siknerd.com - Home of the World Famous iRANT

There was a dark period of my life about five years ago when I was fresh out of college and couldn't get a job--but that's not really central to this story other than I had massive amounts of free time on my hands. One of the things I did to occupy my time was to drive down to San Diego and spend my days at the Indian casino. Now I know what you're thinking (an unemployed fellow shouldn't be spending his time at the Blackjack tables) but it sorta worked out for me. In retrospect, I might have been precariously close to having a gambling problem. Perhaps the only thing that prevented it from being a "problem" was that I always won.

Sometime around the height of my Blackjack days a dealer handed me a brochure that outlined the signs of a gambling problem. I'm not sure why he gave it to me (maybe it's because I was still sitting at the same spot when he went home the night before). I never thought I had a gambling problem because I never showed any of the signs.

Inability to stop gambling.
  Why would I want to stop? I was winning.
Betting bigger to recover losses.
  My gambling increased--but only to increase profits.
Secretive about gambling habits.
  Nope, no secrets with me: everyone knew where I spent my days.
Preoccupation with gambling.
  Well, maybe--but it's not like I had anything else going on in my life. If anything, playing cards distracted me from my "Madden" addiction.
Feeling guilty about gambling.
  Nothing to feel guilty about. It was gambling--not some sorta weird shark sex fetish.
Borrowing money to repay debts.
  Again, not a problem. Gambling was paying my bills and earned me enough to pay for Lasik.
Losing time from work or school due to betting money or gambling.
  I had already graduated from college and couldn't find a job. I suppose I could have spent my time looking for a job instead of gambling, but since gambling made money I sorta thought it was my job.
Gambling is affecting personal life.
  What personal life? Gambling was my personal life.
Difficulty sleeping because of gambling.
  Hell no--I slept much better in an air conditioned, high-end hotel room than on my air mattress at home.
Gambling longer than you planed to play.
  Only when I couldn't get a ride home.

It's funny 'cause I started off slow. I remember the first time my buddies convinced me to played Blackjack in a casino. I won $5 on the first hand and decided to call it a day. Why? That five bucks bought me lunch. It was all profit. Eventually I started going to the casino with $40, fully prepared to lose. I figured if I lost $40 playing Blackjack over the course of five or six hours, it was just the price of entertainment. A trip to Disneyland or a night of drinking would cost just as much (but they weren't as fun). I simply loved playing card games--any card game. My friends stopped playing Hearts with me because I never let anyone else win. They didn't like playing Rummy 500 because I usually knew what card everyone else had. I loved counting cards and incorporating strategies. To me, gambling was just an excuse to play cards. If I lost...so be it.

But the thing is...I didn't lose. My evening of entertainment would net me 20 or 30 bucks. Instead of spending money to have fun, I was making money. I started to play Blackjack at home on the computer. Through detailed statistical analyisis (the game kept a running total of the results), I was able to improve my game--play out thousands of scenarios and learn odds of winning. I tweaked the program and was able to run automated simulation games, giving me an even larger data pool to consult. I perfected my game to the point where I would win 47% of the time, lose 45%, and push 8%. The margin was slim, but it was enough. If I played the same way and bet the same amount every single time, I would turn a profit.

Thanks to our frequently increasing casino runs, I discovered the need for a bankroll bigger than $40 (I need more cash to cover bad runs). Using a casino ATM was an added expense that cut into my profits. I started carrying more money on me--$100, $200. Eventually I reached the point of not bothering to go unless I had at least $500 in my wallet.

Ah the wallet. It became too cumbersome to keep my casino player cards in my regular wallet. I had cards to too many casinos and it made my wallet uncomfortably fat. I started to take a second wallet with me for my casino trips--a gamblin' wallet. It had my ID, player cards, and an ATM card (just in case)

I grew comfortable betting more because I kept winning and I figured I was always playing with the house's money. I wanted to keep track of my winnings and be sure I was always playing with the house's money, so I opened an account at a bank that was different from my normal institution. When I won money, I deposited it in the account. When I need money to gamble, I took it from the account. I started off with an initial deposit of around $100. Soon the account had over five figures (all left of the decimal point) and it became my source of income to cover expenses and food. Despite my expenditures, the account grew and grew.

Not only was I accruing massive amounts of money, I also got comps for food and hotel stays. The Indian casinos in SoCal offered luxurious, upscale hotels that are the envy of anyone with class. At home, I lived with my parents in a windowless room and slept on a leaky air mattress. In the casino I had a massive bed, air conditioning, and cable TV. Life was so much better for me when I was at the casino.

