Imagine that you made a wager that the total points scored in last Thursday’s South Alabama – Northwestern State game. would exceed 59.  Great contentment as the halftime score is 52-10 in favor of USA.  A total winner by halftime!  Until it wasn’t.  When South Alabama ran up the score to 87-10, the coaches agreed to not play the game’s final 9 minutes.

Uh oh!  Betting services have a general rule that a game must be played for at least 55 minutes for there to be action.  It seems beyond cruel for this ticket not to cash.  Believe it or not, USA had 6 touchdowns called back due to penalties.

This stoppage brought back memories of a Wisconsin visit to UNLV in 2002 for a night game.  With 7:41 to go, the electricity went out.  The coaches agreed to call it a night.  Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.  Conspiracy theorists had a field day with the outage but no villanous plot was ever uncovered.

Bettors are used to bad beats.  But for this wager not to cash takes bad luck to a new plateau.