Grab a stack of SFBay Bucks and play along with us all season to win actual fabulous prizes, like a retro Joe Montana jersey!
Not sure about yours, but my “Inspirational Quotes” desk calendar tells me we’re now in September.
That, coupled with a wafting stench of burnt barbecue, beer burps and Flexall 454 can mean only one thing: It’s football season.
To quench our unending thirst for degenerate behavior, the SFBay sports crew is developing an expensive, life-eroding gambling habit. Like any halfway-decent descent into addiction, you’ve got a chance to play along.
Chelena Goldman, Ali Thanawalla and myself will pick the winners against the point spread for six pro football games each week. We’ll each pick the same games, but the amount we can bet on each game will be wide open.
Since SFBay is still a pre-funded startup without a Series A to splash around, we’ve fired up our steam-powered, Emperor Norton-inspired currency printing engine to mint up fresh stacks of SFBay Bucks.
Each of us will begin the season with 10,000 SFBay Bucks. The goal — other than not going broke — is to finish the season with the most money.
There’s plenty of SFBay bucks to go around, too! We’re making it rain, SFBay style. (So it’s more of a heavy mist.) Feel free to join us and play along in the comments to win fabulous prizes! (See below.)
Or, just deride our highly-speculative picks.
Now excuse us please while we go count our stacks.
Fair warning: We’re not touts, sharks or bookies. We don’t splash action around the web or line up bets in back alleys. We’re just a few local writers picking games without much of a clue. So using these picks for your own gambling is probably a very bad idea.
| Name | Bankroll | Last week |
| Ali | 10,000 | +0 |
| Chelena | 10,000 | +0 |
| Jesse | 10,000 | +0 |
| Game | Ali | Chelena | Jesse |
| San Francisco at Green Bay (-5 1/2) |
GB 100 |
SF 100 |
SF 200 |
| Pittsburgh at Denver (-1 1/2) |
PIT 100 |
PIT 100 |
DEN 100 |
| San Diego (-1 1/2) at Oakland |
SD 200 |
SD 100 |
SD 100 |
| Indianapolis at Chicago (-9 1/2) |
IND 100 |
CHI 100 |
IND 200 |
| Washington at New Orleans (-11) |
NO 200 |
NO 100 |
WAS 100 |
| Buffalo at New York (A) (-3 1/2) |
BUF 200 |
BUF 100 |
BUF 100 |
To refresh anyone’s memory on how point spreads function, the team with the “minus points” is the favored team, and has the “point spread” deducted from their score at the end of the game. The final score adjusted by the point spread determines the winner of the bet.
If a team is favored by three points, they must win by more than three points to win a point spread bet.
Of course you can play along with Bettin’ or Braggin! What kind of pro football picking game would Bettin’ or Braggin’ be if you couldn’t play?
You can win prizes! (We can’t. All SFBay staff can win are bragging rights over each other. In other words, priceless.)
But first, some rules:
* – Actually, we will be picking two Thursday games, the Seattle-San Francisco game Oct. 26 and the Denver-Oakland game Dec. 6. On those weeks, the deadline for weekly picks will be Thursday at 5 p.m. See why we don’t like Thursday games? Too complicated.
Third-place: SFBay black fleece hoodie, high quality. Nice stuff. $50 value.
Second-place: Limited-edition, authentic SFBay Golden Gate FC soccer shirt, customized with your name. $120 value.
First place: A green Joe Montana Notre Dame Adidas jersey, “True School Authentics,” Size 56. Very high quality retro-authentic heavy mesh. Brand-new, never-worn condition. All tags attached. Very collectible. $250 value.
Jesse Garnier is the editor and founder of SFBay. A Mission District native, he also teaches journalism as associate professor at San Francisco State University.
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So… what games are we bettin on this week?