I have a prediction, Online Gambling is going to seriously fuck over a huge number of people. Yeah, I am a Gambling Puritan. I think it is a really stupid way to just flush money down the toilet. I am also well aware that it can be a serious addiction for those prone to addiction.

As for those who claim to be "ahead", don't believe that at all. Every single gamble is designed so that the "House" always comes ahead. Sooner or later every single gambler will lose.

Note, I don't consider Poker as Gambling. That is a Skill and Strategy game where those with the skills can come out ahead. As I don't have these skills you won't ever see me playing poker.

As for what's the trigger for my rant, it's the damned advertising. Seem like half of all advertising on TV today is touting some online gambling scheme. One common aspect of these ads are what sounds like big money just for signing up. Big money that I expect can only be used on the gambling web site. These sleezes will do anything to draw in the suckers. It's also all over Youtube, you can't open a video without getting blasted with this sleeze.

Gambling addiction is a real problem. Poker is gambling as well. There are plenty of players that bet recklessly and do not know the game. The casnios are in the MATH business not the gambling business. The bulk of the revenue comes from slots. Money is made from online sports betting as well.

The ads for it are never ending. I am waiting for Joe Namath to begin hawking online gambling.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
The ads for it are never ending.

Didn't know what I was missing till they legalized it here in 2019.

Don't forget the radio slots, filled with ads.

$1 will get you a hundred....

I’m not good at Texas hold ‘em poker, but while the house probably doesn’t make as much money on poker it is a guaranteed win for the house since you aren’t playing against the house. They just take a cut of every pot.

I get the same way about fast food commercials. Shit will kill ya, literally over time. Obesity is a major thing in America. And food is the biggest drug problem we have.

Gambling, yeah I’ve seen the shit before. I rarely watch commercial tv. I think just sports. But it was amazing to see all the ads for these websites for betting on sports. I gambled once. I just turned 21, and we all drove to Bossier City. My friends had already gone and were hell bent on going back, getting the free drinks, etc. It was supposed to be a pseudo birthday deal. I arrive, settle down at a $5 black jack table. Pretty quick I’m up over $100. I hit $125 or something. I go to my friends after a half hour and say “lets go”. They of course did not want to leave. So like a dumbass, instead of going to the bar and just getting drunk I gambled more to the point I lost $150. Best $150 I have ever spent in my life. That was a quarter century ago and I have never bet since, sans a once in a few years $1 TX Lotto ticket.

Before I closed my business and retired, I went to Lost Wages on business around 3 or 4 times a year for a week at a time.

Stayed in a casino the whole time I was there.

I have nothing against gambling but if they had to depend on me for their income, they wouldn't be able to afford a decent ashtray.

quote:

The ads for it are never ending. I am waiting for Joe Namath to begin hawking online gambling.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I never see those ads. Probably because casinos have been in my market since 1992. At that time the ads were never ending. My children were young at the time and both learned and sang their catchy jingles. Talk about annoying.

I worked in a casino for 3 years. You will never, ever beat the odds. Of course, there is the person who puts a nickel in the progressive machine and drops the 10 million jackpot - but 10 thousand suckers before them put in $100 and got nothing. Slot machines are truly 'one armed bandits'.

The only casino game where you stand a chance of making money is Blackjack. Even then, you have to know when to walk away or eventually the house will clean you out, never mind the amount of cash you have in your bankroll. Roulette is the same. They always have 'the edge'.

Poker, the house doesn't care, because they take a standard cut from each pot. The bigger the pot, the bigger the house's slice. There is no risk attached - whoever wins, they win. All they are out is the table, a dealer, and a few packs of cards.

No one wins (legitimately) in a Casino, except the house.

Incidentally, the best place in America, outside the ER, to have a heart attack? A Casino. The video surveillance ensures you will be receiving CPR within 30 seconds or less, along with a defibrillator.

Apparently TN just legalized sports betting, because I keep hearing about "sports books" ad nauseam on the occasion that I do listen to the radio in the work van. Honestly I don't care as I don't like sports and don't gamble but it's annoying to listen to.

quote:

The only casino game where you stand a chance of making money is Blackjack.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Some say the best odds are with Baccarat which is popular with Asian players. It may be a toss up with Blackjack. The problem with Blackjack is ALL the inexperienced players at the table and the countless number of decks and reshuffles which may be permitted by the house.
There are winners. One in twenty gamblers walks out with more money.

I don't gamble because if I went upside 20 hard earned dollars I would bleed all over the casino.

I don't recall ever having seen a casino ad, except maybe a billboard for Bel Terra. I went to a casino with my wife twice. The first time, the guy behind me on the big slot machine (1 dollar at the time, grand prize was huge) won 35k. Turns out he was my boss. He bought us dinner.

