gambling

"gambling" is also a: user

(thing) by dannye Thu Jun 15 2000 at 3:15:19


I was in Lake Tahoe once on some sort of vacation. The lake was beautiful. The weather was miserable. The main recreation of the other visitors appeared to be gambling. There were even busses which brought old folks from Sacramento, CA, to the casinos to gamble for the weekend.

You'd see them shuffling off the busses with their Social Security checks in their wrinkled hands on Friday night. Saturday mid-morning you could see some of them hunched over the slots, weeping silently. By Saturday night, they would be plodding along to the buffet with abject despair in their clouded eyes.

When the bus left on Sunday, it was like watching a bunch of Jews being put on a train by armed guards back around 1941.

I see it all around me now, with all the new casinos popping up everywhere you look. I don't get it.

I've had a lot of addictions in my life, but it was always so obvious to me that gambling was a dumbass way to throw your money down the toilet.

For an addictive type of personality not to understand an addiction is troubling.

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(idea) by johnnyx Wed Apr 11 2001 at 17:27:47

"To gamble is to risk anything of value on a game of chance or on the outcome of any event involving chance, in the hope of profit." --Peter Arnold "The Encyclopedia of Gambling" Collins 1978

"Gambling under the common law is any activity in which: (1) a person pays something of value, called consideration; (2) the outcome is determined at least in part by chance; and (3) the winnings are something of value." --J Nelson Rose "Gambling and the Law" 1986 Gambling Times Inc at page 75

Participation in games of chance. An entertaining activity, due to a fluke in human psychology that makes people enjoy a bit of uncertainty.

Over the long term, most people lose money at gambling, but in the short term, there are drastic fluctuations both up and down. Know the odds, don't play with money you can't afford to lose, and don't let gambling rule your life.

Casinos make a business of helping people gamble, and assisting them in losing their money. There are also bookies for betting on sports, racetracks for betting on greyhound and horse racing. And if all else fails, start a poker night with your friends.

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(thing) by wrinkly Tue Feb 25 2003 at 12:54:22
They stand there, eyes glazed, feeding the slotted maw, tugging the single arm. Flashing lights, electronic noises and free beer, pass them by, as they focus on the wheels, spinning strawberries and lemons and watermelons.

I wonder as I watch: do they know how they are being manipulated? Do they realise that the machine is set up by engineers who design every detail of the hardware and software, to take their money away. That the machine stashes the quarters away before it finally spits out a fraction of the sum fed into it. Do they know the odds?

At a blackjack table, the punter thinks he knows it all, while the dealer knows the house advantage. Chips pass across the table, sometimes this way, sometimes that, but the house knows the odds. The house sets the odds. The house is going to take 10 percent of the money staked that day. And the next and the next, here in this world where there is no night, where the desert heat never makes you sweat and the dry sand pours forth water in fountains and canals and rivers.

Gambling. I never saw the point, except perhaps when I could be the bank. I never felt the thrill of having one more bet. Never saw the excitement in double or quits; never needed to feed the slots. Never saw a more pointless way to give away my money for no return.

I know the numbers: know the odds, and yet, whenever they tell me about their trips to Vegas, or Atlantic City, or Monte Carlo, or Prague or Budapest or Hong Kong or The Hague, those friends who seek out casinos always win. I wish I had their secret. Eternal optimism, perhaps, or maybe just permanent denial of all losses.

I don't understand gamblers. Maybe I'm a pessimist. Maybe eternal optimists remember only the wins, and never look at the net gains—or losses.

I went to Vegas. Once. If any modern city can be described as a miracle, then Vegas is truly a miracle.

Sitting in the desert, it gulps down water and consumes electricity. Everything seems inverted. Food and rooms are cheap. Alcohol is more readily available than almost anywhere else in America—or so it seems to the tourist. All because they want you to put your quarters in the slots and pass your chips across the blackjack tables and watch the pretty red and black numbers go round and round and round.

Poker, bridge and backgammon, I can understand. That's not gambling; that's playing a game you enjoy, with an added twist

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(thing) by skybluefusion Tue Jul 29 2003 at 21:56:31

Gambling began with participants betting on who would win at games of strength and skill. Eventually fans also began betting on the results.

Dice may be the oldest gambling device still in existence. Gambling was popular among ancient Egyptians. Ancient Chinese also gambled. Romans were great gamblers but had laws against it.

New Orleans was the first major gambling center in the USA. Between 1718 and 1811 gambling grew in taverns and coffee houses with rooms and tables for private gambling. In 1811 gambling was prohibited in Louisiana. This did little to actually stop gambling in New Orleans. In 1823 gambling was legalized again and a charge of $5,000 for a gambling license was required. The money was to be applied toward hospitals and colleges. From then on large public casinos came to dominate the gambling scene in New Orleans, making it America's first gambling destination city.

Gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931. Many small casinos began popping up in Las Vegas and eventually in other areas of the state such as Reno, Tahoe, Laughlin, and Primm. The many motels and hotels and later the huge resorts that characterize Las Vegas now did not come around for another fifteen or so years.

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