On another topic you may know, I followed the NFL this year. I haven’t been into sports much since becoming a vegan because of the leather ball in many games out there. I had some extra time during this season and started checking things out, paying attention to many new dynamics my wisdom in the mid-forties is bringing. I have had some bad experiences with gambling and have lost a lot of money before. I also have some positive memories of hanging out with friends and family from Gangnam, Korea to Las Vegas, Nevada. My first introduction to the ins and outs of the art of gambling was during college. One of my roommates who was in Emerald City with me majoring in Film Scoring at Berklee, left to NYC on an internship opportunity and I was forced to find a replacement really quickly. My father put an ad in the paper and we found someone who ended up being a really fun living mate. Not only a big music fan, also a big sports fan and we were living right by Fenway Park at the time. He was from New York and the Yankees were playing the Red Sox. I won with an upset by Boston and my new friend told me all sorts of things people wager on and basically all the details in between. I got into almost every sport paying attention to it that way and loved going out to the local bars by Park Drive and watching games. So I lost a big amount on a roulette table in Gangnam, Korea, which was before the song Gangnam Style came out by PSY and haven’t really done much since then. Now it is actually legal in Florida through Hard Rock Bet which Post Malone does commercials for and since I don’t have a job I was studying the numbers and making mock bets, sometimes I thought of that as a way out. Well not all banks will allow you to put money into the online account and I was upset about it thinking the site was unreliable, so I cancelled the account. I eventually felt annoyed that all sorts of freedoms as an American we have wanted for a long time were being spoiled in one way or the other, so I contacted them to get it reopened. It was a lot of back and forth. At first they were asking if I needed to talk to a counselor about gambling problems. However I hadn’t actually made a bet through their service yet at all. I told them I have a blog and I wanted to review the site to see how it is with immediate deposits and sometimes instant withdrawals in a legal context. Just like medical marijuana, sometimes these new cultures are under-developed and can even be reversed in time. Recreational marijuana was just reversed in Thailand, which was a huge hit for all the shops that had opened up. I visited there when it was mostly very free and they had bars with pre-rolled joints or bud one could buy by weight, along with local beers on tap. It was like a paradise in some ways, however now it has changed seemingly overnight. Possibly because the new stuff is so strong and the laws are not always clear which can lead to unnecessary paranoia. In sum they opened back up my account and it is very easy to get money in and out as well as make a bet. It feels like work sometimes and definitely very risky, however it’s exciting to have that option as a legal form of serious adult entertainment. There are some professional advisors on sports tips which you can pay for like Joe Raineri on Wagertalk. I did a Weekend Warrior package and even without gambling it’s really fun to know all this data from an expert who does more research than most averages joes can even find. Just like being back in college with my roommate!