I saw a similar thing a few months ago.

I was at the final two tables of a $230 live donkament, first place was $10k, we were down to 11 players or so.

The head shift manager walks by our table and then pauses, does a double take, and immediately makes a Bee-line to the player on my right. He is in the middle of a hand and is 4th or so in chips. She immediately mucks his hand and says, "come with me".

Few minutes later they escort him out of the casino and then remove his chips from play. He was banned from the casino for life for something stupid like fighting or throwing a beer bottle of something like that...

Playing at a casino where you know you are banned is just degen-liscious .

guess degens are gonna degen

He may not have known he was banned.
I had a friend who was kicked out of a poker room twice in one night while blackout wasted. The second time they said he was banned for 2wks. The next day he had no recollection of what happened and was on his way back to play. I had to fill him in on what he had done while drunk and that he was not allowed back there for two weeks to save him the embarrassment of getting there and them not letting him in.

No, the guy I'm talking about knew full well he was banned, that was the 3rd or 4th time he was kicked out for being banned

besides, you don't get banned for life from a casino and not know about it. Granted, if you are a black out drunk I guess it's possible, but for 99% of the rest of us, we're going to know...

You think only 1% of casino customers have drank to the point of their memory being blacked out while gambling?

I think that only 1% of us ever drink to the point of being a black out drunk and then while blacked out commit an act that gets us banned for life.

And I think 1% is way too high and was being generous, realistically I think that number is 0.01%.

Or put another way, if the number was actually 1%, then this would mean that 1% of players are getting permabanned for life on a daily basis.

And that isn't even remotely close to being true. At the casinos I play at, they easily cycle through 1000 people per day gambling. They permaban someone for life at most once every 3 months (excluding self bans).

So in actuality, if we ran the numbers that would work out to about 0.01%...

but we may be arguing apples and oranges.

Do 1% of casino patrons drink so much they lose track of their gambling and/or black out? Sure.

However, that is different from my argument about blacking out and then doing something to get banned and then wake up the next day with no memory of getting banned... That is super super rare which is my argument...

TLDR in advance – How not to act in Vegas

Been awhile since I’ve posted, but this one certainly has merit. It was March of 2014. I was headed to Vegas for a bachelor party. This bachelor party came at an interesting time in my life, or one could say a particularly violent point in my gambling career. I was broke, in debt, spewing money, and then lying or working to get more, all the while constantly on my ‘grind’. That said, I scratched together a bankroll of roughly $5k for the trip.

Full disclosure, I cashed all $7k worth of now 10 year old Bar Mitzvah bonds about 1 month ago to essentially claw myself out of debt and finance my gambling trip to Vegas. Judging by my posts in this thread around March, it’s a miracle I actually had any money in my pocket as I began this trip.

For me, the weekend began on Tuesday morning. I drive north to Maryland Live and proceed to somehow win $1k playing very bad PLO. I specifically remember shoving with just a flush draw on the turn and getting called by a set and rivering my card. Yeehaw. So off to BWI airport and onwards to Vegas.

The bachelor party would sporadically arrive beginning on Thursday morning, and the rooms were booked at the Venetian – which meant I’d spend Tuesday and Wednesday at the Bellagio. Through negotiations with the host, a suite was prepared for me on the 23rd floor. This would be home base. First stop on my first solo night in Vegas – Rocket Fuel! I can’t exactly explain why this was part of the plan, but it always had been I guess. And I didn’t have to go far…it is Vegas nonetheless. While I’m a casual smoker, this level of intensity lives in a special place in my past and certainly hadn’t been a part of my daily routine in the past 8 years.

So now I’m ramped up and ready to hit the tables, and as I remember that first night was sweet for me. I camped out at the BJ tables in the Bellagio and won another $1k and drank and smoked about a pack of cigs. I think I stumbled upstairs around 4:15am, and it wasn’t much before 8:30am when I’m right back at it. But not before I took an excellent bath in the spa-like bathtub the Bellagio had so kindly arranged. Now I’m downstairs wearing shorts and shades like I’m ready for the pool, but really it’s time for poker. Started at the Bellagio and wandered to the Aria, and back to the Bellagio again. At this point by way of recap, it’s Wednesday mid-morning in Vegas, my bankroll is roughly $7k ($2k to the good), I’m returning to the Bellagio with the intention of just hitting the pool, grabbing lunch and probably taking a nap.

Sadly that plan never actualized. In fact, I never made it all the way through the main room in the Bellagio. I guess it’s an inconvenient time to mention that in my tired state, I happened to have my entire $7k bankroll in my pocket. This exited my pocket on the blackjack tables before I ever made it through the room. Disaster, panic, ruin, horror, haunting, the same demons are all screaming. So I return to my palace suite, ingest, masterbate, eat, pass out. I slept from 2:30pm until 5:30am, and I awoke in a screaming panic. I was broke – again – and trapped in Vegas and meeting my friends this afternoon. Well ****, I’ve got ok credit at this point and 3 credit cards right. There has to be a way to scratch together cash at 5:30 am in Vegas right…And the correct answer is yes.

