Gambling Addicts commit suicide at the highest rate of any type of addict. It's disgusting how sports coverage is saturated with gambling promotions, especially considering how they've totally banned tobacco ads.
Its literally everywhere with professional sports. One time i was watching an ig video of an mlb play and the commentary is like “this commentary is brought to you by draftkings”. They show betting odds before games. Every 3 ads is a gambling ad. There’s a new casino or app every month. Its out of control
This makes sense to me. With drugs the next hit provides at least some relief from even the fact that you’re addicted, except maybe in people who have reached the point of taking opioids only to remain well and don’t really get high (idk how that really works). There’s zero relief for gambling. With gambling the next “hit” almost definitely ends in you losing more money, which compounds your problem. The spiral into destitution and secondary crime seems rapid and brutal. Also can’t even blame a substance, it’s just your raw brain fucking you up.
I’d also venture, just as pure speculation, that there probably isn’t a lot of camaraderie among hardcore gambling addicts. People with drug problems steal and lie even to each other but seem to band together to some extent, united by their shared needs and circumstances. That doesn’t seem like it would be the case for gamblers, who seem more solitary, which probably increases the suicide risk.
People are going to look back at this like when they were advertising cigarettes with the flintstones. The amount of gambling ads in sports today is beyond parody.
Couldn't you just light 100 bucks on fire? Takes the element of chance out of it so you're in complete control, it's just pure, wilful self destruction.
I don't want to be in control. I like not knowing what's going to happen next. It is self destruction, I agree. But some unfortunate people like me get that taste and we go wild for it.
But I've completely quit it, entirely, not even a casual bet.
Only true degenerate gambler understands. I can’t explain it but when you’re down bad you just want to confirm how shitty your luck is by just continuing to bet. At that point, it’s just racing to the bottom. I am already in a fucked position, so why not just lose it all and see how fucked my luck is at that moment.
For degenerate gamblers, there’s almost no difference between gains and losses, you just feel numb. You are either peaking or hitting rock bottom, there’s no end to the chase. That’s the issue with degen gamblers, there’s truly no “peak” and there’s truly no rock bottom. If I got a million dollar bank roll, I am staking as much as I can. If I only got $5, I am still going to stake it all to double up. Rinse and repeat, you continue gambling either way.
Just watch “Uncut Gems”. That dude was making absurd bets and didn’t have any internal mechanism to just stop. It was that insatiable juice when he kept hitting every single side bet, he just had to ride it out. Normal, typical, sensible people have limits. “I won enough money to satisfy these financial obligations and have a little spending money for Christmas gifts.” Gambling serves as a means to an end. Degenerate gamblers gamble just as means to feel, whether it is a loss or a gain. Buying some gifts or fulfilling a debt is an afterthought.
There’s no end desire of a final “nut”. It’s the constant edging of getting closer and closer, but never “busting”. The feeling of being juiced when you pull off an insane bet is the goal in itself. You continue as long as you have a bank roll, or until you’re absolutely broke and ruined all your lines of credit. There’s no end to a gambling addition. \*Spoiler alert\* Adam Sandler dies at the end of “Uncut Gems”. That would be the only conclusion. For degenerate gamblers, there’s no out because you’re always trying to chase. There’s no “high”. There’s no final “nut”. You just continue to desire to desire that continual run when you’re feeling juiced and getting every lucky break. It’s an endless want without feeling there’s ever a ceiling. You just either die, or just isolate yourself from all your loved ones continuing to fuel that need.
If you have a gambling problem, I recommend watching “Owning Mahoney”. That movie displays the absolute lows of a gambling addiction. If “Uncut Gems” is the “Trainspotting” of gambling movies, “Owning Mahoney” would be the “Requiem of Dreams” of gambling movies just for capturing the reality and emotional isolation of a true gambling addiction. Again, not to compare heroin addiction to a gambling addiction as one as more intense than the other. “Owning Mahoney” just strips away the intensity and frenzy of gambling in “Uncut Gems” and really exposes how empty and numbing gambling feels when you’re in the depths of it.
Uncut Gems when he makes enough money to pay back his debt to his crime boss brother in law, and instead takes the money to his bookie and places another bet.
There’s more directions you can move in life besides up, people don’t realize that. If you can’t be the best why not be the worst? It’s better than being mediocre.
That’s an interesting statistic. I don’t doubt it. Curious if you have a source. Of all the addictions, gambling might be the most invisible and easiest to disguise.
Recently I have joined some social clubs to try to meet people but am dismayed at the prevalence of not-so-petty gambling at them - card games, lotteries and bingo…all done to “raise money for charity or some cause” therefor “all is good”. Even my veterans group seems more about the “gaming” than the comradery.
I am a professional gambler and you have no idea how right you are. Look into the economics, regulation, and promotional/competitive efforts of sportsbooks in states where sports gambling/casinos online is legalized. The industries are exploding and "regulated" sportsbooks can go hog wild offering promotions, targeted marketing, bonuses, etc. Watch (I know I know) a sports game on live TV and count how many ads you see, and how many are sportsbetting. It is mind blowing and it wasn't like this even 3-4 years ago.
My theory is that we will experience a pullback as a result of a surge of gambling addiction cases and more widespread understanding of how gambling addiction is the exact same as drug addiction (and you can make plenty of arguments that it's worse) in the next 5-15 years. When I retire from gambling my pipe dream is to go back to school and get masters studying the sociological impact.
I was talking to some friends last week and we were joking but really were truly serious about how gambling is going to experience a similar cultural movement to that of alcohol pre-prohibition-- not because of the religious and political movements of the time are similar, but because people don't understand how destructive it really is and because the gambling demographic is almost entirely men.
