Gambling and betting are thrilling. They probably poke something deep in the reptilian part of your brainstem. If I were better at it, it might become a compulsion for me - so I try to stay away from it and do it in moderation when given the opportunity. FOCUS: What kind of role does gambling play in your life? Is it a problem for you? Do you use it to supplement (or provide) your income? ALT FOCUS: Ever make a really bad bet and lose? Doesn't have to be for money...did you ever have to shave your head and wear a tutu for a week because the Rangers choked in the finals?
I love to play blackjack and I love the wheel of fortune slot machine and since I have a very addictive personality I pretty much only gamble when I go to vegas but I get my monies worth when I do. The rush I get from it is counteracted by the guilt I feel the next day when I think about what I could have done with the 500-600 I lost, that is about my tolerance of what I can lose before I quit. My wife will tell me she is going to bed around 10 and I tell her I will be up in a few hours and at 4am I will show up. I have never won anything big but I did win 1000 quarters on wheel of fortune last time I was in vegas.
I definitely am a big gambling fan. I love Vegas for that reason. I go to some of the Indian casinos once and awhile in the Midwest, but they suck and I usually avoid them. Losing in craps when the dice landed on chips and rested on an angle, while surrounded by chain smoking rednecks and the most depressing lighting ever is not something I enjoy. Give me the bright lights, pumped in oxygen, and sensory overload any day. I play mostly craps and blackjack. I've not had a good run of blackjack my last few trips, but I've more than made up for it in craps. I used to play alot of poker online, but the laws and regulations have really put a damper on that. I miss cashing in and out within minutes on my credit card. I've recently got into sports betting, half to have fun and half to see if I couldn't supplement my income a bit. I finished last football season about even, this year I've gotten wrecked. I have a problem with money management which probably will prevent me from ever being long term profitable. I'm an action junkie for sure.
Poker is my game (prefer 7 card stud over Hold'em), I have SHIT luck with blackjack and I am not smart enough to count cards. I used to gamble on football in college but I could never keep track of the lines, the odd bet I make now and then is always on the O/U. I know a lot of guys who bet on baseball but that shit was always confusing as hell to me, I'll just stick with poker.
Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods are both an hour and a half away, and were 30 minutes away when I was in college. And in CT, there's little else to do. So yeah, I did my fair share when I was younger. And when online poker wasn't illegal, I could sit all night and play blackjack, even if it was with the fake money.
I'm one of those people that gets a rush out of gambling. I like it. It gets my heart going and its exciting to me. I use to be a big black jack player and whenever I was in Vegas that was my game. However you can lose a lot of money in hurry and if the dealers hot its over pretty quickly. I've won far more than I've lost but I've moved on to other games. My current favorite is craps. Just playing basic strategy you can play for a while without breaking the bank. Last time I was there my buddy rolled and hit hard about 6 times, not to mention the 5's and 6's he hit. He made me about $300, considering I was playing $15 that was pretty solid. It was the most fun I've had gambling, that includes the first time I played roulette and hit hard and made a quick $350 and walked away. Three card poker is fun to. One game I detest and so help me God I'll never play again is roulette. That is the biggest waste of money on the floor.
So the whole pumped in oxygen thing is a crock. They have the standard regulations on refreshing the cubic feet of air every x amount of minutes or hours but they don't pump in oxygen to get the players high or any such nonsense. Most big buildings do the same thing, that's why there are huge exhaust on the roofs. In general Im not huge into gambling as I can't "have fun losing." Sure winning is great, but walking away from a Casino down doesn't make it a net positive in my mind. I didn't even gamble when I was in Vegas this summer, though I did the summer before once and went up 100 bucks in about 10 minutes at craps. There was a while at an old job where we would go to the boats every Sunday as two of my bosses loved gambling*. After blowing the 50 Id take in less then 15 minutes at black jack three weekends in a row I quit going. That shit isn't fun and I am not one of those people who'll go to the ATM time after time hoping to double up cover the loss. One of my bosses spent 600 in increasing increments trying to gain back what he lost. The other wasn't even allowed to bring his credit/debit card to Vegas by his wife because he is a vicious gambler (and mighty P whipped). *(they both were in Vegas with me this summer since it was one's bachelor party)
I won $7500 on one hand of "Let It Ride" once, ended up close to $10k ahead. I also won $6000 on another hand of the same game. I haven't been to the casino in years though, I hate all the cigarette smoke.
Aside from the occasional sports betting, I tend to do most of my gambling in Vegas, mainly because I hate Indians and I know the hookers are steam cleaned nightly. The most I was ever down was about two grand. I decided my future kids might want to go to college some day, so I decided to cut my losses there.
I play poker fairly regularly (maybe a couple times a month), at one of the CT casinos. I'm not nearly as disciplined as I should be, but overall I tend to win money. I've realized I play really well small and medium-stacked, but don't always adjust when deep, so I tend to build huge stacks and then bleed them off. Cost me a lot of money over the years, so I should get on that.
Question: I was thinking of playing some blackjack while I was here (in Vegas) but the tables at Cesar's Palace I noticed pay 6 to 5 for a blackjack. Is that uniform or can I find a table that pays better? In a more general sense, are all the casinos in Vegas the same or do different ones pay out differently for their games?
