# Ever known someone with a bad gambling habit? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 16, 2020, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007 "2020-02-16T03:55:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/41 "2020-02-17T20:40:27Z")
The husband of a good friend of mine. For many years, he was a social gambler – they’d get together once a month with a group of friends and play some nickel-dime (literally) poker. No one ever lost (or won) a lot of money. Maybe he’d buy an occasional lottery ticket. Then he developed Restless Leg Syndrome. The drug he was prescribed for treating this caused him to become a compulsive gambler. Weird, huh? He gambled away every penny they had saved, and borrowed so much money from friends and relatives many would no longer speak with him. Relatively early on, my friend took 100% control over their finances, giving him a small allowance each week. No matter, he’d find someone to “borrow” from. He joined Gamblers Anonymous and put himself on the self-exclusion list at the local casinos. Neither worked – he was always able and willing to buy scratch-off tickets. I was told that he refused to go off the Restless Leg Syndrome meds, but I don’t know if that would have ended his gambling compulsion. They did split up, but never actually divorced. He developed some health problems, and could no longer work. Since the local homeless shelters each operate only one night a week, he’d spend much of each day taking buses and walking to get to the next shelter. I’m pretty sure he was getting some form of disability compensation, and he lived the last years of his life in subsidized housing. I’m also pretty sure that even when he was living in homeless shelters he was using at least some of his disability compensation to gamble. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/42 "2020-02-17T22:48:55Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > - He actually had himself “self excluded” from the local indian casino. this is where you register with the casino, and they are to not only not allow you to play, but to escort you out of the casino if you show your face ! I wasn’t even aware casinos offered such a service until my cousin told me about it. There’s a local newspaper columnist who has written about her self-exclusion, after she realized that her gambling habit was creating a financial hardship (and she was single at the time). AFAIK, she’s never attended any 12-step programs or the like, but she’s tried her hand at gambling a few times over the years to see if she can control it, and has finally realized that she is an addict and must not do this again, ever. My parents sometimes go to a local casino, and if one of them hits a jackpot, they find the other one, cash out, and leave. 😃 Both of them have walked out with a few 1099s over the years. As for me, it has no appeal. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/43 "2020-02-17T23:12:24Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > There’s a local newspaper columnist who has written about her self-exclusion, after she realized that her gambling habit was creating a financial hardship (and she was single at the time). AFAIK, she’s never attended any 12-step programs or the like, but she’s tried her hand at gambling a few times over the years to see if she can control it, and has finally realized that she is an addict and must not do this again, ever. > > My parents sometimes go to a local casino, and if one of them hits a jackpot, they find the other one, cash out, and leave. 😃 Both of them have walked out with a few 1099s over the years. As for me, it has no appeal. I forgot to mention: after my cousin’s ex put the self-exclusion in place, the casino actually had to exercise it ! That is, some months later, he sauntered into the casino knowing that they would escort him out. I think he actually tried to play and be escorted more than once, too. With all the cameras and monitoring, they actually identified him and got to him pretty quick. Which kind of spoke well of the casino (they could have waited until he’d lost a couple thousand before escorting him out). ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/44 "2020-02-18T01:02:18Z")
I’ve always said God works in my life by filling it up with Bad Examples. I used to gamble a bit, with the motivation that I wanted to win enough to treat my friends to a nice dinner. Now, sometimes it took me ten hours to win a hundred bucks (you do the math on how efficient that was…), but it was an adrenaline rush. But no more, since I sat down at my favorite pub next to a regular. A nice 30-ish normal guy, who I’ve chatted with, but never on this subject: “I’ve already lost fifteen hundred bucks on NFL games today.” \*Huh? \*“Ummm, dude, it’s only Sunday afternoon, so… you still have all the afternoon games, Sunday night and Monday night to go?” “Yeah, this could be a bad weekend, but I’ve had worse.” Yikes! I already considered any sports bet a bad idea\*, but that clinched it. I won’t even put down a fiver for fun now, thanks to that guy. _Don’t think I’ve seen anything more random. I mean, a lot of people lost big bucks when the lowly Dolphins beat the Patriots because "oh, come on, there’s no chance of_ that\* happening." ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/45 "2020-02-18T03:37:51Z")
