Norman Freedman is 83 but vividly recalled details of a bad beat he suffered 40 years ago, when Earl “The Pearl” Monroe mysteriously turned his apparent $2,000 win into a $100 loss.
Basketball
Most avid sports bettors and poker players can write a book on bad beats. It would be a tragicomedy about the most agonizing losses of their gambling lives that double as miracle wins for other bettors.
The Boston Celtics, who defeated the defending champion Golden State Warriors 92-88 on Thursday, have the league’s best record against the spread at 13-2-1. The Philadelphia 76ers are second with an 11-3 ATS mark.
Cleveland moved from a 1-2 favorite to win the NBA’s Eastern Conference to a 1-3 favorite after Celtics forward Gordon Hayward’s gruesome injury.
After Minnesota’s steal of Chicago All-Star guard Jimmy Butler on Thursday, the Westgate sports book moved the Timberwolves’ odds to win the 2018 NBA title from 100-1 to 60-1 while bumping the Bulls from 100-1 to 200-1.
Cleveland, getting two to four points Wednesday in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, led by six with 3:09 left before Golden State ended the game on an 11-0 run to not only win 118-113 but also cover and send the number over the total of 227.
After blowing a 3-1 lead last year and adding a former MVP, the pressure is squarely on the Warriors. As an underdog after finally bringing a banner home to Cleveland, LeBron James is playing with house money.
We have been waiting nearly a year for the inevitable rematch of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors. And so we must wait a few more days to get part three of this trilogy.
The Cavaliers eliminated Boston in a 135-102 blowout Thursday night to set the stage for the highly-anticipated threequel with the Warriors that thankfully promises to be more like “Rocky III” than “The Hangover Part III.”
The Westgate sports book has a prop pitting the Warriors (minus-200) versus the field (plus-175), and manager Jeff Sherman expects Golden State to cash as the heaviest favorite he can recall since the late 1990s Bulls title teams led by Michael Jordan.
Despite North Carolina’s dominance down low, Vegas Insider handicapper Brian Edwards is backing underdog Oregon (+5) as his best bet of the Final Four.
No. 1-seeded Gonzaga meets No. 11 Xavier in the West Region final at 3:09 p.m. Saturday at SAP Center in San Jose, California. The winner will advance to the Final Four.
The betting public is banking on the over trend to extend to the Sweet 16, and two handicappers are on Oregon-Michigan Over 147 and UCLA-Kentucky Over 165½.
There weren’t any bad beats in the NCAA Tournament’s first 16 games — other than the intentional foul that cost Vanderbilt a win over Northwestern.
Will a Wildcats team win the NCAA Tournament? Las Vegas radio host Brian Blessing bet Yes (plus-280) on the intriguing prop that includes Villanova, Kentucky, Arizona, Northwestern and Kansas State.
