Brian misses the old days of gambling, when it was still illegal and the worst that could happen was some goon might have your legs broken.
That was five years ago.
The 27-year-old network engineer from Queens, New York—he declined to share his last name out of fear of losing his job—would bet a few grand every week. A little poker. Maybe the casinos. Usually, it was the NBA or Major League Baseball. He’d win, he’d lose. The most he ever owed was $30,000 to a loan shark with ties to a Chinese crime syndicate. “He definitely wasn’t somebody you wanted to owe money to,” Brian told me. They hashed out a payment plan so Brian could keep betting—with the understanding that a late payment might land him in a cast.
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