Derr.... <a class="postlink" href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=do+all+casinos+in+vegas+pay+the+same+for+blackjack" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://lmgtfy.com/?q=do+all+casinos+in+ ... +blackjack</a> Spoiler http://www.intensegambling.com/casinos/usa/las-vegas/best-blackjack/
I've played a lot of poker and been fairly successful. Recently I deposited $50, ran it up to $2100 in about a month, then cashed out and quit again. It was what I did my first 3 years of college instead of working to pay bills. I really wish I enjoyed it more because I probably could do it for a career if it didn't bore me to tears once I'm burnt out on it. It's fun, but gets so monotonous after awhile. Plus, the hold em boom both helped and ruined poker. It's a great game, but there's over a hundred good games. It's so sad that people today only want to play that because they saw it on tv. Then at best they usually only know 5 other games. I've flirted with sports gambling and done ok, but I really just enjoy watching the games without placing bets. I never understood why people think it takes a genius to count cards. Maybe it's just because I have a mathematical mind, but it was always pretty easy for me. You're adding 1, 0, or -1 for most counting systems. We're not exactly talking about high level math here. You just have to be fast, but really, it's pretty fucking easy. However, these days you can't even get a 52% advantage over the house unless the deck really runs in your favor. The casinos I've played at use 6 decks and reshuffle halfway through. There's probably places you can go to get decent odds, but it takes a lot of patience, and counting while playing is about as boring as it gets.
I used to host poker nights with food and booze at my place. I'm decent up until I have more than 3 drinks, then it goes downhill really fast. Unfortunately since it was my house and I didn't have to drive anywhere, I always drank 5+ drinks. Go me, right?
There's an Indian casino not too far from here that I've been to a few times. I'll play blackjack at the $5 minimum tables for a bit but as soon as I make or lose $20 I get up from the table and watch my friends lose money. I like my money too much to be taking risks with it.
I have never gambled...don't gamble...and don't even understand gambling. My ten year old understands more about poker than I do. I just like bouncy and blingy and sparkly things. And casinos have those. So... The Husband can do all that. I just like the sensory input.
I play tournament poker pretty regularly at a card room about 30 minutes away in NH with occasional trips down to a CT casino. It's been hit or miss, but my game is improving. I really love hold 'em, it's got a never ending series of nuances and situations to grasp and while it can be frustrating I think I can eventually turn it into a profitable venture.
So many of m Friend are into Texas hold 'em, sports gambling, blackjack, and I just never got into gambling. I mean, stepping back and looking at it it's simply watching your money disappear into thin air. How fast it goes it up to you. I don't mind roulette now and then, it's kind of exciting and fun (if you win) but slots are for dummies and honestly I don't know how to play craps which the Americans simply PILE around the tables up here. Gambling just simply never interested or excited me. At one factory I used to work at, guys were insane garbage disposals for gambling. They would walk up to each other and bet fifty bucks on a fucking coin toss on the spot. That's nuts. Fifty bucks will get you Good Drunk or fill your car or something else of great value and you pissed it away in a heartbeat.
My dad, being an actuary, enjoys pretty much everything having to do with probability. He liked to go over to Foxwoods and count cards every once in a while. Never for anything big, just for the intellectual challenge of it. He usually sat at a ten-dollar table, all the while chuckling at the idiots who would throw their money away on hunches. He would play for six hours or so and would usually win around $150 or so. Sometimes he won more, (I do remember him taking us all to a nice steakhouse after he won $600) sometimes he lost his two hundred bucks, but he definitely won more than he lost. One of the things he taught me was decent basic strategy. Yep, while other kids were playing catch with Dad, (he did play catch with me every once in a while) I was up in his bedroom with the change jar, playing blackjack and slowly learning basic strategy through trial and error. Mom didn't like the fact that when I was 9, I could explain how you split twos and threes on everything except for 8 and up, but would only split fours on 5s and 6s. He tried to teach me how to count cards, but I didn't really have the discipline to stick with the amount of practice that is required to get it down to second nature. A basic high-low system isn't hard to learn, but it takes a lot of practice to get it to the point where you can actually keep track on a fast-moving casino table. I've been to casinos three times since turning 21; I've won every time, (not much money, as I was playing low stakes) but not through any sort of special effort on my part. Blackjack has a house edge of about .7% if you're playing an eight-deck game with the dealer hitting on soft 17, and if you only play for a couple hours, the probability of coming out ahead is about 42-43%. That's even enough for it to be at least fun. One thing I detest is retards who get mad when I "steal their cards." Motherfucker, it's RANDOM! I had a guy almost try to fight me when I split 7s (again, always split 7s except for 8 and up). He started blubbering about how you "never split 7s" and got incensed when I "took" his king and gave him a 3 instead. On the other hand, I get a vicious pleasure in watching idiots lose their money. They didn't do their homework, they didn't study the game, and as a result they give the house an enormous advantage. I guess I take after my father in that regard. I had one guy tell me after I asked the cocktail waitress for a Sprite, "Huh, you gettin' a Sprite? You from Utah, boy?" "... no." "Whaddya think you're doin' gettin' a Sprite at a blackjack table, Utah boy?" "Winning." He looked down at his little pile of chips (He was at least a thousand dollars in the hole) and looked very, very sad. I cashed out soon afterwards and took all my friends out to dinner.