When did y'all draw the line in gambling

[BMWTurboDzl]

I don't concur. There is absolutely no mathematically way to make money in a casino (except own it).

Some games, such as blackjack, allow one to lose your money slower than other games. But the end-state is always the same, you will 100 percent be a loser by gambling. There is no art involved- a casino bet is 100 percent math- and a suckers bet.

Kind of true, A good card counter can get the house edge in BlackJack down to .5 percent but it depends on the game. Today it's almost impossible as many BJ tables pay 6:5, and/or have continuous shufflers, etc.

In any case it's a value over time proposition like all forms of discretionary spending. You're 100 percent guaranteed to lose $20 when you go to the movie theatre as well.

If I'm in a casino I'm at a poker table where I have a chance to breakeven or come out ahead.

 

[atikovi]

I don't concur. There is absolutely no mathematically way to make money in a casino (except own it).

Some games, such as blackjack, allow one to lose your money slower than other games. But the end-state is always the same, you will 100 percent be a loser by gambling. There is no art involved- a casino bet is 100 percent math- and a suckers bet.

There is a reason some people are blacklisted from casinos. They beat the odds by counting cards and actually make a profit.

 

[Kira]

1) I was raised in an anti-gambling family. A while back I went with an anti-gambling girl. The subject had never come up.
After a 127 mile drive we got out of the car and I bought a "daily number ticket".....#127.
This is when I learned of her similar upbringing.
The dirty look I got was mixed with so much contempt it would've removed paint.
And yes, the number didn't hit.

2) Two coworkers went in on an entire, unopened brick of scratch-off "games" (how I detest the use of that word in this context). None won.
More importantly, they scratched off all the grey stuff and NONE COULD"VE WON! That's a game? It more resembles deception and theft to me.

3) Me outgassing:
When gamblers cite odds, it's as hollow as a bad salesman parroting a sales pitch. They don't know. They never worked to generate the data necessary to determine the odds.
These addicts tend to be nowhere regarding using numbers in the first place.
Ask a gambler what his gas mileage is. He won't know.
Show a gambler how to keep track of gas mileage and you'll likely anger him. (the old 'make the mule angry' syndrome).

4) ....and nobody ever says this; gambling has an intrinsic "something for nothing" angle at its bedrock. Making that appealing or masking it is plainly dishonest.

Pertinent intellectual anecdote: When I was a kid I was math inclined. The special classes I took mentioned odds and gambling.
My dad took 5 dimes and a coffee can. We shook and dumped them 500 times and recorded the results.
No heads : 5 tails to 5 heads : no tails.
The resulting curve was skewed, not centered, as any prediction would 'guarantee'.
We concluded that the sculpturing on the coin didn't weigh the same on each side.
It's the only thing we could think of.

Flame suit on.

 

[zzyzzx]

If you can take $20 to a penny or nickel slot and make it last an evening I would consider that to be entertainment. But don't expect free drinks doing that! Personally, I go to Atlantic City several times a year to enjoy the beach and boardwalk, or just the hotel rooms, boardwalk, and amenities off season. Because the casinos are there, the rooms are cheaper than they would otherwise be if it were not a casino. For what a not so great motel costs in places like Ocean City MD or places on the Delaware shore, you can get a much nicer room in a ginormous casino hotel on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I've specifically stated boardwalk casino because I've never been to any of the Atlantic City casino hotels in the Marina District and am not sure what there is to do there besides go to the pool all day if you don't gamble.

 

[Pablo]

When we had kids.

 

[javacontour]

1) I was raised in an anti-gambling family. A while back I went with an anti-gambling girl. The subject had never come up.
After a 127 mile drive we got out of the car and I bought a "daily number ticket".....#127.
This is when I learned of her similar upbringing.
The dirty look I got was mixed with so much contempt it would've removed paint.
And yes, the number didn't hit.

2) Two coworkers went in on an entire, unopened brick of scratch-off "games" (how I detest the use of that word in this context). None won.
More importantly, they scratched off all the grey stuff and NONE COULD"VE WON! That's a game? It more resembles deception and theft to me.

3) Me outgassing:
When gamblers cite odds, it's as hollow as a bad salesman parroting a sales pitch. They don't know. They never worked to generate the data necessary to determine the odds.
These addicts tend to be nowhere regarding using numbers in the first place.
Ask a gambler what his gas mileage is. He won't know.
Show a gambler how to keep track of gas mileage and you'll likely anger him. (the old 'make the mule angry' syndrome).

4) ....and nobody ever says this; gambling has an intrinsic "something for nothing" angle at its bedrock. Making that appealing or masking it is plainly dishonest.

Pertinent intellectual anecdote: When I was a kid I was math inclined. The special classes I took mentioned odds and gambling.
My dad took 5 dimes and a coffee can. We shook and dumped them 500 times and recorded the results.
No heads : 5 tails to 5 heads : no tails.
The resulting curve was skewed, not centered, as any prediction would 'guarantee'.
We concluded that the sculpturing on the coin didn't weigh the same on each side.
It's the only thing we could think of.

Flame suit on.

