Gambling.

beed84

Got addicted to the slot machines about 10 years ago. I didn’t lose mega money, but I lost more than I could afford which was enough to make me feel miserable. Really, when it’s like that it just serves as a distraction from adult life.

axisus

I too was addicted to slot machines, 82 onwards for about 10 years. It was fun, fascinating, challenging, scary, horrible, depressing. I remember being unemployed, picking up my weekly money, stopping at the arcade and it was one of those sh*te sessions where the machines suck up your money and give you absolutely nothing. 10 minutes later I had just 5% of my money left and I felt sick to my stomach. Just couldn't stop though.

Phil_C

I knew somebody who not long left his job as train driver (60k a year basic!!) To become a pro poker player.

He lost everything, couldn't get his job back then committed suicide. 

It baffles me.

adampeter

I consider myself a controlled gambler, mostly horses.
Up to a few years ago it was very easy to maintain control and enjoy a punt on a saturday afternoon, if you wanted to get a bet on you had to walk to the bookies, now with the apps Its very hard now to keep control, and if you go to the bookies you have to dodge the machines.
I consider myself lucky in that i have zero interest in anything that i consider random, i.e machines, scratch cards, etc
Gambling addiction does have a unique ability to destroy very quickly though, and not just the gambler but everybody connected to that gambler

ThePrettyDamned

I remember when I was at uni, me and my friend were getting hammered in a small, local dive pub that sold beers cheaper than the student union (the kind of place where the chairs are ripped and there is a bad smell in the air). Lots of people would fall in from the bookies asking for a fiver to help them get their money back.

I think that was when it clicked for me - that sounds like a clichéd TV story but is absolutely true, and these people were helpless. Sometimes they'd ask for a free drink. Sometimes they'd get it... Often they'd stink of drink too. 

Really sad. I'm very fortunate that I don't seem to be into it, but my parents like to gamble - they set a strict budget, go online and either win or lose (usually lose) - but they enjoy the time, and it stops there. 

RaymondLin

Chemically, it is an addiction to a feeling you get in your brain when that horse runs over the line, a football score, the lottery ball drops.  Each time that happens your brain releases a little bit of chemical that is no different than other drug addiction.   

Then sociologically people do it for a lot of reasons, debt, escape from their life (like alcohol) but like all addiction, moderation is key.  We are all wired to be addicted to things, some people are addicted to collecting stamps, some people addicted to sex, some people addicted to alcohol.  You need to find that balance and know when it affects your every day life and seek help when it does. 

Paul31

I dont think to many get addicted and just bet small for fun, it is abit like with drinking some dont seem able to stop for some reason, i agree though a big win right at the start when one has no knowlegde of what can happen can be deadly, because with life alot of things group up sometimes good and sometimes bad abit like buses coming along.

I know when i was doing a maths degree they gave us a software program and i set it up to give me a 10% advanage at roulette with the 37 numbers, and did a million trials which it could calculate in about one second, i then broke it down into thousand segments and even then their were many segments that could wipe a large bank.

Their are a handful of very shrewd bettors mainly on sports who have very few bets that can win, but they are not really gamblers that have an excellent temperment for waiting which most people dont have, and have maybe tested their methods of selection for many years before even putting down one penny.

I would never recommend it for anybody to try though their are far easier ways to make money if that is ones wish.

Sassafras

I suppose it's a buzz like any other.
Some people are addicted to extreme activities like sky diving and mountaineering. I was addicted to heroin and cocaine for over 20 years. Others are addicted to food or sex. If you're not addicted, it's hard to understand.

BeardyAndy

I used to plough 100s in the fruit machines in my youth, never the big pay out ones with 4 or 5 reels just the pub 20p play ones. You put £40 in, win the £20 jackpot and think your a winner! 

Last time i looked they were £1 a spin! I've put them on my list of things I can no longer afford to do along with smoking and chasing younger women!!

Danny1969

It's everywhere at the moment .... blokes are constantly checking their phones during the football to see what they get if they cash out before the end of the game .... people in Co-op's asking for 2 of one kind of scratch card and 3 of another. People bet on poker while waiting in Asda checkout lines !
I can kind of understand it. When I was heavily in the computer broker business we brought large amounts of motherboards for certain new ish machines we suspected would fail soon after warranty ended. That was gambling but it seemed more scientific at the time

pigface

Danny1969 said:

It's everywhere at the moment .... 

I was watching football on TV (in Germany) last night and the ads before the game and at half-time were all for online betting firms. I counted at least 4 consecutive ads from different firms (and the ads were of course repeated ad nauseam). Many teams here are sponsored by such companies. I'm a bit surprised it's not more tightly controlled here.

DefaultM

I'm massively in to it, but to make a profit you have to be INCREDIBLY disciplined. You also have to be realistic with what you expect to make.

Imagine a coin toss. Flip a coin 10 times and you might get 9 heads and 1 tails, but if you flipped it 10 million times and recorded the results it would average out to 50/50 heads/tails.
So in a fair game if you bet £1 and got it right you'd win £1, and lose £1 every time you're wrong.
That's where "stop while you're ahead" comes from.
 If you're up £50 then stop, because eventually the odds say it will turn around and you'll break even. 

