What's the story with lads in the bookies?

LubaDriver

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LubaDriver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122868685#Comment_122868685

Even bricktop put barriers in.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122888338#Comment_122888338

I've seen lads playing 'poker' with random €50s on the way back from Leopardstown at Christmas. A few had won big and others lost their ballix. The game was played by all players handing over a €50 note. The winner of the last round went first and pulled a 50 from the pile. Clockwise around the circle until everyone pulls one note each. You check the serial number on the note and make your best poker hand out of the digits in the serial number. Best hand wins all the 50s.

https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1190021115/photo/50-euros-banknotes.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=is&k=20&c=YPOdB7vnTwPgDreF2UYoKJ9uL_WhgJHnYGC6ZYP0Zvk=

In the above image, the top hand of three pairs (3s, 6s and 8s) gets beaten by the bottom hand of four pairs (1s, 2s, 4s and 7s). The game ended when a row broke out over whether or not a 6-figure-straight beats 5 of a kind.

Worst thing I've heard of from a gambling POV was a bloke who worked with my brother as a sparks. Got paid on Fridays and plan was to hit the pub with all the boys when they were finished on some site in town. One of the lads was waiting on a gas engineer to show up but something happened and they had to cancel, so he was sent home early. He went down the pub on his own to wait for everyone.

The pub was Briodys, on Marlborough St in Dublin, which is across the road from an amusement hall. By the time they got there, he was after losing it all on poker and betting machines. Every single penny of his Celtic Tiger wages gone, 60hrs of work gone in under two hours. He was trying to hold back the tears as he told them it was gone, all of it, including the mortgage money.

Wompa1

Dopamine. I am lucky that I don't seem to feel a rush from gambling or even winning so I don't bet all that often…now, if only I felt a rush from something else…anything else! 😳

Montage of Feck

The 'oul lads in the betting shop are only the tip of the iceberg. It's obvious that the world of sport and entertainment, especially video games, is being subverted by bad actors seeking to exploit those vulnerable to addiction.

L Grey

My old local was beside a bookies.

If I was in during the day off they would always the same lads in there drinking, smoking and betting. There was even an ancient poker machine.

One lad used to bring a packed lunch with him, like this was his job.

They weren't bad lads but I found it grim.

Miley Byrne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122888205#Comment_122888205

OH ffs there is no harm in having a fiver a week on a footie accum. Imagine putting a euro on five separate even money teams instead of putting the full fiver on the accum. Wow. If, like in your scenario 4 teams won then I would win 4 euro. If the 5 teams won I'd win 5 euro. If you did the accum and the 5 teams won you'd be up 155 euro. And if one or all teams lost you'd be down a FIVER.

Seriously like if a fella wants to have a fiver on an accum it's for a bit of interest. I don't think he is worried about feathering the bookie's nest. A bit of balance and common sense needed too.

And I wouldn't be the biggest fan of bookies by the way

littlefeet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122914024#Comment_122914024

Try running, iron man, sea swimming the gym, all the above have been taking up by former drug and gamble addicts.

Or awarness of addictive behaviour and choosing not to Gamble.

Or an acceptance of boardom, loneliness, novelty seeking behaviour, ADD as part of life and getting with it or trying counseling.

con___manx1

A cousin of mine lost everything to gambling. His wife kids house his business which was quite substantial.

He is now back to the grinding Stone when he had such an easy life before.

Heading into his 50ths. Owes plenty if money to family members to.

Esel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122920407#Comment_122920407

Boardom! 😄

A typo, but I like it.

BaywatchHQ

I used to be addicted, it was a distraction from real life and I loved the rushes. I think it caused me brain damage as I've never really felt the same since. I think I got sucked into gambling as a way to cope with being a loner incel. If I had a normal fulfilling social life maybe I wouldn't have had the urge.

A cousin of mine has addiction too and his large breasted girlfriend left him because of that. You know it is a problem whenever you would lose large chested girlfriend over it.

pappyodaniel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122927279#Comment_122927279

Imagine! Large breasts trump everything as far as I'm concerned.

How can a galloping horse or making a prediction on how many throw ins Sheffield Wednesday get on a Saturday against Preston ruin your life?

T!ts FTW

amber69

Fast women and slow horses!

Jinglejangle69

So are horse trainers, jockeys, dog trainers etc just as much to blame?

