Several months ago, I wrote about my desire to become a pro bettor and, for a while, everything was going great.

Then the COVID-19 lockdowns began shutting everything down.

First, the NBA shuttered its season and then the NCAA announced there would be no Final Four Tournament for the first time since it was introduced in 1939 (yes, it was still played during World War II).

Horse racing all but disappeared too. At one time, my wagering menu consisted of Will Rogers Downs and Fonner Park (not surprisingly, both those tracks posted record numbers this year).

Worse, I began seeing a preponderance of short prices. Hence, following an advance horse racing wager on a 1-9 shot — who added insult to injury by losing — I shut things down, determined to:

1. Come up with a way to combat the stream of chalk I was experiencing. (I did this by utilizing conditional odds when I could and passing races when the morning line odds were too low — not a foolproof solution by any means, but one that I hoped would cut down on my underlay bets.)

2. Generate more plays. This I accomplished by looking at harness racing again, a sport I was quite involved with several years ago, but hadn’t played in any meaningful way for over 10 years. Later, I started studying greyhound races as well. (I don’t anticipate this adding much to my bottom line — if anything — but it was fun, and I learned some things I think will help me with my betting in general.)

In October, I put $200 in a BetAmerica account — because it features greyhound racing — and started betting more seriously again. (I purposely chose a small starting capital because I want to show that one doesn’t need thousands of dollars and a team of quants to be successful. Plus, October was more of a trial run, to see if I ironed out the issues above.)

Despite numerous problems, which I’ll go into in a moment, I had a solid month.

On the obvious plus side was a 42.0% overall ROI, which included positive returns on win bets, exactas, trifectas, superfectas and daily doubles. On the negative side was several losses related to late surface changes — something I still have no answer for, as I’m not in a position to monitor every bet that I make.

I also had to adjust my wagering strategy on harness racing, as BetAmerica does not offer conditional wagering and I did a horrendous job guessing what the final odds would be. Worse, I made several betting mistakes — wrong number, wrong race, etc.

To address the former issue, I have opened up an account with BetPTC.com, which has the best wagering interface(s) I have ever seen. It will take a while to get everything up and running, but once that happens, I’m hoping I can cut down on my bad bets.

As for the latter, I don’t know — maybe I need to start sniffing glue to clear my head.