BettingLine!: Flagmageddon Day (Part #1)

(Editor’s Note: Everybody likes making a friendly wager once in a while! For Entertainment Purposes Only, of course. That’s why we’re introducing a new category called “BettingLine!”. If Las Vegas won’t take any action on what’s happening here in the Southside region, we will! Not really, because SouthsideCentral discourages all forms of illegal gambling. That would be illegal, folks. Heh.)

When it comes to the Super Bowl, you can place bets on things as ridiculous as the opening coin toss. These types of “proposition bets” are quite popular. For Entertainment Purposes Only, of course. Heh. On Thursday night, Danville City Council will vote on an ordinance that will result in the removal the Confederate flag on the museum grounds and multiple speakers are expected for the final debate on the issue. Let’s take a lighthearted look at some proposition bets for Thursday’s meeting.

Here’s how money lines work. If a money line number is positive like “+400”, you’d have to bet $100 in virtual money to win $400 plus your original bet back. If a money line number is negative like “-200”, you’d have to bet $200 in virtual money to win $100 plus your original bet back. In other words, the higher that the positive number is, the more unlikely that the event will happen.

These prop bets are For Entertainment Purposes Only. Let’s step up to the BettingLine.

Number of Danville City Council members at Thursday’s meeting:

• 9: -50000
• 8: +500
• 7: +4000
• 6 or less: +25000

Discussion: There is no way in hell that any of the nine council members will miss this meeting unless a serious emergency comes up at the last minute. That occasionally happens, so I’ll put a tempting +500 line on one person being absent. If you love to play longshots, have fun with the last two wagers. You’ll lose with them.

Sherman Saunders moves the flag comments away from the public comment section to the ordinance item on the agenda:

• YES: -400
• NO: +200

Discussion: There’s no public hearing required on a change of a city ordinance, but the public comment rules say “Citizens who desire to speak on matters not listed on the agenda will be heard at this time. Citizens who desire to speak on agenda items will be heard when the agenda item is considered.” There’s still a chance that council would want to get all the comments out of the way at the beginning, but I’m thinking that Saunders will do it the same way he did back in November and move the comments to the agenda item.

Number of flag speakers that run out of time to speak:

• 0: +7500
• 1 to 4: +800
• 5 to 8: -350
• 9 or more: -250

Discussion: I’m predicting that this will be a long night. Under the new council rules, individual speakers have a five minute time limit, and speakers representing a group get ten minutes. Nobody’s used the “group representative” option yet and I don’t think anyone will on Thursday. Somebody’s going to have a timer for this meeting, and I’ll bet that something is rigged up to let speakers know they have one minute remaining. That being said, you can forget about thinking that everyone will finish with time still on the clock (Looking at you, Glenn Scearce). The smart money is on the “5 to 8” option here.

Number of flag speakers:

• 0: OFF
• 1 to 10: +700
• 11 to 20: -500
• 20 or more: +200

Discussion: Zero speakers? Forget it, there’s no action on that bet. It’s OFF the board. Once we get past the 10 speaker mark, we’ll be getting into the second hour of the meeting and people are going to get cranky. (Fun Fact: I’ll be cranky well before that.) There’s just so much that can be said over & over again and every speaker after #10 will be glared at. I firmly believe that the vote outcome is locked in stone, so no speaker is going to change a council member’s vote. I think you can safely make a little virtual money laying the -500 line here.

Number of speakers on any other topic besides the Confederate Flag:

• 0: -1500
• 1: -200
• 2 or more: +800

Discussion: There’s a chance that Duke Energy’s Davis Montgomery might come and do a coal ash spill update. He hasn’t been around for six weeks but if he’s paying attention to current events, he’ll stay way clear of this meeting. Alonzo Jones & John Gilstrap will talk about Saturday’s College Bonanza 2015 in the around the horn section, I’m sure. None of these money lines look playable to me, and I’m the one who set them. That’s a hint.

Highest number of uniformed Danville Police Officers in Council chambers at any time during the meeting:

• 1: +900
• 2 or 3: -250
• 4 or more: +150

Discussion: There’s always one Danville police officer at every council meeting for security, so the bet is really how many more will be there. In the last meeting, two additional uniformed officers were sent up to the 4th floor when the crowds got large. There’s been no security issues during this flag debate and I believe that will continue. If I was betting this line, I’d lay the -250 line and be tempted to go with the “4 or more” option as a little insurance. For Entertainment Purposes Only, of course. Last one for Part #1 coming up!

The vote on the flag ordinance will be:

• 9-0: +10000
• 8-1: +250
• 7-2: -2000
• 6-3: +1000
• 5-4: +2500
• Ordinance fails by any vote: +6000
• If the ordinance is amended in any way, NO ACTION.

Discussion: I’m still sticking to the 7-2 prediction that I had in the BreakDown article. The only wild card that I could possible see is Buddy Rawley voting “Yes”. Fred Shanks isn’t going to budge, so don’t waste your virtual money on the 100:1 longshot. And you need to note the NO ACTION cancellation of this bet. I don’t think any council member will try to carve out an exemption for the monument property, and I certainly believe that wouldn’t get the five votes needed to amend the ordinance change… but the NO ACTION warning is there anyway.

And there you have seven proposition bets on this BettingLine! If I haven’t said For Entertainment Purposes Only enough, I just said it again. We’ll try to come up with some more for another BettingLine article before Thursday’s meeting.