Gambling Degens

Oranage2

Anyone got any stories of a gambling degenerate?

Last night after drinking I decided to fire up my poker account, done amazing and won 10 times my money, well not quite but I said I'd stop when I did, but anyway I was literally a few bucks off and ended up getting a bad beat. Later the same guy river'd his 3 outer, at this stage I still had 3 times my money, not a bad amount. But no, i was pretty tilty and also drunk and ended losing it all. Fell asleep and woke up for work 3 hours later, felt like a right degen.

Anyone got any stories of losing a lot of money?

Absoluvely

Here's a whole website full of stories for you.

Lost jobs, dispair, broken families and some success stories.

http://www.gamcare.org.uk/forums/recovery-diaries

Enjoy!

diomed

Yeah.
I lost €700 on the 2015 Derby and €1300 on the 2014 World Cup, and a few hundred on the 2015 US Masters and a few hundred on the 2015 Open Championship.
Enjoy.

Banjo String

I have many afflictions, but thankfully gambling isn't one of them.

Dangerous hobby, and I have first hand experience of how it can tear a family apart.

strelok

i can very easily understand how much fun it is, makes me glad I never have enough money that I'd feel safe throwing a bit around gambling to get a feel for it

Menas

I like a bet with the bookies but it is more coppers than a life changing amount.

I can completely see how people can get hooked and try to gamble their way out of a hole....its a really bad addiction to have...for the gambler and their families.

Canis Lupus

I threw $50 onto poker and play micro stakes. I only play every now and then. I fluctuate up and down but haven't had to top up and that's over the course of a year or more.

Gambling as an addiction is pretty horrific I think. There's something terribly sad about it.

diomed

Gambling is not the problem. Losing is the problem.

Akrasia

I put a tenner on an online poker account a few years ago and played pretty well and was up to a few hundred euros and I decided to cash out. Except I couldn't figure out how to get my money out. They used to make it really easy to put your money in but hard to get it back out

Anyway, I ended up losing it all


Ever since I've just kept to the free poker if I ever play online. I know it's full of losers who go all in on 2 - 7 but if you play tournaments, in the later stages people have an actual interest in playing properly.

southcentralts

on the odd occasion when I am gripped by the gambling fever, I have escaped by playing the "fun play" slot machines on paddy power games. 60% of the time it give you the very realistic "insufficient funds" msg, the rest of the time is the very unrealistic 2500x bet super grand big win, which never happens during real play.

Matt_Trakker

My first 2 years gambling I lost roughly €5000 per year.
3rd year I broke even.
4th year I was up
5th year going well too.

Set myself some goals, have reached all of them since year 3.
If I stay on track I'll be able to give up working by the end of the year and will move to a country where you get more bang for your euro and so long as Betfair isn't banned there.
I think anyone can win at gambling, they just need to find the area they're good at.
It's like that saying about 10,000 hours. It takes dedication, education and discipline.

Akrasia

Matt_Trakker wrote: »

My first 2 years gambling I lost roughly €5000 per year.
3rd year I broke even.
4th year I was up
5th year going well too.

Set myself some goals, have reached all of them since year 3.
If I stay on track I'll be able to give up working by the end of the year and will move to a country where you get more bang for your euro and so long as Betfair isn't banned there.
I think anyone can win at gambling, they just need to find the area they're good at.
It's like that saying about 10,000 hours. It takes dedication, education and discipline.

And a 10k + bankroll....

Matt_Trakker

Akrasia wrote: »

And a 10k + bankroll....

Yea, should've said that too.
You won't get far starting with a small bank.

valoren

Banjo String wrote: »

I have many afflictions, but thankfully gambling isn't one of them.

Dangerous hobby, and I have first hand experience of how it can tear a family apart.

Our mother told us a story (probably a little embellished and exagerrated) when we were young teenagers about how a neighbour of our uncle was a gambling addict and bet £12,000 on a horse. A lot of money in the early 90's. The horse lost and the family were evicted. Scared us straight gambling wise.

