Not the Lingerie Bowl

Well, this is embarrassing.  I'm supposed to be a knowledgeable football handicapper, but until 48 hours ago, I knew absolutely nothing about women's professional football. I didn't know that the United States had three professional leagues, I didn't know anything about what the teams looked like on the field, and I did not know that a local team was kicking everyone's ass.

Today I finally learned a few things. I drove to Bluff City (TN), less than 20 miles from my home, to watch the unbeaten Tri-Cities Thunder play the Hampton Roads (VA) Lady Gators for the USWFL Ironwoman Championship.

Evidently the Thunder (8-0) are pretty good. Going into this game, they had outscored their opponents 281-12.Their only competitive contest was a first meeting with the Lady Gators, which ended 24-12. By finishing second, Hampton Roads (6-2) had earned a rematch in the championship game.

I was really interested in seeing what women's professional football looked like. After all, the players would not have the hundreds of hours of high school training and team practices that male players accrue. How organized would these teams actually be? What about the hitting? Would it be as intense as a men's game?

Here are my observations. First of all, this is not flag football. It's not two-hand touch. It is rock 'em, sock 'em physical football. Second, I was surprised and impressed with the quality footwork at the quarterback and defensive back positions. I'm not sure how many hours of football these ladies have under their belts, but the quarterbacks seem to technically know what they're doing, and the defensive backs look as if they've played a long time. The quarterbacks also generally made the right reads, and there were only a couple of blatant misfires. The hitting, as I mentioned, is solid, and the tackling is good. Defensively, the women get sideline to sideline reasonably well. Some of the running backs have surprising speed. All in all, it's competent, intense football. Don't take my word for it. You can watch the USWFL championship game on YouTube. Both the Tri-Cities/Hampton Roads Ironwoman title game and the Division II Washington (DC) Prodigy/Keystone Arsenal title contest were live streamed.

I haven't yet mentioned what impressed me most about the women in the Thunder/Lady Gator game.  And when I say impressed, that is an understatement.

The game was played in the afternoon in Bluff City, with the temperature a blazing 88 degrees and the dew point around 70. The conditions were absolutely stifling. It was so humid that I sweated through my entire shirt just standing on the sideline. The teams wore full uniforms and pads, and in the case of the Thunder, dark blue uniforms with black helmets.

Now here's the thing. At season's end, with accumulated injuries, Tri-Cities suited up about 18 players. Hampton Roads had 15. So the majority of the women had to play both ways! Most had to play both offense and defense while manning multiple positions on each side of the ball. I was stunned that the teams handled the roster limitations so well in the oppressive heat and humidity. From the late third quarter on, some cramping occurred, but no more than one would see in any SEC game. And while the offenses were not sprinting to the line of scrimmage the second half, the actual intensity during plays never wavered. It was truly an ironwoman display.

The game I saw wasn't perfect. The teams were called for a handful of illegal motion and formation penalties. While no shotgun snaps actually went awry, Hampton Roads snaps did occasionally float back to the quarterback. The slickness of the ball likely contributed to that. Overall, however, the game was crisply played.

As I walked away from the Thunder's 32-6 win, the composure of the teams in the rugged conditions stayed with me. It impressed me so much that when I got home, this old distance runner wanted to verify the heat and humidity, so I went jogging for a couple of miles to check it out. My rule of thumb, after 45 years of long distance running, is to not work out when the dew point approaches 70 degrees. It's a good rule. The humidity killed me. The jog left me soaked and fried. I had not overestimated the brutality of the playing conditions.

I had stood a few yards behind the Tri-Cities sidelines the entire game. I heard almost no comments or complaints about the sweltering heat. In fact, the PA announcer reminded the crowd to stay hydrated more often than the players said anything about the conditions. It had been a real display of toughness in a grueling environment.