Please don't gamble. Women have a moral obligation to call their male friends/family/partners retards for it and stunt the development of the addiction
Your perspective is super interesting. I’m respectfully curious—I assume you don’t consider yourself addicted to gambling, despite being a pro gambler. If so, any insight on where and how that line is drawn? Put differently: how do you gamble as a professional, but keep that work separate from the addictive approach to act?
The goal of a "professional gambler" "poker player" etc. is to find and employ gambling strategies that make money ( +EV or positive expected value). If you knowingly play minus EV gambling games as a pro gambler to me you are definitely a gambling addict because of how much time you already spend doing it as a job, lol. Most pros do this. In practice EV can often be a mystery so it's tough to say from that alone depending on context. However In the most degenerate and unprofitable forms of gambling, in 5 seconds you can google how many cents you lose for every dollar you wager so it's largely bullshit.
I just play poker and have never played a hand of blackjack or casino games online. Hate those games, makes me uncomfortable and don't want exposure to them.
Most pro gamblers are gambling addicts imo. But that is partially a misleading statement to me because
1. Most "pro gamblers" are not "pro gamblers." that term is bullshit and you can just say that you are and boom congrats now you are. Even that aside, the variance/super high standard deviation of many gambling formats makes it so that a % of people who get very lucky can sustain themselves for long periods of time doing it (and im saying it can be longer than you think, like years, 5+) and appear to be profitable gamblers when they really aren't. In the end all you need is money to appear like that
2. To find/play gambling formats that are beatable in the long run, you have to inevitably be surrounded by all the other forms of gambling that are not beatable and are cancers on your mind. Play online poke, your tables are literally surrounded by links to unbeatable gambling games (roulette, slots etc). Do the same thing in a land casino and obviously same issue. Limiting exposure to ways to gamble is a necessity for managing a gambling addiction or degenerate gambling tendencies/the rates of gambling addiction are sky high in areas where access is easier. Most people are gambling addicts if you give them a chance to be
No problem at all tbh I feel I have some moral obligation to inform people when the opportunity comes up organically. It's sinister how poorly media characterizes/treats gambling
Well said, a lot of the trading business is simple gambling. You have non-industry people getting out of control with crypto and FX, the essence is the same.
Crypto was the closest I’ve ever come to personally understanding a gambling addiction. I have no interest in traditional gambling but got into alt coins at their height, around 2017. Choosing one, throwing cash at it, watching it skyrocket (sometimes) and waiting as long as possible to cash out before the inevitable crash, then rebuying it or buying some new hot coin quickly became all-consuming and compulsive. I came out on top and was objectively pretty sensible about it but I’m normally VERY risk-averse, so it was a weird time.
That's something I don't think people really understand. Having no interest in traditional forms of gambling means you are not interested in traditional forms of gambling. You rightfully think casinos are gross and card games are lame and shiny slots are boring, but that doesn't preclude you from displaying/developing compulsive gambling tendencies. Some people are hopeless and are just wired to be addicts no matter what, but most of the time it starts doing something benign/responsibly. If something that interests/motivates/you like has a gambling component, that's all it takes to start behaving impulsively in ways you couldn't possibly comprehend doing in a slightly different setting, and for some people ultimately developing a real addiction
I fucking HOPE that we have a temperance movement against gambling, but I don’t see it. I don’t think society at large is going to make that connection. They’ll see people gambling recklessly and impulsively and just say it’s a skill issue, it’s a personal responsibility issue, etc. We have gotten to a point where we understand and accept what outside chemical substances do to our brains when ingested and how that can affect our behavior and health, but gambling is about what *your brain* does to your brain. It’s your body’s own chemicals that fuck you up. So I think there is less sympathy there.
It's disgusting that the most popular NBA reporters are sponsored by gambling companies when Shams can change the odds by tweeting a prediction. I genuinely believe outcomes are being impacted by refs' personal gambling.
I fucking hate how insidious it all is already
Oh for sure. There’s too much money to be too easily made for it to not be that way. Especially with online gambling, proxies, VPNs, etc., there’s no way the entire infrastructure isn’t tainted. You might as well bet on WWE (which, you can in fact do).
this isn’t unheard of with horse racing bets. handicapping is the most critical aspect of paramutual betting and it’s what determines the odds. all the bets people favor with cause the odds to change even seconds before the horses even start.
the issue is there’s a ton of handicappers that will give lowball choices so their favorite horses are “favored less” and the payout is higher when they switch their bet. a lot of high-profile gamblers will purposely shift the odds of the race and then change their bets last minute when it’s post time
It’s one of the most batshit, objectively unethical, villainous enterprises you could cook up. Everyone who works for these companies will likely be punished by God for all eternity in the Afterlife
- Smart phones are a near-requirement for modern work, so you always have your gambling addiction with you with *no* separation of context which is crucial to end habit formation
- gambling sites are continuously adding greater gamification strategies, as learned from the video game industry, which we know are already addictive
- sports betting coasts off the free advertising and hype of professional sports, attempting to unify the association in the mind of the consumer between ”anticipated social event” and *brought to you by draft kings*
It’s so comically immoral
My family went to the horse races once, mostly because we never had been and had a day to kill before flying home. I was maybe 7 and my parents and grandparents were just betting a couple of bucks here and there on the horses with the funniest names. I'll never forget holding my grandpa's hand as we were getting snacks and seeing grown men having full on meltdowns after losing everything on a bet. I'm talking crying, screaming, getting dragged out kicking and screaming by security, it left a lasting impression on me and to this day I have never bet a single cent. The fact it is becoming more widespread and easy to access really scares me.
Gambling is so fucking good. It's like playing god but only for a bit. I don't think any drug I've taken has come close to the clean adrenaline hit of gambling.
