THE RAGE AND ROAR OF SPORTS GAMBLING: Betting picks and tips for bowl season

Whatever the glories of sports gambling, what of sports themselves? They’re the last meritocracy — can’t fake it — and without them sports gambling couldn’t exist. Gotta have something to gamble on.

I marvel at the passion for pure-chance gambling — slots, roulette wheels, craps. Part of sports gambling’s allure is the assumption, mostly but not wholly delusional, that success depends not wholly on luck but partly on knowledge and skill.

Its other appeal is that it extends the thrill of youthful games beyond youth. Now you’re competing not against a rival high school but against a sportsbook. Guess who usually wins. But not always.

Indeed, there are those who claim to make livings doing this, and I must reveal their tricks downstream, on the off chance I haven’t. The autobiography of Billy Walters, the world’s most famous sports gambler, was published last year. On my reading-priorities list it’s still beneath Heidegger’s “Being and Time” and Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” but I did hear an interview in which he said he spends more than a million bucks a year just on researching his picks.

That gives you an idea of the endless challenges of this. If you plowed through all the factors that determine who covers, endless hours could be spent analyzing one game, at the end of which, 90 percent of the time, the honest conclusion would be that given the spread there’s no basis for making a pick.

By far most covers are decided by who gets the breaks on turnovers, injuries, officiating, and flukes in general. The key is to find the rare exceptions, surely less than 10 percent, and load big on them, within the bounds of one’s bankroll.

It makes you wonder why anyone does this. What the hell, read Schopenhauer and wonder why anyone does anything. How many of us have any serious talent for anything important? Say I had the talent to write “Thus Spake Zarathustra” or do life-saving surgery. Then I could be justly be condemned for doing this instead. But I lack that talent, and I want to stay distracted from thinking about that painful truth.

I’m forced to conclude that for the talentless 99 percent of the human race, especially in this age in which anything we do technology can do better, there is no life after high school: either you keep on with your high-school role, or at least try to do so, or you rebel against it. In either case, high school rules.

Meanwhile I keep awaiting a definitive history of sports bars. How they’ve evolved over the decades, in a classic illustration of the “multiplier effect” of sports gambling. If they’re arranged ideally, you can watch half a dozen games at once. Anything is interesting if you have enough money on it.

The spirits industry profits from this hugely, of course. People still go to bars to drink, but bookies have ways to make it hard to drink losing bets off one’s mind.

And think of the broadcasting networks. What would happen to TV ratings for college and pro football if gambling were somehow to stop? Gambling shows are growing, yet game announcers are still not allowed to mention point spreads.

Imagine hearing this: “Well, Joe, Alabama is cruising by 48 against the Musketeers of Chattanooga Tech, but many fans are still sweating and trembling over whether the Tide will call off the dogs before covering the 51-point spread.”

“Judge not,” Jesus sayeth, “lest ye be judged.” It’s a hard world to get a break in.

Sage’s Selections

Picks are listed first and rated one to five stars: the more stars, the stronger the pick. Minus sign: favored by; plus sign: underdog by. Lines are from the Wednesday-night “Scores and Matchups” page of Covers.com. Record for season: 63-62, 75-78 on star basis. Times Central.

* Friday, 2:30 p.m. Tulane +12.5 vs. Florida in Tampa

* Friday, 7 p.m. Indiana +7 at Notre Dame

* Saturday, 11 a.m. Penn St –8.5 hosts SMU

* Saturday, 3 p.m. Clemson +12 at Texas

* Saturday, 7 p.m. Tennessee +7 at Ohio St.

S. Bradley Miller of Manhattan is the Fabulous Sage. You can reach him at thefabsage@aol.com.