☠ Gambling addiction in casinos - how to stop playing?

One of Arkady's vivid memories from his first days at the "Carriage" was his conversation with a nice lady, a regular visitor to the casino. Their acquaintance was short-lived, because the evil Artem Fyodorov did not allow it to develop, caring about the moral character of his employees. Outwardly, this girl could not have been more than thirty-five years old: slender, dark-haired, with pleasant facial features, she was happy to make contact, initiating a conversation herself. As soon as she crossed the threshold of the establishment, Artem Fyodorov recommended Arkady to keep a close eye on her. But he did not bother to name the reason for the increased interest. Therefore, Arkady had to figure everything out himself, and this is what he saw. Immediately after the obligatory trip to the cashier, the girl sat down at a relatively "expensive" blackjack table, the stakes on which started from 25 dollars. (At the Carriage, guests were offered three betting levels: 10–200; 25–500; 100–1000.) It was Friday evening, late autumn was in the street, the casino was full of visitors, and all the “cheap” tables were occupied. It didn’t matter to the girl which boxes to play on (many like to occupy the last ones, so that they can, in their opinion, influence the distribution by “correcting” the mistakes of other participants in the game), she ordered herself a whiskey with cola and got ready to fight the casino. Keeping in mind the “covenant” of the boss, Arkady decided to test the young lady’s mathematical abilities himself: he approached her, introduced himself and started talking about this and that, simultaneously counting the cards coming out and evaluating the correctness of the decisions the girl made. But during the couple of shuffles that he spent with her, nothing critical for the casino was discovered: the girl played by the classic rules, increasing and decreasing the bet purely intuitively, and not in accordance with the current "score". Since the work of a manager does not imply constant sitting in one place, then, having made the appropriate conclusions for himself, Arkady took his leave and got down to urgent matters - an entertaining conversation with a bored general manager and drinking soft drinks in his company in the "soft zone" under cameras and surrounded by microphones. Having performed the obligatory ritual, each of them went about their business: Arkady remained in the hall, while Artem went to the manager's room. But less than an hour had passed, when the pit rang and an excited pit boss girl said that Artem urgently called Arkady to him. Arkady was surprised by such haste and went to find out the reason for it. Everything turned out to be banal: luck smiled on the girl and she “doubled” (won twice as much as she exchanged). Her “plus” was something like 2000 dollars. This was the reason for the emergency call: Artem, poking his finger at the monitor, pointed to the various constructions of chips towering on the table: - I warned you! She is very dangerous! And you did not react to my words! - How is she so dangerous? - Yes, she “tears” us apart! - Artem, you probably don’t know what “tears” means. She just wins a little. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that she drinks! And she drinks like a man! Look, glass after glass! - Yes, she drinks and wins! - And what should I do? Limit her alcohol consumption? Then she will leave. With the money. And since she orders more and more, it means she is in no hurry. And sooner or later he will return all the "looted" ones. - Well, look! - What is there to look at? It's all clear. Do you want me to go and chat with her? Arkady liked to watch Artem get nervous for no reason. With such worries, working in a casino is clearly contraindicated. Everything turned out as Arkady said: a "black" streak in the game was replaced by a "white" one, and all the chips migrated back to the fleet. The clock was already about three in the morning. Arkady had just settled down with a cigarette near the bar when he saw the pit boss heading towards him. - That lady at blackjack is asking you to come to her. Having finished smoking, since walking around the gaming room with a cigarette in your hands is considered a sign of bad manners, Arkady approached the table where the girl was playing. There was no trace left of her former wealth: with a slurred tongue, she began to complain about her bad luck. But there was a purpose for which she called the manager, and this purpose was to ask for a loan. Knowing what answer she would give, Arkady sadly confided that there was and was no credit policy at the "Carriage" and that, no matter how nice he liked his new acquaintance, he could do nothing for her. - What should I do, go home now? My husband won't let me go back anywhere! - Stay with us and try to "get going", - Arkady sighed sympathetically, looking at the last 500 dollar chip. - What else can I do? - asked the girl and ordered another whiskey and cola. Less than ten minutes had passed when the pit boss again tore Arkady away from his pleasant time at the bar. For the same reason. But this time the girl had two black chips left, and she asked Arkady to sit down next to her, asking: - Can I, in honor of our acquaintance, get a refund of my loss right now? (At the Carriage, they returned 10% of the loss of $1,000 or more on the next visit.) “I don’t think so,” came the answer. “That would deprive me of the opportunity to see you again, since the reason for coming to visit us would have already been exhausted.” And then, having taken another sip, the girl put her hand on Arkady’s knee, looked at him intently with languid, alcohol-filled eyes and… erotically stuck out the tip of her tongue, running it over her lips: “I’ll thank you, darling! Like no one has ever thanked you! You’ll like it! You’ll remember this for a long time!” He had never heard a more unambiguous offer in his life. The girl really did look decent, despite the alcohol she’d drunk. But meeting someone in a bar was one thing, and making an indecent proposal at work was quite another. Although if he’d given her a kickback, nothing terrible would have happened. No matter how tempting it was to have an interesting acquaintance for the future, who said that the girl would be so accessible the next time they met? After all, she wants to play, and she is ready for "feats" for the opportunity to stay here and now. And another time the mood may not be conducive to momentary adventures. Arkady knew all this well and understood that there is no force that will make you accept a sexual offer from a drunk woman of unknown reputation. Therefore, not reacting/not getting an erection to all the inviting smacking and stroking of the thighs, he was forced to leave her and go to Artyom to maintain a working mood. In the "Carriage" the guest amenities were located next to the far wall right after the cash register. In front of them was a small open vestibule leading to doors with signs in the form of a gentleman in a top hat and a lady in a dress. Only two doors, designed for one visitor of each gender. Having already forgotten about the girl's advances, having talked to his heart's content with Artyom and thus brought his feelings in order, Arkady went to relieve himself. But, approaching the restroom, he was surprised to find a line of men. The door to the toilet was locked, and one of the guests assumed that it was simply "jammed." Then the pit boss's assistant Kostya came up to Arkady and said that he knew why the door wouldn't open. It turned out that, having made sure that her charms had no effect on the casino manager and that she wouldn't be given any money that day, she switched her attention to her table neighbor - a dead drunk guy who caught the wave and won bet after bet. Kostya didn't know what they were talking about, but he saw how first this guy stumbled into the men's toilet, describing eights with his legs, and how a girl jumped in through the half-open door. And now they haven't come out of there for an hour. True, there are no sounds coming from there. Have they fallen asleep? When, after another half hour, the door finally opened and the happy couple appeared before the eyes of all those yearning to pee, it was scary to look at the girl: swollen lips, on which fragments of lipstick were still visible here and there, cloudy eyes. The man, however, with a cheerful and unexpectedly sober gait, as if nothing had happened, headed to the table and continued playing. The girl ordered another whiskey and silently sat down at another table, taking honestly earned chips from her pocket. This visit to the "Carriage" was her last. She was blacklisted as an undesirable guest, so that she would no longer seduce clients and corrupt managers. The man with a taste for "sweets" was "locked up" for the company.

