• mavu@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    wrong text on the picture. that one should read: “getting 200+ gambling ads daily while having the gambling gene and not gambling anyway.”

    The picture that goes with the original text would be someone not even noticing the bullets flying and missing.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It’s showing how it feels not how it is. It likely doesn’t feel that good having to constantly resist an urge like that.

      Also, the oblivious guy being missed by everything would be the ad blocker, not the non-gambler.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    I always describe gambling as non-alcoholic vodka.

    It just does nothing for me and leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

          • Axolotl@feddit.it
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            3 months ago

            I have doubts about DnD being cheap, unless you do 🏴‍☠️ (Which i do cough)

            • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Even if you’re not pirating, you can still play using the SRD. You can skip the DMG entirely and get monster stat blocks online.

        • NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          I’m not a gambling person at all but I do like the mix of betting inconsequential amounts on a poker game and just doing a game night with a few friends. We’ll do poker night occasionally where we all put in $20 CAD and while most of the fun comes from having some pints and chatting, the idea of maybe ending with an extra $80 or whatever in beer change makes it a little more exciting even if i usually expect to lose it.

        • Monte_Crisco@thelemmy.club
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          3 months ago

          While technically true, I think poker actually is one of those games in which the stakes (providing a tangible fear of loss) are a valuable element to the game. Tournament style poker would essentially accomplish this, but it’s not always easy to round up enough friends to make it enjoyable. And even then, the people who drop out early on have to either watch or find something else to do.

          • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Tangible loss is a big part of it because it helps keep betting sane. If there’s no stakes you can just do whatever you want and there’s not really much strategy to it.

            Cash games solve the problem of how long it takes. 20 years ago or so I’d play nickel, dime, quarter max bet cash games, dealer’s choice of the poker game, round robin dealing. On a real bad night you’d be down $15, or you’d be up $20 on a great night.

            It was a blast. $5 was the price of a premium fast food meal back then, if that helps to level expectations of stakes for the younger crowd.

            All the best parts of having stakes in the game without risk of losing your shirt. We’d hang out, make food, drink, etc. It was the best of all worlds.

            Periodically we’d do a tournament, usually hold em, stud, or Omaha. Then it was a $10 or $20 buy-in with maybe a rebuy depending on how long we wanted it to go. Usually top three were the money, depending on how many at the table. The early drops would start playing dice until there were three people to start a regular cash side game at the table (we’d just shift chairs)

            So there’s ways to address your points, but most people these days only know what they see on WSOP, which is no limit holdem. There’s SO many poker variants out there that the old dawgs played back in the 80s and 90s that didn’t come into light with the poker revolution. Red/black, no peek, guts, hi/low split, etc.

      • Hegar@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        Yeah i can understand that others enjoy it, but even a poker night with friends sounds unpleasant to me - like a game night ruined.

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      3 months ago

      That 6 pack of non alcohol beer I accidentally bought in my fridge about to hit the 3rd year…

      • Janx@piefed.social
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        3 months ago

        Except there’s actually good non-alcoholic beer! Most vodka doesn’t taste like much of anything…

  • rafoix@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    I think it’s between 5%-10% of the population have the compulsive RNG gene.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I remember in school doing statistics and probability. There was a question to calculate the probability and chances of winning a bet, and we got a near zero answer. I then asked my teacher if that means the person is actually going to lose. She confirmed yes, and warned us that this is why you have to be careful with gambling and being in debt as a result, and being involved with loans sharks who prey on those with gambling problems.

    I’ve personally witnessed what gambling does to a person and their loved ones so I despise it. A lot of the gambling are rigged and so you are more likely to lose.

    I tell people that if they’re going to gamble, do the ones with more likelihood of success. Poker is rarely rigged, if ever, because it is based on pure psychology of the players. Investing and stock trading has a more established science, despite the occasional stock manipulation. Although, if one invests in more reputable companies with long term growth and only put in the amount of money the person is willing to lose, hardly anybody goes bankrupt with investing.

