# Do you gamble?



## EricABQ

In the spirit of ArtMusic's personal question threads, a poll about members' gambling habits.

Multiple choice, choose as many as you wish.


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## Head_case

I crossed the road today when a red light had come on for the speeding traffic. So I guess the answer is yes.


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## EricABQ

Head_case said:


> I crossed the road today when a red light had come on for the speeding traffic. So I guess the answer is yes.


I should have included an option for gambling with one's life.


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## EricABQ

I should answer my own question. 

I am strictly a sports bettor. Mostly with friends, but in sports books when I find myself in Vegas. 

I find that sports are only interesting to me if I have some action. 

Casino games never caught on with me at all. I don't enjoy being at the tables with other people and the machines are just money takers.


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## PetrB

EricABQ said:


> I should answer my own question.
> 
> I am strictly a sports bettor. Mostly with friends, but in sports books when I find myself in Vegas.
> 
> I find that sports are only interesting to me if I have some action.
> 
> Casino games never caught on with me at all. I don't enjoy being at the tables with other people and the machines are just money takers.


'Only interesting if you have a bet on it,' is one of the primary pathological tics of the addictive gambler.

Another is a real adrenaline charge catalyzed by gambling -- and get this -- the excitement and charge equal in the gambler _whether the money is Coming Towards Them or Going Away!!!_


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## PetrB

Yes, all that 'life stuff' of course - stepping out of the front door.... staying indoors..... as 'they say.' (I routinely jaywalk a two-direction four-lane heavily trafficked city avenue at least several times per diem.)

But, to paraphrase the narrative voice of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's _The Gambler,_

"I could never understand risking the necessary for the superfluous."

Any and all 'bets' on games, cards, casino gambling -- just don't get it -- no excitement at all. BORING.


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## EricABQ

PetrB said:


> 'Only interesting if you have a bet on it,' is one of the primary pathological tics of the addictive gambler.
> 
> Another is a real adrenaline charge catalyzed by gambling -- and get this -- the excitement and charge equal in the gambler _whether the money is Coming Towards Them or Going Away!!!_


Yes, that is true. But, for us it is really just about competition and bragging rights among friends. Our stakes are laughably small. Like $5 a week. It's all about just beating your friends.


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## kv466

Only on people...


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## Novelette

This list isn't at all exhaustive.

I'm well versed in combinatorics, abstract and practical. I know how unlikely it is to win at virtually anything.

Still, I don't need any mathematics to describe a chronic condition of mine--poor luck. Thus gambling is an invariably unwise sport for me.


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## Couchie

PetrB said:


> Any and all 'bets' on games, cards, casino gambling -- just don't get it -- no excitement at all. BORING.


If it's boring then clearly you aren't betting enough!

I enjoy poker, with friends and on rare occasion at the casino. It is after all the only game of skill and where you're not playing against the house at significant disadvantage.


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## presto

Most gambling is there to make money out of people and it’s very unfortunate if someone has an addiction to it.
It’s lined the pockets of many and destroyed the lives of countless more.
Horrible activity, I have no time for any aspect of it.


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## Ryan

Only with my ******* life, baby.


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## Kopachris

I _work_ at a casino. Of course I don't gamble. 



presto said:


> Most gambling is there to make money out of people and it's very unfortunate if someone has an addiction to it.
> It's lined the pockets of many and destroyed the lives of countless more.
> Horrible activity, I have no time for any aspect of it.


Most _everything_ is there to make money out of people. Gambling addiction truly is horrible to see, though. Most people I've seen, however, understand that they're paying for that serotonin high and factor it into their entertainment budget.


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## Lunasong

I don't gamble because I see it as a form of entertainment and I prefer to spend my entertainment budget on other things.

On the other hand, those who run my 401K investments apparently have no qualms at all about losing my money.


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## Ingélou

I don't mind little bets & fruit machines, but feel I should save my pennies for music lessons, new sheet music, new bows, new cds, & attending Norwich Baroque concerts.
Big gambles encourage materialism & superstition, plus I know someone who was a gambling addict & ruined his life.


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## cwarchc

No interest in it at all. 
I don't find it boring, as I don't have any desire to do it


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## jani

Slot machines if i get small change from what i bought, small change for me is any thing between 0,05-1,00.
But i only gamble if i reccieve the money as change from what i bought, i won't gamble with the coins on my wallet.


