Sports Betting and Other Gambling Thread

[DarthFed]

I know from the old boards there are some posters that bet on tennis and other sports. Figured I'd start up the thread in the sports section. What sports do you bet on, how often, and do you consider yourself good at it or is it more just all about fun? Also, if you do other things like Poker and Blackjack feel free to comment on those as well.

I love betting mostly on the NFL but if I see a good line in tennis I will put down a good sum there as well. As an example I made a big payday on the 2011 RG final because they gave Nadal -300, meaning that this is a profitable bet if you believed his chances vs. Roger in that match were greater than 75%. I usually am not betting much on tennis lines because they are often too lopsided. Money seems easier to make when you have a good feel for matches between the top players when the payouts are closer to 1-1.

A friend of mine is a big college football fanatic so I bet on some games this weekend that he had a good feel for, I bet on South Carolina -7 vs. Central Florida and lost when an 18 point lead in the 4th dwindled to a 3 point win. I bet Oklahoma -4.5 and they took care of Notre Dame by 14. Then I thought a sure bet was Ohio State -7 vs. Wisconsin but it was a push and UW made a game of it.

I think this thread can also be used for games you have a good feel for even if you don't bet on them.

For the NFL this Sunday I have made the following bets:

Parlay on Washington @ Oakland. I took -3.5 on Washington and took the over at 44 (the combined final score will be 44). I am very confident on the over because both defenses are very poor. Oakland will score their fair share but I think Washington will get the win. RG3 will get it going more and more as the season progresses. I bet 20 to win about 50 and this is likely the best bet all weekend IMO. I put the odds a lot better than 28%.

New York Giants @ Kansas City - I bet on New York straight up at +170 Again this is an odds thing where if you feel the Giants chances of winning are greater than 37% it is a profitable bet. The Giants are eventually going to get it going, the question is if it is too late. Kansas City is much improved but I think the Giants will blindside them today. I bet 25 to win 42.5

Chicago Bears @ Detroit - I took the Bears +3. The website I use (Bovada) did not have a straight up on Chicago otherwise I would have taken it. This is one of the tough ones to call and while I picked Detroit in the prediction thread it is so close to 50-50 that it seems better to take the Bears here. This is a game I probably shouldn't have bet on, a little overzealous this weekend The odds on this one have to be 54.5% or more to make it a profitable one, and I bet $45. Stupid move.

Bengals @ Browns - Took the Bengals a -4, and consider this a good bet. Cleveland had a surprise win last week but I still expect them to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. I bet 45 on this with slightly better payout than the Bears but I consider this a much better bet.

Vikings - Steelers at London. I took the Vikings at +1.5. Again the site did not have a straight up bet. The Steelers are still getting too much respect based on their recent history, that and they are such a popular team to begin with. They look awful, and the odds are similar to the Bears above. I consider Minny's chances above 65% honestly. Minny had an ugly loss last week but barely lost @ Chicago and @ Detroit. Pitt has 2 ugly home losses to Chicago and Tennessee and lost pretty easy @ Cincy.

I don't usually bet this many games but quite a few stood out. Only bad bet in retrospect is Chicago IMO.

Anyone else betting on the NFL weekly or just once in awhile?

Also, I tried to get into poker in 2011 but found it tough. A friend of mine is pretty good and says I was born to play the game due to my arithmetic and memory but I just couldn't get good and it is a costly game to be poor at. Mainly the cash games I stink at but Sit'N Go tournaments I'm pretty good at but barely profitable after the rake.

As for Blackjack you should never ever play online. You can assume it is basically rigged like a slot machine at a casino where they are paying out ever so often. Much different from a casino where you know the amount of decks they are playing with and it is not computer-generated.

Blackjack is a game anyone can learn in a few minutes as far as when to hit, stand, double down, split, etc. All the recommendations are based on millions of computer generated hands. The only way to get a slight edge on the house is counting cards and betting high when you know there are a lot of high cards left in the deck. There are many systems and I just do a basic one where you only count # of Aces and tens that have been dealt. There are 20 per deck and the casino I play at uses 6 decks. So the trick is estimating how many decks have been dealt and compare it to the running count and bet appropriately. I played a lot this year and am down about $300 or so.

 

[britbox]

I bet on tennis and football (soccer) and used to bet a little on athletics. Horses, greyhounds etc. is a mug's game. I bet a lot more with head to head bets with people now rather than bookies as you get much better odds and emotion creeps in to play + if you lay a big bet on at good odds with a person, you can usually hedge it with a bookie and never lose.

 

[DarthFed]

It's been a good week so far. I dipped into the tennis because I've seen some wacky lines that I took advantage of. Tsonga - Monfils with Tsonga only a -200 favorite indoors. I know he is rusty but that seemed too good to pass up.

