READ TODAY'S STORIES AND E-EDITION SUBSCRIBE |  CONTACT US |  SIGN IN
Sports Extra!



SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS

FOR THE RECORD
LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US
BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA


Print story only Print story with comments Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest
Calling All Chumps
Published: 7/28/2008 4:55 PM
Last Modified: 7/28/2008 4:55 PM

This is a piece about sports predicting and wagering where it's legal, which is pretty much Las Vegas, period.

Certain office pools for peanuts are considered harmless enough.

After what happened to a local company called SemGroup, legalized sports wagering seems pretty honorable after all. SemGroup went under virtually overnight, way under. At least with sports investing, you can SEE the action.

There's a popular misconception that the point spread in football makes every game a 50-50 proposition, with the sports book making a good living on the ten percent commission charged on losers. But sports books would much rather have 70 percent of the public on the wrong side of the game than collect any lightweight commission. And the public is heavily the wrong way all the time.

Most losers are victims of the obvious.

There's no real Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Editors there simply overreact to the meaningless, which is how the public bets most weeks.

One way to win is to place yourself in the position of the sports book. Because there's never been a broke one of those. The way you do that is you choose the side of a game opposite public overreaction.

If you purchase picks from touts for money, you should move immediately to a clinic and have your head examined. If touts knew so much, why wouldn't they simply bet their picks and retire to Bali? Touting is much easier than picking, that's that story.

Here's something easy to spot: Bad pickers.

Some people have no talent, no eye, for selecting winners.

But that's good. All we have to do is go the opposite way from your rotten selections, and we're sitting pretty. So being bad has its qualities.

Quit pussyfooting around and making bad picks in privacy, and in hindsight.

Please make your thoughts and picks public.

At first glance, it looks like trendy Georgia is overrated. If Oklahoma State loses at Washington State, Gundy could be in big, fat, serious trouble. TU could lose at UAB.
Bradford needs to play much better for OU to contend for a national title.

See how easy pre-season handicapping can be?

Your being a chump could be a good thing.






Reader Comments 17 Total
MIKE (5 years ago)
Once more, remind us: Who was your pick for the winner of the BCS national title game last year?
john k. amberg (5 years ago)
say what you will about the picker but i seem to recall he predicted raymond floyd to win the 1982 pga at southern hills and was right on. hard to imagine that was nearly 26 years ago.
cyco myko (5 years ago)
I'm trembling. I'm sweating. I... I.. um,.. I AGREE with something the Tulsa World Licker just wrote:
'Bad Pickers' ARE easy to spot. I spotted you the instant I first read your column in the paper. It was REALLY easy to spot.
"Being bad has it's qualities"? I can picture this on a little plaque right over your monitor as you sit hunched over the keyboard tapping out your latest drivel.
Robert (5 years ago)
Ok, Jay, here you go. Ohio State will break through this year. Mark it down. When I'm right I expect no credit from you whatsoever, just like you offer no mea culpas when you are wrong.
canester2002 (5 years ago)
I agree about the Semgroup comment that they made some lousy futures bets, tried to bet against their bad bets to offset their losses, lost more and imploded. Sad for Tulsa. But it does remind me of the idiot who loses all weekend and tries to recoup it on MNF only to lose more.

OU: Bradford needs to be tougher and the secondary not stink.

OSU: Will be looking for a new coach about game 6 but will probably let Gundy coach out the rest of the year.

TU: Give me a half-way decent defense please. Defense was bad and we lost our best defenders. Bowl, BCS yea right.
Tom (5 years ago)
Picker's thrust vis a vis spread is generally correct, except that if one follows a particular team (basketball and baseball are best because of long season) you can beat the spread simple because the real Vegas "pickers" can't follow every team that well all the time. For instance, I picked the spread on TU correctly 27times one year with three losses (they won 2 of those games) in Self's best year simply because Vegas didn't know the team as well as I did. Any one can do this. OSU or OU against just about anybody but Mack Brown? Haven't a clue. TU losing to 4 or 5 teams this year? Probably.
Tom (5 years ago)
Picker, unlike yourself I do not root for the Sooners (except when they play any"power" from the Big Ten,Texas, Nortre Dame or a Steve Spurrier coached team) but I would take this Bradford kid over anybody else any day. I was initially wrong about him, thinking about that slack-jawed, clueless adolescent complexion look he can't help but have and confusing that with incompetence. I thought the same about Eli Manning and was wrong there.
Matthew (5 years ago)
"If you purchase picks from touts for money, you should move immediately to a clinic and have your head examined. If touts knew so much, why wouldn't they simply bet their picks and retire to Bali?"

If you're as good as you say you are, why haven't YOU retired to Bali? Prefer your gig at the Tulsa World, I suppose?
PickerIsAChump (5 years ago)
Yawn. Another weak blog by the number one chump in Oklahoma, The Nosepicker.
Kevin "Hotty Toddy" (5 years ago)
Robert, is the definition of Ohio State breaking through this year coming within 3 touchdowns of an SEC team?

No way Tulsa loses at UAB. That would be a disaster for the Golden Hurricane.

Washington State actually played well at home last year. Beating UCLA and playing the Sun Devils tough. Playing in the Pac Ten I do not think they would be intimidated by the Cowboys and have defiantly played high caliber athletes before. Game could easily go to Washington State.

Picker, Georgia overrated? Last time we saw the dawgs playing they were making Hawaii look like an 8 man high school team from parts unknown Oklahoma. Remember how bad OU looked playing a no loss WAC team? Plus Knowshon is one of the most exciting backs in college football.

