In this thread I want to list prominent examples of addiction and the outcomes, but also the effects of gaming and gambling on human psychology.
The effects on mental health and execessive gaming are not really researched yet, but there seems to be a link to a few problems. I had a friend that was seriously gaming and he killed himself a few years ago.


I have looked at a few examples of gambling and addiction.
Wanting to start of list of people, if anyone can add someone or something youre welcome to do so.

Matt Marafioti (pokerstars: ADZ..) https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...r-him-1580354/

Chad Batista, (ps lildholdem) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Batista
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...tista-1554886/

Richard Lyndaker (nutsinho) https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/...dead-35017.htm

Bandi Hawbaker

Grant Amato
This guy murdered his whole family becuase he was addicted to a bulgarian camgirl. He pulled allnighters watching her and shipping her 250k of stolen money from his family. When they called him out he killed them. Honesly one of the more chilling cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvbuZM-nxRE

Rocky Ramka Kam
Oh yes, and this guy spend his whole time playing video games until he snapped:



Gavin Smith, one of my heros
Stu Ungar, one of my idols

Mario Zwansleitner: https://www.yourpokerdream.com/poker...d-and-himself/
https://www.vip-grinders.com/poker-p...ls-girlfriend/
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...-600k-1353247/

Alessandro Bastianoni killed himself after losing around $600.000 playing.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...-600k-1353247/

Max Heinzelmann
https://www.pokertube.com/article/ma...n-dies-aged-26

So there you go, this is my list of people. If you have anyone else I forgot please add.

I almost fogot the most horrible case:
The vegas shooter. He lost a substantial amount before going berserk.
Addiction: video poker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting

"Gambling-addict granny nicknamed 'Losing Streak Lois', 57, is charged with her husband's murder, a year after she 'shot him dead' and sparked a nationwide manhunt by fleeing to the Mexican border"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-shooting.html
"Gambling granny shoots husband dead then kills a stranger to steal her identity"
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-l...-dead-22814762

Edit- Name of Canadian video game addict is Rocky Rambo Kam.

Please don't just spam links. Tell people what is in the link, what you think of it, and keep it the amount of links to a level that is reasonable for people to read.

You are right, its very badly written and I aplogize.
If I could edit it I would do it. I didnt mean to disrespect anyone.

I dont even see the value in talking about this. I once heard do not talk about people who are no longer with us, especially not in a bad way. Since this was not given and it cant be secured that it will be, I suggest to delete the whole thread. If anyone of the familes reads this here, my condolences for those no longer with us and apolgies for anyone reading this. It was a bad idea to even bring this up.

This is my edit fwiw. But please delete this whole thing.

This group of people is what got me thinking. In no particuar order and not to disrespect any of them.

Matt Marafioti-ADZ, used to see and rail him on pokerstars a lot. He was always multitabling the higher(st) nl cash tables. Everytime I looked he was either playing or waiting. Then a few youtube videos where he came across a little douchey but not that bad. I kinda liked and looked up to him at the time. After a while he had somewhat of meltdown on youtube and twitter. Never understood why.

Chad Batista- lilholdem, was an online mtt player who was ranked no1 player for the longest time ever. This is pre black friday. He continued with similar results after bf from mexico. He is an online legend, but died at age 35. If I would have continued to play, I would have probably played vs him so this made me sad when I heard it. Seemed like a good person.

Richard Lyndaker (nutsinho) Poker legend, also died way too soon. If you play poker you probaly know and like nutsinho.

Bandi Hawbaker- made me sad too. Seemed like a nice person and somewhat gambling addicted.

Grant Amato - This guy murdered his whole family becuase he was addicted to a bulgarian camgirl. He pulled allnighters watching her and send her 250k of stolen money from his family cc cards. When they called him out he killed them. Honestly one of the more chilling cases.

Rocky Rambo Kam- Just learned about this, the guy played a lot of video games. It is unexplainable what he did. But he killed 2 people.

Gavin Smith, one of my heros died way too young. Liked to see him in the poker videos.

