New me? Right?

Posted by: Spendlikewater84

Exactly as title suggests ?

I just feel so old, for me every birthday the last ten year I've been celebrating (commiserating) in a casino or online. 

This is my first birthday in ten years "gambling sober"!

I stopped gambling 3 months ago, this is my 4th month.  I've felt happy so far until now except Xmas. I recently completed a  module in in cbT therapy I've been doing.  It was a lightbulb moment in my way of thinking.

But today I can't shake my sadness 

Have a great day ??

You have given yourself the best birthday present ever! and you did it months in advance when you decided to quit. 

YOU ARE AWESOME! 

Happy Birthday. 

Love from 

Drama 

xxxxxxxx

Have a great day, too. And well done. Be proud.

Evening

I've decided to write here because no one else quite understands what I'm going through. My partner tries bless him. He's so understanding and supportive I cant knock it.  He's amazing ♥️ 

The last few days I've had a massive amount of urges. I've contended with stress like mad because of personal issues. Arguing with the in-laws and being bored. 

I've completed another module on the CBT course.   It's been good looking at ways to beat the urges.  I know what to do to stop them, in theory it sounds good. In practice maybe slightly more difficult. Although I've installed bet blocker on my phone and still am on gamstop 

Have a good week

Spend ?

Evening all

Well, I was doing some research today and I've had a serious lightbulb moment!!

My downfall was online gambling. I always thought it was rigged. I read today something I wish I had been told ten years ago at the beginning of this misery.

The 0 and 00 are where the roulette table is “rigged”!  If you owned a small casino with a single roulette table, and it had an average of 3 players playing 24 hours a day on it, you could predict (with a small degree of error based on variance) how much money that table would earn your business over time.

With 3 players at the table, you’ll probably see an average of 60 spins per hour on a roulette table. If those players are wagering an average of £10 per spin, you’re seeing £600 per hour per player in action, or £1800 per hour. After 24 hours, you’ll have seen £43,200 of action, of which the casino expects to win about £2272. (That’s 5.26% of £43,200.)

As you can see, the casino has no reason to rig the mechanical aspects of the game, because the math ensures their winnings over the long run.

So you there you have it. You've been relentlessly trying to win big in vain! I wish I had of read this many moons ago, as they say better late then never!!

Xxxx

Hello spendlikewater84

Well done on fighting the urges despite lots of triggers. Hope the CBT course continues to be helpful, and please do keep posting updates, especially if you feel you can't open up to people at home. 

Best wishes,

Forum Admin

Good post.... 

also, if you add up all the numbers on the roulette table.... 

Yes I know. Good job I'm not a believer hahah 

Hope your ok Mowgli 

The odds of winning on roulette are well publicised. Casinos don’t need to ‘rig’ the game, it’s already set up in their favour. They make no secret of this. The zero is also there to reduce the odds of Red/Black, Odd/Even to below 50%, otherwise the casino would make no profit on these bets.

For example, a classic roulette game has 37 numbers: 18 red, 18 black and a white ‘0’.

So if you always bet red, you have a 18/37 chance of winning, that’s 48.6%. So your expected return is £2 x 48.6% = £97.20

In other words, if you play 100 spins at £1 per spin you’ll pay £100 to get back £97 on average. You literally cannot win simply by playing the odds, they are never in your favour, which is kind of the point of a casino.

Odds on individual numbers are similar, you have a 1/37 chance of winning £36. That’s 2.7% chance of winning, so 2.7 x £36 = £97.30 for your £100 cost.

Sometimes it’s a useful thing to satisfy yourself by doing the maths that you can never win over the long term with gambling. Casinos are there to make a profit. If there was any loophole, system, technique or method that worked for the gambler then they’d be out of business.

Teams of mathematicians are employed to devise the games and tune them perfectly so that over the long term, every game will make profit for the casino. And they don’t hide it.

The only way to win is not to play.

So, if I have patience and money I can beat this system. I have neither. What is the actual point of your posts? I double up time and again on black it could be red every time. Stats are B.S. You can lose it all in seconds. What is your point? You are getting on my nerves guys. You can only win if you do not choose to gamble in the first place. 

Can i suggest a further light bulb moment and begin to think about what actions you intend to take in your recovery.

What blocks are you going to put in place?

Counselling?

GA?

Lots of options available. You need to move away from the percentages of winning and move into the reality of recovery.

Best

Drama and bal

That's the whole point I was making. Reading this has made me not want to go back

Day 127 ?

Hey all

Thanks to those in the chatroom yesterday I feel better this morning and have a different perspective on things.

Day 134....still having urges but not as strong. I have the book by Alan Carr about giving up gambling.... Everything he writes make so much sense and I can easily relate.

Remember if your like me and your weakness is the devil wheel, remember you'll never win and do you want to know why.... No it's not because it's rigged....it's because it has one green or two green zeros.... Your last bet has no memory.... Enough said... 

Have a good day all 

Xxxxxx

Put it all behind you and move forward. You have done really good and acted positive to change your life. If you went back it would just trap you again and spit you out a shattered wreck. Make some nice food, do stuff that you love to make you happy in life. Gambling is a mugs game and a fool and their money is easily parted.

Great achievement.  I bet on sports, sometimes on ridiculously low odds which should have 'guaranteed' a win but still ended in a loss, still makes me laugh when I think of it.  Then I look at the ruins of my life and the smile dissapears - not bet in a while (around 100 days) and have no compunction to ever do so again (though I realise one day it might) but putting all the barriers I can in place.

Every day I dont bet is another day of recovery.

7th June 2019 - now

What a difference!!! In march I'm going to be debt free For the first time in 2o years!!! 

I can't believe how distorted gambling makes your thinking. Thinking you are broke and you need to gamble to get money. When if you didn't gamble you'd have it in the first place!!

I've had a course of CBT too.  I feel in a very good place today with the gambling.  Which for me is a very good start.

You don't realise how bad things are until your out of it, I'm never going back.

Everyone's support here is amazing too. I feel like I can really speak to everyone which is good because normally I'm a closed book.

Have a good week everyone 

Xxxxx