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## EricABQ

jani said:


> Slot machines if i get small change from what i bought, small change for me is any thing between 0,05-1,00.
> But i only gamble if i reccieve the money as change from what i bought, i won't gamble with the coins on my wallet.


Are slot machines common in Finland?


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## PetrB

EricABQ said:


> Yes, that is true. But, for us it is really just about competition and bragging rights among friends. Our stakes are laughably small. Like $5 a week. It's all about just beating your friends.


The rationale already at work - you could boast about winning a bet without any money placed into the play


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## Huilunsoittaja

Well, is wasting money a moral issue? Perhaps. That gambling is a waste of money is my top reason for not doing it. I need my money for other things.


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## Ramako

My main reason for not gambling is that I feel I could very easily get addicted to it, and that I wouldn't get un-addicted until I had wasted far too much money on it.


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## EricABQ

PetrB said:


> The rationale already at work - you could boast about winning a bet without any money placed into the play


If you think I'm rationalizing about my sports betting you should hear me talk about my drinking.


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## jani

EricABQ said:


> Are slot machines common in Finland?


Every store has at least one.

Infact i played one yesterday, i won then i decided to double and i had to chose heads or tails, so i took a real coin out of my wallet and fliped it and i got heads and i chose heads and won!

Wohoo!!!:lol:

I won 3€ with 1€! Wohoo!!!:lol:


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## EricABQ

I came up with a quote about gambling that describes myself:

"I can afford to gamble more than I gamble but only because I don't gamble as much as I can afford to gamble."


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## Weston

I have no problem at all with others doing it as long as it's not me. I find everything involving money to be stultifying.


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## ArtMusic

Might have a friendly bet with friends when if I loose, I buy them a burger or a drink.


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## EricABQ

jani said:


> Every store has at least one.
> 
> Infact i played one yesterday, i won then i decided to double and i had to chose heads or tails, so i took a real coin out of my wallet and fliped it and i got heads and i chose heads and won!
> 
> Wohoo!!!:lol:
> 
> I won 3€ with 1€! Wohoo!!!:lol:


That's a pretty good gig for the store owners. They give you change and you give it right back to them.

To find slot machines here you actually have to go to the casinos. Unless you are in Nevada. There, as soon as you step off the plane you are surrounded by them. But, machines aren't for me. I don't like games that are purely games of chance, I like to put at least a little bit of thought into my gambling (hence the sports betting.)


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## Crudblud

Weston said:


> I find everything involving money to be stultifying.


I understand you.


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## Rola

Novelette said:


> I'm well versed in combinatorics, abstract and practical. I know how unlikely it is to win at virtually anything.


Yes, I always wondered if there would be less casual gamblers (say, lottery ticket buyers) had they known the equations calculating the ridiculously low chance of winning for a given game.


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## JohannesBrahms

I don't get the point of gambling. I am a cheapskate who absolutely cannot stand to lose money. I was on a road trip and didn't eat dinner because I didn't want to spend the money.


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## Ravndal

Sure. I love poker. Me and my friends have a poker night now and then. It's nothing serious. Just a fun get together before we hit the down. Buy in is usually around 20-25$. So not much, but enough to want to win if we are 9-10  I have tried to play a little online poker, but found it boring


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## Novelette

Ravndal said:


> Sure. I love poker. Me and my friends have a poker night now and then. It's nothing serious. Just a fun get together before we hit the down. Buy in is usually around 20-25$. So not much, but enough to want to win if we are 9-10  I have tried to play a little online poker, but found it boring


When I was very young, my family and I went to visit some old family friends: rather wealthy people who had a magnificent home on a mountain in North Carolina. They had their own slot machine, which I played just once. On my first try, I won the big jackpot and received oodles of quarters. Alas, my parents wouldn't let me keep the quarters even though the owners told me that I could. Memory of deprivation aside  , my winning record is 100%. I'd never risk blemishing such a fantastic record!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I selected every single option in the poll


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## EricABQ

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I selected every single option in the poll


Well, that totally invalidates the data.

Now I have to start over.


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## mtmailey

I stay away because it is dangerous sometimes.


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## elgar's ghost

I used to play pub slot machines back in the 80s but all of a sudden started to lose too often for my liking - it wasn't much in terms of money but the bigger wins were unaccountably drying up. I was then tipped off that there were certain individuals coming from out of town who knew how to 'work' the machines so I just stopped there and then and haven't been on one since. 

