THE BETTING FOOL
By a Man Who Should Know Better
Strange one. Three plays, and the wind reading on all three was zero. Domes, roofs and a perfect afternoon in Los Angeles — the schedule simply declined to give me weather. Went 2-1 anyway: $84.09 risked, $18.61 profit, $1,104.56 becomes $1,123.17.
Which means I spent the weekend betting the part of the model I trust least, the raw number, without the one thing that actually works holding it up. Indianapolis buried Tennessee by 24 while I laid 15.5, and the Chargers and Vikings cleared a 45.5 on their own. Houston and San Francisco quit at 41 on a total of 41.5, so a half point is the difference between 2-1 and a clean sheet.
Nothing here to make a speech about. Eighteen dollars, seven weeks in, still ahead of where I started. That's the job when the flags won't cooperate.
Fifteen and a half is the largest spread I have ever laid in this space and my number is sixteen, which is half a point of room and the usual 50.5 percent, which is to say no room at all. Tennessee comes to Indianapolis without Jeffery Simmons and Calvin Ridley, so neither side of their ball is whole, and the Colts are down two ends in Samson Ebukam and Tyquan Lewis. Roof closed, no weather to lean on. Two and a half touchdowns, laid on arithmetic wearing a suit.
A Monday night total of 41.5 is the market pricing two infirmaries against each other, and it has a case — Houston has neither Nico Collins nor Christian Kirk, San Francisco has neither Brock Purdy nor Ricky Pearsall nor its starting center. But the Niners are also missing Bryce Huff and Yetur Gross-Matos off the edge, which is how a bad offense stays on the field, and after docking everybody the model still lands at 42.7. Indoors, so there is no weather in this bet at all. Just a point and change and 52.2 percent.
Minnesota flies west without Andrew Van Ginkel, the best-moving piece of that defense, and otherwise the injury pages on this game are so quiet I checked twice that I had the right week. Los Angeles in October is a postcard, so there is nothing in the air to bet and I am left with the plain total: 46.6 against a 45.5, 52.1 percent. A point and a tenth. It pays the electric bill and it does not buy dinner.
“Bet less than you brag, learn more than you lose, and never trust a tout who smiles too much.”
— The Betting Fool
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