The importance of an education: unknown man wagers $8,600 on #1 ranked Clemson vs. negative-ranked Syracuse . . . on Clemson to win. And at -100,000 odds, the payout on Clemson’s inevitable victory would be an $8.60 payout
Either this person is a Clemson homer/grad, and/or they really don’t understand how sports betting works. And/or they are just dumb. Most likely all of the above.
Honestly, before I clown too much on this guy, I’ve kind of been there before. Betting on sports isn’t as cut and dry as it is amongst casual friends, where everything is a pretty straight up bet. But to do it on a book, it’s vastly more complicated, and usually involves match-ups that aren’t so overwhelmingingly favored in one direction as it was between Clemson and Syracuse.
In 2005, I felt really good about the Washington Redskins’ chances against the Seattle Seachickens in the playoffs, as the Redskins were riding momentum, and the Seahawks were going to be without Shaun Alexander when he was still good. I actually called up a sports book that I’d been hearing advertised on television, and whereas I thought it would be as simple to just say I wanted to put $50 on the Redskins, I quickly learned that it’s vastly more complicated. Such as money lines, spreads and partial games, but ultimately I went with the straight money bet, since that’s all I wanted, and I stood to make like $75 if the Redskins were to pull off the upset.
Naturally, I lost, because , because the Redskins are the Redskins and I’ve literally never won a sports bet in my life, but I learned a little something about sports betting that evening. Mostly, that it doesn’t really have any meaning unless the matchup is remotely competitive, which is something that pretty much any college football game featuring Clemson is not, to the point where lots of books won’t even offer straight money bets on Clemson, because they win every game by like 40 points, and they don’t want to pay $8.60 to the 400 oafs who take the sure-lock bet, because that’s still $3,400 they lose, even if it would have netted them $3.4 million if the upset were to occur.
I get it though, kinda. This loser with $8,600 to blow wanted to boast about how much they gamble, and conveniently leave out the fine details, like how they’re betting on the best college football team of the last decade, against a school that’s more known for basketball than football. They brag to their friends and over social media about how much money they’re risking, and when they inevitably win, they’ll brag about winning, but fail to mention the odds or how minuscule risk there actually was. If it’s not stupidity, then it’s all a really excessive effort dog and pony show for the internets; which still makes it stupid.
The only true justice is if and when one day, Clemson actually gets upset by an actual scrub. And in all fairness, one of the last times that actually happened was against Syracuse a few years ago, but that was also before Trevor Lawrence. But hopefully, one of these days, this particular guy, or anyone like him, when it occurs, the internet is ready to identify, ridicule and meme-ify them to the rest of the world.
