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As gamblers, we all have plenty of stories to tell. Like me, I'm sure most of you can see a highlight from a game played in 1991 and remember the story behind it. "I remember this game," I will often say when seeing a highlight from some obscure game that no one remembers. "I had San Fran and the over. I needed three points with a quarter to go and no one scored."

In my line of work I'm fortunate enough to be on the radio talking sports. Some times I'll get into my gambling "past," as we like to call it around here. It's amazing how those stories grab the public's attention. But the thing is, they don't give a damn about the triumphant stories, they want to hear about the misery. That's what puts asses in the seats. They love hearing how I lost $500 on a last second Hail Mary or banked three-pointer.

And after the last two UCLA games that affected thousands of people in the final seconds and gave them yet another gambling story to tell for the rest of their lives, I got to thinking. What was my worst gambling loss ever? Of course, even though I had many to chose from, it didn't take me long to find the most gut wrenching defeat of my life. I'm sure many of you who had the game will remember the story I'm about to tell.

It was a crisp late November afternoon in the northeast. The year was 1998 and the teams were the Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots. I had the Bills getting 3.5 points. Buffalo was up 21-17 with only seconds remaining, so I was just waiting to cash my winning ticket. Then the craziness started. Drew Bledsoe threw a desperation Hail Mary pass into the end zone that fell incomplete. For the first time in the history of organized football, the refs called defensive pass interference on the Bills. Truth be told, it was interference but I've seen the exact same play hundreds of times with no call.

No worries. The Patriots had a final chance for a touchdown from the 1-yard line. Play action pass, Bledsoe throws a dart to Ben Coates in the back of the end zone and New England takes the lead. Now because I'm getting 3.5 I still haven't broken a sweat. The Patriots are just going to kick the extra point and I win. Then the unthinkable happened. The Bills, so outraged that the refs called a pass interference penalty on the final play of the game, walked off the field in disgust. The Patriots still had to attempt the extra point and with no players from Buffalo on the field, they snapped the ball and walked into the end zone for a two-point conversion (which was the correct thing to do because of future tie-breaker circumstances).

I was paralyzed. I couldn't even breath. I just lost $500 because of a pass interference call on a Hail Mary, followed by a touchdown and uncontested two-point conversion. By the way, this all happened with 10 seconds remaining in the game. It was one of the only times I actually wept after a loss. To this day I can't tell the story without shaking and feeling nauseous. That was by far the worst loss of my life.

Now, since misery loves company, give me some of your worst beats of all-time because I guarantee you that any game you mention, most of us were on one side or the other.

