That is so fantastic! Sometimes you have to take a stand. In the middle of a casino is somewhat questionable, where strong arms would have kicked you out if you had actually assaulted him. But he had the money, so it was a great opportunity to lean on him.

Way to go.

And yeah, he has a serious problem. You should spread the word about him. It is for his own good that he has to deal with this, and not rip off others.

WP, OP. Congrats on actually getting paid, good thing we didn't start betting on it ITT or I'd be on the wrong end!

+1 to spreading the word about his gambling problem. Shout it from the roofs.

Thanks guys. I really didn't want it to get to that point but I'm glad it did. It is probably going to continue to be awkward when I see him, and he still owes the other two guys, but at least I can drop it now (on my side anyways). I'm going to continue to let people know that they shouldn't give him action and hopefully everybody gets paid and he gets some help.

1-800-GAMBLER

If you know people who care about him, urge them to help him.

Yeah "awkward" is likely the term at best. Good that you got paid. Let others know what you had to do, and then let it go. Don't make this a crusade to save him or help everyone else out. It will likely not be a good end if you do!

Seriously, though, if this guy is/was a friend, and you know he has a family that he will take down with him, consider warning them. I wouldn't normally condone blowing the whistle on someone except in extreme cases, of which this is clearly one. It's always the spouse in this kind of story who was totally clueless about what was happening until it was too late to escape.

The longer he is able to keep it a secret, the worse he can make it for everyone else in his life when the hammer finally drops, and the fall will be that much harder when he must finally confront the problem. If his spouse finds out now, it may at least give him a taste of hitting bottom before he loses everything.

It seems OP would be more likely an "acquaintance" here than "friend" and would be WAY overstepping his bounds to say something to his family. It's really not his place.

Congrats on getting paid OP.

Just another degenerate gambler. I'm pretty surprised you actually got your money, but if you hadn't confronted him several times, you probably wouldn't have been paid any of it.

I've lent money to friends several times and while some of them are very quick to pay me back (without me having to even ask), others seem to just hope I forget about it. I have one friend I lent $500 to (he doesn't gamble) because I knew he really needed it to pay bills or he'd get evicted and maybe have his car repossessed and he told me I would be paid in full on the date he received his next paycheck (10 days later). A few weeks go by without him saying anything about the debt and I actually noticed he used a portion of the paycheck to buy a new $600 tv instead of paying me back. After about 2 months, badgering him about once every two weeks, I finally received my $500 back, but I certainly will not loan this guy money ever again. It's actually a good thing this happened as I can now use it as precedent for why I can't lend him money again.

If you know someone is a gambler, especially somewhat of a degen gambler (if they have to borrow $ it's a good sign they're a degen gambler), they are the last person you should be lending money to or extending credit to. If someone this that cash strapped he shouldn't be gambling at all, not playing cards, not betting golf, not anything.
The idea of small claims court is silly to even mention. To file a complaint costs around $150 and then you have to show up in district court for your hearing date. Because gambling is illegal, I highly doubt you'd be able to secure a judgment based on a gambling debt. If you are smart about it (and the amount in controversy is enough ($1000+) to make legal action worthwhile, you should have a written contract detailing the loan amount and a date which the loan becomes due, so you'll have a solid breach of contract claim. You would then be able to secure a judgment against the debtor, but that doesn't guarantee you will receive any $. The debtor may have many other creditors seeking to collect much larger debts (mortgage, car notes, credit card debt, etc.). In Pennsylvania, you could actually execute on the judgment by freezing the debtors bank accounts and having a Sheriff appear at the debtors home to inventory his/her personal property for sale, but this all costs $ and if you are not familiar with the legal process, you'd have to hire an attorney who is (who would likely bill you hourly anywhere from $200-300 an hour, or more). If someone has a lot of debt and files bankruptcy, your chance of getting the $ back goes to zero as it then becomes legally uncollectable (and if you attempt to collect it after the debtor receives his/her bankruptcy discharge, you can be sued and fined $1000 for each attempt you made to collect the debt).

I'd bet there are a ton of stories like this (but probably on a larger scale), especially from people in vegas who gamble a lot. Chino Reem and Erik Lindgren come to mind, but there are surely thousands of more gamblers around vegas who owe $ with no possibility of paying back the $.

Moral of the story, know who you are wagering with and if you don't know the person well enough to know if he/she will be able to or care to settle up with you, don't gamble with his person.

It ****in' kills me to see people behave like this. Even if he didn't owe anyone anything, he was on the verge of losing his car and getting evicted a few weeks earlier. The fact that he owes money that he agreed to pay on a specific past date makes it even more ridiculous.

Now he's blowing $600 on an unnecessary purchase like a TV? Even if he didn't want to pay off the debt, it didn't occur to him to stash that money to stave off risk of ruin a little bit? Maybe hold onto a few car payments or a month or two worth of rent?

It's crazy to me that some people's idea of brokeness is being underwater in debt and down to couch-cushion cash. If you're at that point, you're not merely broke; you're borderline destitute, one minor bad decision away from being homeless. The alarm needed to go off in your head long before you got to that point.

