Protect Your Unit Week 1 Results: Never Take The Points Against William & Mary

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

The big story is that everything on the website should be back to normal by the time you read this. All reports should now be working, and with improved functionality. The front page of the website lists all the updates.

There were only a couple minor glitches in Week 1. The website allowed some of you to bet over your 250-unit limit. There were only three such players, in amounts ranging from 5 to 38, so I decided just to let it ride. No one seems to have gained any undue advantage from this.

There were some sketchy lines until I rebuilt my rebuilt line-making tool. It turns out the dubious lines all lost anyway, except for North Texas over UTEP which won by enough to cover the actual spread. Charlotte -7 was mis-reported as Charlotte +7. One person jumped on that flawed offering. Hilariously, it lost anyway. William & Mary, a 7-point underdog, beat future AAC team Charlotte 41-24. And it was part of a parlay whose other component lost as well. You see why I don’t sweat these things sometimes.

Here’s the weekly list of wins that were parlays or for more than 50 units (the traditional threshhold for getting a mention):

The big win was Dan’s three-way play that included a backdoor cover by Appalachian State in their wild game against North Carolina. You can see one of ULhothot’s wins was using the new and improved Gambletron 3000. And you can see the value of it, winning 53.92 instead of the usual 50 on a 55-unit bet. The new Gambletron offerings had some other takers as well:

Three different games, three different winners. Going forward, there will be about 3 games available at a time for this -102 play. These can be any game not involving USF/UCF/Florida/FSU, and will change about once a day. You can bet over, under, or either team against the spread. (Money line bets have no premium.) It also counts as an AAC bet if applicable.

We also say two parlay wins that were weakened by pushes. (There were a lot of pushes in Week 1; Cincinnati +7 versus Arkansas was popular.) When this happens, the parlay is removed and the parlay is evaluated as a 2-bet parlay or single bet. McIntyre2K7 had a win and a push, so he wins at 1 to 1. Which is also something of a bad beat at the same time.

The window is closed for Futures bets! Let’s see who everybody took:

Ten different players made a total of 32 futures bets. Any money you wagered on futures will remain out of your bankroll until the futures bet is resolved, which in most cases will be at the season’s end. So some players have lower grand totals because they made some futures bets.

For the second year, we will have a points race. The player with the most fake money at the end of the season will be crowned the winner as always; in addition, there will be a points race, where you get points for making a profit each week. This was intended to make different betting strategies more viable, and to involve more people in the championship race. This proved successful last year, so it is back.

Whoever wins the most units each week gets 15 points, then 10, then 7-5-4-3-2-1 down to eighth place. You must have a net gain during a week to earn any points; if not enough players do, not all 8 places will be awarded. If more than 8 players earn points in a week, all past 9th place will also get 1 point.

Here is a current standings table that consolidates everything:

Eight players won more than they lost in the first week, and were awarded points in the points race. Only three players are at more than 1,000 though, because many of them also made futures. Danj725 is fastest out of the gate, at 1470.91 despite having bet 190 on futures. (NOTE: I initially had some of defdans’ futures picks mis-entered as danj725, which also deducted the bet cost from danj725’s grand total instead of defdans. This is all now correct.)

Week 2 is now underway! There are two Friday night games, and the usual slate of Saturday games. Lines will be updated daily. Some games won’t have lines yet, or be missing some lines. This is typical early in the week, especially for non-marquee games. GLHF.