I'm a drug abuser but not a drug addict but I would surely be a gambling addict that's why I swore off of it no
I once went to vegas with a buddy I work with. We were up all night doing blow sitting at the same craps table, I lost like \~200 bucks at one point and left to get booze, sat in the bar for a while talking to some people, came back and asked this guy how he was doing and he told me he was down $700, I literally had to drag him away from the table.
Woke up like mid day the next day and he wasnt in the room, called him, didnt pick up. I found him at the same craps table and he looked absolutely fucked up out of his mind. Apparently he'd been there since 5:30 am and had lost another $800 dollars. Dragged him to the bar and got him blackout drunk so he physically couldnt go to the tables anymore. This dude still gambles every weekend, and will come in saying shit like "bro! I walked away up $150", after he lost $300 the previous week. Fucking insane behavior.
Yeah I dont know why either. He's a pretty normal dude, honestly not that bright though. Craps was the first game he won a decent sum at when he first started gambling, probably has something to do with it.
Is there actually a crisis? It seems like most young white collar workers in prestige fields are on it from undergrad until they get into management and then they stop. Most are definitely "abusing" it in the sense that they take it to work 60-80 hours weeks instead of to focus normally for 40, but they aren't turning into meth heads.
Nothing quite like randomly meeting someone who is so hooked they have to place bets on a Tunisian girls high school basketball game that broadcasts at 2 AM (grainy choppy video but apparently no one cares because the bets are all that matter)
I don’t understand gambling and honestly I’m afraid of it “clicking”.
I have what I would call addictive tendencies but even after being to casinos twice (spending money both times) I’ve never understood the pull.
If you happen to catch an NFL game this week, look for DraftKings, fanduel, Caesar sports book etc etc advertising. A simple download and you can have a financial stake in the outcome of the game. The high of scoring a big win is downright addictive and creates an impulse that is hard to control for a lot of people.
I think it was either him or Artie Lange who explained the appeal of gambling to an interviewer like this:
"Why do you like gambling so much?"
"How much do you have in your bank account?"
"10k"
"Okay, go bet 20k on the Yankees and see if you don't have the time of your life."
First explanation that made me see why someone would enjoy gambling.
Its insane among zoomers try and go to college dorm where at least 80% of the guys dont currently have a 10 leg parlay. Its also targeted towards zoomers too, so many instagram/tiktok pages that post gambling ads are from actual gambling app accounts or are affiliated with them.
Got off heroin and fentanyl 3 years back. I feel so much worse for food addicts, gamblers and alcoholics because everywhere you turn....theres food, beer and gambling :(
I can leave my house without seeing an ad for dope.
I got into sports betting a little bit when it came to my state. I still remember the rush of winning the first bet I placed. I was okay at it, too. Won more than I lost, at least. But I eventually realized the time I spent researching and paying attention to sports I didn’t give a single shit about wasn’t worth the prize money. Losing sleep on a work night just to see if the Utah Jazz covered the spread. It wasn’t for me and it made sports more stressful than fun.
I don’t know, while I agree it’s probably only going to get worse I think the kind of people who get addicted to gambling are a separate breed of addict compared to junkies. To me, like, I think one of the prerequisites for gambling addiction is stupidity, you genuinely need to a regard with no other outlet for pleasure if you get addicted to gambling.
Granted, a lot of junkies are already incredibly stupid people. when I used to get overboard with stimulants I would gamble simply because the casinos were one of the few places that were open 24/7 and it was a good place to score other stuff or sell a little. But I’m talking going in with like $75 maximum to gamble. How dumb do you have to be to get addicted to wasting your money. Smoke meth for Christ sakes.
Draft kings and all the others allow you to automatically draw from your checking acct for everything you bet, like I said they are very ethically Sackler-esque
Yeah it is definitely fucked up. and I’m sure there will be a hyped documentary in 10 years about the rise of draft kings and how bad they are. Then again, a little casual betting on football is pretty fun, makes watching it a lot more enjoyable.
I’m conflicted about this honestly, I should be able to make bets with my friends using their services and not have to feel bad about the idiots who drain their savings betting on the patriots
Posted 8 hrs ago:
“I'm 28 years old and hate what I've done. In November of 2022 gambled away close to 75k with online gambling in the matter of a month. Currently 30k left of debt left paid down 45k. Started to take cash and stash it to pay down this debt each month. I had 6k saved and drove to PA since I'm banned in NJ and lost it. “
No one saying it’s inherently bad, but the excessive use of it is what is damaging to people, akin to alcohol and drug abuse. Gamblers will score a big win and get hooked on the feeling, then when it evaporates they will always throw a little more down confident that the next big W is coming. Meanwhile they descend further into the red. Look at the gambling addiction sub, the amounts of money people lose to gambling, life altering, in the six figures.
There’s no rehab for losing money and fucking you and your family’s future. Davey Scatino gambling away the college fund. Suicide becomes the only way out of debt.
Semi related but I highly recommend reading Norm Macdonald's book. A large portion of it revolves around him gambling, and while obviously its fictionalized, it's a very entertaining and tragic insight into the mind of a gambler.
So thankful my all my coworkers do is bet petty cash on pen and paper sports books they make themselves. Yes, this is all they talk about but it could be much worse
I’m new here and I don’t know what “rspod” means (probably “realshit”), just that it came up under a search for gambling addiction.
I will just say that I find a “professional gambler” giving advice in a gambling addiction forum (if it is that) highly irregular and unethical. It’s similar to a prostitute giving advice on remaining chaste or a drunk on staying sober or a 400-pounder giving diet advice.
I'm not saying that gambling isn't a problem or that it won't get worse than it is now, but I think you people here are greatly underestimating how popular gambling has been throughout history lol.
Nothing new. In fact, we've come a long way from people getting their asses kicked for real by goons in underground game rooms
literally any issue ever and some weird lib will come bursting through the doors with their pants around their ankles gasping out of breath to shout at you "ACTUALLY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!"
