Those who know me know that I enjoy some gamblin' (legally of course). Some even call me Gamblin' Gary. And because of that, I have a lot of experience in various sports betting leagues, pools and tournaments that simply make watching sports more fun. These exciting ways to bet on sports are for guys like me and my friends, not necessarily Vegas pros. So if you're looking for advice on how to make thousands upon thousands of dollars, I'm not your guy. But if you enjoy throwing 20 bucks into a pot with your buddies in order to generate some added interest, or friendly wagers that lead to eternal bragging rights, then read on. Let's make sports betting fun again. (Note: This also excludes any fantasy league information because you all should already know about that.)
NCAA COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOURNEY
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What to do: Sweet 16 Survivor/Takeover Pool
How it works: Brackets are cool, but as many of you have learned, often your bracket gets busted in the first weekend and then you have nothing else to look forward to after that. That's where this sweet little Sweet 16 pool comes in. You'll need a nice round number of players; either 16, 8 or 4 (16 is ideal). You each throw in $20 and draw teams out of a hat. Whatever team you get is the team you are rooting for in the Sweet 16. However, don't feel bad if you get a team that you don't think can win it all (like Syracuse this year). You only need that team to win the next game AGAINST THE SPREAD to survive and continue. For example, if you draw Syracuse, who is a 4.5-point underdog on Friday against Gonzaga, you don't necessarily need them to win. You just need them to cover. So if they lose to Gonzaga by 4 points or less, you take over Gonzaga as your team and survive to the Elite 8. Whoever had Gonzaga is out. Players whose teams advance to the Final 4 get a payout, with additional payouts if they advance to the championship game and then to the National Championship winner. (Photo via CBS Sports)
MLB SEASON
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What to do: Head-to-Head Rivalry Betting
How it works: I'm a Chicago White Sox fan and my pal is a Cleveland Indians fan. Because our teams are in the same division, they will play each other in the regular season 19 times. What you do is bet $5 per game throughout the season. However, if one team gets swept in a 3 or 4-game series, there is a $5 sweep bonus added on. Nothing makes a game between the Sox and Indians in mid-May more exciting than a few bucks on the line. Tally it all up at the end of the season and make the loser pay up.
What to do (Option 2): Season Win Total Betting
How it works: If your favorite team is the Milwaukee Brewers and your friend's favorite team is the Cincinnati Reds, God help both of you. But, one way to make watching games more fun is to bet a pizza on total regular season wins. If the Brewers end up with more than the Reds, your friend sends you a pizza of your choice. If the Reds end up with more wins, you send him a $5.99 medium zza from Domino's. What's fair is fair. (Photo via Yahoo! Sports)
THE MASTERS
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What to do: Masters Champion Snake Draft
How it works: Winning a major golfing championship is hard, so it's just as hard to pick a golfer to bet on to win it, even the heavy favorites. So, bet on a bunch of golfers instead. Get a list of the odds of the top 50 golfers to win the Masters. Get four or five of your friends to join your Masters fantasy league. Do a snake draft so you each get 8-10 golfers to root for. If your golfer wins the green jacket, you win the pot. If none of the golfers you drafted wins, pay out the top two finishers. You can repeat this with all of the 2016 major championships if you'd like (and you probably will). (Photo via Fox Sports)
NBA PLAYOFFS
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What to do: NBA Champion Draft
How it works: Much like with The Masters, this will be a snake draft. There are 16 teams that make the NBA Playoffs, so this works best with four people. Draw for your draft position out of a hat. Whoever gets #1 is a lucky bastard because they will most likely take the Golden State Warriors with the first pick. Continue though with the snake draft until all 16 teams have been drafted and each participant has four teams to root for. Whoever has the team that wins the NBA Finals wins an NBA jersey of their choice, paid for by the three losers. If I were to win this year, I think I'd go with the Chicago Bulls gray alternate jersey. But that's just me. Oh, and you can also do this for the NHL Playoffs. (Photo via Bleacher Report)
KENTUCKY DERBY
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What to do: Pick Two Horses
How it works: "The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports" is even more so when you have a horse in the race to root for (or in this case, two horses). The Kentucky Derby is limited to 20 horses, so you'll need 10 participants for this. Draw numbers 1 through 10 out of a hat. If you draw #1, you get the horse that is the most favored to win the Derby and the horse that is the biggest underdog. If you draw #2 you get the second most favored horse and the second biggest underdog. And so on. If you all throw in $20 that brings the pot to $200. Whoever has the winning horse gets $120, second place gets $60 and third place gets their money back. (Photo credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports/LANDOV)
COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND NFL
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What to do: Shares Pool
How it works: Everyone knows that the best part about the football season is betting on the games. However, unless you are a professional gambler or have a lot of money to burn, you probably shouldn't be throwing down a lot of cash on individual games (but if you want to, you need to get a bookie). What you can do, though, is join a shares pool. Sites like officefootballpool.com make this very easy. Basically, you pay an entry fee (anywhere from $50 to $200) to enter the pool and you receive 10,000 shares. You can use these shares to bet ANY amount on ANY college and NFL game all season long. But, if you lose all your shares, you are out. Whoever has the most shares left by the end of the season or is the last one to have any shares left wins. Depending on how many entries you have in this pool, you can payout the top 5 or 6 spots and the prize money can be rather large.
