Gambling.

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  • jonnyburgojonnyburgo Frets: 12258
    What you’ll notice is that most run down areas will have lots of bookies and fruit machine arcades on their shopping precincts, exploiting the desperate, it’s a morally bankrupt industry.
    "OUR TOSSPOT"
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  • LastMantraLastMantra Frets: 3822
    Then the more you lose the more you think you need the big win and that you must be getting close. The more you lose the bigger the stakes get to try and get it back. Vicious circle.
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  • SnagsSnags Frets: 5326
    I used to play the slots as a kid, and really enjoyed it. But you're talking 1p and 2p stakes, and I'd almost always come out up because I was a risk averse little bugger so once I had significantly more than I'd started with (usually by topping up on the waterfall) I'd quit.

    Also I tapped my grandma up for stake money, so it wasn't mine I was losing :)

    As youth a group of us used to always play the quiz machines, and that would often fund a few rounds of drinks because I was lucky enough to have very bright friends with a broad range of general knowledge. We thought we'd broken the machine once, as the screen went blank and it flashed horrendously for about 2 minutes, then came up with "Loading new questions ...". We got asked to leave soon after. Paid for the entire session, though.

    These days I look at the flashing lights, the too many buttons, complex win lines, and the fact that it's sometimes £2 to just get one spin and think "Sod that" because I'm far too tight. Beer at £4 a pint is bad enough, and still an easy enough mechanism for (literally) pissing money away.
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    I've been playing slots since November. In that time I must have seen millions of spins, and my biggest win was £600. I nearly fell off my chair from shock.

    Anyone who fancies just having a few spins for fun trying to hit a big win, do yourself a favour and spend that tenner on a nice pack of strings. You'll get more out of it.
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  • VimFuegoVimFuego Frets: 15476
    my dad used to like a bet or two. It was kinda like a retirement hobby for him, he'd study the form, do the research etc, then make a few bets (never more than £5 per race though and never more than £30 a week). It wasn't the winning or losing that interested him (though if he won generally him and me mum would get take away if it was a small win or meal out if it was a big one) it was the research that he liked, the gambling was a means to an end.

    I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.

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  • Emp_FabEmp_Fab Frets: 24210
    octatonic said:

    I can't understand how it is a thing people enjoy doing or do at all- especially up to the point of looking over £600k doing it.

    Without sounding condescending, feel grateful that you don’t understand it, I used  to dabble when I quit my city job . I missed the buzz of the dealing room so traded (basically gambled) from home. Won and lost 10s of thousands every week and thank God ended up pretty much flat when realised it was the first and last thing I thought about every day.

    Luckily managed to walk away without any damage done but know quite a few blokes who lost everything. One said to me once that for problem gamblers like him the best feeling in the world is winning a bet and the second best is losing a bet as you are buzzing and pumped up even when you lose.

    EDIT - re reading this it looks like I could afford to win and lose 10s of thousands every week - I couldn't of course. I remember one Friday I was £22,000 down on a day trade (fancy name for a short term bet) bet on the Dow Jones, I kidded myself my background meant I had an edge and I was trading but it was pure gambling. Like a typical mug punter I doubled up on my bet and by pure fluke it came back my way and I got out of it actually making about £100.  You can imagine that sort of rollercoaster would give you a buzz and reinforce in my mind what a genius I was for doubling up and getting my money back but tbh I was scared sh1tless of telling my Mrs that I'd lost that sort of money and promised myself that if I got it back I wouldn't bet again.

    10 years on and thankfully haven't been tempted other than the odd boxing and football bet.
    Did you ever tell her?
    Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
    Also chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them.
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  • DrCorneliusDrCornelius Frets: 7069
    Emp_Fab said:
    octatonic said:

    I can't understand how it is a thing people enjoy doing or do at all- especially up to the point of looking over £600k doing it.

