I’m not much of a gambling man, as I would hate to end up the subject of a 30-for-30-style documentary about incredibly handsome bloggers who blew their entire fortunes by losing money at picking Top Chef winners. I do, however, appreciate a good gentleman’s bet, or in this case a very attractive lady’s bet, in which money is cast aside for personal humiliation.

Unfortunately, I do not know the terms of the bet that resulted in a 23-year old Russian girl named Alina Borodina (above, as identified by Red Hot Russia) running through traffic on a busy street in just her bikini. What I do know is that Alina is a very wonderful person and I would very much like to introduce her to my mother. Also, her name rhymes and that means she might be a Disney princess, in which case she’s ridiculously wealthy.

While I don’t really have any further context to this video, I do have a theory as to why this woman “humiliated” herself by running around in a bikini.

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As a person who only gambles as part of a horrifying addiction to fantasy football, forgive me if I’m a little misogynistic here. I don’t mean to be, because I’m a classic gentleman, born and raised with southern elegance and hands as soft as a cloud shaped like a polar bear cub. That said, some broad made a $5 football bet on a 15-team parlay through Las Vegas-based Station Casinos, and thanks to the New Orleans Saints’ 28-13 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, this anonymous woman is now $99,995 richer.

It turns out that this lady – obviously withholding her name from the media so the government won’t catch on, so get on that IRS – managed to pick both NFL and NCAA football victories correctly, even including one hell of an underdog.

She picked all 13 NFL games and two college games, beginning with Nebraska as a 2-point favorite over Michigan State. The Cornhuskers covered when Taylor Martinez threw a five-yard touchdown pass to Jamal Turner in the final seconds for a 28-24 victory.

Nebraska trailed 24-14 in the contest with eight minutes to go. Most of her games weren’t nearly as nerve-racking.

The biggest underdog, San Diego State +15, won outright 21-19 at Boise State. (Via the Las Vegas Sun)

This victory may seem like just another feel good story for some nickel slots loser who finally hits the jackpot, but it marks something much bigger than just a happy ending for Marge and the bingo hall gals. This $100,000 victory was the cherry on top of what the Sun also reported was the “worst ever” NFL week for the Vegas sports books. Is this just hyperbole? Probably. But let’s panic and overreact anyway.

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As always, it’s important to preface this post about NBA Championship gambling odds by saying that I do not gamble, and therefore I do not offer gambling advice. Even when I offer fantasy advice, that’s just coming from my gut, but you have to keep in mind that my gut went to Harvard while the rest of my body went to a public Florida university. The moral of this story is to make up your own mind, because I can only be trusted for fart jokes.

That said, the gambling site Bovada, which does claim to be run by experts and provide expert analysis, has released its odds for all 30 NBA teams winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and without any real surprise, the defending champion Miami Heat are the favorites, and the Los Angeles Lakers are right behind them. After that, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs get a little love, but these odds basically tell us what we already know about this upcoming season – the Charlotte Bobcats are terrible.

Check out the odds after the jump, with very few surprises.

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Last week, I had the pleasure of taking part in the 22nd annual Florida College Football Roast (video soon), presented by the Kiwanis Club of Palm Beach Gardens, at which representatives of Florida’s top colleges (excluding USF, because) talk a little trash before the college football season starts each year. Basically, it was a chance for 6 of us to make fun of UCF’s NCAA sanctions and FAU’s empty stadium, while peppering Florida State and Florida with redneck jokes and Miami with prison remarks. All in the name of charity, of course.

But one of the more common jokes this year regarded No. 6 Florida State’s schedule, as the Seminoles began the season with a cupcake in Murray State (won 69-3) and will play another pastry in Savannah State tomorrow. Normally, this isn’t any big deal – teams schedule fluff all the time – but the oddsmakers have issued a fun little challenge to FSU.

If you go with No. 6 Florida State in Saturday’s game against lowly Savannah State, you’ll be starting with a 70½-point deficit.

That’s right, SEVENTY AND A HALF!

“Without a doubt,” said Mike Colbert, vice president of risk management for Las Vegas-based Cantor Gaming, “this is the biggest line I’ve put up in 10 years doing this.”

No kidding. From all indications, this is largest point spread ever for a Division I game. (Via ESPN)

Last week, No. 18 Oklahoma State defeated the very same Savannah State team 84-0 for the biggest cover in history at 65.5 points, which led to CBS’ resident “I don’t agree with anything that anyone says, but I’m just me, this is all just me being me” guy, Gregg Doyel, calling for the death penalty or something ridiculous for OK State and FSU.

However, if you’re not ashamed of looking for an entertaining subplot for this weekend’s NCAA football action, this would be it. Can Florida State help create a fun new pissing contest that will eventually rope in college’s best scoreboard-runners by one-upping OK State? Better yet, which previously-unheard-of school will Urban Meyer schedule so he can get a piece of this action? Will Chip Kelly play two quarterbacks at a time just so Oregon can score 200 points per game? This could be fun.

Meanwhile, if you need to reach Savannah State’s athletic director, he’ll be in Las Vegas dropping the $860,000 that his team has made in two weeks on Florida State to cover.

Now that the 2012 Summer Olympics are behind us, we can officially say the same for Michael Phelps, he of the 22 Olympic medal fame. That is, unless he plans to show up to Rio for the 2016 games and be that bro who just comes back to chill with the younger bros and teach them a thing or two, but in either case he’s done competing at the Olympics. That means it’s time to start tearing him apart after we’ve all done so much to build him up.

Enter: The National Enquirer and its mynah bird, The Daily Mail. According to super secret inside sources and “a poker-playing friend” of Phelps, the 27-year old has taken quite the liking to professional poker – as evidenced by that above photo from 2008 and all of the times we’ve seen him playing poker since – and they’re worried that his wealth is in danger of his eagerness to gamble. I guess he really is the Michael Jordan of swimming. *high fives porpoise*

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As I mentioned earlier in my Peabody Award nominee post about Princess the Prognostic Camel, I’m not much of a gambler. That doesn’t stop people from asking me for advice, though, because when you tell people that you’re a sports blogger, you should probably include that you’re a dick joke maker and not an expert, otherwise people will assume you know things.

But aside from bar squares and fantasy football, there is one specific type of gambling that I’m a sucker for – Super Bowl prop bets. And this year there are some awesomely stupid bets to be made, from Kelly Clarkson’s National Anthem prowess to Madonna’s Skeletor arms. Side note: Madonna, LMFAO and Cee Lo are set to perform updated variations of Madonna’s old hits. She’s like the George Lucas of music. Madonna might as well make Cee Lo dress like Jar Jar Binks.

Where was I? Yes, prop bets. They’re typically for the most degenerate gamblers, as people who feel the need to bet on every little thing – including the coin flip, the color of Gatorade dumped on the winning coach and how many yards Hakeem Nicks’ first catch will be – for the sake of getting their rush and/or making up for all the money they lost during the regular season. Today, though, I’m making prop bets into something for the average person.

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