My second trip I got a roll of quarters (it was that long ago.) I was working a slot when my wife came up. "You have to stop! You've lost three fifty!" I said no, I was having fun. A guy told me if I was down that much, I needed to stop. I informed him she was talking about three dollars and fifty cents. But I stopped.

And why is it now legal in Michigan? The state gets more tax revenue.

Kind of like during last years stay at home order, essential businesses only were allowed to be open. One essential business was the state lotto. On a TV news Q and A with our U.S. Senator Gary Peters he was asked what was considered an essential business and why the lottery was considered essential. He smiled and stated that it did create revenue for the state.

We could not buy house paint or gardening supplies at big box stores supposedly to slow the transmission of the virus in buildings os 50k sq. ft.like most big box stores but we could allow party stores of 1k sq. ft. to sell lottery tickets where people gather around the terminals. Made perfect sense to me.

I'm convinced of it, that at least 60% of the reason people in this country are so stupid, is from being bombarded by commercials. lol Still putting my hypothesis together.

The guy I work with gets upset and questions me about it... in the truck, listening to the radio, when commercials come on I turn the volume down. He asks why and I say... "Are you going to buy whatever they're selling?" (no) "Then why listen to it?"

But that's not unfair. They're housing the game providing a dealer and equipment/supplies. It's probably a little more than break even for them, and less than they'd make if they filled the same space with slot machines / video poker. In most of the casinos, you can even get free drinks at the tables.

The big casinos do it mainly to drive traffic into the rest of the casino.

quote:

Originally posted by Kskelton:
I’m not good at Texas hold ‘em poker, but while the house probably doesn’t make as much money on poker it is a guaranteed win for the house since you aren’t playing against the house. They just take a cut of every pot.

Gambling can definitely be risky, especially for people who are prone to addiction. The ads make it seem so easy and fun, but the reality is that the house always has the edge in the long run. I’ve seen people get caught up in it, and it’s not a good road to go down if you’re not careful with how much you spend. I agree with you on poker—it’s more about skill and strategy than pure luck, so it feels different from typical gambling.

When I first got into playing online, I found new casino bonuses that offered incentives like free spins or extra credits. But you’re right, those bonuses usually come with a catch—they’re designed to keep you playing on the site. It’s important to read the fine print and know when to walk away.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rcpylon,

I'm surprised that some of you still willingly allow yourselves to be bombarded with annoying commercials.

Between streaming video, streaming audio, and ad blocking browser plugins, I bet I haven't seen or heard a traditional commercial in almost a decade!

I found this, not too long ago:

MT. LEBANON, Pa.— Kavita Fischer couldn’t believe her luck.

She started with $750 and hit a hot streak last summer that stretched over six days. She played round after round of online casino games until her winnings hit $500,000. The windfall would make up for every bad bet and pay off all she owed.

Fischer, a 41-year-old mental-health professional and suburban homeowner with two boys, was by then in debt by six figures from online gambling losses. For nearly a year, she lost again and again, complaining to at least one gambling company that she had a problem but couldn’t stop. As a psychiatrist familiar with human impulses and addiction, Fischer knew better than most what she needed to do.

Yet she was up against an industry skilled in the art of leveraging data analytics and human behavior to keep customers betting. Gambling companies tracked the ups and downs of Fischer’s betting behavior and gave bonus credits to keep her playing. VIP customer representatives offered encouragement and gifts.

After her six-day hot streak, Fischer made several requests to start withdrawing the half-million dollars from the PointsBet gambling app. But she kept changing her mind and plowed the money back into play.

Within a day, she lost nearly all of it. “There’s nothing in your brain that says, ‘OK, stop now, you’re done. You’ve won your money back, you can put this behind you,’” Fischer said. “There was just something in my brain that made me keep going.”

The more than $15-billion-a-year online gambling industry grew out of a 2018 Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for states to allow and regulate sports betting. Now, 30 states and the District of Columbia have approved online sports wagering 24 hours a day.

Online casino gambling, which became Fischer’s habit, is legal in six states and has been an industry gold mine.

In November 2022, Fischer downloaded the app from DraftKings, one of the top two online-betting companies in the U.S. along with FanDuel. She was looking for relief from the stress of a recent divorce and the isolation of working from home in the pandemic. She found Slingo, a bingo-style matching game as simple to play as a slot machine.

Soon after Fischer started playing, a customer representative sent an email introducing himself. At DraftKings and other online betting companies, they are identified as VIP hosts.

“I look forward to working with you and building a great relationship!” Jamyl Cogdell wrote on Dec. 9, 2022. Over four months, Fischer said they exchanged dozens of emails and text messages. Cogdell didn’t respond to requests for comment, and DraftKings declined to comment on his behalf.

DraftKings and other gambling companies doled out tens of thousands of dollars in credits that kept Fischer playing long after she wanted to quit.

