Guess what an idiot with a sports betting app did this time?

[Derwood]

10 minutes ago, Sammy Sofa said:

The Suspect Pitches In MLB's Gambling Investigation Of Luis Ortiz Look Not Great | Defector

Betting on individual pitches certainly is....something.

Yep. He probably thought this was a way to get away with it (oops, threw that in the dirt for ball 1!!) but there are so many watchdogs monitoring this stuff that you aren't going to get away with it

[Banedon]

Wow, now Clase!

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

On 7/28/2025 at 1:17 PM, Banedon said:

Wow, now Clase!

 

I mentioned it in another thread but he has thrown 22 waste pitches to lead off the 9th this season. He's going down. My thing is, there has to be many teammates and coaches that are aware of what has been going on. 

[Sammy Sofa]

Gilbert Arenas Arrested For Running Illegal And Depressing Poker Games | Defector

 

Edited July 31, 2025 by Sammy Sofa

[Ding Dong Johnson]

"Gambling is only cool if we get a cut." -- DOJ

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

12 hours ago, Sammy Sofa said:

Gilbert Arenas Arrested For Running Illegal And Depressing Poker Games | Defector

 

So, the main gambling thing I'm currently doing is NFL best ball drafts. I enter the loto-style events, mostly on Draftkings and Underdog. There were a few drafts I did early this season that had a drafter doing truly insane horsefeathers. Like so horrible, that I assumed the drafts would be tossed for fairness reasons.  (Intentionally drafting poorly allows others in the same draft to get 'unfair' value) They were not tossed , because it was Gilbert Arenas doing the drafts, and he's an Underdog influencer. I think what happened is that he tried to automate his drafts based off of rankings, but those rankings were taking QBs with his first 3-4 picks, and then TEs with the next 3-4 picks. ...the guy probably has a problem, to put it mildly. 

[Brian707]

If you are in illinois and betting sports I would avoid DraftKings, Fanduel, and Fanatics.  They are passing the 50 cent per wager tax on to the customers.  The tax is stupid by Illinois,  but these books make huge profits.  The other books are just increasing minimum bet.

 

 

[bukie]

Counterpoint: this tax is good, sports betting is bad for sport while at the same point making truckloads leeching money from many that shouldn't be betting, and anything that can help curb that predatory behavior while also getting money back into the public system is a win.

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, bukie said:

Counterpoint: this tax is good, sports betting is bad for sport while at the same point making truckloads leeching money from many that shouldn't be betting, and anything that can help curb that predatory behavior while also getting money back into the public system is a win.

I feel like gambling tax is going into a black hole along with cannabis tax, lottery money, etc. States that have legalized sports gambling are still making budget cuts all over the place, so where did this new revenue stream end up?

[bukie]

Classic Derwood "I don't understand any of this so I'm going to make things up to comment about" take, there.

[Derwood]

25 minutes ago, bukie said:

Classic Derwood "I don't understand any of this so I'm going to make things up to comment about" take, there.

I just moved from a state that has legal weed and gambling. They are acting like they have less money than ever

[BigbadB]

15 hours ago, Derwood said:

I just moved from a state that has legal weed and gambling. They are acting like they have less money than ever

Colorado's roads might be the worst roads in the country. They certainly aren't spending the weed tax on infrastructure that is noticeable. At least Illinois has the state flower "road construction cone/barrel" set up on nearly every road.

[Brian707]

Oh boy

 

[BigbadB]

1 hour ago, Brian707 said:

Oh boy

 

Gotta love the smack talk. Sure would be nice to be so rich you can afford 200K bets, but even then I probably wouldn't. Hell, so far I'm 4-11 on my picks this week. Shouldn't I be closer to 50% since each pick is a toss up with the spread? It's a conspiracy against me, I'm sure of it.

[Brian707]

I went 5-5. My small wagers won and large ones lost. Buffalo i was expecting a loss but was a nice surprise 

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Entirely reasonable take:

https://slate.com/technology/2025/11/baseball-betting-scandal-emmanuel-clase-luis-ortiz-cleveland-guardians.html

[Brian707]

Good point here:

 

Quote

People will never stop betting on things, and there’s more potential for abuse in a black market. But in this specific case, legal sports betting is the arsonist, not the firefighter. Your friendly neighborhood bookie probably does not offer live betting markets on the outcome of so many specific pitches. He does not offer the same effortless means of crafting multileg parlay bets in seconds, as anyone could do when betting on these pitches. The boom in individual player prop bets is an innovation of legal sports betting. Player props are also at the root of the NBA’s current big-time federal problem.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2025 by Brian707

[We Got The Whole 9]

They said Clase could have gotten away with it for a lot longer had Ortiz not gotten involved. The returns they allegedly got for participating in these schemes are pitiful. Clase was gonna make 5m this year and now his career is done and hes going to prison. 

