It’s been only a few short weeks since the 2021 NCAA Tournament concluded, capped off by a dominant run from the Baylor Bears to secure the school’s first title. Because of an early, first-round exit from the Tar Heels, I didn’t follow the madness as closely as usual… or maybe I did, just not for the right reasons.
Mom, if you’re reading this, stop here.
Now, let’s set the tone. For the first time in my life, I’ve established a pretty hefty income. Perhaps hefty isn’t the word I’m looking for, maybe reliable, but you get the gist – I can indulge myself a little. I no longer have to worry about my parents checking my bank statement to ensure that my expenses are within a reasonable limit and I’ve acquired the financial freedom that has been perched on the horizon of adulthood for my entire life.
Newsflash, it really sucks. It hurts my feelings when I see a $600.00 charge in my account for each month’s rent and I quiver any time I have to stop at Speedway and spend Andrew Jackson just to load up my tank. I highly doubt any kids are reading this, but on the off chance, here’s my advice – stop saying you want to grow up! I promise those multiplication tables aren’t as stressful as they seem.
Anyway, tangent aside, this flow of income led me to make some bad decisions during the month of March. You see, along with a group of my fraternity brothers, I decided that the tournament would be a lot more fun to follow if I had a stake in the games, and no I don’t mean a bracket challenge. We were even dumber.
Before the tournament started, we all agreed to deposit $50.00 into an account on Bovada, the world’s premier sports betting website. Our ultimate goal was to profit the most money in the group and without any experience, I underestimated the difficulty of beating the bookie.
Pause. For those of you that don’t gamble on sport, let me first commend you. It’s a terrible habit and I don’t wish it upon my worst enemy. In order to understand where this is going, it might be helpful for me to provide a bit of a synopsis on how it all works.
There are a number of different ways to bet on a sporting event, the most popular being the moneyline. When you bet the moneyline, you simply have to pick the winner correctly and you’re in the clear – it’s precisely how I hit my first, and only payout.
Once you get familiar with the gambling process and start feeling yourself, there is also the option to bet on the spread or the over/under. The spread relates to the scoring margin, so let’s say Carolina is picked to beat Duke by ten points in this hypothetical matchup. I can either choose to bet the over on that, meaning that Carolina will exceed that margin, or the under, in which I feel the game will be a bit closer.
Finally, the over/under is all about the combined score of both teams. Using the same analogy, let’s say that Vegas decides that the total number of points scored between Duke and Carolina will be 160. If I bet the over, I’m assuming that the two teams exceed that score when the totals are added. Vice versa with the under.
There are plenty of other betting options, but those are the most popular and I want to keep this as elementary as possible. Where it gets confusing, though, are with the odds themselves. I will have a hard time explaining this one, mostly because even I don’t grasp it entirely, so if you’re looking for answers check out the article below. It will tell you everything you need to know and make a lot more sense than I will. Don’t do it though, I’m warning you.
How to Read and Calculate Sports Odds: Everything You Need to Know – Betting 101
Now that you’ve read the SparkNotes, here’s my story. The early rounds of the tournament weren’t incredibly damaging or painful. I placed a little too much on the Tar Heels, duh, and missed a few calls on some of the evenly matched seeds. But, for the most part I kept my head above water. Hell, in the second round I even hit a five-team parlay and made almost a hundred bucks – shoutout Ohio and Maryland.
For about an hour or two, I was happy with my winnings. I had turned $50.00 into $150.00 in only a matter of days, simply by guessing a few outcomes correctly. I can’t even lie, it was fulfilling; I felt a sense of accomplishment like never before, almost like I had just hit the lottery, just in the form of a much smaller sum.
Like most gamblers, however, I couldn’t step away from the metaphorical table. I got greedy, much to my own demise. Over the course of the next few weeks, I placed bet after bet. It was only a few dollars at the time, but I was grasping for straws with six, seven or even eight-team parlays. Generally speaking, those are almost always unwinnable.
After winning ONE bet, I had fooled myself into thinking that my good fortune would persist. My eyes were drawn to the potential winnings of a bet, as opposed to the ridiculous odds that it would require. And while my confidence is often a strong quality to have, it led me down a rabbit hole that eventually became inescapable.
As I began writing this post, I gambled away my last four dollars and I’m sure you can guess how that turned out. My Bovada account balance is merely a strand of goose eggs and it will likely stay that way for a while, at least until I can get my impulses under control.
My takeaway from all of this? Don’t gamble. And, if you do, make sure it’s in moderation. Oh, and I’m definitely not ready to take a trip to Vegas.
Stanley out.
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