Stu Ungar, probably needs no introduction. I thought nobody of the poker players did.

Mario Zwansleitner- Recent news, a streamer who killed his girlfriend and then suicided. Sad story.

Alessandro Bastianoni -commited suicide after losing around $600.000 playing.
Just read about him.

Max Heinzelmann, was a german poker player. I did see him in a few videos as many of us probably have.

I don't share your opinion that it isn't researched or understood well enough. We know full well that a person's addictions are exacerbated by a lot of modern activities such as gambling, gaming, internet, internet porn and so forth that has become more prevalent in recent years. The dumbass who murdered his family over the camgirl likely wouldn't have made it very much farther just because he wasn't able to see that particular cam or cams in general. It simply sped up his inevitable demise.

Richard passed from an accidental overdose of prescribed painkillers from an injury he got playing soccer

Max is said to have died of natural causes.

Not gonna check all of your links or look into how all of these people died, but I think lumping them into a thread that's titled 'Dangers of addiction and effects on mental health' is inappropriate

I meant that there are a whole lot of cases that are not fully understood yet, or the issue hasnt been researched nearly enough yet. I think there is something happening in the brain that may lead to these outcomes. And it cant be understood in particular the online gaming/gambling aspect because the internet and other technologies are relatively new. One couldnt argue that the effects of social media on people are not fully undersood either as it is also all relatively new. That said, there are gamers dropping dead left and right now especially in asia in recent years. This is a new phenomenon.

"Gamers Are Dying in Taiwan's Internet Cafes"
https://www.vice.com/da/article/znwd...rnet-cafes-456


You are talking about the Grant Amato case.
He was an up and coming twich streamer, who lived in a fantasy world, where he was the hero. He had a strange obsession with a camgirl, who he thought he would be in love and had a relationship with. He told her lies about him being rich succesful and sent her thousands of dollars a day. He never met her, and could only talk to her by paying her money on the cam site. He killed his family, who loved and supported him over her. That is what is not understandable to anyone and it reminds me of another twich streamer Mario Zwansleitner.

I share your sentiments about possible being inappropiate as I said. However I think there should be room for discussion on this as it involves people we know or share the same passion with. Of course I know how Richard died or what was said in the media, but do you know that he allegedly lost 300k just days before this in an unusual fashion and wasnt seen playing after? Or that he went bananas on social media after losing that money and said that he doesnt want to play again?

Do you believe that Max died of natural causes at age 26? Do you know that he owed a lot of people a lot of money? Im guessing around 250-500k.
Chad Batista, Richard Lyndaker and Max Heinzelmann all had one thing in common, they were way too young and on top of the poker world at one point.

OP is 100% on point with his hypothesis.

Gambling = vice. Poker = gambling.

Glorifying high stakes players is like glorifying who can shoot up the most heroin. Look at the guys still alive, none of them look good.

So since the last post itt, Layne Flack died of a heart attack and Marafioti died of suicide. It's becoming increasingly clear that playing poker seriously is a horrible lifestyle for health reasons. I know one common argument against the game is that it turns a generation of very smart and talented people away from more productive pursuits, but it's also ruining their own lives, by turning them into boring, emotionally stunted, prematurely aged dimwits. Like, the emotional and social chasm between a poker player and comparable people their age who don't play poker is so insanely wide it's probably irreparable for most of them.

It's clear that playing poker professionally is a horrible lifestyle for a lot of reasons unless you have a very unusual personality. This fact is much more broadly understood on 2+2 than it was 15 years ago.

Back in the days when a ton of high rollers posted in the strat forums, I remember there was a long discussion about hiring personal assistants so that you could free yourself from the banalities of daily life (buying toothpaste, filling your car with gas, sending your mother a card on Mother's Day, etc.).

I argued that poker players were not movie stars. I added that I had met a lot of professionals with seven-figure incomes and not one had a personal assistant. The first response was "that's because they all have secretaries." When I noted that professional secretaries in the modern era didn't pick up laundry and go to the drug store, the response from a lot of 22-year old high rollers was, "then those wealthy people are stupid. They should hire PAs."