PandaPoo

My husband used to play poker professionally, he was really good too. He doesn't do it anymore and works in IT now. If we ever need some extra cash he'll just go play a tournament or two and win a few k.

kfallon

valoren wrote: »

Our mother told us a story (probably a little embellished and exagerrated) when we were young teenagers about how a neighbour of our uncle was a gambling addict and bet £12,000 on a horse. A lot of money in the early 90's. The horse lost and the family were evicted. Scared us straight gambling wise.

You couldn't get £12k on a horse now in a normal bookies shop!

valoren

kfallon wrote: »

You couldn't get £12k on a horse now in a normal bookies shop!

I know. Her story was pure horse****e but it certainly scared the ****e out of us :pac:

Canis Lupus

Akrasia wrote: »

Ever since I've just kept to the free poker if I ever play online. I know it's full of losers who go all in on 2 - 7 but if you play tournaments, in the later stages people have an actual interest in playing properly.

The issue I have with the free ones is that you can never be sure if the cards are genuine. Unlike 'real' poker the free companies aren't getting a rake so they need people to buy chips and as such hands are potentially manufactured to create drama. You get to win and then lose big and so on and so forth, all geared to get you to buy in. I know from playing zynga that there seems to be a large percentage of bad beats and amazing 1 outter river cards... There was even a reddit AMA where someone who claimed to be a past employee of zynga confirmed card rigging to be true.

So if you enjoy poker I'd stick to the real deal and play 1c/2c stakes. If nothing else the free poker just makes you a worse player when you deal with all in 7/2 every second hand.

kfallon

valoren wrote: »

I know. Her story was pure horse****e but it certainly scared the ****e out of us :pac:

It could be true, he might have bet on course at maybe a big meeting where they would accomodate you for £12k. Gambling was a bit different back then, if he had got £12k on with a shop bookie he'd have had to pay 30% tax (I think it was that in the early 90's) so it'd have cost him £15,600 to get the bet on :eek:

smash

When you only ever hear about someone's winnings, then you know they have a gambling problem.

knird evol

kfallon wrote: »

It could be true, he might have bet on course at maybe a big meeting where they would accomodate you for £12k. Gambling was a bit different back then, if he had got £12k on with a shop bookie he'd have had to pay 30% tax (I think it was that in the early 90's) so it'd have cost him £15,600 to get the bet on :eek:

Could of put twenty bets in different bookmakers totaling 12k.
Was it not 10% tax.
You had the option of paying it out of the win - not a good idea obviously.

kfallon

knird evol wrote: »

Could of put twenty bets in different bookmakers totaling 12k.
Was it not 10% tax.
You had the option of paying it out of the win - not a good idea obviously.

I think in early 90's it was still 30% but open to correction!
Yeah you can get around it by spreading it about in different shops but even these days it's hard enough to do, be like a military operation!

donegaLroad

online poker is the biggest scam of them all... particularly a site called 'pokerstars' which are based in Montreal I think. just go to google and type in 'pokerstars is...' and see what comes up.

scamalert

couple months back got email for freeroll 5000$ ticket-since company was fcking up with upgrading issues so it was given to everyone as an excuse.

Anyway ticket was due for 2 tournaments in a week or so,so some time passed and logged in one day to see that tournament is about to start 20min or so,and amount that registered for it was just over 1k people where payouts started at 200 mark,at 5$ so simple maths 1 in 5 would would make it to the bubble.anyway after an hour got there,many were going all in most the time afterwards,but kept an eye on my position which was around top 100,so stayed focused and around 3h mark was within top 50-thats about 40$ payout.

So game went on and of course had couple close runs ins,specially when same clown gets two AA twice going all in and getting lucky with trips on second time.then eventually reaching final table 9ppl-think was the easiest play in all game since those with least chips are happy enough with payout and usually go all in,and most game revolves robbing blinds given at that stage it amounts almost to either doubling or going bust.Least to say finished 3rd with just over 300$ and went straight for Withdraw and didn't touch account until money was out.last best place before that was 10th out of 11k people for mere 10$ on a freeroll-not worth the time really for 5h session.

