With all due respect 54Capper, I'm was in my 20's when I did it. Absolutely the number 1 thing you do is know what someone does for a living, have them earn their credibility, and most the times it all works out. The person that I dealt with was not an honest person, therefore dealing with him led to me being dishonest. I was in my early 20's making enough money and was full of piss and vinegar - to say the least.
Whether or not you believe the stories are no bother to me and in retrospect, I should not even of mentioned them. The people that respond to this and assume first that I'm bragging don't bother me either. Why in the hell would I brag about something like this?
My point of writing this was to the people that ACTUALLY ARE IN THEIR EARLY 20's who have this dream that they can bet on sports for a living. Poker and giving sports advice I think are different stories. To keep betting in perspective is my entire point and as a re-read the post on page 1, I realize I should have articulated it better. I have seen people basically ruin their lives through doing this and to prevent 1 person from doing that is enough for me.
The 10 point swing? Against people that WONT pay; so basically let em run the bill up and get what you can out of them. If a guy owes 500bucks and you know he may not be good for it let em go to 1500 because when you ask him for the 1500 and he gives you 500, thats all you were looking for anyways. If he wins back the 500 bucks just stop dealing with him. As you know there are warning signs as to when someone may not pay you. If you run it legitimately than congratulations and I hope it all works out. In my experience, degenerate gamblers will always fuck you in the end, period. And these types of people are ALWAYS credible in the beginning, the disease causes them to be someone their not.
This sounds much better than your original post.