Winner...

She kept meticulous notes in her little black notebook. She poured over the scores, the individual stats, team records... baseball in the spring and summer, football in the fall and winter, pro basketball and hockey - she tracked them all. She even liked college basketball, but that one changed more frequently. She followed sports analysts on CBS Sportsline, ESPN and all the other major experts, was in a few groups on social media and dabbled in a few of the free fantasy leagues. But she still liked the feel of the little black notebook, where she could jot down notes and analysis of the players, teams, coaches and even fans; following her gut feelings, seeing things in a way that only her mind could. The pages looked like a coach’s clipboard during a game, with lines connecting points across and around. Circles and asterisks, sideways commentary that she couldn’t recreate on one of the prepackaged spreadsheet tools that so many of the others relied on.

She could be herself in the notebook - she was aware her mind worked differently than other people’s did. Her co-workers were kind but distant, and didn’t include her in their social gatherings (which was fine as she wasn’t really comfortable in social gatherings anyway). The anonymity of online message boards were both a blessing and a curse - she could follow without truly participating, lurking in the background without getting too involved. And she didn’t dare reveal she was a woman; her online alias was decidedly generic. While sports has come a long way, if they found out you were “a girl,” the trolls could be unbearable. It wasn’t as bad as the gaming world but too many were still downright nasty, misogynistic and sometimes racist. She would engage occasionally with the others in some light conversation about a team, to correct someone else’s mistake, or sometimes just to ensure she was a real person, but mostly she was happy to read, keeping in the background and making her comments in her little black notebook.

As this season’s playoffs loomed, the experts created their lines and brackets, social media hummed with predictions, and the odds were set. She paid close attention to all of them, taking her notes and following the lines. But something nagged at her as she listened and read….something was amiss with the analysis she was reading. She went back to her notes in the little black notebook, reviewing her own commentary and analysis. The pages held all her secrets, her understanding of what might happen. She studied the pages and connections she had made over this season. Then she went back to the previous seasons to see if there might be something there - some long-term observation recorded on pages long ago. She read and reread, closed it to take a break, and slept on it (sometimes quite literally, if osmosis would only provide her the answer as her cheek pressed against its smooth cover). She knew the answer was in there, she just needed to find it.

Then she saw it - an asterisk on a page in her little black notebook, a small comment about a team from weeks prior. It hadn’t seemed significant then but it loomed large now. She hadn’t heard anything on the major networks about it, or anything online, nothing from the oddsmakers in Vegas. But she knew - SHE KNEW - it would make a difference in the outcome of the championship game. It was time.

She had never gambled before on sports because to make any significant money, you have to bet significant money, money she didn’t really have. But this time was different. She was sure she was right. She was sure she would win. So she logged on to one of the gambling sites and she placed her bet - . $100 on 200 to 1 odds. And she won....