As losses go its usually 10-20$ every other month,and its usually doubling or tripling in short amount of time,then this brain f%^k comes over where you feel you need that extra 3-5$ to round it up and leads to losing everything.

makes you feel sick not because you lost a fortune but for being greedy bastard in the first place and not being happy with what you had-main lesson thou is to never gamble with amounts you cant afford to lose and most important never chase the losses,rather leaving away and forgetting about it and going about your life as normal,which seems many people lose control thus leading to horror stories and disasters in the long run.

kfallon

You know you're a degenerate when you're in the bookies shouting that the jockey gave your horse a balls of a ride.....on the cartoon racing!

kjl

Did anyone see the documentary "The Gambler" about some irish lad who was big into poker and lose like 100k on two football games.

kfallon

kjl wrote: »

Did anyone see the documentary "The Gambler" about some irish lad who was big into poker and lose like 100k on two football games.

Yeah....no way would a normal Boylseports shop take those bets that he put on....unless he is a well known customer.....a well known losing customer!

diomed

kjl wrote: »

Did anyone see the documentary "The Gambler" about some irish lad who was big into poker and lose like 100k on two football games.

John O'Shea.
I saw him in the Fitzwilliam Card Club at the end of July.

diomed

donegaLroad wrote: »

online poker is the biggest scam of them all... particularly a site called 'pokerstars' which are based in Montreal I think. just go to google and type in 'pokerstars is...' and see what comes up.

What comes up is a made-up story that claims poker is rigged.
Poker companies charge a 10% rake on all tournament entry fees. They don't need to do anything else to make money.

If you are a reasonable player you will get some entertainment. I know players who make a living from the game. If you play in Ireland regularly you will know the names. I'm average and play for fun. You need a top 10 finish to get a decent return.

PokerStars Tournament #1297823576, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
12884 players
Total Prize Pool: $128840.00 USD
Tournament started 2015/08/23 19:00:00 WET [2015/08/23 14:00:00 ET]
Dear kincsem,
You finished the tournament in 156th place. A USD 72.15 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

NachoBusiness

Biggest win was €500 on Ransom Note at 9/1 (returned €5000) a few years ago now.

Biggest loser was a just few weeks after that. Surprise surprise. Would have won more money than I have ever had in my life had it won. It was a tip from a good source on a horse called Fadhb Ar Bith. The horse was a plot horse and this day was the day for it to win. Was told not to place a bet until midday. Midday came and the horse was 12/1 back from 16/1. By 4pm he was down to 6/1 and by 9pm, he was 3/1. My heart was pounding come race time. Jamie Spencer was on board (horse racing fans I suspect will have a fair idea what's coming).

The horse is drawn in stall 10 (an outside draw) and all horses jump to a pretty even break but the horse in the stall to the right of hi jumps a little to the left and the come together slightly. Jamie then obviously decides that he would prefer to have him on the rail and so aggressively pulls left on the horses reigns in an effort to steer him over to the rail but this confuses the horse and he starts to pull a little, unsurprisingly. Most Jockies here would just run the horse along straight for a bit and gently steer the horse towards the rail if they got the chance and especially so in a 5f or 6f sprints where time is of the essence and you don't really have the time to be letting the field get away from you just so you can sit back and choose where you would ideally like to launch your hold up run from. Not Spencer though.

Horse is now a good five lengths of the pace and playing catch up. Two furlongs from home he's still last and Spencer is only giving it hands and heels, despite other jockeys in front of him reaching for the whip. They come round the bend and he is still last and finally Spencer sees his gap up the rail and goes for it but they are now entering the final furlong. He whips the horse and he takes off like a bullet, comes off the rail and starts pounding up the centre of the track only to lose by less than a length.

When I seen the headlines of the Racing Post last year saying Spencer had retired. I whooped. Unfortunately he came out of retirement since then and is racing again. Why he did I don't know as I don't think anyone was all that bothered.

kfallon

Jamie effin' Spencer!

I actually gave up backing anything he rode around 2007! Excellent Art was the final straw!

NachoBusiness

kfallon wrote: »

Jamie effin' Spencer!

I actually gave up backing anything he rode around 2007! Excellent Art was the final straw!

I gave up backing him many times too

Fadhb Ar Bith won nine days later by the way and was then never seen again. Total plot horse.

Unfortunately I had no funds for 'Take II' though.

muppetkiller

I lost every penny I ever had through Gambling . I've never had more since I stopped last year