how you start in betting on sports

jets96

A very long time ago , I guess before i realized people were betting on sports, a friend of mine told me he was betting on three football games and they were locks , l lost all three of them, 330 bucks back then was a whole lot of money. I chased that money for many years after that.
I was never a great student ,went to college at the same time I was in the Navy. Made a good living, and at times, I think am still chasing that 330 bucks.
I read every single book on sports gambling , to this day I still read as much as i can ,still trying to find the holly grail sports model, am doing fine gambling ,its a grind, but I make money and that's the bottom line.
Goats I knew way back in SSB days, learned a lot from those guys , a lot of cool characters on that site. I printed as much stuff as i could back then and still refer to it today.

How you guys start ?

StJoes0610

thanks for sharing jets. mine was pretty simple - a buddy in college loved gambling and given my competitive nature and love for sports, i figured i would love it and could beat the books. unique story i know

since then, ive at least smarted up to go the "fund of funds" model for all you finance people. occasionally i'll play my own stuff, but i outsource all of the hard work to smarter people than i and take the credit. i do ok in CFB though so i am comfortable with my opinions there. thankfully a buddy introduced me to RAS/BT a long time ago which has been a huge benefit for multiple reasons.

jets - i wanted to PM you something about the NY/NJ area but i know thats not permitted. not sure if theres a way thats acceptable around that.

danshan

I started at the local dog track with grandpa on the weekends as a young kid. He was not a big handicapper, he just liked getting out of the house and spending time with old buddies at the track, he use to drag me a long for company. He bet the same 12 58 quins every race. He use to have a buddy who use to bring over the newspaper and some book and they would cap games on friday afternoons together. Not sure or dont remember how they got down. I only remember dont bet big faves and overs, might have been true than , I doubt it but anyway, that got me rolling!

R40

Saw two outrageously bad lines in the mid 1990s and wanted to bet them but couldn't. Both won easily. I had just gotten interested in investment and had the idea that I could beat the stock market betting on football. Hit 62% over a full season paper betting and confirmed the theory. Then proceeded to lose the next two years while working on Saturdays and was humiliated. Was working huge hours after that so did not even think about it for years.

Quit working and still did not think about it for years based on the idea of market efficiency which I had read about in the gambling market and was not even following college football. But still was not sold that I was not a genius.

In casually observing Big 12 scores, I still had the bug for picking football games and was doing paper betting very casually and experiencing what I knew was unreal bad variance but still keeping the faith because my best bet was winning at a high rate. Eventually wanted to bet a game and researched offshore. Then discovered free money and got a lot more interested.

All of it really dates back to a football contest picking high school football games in my local home town newspaper which is how I found out that I was good at picking games -- not that I did not think that already in sixth grade.

Gordon Gekko

Very interesting stories. As a young adult, we played cards for money, pitch, spades and Acey/Deucey for under $100, although we did have one pot w Acey/Deucey game got to $450 as it hit the side and parents came in firing about the game, but the debt was resolved. About a week later, my friend and I placed a wager at a bar that took wagers and we placed a $100 wager on the Phoenix Suns and the line was -7. Charles Barkley had two free throws up 6 with 6 seconds left and made both. The impending three from opposing team went up, time stopped, and while watching intently in front of my mother (who pondered why we cared so much because it wasn't the Celtics) the ball traveled on target at basket and it was definitely going in, the ball went around the rim and out. We had won. We celebrated in another room like we had won the lottery. We went on to lose that money the next day and lost our paychecks the following week. Ahhhh...the business.

danshan

my worst beat was the playoffs when Reggie made like 9 points in 3 seconds or whatever I thought I won, went and checked later and I lost, I was like what and then watched sportscenter and was like WTF really! I also got bombs out lucky in like 2005 0r 6 NBA playoffs, i think it was the Spurs had a 4 pt play with like .003 left on the clock

Ronbets

In high school realized 11 was greater than 10 and became a half-ass bookmaker. Graduated and went to college. Dad gave me 1st-semester tuition money third-year and bet it all on the Cincinnati Reds versus SFO's Willie Mays. FU Jim Maloney and lost. Took time off and went back into the bookmaking biz. Got a great education from wiseguy bettors. Realized you don't book their action but tack on. I ran into a huge problem that was chasing me down. No not the law yet, but the Draft Board. A friend insisted on us going to Canada to avoid the Draft. FU, I gotta look my parents in the eye. He went north and I went west. That POS eventually got amnesty from Jimmy Carter. I got spit on when I got out.

paddyboy111

In the late 1980s the NY Post had a $1K handicapping contest, you snail-mailed in your card and had to hit every Sunday game against the spread to win, otherwise the prize rolled over. The lines were stale so sometimes I'd get through the early games clean. I think it might have been Thanksgiving so the card was shortened without Thursday games and I was 100% except for a slow game that was interrupting the 60 Minutes coverage, the hittable field goal as time expired hit the upright and didnt go through fucking my card. In fact I then lost the Sunday night game, so the upright didnt really stop me as an 11 year old from cashing me, but the buzz of that afternoon has fueled my gambling career. The idea of the life-changing score, that the superiority of my brain would be publicly confirmed, the fantasy of future wins being as valuable in dopamine as the actual cash itself, all the things that still create stupid-gambler cognitive biases in my head to this day. But it was a big day for me at a time when I needed one, and it is a lesson learned that I revisit with a smile to this day.

jets96

st joe ask admin for my email address

StJoes0610

sorry jets been a wild week. will do now