There are only two types of gamblers; losers and liars

Seriously. There aren’t any winners in gambling.

I don’t care if you are world’s number 1 poker player. You’re a gambler. Sorry, but it’s the truth.

No amount of mollycoddling and twisting of facts to show XYZ stats and figures will change my mind.

At best one can learn lessons.

Like, you start off with $1 per bet, hit a few big ones along the way. You end up losing. Then over the years move to $10, $100, $1000 per bet, lose a lot more. Then go broke, never to be seen or heard from again.

If the luck is “always” on your side, at the end of it all, you’ll almost breakeven. And even this stat is scarce.

This Redditor has the right idea:

For me it was realizing no amount is big enough to where I feel I would walk away or quit. It’s not about the winning. It’s about the gambling and ‘battle’

I could win $10k today and have a desire to up my bets to ‘win’ more.

For years $5 sports bets kept me engaged and active. But we know how this goes. Soon it’s a $250 bet to break yourself even from a bad slot session. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. You become immune to the actual wager amount won after some time.

You aren’t happy. You just continue on like an endless battle.

One really has to reset their dopamine if it gets to this point.

The tragedy is that if resetting were that simple; we wouldn’t have degenerates roaming about, ruining their lives along with the lives of their families.

Problem gambling is a disease. There isn’t a “Aha” moment that can steer you towards profitability.

I look at stock trading the same way.

Millions enter the market daily, use all sorts of technical indicators, price action charts, fundamentals, yet, the majority of retail investors always buy when the wider market is ready to sell, and always sell when the market is ready to shoot up.

Same fallacy applies to degen gamblers. They keep using mythical overused cliché sayings like “Know when to hold em and when to fold em” or even stupid ones like, “bro if you stop chasing losses on slots and shift to 5 leg parlays, that would reset your dopamine.”

Thing is. It doesn’t work. Not for the long term at least.

May be sports betting; provided you’re really good at it, provides you with a temporary edge, but that also wouldn’t last back to back, to cover your losses and put you in the black at the end of the month.

This is where my point comes to play. Like, if it’s just a dopamine rush, then why bet $100 a bet, when 10cents a bet can do the same trick. Why drink an expensive glass of champagne, when few Buds can give the same buzz.

At least this way, you will lose less. Get the same “hit” and also have a roof over your head.

If you “gamble to lose” in your mind; chances are high you’ll take control. Because then you’re expecting only loss. No wins. This way you’ll at least try to keep a cool mind about it. Here’s what another Redditor said in the same thread:

I was trying to recoup losses on sports bets, being really careful and had a specific goal. I, in my 30 years of gambling, had never had less enjoyment from it. I realized I was not gambling to lose like I normally do (gambling for entertainment, an appropriate amount, and expecting to lose). I always gamble to lose now and I enjoy it again.

You have to look at it as a means to lose money. Not win. All your wins at gambling are fake. You will give them back to the house sooner or later. If you change your mindset this way, I don’t think you’ll need dopamine management lessons.

It also doesn’t matter whether you play at a fiat or a fan-favorite crypto casino. In fact, crypto casinos get a bad rap for so many reasons.

Your winning streak is only in your head. The odds are always stacked against you

Gambling can never be a source to make quick extra cash on the side.

Every casino game, even sports betting, has set of probabilities attached to it. You should know that. A few have have a higher chance of hitting compared to others, but in the end, the house always has a slight edge. This is not an unknown fact, I’m stating. I’m being Captain Obvious here.

You’d be surprised how bad the slot machines are when it comes to paying out. The typical chance of you winning the jackpot is as low as 1 in 5000 to 1 in 34 million or more, provided you played at the maximum coin level. So, even here it’s just pure luck. The RTP, no matter how high can’t change these probabilities.

The major winners in this business are only casinos and sportsbooks. You know, just in the US alone, in 2023, commercial gaming activities amounted to $66.5 Billion (Source: Investopedia). And this is just the legal bit. I haven’t even touched the offshore betting sites, where data is not available. One can imagine how much brands like Bovada and BetOnline are pulling.

The data in the table below was taken from Wizard of Odds, and it should give you a fair idea on the house edge, casinos enjoy over the expense of their patrons:

I guess a bit of soothing news here is that the majority of the people who visit physical casinos or even play online, do it for entertainment. Most don’t go and bet their house. No matter what the mass media tells you, problem gamblers actually make up a small percentage of the crowd.

It’s only when people lose a fair amount, and then dump in more money to make the losses back, is when matters start moving southwards. It is at this point, such individuals need to get a grip on reality, happily take their loss, and move on with their life.

The good news is that most actually do. The small number who don’t and get trapped in the vicious cycle of playing to satisfy their ego, come up with all sorts of excuses, mathematics and stats to keep the charade running.

It’s therefore important that if you spot someone going through this phase among your friends or family, that you should give him or her an intervention. They may not like it, tell you to mind your own life, but at least it will give you the satisfaction that you stepped up, when it was needed the most.