Month: April 2010
Marathon Monday – A Bettor’s Guide to the Action
Marathon Monday is less than two weeks away. Essentially everyone who reads this site knows that I have a substantial amount of money riding on my performance this year. I have given Bones and DaGow 13:1 odds that I will break the four hour mark this year, at 50 and 20 bucks respectively. Intense stuff. In addition to that I have a couple of 50 dollar straight up bets out there based on beating four hours and a pub crawl bet with a girl whose also running. With all that in mind, here is the odds breakdown.
WILL PAT D BREAK FOUR HOURS:
Yes : -200
No : +200
For anyone not fluent in gamblese, -200 means that the odds are 1:2 that something will happen, you bet two dollars to win one. +200 means the odds are 2:1, you bet one dollar to win two. The reason I am making myself a favorite is because I just have so much damn money bet on myself. If I was running this for fun it would probably be just as likely that I would be drinking booze halfway through the race. With that in mind…
Will Pat D Run the Entire Marathon
Yes : -500
No : +500
I have entered the Boston Marathon twice, finishing it once (4 hrs, 30 mins) and dropping out after 17 miles the second time. Again, this line would be a lot different if I didn’t have a boatload on the line.
Over/Under Water or Sports Drinks During Race : 11.5
I honestly have never kept track of this in the past but I am guessing this sounds about right. As a guide, the absolute minimum I could see on drinks would be like 8 or 9.
Will Pat D Beat the Random Girl Mentioned Above Who You Have Never Met (Updated)
Yes : Even Money (Updated Line)
No : Even Money (Updated Line)
You know you want to bet on this, you know you are tempted to throw five dollars on or against a girl you have never met. As a guide, she is in her mid-20s in good condition. I am almost 100% positive she has never run a marathon before, and I currently have an email out to her asking what time she expects to run the race in. I may update the line accordingly when a response gets back, but this is the line at this moment.
UPDATE
Originally, this line was me -250, and the girl +250. However, I received this email response back from her when I asked about time…
I’m shooting for 3:40, but will probably be more like 3:45ish. What about u?????
CRIPES! This girl means business. First of all, she has her expected time nailed down to a five minute window, and on top of that she pops out with FIVE IN YOUR FACE QUESTION MARKS right back in my grill asking me what time I expected. I was even tempted to make her a slight favorite at this point but I do hold one slight advantage over her and that’s that I have run the race before. But goodness.
SECOND UPDATE
Follow up e-mail from Corinne
I ran in 2007 in 4:16
Oh Billy!
Will the Sox Game Still be Going On as I pass Fenway
Yes : Even Money
No : Even Money
Opening pitch at the game is scheduled for 11:05 AM. I will hit the starting line somewhere around 10:35 AM. You do your own math. Note : If I drop out, “No” wins.
Will I Ejaculate From Now Until the Marathon
Yes : +500
No : -500
You will notice that for all these lines I have excluded juice from the action.
That’s about all I got for plays at the moment. If any other good ones pop into people’s minds feel free to make additions.
Congrats to Louis
Louis raped Vegas and myself by taking Duke at 15-1, 10-1 and 9-1 (with me) to win the National Championship at different stages before the tournament started. I would never have placed any of those bets, kudos to Louis.
MLB – Over/Unders
Louis and I have bet a pub crawl, and it should be a pretty good one considering it’s based on an entire season for a whole shitload of teams, on mlb over/unders for the season. You rank team totals on confidence from 1-10. Let’s see what I like.
TEN POINT PICK – SF Giants over 82.5
I honestly feel that I have to be missing something here. San Fran won like 88 games last year, got a year of experience for a young, outrageously talented pitching staff, added some pop in my opinion with DeRosa and forever-undervalued Aubrey Huff, and the over/under is 82.5?
NINE POINT PICK – Nationals under 72
This really should not even count, it has to be considered essentially automatic, Washington had 59 wins last year. The under is -136, but that does not matter in this contest.
EIGHT POINT PICK – Dodgers over 84
Very, very good lineup.
SEVEN POINT PICK – Yankees over 95.5
I know the AL East is a bear, but…I’m trying to think of an analogy of what the Yankees are if the East is a bear. The mighty claw, the powerful jaws? The Yankees are the “Big Foot’s Dick” of the Al East. They easily won 100 games last year with A-Rod out and suspect pitching at times, especially early on. I would have this line at 97.5.
SIX POINT PICK – Indians under 75.5
Another number that confuses me, this is asking the Indians to win 11 more games this year and D Masterson is their third pitcher, and the Lou Marson is their starting catcher right now.
FIVE POINT PICK – Atlanta over 85.5
I really am not crazy about the Braves pitching staff, but their lineup is very solid and they are playing in a far from ruthless division. Wagner as a closer is probably going to work out well.
FOUR POINT PICK – Texas over 85
This is going against Vegas as the over is +120, but I like it anyway. The Angels are dead, this division is up for grabs.
THREE POINT PICK – Cincinnati over 79.5
I know NOTHING about the Reds except that every sports show I pop on talks about them as a sleeper and that they have some pitcher from one of those islands where he probably had to swim to get over here. What the hell.
