Every week I post my picks for the week’s football matches. Very often, I am wrong. I do this for three reasons. First, I need content on my site; you’ll notice during the football offseason that there’s very little activity here. The fact is, everything I could say on most subjects has already been said by someone else, and probably more eloquently. Second, Simmons does it, and he seems to do alright for himself. But the third reason is, I wanted to have a few practice years before I actually went ahead and started putting money on these things. You know, to figure some stuff out, try to work out little theories and build an intuition for these kinds of things. And while I had a winning record in my first year, the last two seasons have not been positive. So I didn’t plan on betting on football any time soon. Not to mention, I didn’t really have a lot of money just lying around to dump on games in the first place.
I might make a picture of Kimbo later. In the mean time, here’s Vinny Vegas.
But this weekend, I fell victim to addiction. Considering the fact that I don’t smoke anything, and I don’t get drunk very often (by my count, four times in the last four months), I am a man with few dangerous addictions. Gambling is not one of these addictions, either. I buy a scratch ticket once every few months whenever I cash in whatever change I had lying around the house, but beyond that, I’m not a gambling man. But this weekend… well, I slipped a little.
I usually don’t care much about Mixed Martial Arts. I’m kind of forced to follow it, if such a thing is possible, because the wrestling site I read seems to be covering it more and more often these days. And occasionally, there’s something that piques my interest. Usually Brock Lesnar or Kimbo Slice. As you’re well aware, Kimbo had a fight this weekend. And somehow, through heavy coverage of it on F4W, I began to anticipate the show. Gina Carano was a hottie, so it wouldn’t take much for me to watch her. The fact that she was beating the shit out of someone was kind of an added bonus, in some sick, perverse way. But the real attraction was Kimbo vs Ken Shamrock.
Here’s the thing about Kimbo. He’s a giant, scary black guy with a sweet beard and giant muscles. I wouldn’t fuck with him if I had six knives. But most of the talk about Kimbo this summer was about finding the right opponent for him. He looked bad against James Thompson and barely beat him, and EliteXC knew that they needed to find a guy who had some name value, but also wasn’t particularly good. Because, you see, while Kimbo is big and scary and draws ratings, he sucks at MMA. So EliteXC has to protect him and feed jobbers to him to make him look scary and to keep idiots like me tuning in. So they settled on Shamrock, who is old and hasn’t won in forever. Of course, if he somehow won, EliteXC could then promote a fight with him and his brother Frank, which would also be big money. But most likely, they were counting on Shamrock going in there and getting knocked the fuck out by Kimbo.
Then, a few days ago, someone brought attention to the money line set for Shamrock. It was at +250. For those of you unfamiliar with money lines, +250 means that, if I bet $100 and won, I’d win $250. Betting $50 would get me $125, and so on. If the line is a negative, like -300, then that’s the opposite; I would have to bet $300 to win $100. So a $50 bet would net me about $18 or so. The underdog usually gets the positive line, and the favorite gets the negative line, the logic being, obviously, that you are rewarded greater for taking the chance on the underdog. So with the line for Shamrock being set at +250, if I bet just $20, I’d win $50. It’d be a nice little wager and something to artificially pique my interest in the show. If I actually had a vested interest in the winner, surely the match would be more fun to watch.
Eventually, however, I talked myself out of it. There’s no way Ken Shamrock was winning, especially when I heard an MMA analyst say Shamrock was basically being paid to stand up with Kimbo and try to beat him with strikes, rather than submit him, which was Shamrock’s specialty, and instead just get his face hammered for a minute until Kimbo won and CBS made lots of money. This made plenty of sense. So I gave up on that idea pretty easily. On this same interview, however, the guy was asked about one of the undercard matches. It pitted former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski (who apparently used to be a big deal but I’ve never heard of him) against a guy named Roy Nelson. And this analyst stated, with zero doubt in his voice, that Roy Nelson was going to win. No question about it. No one was taking Nelson seriously because he hadn’t had many TV appearances, but he was a legend in Las Vegas, and everyone he talked to thought Nelson was a good enough wrestler to take out Arlovsky.
