Anonymous Confessions

I have told my coworkers I'm "really into college basketball analytics" to explain why I know that Toledo is 14-7-1 ATS on the road when playing on three days rest against MAC opponents in February. I am not into analytics. I am into making $75 bets on Tuesday night Toledo games while my family thinks I'm working late. My wife asked me who my favorite college team was last week. I panicked and said "the Zips." She asked what a Zip was. I said "it's from Ohio" and changed the subject. I have bet on Akron seventeen times this season. I could not point to Akron on a map without GPS assistance.

Last year I hosted a Super Bowl party specifically so I could bet on the props without my wife noticing. I told her I was "just excited about the commercials." I was not excited about the commercials. I was excited because I had Usher's opening song under 3 minutes and the over on Gatorade shower color being orange. I spent the entire halftime show in the bathroom "fixing the toilet" which was code for refreshing my FanDuel app. The toilet was fine. I was not fine. Usher opened with a 4-minute medley and the Gatorade was purple. I emerged from the bathroom and my buddy asked why I looked "pale and broken." I said the bean dip wasn't sitting right. The bean dip was fine. My bankroll was not fine.

I bought a Connor McDavid jersey even though I have never watched a full Edmonton Oilers game in my life. I just need people to think I'm a "real hockey fan" when I'm screaming at the TV during his player props. My girlfriend asked me to name three other Oilers. I said "the goalie, the other guy, and probably someone named Johnson." There is no one named Johnson on the Oilers. She Googled it. She showed me there's no Johnson. I told her he must have gotten traded. He was never there, because he doesn't exist, because I invented a human being to cover up the fact that I only know McDavid because he hits overs like it's his second job. I have now memorized three actual Oilers names to avoid future incidents. I will forget them by March.

I told my wife I was going to Home Depot. I drove to Home Depot. I sat in the Home Depot parking lot for three hours watching the Sunday afternoon games on my phone. I came home with nothing from Home Depot. She asked where the shelf brackets were. I said they were out of stock. I have done this four Sundays in a row. I don't even know what shelf she's talking about anymore.

I have a burner phone exclusively for sports betting apps. My real phone has zero betting apps on it. When my girlfriend checks my phone, it's clean. The burner is in a sock drawer, inside a sock, inside another sock. I pay for a separate phone plan for this. The monthly cost of maintaining this deception is more than most of my bets. I am paying $45 a month to lose $200 a month in secret. The economics of this are not in my favor.

I am a grown adult who has cried twice in the past five years. Both times were because of hockey parlays. Not funerals. Not movies. Not my daughter's birth (I was stoic and supportive). Hockey parlays. The first time, the Avalanche blew a 4-1 lead in the third period. The second time, there was an empty-net goal with 8 seconds left that pushed the total over by half a point. I cried in my car both times. The steering wheel knows things about me that no human ever will.

During March Madness I called in sick to work for three consecutive days. My boss asked what was wrong. I said I had the flu. What I had was a 16-team bracket parlay and a complete inability to function as a contributing member of society while basketball was being played. I watched games from 12 PM to midnight. I ate cereal for every meal. On day two I moved a TV into the bathroom so I wouldn't miss the end of the Gonzaga game. I lost every bet. I went back to work on Thursday and my coworker said I "looked terrible." I looked exactly how I felt.

I have memorized the schedule of every NFL team not because I love football, but because I need to know when back-to-backs and short weeks happen for betting purposes. I can tell you that the Bills play on Thursday after a Sunday road game in Week 11, but I cannot tell you my mother-in-law's birthday. My wife tested me on this. I failed the birthday and nailed the Bills schedule. She asked me to "reconsider my priorities." I told her the Bills were 8-3 ATS on short rest since 2022. She left the room.

I once bet on a Tuesday afternoon Royals-Guardians game. Not because I had any opinion on the matchup. Not because I saw value. Not because someone tipped me off. I bet on it because I was bored at 1:10 PM on a Tuesday and the game existed. That's it. That was the entire analysis. "This game is happening and I am alive to bet on it." I lost $75 on a game I didn't watch, between two teams I don't care about, on a random Tuesday in June. I don't even remember who won. I just know it wasn't me.

I have a spreadsheet tracking every bet I've ever placed. It has 2,847 entries. It is the most organized thing in my life. My taxes are a disaster. My apartment looks like a crime scene. I haven't been to the dentist in two years. But my betting spreadsheet has color-coded columns, conditional formatting, pivot tables, and a dashboard that auto-calculates my ROI by sport, by month, and by day of the week. My overall ROI is negative 11.3%. I know this to the decimal. I have never applied this level of analytical rigor to anything that actually matters.

I once got into an argument with a stranger at a bar because he said Jokic "wasn't that good." I don't care about Jokic as a basketball player. I care about Jokic as a prop machine. That man has hit more overs for me than any athlete in the history of my betting career. When this stranger disrespected Jokic, he wasn't just disrespecting a basketball player. He was disrespecting my revenue stream. I got heated. I showed him Jokic's assist numbers on my phone. He asked me to leave him alone. I did not leave him alone. My friend had to physically walk me outside. I am not proud of this, but I am also not sorry.

My therapist asked me what brings me joy. I said "when the under hits." She wrote something down. She wrote a lot down, actually. She asked me if I had hobbies outside of gambling. I said I also watch the games I don't bet on. She asked if there was anything else. I thought about it for a long time and said "sometimes I also check the injury reports." She recommended we increase our sessions to twice a week. I said I couldn't afford it. She asked where my money goes. I changed the subject. We both knew where the money goes.

I am currently reading this page instead of working. I have three open bets right now. One of them is on a women's tennis match in a country I've never heard of. I don't know either player's name. I picked the one whose name was shorter because I was in a hurry. I am betting $25 on a tennis match at 2 PM on a Wednesday played by someone whose name I cannot pronounce in a tournament I did not know existed until nine minutes ago. This is who I am now. This is who we all are now. And I'm fine with it. I think.