I think you are misunderstanding - that’s what I meant about “they can’t help but do it” . The nicotine/heroin/alcohol/dopamine has a hold on them so they can’t help but smoke/drink/or gamble. The addiction compels them. But I have never known any addict ( and I’ve known many, personally and professionally) who says “I don’t like to smoke/drink/gamble so I have to reward myself with candy for lighting a cigarette/drinking a beer/getting out of my car to go into the casino.” For an addict, the reward is relieving the withdrawal/craving.
For us to tell him how good his gambling strategy is.
I’ve directly asked him if he was addicted to gambling.
He says he’s not.
I want to believe him.
Skepticism creeps up. The “treats in the trunk” kinda threw me, I have to say.
Truly odd.
It’s a fight between the conscious (I don’t want to gamble/smoke/drink anymore) & the unconscious (I need to gamble/smoke/drink) minds. As long as he stays in the car he can fight it but once he goes to the trunk, well, he’s already out of the car & on two feet so it’s not a big deal to go inside.
As a general matter, it gets mentally weird when somebody has a hobby they love then tries to convert it into a job / business.
Lots about their [whatever] that attracted them to it before suddenly tastes “off”. As well, nearly anything one does occasionally can become drudgery if done daily.
Sewing your own clothes can be fun. Being the poor alterations lady who’s at the drycleaners every day seems pretty unrewarding to her.
The OP may be just about at the burnout point of his hobby-turned-job. Hence the dumb mistakes: he’s struggling to maintain the needed level of focus for the needed time. Mind wanders and bang, you’ve made a dumb play. Same as somebody on an assembly line whose mind wanders and suddenly their arm is being eaten by a machine.
If he is addicted, he’ll end up a slot zombie feeding his life into the machine and that’ll be it. If he’s not addicted (and I offer no opinion either way) he’ll decide this career wasn’t quite as glamorous / rewarding as he’d hoped. And he’ll shuffle off to do something else.
We shall see. Good luck to him in any case.
I’ve already mentioned: I know somebody else who was a pro gambler, and can win money from tourists at Vegas, and doesn’t want to do it.
With that context, here is another person who can, and doesn’t want to do it, but needs the money.
(Or is deluded, but I have no reason to believe that)
Things probably aren’t adding up for some of you for a reason! Some have pegged me as a gambling addict. I’m probably not though. There’s problems of course, but likely not a full blown clinical addiction. Someone above mentioned gambling and dopamine boosts. For me, that’s VERY situational. Only after being on a casino floor for HOURS and not getting any action do I start seeking dopamine. Yes, that will be in the form of gambling, cuz I’m at a casino lol. It may take hours (and days are not unheard of) to find a single machine that’s in AP mode. People seldomly leave bonuses behind. They do, but not often. Then we have competition. Some casinos some nights have up 30 APs on the floor hunting/racing/fighting for the same machines.
My intentions for gaming isn’t primarily for the dopamine. There’s much better dopamine hits out there! My primary intention for gaming is the comped rooms and meals and entertainment (like free shows). My secondary intention is the “beer” money I profit. The “rush” is at most tertiary.
So yeah I sometimes lack motivation to game. APable games are far and few between these days. I’m not motivated to walk around casino floors for hours and not find any bonuses or high progressives. That night I lost the 2K, I had a dry WEEK and was already stressed and tilted. I’m not motivated to battle other APs and some of them I do NOT want to get on their bad side. I’m not motivated to lose money. While I’m not losing ton of money overall, the losses have been larger and more frequent within the last year or two.
I’m in the process of scouting for the more classic games that are more APable. And I have found some new casinos. And this month? I’ve been doing GOOD. Lots of wins. I also need to spend more time learning poker, where I don’t have to fool around with any machines.
You can’t just count the wins, though. Do you win more than you lose (taking all costs into consideration) and, if so, would you say it was a sustainable wage?
Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!!!
Yes, I’m experiencing burnout. The intended spirit of my OP was not “oh no, I have a gambling addiction!”, it was “Eek I’m really fucking up at work lol”.
Of course I’m counting losses too! Why not???
Going by my standards, the average is a little better than beer money. Not large profits, but not insignificant.
I just said I won’t be sharing many details about what I make.
Ding ding ding here too!
There’s your revenue problem.
The nature of any profitable opportunity of any kind is that eventually competition springs up to compete away the excess margin. A problem in our social media connected gig economy is that if there is some giggable profitable opportunity, millions of people will know about it overnight. they won’t all jump on it, whatever “it” is, but enough will. Real soon the easy pickins are gone.
Same thing happened in poker rooms when poker first became a cool spectator sport 40 years ago when I lived in Vegas. A few pros, and a zillion amatuers. Those pros could beat the amateur patsies silly all night every night and make good money. But now there are many pros, and money goes to the best pro at the table, while there’s only one true patsy there to be fleeced. The hourly rate drops to zilch.