Maybe my experience is atypical, but these are the types of people who seem to need to borrow money the most. And they almost always wait until it's a life-or-death issue too, 'cause then how can you say no?

Well, see, he got through that rough patch, and successfully didn't get evicted or lose his car. It was very stressful, and, gosh darn it, he deserves to treat himself.

There's nothing in the world like a good sucker.

Sadly, that above attitude is that of probably the majority of Americans and Canadians. Why else would it be a culture of debt, and living paycheck to paycheck? Why else would people take on $20k balances (or more) over half a dozen (or more) high interest credit cards as if it were normal?

But, but, I WANT. And the credit card lets me HAVE, RIGHT NOW!

That's the thought process of nearly every such decision, distilled.

It honestly and shamefully been only in the past few years that I've shifted my thinking. It's disgusting. We see our bank balances as money available, and view credit cards in terms of how much minimum payment we can afford.

I'm so glad I leaned how to spend to a budget rather than a bank balance, and view credit cards as tools rather than as extra money. Took me long enough.

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.” ― unknown, though attributed to Albert Einstein

I'd rather have a wonder of the world working for me rather than against me.

The funniest part is he actually called me before he bought the TV to ask what I know about HD, 1080P and all that stuff. He's not a degen gambler but he's a degen spender.

I actually have a job which allows me to become aware of peoples finances and it's shocking just how many people are 1 or 2 missed paychecks away from complete financial disaster. Even people who have very nice houses and cars and all are just barely hanging on to them a lot of the time. Many of them turn to credit cards when they run low on funds and while some credit cards will have reasonable interest rates 7.5%-12.5% (which is reasonable for a credit card for someone with sketchy credit), as soon as you miss a payment that interest rate jumps up into the "penalty phase" and is 30% or more.

It's been about 5 or 6 years for me. The short story is that it didn't work out with the spouse. I found myself in an unstable situation and needing to handle a rapid-fire series of challenges, including 2 moves in the space of 2 months—in New York, the Extortionate Real Estate Capital of the East Coast.

No furniture, no TV, no cable or internet service, and basically no savings. My place looked like a squatter's den for about 6 months, but that was what was within my means at the time. I wouldn't trade the learning experience for anything.

I was there for a while myself. This was back when credit-card servicers would issue disproportionate credit lines to college students with no income. I remember feeling like I was some kind of boss when they'd bump my maxed-out credit line another $1,000, when they were really just making a sucker out of me. I gobbled it right up too, to the tune of $3,000+ in debt at 32.99% APR. It wasn't even a default rate; it was just a rate that they had incrementally raised on me while I wasn't paying attention, a few percentage points at a time from the original 18.99%.

The day I called to pay it off and close the card, their retention specialist dead seriously offered to lower the interest rate to 25.99%—the "best" she could do—if I'd stick around. I laughed right in her ear.

Now I have a card with an APR around 12%, with 1.25% cash back on everything, and I haven't paid a dime of interest on it in the 3 or 4 years I've had it. Speaking of which, 7.5–12.5% is reasonable for someone with bad credit? I have excellent credit, and I haven't seen anything lower than maybe 9.99% anywhere. It doesn't matter much because I pay in full like twice a month, but I always just thought that credit cards don't go much lower than the high single-digits.

Ain't that the sad truth.

That's awesome. We had a legacy "credit protection" from back when we sucked with money, and finally got around to cancelling it. They tried to sell us a cheaper version of it. "But what if something happens? You don't want to dip into savings to pay off your credit card." Lady, we only spend money we already have. We use the card for bonus points and for things where debit would be insecure. We don't borrow from the future.

BTW, only pay off your balance after you get the statement. I was paying it weekly for a while, but then I learned that it's the statement that affects your credit score. If you pay it down before it's reported on the statement, your credit score doesn't get as strong.

That "credit protection" upselling stuff is funny. The way they pitch it sometimes, you'd think they get hit with a cattle prod every time someone refuses. If so, I am responsible for many cattle-proddings across many industries. I almost never buy "protection" plans for anything, and I'm totally stubborn about it.

I didn't know that. I've actually been doing this by accident the past few months because I switched to a job that pays monthly instead of biweekly. My credit score is crazy-high anyway from keeping up with an insane amount of student loans for so many years. (Yes, yes, I know, student loans are one of the most insidious forms of debt. If only I'd understood that when I was a teenager.)

I don't trust people like this and it is the reason why I don't lend like that. Loaning is just bad unless you really trust the person

That's backwards -- you want to have a low balance relative to your credit line.

You pay it off every month in full. But my understanding is that it's the statement amount that's kept on record. You want a record of using the credit and then paying it off. If you pay it off before the statement, then there's no record of it.

I could be wrong on this, but it's my understanding.

I agree with pfap. I think using the credit and paying it back promptly will help your credit rating more than apparently not using the credit.

When you apply for another credit line, you want your balances to be low.

Yes, you want to have a record of paying your balance off in full every month, but your FICO score will be higher if your monthly balance is 15% of your credit line rather than 50%. At least that's what I've read, I know Mr. FICO keeps his algorithm secret and everything is just educated guesses.