Here’s who’s at the top of my list – Kansas. Always hurts to say it as a Mizzou fan, but let’s give this extremely talented group some credit. Their experience will put them over the top this year, and you can expect another year of that mezmerizing deep blue shining through at the end of the Final Four. Look no further than Sheron Collins and Cole Aldrich. You could, but you don’t need to.

How about Kentucky? They could surprise some people and get through to the Final Four, but that’ll probably be as far as their run would go this year. Kentucky will probably start off good but not great, and then come together in January when conference play begins.

Who else is in that “top tier” of teams? Duke, no, not this year folks. My group is Nova, MSU and, believe it or not, Texas. Look for the Longhorns to sprint up the Big 12 standings and finish at least second, ahead of MU, Texas A&M and Oklahoma. Damion James plus experience and some depth at point guard mean Texas is going deep in the tournament in 2010. UL and Arizona are flashy, exciting, well-coached teams that’ll find a nice home somewhere in the Top 25, but aren’t quite championship material yet.

Am I crazy for not having mentioned the college basketball odds on UNC yet? Aren’t they an unstoppable force in college basketball? Yeah, that was last year. Take a look at the faces that make up this year’s team and you’ll find yourself staring at a vastly different group of guys. Four major contributing members of the title team are now looking forward to playing in the NBA, and yes, they have a heck of a freshman crop coming in (ESPN rated the recruiting No. 2 in the nation), but you can’t count on that translating into wins this year.

Dodgers at Cardinals: Two first-place teams clashing in what might just be a preview of the first round of the postseason. Adam Wainwright and is sub-3 ERA go for the home team, taking on Chad Billingsley, who has a not-too-shabby 3.7 ERA and 10-5 record. The Cardinals are in the ultimate dog race with 3 other teams for division crown in the central, while the Dodgers are still cruising in the West – so technically you could say the Cards have more to play for, but in a statement game like this, nobody takes the day off. The Cards are struggling in July, and their hitting has dipped to 12th in the NL. They might be at home, but with two good pitchers going, it’ll come down to the hitting, and L.A. has a sizable edge there. Dodgers -155, Cards +135. Bet the Dodgers despite the line, they’ll pay off.

One more quickie because it has a big-name pitching matchup. Oswalt at Zambrano, I mean Astros at Cubs, who are two of those three previously mentioned teams fighting St. Louis for first place. Both pitchers have a mid-3 ERA and are a few games above .500, almost identical in the stats, except for one big one that often goes overlooked – WHIP. Oswalt’s is a good sports betting 0.2 points below Carlos’, who’s walked more and struck out less than in year’s past. Still, the home team gets the edge in this one, -130 to +120. Although I’d be more inclined to take the under if it’s at 7-9 instead of the money line.

Let’s go through the most popular one and see the odds and probability – I’ll let the numbers and the payoffs speak for themselves, and you as an informed player can determine ultimately if it’s something you want to try your hand at.

Super Sevens. Ah, nothing in gambling like the allure of a sexy 7. This side bet runs about five levels of difficulty deep. Starting with the first card, if it’s a seven and you’ve made this side bet, the typical payoff is something like 3:1 of your wager. If your first two cards are unsuited sevens, you can expect a nice enticing 50:1 payoff. The odds of one seven coming up in a six-deck game is a little more than 7 percent. For two to hit in a row, you’re looking at a 0.4% probability. That’s each hand remember, the odds reset every time the cards are swept.

Moving along, if you put $5 down on goldencasino.com on a side bet that your first two cards will be suited sevens, you’ll be looking at a quick $500 win. Of course, the odds of that happening are 0.115%. Which means it’s basically never going to happen. A tougher hand still is three unsuited sevens in a row, coming in at 0.037%. If you manage to strike gold with this hand, the reward is usually a 500:1 payoff. At this point, I really have to say I think you’re wasting your money. The return doesn’t justify the risk.

Finally, at a typical casino you can take this super sevens side bet all the way up to three suited sevens, which pays off a hefty 5,000:1, with a probability of hitting at 0.001%.

Also, keep in mind these payoffs don’t stack. You won’t get the 50:1 from two unsuited sevens in a row as well as the 3:1 for the first seven. It’s just the max payoff.

Many people think there are some kind of predictable patterns involved in the outcome of each spin of the online slot machines. However, these machines use random number generators which create a new number each time you play the game.

These numbers are not in a sequence and are not related to previous results by any formula.

Sometimes, it may happen that you find what it seems like a pattern, but they were generated by pure chance, being a coincidence and it’s not an actual pattern which will last. It’s quite likely the next time you’d start getting the same results; the final outcome would not be repeated.

Some gamblers think that once you had a big win, the machine ‘goes cold’ and you won’t have the same chances as before winning. In fact, each spin gives you exactly the same chances. Likewise, if you didn’t win anything in a long time, it doesn’t mean you have to win something soon.

The same is valid about the jackpot: the odds allow you to win it twice the same day, but you could also play for an entire year without winning it. It’s completely non-predictable and the chances remain constant throughout the game.

Another myth developed by slots strategy is that if you play with only one coin, you’re going to win more frequently. This myth was developed by unlucky gamblers, who played many games without winning anything, then they switch to fewer coins, and sooner or later, they win again, but they believe that switching to one coin it was what changed their luck.

Some slot machine gamblers think that you can increase your odds if you press the button at the exact time. Although this is technically true, as the slot machine computers generate hundreds of numbers every second, you’d have to know the exact microsecond when to hit the button and that’s not possible, because by the time your brain told your finger to hit the button, a hundred numbers have already passed.

Don’t let these myths spoil your fun while playing one of the most popular games in any casinos.