NFL
What to do: Survivor Pool
How it works: Survivor pools have become very popular in recent years and the best part about them is they are simple. You just pick one team to win every week. That's it. If you pick the New England Patriots to win in week 1 of the season and they do, you move on to week 2. The catch is, once you pick a team to win, you can't pick them again. The person who keeps picking winners and survives the longest wins the pot. Entry fees for Survivor Pools are typically $10 to $50, and some offer the opportunity to buy back in once if the team you picked loses, or you go to the consolation bracket. Payouts are less there, though.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
What to do: Bowl Pick' Em
How it works: There are so so many damn bowl games that you can't possibly care about them all. Or can you? The 2016 season will consist of a whopping 41 bowl games (including the new College Football Playoff), and the best way to enjoy them is by joining a Bowl Pick 'Em Confidence Pool. Yahoo! Sports makes it pretty easy. Just enter the pool with your buddies, and pick the winner of every bowl game based on your confidence. So, if you have no idea who is going to win the AutoNation Cure Bowl (that's a real bowl game), you might rank that a 1. But if you feel strongly about who is going to win this year's Rose Bowl, you would rank that a 41. If you pick a bowl right, you get those confidence points. Whoever has the highest total at the end of bowl season wins the most money, and you can usually pay out second and third place for this, too.
Now, get to betting, have fun, and good luck!
NCAA COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOURNEY
What to do: Sweet 16 Survivor/Takeover Pool
How it works: Brackets are cool, but as many of you have learned, often your bracket gets busted in the first weekend and then you have nothing else to look forward to after that. That's where this sweet little Sweet 16 pool comes in. You'll need a nice round number of players; either 16, 8 or 4 (16 is ideal). You each throw in $20 and draw teams out of a hat. Whatever team you get is the team you are rooting for in the Sweet 16. However, don't feel bad if you get a team that you don't think can win it all (like Syracuse this year). You only need that team to win the next game AGAINST THE SPREAD to survive and continue. For example, if you draw Syracuse, who is a 4.5-point underdog on Friday against Gonzaga, you don't necessarily need them to win. You just need them to cover. So if they lose to Gonzaga by 4 points or less, you take over Gonzaga as your team and survive to the Elite 8. Whoever had Gonzaga is out. Players whose teams advance to the Final 4 get a payout, with additional payouts if they advance to the championship game and then to the National Championship winner. (Photo via CBS Sports)
MLB SEASON
What to do: Head-to-Head Rivalry Betting
How it works: I'm a Chicago White Sox fan and my pal is a Cleveland Indians fan. Because our teams are in the same division, they will play each other in the regular season 19 times. What you do is bet $5 per game throughout the season. However, if one team gets swept in a 3 or 4-game series, there is a $5 sweep bonus added on. Nothing makes a game between the Sox and Indians in mid-May more exciting than a few bucks on the line. Tally it all up at the end of the season and make the loser pay up.