Casinos have always wooed their high-rollers with special treatment, but online-betting has intensified industry tactics. Companies closely track betting habits 24 hours a day, collecting such data as how much time each customer spends on an app, how much money they gamble, what kind of bets they place and how much they lose.

With a real-time view of a customer’s gambling activity, VIP hosts keep in close touch. They can track when customers last used the app and offer credits and other incentives to persuade their most-valued gamblers—by definition, the biggest losers—to return. Payment options give gamblers immediate access to funds that some can’t cover.

Gamblers are assigned VIP hosts based on how much they are wagering. The personal attention pays off. At PointsBet—acquired in 2023 by Fanatics, a sports-merchandise company—VIP sports bettors representing 0.5% of the customer base generated more than 70% of the company’s revenue in 2019 and 2020, according to internal company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Fischer at times bet tens of thousands of dollars a spin. As her losses grew, Fischer texted her sister in Florida, saying she had a gambling problem. Fischer’s sister said she told her to seek help.

Meantime, the VIP offers kept coming.

“How was your weekend? I just added the following offer to get your Tuesday started off right: Earn $30 casino credits for every $1,000 wagered on Slots,” Cogdell wrote to Fischer on Jan. 17, 2023, “up to $1,000 over 72 Hours.”

Looking back, Fischer said she became a psychiatrist to understand the mysteries of the human brain. Over the course of about 11 months, she became a mystery to herself. “You know you’re wasting your life or time or money,” she said. “You just can’t get out.”

Online gambling companies say that most people play for entertainment, and that they can minimize harm to customers.

“DraftKings is committed to the highest standards of consumer protections and responsible gaming,” said Jennifer Aguiar, the company’s chief compliance officer. The company declined to comment about Fischer.

Fischer, a co-valedictorian of her high school in Florida, finished her residency in psychiatry in 2012 at the University of Pittsburgh. She appreciated the art and science of her profession, getting to know patients as a way to understand their illnesses.

She lives in a two-story house with walls of windows overlooking the rolling hills of her Pittsburgh suburb. Her two young sons play soccer. Over the years, she sometimes visited a nearby casino to see a 1980s cover band, budgeting $100 to pay for food, drinks and craps games on her night out.

During the pandemic, playing casino games on her phone started out as a way to unwind after the boys went to sleep. Soon, she was gambling late into the night. As she lost, she spent more time and money trying to reverse her fortunes. “I’ll do it this time,” she recalled thinking. Instead, her losses grew.

She hoped to dig her way out and the free credits gave her a reason to keep trying. DraftKings sent her a 14-person tent that she sold for $500. The company invited her to a Steelers football game to watch from a suite with food and drinks.

On Jan. 9, 2023, Fischer emailed her DraftKings host to say she was “doing terribly” at Slingo and should try a different game “or quit gambling completely.”

“In the meantime, is there any way you can send me some VIP love?” she asked.

The host added a $500 bonus to her account. “Hope you can get hot!” he said. Later that month, he asked Fischer to check in once a week to see if she was eligible for promotions and credits.

To fund her gambling, Fischer spent savings and retirement funds and took out personal loans. She used credit cards that treat gambling transactions as cash advances, charging interest rates as high as 33%.

Fischer discovered Pavilion Payments, which works with betting companies to provide a service called VIP Preferred. The program gives bettors access to money without waiting for bank transfers to clear. When Pavilion, a Las Vegas-based company, tried to collect what Fischer owed, she often came up short, triggering collection notices. Pavilion said it promotes responsible gambling.

Several times, Fischer imposed limits on her betting through tools provided on the apps, including DraftKings. She would cap her spending or temporarily block herself from placing bets. When those restrictions expired, she started spending again.

As her debts grew, Fischer tried in January to sign up for a state-run program that allows gamblers to ban themselves from all betting apps legal in Pennsylvania—for a year, five years or a lifetime. Fischer said she got an error message and gave up.

“I’m hurting this week—would you please be able to do one more bonus so I can try to turn my luck around tomorrow?” Fischer said in a March 8, 2023, email to her VIP host.

The host credited her account with $500. “Hoping this will get you on the right track!” he wrote.

Later in March, Fischer’s boyfriend took her for a getaway in Cancún, Mexico, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her swelling financial problems. She was $1,200 short on her mortgage and wrote her DraftKings host asking if they offered loans to VIP customers.

The host said no. He asked if Fischer was gambling within her means. “We take responsible gaming very seriously here,” he wrote, and included a link to DraftKings tools that would allow her to limit bets or impose a temporary ban.

After returning home, Fischer told her DraftKings host she was gambling within her budget. “Okay perfect,” he said and gave her a $250 credit “to get you back in action.”

In April, DraftKings said she was no longer eligible for a VIP host but didn’t give a reason. Frustrated, Fischer demanded her account be closed. In the first four months of 2023, she lost about $141,000 to the company. During that time, DraftKings gave her more than $36,000 in gambling credits. Overall, she lost more than $190,000 to DraftKings in 2022 and 2023.

