Taking a "break" from online gambling

[pacers31]

I know what you mean Dewberry, just the fact that most everyone responding to this thread seems to be having the same type of experience makes me wonder even more about the fairness of the games. Both of the sites I was regularly playing (one RTG, one MG) are both on the CM accredited list. I'm beginning to wonder if they are accredited because they never have to pay anyone, thus no payment issues involved. Perhaps we are all suckers and like the saying goes, "never give a sucker an even break". The breaks are no where near even these days.

[Darem1]

After playing my comp points on Millionaire to no avail, I deposited $50 and decided to play another favorite, Coral Cash. At 45 cents a spin I was just hoping to hit the feature, maybe a respin or two, and get at least another ten or twenty dollars to have another go at Millionaire's Club. The rapid fire jackpot was almost twelve hundred dollars, AND I GOT IT! I have played the rapid fire jackpots a LOT and have NEVER gotten the jackpot on any less than a $2.25 spin, and mostly on the $9 spins. I found that cashout button real fast and sent $900 to Neteller. It may not stay there, at least not all of it, but at least I didn't play it all back the same night. Now, Casinomeister told me through this forum about a neat site called GoneGambling. I have signed up, and the first thing I did was to claim my "high roller" (at least $300 a month deposited) bonus with Intercasino that let me play with their money for an hour or so.
I am still trying to figure out a lot of that site, but it is FREE, fun, and did I mention FREE!!!! So when I am on "break" from the casino, I can always play there. By the way, I signed up with 32Red on some of you good peoples' recommendations, and so I can try a Microgaming casino.

[Slotmachine]

Good thread. I was hesitating to post this, but what the hell, here goes. I've gambled online and offline for 2 years and last New Year's I realized it's taking up too much of my time. I've found that my work and social life have been suffering. I've got a fairly well paying job and still somehow I'm always nearly broke. I didn't quite realize how much money I've spent on gambling until I did a serious review of my accounts. So I took about 1 month off gambling, then started again with smaller bets, thinking maybe I should quit altogether, but I didn't really want to - I loved gambling too much.

Well as some of you might know I was then blessed with some incredible luck at Cherry. Vowing I'd never gamble my winnings again, I soon realized that the money was going back to the casinos, and fast. I had the good sense to pay off my biggest debts, buy a car and a new computer, but I gambled the rest of the winnings, not even realizing it until the money was gone. It's happened to me before: It's like not knowing what hit you and then the money is gone. All rational thinking is thrown to the wind. It's like waking up from the dream and saying, I can't possibly have done that! There's got to be some mistake..

But it was all too true, and in a way it's good because I finally awakened from this 2-year dream. I quit. I realized it's the only way for me to go because I only got one life and it seems I've got a problem gambler inside me and there's just no way I can enjoy gambling in moderation. I still didn't want to quit because it's such a big rush. But it's just something I can't have in this life and I've got to give it up whether I want it or not.

The most important realization: There is no "exit" win. I'll always come back for more, for bigger wins. The only way for me to quit is while losing. It was impossible to quit when winning. Sure, I hit 50K, and it helped a lot with the debts and such, but I was well on my way back to zero. In fact, I was back to zero, again waiting for next month's paycheck.

So that's what I did. I wrote to all the casinos and had myself excluded forever, and shut down my Neteller account. Some casinos seemed to be hell bent on getting just a few more deposits out of me and wouldn't close my account permanently, others complied immediately. 32Red was again the exemplary casino - I got a courteous letter from management assuring that they have banned me forever at my request and offered to help me out in any way they could. I also had myself excluded forever from the local brick-n-mortar.

Well, I'm off it now, and what a summer it's turning out to be. It only took about a month but now I'm thinking of gambling less and less frequently. Almost never now. During this month I've had a massive increase in social life, work efficiency, and I've even started a small internet business for the fun of it, which has started off pretty well and already earning a little bit of extra money, and I'm directing my addictive potential to doing creative and productive things now.

I'm not saying everyone's a problem gambler and wish happy gambling for those who can do it in moderation, but while I' consider myself generally a fairly strong person, this is my weakness and cold turkey is the only way for me.

Wishing everybody here all the best, I'll log in now and then to see what's going on with you guys.

If there's anybody here who needs to talk to someone or has found himself in a similar situation, or needs help in any way, please feel free to PM me, I'll be more than happy to share and to offer whatever support I can. I've thought and read about this so much that I've gained some insight regarding strategies to regain control, financial recovery, and so on and I'm willing to share. I'll always make time to help out a fellow gambler. For the rest of you, good luck at the tables, stay smart!