    Without sounding condescending, feel grateful that you don’t understand it, I used  to dabble when I quit my city job . I missed the buzz of the dealing room so traded (basically gambled) from home. Won and lost 10s of thousands every week and thank God ended up pretty much flat when realised it was the first and last thing I thought about every day.

    Luckily managed to walk away without any damage done but know quite a few blokes who lost everything. One said to me once that for problem gamblers like him the best feeling in the world is winning a bet and the second best is losing a bet as you are buzzing and pumped up even when you lose.

    EDIT - re reading this it looks like I could afford to win and lose 10s of thousands every week - I couldn't of course. I remember one Friday I was £22,000 down on a day trade (fancy name for a short term bet) bet on the Dow Jones, I kidded myself my background meant I had an edge and I was trading but it was pure gambling. Like a typical mug punter I doubled up on my bet and by pure fluke it came back my way and I got out of it actually making about £100.  You can imagine that sort of rollercoaster would give you a buzz and reinforce in my mind what a genius I was for doubling up and getting my money back but tbh I was scared sh1tless of telling my Mrs that I'd lost that sort of money and promised myself that if I got it back I wouldn't bet again.

    10 years on and thankfully haven't been tempted other than the odd boxing and football bet.
    Did you ever tell her?
    Yeah , I’m terrible at keeping secrets- they eat me up until I have 1 beer too many and blab it all out :-)
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  • Paul31Paul31 Frets: 22
    JAYJO said:
    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  
    Lol! @ JAY JO i wondered what you were on about for a moment this was free software from the uni, yes those games can be very expensive, but as mentioned above some folk can get addicted to things easy and all different types of things as well.
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  • 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!!
    I lived in a pub when younger it was 10p a go £2 jackpot  was easy to think ooh I can win it back and keep spending more so just stopped. Used to do the horses years ago when I had spare cash . It was interesting to work out the form and after a day of tele sales for double glazing it was something fun to check on teletext when you got home. Couple of quid a day no problem. Did do some big bets  from tips I got when I got a good run . After they started loosing I quit while I had some left and bought a computer. I liked to bet on golf too although that was a lottery did Win on woosnam once and VJ Singh . wouldn’t know who half the players are now . Can’t afford to gamble now.
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 9551
    edited August 2019
    Nothing useful to add, but Mrs9000 and I went to Las Vegas a few years back and it was interesting to observe how some (not all) people fed the slots - there seemed to be little or no enjoyment, just a monotonous trance-like moving of coins from their pile to the slot. Even to people like us, who have no medical or psychological training, it seemed clear that there was a problem.

    The industry may well make claims about how it wants people to gamble responsibly, but the reality is that, like any business, it's there to make a profit. Las Vegas didn't become what it is by people gambling responsibly (or by people winning too often).
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 9551
    DefaultM said:

    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.
    ^This. Whether it's the fruit machine with the label claiming it pays out 97%, or the zero (and sometimes double zero) on a roulette table, the house is always and inexorably taking its cut.
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • BudgieBudgie Frets: 2099
    I like to have a bet on the football. A few seasons ago, I decided to have a £50 pot for the season and place small bets on accumulators and when the £50 was gone, it was gone and wouldn't be replaced. I put on small bets of around £1.00 - £5.00 and occasionally higher, throughout the season and ended up with just over £1100.00 by the end. I lost most of the bets but several decent wins really upped the pot of cash. I banked everything apart from £50.00 and have done the same every season since. The lowest I have ended up with was around £200.00. Last season I finished on over £600.00. A couple of seasons ago, I placed a bet for a couple of quid on every result of the Championship on a weekday evening - I think about 10 or 11 matches and missed out by one result! Had I won, it would have been nearly £50k. I just do it for a bit of fun really.
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    DefaultM said:

    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.
    I used to play cricket with a guy who was rich, retired and bored, and devoted his life to betting on the horses. He too had been banned from all the bookies and used to ring round the players at the club to get people to open accounts that he could use.