That Thursday morning through unbelievable wrangling with BoFa, and other financial institutions I managed to extend the limits on my credit cards so much that I had access to another $7k in cash. Unfortunately, $4k of it was trapped at the bank, due to some sort of financial mumbojumbo, so I went downstairs and took out $3k. My friend was meeting me at 1pm and it’s about 10:00am right now. By 1pm, I’m once again flat broke. Bellagio BJ tables again, how do I ****ing do this. So my introduction to the bachelor party is showing off my baller suite to one friend and then excusing myself for an off the strip cash stop. I return with $4k in my pocket, and my last moneys in the world (although about $15k is owed to various creditors). And the bachelor party begins.

Get drunk, gamble, weed lollipops, strip clubs, and $4k, I’m not winning but I am so messed up. At this point in the trip my body was essentially rejecting alcohol and at the table I relentlessly smoked and drank the bottles of water. I gambled alone, left the group at 7am, and returned to the Bellagio to sleep in the smaller suite they had comped me due to my contributions.

The next day I woke up walked to the Venetian to find my friends, told them I wanted to go scope the PLO game at the venetian – so I off I go again. The game hasn’t started (it’s 10:00am), so I play blackjack at the Venetian and have what feels like my first stroke of luck at the tables the whole trip. I turn my $4k to $8k at the Venetian playing pitch, and drink about 30 bottles of water, so I head back to the Bellagio for a nap. Forget that I haven’t seen most of the bachelor party kids in years, I need to sleep by myself at 10:00am – that’s how bachelor parties work right. Anyway again I sadly never made it through the Bellagio lobby. I lost all $7k at the same blackjack table (and I think this means somewhere in the neighborhood of $15k - $17k total), and returned to my room a beaten man. I called delta and the last moneys in my bank for a $500 flight home. So it’s Friday afternoon in Vegas, and I turned my phone off and quietly said goodbye.

In the airport, I cried and gambled somehow. I was like a slow engine puttering out. First like $100 on seals with clubs, and when that didn’t work like $25 bucks in the slot machines in the smoking section of the Vegas airport. I then watched Owning Mahoney and boarded the plane. Really a ****ty story when you look back at it.

That was not the last time I gambled, but certainly the end of my gambling career. I now go to GA nearly every week and my loved ones attend Gam anon occasionally. And I’m well out of debt already. Character changes – nah, but it nags me now at least. I have pics of the suite somewhere, but that's about all I got out of my last trip to vegas.

Damn Wisco that was a rough read. Glad your in GA now and on the road to recovery.

I'm degening at parx tonight. Brought 350 up to 550 casino war down to 200 baccarat go all on bank win now sitting 900 at 1-2

Been a he'll of a ride so far hope not bust at end of night. Put 7 drinks away so far too. Bout to stack a super fishy chick here too. She is hilarious just called 35 pre flop with 77 lol at 1-2

that's just depressing wisco

This thought right here is what can/will set you up to have a another degen relapse and blow through your entire roll. I don't say that to be mean, I say it from experience. As a fellow degen I know all about the demon..

The demon is a very patient mother****er, it is always over your shoulder just waiting for that perfect moment to strike. First, it sets you up by letting you think you are in control, that your problems are in the past. Then it makes you purposefully do things that aren't smart such as carrying around your ENTIRE VEGAS ROLL in your pocket. You will somehow rationalize why you, a person with a history of problem gambling, are perfectly able to carry around $7k in your pocket while you walk around a casino alone. Then, you will start drinking or getting high but it's okay, right?, you are in control. And then boom, a trigger happens, you get angry or mad or happy or horny or "whatever" and next thing you know you are walking past a pit game that seems to be calling your name. You will notice some mundane trivial detail on a particular table that you will interpret as good luck, like a previous dealer you won big with or the dealer has the same name as your mother or whatever. Now the demon is licking its chomps, it has been setting you up for this moment for months and/or years....

ANd then boom, your entire roll gone. But wait, there's more. You've got credit cards, markers you can call in, checks you can float... You scratch together another $10k or so, hit the tables again and then... BOOM...

Rinse and repeat till busto...

Is there anyway to beat the demon???

The only way to beat the demon is to not play....

Sorry to put this rant in this thread, the whole point of this TL;DR was to just highlight the "I'm cured" line that I read in your paragraph. You didn't outright say it but I sense that on some level you think that your worst degen moment is behind you... and it is that sorta false belief that sets up your next even bigger degen moment.

I know simply because I'm speaking from experience and wish my disease on no man but I can recognize that same disease in others and I'd hate for you to have a relapse because you made the mistake of thinking that on some level you beat your gambling problem...

seems like you have some interesting stories....

