Bad Beats From Last Weekend
If you’re a sports betting enthusiast that either wagers online or at your local casino, then you probably know what a ‘bad beat’ is.
If you don’t know, well let me explain. A bad beat is either a wager that looked like a sure-fire winner – until the very end. Then some strange occurrence took place that caused you to lose your wager late, or it’s an outcome that you – and everyone else – never saw coming.
Sometimes ‘bad beats’ just happen as a natural part of sports and sports betting. But, every now and then, a bad beat takes place that not even the best handicapper around (like me) could have predicted.
That’s why it’s important to stay up to date with the latest odds, check out this week’s odds provided by MyBookie lead bookmarker, Dave Strauss.
“Remember the goal is to win more then you lose, so if you’re serious about winning big money, wager the same percentage of your bankroll on every game instead of loading up on just one.” Says Strauss on bad beats. “That way it you don’t feel the sting when you have a few bad beats.”
Let’s look back at three bad beats that took place in our sportsbook this past weekend. We can highlight just what I’m talking about, and hopefully help you avoid a bad beat wager moving forward.
Let’s get started with a pair of bad beats that took place in the NFL last weekend.
Jacksonville +9 at Pittsburgh
Okay gridiron gamblers, Jacksonville’s stunning 30-9 beatdown of Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers as a 9-point road underdog is a bad beat.
And it’s one that not many football betting enthusiasts saw coming, even if you were one of the few bettors that did like the Jags to cover the chalk as a 9-point road dog.
Jacksonville went into their Week 5 matchup at Pittsburgh with a solid, but not overly encouraging 2-2 record that saw them alternate SU wins and losses over their first four games.
Jacksonville took out Houston 29-7 on the road in Week 1 as a 5.5-point underdog before coming back home to lose badly to Tennessee 37-16 in Week 2 as a 1-point home dog.
The Jags then took out the Baltimore Ravens in emphatic fashion 44-7 in
London before falling on the road against the rebuilding New York Jets 23-20 in overtime.
Conversely, the Pittsburgh Steelers got off to a solid 3-1 start by beating Cleveland and Minnesota in Weeks 1 and 2 before falling at Chicago 23-17 in overtime in Week 3.
With the Steelers back at home and hosting the mediocre Jaguars in Week 4, this game looked like more of a lock than anything else, even with the Steelers playing on the road.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened as the Jaguars opened up a serious can of ‘whup ass’ on the Steelers.
They did it by picking off veteran quarterback Ben Roethlisberger a whopping five times en route to the stunning 30-9 victory that no one saw coming, not even the WAG’s of Jacksonville’s players.
While this isn’t one of those last-second bad beats that leave you doubled over on the floor in agony, it is nevertheless a bad beat of epic proportions.
LA Chargers +8 at NY Giants
With the Giants sitting at 0-4, and the Chargers coming into last week’s Inter-conference clash at 0-3, I advised NFL bettors early on that the best pick on the board was for a simple pick for the Over. Which played out as I predicted.
However, If you took the Chargers and the 8-points, it was a fine pick and good for you.
Conversely, if you either picked the Giants to cover as a home fave or win outright as a moneyline selection, then you suffered a really bad beat.
Chargers scored 10 fourth quarter points to get the ‘late’ win over the, now-reeling, Giants.
Personally, I couldn’t go against another NFL bettor that picked the G-Men to win as an SU moneyline pick. But, seeing Philip Rivers and company get the 27-22 road win, after playing some mostly uninspired football for three quarters, had to hurt.
The final outcome, combined with the loss of Odell Beckham Jr. was about as bad a beat as it gets, especially if you’re a Giants fan.
Michigan State at Michigan -13
Last Saturday, the then, seventh-ranked Michigan Wolverines were 13-point home favorites to beat their longtime in-state rivals, the Michigan State Spartans, by two touchdowns to cover the chalk. But, they never had a chance. All thanks to the pitiful play they’ve gotten at quarterback all season long.
Which makes this a really bad beat if you took Jim Harbaugh’s squad to cover the spread in their annual Paul Bunyan rivalry matchup.
First of all, the Spartans came into the contest with a decent 3-1 record.
And again, you just shouldn’t have been impressed with Michigan’s national ranking after seeing, first Wilton Speight earlier in the season – or mediocre backup John O’Korn.
You should have looked at the recent head-to-head meetings between the two and you would have noticed that Michigan State has pretty much owned Michigan. They went 3-1 SU in the previous four meetings and 7-2 in the nine meetings prior to this season’s annual clash.
Sure, this was a bad beat last weekend, but it’s one you could have avoided by doing your homework on the longtime Big Ten rivals.
Now it’s time to take the lessons learned by the above bad beats, and check out the updated odds for this weekend from MyBookie’s sportsbook.