''I liked the snooty, button-down world of banking,'' he says today. The ritual was always the same: He would try to get through to the bookie (no easy task with other bettors attempting to make the same call), find out the odds for that evening's baseball or basketball game, hang up, decide on a bet, reach the bookie a second time to place it, finish his dinner and then settle down in front of the television to watch the evening's sitcoms - all the while appearing utterly nonchalant so his wife would not know what he was doing.īy 1983, when Bob was 34 (like other gamblers described in this article, he has requested anonymity), he had been betting heavily on sports events for 14 years, and his losses had mounted as inexorably as his compulsion. The banker raced home not to see his family but to be at the telephone by 6:30, when his bookmaker opened for business. When he arrived, he kissed his wife and child, hung up his jacket, went into the bathroom to wash up - and broke into a cold sweat. Bright, friendly and personable, the bank vice president left his job every afternoon at 5 and headed straight home to Long Island. HE CONSIDERED HIMSELF a model family man.
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