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breakingnews · 07-25-2004, 07:03 PM

I used to gamble online quite a bit a few years ago ... online casinos needed incentives to get people to actually deposit their money there, so they offered things like 50% match bonuses or $100 free, etc. At the time, minimum wage requirements were obscenely low - you'd maybe have to wager 5 or 7 times your deposit before you could withdraw your account, with or without profit. Ppl figured out pretty damn quickly that the odds, with these additional bonuses and such low wagering requirements, were in the player's favor ... my roommate and some of our friends were making a ton of profit off blackjack, video poker and the like, until casinos started losing too much and either lowered their bonuses, and/or increased minimum waging to 10, 20 and sometimes 50 times the deposit amount. I don't know how, but a friend of mine who was more heavily "invested" in the scheme somehow bought a BMW with his winnings (his roommates in Charleston all had similar fortunes). I was all set to do interviews for a proposed magazine story on these guys, but they declined after one kid backed out.

Kind of irrelevant, but I will say that after having gambled with real money, I can hardly fire up a casino application without a biting urge to deposit some $$ and see what happens. Some call that a disease, an addiction - I think it's just optimism after seeing a few hundred dollars turn into several thousand. Otherwise, real money won't change much other than teaching you to fold when you're supposed to, when you've got real $$ on the line. With dummy chips, there's absolutely no reason not to stay in a game, just like playing low stakes poker at a real casino (you'll notice on TV that only 2 ppl end up playing a hand because they're betting like $1000+ at a time; sit at a $2/$4 or even a $10/$20 table in Atlantic City and nearly all players will play until the river's dealt, making it very hard to bluff or out-bet an opponent).

Sitting at a RL table for the first time is extremely nerve-wracking as well - go early or really really late at night (2 or 3 am) and find a table with a) a few beginners, and b) a dealer who's willing to kind of help you guys as you go along.

I dunno. Gambling is fun until you lose all your money.

07-25-2004, 07:03 PM	#3
breakingnews Q_Q Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: somewhere in between Posts: 995	I used to gamble online quite a bit a few years ago ... online casinos needed incentives to get people to actually deposit their money there, so they offered things like 50% match bonuses or $100 free, etc. At the time, minimum wage requirements were obscenely low - you'd maybe have to wager 5 or 7 times your deposit before you could withdraw your account, with or without profit. Ppl figured out pretty damn quickly that the odds, with these additional bonuses and such low wagering requirements, were in the player's favor ... my roommate and some of our friends were making a ton of profit off blackjack, video poker and the like, until casinos started losing too much and either lowered their bonuses, and/or increased minimum waging to 10, 20 and sometimes 50 times the deposit amount. I don't know how, but a friend of mine who was more heavily "invested" in the scheme somehow bought a BMW with his winnings (his roommates in Charleston all had similar fortunes). I was all set to do interviews for a proposed magazine story on these guys, but they declined after one kid backed out. Kind of irrelevant, but I will say that after having gambled with real money, I can hardly fire up a casino application without a biting urge to deposit some $$ and see what happens. Some call that a disease, an addiction - I think it's just optimism after seeing a few hundred dollars turn into several thousand. Otherwise, real money won't change much other than teaching you to fold when you're supposed to, when you've got real $$ on the line. With dummy chips, there's absolutely no reason not to stay in a game, just like playing low stakes poker at a real casino (you'll notice on TV that only 2 ppl end up playing a hand because they're betting like $1000+ at a time; sit at a $2/$4 or even a $10/$20 table in Atlantic City and nearly all players will play until the river's dealt, making it very hard to bluff or out-bet an opponent). Sitting at a RL table for the first time is extremely nerve-wracking as well - go early or really really late at night (2 or 3 am) and find a table with a) a few beginners, and b) a dealer who's willing to kind of help you guys as you go along. I dunno. Gambling is fun until you lose all your money.