The Most Addicted Gamblers You Have Seen?

[CasinoBlackjack]

Every time I go to the Casino to play I usually see the same people time after time, and I'm sure for most of you that play often it is the same way. Most of these people are degenerate gamblers, but this lady takes the cake for me.


I've seen her every time I've been (I do go quite often), and she has no regard for money management despite a desire to win, unlike some of the gamblers you see everyday who know they will lose yet continue to play. Well in my last session, we were sitting at the $25 tables, I'm 3rd base and shes in the last seat. The table catches a huge winning streak (I just play BS) and everyone is up a considerable amount. I sat with $400 and I had it hovering around $1200-$1300, she also had upwards of $1000 after sitting with I think $140.

We continue to play and it is back to a snails pace. I then play 2 hands for no particular reason and we win, and win, and win again. Then I get a double push on my hands, I take a hand out. She doesn't say anything until the dealer is flipping the cards and she gets dealt a 5 against a dealer 7. She claims to me "If I lose it is because of you". I laugh it off and she busts out and continues to call me things like "The Devil" and "The Son of Satan"and proceeds to color up and put her chips ($1100?) in her Purse. I play for maybe 10 minutes and cash out at the cage. As I'm leaving, one of the guys I talk to on a regular basis was playing at a table and called out. He wanted me to play a bit so I took out $200 and was just playing the 15's as we chatted a bit.

Next thing I know she comes along and sits behind me. She plunks down about 8 Loonies (Canadian Coins worth $1) and starts playing $1 on top of people. She loses rather quickly and much to my amazement she says to me "Let me borrow $25 and I will pay you back next time I see you". I just said I don't think so, and I left after I had lost about $65.

Really blows my mind how low people can get inside the Casinos. But like I read in another thread, these places aren't churches and it isn't really a surprise I guess when you really think about it.

 

[Brock Windsor]

It can get much much worse. This link is a bit dated but you get the idea.

http://casinowatch.org/suicides/suicides.html

The 'casino credit' offices are the ones that boggle me. They make it seem like you're going into a bank for a mortgage as opposed to signing over your home to an addiction. Then there's all the loan sharking in and around the casinos, taking action from folks to drunk to speak, spouses pleading the other to stop as they keep martingaling the roulette wheel. It's not a pleasant business enterprise for the addicted.
BW

 

[ChefJJ]

The sad thing is: gambling is just one outlet of many that a world filled with folks is compulsive over. Gotta love the weakness of mankind! :joker:

good luck

 

[Mimosine]

The sad thing is: gambling is just one outlet of many that a world filled with folks is compulsive over. Gotta love the weakness of mankind! :joker:

good luck

i never stepped foot in a casino until recently, when i knew I could beat one (or more) of their games. I knew that I would probably like "gambling" too much, and I knew that I would lose hard earned money, that I would be too upset over. So while I had friends going all the time, I never went. Not until maybe 3 years ago now...

 

[1357111317]

I had a lady sitting beside me once who was up a significant amount compared to her buy in. Then she said one more hand to me and proceeded to lose. Then she continued saying this as she contined to lose multiple hands in succession. By the time she won one she had lost a significant amount of her stack then she contined to play while saying this is my last hand about every two hands. Finally once she had almost lost her whole stack did she finally leave. This was probably at least a shoe and a half after she first said last hand. Now she wasn't playing huge stakes by any means but it was still sort of sad.

 

[FLASH1296]

I once saw ...

... a young Vietnamese guy who was dressed in rags step up to a PaiGow poker table and pull stacks and stacks of small bills out of various pockets. he did not (could not ?) speak a word.

He had perhaps 3 to 4 thousand dollars.

He bet it all on one hand.

He had "pai gow"

That is table slang for a really awfully weak hand.

He lost.

He left.

 

[Tarzan]

Things I have seen

If you spend enough time in and around casinos, you can see the most astounding things imaginable and hear stories from casino employees that are amazing. I have seen people gamble it away down to their last dollar, leaving them with nothing to get back to wherever the heck it is they came from. I have seen people blow out $40,000 to $50,000 in less than an hour and then stumble away flat broke and in a daze. I have seen craziness and stupidity.

You would think that at some point someone gambling that is losing a lot of money would have some degree of common sense kick in and not allow themselves to lose more than they can afford to lose. Perhaps even determine along the lines of "Gee, maybe this just isn't for me since I am so darned unlucky" but they don't for some reason. Why does anyone completely go under financially due to gambling? I would guess that part of that reason is the lure of fast, easy money. The casinos broadcast this in their advertising and in their promotions and make it sound like cash is raining out of the sky on everyone in the casino! You see it in their billboards depicting a happy couple smiling and throwing handfuls of 100 dollar bills in the air or perhaps talking about the huge sums of cash that can be won in some promotional event. Does the person that is considered a "compulsive gambler" think along the lines of hitting that "big win" that will finally put them ahead or something? You have to wonder about what the psychological motivations are to gamble beyond your means at something that the risk outweighs any possible reward.