The problem is the Dawgs schedule. Having to play Florida, at LSU, at Auburn and non conference away game at Arizona State. If they lose a couple of those games I would not call them overrated. We could have another 2 lose team playing in the national championship game.

Some great hung over Saturday or Sunday T.V. watching is the winning edge. If Wayne Allan Root can not win you some money then no one can…

Also Bill Simmons did terrible in his pro picks last year. Going against him would have paid for a nice summer vacation on Grand Lake.
WSmith (5 years ago)
Occasionally...periodically...once in a while...I find myself enjoying a P blog. This was one of those times. A truism of writing is that you should write about a subject with which you are familiar. Evidently, Mr. P is intimately acquainted with both winning and losing at sports betting. Can't wait for football season...
WSmith (5 years ago)
Occasionally...periodically...once in a while...I find myself enjoying a P blog. This was one of those times. A truism of writing is that you should write about a subject with which you are familiar. Evidently, Mr. P is intimately acquainted with both winning and losing at sports betting. Can't wait for football season...
Bob Williams (5 years ago)
Ever heard of the sophomore jinx? Bradford will this season as Stoopers struggle. O-State will go 8-5 overall, counts bowl win. Tulsa's best hope for winning season is 7-5 and that's
in a weak conference. The rest of my picks are for sale at only $150. Thank you.
Matthew (5 years ago)
Tulsa 7-5?? Are you kidding me?? In that joke of a conference? Baylor would go 7-5 in that conference, for Christ's sake.
Nit Picker (5 years ago)
Tom,
Re: picking the spread
You are an island of truth, common sense, knowledge, intellegence and maturity surrounded by a sea teeming with World Picker and his wannabe minions.
Are you lost?

World Picker:
How about you putting out your pre-season top 25 college football teams? Now. Right here. Before the season starts. Just like all the other sports pundits you insult.

Then all of us 'chumps' can follow along and become as successful as you.

After all, you don't even have to put your real name to the list.

What's the odds on WP doing this?? Who wants to book it?
World Picker (5 years ago)
Nit Picker, pre-season junk is meaningless with one exception: placing a legalized wager on a national champ.

Picking is all about match-ups.

In making a pre-season pick, the whole point is to take a chance and have some fun, and not be like your idols, Al and Dean and the rest of the OU clones. Anybody could pick Florida or Ohio State. You like Florida? No surprise there.

I'll give you a good long shot shortly -- picking before an event, something with which you are unfamiliar.

USC would be a decent summer book play right now.
Nit Picker (5 years ago)
World Picker:
Take your own advice, which you claim is so valuable, and "please make your ...picks public".
You are criticizing the pundits' picks, but are unwilling to go out on a limb and make your picks public...'before the event'.
Why should anyone of us be required to make ours public? After all, we are not criticizing the pundits' picks like you are.

I "like Florida." ? Where did you come up with that?
USC a decent pick? Uh, only the entire world outside of Georgia and maybe OKC has already picked USC to finish very high next year.

But if it is about match ups, as you suggest, aren't you matching them up with everyone on their schedule and picking them?
Let's see you put your "objecive neutrality" where you smart mouth is: Pick the top 25, before the season and make it public.
I promise you very few folks will run to LV and bet on your picks --so the odds won't move on you.

This isn't about Al, Dean, OU, clones, or me. It is about you running your mouth off and criticizing/bashing those who publish top 25 lists and then your refusal to do it yourself....before the fact.

It is also about your ranking Big 12 qbs regarding having a successful season-before the fact- but refusing to define successful season before the fact.

You are a lightweight hack.

Odd how everytime someone realizes you are a lightweight hack and prove it, you accuse them of being an OU homer.
It is called deflection. You are good at it.
17 comments displayed


To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.


Out Pick The Picker

The Picker began entertaining – and infuriating – sports fans in 1993. Each week during football season, he writes about his picks of college and NFL games in his Thursday Sports column. He's never afraid of sharing his opinions about the game and the personalities who play it. Readers have a chance to go against him each season in the Outpick the Picker contest. He welcomes the competition.

Follow The Picker on Twitter

Subscribe to this blog


Archive

Past Articles By The Picker

1/31/2013
      The Picker: Super Bowl merely a distraction from OU woes
 
The Picker's Blog Archive:

2/2013  1/2013  12/2012  11/2012  10/2012  9/2012  
8/2012  7/2012  6/2012  5/2012  4/2012  3/2012  
2/2012  1/2012  12/2011  11/2011  10/2011  9/2011  
8/2011  7/2011  6/2011  5/2011  4/2011  3/2011  
2/2011  1/2011  12/2010  11/2010  10/2010  9/2010  
8/2010  7/2010  6/2010  5/2010  4/2010  3/2010  
2/2010  1/2010  12/2009  11/2009  10/2009  9/2009  
8/2009  7/2009  6/2009  5/2009  4/2009  3/2009  
2/2009  1/2009  12/2008  11/2008  10/2008  9/2008  
8/2008  7/2008  6/2008  5/2008  4/2008  3/2008  
2/2008  1/2008  12/2007  11/2007  10/2007  9/2007  
8/2007  7/2007  6/2007  5/2007  4/2007  3/2007  
2/2007  1/2007  12/2006  11/2006  10/2006  9/2006  
8/2006  





Home | Contact Us | Search | Subscribe | Customer Service | About | Advertise
Copyright © 2013, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.