There’s a gambling addiction and then there’s betting on your own team
This is what I don’t get about the addiction angle. As far as we know he wasn’t betting on Malaysian badminton at 2 am or ponies at some podunk track in the middle of Arkansas… he was betting on his own team. I’m not saying he isn’t an addict, but he very clearly had some level of control. To me it suggests he just thought he wouldn’t be caught, not that he couldn’t help himself.
You don’t have to be a stereotypical degenerate head case to have genuine addiction. Especially that very very American example of an addict
No one starts at the finish line
These boys are in their early twenties and all they’ve done so far in life is play football. So they bet on what they knew. They don’t need the money one bit, it was all about the next dopamine hit
