Review your bets.Check your luck.Examine results.Consider new stats.Test new theories.Import stats.Update your database.Say hello to your family.Take a shower.Buy new sweatpants.Analyze success versus the closing number.Self-scout.Of all the items ...

"The Sopranos." Season 1, Episode 5. Aired Feb. 7, 1999. Title: "College." (What? I write a gambling column for ESPN, spent six years living in the same Jersey town as Dr. Melfi and used to go to Holsten's for ice cream with my kids. You think I ...

This past Sunday morning, after the Pacers had evened the series with Miami and made LeBron think he was going to have to win the Eastern Conference finals Cleveland-style, I let my overmedicated, sleep-deprived imagination run wild. Before you call ...

There was a point last NFL season, it was after Week 4 in fact, that we all thought the Atlanta Falcons were the best team in the NFL. It's true. I looked it up. They had started the season beating up on Kansas City 40-24 at Arrowhead. And this was ...

When Michael Swanson woke up Tuesday morning this is what he was facing: His one-month-old son, Adam, had spent the night in the hospital with a fever. His girlfriend still was recovering from gallbladder surgery. And he had to get to his job in the ...

I don't know many ex-gamblers. It's not the kind of gig that you can just decide you don't want to do anymore, like lawyering or doctoring or being a banker. And it's not the kind of career where you suddenly say one day that you're not going into ...

Words have consequences. If that's a lesson from kindergarten you had forgotten at some point between then and now, we got a reminder this week.Before the Pac-12 tournament, the conference's head of officiating, Ed Rush, told his crew of refs that ...

At the 10:30 mark of the UNC-Kansas game last weekend, with UNC up 14-6, I thought to myself: I'm watching a pickup game in a really nice stadium.There was one summer, many years ago when I lived in New York, when all I did was watch pickup games. ...

'Twas Sunday, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, a few hours after the lines for the NCAA tournament had opened, and all through the night, most wiseguys were not stirring. Outside Chicago, Sal Selvaggio from Madduxsports.com saw the spreads ...

It was 1:35 on Thursday afternoon. At that moment, I was still getting questions about Iona's bad beat on Monday, still collecting sob stories of folks who had the Gaels minus-4.It will come as no surprise to anyone that I am not the sharpest knife ...