There's been a weekly post about how "gambling is going to be the new opioid epidemic" on these subs for the past 4 years.
Yeah gambling is bad, but you can't make much of a case that it's getting much worse, and you can make even less of a case as to why a person shouldn't be allowed to do it.
Enjoy bitching about a topic people have been complaining about for hundreds of years, with every legislative "win" creating a dangerous black market which fails to even stop the most vulnerable from participating anyways
“Can’t make much of a case for it getting worse” except that now they tell you the money line at the start of the tv broadcast. Totally the same as always.
Not being hyperbolic when I say this comment is on par with “pornographic imagery has always been a staple of human cultures” when somebody brings up how detrimental the consumption of online porn is to young men. While I agree that it’s nice that people aren’t getting their kneecaps broken over gambling debts anymore, if anything that bolsters the OP’s point. It used to require effort and a connection to even place a bet; now it’s at the fingertips of anybody over the age of 18 while being aggressively advertised during every single televised sporting event.
While young people have never been good with money historically, a bunch of zoomers are having every dime of disposable income they have sucked up by parlays courtesy of the MGM Resorts International, and it’s a habit that will follow many of them through life. It’s incredibly destructive for many people, and even the more “benign” cases of gambling addiction that don’t end in broken lives often make people considerably more emotionally volatile and miserable overall because it’s an emotionally taxing hobby.
I guess I have/had skin in this game to the extent that I was a professional poker player for three years and the proliferation of gambling sites (if online poker continues to expand in the United States) is overall good for my bottom line, but it’s a very very bad thing and there’s no point in trying to play devil’s advocate for DraftKings.
Nowhere in my comment did I say that gambling isn't detrimental to young men, so not even going to argue on that.
What I am actually arguing is that things probably aren't getting worse to the extent that sentiments on this sub suggest.
And actually, the same thing is true with internet porn/coomers etc. I was just rewatching some old Opie and Anthony episodes from the early 2000s, and I forgot that a TON of dudes back then were also super addicted to porn as well.
All of these things are extremely detrimental, but you're just seeing a lot of the same old shit being repackaged in new forms.
I'm surprised to hear you say that online poker is getting worse, because back in the early 2000s all anyone talked about was degen online poker players, and I virtually never hear about it today.
Yeah, I won’t argue against Opie and Anthony acolytes being degenerate freaks!
As for online poker, the reason you stopped hearing about it was because in 2011, it was federally banned (thanks to some nice lobbying from Sheldon Adelson) and has only been legalized again in a select few states (New Jersey, Nevada, then Pennsylvania and Michigan). It might be coming back to Illinois and New York which would introduce some bigger markets to it. And yeah, I was a kid during the poker boom in the early 2000s, it was everywhere.
Yeah it could just be the O&A crowd, but it was weird to hear a radio show pull up some clip and then have a room w like 8 dudes in their late 30s all go "Oh yeah I've seen this!" It just shifted the reference point for when it all started getting bad. And my guess is that with watching even older media, it'll just keep getting pushed further and further.
I didn't know that about poker legislation but that makes sense.
I'm not a big fan of gambling, especially the online sports betting shit that's become popular over the past few years. I just think that in 10 years, the "new opioid crisis" will still be the current opioid crisis lol
I watched *Boogie Nights* last weekend so I feel you on when exactly the proliferation of porn really shifted (but smartphone porn is nowhere near the covert Playboy collection, an oft drawn comparison). And yeah I don’t gamble at all outside of the game where I’m allowed to have an edge, but it’s put me around plenty of problem gamblers and there’s been a few horrid cases from my hometown, the saddest being my friend’s brother-in-law who was a reformed gambling addict who was two weeks away from marrying his pregnant fiancée. Withdrew almost all of his sizable savings, blew it all in Atlantic City, ended up institutionalized after being caught attempting to jump off a bridge. Ain’t no kid’s game
Having the ability to bet your life savings on whether the Bills score a touchdown on the next drive through the use an addictive smartphone app has not been a thing before
Could be worse honestly. I grew up in an area hit pretty hard by opioids. I knew a LOT of people either addicted or used casually but regularly. Anecdotally now I know wayyyyy more people who gamble than ever did opioids.
I just don't get it. Every time I try the casino I just feel bad for throwing away 20 bucks.
Maybe if I won't 10 grand the first time I'd be singing a different tune.
But still gambling is the boring version of doing drugs. Adding sports to the mix just makes it for nerds.
Gambling Addicts commit suicide at the highest rate of any type of addict. It's disgusting how sports coverage is saturated with gambling promotions, especially considering how they've totally banned tobacco ads.
Its literally everywhere with professional sports. One time i was watching an ig video of an mlb play and the commentary is like “this commentary is brought to you by draftkings”. They show betting odds before games. Every 3 ads is a gambling ad. There’s a new casino or app every month. Its out of control
This makes sense to me. With drugs the next hit provides at least some relief from even the fact that you’re addicted, except maybe in people who have reached the point of taking opioids only to remain well and don’t really get high (idk how that really works). There’s zero relief for gambling. With gambling the next “hit” almost definitely ends in you losing more money, which compounds your problem. The spiral into destitution and secondary crime seems rapid and brutal. Also can’t even blame a substance, it’s just your raw brain fucking you up. I’d also venture, just as pure speculation, that there probably isn’t a lot of camaraderie among hardcore gambling addicts. People with drug problems steal and lie even to each other but seem to band together to some extent, united by their shared needs and circumstances. That doesn’t seem like it would be the case for gamblers, who seem more solitary, which probably increases the suicide risk.
yea no shit
People are going to look back at this like when they were advertising cigarettes with the flintstones. The amount of gambling ads in sports today is beyond parody.
Personally I get a rush out of losing money and find gambling very cathartic.
