Roulette is considered to be the game with the worst odds in the casino. Contrarily, it also has the highest payout, for a direct hit. Ignoring side bets, half, quarter, row and column bets, it’s basically a game where you have a 1-in-38 (37 on European tables with no double zero) chance of hitting a single number. However, if you ever do manage to hit that number, you get paid 36 times for every chip you have on that sole number.
A few times, I have grinded out enough table time to have been privileged to have hit 17 on the wheel while I’ve had a chip(s) sitting on it on the board. It’s truly a phenomenal feeling when you hit your number, multiplied by how many chips you have touching it, because it’s a massive payout, especially when your chip denominations are higher than just a dollar.
Among my degenerate gambling friends, I still recall the story of one particular magical night where my brother and I literally spent eight hours in front of the same roulette table, where we hit our magic number 17 at least five times. I had risked a grand total of $200 of my own money, and walked away with numerous times more than that. I paid off the remaining balance on my car, and had comped Vegas rooms for nearly two years.
The odds of roulette are terrible, but most everyone gets lucky every once in a while.
The odds of sports are about as terrible, but frankly I have to wonder if the same logic that everyone gets lucky once in a while actually applies.
Watching sports is probably the most sadistic thing a person can do to themselves in some capacity. I know there’s a lot of hyperbole in that statement, and it’s ultimately silly to let one’s emotions be affected over the outcomes of kids’ games played by grown adults. I’m by no means upset over the numerous defeats that I personally witnessed that served as the impetus to me writing this, but from a surface-level of being happy or sad by them, it’s still admittedly disheartening to be disappointed so repeatedly.
A few days ago, I watched the Braves get trounced by the Houston Astros, a team widely regarded as one of the worst teams in baseball. I’m beyond getting really upset by losses in baseball, otherwise my entire body would probably be covered in anxiety-related ulcers already, but it’s still kind of embarrassing to say I’m a Braves fan after watching a game like that. And right around the when the Braves were getting owned, South Korea was getting finished up by a Belgium squad that was playing with a man down almost the entire game, in the World Cup.
Let me repeat that: the Belgians had 10 men on the field while Korea had 11, yet they still broke the Korean defense, scored, and held on to win; a meaningless game no less, because Belgium had already advanced and there was no repercussion for losing or drawing against the Koreans. Korea, with basically a 95% chance that they were going home after the game, was essentially playing for national pride, and beating a team like Belgium would have salvaged a great deal of face while on their way out.
Instead, they kind of embarrassed themselves on a global stage, and were unceremoniously booted from the tournament with nothing but a tie and two losses. The magic of 2002 may never happen again, as far as Korean futbol fans are concerned.
It’s not just the fact that when the teams I favor lose that makes me feel like watching sports is sadistic, it’s often times the fact that any team I decide to root for, when they lose, I still feel a sense of disappointment.
Personally, I believe that in order to really enjoy a sporting contest, at some point, you have to pick a side to root for. Whether it’s done verbally, or even it’s completely unknown to other parties, in your heads, there’s still a side that you have to want to see win or else there’s little point in watching at all. Even in games featuring teams I’m either completely ambivalent towards, or completely loathe, I can still find a team that I’d prefer to see win over the other.
Present me a game featuring the Phillies versus the Cardinals; at the time I’m writing this, I would actually root for the Phillies stomp all over them. In a game between the Saints and the 49ers, I’d probably pull for the Saints. Heat versus Clippers, I’d probably pull for the Heat.
A few days ago was the final game of the College World Series, featuring Vanderbilt versus Virginia; as a Virginia Tech fan, I typically abhor all things UVA, but frankly with several friends of mine being UVA diehards, and the fact that I live in SEC country, and it wouldn’t have bothered me to see the SEC knocked down a peg from time to time, much less to an ACC program, didn’t seem unappealing. Needless to say, I was (silently) rooting for Virginia.
Virginia lost. I felt disappointed.
Maybe I just need to be better at picking teams. But if I were pursuing the goal of just being right, then that defeats the purpose for having a hometown team, or any modicum nationalism for national sports squads.
Inherently, people really like to be right, and I’m definitely no exception to that rule. But it feels way better when you’re both right, and your teams win.
I guess the analogy of the roulette wheel more applies to championships, because sports fans follow their teams because they’re always hoping to see their teams become champions. Regular season and exhibition game wins and losses are one thing, and have their own respective joys and sorrows of wins and losses, but the big payouts are in hoping to be that one team out of fields of 28+, that the little marker lands on at the end of the spin.
Out of all the sports I follow(ed), I realize that I’ve never really been privy in seeing one of my actual teams win the whole shebang. I wasn’t really a vested football fan when the Redskins won in 1991, and I wasn’t yet a Braves fan when they won it in 1995. Really, the only sport I genuinely care about is the Braves, but they’ve got this whole reputation of choking to conquer, before they can ever have aspirations of winning a championship.
And I really wonder if I ever will? Ask any Cubs fan, or Lions fan, or Sacramento Kings fan if they think they’ll ever see their teams win a championship in their lifetimes.
In the grand spectrum of things, I think the logic does apply, but the bottom line is that the yearly spins of the sports wheel are usually so long, it’s understandable to feel why it seems like it might not.
Yet we still watch our sports. It’s like masochism at its very worst, but on a longer, timelier, more exhausting and grueling scale.
