FREE NEWSLETTER
MARCH MADNESS HAS descended on my family. I’m not just referring to the hoopla surrounding the annual NCAA college basketball tournament that runs from late March through early April. I mean the reckoning for our 36-year-old son, and his decision to switch careers and pursue his dream of becoming a professional sports bettor.
For the 10 years after college graduation, Ryan taught high school math and coached basketball. But in between planning lectures, going over homework and grading exams, he was cultivating a very different kind of pastime. After achieving some success while working what was in essence a job and a half, he felt ready to break the tie to his secure teaching job and venture full-time into an occupation that promised turbulence, more money and self-fulfillment.
Skeptical and concerned, but with faith in our son’s judgment, my wife Alberta and I agreed to support Ryan, chipping in some start-up money for two years. You may see us as pathetically manipulable. You can call us dangerous and shameful enablers. You might even think Alberta and I should be surrendering our psychology licenses. But we want our son to have a shot at a career that’s meaningful to him. If many of his friends and those in our professional circle are contemptuous, so be it.
What in a nutshell does sports betting entail? The demands are daunting: 60-hour weeks for sure, including much of the weekend. Ryan bets on baseball, along with college and pro football and basketball. The Monday-through-Friday stretch requires intricate probability research to gain an edge over the house.
Fridays during basketball season are particularly frenzied, as Saturdays are host to more than 100 college games. Sprinkled into the routine are online conversations searching for clues from fellow bettors, along with the occasional call to a local sportswriter for the latest news on the status of an injured star player.
Besides their prodigious work ethic, sports bettors must tolerate agonizingly close games and days of harrowing losses. The strategy Ryan uses to reduce those losses will be familiar to you. On each betting day, Ryan becomes the manager of a “fund” of small wagers across many games. Remember, the goal is a relatively stable income stream, not to risk everything on red.
The toll on the sports bettor’s health is physical as well as psychological. The stock market can be a wild beast, but at least we know when it’ll open for trading. Incredibly and probably deliberately, the betting lines can come out at any time during the day or night. If you want to try and anticipate opening prices, get ready for some interrupted sleep.
Social life is put on hold. The Friday and Saturday crunch crimps friendships and dating life. A confirmed introvert, Ryan’s network is small and he often feels isolated. Weekend events like weddings and bar mitzvahs become obstacles more than celebrations.
Can flowers bloom in a desert of drudgery, unpredictability and aloneness? Ryan loves his daily routine—the numbers, the multiple TV screens, the sports memorabilia on the wall, time in a coffee shop with his laptop. He relishes his freedom from the clutches of the eight-to-five job and the chance to live out his passion, something most people never get. The pattern of Ryan’s results has been the same over each of the two years. He’s sustained small losses in baseball and football, and made very large profits in both college and pro basketball, where he can capitalize on his coaching experience. Last year, he enjoyed fabulous success, not only overcoming the small losses but also allowing him to adopt a privileged lifestyle.
This year, Ryan has again beaten the odds, but only back to the level of his earlier humdrum teacher’s salary. What was only a worry has become a reality: His income would be highly volatile from year to year and so would his lifestyle. More so, that bountiful first year may just have been a random outlier unlikely to be repeated. Business deductions are sweet, but no health care, no employer retirement contributions and no summer off? Are the goodies really worth the brutal time commitment and compressed weekends?
Maybe it’s time for a part-time job, which many of his compatriots use to smooth out income and provide fringe benefits. A part-year position in the burgeoning sports betting community would be ideal, and might induce Ryan to shed the unproductive sports and concentrate on his specialty. The reckoning has arrived and, barring an unlikely romp through the tournament, the family will need to call a timeout and huddle.
The three of us, already a tight bunch, have become even closer. At a time when many parents are struggling to forge a conflict-free relationship with their adult children, Alberta and I are on the phone with Ryan almost daily. She catches up on the day-to-day drama of her son’s life and I get the scorecard.
Now, let’s cut to the chase. Is my son a gambling addict whose affliction is merely papered over by a hot streak? Maybe so. Could he find his way out should the profits prove fleeting or his health declines? Confronting these questions needs to be part of the game plan.
More than 50 years ago, I sought a career that would free me from the doldrums of everyday job constraints. I imagined I was destined to be a whirlwind options trader, running to payphones for real-time quotes. Fortunately, I failed early and often enough, and met a woman who could lead me back to the world of work reality.
But I am haunted by the “what if”? Could my support of Ryan’s unorthodox career choice reflect an attempt to compensate for my failure as a free-wheeling options trader? This is reason enough for another kind of huddle—one where the players are the different parts of myself.
Steve Abramowitz is a psychologist in Sacramento, California. Earlier in his career, Steve was a university professor, including serving as research director for the psychiatry department at the University of California, Davis. He also ran his own investment advisory firm. Check out Steve’s earlier articles.
Want to receive our weekly newsletter? Sign up now. How about our daily alert about the site's latest posts? Join the list.
Whad’ya, nuts?
😉
Steve, we really appreciate your sharing this unusual situation with us. While your son is taking an unconventional course, you know that, and he may be one of the rare people who can make a good living this way. Kudos to you for recognizing this while also being realistic, and still be loving and supportive! Please keep us all up to speed on this!
This is such an interesting story with a lot of layers—gambling and the connection you drew to options trading, your relationship with your millennial son, a secure career vs a volatile one. I think what struck me first was that it’s one thing to live that way while still relatively young, but can you keep up that kind of schedule and energy forever? But then you mentioned in the comments that someday he’ll be inheriting from you, so it will probably all work out in the long run.
yes – you are the classic “enabler”
at some point in your son’s life – age 36 now- he has to “grow up” and you have to stop being a “helicopter parent”
I’m betting with the house on this one.