I then turned to pub quiz machines and did OK but after a few years they went out of fashion and most were replaced by an integrated machine with loads of games on where the only chance of a prize was if you managed to get an astronomical amount of points (think how much you'd need to put in to get there). 

I wouldn't even know how to play a slot machine now - they look really confusing. Otherwise it's just £1 a week as part of a works lottery syndicate which I'm still involved with even though I left the place 4 years ago.


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## Novelette

elgars ghost said:


> I wouldn't even know how to play a slot machine now - they look really confusing.


Isn't that the truth? My first year in college, I would take a leisurely drive to the nearby casino just to watch the people playing the slots. This particular casino instituted a pre-paid card system for the slot machines, which no longer took coins or bills. These people would stand at the slot machines with the cards firmly attached to the machine port, yet they would often have these cards attached also to their belt-loops by use of a stretchy coil cord.

There they were, standing at these machines playing: dazed and looking completely dejected while playing these machines [no visible signs that they were enjoying themselves at all], and worse, it looked like they were chained to the machines.


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## elgar's ghost

Novelette said:


> Isn't that the truth? My first year in college, I would take a leisurely drive to the nearby casino just to watch the people playing the slots. This particular casino instituted a pre-paid card system for the slot machines, which no longer took coins or bills. These people would stand at the slot machines with the cards firmly attached to the machine port, yet they would often have these cards attached also to their belt-loops by use of a stretchy coil cord.
> 
> There they were, standing at these machines playing: dazed and looking completely dejected while playing these machines [no visible signs that they were enjoying themselves at all], and worse, it looked like they were chained to the machines.


Oh, no - that's bad! It sounds like it's one step away from being assimilated Borg-style!


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## Novelette

elgars ghost said:


> Oh, no - that's bad! It sounds like it's one step away from being assimilated Borg-style!


I hadn't thought of that, it did look a lot like the Borg!


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## drpraetorus

I am too tight with a buck to give it away for a cheap thrill.


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## Pyotr

I like playing the ponies. There's a racino in the area where I frequently have to travel for work. I can hang out there and eat my brown-bagged lunch without any hassle from the ownership so while I'm there I play a few races. I usually bet the minimum on a horse to place(i.e. come in second). The minimum is $2 but some tracks allow a $1 bet. I like blackjack but never play it because at this casino there's a $15 minimum bet. Playing a hand of blackjack takes less than a minute and I could lose a lot of money in the 60 minutes or so that I have for lunch. The most I could lose playing the horses is $5 or $6 over that same 60 minutes, but I usually win.


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## Ingélou

I'm not a gambler. But as a kid, I loved Corrigan's, the penny arcades on Scarborough seafront. Whirling music and lights, and something so satisfying when you won those big BIG pennies. 

I could weep when I think of the old coinage. In my childhood, in the 1950s, one regularly got pennies and ha'pennies with Queen Victoria (sometimes with a bun, not weepers), Edward VII, George V, George VI (obviously not Edward VIII or I'd be rolling in it) as well as Queen Elizabeth II. What a history lesson! Ha'pennies were pretty coins with a sailing ship on the reverse. I'm just too young to remember farthings in use, but again, so lovely, with a wren on the reverse. Now the coinage is so bland.

And the same happened in Ireland. Pre-Euro, their coins were fabulous, featuring salmon, deer, harps, hens etc. We had an Irish penny that we kids used to take to the swimming baths - throw it in, then duck underwater to hear that 'plink' that could travel for miles - then dive and find it. Inevitably, one day we didn't...


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## DavidA

Gambling is a mugs' game. I mean, if not, why do bookmakers stay in business?


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## Krummhorn

Lotteries only, and then not every week, only if I think about it. 

The only other thing I "gamble" with is dodging all the potholes in our roads ... :scold:


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## Manxfeeder

I voted "Morally opposed," which I am, but really, before I was concerned with being moral, I didn't gamble, either, because I always lose.


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## Strange Magic

I sometimes gambol lightheartedly.....:lol:

But never gamble.


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## Tikoo Tuba

In a dream my piano teacher handed me dice : have a throw , Tikoo . They all came up pianos .