The game atmosphere in Bluff City (pop. 1800) reminded me of semi-pro games from my youth. I grew up watching the Schuylkill County Coal Crackers hammer interstate opposition, and the game ambience brought back memories. In terms of style, the Thunder offense hearkened back to another dominant team, the high school Berwick Bulldogs from their USA Today national title days.

The USWFL schedules their games in a sweet spot, after college basketball has ended and before pre-season NFL kicks off. Next season, the league will be expanding. I look forward to familiarizing myself with all of the divisions and reporting back here before the 2020 season begins.


Bob Dietz -- July 13, 2019

Trump, The Eagles, and Reading in the Rain

(to the tune of "Singing in the Rain")

I'm readin' in the rain.
Just readin' in the rain. 
What a glorious gaffe, but
Not my fault, once again.


This is another of those truly absurd bad beat gambling stories. I had absolutely no intention of writing it, but President Trump decided to give a big deal speech on Independence Day, and it was raining. Somewhere in the middle of the speech, the president talked about Revolutionary War airports, and that confused many people, historians and non-historians alike. Did I mention that it was raining? Okay, I guess I did, so allow me to circle back to that in a few minutes. For now, to describe my tale of woe, I'd best start at the beginning. That beginning was 25 years ago.

The Imperial Palace Casino (today The Linq) was a very interesting place in 1994. It had a one-way escalator from the strip sidewalk directly to the sports book, and the owner threw massive private parties celebrating Adolf Hitler's birthday. The IP had a wonderful little snack bar and a nice quiet buffet where you could retreat from the cacophony of Las Vegas Boulevard. My German heritage, in case you were wondering, provided no discounts, although it may have explained my credit line.

Jay Kornegay, who made the Westgate SuperBook what it is today, was running the Imperial Palace sports book back then. The IP sponsored a nice football contest for the masses, and that's where my story really begins.

The weekly contest required that you select the outright winners of every NFL game. No point spreads were involved. You also had to decide whether each game would go over or under 37 1/2 points. The contest didn't use the actual NFL totals; it used the 37 1/2 figure for every game. The first place weekly prize was 4K. I liked the contest because it paid smaller prizes to the top 50 or so. You didn't need a miracle week to make money.

The particular October week in question, I had gotten off to a strong start in the contest and was watching the Dallas/Philadelphia game. I had picked the Cowboys to win. Late in the second half, Dallas had the game well in hand, leading 24-7 in a driving rain. My totals selection for the game, however, was Over 37 1/2, so I needed someone to get another touchdown and kick the extra point. The rain fell harder as the game wore on, and I was getting concerned that there wouldn't be any more scoring. But as the weather intensified, Philadelphia put together a drive and punched it into the end zone, closing the gap to 24-13. I looked down at my contest tally sheet, anticipating that I'd win the total. And no, Philly did not miss the kick in the rain to break my heart. That would have been an acceptable, every-day kind of loss. It would not have been something I'd remember 25 years later.

But let's leap forward to July 4, 2019. President Trump, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, inexplicably mentions the American army seizing airports during the Revolutionary War. Did I mention that it was raining?

I figured, when Trump said it, that he was simply going off script for a moment and made a mistake while winging it. I thought that he had probably transposed the word "airport" for "sea port." People with the beginnings of Alzheimer's often swap syllables in similar sounding words. Alzheimer's or not, it would have been an understandable error.

When the president was made aware of his blunder afterwards, did he say, "I made a silly mistake?" Nope. Did he apologize with, "Forgive my elderly moment?" or "I lost my concentration there for a bit?" Not a chance. He explained the gaffe by saying that the rain had somehow affected the teleprompter, and it had shut down too soon. He also added that it had been hard to read the teleprompter in all of the rain, anyway.

I have no idea if the rain had messed up the teleprompter electronics or if our president simply couldn't read the words. Frankly, I don't much care either way. The only reason that Trump's mistake and excuses flipped my switch is because it sent me back, deja vu style, to that 1994 Eagles/Cowboys game.

