What do you consider having a gambling problem?

Similar Situation

tuda said:
I was on the road playing about 40 years ago, I beat a guy out of $600 and as we were finishing his children came in dressed like orphans in bad need of new clothes and shoes, I thought for a second that maybe it was a setup but they didn't make a scene, they were dragging their dad home with them... that $600 I took from that guy was way more than enough to properly dress his children and put food on the table for them... I asked the bartender and he told me he had a very bad gambling problem and was known around town for putting the rent money up at all times... the pool player in me wanted to say that was his problem, but the human being told me I couldn't do that, so I stopped the kids and gave them the money and pretty much stopped playing at that point... I only started coming around when my nephew took up an interest in the game, and to this day I haven't been able to get the image of those children out of my head.

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I played a guy about 25 years ago sort of the same situation , was playing $20 9 ball and I was spotting the guy the 8 , I was stealing no doubt. I had the guy stuck a 100 and we were settling up after every game .

I figured soon he would pull up but he stayed with it , his wife and kid were there watching, baby was probably 18 months old , I had him down 180 and his wife is there crying begging him not to gamble their last 40 dollars away. He wouldn't quit kept telling her I can beat him I can beat him, needless to say I broke him 2 games later . his wife is in tears the baby is crying , he is sitting there stunned with that WTF just happened to me look on his face. I guess I am soft hearted I couldn't take the money I gave it to his wife 200.00 of the 220.00 I won and used the other twenty to pay our time. I hope that old boy learned from that lesson but I doubt it . All I know is I slept better for making the choice not to take all their money
 
When you're putting your own bills, your family's health, your own health, etc. at risk. It all comes down to what you can risk. The three years I spent "donating" as a disc golfer I was always careful to only risk money I could afford to risk without putting my ability to pay my bills in peril. And now in my last year getting heavily into pool I've been doing the same. I feel that in order to become truly elite at something you have to put some money at risk, you have to gamble. And honestly - there's value in putting that number *close* to what you can afford to risk.

Tonight I put down $20 a race against a very strong consistent player, probably the most active action player in town. It wasn't the amount he usually puts down, but for me - that's my drinking money during the summer. It's a quarter of my profit from tonight's disc earnings. Really - that's actually the way I look at it. I only put down the money that is basically my "for fun" money. I can afford to lose all of my drinking money for the week. It means a week without going out and having some jack n cokes and fireballs. But it doesn't endanger my bills.

If I'm putting down more, well - it means I have a problem.

I like to believe that this is a solid definition because the actual dollar amount can vary from person to person, but it applies across the board pretty well.
 
BWColeman said:
I played a guy about 25 years ago sort of the same situation , was playing $20 9 ball and I was spotting the guy the 8 , I was stealing no doubt. I had the guy stuck a 100 and we were settling up after every game .

I figured soon he would pull up but he stayed with it , his wife and kid were there watching, baby was probably 18 months old , I had him down 180 and his wife is there crying begging him not to gamble their last 40 dollars away. He wouldn't quit kept telling her I can beat him I can beat him, needless to say I broke him 2 games later . his wife is in tears the baby is crying , he is sitting there stunned with that WTF just happened to me look on his face. I guess I am soft hearted I couldn't take the money I gave it to his wife 200.00 of the 220.00 I won and used the other twenty to pay our time. I hope that old boy learned from that lesson but I doubt it . All I know is I slept better for making the choice not to take all their money
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That was a class move. Not many people in the pool world would've done that.:thumbup:
 
mmooney79 said:
If you are under 25 and having issues with this in your marriage, your gonna have to weight your marriage against your pool playing. If you can't find a compromise that you both like, call it a day and play 7 nights a week!! No kids at stake so screw it!! Of course, maybe this is why I now am divorced and lost everything I had....lol!!
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I think this advice would be very regretful in the future... I would quit pool for my family... but fortunately they are reasonable and that choice will never come up unless I decide to do it on my own.
 
BWColeman said:
I played a guy about 25 years ago sort of the same situation , was playing $20 9 ball and I was spotting the guy the 8 , I was stealing no doubt. I had the guy stuck a 100 and we were settling up after every game .

I figured soon he would pull up but he stayed with it , his wife and kid were there watching, baby was probably 18 months old , I had him down 180 and his wife is there crying begging him not to gamble their last 40 dollars away. He wouldn't quit kept telling her I can beat him I can beat him, needless to say I broke him 2 games later . his wife is in tears the baby is crying , he is sitting there stunned with that WTF just happened to me look on his face. I guess I am soft hearted I couldn't take the money I gave it to his wife 200.00 of the 220.00 I won and used the other twenty to pay our time. I hope that old boy learned from that lesson but I doubt it . All I know is I slept better for making the choice not to take all their money
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That is strong right there. Good stuff. Cant beleive the bastard would do that with his wife in tears asking/begging him not too and his 18month old present as well. Hopefully he learned a lesson that day, considering he still continued to play with all that going on, I doubt he learned from it.

Regardless, incredible move on your part.:thumbup:
 
MitchAlsup said:
What do you consider having a gambling problem?

