Let me explain something about myself: I have no impulse control. Zero. A black hole where most people keep their ability to make reasonable decisions. This is the story of how I missed a flight to my grandmother's 90th birthday because I was "on a heater" at the Las Vegas airport slot machines.

It started innocently. I had two hours before boarding. The slot machines were right there, glowing like sirens calling me to financial ruin. "Just ten dollars," I told myself. "Kill some time." Famous last words from every gambling degenerate who's ever lived.

Hour One: Down $40. No big deal. I've lost more on worse. The machine was "warming up." That's what I told myself. Machines don't warm up. They're programmed to take your money at a mathematically precise rate. But I'm not a math person. I'm a feelings person. And I felt like a winner was coming.

Hour Two: I hit a $127 jackpot. Suddenly I'm up $47. This is it. The comeback. The universe rewarding my persistence. My boarding group gets called. I hear it. I acknowledge it. I choose to ignore it.

"Just one more spin," I whispered, like a prayer to a god who definitely wasn't listening. One spin became ten. Ten became fifty. The $47 profit evaporated. Then my original stake. Then another $100 from the ATM that charged me $8.50 in fees.

By the time I looked up, the gate was closed. The plane was taxiing. My grandmother was about to turn 90 without me, and I was sitting in a pleather chair watching digital cherries spin past my reflection.

I booked the next flight. It cost $380 more than the original. My grandmother asked why I was late. I said there was traffic. At the airport. In Las Vegas. She bought it because she's 90 and trusts me, which makes this whole thing worse.

Total Loss: $247 in slots, $380 in rebooking fees, $8.50 in ATM charges, and whatever's left of my dignity.

The slot machine's name was "Lucky Dragon Fortune." The irony is not lost on me. It is, in fact, aggressively found.

There's a special kind of relationship between a degenerate gambler and their bookie. It's not quite friendship. It's not quite a hostage situation. It's somewhere in the middle, held together by shared delusion and the unspoken agreement that one day, eventually, you'll pay what you owe.

My bookie's name is Dave. Dave drives a Camry and works at a hardware store during the day. By night, he's the gatekeeper to my worst impulses. Dave has seen me at my highest (up $2,400 on a 7-team parlay in 2023) and my lowest (down $6,800 during a three-week stretch where I convinced myself I understood cricket betting).

Last Tuesday, after I failed to respond to three polite text messages about my outstanding balance, Dave escalated. He sent a Venmo request for $1,847. The note said: "You know what this is for ;)"

The winky face broke me. It was somehow more threatening than any explicit demand could have been. What does that winky face mean, Dave? Is it playful? Is it menacing? Am I in danger? Are we friends?

I stared at that request for three hours. I considered my options:

1. Pay the $1,847 I definitely do not have
2. Ignore it and hope Dave forgets (he will not forget)
3. Try to win it back on tonight's slate (the option my brain wanted)
4. Flee the country and start a new life somewhere without sports betting

I chose option three. I put $500 on the Pacers moneyline. They lost by 34 points. Dave sent a follow-up Venmo request. This one had no emoji. Just the number: $2,347. The absence of the winky face was somehow worse.

We're meeting at Denny's on Friday to "discuss." Dave says he'll buy me a Grand Slam. I don't know if this is generosity or a final meal.

Some people journal. Some people meditate. I maintain a meticulously organized Google Sheet documenting every single bet I've placed since 2019. It has color-coded cells, conditional formatting, and a pivot table that calculates my average loss by sport, day of the week, and emotional state at time of wager.

Row 1 is a $25 bet on the Patriots covering -7 against the Jets. I won. It was the beginning of the end.

Row 847 is a $340 live bet on the second-half over in a random Liga MX match I found while scrolling at 2 AM. I lost. It was last Tuesday.

Between those two rows is a complete archaeological record of my descent into numerical madness. Here are some highlights:

Row 156: "$200 on Tyson Fury fight - drunk, confident, wrong"
Row 287: "Parlay: Lakers ML, Warriors -3, Under 226.5 - what was I thinking"
Row 412: "$75 on Darts World Championship - why do I know dart players"
Row 589: "Revenge bet after Celtics loss - learned nothing"
Row 734: "$500 on KBO baseball at 4 AM - cried after"

The spreadsheet tells me things I don't want to know. Like the fact that I'm 12-41 on Thursday night football. Or that my "sure things" have a 23% win rate. Or that I've spent more on sports betting in three years than I have on my retirement account in fifteen.

My therapist asked to see the spreadsheet. I showed her. She was quiet for a long time. Then she asked if I'd ever considered just... not betting. I told her the spreadsheet was evidence of my commitment to improvement. She did not seem convinced.

Row 848 will probably happen tonight. I'm thinking Suns -4.5. The spreadsheet will remember.