2025 kind of flew by, no? I feel like I didn't write '2025' or '/25' all that much for it to be a full year. I like the theory that as you get older, everything seems to speed up since each passing year, or passing minute, really, is a smaller percentage of your lived life. A year to a 10 year old is 10% of his whole life so far. To a 50 year old, it's only 2%.
2025 was a good year for me, betting wise. Not great but not bad at all. Ever since 2019, when my volume really dropped off and I was no longer full time, I have made what I would consider about bare minimum to be as into betting as I am. 2020 was a good year with all the whacky Covid era video game and stock market bets, plus these weird KHL correlated parlays I was able to bet, but 19, 21, 22 and 23 were pretty low. I have never had a losing year betting in my life, but after 2023 I really gave up the idea of modeling with any kind of seriousness. 2024 was somewhat of a bounce back year. By throwing in the towel on modeling props, I was able to really hone in on other stuff, mainly team totals and teasers. I've always bet Wong teasers but these past two years I really learned a lot more about the math of it all and I made a nice google sheet to show all my pending bets cleanly. That google sheet was probably the best thing I did recently betting wise and I highly suggest anyone out there do the same. I used to not put all my pending bets anywhere which I can't even really believe thinking back. Then I would do it with pen and paper which always eventually got messy enough to be useless. Having all my positions readily available nice and neat has been great. As soon as I make a bet I put it in the sheet, then I have a set up for each matchup so I know exactly what I have on each side. One of those things that you can't believe you ever lived without once you start using it.
So 2024 was good and 2025 was a little bit below, but more than double the down years. It's odd, for the 4 years I didn't do as good I made almost the exact same amount all 4 years. My volume was up slightly in 2025 from 2024 but the ROI was a little bit less. (3.02% ROI for the year which really isn't bad at all). I actually took most of the summer off as I had zero action all of July and August. I've never taken that much time off before. But from September to the end of the year was a Dustin Pedroia laser show. I crushed NFL this year, going 12 for 18 for winning weeks. The week of 11/10 this year was my best week since late 2020.
I made more betting teasers this year than I ever have, including when I was full time. I will admit though that that's a bit misleading since I lost more in straight NFL bets than ever before, which was due to all the teaser hedges. I made more than double in teasers than what I lost in NFL straights, however. Something to think about going forward is just how much the teaser hedges got crushed. I would have obviously been much better off not hedging anything, but then I wouldn't be able to fire as much on teasers. Maybe I am over hedging a little bit though. Something I need to think about for next year, assuming I still have this PPH account.
This was the first year I really tried out legal sports books, too. Really no idea what took me so long. I honestly had no clue how many promos and odds boost they give out. I was so used to the wild wild west days of scammy books fucking everyone over, it didn't hit me that these legal books were simply dying for new customers. My results on both Fan Duel and Draft Kings for the year are pretty close to break-even with big volume, which is perfect. I'll have a long leash at both places and I do bet some hedges at widely available numbers on both sites, so I should be able to stay long at both and eat up the rewards. I'm already up on DK with the Gold/Silver/Platinum thing.
Besides the NHL Shots on Goal/Blocks foray, I bet very little props this year, really only betting with an odds boost or a promo. All together I made like 3 units. So I'm pretty much done with props unless it's something glaring. I made a decent 8 units Live Betting, which was good. Ending in the green Live Betting was a personal challenge for me in 2025.
One strange thing was that I lost 10ish units on 'Straights' which I have in my sheet as any straight bet that isn't on NFL. That's almost exclusively odds boost bets which are almost always arbale with the market. Hard to understand how I lost in this, but I made money in 'non NFL straights' from September on, so I think this will be green in 2026 as I get better at using the promos/odds boost.
I lost a tiny amount with Robin Hood futures. Looking back, buying a bunch of bullish crypto futures at the very end of the bull market this year was horrific. Really kicking myself over that, actually. I have plenty of crypto exposure, there was no reason to add to it, especially with the market being at all time highs. Seriously, what the fuck was I thinking? I actually remember buying a few of these, thinking in the back of my head that they should all be the other side. Oh well.
