I lost maybe 100-200 euros opening lootboxes in Counterstrike. Not at once but maybe 20 euros at a time. At some point I realized it didn’t make any sense to continue buying them and I haven’t spent money on microtransactions since.
I won $40 on a slot machine and also wondered why people thought it’s fun
Edit to add a fun story: I went to a concert at a casino. It was a known metal band performing 70s and 80s rock music that inspired them, and most of the folks were there for the big name metal band. You have to walk through the casino to get to the space where the performance is so basically all of the concert goes just walked right past the slot machines and card tables and straight into the concert around 9ish, and then straight out around midnight.
Lemme tell you the old ladies getting off the retirement home bus at midnight to spend the early morning with the one-armed-bandit and the other old ladies sitting at the slot machines gave us concert goers the dirtiest most judgemental looks imaginable. I was a young adult and it took me a bit to realize how rediculous it was for the ones being miserable while gambling away their life savings in the middle of the night thought us concert goers who spent $50 to go spend a few hours seeing some awesome live music and walking out with shit eating grins on our faces were the ones making poor life choices
I once got 20x the payout from a slot machine in a pub when I was in my teens. Thought i would never be this lucky again, withdraw the winnings and spend it all by buying a Gameboy game. Never spend any money on gambling again in my life.
What put me off from gambling at an early age was trying to get a porygon in the original Pokemon Red Version.
Also, I played a lot of casino minigames in the Mario64 DS remake. I did alright at some but it definitely taught me that you can never truly predict the outcomes, so don’t bet with anything you don’t mind losing.
As an adult though, I literally never felt the desire to actually gamble with real money. That sounds idiotic.
Brother took me to a casino for my 21st birthday. I did a bit of research, so I only took in $40 and left my atm card at home.
I wanted to play the cool looking slot machines. Brother convinced me that roulette was going to be way more fun. It was a busy night, so it took almost an hour to get a spot at the table. And the minimum bet was $10. Roughly 3 min after finally getting to bet, I’d lost all $40, having not won a single time (even my bets on the colors failed).
It was so utterly disappointing, especially when the next person in our party got to the table and managed to keep their bets going for over an hour and left with a few hundred extra $ that night. Most of the night was me just standing around bored out of my mind.
I’m very thankful for that early experience. Later experiences were better, but also far more tempting. I attribute my ability to resist the temptation largely to how shitty that first night was.
I don’t gamble often but when I do I treat it as an entertainment expense. I can budget $60 to going to a casino or for buying tickets to something. When the $60 is gone I am done.
It’s all about $/hr of entertainment value.
That said I haven’t really been gambling for 20 years.
This is also my gambling story! I also lost money to those slots on a ship as a teenager. Although it was a ferry to England, not a cruise. But I haven’t gambled since.
My trick is to try to separate “winnings” from the amount planned for gambling. I look at it as how much to spend for time of entertainment. The idea would be to try to only lose the original 20SEK you started with and try to move the over 40SEK into the other pants pocket.
It’s not always easy, and it’s harder with the stupid electronic cards that I’m sure track your profitability.
![All Hail Gamblor [PizzaCake]](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/2d9c12ff-0566-41ef-84b1-bd75003eb91a.webp){kind=link}
I will forever be thankful for a cruise I went on when I was in my teens.
There were unrestricted gambling slot machines, I had 20SEK, I started gambling at one machine, and won! I tripled my money, so I had 60SEK.
Instead of being sensible and buying snacks, I gambled more later, and lost it all.
It was not a large amount of money, but it still stings, and have put me off of gambling ever since.
It was probably the best return I have ever gotten from any money.
I lost maybe 100-200 euros opening lootboxes in Counterstrike. Not at once but maybe 20 euros at a time. At some point I realized it didn’t make any sense to continue buying them and I haven’t spent money on microtransactions since.
This is like my gambling story, except I just lost $60 on a slot machine in ten minutes and wondered why people thought this was fun.
I won $40 on a slot machine and also wondered why people thought it’s fun
Edit to add a fun story: I went to a concert at a casino. It was a known metal band performing 70s and 80s rock music that inspired them, and most of the folks were there for the big name metal band. You have to walk through the casino to get to the space where the performance is so basically all of the concert goes just walked right past the slot machines and card tables and straight into the concert around 9ish, and then straight out around midnight.
Lemme tell you the old ladies getting off the retirement home bus at midnight to spend the early morning with the one-armed-bandit and the other old ladies sitting at the slot machines gave us concert goers the dirtiest most judgemental looks imaginable. I was a young adult and it took me a bit to realize how rediculous it was for the ones being miserable while gambling away their life savings in the middle of the night thought us concert goers who spent $50 to go spend a few hours seeing some awesome live music and walking out with shit eating grins on our faces were the ones making poor life choices
Alex Trebek said that gambling had no appeal for him.
If he won $100.00 it didn’t make any difference in his life, and if he lost $100.00 he felt like an idiot.
I once got 20x the payout from a slot machine in a pub when I was in my teens. Thought i would never be this lucky again, withdraw the winnings and spend it all by buying a Gameboy game. Never spend any money on gambling again in my life.
What put me off from gambling at an early age was trying to get a porygon in the original Pokemon Red Version.
Also, I played a lot of casino minigames in the Mario64 DS remake. I did alright at some but it definitely taught me that you can never truly predict the outcomes, so don’t bet with anything you don’t mind losing.
As an adult though, I literally never felt the desire to actually gamble with real money. That sounds idiotic.
I really like the slot machines that occasionally blow you up in Borderlands 2.
Gotta get those inventory upgrades!
Gamblers: I love the thrill that I could lose it all!
Gamers: RNGesus is a punk ass bitch
Brother took me to a casino for my 21st birthday. I did a bit of research, so I only took in $40 and left my atm card at home.
I wanted to play the cool looking slot machines. Brother convinced me that roulette was going to be way more fun. It was a busy night, so it took almost an hour to get a spot at the table. And the minimum bet was $10. Roughly 3 min after finally getting to bet, I’d lost all $40, having not won a single time (even my bets on the colors failed).
It was so utterly disappointing, especially when the next person in our party got to the table and managed to keep their bets going for over an hour and left with a few hundred extra $ that night. Most of the night was me just standing around bored out of my mind.
I’m very thankful for that early experience. Later experiences were better, but also far more tempting. I attribute my ability to resist the temptation largely to how shitty that first night was.
I’d say that’s 20SEK well spent to learn a valuable lesson.
I don’t gamble often but when I do I treat it as an entertainment expense. I can budget $60 to going to a casino or for buying tickets to something. When the $60 is gone I am done.
It’s all about $/hr of entertainment value.
That said I haven’t really been gambling for 20 years.
This is also my gambling story! I also lost money to those slots on a ship as a teenager. Although it was a ferry to England, not a cruise. But I haven’t gambled since.
My trick is to try to separate “winnings” from the amount planned for gambling. I look at it as how much to spend for time of entertainment. The idea would be to try to only lose the original 20SEK you started with and try to move the over 40SEK into the other pants pocket.
It’s not always easy, and it’s harder with the stupid electronic cards that I’m sure track your profitability.