For you and me, the greatest interest is in the amplitude of movements of the money masses, with which a person plunges into the abyss of his own passion. Vova. His appearance went unnoticed. Only when sorting through the visitors' cards for the previous day, the pit boss came across a man who had left "in the black" with a ridiculous sum of money by the standards of the casino of that time - 500 dollars. According to the records, the man played blackjack with an average bet of 50 dollars. Then his guest card began to regularly catch the eye, and soon the day came when they met. Vova bought chips for 500 dollars at the cash desk and went to the table. He exchanged them for heels and began to place bets on one to three boxes. He asked for the winnings to be paid in heels, lining them up into a tower. Sometimes, due to the "abundance of building material", it curved and took the shape of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Arkady has seen quite a few of these "builders" in his casino life. All players have their own tricks, and building huge phalluses from chips of the same denomination is very common among them. Over time, the color and denomination of the construction began to change: from red it became green (green in the casino were chips of 25 dollars), which indicated an increase in money exchanges and the client's transition to another, more expensive, level. And just in time: the summer season began, when most people leave, and the casino is forced to stand idle for most of the day. Vova meanwhile got a taste for it and, taking advantage of the fact that he is the only visitor, asked to open a second table for blackjack in place of the poker, so that he could simultaneously play on two tables at once and grow green penises of different sizes. Appetite comes with eating: by midsummer our player had really gotten going: he demanded that three blackjack tables be opened for him at the same time and, like a seasoned grandmaster, gave a simultaneous game, surprising such masters as Slava and Eric. Closer to September, when the summer colors give way to warm autumn tones, the color of the chip skyscrapers also changed, acquiring the black shades characteristic of hundreds. Accordingly, the amount of the initial exchange changed: at the very beginning, it varied in the range of 500-1000 dollars, then, in the era of general greening, it began to fluctuate from 5000 to 15,000 dollars, and in the fall, when it is customary to count chickens, it reached a range of 25,000-50,000 dollars. A guest who accidentally wandered in could see a most remarkable picture: in an empty casino, croupiers stood at three tables, accompanied by inspectors, and a man was running between them, building amazing high-rise figures of black and green colors from chips... And so it went on all autumn. And then a decline began. This was felt after the absences with visiting began. But the partings were not long - a maximum of one or two days. Regular guests also began to worry when the member builder was not running between blackjacks, his absence was felt... And they even tried to show some concern for him, offering to play another and more interesting game called "open" poker. But our Vova was crazy about blackjack: if Pushkin's Herman saw the Queen of Spades winking at him, then Vova was smiling at the "point". One day he even asked Eric for a loan, and Eric almost agreed, knowing where to look for him if necessary, but he took a break “to think” and received good advice from one of the employees, who told him in a face-to-face conversation that Vova had some kind of shortage of funds... According to Pepper, there was a “manual sunset” - Vova lost everything and disappeared.