    • GreenShimada@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Humans are very bad with statistics. Even ones that know the statistics can let their emotions lead them when gambling.

      Humans overly weight very very good and very very bad things happening and those stick in our brains. High risk and high reward are where our brains get stuck because of our built in risk aversion.

      Case in point: Lotteries. It’s 289 million to 1 chance you’ll win $10 million. Meaning that in stats, it’s an expected value of loss on every ticket you buy should be $1 since we can’t lose 99.9995 cents (or whatever the math is). But how often do people say well, can’t win if you don’t play?" like fools and play their same numbers for the 84,000th time?

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      When I go to Vegas, I put aside $60, 3 times in the trip, i’ll put $20 through a slot machine. If I’m ever up more than $10, I stop and keep that 30, spend it on food or something for the fam.

      I broke even once, up 60 once, and down 60 a few times.

  • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    I was in Chess Club at school (I know, I know, quite the jock!). We played chess. Then we got bored of chess and played backgammon. And backgammon without a bet is dull, so we started gambling. Then gambling became the point of playing. So we moved on to poker.

    I remember one poker hand. The deck was made up of about five different packs of cards. Jokers, black twos, one-eyed jacks, bedside queens, and suicide kings were all wild. I ended up with a hand of five aces. Two were real aces, three were wild cards. I had to raise. I mean, how can you not raise with five aces? What is the point of playing poker if you don’t raise with five aces?

    Sadly, two other people also had five aces and one of them had three real aces and only two wild cards so they won the hand.

    I lost £20 on that single hand and absolutely hated every single moment of playing it because somehow I knew, deep down, that I was going to lose. That was a lot of money for me back then and there were other, far better things I could have dropped it on - LPs were about £5 back then, video games £10.

    But, it was a great early lesson on the ‘gotta keep going’ mindset of the gambler combined with the certainty that I was going to lose my money. I’m glad it happened, despite the short term remorse I felt immediately afterwards. I’m just not a gambler. One of the other kids from that same game went on to owe someone else £300 by the time we left school.

    I’ve been to casinos a couple of times but took some good advice with me. Think about how much you’d be happy to spend on a night out. If you were going to an arena concert, or the theatre, or a flash sit-down meal, how much would you pay for the night? Think about a casino in the same way. You take a set amount of money which you’re going to ‘spend’ on entertainment. Once you’ve lost all of that, you leave the casino. If you find youself up on the night, hurrah.

      • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        The kind of nonsense poker that 14-year olds play with a deck made of four or five different (and not necessarily complete) packs of cards. That’s what kind. It was mostly for pennies and therefore silly fun. This game was different.

      • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        I played poker with a group recently and they were trying to make bs wild cards before each hand, like fives and eights are wild, and other stupid shit. I just folded every hand and somehow I’m the asshole. I didn’t complain or even comment, I just folded. Apparently it’s a fun way to play for some people, I think it’s stupid af and had no interest in participating.

        • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          It’s dumb af if you like playing poker. If you like playing card games with a 52 card deck like crazy 8s or whatever, it can be fun.

          • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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            3 months ago

            The childish fun police are now en route to your location. Your crime: seriosity! Your punishment: 260 card pickup. Drop and give me 260!

            • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              No judgement, I can see how it came off that way though.

              I like crazy 8s and rummy and stuff like that, but they’re in a different category of fun.

              Poker is a game of broken information, where you try to decode your opponent’s hand based off of their actions in relation to the board state and future possibilities, and what you know of their own personal style.

              Wild cards introduce RNG that throws the entire core game loop of poker out the window. People are free to enjoy it but it’s extremely rare for people who play the game regularly to want wild cards in their games. I can’t think of anyone in all my years of playing to be honest but I’m sure they exist. I would never play a game with cash with wild cards, what’s the point? And I can’t imagine wanting to play a free game with wild cards with anyone but kids.