A bookie makes their money by paying out less than true value. 
They will say stake £1 and if you're right we'll give you your £1 back, plus 95p for getting it right. If you lose we keep the £1.
That missing 5p goes to the bookie. So if you get 100 heads and 100 tails you should have broken even, but really you're down a fiver cos you only won 95p each time you were right.

You can cash out your bets, but the value given is even lower so it's not a winning strategy in the long run.

If people don't understand this then that's where problems start. You absolutely cannot win in the long run.

Also keep in mind that if you do win the bookie will just close your account or limit you so that you can't continue winning. I can no longer get a bet on at any bookie in the UK because I've dared to show I know what I'm doing. I have to pay friends and family to open accounts for me so I can continue playing under their name.

DefaultM

A thing that also helps with me is I don't watch any sport. In fact I've no interest in it whatsoever. No emotion tied in. I just identify value bets and put them on, then I record the results.

I've tried to help friends with this and they just say things like "No I can't bet on him, he beat my favourite last time" or "I can't bet against so and so team!". It needs an emotionless approach, otherwise you end up doing things like "oh no he lost. Well he always wins in the end. I'll put another £100 on. Oh no he lost again! I'll make it back on roulette".

JAYJO

Paul31 said:

I dont think to many get addicted and just bet small for fun, it is abit like with drinking some dont seem able to stop for some reason, i agree though a big win right at the start when one has no knowlegde of what can happen can be deadly, because with life alot of things group up sometimes good and sometimes bad abit like buses coming along.

I know when i was doing a maths degree they gave us a software program and i set it up to give me a 10% advanage at roulette with the 37 numbers, and did a million trials which it could calculate in about one second, i then broke it down into thousand segments and even then their were many segments that could wipe a large bank.

Their are a handful of very shrewd bettors mainly on sports who have very few bets that can win, but they are not really gamblers that have an excellent temperment for waiting which most people dont have, and have maybe tested their methods of selection for many years before even putting down one penny.

I would never recommend it for anybody to try though their are far easier ways to make money if that is ones wish.

Maybe sony and nintendo have tapped into this.
 My son a 9yr old is hooked on ps4 and nintendo switch.
No chance of winning money but plenty of opportunity for me to spend a few bob. Adults spend fortunes on these games and have to stop themselves,
ive heard my barber discussing it with my son... My barber has mates who no longer play who were spending loads of cash on these games... Get them early hey.... I notice the Arcades i take the kids to pay out tickets for prizes and not cash... does it make any difference idk.  ps sorry ive tagged the wrong quote lol  

BeardyAndy

pigface said:

Danny1969 said:

It's everywhere at the moment .... 

I was watching football on TV (in Germany) last night and the ads before the game and at half-time were all for online betting firms. I counted at least 4 consecutive ads from different firms (and the ads were of course repeated ad nauseam). Many teams here are sponsored by such companies. I'm a bit surprised it's not more tightly controlled here.

I'm amazed that the government haven't stepped in already.

They were quick to do something about the high interest lenders and tbh I though they were fair game. If you were stupid enough not to notice they were asking for 2364% apr then you probably shouldn't be making financial decisions!

LastMantra

There used to be a guy that would come into the local pub. He would sit near the slot machine and watch people putting money in then at some point he would slink over to it. Couple of minutes later you'd hear the coins fall. I thought he must have figured it out. 
Don't know how much he'd put in to do that but he always seemed to win.

There was a guy I used to work with that no one would play cards with cause he always won. I assumed he must be able to count cards.

Then there was a guy that I played snooker with sometimes that would get drunk and start betting but he was crap and would always lose.

mudslide73

A guy I know lost a sizable redundancy payout in 6 months. He just got caught up with some people who led him towards it. It's terrible really.. like they knew he'd got some cash/time on his hands. I'm still gutted for him.

I went to the dogs (Perry Barr in Bham) and had a great first 20 mins.. I can honestly understand how you can end up getting addicted to that rush*. The key is recognising that it leads to bad ways eventually. 

*apologies for the unintentional Mr Big reference.

scrumhalf

Bookies consider anything less than a 97% return in their favour to be less than ideal. If there were large notices in their premises saying that 97% of the time you will lose it might make for interesting times.

I played pub fruit machines with a mate when I was a student. He knew the reels for a select few machines and I knew the rhythms to gamble the nudges up to the maximum. Max out the tokens in the machines first to get plenty of beers and then go for the coins. Simple when you knew how, and when you knew which machines to avoid.

axisus

scrumhalf said:

I played pub fruit machines with a mate when I was a student. He knew the reels for a select few machines and I knew the rhythms to gamble the nudges up to the maximum. Max out the tokens in the machines first to get plenty of beers and then go for the coins. Simple when you knew how, and when you knew which machines to avoid.

That's what I used to do! I would hang around in the Arcades in Norwich and tell people how many nudges they needed - for a small cut of course! I worked out the reels for the best machines, Line up was my favourite, there was a bunch of them. If people fed money in and didn't win, that was the time to play. I'm sure no one is that interested, but I just found a pic of the old line up machine. Feels like another lifetime now ...

jonnyburgo

It’s the buzz of winning, pure and simple. I used to work with a guy years ago who went to the travel agent with £4000 to pay for his families holiday and on the way there lost the lot at the bookies, he thought he could “win” the spending money for the holiday.