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

If you're good enough at poker (better than your competition) and you try to play GTO (game theory optimal) or even in a slightly exploitative style (depending on your opponents), it's hardly even "gambling" in the long wrong. It's just math, and with patience and correct play you're bound to profit in the long run. Made a few hundred bucks online from that a couple of months ago. Then found myself becoming a bit hedonistic, and soon thereafter stopped. So I suppose "No - Morally opposed" is my answer.


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## TMHeimer

Only thing I've done is the 5 cent poker machines in casinos (my wife is a crack Texas Holdem' player). 20 years of that on & off and in 2016 I finally got a royal flush. Took photos of it and everything. Won a whole $12.50 U.S. so now I'm only down about $200 lifetime-- think about it-- 5 cent machines, one line only....


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## Oldhoosierdude

No category for me to vote.

I gamble every time I pay taxes.


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## Tristan

I have before on trips to Nevada. It's fun to do with friends, but I've never won anything significant (but nor have I lost anything significant).


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## Totenfeier

I eat too much sugar and don't exercise much.


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## Barbebleu

These days even going for a coffee is somewhat of a gamble. We’re back in a local semi-lockdown. I can go to a restaurant or a bar but I can’t go and sit in a friend's house for a drink.


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## Malx

Barbebleu said:


> These days even going for a coffee is somewhat of a gamble. We're back in a local semi-lockdown. I can go to a restaurant or a bar but I can't go and sit in a friend's house for a drink.


I guess you may be in the West of Scotland, house parties are the problem as you will be aware, the minority spoiling things for the rest - sums up the world right now


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## ldiat

i answered yes to most but one forgot horse racing! like the Kentucky Derby this past sat. TIZ THE LAW got beat by a Bob Baffert horse at 8-1 by AUTHENTIC paid $18+ but i had the show horse #9 MR. BIG NEWS paid $16+


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

WSOP main event final table was this past weekend.


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## starthrower

I voted boring. But actually I've never gambled so I wouldn't know. My vice is music.


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## CnC Bartok

I used to put a little bit of money on The Grand National, but every horse I backed over the years either fell at the first, or died at Beecher's.

So no, I don't gamble.....even if I do find odds frequently fascinating.


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## Merl

Scottish Children's Lottery and National Lottery only. We have a nominal bet among the 5 guys who I work with on the football every week but its less than a pound a week and we do occasionally win.


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## Flamme

Only with me soul...


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## Varick

Flamme said:


> Only with me soul...


Who doesn't?

I enjoy sitting with friends playing poker. I used to run a few tables when I lived in Manhattan. I never do it as a planned trip, but If I'm ever in Atlantic City (which has just become a complete S#*%hole) or Las Vegas and I have some time, I'll try to find a poker table for a few hours.

I used to play in other games in Manhattan when I lived there. I'm pretty good at reading people so I usually did well. I go in with an amount I can afford to lose. Once I hit that number, I walk. Getting emotional about losing is the WORST thing you can do. Of all the addictions, it's one of the worst. I've seen multiple lives and families DESTROYED by it.

V


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## Flamme

The interesting thing is that I played POKER with my dad when I was a kid...Like 7-13 years old...In money and other things...But suddenly we stopped and I think I would not even know the rules if asked, I think he forgot as well...My childhood was fare from perfect but lately I feel such a nostalgy and melancholy towards it is indescribable. I didn't know how lucky I was...I kinda gambled my happiness away.


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## Varick

Flamme said:


> The interesting thing is that I played POKER with my dad when I was a kid...Like 7-13 years old...In money and other things...But suddenly we stopped and I think I would not even know the rules if asked, I think he forgot as well...My childhood was fare from perfect but lately I feel such a nostalgy and melancholy towards it is indescribable. I didn't know how lucky I was...*I kinda gambled my happiness away.*


When you lose your parents and no longer have that link, it is very common to be nostalgic about one's childhood. Often they are bittersweet memories. You have to give that about a year to level out, and it will level out. I promise you.

But the good news is that you didn't gamble your happiness away. Abraham Lincoln lost two sons, saw his country being torn apart, and had a wife, by all accounts, seemed to be either bi-polar or manic depressive (obviously we didn't have those terms or understanding back then). He himself was not a naturally ebullient personality, and had somewhat a melancholy disposition. With all that, *he* even said, "We are as happy as we choose to be." Of course that doesn't include those with a clinical issue or chemical imbalance, but it is good food for thought.

V


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