The Big Ten Betting Extravaganza: Week 7 - The Rope Bet

Sometimes when you're on a cold streak it helps to take a step back and re-think your methods. You may need to adjust your formulas, shuffle around your power rankings or perhaps start all of your research over from the beginning. Luckily, I don't do any of those things because that sounds like a lot of work. I just stare at the over/unders with a dumb fucking look on my face and hope something magical happens like Harty trying to figure out how a voice recorder works.

This week, as I was struggling with my bi-focals or whatever the fuck was going on there, the solution came to me. A guy in my department, I'll call him Curtis, has been doing something he calls the "rope bet" with another guy we work with, I'll call him Nick. Curtis lets Nick choose any two bets he wants for the weekend games and then Curtis takes the other side, no matter what. Curtis is essentially playing the part of the house and just giving Nick "enough rope to hang himself." The stipulation is that it's equivalent to a parlay bet, so they have to win both to get paid. It's meant to be low stakes fun, so they only wager $5 per week, but Nick has managed to go 2-10 and is down $20 on bets of his own choosing. I think it's impressive for someone to deviate that far from the middle, even it's in the wrong the direction.

That's why I'm using an ancient method called "the power of opposite-sies" this week. I'm going to ask Nick for his lead-pipe lock of the week and I'm taking the opposite. As you can see, 83% of the time...it works every time.

Now let's see the grid:

Money coming in:

Now this is the kind of spread that gamblers like to see with Iowa, as is evident by the movement. The Hawks were getting 13 points on Monday, but that got bombarded with sharp money and it was down to 10 by Tuesday. That seems to have been the tipping point, though, as it has stayed constant since.

Michigan getting some love, too, as they were only giving 21 at the start of the week. That could have something to do with their 30-point victory over Purdue or maybe it's just because no one in the world wants to bet on the rapidly-rolling downhill-shitball that is Illinois.

Bucking the trends:

Penn State isn't just on a winning streak, they're also covering the spread and are 5-0 ATS since their week one dick-juggling disaster. My inside information says that streak will not be broken this weekend.

Indiana still has yet to hit the under this year and they will most likely continue to do what they do best and let Ohio State score a fuckosphere of points this weekend. The transitive property doesn't apply to football, but if the Buckeyes can jam 63 points into the collective Nebraska anus, they should be able to score a fictitious number called "trigabundred" points against Indiana.

Following my heart:

My heart dislikes betting Iowa as a favorite as much it loves betting Iowa as a double-digit underdog. But my heart is a tender little fellow and wouldn't be able to take the devastation of a 10+ point loss to Lil' Michigan coupled with the financial ruin that would accompany it. So let's forget I said anything.

The pick:

I emailed Nick the lines and told him to pick one and to treat it as though he has to drink my piss if he's wrong....and he went with the Illionis-Michigan UNDER. Now remember, everything he says is the opposite of correct, so we're going with the Illionis-Michigan OVER. And that, my friends, is how you profit off of someone else's shitty decisions.

You all should have been doing the same thing with me all year.