Well the 4 talking heads on ESPN just picked Texas Tech

Looks like I will be betting on Duke. Who will you be on?

It would not be funny if it wasn't true. These pregame shows are awful. It is amazing they gey paid for being "experts" but reallyjustfill time to sell fast foods, , Fizzy sugar drinks, beer, cars, insurance, pharmaceuticals, push progressive mindthink, social media and apps, smartphone shopping and delivery, smartphones and phone plans, travel and airlines, banking and investing, junk food, (not as much as people would think).  These guys are just filler for the 100s of commercials that are blasted during the insanely long pregame, postgame and during the game mind numbing amount of advertising barrage.  The tournament itself is more of a vehicle to sell crap then a sporting event. This is why there is a push to extend the CFB playoffs just more revenue from these companies. It has nothing to do with improving the quality or fairness of CFB.

@FRANKtheBANKss

 well stated,    leaning  Duke  on this one 

Love Duke here.. 

Espn works for the odds makers. Think about it millions watch espn. That’s why their picks always suck!

@FRANKtheBANKss

Perfectly stated right on down the line

duke it is

@FRANKtheBANKss

 How do we take thier place? Our insight would have them in nervous breakdown mode. Really, analytics, stats pulled up by interns, to predict a team's future. If it were that simple everyone would win every bet, they ever made. 

Texas Tech wins the game with being more physical..... Maybe get a point before it starts..... Good Luck to All...

@Vegaseahawk

It's true it's all down to ratings and ads. That's why after having my best year ever in football I'm finishing up for a nice hiatus of a year or more (possibly forever) once march madness ends. I already had this planned as I have become more and more dissatisfied and disillusioned with the BS. More games, more playoff teams added. And then this year breaks the record for OT games.

I am pretty sure it's just the universe fkin with me making it so I had the best year ever in picking winners (just cleaned up at the Cheltenham horse racing festival too, all the favorites cruised home like you wouldn't believe) AFTER I decided to quit for a while. It's tempting me to think I've finally got it all figured out and hoping I get greedy. But I don't want to quit after losing so I'll go out on somewhat of a high, pretending that these last few good years have me in the black overall lifetime (not a hope).

I had started to notice more often the last few years how so many games came down to the final drive in football. and how the losing team often got PI or roughing the passer flags to help them on that last drive too, whereas in the past the last drive philosophy was more 'let them play', afte calling it tight early.

I eventually surmised it was all to keep people watching to the end. Look how many teams blow leads now in all sports it's insane. I'm not imagining this after 20 years gambling, it's true. All the stoppages and reviews and timeouts that only american sports have is another way to help the teams maintain parity and stop landslide victories.

What's good for ratings is not good for gamblers. Especially if you play favorites.

I feel bad for the young men who are starting to gamble on sports now. While there are much better options for placing bets (boy, if you've ever had to use illegal street guys or the shady offshores back in the 00's you lnow what I mean) and also much better ways to do research, the game is tougher with all the rule changes and focus on ratings and ads combined with the bookies also upping their game mightily with algorithms etc.

My advice to y'all is next time you're sitting there with your team down a few points, sweating out a video replay review, and then having to sit through another insurance ad, think about whether you want to waste hours each week for years or decades watching a ref watching a replay.. im not even talking about the money. You will waste insane amounts of time just waiting for the game to restart! If you keep gambling.

If you prefer to have your bets be sweats then keep it up. That is the agenda from now on, no team is ever out of any game or out of the playoffs till the clock says triple zero on week, what is it now, 19?

In my day you could almost always bank on the two bye week teams to replenish your bankroll in NFL before the super bowl, afte Christmas. Well they took that away to add. 2 more wildcard teams and look what happened. The wilcard round which used to be the more unpredictable one, was all blowouts. Then the two top seeds lost(in years past there would be 4 of them with a bye and they would never go 0-4).

I don't see any point capping any more when my objective is to pick the winner and the powers that be's objective is to make it so the winner doesn't emerge til the last second and every team can be a Cinderella. I mean March Madness is always like that, i expect it and never bet much on these games but now they want every game to be a nail biter buzzer beater so, as frank says, they can sell you a Sonic burger.

Most games I don't even turn the sound on except for the first few minutes and last few minutes of each half, to avoid the ads.

And the new thing to fleece everyone with is crypto. I know so many idiots who think they're gonna be another rich crypto investor. There is no gambling where everyone wins. Once they started naming stadiums after this stuff you can bet they are fleecing a lot of morons with it.

4 out of 4?

@NutinButtLove

Solid read, incredibly accurate. Not many folks recognize the changes the last... few or several years. Even much different from the early 2000s

Bump this thread is really a good read. Good luck to all.