Allow me to talk of one isolated instance I witnessed some years ago. There I was in Caesars, sitting at a $25 minimum table and sitting out part of the time trying to be cheap and "wong it" a bit. A man strolls up to the table out of nowhere (in the middle of a shoe) and buys in for $5000 or so. He starts playing 2 hands at $1000 a hand. "You poor bastard", I was thinking, as I was sitting out with the count rather poor to say the least and the dealer pulling miraculous hands that were uncanny. If the dealer had a 15... they would cap that baby off with a 6---Consistently! It was scary. The more he lost, the more he bought in for and the crazier he bet! He would double down a 10 against the dealers 10, he was splitting 10's against the dealer's 10 upcard, etc. to "make up for lost time" I guess... he was playing like a mental patient! By this time I was ready to look for another table or go to another casino because I didn't exactly have a "warm fuzzy feeling" about this table but I had to stick around to watch this spectacle even if I wasn't playing any more at this table! He had it up to max bets on 2 spots of $2500 each hand and couldn't win a single hand no matter what. In less than an hour I watched this guy lose roughly $50,000. I ended up playing a few more hands before I left finally seeing a reasonable count so was plunking down a few bets. The Wildman that was to my right scrounged out his last loose odd change and bought in for about $40 in chips and pushed it in. The dealer of course slammed out a blackjack and took him for his last dollar. He stumbled off with a glazed over expression on his face, like he was nearly comatose. I wondered if I would hear about him by next week that maybe he did a swan dive off the top of the parking garage.

Contradictory to the whole "$100 bills raining out of the sky on everyone that happens to stroll into our casino" come ons posted on those billboards driving into Atlantic City...uhm... those casinos are there to squeeze you for all they can and all it's worth! They do not care if they ruin you financially, they do not care if you are some crazy person willing to gamble away your mortgage payment. They are greedy and want all they can out of everyone they can! They are so greedy that in the case of an advantage player that takes them down for a few thousand here and there, they will panic and be downright hostile toward them! They will spend ten times the money they would have lost to them in trying to stop them from being able to win one dime even.

There is no "pie in the sky easy money" to be had at the casino and every professional player knows this... there is only the grinding hedge of a percentage point or two to bank on that requires patience, common sense, ingenuity and a large enough volume of capitol that will yield a small profit. When the casino tells that poor unlucky soul that just lost,” Better luck" as they are walking away from the table, they have a big smile on their face and this statement translated means,” We nailed you but good---come back and lose more real soon!" I often think that when a skilled player is cashing out and has whacked them more than just a few times they scowl a bit and raise their eyebrows and realize that they, the ultimate swindlers have been swindled. I have gotten a few of those glaring, unfriendly looks along the way... and it's not like I broke the bank, either. I think it comes down to them being upset that ANYONE except THEM wins.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

...I have gotten a few of those glaring, unfriendly looks along the way... and it's not like I broke the bank, either. I think it comes down to them being upset that ANYONE except THEM wins.

I agree, and sometimes I think the people working for casinos are just as pathological as the compulsive gamblers. The reason why might be that casino management is a low skill career- these people weren't disciplined, they weren't good at math, they weren't good at much of anything and here they are in a dead end job. Now they see people coming in who are everything they are not and having success and it makes them angry on a personal level. They waste the company's money by cutting pen and extra shuffling but what do they care? It's not their money, and they get some satisfaction out of it.

 

[Dyepaintball12]

While I do agree that most casinos "do not care" if you lose loads of money (makes sense because thats why they exist), I don't necessarily think "they dont care if you lose your mortgage."

Steve Wynn once went up to a man (who I believe had turned his social security check into something like $600,000 in one day) and told him he should probably stop playing and leave. (in a nice way)

Sincere or not, that's not something you'd expect.

Sorry for all the parenthesis.

 

[Beefcake]

Steve Wynn once went up to a man (who I believe had turned his social security check into something like $600,000 in one day) and told him he should probably stop playing and leave. (in a nice way)

I have no information on this story one way or the other, or on Steve Wynn for that matter, but this sort of statement is typically made when a player is winning big and the casino just can't figure out why. They may suspect the player of cheating, counting, or any number of other in a parade of horribles. Heck, the casino may be just as superstitious as the next ploppy.

 

[Thunder]

I think some gamblers gamble with their social security checks, or mortgage money because they are in such dire straits financially that they've run out of options to get themselves out of the hole they're in. So they reason well if I can't get a job in this lousy economy and I owe lots of money to lots of people and I'm gonna be broke anyway, I might as well go down swinging.

 

[EasyRhino]

The line I saw from a dealer at a Detroit casino was "gambling the car payment to pay the rent payment".

You know... I don't see too many obvious compulsives at the local joints. Even at the medium-roller tables. Maybe it's because I just am not seeking out crowded tables. Or maybe they're just hiding it better.

But I do remember, in Reno at the Silver Club (RIP) the really drunk, really big, really ghetto dude who walked up to the $5 table. Scrounged $50 from his pockets and his friend, placed it all on one hand. Managed to get up to a couple hundred bucks, then lost it all. As he walked away, both the dealer and floorman nodded seriously and said "He's a very good gambler". Apparantly he'd generally come in and take a shot at a big win... and a few times, it worked.

 

[StudiodeKadent]

There are some terribly depressing things that you see at Casinos.

Personally I do my best to ignore them and try to enjoy the game.

In many ways, Casinos sell fantasies. The fantasy of winning big is the obvious, but another more subtle fantasy is that of being sufficiently comfortable to just throw money away. This is in addition to the adrenaline rush of the game, and the whole "entertainment can be found here, here and here" factors (i.e. mixing casino entertainment with other forms, like live music etc), of course.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people don't know how to gamble in a rational fashion and as such take the fantasy hook, line and sinker.

 

[actuary]

I think some gamblers gamble with their social security checks, or mortgage money because they are in such dire straits financially that they've run out of options to get themselves out of the hole they're in. So they reason well if I can't get a job in this lousy economy and I owe lots of money to lots of people and I'm gonna be broke anyway, I might as well go down swinging.

I'd do the same! If you are going to have to declare bankruptcy anyway, why not take one last chance at the casino and bet all that you have? Play until you win big or lose it all. If you lose it all, you are no worse than you will be after you declare bankruptcy, because whatever assets you do have will be surrendered to pay your creditors. May as well use those assets for a final shot at getting out of the hole.