Fischer wrote to DraftKings in May, saying she was addicted to gambling and needed help. “I do believe I could have been protected better,” she said. “My VIP host could see the time I spent gambling as well as the amounts.” She asked to be reimbursed for a portion of her losses.

A member of DraftKings’ Player Protection Team said in an email that she couldn’t get a refund for her losses.

“We are sorry to hear about your experience with our platform and the financial issues you now are facing,” a representative of DraftKings’ Player Protection wrote. The email included phone numbers for gambling hotlines and links to gambling addiction websites.

“I would have stopped a long time ago,” Fischer said. “Those VIP bonuses would get me back in.”

Psychologists say that for gamblers, placing a bet triggers the brain to release dopamine, a chemical that creates a sense of pleasure and anticipation. The feelings surge while awaiting the next spin of the slot machine or the next football play. Gamblers seek the feeling repeatedly, regardless of winning or losing. Some can’t stop.

The online betting industry in the U.K. has been under scrutiny over concerns about gambling addiction and the marketing practices of betting companies. Regulators cited bonuses and VIP programs as tools companies employ to keep customers gambling and losing.

In 2020, U.K. regulators imposed restrictions on VIP programs, which target big spenders. The rules required the companies to check on whether gamblers could afford the amounts they were betting and rein in credit giveaways. Regulators have since reported a 90% reduction in the number of customers in VIP programs.

PointsBet as recently as 2022 categorized its sports-betting customers based on their wagering patterns, according to internal company documents viewed by the Journal. One type of valued customer was known as a “Dave,” which the company has described as a man, aged 30 to 45, making at least $150,000 a year. Daves bet about 100 days out of the year with an average wager of $500.

The company also labeled customers making an average bet of less than $20 as a “Chad,” marking them as less desirable gamblers. PointsBet had stopped using the terminology by the time it was acquired by Fanatics, a Fanatics spokesman said.

Psychologists who study gambling addiction say companies collect enough data to identify sports-bettors and online-casino customers with a problem.

The biggest sign is known as chasing losses—attempting to recoup losses by gambling more. One trackable indicator is when bettors make frequent deposits into their gambling accounts, according to a U.K. study.

On some days, for instance, Fischer made a dozen or more deposits into a single app, according to her bank statements: $100. $300. $500.

As states debated legalizing online gambling, companies promised to intervene with problem gamblers, but there are few regulations to ensure compliance.

New Jersey regulators last year started requiring betting companies to use player data to identify at-risk customers. Among the trackable signs are gamblers who increase the amount of time they spend betting each week, and those who wager until they have less than a dollar in their accounts, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Other indications include bettors who repeatedly bar themselves from betting apps.

About 94,000 customers had received varying degrees of intervention from online companies, including video tutorials and conversations about responsible gambling, as of October last year, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s office.

Last July, after Fischer won and lost $500,000 with PointsBet, a customer representative offered in an email to help Fischer set spending limits on the app. The representative asked to arrange a time for a phone call to check on her.

“At PointsBet, we want to ensure that our players are having the best experience possible, and we strongly believe that the best way to do that is to gamble responsibly,” the email said.

In August, Fischer again applied to be banned from gambling apps through the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. In an automated email on Aug. 3, the agency said her request wasn’t accepted because of discrepancies in her information.

A week later, she tried again and added a personal plea. “I have attempted to self-exclude now for the 4th time/please let me know if you need anything else from me. Pennsylvania online gambling has wrecked my life,” she said in an email.

The state board confirmed her lifetime ban from online betting platforms three days later. Doug Harbach, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, said the agency responds when people have trouble signing up for the ban.

In one year, Fischer gambled away more than $400,000 of her own money. “Can you blame someone who has alcohol addiction?” Fischer said. “I don’t.”

She took out a $243,000 home-equity loan to pay off credit cards and personal loans at a lower interest rate. It will cost her $2,400 a month for 15 years, she said. That is on top of her monthly mortgage payment of $3,600 a month.

To settle another $120,000 in credit-card debt, Fischer has payment plans that cost $2,500 a month. She has picked up shifts with a local healthcare provider for extra income.

In August, Fischer attended her first 12-step meeting for gamblers at a local church. She felt afraid and alone, thinking there might be only a few people there. Instead, there was a group of 25. One group member told her not to feel lonely anymore. She cried.

“I was, like, ‘I can’t believe there are so many people here,’” she said.

Fischer is planning a presentation in March to psychiatrists across Pennsylvania about screening for gambling problems. She said she wanted to tell her story, despite the professional and personal risk, to help lift the stigma of gambling addiction.

“It can happen to anyone,” she said.

link: https://www.wsj.com/business/h...de0?mod=hp_lead_pos7