My gambling is now getting guys hurt
Look it’s late and I’m exhausted both mentally and physically (just ate nachos really fast), so I’ll keep this brief.
My gambling is no longer impacting just my psyche and my wallet. It seems I’m starting to actually injure the players with my bets.
Many of you likely saw my recent blog about my current betting cold streak. In an effort to reverse this trend, I said to myself, “let me place a small, sensible parlay on the Monday night game.”
So I did.
I bet Travis Etienne to have 17+ yards receiving, Evan Engram to have 3+ catches and Christian Kirk to have 40+ yards receiving.
For those who don’t follow football, those are all players on the Jacksonville Jaguars and each of them have achieved those stats in essentially every game this year.
Christian Kirk specifically has hit 40+ yards for ten games in a row.
It wasn’t an exciting bet, it wasn’t a massive payout, but it was smart and a good way to start the week anew. Then this happened…
Why that guy is playing house music over a video of a guy getting a dick injury is unclear, but what is clear is that Kirk did suffer some sort of serious affliction here.
A kick in the dick for both Kirk and myself and an especially brutal one when you consider that was the Jaguars first offensive play of the game. It was a 26-yard catch. In other words, he got about 3/4 of the needed yardage on the first play of the game. And then due to a “core injury” which in reality is definitely a super swollen nut, he’s out for the game.
That’s it. Bet’s over 5 minutes in.
This guy gets it:
Fine, whatever. It’s football — injuries happen. It’s much worse for him than it is for me. But as a football fan I figured I’d continue watching just for the love of the game.
And as Monday night wears on, it’s actually turning out to be a surprisingly competitive game. The kind of game I want action on. And then I get an idea.
I’ve had a parlay scoped out for this week’s slate of games, but was looking for one more bet to really put it over the top. Why not live bet the Jaguars to win the game and use that to give the bet a little more juice?
For context, the Jaguars are playing great football, in contention for the one seed in the AFC somehow, and the Bengals are without their starting QB for the rest of the season.
At this point, the game was tied but Jacksonville’s offense was finding its rhythm and looked to be pulling away. So I made the bet and felt great to be on my way to winning the first leg of a parlay.
This happened literally 3 minutes later:
Another angle so you can really see his and my misfortune up close:
I place a bet on a guy who hasn’t missed a start once in his three year career and two seconds later he’s got a 350 lbs cankle drilling spikes into his leg.
You can probably guess the ending. Lawrence is out for the game, the Bengals battle back and ultimately win the game in overtime, and my parlay is over before it started.
Is this a sign from the gambling gods for me to throw in the towel for the year? Or are they just testing my resolve like the biblical Job? Except instead of giving me boils and killing my livestock, they’re injuring millionaires.
I guess we’ll find out this week. Keep an eye on the injury report on Sunday — it’s going to be overflowing.
