I've been reading this thread on and off for weeks. It's been mandatory bedtime reading for some days now. Some of the stories on here are just scary, many of them are horribly familiar. I've had my own fair share of dreadful sessions culminating in that sick drive home after you've just slaughtered a fortune chasing a small loss.

Here's the worst and most painful of my portfolio of sick degen outings:-

It was Vegas in '98 or '99, January time, I'd gone out from London just before New Years Day for a series of tournies being held at the Rio in the $300 to $1000 range. On about the second or third evening of the trip, after busting just before the bubble QQ v AK, I decide to quit the poker room and have a little spin on Pai Gow. I drift from casino to casino on the strip losing a little here and a little there, and then after a couple of hours I hook up at the table with girl who is an off-shift dealer who also likes to play Pai Gow. We chat and play together for a few hours until she goes bust and leaves for home. At this point I am about $500 down, so my little recreational adventure has become a bit expensive. Too expensive to just be written off, I needed to get the money back.

So I went back to my room at the Mirage, grabbed some travellers cheques and exchanged them for $ at the cage. I wasn't going to spend hours and hours hoping to go on a run at Pai Gow, my plan was to win a few spins at roulette and recover my loss that way. I had a dreadful start, could hardly hit a number, and within an hour my $1000 dollars had gone.

I went back to the room, cashed up some more cheques and wandered down the strip to the adjacent hotel in search of better luck. Needless to say I lost again, went back to the room to reload, tried another casino, lost again and repeated this routine several times over a period of about 8 hours. By now I had been gambling for about 14 hours straight, was 5 or 6 grand down and only had about 4K left in cash, cheques and credit card space. As I'd tried and failed to get on a run at any of the casino in the neighbourhood of the Mirage and I was getting fed up with traipsing back to my room every couple of hours for a reload, I decided to cash up the lot and go further afield in search of a wheel where I could get on a run and recover my losses. For sure I was pretty nervous by now about the prospect of going busto, but surely my luck would turn and I'd have a good half hour or so , hit a few of my primary numbers in a row, that would enable me to get it all back.

The next few hours were a nightmare as my remaining stack drifted steadily downwards, although there were small occasional upward spikes where I had two or three winning spins in a row but nothing to suggest that I was going to threaten to surface from the deep hole I'd got myself into. I'd been gambling for nearly a whole day, hardly eaten a thing, was in a cold sweat from the anxiety and completely on tilt. I'd stoped communicating with people hours ago, I was just walking into casino after casino, chucking a few bills wordlessly on the table, refusing to acknowledge any of the Vegas niceties like 'hi sir, how're you today' - the only utterances I could manage were vile profanities under my breath every time the wheel failed to deliver one of my numbers. And of course I swear to myself a million times over the next 12 hours if that I can only just get even I'll not wager a single dime more on this trip and just stick to poker.

So I'm down to about my last $1000 when I stumble into the Gold Coast about 2am. And I went on a roll at last. I won about $3000 in less than an hour. And the comeback trail had begun. I quit the Gold Coast as soon as I lost a couple of spins in a row and tried to continue my recovery somewhere else. In those days, especially in January at 3am in the morning, Vegas casinos can be pretty deserted places. So I was getting a lot of spins per hour under my belt, and the money started to come back reasonably quickly. I added a thousand at the Orleans, another 2k at some other toilet, and despite a few dips here and there the overall trend was upwards and I saw the roll start to threaten to recover to its original starting level of exactly 10,000

Eventually, after 25 hours on this horrible bender, with about 8.5k in my pocket, in touching distance of getting it all back, I find myself back at the Mirage at 4am. So of course I pop up to my room, have a shower to freshen up, dump the bulk of my cash back in the room safe, grab something to eat and drink and the have another go at the tables once I'm refreshed a little, right? Do I heck!! I'm straight to the nearest roulette table where nobody else is playing and I'm off again. I start off with a few blank spins but then I hit some form. A repeat number for a nice score, then a miss, then 3 good numbers in a row. It's looking like I'm actually going to get out of this, and then I hit 28 followed by 29 ( my best number). That's a $525 return to me, I might even be there now!!

