I had legitimately quit sports betting three weeks ago. Since I began sports betting in September of 2019, I had used my love for data - and the over-confidence in my ability to interpret it - to make my bets. Simply put, most systems don’t work in betting, because no matter what system you develop, Vegas is one step ahead of you. While betting on sports, I would lose, and lose, and lose - week after week. The most I was ever down - prior to my meltdown this weekend - was $1,000. My deficit touched $900 about three times in my two months betting on sports, and three times I had hit a huge bet to cover my losses. After each of these huge bets, I always swore to myself, and to God, that I would take the money and never gamble again.
The last of the three recouping bets was a $1250 bet with a payout of $2400. I used a simple averages system to make a pick on the under of an NBA game. After I sweat my bet out, and thankfully watched it hit, I was up $350 overall. For someone who hits their bets at about 22%, being up was a relief. I truly hit my “50-50” bets, which are always single bets (never parlays), at a clip lower than 25%.
Prior to this massive bet, I deleted all of my spreadsheets and un-bookmarked all betting sites. I had spent hours and hours on these spreadsheets, but I needed to delete them to remove the urge to continue my addiction. This was the second time I had tried to quit, and I felt that it was going to be easy to do with Thanksgiving Break coming up. You can’t legally bet on sports in Colorado, nor can you access online betting accounts.
After my connecting flight landed in Atlanta, I found myself sitting in the terminal, scrolling through Twitter. I saw a tweet from a man named Todd Fuhrman, retweeted by a betting account I followed. Shoot, I had forgotten to unfollow and/or block these accounts. The tweet read:
https://preview.redd.it/xa03brsa0y341.png?width=664&format=png&auto=webp&s=822244438ed97cc024dbf304a16429aa4b4a48af
As a senior in college, I was excited about my job search, and I had been attempting to land sports statistics jobs for the past three weeks, applying at over 20 different organizations. This ‘US Sports Trader’ position in Las Vegas included setting accurate betting lines and monitoring account activity. It was all numbers, and I was a quantitative thinker. This seemed like a huge opportunity to me. To be able to dominate in your career and love what you do… well, that is the dream.
I immediately emailed Mr. Khalili, my ‘potential new boss,’ directly and shut off my phone, ready to hop on my second and final flight of the night. The next afternoon, I received a response from Mr. Khalili, who proposed we set up an interview for the following week. Knowing that I would need to be prepared for the interview, I began to gather data and re-construct my betting spreadsheets. I felt sick to my stomach in doing so. I knew that this was dangerous, but I would never allow myself to come unprepared for a job interview. Besides, if I landed this position, I would be working on the other side of the ticket.
My interview went well, despite a minor hiccup at the end. Mr. Khalili said that he would love to have another discussion within the next month, and that his boss would be included in our next conversation. Wanting to be more prepared, I began obsessing over the details of my spreadsheets. I wanted everything to be accurate, precise, and most of all - impressive. The problem with keeping these spreadsheets, is that for someone like me, you start to recognize trends. I began seeing more and more trends, and I just couldn’t help myself. I wrote down some mock-bets for the following week’s NFL card. I did well that week. Really well. I had never done that well when betting real money.
When I flew back to Philadelphia the following Sunday, I knew that I had fallen back into the trap. I was eager to create an online sports-betting account; the kind my friends and roommates raved about and bet through daily. By having an online account, I wouldn’t have to bike five miles to and from the casino every time I wanted to place a bet. I set up my account that night, and even put some smaller bets down on the lines I liked the most.
See, my new system was to target bad-weather games. In the NFL, when a game has horrible weather, it typically hits the under. The oveunder, for those of you who have never bet on sports, refers to the number of total combined points amassed between the two teams at the end of a game/match. Being overly-confident in my assumptions, I thought this system was fool-proof. As it turns out, it was just as pathetic as the five or six other algorithms I had previously tried to employ.
I looked at the upcoming NFL games all week, but the forecast predicted good weather for practically every Sunday game. I was supposed to be studying for my finals, but instead I was looking at betting lines. I got impatient. I started looking at each of the upcoming college games. The PAC12 Championship would be played in Santa Clara on Friday night, and unrelenting, heavy rain was supposed to pound the city all afternoon. I put $500 down on the under (45.5) and began to get excited about the prospect of “easy money.”