Philadelphia had scored to cut the Dallas lead to 24-13. To win the contest total, all I needed was the extra point. I looked down at my contest tally sheet, then looked up to see the Eagles...doing what? Going for two? What?!? I sat there flabbergasted as Philly inexplicably attempted a two-point conversion. They failed. The rain continued. The final score was 24-13. I lost the contest total by half a point.

I kept doing the math in my head. Somehow I must be adding wrong, I thought. But nope. The score was 24-13. Going for two made zero sense.

Rich Kotite was the Philadelphia head coach. He wasn't the best NFL head coach; he wasn't the worst. I couldn't wait to hear his answer in the press conference.

Well, the question was quickly asked. Did Kotite say, "I made a really silly, stupid mistake?" Nope. Did he apologize for losing his concentration, his presence of mind, and his ability to add? No. When asked, Coach Kotite said the rain was so hard that it had made the ink run on the chart that tells him when to go for one or two. I'm serious. Kotite sat at the press conference and blamed his gaffe on ink running and his inability to read it.

Simple addition had evidently not been part of his job description.

It wasn't official until after the Monday night game, and the Imperial Palace's posting of the first place contest ticket on Tuesday afternoon. Then it was official. Coach Kotite's reading in the rain had cost me four thousand dollars. Funny as hell now. Not so funny that Tuesday in 1994.


Bob Dietz -- July 6, 2019

The Borg Have Been Assimilated

The Past

Harrah's Entertainment acquired Caesars Palace in 2005 and shortly thereafter went on an east strip buying frenzy that included Bourbon Street, the Imperial Palace, the Barbary Coast, and Planet Hollywood. I believe I may have been the first, but not the last, to dub Harrah's as "The Borg." Assimilation was inevitable, and resistance was indeed futile.

I wasn't too pleased with Harrah's acquisition addiction, for a number of solid reasons. When an overarching entity buys up properties containing sports books, all of the books under that particular umbrella become, in effect, one large-volume book. They usually have a single linked bookkeeping system for all of the properties, and each property has identical lines and all of the same futures odds. For a professional gambler, this is not a good thing. Gamblers prefer a range of lines. The wider the range, the better.

The Harrah's takeover of Caesars Palace's sports book shook me to my history-appreciating core. The Caesars sports book, along with the Stardust sports book, were the two iconic football locales during the 70's, 80's and early 90's. I spent my Saturdays at the Stardust and most Sundays at Caesars. These two places, along with the Mirage (1989 opening) and Binion's downtown did the highest volume of action with the highest limits. Harrah's takeover threatened the Caesars cachet. The Caesars Palace sports book was, after all, a famous sports betting destination. It was hallowed wagering ground. The Caesars book had 20 huge helmet chairs at the front of the seating area. Every Sunday, those chairs were filled with a veritable who's who of heavy hitters. In 2005, Harrah's, with its mathematically challenged Branson-esque clientele and tight-fisted comp policies, invaded Caesars high class kitsch. Nothing good could come of it.

My fears turned out to be justified. Harrah's co-opted the Caesars name. Despite a massive linked sports betting pool for the Harrah's properties, the wagering limits actually went down. Comps were cut, and niggardly nabobs of negativity ruled the day.


The Present

Fast forward to 2019, and we have big news. The evil Borg have themselves been assimilated. El Dorado Resorts has announced that it's made the deal to acquire what today is called Caesars Entertainment. The Borg failure doesn't surprise me. During the last 15 years, Harrah's/CET has downgraded video poker, reduced blackjack payouts, and capped sports book bets in a paranoid attempt to reduce expenses. Yet the company designed and built competing multi-million dollar nightclubs within stone's throws of each other. Plus (for some God forsaken reason) a giant Ferris wheel. Not much they've done has made sense, so here we are.


The Future

Do I think that the assimilation of the Borg is a good thing? Well, not really. From a sports gambling perspective, once again this means a likely reduction in range of numbers. From a general gambling and comps perspective, it's quite likely that El Dorado Resorts will not be one iota of an improvement over Harrah's/CET.

