PYU Week 5 Results Thread: Null Value

(DISCLAIMER: This game is for entertainment purposes only. No actual money is being wagered.)

Here’s a bet you’re guaranteed not to lose! You’re also guaranteed not to win, but let’s not get hung up on details here.

In nine seasons of running this contest, I’ve never seen this. I have never seen a game that was so even that both teams were +100 to win outright. You could have bet equal amounts on both teams, and whoever won, you’d get exactly your money back. I’ve seen games where one or both teams were greater than +100, creating an arbitrage situation, but never an absolute push. This play is so safe you could hide assets in it. I couldn’t resist cashing in!

This brings up something I’ve been wanting to talk about. The old “one dollar spite bet” is literally spelled out in the official PYU rules (see rule 9.3), but it never really caught on. Part of the problem, from my perspective, is that spite bets can be hard to identify. 1-unit bets can be made for different reasons. You could also be taking a flyer on a longshot, trying to fulfill the weekly betting requirements, or you’re going for some kind of small hedge bet. For example, this play made me wonder:

Were you just trying to spend your remaining bankroll, or were you trying to land on that precise winning amount?

So to make things clear, I hereby introduce: The LOL Bet.

The LOL bet is made in the amount of 1.01 units. 1.01 kind of looks like “LOL” if the L’s are lower case. A bet in this amount is meant to express spite, humor, irony, mockery of the point spread, or some other such sentiment. I hope players will adopt this convention, so we can start having spite bets again. I’ve also thought of a way to bring back the Degenerate Bet of The Week, but let’s do one thing a a time.

This week’s winners and point earners:

For the first time, fewer than eight players ended the week with a profit, so the sixth-place and lower point awards will not be given. But despite the small number of players who profited, this week’s list of big winning individual bets is a long one:

Late games had a lot of impact. By the end of the night, several players still had live parlays going, many of which came ashore in the wee hours. Bad beat stories went to bullsonparade96 (had USF to cover for 600) and E-dogg42 (had UCLA in multiple parlays that would have added to about 300).

By the way, it looks like speruche made the same bet twice, for the same amount, and won both. I have confirmed this is not a website error. He entered it twice, at two different times during the day. I guess he wanted to get more money on it. This is allowed.

Overall money standings:

speruche has taken a huge lead after last weekend’s success. dsidwell31 made a big move up the table as well. Almost everyone else lost this week, but many of the losses were small, so the overall race looks much the same as last week.

Point standings:

Speruche has had four big weeks in a row, and takes a strong lead in the points race as well. But E-dogg42 was actually threatening to take the lead until the late games. But his UCLA parlay didn’t come in, and speruche’s late WAC and Penn State parlays did come in, so the standings are what you see now. But you can see the week-to-week winnings beginning to move up in the standings with more points.

The biggest national game in Week 6 is Penn State-Iowa. Alabama-Texas A&M, Mississippi-Arkansas, and Georgia-Auburn are also out there. USF is off this week. All other teams in the AAC play conference games: Houston-Tulane on Thursday, Temple-Cincinnati on Friday, and the rest on Saturday: SMU-Navy, Memphis-Tulsa, and ECU-Central Florida.