If you have wagered more than 1% of you monthly income in a single day over the last year, you have a gambling problem; in my opinion.
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That's ridiculous!
What if you are booking winners?
Then they are the ones with a problem.
 
sbpoolleague said:
You don't have a gambling problem. You have an "inability to decipher wife complaint" problem. There's no pill for that. Affliction comes with the Y chromosome. Symptoms start to abate after 20 years of marriage, or when your start to lose your hearing.
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I've been married 40 years. I don't understand my wife.
 
If you want to gamble for small thrills, to put a little edge on things AND keep the wife out of it, I'd recommend the "sock money" model. Sock a little money away that the wife would never know about, totally disposable income/pocket change/walking around money, and use only that for wagers...add your winnings to the sock, only gamble out of the sock...when it's empty, you're done until you can squirrel away a little more to start over. It keeps things from getting out of hand and keeps it just fun. Keep the "sock" in your case, next to your tip pick. If you hit a nice run and your sock over-flo-ith, then buy the missus a little something "just because".

When you start hitting an ATM, it's not small thrills anymore, it's not "funsies". You've stepped across into real gambling and you may well risk/lose more than you're prepared to. I would defiine a problem as losing more than you can stand, and still doubling down to "get even". That's when the monkey has dug his heals in.
 
I think all of us have similar stories

I think all of us that have gambled much have similar stories. For a few years my goal wasn't to just win, it was to bust the other player. If I could get his cue, his gold chain, his watch, anything of value, so much the better. Then I would usually sell it cheap or give it away with the other player watching to rub it in.

Played a stranger about my age, or a little older, mid-twenties. Came into "my bar" with a cue that had a hinge in it looking for a game. First couple of hours he was firing and fighting, the last hour or so it was obvious he knew he couldn't win but he couldn't make himself quit. He wasn't ugly about it or anything but the despair was written on his face and in his gait as he moved around the table. He had played pretty fair earlier for a bar room banger and we were in a bar room. Almost anyone could have beaten him that last hour or so.

I had learned to value good "customers" by then so I walked outside with him. The day was pretty crisp, forties best I recall. He stopped to smoke a cigarette and I looked over at his car. Wife and baby had been sitting in the cold all this time. When I walked over I saw it was a very pregnant wife and a small baby. Made me feel about as tall as a snake's belly in a wagon rut. I hadn't kept count but I'd taken him for $150 or so. I gave her a hundred and twenty and told her to tell him I gave her twenty, keep the hundred for her and the baby. I also told her that she needed to talk to her husband, he didn't have the skills needed to gamble. Don't know that she followed any of my advice but I tried.

That was the end of trying to bust people totally flat. It still happened sometimes but it wasn't the goal. Giving a walking stick to someone that hadn't been a jerk wasn't uncommon but I would have dropped a twenty on him normally. Somebody that had been a jerk to play didn't get anything even if they asked. Those were the ones that I liked tossing their gold chain to a bar maid or selling their cue for twenty or forty bucks while they watched. I won over a dozen cues back then, maybe several dozen. Some people weren't done until they lost their cue. Makes me wonder what some of those cues were I gave away or sold for almost nothing. Some were pretty nice.

Hu
 
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West Point 1987 said:
If you want to gamble for small thrills, to put a little edge on things AND keep the wife out of it, I'd recommend the "sock money" model. Sock a little money away that the wife would never know about, totally disposable income/pocket change/walking around money, and use only that for wagers...add your winnings to the sock, only gamble out of the sock...when it's empty, you're done until you can squirrel away a little more to start over. It keeps things from getting out of hand and keeps it just fun. Keep the "sock" in your case, next to your tip pick. If you hit a nice run and your sock over-flo-ith, then buy the missus a little something "just because".

When you start hitting an ATM, it's not small thrills anymore, it's not "funsies". You've stepped across into real gambling and you may well risk/lose more than you're prepared to. I would defiine a problem as losing more than you can stand, and still doubling down to "get even". That's when the monkey has dug his heals in.
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I call it momma don't know money. I have almost 4k cash and another 3 k in stuff I can sell. Haven't been to the AT in 2 years.
 
I have never heard anyone complain about their, or another person's gambling problem if they are winner ... nope, never once.

Now if a player is loser look out ... He has a gambling problem some will say.

I think people use the word gambling when they mean to say losing.

You can gamble all you want and never have a problem, as long as you do not lose.
 
I consider not having anyone to match up with as being a gambling problem.
 
If you put at risk more than .75% of your annual income weekly. If you have bet 5% of your annual income MORE than once. If you cannot play seriously unless you gamble. If gambling has made you dead broke more than once in your life after age 25. If you ever got behind in the rent due to gambling.Plenty more signs but that's enough for now
 
Nostroke said:
If you put at risk more than .75% of your annual income weekly. If you have bet 5% of your annual income MORE than once. If you cannot play seriously unless you gamble. If gambling has made you dead broke more than once in your life after age 25. If you ever got behind in the rent due to gambling.Plenty more signs but that's enough for now
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I can say the only one of those that fits me iabout not playing seriously without gambling. I just seem to lose interest if not a tournament or playing for something. It doen't have to be a lot. Hell 5 bucks will keep my interest.
 
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