And wouldn’t you know it, but BetUS.com had Nelson at +350. Hot damn! So I convinced myself to do it. I’m betting on an MMA fight. $20. I’ve spent that much on dumber shit before. Hell, I spent $100 on Valentine’s Day this year, and the bitch cheated on me two days later. Surely betting a measly $20 wouldn’t hurt me. So I signed up for a BetUS account.
This was hitch number one.
Betting on BetUS is not a matter of simply saying “I want $20 from this credit card on this fight.” No, instead, you have to deposit money into a virtual account, which then allows you to bet on lots of stuff after that. As it stood, I did not oppose that system. Since receiving the winnings would take a week or two anyway, it allowed your winnings to go into your balance, which you could later decide to spend on another bet, if you so chose. However, the first problem came when it was time to add money to the account. For you see, you had to deposit a minumum of $50. “Shit”, I said. “I don’t want to spend $50, I just want to bet $20.” But, in my greed, I decided to go for it anyway. Perhaps I’d see another bet down the line that I’d spend the remaining $30 on.
Transaction done. Put $20 on Roy Nelson at +350 (a payout of $70). Oh yeah, I was gonna be a rich man. Even better was that a few minutes later, the line dropped to +300, meaning I struck while the iron was hot.
A few hours later the show was about to begin. And then the news came; Ken Shamrock was off the main event because of a cut on his eye. The athletic commission wouldn’t clear him to fight. Instead, Kimbo would face a guy who was previously scheduled to work the undercard. Seth Petruzelli. Sounds like a jobber to me. At this moment, I was simultaneously disappointed that Shamrock was out, since the night was significantly less interesting, and relieved I didn’t bet on him. I would’ve got my money back, but it would’ve been a downer to get myself worked up for something and just have it end for nothing.
But my Nelson bet was still on. Through the course of the night, however, there was a little chatter on the F4W boards. “If Kimbo loses to this guy, EliteXC is fucked” they all said. And then one man spoke up. “So should I put money on Petruzelli, then?” Had this person not posted this, I never would’ve thought about it. Surely this jabroni is an even bigger underdog, right? And people think Kimbo could lose to him? I asked a few people what they thought; they guessed that if lines came out for the fight in the next hour, Petruzelli would be favored over Kimbo. I could not believe this. I asked one guy if Petruzelli came out as an underdog, should I jump on it, and he said “absolutely”.
Lo and behold, the line popped up a few minutes later, with Petruzelli listed at +250. With the extra $30 in my account and stuck in some bank account in Costa Rica, I dropped another $20, this time on Petruzelli.
In the TMI Department, I should note that for lunch, I had a Quizno’s Black Angus Steak sub, and for dinner, I had a sirloin steak. Nothing but steak all day. This, of course, meant I would be spending a long amount of time on the toilet that night. And while I was lucky to catch Gina Carano beat the shit out of her significantly less-attractive opponent, I soon had to retreat to the washroom to undertake another epic bowel movement.
And by the time I had come back, Roy Nelson had already been knocked out.
Last time I take gambling advice from a wrestling podcast.
With $20 down the drain (or toilet, if you will), I watched the Shields/Daley match with only minor interest. I was about to lose another $20 to some no-name jobber getting his ass beat by the big scary black guy.
And, well, Petruzelli beat him. In 14 seconds. Punched him in the face, stunned him, punched him on the side (back?) of the head and the ref stopped it. Fight over. And I was $30 bucks richer.
The rest of the night, I felt great. I won my first wager, and stood with career record of 1-1. I was a Gambling Man. With the extra ten dollars still in my account, my balance stood at $80. Awesome.
And then, well, I got a little greedy. I went on a search for more underdogs. I eventually found three enticing ones. First, the Patriots listed at +2000 to outright win the Super Bowl. I put $10 on that. I figure, hey, what the hell, it’s only 10 bucks, and if the Pats somehow win the whole thing, that’s $200 right there. Easy peasy. Second, I found the Rays listed as underdogs against the White Sox, even though they had a 2-0 series lead. The line wasn’t huge, but it was still a positive. And finally, I saw the spread of the Red Sox-Angels game. 1 1/2 runs. If I picked it, the Sox would have to win by two or more runs. And I would win lots of money. I ended up taking both of them in a parlay, which basically is when you take two bets, and double the winnings if both hit. If either one misses, you lose both. Whatever. I put down $20 with a chance to win a few cents more than $80. If that one hit, I’d have a total profit of $150. Big fuckin’ money. And I still had $50 sitting in my balance, in case none of them worked out, so I could at least break even. Playing it safe, you see.
