“I told you so!”

“You’ll get ‘em next time.”



“How much did you lose?”



“Your wife/girlfriend/spouse/Mail-order Russian bride is going to be pissed!”





“That was awesome! I bet the other side.”



“At least you have a good story/it was exciting.”







“Well, it was close. You almost covered.”

“This is why I don’t gamble.”





It’s that losing wager that had no business losing. You did everything right: Handicapped the matchups, got the best odds, and ate your ritualistic fried bologna sandwich. But still, everything went to shit on just one play.If you happen to witness this agony, here are eight things you should never say to a bettor coming off a bad beat. Trust us, you’ll be happy we warned you:When you made your pick, your chum provided the play-by-play, offering up the kind of insight that would make Phil Simms sound like Vince Lombardi. “I don’t know, man”, followed up by some bullshit reason why you shouldn’t bet that side.And here we are, the final whistle still ringing in your ears and this guy brings some school-yard trash like, “I told you so” to the table? If this was junior high school, you’d be throwing down at the monkey bars come recess. But you’re an adult. Do what adults do and “unfriend” him on Facebook.However, if this continues to happen week after week, you may want to fade yourself and ride the “I told you so” guy to the bank.Geez coach, can we still go out for ice cream?Thanks for the verbal pat on the ass. Save the uplifting speeches for the team that just screwed me over. I’m sure they could use a pick-me-up after shitting the bed in the final seconds.And who the hell is “’em”? The bookmaker? The other team? That sweet pair of Air Jordans I was going to grab if this bet came through?Whether you wagered $10, $100, or $1,000, bad beats sting. But let’s be honest, $10 lost on a dropped pass in the end zone is equivalent to a bee sting, while a $1,000 bad beat feels like a frickin’ vampire bat just muckled onto your jugular.Now, let’s picture someone taking a big bag of salt and rubbing that all over your sting.Asking a bettor how much they lost on a bad beat is exactly the same as someone prodding you about how your investments did last year. Except, for some reason it’s frivolous to wager on a sporting event and wise to hand your hard-earned money over to a crooked investor.Who’s really getting the bad beat here?Perhaps the only thing worse than suffering a bad beat is getting read the riot act from your significant other.Not only did you just lose money – money that could have been put toward that new light fixture she wants for the dining room – but you also spent three hours or so watching it go down the drain - three hours you could have used to install that new light fixture in the dining room.The broadcast isn’t even over yet and you’re already reminding me of the shit storm that lurks when I get home.Honestly though, if you need to sneak around behind your lady’s back to bet on sports, then something isn’t right. You’re either playing with money you don’t have or… your girlfriend's a lunatic. And if it’s both, a bad beat is the least of your worries.To every Yin, there’s a Yang.While you’re cursing the gambling gods after your bet gave up a three-goal lead in the third, there’s another dude somewhere celebrating the greatest wagering win he’s ever known.If you happen to be on the winning side of someone’s bad beat, it’s best to just keep that excitement bottled up inside. You shouldn’t make eye contact or any sudden movements, and casually remove all sharp or pointy objects from within an arm’s length of the loser. And whatever you do, don’t feed them after midnight.If you’re in the sportsbook, play it cool. Maybe wait for the crowds of bruised betting egos to file out before heading to the window to collect your winnings - might save you from getting jumped outside. And if someone in your party is coming down off a bad beat, you can always cash that ticket another day and spring for pizza or the cab ride home... you lucky jerk.Why do people bet on sports? Because it’s fun.You know what isn’t fun? Losing. And not just “losing”, but losing a sure-fire outright winner on a goal in injury time. The kind of losing that made your testicles take cover up inside you like in the middle of January when you ran outside in your housecoat to grab the garbage can, then accidentally locked the door behind you.Everybody loves to bitch - sports bettors especially. But let us do it on our own time. We’ll share our sad little bad beat story with the world when we’re ready. That could be right away on the posting forum or at a bar 15 years down the road with a bunch of old friends comparing their sports betting scars.An old basketball coach once told me, “Close only counts in horseshoes and intercourse.”By today’s tight-assed standards, that coach would have been forced to walk the plank for his off-color variation of the classic idiom. But, as a 16-year-old high school kid – who had played horseshoes maybe twice before and never held, let alone thrown a hand grenade – I understood what he meant perfectly.Oddsmakers are so good at drumming up their numbers that just about every wager ends up being a close call. So trying to keep my chin up by telling me how narrow my margin of defeat was is like telling me I’m the most handsome boy at the leper colony.You wanna talk about close? You’re about “this” close to getting punched in the neck.We saved the absolute worst for last.The “holier than thou” routine is somewhere between spitting in my face and dropping my baby daughter. It's an offense punishable by banishment, especially when served up after a bad beat.There’s a special place in hell reserved for those people - a cross between waiting in line for an iPhone 6 then finding out the store sold the last one to the guy in front of you, and spending a shit ton on Cavaliers tickets only to find out Greg Popovich is the new head coach and is benching everyone but Brendan Haywood, James Jones, Dion Waiters, Erik Murphy and signed Moochie Norris to a one-day contract just to piss you off.Sure pal, you love to sit with me while I wager, input your two cents, cheer along when the team does something great, and are the first one to call for bottle service when I’m coming off a big win. But when the shit hits the fan, it’s not your bankroll taking the knock.That’s like cooking up a bunch of bacon for your friends, because you like the way it smells, then crapping on them when they come down with heart disease. “That’s why I don’t eat bacon.”Yeah right. You love bacon, you prick…