It was quite the mindset.

Funnily enough I think the MoneyMaker effect was both a boon to poker short term and a bust for Poker long term.

I think pre Moneymaker decent poker players could grind out unsuspecting Fish all day, every day and make a good living. Sure some got stuck in the trap of ego and big stakes and wanting to beat the best other pro's but the smart, workman mentality, was to find easy games and avoid trading money with other good players.

Moneymaker drew in fish with a massive net and for a few years the game was better than ever. It was near impossible to not make money if you just picked the right games, with so many fish. But amongst those fish were many people who did have decent skill and who could grow with the game. And many became students of the game.

I started playing years before Moneymaker and was a House regular in NL games at the Niagara Casino's and a very winning player. I also played in many Toronto Area underground games and got the pleasure of being part of two SWAT team game busts with machine guns pointed at my head. First one was scary (we saw them banging in the security door on camera but they were dressed all in black with no clear police markings and we thought we were being robbed). The second one, I just yawned as they were breaking down the door, thinking ok lets get it over with. They did not charge the players. Only the house and staff got charged.

I thought about dropping my day job many times for full time poker but I was making a lot of money in Tech and could not justify the tradeoff.

I mostly avoided the games above 5/10 as they were ego fests. Big money trading hands between mostly all skilled players trying to out bigd*ck the other guy. The odd Billionaire Fish sitting in on the big stakes games would draw me up though.

Post Moneymaker as the Fish only continued to get fleeced by a growing body of good grinder type players they started to leave the game.

I can recall specifically entering the Poker Room pre Moneymaker and looking at the tables I wanted to avoid. There were only a small handful of good grinder players and we all avoiding sitting at the same table. That also meant there were plenty of games for Fish to only play Fish and thus enjoy the game and winning which always lead them to believe they had a chance. Post Moneymaker you would be lucky to find a table with no more than 3 good players. The Fish stood no chance.

And now, the game is mostly comprised of decent or good players. Few like the fish of old as the Fish now know they are fish and are weary and scared when they they think they spot a shark. I always remember having one casual call me out at the table like he was doing a public service announcement for the table. He started telling everyone at the table to be careful, I was a shark and trying to hide it. It was kind of flattering but he did kill my action. And he table changed to a table with a player who was much better than me.

For me poker was never gambling. I feel no addiction pull. I am not taking uncalculated risks which is where i draw the line between gambling and competition. But I certainly saw the ugly side. So many who lost everything. So many begging to borrow money at the tables as they 'forgot their wallet'. And then the bad stories that followed.

TS I was a friend of Gavin Smith, we played in all the same circles, and he definitely suffered all the demons. It was so sad to watch.


(edit : my comments are mainly for outside Vegas directly. I think Vegas and a few select areas still draw enough fish for grinders and you can avoid playing with too many other good players)

Aghh now I am reminded of my Fatbonus days and Trugansta days

These sorts of conversation always carry the risk of the fallacy of comparison to 'all ok' (probably has a fancy name - 'null fallacy' maybe). It's like those who consider tthe risk of vaccinations instead of the risk of vaccination vs the risk of covid

Many who aren't ok playing poker wont be ok anyway. And maybe some do better by playing poker.

Anecdotes are useless for drawing conclusions.

Everybody knows addiction is bad and leads to self destruction. You had to study this and write an essay about it?

I’m already convinced the laidback attitude that people on this forum have with the physical and mental health effects from poker is gonna be looked back as a huge blind spot, in say 20-50 years, the same way smoking cigarettes was many years ago. It’s hilarious to me that people here just sweep all that could be bad with being a poker player (even a winning one), under the rug.

