Hi, I posted a couple years ago a few times, but I've travelling a lot and doing stuff with university. I'm not a standard student.
Literally as soon as I turned 18, I had some fairly astronomical sports betting wins. I grew up in London, among the private school, dad works for an investment bank, social scene, so I had access to funds to gamble with, but anyway I won over £120,000 betting on sport in a few months. I obviously had an incredible degree of luck, in addition sports betting companies like bet365, betfair, william hill, make big pricing errors, and are very exploitable and beatable.
But anyway, I'd been going to casinos for a couple of years by then already with a fake ID. Playing blackjack small stakes, bringing £200 a time and really playing till i lost it. I was probably down 2/3k total at the time. Unfortunately with this new money I started playing very very large stakes. I moved up to £500 a box, then £1000, and by the end I was playing £5000 a box. Mainly live in the empire casino in London, but also online casino games on sports betting sites. The last night I played in London, i'd taken out 25k, had won was up to 73k, was about to leave having called a taxi, but decided I'd play one more 2k hand, win it to get to 75k (up 50k), then lost about 15 straight hands and lost the whole lot.
Nowadays I play recreational poker, I've lost a lot playing cash. I've probably played 1000 hours + of live cash in casinos, but my mentality's dreadful. Firstly I don't want to win or take other people's money. It makes me feel bad, these guys often are playing with their weekly salary, and for me the money's not that important. And secondly I play to gamble, to chase draws, to play every pot whatever position and whatever starting hand. The idea of pf playing tight, even if it's profitable, seems boring to me. I'm there for the buzz and the thrill, not the money, though the amount i've lost is quite scary over time. The best solution is to play tournaments, and I do often, but occasionally I succumb to my urges and play cash. I have enjoyed my poker journey more though, it's social, you play for a lot longer, i've made friends and met interesting people. I'd much rather lose money to other players than to the house.
Ethically I'm slightly resentful towards casinos for what they did. I was only 18 at the time, still in high school, clearly a problem gambler, chasing losses, tilted, there's just no regulation. Nothing will change until the government intervenes and stops these casino gangsters essentially committing fraud against the population. But it'll require a fundamental shift in the power structure in society between companies and people. There's a lot of bad things happening in the world, a lot of ugly industries, tobacco, alcohol, meat, casinos are still going to be able to steal money off people for a lot longer. And some people have lost everything, houses, contact with family, from gambling, I haven't at all so I can't feel sorry for myself.
Anyway my question is this, what sort of data do casinos keep on people. I was told that when i was playing 5k a hand, I'd have had 3 people watching me from 'upstairs'. Do they keep records of every single wager you place in each box, whether it wins or not, or would they just keep record of more broad numbers like the total amount you withdrew and cashed in, and the total amount you cashed out. I'd quite like to see the casino (empire London's) record on me. I think back, the pit bosses, the dealers, the managers, those are the faces I remember from those dark experiences, but in reality the person who profited from me is a shareholder. I know the owner of a large online betting site, they offer roulette, blackjack etc. He's a really nice guy, I think he's completely ignorant to the misery online casinos, slot games etc actually cause. I spoke to him about a few times, he always comes up with the ridiculous lines 'Problem gamblers aren't profitable for the industry'. 'People have fun on our sites.' He isn't exposed to the reality of what's going on, he just attends board meetings in nice offices. he doesn't see people blowing their weekly income, the suicides, the relationship break ups. I won't name him but he lives very close to me, a lovely family guy, not some mafia gangster.
Literally as soon as I turned 18, I had some fairly astronomical sports betting wins. I grew up in London, among the private school, dad works for an investment bank, social scene, so I had access to funds to gamble with, but anyway I won over £120,000 betting on sport in a few months. I obviously had an incredible degree of luck, in addition sports betting companies like bet365, betfair, william hill, make big pricing errors, and are very exploitable and beatable.
But anyway, I'd been going to casinos for a couple of years by then already with a fake ID. Playing blackjack small stakes, bringing £200 a time and really playing till i lost it. I was probably down 2/3k total at the time. Unfortunately with this new money I started playing very very large stakes. I moved up to £500 a box, then £1000, and by the end I was playing £5000 a box. Mainly live in the empire casino in London, but also online casino games on sports betting sites. The last night I played in London, i'd taken out 25k, had won was up to 73k, was about to leave having called a taxi, but decided I'd play one more 2k hand, win it to get to 75k (up 50k), then lost about 15 straight hands and lost the whole lot.
Nowadays I play recreational poker, I've lost a lot playing cash. I've probably played 1000 hours + of live cash in casinos, but my mentality's dreadful. Firstly I don't want to win or take other people's money. It makes me feel bad, these guys often are playing with their weekly salary, and for me the money's not that important. And secondly I play to gamble, to chase draws, to play every pot whatever position and whatever starting hand. The idea of pf playing tight, even if it's profitable, seems boring to me. I'm there for the buzz and the thrill, not the money, though the amount i've lost is quite scary over time. The best solution is to play tournaments, and I do often, but occasionally I succumb to my urges and play cash. I have enjoyed my poker journey more though, it's social, you play for a lot longer, i've made friends and met interesting people. I'd much rather lose money to other players than to the house.
Ethically I'm slightly resentful towards casinos for what they did. I was only 18 at the time, still in high school, clearly a problem gambler, chasing losses, tilted, there's just no regulation. Nothing will change until the government intervenes and stops these casino gangsters essentially committing fraud against the population. But it'll require a fundamental shift in the power structure in society between companies and people. There's a lot of bad things happening in the world, a lot of ugly industries, tobacco, alcohol, meat, casinos are still going to be able to steal money off people for a lot longer. And some people have lost everything, houses, contact with family, from gambling, I haven't at all so I can't feel sorry for myself.
Anyway my question is this, what sort of data do casinos keep on people. I was told that when i was playing 5k a hand, I'd have had 3 people watching me from 'upstairs'. Do they keep records of every single wager you place in each box, whether it wins or not, or would they just keep record of more broad numbers like the total amount you withdrew and cashed in, and the total amount you cashed out. I'd quite like to see the casino (empire London's) record on me. I think back, the pit bosses, the dealers, the managers, those are the faces I remember from those dark experiences, but in reality the person who profited from me is a shareholder. I know the owner of a large online betting site, they offer roulette, blackjack etc. He's a really nice guy, I think he's completely ignorant to the misery online casinos, slot games etc actually cause. I spoke to him about a few times, he always comes up with the ridiculous lines 'Problem gamblers aren't profitable for the industry'. 'People have fun on our sites.' He isn't exposed to the reality of what's going on, he just attends board meetings in nice offices. he doesn't see people blowing their weekly income, the suicides, the relationship break ups. I won't name him but he lives very close to me, a lovely family guy, not some mafia gangster.