I tell the dealer to hold off spinning the wheel while I do a quick count up, but the fat kunt just ignore me and spins the wheel. Panic!! I don't want to quit in the middle of a winning sequence, but if I am over the 10k mark then I don't want to have even one dollar more than my profit on the table. I'm so angry with the croupier, why couldn't he have waited for me, I was the only player at the table, just about the only player in the whole damn roulette section of the casino? Even now I can see his sweaty fat smirking face whenever I remember this vile episode in my life, it's the one detail out of my hazy recollection that remains razor sharp.

He spins a blank number for me, I do a rapid count up, and godammit I'm $11 short!! If the croup had just given me a minute to do an audit before he span the wheel I'd have put a little less on that last spin, walked off with my 10k restored and this whole nightmare would've been over and the holiday saved. Any normal human being would of course have settled for the 11 buck loss, thanked his lucky stars that he'd escaped, and walked away ecstatic. But I knew that the $11 would've bugged me all week.

You know the rest of course. I started betting $3 a spin, after losing like 20 in a row I upped it to $10, couldn't hit a single number, and within 3 hours I'd lost everything. I then sat in the lobby for 3 hours until my friend Joe Beevers arrived from London later that morning so I could borrow a few thousand from him to play poker for the next week.

I've done some bad things since in the degen department, but nothing to ever compare to that night of total abject sickness. These days I don't gamble, I just stick to poker, but whenever this episode pops into my head it's always dominated by the image of that fat ugly kunt at the Mirage who span that wheel one time more.....

lol good story ^

Can someone post up Snipes' original post here? Seems like a complete degen going by some of the replies to him. Want to see.

It's a disease, plain and simple.

Good story but would have liked to see a better breakdown of your emotions and indeed the croupier's emotions while you were going busto at the end.

Grim reading.

it seems like me and alot of other Degens have the same problem in which we can walk away with a small win but can never walk away with a small loss. Thinking back on it I have never walked away with a small loss. Is their some kind of scientific study about this on how the brain works in this scenerio?

I did once watch a documentary here in the UK which looked at Fixed Odds Betting Terminals, electronic machines they have here in betting shops with roulette and blackjack on them, and it looked at how they are making fortunes from gambling addicts.

Anyway the host hooked himself up a to a machine that studied his emotion/heart rate while he played one of these and monitored small wins, big wins, small losses, big losses etc. Scientifically the most "exciting" reaction by his body was on roulette spins where he missed his number by one or two - he was getting more of a high out of near miss losses than he was with wins.

i agree the anticipation is a greater feeling then the result win or lose.

Completely agree with this. Has happened to me hundreds of times that I said to myself okay lets stop if I reach $1000 even. It did not matter that I was at $997, or I was up quite a lot of that money. $1000 or bust!

I have tried to change that attitude, and when I chase a big loss or close to a target I simply cash out/colour up and tell myself how much the money is worth OUTSIDE of the casino, how much nice stuff I can spend it on. Complete change of mentality

100% this. It's like we would rather lose 3k than lose $200
Makes no sense. Only after do we realize how stupid we are.

I fell into a deep deep hole playing Ultimate X the other night. I was sitting at the bar having a few drinks, hit 5 out of 5 on Keno ($750) and I cash out my ticket. It's 11:15pm and since video poker play was worth 6x the points on Tuesday, I decided to play Ultimate x for 45 mins and head home at midnight.

The first time I look at my phone it says 4:46am and I have $180 of the $750 hit remaining and a conference call at 6:30.

Still got it.

I always cash out when I go on roulette and win a little

If I lose say £1 unless I get even chasing that measly £1 I will go broke with the bets am doing the best I can hope for is to get even.

Was like this on all betting, but I don't chase on any other betting now then roulette

Think roulette is near #1 most evil of all.

Btw a+ on fat kunt story, my fav bit was how that what you still remember vividly.

the human brain is a funny thing. People will throw their lives away, and those of their families, for a little bit of a thrill.

Gambling has been said to be the hardest addiction to break, and the one with the highest rate of suicide.

With my youngest son currently in re-hab (again) trying to break a heroin addiction,
I find all this so incredibly sad.

Even more sad are those who find it amusing and entertaining.

I'm sorry you lost but this makes me warm inside love seeing the degen in action

Next time you're gonna walk away with 5k after that marathon VP session

GN is such a cesspool for slots. Sooo done with it. Poker another story

Atleast you are there for him

They say that on average it not till the late 30 that they want to change

Rehab will never work unless he wants to stop

I don't think there is a cure for addicts

I have two kids and there mother is a lost cause

Nothing she do kids, but she would walk for hours and do anything just for score.