At one point I was getting massive comps. Between the three casinos I regularly played at, I was getting two-to-four comped rooms per week. It got to the point where I felt like I was living at the casino (tt was kinda tough trying to squeeze hotel stays around softball, but I managed to do it). My buddies were also getting comped, so we always had a place to crash at the casino. My folks knew not to expect me for a few days 'cause I'd be living it up in my free, casino hotel room.

Obviously casinos just don't give free rooms to everyone--I had to earn them. The nights of betting $40 were long gone--I did more than that in a single hand. At any given time I could be up or down $500. A couple times I even found myself staring a deficit of at least $1000. But I never panicked--I wasn't afraid to lose (after all, it wasn't my money in the first place). If I was a grand in the hole, I never lost my cool. I played my game and eventually caught a run. Why? Because of my 47-45 advantage. If I had a bad stretch long enough to put me down, I knew I only needed to wait out an unchanged situation and eventually I'd find my run (the gambler's fallacy backed by mathematically research).

I remember one hand that got particularly ugly. I believe I started with a $200 bet and I got a pair of twos against a six. I split the twos...only to get another two...only to get another two. Each spit required another bet so I went from playing one hand to four hands at $200 apiece. On top of that I doubled down three of the four hands I played. What started off as an ordinary $200 bet turned into $1400 hand. I didn't even have that much cash in from of me and had to borrow $500 from a buddy. I had almost a grand and a half on the table and didn't think twice about it (never let the amount of money on the table determine how you play your cards). One hand pushed, the other three were winners and I won a thousand bucks on a single hand of Blackjack.

I started to move on to other games, but none of them raked in the cash that Blackjack did. I had rules that I followed strictly. I refused to allow emotions to affect my play. If a situation didn't fit my criteria, I didn't play. It was that simple. My two percent advantage was enough to keep me in the black.

The Indian casinos were in the desolate nether regions of San Diego--a good 30 minute drive to civilization. When I went to the casino for a couple days, I rarely left the grounds. I would watch TV in my room and if I was bored, play $25 heads-up Blackjack. The second I was up $100, I would return to my room. It's not hard to win four more hands than you lose. Sometimes it'd only take ten minutes. One hundred dollars for ten minutes of work--who wouldn't love it?

I loved the rush I got from playing cards. I liked who I was. I joked with dealers and other gamblers. I drank Red Bull religiously and was wired. I loved the way I felt because instead of being an unemployed loser who lived with his mother, I was a high roller with a bad wardrobe.

My visits became so frequent I got to know the casino staff. I was on a first name basis with many of the dealers and floor soops. I knew the lingo (like "floor soop") and lifestyle. I got to know the "regulars" (which I was one of). One time, after a dealer finished his shift, we drove up the road to a different casino so we could play cards together (even dealers get gambling problems).

My buddies and I joked about it, but none of us felt we had a gambling problem--we were just three guys who liked to play cards. I never felt like I had a problem because the "signs" didn't apply to me. I felt no shame. I didn't want to stop. It wasn't affecting my life in any negative way. Why would anyone classify my card playing as a gambling problem? If anything, gambling made my life better. It wasn't a problem because hardly any of the signs applied to me (and certainly not in the context described by Gambler's Anonymous). And yet looking back, I wonder if I did have an addiction--albeit, not in the traditional sense.

When I got a job, my lifestyle changed. I wasn't gonna bet $200 on a hand of Blackjack. In ten seconds I could lose what took me a whole day to earn. I wasn't able to enjoy myself because I became afraid to lose. I think that's one of the things that made me a good gambler--I played fearlessly. People who are scared to lose are too scared to take chances. Gambling is all about taking chances and putting yourself in the best situation to win. When I settle down and got a job, I lost my courage and couldn't play the way I did before. I felt stress, anxiety, and a fear of losing hard-earned money. I had to stop.

As I pulled away my friends got progressively worst. They started like me--willing to lose $40 for an evening's entertainment. Now they routinely had nights of coming home up (or down) $5000 (they weren't as good as me--gotta trust the math and play aggressive while minimizing risks). Meathead would often go to a poker room during his lunch break from his job. Many nights we/he would go to the casino when he was off work and return just in time to start his next shift--same clothes and all. Dalai Lama had a paper sack of bound $100 bills. One time he bought a $2000 TV with cash. Maybe I was the anchor that kept them grounded or maybe I got out in time before it got bad. When I look at them today I see two people with a gambling problem.

I never had a problem. I might've teetering on becoming an addict, but I never thought I had a gambling problem. But when I walk through a casino and hear someone yell "Winner, winner chicken dinner!"...or maybe watch someone foolishly not double-down his soft 17, I feel the rush. I don't think I could be trusted to play Blackjack anymore. The few times I have, I got caught up in the experience of being that guy again--a guy teetering on the edge of an addiction.

Thank goodness I learned how to play poker--a game that doesn't involve emotions.