Is gambling wrong?

I’ve been ‘studying’ something gambling related recently and yesterday put the theory into practice.

I’m not normally a betting man, but there is obviously a risk comfortable side to me as I run my own business and have done since 2002.

I decided how much I was prepared to lose and away I went.

In brief, I approached it as a business transaction and tried not to get too emotional about it. I won £462 and lost £260 so made a profit of £202 in 4 hours.

I’m not suggesting that this would always happen, and I know that over-all the bookie always wins, but I’m intruiged to get people’s thoughts.

I have to say that I felt a little odd that I had been gambling, but I can see how people get addicted.

By the way, ‘Er-in-Doors didn’t like the thought of it when I fessed up, but soon changed her tune when suggestions for Mothers Day pressies with my ill-gotten-gains became the topic of conversation (her suggestions I might add – a bunch of Daffs was on the cards previously)!

I’m a moral relativist, so don’t think gambling in itself is inherantly wrong. Limited gambling where a budget is set aside which can be lost isn’t wrong, not feeding your kids because you’ve spent all your money on horses is wrong.

BM, yeah, that’s the bit that made me feel horrible during the process as at one point I was £200 down and all I could think was “you ****t, you’ve just selfishly blown £200 when you could have spent that on the kids on the next holiday”. I then ‘stupidly’ chased the loss – which I know is a no-no, but I had lost because I’d ignored my own ‘rules and method’ so I then stuck to the rules which at times was scarey, and luckily came out on top.

Gambling is not wrong. However, those companies that allow you to gamble do it for a reason – that is, they make a lot of money. And from whom does that money come? The punters.

However – on some things you can beat the system. I can understand playing poker or even following form on sporting events, but not random stuff like roulette etc. Might as well throw your money away long term.

A colleage here won something like £40k betting on sport, then he lost it again chasing bets. He’s back up a bit now but it’s taken a while.

Well reminded. Betfairs been playing up all day from work but I managed to just get my bets in for the Rugby tomorrow before pissing off with the lads for the weekend 🙂

What Molgrips said. No, it’s not wrong, but who do you think pays for all those betting shops, websites and casinos?

I’ve worked as a croupier and seen most sides to gambling.If you keep within a pre set budget then it can be a fun, exciting diversion.
It can get a hold on you realy quickly though,the adrenalin can give you a real buzz.If you gamble on a regular basis (not playing poker with friends and your better than them)then you will loose.Its a bit like mtbing good fun,but you’ve got to pay to play.

Molgrips – I agree, the bookie does always win, however I sort of have a theory that overall they win, but part of that is that they also lose (but not quite as much as they win). I am currently questioning whether if I kept it unemotional, set a limit which I’m prepared to lose, and walk away when I do lose, whether I might be ok to earn a few quid extra. I think you can’t chase a loss (even though I did yesterday).

In business, some days I make a loss, some days I make a profit. Now, so long as I have more of the latter, the business makes a profit. Is it the same for gambling? With the business, the extra thing in my favour is that I can control a sensible amount of what happens, where-as gambling is…gambling.

I’ve taken advantage of these free bet sites when you join up.

I’ve taken my money out of jaxx.com now, but I wound up taking them for a £100 profit.

I regard any winnings as tokens to achieve the greater goal.

I keep my bets simple, ie win or lose bets, mostly on Basketball and American Football – good because there is only two possible outcomes 99.9% of the time, occasionally footy but that’s more risky.

Squin.It sounds as if your on dangerous ground to me.Bookies do indeed have loosing days as well as winning days.They make their profit on turnover,their odds have a completly unemotional profit margin built in.(you get 8/1 when it should be 10/1).Unless you have a massive win and walk away you will loose in the end.

squin – you can’t win long term
the odds are very carefully worked out to favour the bookie over the long term

I don’t know what you were betting on but I’m guessing the machines in the bookies – they’re FOBTs [Fixed Odds Betting Terminals] – noticed the word FIXED

I’m in bookies & their back offices on a daily basis & see some things – last week I saw a punter win £25000 on one of those machines.
The area manager was summonsed & wrote him a cheque for the full amount & was chatting to him asking what he was going to do with it etc.
He said he was going to buy himself a BMW as he’d always wanted
He disappeared for an hour & then returned & staked the whole lot on the favourite in the next race – It fell

One man band bookies regularly fail though – those with a few sites rarely do

I know that I should just see it as a bit of fun – if I can’t afford to lose it I shouldn’t risk it. I’m not loaded so I can’t see that I’ll be betting loads.