My new hobby is online sports wagering. I have no inside knowledge about sports. I just do enough to take advantage of the promotions they offer, which means only small bets. I have wondered what it would take to become a professional bettor. What I’m reading here is that it is a lot of work and you have to go digging for inside scoop. I take it there’s no way to just exploit numerical patterns. My impression has always been that the betting markets are “efficient,” like the stock market, so over the long term I am likely to lose money once I am above the deals these sites offer. I’d love to watch a pro in action to see how they do it.
He wanted freedom so he took on a job that requires 60 hour work weeks??? Is there an endgame where the money rolls in without having to work so many hours? Few if any beat the house long term, by definition most must lose on average. Not against shooting for the stars, but there should be an endgame and a limit to the support.
I do think you are enabling him, and I”m not sure why you are writing this article. There are a lot of the GenZ generation who do not want the 9 -5 job. That being said, he needs to understand a job provides stability, social security, medicare, insurance, and all the things he needs. Gambling is an addiction indeed, only a professional can make that diagnosis. I would not give him money ( does he live with you)? He needs to go through the school of hard knocks to understand what Life 101 is all about.
A 36-year-old is a millennial, not Gen Z.
Like a stock picker getting lucky on his/her first pick, the odds are against your son’s success continuing in any type of consistent fashion. He probably would have been better off tanking his first year, which would have provided a strong incentive to pursue a more productive line of work. His incentive at this point probably focuses on repeating that first years’ success, just like the habitual stock picker attempts to ferret out the next Apple or Nividia…
The close relationship you have developed with him is wonderful, but it may make it more difficult for you to realize when your support has indeed become an enabling device for a potential gambling addiction, as you said yourself.
Steve – as I read this, and wondered about the wonderful support you and your wife have provided – both financial and emotional – I think back to some of your prior posts. Would becoming a property manager for your real estate holdings be a reasonable part-time gig? Would it increase his comfort level with your chosen investment process?
Very very reasonable, in fact desirable. It’s just that he seems more comfortable with numbers than the daily emails, phone calls and monitoring required of day-to-day property management. Alberta already has a good grasp of the softer (interpersonal) side of ownership, but he could do all the numbers and records (income and expenses, tax considerations, etc.). It would be a great “partnership.” He would be a natural with the many numbers facets of fund investing. Let’s face it, when I’m long gone, these are the likely part-career destinations for both him and Alberta. But at the moment, just as was the case with me in my 30s, he is set on doing his own thing. Soon, the whole enchilada will be his, and the responsibilities of money management will necessarily come to the forefront. I would love to be around then, but life doesn’t always cooperate with the wishes of an aging parent.
I wonder how many readers here have in fact been day traders or options traders at some point, winning or losing on the movement of a fraction of a point in a stock price, and how much of their psychological profile they share with sports bettors. As I watch SVP and Stanford Steve do their Bad Beats segment every Monday on Sportscenter — and as sitting here now I’m watching some guy in a pink jacket on ESPN recommending bets on today’s Elite Eight games — I’m bemused by the mental makeup of people willing to wager substantial sums on something they have absolutely no control over.
I personally think Ryan has already won, having found a fulfilling (for the moment) career that he obviously enjoys, and having pulled his family closer around him in the process. I would be more concerned that his lifestyle goes up and down based on his success or failure, and I wonder if he might be better off establishing a steady, spare lifestyle for a few years until he has a clearer idea of what his income will be. And whether this career choice will turn out to be a winning bet.
So well said. Yes, our current preferred vision for Ryan would be a half-time conventional job that would let him see pros and cons of each career direction. He could always let go of the job if the sports betting really blossoms, or see that his original choice is too stressful and unreliable in the long run, and go full-time with the job. The solution for many successful sports bettors seems to be to stay half-and-half to have the fringe benefits and friendship network along with the self-fulfillment.
What I take from this article, and from your previous ones, is that you have forged a wonderful and close bond with your son. That is commendable. Whether he decides to transition away from his current career choice, or not, he will have a strong support system to help with life’s challenges.
Thank you. It was hard work for all of us to get to where we are now. Ryan was alienated from us during his college years and we feared he would never (psychologically) “come back.” We are so lucky. So many families struggle in their relationship with their adult children. Kids usually do “come back,” but sometimes it’s not before the parents have passed. A concern I have is that our closeness is allowing Ryan to delay forming the kind of friendships that make life worthwhile. Maybe another topic for the huddle.
Steve, I’ve been to Vegas dozens of times and I enjoy playing blackjack. I had visions of becoming a professional player. I taught myself how to count cards and experimented with various cash flow methods. Good Lord it’s a lot of work. I found that my cash flow methods were not reliable, and while I understood card counting, I wasn’t smart enough to master using it at a table full of other players.
I wish success for your son but I fear the axiom “be careful what you wish for” may eventually come into play for him. As you stated, physical and emotional stress could become real and unmanageable.
I can only imagine all the hard work, both psychological and mathematical, you had to go to pursue your dream. You wisely changed direction at the right time for you. We realize the sports betting might be only a pit stop on Ryan’s career journey. But at least if/when he takes a more conventional path, he will do so knowing that he had his day. Of course, there is the fear that we could all fall into the rabbit hole of gambling hell but, perhaps naively, we feel we could climb out of it.
Just to be clear Steve, I really admire your support for your son.
Reading between the lines, it was already clear. But thank you.
Certainly, a first world privilege. Many would state that as if it were a crime.
But it is a privilege that you earned via decades of hard work and wise decisions.
I think I get where you’re coming from. We all must come to terms with the values implications of our career choices. Thank you for trying to understand Ryan’s.