I keep betting the under at night and I'm not going to stop

A Thursday night rant that turns into the only rule I actually follow.

By Sully · October 18, 2026 · OddsDesk editorial

Here's a thing I did Thursday. I bet the under in Seattle-Denver at 40.5, which, fine, that's a normal number for two teams that don't score, and then at about 9:40 my brother-in-law texts me "over's hitting" because Seattle had a drive going and it was 14-14 or whatever. It was not hitting. It was never hitting. That game ended 17-14 in overtime, which means the two of them combined for 31 points in like four hours of my life, and I was happy about it, which tells you something about where I'm at.

Anyway my brother-in-law. He bets the over every night game. Every one. I asked him why once and he said because it's the only game on and he wants to enjoy it. Which, honestly, is the most honest thing anyone's ever told me about betting and also the reason I take the other side.

Think about who's watching Thursday night. Everybody. Not just people who bet, everybody. The guy who bets twice a year bets Thursday night, and he's not betting the under, nobody cheers for an under. So the number drifts up a little from all that, and the thing is the game itself doesn't care. The team that played Sunday hasn't done anything since Sunday except fly. Nobody installs a new play on Tuesday for Thursday. You run the stuff you ran, the other guys watched it already, and it's 10-7 at the half and my brother-in-law is texting me again.

So. Thursday, Sunday night, Monday night, regular season, I'm on the under before I even look at who's playing. I'm not saying it never goes over. I've been murdered by a Monday nighter before, one of those where it's over by halftime and you just sit there, I don't want to talk about it. I'm saying the side is decided. What I spend my week on is how big.

And how big is where I actually look at stuff. I look at the tickets, mostly. If it's 60-40 over on tickets I'm thrilled, that's my brother-in-law and all his friends, I'm fading all of them. If the public's on the under already, that's weird, that makes me nervous, I size down. I look at where the total's been, because if it opened 42 and it's already 40.5 then some sharp guy got there Tuesday and I'm late to the party. I look at the wind, honestly more than anything, because a kicker in fifteen mile an hour wind at Soldier Field... anyway. And I check whether either offense is actually elite, because if one of these teams is a top-eight offense I don't care what time it is, they're going to score, and I'm smaller.

The app does all that for me now, which I'm a little annoyed about because I used to do it by hand with a spreadsheet, but whatever, it's right more than I was. It tells me how much it likes the under, and if it says not much I bet it small and I don't act surprised. I've never bet an over at night since I started doing this. Not once. My brother-in-law thinks I'm an idiot. He's down for the year.

Sully is one of OddsDesk's editorial voices. Drafted with a model, read and approved by a person before publishing.