When Friday rolled around, I again checked the forecast for the game. All of a sudden, the rain, which was supposed to begin at 1pm and continue through the next morning, was forecasted to begin at 7pm PT, one hour after game time. I began to get nervous. Historically, I am a very unlucky/unskilled bettor. At a rate of 22% on single bets, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the ’50-50’ odds associated with the type of bets I placed, rarely seem to fall in my favor.
Nonetheless, the game would be impacted for the remaining two hours, so the under still seemed like a smart play. The game began, and the entire first quarter passed without a rain drop in sight. I felt lucky that the total combined score was only 10 after this quarter - still on track, I thought. Light rain fell in the second quarter, but stopped almost as soon as it started. The game went into the half at 20 total points - still on pace to be under 45.5. I nervously looked at the forecast for Santa Clara again. To my disappointment, the forecast now projected an hour of cloudy skies with no rain. The Ducks and Utes combined for 18 points in the third quarter, and I now had only a 7-point buffer heading into the final 15 minutes.
The fourth quarter began, and the rain sprinkled ever-so-softly. The rain was so light that it had absolutely no impact on the game. Halfway through the fourth quarter, Oregon’s running back drilled a 70 yard touchdown run into the end zone, and the total score was now at 45, half a point under my safety net. Time passed, and the rain continued to stay away from Levi Stadium. With only two minutes left in the game, and Oregon at the Ute’s 30 yard-line, all they needed to do to run the clock out was get a first down. Their halfback got the first down. In fact, he got the first down and ran all the way into the endzone, scoring another six points and putting the total over 45.5. I had lost. $500 was gone in that instant.
I went to bed that night as I always did after losing a large amount of money on sports-betting, feeling pathetic. The feeling you get from losing, or at least the one I get, is far more impactful than the feeling I get from winning. I was depressed. See, I’m not good at losing. One of my worst qualities, next to my lack of patience, is my inability to accept a loss. More specifically, I really couldn’t handle financial losses. I overvalued, and still do, my financial worth. I have come to realize that I make my financial value synonymous to my self-worth. Needless to say, I had an impossible time accepting a financial loss due ignorant confidence.
Two years prior, I had blown through my entire savings ($15,000) in the cryptocurrency market, which crashed two months after I began investing. Losing all the money I had made in the previous year - working so, so hard - threw me into a deep depression. My grades suffered, my mental health suffered, and I stopped taking care of myself. As someone who is very private about their shortcomings and issues, I kept my depression to myself. This is a topic for another time, but it serves as a reminder of how ignorant financial decisions can impact the more important aspects of my/your life.
Following my gambling loss this past Friday night, I sadly looked for another game that would be impacted by the same system. It was supposed to rain, uninterrupted, in Sacramento for the entire weekend. I put $600 down on the under in Sacramento the next day. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO POUR, WITHOUT INTERMISSION, FOR THE ENTIRE GAME.
The game rolled around the next night, and yet again the weather turned out of my favor. In fact, I got so unlucky with the rain that a four-hour dry period popped up right at the start of game-time. It rained for three hours before the game and for many, many hours immediately after the game. It probably goes without saying, but I watched both teams score… and score… and score. I lost the bet.
This time, that pathetic, self-deprecating feeling hit twice as hard. I couldn’t stand to go to bed like this, and so I bet what was left in my account ($750) on a live NBA bet. I bet on another under, thinking the team that was leading by 20 points would run some clock at the end of the game. I was wrong. After placing my bet, I sat there and watched them score… and score… and score. I had lost again - $1850 in a 24-hour period.
I have never been down that much money. I am blessed to have discovered a bountiful (legal) source of income, so it’s not money that I couldn’t afford to lose. But $1850 to a strong majority of people, including myself, is still a lot of money to lose in a 24 hour period - especially when its doing something as silly as betting on sports (something I had sworn off just three weeks prior). $1850 may not seem like an addiction to most of you, but I have been unsuccessfully battling an attempt to quit gambling for the past two months. It’s not about the amount. It’s about how aggressively it impacts the rest of my life.
After this third and final loss, I was so upset with myself. I sat in silence for three hours and watched gambling addiction testimonials. I didn’t even sleep that night. Instead, I decided to write my own gambling addiction testimonial, the one you’re reading right now. I have a problem. It’s hard for me to admit when I have a problem, but it’s harder to ignore it when it slaps you in the face (like sports-betting has done to me). As a believer in God, I am taking this as a lesson from Him and an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. At the time of this article, I have now closed my account, unfollowed and blocked all betting accounts/sites, and deleted all of my statistical spreadsheets.
