Edit I am a slow pony.

The craziest thing about these play money casino games, is that once you run out of "play money credits", you get topped up again for the same initial starting amount. Sometimes it's a bit less, but the game never really stops you from playing if you run out of (play) money. Wouldn't this all be extreme sign #1 that she might need someone acting as POA, especially with a large retirement account?

Why is everyone jumping to POA or whatever?

Given her age, my first suspicion is that she doesn't know how to check her chip balance and she has eleventy zillion chips in her account but keeps buying more out of confusion.

Which is why the first step should be someone asking her, "Can I watch you play for a bit? This looks interesting."

Snooping around should be step #10ish and legal action should be step #20ish.

Cause red flags for dementia start with oddly unsound life choices.

A diagnosis by a medical professional should precede legal action, then.

What's the other 18 steps?

Surely there are other play money casinos that offer a jillion chips for maybe $10? $500 seems incredible.

I will sell you 100k more points for only $99, 100 million for only $999 or, today one dollar more gets you infinity for $1000.

Easy choice.

This feels like an episode of 20/20

You should tell her to start buying the $999 package instead of the $499, she gets 5x as many chips for only 2x as much. If she plays at the same rate this could save her ~$60k per year reducing her annual spend from $100k to about $40k per year.

Pretty gross op. Hope you help this lady out and bring her back to earth. Sounds obviously very addicted and it's gone well beyond entertainment.

This is the playwsop.com model too. But at least most people know slots are rigged. Playwsop claims to be "certified" (lol). I used to play there for fun and watched people dump literally thousands of REAL DOLLARS in play chips in an hour or two. Watching them progressively more tilted at the ridiculous hands and 2 outers and compulsively reload hundreds.of dollars at a time. It's hard to watch, especially with the whole table sitting there mocking them with scripted chat text.

What's crazy is if it was.real money they were depositing, that they could withdraw, I'll bet these people would have more of a sense of self preservation. These apps are very smartly designed to make addicts out of people well beyond anything like pokerstars or full tilt ever was. It's crazy that we can't play real online poker here in the states but these predatory play games are ok.

They rake the play chips at something like 20% too. Haha. Shameful to see wso p sell their brand rights to a predatory company like that and plaster their ads all.over the series coverage. Not good for poker at all.

crazy to think that would be a better option but they are hunkered down in the house she loves so they're probably only going to casinos on occasion plus I'm in no position to make her do anything nor do I want to. If it got really bad, I'd tell her son and try to support them in any way I can.

good stuff, like you I'm all for personal liberty, buyer beware, etc but this has been affront to my laissez faire attitude about most things and is giving me pause wondering if maybe I should reshape my stance

No doubt there are many more logical places to play these games for free but I think its safe to conclude logic flew out the window 2+ years ago

Wow, that this can exist on Facebook is massively exploitative. Taking something that is illegal presumably for consumer protection and then making it legal by making it worse for consumers is mind blowing. This website is probably making literally 90% of its money from folks with some stage of dementia or other neuropsychiatric disorders. I don’t care how you feel about bona fide gambling, but this is absurd.

You're dead on. Peruse the consumer reviews for sites like Playtika. These sites are seriously more addicting than any legitimate online poker site ever was. They are now multibillion dollar Chinese company who sells nothing of value. just PLAY CHIPS. They do a slots site and playwsop for poker. Shameful to see the wso p whore out their brand name to this kind of thing.

Yes. ... on the one hand, my "this should be illegal" reaction makes me uncomfortable. I'm not that guy ... on the other hand, to the extent we humans make the rules of our societies, I don't want it to be ok to take advantage of people like that.

And while you can argue gray areas and lines, spending thousands of dollars for play chips that can never become real seems to be so egregious a scam and require such non-rational behavior that I'm confident saying this scummy **** shouldn't be allowed.

And particularly on Facebook, where it just seems to closely link "games" with targeted marketing, people looking for **** to do, the potential for addictive behavior, and legal payment processors.

I don't want to run around banning stuff, but on the other hand we know enough about human behavior now to know some stuff is just a blight on society.

ETA: Facebook sucks.

OP,

https://www.amazon.com/Slots-Bally-G.../dp/B00006HCHB

just saved you a million dollars.

I’ve always respected Yim before this thread as a matter of disclosure. However, this OP doesn’t pass the smell test and people have taken it at face value and given way more replies without questioning it than I expected.

There are confusing and glaring holes in this story that don’t make sense in the first 20 post and yet people just go debating without much questioning.

They can see credit card history dating back two years and can see brokerage statements but also don’t have any access to the accounts?

Story isn’t holding water imo but I also don’t really care very much and find OP amusing. So carry on.

Fascinating, I'll play along for a minute.....what is it you think I'm trying to pull here?

obv recreation of the Clerks scene where you try and all get us to go play that slot game

Can you please tell us how much is in her brokerage account?

I don’t think you’re trying to pull anything so there’s nothing to play along with as far as trying to string you into an “AH HA” moment. I think it’s a much smaller story than you’re making out and you’ve added in things to get interest and a discussion going

I wouldn’t call it a troll or even a magic show but perhaps light embellishments to get people to pay attention and reply

Op's question was resolved in post #16


@Nat, I think you're giving Yim and others too much credit. Imo the jaw dropping and naivety by others was legit.

I'm certainly not condoning what online games do to make a buck, but it clearly exists, to anyone paying attention. Zero chance Op's Dad's GF is the worst victim.

Its always funny to hear how people perceive you. The story I posted seems pretty mundane and straightforward to me but apparently that's not how its coming across.

I've had people tell me after getting to know me that the first time they met me, they thought I was totally full of **** but then over time, they were surprised to find out I was telling the truth and merely blunt as a stump.

I have a friend who is a BS artist, good looking and has people believing every word he says but after a few months, they want to kill him because he's in the remodel biz and never delivers on the BS he spews.

I built houses for years (now retired) and am the exact opposite. I lost a lot of work to people who were told what they wanted to hear by my competition only to have them call me when the **** hit the fan wanting me to bail them out but at that point it was too late because I wasn't about to try to clean up another guys mess. Guess I was a bad salesman, C'est la vie, I figure I dodged a lot of bullets.

Anyway, I cant stand BS so thats why I try to be blunt in hopes that people will respond in kind, its too bad that doesn't always come across or people don't believe me, but what can you do?

Yim,

I’m probably wrong and it would be the first time. I’m gonna take Sak’s advice
And re-read the first few post including #16 maybe I missed some explanations

Fortnite making 9 figs a month lol