Old Habits Die Hard

In my younger days, back before I was tethered to a salary, a family and a mortgage, I played around with some football picks here and there. I dallied, perhaps with an occasional office pool. Maybe, just maybe I placed a small wager on a particular game or once in every great while, I might have teased or parlayed a couple of games together, all in fun of course.
There were those seasons, where an outside observer might feel that I was getting a little carried away, placing a friendly bet for a friend now and again, getting advice from Vic "the nose's" five-star pick of the year and putting a nickel on games I really liked, and sometimes even a dime. (For those of you who don't utilize gambling lexicon, those bets are $500-$1000) per game.
Now realize that these games were the exception, not the rule. Only if "the nose" agreed with something I already thought I knew, I wouldn't go out on a limb for more than a buck or two per game ($100-200). This (some might call it an addiction, a sickness or just boys having fun) habit peaked in 1993, when I was making 10 calls per weekend to my friend who had a friend (AKA bookie) every week. These were back in my bartending days, when if things went south for some reason, I could pick up a couple of extra shifts and line my pockets with whatever cash I might need to recoup a particularly bad week.
But here was the problem. I didn't lose. In every movie about gambling, there is a sad ending--a peak and then a deep, lonely valley that was impossible to come back from. Every after school special where little Tommy let his addiction to betting destroy his promising basketball dream, when the coach finds out and he is kicked off the team and loses everything before his best friend picks him off the asphalt when everybody else has abandoned him. You know the story (stories) and you know they all end badly.
In 1993, I went 18 weeks without paying a nickel to my friend who has a friend (and this time, I mean an actual nickel, not the big money we discussed earlier). I ran around the country following Florida State football. My gambling enabling me to purchase tickets for the FSU-Notre Dame game #1 vs #2 in South Bend, IN; my gambling enabling me to party like a rock star for a year; my gambling making for a pretty awesome Christmas for all of my friends that year.
The only tragedy of my football season was when my friend inexplicably left town around the new year and I was unable to get a hold of him to place my college football games on the biggest day of the year. I had some very large wagers to place that day, and I was furious, but there was nothing I could do. He called me back late that afternoon after I had left probably 20 messages for him. I was able to place a few bets on the late games, but had lost the opportunity for a huge day.
After that it was never the same. I soon ended my bartending career and started my manager training and had the earning power of migrant worker for the next year with no opportunity to pick up any extra cash. If I had a bad week, I didn't pay rent or eat--neither of which seemed like a very good idea. That coupled with the fact that my friend had now relocated full time to Vegas to get his SAG card (if you want to see what this guy looks like, just rent the movie Casino and look for the first scene with Sharon Stone at the Craps table. He is the guy standing next to her with the bad leisure suit, the silver hair and moustache--and no, I am not making that up). Finding a friend who has a friend that you can trust can sometimes be an ambitious endeavor. A few of my friends who had utilized me to place their bets in the previous year, found somebody, but it just wasn't for me. I didn't have a comfort level, and when you are betting scared (not eating or paying rent), you really are betting with one hand tied behind your back. The only way to be successful gambling is to not fear losing.
Eventually, my salary went up, but I never went back to betting on football games, though I still have the occasional hankering. Addiction is pretty hard to explain, but winning a boatload of money every week can sure have its impact on ones desire to continue to do something. There is a rush of endorphines when there is something on the line on what everybody else is looking at as a meaningless field goal in a 20 point game.
I don't even really gamble on anything anymore. When I was in Rhode Island, I lived about 45 minutes from Foxwoods Casino and for two years, I was commuting back and forth a couple of times a month to sit down at a blackjack table for 6-8 hours at a time. It horrified my father when he sat next to me for a couple of hours one afternoon and was watching me routinely make $100 and $200 bets on any given hand. If you sit back and realize what kind of money is changing hands every time, I imagine that it is a little bit nerve racking, but that is just the thing with gambling, you have to play it the same if it is a $1 bet or a $1000 bet. You play the game the same way, no matter what, because if you allow emotion or fear of losing to enter in, you have no shot of winning. I haven't sat at a blackjack table in almost three years, even though there are plenty of casinos just around the corner.
Which brings us back to football--my first gambling love. I play Fantasy football now, which is its own brand of gambling I suppose, but on a much smaller scale--$100 for an entire season. The last couple of years, we have had a weekly pool that several of our friends participated in for about the same investment. When I was in RI in 2000, I played in an online weekly pool on espn.com (pigskin pickem' I think it was called). There were 217,000 people picking in the pool with the same parameters (against the spread, no ties, Monday night total score for tiebreaker) and I came in 10th place nationally. But these are all diversions, and not really gambling.
I don't know if I have the intestinal fortitude to go back to that world. It was a long time ago, and I lack the acuity that I once possessed for football. More competition for the TV and computer probably inhibits my ability to ascertain the information necessary to make informed picks. Either way, if you are looking for Vic "the nose," I hear that he has his once a year guaranteed 10-star pick on one of the games this Saturday. Call him quick, before the line moves.
Goldmine