I never want to feel this way again. My grades have suffered. My physical and mental health has suffered. The one thing I value so much – productivity – has been relatively absent in my life over the past three months. I can’t get those three months back, but I can certainly decide to stop this perpetual problem right now… and so that’s what I will do. I will be willing to accept this loss in order to move forward with my life, and I couldn’t be more excited to do so.
submitted by JH685 to problemgambling [link] [comments] The last of the three recouping bets was a $1250 bet with a payout of $2400. I used a simple averages system to make a pick on the under of an NBA game. After I sweat my bet out, and thankfully watched it hit, I was up $350 overall. For someone who hits their bets at about 22%, being up was a relief. I truly hit my “50-50” bets, which are always single bets (never parlays), at a clip lower than 25%.
Prior to this massive bet, I deleted all of my spreadsheets and un-bookmarked all betting sites. I had spent hours and hours on these spreadsheets, but I needed to delete them to remove the urge to continue my addiction. This was the second time I had tried to quit, and I felt that it was going to be easy to do with Thanksgiving Break coming up. You can’t legally bet on sports in Colorado, nor can you access online betting accounts.
After my connecting flight landed in Atlanta, I found myself sitting in the terminal, scrolling through Twitter. I saw a tweet from a man named Todd Fuhrman, retweeted by a betting account I followed. Shoot, I had forgotten to unfollow and/or block these accounts. The tweet read:
https://preview.redd.it/xa03brsa0y341.png?width=664&format=png&auto=webp&s=822244438ed97cc024dbf304a16429aa4b4a48af
As a senior in college, I was excited about my job search, and I had been attempting to land sports statistics jobs for the past three weeks, applying at over 20 different organizations. This ‘US Sports Trader’ position in Las Vegas included setting accurate betting lines and monitoring account activity. It was all numbers, and I was a quantitative thinker. This seemed like a huge opportunity to me. To be able to dominate in your career and love what you do… well, that is the dream.
I immediately emailed Mr. Khalili, my ‘potential new boss,’ directly and shut off my phone, ready to hop on my second and final flight of the night. The next afternoon, I received a response from Mr. Khalili, who proposed we set up an interview for the following week. Knowing that I would need to be prepared for the interview, I began to gather data and re-construct my betting spreadsheets. I felt sick to my stomach in doing so. I knew that this was dangerous, but I would never allow myself to come unprepared for a job interview. Besides, if I landed this position, I would be working on the other side of the ticket.
My interview went well, despite a minor hiccup at the end. Mr. Khalili said that he would love to have another discussion within the next month, and that his boss would be included in our next conversation. Wanting to be more prepared, I began obsessing over the details of my spreadsheets. I wanted everything to be accurate, precise, and most of all - impressive. The problem with keeping these spreadsheets, is that for someone like me, you start to recognize trends. I began seeing more and more trends, and I just couldn’t help myself. I wrote down some mock-bets for the following week’s NFL card. I did well that week. Really well. I had never done that well when betting real money.
When I flew back to Philadelphia the following Sunday, I knew that I had fallen back into the trap. I was eager to create an online sports-betting account; the kind my friends and roommates raved about and bet through daily. By having an online account, I wouldn’t have to bike five miles to and from the casino every time I wanted to place a bet. I set up my account that night, and even put some smaller bets down on the lines I liked the most.
See, my new system was to target bad-weather games. In the NFL, when a game has horrible weather, it typically hits the under. The oveunder, for those of you who have never bet on sports, refers to the number of total combined points amassed between the two teams at the end of a game/match. Being overly-confident in my assumptions, I thought this system was fool-proof. As it turns out, it was just as pathetic as the five or six other algorithms I had previously tried to employ.
I looked at the upcoming NFL games all week, but the forecast predicted good weather for practically every Sunday game. I was supposed to be studying for my finals, but instead I was looking at betting lines. I got impatient. I started looking at each of the upcoming college games. The PAC12 Championship would be played in Santa Clara on Friday night, and unrelenting, heavy rain was supposed to pound the city all afternoon. I put $500 down on the under (45.5) and began to get excited about the prospect of “easy money.”
When Friday rolled around, I again checked the forecast for the game. All of a sudden, the rain, which was supposed to begin at 1pm and continue through the next morning, was forecasted to begin at 7pm PT, one hour after game time. I began to get nervous. Historically, I am a very unlucky/unskilled bettor. At a rate of 22% on single bets, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the ’50-50’ odds associated with the type of bets I placed, rarely seem to fall in my favor.
