Thursday, March 17, 2011

Betting on Sports

     Betting on sports is a fickle beast.  About a year ago, I thought I had a genius plan.  I'm going to share this plan, and I'll bet you think I'm a genius too.  In college football there are a ton of games each week.  There are web sites you can go to and bet on them.  They say it's legal, I'm not 100% sure.  So my thought was, I don't have to bet on every game, I just have to choose the five games that I think are locks for this week.  Even out of just the five games that I thought were absolute locks, I only have to win 3 out of the 5 to come out on top for the weekend.


Walter Iooss Jr./SI

     Here was the problem I didn't think about at the time.  As it turns out, the people who make the lines for these sports bets, may possibly know more than me about these games.  It's inevitable; when they say a team is going to win by 5 points, you would be shocked how close these games seem to always turn out to the Vegas lines.  So these "locks" I thought were so guaranteed, were made just for suckers like me.  After all, these guys probably spend each week analyzing the data and history for all of these games to come up with such a good number, and I would just look at it for a second and think it was a lock.

     As you can imagine, my first weekend I lost every single game.  I still think betting on sports can be fine if you can do it responsibly.  One of the big things I liked about betting on games was that if you happened to be lacking on sports games to watch that weekend, putting a few bucks on a game can make it as exciting as your own team's game that weekend.  I remember that first week when I bet on five games, I was going absolutely nuts over a Wisconsin vs. Indiana game, two teams I couldn't care less about.

     I think you can have a good time betting on sports if you follow a couple of simple rules:

Rule 1:  Your total money betting should only be an amount of money you can afford to lose each month.

     So if you set aside an entertainment budget, part of that budget can be moved from something else like movies or going out to dinner one less night, and use it for sports games.  The thing about this rule is you have to be able to stop if you have lost that much money.  Once betting on sports gets to be stressful because you have bet too much money, it's not fun anymore.

Rule 2:  Spread out your betting allotment.

     If your allotment is $30 a week, don't spend it all on one game, even if you think that one game is a lock.  First of all, trust me, there is no such thing as a lock.  It seems like the most confident games I have ever bet on, I have lost, or they turned out much closer than I thought.  If you spread out your money into 3 games for $10 each, you can enjoy three games for the same price.

Rule 3:  Don't try to play catch-up, and don't try to ride your winning streak.

     Every once in a while I would bet on a few early games, and if I lost, I'd scramble to look for more games to try and recoup my losses.  Other times I would win the first few games, and look for more games to increase my winnings, and end up losing what I won, plus what I originally put in.  If you can't deal with losing your games, or winning your games, you shouldn't bet any money to begin with.

Rule 4:  If you can't follow the first three rules, don't bet.

     If you get into betting a few games, and you realize you are getting a little to crazy, you shouldn't be betting.  Close your account.  It's much better to enjoy the sports you already like than to take it too far, and lose money you can't afford to lose.  Here is a good website to go to for you or anyone you know who might have a gambling problem:  http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/

3 comments:

  1. But I liked making fun of you for beating on games and then stressing the entire time.

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  2. Rule #5: When your wife says you are done betting on sports, you are done betting on sports. Don't try the whole, "but I am just using the money left in my account honey, I havent put anymore money in" excuse. We are not buying it. Cash out and quit!
    Love,
    Your wife ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rule #5 seems as though it should be Rule #1

    ReplyDelete