Have You Ever Rooted FOR an Injury/Benching Because of Your Bet?

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FadeThePublic

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Dark confession time. And I mean genuinely dark.

Two seasons ago I had a significant bet on a team to cover. Their star receiver was listed as questionable all week. I spent Thursday and Friday genuinely hoping he wouldn't play.

He got ruled out Saturday morning. My first feeling wasn't sympathy. It was relief.

A professional athlete I've never met, who works his entire life to play football, didn't play. And I felt good about it.

I'm not proud of that. But it happened.

Has anyone else been there? And where's the actual moral line between "I hope this player has a quiet game" and "I hope this player gets hurt"?
 
yeah... more times than i want to admit...

had a bet on the under once and a player went down in the second half... game slowed right down... i was relieved... genuinely relieved a person was injured...

felt sick about it after... but in the moment... relief...

thats one of the things that made me think i had a problem... when your first reaction to someone getting hurt is checking the scoreline...
 
Rooted for a benching yes.

Actual injury...

Want to say no.

But there was a match where Wales were covering and the opposition fly-half went off hurt early.

I didn't WANT him hurt.

But when he went off I thought "right that helps."

Is that the same thing?

Don't know.

Feels like it might be.
 
I've hoped for benchings. Definitely.

Injury is different in my head - I tell myself I'd never hope for an actual injury.

But Fade's question is the right one. Where's the line exactly?

If a player is "day to day" with a hamstring issue and I have a bet that benefits from him sitting out... am I hoping he's healthy enough to play or am I hoping he's not?

Honest answer: I'm hoping he's not. And that's uncomfortable to admit.
 
Oh no.

Okay I have to be honest.

I had Mahomes in a prop bet once and another time I had the under in a Chiefs game.

Those two feelings are completely different.

With the prop I'm like "please be amazing Patrick!!"

With the under I'm like "please just... manage the game."

I've never hoped he got HURT. That would horrify me.

But hoping he plays badly? Yeah I've done that.

Is that terrible?
 
This is the thread that separates the honest bettors from the ones performing honesty.

I'm a coach. I've watched kids get hurt on the field. I know what injuries mean. The pain, the rehab, the psychological toll.

And yes. I've had bets where I noticed a star player was limping and felt... not bad about it.

I hate that about myself. But it happened.
 
Have hoped for benchings based on tactical reasoning.

"This player's absence benefits my model" is how I frame it internally.

Clinical framing doesn't change the underlying wish.

If the player gets injured to produce that absence: I have benefited from harm.

Whether I actively wished for the harm is perhaps a distinction without moral difference.
 
Yes. Routinely.

Not injury specifically. But absence by any means.

Suspension, illness, coach decision, personal reasons.

Any absence that improves my position. I've wanted all of them.

Injury is just one mechanism. The wish is the same regardless of mechanism.
 
Oli cutting straight to it.

The mechanism doesn't change the wish. That's the honest version.
 
Suspension is easier to stomach though innit.

Player broke a rule. Consequences followed.

Injury is different.

Person doing their job gets physically damaged and I'm quietly relieved.

That feels worse.
 
Taffy I think you're right that there's a moral gradient here.

Hoping someone sits out a coach's decision: least bad.
Hoping for suspension: they did something wrong, consequences exist.
Hoping for illness: uncomfortable but not wishing active harm.
Hoping for injury: actually hoping someone's body gets damaged.

Most of us have done the first three without much thought.

The injury one is where it gets genuinely dark.
 
the injury thing happened to me in live betting which made it worse...

was watching in play... needed something to change... player went down... my brain did the maths before my conscience caught up...

thats the speed of it that gets me... the relief comes before you can stop it...
 
Conor that's the involuntary response that's hardest to reckon with.

It's not premeditated. It's the reward circuitry firing faster than the moral processing.

But that doesn't make it better. It just explains the mechanism.
 
I must be honest here because this thread demands it, yes I have experienced relief at injury news and I am not comfortable with it, the specific instance I recall most clearly involved a goalkeeper whose absence significantly improved my expected value on a match I had analyzed extensively, when the team sheet was announced without him I felt satisfaction before I felt anything resembling human sympathy, what disturbs me most is not the feeling itself which perhaps cannot be controlled but the speed at which the financial calculation preceded any consideration of the person involved, Margaret would have been appalled by this and I think that reaction is the correct one, I have never wished injury on anyone in the active sense but the passive relief at injury news is perhaps equally revealing about what betting does to how we process other human beings.
 
Prof "the financial calculation preceded any consideration of the person involved."

That's it exactly.

Person becomes variable.

Not a human being with a family and a career.

Just a variable in the equation.
 
This is making me feel really uneasy.

Because I think I've done the variable thing without realising it.

Like I've been frustrated when a player I needed "selfishly" scored for the other team or had a bad game.

I never thought about them as a person in those moments. Just as a thing affecting my bet.
 
Princess that's the subtle version of what we're all describing.

Dehumanization through betting is a spectrum.

Full dehumanization is relief at serious injury.

But treating a person as a variable in your equation is the same impulse at lower intensity.
 
Here's the thing that actually bothers me most.

I've watched games hoping a player has a quiet game, stays healthy, doesn't get hurt.

But the "stays healthy" part of that is partially self-interested. I don't want him hurt because an injury delays the game, changes the dynamics, creates uncertainty.

The wish that he stays healthy isn't entirely altruistic.

That's a layer deeper than I wanted to go today.
 
Eddie identifying something important.

Even "positive" wishes toward players during games may be instrumentally motivated.

We want them healthy because it serves our betting position.

Not because we care about them.

Moral cleanliness of betting psychology possibly lower than we tell ourselves.
 
i remember once genuinely willing a player to stay down after a challenge...

not wishing he was badly hurt... but hoping the game would stop long enough to affect the clock and timing...

told myself that wasnt the same as hoping he was injured...

probably was though...
 
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