For gamblers, there are basically three major betting holidays, the Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament, and the day that football officially returns the following fall. That day for gamblers came Thursday night when a handful of college football games were played.

The college season has again arrived, and tomorrow there are a slew of teams that will begin their 2011-12 campaign. Most notably, the top ranked teams in the country will all be in action on the opening Saturday of the new season. The premiere match up of the week is Saturday evening, when LSU faces off against Oregon. 안전놀이터

The two teams represent one-fifth of the preseason top five. The down part for gamblers is that both teams will be hindered by the inability to have their top players on the field. Oregon is dealing with several suspensions, and the Tigers have suspended starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson after a bar fight in which he was arrested and charged.

Gamblers, however, will not care about those suspensions. All they will concern themselves with is the idea that they can sit in front of a television set and watch college football all day while the state of their financial situation rides in the balance, and they would have it no other way.

“I love college football and my friends and I have made it a tradition every year to come to Vegas on Wednesday before the first week of games,” said Harold Thompson. “We pick twenty games each, place $100 on each game, and we sit in the sports books and watch and root for the teams we bet on. It is awesome.”

That sentiment is shared by thousands of gamblers who will head into sports books for the first time this year later tonight and tomorrow. Whether they win or lose will not be at issue, at least this early in the season. The only thing that will matter is that football is being played, and fans are enjoying the games.