Hey EC, Sorry I haven't been posting for a while. Life's kinda gotten blurry since graduation. I guess to cope with this blurriness I decided to plop $20 into an online casino (a reputable one, mind you), and I managed to hit it big and get $1000. But then, of course, I manage to lose it all. I dunno. I just kept feeling the need to go for more and couldn't stop. I guess right now I'm ashamed. My mom knows I hit the $1k mark, but she doesn't know I just lost it all. Bleh. I truly feel sick. Well, thanks for taking the time to read this.
Well in the end, you only really lost $20. Besides, it happens to so many people, it's just human psychology. You shouldn't be ashamed. :')
That's what usually happens when gambling. The odds are always stacked in favour of the house. Otherwise no one would open a casino in the first place. The important thing is not to keep spending money in the hopes of hitting it big again. In the final analysis, you lost 20$, and that's where you should stick at. It's tempting to throw more money into it in hopes of replicating your success, but that can only end in losing a ton, as odds of hitting it big a second time are vanishingly small (and definitely don't buy into hints and tips to game the system and make money reliably. If those existed, all casinos would have been broke by now) Don't feel too sick. You learned a lesson about casinos and gambling that has cost a lot of people way more than 20$!
That's actually an old joke. A guy in Vegas leaves his wife in the hotel room, and goes down to the casino to gamble. He takes $20 out, and wins $400 at the slot machines. Then he takes the $400 to the craps table, and wins $3000. Then he takes it to the poker table, and wins $20,000. Then, as he's headed upstairs, he passes the roulette table. On a whim, he puts it all down on 26 red. And it comes up 00 green. He goes back upstairs, and his wife asks "So, how'd you do?" "I lost $20." I actually don't gamble. (I have a math degree, and it keeps getting in the way.) My partner does, though, and he does two things that work in his favor. He budgets a very specific amount to gamble. It might be $50 (for one trip to a casino), or it might be $300 (for the whole trip). He assumes this money will go away, and he considers it an entertainment expense, like buying tickets to a show. Next, as he gambles, he puts anything he wins in a separate spot. It might be a different pocket, or (if he's at the craps table) a separate "groove" in the table. If I'm there with him, he'll hand it to me. He doesn't get it back. Once he's gambled all the money he originally was going to, he stops and counts it. And then decides if he wants to continue. If he wants to continue, he can take no more than half of the winnings to gamble with. That way, he'll at least always have that much won. Ideally, he'll have won at least what he started with. If so, I keep that, and then everything else is "play money", because technically, it's free. If he keeps winning (and he often does), he keeps handing me money. And at that point, he doesn't get it back. To take one nice example, he once sat at a craps table with $100, and he would hand me chips from time to time. Finally, he ran out of money at the table, so we got up, went to the cafeteria, and counted what he had handed me. It ended up being $1305. We went and paid for the hotel room with it. Another time, he took $150 to the craps table...and was out of money fifteen minutes later. His total winnings - $10. He gave it to the croupier as a tip. Lex
LOL! Oh jeeze. Yeah, I consider myself quite well-versed in odds and whatnot. I just have a compulsive nature, I guess. I don't intend on ever gambling in an online casino again, but hour trips to Fort Hall Casino with friends will probably happen just for fun. There's something about it being online that made the money seem much less realistic. Anyway, thanks for all your kind words. I know I really only lost $20, so I just keep telling myself that. A good night's sleep seemed to get rid of a lot of my worries. My mom didn't even care that I threw away $1k, which is good.
i like to gamble on occasion too, but my rule is if i win as much money as i've put up in the first place, i make 2 stacks, one stack is the money i walked in with plus a portion of what i've won. and the rule is i'm not allowed to take anything from that stack, although i am allowed to add chips to that stack whenever i feel the other stack can take a hit. it's a good way to make sure you at least leave with something. the first time i ever gambled was with my dad on a cruise. and what he told me is probably the best advice for gambling i could have gotten. he said that gambling is about lasting until the other player is out of money because everyone including the casino will win money and lose money. the difference between the house and a gambler is that the house will always last longer cause they will always have more to bet. (haha i just read through lex's full post, looks like me and your partner have something in common)
I play a lot of online poker (making it a side income while im in school) so I don't like throwing 'poker' and 'gambling' in the same kind of topic, but as long as you are managing your money and can afford to lose your initial deposit then it's not really a big deal. If you can't eat tomorrow because of what you've gambled at the tables, then there is an issue.
