Way back in March, when a high school buddy of mine threw down some money on the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the National League pennant in the major-league baseball playoffs, the rest of us laughed in his face. We were in Vegas at the time to bet on college basketball, and there was this dude, going all national pastime on us.
"Yo," the friend said, "look at the odds." He shoved the ticket in our faces. Then the number stared out at us: 40/1.
In the moment, the wager suddenly seemed like genius. We all started fantasizing about how one lightning-in-a-bottle type season could turn $20 into $800 overnight. Fast forward seven months, and the bet seems even smarter: The Pirates won the NL wild card and played the St. Louis Cardinals to the wire for the right to advance to the NLCS. (At press time, it was unclear who would win the series.) The lesson: Sometimes, it really pays to embrace big odds and gamble on a long shot.
(You can't legally bet on sports in California. You can, however, head into Nevada and bet in a sports book there. You also can place these kinds of wagers at a variety of websites based outside of the United States.)
In the past 10 days, there have been a number of examples of epic sports bets:
-- Earlier this month, Ohio State eked out a cover on the final play of a game against Northwestern, costing Vegas sports books an estimated $100 million in the process. (Roughly 80 percent of the money on the game was for OSU to cover.)
-- Last weekend, a bettor in Vegas put down $282 on a (mostly money-line) 18-team parlay that spanned sports and leagues. Some of the contests were blowouts. Some were nail-biters. One of the 18 games was on the University of Toledo to win outright. When every single one of this guy's picks hit, he turned his $282 investment into more than $54,000. Dan Shapiro of Gambling911.com says the chances of such a parlay hitting are 0.00000381469 percent, meaning the guy literally had a better chance of getting struck by lightning.
-- This weekend, sports bettors are in for another piece of history: The opening 28-point spread in Sunday's Denver Broncos/Jacksonville Jaguars game was the largest spread in NFL history. With Peyton Manning having an MVP-type season and going up against the worst team in the league, the Broncos likely will do it. Consider this free betting advice.
Matt Villano is a freelance writer in Healdsburg. E-mail: 96hours@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mattvillano
No comments:
Post a Comment