I have never been in a betting shop, no online stuff might have done a sweep at work on a World Cup come to think of it I don’t even do secret Santa !
My Dad loved the horses, studied the form and was pretty serious, I have no idea how much he was winning and loosing but he was supplementing his income.
So no I don’t gamble
When you double do you only get one card on each. My black jack is a bit rusty.
The maths says you would take another card on each of the 14 and 15 against a dealers 6, but can’t remember the rules on spitting pairs.
Yeah one card on the double.
Figured worst case I’d win one of the hands.
Turns out, not so 
gutted.
Mate of mine missed out on a house jackpot for a royal flush in a casino in Manchester by not betting correctly, and he’s an experienced player. Cost him about 40k 
Update on my gambling status
Cribbage with my mum for pennies …long time ago…fuck I miss her!
I could almost copy & paste this. Have a go on the lottery (I know the odds are pointless).
Probably a typical Yorkshireman who doesn’t like giving his money away 
Where I used to work, we had a woman who was obsessed with the lottery ( another that used to have a betting ‘system’). She was always broke and lived with a loser b/f.
Every time there was a big money draw she’d organise a whip round. When I first joined I’d lob in £2.50 here and there but then it became week after week chasing the ‘rollover’.
Then she tried to organise a proper syndicate and I advised that if was doing that and obligating people to pay every week, she should draw up a contract (which is on the lottery site). Now this woman was morbidly obese and lazier than a sloth on Xantax, so I knew that wouldn’t happen.
I told her I was out and that it was a ‘tax on the stupid’, which of course helped the situation. I got howls of protest about how ‘she would do the right thing’ if we won big and I guess she would but this was a woman that had zero self control and zero self esteem.
She lived in a council flat, paid next to nothing in rent and council tax and was always broke. (took a finance deal on an iPhoneX!). I often wondered if there was more going on there gambling wise than she was letting on.
Bookies and online services must absolutely prey on the desperate and lonely.
Nice guys do dope.
Never been much of a gambler. I go horse racing a couple of times a year but only bet a couple of quid each race. I did once win £80+ off £2 each way. It was a Spring meet and they were the only two horses with summer coats so had been in training longer.
I think the relaxed view of governments, considering the trouble people get into, is to make up for the lack of revenue from smoking.
We had this at a former company, I tried to tell people that if we paid £x between us with the number of lines we could afford we could do some permutations and obviously not guarantee a win but certainly enhance the chances of a win. Someone else took the reins and kind of never put the money on, unfortunately for her we had a 4 number win in the second or third week which she hadn’t bought the ticket for leaving her a) out of pocket; b) with a pretty untenable position in the company.
When my great grandfather died in 1957 he was almost penniless: he had over £7m in IOU’s in his safe. Apparently he would bet on anything and everything.
The short answer is no. I think it is silly for anything beyond entertainment value (though I recognise that in the financial markets, killings can be made), but at a personal level, nah it’s a mugs game, beyond entertainment value. But each to their own.
The sum total of my gambling was the first few months of the National Lottery I bought a ticket a week, perhaps historically a handful of scratch cards, and I once visited a casino in Shirpol? Airport for 20 min or so, using up left over notes (not many). The best an entertainment casino night for play money, at Centre Parcs years ago, which I really enjoyed.
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Yet anyone who ever reviews my internet history will see, I don’t know, five plus years of heavy Vegas surfing, it’s perhaps my biggest search daily! But I use that for various reasons including: to try to get my mind around why people gamble from vp grinders to $25 million programs in a weekend, (I have read various gambling books and think that I now get it); identifying things that enable me grow as a person (I won’t bore you with the esoteric details) but eg could be why this restaurant or that, hooker, host, or grumpy player issues; using that knowledge to help me (in the past) grow in intuitive skillsets; and gaining, to some virtual degree, holidays and experiences that I can’t afford. Obviously not as good as actually doing it, but as you know from a previous post re the Jockey Club, I have quite a detailed knowledge of Vegas for someone who has never been.
What I have found to be addictive are player club loyalty cards, and when I realised that I emptied my wallet of my shop cards, the ones I rarely use, and hardly bother to use them, cracking that addiction.
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I think everyone here will have a bit of an addictive personality how else do you train for Ironman et all?
Addiction isn’t necessarily bad, it can help drive innovation, loyalty, etc. It’s can also be a good way to help learn to know yourself a bit better (but balance is required here), lots of that in long race training for those who really think about how they push through.
But what the heck do I know. (With a bit of applied training over years a number here could potentially be finding subs! Sorry couldn’t help myself. 
)
One of my sons friends told me he lost (40 or 60k I forget which) gambling over a few years, where his grandparents dug him out of the hole. Wonder if they knew the money was for gambling? He explained to me how a £500 win on a physical slot could make him forget he was down £2k that day.
There is an excellent book on how slots addict you, called Something like how slots machines addict you. It’s a fascinating read, I can dig out the details if anyone is interested. It’s US focused, but explains how everything in a casino is designed to get you ‘in the zone’.
£7m in 1957?! Wow, they must have been some understanding creditors; I don’t want to appear insensitive, but did it finally catch up with him?
Actually the other way round, people owed him £7m. From what I understand, he wasnt to interested in the money, he just wanted to gamble… most of the IOUs dated from 1920s, 30s and 40s
Until fairly recently around 2008 or so gambling debts weren’t enforceable, doesn’t mean that people weren’t ‘encouraged’ to pay up though I suspect
Not a gambler and it’s never piqued my interest. I nearly put £1k into Bitcoin a few years ago when it was trading at £800. I even opened a Coin Floor account and had my mouse hovering over the execute purchase button. But I hit cancel instead as I kept remembering the rule don’t ever invest in what you don’t understand. And very few people actually understand crypto and certainty not me. Obviously I regret the few £k I missed there.
I put this here because a lot of “investing” isn’t investing but closet gambling IMHO, though folks prefer the less stigmatised term “speculation”. Gambling has many guises…
Talking about that sort of stuff, anyone else on bogleheads forum? I don’t post but enjoy lurking there.
I have a few stories from my days working in horse racing but while there certainly is cheating it isn’t as widespread as people think. Although at evening feed time all the stalbe lads and lasses had to leave the feed room once we had filled the buckets and each horse had their supplements added from the locked cupboard. Genuinely no idea what was given.
I was once at the races and we had used one bookie for several races, then for a later race we were at different part of the track and I saw the bookie’s runner laying off a huge bet with another bookie so copied his bet, horse not amount, and won.
Apart from the drugs, family, organised crime links, racism, sexism, homophobia etc. then yeah, sound fella!
I’m with you, I think he’s a dickhead. The cheeky chap act seems to work though.