Gambling God: Fact Or Fiction?

[Patriots Game]

Is there such a thing as a gambling god? People who have never gambled in their life will look at you like you have 17 heads when you ask a question like that. People who have been in the business for a while will simple take a swig of their drink and give you a knowing smile. The answer is obvious of course, as there can be no debate that a gambling god exists and he is the most ruthless and powerful god in the history of mankind. The Gambling God hears every statement, every word uttered by a gambler, just waiting for a sign of arrogance or cockiness and then strikes down upon thee with a rash of unpredictable and impossible events that totally boggle the mind and pull defeat from the jaws of victory. There are so many ways that the Gambling God can crush you both mentally and physically that as football season approaches, I felt it would be worthwhile to review a few of things to remember when dealing with the most viscous of all gods.
window.google_render_ad();
1. The most obvious and most violated rule is the jinx. Whenever, you proclaim victory or even hint that you are going to win a game, the Gambling God has no choice but to strike you down. A perfect example is last year’s Eagles vs. Bucs NFC championship game. A few of my buddies took the Eagles laying the points and went to Boston Sports Grille to watch the game. It was the last game at the Vet and the place was a madhouse. The Bucs not only hadn’t won there in about 150 tries, but they had been dominated every time. The Eagles took the opening kickoff and stuffed it right down the Bucs throat to go up 7-0 in the blink of an eye. The Bucs looked shell-shocked, the Vet was rocking and we had all the momentum in the world. That’s when my buddy Elio single handedly changed the fate of the game. Before the game started we decided that we would each do a shot to celebrate every time the Eagles scored a TD. Well, after the Eagles scored a lightening fast Touchdown, Elio in all seriousness, whispered to me “ The only thing I’m worried about is that we’re all going to get absolutely trashed from doing too many shots.” Talk about the kiss of death. As we all know, the Eagles didn’t score a TD the rest of the game and we all went home stone sober and broke. Basically, Elio had reversed 72 straight quarters of complete domination by the Eagles against the Bucs in a 10 second statement. To Elio’s credit, he took the blame for the loss.


2. A corollary to the flat out jinx is the intentional jinx by a friend. I’ve really never understood why the Gambling God takes exception to this one, but it does. This is when a friend who has no action on the game decides to piss you off by telling you that you have the game in the bag. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even like telling my friends who I have because I know they’ll hit me with the intentional jinx.


3. Turning a game off prematurely or switching channels early is another sure-fire way to feel the wrath of the Gambling god. The gambling god takes this as a great sign of arrogance. The best example of this was an Ohio State vs. Illinois college football game roughly 6 or 7 years ago. The line was Ohio State –40. My buddy Hazy and I took the Buckeye’s minus the points. (We’ll get into why in the world we took that game another day). We were both in our own apartments watching the ending together on the telephone. Ohio State was leading 41-0 as Illinois failed to make a fourth down conversion at the Ohio State 20 with a minute to go in the game and no timeouts left. Game over right? Well not really. OSU ran two dives up the middle to bring the clock down to approximately 20 seconds left in the game and had no need to run another play. In fact, the players were walking off the field. That is when I changed the channel to check on another game and hung up the phone with Hazy. Massive mistake. One minute later my phone rang and it was Hazy who sounded like somebody just ran over his dog asking if I saw the end of the Ohio State game? Apparently John Cooper had screamed at his Ohio State team as they were walking off the field to run 1 more play even though they didn’t have to!!! The result was a QB rollout, a QB sack, a fumble scooped up by Illinois and run back for a meaningless TD on the last play of the game. Final Score. Ohio State 41 – Illinois 6. All this occurred because I turned the game off before it was over and the Gambling God decided to put a demon in John Cooper’s head telling him to run 1 more play.


4. Getting Greedy is another sure-fire way to raise the ire of the Gambling God. The second you increase your bet, you lose. It’s a hard and fast rule of gambling. You can win 100 straight 10-dollar bets, but the second you increase your wager, you’re doomed. This one doesn’t need too much explanation and if you have any doubt to the truth of it, drive down to a local Indian reservation in CT and play a couple rounds of black jack and try increasing your bets randomly. See how well you do.