The July 2019 Las Vegas Advisor featured an ominous quote from the Wall Street Journal, "Part of El Dorado's success is its management's ability to slim down on unnecessary guest inducements, such as free drinks and hotel stays. Caesars has done better in this regard, too, cutting its perks about in half to roughly 14% of revenue since 2016. But El Dorado is better; its similar metric is around 10%." My reaction to the phrase "unnecessary guest inducements" was almost identical to the Las Vegas Advisor. The LVA author simply said, "Uh oh." I blurted out a Scooby Do, "Ruh Row." It sounds as if those Total Rewards slot club addicts may get slapped around pretty good. The Borg have been assimilated, and something worse than the Borg figures to replace them. It's the circle of life.

I'll close with some practical advice for those Harrah's/CET slot club members, who will be told repeatedly in the months ahead that their Reward Credits are safe and sound and that their comps will be better than ever once El Dorado officially takes the reins.

Back in 2005, I had a race/sports comp account at Caesars Palace. In advance of the Harrah's takeover, I asked seven or eight times what would happen to my accrued comps and the comp rate. The answers I received from all Caesars personnel were the same. Regardless of whether I asked ticket writers or assistant sports book managers, I was told that my comps were quite safe, and that the comp rate would actually improve when Harrah's took over. Being familiar with casinos, and also being a cynic, I didn't believe those answers. I quickly used all but $80 or so of my comp account.

The takeover day came, and not only were comp rates for sports bettors reduced, but comps that had already been banked were massively cut. Some players took hits of literally thousands of dollars in comps. Obviously, I wasn't shocked. I later learned that, depending on your status, some of the bigger players were able to negotiate to regain a portion of their gutted comps. The bulk of the smaller players, however, were left high and dry with no recourse. The fine print in players club rules gives the house carte blanche, and certainly gives a new owner mega carte blanche.

My recommendation for Total Rewards members is therefore "Player Beware." If you couldn't trust the Borg in 2005, why trust whatever assimilated them in 2019?


Bob Dietz -- July 3, 2019

Megan Rapinoe, Buddy Ryan, and The Problem with Names

Political Incorrectness Alert:  Somewhere in this brief entry, I refer to a lesbian as "ballsy." If this offends anyone, I am ecstatic. My goal in life is to offend as many people as possible in the time I have left.



I had a tough decision to make. While I don't know squat about soccer, I was looking at a very rare contextual betting opportunity. After the group segment of the World Cup, the U.S. Women's soccer team had been hyped as "maybe the best ever." Yet the 2-1 win versus Spain in the knockout round had been remarkably shaky, aided by a very questionable penalty call. My instinct was to at least consider France to win versus the Americans. A name, however, was creating a problem for me. The name was attached to a face, and the face was everywhere. Megan Rapinoe owned both.

Megan Rapinoe had been quoted in an interview as saying that, if the American women won the title, she was "not going to the fucking White House." Rapinoe had also been on board with Colin Kaepernick regarding the whole "Star Spangled Banner" issue. For the last couple of weeks, Rapinoe's face and comments had been on every sports website and in every newspaper. She had been hard to miss. I'm usually quite good at ignoring media noise and hyperbole, but I suspect that I'm hard-wired to notice ballsy, semi-lavender-haired lesbians who use my kind of language. When President Trump tweeted this and that in response to her, Rapinoe calmly repeated herself and stood her public ground.

All of that was a big problem for me. I'm supposed to be making bloodless decisions based on value, numbers, and an instinctive understanding of how media exposures affect odds. Rapinoe, however, had been ubiquitous. I probably would have been okay if she had not added the "fucking," but language like that is ultra-endearing when directed at an iconic bully.