I was quite confident in both picks. As I said, both teams were already leading the series 2-0, and while the Rays were on the road, the matchup (Garza vs Danks) seemed pretty even, and all they had to do was win; no spread involved. And the Sox were at Fenway, having won the last 11 games against the Angels (although that number’s a little deceiving; 3 of them came in 1986, but I digress) and Josh Beckett was on the mound.
By 4 PM, the deal was busted. The Rays fell behind 5-1, and while Bad Street Brawler B.J. Upton cut it to 5-3 with a 2-run homer, it wasn’t enough. Tampa lost, and no matter the outcome of the Sox game, my bet was ghost.
Dejected, I decided to cut my losses and cash out. I went to my account on BetUS, and ordered a check for $50. But it didn’t go through. Wierd. So I tried again. Same error message. Something about credit card info being invalid, which in itself was an invalid complaint because my credit card had nothing to do with anything. I was ordering a check to be mailed to my house. And while my mother probably would’ve thought it was junk mail and thrown it out, it was still $50.
And then I noticed something. Whenever I typed in how much I wanted the check to be for, a little note popped up, saying “Fee: $50″. Yes, they wanted to charge me a $50 processing fee for my winnings, which also happened to be $50. So even if I had cashed in right after winning the Petruzelli fight, I would’ve lost $20 total. I would’ve paid $20 for the right to bet on Seth Petruzelli and win. This was not a smart business decision.
Needless to say, I was furious. I looked all over the website, trying to find where in the small print it said I had to pay $50. I didn’t find it anywhere. The bastards cheated me. I did a search for BetUS and lo and behold, most people were talking shit about it, saying they had generous lines, but the payout system was bullshit, primarily because of the $50 fee. And many folks often never received their checks or had to wait months for them.
I was scammed. I got suckered. I was an idiot.
So I was stuck with $50 of digital money that I couldn’t touch anymore. All I could do was bet with it.
I never wanted to use BetUS again, but I gave it one last go. It was my only chance (beyond the Pats winning the Super Bowl four months from now) to try and get my money back.
BetUS has live betting, which is used for games in progress. If the Angels were down 3-1, they’d have a giant underdog line, which you could bet on in that moment in hopes of capitalizing; assuming they’d come back and win later. It’s like buying low and selling high, except no selling. Desperate to have my money issue resolved as soon as possible, I decided to bite the bullet and just put the remaining $50 on the Sox to win outright, which was only a measly -130 (meaning that my $50 bet would net me about $38). I placed this bet in the 10th inning, when Papelbon was mowing down hitters, and due up in the next frame was Pedroia, Ortiz, Youkilis, Bay and Lowell. I felt pretty good about my chances.
If you saw the game tonight, you know what happened. In the 10th, the Sox loaded the bases with two outs, but Jed Lowrie lined out. In the 11th, Coco Crisp was on second with Pedroia up, but he grounded out. In the 12th, the Angels scored off Javier Lopez, who is not, in fact, as good as Jonathan Papelbon. Then, David Ortiz worked a walk to lead off the bottom of the 12th, but was stranded as the Angels won Game 3.
On Saturday, I spent $50. I bet $40, and won $50. Which, if you trust my math, was a net gain of $30.
On Sunday, I bet $80, and I lost $70 of it. The other $10 won’t be won or lost until January.
Total net gain? $-50.00
If you’re gonna gamble, kids, don’t use BetUS. They are con artists, and I hate them.
But the moral of the story is, don’t gamble. You’ll lose.
Also, in the ultimate irony, my football picks went 9-3-1 today, which might be the single best week I’ve ever had. Funny how that works.
Fuck.