[soccer10k]

48 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

They said Clase could have gotten away with it for a lot longer had Ortiz not gotten involved. The returns they allegedly got for participating in these schemes are pitiful. Clase was gonna make 5m this year and now his career is done and hes going to prison. 

Yeah, I get some middling guy who hasn’t made much money and will never make much money. It’s wrong, but I get it. But Clase had made $11.6M in his career, was guaranteed $6.4M and likely had $20M coming to him in 27-28. Then he hits the FA market before his age 31 season. So even if he blows out and makes nothing, including a 2M buyout, he’s made $20M in his career. With health and good performance, he’d make well over $100M for the rest of his career. 

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

My main gambling focus for the last three years or so has been NFL best ball contests. I mostly play contests that have huge payouts at the top, but you're playing against hundreds of thousands of entries. These types of contests tend to result in either small (likely) losses, or, fingers crossed, big wins.  Somehow, I have had a small winning season every year, but after the 2025 regular season, it looked likely I was finally going to have an annual loss. 

But, I've known for a while that the playoff bestball contests are the juiciest. For strategic reasons I won't go into, a lot of people are still playing these contests all wrong. I've made the finals for Underdog's main contest multiple times, and even tied for first a few years ago, but it was a 42-way tie for first.  Getting 17k for winning this thing isn't so great.

 

This year, I only had one team survive into the conference finals round, but it was all but guaranteed to make the finals, and if the Super Bowl happened to be Pats/Seahawks, I knew I'd have a really strong team.  I don't normally bother to update the fam on how this stuff is going, but I knew this might be a thing.  My kids very politely pretended to care, but the Mrs. caught the hint, and sweated the games with me. Pretty fun. 

I knew I had a good shot at real money as soon as the conference games were done, but I didn't come close to guessing the amount that a simulation website thinks I'll win on average. I've never taken Xanax, but I'm considering it for next week. (I'm Limehouse) www.bbmdb.com

It probably won't be too hard for this crowd to help me root against Diggs next week. 

 

[Brian707]

Good luck!

 

[jumbo]

16 hours ago, JudasIscariotTheBird said:

My main gambling focus for the last three years or so has been NFL best ball contests. I mostly play contests that have huge payouts at the top, but you're playing against hundreds of thousands of entries. These types of contests tend to result in either small (likely) losses, or, fingers crossed, big wins.  Somehow, I have had a small winning season every year, but after the 2025 regular season, it looked likely I was finally going to have an annual loss. 

But, I've known for a while that the playoff bestball contests are the juiciest. For strategic reasons I won't go into, a lot of people are still playing these contests all wrong. I've made the finals for Underdog's main contest multiple times, and even tied for first a few years ago, but it was a 42-way tie for first.  Getting 17k for winning this thing isn't so great.

 

This year, I only had one team survive into the conference finals round, but it was all but guaranteed to make the finals, and if the Super Bowl happened to be Pats/Seahawks, I knew I'd have a really strong team.  I don't normally bother to update the fam on how this stuff is going, but I knew this might be a thing.  My kids very politely pretended to care, but the Mrs. caught the hint, and sweated the games with me. Pretty fun. 

I knew I had a good shot at real money as soon as the conference games were done, but I didn't come close to guessing the amount that a simulation website thinks I'll win on average. I've never taken Xanax, but I'm considering it for next week. (I'm Limehouse) www.bbmdb.com

It probably won't be too hard for this crowd to help me root against Diggs next week. 

 

So your team is made up of whoever is still playing? And you have both QBs, both #1 RBs and JSN and three Patriots pass catchers? Damn, dude, that is wild - wishing you the best of luck

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

50 minutes ago, jumbo said:

So your team is made up of whoever is still playing? And you have both QBs, both #1 RBs and JSN and three Patriots pass catchers? Damn, dude, that is wild - wishing you the best of luck

Yeah, it's good enough of a team that it's been mentioned multiple times on my gambling nerd podcasts.  ...so I'm just preparing for a 2 TD Diggs game and massive disappointment.  

 

Edited February 2 by JudasIscariotTheBird

[mul21]

While I was drunk on Saturday night I placed a 10 leg college basketball parlay and actually hit it.  It was all really good odds so my $10 bet only paid like $36 but it was fun to wake up Sunday morning and start following it while the games were happening.