Before I ever placed a serious bet—one where the goal was to find positive expected value—I was in the best shape of my life. It was peak COVID. I didn’t have much going on. I was lifting, eating clean, sleeping well. Then I started betting seriously—and over the next couple of years, I stopped going to the gym, started eating like shit and gained 40 pounds.
It crept up on me. Nothing changed overnight. But when you’re spending 10+ hours a day glued to a screen—tracking lines, tweaking models, watching late-night West Coast games—it gets harder and harder to step away. Once you start winning in betting, it feels like a 24/7 opportunity stream. Every moment offline, the thought creeps in: “There could be an edge right now, and I’m missing it.”
And it’s not just the screen time. Even when you do step away, your brain doesn’t. You’re still thinking about open positions, refreshing injury news, checking your phone every five minutes. And when you're not “working,” you’re sweating bets—riding the highs and lows of every missed free throw or made three. Early on in my betting life I was especially bad at this. I used to get in the car and just drive around the city, listening to music and podcasts so I couldn’t be consistently refreshing my phone. It can feel inescapable. Like you’re never truly off.
Then there’s the doomclock every originator knows: the fear your edge won’t last. That one day the market sharpens, or your angles stop working, and it’s over. That pressure—that sense of racing against the clock—makes you deprioritize everything else. Friends, food, fitness, fulfillment. You start to live like it could all be gone next year, so you better max it out while it lasts.
I’m not the only one. A lot of sharp bettors I know are addicted—not in the “losing everything” way. They’re up. They’re winning. But they still can’t stop. The compulsion is there. The anxiety when you’re not betting is there. The dopamine spikes and crashes after a brutal beat? Very much there. And for a lot of us, that leads to the same patterns you see in gambling addiction: binge eating, poor sleep, irritability, social withdrawal. Just without the financial ruin.
Personally, I’ve lost 20 of the 40 pounds I gained. I’m back in the gym. Cooking again. Sleeping better. I still struggle—especially during losing stretches or emotionally draining days. When your brain’s fried from sweating three OT games in one night, crushing 1,000 calories of snacks feels inevitable. But I’m trying.
What’s helped most? Believing in myself beyond betting. For a long time, I felt like if this dried up, I was screwed. That made it impossible to step away—even for a day. But I’m starting to trust that if betting stops working, I’ll find something else. That belief—more than any gym routine or macro count—has been the single biggest unlock for my mental and physical health.
The moment it really hit me was in 2024. It was by far my most successful betting year—I made more than in all previous years combined. But it had zero impact on my happiness. I was still irritable, anxious, glued to the screen. That was the wake-up call: something had to change.
And look—I get that I’m speaking from a point of privilege. If I read this exact newsletter in 2021, when I had a much smaller bankroll, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes and said, “Easy for you to say.” That’s fair. I’m not saying the grind is bad. In fact, to win in this space, you have to be a little addicted. You have to love it. But if you eat like shit, never see your friends or family, skip the gym, and ignore your body... those wins don’t feel like wins for long. It’s about finding some kind of balance.
I’m not here to preach. I don’t have it all figured out. But if you’re deep in the betting world and starting to feel off—physically, mentally, emotionally—maybe this is your nudge to take stock. You don’t have to wait until your body breaks down to realize you’ve been running it into the ground.
There’s always another edge.
But your health? You only get one.
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