Sports Betting: We Can’t Get Enough of that Stupid Fun

There are many moronic things in life that people find enjoyable.  For example, take bull riding, bungee jumping, and drag racing.  Adrenaline pumping fun for some but simultaneously stupid because you could, um, die doing any of them.  But let’s leave those titillating sports for another day.  The theme of this article is sports betting which is oh so stupid, but a whole lot of fun.

Being a Jersey girl means having specific traits coded in my DNA. Firstly, there’s a good chance someone in my family lineage was in the mafia (I don’t know this for a fact, but it just makes sense). Secondly, the “shore” is the place I go to swim in the ocean and dig my toes in the sand and finally, the urge to gamble is as dominant a trait as my accent. So when I was invited to participate in a fantasy football league in 2001 and was told there was an entry fee and could win big bucks, I naturally channeled my inner Donnie Brasco and said, “Fuggetaboutit!” That means “heck yeah” to all you non-mafioso types.

Being the only chick in a league with all dudes, I intensely prepared for the draft weeks in advance. I studied every fantasy football magazine I could get my hands on. On draft day, I was excited to hand over my $100 entry fee. Why? Because I really thought I could win. Stupid me.  Well, not only did I enjoy watching games and rooting for players on teams like the Oakland Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals, I made it to the Super Bowl! I came in second place that year, won some cash and was hooked. Fast forward to today where I’ve certainly lost more money than won in the last fourteen years but keep going back for more stupid fun.

Sports betting has certainly evolved since its inception thousands of years ago. It started with the Greeks betting on events in the Olympics and was later adopted by the Romans who took it to another level with the gladiator games. But no longer is a bet as simple as laying down a five spot on a team or horse to win but between parlays, teasers and point spreads there should be a documented rule book for participants. In the simplest terms, betting on sports is fun because the bettor needs no connection to the actual teams to spontaneously become interested in a game. On the flip side, the majority of the time bettors lose, leading to the obvious conclusion, betting on sports is stupid.

So why would an intelligent person like yourself place a bet, draft a fantasy team, fill out brackets for an NCAA office pool, KNOWING that the odds are more likely that you will lose? If you’ve read this far, I think even you know the answer to this one. But even stupidity doesn’t stop us because year after year we enjoy rooting for the underdog and screaming at our televisions for the last second buzzer shot which results in us circling the sixteenth seed on our bracket sheet. This makes us feel like winners and winning is fun.

But in order to understand why gambling on sports is stupid, we must talk about odds.   While there’s the exciting possibility that you will pick every game correctly in the NCAA tournament, the odds of this happening are 1 in a billion x a billion and without getting into the mathematics of it all, let’s just scratch that from the list of what’s remotely in reach. Picking teams to win games seems as easy as flipping a coin.  If there are only two teams per one game then one team must win and one team must lose.  Based on this skewed simplicity the odds of picking the winner correctly are 1 in 2 or 50%, right?  Not quite.  Everyone knows that there are additional factors that play into a sports bet that doesn’t exist in a coin toss although in both instances only 1 of two outcomes is possible.  Spread betting makes laying money on the underdog desirable and keeps amateurs coming back for more.

So while your chances of getting struck by lightning are greater than having a perfect bracket, what’s more likely to happen is you get a few games right, circle the school names with your lucky pen and hope your competition circle less. The games are more interesting, you start recognizing players’ names and for three weeks you feel a part of something larger than your mediocre life and that feels good. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and unfortunately, the fun dies when the jerk in the cube next to you wins the pool and you’re out an extra hundred bucks due to your three-team parlay. Insert dunce cap emoji here.

Jules Rules:  Whether the fun outweighs the stupidity can likely be judged by your bank account. Roger Goodell probably thinks betting on sports is more fun than stupid. Just ask his checkbook.  So place your bets, play smart and prepare yourselves for stupid fun, suckers!

ATTN Dynasty Commissioners: Do you want to do something cool for your league? How about a 1-hour live show dedicated to YOUR league? Team-by-team breakdowns, rankings, and more. For details and to book a show, visit: GoingFor2.com/plp.

The GoingFor2 Live Podcast