Tony 10: The Astonishing Story of the Postman Who Gambled €10,000,000 ... And Lost It All by Tony O'Reilly & Declan Lynch

Author:Tony O'Reilly & Declan Lynch [O'Reilly, Tony & Lynch, Declan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Addictions, Autobiography, Betting, Biography, Computers, Criminal Law, Disease & Health Issues, Gambling, Non-Fiction, Personal Memoirs, Psychology, Self-Help, Social Science, Sports
ISBN: 9780717179688
Google: flJWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
Published: 2018-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Just before 8.00 a.m. he moves his car from the front of the hotel to the car park nearer the waterfront. He has this sense that he needs to keep moving the car, that to leave it outside Dobbins night and day with its Carlow registration would attract attention. Later he plans to move it back to the hotel, where the parking is free overnight. And then back again to the car park.

It’s as if he’s trying to bring some internal logic to this surreal situation. In a newsagent’s he checks the papers, there is nothing about him, not yet. Like some massively stressed tourist, he thinks he should make the most of his time up here in this dreamworld, while it lasts. The weather is beautiful. He mightn’t be able to enjoy a fine day for quite a while, so he strolls up to have a look at the famous Carrickfergus Castle, to take pictures. He buys the new Foo Fighters album, which he will play on his iPod.

He knows there will be consternation back home on the part of Fiona, on the part of his family and friends. He sees the emails from them coming in, but he just can’t engage with them because … because he can’t. He is too consumed with his own trauma, frozen in this weird space, unable to bring himself to communicate due to the enormity of his guilt and shame, and also because he is sure that any such contact will reveal his whereabouts, and will lead half the world to Carrickfergus. He is starting to have this notion that he might try to get across the water to Liverpool, but is worried he will be caught by the ferry customs people.

He does not seriously entertain thoughts of suicide, it is just a fleeting presence in his head, because he is an addicted gambler after all, and he still has that €28,000 in his online account.

But that is soon gone as well, as happens so quickly when you’re banging out the accas at ten grand a time. By lunchtime he is looking at zero in the top left-hand corner, at that fathomless void into which he has thrown millions, thrown his very soul – but still he has hope. He is waiting on a four-part tennis accumulator, the result of which will not be known until teatime. Two parts of the acca are on doubles matches at Wimbledon, which means these are at least high-class events in which everyone is probably trying. But for the moment there is still zero in the account, zero euro and zero cent, a terrifying sight.

Tony 10 takes himself off to a Ladbrokes office to bet in cash for the afternoon, to wait on the result of that acca that will get him back up to €28,000 if it wins.

It turns out he is not doing badly at all, betting for the afternoon in Ladbrokes. He is a couple of grand up on the horses, but at this stage this is really just walking-around money.

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