They are the ones after all fueling the whole gambling world.

ottolwinner

there was a very good Fiorsceal documentary on Tg4 earlier this year looking at the whole gambling sector. It’s was very good. They are cruel on their customers. They use every psychological trick.
it also showed a brain scan showing the dopamine hit of placing a bet. Amazing insight

stevejr

Used to work in a Bookies too back in the day. Kinda one of those jobs where you need to have a bit detachment in order to get by.

Whatever about the oul fellas; leave them on - most of them would be savvy enough.

However, it was heartbreaking to watch some relatively young people getting caught up in spiralling addiction. And their 'stories' were invariably similar, something along the lines of a big first win when they were kids or the dad/uncle got them into it.

It's a the most horrible addiction because it's done with a sober brain so unlike other addictions, it's nearly impossible to reprogram the unfortunate addict.

Bogey Lowenstein

I read a good book about the science/psychology of addiction, the author had suffered from it himself. Trying to remember what it was called.

I found the book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

Bogey Lowenstein

Isn't it funny the media always love to cover a feel-good story of somebody who wins big on a long shot or an accumulator but they won't touch the kind of kind of stories on this thread with a barge pole, the ones that show the pure misery of gambling addiction.

NIMAN

I would work with quite a few guys who would love a bet.

Often they'd be boasting about how they won't 500 or 800 or 1000 at the weekend.

But they never come in and tell you how much they lost this week, or the week before.

Guaranteed 99% of these folk are down money in the long term.

littlefeet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122927663#Comment_122927663

Lepardstown over Christmas or one €10 a week bet or the likes of an old neighbour who went to Mass everyday then went to the bookies and put on a €1 had a chat then came home. They are hobbies.

So no it's not their fault.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122928213#Comment_122928213

Lads losing livelihoods over gambling addictions is old news. We all know what gambling is and the danger it poses but for various reasons, people go in for it anyway.

Bookies love a good high payout story. It's much better marketing than anything their advertising people will ever produce. In the shop I worked in, we had a newspaper clipping of some fella who won thousands.

NattyO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122918877#Comment_122918877

One lad used to bring a packed lunch with him, like this was his job.

Good lord that's sad.

I've only ever been in a bookies once in my life, and that was when I was looking at buying the building it was in. Most depressing place I ever stepped into - I didn't know desperation had a smell until I walked in there. Didn't buy the building in the end (an accountant did, and kept the bookies) but I would have gotten rid of the bookies if I had. Truly awful place.

yagan

This is going back decades but we'd call the bookies my dads office. He wasn't covert about anything, he was a serious student of form and on the Saturday of one of the big races like the grand national everyone in the house would place what few pence they could spare on their pick, usually an each way bet.

It was just a household fact that betting was a pastime and wins and loses would be fractional to the weekly household budget, wins and loses being openly discussed at the dinner table, whereas I can imagine the new digital age of bookies on a personal device being like beer in the kitchen tap for an alcoholic.

We also had a few greyhounds that we raced back when it was mostly a pastime rather than the horrible industry it is now. Friday night was race night and my parents would be explaining to us the things to look out for as the dogs were being led around. The last time I passed that greyhound track they were having Wednesday morning races for the Asian market.

When I hear government funding for greyhound racing as if it were still a family pastime it just makes me feel angry.

aero2k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122928190#Comment_122928190

Gabor Maté- seems like a very kind man. Lots of interesting books.

Deebles McBeebles

I often wonder how the full timers fund their lifestyle. Smoking and gambling are both expensive habits.

I see sheep

Online betting is far worse.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122928478#Comment_122928478

Benefits, pensions, support from family, etc. It's also possible that they've jobs and have moved their betting online. Not hard to lay your bets on an app while at the office computer.

Deebles McBeebles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122928503#Comment_122928503

No doubt that exists but I meant the guys you see outside the bookies every day, morning to night. Or going between bookies and pub all day. There's only so far the dole can take you and I can't believe they are winning enough to make up the difference.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122920008#Comment_122920008

I'm not saying there is any harm in it I'm just saying that in the long term you will lose less if you just put on 5 single bets.

It's may not be as exciting as the accumulator but it's better value.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122928517#Comment_122928517

I never saw anyone in for such long contiguous periods. Most people would spent an hour or two at the very most. In the summer, you'd have fellas pop in at 6 and stay until the last UK race (most often Kempton).