Hello all im new to the site.
So for years i was a professional fruit machine player in pubs and arcades making fairly decent money each week, however in the last few years things have not been as good as they used to be so recently i have found myself properly gambling rather than playing with knowledge. I have lost around 4k in the last few months playing the £500 jackpot slots in bookies and arcades and the occasional dabble online.
I used to have good self disipline and would never lose money like this but for some reason i keep chasing the losses.
I hope this is just a silly phase im going through but its really starting to get to me as struggling to cope.
dont kid your self you will always lose in the end your playing machines designed to take your money.
Hi JP - I'm with Deano on this. FOBTs were my thing - I once had four max payouts in one afternoon, came out ВЈ1500 up feeling amazing. Had I not paid in about £40k in the following 18 months I'd have been a winner!!
I was professional, in that I spent more time in bookies than work and was betting industrial amounts. I thought £2 bets gave better odds and keep playing long enough and you'd win it back.
Sometimes I did, other times a thousand in would produce nothing.
I also think that the betting firms have increased the chance of a losing streak in the past year - maybe to make up for people self excluding, which hurts the bookie very, very badly - and this vindicates your decision to retire.
It doesn't really matter though - the fact is that the bookie sets up how much will be paid (enough to hook you) but they are in control completely. They also have designed the games to take your money and so the question is whether they will take a lot in any given session, or just bleed you a bit. If you're a CG like I am, winnings go back anyway so the whole experience becomes a cluster#+!?
I don't doubt you've had wins, but the odds are crooked (in my opinion) or at least stacked against you so you're doing the right thing coming on here and hanging up your boots.
I wish you all the best - every pound directed away from bookies gets us closer to losing the number of bookies we have in every city centre. Then we can have more honest trades back - like coffee shops and estate agents!!
Fruit machines have changed over the years.
28 years ago when I was fourteen I used to work in an arcade on the sea front. £1 per hour cash in hand,10-12 hours a day. £60-£70 a week. I can honestly say I'd double this wage by playing on the bandits at the end of the day. 2p bandits like Rat Race with a £1.50 cash jackpot. They were sort of fiddles that regular players knew over the holiday makers, great days and not bad money for a young lad, but I guess the seed of winning was planted! I wasn't addicted to fruit machines it was an easy way of winning money!
Nowadays there's probably ways of winning but at much higher stakes. I mean pub bandits are now £1 a spin!
A professional player would be someone who could earn a living from the slots, sadly I don't think this is possible as the cost of living is too high and also the stakes. How can a professional player support a family or even pay rent or mortgage? I'm afraid this is the dream world of a gambler.
Going back to my teenage years, this was fun controlled gambling. Bandits and the seafront became boring when drinking and pubs became the next phase of life. If this seed caused the damage to the last 3-4 years of my life, then I've paid a heavy price! Who knows. I know no form of gambling is acceptable but I wouldn't have changed those summers. So no way do I blame them.
Where I went wrong was being a competitive person who hated to lose. Combined with high stress levels, sports betting and greed. I became a compulsive gambler.
Hope I've not waffled on.
I agree with the others on this. Many years ago when the jackpots were £10/£20 in my opinion you could be skillful and make money out of these machines. I used to do this down my local pub, I would watch people playing and watch them throw away jackpot chances. Then when they left I would play and generally win. Most nights enough just to pay for a good few beers.
Roll forward to now and there is no way of knowing payouts. Down the casino I regularly went to there was a guy who won just over £20k. He was convinced this was coming out as the jackpot had never been seen as high as £20k and normally paid out around the £16k mark.Using this logic he was playing heavy £5 spins to get this. He was as you can imagine celebrating he has won so much. A week later I was speaking to a friend of his who told me that he had been chasing it all week and the £20k win had not broken him even.
This was a progressive jackpot that was linked to other machines in the casino. This could have very easily just gone to the next person to stick £5 and do 50p spins.
He was very lucky to have walked away with this. This guy probably classes himself as a professional gambler but truth be told he didnt make money on that size of jackpot win.
I know this story is of a bit of a larger scale than where you are at the moment but the same principle applies.
I am sure as many CG would do, he told all his family and work collagues about his big win. I would imagine he didnt tell the same people about his losses before.
Yes I agree PhilM. With respect to everyone here the machines are as dangerous as they ever were, if not even more so now.
Its dangerous in my view to talk about professional fruit machine playing as I dont think such a thing exists. Im also a bit wary of handles like jack potts on here. No offence to anyone and a lot of this can be how the mind works in stage one of a recovery. Its all part of the process of realising how deeply ingrained gambling was. Both Action and Escape gamblers need time to think it through when building a healthy mind again
Im very calm and I just think we need to focus on and discuss the real dangers here. Yes we all have thoughts about times passed but machines are highly dangerous.
Im so glad Im away from them as they were ruining me as they always did
Best wishes to everyone on the forum
Guys,
If was my detailed response that caused upset, sorry no offence, but to others I may have made a point. This is a forum after all, it was part of my gambling life that I wanted to share, maybe would have been better on my diary page....Please take from it what you wish, like GA meetings, not everything you'll reflect upon but even if it's only 1-2% take that with you and use it as an important part of your recovery.
In conclusion I don't believe there's a such thing as professional gamblers. Most of the so called professional poker players seemed to be funded by big sponsors.
Like I said in my "detailed response".... "Living the dream world of a gambler" is any everyday person who thinks they can make a living from this!
Absolutely not dont worry. It is an open forum and I fully accept that.
I know that everyone needs to talk and thats good. Everyone needs to approach it as they see fit when writing. I dont presume everyone will agree with me
I dont get upset now because I have matured in my attitude. Its just that certain things are very near the pain and I wonder if new members could get confused.
I dont blame anyone but sometimes I just have to say what I want to say if feeling slightly uneasy
Best wishes to everyone on the forum
Thanks guys for your understanding. We all relate to things in different ways.
Glad I can go to bed with a clear mind after another gamble free week.
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