5. There is nothing the Gambling God loves more than rubbing your face in missed opportunities. A missed opportunity qualifies as when a gambler has a strong opinion on a game and doesn’t or can’t put action on it for whatever reason. The reason it is so frustrating is because this presents a sure fire way for the Gambling God to torment you. My record in games that I have had strong opinions on, but didn’t bet is 7,623 and 0. I’m NEVER wrong. Not only is it a horrible feeling to be right about a game that you didn’t bet on, but that means it will be twice as hard to win when you do actually bet again. It’s like your using up all your good luck and good vibes on nothing. I’ve gone 23 days waiting for myself to get a wrong pick out of my system before I go live. It is really amazing how hot you get when you have nothing at stake.


6. The Gambling God only allows for one type of momentum and that is bad momentum. What I mean by that is that nobody in the history of gambling has every won the bail out bet at the end of a bad week. NOBODY. If you chase your losses, you always end up in twice as much trouble as you were in the beginning. Bad gambling momentum is the strongest momentum there is. I’d rather be defending a guy in NBA JAM, who is on fire rather than trying to break the mojo of a gambling streak that went bad. (Just so you know, when you’re on fire in NBA Jam, your guy is literally on fire, as in burning flames) A bad gambling streak is like a rolla coaster that never goes up, but is just a straight ride down, going faster and faster until the week is over and you crash into the ground going 8 million mph’s. My personal record for defeats is 18 in a row. I defy somebody to flip a coin and have it land on heads or tails 18 straight times. It is impossible without the help of the Gambling God. Unfortunately the exact reverse is true for when you are hot. This is when the rule of greed combines with the rule of momentum. The Gambling God will let you win 20 straight small bets, but the second you feel lucky and place a big bet, you’ll lose.


7. The toughest rule for me to abide by is the no opinion, no bet rule. To clarify, this means that if I don’t have an opinion on a game, but bet it anyways just for fun, I always lose and it ends up being not so fun after all. I’ve actually heard people argue that this is because the Gambling God is a virtuous god and doesn’t want people gambling just for the heck of it. (These people usually have never bet a game in their lives) Whatever the reason, my biggest advice, which I never follow would be don’t bet games you don’t have opinions on. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Every gambler tries there absolute best to appease the gambling god. They sit quietly on their hands rooting for their team, but never admitting they have a snowball’s chance at winning despite the fact their team is up 20 points with 10 seconds to go. The Gambling God as we said earlier is a ruthless son of a gun. People who think sports’ gambling is a 50/50 proposition are kidding themselves. It takes a well-educated and well-disciplined gambler to have a chance to compete with the Gambling God. To be honest, I’ve never met anybody who has successfully done so. If you have ever met a successful gambler, that is one more person than I have. However, maybe this is the year…

[Dr. Jack]

This is a great post

[Dagger]

Agree on numbers 1 and 2. I have seen that so many times.

[bigbuck]

I know sometimes you feel like you are jinxed and not meant to win, but I think you have to dismiss that from my mind or it will affect what you play because you will have second thoughts and that may affect how you play.

I had sergio garcia to win the Barclays last August and when he sank a long putt on 18 to take the lead, I knew I had a winner until VJ singh sank a long putt to push it into more holes. I lost a huge payout, and it affected what I did the following week and the deutsche bank and lost.
Last November, I had padraig Harrington after the first round to win at 25-1 in the Singapore tournament. He had the lead with a couple of holes to go over Jeev Singh but one bad bounce on a hard green and one ball unbelievably hanging up on the nook above the 18th hole instead of feeding down close to sink a putt to win.
Back in the mid 90s, I was planning to beat Jose Marie Olazabal to win the masters but got caught up with work and couldn't make it to vegas a few weeks before to make my bet. Well, he won and I lost out what have been a huge payout.
You almost have to be like a relief pitcher after a blown save and put it out of your mind or the gambling god is real.

