I live, work and am friends with degenerates

With the biggest gambling day of the year on the horizon, I have been prompted to post my long promised gambling piece.

The reason for the delay is BS stole some of my thunder when he posted the following mailbag.

The basic premise for both our articles was that gambling should only be done within reason. You WOULD think this would be obvious but even fellow LGTS writers are degenerates (cough “the Senator” cough). It’s gotten so bad that my friends give me daily briefs on the benefits of betting First Half NBA lines/ College Bball/ Greek Soccer/ etc. BS had a pretty comprehensive set of rules however I would like to add a few.

LGTS Gambling rule #1: Only bet on Sports that you watch- You would think this would be obvious but my aforementioned NBA First Half Line Betting Degenerate friend ("NFHLBD") convinced another friend of mine who has never watched the NBA on the merits of parlays using the following logic. “You can win over 2 grand from a dollar bet if you get a 12 team parlay right!” Needless to say he put his dollar up, lost it in the first game and would have been better served “investing” in the lottery.

LGTS Gambling rule #2: Only bet on Sports teams that you have watched- Similar to rule # 1 and again you would think this would be obviously but “NFHLBD” decided to bet on Portland (note, not the Blazers but the university) v. Some unranked team. (I could get you the exact game but that’s exactly how he described it to me) Why did he bet on them, you ask? Their bodog stats were strong, and the other team’s bodog stats were very weak.

Ignoring the fact that these stats are HISTORICAL and therefore are not accurate predictors of the future, the guys here at LGTS have composed the following test to ensure that you are compliant with rule #2.

1. Do you know who plays on this team? If yes, you might be ok if no proceed to question two

2. Do you know one player on this team (preferably the best player)? If yes, then gamble at your own risk, if no then proceed to question three.

3. If someone was on the injury report do you have any idea what that actually does to your gambling risk profile? If yes you are walking the thin line of blasphemy but you might be ok, if no you are a moron.

Needless to say NBFHLBD failed all three of these questions, put his bet up and promptly lost badly. The best part was he parlayed the bet with two others that he easily covered because you know parlays are great! You can make a 500% return!

LGTS Gambling rule #3: Stop gambling when you start saying things like “100% return just seems so low, what can I do to make this bet look more attractive.” Can you guess who said the above line? If you think this might be the same person who bets on NBA first half lines you are correct.

LGTS Gambling rule #4: Only bet on games that you can watch- This rule is not as intuitive as the others as you can easily win bets on games that you didn’t watch but this rule was put in place as a safeguard against rules 1 and 2. The Senator bets on Greek Soccer! Greek Soccer! What's next IVY league basketball? The status of his current greek soccer bet is TBD, however you might have noticed a trend when people break the rules........

Sure you can research teams ad nauseum with the 24/7 information cycle but without actually watching the games you are counting on second hand information. Trust your eyes! Trust yourself! Do your own research! Watch the games!

And if trusting yourself means you are a loser then reading this blog has been a waste of time for you because there’s nothing that I can say that will make your gambling any better.

Update

Upon hearing about the creation of the following rules, the Senator had the following response “Being a gambling man, I will bet that we do not follow those rules"

Update II

Upon reading the blog NFHLBD took a moment to reflect and confided in me about his wavering confidence. He mentioned he had been losing horribly lately, and that this past week he had missed 6 out of 6 bets in his round robin (sort of like a modified parlay). Does this mean NFHLBD decided to get out of the gambling business? Nope he came up with this gem of a strategy. “I am seriously thinking about picking games that I would bet on and then making the exact opposite bet to see what happens, if I did the exact opposite thing, (on Saturday) I’d be rich”

GL NFHLBD, I can already see LGTS Gambling rule #5……

Update III

The Senator won both of his parlays including "English, Italian, Greek, Spanish, and German soccer” Needless to say I am impressed by the gambling ability of the Senator.