Confessions of a sports betting junkie

On a good day, he’ll grab a bite at the sandwich shop. Maybe even go out for a drink. On a really good day, he won’t bother. Not when there’s money on the table. And not when he’s riding a hot streak. On any given Saturday, more than a hundred college football teams take the field — a coast-to-coast buffet of injured stars, crummy coaches, inflated point spreads. He might have action on a half-dozen.

If that’s the case, forget dinner. Breakfast is a stretch.

“Watching a full day of football isn’t easy,” he says. “There’s a Subway like walking distance from my house. Five minutes. If I go there, I’m doing good. I usually eat a lot of Chunky Soup.”

Call him KJ. He’s 35, single and lives in Northern Virginia. He works as a consultant for the federal government and plays pickup basketball at a local gym. Over the last four years, KJ estimates, he’s gambled away $100,000. Some of it on high-stakes poker. Most of it on sports.

“If I didn’t bet, I’d have probably paid my mortgage by now,” he says with a sigh.

KJ has wagered on the dramatic (the New York-Boston American League Championship Series). The mundane (early season Nets-Pacers). The downright foolhardy (hockey). He’s bet against his beloved Washington Redskins — with great success, he says — and put money on the second half of a Maryland football game. In a single week, he’s won as much as $3,700 — and lost more than double that amount. He knows four bookies, one of them since college.

Sometimes, KJ takes in sports while running at the gym. More than once, he admits, he’s gotten so wrapped up in the action on screen — and his action on the side — that he’s fallen off his treadmill.

And that’s when his team is winning.

“You’re watching Central Florida against Toledo like it’s a big deal, hanging on every last play,” KJ says. “And people are wondering, ‘What is going on with this guy?’”

Lost weekends

He lives in a red brick house in Herndon, just off the Dulles Toll Road. Inside, his place is clean, decorated with the accouterments of bachelorhood: A big-screen TV, a barbell, a framed headline of Maryland’s college basketball championship, a lonely looking ab roller.

Outside, dead leaves blanket his front yard, spilling across the sidewalk and over the curb. Look around: It’s the only yard in the neighborhood that hasn’t been cleared and bagged.

“Somebody’s going to rake it,” KJ says, scooping up branches that have accumulated by his front door. “It won’t be me.”

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