My friends call it BowlFest, this most wonderful time of the college football year when you can’t swing a cornerback without hitting a Diesel Driving Academy Arkansas Bowl or a Sparkling Caffeine Ice Classic.
It’s a beautiful thing.
It’s easy to get caught up in the momentum of bowl games and holidays and start betting actual real money on the games. Santa doesn’t want you overdoing it. And he’s watching you …
The day I quit betting on ballgames was the day I thought I was about to lose $100 plus juice and nearly started crying like a small wet child.
March Madness. 1993ish? Back when having 100 bucks meant something. I’d bet Xavier to cover against Indiana or the other way around. In the past I’d bet $5 here and there, maybe 10. We figured we were betting $5 to have $5 worth of fun, because nothing makes you interested in a game the way “having action” on it does. Suddenly you’re interested in an Oregon State vs. Louisville score, fanatically so.
But now I was stepping out and betting a Buck, like a big boy, like I had $100 to lose.
It went down to the wire. Was listening on a transistor radio. Sitting in a cheap table chair on Archer Avenue in Shreveport. Living and dying. “If I can get out of this, I’ll never bet again.”
My guys covered. I’d won 100 large. And retired. Wasn’t worth it. I had to work too hard for that little piece of money.
Since then, the stakes have gotten back to normal. I’m in a group that “bets” all the bowl games with the overall winner getting the pot. The capital outlay is about 18 cents a game.
The feeling is the same. Pride. Bragging rights. The joy of thinking of where you’ll spend the $5 each of the guys will have to cough up. Even though both the risk and reward are so tiny, you’ll still pay more attention to the SMU vs. Boston College Fenway Bowl than any sane man should.
Before legal betting in our neck of the woods, you had to “know a guy.” Benny the Bookie or Sam the Human Point Spread. Now you just need your smartphone and a credit card.
Draft Kings. FanDuel. Promo codes. “Free money” to get you going.
Sounds like fun. And with a limit, I bet it is. I just got to thinking that I might as well flip a coin because …
How do I know whether or not the starting center just got a “Dear John” letter from his girlfriend;
Or if the quarterback just failed a big math test;
Or if the professional strong safety might have taken something recreationally before the game, the one I just bet a Honey Bun on.
“Too rich for my blood!” I hear a yokel saying …
You can bet spreads, over/unders, moneylines, parlays, teasers. Prop bets. Futures, in which case you’re betting on something that hasn’t happened yet as always, except this won’t happen for a long, long time. (The Orioles are +1,500 to win the 2024 World Series.)
If all these easy ways of betting — even on stuff mid-game, like coin flips or total interceptions — were available by phone 40 years ago, I might still be glued to that chair on Archer, sure I would get rich by the time they were cutting down nets at the Final Four.
But I backed down. I bet that I really didn’t know what I was doing. And that there would be days when the guys I’d bet on wouldn’t know what they were doing either.
Probably a good bet.
(But … who you got in the Boca Raton Bowl? Asking for a friend …)
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
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