Casino How Casinos Are Evil

This is exactly why I want to know what it is that they are trying to accomplish by gambling. It's almost always about changing the outcome of their lives. Winning must happen in order for that to come true. Only they have no plan or skill how to win. They are never going to get that from problem gambling or addicted gambling treatment. So screw them. They are in the hands of so called help. Only it won't work. You might end the problem gambling part but you will never treat the original cause. Their lives will not be improved. It will still be a search to find a way to have a better life. So I have no sympathy for them. Do you ever see a group of people from the casino crying over them? They welcome them into the fantasy. Life on planet Earth is a test. Sure, if they stop losing money they need for other things their lives will be better. But being at the bottom where they started trying to gamble to change it will still be staring them in the face. There's always minimalism. That's a path to happiness for some.

 

These issues are actually known to a scant few such as Dr. McCown. Unfortunately, there is little he can do against a system, that as you said, doesn't want you to get better.

 

I was just waxing cynically. I actually think just about all treatment plans are at least an attempt to help. It's just that the goal is to stop the activity that is self destructive. That's all that they would ever get paid to do. They would be out of business if you could actually change the person's life, the original goal. And this is exactly why I wrote the Reading Randomness thread. I have spoken many times about gambling treatment, winning, and changing the direction of a person's life. I've been at this from the start way back in the 90's. There's government grant money for gambling treatment. Why should Al Gore be the only one riding around in his personal Gulfstream?

 

Kapish...

 

P.S. You should see what Dr. McCown has written about 12 step programs. It's scathing and a miracle he got his Dean position at the University of Louisiana at Munroe. He privately asked me before our first interview not to mention it. That should tell you something.

 

The problem with taking DSM definitions seriously is that they're really just cottage industry guidelines. Without the business of defining what is or isn't "healthy" behavior in a cultural context, would scientists really come up with teased-out definitions of "illnesses" anything like the DSM guidelines?

As far as the physico-chemistry side of it, yes, there are physiologically underpinnings for behaviors, but there are physiological underpinnings for virtually all aspects of behavior, so correlating most physiological states with behavioral tendencies becomes a big "so what?"

A long time ago (1984, I think), I gave a paper at the International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking. The gist of the paper was that our culture has a very invested skewed perspective that has it labeling certain behaviors as "bad" while the same or worse behaviors attached to culturally approved things don't get labeled with the same brush. For example, gambling drains resources, but in a wage per hour culture, time is money, so watching seven hours of television a day is, for most people, more of a drawback than whatever casino gambling they do. Getting drained by "churn" from casinos is labeled as "bad," while getting drained from the churn of paying interest on homes makes you a valued member of property-owning society. The culture labels things to serve its own priorities.

 

I've heard for a long time that12-step programs, especially the one AA uses, do more harm than good. It was thought up in the 1930s and as far as I know it hasn't changed one bit. Why is that. Because it's a cult and cults don't change.

 

there you go again, saving the world and directing everyone to your reading randomness.

Need to learn brain surgery? well that's why I wrote my "Reading Randomness" to help would be surgeons get through college and setup their practice.

Oh the gifts you have for humity Saint Jizzmatron.

You should have a pamphlet in every psychology room and have people hand them out at gamblers anonymous meetings. Everyone needs your help using your proof that lies beyond the yet to be discovered math.

 

Very good points. Yes in fact that book I referenced had a whole chapter on how people with what are clearly gambling problems can go their entire lives un-diagnosed and blame free so long as they never walk into a casino and stick to socially proscribed risk...even if those risky ventures are far more of a gamble than a casino game.

 

Yes, but there's more to it. AA uses something called the disease model as a paradigm for treatment which shifts blame away from the person and is highly effective at getting people to quit. However, since you just convinced them it wasn't their fault and they have no control over their actions recidivism skyrockets.

 

AA claims to have a 75% success rate but in actuality it's only 5% to 7%. It's no accident it was started in 1935 2 years after Prohibition ended. And it happened during a time of tremendous religious upheaval in the United States. Traveling evangelists were everywhere, even on the radio. It's also no accident that God is mentioned in five of the 12 steps. Christianity is famous for not blaming yourself for anything but blaming the devil, and in this case the devil's evil spirits. Probably the biggest flaw of AA is, no matter how long you've been sober, 1 year or 10 years, just take one drink and you're right back where you started at day one. It's a religious cult, in God's eyes you have sinned and you must be punished. The newer programs, the ones that really work, teach people to drink in moderation. They are not put on a guilt trip for falling off the wagon. And it seems to work, it has a huge success rate compared to AA. The basic tenet of AA says you are weak and powerless over alcohol. And like any good cult they make you repeat those words out loud. The polar opposite is true, you can have total control over alcohol if you want it. Telling people they have no control makes them constantly spin out of control.

 

AA preaches total abstinence. I want to start "A" for people who only want to drink half as much

 

That's well stated, Frank. Nice and succinct. I may borrow that from you sometime

 

Spike, I actually read some meta-studies back in the late 80's regarding comparisons of 12-step programs, "regular" therapy, and just trying to stop with family and friends supporting you. The bottom line for those studies (and I admit they are now dated) was that as long as the person trying to stop had support they could regularly access, the success rates were comparable for all of them. I think the success rates quoted were in the 20 percent range at the time.

 

I can't confirm those stats, but I can confirm any intervention by people that care plays a much larger part in recovery than anything they do or which method they use.

Doing anything is almost always better than doing nothing...and it would seem that with gambling addiction, even if that "anything" takes the form of something bad, it's still better.

 

At first I keep winning and after a couple of weeks , I started losing. Well I guess it really just is a matter of luck. Agree ?

 

I second your all points and it's the best explanation I've ever seen. I need your suggestion over the non UK casinos, what's your view about these? Is it good to go with them or should we stick to only UK casinos? Asking because I'm UK casino player and you seems very experience.

Thoughts??

 

Thé worst of the casino is jet casino professionnel scammer

 

I have read several trip reports by Junket King . He is playing a combo of methods at BM casinos .

e is not a scammer but I would nver play his way.

His TR is the most open I have ever come across .

 

PS. Junket Kiing game is Baccarat .