By the way, before I'm castigated for being a "Trump-hater," please understand that I agree, more or less, with maybe half of the president's top dozen policy priorities. I just happen to think that the president of the United States should not conduct himself as if he were auditioning for the main villain role in a new Bruce Willis Die Hard movie. I estimate that I've offended 99% of all readers by now, which (as I mentioned earlier) is my goal. But I digress.

My issue with Rapinoe was that her public coverage had affected my ability to make an objective gambling decision. This brings me to Buddy Ryan, the famous architect of the '85 Bears defense and later head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

Buddy Ryan had a wonderful habit of referring to most players by their numbers rather than their names. He was especially prone to this during training camps, before rosters were set. I think this was a very useful, practical idea. Whether Ryan was making coldly objective talent evaluations or not, referring to players by numbers certainly suggested just that.

The difficulty, after Ryan became a head coach, was that the veteran players he knew well ceased to be numbers. He hung on to them a couple of beats longer than was wise, and this quickly corroded his rosters. They had become faces, stories, people with links to him. He lost his talent-appraising objectivity. His players had become names.

I examined the France/U.S. match again. France's value was depressed due to their recent successes against the Americans. More importantly, I couldn't get Rapinoe's face and the phrase "fucking White House," which always provokes a hint of a smile, out of my mind. Sometimes one must acknowledge that one's thought processes are messed up. I recognized that my objectivity was lacking, so I passed on betting the match.

Next Tuesday is another match. I'll have to wait and see if I can flush Rapinoe's public persona from my gambling mind. Perhaps by then, I'll be able to make a proper fucking analysis. Or not.


Bob Dietz -- June 28, 2019

Confirmation Bias: The Russians and Stephen A. Smith

"Saying is Believing."


Confirmation bias is in the 2019 news because of its relevance to U.S. politics. American voters have funneled themselves into camps that are virtually impervious to contradictory evidence or opinions. These voters seek only that information which agrees with their established respective mindsets.

Prior to the 2016 elections, Russian troll farms guided many Americans into disparate political camps much faster than would have naturally occurred. Putin set the wind beneath the wings of U.S. voter party alienation. Once the U.S. factions had been pushed a bit faster into their echo chambers, the Russians continually seeded more radical attitudes in those chambers, resulting in increasingly isolated, radicalized American subgroups.The Russians effectively insulated U.S. citizens from each other's perspectives. Putin affected the way Americans perceive each other, and he changed American behavior going forward. Scary stuff.

So what does all of this have to do with Stephen A. Smith?


Conflict and Ratings

American television is a capitalist enterprise. Higher ratings mean more money -- more product sold for advertisers, more income for networks, more money for parent companies, better salaries for stars on the shows. This is the case for everything from The Muppets to ABC's nightly news to a football pre-game show.

Humans are hard wired to attend to human faces and human voices. They are especially hard wired to attend to human conflict. Attention-getting aspects of conflict include higher decibels so as to command the aural stage and non-verbal gesticulating to command the physical stage. Conflict sells. Conflict is the most important component of almost every reality show. The reality shows can range from the political Crossfire on CNN (which set the stage for today's echo chamber politics) to Little Women:  LA to 90 Day Fiance'. Television is shooting for conflict. Conflict gets ratings.

What's wrong with that? And where does Stephen A. Smith fit into all of this?


Gambling Effects

All of the sports talk shows on television, whether head-to-head talk formats or pre-game warmups, are sorely lacking in impartial analysis, the dry asking of proper questions, and the framing of theories. Instead, the shows are rife with declarations disguised as debates about future events. Questions are rarely asked in probabilistic terms. The people on the shows are too busy making declarative statements that conflict with each other. Unless one is clairvoyant, making declarative statements about future events is probably a bad idea, for an array of reasons. You're more likely to see me use "more likely" in a given sentence than you are to hear "more likely" in all of a network's college football prediction shows combined.

