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Last week’s three for three performance brought me back over .500 for the Best Bets. I’m at 8-6 now, having hit six of my last seven bets. Should’a been in Vegas.

It’d be great to keep the hot streak going. Using the Caesar’s-Hilton line at Vegas.com here are the picks for this week:

1. Kansas City (+3) vs Buffalo
Buffalo followed up a promising start with a four game losing streak. They lost a tough, last second game on Monday night. And they go on the road, to a tough place to play, minus safety Donte Whitner and cornerback Jabari Greer. That’s bad timing for heading to Kansas City where the Chiefs’ offense is starting to click with Tyler Thigpen throwing to the trifecta of Tony Gonzalez, Dwayne Bowe and Mark Bradley. The Chiefs haven’t won many games but I actually like them straight up in this contest.

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The first item in Peter King’s column this morning at SportsIllustrated.com indicated that the officiating call nullifying a touchdown on the last play of the Pittsburgh-San Diego game created a $66 million swing for gamblers.

Apparently $100 million was wagered on this game, $66 million of it on the Steelers, who were favored by four points, give or take depending on the venue. Thus, the final play was the difference between the Steelers covering the spread or not.

Conspiracy theorists apparently have concocted a brilliant story about the league getting a call from someone in Vegas discussing all the money that would be lost if the Steelers were allowed to keep the touchdown and then relaying that information on to game official Scott Green.

Conspiracy theorists, get over it.

NFL officiating has been, at times, abysmal this season. Quarterbacks might as well be wearing dresses for all the late hit calls and none of the zebras seem to be able to figure out what a fumble is anymore, which has screwed San Diego more than once.

But this was a remarkably fluky play at the end of a weird game that didn’t make a difference in the outcome of the game. Both teams, especially the losing Chargers, wanted to get off the field and Green was probably rushed a little bit into making the call, which, though wrong, was that LaDainian Tomlinson’s lateral went forward, thus ending the play.

It was weird, but I am highly, highly skeptical that there was anything crooked about it. It was too confusing a situation that happened way too fast for anything untoward to take place. So, gamblers, get over it. Sure, I like to see Vegas get beaten as often as possible. But football is a quirky game and weird things are going to happen sometimes.

if you can’t afford to lose it, don’t bet it in the first place.

I’m back, baby!!!

Okay, that’d be a stupid thing to think when it comes to gambling. And it probably does nothing more than tempt fate. But I did hit three of four Best Bets during week 10, just a week after flubbing all four of my picks.

Game by game, the Giants hung on to beat the Eagles straight up. The Vikings held on to beat Green Bay by a point but the Packers covered the spread. And Baltimore slobberknocked Houston, so not only did I hit my first three picks but they were all underdogs - a valuable thing when betting for real in Vegas.

I did stumble on picking the over in the San Diego v Kansas City tilt. But my 3-1 mark for the week brings me to 5-6 for the three weeks I’ve been doing these picks - not bad … if you take out the 0-4 second week. Uggh.

So, anyway, here we go with Best Bets Version 3:

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Well, last week anyone reading this page would have been better off betting against me - they’d probably be on their way to an early retirement, in fact.

One lesson I think I should learn is to just stay away from betting on Cincinnati games. You just never know what is going to happen when the Orange and Black hit the field this season.

In fact, bad teams in general have tended to screw me up this season, so perhaps staying away from Oakland, St. Louis and Detroit would be wise as well…

Nah.

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According to a quick look at Google Analytics, three people viewed my best bets for week nine, the second week this segment was in play.

Hopefully those three people didn’t put much stake in those predictions - they sucked. I went oh-for-four on Sunday on those picks and eroded my Centsports.com account by nearly half its value in the process.

It just goes to show that while gambling can be fun it’s best done recreationally and not in any effort to get rich or pay off your mortgage in a hurry. The poor showing also shows just how hard it is to beat Vegas on a regular basis.

Nonetheless, I’ll not give up. I’ll be back later this week with more picks - hopefully it goes better this time.

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