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Re: MaterialMind post# 1182

Thursday, 01/21/2016 12:35:05 PM

Thursday, January 21, 2016 12:35:05 PM

Post# of 9437
Hmmm, certainly some strange activity going on now.

Maria, I have a great story for you smile
Source = anonymous

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.

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 **** 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.