not huge degen but thought It might be worth sharing.

at work we all enjoy placing $5 or $10 eating bets. Got bored of that and decided to make it interesting. Bet this one guy $100 that he couldn't eat a pickle in under 10 seconds. needless to say my wallet was $100 lighter after that bet.

Not very degen IMO. As a side note, had you ever seen the guy eat before?

This happened this past weekend.

tl dr

Cliffs:
Lose initial roll of $900
Withdraw $500 and make it all back
Lose it all again
Withdraw another $500 and make it all back again
Lose it all again
Withdraw another $500 and make it all back for a third time
Don't sleep for over 30 hours, barely eat in the same time period, survive mostly on black coffee, ignore and ditch friend multiple times
Somehow, make it home safe, sound, and not broke


I pulled into the Borgata with ~$900 at about 5:30pm on Saturday. My friend was taking the bus down from NYC, and I was suppose to pick him up at the Taj. We were going to spend the night gambling at the Borgata, and after, I would drive him back, and he would help me stay awake.

Anyways, I get a seat at 1/2 (took at least 15 minutes but what can you do when the room is that busy) and go completely card dead. I literally won only 2 pots in 2 hours. The table is not great either, and I make the decision to get up (-$250 overall).

I take $150 to a $15 min craps table and make consistent bets of $15 on the pass and come with $20 odds. I banked on one shooter because while he didn't make a point, he kept hitting other numbers so that I got paid on the come bet (+$150 overall so far). After he crapped out, no one could sustain any kind of roll including myself, and I lose it all back (-$400 overall).

My friend texts me that he has arrived and that he wants to play craps at the Taj for a little bit before heading up. Ok fine, more time for me to get it all back. I decide that blackjack is probably my best chance at getting my money back. I walk around trying to find an open seat with min bet of $15 or lower. I can't and have to settle for $25 min. At first, I win a little after the first shoe and am pretty optimistic. Then, dealer starts to kill us and busto (-$900 overall).

I hit the ATM for $500, which is the maximum daily ATM withdrawal I can make on my checking account. I head over to Pai Gow, but all the tables are full so I sit at Asia Poker instead. I had never played the game before and made a couple mistakes when setting my hand. I ended up losing $200 pretty quickly. On tilt, I started playing two spots and pressing if I lost both hands. At one point, I was down to $600 and had it all on two spots at $300 each. I kept pushing overall by winning one spot and losing the other. Luckily, the 4th or 5th hand of this, I won both and got up to $1200. I grind that up to $1500 and made the smart decision to get up (+$100 overall).

While I was sitting at Asia Poker, my friend texted and called me a few times because he was ready to leave the Taj and to get him whenever. I basically ignored him and when I got up, I called him. I don't really want to leave so he takes a cab up. We play craps, flop poker, and $15 min blackjack together and lose at all of them. My friend quit the blackjack table early and went back to craps. I stuck around a little longer and decided to try Pai Gow to get it back by playing two spots. I keep tying with the dealer but am making a little because I keep hitting small bonus hands. Eventually, I lose patience and press my bets, and of course, the dealer wins. I get up and go to Asia Poker. Even there, I hit a cold streak. My last hand, I went all-in on one spot for about $300. I end up with a decent hand of 10 on top, pair of 3's in the middle, and a 7-high flush on the bottom. The dealer wins with a J on top, pair of 4's in the middle, and a 10-high flush. FML (-$1400 overall)

At this point, I check my phone, and my friend has texted me a couple times trying find out where I am. I call him and find out he got tired of trying to find me and is taking a cab to the bus terminal. He's not really pissed or anything so that's cool. I think it was around 3am at this point, and I probably should have left while I was still awake enough to drive home. However, I decided to take another shot and remembered that my ATM maximum reset at midnight so I take out another $500. I head straight to $25min blackjack and tell myself to play smart. I end up going on a heater and managed to run my $500 to just over $1900 before the table is broken to change out decks. I go to another table and win a little more before that table has to change decks. I come back to my original table and things go downhill from there. Two shoes later, I am busto again (-$1900).

