It’s a sign
of my age, no doubt, but there are certain new developments I just don’t get.
Like Fantasy Football.
It’s all
the rage now, and very much in the news, what with a couple of large firms
being looked at more closely by the government. But I look at it and ask two
questions: Who has the time? And, How can you win?
It turns
out those questions weren’t so bad. A recent story in the Times said that in
order to succeed in any consistent way in Fantasy Football, a person has to
devote huge amounts of time to studying the game and developing algorithms for
figuring out which players will do well within the gaming system (as opposed to
doing well in real football, like winning games).
Most people who play spend a lot of
time on it, but their understanding is so limited that they might as well be
picking lottery numbers by using their aunts’ and uncles’ birthdays.
If you’re a business, you have to
love customers like that.
The Old Way Wasn’t Easy
Before Fantasy Football came along,
people who wanted to bet on the sport usually bet on the outcome of a game,
with a point spread factored in to give the underdog a fair chance.
Betting on games in that fashion
was never easy. People extremely knowledgeable about the game rarely did much
better than 50-55 percent over any period of time, which is essentially
breaking even. No matter how much you know and how shrewd your insights about a
game might be, an injured quarterback or a couple of freak turnovers can upend
everything.
Even so, I like to give it a try
once a year. My friend John and I go up to South Lake Tahoe in late October or
early November to catch the fall color and make some football investments. The
fall color is pretty much a sure thing; the football investments — not so much.
Don’t Kick a Field Goal!
By this time of year, the pro
football teams are settling out, and a shrewd observer can get a pretty good
sense of which teams are good and which ones aren’t. (Shrewd observation #1: A
team with a 1-6 record isn’t very good.) Three weeks beforehand, I started
compiling statistical information about teams and tracking their records game
by game in order to make informed bets. Well, as informed as it gets, anyway.
One of my picks, for instance, was
New Orleans minus 3.5 points over the New York Giants. The game was in New
Orleans and ended up being an epic. With seconds left, it was tied 49-49 and
the Giants were punting. New Orleans got a good return to just past midfield,
but the Giants grabbed a face mask, adding a 15-yard penalty and putting New
Orleans in position to kick a long field goal on the last play of the game.
The field goal would win the game
for New Orleans but lose the bet for me, since I had them winning by four
points or more. Sure enough, the New Orleans kicker booted it right between the
goalposts to win the game, but I lost my bet by a stinking half-point.
This is why it’s called gambling.
