I grew up in England with the American sport on late at night and the sound turned down so nobody would wake. At twenty-two I got on a plane to Nevada with one bag and a phone number, and the next week I was writing tickets behind a sportsbook counter on the Strip.
I stayed twenty years. I moved from the counter to the back room, where the prices get made and moved. That's where I learned the thing nobody tells you: the game is mostly decided before anyone takes the field. It's decided by who's actually playing. A star sitting out on the second night of a back-to-back. A pitcher scratched an hour before the first pitch. A goalie resting. The people who knew that first got the best of the price. Everybody else paid for it.
"By the time the teams walk out, the smart money has already spoken. My job is to get you there before it does."
These days I'm back home in England. But I never really left Vegas time. The games start when this country goes to bed, and I'm up anyway. Friends started asking what I fancied before they turned in, so now I write it down properly — once a night, with my reasons — and every bet goes on a public record from the first day.
Here's what I will and won't do. I'll only back a winner: the team that wins the game, nothing fancier. I won't back a game that's already started. I won't pick a team until I know who's playing for them. And if the night's full of games I can't read, I'll tell you to sleep easy and keep your money.