I'm kinda depressed now and thinking about leaving, but I make the decision for one last shot. I use the justification that I just filed my tax return and was due $990 so I could afford it. I take out a $500 cash advance on my credit card and head straight to the first game that got me back, Asia Poker. I play two spots and pressed if I lost both. Somehow, I got up to around $2300 and close to even when the dealer got hot, and I lost both spots 5 times in a row. The last time, I had dropped down to ~$1600 and had two spots at $500 a piece. The dealer had an absolutely awful hand and paid everyone else at the table except for me, because I happened to have just worse on both spots. So I made a tilt all-in bet of just over $600 on one spot. I won that one, and from there I get lucky on my big bets including an all-in on two spots at $500 each. I end up cashing out $2520 (+$120 overall).

At this point, it is 1pm on Sunday, and I have not slept or eaten anything since arriving in AC. I know that I will need a lot of caffeine to make it home, but I don't want to pay for coffee seeing how I only just made that money back. So I headed to the poker room with the intention of sitting 1/2, mostly fold, and suck down as much black coffee as I can get. Usually this is the point of the story where a combination of coolers and lack of food and sleep leads to an empty wallet. Alas, it was not to be. I managed to get 4 black coffees and 2 bottles of water in me, and somehow was alert enough to actually play decent poker. It helped that I was actually getting playable hands this time too.

Highlight pot for me: Two limpers to me in the cutoff. I limp with 4-3off, and the button makes a small raise to $7. Everyone calls, and it's 6-handed to the flop. Flop comes a beautifull 3-6-3 rainbow. Checked to me, and I check to the button. Button makes it $15 and gets the blinds call and the limpers fold. I reraise to $40, and everyone calls. Turn is a K. Checked to me, and I make it $100 straight. Button tanks and eventually calls. SB calls all-in for less, and BB folds. River is a blank (can't remember), and I push all-in for $104. Button tanks and finally folds. Says he mucked A-K, which was probably true. SB turns up J-6off (wtf? lolz live poker is easy), and I drag a nice $400+ pot.

When I decide that I'm wired enough to get home, I cash-out up $305 (+$425 overall).

I've been awake for at least 30 hours. I haven't eaten anything in that time except some tacos for lunch on Saturday and a candy bar while I was sitting 1/2 on Sunday. I'm wired on those 4 black coffees and fixing to crash hard. Did I mention that I have astigmatism and don't see too well in the dark? I really don't know how I managed to make it home without dying. I feel as though I blacked out a little at some points. I remember drifting and weaving a lot (though never into another lane, thank goodness). I also remember being extremely scared that I was going to drift into a concrete barrier while driving up a one-lane corridor.

I get home, vow to take at least a month off from gambling (yea right, see you all at the Borgata this weekend), and pass out.

^^ Horrible ending, you won all your money back... hardly degen if you quit before busto imo

there were paragraphs, and it was written pretty well, but i hated that story.

this might be one of the best threads online currently......please keep posting, makes my work day go by much faster

agree 100%, you're not a degen if you leave a little plus break even.. and not wanting to pay for coffee is the most tight ass thing i've ever heard... it's 2 bucks for a cup at borgata starbucks, so how is the coffee free? are you not tipping the waitress?

Ohhhh boy. Where to begin. Always played a lot of cards through high school, did well enough to have spending money etc. Get to college and obv. blow everything, have $13 in my savings account and nothing online. Staked by a friend for the Nightly 70k on Stars, take 2nd, $4,500 in the bank and all's well. Couple months later poker's been going well so I pursue a stake, receive it, and start playing well and grinding it up. The stake gives me some kind of poker-fund security, and I no longer have to use my own money to fund my gambling. I obviously go nuts and blow all but 1k of my own money on a new computer, TV, booze, weed, etc. My timing is immaculate, as at this point my "stake" goes to complete ****. I can't hit a tourney to save my life, go on an insane-o downswing in SNG's, and my $2,500 initial start (that was up to $4,500) is now hovering at about $200; and being too proud to tell my backer that I was getting killed, I decided it was time to make it all back. 3 hyper-turbo's later and I'm completely busto, which cues me to whip out the wallet and put my debit card to good use. $600 has never been lost so fast.

