Brow, respectfully, don't you think there was a strong correlation between Babs blowing $300 quickly on 5 Dimes and then panicking and begging to get his $250 back immediately after even though he had previously ESCROWED that money knowing it wouldn't be easily accessible and, in effect, locked into a long term contest? Perhaps he was a desperate gambler looking to chase the $300 he didn't think he would lose? Cmon, of course that's what happened.

Pretty simplistic view of human behavior IMO.

Fair enough. I guess it seems a little like the "people are going to shoot heroin whether I sell it or not" justification for selling drugs. Yes, I agree, babs is likely to self destruct no matter what y'all do. It just seemed a little wrong to me that people's reaction to his expressing his desire to quit gambling was so harshly unhelpful. Again, I think babs behaved very very poorly here. I guess I always thought that at some point most of us y'all realized he was not well and would eventually lay off a bit - and that seemed like a good point to do so.

I really have no idea why I give a **** about this situation. Sorry to suckify the convo.

What I think happened is that he couldn't really afford the $250. His thought process was 'Oh, I'll just throw 300 on 5dimes and earn the 250 back with my elite handicapping skills'.

Giving him his money back was the worst of all options imo. Just rewards his degeneracy and bad behaviour.

I agree. Once again, a beast gets the upper hand. He played everyone like a flute.

in tbabland, gambling quits him.

Hunchcap II Participants,

Confirmed (as far as I can tell - everyone please verify, it'll be much easier to follow now)
Howard
Saklad
NoSoup
ec_outlaw
SCT
Alobar
Wires
BluffMyNuts

Unconfirmed (please verify ASAP!)
El D
Tylertwo
offTopic
MyrnaFTW
Banned4Lyfe
ninetynine99
DontDoItPls
Villian1
LKJ
Brock Landers
Sgt RJ
Didace
citanul
Brow2821
TeeJayOrTJ
Rusemandingo
EddyB66

I'm pretty sure there'll be room for whoever wants to play, so if your name is not on this list and you want to play, speak up!

He has a lot of experience playing the flute iykwim

Thin,

You might need to go find him at another forum! I'm sure wiper can point you in his direction.

In my view tbab is nowhere near ready to quit gambling. He believes that he is smart enough to beat the odds. I imagine that he does have a vague idea that it contributes to life problems for him, but he believes that what he needs to do is to make some minor tweaks to his approach. He seems to have identified the tweak as learning to stop chasing his losses, but others might decide they need to stop betting on Thursdays or only bet on baseball or or or.

I'd offer a thought problem for those who are interested. In a classic case of addiction, the key thing is to find a way to help the patient stop the addictive behavior. In many happy cases, this is transformative to someone's life. People who left behind broken relationships and got fired from jobs and lost their friends stop using cocaine and in pretty dramatic fashion are able to find work, make friends and repair or build romantic relationships. In those cases, the addictive behavior was the thing that needed to be treated. However, in other cases, you might see someone control their addictive behavior and find that they still have the same struggles in other areas of their life -- in fact you might see the rest of their life get worse as the addictive behavior served as an outlet. If I could waive a magic wand and close every sportsbook in the world, do you imagine that the beast would get promoted, find love and live a happy and productive life? Or do you see parallels in his internet posting, gambling, professional and personal life?

I thought about demanding a refund in tbabian fashion, but I just can't manage it. I'm obviously in.

I'm in for a $155 contribution

I actually have a PHD in assessing the desires of individuals to stop gambling and I assessed that Tbab's desire to stop gambling was level banana.

I really don't think people should be using his real name itt

giving him 'his' money back.....if you agree it's his money, what business of yours is it what he does w it? where does depriving someone of something that belongs to them fit into your degeneracy/bad behavior continuum? accepting his couple hundred in the first place was ok? bcus it was really obv he could afford it?

Not really fair - he could afford it in the sense that he was able to escrow it, and in the sense that he said he could afford it, and indeed that he was able to dump $300 on 5dimes shortly afterwards.

It didn't belong to him because he knowingly entered into an agreement whereby he paid cash to enter a contest. Happens all the time. Refunds aren't the obligation of the receiving party necessarily, particularly when part of the agreement was that he wouldn't get his money back if he decided not to take part. That's a classic example of a No Refund clause.

The refund was a generosity, especially so given his behaviour/attitude.

Boooomm, NoSoup4NONEofyou. Well done man, the only right thing to do was done by you. I hope you take it down, gl.

And lol at everyone convinced they were tough loving him, get a grip jo!

I'll take a pass on Hunchcap II, gl to all participating.

Yak,

Really interested to why you think allowing a disturbed gambling addict welch and be reimbursed funds to be given to gamble away was the right thing to do.

Still planning to participate but it looks like I might be in for some heavy traveling over the next two weeks. Hoping one of my partners will be able to pick up the bulk of it but if not I'm on the hook...

Don't anticipate a problem but I'll be able to confirm by the end of the day.

I don't think its as interesting as you think it is Mullen. I'm rather interested why you think pressuring a gambling addict into gambling is the right thing to do.

No-one was pressuring him into gambling, sheesh. Everyone, pretty much, said for him to walk away and get help but that he wouldn't be getting his escrow back. You're twisting.

In what world is saying "you can do y or x but when you do y you're forfeiting 250$" not pressuring. Dont be like that man.

If he was pressured into escrowing sure, I'd agree, but he wasn't. The options you're talking about were presented to him before he escrowed, under no pressure to escrow, and he chose to escrow. That's the difference. I just feel like you're absolving him of all responsibility for his own actions because you think that he can't make his own decisions.

Thanks, I hope so too.

This is true. No one was obligated to refund his money. Other people would have been able to get a refund but given his previous slow paying, it was perfectly reasonable to require him to escrow and to refuse a refund. Sometimes your posts demonstrate exceptional analytical thinking skills.

And sometimes they don't. Several people offered advice for him to walk away and get help and generally would have returned his escrow with conditions either immediately or at the end of the contest. The conditions ranged from ones that he was somewhat unlikely to do to ones that he was extraordinarily unlikely to do, but they were reasonable and seemingly calculated to help him. A number of people advocated that he be given no option but participate in the contest. One or two others didn't clearly advocate a position other than just antagonizing tbab. There is no way that the majority position was that he should leave and default on his bets. In fact that remains one of the main criticisms of the way it went down -- that he was allowed to "welch" on his obligation to gamble.