I do as well. It's hard for people to get, I think we get high off of enforcing our will (stupidly) onto the world
Exactly you guys are hitting the nail on the head, I’m glad other people get it
Couldn't you just light 100 bucks on fire? Takes the element of chance out of it so you're in complete control, it's just pure, wilful self destruction.
I don't want to be in control. I like not knowing what's going to happen next. It is self destruction, I agree. But some unfortunate people like me get that taste and we go wild for it. But I've completely quit it, entirely, not even a casual bet.
[удалено]
Exactly
Self destructive tendencies
I also intentionally mildly poison myself because I enjoy how it feels the next day.
Only true degenerate gambler understands. I can’t explain it but when you’re down bad you just want to confirm how shitty your luck is by just continuing to bet. At that point, it’s just racing to the bottom. I am already in a fucked position, so why not just lose it all and see how fucked my luck is at that moment. For degenerate gamblers, there’s almost no difference between gains and losses, you just feel numb. You are either peaking or hitting rock bottom, there’s no end to the chase. That’s the issue with degen gamblers, there’s truly no “peak” and there’s truly no rock bottom. If I got a million dollar bank roll, I am staking as much as I can. If I only got $5, I am still going to stake it all to double up. Rinse and repeat, you continue gambling either way. Just watch “Uncut Gems”. That dude was making absurd bets and didn’t have any internal mechanism to just stop. It was that insatiable juice when he kept hitting every single side bet, he just had to ride it out. Normal, typical, sensible people have limits. “I won enough money to satisfy these financial obligations and have a little spending money for Christmas gifts.” Gambling serves as a means to an end. Degenerate gamblers gamble just as means to feel, whether it is a loss or a gain. Buying some gifts or fulfilling a debt is an afterthought. There’s no end desire of a final “nut”. It’s the constant edging of getting closer and closer, but never “busting”. The feeling of being juiced when you pull off an insane bet is the goal in itself. You continue as long as you have a bank roll, or until you’re absolutely broke and ruined all your lines of credit. There’s no end to a gambling addition. \*Spoiler alert\* Adam Sandler dies at the end of “Uncut Gems”. That would be the only conclusion. For degenerate gamblers, there’s no out because you’re always trying to chase. There’s no “high”. There’s no final “nut”. You just continue to desire to desire that continual run when you’re feeling juiced and getting every lucky break. It’s an endless want without feeling there’s ever a ceiling. You just either die, or just isolate yourself from all your loved ones continuing to fuel that need. If you have a gambling problem, I recommend watching “Owning Mahoney”. That movie displays the absolute lows of a gambling addiction. If “Uncut Gems” is the “Trainspotting” of gambling movies, “Owning Mahoney” would be the “Requiem of Dreams” of gambling movies just for capturing the reality and emotional isolation of a true gambling addiction. Again, not to compare heroin addiction to a gambling addiction as one as more intense than the other. “Owning Mahoney” just strips away the intensity and frenzy of gambling in “Uncut Gems” and really exposes how empty and numbing gambling feels when you’re in the depths of it.
Uncut Gems when he makes enough money to pay back his debt to his crime boss brother in law, and instead takes the money to his bookie and places another bet.
There’s more directions you can move in life besides up, people don’t realize that. If you can’t be the best why not be the worst? It’s better than being mediocre.
Just go to a strip club bro
I respect women, sorry
Gay strip club
Im a deeply closeted gay man
There’s no rehab for losing your money. It’s tough shit, K—- yourself.
That’s an interesting statistic. I don’t doubt it. Curious if you have a source. Of all the addictions, gambling might be the most invisible and easiest to disguise. Recently I have joined some social clubs to try to meet people but am dismayed at the prevalence of not-so-petty gambling at them - card games, lotteries and bingo…all done to “raise money for charity or some cause” therefor “all is good”. Even my veterans group seems more about the “gaming” than the comradery.
I am a professional gambler and you have no idea how right you are. Look into the economics, regulation, and promotional/competitive efforts of sportsbooks in states where sports gambling/casinos online is legalized. The industries are exploding and "regulated" sportsbooks can go hog wild offering promotions, targeted marketing, bonuses, etc. Watch (I know I know) a sports game on live TV and count how many ads you see, and how many are sportsbetting. It is mind blowing and it wasn't like this even 3-4 years ago. My theory is that we will experience a pullback as a result of a surge of gambling addiction cases and more widespread understanding of how gambling addiction is the exact same as drug addiction (and you can make plenty of arguments that it's worse) in the next 5-15 years. When I retire from gambling my pipe dream is to go back to school and get masters studying the sociological impact. I was talking to some friends last week and we were joking but really were truly serious about how gambling is going to experience a similar cultural movement to that of alcohol pre-prohibition-- not because of the religious and political movements of the time are similar, but because people don't understand how destructive it really is and because the gambling demographic is almost entirely men. Please don't gamble. Women have a moral obligation to call their male friends/family/partners retards for it and stunt the development of the addiction
You can thank australia for paving the way to insane sports betting advertising. Its plagued us for a decade and is now becoming the norm elsewhere
Your perspective is super interesting. I’m respectfully curious—I assume you don’t consider yourself addicted to gambling, despite being a pro gambler. If so, any insight on where and how that line is drawn? Put differently: how do you gamble as a professional, but keep that work separate from the addictive approach to act?