I've highlighted Stephen A. Smith because he's an iconic declarer who presents his opinions with a forcefulness, both verbal and non-verbal, best left for boxers after their arms have been raised in victory. Really, the ridiculous certainty of most sports show talking heads is a widespread disease. Skip Bayless, Kirk Herbstreit, almost any ESPN panel, and virtually every sports show on television -- all of them employ conflict and proclamations of certainty as audience hooks. And so one might ask once again, what is wrong with that? Well, to be honest, not much is wrong with it if you're watching and not betting games with the intention of winning. But if you're betting games and trying to win, watching this kind of programming is absolutely toxic, counter-productive, and much worse than just a waste of time.

Most of the formats involve declarative "debates." The topics, which can entail fantasy selections, who will win what games, or college playoff rankings, tend to funnel viewers into camps. The television personalities present their individual conclusions, and viewers are invited to adopt one or another perspective. This guides viewers down the slippery slope to personal commitments, rather than neutral theorizing. In essence, you have been guided into echo chambers. What Russians did to the American electorate, ESPN does to college football fan bases and viewers in general. And they do it every blessed day. Once you've committed to a viewpoint prior to an event, you are in an echo chamber, and that is nowhere for a gambler to be. A commitment is like a thick fog. You'll be able to make out just the bare outlines and dim shapes of actual reality as it unfolds, despite the fact that reality is taking place right in front of you.

Commitments lead to confirmation biases, which include perceptual biases and memory biases. While the primrose path to confirmation biases may be the single most important reason to avoid sports shows, the talking heads also create other compelling problems for would-be winning gamblers. For example, Billy Walters with five players in his pocket would not display the conviction and certainty of the television pundits. The declarative style of the broadcasters can easily have an intimidating or dampening effect on a sports bettor who wisely holds conviction at arm's length. Also, broadcasters spend most of their time discussing players and coaches. In college football, the games are not player versus player or even coach versus coach. The games are organism versus organism. Watching these television shows teaches bettors the absolute wrong way to analyze college football games. If you want to be a winning tennis player, watching people playing tennis with baseball bats teaches you very little. The types of analysis on television are literally that wrong. The tools are wrong, and if the tools are wrong, not much of what follows can be right.

Some people respond by saying that they rely on mid-week and pre-game shows to get injury updates and learn key stats. Folks, if you're learning about injuries and stats from a television show, you are not really trying to win (not that there's anything Seinfeldian wrong with that). For those trying to win, injury updates are best tracked online. I cannot emphasize this enough, but time is of the essence in sports gambling, and reading is faster than listening to the same content. Allow me to repeat that. Reading is much, much faster than listening to the same thing. The only conceivable reason for watching a pre-game broadcast would be to see the on site weather. Even then, you can keep the sound off.

There are other social psychological reasons to avoid the television sports shows, and we'll review those down the road. We'll also discuss ways to fend off intellectual commitment. For now, however, keep your mouths shut and the sound turned down. Don't let the Russkies or Stephen A. Smith get to you.


Bob Dietz -- June 26, 2019

Confirmation Bias -- Introduction

When it comes to sports betting and gambling in general, an understanding of confirmation bias has immense value. I'll tackle various aspects of confirmation bias in at least a dozen posts in the months ahead. I think that it's the most convenient and useful starting point from which to explore sports betting pitfalls and errors.

Many 2019 references to confirmation bias address the current political situation in the United States. Observers see the U.S. electorate divided into hardened camps almost impervious to evidence that disconfirms their respective political positions or that places favored representatives in a bad light. Common nomenclature describes Americans as existing in "echo chambers" or "silos." These terms reference social and informational spaces that are selectively permeable, like a human cell. Information that feeds the echo chamber is allowed in; conflicting data is filtered out. The more the echo chamber fills with one-sided information, the more the pressure difference grows between those inside the chamber and those outside of it.

American politics has thrust confirmation bias and all of its elements into the spotlight. I would, however, like to set aside the political aspects of confirmation bias and examine instead the awesome utility of the concept when applied to sports betting and gambling. So, for our purposes, confirmation bias will refer to the human tendency to vet information so that any resulting conclusions conform to pre-existing theories, expectations, and beliefs.

