A good sports betting column should be backed by a profitable gambler with a proven track record. It should offer picks generated by a sophisticated and conceptually sound model. Most importantly, it should treat the subject with the seriousness it warrants.

This is not that column.

Instead, this will be an off-beat look at the sports betting industry-- why Vegas keeps winning, why gambling advice is almost certainly not worth the money, and the structural reasons why even if a bettor were profitable, anything they wrote would be unlikely to make their readers net profitable, too.

While we're at it, we'll discuss ways to minimize Vegas' edge and make recreational betting more fun, explain how to gain an advantage in your office pick pools, preview games through an offbeat lens (with picks guaranteed to be no worse than chance), and tackle various other Odds and Ends along the way.

Tracking the Unders

In 2022 and 2023, mass-betting the unders was incredibly profitable over the first 6 weeks and essentially just broke even after that. I hypothesized this year that maybe all we needed to do to make a killing was to start our "mass-bet the unders" strategy earlier in the season.

Unders went 3-1 on Thursday and Friday, leading to hope that our luck would turn around for the holidays. Unfortunately, they went 4-7-1 on Sunday and Monday, leading to a 10.2% loss for the week. At $10 on each game and with all bets at (-110), we're now down $203.64 for the year. Our snowball strategy, by contrast, is "only" down $144.39. If this week was a full slate, it wouldn't even have enough left to bet a dollar per game. (But it's not a full slate, so it does.)

Checking In on That Bankroll

I've been saying all year that gambling can be a good way to add excitement to football. You're not likely to be profitable at gambling, but then again, I've never turned a profit at Netflix, either, and I still don't regret paying for it. In matters of entertainment, "profitability" is rarely the point.

With that said, it's important to know the true costs of what we're buying. I may not make money at Netflix, but I lose a predictable amount every month. This makes it trivially easy for me to decide if the benefit I receive is worth the cost. Gambling doesn't work like this; our true costs are often obscured, and we'll experience periods where our costs actually go negative (meaning we make money). This is... actually kind of a bad thing.

Every compulsive gambler can tell you about hot streaks where they were way, way up. The reason they keep gambling is that they know it's possible. If everyone just lost 10% of their wagers every week like clockwork, you wouldn't get people going bankrupt and ruining their lives because of a gambling addiction.

As the season draws to a close, I'd recommend looking back and tracking how much money you actually wagered and how much you are really up or down. If you're up, that's awesome, and congratulations. I'd caution against reading too much into it-- our pseudo-random number generator spends much of its life in the black, too.

If you're down... I'm sorry, though again, I'd caution reading too much into it. If you're picking against the spread, the long-run expectation is you will likely hover around 50% and lose about 4.5% of your total amount wagered to the vig.

But however you're doing, it's good to know and take stock. Certain products are restricted because they're potentially dangerous. As a society, we have decided they will only be available to people we believe are capable of making responsible choices about them. We don't sell guns, alcohol, or cigarettes to children. We don't let children drive or get married. And we don't let children gamble, either.

This isn't to say that guns, alcohol, cigarettes, driving, marriage, or gambling are necessarily bad. I'm not interested in moralizing; in fact, I happen to regularly take advantage of three vices on that list. I'm just saying it's good to make informed decisions. To do that, we need to know the true costs of the choices we make. Even if we're going to make the choices anyway.

If you find your gambling is starting to become problematic -- if you're losing more than you can afford or finding it difficult to set and maintain limits -- there are resources available to help, starting with the National Council on Problem Gambling.

Lines I'm Seeing

The Steelers continue to be a winner for us-- not only covering the spread, but winning outright on our second moneyline recommendation of the year. And the Chiefs continue to be... well, I don't really know what their deal is, but they keep playing incredibly close games against incredibly bad teams. Perhaps we've found a new meme to bet on every week?

Cleveland Browns (+6.5) at Pittsburgh

Wait, isn't picking the Steelers supposed to be our thing? It was our thing. Mike Tomlin has been coaching for like 42 years now (don't fact-check this) and has still never had a losing season, so we knew they were guaranteed at least nine wins this year. Now that they've got those nine wins? Well, this is the same middling roster that they started the year with. The Steelers Wanted It, but now they've Got It, so it's time to Mail It In.

Minnesota Vikings (-5.5) vs. Atlanta

We took a break from picking the Vikings last week because recent results have caused me to question whether they Still Have That Fire In Their Bellies. A last-minute one-point win against a Cardinals team whose quarterback is too busy playing Call of Duty to read the playbook doesn't exactly assuage my concerns. But whether Minnesota is still Starving For Success or not is irrelevant because Atlanta looks like a team where The Wheels Are Finally Coming Off. Kirk Cousins has played so poorly recently that we might even see their rookie quarterback, Michael Penix Jr., Thrown To The Wolves.

Los Angeles Chargers (+4) at Kansas City

Does this "Kansas City can't win by more than 3" narrative have any juice to it? I'm not sure, but the Chiefs finished November 4-1 with a +4 point differential and an 0-5 record against the spread (failing to cover by an average of 7 points per game), so I think it's at least worth one more squeeze. The Chiefs are a team that Doesn't Want It, but Keeps Getting It Anyway. The Chargers are a franchise with a penchant for losing in the most painful way possible. I think the most likely outcome for this game is Los Angeles getting the ball down by 6 with 42 seconds left, scoring the game-tying touchdown as time expires, then having the extra point blocked and returned for 2 by the Chiefs.

The Iced Coffee Lock of the Week

Whose job was it to tell the Pseudorandom Number Generator it's not supposed to pick Florida teams on the road in Green Bay when kickoff temperatures are below freezing? Was that my job? Look, we're all trying to find who's responsible here.

San Francisco (-4) vs. Chicago

As injuries continue to pile up, the 49ers are watching their window close in real time, while the Bears continue to ask, "Window? What's a window?" Most rookie quarterbacks have their ups and downs, but Caleb Williams has been a one-man roller coaster; he was the worst quarterback in the league to open the season, then had three straight weeks with a passer rating above 100, then had three weeks with a passer rating below 70, and now is coming off three straight weeks with a passer rating over 95. The Pseudorandom Number Generator has cleverly noticed that each streak flips after three games, which means we're due for Bad Caleb Williams; if so, even San Francisco's JV squad should be able to handle this.