DGIHarris - I appreciate the comments and I'm not sure if you have ever attended a GA meeting, but if you have, I think you'd understand that it is hard to attend meetings consistently and truly convince yourself you are 'cured'. There are guys with 3,5,10, and 20 years of sobriety who slip, and I'm not foolish enough to think that my paltry amount of sobriety is = to a cure. - Further I know myself....

I could gamble again tomorrow, I know that. And the past is the past, I clearly made questionable decisions, and I have to accept that. I posted this story because it fits the bill and I think provides a no bull**** look at a real degen story - hopefully no over glorification...just the play-by-play of events and my twisted logics at the time.

You are more than welcome to take this information and speculate as to whether or not I will gamble again (I'm sure it's a fun exercise) - and assuming it's not BS, I appreciate your sincere feedback - but that is not the reason I shared the story.

Damn Harris that's the most accurate description of the degen bug I've ever read.

Kudos.

Must've been horrible playing some crappy machines at the airport and then boarding your flight. Feels man, feels.

I know, I just saw that one snippet in your post towards the end and it made warning bells go off in my head because those are just the little tidbits the demon likes to sneak into our heads to set us up. That was just the point of my post. I know you are not saying you are cured, but a part of our unconscious wants us to believe we are or that we are in control and that mother****ing demon is just setting us up. Note I say "us" and not just you.

And for what it's worth I have been to GA and I actually prefer AA to GA even though I don't drink and I've never done drugs. For some reason my best self therapy came from going to all the A's, GA, NA, and AA and truthfully I think the gambling addiction is the worst addiction. If an alcoholic falls of the wagon and binges for a weekend he only goes through a few hundred dollars. But when a gambler falls off the wagon and degens for a weekend he can literally bankrupct himself and blow through an entire life savings.

Yeah, I've had many a busto night curled up in the fetal position on my bed thinking about it over the years. I do have a couple of stories posted in this thread way back...

There is no worse feeling than that, or in my case there have been times I was so busto that I couldn't afford the plane ticket home (one way tickets are the devil) and had to scrap together money for a Greyhound bus ticket . Man does that suck goat balls

I remember once I was being busto at the Vegas airport waiting for my flight back home and I decide to take my last $10 and play some slots. I'm looking at the row of slot machines wondering which one to pick, I've got it narrowed down to 3 different $1 Wheel of Fortune machines (oh, by the way it's worth mentioning that i HATE slot machines, I really F****ing hate them and have no desire to play them). Anyways, so I'm staring at the two on the ends and the one in the middle. I just have a feeling that one of these is going to hit. I decide to play the one on the right. So I put in my $10 and begin to spin. I'm doing okay, get up $50 when an old gray hair sits down at the slot machine in the middle and on her second pull she wins the spin, the wheel spins and boom, she wins $1000 just like that.

I then proceed to lose every single pull and drop the $50 and now I'm flat busted.

I fly home, get to my car, and then am sick as I realize that I have to pay for parking and I have no money. I have just enough money in my car to take the bus home. So I take the bus home, scrounge around my house looking under the couch, bed, drawers, pants pockets, etc to scrap together the $20 to get my car. Then I've got to take the bus back to the airport get my car and the whole delay was like 3 hours of my time all the while I'm stewing because just two days prior I was sitting at the roulette table with $15k in front of me and now I'm F***ing busto scrounging around for change to take the bus and get my car out of parking.

and during all this, in the background I can hear the demon laughing...

I f****ing hate that demon

DGI.... saying that you have a demon inside your head setting you up makes you sound a bit crazy. I do get what you are saying about going off and the "degen" inside of you taking over. I've seen so many gamblers in poker that when they get stuck they go on hyper tilt until they either get unstuck or they go busto. It's all about willpower and self-control in gambling.

There are some degens out there that can control their "demon" as you put it and make it work. But it takes massive amounts of discipline and being able to accept losing sessions. It's astounding to me how upset some people get and then they throw away their life savings over it. I mean that's what this thread is for. But, it's tragic that people actually do it.

Phil Ivey ITT

I know, sounds crazy right but I don't know of any other way to describe it...

lucky for me though, my demon doesn't really come out when I play poker, only when I play pit games. So I banned myself from all the pit games and put a $500 bounty on my head that if you see me playing a pit game I will pay you $500. I was doing good, haven't played a pit game for close to 3 years before I slipped a few weeks ago and played one, lost $200

I posted about it in my PG&C thread

Link to thread?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1469

Im starting a new AA group. Aces anonymous. Here is where you go when you got your aces cracked too many times, and your sick and tired of it

Jesus christ get that GA **** out of this thread. We're degens in here. I got my entire bankroll on syracuse tonight, about to lose it and be homeless https://nitrogensports.eu/betslip/89...0Zz09/r/22646/

thread has come back alive lately, waiting on those pics

No new stories?