Is Joining The Pirate Ship And Immediately Claiming You're The Best Gambler In The Company Who Hits At An Impossible 67 Percent Clip Bad Decorum?

I saw this clip last night and immediately started to miss the big bro Big Cat. The NYC office is just sketch comedy now and an alarming lack of sports, unless you count Rico coming in everyday to talk about CYO hoops and obscure college coaches we don't care about. This was always the plan, move the sports side to the Chicago office and let the comedians cook here in the comedy hotbed of America, but it is a little sad seeing Katz thrive in the Windy City and not here. Whatever. Let's focus on the real issues at hand.

I want to preface this by saying I don't know this new kid Nicky Smokes, and am happy enough for him that he gets to live what apparently was a lifelong dream of working at the pirate ship. But gambling decorum is something that is well illustrated here at Barstool, and there's been many a victim to not having any of it. Some of us have lost 50 burgers, and others have hid gambling syndicates from boss man and the Cat. There's a decade-long gambling war here at Barstool and it's certainly disingenuous to get a foot in the door and claim you're Billy Walters on your first cup of coffee as Dave would say. 

Saying you hit 67% in an entire NFL season is not only close to statistically impossible, but it also discredits any future picks you'll ever give. It's also irresponsible because once that falls on Dave and Dan's ears, they're going to tail you to Bolivian and it's an absolute no-win situation. But if that 67% were true, you'd be eating steak and caviar every night for dinner, and probably a lot further places than sitting watching baseball games with that caveman White Sox Dave who will hand you food out of the trash and not think twice about it. I get the whole "I'm the best gambler here, follow or fade, you all suck, I own baseball even though I admittedly have not watched a pitch all year" bit because if you get hot early, you can maybe get a couple fools to believe you. If not, you're just like everyone else which is a responsible loser who knows the risks and never places a wager that is beyond their means. 

There's been a ton of people who have entered these walls and felt the pressure to try and fit in. We had an intern one year who said he was up 26.3 units on first basket props in the NBA, and he spent his Sundays in the office screaming in the gambling cave over his fantasy football players while Big Cat had (responsibly) bet the board. We haven't heard from him since. We had a Former King of the South come into the mix and immediately go like 0-6 his first day giving picks. Now he just peddles watches at poker rooms across the country. Rico's been giving out losers for three presidencies and now is squeezed out of Chicago. Megan Making Money wasn't making any money on her first day on the ship because she gave out a HR derby loser on a livestream with Dave and Dan. She's doing great but I digress. It's easy to feel like you have to fake being something you aren't because you want big bad Big Cat to like you.

All of this is to say that we should have a Gambling School for employees old and new who wish to partake in responsible betting.   That might fall on deaf ears because it's 11 am as I write this and there's a total of 2 people in this office (shoutout Steven Cheah and Klemmer, two guys who you can trust to give you some data driven analysis and not just "I bet trust me bro"). Maybe that can be the barrier to entry for the new Chicago office. You have to sit in a room and watch hours of footage of gambling-gone-awry with new people saying they're giving strictly winners and quickly realizing it's not that simple. Couple that with some ways to give responsible picks without looking like a total clown and you're good to go.

Anyway, welcome to Nicky Smokes and it's going to be a long journey of living up to what was an absolutely ludicrous statement that absolutely won't backfire on you. I'm rooting for him to live up to those expectations though. Godspeed.