    Last I heard he was also barred from all the racecourses in Britain for fixing races.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    TimmyO said:
    octatonic said:
    TimmyO said:
    Gambling is an addiction and like most addictions it's really hard to understand for those of us who aren't affected like that by it. 
    I can sort of understand a few addictions that I don't suffer from (alcohol, drugs etc).
    I can see how a bit of dabbling in something sets up a reward mechanism and each time it takes a little bit more to get the buzz.
    That makes sense, up to a point.

    I guess with gambling I don't really understand how you get to that point- you clearly have to know going into it that the house always wins so why start? I just can't parse the mindset that would say 'yeah this is something I am going to do'.
    I think of addictions like custom velcro - every addiction has its unique configuration of hook and loop. If your brain doesn't have the matching loop, you can bump into it a thousand times and it doesn't even feel sticky. But for a few... 
    As part of a poor night's sleep I was thinking about this. In 20+ years in Probation gambling didn't really come up much - drugs and alcohol being daily business. Probably close to 20 years ago I had a young chap who was shoplifting to fund his slot machine habit. I did some background reading on gambling addictions/ problems and what struck me at the time is how like drink and drugs it was in terms of the kind of issues people were facing and using it as a coping mechanism, the processes of creeping addiction,etc. Whether we are hard wired for some triggers rather than others or it's random I don't know.   
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • TimmyOTimmyO Frets: 7350
    HAL9000 said:
    DefaultM said:

    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.
    ^This. Whether it's the fruit machine with the label claiming it pays out 97%, or the zero (and sometimes double zero) on a roulette table, the house is always and inexorably taking its cut.
    No, the problem isn't not understanding maths, the problem is addiction
    Red ones are better. 
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    Would it not be an addiction due to thinking you're 'due a win' and its only 1 spin away though?
    Perhaps if certain people (not all) had it explained and laid out in front of them just how unlikely it was they'd understand and move on to something different? 

    I don't know really. Reading that back it seems unlikely. Reality probably goes out the window, to a point where you could say it's a million to one and they see that as still a chance to win big.

    Its like when you buy a scratchcard and match 2 jackpot symbols. Some people say they nearly won and go buy loads more. They didn't nearly win though, it was intentionally printed that way to get them to feel a bit of a buzz and buy more.
     
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  • DefaultMDefaultM Frets: 7271
    Stuckfast said:
    DefaultM said:

    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.
    I used to play cricket with a guy who was rich, retired and bored, and devoted his life to betting on the horses. He too had been banned from all the bookies and used to ring round the players at the club to get people to open accounts that he could use.

    Last I heard he was also barred from all the racecourses in Britain for fixing races.
    Yeah well that's pretty dreadful of him to be fair.
    I wouldn't be pleased if I spent hours researching a horse's form, risk my own money, only for it to turn out it was never going to win cos some rich guy fancied a bit more cash.

    Its never the people that need the money who do things like this, it's always the ones who have enough but want more.
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  • StrangefanStrangefan Frets: 5845
    As an ex substance Misuse practitioner, we used to treat the gamblers the same was as some one who was addicted to crack /cocaine/weedn, nuff said. 
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  • Budgie said:
    I like to have a bet on the football. A few seasons ago, I decided to have a £50 pot for the season and place small bets on accumulators and when the £50 was gone, it was gone and wouldn't be replaced. I put on small bets of around £1.00 - £5.00 and occasionally higher, throughout the season and ended up with just over £1100.00 by the end. I lost most of the bets but several decent wins really upped the pot of cash. I banked everything apart from £50.00 and have done the same every season since. The lowest I have ended up with was around £200.00. Last season I finished on over £600.00. A couple of seasons ago, I placed a bet for a couple of quid on every result of the Championship on a weekday evening - I think about 10 or 11 matches and missed out by one result! Had I won, it would have been nearly £50k. I just do it for a bit of fun really.
    Greetings O Mystic one........ please can you tell me where my beloved Gunners will finish this season ?       ;)
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  • Greetings O Mystic one........ please can you tell me where my beloved Gunners will finish this season ?       ;)
    5th  :'(
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