For the majority of people, playing poker is not dangerous. 99% of people are not gambling addicts. 1% of people in the United States are. Eventually, if you talk to enough people you know, you will encounter someone who is a proto-gambling addict and does not know it yet. And you will sit them down at the poker table, and that will be it for them. They may have gone their whole life and never known they were a proto-gambling addict. My father was a cocaine addict. I may be a proto-cocaine addict. I don't know, because I will never do cocaine so I will never find out. Some people are more succeptible to addictions to others due to different receptor profiles in their brains for different neurotransmitters. Some people are more predisposed to becoming gambling addicts than other people because of their genetic makeup and their life history. But there is a catalyst for that happening, and that catalyst will be Bradley encouraging them to play. Telling them it is great.
I imagine you are playing low limit poker. This means you are playing with housewives and children and nice people so the games appear to be fun and safe. Gambling addicts often start out playing low limit poker but they move up to recoup their losses. If you move up in limits, you will start to encounter shady people. Gambling addicts are often not selective in which form of gambling they do. They will start with one form and then move onto others. Poker and sports betting, for instance, often go hand in hand because people think they can beat both games.
When you play in high limit games, the people who have money are very wealthy people, poker pros and people engaging in illegal activities. Usually drug dealers are not playing poker for some reason. It is almost all bookies. By far, the makeup of all high limit poker games I have seen are these classes of people: 1) rich people having fun 2) bookies or other people doing illegal things 3) poker pros 4) gambling addicts. The minority of the male gambling addicts I have seen sports bet as well. The bookies talk about sports betting constantly at the table and get the male gambling addicts who do not sports bet involved in sports betting.. it is impossible for them to resist. Eventually the gambling addicts stop coming to the casino or the home games after several months. I do not know what happens to them. I am not making this up, this actually happens. If you ever go to Vegas or to Foxwoods or go to a big casino, hang around one of the high limit games, like one of the $100/200 stud games or whatever the biggest game in the room is and just look at the people playing, really look at them. You will see each of the people I just described to you playing in the game. If one of your friends and loved ones who is a full blown gambling addict is not in that game, it is because they went broke before they made it there.
People don't understand what it means to be a gambling addict. I knew a lady who blew 20k in two nights. She would lie to her husband constantly on the phone while we were playing, saying she was in the car. She would stay there until 6am and she would have to be in court the next day at 10am. She would make up all these appointments to her husband, dentist appointments, appointments for this, for that. She lost, I don't know, it had to be almost 70k in three months or so in a game. She was borrowing money from everybody. She would disappear for a month and then come back. She still goes to the game. You guys don't understand what it really means to be a gambling addict. You are thinking like, oh, lose a hundred dollars here, a thousand dollars there. I'm talking about like losing EVERYTHING. She has had herself banned from Foxwoods and then she seeked out this home game and is playing $100/200 and is into a bunch of shady guys for tens of thousands of dollars. And that can happen to someone you love and care for very deeply. One of the possible paths. I dunno. I guess it's falling on deaf ears.
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Date: 2006-02-28 17:44 (UTC)I imagine you are playing low limit poker. This means you are playing with housewives and children and nice people so the games appear to be fun and safe. Gambling addicts often start out playing low limit poker but they move up to recoup their losses. If you move up in limits, you will start to encounter shady people. Gambling addicts are often not selective in which form of gambling they do. They will start with one form and then move onto others. Poker and sports betting, for instance, often go hand in hand because people think they can beat both games.
When you play in high limit games, the people who have money are very wealthy people, poker pros and people engaging in illegal activities. Usually drug dealers are not playing poker for some reason. It is almost all bookies. By far, the makeup of all high limit poker games I have seen are these classes of people: 1) rich people having fun 2) bookies or other people doing illegal things 3) poker pros 4) gambling addicts. The minority of the male gambling addicts I have seen sports bet as well. The bookies talk about sports betting constantly at the table and get the male gambling addicts who do not sports bet involved in sports betting.. it is impossible for them to resist. Eventually the gambling addicts stop coming to the casino or the home games after several months. I do not know what happens to them. I am not making this up, this actually happens. If you ever go to Vegas or to Foxwoods or go to a big casino, hang around one of the high limit games, like one of the $100/200 stud games or whatever the biggest game in the room is and just look at the people playing, really look at them. You will see each of the people I just described to you playing in the game. If one of your friends and loved ones who is a full blown gambling addict is not in that game, it is because they went broke before they made it there.
People don't understand what it means to be a gambling addict. I knew a lady who blew 20k in two nights. She would lie to her husband constantly on the phone while we were playing, saying she was in the car. She would stay there until 6am and she would have to be in court the next day at 10am. She would make up all these appointments to her husband, dentist appointments, appointments for this, for that. She lost, I don't know, it had to be almost 70k in three months or so in a game. She was borrowing money from everybody. She would disappear for a month and then come back. She still goes to the game. You guys don't understand what it really means to be a gambling addict. You are thinking like, oh, lose a hundred dollars here, a thousand dollars there. I'm talking about like losing EVERYTHING. She has had herself banned from Foxwoods and then she seeked out this home game and is playing $100/200 and is into a bunch of shady guys for tens of thousands of dollars. And that can happen to someone you love and care for very deeply. One of the possible paths. I dunno. I guess it's falling on deaf ears.