Who is worse. A selfish bastard with no kids who has contributed zero to the species and loses 60k american over the course of his life (me), or a man who raises 3 children and gives them love and fatherhood but makes a mistake and loses 60k american?

"John is also the father to three young boys whom he doesn’t support – and rarely sees."

It's all over the net, search and you can find tons of reviewed and published articles by behavioral scientists from many disciplines.

I confused my numbers though. If you have a first degree relative in your family that has a compulsive and pathological gambling problem then you are 8 times more likely to develop it yourself than a random person. Numbers I just looked up say that between 1 and 4.3 % percent of adults develope a compulsive and pathological gambling problem in their life. This neglects to point out that some people who are predisposed to be problem gamblers end up never gambling in their life. An analogy would be someone genetically prone to become an alcoholic who never drinks, thus avoiding the problem. For instance, a kid who has an alcoholic parent that decides to never drink in their life. The problem never presents itself, although it is still there, genetically.

Incredible. So you're saying many of these so called "online pros", [aka internet poker players], may have not lost 60k and may not have fathered multiple children, BUT NONETHELESS share a dwelling with their biological progenitors?

Well. I would never have imagined. Thank you for the insight.

Lmao @ casinos not making $$$ off problem gamblers... What???

aside from not seeing his kids losing 60k over 7 years isnt **** and not dr. phil worthy. i wanna see the guy whos wife is ready to leave, the house going to get foreclosed in the near future and he has one last plan to save his family. withdraw his 2 childrens savings bonds which should be over 10k and could take care of all his money problems. instead hes heading to high limit blackjack for a quick double up to 20k to win back his family. can dr. phil cure this mans addiction and save his family?

Damn, I'd watch that!

this guy is a lazy scumbag and if he's not even taking care of his kids his parents should toss his ass out on the street

No one is always right.

That particular article cited 2 - 3 % of the population as having a gambling problem, not the 8% figure you tossed around as "predisposed" genetically.

But, curious, where "all over the internets" did you find anything about being "genetically" predisposed regarding gambling ?

My point is why can't they buy or rent a place of their own?

Maybe they are "predisposed genetically" to not do so ?

I'm glad you said this, I was starting to feel really bad about myself. I've raised my kids, my wife is still here, I'm paying to put my kids through college right now, but my simplistic math skills tells me I've dumped a good bit into Vegas/casinos over my life and that that number likely tops $60K.

Just $200 a week, which is pennies for going to the casino with, and average losing even half that each week is still $5K/year. Multiply that by however many years I have been going to casinos and I'm well over the $60K mark.

I mean, some Vegas trips alone are over $5K for me and I consider that likely a small weekend in Vegas by most gamblers standards.

If $60K is the line of demarcation for having a real Dr Phil worthy problem then I'm out.........

But the key takeaway from what you typed there is that your family was being provided for while you simultaneously had your fun in the casino.

As with other threads, there is more than a mere number that enters into the calculus. The article in this thread is discussing a deadbeat who doesn't take care of his family and is sponging off of parents. In other words, as one comedienne once uttered in her routine..."a fortune...pissed away."

In your case, the case would be very different if you were out pissing money away while your kids and wife lacked for essential needs (and some wants) and the house was being foreclosed upon and you had nothing to fall back on for retirement.

Sure, a lot of people can look back at a lifetime of travel/vacation expenses and come up with a cringeworthy number just as can other people who have expensive hobbies. Lots of golfers have dropped more than the $60K across their life and have you priced flying as a hobby lately? There are reasons why wet-leasing by the hour can make a lot more sense than buying the plane outright despite the fact that there are plenty of single-engines in good shape for under $50K. However, the common denominator for a lot of those people is that they always took care of the family before spending on their hobby...

It comes down to basic human responsibility, some people just don't think they should even be responsible for there own actions.

Spoken like someone who owns a casino, Wynn is that you?

You are not comparing properly. 2-3% HAVE a problem, he said 8% are predisposed to having a problem. Does not mean all 8% will go gamble. Also it's one article you read, idk how reliable it is. It is also widely known and accepted that people are genetically predisposed to a wide variety of addictions. Casinos know this. Casinos starting sometime in the 90s, according to a documentry I have seen, consulted with psychologists when building casinos. Everything from the scent to the music and layout is developed to get you to gamble. Also the term chasing money. That is a real thing that takes place in our brains. I dont know the medical term, but when gambling and losing a switch is turned on in our brain and overrides so to speak your normal behavior and u chase your money taking bigger risks. Exact numbers, I do not have, or know, but predisposed conditions are real. To deny that or bicker about exact numbers based off of one article is stupid.

Are these the types of people I’m told to be nice to at the table so we can keep them happy gambling away everything they own ?

yeah, pretty much. i mean, any angle you look at it from the guy is a massive deadbeat. his basement is a destructive gross mess. he isn't even trying to improve his education or situation. he steals, probably lies. fathers children presumably wrecklessly. im sure i could come up with more stuff. but giving him his rent free food free pad at his age with these habits doesn't discourage anything. he needs to be forced to decide if he wants to be homeless or do something. tossing his ass to the street the only way imo.

lol, nice

sadly, this is usually the case. sucks when an entity gets no say in the matter.

I imagine some of these individuals become addicted or close to addicted with other things like video games. The addictive tendency is there, they avoid the gambling problem but some end up hooked on excessive video game playing, grinding games like WoW, or spending tons of $$$ on loot boxes in game. That's likely where some of the folks in the numbers you mentioned end up.

We use the word addiction way, WAY too easily in the country anymore so we can blame our shortcomings on something besides ourselves.

I know guys who spend tons of time and money playing golf, is that an addiction? How about my wife who can't seem to avoid smashing my credit card at places like Macy's? She needs clothes and shoes, but not that much and certainly could do with less expensive things? What about those Coach bags she owns, are they an addiction?

Where do we stop?

We all go through our lives spending money/time where we see fit. Some of us just make different choices than others. Some choices are more socially acceptable than others so they don't need deflected as addiction, I guess.

imo they should have a 4th kid, that will fix it.

Probably somewhere after the guy who abandons his children and starts stealing from loved ones in order to keep gambling.

^^ This. My biological father died from alcoholism. He passed away before I was born. I am uber sensitive to drinking or any type of addiction.
I do drink socially, but I never drink too much. I hope I don't pass the gene on to my kids.

I hope the guy gets help.

Why? Kids are the woman's responsibility.

And I just got back from seeing the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie. God must be a comedian.