so i've been pretty big into writing for the past few years and i'm now starting to get paid for my work and it's pretty enjoyable. here's an article i did for athletes who gamble, i'm pretty proud of how it turned out. and if y'all know of any opportunities i could get in to for writing, shoot me a pm and i'd be interested.

Spoiler

10 Athletes Who Gambled

By: ***


For superstar athletes there comes a time when they know that they’re going to go pro; whether it be in middle school, high school, or even college. Knowing that you’re going to be a millionaire athlete at a young age can be kind of surreal and provides a lot more possibilities that they never imagined - the money, the fame, the women. Back in the early 00’s and 90’s a lot of athletes struggled with spending their finances and often times went bankrupt (see: Allen Iverson). Let’s take a look at some of the athletes over the years who struggled with more than just spending problems. Let’s take a look at athletes who gambled.


Michael Jordan - NBA

This one is pretty well known but it’s still one of the most interesting examples. Michael Jordan is a lot of things: the GOAT (greatest of all time), a jackass, competitive, ruthless. But more than anything, Jordan was an icon. I wouldn’t exactly say that MJ “struggled” with gambling as much as he was - and still is - addicted to it. There are many stories about MJ’s gambling problems, but some of them are a little more weird than others. Back in his Bull’s days, Jordan was known to bet $100K on a game of rock, paper, scissors with his teammates. Jordan enjoyed gambling with his team and other NBA stars such as Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and then-teammate, Scottie Pippen. In one instance, MJ stayed up until 6 AM the night of his Olympic series against Croatia playing poker with aforementioned players. MJ bet on literally everything imaginable - including who would get their luggage first at the airport. MJ reportedly bribed an airport staff member and made $900 off of a disgruntled teammate. Jordan is pretty lucky that he never went bankrupt with his love for gambling, as a matter of fact he’s the richest athlete alive - with a net worth of $1.65B. Michael Jordan is… Something else.

Gilbert Arenas - NBA

Booray - a card game that originated in Louisiana - that has taken the NBA by storm over the past two decades was Arenas game of choice. Arenas is like Michael Jordan in a sense - he’s competitive. But his competitiveness and gambling was the downfall of not only his career, but Javaris Crittenton’s as well. After Arenas had taunted and destroyed Crittenton in a game of booray on the team plane Crittenton was livid, but Arenas didn’t care. Arenas taunted Crittenton and threatened to burn Crittenton while he was in his car. Crittenton said “I’ll just shoot you then” to which Arenas replied, “I’ll bring you the guns to shoot me.” And Arenas delivered on that promise by bringing four unloaded guns to team practice and laid them on the table for Crittenton to shoot him with. Crittenton didn’t need those guns though, he brought his own gun to the locker room - and his was loaded. Crittenton cocked the gun at Arenas and pointed it directly at Arenas with terrified teammates sitting in the locker room. This altercation ended with both players being suspended by then-commissioner, David Stern. Arenas continued to play after that season, but Crittenton didn’t make it back into the NBA and ended up joining a different club - the Crips. Crittenton was sentenced to prison for voluntary manslaughter after killing a 22 year old woman in a drive-by shooting, with a release date of 2036.

Pete Rose - MLB

The only player to be ineligible for the MLB Hall Of Fame, Pete Rose remains banned from baseball to this day. During Pete Rose’s time as a manager it is still unclear whether he bet on or against the Red’s, regardless it’s a big deal. With Pete Rose being the manager of the team, he had different impacts compared to if he was a player. Rose was able to change rotations, and make decisions that could severely affect the game, that would eventually lead to his infamy that remains to this day.

Charles Barkley - NBA

Barkley has been open about his gambling addictions throughout the years and has made it public by stating in an interview “I went to Vegas a bunch of times and won a million dollars. Probably ten times. But I’ve also went to Vegas and lost a million probably three times as much.” Barkley would frequently gamble with his former-friend Michael Jordan. Barkley claims to have lost 30 million dollars throughout his years of gambling, but now he’s settled down his habits says that it’s a “non-problem” and that he can lose “only” $200K and be fine as long as he’s having fun.