Sucks I been on both sides and the worse thing about all those lost years is the feeling of letting kids down

As a parent say speak as frank as you can to your kid, and listen when he is talking about his way of life

100% it sucks but also is funny as some story's.

LOL reminds me of a degen whale i know he was down 100$ and ended up being down 100k that night trying to chase that 100

degens cant handle taking a loss and will lose everything trying to recover
you either end up leaving the casino UP/ even or busto cant leave with a minor loss

everytime me and my buddies are down and trying to recover someone brings up the story of our whale buddy and we still chase like typical degens

I broke up with my GF of 18 months last weekend. Long story short, I've ripped through about 3.5k this week on 1/3 @ Wynn ($1200) and the rest running through Ultimate X trying to hit the big one on a 6x points promotion on Video Poker at Boyd Casino between May 1-2, and "The Dark Arts".

On the good side, I have comps and offers out the wazoo at the Orleans and Palms, and I am a level up on my Station Casinos & B-Connected Card.

After 2 blackout nights, many substances through the system, a horrible Tinder hookup and 3 "massages" I can say that the breakup hurts a lot less now.

I just wish it didn't cost so much. But I feel a lot better.

Proud of you my brother in degeneracy.

Today I go for the never will in bet again

Have placed wager after wager and have had winning bet every time but have change a team last sec and all lost

Would. Be up loads kept same non be every bet, only do doubles and out last six all would of won, except I change a team last sec

So pissed of betting that from today am going betting sober

Will post as soon as I bet hopely go long time baby.

Hey can you drop some knowledge on me about where to get one of these massages? do i just go to a place in chinatown?

Super easy find massage any where in world

Back pages or online and find loads

Walk in ones cheaper but the best are found in classifieds.

Bet Delhi daredevils yesterday won, first bet won in ages

Kings Punjab today they have to win to stay in competition and they have Lynn who good for top scorer batsman

200 bucks to win 420 seems good to me, rick and Morty is funny as just watched the one with the Morty's shield rick from counsel of ricks.��

Went back to the GN to play BJ with 1,000 was down 500 in the first 10 min. grinding it back up to to 1,175 felt down swing coming so took break got a milkshake whole table went busto in 15 min when i got back. started playing again had 950 in front of me dealer was like leave with the small loss i have been wiping people out all day. I'm like no you know me its all or nothing 30 min later i lose the 1k$. got 15$ in compos though for this session.... WInning!

I have never been that guy, but I am now that guy. I had some health stuff come up late last year and was out of work, there is no disability for the type of work I did. Basically my thing to do has been play poker, just to keep me sane. I have bills though, and paying those bills sucks most of my cash, so my bankroll is part of my life roll. I pulled from credit cards to make sure I had enough to get by, I wasn't losing anything major, I still haven't lost anything major, but I pulled from credit cards and added that to my cash to make sure I had enough for these bills, and now I lost what I needed for bills because I was trying to get enough up to pay the bills and still have a little bit to play with. I knew it was a dumb gamble to begin with, but I wanted to try it because I didn't feel like sitting around. Now I will find a way to come up with that money anyways, and kick myself for being an idiot.

The good thing is, I realize what I have done, and I am stepping away from the tables again. Once you realize what you are doing is counter productive, turning around and doing something productive in your life, no matter how small, feels like a step forward. I don't feel like I need to get even, I feel like I spent my money having a good time playing poker, and now I need to find a way to pay for that entertainment, since it didn't pay for itself. Not about to try the "let's get even" game. I am stepping away until I have enough extra cash to play comfortably and not put myself in positions like I did today.

Lost $400 last night at 8/16 lhe, card dead as a mfer. Go back this morning to kill time until a meeting at 1:00 pm. Get a free breakfast that was just OK.

Sit down at 3/6 LHE to see how much more miserable i can get. Buy in for $100 and down to my last $15. Raise pre flop with QQ. 3 callers. Flop is AA5. Bad beat jackpot is $22k. C'mon ONE TIME!

Turn is an Ace! We got this. Floor is called over by dealer. Tight old lady nit calls. I put her on A-10. River is a six. Go all in with my last $2 just knowing i am about to win $11k.

I table my QQ to oohs and ahhhs from the crowd. Lady nit turns over A3 so her kicker doesn't play and no jackpot. FML.