If you really want to get a flame war going, discuss the Monty Hall problem.

Even those with Doctorates in Math get this wrong.

 

[quickegt]

Like the rest of you i too used to believe gambling was stupid until a friend who moved to San Antonio in 2020 won $250,000 here in Houston in 2014 and i was so envious. Ever since then I've been buying a little here and there but it's been ramping up and today was a bit crazy. And I used to tell him it was a waste of money. When he won and showed me i told him I might've been wrong.

So many thoughts, so little time...

It's called gambling for a reason. You're more likely to lose than win.

If people won, casinos wouldn't be so nice. They wouldn't even exist if people won more than they lost.

You're friend will blow through that $250k real quick if he thinks he has it figured out and can win more.

 

[JavierH19]

So many thoughts, so little time...

It's called gambling for a reason. You're more likely to lose than win.

If people won, casinos wouldn't be so nice. They wouldn't even exist if people won more than they lost.

You're friend will blow through that $250k real quick if he thinks he has it figured out and can win more.

Jorge told me his wife drilled him into paying off their mortgage first thing so he did. I think he told me he had 41k left of which i never knew what he did with but he kept driving the same 2008 silverado and i didn't see a fancy watch on his wrist. He probably spent more on tickets. I lost his contact somehow so i haven't talked to him in years. His co worker told me he moved to sanantone a while back for a new job. He didn't have his number either so i didn't get it.

 

[John Galt]

My wife and I won, as a door prize, a cork board already pinned with $100 dollar’s worth of various scratch off cards from the PA lottery. Each card had at least 5 ways to win. After scratching all of them they were worth exactly $20. It validated my quip that the easiest way to make a 401K in to a 101K was to invest in the lottery.

 

[DwightFrye]

I haven't played the Lotto or bought any scratch off tickets in years. A couple of times I won $50 or $75 but I'm sure I was at a net loss all told.

I don't frequent any of the Indian casinos. I go to Las Vegas every few years and limit myself to $100. Which I generally lose quickly and remind myself why I don't like gambling. I'm not into card playing so it's pretty much the one armed bandits which require no skill.
A couple of times I have won around $250 on a slot machine but again, I'm sure my losses over the years far outweigh my gains.

However I am not one to criticize anyone who plays a few bucks a week on scratch offs or Lotto tickets. The people I see who are buying $50 at a time are the ones I think are idiots.

 

[Barkleymut]

When I was in college we had a bookie, bet a few college basketball games and won 6 out of 8. Next day we bet a few more and won the majority of them. I was up around $200 - we were betting $25 per game. Then we saw it - THE LOCK OF THE CENTURY - I put down $300 because I knew it was easy money. Sat in my 88 Pulsar listening to the game on a fading AM station - we lost. That was around 30 years ago. Since then I've probably lost around $100 on Mega Millions - so around $3 a year. Glad that I learned my lesson when I was young.

 

[Joe1]

The television and radio airwaves in the NY/NJ area are bombarded with online gambling and online sports betting commercials.

It is comical to listen to sports talk radio hosts giving their picks of the week to their listeners so they can make bets to beat the sports book advertisers that support the radio station programming.

Most gamblers that l have met do not have a concept of math or probability. I was once in Atlantic City for a conference and went to the craps table with one of the attendees who was a self-professed craps expert.

He was making what he called place bets on the 6 and 8 and 5 and 9. He explained to me that a $50 bet on 5 would pay $70 if a 5 was rolled before a 7. He won a 50 dollar bet and took away $120 which was the original bet plus 70 dollar payout.

I did some back of the envelope calculations mentally and eventually figured out that of 36 rolls of the die, 6 combinations can be a 7 and 4 combinations could be a 5 which made the odds of his bet 6 to 4 which is reduced to 3 to 2. Given the true odds, l concluded that his winning $50 bet should pay $125 instead of the $120 he received. I divided the $5 difference by $125 which equaled a 4% house advantage on that particular bet.

I asked him if he knew the odds of the bet and he replied "it's about even". I said "okay" knowing that he had no interest in hearing the truth and probably would have argued with me even if l tried to explain the math to him. He was up a few hundred dollars for the night and was happy. l suspect that he has lost heavily over the long run by making bets with a 96% expected return.

 

[2005jettatdi]

I am a CPA. As I prepare income tax returns I see the W-Gs from people who have won over $600 in a casino. I almost never see less in losses than the winnings. It depresses me that people waste their money that way.

I gamble a little. For example, when Powerball is over $700 million or so, I sometimes remember to buy a ticket. After all, you definitely will not win if you don't buy one. But that is it, one ticket. I have gambled at the casinos in Las Vegas and Laughlin playing craps. When I go completely out of control wild I have lost as much as $40 over the course of an evening of entertainment and free drinks. I have also come out ahead a few dollars on rare occasions. With the higher minimum bets these days, it has lost its allure. If you are losing hundreds of dollars or even thousands, it stops being entertainment.

 

[John Galt]

‘The television and radio airwaves in the NY/NJ area are bombarded with online gambling and online sports betting commercials.

It is comical to listen to sports talk radio hosts giving their picks of the week to their listeners so they can make bets to beat the sports book advertisers that support the radio station programming.”