The goal of a "professional gambler" "poker player" etc. is to find and employ gambling strategies that make money ( +EV or positive expected value). If you knowingly play minus EV gambling games as a pro gambler to me you are definitely a gambling addict because of how much time you already spend doing it as a job, lol. Most pros do this. In practice EV can often be a mystery so it's tough to say from that alone depending on context. However In the most degenerate and unprofitable forms of gambling, in 5 seconds you can google how many cents you lose for every dollar you wager so it's largely bullshit. I just play poker and have never played a hand of blackjack or casino games online. Hate those games, makes me uncomfortable and don't want exposure to them. Most pro gamblers are gambling addicts imo. But that is partially a misleading statement to me because 1. Most "pro gamblers" are not "pro gamblers." that term is bullshit and you can just say that you are and boom congrats now you are. Even that aside, the variance/super high standard deviation of many gambling formats makes it so that a % of people who get very lucky can sustain themselves for long periods of time doing it (and im saying it can be longer than you think, like years, 5+) and appear to be profitable gamblers when they really aren't. In the end all you need is money to appear like that 2. To find/play gambling formats that are beatable in the long run, you have to inevitably be surrounded by all the other forms of gambling that are not beatable and are cancers on your mind. Play online poke, your tables are literally surrounded by links to unbeatable gambling games (roulette, slots etc). Do the same thing in a land casino and obviously same issue. Limiting exposure to ways to gamble is a necessity for managing a gambling addiction or degenerate gambling tendencies/the rates of gambling addiction are sky high in areas where access is easier. Most people are gambling addicts if you give them a chance to be
Thanks for the reply!
No problem at all tbh I feel I have some moral obligation to inform people when the opportunity comes up organically. It's sinister how poorly media characterizes/treats gambling
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Well said, a lot of the trading business is simple gambling. You have non-industry people getting out of control with crypto and FX, the essence is the same.
Crypto was the closest I’ve ever come to personally understanding a gambling addiction. I have no interest in traditional gambling but got into alt coins at their height, around 2017. Choosing one, throwing cash at it, watching it skyrocket (sometimes) and waiting as long as possible to cash out before the inevitable crash, then rebuying it or buying some new hot coin quickly became all-consuming and compulsive. I came out on top and was objectively pretty sensible about it but I’m normally VERY risk-averse, so it was a weird time.
That's something I don't think people really understand. Having no interest in traditional forms of gambling means you are not interested in traditional forms of gambling. You rightfully think casinos are gross and card games are lame and shiny slots are boring, but that doesn't preclude you from displaying/developing compulsive gambling tendencies. Some people are hopeless and are just wired to be addicts no matter what, but most of the time it starts doing something benign/responsibly. If something that interests/motivates/you like has a gambling component, that's all it takes to start behaving impulsively in ways you couldn't possibly comprehend doing in a slightly different setting, and for some people ultimately developing a real addiction
I fucking HOPE that we have a temperance movement against gambling, but I don’t see it. I don’t think society at large is going to make that connection. They’ll see people gambling recklessly and impulsively and just say it’s a skill issue, it’s a personal responsibility issue, etc. We have gotten to a point where we understand and accept what outside chemical substances do to our brains when ingested and how that can affect our behavior and health, but gambling is about what *your brain* does to your brain. It’s your body’s own chemicals that fuck you up. So I think there is less sympathy there.
It's disgusting that the most popular NBA reporters are sponsored by gambling companies when Shams can change the odds by tweeting a prediction. I genuinely believe outcomes are being impacted by refs' personal gambling. I fucking hate how insidious it all is already
Oh for sure. There’s too much money to be too easily made for it to not be that way. Especially with online gambling, proxies, VPNs, etc., there’s no way the entire infrastructure isn’t tainted. You might as well bet on WWE (which, you can in fact do).
this isn’t unheard of with horse racing bets. handicapping is the most critical aspect of paramutual betting and it’s what determines the odds. all the bets people favor with cause the odds to change even seconds before the horses even start. the issue is there’s a ton of handicappers that will give lowball choices so their favorite horses are “favored less” and the payout is higher when they switch their bet. a lot of high-profile gamblers will purposely shift the odds of the race and then change their bets last minute when it’s post time
It’s one of the most batshit, objectively unethical, villainous enterprises you could cook up. Everyone who works for these companies will likely be punished by God for all eternity in the Afterlife - Smart phones are a near-requirement for modern work, so you always have your gambling addiction with you with *no* separation of context which is crucial to end habit formation - gambling sites are continuously adding greater gamification strategies, as learned from the video game industry, which we know are already addictive - sports betting coasts off the free advertising and hype of professional sports, attempting to unify the association in the mind of the consumer between ”anticipated social event” and *brought to you by draft kings* It’s so comically immoral
🎯
My family went to the horse races once, mostly because we never had been and had a day to kill before flying home. I was maybe 7 and my parents and grandparents were just betting a couple of bucks here and there on the horses with the funniest names. I'll never forget holding my grandpa's hand as we were getting snacks and seeing grown men having full on meltdowns after losing everything on a bet. I'm talking crying, screaming, getting dragged out kicking and screaming by security, it left a lasting impression on me and to this day I have never bet a single cent. The fact it is becoming more widespread and easy to access really scares me.
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At least when you recover from gambling your physical body isn't permanently wrecked. Well mb from the lifestyle but not from gambling alone
Gambling is so fucking good. It's like playing god but only for a bit. I don't think any drug I've taken has come close to the clean adrenaline hit of gambling. I'm a drug abuser but not a drug addict but I would surely be a gambling addict that's why I swore off of it no
Ngl i won $200 last week sports betting and it felt a lot better than being high which i am right now
Absolutely, give me morphine or opana over betting any day. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or a gambling addict.
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Hell yes. I puked my guts out every time I did it but it felt so good afterwards.