Originally Posted by Patriots Game

Is there such a thing as a gambling god? People who have never gambled in their life will look at you like you have 17 heads when you ask a question like that. People who have been in the business for a while will simple take a swig of their drink and give you a knowing smile. The answer is obvious of course, as there can be no debate that a gambling god exists and he is the most ruthless and powerful god in the history of mankind. The Gambling God hears every statement, every word uttered by a gambler, just waiting for a sign of arrogance or cockiness and then strikes down upon thee with a rash of unpredictable and impossible events that totally boggle the mind and pull defeat from the jaws of victory. There are so many ways that the Gambling God can crush you both mentally and physically that as football season approaches, I felt it would be worthwhile to review a few of things to remember when dealing with the most viscous of all gods.
window.google_render_ad();
1. The most obvious and most violated rule is the jinx. Whenever, you proclaim victory or even hint that you are going to win a game, the Gambling God has no choice but to strike you down. A perfect example is last year’s Eagles vs. Bucs NFC championship game. A few of my buddies took the Eagles laying the points and went to Boston Sports Grille to watch the game. It was the last game at the Vet and the place was a madhouse. The Bucs not only hadn’t won there in about 150 tries, but they had been dominated every time. The Eagles took the opening kickoff and stuffed it right down the Bucs throat to go up 7-0 in the blink of an eye. The Bucs looked shell-shocked, the Vet was rocking and we had all the momentum in the world. That’s when my buddy Elio single handedly changed the fate of the game. Before the game started we decided that we would each do a shot to celebrate every time the Eagles scored a TD. Well, after the Eagles scored a lightening fast Touchdown, Elio in all seriousness, whispered to me “ The only thing I’m worried about is that we’re all going to get absolutely trashed from doing too many shots.” Talk about the kiss of death. As we all know, the Eagles didn’t score a TD the rest of the game and we all went home stone sober and broke. Basically, Elio had reversed 72 straight quarters of complete domination by the Eagles against the Bucs in a 10 second statement. To Elio’s credit, he took the blame for the loss.


2. A corollary to the flat out jinx is the intentional jinx by a friend. I’ve really never understood why the Gambling God takes exception to this one, but it does. This is when a friend who has no action on the game decides to piss you off by telling you that you have the game in the bag. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even like telling my friends who I have because I know they’ll hit me with the intentional jinx.


3. Turning a game off prematurely or switching channels early is another sure-fire way to feel the wrath of the Gambling god. The gambling god takes this as a great sign of arrogance. The best example of this was an Ohio State vs. Illinois college football game roughly 6 or 7 years ago. The line was Ohio State –40. My buddy Hazy and I took the Buckeye’s minus the points. (We’ll get into why in the world we took that game another day). We were both in our own apartments watching the ending together on the telephone. Ohio State was leading 41-0 as Illinois failed to make a fourth down conversion at the Ohio State 20 with a minute to go in the game and no timeouts left. Game over right? Well not really. OSU ran two dives up the middle to bring the clock down to approximately 20 seconds left in the game and had no need to run another play. In fact, the players were walking off the field. That is when I changed the channel to check on another game and hung up the phone with Hazy. Massive mistake. One minute later my phone rang and it was Hazy who sounded like somebody just ran over his dog asking if I saw the end of the Ohio State game? Apparently John Cooper had screamed at his Ohio State team as they were walking off the field to run 1 more play even though they didn’t have to!!! The result was a QB rollout, a QB sack, a fumble scooped up by Illinois and run back for a meaningless TD on the last play of the game. Final Score. Ohio State 41 – Illinois 6. All this occurred because I turned the game off before it was over and the Gambling God decided to put a demon in John Cooper’s head telling him to run 1 more play.


4. Getting Greedy is another sure-fire way to raise the ire of the Gambling God. The second you increase your bet, you lose. It’s a hard and fast rule of gambling. You can win 100 straight 10-dollar bets, but the second you increase your wager, you’re doomed. This one doesn’t need too much explanation and if you have any doubt to the truth of it, drive down to a local Indian reservation in CT and play a couple rounds of black jack and try increasing your bets randomly. See how well you do.


5. There is nothing the Gambling God loves more than rubbing your face in missed opportunities. A missed opportunity qualifies as when a gambler has a strong opinion on a game and doesn’t or can’t put action on it for whatever reason. The reason it is so frustrating is because this presents a sure fire way for the Gambling God to torment you. My record in games that I have had strong opinions on, but didn’t bet is 7,623 and 0. I’m NEVER wrong. Not only is it a horrible feeling to be right about a game that you didn’t bet on, but that means it will be twice as hard to win when you do actually bet again. It’s like your using up all your good luck and good vibes on nothing. I’ve gone 23 days waiting for myself to get a wrong pick out of my system before I go live. It is really amazing how hot you get when you have nothing at stake.


