THE BETTING FOOL
By a Man Who Should Know Better
Back down to three plays, and not because last week scared me off. I went through every game on the slate hunting for moving air and found exactly one that cleared ten miles an hour. You cannot bet weather that isn't there.
That one came in — Minnesota and Green Bay stopped at 29 on a Thursday night 41.5. The other two got played in still rooms on the model's raw numbers, and the raw numbers are the part of this operation I have spent all autumn warning you about. Seattle won in Nashville by six while I laid 12.5. Cleveland and Las Vegas reached 34 on a total of 35.5 that I had bet over, and they got there 24-10, which is not a shootout under any definition I recognize.
$72.90 at risk, less than any week I've had including the opener, and $25.48 of it gone. $977.99 down to $952.51. Third losing week running. I am not rattled, but I have started checking the forecast before the injury report, and that is a peculiar way to earn a living.
One mile an hour in Nashville. The air is standing perfectly still, which means this is the sixth Tennessee game I've printed this season and the sixth one I've priced on nothing but arithmetic. The Titans are without Xavier Woods, Kendell Brooks and Elic Ayomanor; Seattle travels short Tyrice Knight and Tory Horton. The sheet returns 12.9 against a market 12.5 — four-tenths, 50.5 percent, twelve and a half points to lay. I've made a version of this bet every week since Labor Day and it has yet to feel good once.
Thirty-five and a half, which prices these two at about a field goal apiece per half and is a fair summary of the autumn they've each had. Cleveland travels without Dillon Gabriel and Jamari Thrash, and I'll grant that cuts against me. The model lands at 36.7 anyway, at 52.2 percent — the smallest number on the board is usually also the easiest one to sneak past. Roof over the building in Las Vegas, so there's no weather in this bet and no comfort in it either.
This is the only game on the entire schedule with the wind at ten or better, so it is also the only one where I have the faintest idea what I'm doing. Green Bay plays Thursday without Jayden Reed and Nate Hobbs, with Quay Walker doubtful; Minnesota's report is clean. Market 41.5, my number 40.9, 51.6 percent. Six-tenths of a point is not a fortune. It is the one honest edge on the whole slate and I'm not leaving it sitting on the table.
“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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