TrueBeliever
Hater hater
You may recall that a few months back I had a thread called "Luck of the non-Irish" about a time I won nearly $200 at a casino by playing slots with "matchplay" money, i.e. free slot credits given away as a promotion.
What I didn't tell you is that the next weekend, we went back and at one point I was up over $400... but I didn't stop. I'm tempted to say I "couldn't" stop, but that would imply that I didn't have control, which I did. Anyway, I lost EVERYTHING and put $20 of my own money determined to get back to that point. I finally got back up to a little over $100, then I started slipping again and cashed out.
I was mad at myself for a good couple weeks after that. You could say that I just learned a hard lesson - everybody has lucky streaks at the slots, mine just came in the beginning. But it's my fault because I did what I always said I wouldn't do, i.e. not knowing when to quit.
That $400 would have covered a car payment with a little left over. But noooo, I thought, "If I'm up $400 already, I can be up $800 soon! Or $1,200! Or $2,000!!!"
Like I said, I didn't really "lose" anything because 99% of what I was playing with was the "free money" I got from the promotion. But it's still hard to stomach that I had $400 of unearned cash I could have walked away with and I blew it.
But that's true of a lot of things in my life. At different times I've said I would never drive drunk, treat a girlfriend or wife the way I saw another man treat his, abuse credit cards, etc.; and eventually I did all those things. Likewise I said when it came to gambling I would have to know when to quit and that day I didn't.
As for the whole probability/percentages thing, I did some research after this happened. I had been operating on the old assumption that the odds are if you stay at the same slot machine long enough, you'll hit the jackpot. That used to be true, but not anymore. Today's slots are run on computerized randomizing programs that have eliminated that possibility. :Lecture:
Gambling is fun, but I probably won't go again anytime soon until they have another one of those promotions. Otherwise the odds just seem like you're throwing your money away. At least with lottery tickets the money you lose goes to a good cause (though it's debatable whether giving free cash to the government constitutes a "good cause") rather than just going to whomever owns the casino (in this state they're all owned by Native Americans.)
And the way I blow "money" at blackjack in the casino here at the Planet, no way in hell am I playing with real money.
What I didn't tell you is that the next weekend, we went back and at one point I was up over $400... but I didn't stop. I'm tempted to say I "couldn't" stop, but that would imply that I didn't have control, which I did. Anyway, I lost EVERYTHING and put $20 of my own money determined to get back to that point. I finally got back up to a little over $100, then I started slipping again and cashed out.
I was mad at myself for a good couple weeks after that. You could say that I just learned a hard lesson - everybody has lucky streaks at the slots, mine just came in the beginning. But it's my fault because I did what I always said I wouldn't do, i.e. not knowing when to quit.
That $400 would have covered a car payment with a little left over. But noooo, I thought, "If I'm up $400 already, I can be up $800 soon! Or $1,200! Or $2,000!!!"
Like I said, I didn't really "lose" anything because 99% of what I was playing with was the "free money" I got from the promotion. But it's still hard to stomach that I had $400 of unearned cash I could have walked away with and I blew it.
But that's true of a lot of things in my life. At different times I've said I would never drive drunk, treat a girlfriend or wife the way I saw another man treat his, abuse credit cards, etc.; and eventually I did all those things. Likewise I said when it came to gambling I would have to know when to quit and that day I didn't.
As for the whole probability/percentages thing, I did some research after this happened. I had been operating on the old assumption that the odds are if you stay at the same slot machine long enough, you'll hit the jackpot. That used to be true, but not anymore. Today's slots are run on computerized randomizing programs that have eliminated that possibility. :Lecture:
Gambling is fun, but I probably won't go again anytime soon until they have another one of those promotions. Otherwise the odds just seem like you're throwing your money away. At least with lottery tickets the money you lose goes to a good cause (though it's debatable whether giving free cash to the government constitutes a "good cause") rather than just going to whomever owns the casino (in this state they're all owned by Native Americans.)
And the way I blow "money" at blackjack in the casino here at the Planet, no way in hell am I playing with real money.