Nonetheless, the game would be impacted for the remaining two hours, so the under still seemed like a smart play. The game began, and the entire first quarter passed without a rain drop in sight. I felt lucky that the total combined score was only 10 after this quarter - still on track, I thought. Light rain fell in the second quarter, but stopped almost as soon as it started. The game went into the half at 20 total points - still on pace to be under 45.5. I nervously looked at the forecast for Santa Clara again. To my disappointment, the forecast now projected an hour of cloudy skies with no rain. The Ducks and Utes combined for 18 points in the third quarter, and I now had only a 7-point buffer heading into the final 15 minutes.
The fourth quarter began, and the rain sprinkled ever-so-softly. The rain was so light that it had absolutely no impact on the game. Halfway through the fourth quarter, Oregon’s running back drilled a 70 yard touchdown run into the end zone, and the total score was now at 45, half a point under my safety net. Time passed, and the rain continued to stay away from Levi Stadium. With only two minutes left in the game, and Oregon at the Ute’s 30 yard-line, all they needed to do to run the clock out was get a first down. Their halfback got the first down. In fact, he got the first down and ran all the way into the endzone, scoring another six points and putting the total over 45.5. I had lost. $500 was gone in that instant.
I went to bed that night as I always did after losing a large amount of money on sports-betting, feeling pathetic. The feeling you get from losing, or at least the one I get, is far more impactful than the feeling I get from winning. I was depressed. See, I’m not good at losing. One of my worst qualities, next to my lack of patience, is my inability to accept a loss. More specifically, I really couldn’t handle financial losses. I overvalued, and still do, my financial worth. I have come to realize that I make my financial value synonymous to my self-worth. Needless to say, I had an impossible time accepting a financial loss due ignorant confidence.
Two years prior, I had blown through my entire savings ($15,000) in the cryptocurrency market, which crashed two months after I began investing. Losing all the money I had made in the previous year - working so, so hard - threw me into a deep depression. My grades suffered, my mental health suffered, and I stopped taking care of myself. As someone who is very private about their shortcomings and issues, I kept my depression to myself. This is a topic for another time, but it serves as a reminder of how ignorant financial decisions can impact the more important aspects of my/your life.
Following my gambling loss this past Friday night, I sadly looked for another game that would be impacted by the same system. It was supposed to rain, uninterrupted, in Sacramento for the entire weekend. I put $600 down on the under in Sacramento the next day. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO POUR, WITHOUT INTERMISSION, FOR THE ENTIRE GAME.
The game rolled around the next night, and yet again the weather turned out of my favor. In fact, I got so unlucky with the rain that a four-hour dry period popped up right at the start of game-time. It rained for three hours before the game and for many, many hours immediately after the game. It probably goes without saying, but I watched both teams score… and score… and score. I lost the bet.
This time, that pathetic, self-deprecating feeling hit twice as hard. I couldn’t stand to go to bed like this, and so I bet what was left in my account ($750) on a live NBA bet. I bet on another under, thinking the team that was leading by 20 points would run some clock at the end of the game. I was wrong. After placing my bet, I sat there and watched them score… and score… and score. I had lost again - $1850 in a 24-hour period.
I have never been down that much money. I am blessed to have discovered a bountiful (legal) source of income, so it’s not money that I couldn’t afford to lose. But $1850 to a strong majority of people, including myself, is still a lot of money to lose in a 24 hour period - especially when its doing something as silly as betting on sports (something I had sworn off just three weeks prior). $1850 may not seem like an addiction to most of you, but I have been unsuccessfully battling an attempt to quit gambling for the past two months. It’s not about the amount. It’s about how aggressively it impacts the rest of my life.
After this third and final loss, I was so upset with myself. I sat in silence for three hours and watched gambling addiction testimonials. I didn’t even sleep that night. Instead, I decided to write my own gambling addiction testimonial, the one you’re reading right now. I have a problem. It’s hard for me to admit when I have a problem, but it’s harder to ignore it when it slaps you in the face (like sports-betting has done to me). As a believer in God, I am taking this as a lesson from Him and an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. At the time of this article, I have now closed my account, unfollowed and blocked all betting accounts/sites, and deleted all of my statistical spreadsheets.
I never want to feel this way again. My grades have suffered. My physical and mental health has suffered. The one thing I value so much – productivity – has been relatively absent in my life over the past three months. I can’t get those three months back, but I can certainly decide to stop this perpetual problem right now… and so that’s what I will do. I will be willing to accept this loss in order to move forward with my life, and I couldn’t be more excited to do so.