TWO POINT PICK – NY Mets over 81
You knew it was coming.
ONE POINT PICK – Cardinals over 88.5
This is a high number, but I get the feeling that St Louis could have a ridiculous year, something like mid to high 90s. Let’s see what happens…
MLB 2010 Season Win Totals Over/Under
I’ve never done well betting on baseball games. Sure, I’m smart enough to know that when an overmatched scrub shortstop is up against a hard throwing closer, strikeouts and popups will result(or as Chip Caray would say, “Fisted!”). Translating that into an appreciable edge is something I’ll leave to gamblers braver than I. These annual season over/unders represent 80% of my baseball betting in a given year with fantasy baseball taking up the rest.
EDIT: Current lines from Pinnacle are here.
Unfortunately, this isn’t 2008 when Tampa and Seattle provided two of the easiest covers available in the past decade, both clearing by August. It’s not even 2009 where the same Seattle team covered again thanks to their outfield defense, this time on the over. There’s not a whole lot of value out there and as such, these plays are going to be on the small side. Both of mine are in the AL East.
Tampa Bay Rays OVER 88.5
What keeps teams like St. Louis and Anaheim so damned good every year is not only their great players being great, but the lack of suckiness throughout the rest of the team. A completely average team with 1-2 superstars will win 90+ every season. Throw in a replacement player or two and you’ll only be good for 80+. Tampa won 84 games last season despite having near black holes in CF, RF and DH. It’s VERY hard to win when 1/3 or even 1/7 of your lineup is an automatic out. Those holes weren’t expected, but they were there and it’s very hard to compensate.
As far as this season, Zobrist will likely regress but so long as he’s average and not the Zobrist of 2007 that’s OK. They could use an upgrade at catcher, but so could 15 other teams, and we’re only looking for a 5-win improvement. The pitching staff is solid from top to bottom and players like Andy Sonnanstine and Reid Brignac are valuable trade chits should injuries strike.
Toronto Blue Jays UNDER 71
Crap starting pitching. A commitment to rebuilding. No one outside of Canada who doesn’t play fantasy baseball could name more than three starters for this team who also conveniently play 60+ games versus TB, BOS and NYY. It’s easy to get caught out on under bets when a team is not legitimately rebuilding (Houston) and will happily punt September to give it’s young players playing time. That won’t be a problem here. Toronto’s rotation had problems without Halladay’s near-guarantee of 200+ innings and a sub-3.50 ERA. Replace those starts with more from Romero, Cecil, Richmond and Purcey and it’s not going to be pretty. You want to look for teams whose own players really won’t give a crap when September rolls around. You want the Toronto Blue Jays.
Boat Race 2010 – Will a Boat Sink?
The 156th Oxford-Cambridge boat race takes place tomorrow in London. Oxford are favored at roughly -250, but picking the winner isn’t the most interesting play.
Pinnacle has a line (below) for “Will a Boat Sink?” currently at -1650. I know most of you don’t enjoy betting large favorites, but a boat has only sunk 5 times in 156 races and none in the past 30 years. The flip side is that the odds opened at 33-1 and have been cut almost in half thanks to poor weather being forecast and mildly heavy betting on the sinking side. 
I think I’ve written about this before, but rowing was THE sport, similar to NFL in the United States now, in the 19th century, but it’s popularity waned as gambling scandals and fixing became more and more common. There is much to read here (rowinghistory.net) but these two stories stood out:
Another tactic used by the unscrupulous backers was to try to influence the betting odds. Faking an illness just prior to a race is one way to boost the odds and make for a bigger pay-out after the unexpected victory, but there were other ways as well. Cleaver wrote in The History Of Rowing about a race between the Australians, Harry Searle and Julius Woolf, on the Parramatta River in 1866.
Woolf had been defeated by Stansbury a fortnight earlier, so he was not much in favor with the betting public, and it looked as if Searle’s backers would have to be content with the bare prize-money. John Spencer [Searle’s manager] refrained from betting at all before the start of the race, and instructed Searle to hang back and “feel” Woolf in the early stages, and, as soon as he was sure of his man, to shake his head from side to side, but not to go to the front until he got a signal from Spencer, who was in a boat following the race.
The race had barely started when Searle’s head was seen to wobble violently. This caused loud laughter among those who had never seen Searle race before. Meanwhile, his commissioners were snapping up every bet offered, with Woolf still leading and going great guns. Suddenly Spencer waved a red handkerchief and in a hundred yards Searle was a length ahead, and the issue beyond doubt.
The Town of Barrie [Canada] was holding its second annual regatta on Kempenfeldt Bay and had invited an American, James H. Riley, to row against Hanlan. The champion [Hanlan] had agreed, against his better judgement. He was not in good condition after his recent trip across the Atlantic, and halfway through the course Hanlan had to stop. Riley was stunned and refused to cross the finish line. He had obviously placed bets on Hanlan and would lose his money if he won the race. The judges were flabbergasted by the whole affair, ruled the race a draw and ordered a re-row. Hanlan declined, preferring to forfeit the prize money.