What to do (Option 2): Season Win Total Betting
How it works: If your favorite team is the Milwaukee Brewers and your friend's favorite team is the Cincinnati Reds, God help both of you. But, one way to make watching games more fun is to bet a pizza on total regular season wins. If the Brewers end up with more than the Reds, your friend sends you a pizza of your choice. If the Reds end up with more wins, you send him a $5.99 medium zza from Domino's. What's fair is fair. (Photo via Yahoo! Sports)
THE MASTERS
What to do: Masters Champion Snake Draft
How it works: Winning a major golfing championship is hard, so it's just as hard to pick a golfer to bet on to win it, even the heavy favorites. So, bet on a bunch of golfers instead. Get a list of the odds of the top 50 golfers to win the Masters. Get four or five of your friends to join your Masters fantasy league. Do a snake draft so you each get 8-10 golfers to root for. If your golfer wins the green jacket, you win the pot. If none of the golfers you drafted wins, pay out the top two finishers. You can repeat this with all of the 2016 major championships if you'd like (and you probably will). (Photo via Fox Sports)
NBA PLAYOFFS
What to do: NBA Champion Draft
How it works: Much like with The Masters, this will be a snake draft. There are 16 teams that make the NBA Playoffs, so this works best with four people. Draw for your draft position out of a hat. Whoever gets #1 is a lucky bastard because they will most likely take the Golden State Warriors with the first pick. Continue though with the snake draft until all 16 teams have been drafted and each participant has four teams to root for. Whoever has the team that wins the NBA Finals wins an NBA jersey of their choice, paid for by the three losers. If I were to win this year, I think I'd go with the Chicago Bulls gray alternate jersey. But that's just me. Oh, and you can also do this for the NHL Playoffs. (Photo via Bleacher Report)
KENTUCKY DERBY
What to do: Pick Two Horses
How it works: "The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports" is even more so when you have a horse in the race to root for (or in this case, two horses). The Kentucky Derby is limited to 20 horses, so you'll need 10 participants for this. Draw numbers 1 through 10 out of a hat. If you draw #1, you get the horse that is the most favored to win the Derby and the horse that is the biggest underdog. If you draw #2 you get the second most favored horse and the second biggest underdog. And so on. If you all throw in $20 that brings the pot to $200. Whoever has the winning horse gets $120, second place gets $60 and third place gets their money back. (Photo credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports/LANDOV)
COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND NFL
What to do: Shares Pool
How it works: Everyone knows that the best part about the football season is betting on the games. However, unless you are a professional gambler or have a lot of money to burn, you probably shouldn't be throwing down a lot of cash on individual games (but if you want to, you need to get a bookie). What you can do, though, is join a shares pool. Sites like officefootballpool.com make this very easy. Basically, you pay an entry fee (anywhere from $50 to $200) to enter the pool and you receive 10,000 shares. You can use these shares to bet ANY amount on ANY college and NFL game all season long. But, if you lose all your shares, you are out. Whoever has the most shares left by the end of the season or is the last one to have any shares left wins. Depending on how many entries you have in this pool, you can payout the top 5 or 6 spots and the prize money can be rather large.
NFL
What to do: Survivor Pool
How it works: Survivor pools have become very popular in recent years and the best part about them is they are simple. You just pick one team to win every week. That's it. If you pick the New England Patriots to win in week 1 of the season and they do, you move on to week 2. The catch is, once you pick a team to win, you can't pick them again. The person who keeps picking winners and survives the longest wins the pot. Entry fees for Survivor Pools are typically $10 to $50, and some offer the opportunity to buy back in once if the team you picked loses, or you go to the consolation bracket. Payouts are less there, though.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
What to do: Bowl Pick' Em
How it works: There are so so many damn bowl games that you can't possibly care about them all. Or can you? The 2016 season will consist of a whopping 41 bowl games (including the new College Football Playoff), and the best way to enjoy them is by joining a Bowl Pick 'Em Confidence Pool. Yahoo! Sports makes it pretty easy. Just enter the pool with your buddies, and pick the winner of every bowl game based on your confidence. So, if you have no idea who is going to win the AutoNation Cure Bowl (that's a real bowl game), you might rank that a 1. But if you feel strongly about who is going to win this year's Rose Bowl, you would rank that a 41. If you pick a bowl right, you get those confidence points. Whoever has the highest total at the end of bowl season wins the most money, and you can usually pay out second and third place for this, too.
Now, get to betting, have fun, and good luck!