              Wild cards+cash, I might as well play craps or any other gambling game in the casino, and then at least I get the fun of watching crazy superstitious people. Poker is NOT gambling, but there is an element of chance of course.

              Hope that helps clear it up.

    • ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Bollocks. 99% of gamblers stop before they win big. Maximum bet every time. Go big or go home. Just need to secure that one win, then all of the sunken costs will have made sense!

      Seriously though, I once bought 20 quid worth of Overwatch loot boxes during playing I felt exactly the same way playing a slot machine. I have been once in my life to a casino because a friend wanted to go. I played the slot machine for 30 quid in total. Both after the Overwatch loot boxes and the slot machine I felt exactly this same mix of anger and shame. But during it was the exact same mentality of, hey, if I just continue, I can win something I want. The realisation came after. And so, by thinking about this experience, I essentially stayed away from gambling for good. Gambling, be it loot boxes, slot machines, casinos or anything else are a cancer upon society, keeping people poor and preying off the hopes and dreams of people with problems.

      • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        The people who can least afford it are the ones with the most ‘hope’. Gambling companies prey on hope.

    • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Not the point of your story, but when the hell were LPs and video games that cheap? I would think that any time that LPs were that cheap would be before video games even existed.

      • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        Early 1980s. LPs from Woolies, video games from Boots or WH Smiths (I think mostly Mastertronic titles for £2).

        More than once I swapped the £1.99 price sticker on a budget game for the £9.99 price sticker on a premium game, mostly in Boots or WH Smiths in Dumfries. Fun bonus fact. This was in the days before EPOS systems and barcode readers at the checkout. Only a bored teenager on the till between me and illicit Commodore 64 glory. I do still wonder if anyone ever bought any of the cheap games for the full ten quid though.

        Note: not all Mastertronic games were bad. I loved Kikstart, Finders Keepers, KP Skips Action Biker with Clumsy Colin (I had to look that one up), and The Last V8 - though I think maybe the Last V8 was in their premium £2.99 range.

  • potoooooooo 🥔@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I recently learned that, with perfect play at certain tables, you can cut the house edge in blackjack down to like 0.5% and potentially even give yourself a slight edge with advantage play. I’d be worried, if I had the gene, but I’m just interested in the fun, breezy, hobbyist way, not in the sick, out-of-control way.

    • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Correct, blackjack is pretty much the only way you can make money reliably at US casinos, if you study and learn how to do it, which takes a lot of time and practice, and being in the right parts of the country.

      But it’s so BORING. I don’t understand who can just grind grind grind blackjack for a living.

        • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Hey if it works for you, go for it. Blackjack used to be my fallback game in a casino when I was too drunk to think straight enough for real strategy.

            • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Poker is what I was referring to as requiring thought, yes. But more complicated games like craps can also be too much if you’re hammered, especially at a busy table.

          • potoooooooo 🥔@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            What would be a “real strategy” game? Poker? Craps? Blackjack is the only one I ever felt “good enough” at to play for money.

            • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Blackjack is pretty formulaic about the best move to make depending on what cards you get and what the dealer’s up card is. You can look it up, it’s a chart. Memorize it, walk in, and you’re in business. A lot of casinos will even give you a card to have at the table with all the moves on it if you ask. The only real variance is that casinos use multiple decks so it messes with the probabilities, so you’re always at a very slight disadvantage even if you play “perfectly.” Counting cards can swing that last couple% points of probability in your favor.

              So there’s no thought or strategy to it. If X, do Y. It’s pretty easy to learn, so it’s very beginner friendly. Also great for when I’m hammered and can’t play anything that I need to have mental skills for.

              Craps is gambling. There’s infinite numbers of “strategies” but they’re all just different ways to bet, just more complicated versions of “put 100 on black” at a roulette table, and none of them will beat the house over time.

