Send to KindleNow the bureaucrats in Washington have cost me $40, and I’m beside myself.
If you follow any of the nonsense involved in the US trying to shut down online gambling, then you know that they are ratcheting up their efforts considerably. The most recent example is serving subpoenas on Investment Banks that were involved in the IPO of gambling sites, even though those Banks have offices in London where the companies they brought public are legally listed!
Anyway, that’s not the purpose of my rant, nor how “they” cost me $40!
I’ve mentioned Poker as one of my hobbies in the previous post. Online poker is actually not even illegal according to Federal statutes (if I understand correctly). Some states consider it illegal, others explicitly consider it legal!
What is clearer is online “sports” wagering. No one considers that legal, at least not in the US 😉
I admit that I play a “little” football online. I risk $10 per bet. If I lost every single bet I ever made (which would be an amazing feat, even if that were my goal!), I would still be able to feed and clothe myself (at least I’m pretty sure I would).
Because of the aforementioned “ratcheting” by the Feds, my favorite (and only) sports betting site decided to shut off US citizens. It took me all of 5 minutes to move my money out of their site and into another one.
Unfortunately, I hate the UI of the new site (intensely!). I even complained about it to my godson. I consider myself both a power user as well as extremely careful when it comes to this type of activity.
So, yesterday, during the NFL Championship games, I placed 4 $10 wagers. The Bears -2, Over in the Bears game 42 points, New England +3 and Over in the New England game 47.5 points.
At the end of the day, I was up $20 (or so I thought) since the only one of the 4 wagers that lost was NE +3 (which in itself was an incredible loss!).
When I checked my account, I was down $20! What? Turns out that I didn’t bet either of the Overs. Instead, due to their awful UI, I accidentally bet on New Orleans to win outright, and New England to win outright as well… So, my two “winning” wagers were both losers. A $20 win turned into a $20 loss, all because of a horrible UI, and the Feds zeal at “cracking down” on my “addiction”…
Ironically (I love ironies), if New England had won (as it appeared they would), I would have made a nice amount, because I was getting +150 (for those of you who know what that means) 😉 on that bet.
That’s a mistake I will never make again.
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