I QUIT!

Quote: OnceDear

None of us are.

???

Quote: MDawg

Quote: mwalz9

My net loss was less than 2% of my amount wagered.

I played BlackJack (I know basic strategy), slots, and bet on sports.
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Slots - terrible odds, never touch the stuff.

Sports - not sure what the house edge is or should be, as I don't do that either.

But blackjack - even without counting or any other advantage play, you should be able to find a table with a house edge of about nothing - miles below 2%?

Anyway, maybe you know exactly what you wagered. Maybe you don't.

Problem gamblers tend to not know when to stop. So does this mean that everyone who plays in the casino without an edge is destined to lose? I don't think so.

If you don’t mind answering - based on how much you placed across the circle (your handle) - would you say that you lost more or less than the house edge over this long period that you played blackjack.

My belief is that some gamblers (including problem ones) lose everything at most every session - they can’t stop when ahead and just keep playing almost every time until all the chips are gone. They keep chasing ever mounting losses and keep losing entire bankrolls time and again, as they keep thinking that they will or must get back to even with a lowering bankroll and same max bet. For them, risk of ruin supersedes house edge time and again.

Anyway, I don't believe that the house edge or the player advantage is all there is to it. I play with an advantage and win more than what I believe my mathematical edge is. And I also played craps for some years with no edge, and I still ended up about even probably a little ahead, definitely did not lose the expected house edge at craps. Maybe my huge bankroll places risk of ruin so far out of reach that that becomes a non-issue for me, and maybe that helps my over all record.

There are irritants out there who keep claiming that have won exactly what would be expected based on counting cards, but those players' posts were debunked to the point where no one even thinks that those players even really play blackjack at all, and just lifted whatever has been posted from reading online and in books.

I don't think I have ever played blackjack without counting and often with other edges too, and the sums I have won at blackjack are FAR more than would be expected.

Once you've resigned yourself to thinking in black and white you might as well just stay out of casinos period, would probably be the best advice.
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Sports betting House Edge, at least as implied, is more than 2%.

MWalz9 almost certainly knows what he wagered as the online casino in question tracks that information and you can look it up anytime. You can look by day, week, month, year, lifetime or select a period (I think). They're all a little different. He could definitely look up lifetime.

As far as online casinos go, I never really took the time to gather all my data, but I have done almost exclusively Advantage Plays (with the only non AP being small amounts of cover play as I felt might be needed...I also only cash out multiples of $10, usually, so will, "Play it down," or, "Play it up") and I would have to say that I am running worse than expected.

Of course, I run worse than expected, in terms of actual results, on almost everything I do, so no surprise there. The good news is my edges are so enormous with online that I can run worse than expected and still easily be profitable.

(All quotes OnceDear, some statements removed-relevance. Quoting in part to not duplicate, in full, a long post with quotes already)

Quote:

5 figures could soon go. Don't do it 100x

Again, taking all MWalz's posts at face value, there are patterns that many of us can relate to. A few early wins in the $thousands, a few advantage plays that worked, afeeling that all that money behind him was bankroll, but not money in danger, and most pernicious of all, an embracing of the idea that taking a few thousand to the casino would give repeatable opportunities to 'hit and run' for $50, $100 or whatever.
There's a loud siren warning of the dangers of accessible online gambling, too. He seems to have gone from an hour and a half round trip to the casino twice a month, to 6 nights a week in casino, to wagering every day online.

I mean, that's one of the potential dangers of the accessibility of online casinos, right?

There's also the problem of trust in that most people are going to trust legalized/regulated casinos within their own states, so that level of trust makes it more likely that a person is going to play with them.

Another problem with them being legalized/regulated is that you can't even watch the news without seeing an advertisement for one online casino or another. You see billboards, you hear radio ads if you listen to the sports talk, maybe even on music stations, the whole nine.

When it was just the offshore online casinos, you could pretty easily make it so that you never visit or read about them again unless you deliberately seek them out. With state regulated online casinos, you'd have to live in a cave to not be exposed to advertising for those in some fashion.

Anyway, you can expect a lot of similar stories to that of MWalz in the coming years. The good news is that he recognizes a problem and is working to rectify it; I think he will be successful in doing so.

Others won't be so fortunate. Some will go bankrupt as a result. Some will self-terminate as a result; it is what it is.

Quote:

This is exactly why, back in my moderating days, I was so scathing of anyone touting 'Hit and run', 'Win goal' strategies. It's so easy to get seduced by the appeal of such Bull.

Even now, this forum permits and encourages folk to emulate such nonsense.

Should forum moderators have any duty of care? Or are we ALL big boys and girls perfectly capable of staying safe?
MWalz, sadly disproves the latter question quite conclusively. Which just leaves the first question.

I don't know what you want. If it's gambling-related, then people can discuss it here.

I mean, you can check out the post my signature goes to if you want, so if that's not a warning coming from a math guy I don't know what to tell people.

The Moderators have no duty of care. For one thing, unless something changed, the mods don't even get paid.

Secondly, this is a gambling website. With gambling comes the potential risk of getting addicted to gambling. This is a risk that, I would hope, anyone visiting a gambling message board already acknowledges they are taking. If you're even visiting a gambling message board, or WoO, then you already have some level of interest in gambling.

I don't think there's any more a duty of care there than the person at the liquor store, or bartender, has to provide to alcoholics. If you drink, then you probably know what alcoholism is and that it is possible for a person to become an alcoholic. You partake in the spiritous beverages even knowing that potential; it is what it is.

