As For Football’s Guide to Sports Gambling (Beta Test)

I'm gonna republish this since we're heading back into college football season. I never figured out how to make this work for the larger AFF audience, but I still think the original piece has something to say to the new, younger generation that's just discovering sports gambling.

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Sports gambling enthusiasts will argue that betting on sports makes the games themselves more exciting, especially games in which the viewer has little to no rooting interest. This may be true. However, gambling can also be addictive, and as a matter of reality, it’s next to impossible to win often enough on an ongoing-basis to make money gambling. 

Yes, pro-bettors exist. However, the good ones, like Steve Fezzik, often have advanced degrees in a field like Statistics and often also have experience as bond traders in the financial markets, especially via international finance and currency trading. I’m talking about trading real currencies here, not Bitcoin. These guys are used to doing the grinding work of evaluating international corporate spreadsheets and macro-economic currency trends to find opportunities in international debt markets. There’s nothing sexy about any of this unless you happen to truly enjoy statistics and probability.

If you’re wondering, I myself have an MBA in International Finance from Fordham University plus a very long history playing the most statistics-driven game of all time, tabletop Dungeons and Dragons. Unsurprisingly, Statistics became my favorite course at Business School, and here we are.

Ross Tucker's "Even Money" podcast, starring Steve Fezzik, is my favorite betting podcast

Quick Explainer: Who the Hell Do I Think I Am?

Friends, it feels like new social media sites are popping up faster than weeds in my wife's garden. What can you do? No one's quite sure which ones are gonna stick just yet, but we're all steady joining these things for better or worse. The hope, at least for me, is that each new site will offer a way to engage a new or different audience.

But every time we join one of these sites, we have to introduce ourselves all over again. That's a pain in the butt.

So. This is a little explainer: Who the Hell do I think I am?

5 Things on a Friday: Panic?!

Hi folks.  Happy Friday.  As you read this, I am skiing Mount Snow.  As I write this, though, it’s Thursday morning, and there’s precipitation in Vermont.

So.  Was it rain or snow?  Am I having a good day or a bad day?

With Josh & Rob at Killington.  I'll be with Josh again today.

These are burning questions.  But by the time you read this, we’ll know the answers.  As I write it, however, I can only worry and wait.  Kind of like the Coronavirus.

Army Football Preview: What's the "So What?"

I posted the following to a few of my social networks this week and was a bit surprised by some of the responses.

Thinking about doing one more #ArmyFootball season preview post. Topics so far:
—Tailoring the offense to the new QB
—Parking & traffic flow

What else?

— Danno E. Cabeza (@Dan_T_Head) July 12, 2018

Six Things on a Saturday: Trying to Get Caught Up

I’ve had a busy week.  Did a lot happen while I was gone?

I actually have the day off!  Yay!!!

Strolling through Twitter: Sports News & Notes

Hey folks!

Happy Saturday!  It's finally game-day!!!  Let's get it on.

5 Things on a Friday: the Dark Lords of Sport

Happy Friday, folks.  I hope everyone out there in Internet Land is having a day.

I'm reusing this one.  Hope you don't mind.

Let's get it on!

5 Things on a Friday: Fathers Day for Thanos

Happy Friday, folks!

Sports Modeling: Long Answer to a Short Question

The sacred shield of the NFL.

My buddy Joe and I have been planning a shared project for later this summer, a combined preview of the coming NFL season.  Regular readers and/or USMA classmates will hopefully remember Joe's blog, A Hoosier on the Potomac.  As of this writing, the plan is to alternate previewing divisions over the course of four weeks, doing two divisions per week.  As a Giants' fan, I've drawn the NFC.  Joe, a Colts fan, is doing the AFC.

We spent most of our recent exchanges talking about formatting, but I'll spare you that stuff.  However, the bottom half of my last email to Joe got into a discussion of sports modeling and betting lines, and since Joe didn't know about that stuff, I should maybe reprint what I wrote to him here by way of prepping you for the series itself.  I've started using a lot of betting terminology in my write-ups, but it was maybe a mistake to assume that everyone knows what the Hell all of that means.

By the way, I think we have a pretty good project.  I am totally excited about it.

5 Things on a Friday: It’s All Connected… Or Is It?

It’s mostly sports this week.  Except for the piece about the monster movies.

5 Things on a Friday: Heading into the Doldrums of Sport

Happy Friday, folks!

Speaking personally, this has been an incredibly busy and often hectically stressful month.  I usually enjoy May, but right now I just want to see its backside.  

5 Things on a Friday: 200 Years to Find a New Planet

Happy Friday, folks!  Let’s get it on.

