Freedom 55? Statistics professor gambles his way to Freedom 43

financialpost.com:

David Beaudoin had what many sports-loving academics would regard as a dream job. He graduated from Laval University in Quebec City with a PhD and walked right into a regular teaching gig there as a statistics professor while devoting his research to applying statistical analysis to the wide world of sports and authoring papers that, for example, examined “biased penalty calls” in the NHL.

By crunching data sets, Beaudoin found there is indeed bias, and teams that have taken “more penalties in a match are less likely to have the next penalty called against them,” among other things.

But despite outward appearances, the approachable professor was a mess inside. Standing before a class of 175 students to deliver a lecture was never his idea of a good time. He would tie himself in knots as a diary of self-doubts reeled through his mind: Was he being clear enough? Did the kids get the concept? Was he delivering the statistical goods? In truth, he was nailing it in class, but it was always hard to convince himself of that.

“I am a pretty shy person,” he said. “I was good at teaching, but I did not enjoy it.”

Beaudoin finally decided he had had enough of the professorial grind and retired about a year ago, along with some 300,000 other Canadians who did the same. Unlike most, however, the professor was 43 years old. That is, a comparative kid, but one who amassed a substantial retirement nest egg not solely through teaching statistics, but with a side hustle that combined his numerical chops and statistical modelling know-how to primarily bet on sports.

“One of my biggest life goals was to be able to quit my job as early as possible,” he said. “I always thought it was sad to see people working until their 60s, and then once