If you don't want to become an alcoholic, then you should never drink in the first place. If you don't want to risk becoming addicted to gambling, then you should never gamble in the first place, and, if you do gamble already and you're concerned with the potential to become addicted, then just stop gambling now and you will make it less likely that you will.

So, I don't think the second question is disproven, because it doesn't have ONE answer.

I think some people are psychologically predisposed to gambling addiction. There was a really good Australian (I think) documentary on the subject. Others, I think, are capable of staying safe---just not everyone. Even some who might be psychologically predisposed to gambling addiction may gamble and still not become addicts.

Thus, if you think MWalz9 disproves that people are categorically unable to, "Stay safe," then the same would have to be true with any activity that can lead to addiction, but the same is not true of all such activities and it's not true of gambling.

However, the one way to guarantee that you never become a gambling addict, I reiterate, is to never gamble.

Quote: AxelWolf

Quote: OnceDear

None of us are.

???
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I generally advise that no one who participates in an activity that has led to addiction for others not get smug about their own seeming invulnerability

yes I believe such can be managed safely and many do , let's say most do when it's been legalized [we hope]. Being smug is a step down the wrong road however.

The problem with this site is that there is chatter from APs that actually make a living doing this stuff, but there are some non AP gamblers listening but not processing the information correctly. I myself have yapped about the easy money from the online sports books, but that is not gambling. It’s certainly not betting $5k on the Bills because I like them and they are in TV. That’s gambling.

Stay strong Mwalz!

I don't think it could hurt to have a more prominent "Problem Gambling Phone Number" shown on the WoV site.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the homepage, you can find a name for a help site that I think is based in England.

Quote: AxelWolf

Quote: MDawg

Anyway, I don't believe that the house edge or the player advantage is all there is to it.

That's all there is to it.

That's exactly why people get into bad situations like this, people are going around thinking/ being told there's something more to it.link to original post

Any poster that promotes the playing of -EV games as some way of making money, with voodoo, hit and run, money management, win goals, educated guessing or other Bull is contributing to the next generation of MWalz's.

Shame on them.

Anyone saying that the house edge doesn't matter, if you just get the betting level right, or observe the patterns on the board, or press into streaks. Shame on them. They are either misguided or malevolent. But always Wrong, Wrong, WRONG.
Anyone that promotes such stuff while having a secret edge. I think that's even worse.

I don't care to share in hopes it prevents someone else from falling down the same rabbit hole I did.

Also, this is still the only thread I opened. So I have no reason to want to gamble, trust me, I touched the hot oven and my hand still has 3rd degree burns, Im not going back to the oven anytime soon.

First off, the post about me crying was not literal. I did lose the money I had set aside for my mortgage, but did not cry. Luckily, my parents bailed me out.

The rest of the story...

Yes, I used to make $30,000 a year. I started off betting as entertainment and would buy in for $100 or so and play $5/hand blackjack, $5 line bets on craps or bet $5.50 or $11 on a sports bet and chalk it up as entertainment expense if I lost. It was under control and I had 0 issues managing it. I NEVER got into a pickle at this time.

Fast forward a few years and West Virginia makes online gambling legal about the same time my income increased tremendously. I started making over $250,000/year and the $5 bets werent doing it for me. So I started buying in for $1,000 at a time and playing $50-$100 a hand, $50 craps line bets with odds, and $55 to $220 on a sporting event. FanDuel made me a VIP and treated me like a king! I had a personal rep who would send me $500-$2000 bonus money a week, gave me tickets for free to pro sporting events, and the promos were 10x what normal players were getting. Some of that info is in another thread I started. Again, I still felt I had it under control and my bankroll could handle it. Even losing, I was able to maintain a 6 figure bank account and felt financially stable.

My job is commission based so my income then took a hit, I went from $220,000/yr to about $120,000/yr. The problem, I was still hooked on BIG bets and I couldnt control it and back down. The problem, was my income could no longer handle it. I started dipping into the savings. I was chasing losses. BIG TIME! Id deposit $1,000, trying to win a few hundred, but Id lose the $1,000. Then I felt I had to get the $1,000 back too! So Id deposit $5,000. If I lost it, Ineeded it back too. So Id deposit $20,000.

I hit some licks during this time. I have 6 tax tickets for 2022 even though I have a HUGE net loss. There were some very good days. Id say out of a 365 day year, gambling every day, I was a net winner 330 of those days. The problem is the 330 days of "net wins" did not out weigh the 35 days of HUGE losses.

When I self excluded, my FanDuel account alone, not counting any brick and mortar play at The Mardi Gras was approx. $6.5 million wagered and a net loss of around $117,000!

Please dont let this happen to you!

Good luck!

Addictions are a funny thing, but not in a good way. Some people have no problem with addictions in many areas but may be fall into something that triggers them into the behavior.

I suggest you stay away from the gambling environment as well, until you have not thought about gambling again for several months in a row. That can take many months or even several years for some people.

Again, good luck.

I also recognize different things are addictive for different people.

Some people can take 1 drink of alcohol and become an alcoholic. I can drink a 30 pack with buddies and get hammered drunk and then not drink again for months! Alcohol isnt addictive to me. I can control it.

Some of you may very well be able to control gambling. I, however, obviously cant!

Best of luck to you all!