This ^^^^^!!!

I’m an avid sports radio listener and for the last year or so it all about the odds. Football season is the worst but it has crept into baseball talk lately. They used to avoid talking about betting and the odds but now betting is the basis for most of the talk shows. Then they sprinkle in a few ”Gamblers get some help here…” ads to appease the FCC and the anti gambling crowds.

 

[Dave Hess]

It’s OK to buy an occasional lotto / Powerball / scratch off ticket.

Always max out your contributions to your Roth IRA and 401K match to have a guaranteed jackpot 30 years down the road.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

1) I was raised in an anti-gambling family. A while back I went with an anti-gambling girl. The subject had never come up.
After a 127 mile drive we got out of the car and I bought a "daily number ticket".....#127.
This is when I learned of her similar upbringing.
The dirty look I got was mixed with so much contempt it would've removed paint.
And yes, the number didn't hit.

2) Two coworkers went in on an entire, unopened brick of scratch-off "games" (how I detest the use of that word in this context). None won.
More importantly, they scratched off all the grey stuff and NONE COULD"VE WON! That's a game? It more resembles deception and theft to me.

3) Me outgassing:
When gamblers cite odds, it's as hollow as a bad salesman parroting a sales pitch. They don't know. They never worked to generate the data necessary to determine the odds.
These addicts tend to be nowhere regarding using numbers in the first place.
Ask a gambler what his gas mileage is. He won't know.
Show a gambler how to keep track of gas mileage and you'll likely anger him. (the old 'make the mule angry' syndrome).

4) ....and nobody ever says this; gambling has an intrinsic "something for nothing" angle at its bedrock. Making that appealing or masking it is plainly dishonest.

Pertinent intellectual anecdote: When I was a kid I was math inclined. The special classes I took mentioned odds and gambling.
My dad took 5 dimes and a coffee can. We shook and dumped them 500 times and recorded the results.
No heads : 5 tails to 5 heads : no tails.
The resulting curve was skewed, not centered, as any prediction would 'guarantee'.
We concluded that the sculpturing on the coin didn't weigh the same on each side.
It's the only thing we could think of.

Flame suit on.

Sounds about right except for your comment regarding odds. When it comes to lotteries (Powerball, Mega Millions) the odds of winning are readily available. For example the odds for hitting the jackpot in the Powerball are 1 : 292,201,338. From a purely mathematical perspective one should buy 1 tix/drawing when the jackpot reaches this figure.

Of course certain gamblers are well aware of the statistical probabilities for games such a video poker and black jack and for certain drawing games like Poker. The problem is that humans, unlike machines, are prone to making errors and are unaware when they do. Just as someone overestimates their abilities in golf, shooting, chess, etc. they can also overestimate their abilities when it comes to casino games. People who can make a living at it or supplement their income are extremely rare. I think one has to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum to be able to consistently apply the required concepts. Yes, someone like Rainman.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I've only gambled once in my life. Was at a conference in Las vegas which was held in a casino. Put $1 in a slot machine, won $2. That concluded my gambling career.

There's not a whole lot of fun in wasting money on something that is rigged against you

 

[PandaBear]

Where do I draw the line? I draw the line by quitting when I am ahead and never coming back.

Basically, you are playing each round as a win or lose step function, against the average odd that the house always win in the long term when you gamble enough (say the red and black on the roulette table with the 0 and 00 on the wheel that wins all). So if you were just playing for fun and you are ahead, quit, and never start again.

If you are losing a small amount, double down again and see if you win, and if you do, stop and never come back again. If you lose again, double down again and see if you win, and if you do, stop and never come back again. If you lose again you double down again and again until you hit the limit or you run out of money.

That's why there's always a limit on bet size and that's why eventually the house always win.

 

[PandaBear]

I've got a friend that is semi-retired that actually has a youtube channel on doing 'scratchers'. Plays a whole lot more than I would ever consider and uses spreadsheets to track what should be the 'winningest' tickets out there.

His stats for 2022:

Spent: $23,823
Won: $18,072

-$5,751 - 2022 Loss for only a 75.9% return.

So, yea, you never come out ahead. I've done a few group books with him where he'll divide a $300 'book' into 10 slots and then divide the profit by 10. So you spend $30 to get in and get 1/10th the profit back. We did that a few times and were pretty much always around the 'book minimum' which in Georgia is about $180.

So, unless you just randomly buy a big winning ticket, you're probably chasing dreams spending any large amount of money at one time.

Me, I probably spend less than $50 a year if that most years. I realize that it is just money thrown away, but at least here in GA my kid gets a little bit of it back through the Hope scholarship.

He probably makes money on the YouTube channel, off other addicts' time and habit (the advertisement targeting gambling addicts by preying on them).

 

[Freischneider]

Don't take this as an insult, but I've always referred to the lotto as a stupid tax. Yes you might win some money, but most of the people always put it back into the lottery, and never come out ahead. That being said, if the Mega Millions or Powerball gets over $500 million, every one of us at work will buy a ticket. We put it in a pot and we would split it if we won.