Gambling on the Super Bowl
This is a morning when I feel like we should start applying higher standards to the Patriots' performances, like, "They didn't really win in my mind since they couldn't cover the point spread," or "They didn't really win in my mind since they couldn't kick a garbage field goal at the end so that all the folks who had the Eagles +6 1/2 PARLAYED with an over/under number of 47 1/2 could turn off the TV a little bit richer."
THREE MORE POINTS, GODDAMNIT! How the heck do the bookies figure out that fifty percent of the drives in the first half are going to self-destruct? Not that the defenses are going to hold, but that both offenses are going to take their sweet time acting like they're in the Super Bowl? I'll officially have an Ivy League education in five more months, and I can't figure this out.
By the way, this was the first bet I ever placed on a football game in my life. Should I take the loss as an omen and give up gambling on football? or should I simply take it as a sign that doing a thing like parlaying one's side bet with the over/under is a fool's gambit?
Ahh, but the odds were so tempting... risk $48 to win $128. Which should serve as the bettor's version of one of the few classic bits of Good Old American economic folk wisdom that still holds true:
"No such thing as easy money."
Even when you know in your SOUL that the Pats aren't going to cover the spread. Even when, in addition to your SOUL's infallible input, three touchdowns and a field goal for each team seems eminently reasonable, though perhaps not in your SOUL.
"Trust your gut."
There's another one. It's amazing how gambling provides us with a means to sort through the bullshit-mined field that is the realm of cliched wisdom, to-wit:
If it ain't true of gambling, it probably ain't true of life.
So go out to the local track and drop a dime on the ponies sometime soon. Just don't bite on the parlay.
THREE MORE POINTS, GODDAMNIT! How the heck do the bookies figure out that fifty percent of the drives in the first half are going to self-destruct? Not that the defenses are going to hold, but that both offenses are going to take their sweet time acting like they're in the Super Bowl? I'll officially have an Ivy League education in five more months, and I can't figure this out.
By the way, this was the first bet I ever placed on a football game in my life. Should I take the loss as an omen and give up gambling on football? or should I simply take it as a sign that doing a thing like parlaying one's side bet with the over/under is a fool's gambit?
Ahh, but the odds were so tempting... risk $48 to win $128. Which should serve as the bettor's version of one of the few classic bits of Good Old American economic folk wisdom that still holds true:
"No such thing as easy money."
Even when you know in your SOUL that the Pats aren't going to cover the spread. Even when, in addition to your SOUL's infallible input, three touchdowns and a field goal for each team seems eminently reasonable, though perhaps not in your SOUL.
"Trust your gut."
There's another one. It's amazing how gambling provides us with a means to sort through the bullshit-mined field that is the realm of cliched wisdom, to-wit:
If it ain't true of gambling, it probably ain't true of life.
So go out to the local track and drop a dime on the ponies sometime soon. Just don't bite on the parlay.
posted by Dr. Chuck | 8:09 AM
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