UNBELIEVABLE: You Can Now Bet On Steroid Suspensions.

I love the expression “If I were a gambling man…”, I use it all the time. With it, you get to simultaneously feel out the odds for any prediction whatsoever, and nobody thinks your a total degenerate for mentioning gambling at a funeral. I once managed to successfully escalate an “innocent” prediction on the race and gender of the next person to pass by on the street into myself and 3 co-workers screaming “Oooh! Asian MAN!” With cash in hand. I lost all I had on me that night (Like $12), but my point is this expression and the idea of betting on anything is a dream for a total degenerate like myself.

I apologize for click-bait-ish title as no Vegas Odds currently exist on the Next MLB Steroid Suspension. However, as illustrated by $12 loss, just because Vegas Odds don’t exist, IN NO WAY means we can’t bet on it ourselves! :::::DEGENS UNITE:::::

…..Just a sec, we Degens tend to run a little late…..

Ok, here we are. Now we are all on the same page. We know we want action, we know we want to take and place bets. How do we start to make and set odds? Well lets work it out together.  First lets be clear on the proposition we are interested in…..Nooo, settle down now degens I know you guys are dying for action but “what letter is going to come next in the article?” (x pays 150-1) is not very interesting for the reader.

It is:

Which Active Player Will be The Next To Receive A PED (Performance Enhancing Drug) Suspension in Major League Baseball?

Simple enough.

Now, Second, before we can start burning our money we need to determine the payouts if someone picks correctly. How do we start that? Well what is the size of the pool of players eligible? Our criteria of “active” major league players is simply calculated as 25 players per team times 30 teams so 750. That means If every player had an equal chance of “winning” then the odds are 1/750, or (without a casino cut) a bet of $1 would pay $750. In reality you may get paid $550 or $600 for $1 because casinos can’t make money paying the proper odds and they own your fucking soul.

Speaking of soul owning: a quick true story:

One time, for one moment in time, I had the god-like-soul-ownership-feeling of absolute eliteness. By Manifesting my inner casino and using someone’s degen-ness against them.  I Was Playing at an underground poker club here in New York City where I live. The average stack was like $400-$500 and the price to see a flop was ~$20. Next to me was this loud, annoying, ugly, Asian kid who I’m pretty sure was doing coke. He would not shut the fuck up, he was so beyond corny with his jokes, he played every single pot, and he kinda sucked.

There was a die (dice) on table functioning as a bullshit forced straddle and I had it. Obviously a dice has 6 sides. He folded his hand for once and he was bouncing his leg waiting for the next hand. Game reckognize game. I knew he wanted some sort of action. I knew he was FIENDING I told him “guess the number I roll and I’ll pay you $5 if you guess wrong you owe me $1” he INSTANTLY goes “Ok! I’ll play! 2!” I roll a 5.

Half the table who were paying attention started laughing. He meekly payed me the dollar and said “oooh Hah you got me” as if he didn’t understand what he agreed to. But he did, he just didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t think about the expected value, only about winning $5.  That is the degen way.

Back to setting odds. we know by looking at trends and using some thought that not all 750 Active players have an equal chance to be next. This is where the fun comes in (or the loss of money for the house). What are the factors that determine who receives PED suspensions? To be clear, this isn’t the same thing necessarily as finding predicting factors on who takes  steroids. Figuring out motivation for who cheats and why is going to be the biggest factor in our odds, but to illustrate the scope of factors in our odds for all we know the guys getting caught are just idiots and everyone cheats.

    Lets look at a list of suspensions over the last 10 years and see if we can find any obvious trends……

    Doesn’t look good. Yeah-No.No. Well in this case I have some good and some bad news.

The bad news is unfortunately aside from the players being, on average, younger than I expected,  there just isn’t enough data to find real trends.

The good news is we can stop doing research and just accuse people Al-Jazeera Style!

Actually wild tabloid thinking is sort of related to setting legitimate odds. Included in betting lines are not only actual prediction of outcomes, but a prediction of the public’s prediction of the outcomes. This is because the casino wants an even amount of bets on all sides for a number of reasons we’ll discuss never. LETS GET TO THE FINGER POINTING.

THE FAVORITES:

1. Jenry Mejia. RP No Where. He is the first player to ever receive a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for PEDs, so he technically isn’t “active” But if I were a gambling man, Id bet that someone will still want to bet on this idiot. He literally failed three drug tests within a year and a half for THE SAME DRUG. WITH A LIFETIME BAN ON THE TABLE.

2. Billy Hamilton. CF Reds. Maybe it seems shocking to have the league leader in steals who hits for no power on this list. He is a fast center fielder who has hit like 4 Home Runs in his Career. However after the suspensions of Dee Gordon, who led the NL in steals in 2014 and 2015, and Sterling Marte, two little speedy guys who don’t fit typical steroid mold, we have to assume he is a horrible cheater who has no soul.

3. Eric Thames. 1st Base Brewers. I don’t think its fair to accuse him but John Lackey and some other cornball Cubs think it is. Thames is having a great season at the age of 30 after being exiled to play in Korea for the last 3 seasons. He is a big strong dude who is having success seemingly out of no where. But if you hear him do one interview you will love how articulate and humble he is, that like me you will never accept such a thing can be true. Even if he were to get caught he didn’t get caught. I wanna be a head in the sand 2004 Giants fan in regards to Thames. Let me enjoy it.

4. Ryan Zimmerman. 1st Base Nationals. He actually has a lot of “evidence” against him. Al-Jazeera in 2015 wrote a story that named Zimmerman, Ryan Howard and Peyton Manning as players who had received HGH from some spot. Ryan Zimmerman is still in the process of suing the network, but for the sake of odds making the damage is done. Also he is having by far the best season of his career and he blows donkey cock usually. Hes a right handed hitting first baseman. I hate those things man.

5. Tim Tebow. God. New York Mets Farm. Believe it or not, the MLB has “Jesus” on its list of banned substances. It’s only a matter of time for Tebow.

That’s all I got this is too much work. My finger is tired from pointing.  if you want to bet comment below. Ill pay you 500 X your bet on literally any other player if you want. Each of the above guys pay 300 To 1.

Ryan Depaulo