John Daly - PGA

52 year old champion golfer, John Daly mentioned in his 2006 autobiography that he lost between $50 and $60 million in a 15 year period, including a loss of $1.5M in one sitting on a $5000 slot machine. Daly claims that he’s gotten better with his gambling problems and it hasn’t affected his career in recent years. Daly is currently on tour in the PGA championship, tied for 100th place as of 8/9/18.

Antoine Walker - NBA

Antoine Walker made over $100M in his NBA career and even with the NBA’s amazing 401k program, he still went bankrupt. Granted, he went bankrupt because of his lavish spending habits that included: custom suits for every game, expensive cars, expensive jewelry, but gambling still played a part in his bankruptcy. Walker racked up over $800k in gambling debts between three Vegas casinos. But what happened when he tried to pay the debts off? The check bounced. Antoine Walker is now teaching classes to incoming professional stars about wise spending habits and trying to persuade athletes to not end up like him.

Paul Hornung - NFL

Paul Hornung, four-time champ and NFL MVP was banned from the league for the entirety of the 1963 season for betting on football games. Hornung and Alex Karras would gamble between $100 and $500 (equivalent to $839 and $4200 in today’s currency) on multiple NFL and NCAA games. Hornung was eventually reinstated to the NFL in the 1964 season, to which he credits happened with the help of Vince Lombardi. In a 2006 interview, Hornung says that after he was banned from the NFL he swore off of gambling, including Vegas and the Kentucky Derby which he would attend annually.

Kenny McKinley - NFL

With a barrage of funny gambling stories, this particular example has a much darker and sinister tone to it. Kenny McKinley was drafted in the fifth round by the Denver Broncos in the 2009 draft. McKinley played in 8 games in the 2009 season as a kick returner, he returned 7 kicks for a total of 158 yard. McKinley was eventually sidelined with a knee injury in December 2008. McKinley was ecstatic to be drafted to the NFL as any player would be, but he eventually accumulated gambling debts. McKinley had borrowed money from a teammate in order to pay off his gambling debts, but the stress of the injury and his debts had spiraled Kenny deep into depression. Kenny McKinley eventually committed suicide a year after he was drafted to the NFL.

Jaromír Jágr - NHL

Jaromír Jágr had a problem with gambling in the early days of the internet, accumulating $500,000 worth of debt with an online gambling website. Jágr had agreed to make monthly payments to pay off the debt, but the owner came public with the story when Jágr quit making payments. Jágr’s problems don’t stop there however: the IRS eventually filed a $3.27M lien against Jágr for unpaid taxes.

Floyd Mayweather Jr - Boxing

Everyone knows that Floyd Mayweather is kind of a jackass, but he’s a rich jackass. Mayweather is constantly flaunting his wealth and new cars on social media, but he also loves to post his gambling wins, on the flip side, he doesn’t post his gambling losses. Mayweather reportedly placed a $10.4M bet on the Broncos in the 2014 super bowl against the Seahawks when the Broncos would proceed to lose 43-8. Mayweather denies that this ever happened. Personally, I think Mayweather just hates losing and didn’t want anyone to know that he lost. If the Broncos won it’s almost a certainty that he would flaunt it a little more than usual.

here is one that i did on "what happened to isaiah thomas?" the 5'9 former superstar point guard.

Spoiler

What Happened To Isaiah Thomas?

By: *****


Two years ago, 5’9 point guard Isaiah Thomas took the league by storm in a wave of green: averaging 29 points, playing nearly 82 games and leading the Celtics to an Eastern Conference Finals appearance. Thomas poured his heart and soul into Boston and practically bled green, but he learned a harsh lesson in the 2017 offseason: loyalty doesn’t matter in the NBA.

Isaiah Thomas To the Celtics

Minutes before the trade-deadline on February 19th 2015, 39 players were traded to over a dozen teams across the league, Isaiah Thomas being one of those players. Celtics general manager, Danny Ainge, finalized a trade to the Phoenix Suns sending Marcus Thorton and the Cleveland 2016 first round pick (Skal Labissiere, 28th pick) for Isaiah Thomas. In only his fourth game in a Celtics uniform, Thomas scored 28 points and 7 assists coming off the bench. The second that Thomas stepped on the court in a green jersey, he transcended into a completely different player.