6. The Gambling God only allows for one type of momentum and that is bad momentum. What I mean by that is that nobody in the history of gambling has every won the bail out bet at the end of a bad week. NOBODY. If you chase your losses, you always end up in twice as much trouble as you were in the beginning. Bad gambling momentum is the strongest momentum there is. I’d rather be defending a guy in NBA JAM, who is on fire rather than trying to break the mojo of a gambling streak that went bad. (Just so you know, when you’re on fire in NBA Jam, your guy is literally on fire, as in burning flames) A bad gambling streak is like a rolla coaster that never goes up, but is just a straight ride down, going faster and faster until the week is over and you crash into the ground going 8 million mph’s. My personal record for defeats is 18 in a row. I defy somebody to flip a coin and have it land on heads or tails 18 straight times. It is impossible without the help of the Gambling God. Unfortunately the exact reverse is true for when you are hot. This is when the rule of greed combines with the rule of momentum. The Gambling God will let you win 20 straight small bets, but the second you feel lucky and place a big bet, you’ll lose.


7. The toughest rule for me to abide by is the no opinion, no bet rule. To clarify, this means that if I don’t have an opinion on a game, but bet it anyways just for fun, I always lose and it ends up being not so fun after all. I’ve actually heard people argue that this is because the Gambling God is a virtuous god and doesn’t want people gambling just for the heck of it. (These people usually have never bet a game in their lives) Whatever the reason, my biggest advice, which I never follow would be don’t bet games you don’t have opinions on. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Every gambler tries there absolute best to appease the gambling god. They sit quietly on their hands rooting for their team, but never admitting they have a snowball’s chance at winning despite the fact their team is up 20 points with 10 seconds to go. The Gambling God as we said earlier is a ruthless son of a gun. People who think sports’ gambling is a 50/50 proposition are kidding themselves. It takes a well-educated and well-disciplined gambler to have a chance to compete with the Gambling God. To be honest, I’ve never met anybody who has successfully done so. If you have ever met a successful gambler, that is one more person than I have. However, maybe this is the year…

[Chris46139]

This seriously may be the single greatest post in the history of the mall

[captaincapper]

The Gambling God like all other Gods does exist, though only in people's minds. Let me explain exactly how these deities operate (or in reality don't operate). It's really one's own mind at work, I'll explain. These deities are only as powerful as one's own imagination and what's known as confirmation bias. Also known as counting the hits and ignoring the misses.

Let's take the jinx as an example. Let's say that I have heavy action on a particular team and they're up big time at half time. I proclaim that this one's in the bag. Then thru a seemingly twist of fate my team packs it in the second half and blows the game. I remember that loss vividly and correlate that loss with the pronouncement that I made about the game being in the bag.

Now, a few weeks later, almost the same event occurs. I laid heavy action on a team that's destroying another team and I declare at half-time that it's in the bag. My team goes on to win and it's no big deal.

And so on and so forth.

If I was a gambling man I would bet that the games in which I lost would stick in my mind much longer and more vividly than the blowout games that I won. I remember and count the jinxes and forget the times that the jinxes didn't occur. What's proverbially known as, "Counting the hits and ignoring the misses". Therefore, it only seems that there is a gambling god.

[Patriots Game]

Do I get a prize or CM HOF honors?

[ksturg]

Reason #3 combined with reason #6. Don't remember the year, but the Monday night Tampa/Indy game, the greatest comeback in MNF history. Doubled down with the book to get it all back, and made the mistake of shutting it off in the 3rd quarter up 30 or something like that. We all know what happened after that, will never forget waking up that next morning and turning on Sportscenter, I wanted to puke.

[gdog]

Hey guy's I swear i'll never use the "lock" word again !!!

[CANDY-MAN]

This would be funny,if it wasn't true,lol.See you all next football season.

[westcoastO]

remember the red sox vs rays ALCS game?

red sox were down 7 with 9 outs to go in game 5 (i believe)

my over and red sox ML were all but cooked, gambling gods were on my side that night to say the least.

[big slick]

iwas in a superbowl square this year for $100 a square. Ihad ariz 3 and pitt 7 for the last quarter. As the last quarter, i tried to figure out if there was any possible way i could get those numbers. I gave up early and went to bed. I thought i better check the final score monday morning, and was stunned to see i had won $1500. How the hell did that happen. Well anyway you never know when the gambling god is on your side or not