Tell yourself, "How much money would I pay to guarantee K-State a win?" Then bet that amount of money on UCF. Either you paid that much money for a win, or you win money. Win/Win situation.
And if K-State wins but doesn't cover, then you win both. I feel the "fan's hedge" is underutilized.
i do it all the time. though i read an article about this, most fans still don't end up happy in this "win/win" situation. either the money wasn't enough to comfort the loss or the win wasn't enough to justify the money spent. its pretty much true. i think it works better when you bet on a rival. I.E. I enjoyed losing a good chunk of change on kansas' loss to UNI last march.
That's why you have to decide how much you would pay for a win. It's not the idea's fault that the people who bet 100$ are pissed off when they are the ones who made the bet for that exact reason.
Yeah, fault lies in fans' inability to properly value a win. My guess is that people who did poorly in economics are usually the ones who wind up unsatisfied.
Although...games like this week's are tough to value, even moreso games like LaLa last year. You don't want to pay that much for a win, but a loss still really sucks. Works better if you're a narrow favorite over a good team in a meaningful game.
As I understand it, you can't really use it for games like Nebraska is apt to be this year (K-State as underdog), because the "lose-lose" scenario is in play: lose the game, but beat the spread and lost the money, too.
very difficult to do. i mean, if I was of gambling age in 1998, I dont think there is any
reasonable sum of money that would have comforted that loss. likewise though, if KSU is playing for the national title in football/basketball its probably entire bankroll, perhaps even lifesavings worthy for a diehard K-Stater given our history but man, your life savings! I've found the easiest way to figure it out is to find the amount it would take for you to root against K-State winning a game. I just about crossed that line in the Big 12 tournament champ game against kansas last march. I was feeling relieved we lost because of the money on the line. I didn't care for that feeling. This year I've set a limit on what i'm willing to risk on a KSU win so i never come close to rooting against KSU.
As for your other situation, I roll with ML's when we are dogs. Eliminates lose/lose. Since the idea is you
want to lose money, you look at it more from what you want to lose rather than win so ML's work fine. we'll likely be a 7 pt dog at home (think similar to the bama-ark game this weekend) which would translate to -270 or so on the Nebr ML. (Lay $270 on Nebraska to win $100 for those that don't know ML's). Makes it easy to value it. Is the nebraska win worth losing $100? $200? with so much season left and thus so many variables to what our season could still be, you can't value it super high. Its mostly about one last shot at nebraska before they leave which is worth a good amount. Just depends on your financial situation more than anything.
