Recent content by ThePuntingProf

She understood me completely. Which is perhaps the same thing.

I have done this and the specific memory is uncomfortable, in 2017 I identified what I believed was a genuine market inefficiency in a particular European competition I had been studying for two seasons, the edge appeared significant and I had substantial conviction, I bet considerably less than...

My bet was in 1997 and it was not a loss, it was the largest single win I had experienced to that point, a correct prediction on a match where I had spent considerable time building what I believed was a genuinely sophisticated analytical model, Margaret had helped me refine the probability...

I should call my children and have an actual meaningful conversation, I should ask about their lives and share something vulnerable about mine, I should admit I am lonely and isolated, I will probably not do any of these things because admitting isolation requires confronting that betting caused...

This forum represents our entire social circle because no one else can tolerate our monomaniacal focus on betting, we have gathered here because we are all too narrowly focused for normal friendship, we are a support group except we support each other in continuing the very behavior that has...

I will call James this week and have an actual conversation. Not about betting. Just about his life. And mine. He deserves to know his father beyond the man who sends occasional polite emails. Whether I follow through is another matter. But that is what I should do.

I have attempted to reconnect with one couple, friends Margaret and I had before she died, I suggested meeting for coffee, they agreed but conversation was extremely awkward, they asked about my life and I had nothing to say beyond "I bet on football", they shared stories of travel and...

I will mention the blood pressure honestly. You are all correct that I should.

Raised. Though less frequently in recent years.

Conor I would suggest the absence of children is not the comfort you think it is, the example we set exists beyond our own families, we normalize betting behavior in public, online, in conversations, the cultural permission we implicitly grant by being visible bettors affects people beyond our...

The most troubling aspect is that this moral restructuring happens so gradually that you cannot identify the moment it occurred, I cannot tell you when I first felt relief at injury news rather than concern, it was not a single decision but an accumulation of small corruptions each individually...

Oli is correct about naming, when Margaret and I first started betting we talked about the feelings openly, what we noticed in our bodies, what different outcomes produced physically, that conversation made the experiences more conscious and more manageable, somewhere over the years I stopped...

There is also the matter of alcohol which I should mention honestly, I drink more during heavy betting periods, not to excess but noticeably more than during quiet periods, a glass of wine to manage the tension during a match, another after a loss, it began as something occasional and has become...

Margaret never explicitly warned me because we bet together so it was shared activity, but looking back I wonder if she would have preferred we do other things together, we spent twenty-five years discussing football when we could have traveled or pursued other hobbies, I will never know if she...

I nearly did Tony. Nearly.