I love my readers like corny ass Chance the Rapper loves his wife, and because of this I’m always looking for new material to write about to entertain you. You know keep our relationship spicy- the old slip a finger in the butt just to let them know you still care time in a relationship (this is probably why I am single- actually this is not even close to the reason why I am single so let’s move on shall we). So for the past week I decided to get my legal sport bet on. Mind you I am not a gambler- and before last week I had never made a sports bet other than a friendly wager among chums. Hell, I had only been to a casino once and only played slots there that reminded me of Joshi Wrestling
But this past Sunday a Holy Ghost vision of a Buccaneers victory struck me- the image appeared in neon lights in the clouds as a vision of none other than one of the shining trinities that is guiding me to greatness in 2021- yes the one and very drunk and focused Tom Brady- appeared before me.
Of course I had to bet on Brady- and of course that dude came through and I won my first bet. I also had my first taste of losing as my prop bet that Brady would gallop for more than .5 yards failed to occur. This betting win and lost would be the pinnacle of a well thought out bet, and what I dubbed a doing dumb shit bet. My initial bet was the Tampa win, and Leonard Fournette to rush for the over of 47 yards. Why I made this pick was based on logic and knowledge of said sport and players. If Tampa was going to win they needed to be able to run to get the play action pass going, and Fournette was going to be that dude to get those yards. Unfortunately fan duel went down for a bit so that bet didn’t go through, and then I decided I wanted to go for the sexier bet of Brady getting rushing yards- because we all know there is nothing more breathtaking than a good ol’ lead-foot Brady scramble.
Of course I lost that one, but at the end of the night I came out up $41.20- almost doubling my investment. And I was content with that pay out- until they pulled me back in with a free bet for the earlier technical difficulties I experienced. Now feeling pretty good after my win I decided why not get my uncut gems on and do a parlay: which is a wager where you bet multiple games to win, and only cash out if all of your picks are right.
After spending an hour going through Reddit, and various sites and Twitter feeds I came up with a perfect parlay.
It was not perfect.
Eric Gordon screwed me.
But I did learn from that loss and I got the bug to participate in the other contest to win a 7 dollar free bet when you purchase three 8 dollar over under bets. I went 2-3 on my over under and was now up just under 50 dollars with a free 7 bet. In the next couple of days I was up to almost 90 dollars when the gambling gods showed their face- like a gruesome fun house mirror mash-up of the Michael Jordan crying meme and Charles Barkley’s normal everyday mug- and I started doing a lot of small but doing dumb shit bets. Mind you at this time I was technically losing fictional money (and yes all the non broke-boys out there are judging me over this 90 dollars- but I work at a public school and I don’t have that Showtime money yet) but being able to cash out at $100 is a lot better than $25.
So back I went to the betting gods on that day after love- Valentine’s Day. A week of gambling was a lot like love itself with all those highs and lows. And just like love I decided to go all in at the end and make a wild go for broke two last bets. You know get a get a real good climax to this tale about the agony of winning and losing. And since I didn’t find love on Valentine’s Day why not go for the next best thing in life: winning money.
Plus I wanted to make up for all those doing dumb now picks like a 7 team parlay with college basketball and hockey lines.
See I don’t know shit about college basketball and hockey other than at surface level. So I can’t decipher the bullshit from the statistics that work with these sports when I am doing research on the games.
So post Valentine’s Day I was locked in. I did my research and found two perfect games to parlay. I would grab the money line (that’s for the Warriors to win straight up with no point spread) on Golden State versus the Cavs. My logic behind this pick came from the fact the Warriors had just dropped a home game to Durant and the Nets this past Saturday, and would be ramped up to play. They were also playing the Cavs at home, who would be without Andre Drummond who they just announced they were sitting till they can find a trade partner. You couldn’t really find any formulation out there that would show any momentum for the game going the Cavs way. And true to form the Warriors came out and crushed them. I doubled this game up by taking the plus 5 points for the Bulls against the Pacers. The Bulls would go to win outright in over time cementing my 97 dollar win. My other bet was a five dollar Julius Randle to score over 21 points – and dude goes off for 49 putting the exclamation point on my night of gambling dominance. I ended the night up to $106 proving that I am a lot luckier at gambling than I am with love.
In the end I hope you enjoyed this little tale of my gambling week, and how I turned 25 smackers into a hundred dollars of straight moolah. If y’all want to see me get my bet on in the future just let me know in the comments, or send me a message and I will do another one for March Madness.
Patrick Bernard 