BlackJack Fletcher: How I Handle Being on Sports-Betting Tilt

Part of being an everyday gambler is riding the roller coaster. The highs are spectacular, and we chase that feeling every day.

When you're winning, everything is going right and you can do no wrong. You are on top of the world. The opposite side of that coin is when you are on tilt. Full blown, free-falling, tilt.

The question is, how do you handle it?

Losing sucks. Plain and simple. Nobody wants to lose. Not me, not you, not anybody. For the last week or so, I've been mired in a death spiral-like tilt. Everyone tries to handle it differently.

Some people increase their bet size or numbers of bets to get out of the hole more quickly. Some people turn to exotics, like parlays or teasers, to try to hit a big score.

Others get gun-shy, and don't trust themselves anymore. The truth is none of these things is the right answer.

If you've been successful at gambling, to any extent, you have to trust yourself and the things that helped you succeed. You need to stay the course. Just keep doing what you did in the first place.

At the end of the day, gambling is a risk.

We are dealing with human beings playing games and issues of chance and variance. Sometimes the breaks go your way, and sometimes they don't.

When you're caught in the riptide, you have to remember to swim parallel to the shore until you're out of the pulling tide. That's what being on tilt is. A riptide pulling you away, just tread water for a bit and you'll be fine.

This was as much catharsis for myself as it is informative for you. At the end of the day, everything reverts back to the mean.

Now that this is out of the way, let's go kick some ass and get some damn wins on the board.

It's time to cash some tickets, baby!