22 Comments:

	posted by Floridachad on 03/28/2008 11:02 AM Damn, that is horrible. The only bet I ever lost that sticks with me happened at Arlington Race Track back in the early 90's. I had 5 horses boxed in an 11 or 12 horse field for a superfecta. Coming out of the final turn, they were running 1-4 and 6th. There was a good two lengths between 4th and 5th and I was jumping and cheering, my heart was racing and I had butterflies in my stomach. Understand that this was only my second time wagering on horses. Suddenly, the horse in 4th starts to slow down and in seconds, and the 5th horse beats him by a head at the line. To this day, I have no idea what happened to that asshole horse in the last furlong. I horses ended up finishing 1,2,3,5,6. And I hadn't bet the trifecta. Granted that this was only a $120 bet, but at 21-22 yrs old, $120 was a lot of money. I didn't gamble the rest of the day because I was so pissed. I did however manage to get stinking drunk. And the payout on that superfecta...over $6000. That being said Tommy, I still think your story is worse. Hey, we all have to get our asses handed to us at least once, right?
	posted by Tommy Rider on 03/28/2008 11:14 AM That sucks Chad. Hey, at least you got drunk after. I went shopping for hand guns.
	posted by ReggieNYC27 on 03/28/2008 11:42 AM Can't give you the details but in early '80's, Knicks were covering on a late hoop. The ball was inbounded by the opposing team, Earl Monroe caught it and flipped it in the opposing team's basket. No Knick cover. That was a burn.
	posted by Tommy Rider on 03/28/2008 12:01 PM That's a good one Reggie. That's a scenario I can honestly say has never happened to me...Thank God.
	posted by jumperjack on 03/28/2008 1:40 PM My worst beat also happens to be my largest one bet loss ever. Back about 15 years ago? the Steelers and Jags were playing on Monday Night Football. Time was running out and I had the Steelers +2 or 2.5, something like that. They were losing by a point and driving to set up the game-winning FG(which I didn't even need since I was already covering). They get down close enough to attempt it and call TO and line up for what will be a game winning FG, make or miss I win!! The Jags blocked that FG and returned it for a TD. The person who was running that block back passed Bill Cowher at about midfield and Cowher had a clenched fist looking like he was gonna deck the Jaguars player. Time had already run out, and all the Jag player had to do was step out of bounds at any time and the game ended. He took it to the house, and gave me my largest single bet loss on sports in my life($990). It also gave me my hardest learned money management lesson. I was kicking ass to that point in the season(I think it was an October game) and from that point on I just never got my mojo back and had basically a break even season in football after being off to my best start ever in NFL.
	posted by Floridachad on 03/28/2008 2:34 PM I remember that game jumperjack. As I recall, it looked for a split second like Cowher was gonna tackle Chris Hudson. That began a bit of a Pit-Jax rivalry.
	posted by Tommy Rider on 03/28/2008 2:53 PM Jumper, I had the Jags in that game. My buddy and I were down big and needed that game badly. We were jumping up and down hugging each other. That was back before I learned how to gamble and manage money myself. Unfortunately two years later I would not have lady luck on my side in a Monday night game and took a $5,500 hit. That's a lesson I never forgot and never will forget.
	posted by vaughn172000 on 03/28/2008 3:22 PM Wow tommy! I remember watching that game! Thought it was one of the best Pats comebacks ever. I thought you were going to talk about losing on the Super Bowl this year!
	posted by freeneasy on 03/28/2008 3:25 PM number of years ago it wasa muddy day, santa anita was running and i was at the offtrack at the ventura county fairgrounds. the day before or so i designed a wang bang toiletbowl system and had the card all capped. so the 1st race starts and i played it all, double, pic 3, ex, and tri. bang not even a show. so iam thinking geez that was pretty bad. so i bet the 2nd race again mixing up the doubles, triples, exactas and tris. bang, nothing even came close, and like a good little racing junkie when the 3rd race came around i did the same thing and again with the same reults. i played like 3 ,4 horses in each of the 1st 3 races and couldnt even get a show horse. so the 4th came around and i said fts and i bet a pic 6 with 4 singles in 4 races, 2 horses in another race and in the last race i liked two horses. normally i would just play the 2 horses together on a short ticket to make an $8 pic six . but i had such a bad showing on the 1st 3 races that i figured id probably be saving 4bucks if i singled the last race seeing as i probably didnt have much of a chance with the way my new system was preforming. so i did i singled the last race and went home. next day i look in the paper and in the 4th race, the 1st leg of the pic 6 i had a winner, 2nd leg another winner, 3 leg winner, 4th leg winner, now iam getting butterflies, 5 leg winner and onthe 6 th leg of the pic six the horse i had singled got second and the horse i left out in order to save 4 bucks won the race unbelievable. i picked up the consolation for about 6-8 hundred bucks.i cant remember what the 6 paid and i know it was like in the short twentys maybe 23 but for an extra 4 bucks the consolation just didnt quite make me feel so consoled
