Most people in the poker world merely know Norman Chad as the funny guy who does WSOP commentating alongside Lon McEachern. However, he also writes a weekly column for the Washington Post called “Couch Slouch,” which takes a look at different aspects of sports. This week, Chad tackled an issue that has often plagued me in the past – sports betting.
By Chad’s accounts, virtually everybody who bets on sports loses in the end because it is so difficult to accurately predict which way a point spread will go. As he wrote, “In my misspent lifetime, I have known hundreds of misguided souls who have bet on sports. And virtually every single one of them loses. Betting against the point spread is an illusion. On paper, you should be right every other time. But, alas, you’re not.”
He also recounts the story of his friend, who bet $1,000 on the underdog USC Trojans to cover a minus 7-1/2-point spread against the Stanford Cardinals in college football. With USC leading almost the entire game, it looked like his friend would easily beat the spread. But as luck would have it, Stanford came back to force overtime, which turned into triple overtime, which turned into a 56-48 victory for Stanford, which meant Chad’s buddy narrowly lost $1k.
In the end, Chad summarized his point spread thoughts by saying, “Thus, the bettor must be right 53 percent of the time just to break even. And, best I can tell, nobody is right 53 percent of the time, other than Stephen Hawking and actuaries.” You can read Chad’s entire article here.
Of course, I didn’t bring up Chad’s article to bash sports betting, and convince you that all of your money should be put towards online poker instead. After all, sports games are always more fun when you’ve got a little money riding on the outcome. But his article is definitely worth checking out if you can’t resist the temptation to let several hundred dollars ride on sports games every week.