At this point I have $400 to my name, $2,500 that I'm determined to pay back, and Christmas coming up and a girlfriend and family to buy presents for. I go to the local American Legion with $300 in my pocket for an incredibly soft $1/$2 game that I usually tear up. I usually also win when I get it in with QQ against 78 on the 2-6-7 rainbow against a self-proclaimed "pro." He turns a 7, and rivers another. I now have $100 to my name, and I need $200 to play somewhat comfortably....as comfortably as you can when you're playing with all your money, anyway. A friend lends me $100, and first hand in I limp Q-10 suited. There's a raise to $7, 5 calls, and I complete. Flop is a Q-10-2 rainbow, and I check. There's a $30 bet, two calls, and I jam $180. Two folds follow, and then I'm snap called by a guy who "needs a little help." Turn A, river 3, and he tables KJ os to take the pot and all of my money. I consider knocking him out on the spot and think better of it, and walk to my car shaking. I get home and decide there's only one thing left to do, which is tell my backer I lost the stake, inform my friend I'll pay him back when I can, and tell my girlfriend I have a gambling problem. A good plan, but I quickly decide that's for pussies, and if I'm going out it's guns blazin'. I realize my bank account is set up to charge my credit card if I overdraft my debit card, and I'm off to the races. Put on $200, and blow it in 10 minutes playing PLO HU cash. Quit now? Not a chance. $200 more is deposited, and this time I tear it up, and run my bankroll up to about $1,200 in a day. I cash out $800, pay my friend back, deposit the money in my bank account, and have $400 to play with. Which lasts me all of a day, before it's gone and I'm re-depositing my $400 I just withdrew.

Cycle continues to repeat, but I manage to get $600 in the bank with $300 online....when my backer finally wonders why the hell I've been playing PLO cash instead of the SNG's and MTT's I was backed for. I tell him the whole story and promise to pay him back when I can, which I can only imagine was met with a loooooooooooooot of skepticism. That night I ship a $10 cash out tourney on FTP for $1,400, and pay him back $800. The next day I tell myself I'm going to play strictly within my roll, no cash tables or big tournaments. Bull****. Soon as the evening starts I'm in a $75 tourney, a couple $26 90 man's, and 3 heads up cash tables. And I get killed. My bankroll's shot before I know it, and all my money is left in the $75 with a horrid stack and tilted and managed to get it all in with J6 on a J99 4 board against aces. Jack on the river gives me some hope (and prevents me from depositing more just yet). A friend is watching and offers to take half my action with 300 some left, and I accept, as the odds of me cashing in the tourney are still pretty slim.


I donk to all hell, manage to get HU and lose, but second pays $3,500. I ship my friend his $1,750, my backer $1000 more, and leave myself a decent bankroll to play SNG's and small tourneys with. Like the $109 6 max that I bust out in 6th for $1,200, the $15 super-turbo PLO I chop for $500, or the $26 PLO H/L I get 2nd in for $900. I pay my backer all his money back and a couple hundred extra, withdraw $1000, and am at peace with the world. Until I blow $400 more on Stars, and my "comfortable" real life bankroll isn't so comfortable anymore. I do my usual deposit, lose, redeposit, lose cycle, and am back down to about $500 in the bank, and $100 on Stars. This is immediately put at a .50/$1 PLO HU table, where it's doubled, then to a $2/$4 table. I get an early double and my min buy-in is now a full stack. I get it all in with nut flush draw vs. top set, spike it on the river, fist pump, and leave. Ship a $27 360 man for $1,700, and a $55 6 max for $2,500. I cash out 3k, blow the rest in a combo of hyper-turbo's, tourney's, and cash tables. Waiting for my 2k/month deposit limit to clear, and I'm sure the process will start back up here again : )

In the mean time, to get my gambling fix, I tossed $75 on Bodog for some sports betting. I lose $25 quick, and put it all at the blackjack table. Fast forward 20 minutes and I'm up to $400. I play Caribbean stud now. I luck my way up to $900, and immediately tilt after my full house is owned by quads...this site's definitely not rigged. I up my starting bet to $100 and am busto in 5 hands. Degeneration= awesome.

Cliffs: win, lose, deposit, lose, redeposit, lose, redeposit, win, win more, cash out, lose, busto, deposit.

won $500 on the slots with a friend. We go back to his place. We were drinking hard so i had to stay the night. While my mates asleep, I steal his mums car keys, and drive back and lose the $500 plus another $2k. im on f*** tilt and heavily intoxicated. On the drive back to my mates i crash his mums car and its ridden off. FML

hidden brag: didnt get caught for drink driving

Long time lurker, but I just had to register. I don't have a personal degen story to share since I'm the definition of a nit, but one of my aunt is a total degen.