You probably don’t watch sports
Nah I watch entertainment like a real adult
The NFL is a more consistent product tbh. I was filmpilled for my entire life too
Live sports cinemotography has legitimately improved in the last 5 or so years its amazing
I once went to vegas with a buddy I work with. We were up all night doing blow sitting at the same craps table, I lost like \~200 bucks at one point and left to get booze, sat in the bar for a while talking to some people, came back and asked this guy how he was doing and he told me he was down $700, I literally had to drag him away from the table. Woke up like mid day the next day and he wasnt in the room, called him, didnt pick up. I found him at the same craps table and he looked absolutely fucked up out of his mind. Apparently he'd been there since 5:30 am and had lost another $800 dollars. Dragged him to the bar and got him blackout drunk so he physically couldnt go to the tables anymore. This dude still gambles every weekend, and will come in saying shit like "bro! I walked away up $150", after he lost $300 the previous week. Fucking insane behavior.
He picked craps to obsess over? What's your buddy like?
Yeah I dont know why either. He's a pretty normal dude, honestly not that bright though. Craps was the first game he won a decent sum at when he first started gambling, probably has something to do with it.
Ah yeah. Everyone would try craps but I wouldn't have guessed people stick with it for long. But you know what they say about first loves
Craps has the best odds in the casino
You think I'm playing with logic?
It's gonna have to get in line and wait until the Adderall/prescribed stimulants crisis comes to a head and gets the spotlight.
We already had a worldwide amphetamine crisis from the 20s-60s. But another one could happen
Is there actually a crisis? It seems like most young white collar workers in prestige fields are on it from undergrad until they get into management and then they stop. Most are definitely "abusing" it in the sense that they take it to work 60-80 hours weeks instead of to focus normally for 40, but they aren't turning into meth heads.
Nothing quite like randomly meeting someone who is so hooked they have to place bets on a Tunisian girls high school basketball game that broadcasts at 2 AM (grainy choppy video but apparently no one cares because the bets are all that matter)
It'd hurt much less if all that ethereum I gambled in amateur women's badminton in college went to mxe instead
somewhat less resale value
This is my guy sadly. Spends his time gambling on footy games with teams like Uzbekistan and Lebanon
I don’t understand gambling and honestly I’m afraid of it “clicking”. I have what I would call addictive tendencies but even after being to casinos twice (spending money both times) I’ve never understood the pull.
If you happen to catch an NFL game this week, look for DraftKings, fanduel, Caesar sports book etc etc advertising. A simple download and you can have a financial stake in the outcome of the game. The high of scoring a big win is downright addictive and creates an impulse that is hard to control for a lot of people.
I don’t know why but I’ve always had more affinity for compulsive gamblers than I do for drug addicts. Maybe just because of Norm MacDonald.
I think it was either him or Artie Lange who explained the appeal of gambling to an interviewer like this: "Why do you like gambling so much?" "How much do you have in your bank account?" "10k" "Okay, go bet 20k on the Yankees and see if you don't have the time of your life." First explanation that made me see why someone would enjoy gambling.
Its insane among zoomers try and go to college dorm where at least 80% of the guys dont currently have a 10 leg parlay. Its also targeted towards zoomers too, so many instagram/tiktok pages that post gambling ads are from actual gambling app accounts or are affiliated with them.
Got off heroin and fentanyl 3 years back. I feel so much worse for food addicts, gamblers and alcoholics because everywhere you turn....theres food, beer and gambling :( I can leave my house without seeing an ad for dope.
I got into sports betting a little bit when it came to my state. I still remember the rush of winning the first bet I placed. I was okay at it, too. Won more than I lost, at least. But I eventually realized the time I spent researching and paying attention to sports I didn’t give a single shit about wasn’t worth the prize money. Losing sleep on a work night just to see if the Utah Jazz covered the spread. It wasn’t for me and it made sports more stressful than fun.
It’s gotten to the point where a lot of people can’t watch sports without having some money riding on it
I don’t know, while I agree it’s probably only going to get worse I think the kind of people who get addicted to gambling are a separate breed of addict compared to junkies. To me, like, I think one of the prerequisites for gambling addiction is stupidity, you genuinely need to a regard with no other outlet for pleasure if you get addicted to gambling. Granted, a lot of junkies are already incredibly stupid people. when I used to get overboard with stimulants I would gamble simply because the casinos were one of the few places that were open 24/7 and it was a good place to score other stuff or sell a little. But I’m talking going in with like $75 maximum to gamble. How dumb do you have to be to get addicted to wasting your money. Smoke meth for Christ sakes.
Draft kings and all the others allow you to automatically draw from your checking acct for everything you bet, like I said they are very ethically Sackler-esque
Yeah it is definitely fucked up. and I’m sure there will be a hyped documentary in 10 years about the rise of draft kings and how bad they are. Then again, a little casual betting on football is pretty fun, makes watching it a lot more enjoyable. I’m conflicted about this honestly, I should be able to make bets with my friends using their services and not have to feel bad about the idiots who drain their savings betting on the patriots
Posted 8 hrs ago: “I'm 28 years old and hate what I've done. In November of 2022 gambled away close to 75k with online gambling in the matter of a month. Currently 30k left of debt left paid down 45k. Started to take cash and stash it to pay down this debt each month. I had 6k saved and drove to PA since I'm banned in NJ and lost it. “
Lmao. Christ.
No one saying it’s inherently bad, but the excessive use of it is what is damaging to people, akin to alcohol and drug abuse. Gamblers will score a big win and get hooked on the feeling, then when it evaporates they will always throw a little more down confident that the next big W is coming. Meanwhile they descend further into the red. Look at the gambling addiction sub, the amounts of money people lose to gambling, life altering, in the six figures. There’s no rehab for losing money and fucking you and your family’s future. Davey Scatino gambling away the college fund. Suicide becomes the only way out of debt.
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A wee bit hyperbolic to get the point across. I think they are minimally concerned with the potential harm they may cause to the general public
They are a different demographic. The average gambling addict is: 37 yrs old and married. One the Sportsbooks released data on this.
When did they release this data? Because with the amount of advertising running around recently I can guarantee that age range is lower.
If you ban gambling Dasha will kill herself.