Brownies can be divided into two categories: the first came not for the purpose of playing, but to usefully spend time: to chat, have a drink (preferably for free) and, perhaps, play a little for fun. The second came to play every day in the establishment they liked. The frequency of their "renewal" depended on the depth of their wallet and other financial capabilities. Often, characters from the second category, having lost everything in the world, migrated to the first. And then degradation came to the fore. A person began to consider it happiness when he managed to "squeeze out" a couple of hundred dollars, no longer remembering that he had lost thousands of thousands. To achieve this, they did not disdain anything: from the banal theft of chips from tipsy players to "easy scams" from winners - like give a little, for luck.

There is an opinion that if you visit a casino once a month, then you are guided by a normal desire and there is nothing wrong with that. But if the frequency of your visits is “off the charts”, then, of course, you are sick. The name of this disease is gambling addiction, but not everyone who came regularly suffered from this infectious disease.

diamat said

Yeah, that's how it all started, and now I'm in debt and without a TV or a laptop, sitting on an old computer that's 15 years old, it's fucked up everything it could

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TTR said Well, keep playing, you'll make money with your feet, not your hands. If you don't want to earn money by working, but want to win it, that's your problem. I'm tired of even writing that the worst thing you can do if you have debts or a bad financial situation is to try to solve it by playing in a casino, poker, betting, the stock exchange and other high-risk crap, even if it's not negative like a casino. Maybe someone who doesn't know - I've been through all this myself, a few years ago I had a HUGE pile of debt and almost no income. I wouldn't advise anyone to find themselves in such a mess (otherwise they'll write now, like, what do you know about debts, etc.) And I'll write right away that the worst thing you can do is lend money to a person in such a situation. If a person LOST money, then under no circumstances should you EVER lend to him, even if they kill him, etc. Otherwise, he won't realize it and everything will go in a second circle. And as usual, most often you just don't give a shit about everything, and as soon as a rooster pecks your ass, you immediately start moving, etc. And where to easily find money to solve the problem, this will all continue endlessly. Gambling addicts are complete drug addicts, and money for them is just a dose. Giving money to a gambling addict is just flushing it down the toilet, there will be only one way out of the problem, either the person realizes it himself and gets to work and gets out of the ass, or he's fucked. Natural selection is in action, and helping with money in such situations is only making things worse.

Shpilevoy wrote:

a-a-a-a-a-a!!! it happened )))))) TTR: I temporarily closed the diary. Because I got carried away in the slots and did not want to talk about it at all. The result is sad - minus 40k euros, first I deposited 6, poured it in, then deposited 4 - made an excuse to 14k, withdrew and deposited in other casinos and spun space at 200. Got dirty like an asshole in space, and the excuse was in a pyramid, today I went skateboarding and seemed to have recovered. In short, I don’t even want to comment on all this. In principle, it’s good that I lost, there will be no desire to play. TTR, Monday at 02:17