I did feel really bad after doing it – that sort of feeling you used to get as a kid when you hadn’t done your homework and had no time remaining to do it.

There’s no such thing as easy money! Maybe I’ll just have a bit of fun now and then with £1 bets!

Thanks for sharing all – I don’t feel quite so dirty now, but also know that I won’t be gambling the house!

Stu.

Dunno…. It’s 50/50 question really.

more like 45/55 in the favour of the bookie 😉

Thats true. You dont see many poor bookies around 🙂

Surely the bookies must work it out as a statistical measure of all their customers, which means that, say, 10% could be winning reguarly, 20% breaking even and 70% paying for the rest… If that’s the case, if you can get into the 10% you can make money.

FWIW I’m somewhere at the bottom of the last category 😕

Define gambling?

Horses, casino, lottery, tombola, stocks and shares, pension fund, taking a punt on a slighty iffy german bike shop website?

You’d be hard pushed to find someone who hasn’t gambled even if indirectly.

Buisiness is a gamble,but at least it’s often more of an educated guess sort of gamble,rather than a random chance one.

I’d stick to buisiness. 🙂

At uni me and a few mates created a loss minimising, profit maximising strategy for roulette using our economics and metrics knowledge. Won a fair bit of cash – which was duly pissed up the wall. Only worked with casino’s that offered bonus’s though.

Not a fan of gambling normally. It’s nice when you win but my philosophy is that you will always lose in the end. Just look at all the lost souls next time you walk past a bookies.

Surely the bookies must work it out as a statistical measure of all their customers, which means that, say, 10% could be winning reguarly, 20% breaking even and 70% paying for the rest… If that’s the case, if you can get into the 10% you can make money.

No – it’s worked out per type of bet, the only punters that are monitored are high stakes gamblers
Chinese punters are targeted though – some of the machines are even in Chinese & the bookies know how much goes through with those.

As said above the machines are fixed odds & pay out around 96%
Lots of Tote type bets are done for commission only
Football bets are big winners for the bookies
The horses & dogs are on the decline

They tend to really push any sort of numbers betting – cartoon races etc.
as the returns are easy to estimate

Another win for the bookies is unclaimed winning bets [aliens]

In every high street bookie, there’s normally four or five tills to place bets, there’s normally only one till that pays out.

All tills take bets & pay them out

OK, so how did you come out quids up Squin??
Have always steered clear of gambling (have enough on my hands with other vices) but went to a casino in Mozambique several years ago and the croupier had a kalashnikov behind the table. Good times.

I have only ever gambled once in my life. I was at a stag do, at Walthamstow Dogs, and it seemed kind of pointless to be there, without having a ‘flutter’. So I did a £5 5-race thing; won on one race, £3. So I ultimately lost £2. So, a pint (was a few years ago). One of me mates, who’d also never gambled before, won £40. So he had a free night out, and a couple of quid on top. Overall, our group lost a good few quid, as most of ’em were sticking more on.

But we did manage to raise a little bit for a kids charity, when the groom did a lap in his boxers. We got it announced over the tannoy, that if people chipped in a quid each, if we got over £100, he’d run a lap of the track bollock naked. The track people bottled it, and insisted he had to keep his pants on.

It was a right laugh, and most people were more than happy to chip in a tiny bit, for a good cause.

But I, and some of me mates, were left wondering; Of all the money that was gambled that night, what if everyone had just donated it to the charity instead?

I have never gambled since. I can see the appeal, but then I’ve had a taste of Diamorphine, but would never touch Heroin…

Once upon a time a long time ago I had a fling with gambling.

In retrospect I wish that the very first day I had ended losing. But no I won, and won by a factor of 100. I could do no wrong.

After winning the first time, I guess I thought that this could be replicated with larger sums of money.

Over time I lost big time. I never lost my shirt, but the amount of money wasted trying to win big time again was a quite considerable sum. Money that could certainly have been spent on better things.

I’m not saying that gambling is wrong, if you can deal with it in a cold hearted fashion. I couldn’t, I don’t gamble with money anymore.

There’s lots of sensible advice on this post about the statistics and psychology of gambling.

May I suggest a simple point for potential gamblers to consider:

A person who suggests a bet does not expect to lose it. Think on.

There are a lot of bookies offering £25 free bets when you sign up.(You place a bet with your own money then they put £25 in your account so you have to use it for another bet)
So you take up two of these offers with different companies and place two opposing bets on some form of two horse race – where there can’t be a draw, then place two more opposing bets with your free bets. You are guaranteed to win two bets and a probable profit of, I guess, 80% (I don’t know how betting tax works these days)
What is wrong with my plan?