	posted by Cheungy on 03/28/2008 3:54 PM college football season had the UNDER and the game was pretty over. one team was up over 10 points and there was less than 40 seconds left. The team that was down had the ball and brought in their backup QB. he threw a hail mary and the rest was history OVER.
	posted by Hellerud on 03/28/2008 3:58 PM my worst loss was when i was on betus and got pissed played some ONLINE Black JAck and lost 2 50 dollar hands in a row! haha
	posted by Tommy Rider on 03/28/2008 4:00 PM Vaughn. I had the over big in the Super Bowl but that was just flat-out wrong. The game went a way I never expected it to. I wasn't so shocked to see the Giants win, but the way they won by holding the Patriots to 14 points is something I never expected. But when you are that wrong about a game it's a lot easier to swallow the loss in my opinion.
	posted by Cheungy on 03/28/2008 7:18 PM o yeah my bet was only 5 dollars but it stung nonetheless
	posted by lgjr1 on 03/29/2008 2:38 PM WE ALL HAVE BEEN THERE TRIDER ! LETS GET EM TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!! G L !
	posted by Rocky Atkinson on 03/29/2008 2:41 PM We had a huge play on Tampa Bay on Monday Night Football a few years back and I think they were playing Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Tampa Bay had a huge lead of around 17 points or so and blew it and the cover with less than four minutes left in the game. Anybody remember that one?
	posted by jlamberti3 on 03/29/2008 2:47 PM yeah, didn't the same thing happen with them this year?
	posted by Tommy Rider on 03/29/2008 3:13 PM I had the over in that Tampa/Indy game Rocky. That was the game where Keyshawn was mocking Marvin Harrison on the sideline about catching 3-yard passes and being called the best receiver in the NFL. That really came back to bite him in the ass seeing that Harrison ate up the Tampa defense in the fourth quarter.
	posted by JJ3 on 05/08/2008 10:01 PM I don't think that I will ever be able to forget Memphis losing their minds altogether in the last 2 minutes vs Kansas. The free throws eventually came back to bite me and my bankroll in the ass, and I didn't even have enough money left to drink my sorrows away. When Chalmers hit that 3, I almost passed out, sober.
	posted by akwon3 on 05/16/2008 8:07 AM JJ3, i hear ya on that. I was on kansas BIG, even had a huge parlay with kansas and the under. when they were down 9, i started pouring the alcohol, getting ready to say bye to all the winnings from the tourny. Down 9, i didn't even think about a comeback. But for them to do it, go to OT and still stay under...biggest single score of my betting life.
	posted by shlomo goldstein on 06/06/2008 11:21 PM i placed a 7-team teazer at the mirage for $1000. the payout on that bet was a respectable $11000. six of the nfl games were on sunday which hit with ease, the last game,mnf bears at the blazing hot vikings was the only game between me and 11k. i consulted with six nfl experts all agreeing on a minnesota blowout. i only needed sota by 1 at home. on the last play of the game chicago upsets randall and the vikes, beats me for 11k + 1k on the bet. the next day my accountant friends said "you hedged and won 5k, right? i said why would i hedge if minnesota was the lock of the century. they all laughed; needless to say they've all hedged their lives into misery while i'm still betting 7-teamers, not knowing what a job is
	posted by jmoo2k8 on 08/28/2008 6:08 PM I put together a 10 team parlay for the tournament and put $5 on it. the last game was Memphis and Tx-arlington, they gotten the over and Memphis was covering. UTA missed the shot and Jeff Robinson just fouls the guy from uta for no reason. He sinks 2 free throws, the teams shakes hands and the clock runs out, I just saw $3,000 go away.
	posted by Tommy Rider on 08/28/2008 7:52 PM I had the Titans -4 over the Packers in this preseason game. The Pack scored on the first play of the game but I'm not worried. I tell Matty, "That's fine. Now they'll take the starters out." They did. The Titans rolled up close to 300 yards of offense in the first half, were inside the 10-yard line four times and only scored 9 points. Despite all that, Tennessee led 23-15 with three seconds left. But on the final play of the game, the Pack threw a 22-yard touchdown pass with no time remaining. They of course missed the 2-point conversion and the Titans won 23-21. By the way, Vince Young is a comical joke.