It’s so encouraging that sports are back this year and seats have actual people in them instead of cardboard cutouts. Major League Baseball, for example, is expecting to have full stadiums in July. I’ve been watching a lot more baseball lately. One of the reasons is that I plan to do some betting on the sport in September when I make my triumphant return to Las Vegas, and I want to be prepared.
So, I started keeping track of the types of bets I would make. Being the tech geek that I am, I created a spreadsheet where I am recording teams that I would pick, the spread, and my results. I call it my “fake bet spreadsheet” because I’m not actually putting money down on these games. I just want to see how I’m doing. I added some formulas to determine my daily and overall record and fake profit/loss, teams that I win with, teams that I lose with, and teams that I bet against that win. So how’s it going so far? Not bad, I suppose. My record is about even, and I am slightly overall in the “fake” black. It’s great when you pick an underdog that wins, but it crushes the soul when you pick a favorite and it loses. Regardless, it has given me a better insight into baseball, teams, and how I can adjust my betting strategy when I go to Vegas.
Last fall during college football season, I did something similar with by best friend, Steve, who is a contributor to sports betting in Simplifying Las Vegas. Every year, we typically have a battle royle in a mano-y-mano college football pick ‘em pool. I used to use a third-party website that chose the games to be picked with the spread and tracked our wins and losses. But during COVID, these sites didn’t run pools because so many games were canceled. So I did the next best thing. I created one myself.
Using my Excel skills, I created a spreadsheet that tracked our games and progress. Steve and I chose which games we would pick alternating weeks. You’d think that the person picking the games for the week would have an advantage, but that turned out not to be the case. I also used some fancy formulas to keep track of some specific statistics, like our win/loss record when we picked the same teams, when we picked home teams and away teams, and big spreads (+/-10 points) and little spreads (+/- 3 points). I became rather proficient with advanced Excel formulas.
At the end of the season, Steve beat me by one point. He won one more game than I did. One lousy game! Honestly, I am used to him beating me in these college pick ‘em pools; I’ve only won a few times. The person who loses usually has to “pay up” in some humiliating way. For two years, it meant wearing the winning player’s favorite baseball team’s t-shirt in Las Vegas for one whole day. One year, I won and Steve wore a beautiful New York Yankee’s t-shirt. The next year, Steve won and I had to wear a hideous Boston Red Sox t-shirt. The horror!
So here’s my point. If you are going to bet on sports in Las Vegas, try practicing at home first. If you live somewhere that permits sports betting online or otherwise, it is still a good idea to practice first before gambling your cold, hard cash. You don’t have to geek-out and create an elaborate spreadsheet, like I did. You can keep track in a notebook or on your phone, etc. Even if it doesn’t help you when you are ready to put some money down on games, it will still be fun to follow a particular sport and keep track of your picks.
Good luck, sportsfans!
Viva,
Mike