Is the bookie obliged to not sell bets to compulsive gamblers? No. Is the publican obliged to stop serving drunks? You betcha!

Self-regulation simply wont work.

There are a lot of bookies offering £25 free bets when you sign up.(You place a bet with your own money then they put £25 in your account so you have to use it for another bet)
So you take up two of these offers with different companies and place two opposing bets on some form of two horse race – where there can’t be a draw, then place two more opposing bets with your free bets. You are guaranteed to win two bets and a probable profit of, I guess, 80% (I don’t know how betting tax works these days)
What is wrong with my plan?

Nothing a matter with the plan.

People do make money by placing opposing bets with different companies offering different odds on the same event. Lay betting.

Though as I recall there is a lot of number crunching invloved, plus a considerable lot off leg work.

squin – you can’t win long term
the odds are very carefully worked out to favour the bookie over the long term

They are, hence bookies don’t lose. I couldn’t possibly recommend gambling, and definitely don’t get sucked in. It is possible to win long term though if you really know what you’re doing and are careful.

I’d never gambled properly before last summer, when leading up to the Olympics all the commentary about how many medals we were going to get seemed to be on the low side. So went and had a look at the odds and was surprised how few gold medals and medals total I could get a bet on with decent odds – worked out which ones I thought were pretty much certain golds (mainly cycling ones based on WC results) and came up with enough even without considering the probables. Wasn’t so sure about the total medals, but thought that looked a decent bet too. Won ~£200 with both bets. Also won on long distance swimmers winning medals.

However there is a better way – when different bookies offer different odds and get it wrong. You can then back something both ways and guarantee winning. Having a browse around other events I thought I had a good idea about (possibly better than the bookies?) I found one of these with Ben Ainslie – bet on him to win gold with one bookie, bet on anybody else to win with another. Was guaranteed to win either way (decided to go with my gut instinct though and won a lot more with him winning than I’d have won if he didn’t). Found another arbitrage opportunity – as these things are called – since, though can’t remember what it was for. A chap in work makes steady money finding such things, and also where the bookies have got the odds wrong (based on probability of results) on footie matches, though I know far too little about footie to try that. Might have another go when Vancouver is on and the bookies again offer odds on sports they know little about.

Should finish by saying I really wouldn’t recommend gambling though – not only don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose, don’t bet what would hurt too much if you lose either, and as mentioned above, don’t either chase your losses or re-invest your winnings – neither are rational actions.

aracer – economist? irrational? arbitrage? reminds me of uni!

Although I would have included a bit of game theory, signalling and information avalanches for extra points.

First time i ever placed a bet was on the horses watching the grand national. Put 1 quid down and took away 40 😆 that was nice. Last summer i started to go to gje casion with my mstes beforewe went out in town, most of time i was even, lost the odd 10er. Then one time walked away 150 up. Not geen back since 😆 good fun, but it can easily get out of hand

>People do make money by placing opposing bets with different companies offering different odds on the same event. Lay betting.

I do this – nice easy earner. Arbitrage and also exploiting bookie free bets using betfair to cover the bets. Made nearly 3K in 18 months and long may it continue 🙂

Gambling is wong when you lose and not when you win.

Thing is gamble what you can afford to lose, £1 a week on the lotto!

How can it be wrong? Every gambler I’ve ever met tells me their up. 🙂

gambling its a bit like alcohol or drugs. It’s just ‘ a little bit of fun’ when you are in control.

I don’t think it is inherently wrong – but some people will get addicted and for them yes it is wrong.

Did you go looking for this ROG, or are you just REALLY bored and got all the way through to a year ago?! 😀 😯

I got quite excited on this thread that fred was back, till I looked at the dates.

Yes.

No.

50/50 maybe…

I rarely go to casinos, but when I do, I have a system that never, ever fails. It works like this and does involve chasing lost bets.
Roulette. Pick a colour. Bet £1 on it. If it wins, repeat. If it loses, double it. Double every time you lose. When you do eventually win, you'll get your £1 back and be £1 up. Go back to £1 Obviously, you'll hit a big losing streak, but the odds are you'll hit a big winning streak at some point and you're unlikely to put more than £32 on the table. Once you're up enough to pay for a meal, say £20, pack it in the first time you lose.
But, most of the people I know who try this fail. They switch colours on a long losing run, or get up to their target amount and keep going or double when winning (it takes a long time to win anything, don't blow it all at once). What I don't understand is how easy I find it to decide what I'm going to do and stick to the plan, while other people just gamble and almost always lose. I never win a fortune, but never leave a casino hungry or worse off than I went in