• radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I won five grand from an online casino in 2001, and they not only paid me my winnings, they also included an extra $262 in comps for having bet aggregately over a quarter of a million dollars. That money went a long way for my early-20s ass. Paid off a credit card and bought a new mattress for me and my new wife.

    When Full Tilt Poker got shut down by the DOJ, though, I was sort of okay with it. There were waaaaay too many action flops for those hands to have been truly randomized.

    • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Gambling ruines lifes. Just because people can get their win does not mean it should be defended in any case. These casinos intentionally make people addicted, causing so much suffering and death.

      • radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        These casinos intentionally make people addicted, causing so much suffering and death.

        Noted, but so does alcohol and you can find it almost everywhere. Most people have the capacity to exercise caution when engaging in potentially addictive behaviors. Unless we intend to ban everything that could cause addiction and lead to destruction of a person’s life (gambling, alcohol, tobacco, food, sex, claw machines, loot boxes…), then we have to let people make their own choices and be responsible for their own decisions. When it becomes apparent to a person that they have an addiction, it is their own responsibility to tend to it.

        • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Sure was nice of the state to require your 2001 online casino to list in writing the odds of winning and enforce payment. But sure, they did you a favor and the state is bad, people are solo acts and you should be free to prey on the less powerful

            • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Sorry, I’ll extrapolate more precisely.

              Casinos spend unfathomable resources on learning exactly how to wedge their ads deep into your mind and get you hooked on their satisfying little dopamine loops, but it’s your personal failure if you, an ordinary person who is statistically speaking living paycheck to paycheck raising a kid with no savings, succumb to them. And your responsibility to fix it.

              Correct?

      • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        you can defend casinos as long as you treat it as entertainment and don’t bet your entire life savings on it and cry about it

        I set my initial bet amount, once that’s gone my game is done. on the other side if I double it my game is done

    • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk
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      5 months ago

      they also included an extra $262 in comps for having bet aggregately over a quarter of a million dollars.

      Why do you have credit card debt that had to wait for a 5k gambling “windfall” if you can afford to slowly spunk 250k up the wall at the same gambling sites?

      you have a problem… you are an addict…

      I can’t figure out if this is a joke post or not

      • dyc3@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I think what he means is that he bet some money, won, and then used that to bet again, repeat and eventually the aggregate bets made totalled to be 250k.

        • radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          This. Granted I was 24 and not great with money as my wife and I had about $1500 in credit card debt, but once or twice a year I’d put down $50 for a little fun money and play at an online casino for no more than a week or until the $50 was gone. The first time I tried, I managed to use a modified Martingale system for several days and worked it up to five grand before cashing out. Was never successful at making anything close to that again, but I never played with or lost more than I could afford.

          Today, apart from a car note I took on two weeks ago after a car I drove 200,000 miles over the past 14 years finally gave out, I am debt free and have been since 2016, and I genuinely can’t remember the last time I went to the casino. But, when I did, I brought $200, lost it but had my fun, and went home. No addiction whatsoever.

      • radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Because I was 24 years old and I put $50 on a debit card and managed to pump it up to $5000 and it was a one-off occurrence more than two decades ago? Relax.