Sports betting bs

[turkeydance]

regarding the lottery: i buy tickets for gifts/presents. they are cheaper than a birthday card.
sport betting: i might try it. several sites are giving credits for first-timers. free money in my view.

 

[Took]

I dont buy lottery tickets and I dont gamble. I agree its just bad math for most people who can't afford it. I have a buddy who will buy a $50 scratch off about every Saturday. Every once in a while he will tell me - hey I won $100 and be all excited. I told him last weekend, just give me $50 every Saturday and about once every 2 months I will give you $100 guaranteed and your odds will be improved!

 

[HMP]

Ive been considering this. As said, right now multiple places are giving 250 in credits if you bet five bucks.
Worth trying? Maybe
Worst case scenario is I lose a fiver. Best case, I make more than $1 profit.

But I also dont really watch sports, so sports betting does little for me, I just dont know much about the bets

Yes, some will be addicted to it, some lives will be ruined by it.
Oh well.
Everyone has their vices. As long as it affects no one else, go for it.

 

[HMP]

Im downloading the app now. Not sure what it'll ask of me, I am not comfortable with sharing too much personal information on there, so we'll see.
But maybe I toss 5 bucks on Wake tomorrow in the ACC tournament

 

[HMP]

Downloaded, tried to link my paypal and it said something about 'due to international regulation, this has been declined' or something
Not linking my credit card or bank account
So Im out, uninstalled.

 

[Rune]

several sites are giving credits for first-timers. free money in my view.

Calls to mind the old saying:

“If you’re not paying for a product, you ARE the product.”

 

[SPST]

Gambling, lottery, alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, all of them are bad for you and are a waste of money. There are plenty of other things in life that people spend money on that they shouldn't. Life is hard, it's even harder if you're stupid.

Do we ban them all because some people can't control themselves? I don't think so. YVMV.

 

[LesBaer45]

It would be great if I could make sure none of my 'tax' dollars went to 'help' the victims of such things as drugs, alcohol, casinos, online sports betting, etc.

I'm all for people doing what they want with their lives and money, just don't ask me to pick up the slack because you made bad decisions.

If we are handing out tax dollars for bad decisions, I'd like $500K for my marriage decision please. She'd like $1 million as well.

 

[dmarbell]

Is this much different than scratch offs , bingo and all the forms of gambling ?

Actually, if you bet lines and totals, you have a 50% chance of losing 10% on each bet (the vig).

I used to go to Vegas quite a bit 35+ years ago. I tried memorizing the best Blackjack plays to use at the tables, and wrote some on my hand one time to read under the table out of view of the dealer. Then in one of the gift shops I saw a playing card that had all the best plays and odds printed on it. Like the rube from Harnett County I was, I asked the clerk "So you can take these to the table and use them when you play?" She said, "Son, go to Caesars. They will give you lessons on how to play Blackjack and Craps, to educate you into thinking you have a chance of winning."

I bought a book on counting cards at Blackjack. In the last chapter the author said something like: If you get good at counting cards, even with the multi-deck shoes they use, you can make a little money. If you make too much, they'll ban you from all casinos in Vegas and Reno. And by the way, all the really successful card counters I ever met who made some extra money lost it all on sports betting.

 

[myst173]

It’s just like back in the day when SC had the “poker machines”. Nothing but a pure cash business where weak people were shoving a week’s pay into them in less than an hour. Politicians hollering about how unethical and detrimental to society they are. Their solution, ban cash poker machines and introduce the lottery.

That was all just because SC was getting cheated out of taxes, all they got was the license fee per machine. I forget what the $ value was but SC had a lower reporting requirement for them than the feds to get a 1099-g so it could be taxed as income (seems like it was $3,500) all of the machines had a way to cash out partial payouts so the place would just show a winner how to print 5 x $1,000 tickets instead of one $5,000 ticket and then pay out without reporting them. State changed it to max payout of $1,500 per day and it had to be reported so the places would just show you how to print out multiple tickets and pay off one ticket a day. Personally I miss it, I made a ton of money playing them, if you learn the correct way to play, and chose the right game to play you can come out consistently ahead, trouble is people chase the bigger jackpots on the games that are set up to drain you dry from their payout lines. I end up in Vegas a couple times a year for work, I'll play some just for fun or play some table games like 3 card or roulette, but it's just entertainment, I fully expect to lose what I bet and if I break even, or come out ahead on a trip it's a bonus.

But, I've seen and felt firsthand the effects of a gambling addiction, from before I was born till the day he died my dad was a gambling addict. My mom tried to hide it from us as long as she could when we were kids but I remember plenty of times where days at a time meals were the cheapest bread that could be bought and pb. Mom would plant HUGE gardens every year and can/freeze everything she could because there may/may not have been money that week for groceries depending on how bad dad's addiction kicked in that week. So I 100% understand people who detest gambling, but people with an addictive personality are going to find something to get addicted to. One of my brothers inherited my Dad's addictive personality but luckily it's just been channeled through activities rather than something financially ruining or alcohol or drugs.

 

[SimpleMan]

That was all just because SC was getting cheated out of taxes

That was the point I was making, SC wasn’t getting their revenue cut out of the poker machines, and couldn’t control it because it was a cash business, so a year or so of “Jimmy Swaggart” type preaching about the machines, ban them, then “Hey, play the lottery”.

Sorry about your dad, as a child I had piggy bank stuffed full of silver dollars, half dollars and maybe 30 to 40 two dollar bills, the ones with red and or blue(?) serial numbers. My mom shoved the whole thing in a poker machine in one afternoon, obviously traded my stuff for twenty dollar bills.

 

[Pinky787]

I just want to say yes, I am tired of all the commercials for it. But across 3 sites, I've put in $20, to get either 400 or $450 in free bets, I already had a DK account so didn't qualify for the free bets from there. I've cashed out $300 into my bank account. With some other bets to go. They are even running some specials where you literally can't lose, though the specials where you can't lose have a max amount you can bet. But it is literally a free $50, as long as you cash out after you win it.