I had a friend who lost at least $75,000, mostly on scratch tickets. > [@Spoons](#): > > I never felt that attitude at Mara, Niagara Falls, or for that matter, at Woodbine Racetrack; all of which are in Ontario. Nor any other casino or racetrack in the US or Australia. I’ll return to those three in Ontario, and others in the US and Australia, but never to the casino in Sault Ste. Marie. Too drab and depressing and intimidating. Ontario’s local casinos are mostly like that. Sarnia, Gananoque, Mohawk; they’re all fairly depressing places that all basically exist to take money from addicts, so they don’t bother to make them nice. Brantford is okay, at best. Places like Niagara Falls or Rama are more destination places that exist for reasons other than just gambling. > [@cormac262](#): > > He actually had himself “self excluded” from the local indian casino. this is where you register with the casino, and they are to not only not allow you to play, but to escort you out of the casino if you show your face ! I wasn’t even aware casinos offered such a service until my cousin told me about it. Around here if you self-exclude you will actually be arrested if they catch you. In one memorable case at Brantford’s poker room, where I play, a woman on the self exclusion list managed to sneak in and play and won part of a bad beat (a jackpoy awarded if a player beats another with incredibly unlikely hands, like four of a kind losing to a straight flush.) The thing is, you aren’t allowed to win a jackpot if you’re on the self exclusion list, so she was not awarded the $30,000 or whatever it was. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/46 "2020-02-18T09:48:08Z")
I had an older relative who was a gambling addict in a different way. He was a self-employed bookie for most of his life who made a decent living but was always begged to stop by his family, though I don’t know if it was for financial, criminal, or organized crime related reasons. Apparently he did stop for a few years in the 1990s until his family noticed him suddenly getting calls at all hours of the night again. Then in 2002 his house burned down in the night with him still in it, police said it was an electrical fire but we still wonder… ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/47 "2020-02-18T13:17:13Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I had an older relative who was a gambling addict in a different way. He was a self-employed bookie for most of his life who made a decent living but was always begged to stop by his family, though I don’t know if it was for financial, criminal, or organized crime related reasons. > > Apparently he did stop for a few years in the 1990s until his family noticed him suddenly getting calls at all hours of the night again. Then in 2002 his house burned down in the night with him still in it, police said it was an electrical fire but we still wonder… A bookie was a gambling addict? That seems kind of unusual to me. Usually bookies are just people good with numbers and don’t mind offering a service that most states have deemed illegal. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/48 "2020-02-18T15:31:36Z")
Here’s another one I had forgotten. A step-in-law thing. Older guy. Always going to the Indian casinos. His wife was seriously ill. She just got out of the hospital and he decided that what she needed was a trip to a casino. Got really bad. She barely made it back home and died a few days later. Rest of the family was really mad at the guy. Basically killed his wife. Completely blew their significant life savings on gambling and unnecessary purchases. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/49 "2020-02-18T15:53:59Z")
One of my former co-workers had a good paying job but no money. She blamed it on the costs of raising a teenager but other colleagues had two or three kids and did just fine. Every story she told was about how much money she won at the casino or how much she _almost_ won. She spent every weekend at the casino. We once had a work outing on an offshore betting cruise. She disappeared the moment the tables opened and nobody spoke with her again until the moment they closed. It was all very sad to me. My brother buys probably $50-$100 worth of lottery tickets per week. He isn’t going to lose his house but he also isn’t going to retire anytime soon. > [@edwardcoast](#): > > Yes, but not at the casino. It was with the stock market. I know someone who lost all his money in the stock market but I think he was just really ignorant about how to invest. He also likes to go to the casino from time to time, so perhaps it really was just like gambling to him. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/50 "2020-02-18T16:02:59Z")
I knew a guy in the military who was an addicted gambler. He owed money all over town. He’d take off for Reno on long weekends every chance he got. Problem was, he wasn’t good at it and was always trying to borrow money. He sold his car to one of my young guys, even though he didn’t have title to it. I confronted him and threatened to go to the CO if he didn’t give the kid his money back. He used to go around to different job sites and scoop up all the scrap wire and copper pipe to sell. On one of his trips to Reno, he lost everything, including his wedding ring (which he hocked). He ran out of gas on the way back and had to have his wife wire their last $20 to him so he could get home. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/51 "2020-02-18T17:33:33Z")
No, but the gamblers occasionally featured on _Intervention_ are always absolutely the worst people that are ever on that show. At least the druggies have sophisticated modern chemistry to blame. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/52 "2020-02-18T17:48:10Z")
Ah, yes, the lottery ticket addicts. When I worked in rental property management, you’d see people cashing their welfare checks at the check cashing place, then go across the street and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, hoping to win. One person even told me about writing to every big winner in the newspaper, asking for a cut. Did she every get anything. No. She did complain when a person won the big pot with the first ticket she bought. “I’ve been buying tickets for years and won nothing. It’s not fair.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/53 "2020-02-18T18:53:57Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > One of my former co-workers had a good paying job but no money. She blamed it on the costs of raising a teenager but other colleagues had two or three kids and did just fine. Every story she told was about how much money she won at the casino or how much she _almost_ won. She spent every weekend at the casino. We once had a work outing on an offshore betting cruise. She disappeared the moment the tables opened and nobody spoke with her again until the moment they closed. It was all very sad to me. The thing is that with a few moments of observation, one could calculate to a pretty fair appproximation exactly what she was spending. The house advantage on casino games is predictable and easily calculated, and by simply observing what she played and what stakes she played you could figure out what she spent in a year if in fact she was playing every weekend. A person who plays against the house a lot every week and is playing anything higher stakes than nickel slots is losing a LOT of money. It’s just math. