Can Gambling “be fun”

Fun when winning yes everyone loves winning

trouble is the games are rigged so over a fixed period of time the house edge will ensure you lose 

That is without getting into the phycological aspect of human greed and the way casino games are designed to exploit those elements

I read one of your other threads you seem to want to have this debate on whether gambling is acceptable or not 

This is an addiction & recovery forum 

It bores me rigid and always has. I can't see why a slot machine pays out or doesn't and I can't follow even a bingo game because it moves too fast.

If you asked Mr L you might get a different story but given the debt and stress he ran up you very well might not.

Hi

I dont think fun is ever the right word for it. Knowing what I know now I think its very dangerous to sum it up as simply fun.

The gambling dens like to use the word fun or playing in their advertising. Theres a whole lot more to it than that. I wasnt playing......I was a hooked drug addict soon in an extinction trance...there was a soup of drugs flowing round my veins and I was a slave to feelings...didnt really matter what happened financially as the feelings were paramount.

Until the massive come down when reality hit like a tonne of bricks...no bus fare home and no food money for the rest of the month...yeah fun!

I look at it as a drug hit. I was drawn to it as a youngster through boredom and chancing upon a machine in a chip shop. That machine started a forty year addiction. I'm not going to lie. I felt alive sneaky and secretive and it was a massive hit to my system. I reckon I was hooked almost immediately. It gave me a purpose and I just felt so alive and yes I suppose I have to say it was exciting

However it was a false idol...a drug that hooked me and class A users speak of similar feelings. Its not wholesome entertainment and I consider it a vice. My body created the drugs...all they had to do was put a a gambling machine where a kid could get to it no questions asked. It was a cheeky chancer feeling and I now wish my parents had found out, got really strict and stopped it.

I dont think I ever really enjoyed it and the comfortable sense of the word. I was hyped on the money and expectation which was actually destroying me

I never had money to give away and I dont like losing a penny so its very strange how it hooked me.

I dont buy the argument that old Joe can enjoy himself in the bookies. I find it all very sad and distasteful. Maybe thats because I know the abject misery that gambling causes, How can anybody justify an activity which creates many many addicts and ruins their lives. Not only their lives but those of their families and relationships.

Fun is something I can control. Its a computer game or book that I may only have paid a couple of pounds for...I used to throw that away with one spin. 

I just like quiet enjoyment now. Reading a book after a good Sunday breakfast and the simpler pleasures.

Again there is no way I would call gambling fun

Best wishes to everyone on the forum