For one, way too many players who have been playing pro for over ten years just look ****ing weird. Like their face and body haven’t aged at the same rate, whether it’s grey hair or going prematurely bald (or got hair transplants), or they look way too old for their age, whatever, it just looks ****ing weird and unnatural on these guys. The guys who passed out in the middle of the day on the sidewalk due to their heart malfunctioning, that’s not normal... I mean yeah it can happen to others, but there’s just gotta be something deeper going on with poker (more than just stress, because this form of “poker stress” is way more insidious than the typical rude boss or trying to meet a deadline stress). I’ve experienced these kinda phenomena from playing seriously a little bit first hand and the difference between how I feel when I’m playing and not playing is like night and day. And I too tried to do all the health conscious stuff to overcome this, but it’s just too obvious to me what it does to your body now that I have stepped away from the game for a long time. Unfortunately I can’t recoup those years other than in the money I made…

Just wait for it though, there will be studies done and long term trends will show that playing poker cuts your lifespan by a decade, or two or three…playing poker will be known as like willingly giving yourself poison pills, for both physical and mental health (even if you’re profiting from it financially). Or if not, we’ll just keep seeing these former stars of the game pass away much too soon.

prob (extremely likely) caused by poor sleep habit.

You can play what ever hours yoy want as a player, and if your body is that ****ed from sleep when you can literally sleep whenever you want you're just an addict. They look like **** because they are addicts.

Thanks TD and KS for lwrtting this thread stand. It could be helpful for some people. Ceres I hope you read this. There is another layer to this once you add playing under the influence, it gets even worse. A good friend just told me about another story of his friend, a french pro poker player who committed suicide by jumping off a huge moutain. He was the nicest person, the people loved him he told me. He couldnt understand what made him do this. I understood immediately. I am also the nicest person when I am not playing. It used to be a very easy game, but now you have to compete with spables, AI, (bots and dream machines. ) On top of all that the other pros. Once you have similar skilled players it becomes a game of luck.

If this helps only one person it is already worth it. Be f careful.

I would say that the bad life outcomes (early death, suicide, murder) and pathological gambling of these cases are correlated, but not causative. The addiction didn't cause the murder of the model, the addiction didn't cause the murder of the family, the addiction didn't cause the suicides ... but rather, underlying psychological problems caused all, the crimes and addictions. That's important in the dynamic.

If you are doing a study on the effects and corrolaries of addiction, you can't cherry pick the disasters as representative of anything. You need to include the millions of cases where such disasters did not occur. It is an interesting and poignant subject no doubt, but I think your focus is a bit skewed.

If you are more modestly just listing disastrous outcomes, no overall study implied, it leaves open the question of is the frequency different than in any other walk of life.

My takeaway on the subject is that to the extent the endeavor is about escaping reality (internal realities mostly, one's emotions, pain, demons), to the extent it is about escaping, whether it be gambling, gaming, drugs, etc. it correlates with underlying psychological problems/alienation/mental illness. These escape agent lifestyles are a symptom of a deeper issue(s), not causing them. Since imo a ton of heavy gambling, even among winners, is about escape and addiction, it does correlate with the bad outcomes associated with escape from self.

If I'm over 40 should I know what a camgirl is? Is this a woman who gets money from a man for just like making faces over a zoom call or something? Man I try not to hate the younger generation. Lots of good people in it who are in some ways superior, for example their dancing is way better than the running man or the cabbage patch. But some of the soulless crap they are doing is just beyond my moral conception.

Thinking about how alienated these young people are by technology and by the way the workplace is increasingly organized, and by the pandemic, am I genuinely afraid of what they will become. I know every generation says that about the next, but this time it's for reals.

You are trying way too hard to convince people you don't know what a camgirl is.

It seems obvious what they are, but the obvious seems incredible. The amounts of money I hear being transferred seem really high for an exchange not involving actual sex. I'm not quite old enough to be gen X but I don't consider myself a millennial either. There are people in my specific cohort technically maintaining the internet and some who still won't put their credit card number online anywhere and won' buy a laptop without a cd drive. Many of us are baffled by the kinds of ways people are making money online.

cam girls arent a new thing for the younger generation. Im not sure they are even a big thing anymore like 10 years ago.