All in all, a good year betting. I binked what felt like a few more middles than usual and not capping props at all was an absolute load off this year. Really freed me up for other stuff. I might actually break out the prop models for the playoffs this year a little bit but we'll see.
2025 was, somehow, somewhat of a disappointing year for crypto. Bitcoin actually officially had a red year, coming in at about -6%. With all the ETFs and the mainstream acceptance of BTC, it's hard to wrap your mind around the down year, until you realize that it was at $42k Jan 2024, and $17k Jan 2023. Same thing I always say with Bitcoin: just zoom out and keep stacking. I'm waiting for this bear market to officially hit us so I can scoop up a lot more at a discount, but it feels like everyone is thinking the same thing. I can't imagine the bottom is already in but crazier things have happened. Personally, I'm waiting for a break under $86kish, which feels like the new floor. All the pundits think roughly $50k will be this years low but obviously no one knows anything.
The biggest news in crypto this year, besides the ETF's, was the complete lack of an alt-season. We've discussed that on here before but that really is a big deal. It makes some people nervous, but I think it's just a healthy market correction. For how long could you really expect Joe Blow to be speculating into NFTs and meme coins? (Remember Bored Apes lol. How embarrassing.) The BTC/ETH chart is almost exactly dead even for 2025, but that's been in a big macro down trend since 2022. Early 2022 you could get .088 BTC for one ETH. Today, that number is .034. (And mid 2025 it was .019, so it's actually kind of been pumping lately).
Politics has been pretty insane here, honestly. The amount that things have shifted since the 2020 madness is mind boggling. I've honestly turned into a one issue voter. I want deportations, and a lot of them. The free lunch is over. I say this all the time but we really have absolutely no idea how good we could and should have it in America. I've made a few posts like this recently so I won't get too into it now. But for me, the economy, the foreign policy, even the Fed, it all takes a back seat to getting hateful freeloaders the fuck OUT of here, and the first step of that is to say it. No more fear. At all. I'm actually ashamed at how absurd we all let it get, thinking back. But anyway.
I read quite a few books in 2025. The best one by far was The Watchmen comic. Seriously, give that a read if you haven't before. I read Doomsday Clock afterwards too, which is considered somewhat of a sequel to Watchmen. It was ok. Worth reading but too comic-y for me. Not in the same league as Watchmen. Another book I read recently was The Alchemist (again I got it for free walking around my neighborhood. I've never been one for signs or anything of the sort, but it is a little bit strange the books that have just like literally ended up right in front of me, for free.) The Alchemist is a pretty famous book, for sure worth reading. Not long or hard to read at all, either.
Personally, my daughter is now 2.5. My wife and I are still going strong and my 'real' career is going great. I admit I can get a little bit down sometimes but when you look at it all from a couple steps back, it's all pretty good. I turn fucking 40 this year which is a bit of a mind fuck. Sometimes I forget I'm not 16 anymore. Though I will say I'm not as freaked out as I thought I might be. 30 really fucked with me. I was such a 20-something year old. But at this point, I guess I do feel 40. Or at least, like, 32.
All in all, I am grateful. I could definitely have more of a social life these days - it's pretty crazy how that just drops out when everyone starts having kids. But anytime I go out these days I'm looking to get home pretty early. I'm not going to do any goals for 2026 or anything, but I would like betting to be at least as good as 2025 and I definitely want to play more poker. If we get a big bear market, I want to really load up on Bitcoin. I want to be a good father too, which I think is important to think about. I'm not so sure my parents thought like that when I was my daughters age.
I'm going to wrap it up here. I will have some sort of Christmas/New Years bizarro post out soon.
And from me to you, genuinely, thank you for reading. I like doing this blog, it's fun. See ya later!
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