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/54 "2020-02-18T20:01:54Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > A bookie was a gambling addict? That seems kind of unusual to me. Usually bookies are just people good with numbers and don’t mind offering a service that most states have deemed illegal. I took the post to mean that he was unable to give up being a bookie, not that he was himself a gambler. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/55 "2020-02-18T20:42:07Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I took the post to mean that he was unable to give up being a bookie, not that he was himself a gambler. That would indeed explain things and I typically overlooked that. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/56 "2020-02-18T21:06:40Z")
I bet big and won against the house early on, and haven’t felt the need to push my luck since. As part of a project I was doing in maybe the 5th grade, I was cutting out ads from old _National Geographic_s. I found an ad for a cereal I’d never heard of before, and showed it to my dad with the comment “Hey, look at this old cereal they quit making.” My dad, who at that point in his life had worked in grocery stores for something like 25 years, replied to the effect of “Of course they still make it, you just haven’t seen it because it’s not 90% sugar.” I insisted that it wasn’t on the shelves. Then he made a tragic mistake: he bet _a ten year_ old $20 on the topic of breakfast cereals. We even had the foresight to make it a fair bet: instead of going to his store, or one of the stores in that chain, we went to a store unaffiliated with his and at which we practically never shopped. I won. Bought [Joe Johnston’s _Star Wars Sketchbook_](https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Sketchbook-Joe-Johnston/dp/034527380X) and never considered betting anything over a dollar on anything again. (It has, of course, occurred to me in the decades since that this was my dad’s way of making me feel like a winner at something (not common for me, especially at that age) and slipping me $20 at the same time. Not entirely out of character for him.) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/57 "2020-02-18T22:49:20Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > No, but the gamblers occasionally featured on _Intervention_ are always absolutely the worst people that are ever on that show. At least the druggies have sophisticated modern chemistry to blame. Like Gabe, the second one on that show? (If you haven’t seen that episode, trust me - you don’t want to.) There was another gambling addict who I didn’t think really belonged on that show; she started gambling after a car accident left her with a traumatic brain injury, but I wondered if her family just didn’t know what else to do. One thing I have noticed, there and elsewhere, is that gambling addicts seem to be almost as addicted to the carnage they leave in their wake as they are to the “chase.” Other forms of addiction aren’t fun for the victim (no matter how much the media makes opiate addiction out to be this way) but this seems to be an exception. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/58 "2020-02-18T22:53:27Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Ah, yes, the lottery ticket addicts. When I worked in rental property management, you’d see people cashing their welfare checks at the check cashing place, then go across the street and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, hoping to win. One person even told me about writing to every big winner in the newspaper, asking for a cut. Did she every get anything. No. > > She did complain when a person won the big pot with the first ticket she bought. “I’ve been buying tickets for years and won nothing. It’s not fair.” In Iowa, anyone who wins a lottery prize over a certain amount (IIRC $1,200) has a background check for (in this order) delinquent taxes, child support, and student loans, and there have been some big winners who got a 1099 and that was it. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/59 "2020-02-19T00:07:16Z")
I was on a card counting team during the mid to late 1990s, and there were other casino patrons who were pretty obviously degenerates, but I never got friendly enough with any to learn the details. ---
**Author:** ![Emergency911](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/43a26b/32.png) [@Emergency911](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emergency911)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007/60 "2020-02-19T19:03:05Z")
The wife of a former boss had a gambling problem. It came to light when she was arrested at her job for embezzling several hundred thousand dollars over a period of years. The boss knew she was going to the casino every month or so for a “girls night”, but didn’t know she was also going while he was at work, just making sure she made it home before he did. (she worked days, he worked afternoons mostly). She did several years in prison, received counseling and last I heard, won’t even buy a lottery ticket now. I never got much out of casino’s, but I will go with a group of friends every now and then. I limit myself to $20 and play one quarter at a time. If I loose before my friends are done, I will just sit and people watch. I will buy a scratch off ticket every now and then and will throw a dollar or two at the lotto when the prize is really high. I know it’s a suckers bet, but it’s fun to dream about what I would do with 'all that money". Not to hijack, but I probably waste more money on compulsive grocery purchases than I ever have gambling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-known-someone-with-a-bad-gambling-habit/848007.md?page=4)