She became a full blown degen after my uncle croaked. He was a lawyer at an important law fim in Montreal and pulled a lot of dough and they married pretty late : she was the definition of a trophy wife who was clearly digging for gold. Fake boobs, tight body, marries a guy thirty years older than her.

Before she inherited of all the monies (no kids ldo), her gambling spirits were pretty tame : she went to the casino about three days a year on average and had a strict allowance. Her thing was lottery tickets. She could buy 100$ worth of them a month. But since husband was loaded without kids, it didn't even make a blimp on the financial radar. So even though she gambled, she was still very low on the degen scale (if she was even on it). Plenty of micro regs tilt that much money in a session online.

But everything changed the second she became free after my uncle's death. My cousin's husband, who worked at the Montreal casino, saw her play 50$ a hand blackjack the evening after the funeral. When he told me that, I thought he was kidding but he was dead serious. She had changed practically overnight.

Notable highlights from that first year include:
- Selling the house.
- Buying more than 2k of lottery tickets in a week (we found a receipt from the convenience store she had left at my grandma's place).
- Gaining 70 pounds in six months while developping a cocaine habit at the same time (how this is feasible, I do not know).

One night in particular from that first year sticks with me. A friend of mine, who is a total degen in his own right, recognizes my aunt at a blackjack table and decides to have a chat with her. She proceeds to drunkenly piss away her money, standing on 14 a few times with the dealer showing 9 and so on. I'm probably not competent enoguh at bj to know a good strategy from a bad one, but I was told she played like a mouthbreathing ****** on crack.

So after losing all her chips in a matter of minutes, she proclaims loudly that she is down approximately 5k on the night and all her credit cards are maxed so she cannot get anymore money, wich means no more blackjack. Yet, she still stays around and asks my buddy if he'll for a quick smoke with her. Since he is losing too, he agrees and they go outside.

Now, this is pretty standard degen fare: 5k in, 3 hours later, busto with all the cards maxed out and 10 bloody marys in you. But what happened next is what really pushed the limit of degeneracy. Two minutes after they are outside, she candidly asks my buddy is he'll let her suck his stuff for fifty dollars. He declines and she just nods and utters "your loss". Seeing as she was firmly in her Jabba the Hutt phase by this point, I really don't get what he would have lost.

As time went by, she started to get even more cracy/addicted. She would call my mom at any hours of the day to beg for money to pay for drugs/gambling debts even though my mom had clearly said she wanted nothing to do with her anymore unless she attended GA meetings. She barred herself from the casino a few times but always found new ways to try to sneak back in again. Cousin's husband once saw her try to enter the casino while dressed like a man. He said it was a ridiculous spectacle: she had those fake DD boobs just jutting out from her chest and an ass as large as a small sedan.

Five years after my unle had died, she was stone cold busto. This is when she started to attend GA meetings and met a few people who she ended up buying a house with what little she had left. Problem was they were decidedly ******ed (as in clinically ******ed) and even more life-busto than her. One of them, a man in his early thirties, started to refer to her as "mom" all the time. All of them were still solidly hooked to gambling and made frequent trips to bingo halls. She ended up playing everyday and driving more than 500 miles a week to attend the different bingo nights scattered around. She even called me one night out of the blue (it must've been 3 years since I had talked to her by that point) to ask me for tips since she had knew i was the "gambling type" too. During the call, she constantly reminded me who she was, as in "you remember me, aunt Nicole, the one with the huge boobs ?" and couldn't maintain a coherent line of thought. When I finally had enough and told her I was hanging up, she asked me to notify Jay, my friend, that her bj offer was still standing. She was probably only half joking.

It was at that time that the "son", while she was gone for a walk on Christmas morning of 2007, stole her car, took everything of value from their communal house and skipped town, never to be seen again.