We selectively filter our acquisition of information both "out there" in the world and information catalogued in memory so that we require the least reorganization of our existing "reality." Confirmation bias is like a personal and flawed version of Occam's Razor. Instead of the simplest explanation as our default, however, we default to the explanation that requires the least adjustment to what we already believe. Consciously or not, we adhere to the premise that our beliefs are best kept crystalline and unaffected by conflicting evidence.


Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance theory is an ancestor and close cousin of confirmation bias studies. Leon Festinger introduced cognitive dissonance theory in his classics, When Prophecy Fails (1956) and A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). When Prophecy Fails will be a focal point for another column. The book deals with a UFO cult whose leaders predicted events on specific dates. The events did not occur, but the cult members surprisingly became even more invested in the leaders and the cult itself after the prophecies had failed.

Cognitive dissonance was one of the first theories to address things like the fact that people who have recently bought one brand of automobile tend to not read ads for other brands. These tendencies are statistically predictable. While cognitive dissonance may have been a useful (and at the time, novel) tool for asking real world questions, many of the older laboratory studies seemed quite unwieldy. Today, the subject has for the most part been subsumed under the much broader helm of confirmation bias.


Overview

Our entire individual lives are a test of our ability to overcome confirmation biases and the associated narcissism. We live these 70-odd years, pinned down by whatever culture in which we're born, and our life experiences are limited. I'm talking brass tacks, bottom line, numerically limited. Despite this, we are constantly faced with drawing conclusions and making decisions based on the individual data bases of our lives. Quite often, we don't have a statistically significant sample from which to generate future decisions, but either we don't recognize this, or we don't have the ability to de-emphasize our life histories as influences. Our minds are filled with the full color narratives of ourselves. We remember every pain or pleasure without a sense of their lack of importance. The challenge for us is to recognize when our lives have not given us a statistically significant sample, to go get the info required to take statistically sound action, and to then override the flawed perspectives our lives have provided. It's a daunting task.

In my life, I have had a single terrible experience buying a Renault automobile and a single great experience buying a Toyota. These were vivid events in my life, and they are writ large. The reality is that these events have no statistical significance. I am capable of recognizing this, so I will read Consumer Reports before car shopping. If Renault, however, gets top grades, I will still have a very, very difficult time putting my life experiences aside. It's hard to subordinate the evidence of our lives, however sparse, to some third party summary that we haven't personally experienced. The job, however, is to do just that. From a statistical perspective, the idea that "what we've lived should guide us" is largely an illusion. For many things, our lives don't provide a big enough sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions.

We view the world with perceptual biases of which we are unaware. We process information in a sea of memory biases. We may be overmatched by our biases. I think, however, that in the arena of sports gambling, we have a chance to improve ourselves by recognizing and controlling these biases. We'll discuss how in the weeks ahead.


Bob Dietz -- June 20, 2019

Vintage Vegas: Sweet Suites and Edmund Slick

Astrology can be a bitch.

The initial World Cup of Handicapping (Football) took place in 1985 at Caesars Palace. It was a one-weekend, thousand-dollar fee event that drew many of the biggest names in football handicapping. In 1985, a one-weekend, 1K contest was slightly out of my sanity range, but I had targeted that particular weekend as very beatable in terms of the college football schedule. Frankly, it appeared to be the best college football wagering week of the 1985 season, so I sucked it up and entered.

The format was formidable. Contestants had to select 20 college sides, then rank them by designating two as $2000 bets, two as $1800 bets, and so on down to $200. Similarly, one had to choose 20 NFL plays from sides and totals and rank them. Prizes would go to the top 10 college records, top 10 NFL records, and top 10 combined records. Bonus prizes went to the top bankroll scores in the three categories. I had no illusions about doing well in the NFL that week, especially with 20 plays. College football was going to have to carry me, and I thought that it could.

