addicted to shopping, eating and now casinos....

reformedEffortmaker

Hi All


Apologies for the long thread, I will really try to summarise!

Essentially, I am on the verge of setting up an online account for one of the famous American casino websites. I know this is stupid in the long term but I have been playing on their demo site all morning and would have been £600 richer if it had been real money so am so am very tempted! The purpose of this post is to try and get sensible advice to bring me back to reality!

Basically, 6 months ago I had never been into a casino and had only ever bought the occasional lottery ticket. I went out for a birthday event with a close friend and then on to a gala casino. We stayed in the casino from 10pm, until 5am, and I watched him lose (and then win back again!!) £5,000.00. We had a massive row on the way home because I had always considered him to be so calculated and calm and couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed such behaviour in the 15 years I had known him.

Anyway, 3 months later, I was sent some vouchers from gala in the post for free bets, yes I know I should have put them in the shredder immediately, but I thought I would have the discipline to go to the casino, use up the free vouchers and leave. Of course that never happened and I ended up losing a total of £150.

I felt like such a hypocrite for having a go at my friend, and so when he suggested we go back and use an unexpected work bonus to make the money back, I was convinced I had learnt my lesson and would go back, and the leave the absolute second I broke even!. We went back and due to a few lucky hands on the blackjack table (and a mistake by the croupier!), I made back my money and an extra £280. When we left, I was ecstatic, and have spent the last three weeks trying to work out how I could make a small side income from betting.

Still on that high, we went back last weekend. The night went terribly; (btw why do they have cash machines in casinos?!!). I ended up taking out a total of £350 from the cash machines.

Now I have been so p$$$ed off since Saturday, I am at a cross roads. I think I may be at the start of a new addiction
Part of me wants to just write off the £350 to experience and leave it, the other part is so so so angry that I’ve wasted so much money and I want to go back and try and win it back once and for all and then burn my membership card. £350 was too much to have wasted, I didn’t tell my friend as I wanted to keep up with everyone else, but losing that much means that things are going to be tight this month.

To anyone who has experience with gambling. Please could you advise. The casinos are always so busy that there must be some people who have learnt how to set a limit, make a little extra cash and then leave?. Or is it really the case that "the house always wins?"

I have also realised for the first time that I might actually have an addictive personality. I have noticed emotions over the last few hours that are very similar to when I am stood in a shop looking at an item on special offer and asking myself if I *really* need it or not, or when I am in a restaurant and know I should order a salad like the other girls on other tables, but really want the pizza or chips.

Can anyone recommend any good books on combating addictions?

Also, I am thinking of writing to my friend and telling him that I no longer want to go our with him when there is even a remote chance we could end up in a casino, but I am worried about how that will impact on our friendship

DGJsaver

I think you need professional help

needhelpindebt

Cut your losses at £350!!!!

I advise you to read some of the stories on the following thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1090463

You will see many stories where people have tried to win their losses back and it will only ever end one way.

I just wish i read the thread before falling off of the gambling waggon for the 2nd time, i am now trying to work out how to pay back £30k of gambling debts.

if you still feel the urge to gamble after that then i advise going to a GA meeting

maidofrohan

Definitely cut your losses, and tear up the membership card! you say that you have an addictive personality....is there anyway that you can turn that addicition towards saving money? I know that sounds odd, but what if everytime you felt like gambling, sticking a fiver or tenner in a savings account?

Just thinking of ideas for you...

searching_me

please please please cut your loss and turn your back on it ... my mother is a gambling addict looking for the next big win, spending her wage every week in the slots ... never having anything in and also coming home from school to find your stuff been sold in for a tenner .. to the point she stole my dead nans (her mothers) CC to cover her debts .. i dont have any contact with her now ..

the saying the house always wins is for a reason ... its true ... you may win alittle but you lose so much ..

my mother lost me and her 2 grandchildren .. my youngest shes never met ...

nothing good can come from gambling x

dfitps

Part of me wants to just write off the £350 to experience and leave it, the other part is so so so angry that I’ve wasted so much money and I want to go back and try and win it back once and for all and then burn my membership card.

If you go back then sooner or later you will have a win of more than £350. The trouble is that you will almost certainly have spent far MORE than £350 on the way to that win, in losing bets before the winning one comes along. So eventually they will hand back £350 in 'winnings' to you - but by then you'll have spent at least that in bets. You're vanishingly unlikely to get that £350 win on your first bet or couple of bets, and that's the only way it would work.

That's where their profits come from - for every £350 they pay out, a bit more than £350 has been bet. That's the rule, that's how it works, it's absolutely unavoidable, whether it's just one person doing the betting or thousands. That's why you're absolutely onto a loser if you go back hoping to win back your money. It won't work - that money has gone.

You could go back for years and years and still never hit a point where you're actually AHEAD compared to where you were when you first went to a casino. You're more likely to end up looking back and saying to yourself 'wish I'd quit when I was only £350 down instead of £5000' (or whatever you end up spending, chasing that big win that will make it all OK - the big win that's never likely to come).

Throw all that energy into entering competitions that are free to enter and you might end up with some real profit - the only thing you're 'spending' there is a bit of privacy by giving your details to mailing lists, so you've got nothing to lose, and when you do win it's real profit.

Sunnylooloo

I think you can see everyone is of the same opinion.

The only winners are the casino owners and the bookmakers.

arby

also, playing with online 'free' accounts is nothing like the real thing for two reasons:

firstly, nobody plays the same when it's fake money at stake. When it comes down to using your own money, you'll react emotionally leading to either greed or panic.

secondly, there's nothing to stop the website changing the odds to actively make sure you win when playing with a trial account. Only when it's for real do the games have to be accurate. It's done to sucker people in, like it has done to you. Run away. Don't try to 'win' your £350 back, instead why don't you work a few extra shifts or ebay something and 'earn' the £350 back?

MyLastFiver

It is a fallacy that you can "make a small side income" from games of chance. It is perfectly possible to have a winning streak, but over time, yes, the house always wins. That's not just a saying; it's a mathematical certainty.

If you want to make money from gambling sites, check out the "Gambling Introductory Offers Loopholes" board on this site, which will tell you how to extract money from online bookies without risk (providing you do it right!)

If there was a way of making a regular income from games of chance then someone would have figured it out by now. So I repeat: There is no way of making a guaranteed income from playing games of chance. You may think you have a system that can't possibly fail. You don't. It will.

If you want to make money playing casino Blackjack then learn how to count cards

goingforward_3

Cut your losses.. gambling is a mugs game very very few people win (apart from the casinos themselves !!!).

I've spent a fair bit of time in Vegas over the years (i dont gamble though) and so many people sit as those damn slot machines for hours and hours everyday chasing that big win that never comes.

reformedEffortmaker

Thank you all very much for your useful advice. Deep down I know you are all right, it's just the thought of throwing money in the bin (or thinking about what i could have spent it on), that's difficult to deal with. It's also a little embarrassing!.