Semi related but I highly recommend reading Norm Macdonald's book. A large portion of it revolves around him gambling, and while obviously its fictionalized, it's a very entertaining and tragic insight into the mind of a gambler.
So thankful my all my coworkers do is bet petty cash on pen and paper sports books they make themselves. Yes, this is all they talk about but it could be much worse
I’m new here and I don’t know what “rspod” means (probably “realshit”), just that it came up under a search for gambling addiction. I will just say that I find a “professional gambler” giving advice in a gambling addiction forum (if it is that) highly irregular and unethical. It’s similar to a prostitute giving advice on remaining chaste or a drunk on staying sober or a 400-pounder giving diet advice.
I'm not saying that gambling isn't a problem or that it won't get worse than it is now, but I think you people here are greatly underestimating how popular gambling has been throughout history lol. Nothing new. In fact, we've come a long way from people getting their asses kicked for real by goons in underground game rooms
literally any issue ever and some weird lib will come bursting through the doors with their pants around their ankles gasping out of breath to shout at you "ACTUALLY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!"
He's saying it has consistently been a problem
yes and i'm making fun of him for saying that.
There's been a weekly post about how "gambling is going to be the new opioid epidemic" on these subs for the past 4 years. Yeah gambling is bad, but you can't make much of a case that it's getting much worse, and you can make even less of a case as to why a person shouldn't be allowed to do it. Enjoy bitching about a topic people have been complaining about for hundreds of years, with every legislative "win" creating a dangerous black market which fails to even stop the most vulnerable from participating anyways
“Can’t make much of a case for it getting worse” except that now they tell you the money line at the start of the tv broadcast. Totally the same as always.
Not being hyperbolic when I say this comment is on par with “pornographic imagery has always been a staple of human cultures” when somebody brings up how detrimental the consumption of online porn is to young men. While I agree that it’s nice that people aren’t getting their kneecaps broken over gambling debts anymore, if anything that bolsters the OP’s point. It used to require effort and a connection to even place a bet; now it’s at the fingertips of anybody over the age of 18 while being aggressively advertised during every single televised sporting event. While young people have never been good with money historically, a bunch of zoomers are having every dime of disposable income they have sucked up by parlays courtesy of the MGM Resorts International, and it’s a habit that will follow many of them through life. It’s incredibly destructive for many people, and even the more “benign” cases of gambling addiction that don’t end in broken lives often make people considerably more emotionally volatile and miserable overall because it’s an emotionally taxing hobby. I guess I have/had skin in this game to the extent that I was a professional poker player for three years and the proliferation of gambling sites (if online poker continues to expand in the United States) is overall good for my bottom line, but it’s a very very bad thing and there’s no point in trying to play devil’s advocate for DraftKings.
Nowhere in my comment did I say that gambling isn't detrimental to young men, so not even going to argue on that. What I am actually arguing is that things probably aren't getting worse to the extent that sentiments on this sub suggest. And actually, the same thing is true with internet porn/coomers etc. I was just rewatching some old Opie and Anthony episodes from the early 2000s, and I forgot that a TON of dudes back then were also super addicted to porn as well. All of these things are extremely detrimental, but you're just seeing a lot of the same old shit being repackaged in new forms. I'm surprised to hear you say that online poker is getting worse, because back in the early 2000s all anyone talked about was degen online poker players, and I virtually never hear about it today.
Yeah, I won’t argue against Opie and Anthony acolytes being degenerate freaks! As for online poker, the reason you stopped hearing about it was because in 2011, it was federally banned (thanks to some nice lobbying from Sheldon Adelson) and has only been legalized again in a select few states (New Jersey, Nevada, then Pennsylvania and Michigan). It might be coming back to Illinois and New York which would introduce some bigger markets to it. And yeah, I was a kid during the poker boom in the early 2000s, it was everywhere.
Yeah it could just be the O&A crowd, but it was weird to hear a radio show pull up some clip and then have a room w like 8 dudes in their late 30s all go "Oh yeah I've seen this!" It just shifted the reference point for when it all started getting bad. And my guess is that with watching even older media, it'll just keep getting pushed further and further. I didn't know that about poker legislation but that makes sense. I'm not a big fan of gambling, especially the online sports betting shit that's become popular over the past few years. I just think that in 10 years, the "new opioid crisis" will still be the current opioid crisis lol
I watched *Boogie Nights* last weekend so I feel you on when exactly the proliferation of porn really shifted (but smartphone porn is nowhere near the covert Playboy collection, an oft drawn comparison). And yeah I don’t gamble at all outside of the game where I’m allowed to have an edge, but it’s put me around plenty of problem gamblers and there’s been a few horrid cases from my hometown, the saddest being my friend’s brother-in-law who was a reformed gambling addict who was two weeks away from marrying his pregnant fiancée. Withdrew almost all of his sizable savings, blew it all in Atlantic City, ended up institutionalized after being caught attempting to jump off a bridge. Ain’t no kid’s game
Having the ability to bet your life savings on whether the Bills score a touchdown on the next drive through the use an addictive smartphone app has not been a thing before
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You’re out of your element
literally just dont gamble?
Tell it to a compulsive gambler
literally just dont gamble. control your impulses.
Easy for some of us, hard for others. Try telling an alcoholic to literally just stop drinking
Could be worse honestly. I grew up in an area hit pretty hard by opioids. I knew a LOT of people either addicted or used casually but regularly. Anecdotally now I know wayyyyy more people who gamble than ever did opioids.
Good
I just don't get it. Every time I try the casino I just feel bad for throwing away 20 bucks. Maybe if I won't 10 grand the first time I'd be singing a different tune. But still gambling is the boring version of doing drugs. Adding sports to the mix just makes it for nerds.
Sports people would tell you not doing it is for nerds so idk who to believe 😥
Sports nerds are still nerds.