Then better lines, Davydenko was +260 vs. Lu and the reason is he has a wrist problem he recently cited. Even with a bad wrist you have to like him to beat Lu indoors.

Then I bet big on Fog to beat Hewitt at +200 which was a crazy line (giving Fog a 1 out of 3 chance). I know Fog is a flake and Hewitt had been playing decent but Fog just came off of beating Robredo and seemed on his way to having a decent week which was the case.

As for NFL I bet Cleveland over Cincy -4 yesterday and won that but lost a few prop bets (No TD's over 40.5 yards, no Special Team or defensive td's and Cleveland to win by 7-12 points). There was a punt return that was 79 yards and a defensive td for good measure. And the biggest pain was Cleveland won by 13 and technically they should have gone for 2 when they were up 12. That'd have been a 4-1 payout though I only bet $12 on it.

 

[Front242]

I used to bet a lot on tennis in the past but since buying a house last year along with getting married I'd get bitch slapped to kingdom come if she found out I was betting now instead of paying bills

Initially to build up funds back when I was betting large amounts I had trebles for large amounts like €3,000 that won me about €600 a pop. Obviously if you lose one of those you're rightly p'd off but I researched them well and did that for a week or so till those €600 profits built up to around €3,000 and then used the profits as my betting bank with lower stakes. At that stage I hadn't lost anything so if I lost a bet going forward I was only losing the bookie's money/profit I made.

During slams I used to do quite a few accumulators on set betting as the odds of it winning were high. You knew big servers would likely lose but were good enough to probably win a set, thereby bumping up the overall odds qute a bit. Murray had a bad pattern of losing the first set and winning matches a few years back and local bookies often offered pretty huge odds for Murray to lose the first set and win the match. They obviously hadn't been watching his matches much and therefore didn't expect it to happen much but it happened a lot and made me large amounts of cash.

Back at the latter stages of Henman's career the bookies here had hilariously lopsided odds with Henman as 1-8 or 1-10 favourite (sorry, not used to decimel style betting here and usually prfer the fractional odds option) and his opponent's at 7-4 or 9-4. That made me a fortune 'cos I'd stick €500 on the opponent more often than not. Hurts to say it but soon enough the same might be the case for Fed with sentimental bookies still making him the favourite but in reality the chances of him losing these days to nobodies are much greater so there'll probably be some money to be made there.

I used to do a lot of trebles during slams, multiple trebles at say €300 a pop with maybe €60 to be made on each with 2 favourites who will likely win but at relatively crap odds and one outsider. I'd love to have heard from someone who had a double this year on Fed AND Nadal to lose their opening Wimbledon matches with a large stake like say €1,000 or $1,000 on it. That would've been a nice payout!

 

[fedfan]

On a South Carolina Gamecock site I've hosted a vegas line contest for 6 years. You predict the opening line for 5 college football games a week that I pick. Most are SEC games as that's our region. I do throw a marque national game in there as well. I keep a running tally throughout the year and end the contest with around 10-12 Bowl games that gives basically anyone a mathematical chance in the end to win the $100 Grand Prize.(yes, I enter it as well but have yet to win it. ) I use vegasinsider.com to determine the winners. The tricky part is the contest has a small window to enter as the lines come out Sunday morning and many logically want to see how the teams fair Saturday, sometimes late Sat nt.

With that said, other than a few $5 or $10 bets on the golf course or a dinner bet with my gf on a Wii game I can honestly say I've never laid any money down on any event. Hell, I've got enough bad habits as it is and don't need another one. :snigger

I know, makes no sense with my interest in vegas lines.

 

[DarthFed]

Yes, it is smart not to get in these bad habits, lol. I like those types of contests too, there is some money there but it is still largely about bragging rights. We have an NFL Pick'em pool at my office, paying in about $40/year and the winner each week gets $10 and the top 3 at the end of the year get paid more. We use a confidence system where if there are 15 games you put 15 points on the one you are most confident about. We once picked vs. the spread with confidence points which made it a lot harder and people complained, though that was the only year I've finished in the top 3.

And this is actually the first year I am in a paid fantasy football league. It was only $20 and I think it is winner take all which will be close to $300.

Part of the reason tennis is hard to bet is that they don't usually have the lines that are close to 50-50 payout. If I'm looking at tennis lines at all, I am trying to find wacky lines like the ones I saw this week, that or betting on the big boy matches where they are close to 50-50 payout.

Football is easier for me as there are usually a few lines for the spread that I have a good feeling about. Last week didn't go so hot as I maybe got carried away and bet too many games, that and I underestimated Cleveland this year and thought the Giants weren't as bad as they looked the first 3 games.