The Rise

It wasn’t until Thomas’s second season in Boston that he truly showed what type of player he could be. Averaging 29 points and six assists throughout 79 games of the 2016-2017 season, Thomas led the Celtics to a great playoff run, all while playing through a hip injury. Unfortunately, in the first round of the playoffs, Thomas was informed that his younger sister, Chyna Thomas, had died in a car accident. Thomas played days after his sister’s death, writing messages to her on his shoes and scoring 53 points against the Wizards on what would have been her 23rd birthday. Thomas continued to play through this series, battling a hip injury, the death of his sister, and eventually losing a tooth mid-game.

The Fall

After the ups and downs that Thomas dealt with in Boston there was still one thing that was nagging him: his hip injury. It proved to be worse than he had originally thought and playing through the injury for months didn’t help. In the 2017 offseason Danny Ainge made a trade with the Cavs, sending Jae Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Ante Zizic and Brooklyn’s 2018 first round pick (Collin Sexton, 6th pick) in exchange for disgruntled all-star, Kyrie Irving. Thomas didn’t play for a majority of the 2017-2018 season, and when he did, it wasn’t pretty. He averaged 14.7 points with abysmal shooting splits of .361/.253/.863. Things would have been pretty decent for Thomas if he was able to defend, but Thomas’s size was a huge disadvantage for him, with most guards having at least a four inch height advantage on Thomas.

Isaiah Thomas To the Lakers

Isaiah Thomas didn’t get along well with LeBron James and other teammates: causing drama in the locker room and openly spreading rumors to the media. He didn’t last very long in Cleveland, playing only half a season before he was traded to the Lakers. Thomas played 17 games for Los Angeles, primarily serving as a backup point guard for then-rookie, Lonzo Ball. Thomas’s shooting splits increased slightly, and he averaged 15 points in the 17 games he played, but his defense still hindered him significantly.

Isaiah Thomas To the Nuggets

Thomas eventually had to have hip surgery in March 2018, and was not re-signed to the Lakers. Within a span of two years, Thomas played for four teams: the Celtics, Cavs, Lakers and now the Nuggets. Thomas recently signed a 1yr/$2M contract to the Denver Nuggets after the hellish year that he’s been put through. If things don’t go well for him this year, it might be the last year that he plays in the NBA.

if y'all like these let me know and i can post a few others that i've done. i mainly do mlb matchup articles but i've done a few others such as athletes who play poker, nba signings you forgot about and i did a football article the other day despite not knowing anything about football  

Thank you TDTAT, very cool!

Jokes aside, that's pretty good  

Posted by Eugeen

Thank you TDTAT, very cool!

Jokes aside, that's pretty good

hah, you checked it on google huh? that's the client that i wrote for, but i just redacted my real name from this post. but thank you!  

IT is coming for blood this year, he’s gonna get himself back on track this year with Denver even if it means coming off the bench behind Jamal Murray I think he could make some serious contributions for them and possibly get himself a sixth man of the year award.

Nice job on the articles though, always cool when something you love can be used to make money it makes the job so much more fun.  

Posted by iHot

IT is coming for blood this year, he’s gonna get himself back on track this year with Denver even if it means coming off the bench behind Jamal Murray I think he could make some serious contributions for them and possibly get himself a sixth man of the year award.

Nice job on the articles though, always cool when something you love can be used to make money it makes the job so much more fun.

i really do hope that IT shines this year. i tried to highlight all of the stuff that he's been put through in recent years and his life has been a living hell. but like you said, i do think he'll be coming off the bench behind murray and i really do hope that he shines but denver's defense is going to be pretty atrocious and it's going to be pretty difficult for them to make the playoffs this year, but it would be exciting to see  

This seems amazing.
Good to know you're getting paid for it.  

Posted by Pariah Kurza

This seems amazing.
Good to know you're getting paid for it.

thank you! and yeah, i only have one client right now but i'm really hoping that i can find some more and make a full-time living off of this. i'm either going to freelance or get an internship after i get my degree and work my way up to writing for NBA teams and interviewing players. i'm hoping it works out and it's seeming like it will  

gonna go ahead and bump this with an article i did on Shaquem Griffin the one handed NFL rookie last week.