              Poker requires tons of thought to play well, and there’s no skill ceiling. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a strategy game but there are strategies. It’s an adversarial puzzle game of broken information, it’s not gambling.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Thing is, if you win at blackjack too much they kick you out and ban you (or in the old days, took you into a back room to beat you up).

    • Impractical_Island@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I make ass, reel good ads to, like this one! All the curious soles want to cum to my island, not associated wit other well-know islands

  • Katana314@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I have a story idea, for a training program for spies.

    As an exercise, a trainee is told to enter a poker game, read the expressions of the other attendees, and win the pot. The agency can give them a near unlimited budget, but they’re advised to pull out if things are not going well.

    Then, they enter the game, win maybe one hand; but after eight or nine hands it would become increasingly obvious there’s some serious cheating going on, and everyone at the table is in on it except the agent. They would never be allowed to win, and cannot complete their mission.

    Maybe some trainees would relent to force to get the cash, which would be arranged to make a splashy headline about “The agency’s brightest caught cheating at poker, attempts to murder club owner!”

    The lesson there would be to dispel feelings of invincibility, or pursuit of perfection, by the agent; to get them to accept there will be bad, failing circumstances they need to pull out from. Learning when to fold, and then to walk away from the table, is honestly a pretty important life skill.

  • magnue@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I was down in winter once and decided I’d try out the whole gambling thing. Put 50 into some website and lost it all on a shit game.

    Why do people get addicted to that? I experienced no joy and the outcome was exactly what I expected.

    • Fleppensteyn@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      I tried the online poker thing a little bit. With friends IRL it’s fun but online it’s boring. People work it like it’s their job.

      I tried an IRL casino once, won a bunch of money on the first machine and I was thinking I’m done, but had to wait for my friends so I kept doubling a small bet on black on roulette. It landed on red 9 times in a row. It’s all a scam

      • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The Martingale system is the definitive example of gambler’s fallacy. There’s definitely a “smart” way to gamble, but it generally requires games with a skill element, which casinos specifically avoid for this reason.

    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The good sites will give you a little bit of your money back so it doesn’t seem like complete bull shit and have a lot of “near misses” too.

      It can also prey on desperate people who might not usually try gambling but maybe feel like it’s their best option at the time.

      • nightlily@leminal.space
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        3 months ago

        But if you’re even the slightest bit aware of statistics, near misses are exactly the same as complete misses. Seems strange that anyone educated falls for it. Desperation I can understand, especially these days when traditional ways of building wealth are almost as bad as just leaving cash under your mattress.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Because in most aspects of human endeavor close to success means try again. You may say that that’s true, but only for games of genuine skill, and yes, but part of why gambling fucks with our brains so much is that for a lot of people that difference isn’t instinctive.

      • magnue@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I won a tiny bit on the first game (like £10 up maybe) but at no point did I believe that a game of odds would possibly allow me to win anything meaningful.

        I would equate the experience to burning a £50 note.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Sometimes I’m scrolling through Twitch.tv and come across the virtual casina category. Always some streams with people doing some random slot machine game and raving about it. I understand nothing about it.

      • magnue@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ve heard a lot of the times the odds are stacked in the streamers favour. It’s worth the hit for the casino to get people to join.

    • baines@lemmy.cafe
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      3 months ago

      stupid, the answer is stupid

      at least my gambling comes with animated titty first!

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I probably dont have the gene, but I dont feel cool for not clicking an ad. What I mostly feel is rage that the promotions are so obviously geared towards getting the potentially addicted to try it by offering $100’s of free (bonus) bets.

    And at the end they have the audacity to mention a helpline.

    • ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m pretty sure they’re legally required to display the helpline. No idea how the requirement has survived the current U.S. admin so far, but if these companies had their way, their victims would not be getting help

  • Impractical_Island@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I feel a simlar way in that when the police are always taking it in itself, watching, seeting me up, and so I have to walk through the minefield exploding below when I walk pass the middle school I live here next to on everyday. Soneyime multiple time a day. It such!