Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner; With 5 Rules to Live By (Or at Least Gamble By)

"Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner; With 5 Rules to Live By (Or at Least Gamble By)"

By, Kyle McCann

This Friday I will begin a new weekly column that will be dedicated solely to gambling and my reasons behind it1. If you’re not into gambling, I don’t know why. Everything is more fun when you gamble. Don’t care about the Nevada vs. UNLV game, put a 100 on the over and see if you’re not yelling at your television. Not interested in playing trivial pursuit at your in-laws house or Yahtzee with your coworkers, throw some money down and the tempers rise up. It’s inevitable, it’s natural, and it’s awesome; gambling. It’s kinda like drinking, socially frowned upon in the wrong situations but always making things more interesting for those willing to participate.

So this Friday I will begin a path following the college and professional football season and all the bets that are valuable enough to bet. I will pick every NFL games, select college games and let you know which ones are worthy of real money plays. So please follow along, feel free to comment and hope that Notre Dame covers for the rest of the season (see rule number 3 before making this play).  To follow is a brief overview of how I believe everyone should gamble.

My main premise when choosing picks is “Be anticipatory not reactionary2.” This applies to many facets of life (relationships, the stock market, fantasy football, and politics) but when it comes to sports betting (and gambling in general) it is one of the founding principles you should make all your bets on. Reacting is what the masses do, anticipating is what winners do.  With the first of a season’s worth of weekly betting articles to come out at the end of the week, I wanted to review the concise list of betting principles I try to make all my wagers/picks with:

1. Be anticipatory not reactionary. I bet mainly on basketball and football, sports where people tend to overreact…to everything. Big wins, big losses, huge scoring outputs and bad offensive games. DON’T OVERREACT.  For example, if you look at the over/under lines this week they will be the most overly inflated lines ever seen. And why not? Offenses have been blowing up scoreboards through the first two weeks.  Calm down and relax. The masses well scream, want big scores and bet the over. Think, don’t react and you’ll be just fine.
2. Seek value. People are more likely to bet big games, high profile battles and games they will find on major networks. If you do your homework, take pride in your research and your craft then value can be found across the board and not just on Monday Night Football.
3. Don’t bet your team. It is hard enough to watch your team play. If you’re like me your mood (or as my wife just said, “I think this is much more subdued an explanation than you actually are”)3, is up and down with the ebb and flow of your team’s play. Don’t make those 4 quarters harder on yourself. Pull back the cash (this gives you more weight for value bets), pick up a beer and enjoy your life determining 3 hours without both ruining your day and lightening your wallet.
4. Budget. By budgeting I don’t mean set aside $300 and don’t lose any more than that. That’s exactly what bookies and casinos want you to do4. That’s how they always take your hard earned cash money. They expect to keep betting until all your money is gone. With sports betting, things are a little bit easier to keep control of. Place you bets early before your lines shift too much and don’t too much after that.  Budgeting is in fact one of the best things you can do for your betting experience. It allows you to make smart choices, to not overreach and to thoroughly enjoy the money you make in the process.
5. DO NOT REGRET YOUR BETTING. The worse thing that I hear, whether at a friend’s house, whining online or in a Vegas casino, is someone complaining about the big bet they just lost. Grow up. If your life is going to depend on the  $40 you dropped on the USC game then perhaps it is time that you reevaluate your life; in its entirety. The old gambling adage says, “If you can’t afford to lose it don’t bet it.” And it’s hard to argue with this. Set aside a little money, do your research and make a bet(s) you feel solid about.

So that’s it. Check out the lines for this coming week and look for my first ever weekly gambling extravaganza beginning this Friday and every Friday to follow throughout the football season.   

1. Outside of my degenerative need for it.
2. I know I know this could be catchier, but it still sounds good right.
3. Yes my wife edits all my articles. Yes, she does not know much about sports, but damn she is smart and makes me look a lot smarter.
4. And that’s why those bastards are way richer than you and me ever will be. By the way, if you want to see an example of all time greed by rich, casino owning assholes please Google FullTilt.com news. Quick summary here: Fulltilt.com has been seized by the FBI and the DOJ due to the siphoning out of player’s credits into executive accounts. As of March the company only had $60 million in its company bank accounts to cover $340 million in player credits. The company had taken over $400 million in player’s money over the past 4 years in order to pay executives and even some famous poker players who were on the company’s “board”. Basically this was a huge Ponzi scheme and should worry anyone who places bet or plays poker online. However, will this ever stop me from gambling online… in short HELL NO!