5 Things on a Friday: The Battle for Number 2

This turned into an unexpectedly interesting week.  Let’s get to it, shall we?

Go Army Sports!

As we noted yesterday, Army Sports had a big day.  The day started with Women's Lax vs. Bucknell.

Recap and stats from today's game vs. Bucknellhttps://t.co/nC3wp2Uy3k pic.twitter.com/W2vJ0CxBaR

— Army WP W.Lacrosse (@ArmyWP_WLax) March 25, 2017

The Bridgeport Bluefish & the Ballpark at Harbor Yards

The Bridgeport Bluefish are a professional baseball team in the Liberty Division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.  Though not affiliated with Major League Baseball, Atlantic League play is generally described as being about on par the AA’s of the Minor Leagues, and indeed, many Atlantic League players have Major League experience.  The Bluefish play home games at the Ballpark at Harbor Yards, a small stadium in downtown Bridgeport adjacent to both the Bridgeport train station and the Arena at Harbor Yards.

6 Things on a Sunday: On Reaching “Peak Sequel”

I had a draft of this post ready for Friday, but I hated it.  After taking out several of the political articles and adding some other, hopefully lighter fare, I like it better.  

But I still wouldn’t say that I like it.

It seems like all the news is depressing, and sharing depressing news doesn’t do much for me.  However, it’s also true that the stuff that I like is rarely what speaks to others, so who knows?  Maybe you guys will think this is a masterpiece.  That's life sometimes.

Army-Navy Men's Lacrosse

Hannah and I attended yesterday's game, and it was a barn-burner.  #9 Navy pulled out the win in overtime over #20 Army, but the game was super-exciting, and Army certainly had every opportunity.

5 Things on a Friday: Rise of the "Know Nothings"

It’s been a tough week.  It’s been both busy and confusing, with near-constant frustration and substantial positive reinforcement coming in a constant stream from unexpected angles.  I don’t want to get into the details, but the level of cognitive dissonance in my life is at times deafening.  I hardly know what to think.  It’s hard at times just to parse all the mixed messages.

As we were headed to the gym on Tuesday night, Hannah asked me what was going on.  She’s a perceptive twelve-year-old and a straight-A student.  I told her that I was frustrated, that it seems like people--even people whom I respect a great deal--have shown themselves to be fundamentally self-interested, and that their willingness to tie themselves into knots intellectually in order to believe what’s in their own basic self-interest has been both overwhelming and disheartening.  I tried to explain to her that we have a higher calling, that the fact that she IS a straight-A student and has every advantage gives her a responsibility going forward.  She was not put on this Earth just to be a mother and a veterinarian, if that’s the path that she chooses.  Self-interest and the interests of her family will always be important, yes, but those things will never be as important as her responsibility to society, to her community as a whole.  There is such a thing as service, and though it’s up to each of us to define our own service for ourselves, service just to oneself and one’s family doesn’t actually get us anywhere.  Service to one’s self and family is a truly minimal kind of social responsibility.

Hannah gets it, I think, but I don’t know who else does.  I don’t know who else is teaching this lesson to their kids.

As a society, we’ve made greed a virtue.  College kids look at a film like The Wolf of Wall Street and they see a role model, not a cautionary tale.  We’re all going to be stuck with the consequences of this in time.  These consequences might take a while manifest, but their manifestation will be a real thing.  We will all notice.  We will all live with the consequences.

How much any of this influences my own cognitive dissonance is an open question.  It feels like I’m a hero when people need a hero, and I’m a goat when they need someone to blame or have another hero picked out already.  Meanwhile, I’m always me; I’m the same guy.  I do what I do, and it’s flattering when people notice, and it’s frustrating when they cut me off before giving me so much as a chance to show my strengths.  This is true for everyone, I’m sure, but it’s been really, repeatedly unmistakable these past weeks for me.  As my father used to say, “What you see depends on where you sit.”  It’s weird, though, to be the object of that saying, to have people project whatever they need onto me.

At the end of the day, I have a beautiful wife, two great kids, and a house that I can afford.  I don’t exactly need other people’s approval.  Still, the mixed messages are hard to hear in rapid succession, and at times that makes my personal reality a bit unpredictable.

Sunday News & Notes: Class Crests & Other Stories...

Good morning, everyone!  Welcome to daylight savings time!

I love DST.  It's so much easier to get to evening workouts when the sun is still up.

So.  It's not quite 8:30 am, and already we're having a good day.  Let's get to it.

5 Things on a Friday: Peeple Drops & Other Stories

What a week!  I hope you're happy now.