they may get dump trucked. But those are a (possibly delusional) couple of reasons...

 

What's the O-U?

 

"I'm going with Ohio State because of Woody Hayes" / Jon Lovitz in picking OSU
over Iowa on college football pickem show.

 

I'd take A&M.

 

Louisville is 14/55 but there's no moneyline, which sucks. Not to say there won't be one just before the game so I'm assuming there would've been a boatload of money on the Cardinals.

Which is a bit silly considering Central Florida won at Penn State.

Louisville struggled with Kentucky. I don't like the 14. The 55 is looking pretty good though.

 

I could see Iowa playing "up" and Ohio State being disinterested. +18 is a lot, especially in the Big Ten once the weather gets cold.

One element of gambling I enjoy... counting cards in blackjack.

In a previous life, I was a blackjack dealer, working through college and also a stats major to boot. I would pass the monotony of the 10-hour shift by keeping the count in my head of the six-deck shoes I would deal. More than rarely, I would eyeball someone (usually a college kid) trying to keep the count -- the darting eyes and watching their lips move with each card dealt are the dead giveaways. If they were good tippers, I'd quietly tell them the count and whether doubling that 9 against my 7 would be advantageous.

 

Louisville giving 14 is a crapton of points against a pretty good team. UCF isn't great, but they're good enough to hang around and lose by 10. And even if you have a cover going late, you're going to probably sweat the backdoor. I'd stay away unless I had to. Especially in a parlay.

 

Back in the '80s, the Phoenix sent me to card-counting school. My primary conclusion was that it was harder than my day job. Casino gambling bores me, because I know I can't beat arithmetic. I like to go to the track every so often on a nice day, hang awhile at the sports books if I'm in Vegas, and play poker to socialize with friends. It's all very sporadic and infrequent, though.

 

I bet, but only with fake money. I use sportsplays.com (formerly Freesportsbet and before that, Centsports) and have gone from 10 cents to about 25 bucks in a few months only betting 25/50 cents and now a buck a game.
I just don't have the real money to do it with, but I like to at least think I have something riding on the game.
Plus, once I get to 100 bucks, I can actually cash out.

My card game is Baccarat, but I just discovered penny slots, and I "won" the first two times I went (finished up 12 bucks and up 2 the next) but lost 25 on Monday night.