I really don't know her whereabouts anymore due to my cousin not working at the casino and trying to keep a watchful eye on her, plus her cutting all ties with the family, but everything points out to her still degening it up full-time. I really ask myself from time to time what really prompted her sudden addiction. Most people start up pretty slow and increase the degen factor gradually to chase out losses, but not her: she put the pedal to the metal the instant she became single. Did she have a nervous breakdown due to her husband's death (unlikely since he was a headcase in his own right) ? Or was she bidding her time while he was alive, only awaiting his death to finally "live the life" ?

16 years old 8k on absolute poker and lose it all to Seif in limit 150/300 holdem where he ran ******ed well.
After that deposited on every site basically and bounced the echecks when I lost.
Banned from poker stars, full tilt poker, ultimate bet poker, absolute poker, aced poker, and cake poker.

*sigh* Fine. When I was a senior in college, I got hooked on UB blackjack. I couldn't concentrate in class. I would spend hours in the computer lab "working on a project," but really I was on UB dumping money to blackjack. I think over 2 weeks I lost 2k. In another 2 weeks, I somehow made it back. In about 5 minutes, I lost it all again and had to get a part-time job as a dining hall worker to help pay for school. I think the worst moment of this was that I had to borrow money from my little sister to keep my account from being overdrawn. Of course, as soon as the danger of overdraft passed, I deposited that money into UB.

Another is almost exactly like the story from this weekend except I actually was in my car, even for the night after a marathon comeback, and I decide to go back in (I think my reasoning was to sit poker for coffee then too) and dumped 2k back at poker, blackjack, and Pai Gow.

As for the coffee, it made sense at the time.

[x] Young Degen

[x] Just stupid

whoh. if tru, that is hard core degen. i like the couple other stories too, but you can just sense the desperation in this one.
i guess you would REALLY like the casinos in wa state. they all just have free coffee sitting out. you dont even have to gamble to get some. many of them also have free non-alcoholic bevs for the asking.

Who cares, that story is awesome!! I have indeed done the gallon of milk in under an hour with a few buddies, and yes we all puked. We also went "shot for shot" with the tiny half-and-half packages at a diner for $10...we were both trashed and nobody won since we drank all the half-and-half they had...didn't get kicked out though, so I guess thats a win

lol at least you ripped off Aced (Merge) and UB/AP. Not bad.

Funny thing is that for me it's the opposite, I should self-exclude myself from this thread because it awakens the degen in me and makes me want to play BJ lol. After losing 500$ on Carbon Poker BJ I excluded myself from that and luckily it hasn't been a problem since. I'll sometimes play like 1 or 2 hands on another site then get bored and quit. Thankfully I find poker a lot more interesting that BJ.

Reading all these degen stories is strangely inspiring lol... I love this thread. Some of these stories just make me go wow.

it makes me feel professional in comparison...

oh wait, i lost half of my bar mitzvah money at 15 playing online poker

... like every other jew

^^you only lost HALF though...

oh and the rest on booze, drugs and rock n roll (true story)

Edit:

booze - underage drinking / solid fake ID
drugs - weed mainly
rock n roll - guitar(s) = £1.3k

^ Thanks for the story... such a degen

Deposited $90 on Full Tilt and shortstacked FR PLO. My opponents seemingly had no idea that when I limped I had a monster so I ran it up pretty quick.

Ended up with most of my roll on the table at I believe 5/10 6-max PLO. Its been awhile so some of the details are fuzzy.

I get more than half my stack in pre-flop with AAK9 flop is Q x x I have like $384 behind and no way I'm folding so I ship it in he insta-calls with QQxx oh **** I'm gonna lose turn is a T now I can make broadway but it gives him a heart draw so I need a non-heart J. River is a jack I go bananas with celebration. I'm totally ecstatic and my wife, her son and the son's friend are there. I have $1700 in my account which is big money for us and I take everyone out for pizza to celebrate.

I plan to cash out almost all of it and run it up shortstacking again. I had even picked out a new computer I was going to buy with the money. I wasn't verified to cash out on full tilt however so when I clicked "Withdraw" it didn't let me.

So of course in the mean time while I'm waiting to get verified, a little poker won't hurt right? Before long I drop $700 and I'm down to $1000 which for some reason I decide to take to 25/50 6-max PLO and lost every penny. I don't even remember the hand but I do remember smashing the **** out of some wooden pallets with my sledgehammer then sobbing like a little baby in bed with my wife.

bro story cool

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