|
On Friday night I went to a party. It was brilliant. For those of you who don't know I have two children under the age of 3 so going out sans little hands is a rather rare occurrence. I got to wear nice clothes and I didn't have to worry about cream of apple stains on them. I got to have a conversation without a boy crawling or climbing on me. I even wore makeup. I was a grown-up for one night, instead of a mommy. While I wouldn't trade mommy-hood for anything in the world, it was nice to have a break for a little while. At the party I met an Australian woman and we got to talking. I was so giddy about being out and free she asked me what I did before I became a mom. I was single and lived in a wonderful city. I had a life. I went to café's and bars and clubs and parties and I didn't have to worry about what time I went home or if my ten month old son was crying at home for a feed. I also ran a group of internet casinos. It turns out she worked as a dealer in a land-based casino in Australia. Now that piqued my interest, for while I have loads of experience in online gambling I haven’t spent much time at all in land-based casinos. Las Vegas is my version of hell. Too many people, the stench of smoke, and the games have horrible odds. Better to play online. 'Lilly', my new Australian friend, asked me questions about my old job. I explained that I used to be the internet casino equivalent of a 'pit boss'. I didn't need to actually supervise the games because they were computer programs, but I did have my customer service staff that made sure that the games were playing properly and didn't have any bugs when new versions were made live. I also watched every account for fraud or cheating. I even settled disputes and of course I gave comps to big bettors. I was the one who knew when something was off, and while I'm not technical enough to tell the game designers what was wrong exactly, I was never wrong when I said they needed to dig deeper because there was a problem. Lilly told me about being a dealer in a land-based casino. She could never leave her station and she had to move in a certain way, always touching the cards in order. Once she had a runny-nose and needed to go and deal with it and the pit boss was too far to notice her, but she couldn't stop the hand to blow her nose. That is an issue no one has to face in an online casino. We also talked about problem gamblers. The Harvard Medical review estimates that one to two percent of all people who gamble in the United States are addicts. I mentioned that I read the other day in an article about Australia. Apparently their estimate for gambling addict percentage is two to three percent of all gamblers. Not exactly a high percentage, but still nearly double the US. She mentioned that her father was probably addicted to gambling. Gambling is a much more popular pastime in Australia than it is in the United States. I have never been to Australia to have any real insight to why that is. Perhaps it's because the US was founded by puritans and Australia by convicts, but my speculation will end there. I mentioned how important money management is when you're gambling. She made a comment about how one needs to have a large bankroll to gamble seriously and told me about a punter who came to her table regularly. He would always come with a thousand dollar bankroll, and if he lost up to a certain amount he would leave. That is a type of money management, sure, but I disagreed with the idea that one has to have a lot of money to gamble. At the end of the day it all depends on what your main goal is for playing. Most people who gamble are not professionals. They play because they enjoy it. For them it's a fun and exciting pastime where they occasionally win money. For these people the amount they have to play with is irrelevant. Take my mother, for example, she goes to Reno, Nevada with her senior center group and has $20 put aside in her budget for slots. Once that money is gone, or she gets bored with pulling the handle, she stops playing. She knows that she is unlikely to win, and she doesn't care. She likes the game and often she leaves with a nice chunk of change, because she happens to be lucky. (Not lucky enough to win a lot, just lucky enough to have her $20 plus enough for lunch after). This is the typical player online. They know their budget and they play within their means. Once the money is gone so are they, until the next week or the next month when they have money again to play with. Lilly had never thought about gambling as entertainment, which I found odd. I don’t know whether it was because she simply never thought much about gambling and how other people view it, or because she focused on the regulars in her old job and they were either addicts or professionals (the difference between the two being who leaves with a profit over all at the end of the month, and who doesn't). The very idea of casino games should be pure entertainment. It's common knowledge that the house has an edge so the idea of making this a career (unless you are playing poker which is a skill game where the house has no edge, simply a cut) is ridiculous. I think working in a casino face to face with the players gets you caught up in the rush of the game. Playing at home the rush of winning is different. You don't have someone who is doing the same thing with you to share it with. Most argue that this is why gambling online is addictive, I think that a study should be done on this issue because in my opinion this could make online gambling less addictive than land based. It’s the sharing of the rush and the win that gives a high as much as the win itself. Which leads me to tomorrow article, which will be on the two gambling addicts we talked about… Posted on: October 14, 2006
Back to October 2006's archive |
||||||||||||
|
|
Del.icio.us
Digg
Google
Spurl
Furl
Simpy
Y! MyWeb