Spoiler

One Hand, One Dream

By: *****

Shaquem Griffin is a modern day feel good story, and for good reason. Griffin was born with amniotic band syndrome which caused the fingers on his left hand to not develop fully. This left Griffin in agonizing pain for the first four years of his life, so much so that he tried to cut off his fingers with a butcher knife at the age of four just to free himself of the pain. His mother walked in on him trying to self-amputate and attempted to comfort him as best she could, massaging his hand and giving him the love that only a mother is capable of giving. The next day, Griffin’s mother scheduled an appointment to have his left hand amputated.

Shaquem didn’t let his disability bring him down, in fact, it only made him stronger. With support from his twin brother, coaches and father, Shaquem wanted to prove all of the naysayers wrong. Griffin said “No one ever told me I couldn’t play; they just said I wouldn’t be able to.” And he followed through on his goals: he proved everyone wrong and did the impossible. Running track, playing baseball and football at the age of five, Griffin was determined to be the best - and a little bit better. In his senior year of high school, Shaquem lodged 67 tackles and two interceptions for Lakewood.

Shaquem and his twin, Shaquill were - and still are - inseparable. Many college coaches told Shaquill to ditch his brother and go to highly prestigious colleges, but Shaquill wasn’t interested in playing without his brother. The Griffin twins eventually settled to attend the University of Central Florida. Shaquem played a full four years at UCF and went undefeated in his senior year and won the National Championship. Shaquill was drafted in his junior year by the Seattle Seahawks.

After his time at UCF, Shaquem garnered interest in multiple NFL teams with his astounding draft workout performances. He benched 20 reps while wearing a prosthesis and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds - the fastest time for any NFL linebacker. People were starting to realize that Shaquem wasn’t just a fluke or a feel-good story: he’s the real deal. With his incredible performance there was one team in particular that Shaquem had his eyes on: the Seahawks. Shaquem’s dreams came true on April 28, 2018, when he was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks to play alongside his twin brother. Griffin made his preseason debut this year against the Indianapolis Colts where he racked up six solo tackles and three assisted tackles. The one-handed rookie is going to be making his first NFL start in week 1 of the 2018 NFL season.

not a huge football fan, but this story is super interesting.  

Not a fan of football either but, i do like the way you write.
Seems like something i would read from a journalist.
Mind me asking but do you usually have a pattern you go by?  

Posted by Pariah Kurza

Not a fan of football either but, i do like the way you write.
Seems like something i would read from a journalist.
Mind me asking but do you usually have a pattern you go by?

i am majoring in journalism so i appreciate that.

so the pattern that i go by really depends on what type of article that i'm writing. for example, i do a weekly matchup article for baseball. so what i do is i look at the current standings for baseball, and since it's getting close to the playoffs i look for two teams that are close to making a playoff position. then i'll check their records against each other, look at the pitchers, and then write up a short article and rinse and repeat that until i get 3 good matchups for the week

for an article like this where it's a story, i went to wikipedia and skimmed through his story, and then i checked the sources that were on wikipedia and read through them and then i wrote it up. a lot of journalism just comes down to researching topics. the one that i'm really excited to write about is basketball since i love the nba  

Fascinating.
I'm majoring psychology but i guess the pattern is similar.
I tend to go through the same thing. More interesting to me since i never though about this with a head towards Football or sports in general.
Amazing how you're doing it. I love the choice of words too.
Great job.  

Posted by Pariah Kurza

Fascinating.
I'm majoring psychology but i guess the pattern is similar.
I tend to go through the same thing. More interesting to me since i never though about this with a head towards Football or sports in general.
Amazing how you're doing it. I love the choice of words too.
Great job.

i took a psych class in college and it was actually a blast. i know what you mean by going through the same pattern, i did the same thing when i was going through the textbooks and writing up essays for it.

but i mainly go through a lot of research with football and baseball since i don't know as much about them or follow them. when it comes to basketball i can just write for hours without much research.

but thank you! and i hope that you enjoy your major  

Posted by PoeticFolly

but thank you! and i hope that you enjoy your major

Thank you for posting here.
I hope you do best with your Major too.