And again, actual details aren’t being asked for, just enough info to see if what you are doing is actually paying off…and it would be nice to know hou many hours you are putting in to get that “beer money”.
Hey, two of those losses don’t count. Twice I made the wrong wager/bet size. Then there was only a $20 loss, that’s not shit.
Three potato chips and a jolly rancher (and I usually spit out the rancher after 20s or so) isn’t that many calories. I can burn off those few calories by walking in the casino. 
Yep… 
That’s rationalization, not accounting. Every loss counts the same. As a loss. if you’re a business, you need to think like a business. Hobbyists can fool themselves that they make money on every trip to Vegas; you can’t.
Mistakes are a given. You will make them, and some will sting and others will be disasters. not because you suck at this, but because you’re human. My industry is (was for me; I’m retired) very very close to zero serious defect. We make mistakes constantly. Admitting that goofs are just part of the game and must be compensated for is the key to predictable accurate performance.
Tell me you see the problem here.
You could tell us your net hourly income (including losses that “don’t count”) without telling us your total winnings or losses, right? Like, if you say you average $50/hour when gambling, we won’t know what that means over the course of a year.
Or, to make it even more vague: do you earn minimum wage, if you count all your hours on the gaming floor and all your wins and losses?
I meant that didn’t count as an “AP” loss, just a general loss. I am much MUCH more concerned about “AP” losses. Like you said, accidents happen. I’m not worried about occasional bet size mistakes, those don’t hurt my bottom line much. I am worried however about losses that incur from games that I deem as AP-able. That means there something going very wrong on my end or the casino’s end. Repeated mistakes from “AP” can become very costly.
Another weekend report!
I spent some time scouting some more casinos. I found two good spots. Well, I’ve been to those places before, but the last time the games suck. Last weekend, not so much!
I did foolishly lose $100. Sunday night, I went several hours with no action and it killlllled me! The flashing lights, loud bells, smells, and cheers that gets me excited upon entering a casino turned into a jumble of dull sounds and sights. My world turned into grayscale. I needed to add some “color” back into my existence. So I popped $100 into a non-AP game just to feel alive. With it being a non-AP game I lost it of course. I walked around some more and the urge hit me again but that time I resisted! I told myself if I leave this casino right now, I can buy myself some cheesesticks from the closest fast food place. And that was Sonic. I was happy to be near a Sonic, I don’t see as many these days. I guess Dr. Robotnic stepped up his game. I ate them cheesesticks and felt happy again, and didn’t even bother going back to the casino and I took my ass back to my hotel. (where I caught the night auditor smoking weed outside the side entrance)
Holiday weekend report! And happy anniversary to me! (that’s what that cake next to my name is for).
-$1800
This time it was a slow bleed. And not all of the money lost was from gaming. Yep, I spent money out of my pocket for a hotel. The two casinos in this city doesn’t have hotels. And I’m only here to visit relatives. I didn’t want to stay with them because…hmmm I’m not going to touch that with a 10 foot pole.
Anyway I lost money night before last. I didn’t game at all yesterday, and I spent most of my day with my family and family friends. Gamed some tonight. I don’t remember how and how much I lost money night before last. I think the heat and sleep deprivation is frying my brain.
FIT (yesterday): Hawaiian shirt (green with black and white palm trees). Black shorts. Kind of tight and short. Didn’t realize it until yesterday. I think it shrunk when I did the laundry. Crocs. White socks with black fern trees, pulled up almost to my knees. A sweatband from lululemon. Dangly black cross earring. My hair is growing out a little, so messy hair. Not living in a garbage dumpster messy hair, sexy just got out of bed messy hair. There was a mixture of races of women at the 4th party. The black women liked my headband. Ok, I’ll know to wear this thing more often when I go out to bars, to get more atttention from black women.
Oh ok so the losing money part. Yeah I lost money, night before last. I went to casino #1 earlier today. Hot as hell, and they had them motherfucking horses. Garage was closed. Rows and rows of cars parked from the casino and racetrack. I had to park “blocks away”. First trip inside, I lost money. I did the long walk back my car to get more money. As I was walking back I held two water bottles against my cheeks (the jaw ones). That barely helped. Got more money from my car. Walked that long distance back to the casino. Just to break even!
Ate dinner at a greek place and stopped by a relatives house for a little bit. I went to casino #2. Only about a 30 minute stay. This one game had accumulated 34 free spins (reset 5 free spins). $15 bet though! That machine sucked up my $300 in a instant! Man that loss made me hungry as fuck! On the way back to my hotel, I stopped by the gas station to king size pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups WHITE. Though I love the white creme, I split each cup into halves so I can eat the peanut butter part. Less sugar and less saturated fat. Still some creme, from the top and bottom, but not side. So when I was done the candies looked like slim crescent moons. When I was done, I threw them into a doggie poop bag and tossed 'em.
Everything fades to black. THE END.
Ok, everything fades into a smoky slurry of assorted pigments from fireworks smoke. THE END.
Midwest Degenerate Gambler
-BUMBACLOT