Caesars Palace had a huge, respected independent sports book at the time. Harrah's had not yet bought it and imposed its Borg-like assimilation. The Caesars sports book hoped the World Cup would become an annual football handicapping event, much like the World Cup of Thoroughbred Handicapping. To this end, Caesars treated us pretty well. Unlike current Las Vegas horse handicapping tournaments and the WSOP, which saddle players with housing costs, Caesars comped our rooms. And boy, they were nice rooms.

I'm a frugal sort, so I can honestly say that after 40 years of Las Vegas visits, I've stayed in just a handful of suites. I've enjoyed the Palace Station original suites, with their classic brass accoutrements, just off the casino floor. I've also stayed in the old Barbary Coast suites. I hadn't even known about the Barbary suites until my 2 AM arrival forced the BC staff to honor my reservation. The retro suites at the Rio are fun in a 1980's way, and the Tropicana's retro suites with the mirrored ceilings are very cool, too. I once visited a client at the old suites in the Stardust rear complex (prior to the building of the tower). Those suites were two stories with a spiral staircase. My World Cup Caesars Palace room, however, definitely topped these others.

I had a huge round bed, like Dean Martin in the Matt Helm movies. The walls were covered in mirrors. The ceiling over the bed was mirrored. Many, many mirrors. It was all sort of wasted on me, since I was traveling alone, but I appreciated the ambiance when I wasn't unsettled by it. If you like looking at yourself -- a lot -- it was a wonderful room.

Saturday was a long day. About a hundred handicappers had entered, and the day was one lengthy dogfight. My instincts and schedule analysis had been spot on, but cashing came down to a final game between LSU and Kentucky. I had Kentucky with seven points. As the game unfolded, LSU pushed them all over the field. I knew I had the wrong team, but a heavy, driving rain and some scattershot field goal attempts kept Kentucky in it. LSU held a 3-0 lead with a minute to go and the ball inside the UK 10-yard line. LSU could have run out the clock. They did not, and a third-down, off tackle run broke for a touchdown. LSU won 10-0.

I finished 15-5 against the spread. Unfortunately, 18-2 ATS won the day, and the cashing cutoff was 16-4 ATS. On Sunday, I eked out an 11-9 ATS record, doing just enough to not win any money overall. Rough break, as they say.

Now about that astrology thing. Yeah, about that. At the awards ceremony, I learned who had won the college part of the contest. He was a really chubby guy with a tightly coifed 80's perm, a frilly pink shirt with ruffles, and a tuxedo featuring astrological symbols, stars, and ringed planets. His name was Edmund Slick.

At the time, Edmund Slick was a ubiquitous presence in football magazines. His schtick was that he used astrological analyses to determine his handicapping plays.

To be honest, I don't know if he actually won the contest with his own handicapping, or if he simply took credit for the winning entry. His name was not on the contestant list. The official story was that he had entered under a pseudonym and stepped forward to take credit after he had won. Well, maybe I buy that. Or maybe he paid the name that actually went 18-2, and Slick claimed ownership of the entry after the fact. I do not really know, just as I don't know whether the stars and planets on his tuxedo glowed in the dark. I suspect that they did.

As a fan of James Randi, as an avid supporter of CSICOP, and as a card-carrying investigator for the short-lived SSDPE (Society for the Scientific Documentation of Paranormal Experiments), I was appalled at the idea that someone was using an astrology gimmick to sell football plays. Those glittering symbols on Slick's tuxedo really annoyed me. The fact that he was the winner of the college contest bothered me more than the fact that I didn't cash. Time, however, heals all wounds, or at least dims our memories.

I can look back at it now and chuckle. At least I had a really nice room.


Notes: (1) That was the first and last World Cup of Handicapping (Football). (2) For a relevant article capturing a feel for the sports services of the time, I recommend Melissa Isaacson's column at www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1986-08-26-0250080277-story.html


Bob Dietz -- June 13, 2019