Cheers,
SM

[Pinababy69]

Top points for honesty SlotMachine. I wish you all the best. I think there are a few who read this forum who could and should take a page out of your book. I've always said gambling addiction is about more than just the money, and I was glad to see you mention the social and work ramifications. They can be just as harmful as the financial aspect. I hope that anyone else in your situation will really take that post to heart, and give it some good long thought.

[KasinoKing]

Ditto to above and good luck to all trying to 'go straight'.

Regarding the posts higher up - I agree!
MG & RTG slots are just no fun any more - someone somewhere has flicked the switch.
Even I, a committed low-roller and controlled gambler have been really struggling to make anything over the last two months and I am also considering taking a break.

Darem1: WTG on the RF jackpot! (No screenshot?)

[lydia]

again waiting for next month's paycheck.

SM

Great post, Slotmashine !

You are talking from the deep of my soul.
I am going to take a loooong break from gambling online - you can not win no matter what you do. I was very impressed by 'scary Costa Rica thread'. You are throwing your hard- earned money in the hope for Lady Luck and some (I wanted to write criminals but better not) laugh at you in the 'back office' seeing your pathetic attempts to win and then decide if they switch a 'win-mode' for you... or not.
The most dissapointing for me, that even so-called 'reputable' casinos don't let you win after big (sometimes even small) cashout untill you pay back or they let you win of small fraction of your deposit..
I didn'pay attention at first but with more experience I've started to analyse ...

[Mousey]

Best of luck to ya, Slotmachine!

KK -- I totally agree. Something is wrong, seriously wrong with the casinos. OK. Maybe I'm just having a bad, bad, year long losing streak. I know that in the long run, the casinos will win. However, I also know that's it really weird to play as much as we all do and see so few decent hits. I'm not talking about jackpots, I mean, I haven't hit anything better than $25 on a single spin in so long I don't remember what it's like.

I've been taking a semi-break from gambling for the last month or so. Playing bonuses when they come in, or maybe depositing $25 for a promo here and there. And the play is not getting any better for me at the casinos.

Last night I downloaded, signed up and deposited $50 at All Jackpots. Received a $225 bonus. WR= $5500 slots only. The reasons I took the bonus was: (1) I thought maybe I'd be able to play longer than 2 minutes before busting out; (2) I also assumed I'd bust out quickly anyway if I didn't take the bonus; (3) I wanted to see if feeding more than my usual $25 or $50 through the slots would let me see some better payouts.

Results: I busted out in about 30 minutes playing various slots no more than $2 per spin (other than a couple of spins on Cash Splash), hitting nothing bigger than $30 at any one time. I saw no bonus rounds on Ladies Nite, Twister, or Thunderstruck. I managed to get above my starting balance (up to $325) only briefly, early on.

I struggled to eek out around $700 in wagers. Ridiculous!! That's something like 2.5 times the starting balance. Even on slots, that is bad... very bad!

This is not meant as a slap to All Jackpots. No doubt the results would have been similar at any MG casinos where I play. Or even at INetBet. Haven't seen a RF or decent bonus round at an RTG casino in forever, either.

So, I continue monitoring the boards, and playing only on occasion, waiting to see if things begin to improve.

[ballysdb]

Slotmachine: Thank you for your honesty. I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, but I feel a little better when I find out there are others who are going through the same thing as me. What amazing courage and strength it must have taken to ban yourself forever from the casinos. I have thought about doing it for a few months and I cant even do that. I'm so glad to see that it can be done. God bless you and good luck with everything in your life!

[soflat]

I think you all were just lucky before because I never won anything from slot machines in 15 years.

Anyways, I took a few weeks break then the poker sites started depositing cash into my accounts.

And now I got hooked on All Aces video poker. I could fill the Screenshots That Suck thread from this quest. If I could just hit those darn Aces....

[dominique]

Slotmachine, more power to you!

Many of us are susceptible to one addiction or another.

My mother smoked exactly one cigarette a day, after dinner. Every day, all her adult life.

I started smoking and soon smoked 3+ packs a day and after 20 years of that I decided to quit. It took me 3 years and 17 serious attempts to actually quit and stay quit.

I was terribly hooked and caughing and my lungs have not recovered even after staying quit for 10 years.

Luckily I do not have a gambling addiction, I set a money limit, a time limit and a cashout goal and have no trouble sticking to these. But from my experience with nicotine I totally understand what you may be going through.

I congratulate you on quitting and on staying quit, and if you have any trouble with it at all, I will be happy to help you stay quit as best I can.