In 2016, I did not know very much about betting on sports, but that didn’t stop me. I’d put in money-line favorite parlays in the NFL on Sundays, just needing teams to win, or make an occasional bet on a team to win the NCAA Tournament. We’d go to Vegas in March and bet the first-round NCAA games. I was betting, but I wouldn’t say any of it was particularly intelligent. It was fun. I loved sports.
I was just getting my feet wet, playing around with making numbers, understanding that the market was going to change sometimes, and there wasn’t some mysterious “Vegas” behind everything. No nefarious group of sportsbooks colluding to create trap games and trap lines. I didn’t even know all of that though, I was just kinda starting to figure it out.
And that year, I bet the Heisman Trophy. It was only available in a few places. I lived in Connecticut, and sports betting wasn’t legal yet, so I had the choice of BetOnline or 5Dimes, two different offshore sportsbooks. And that was it. And they wouldn’t reliably update the Heisman the entire season, so it was possible betting it beforehand was the only chance I was going to have. Nowadays you see how betting awards is so much more…mainstream. And you look back at 2017 and laugh. I had two choices. I can’t remember if Bovada had the Heisman (or BoDog or whatever it was then) so maybe it was three.
I’d love to be able to tell you I knew what I was doing at all, but I was like most people. I watched a lot of college football back then, more than I do now, and I just felt like I knew who was good and capable of winning and who wasn’t. And I bet 4 players to win that year. I racked my brain to remember the fourth, but I can’t remember it, so I’ll just tell you the other three: Deshaun Watson, who was the QB for Clemson (12/1-ish?), Jabrill Peppers, who was a safety/returner for Michigan (60/1), and Lamar Jackson, who was the QB for Louisville. I had read a lot about Lamar before the season, watched him play sparingly the year before and been kinda wow-ed. That was it. No fancy formula. Just a shot in the dark really, at 110/1. And amazingly, he won.