I don’t gamble.
I don’t bet.
It is not for lack of resources. One explanation is I did well in my statistics class. But that’s not why I am writing this post.
Even though our lives depend on chance. You have no involvement in who your parents gonna be. Which country you will be born in. What shitty religion those around you practice; you could be unlucky to be born to Mormon parents or Scientologists or Muslim. All this is chance.
To then make a population invest their life savings or earnings in a game of chance is, in my view, unconscionable. Gambling houses, like churches are leeches. Their owners spread a false narrative where only a few people win and the rest continue to game hoping they will win.
Gamble if you will, just like you go to church. But I think both things are incredibly stupid to place ones bets [pun intended] on.
Random thoughts 
I also don’t gamble or place bets. I have better things to do.
I was born to a mormon mother, but father wasn’t baptized until I was leaving it.
Their deal was…..he’d get baptized, & go to church with mother, if she’d go to the hockey games with him. Poor trade in my opinion.
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That was a poor bargain.
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We can put this down to that meaty box sitting above our eyes.
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Yes yes.
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Well I guess the notion of a Friday night poker game is out… 😦
I am no gambler by any gamblers standards. But I do not mind losing a little here and there in a friendly poker game among friends. And every great once in a while will splurge on a lotto ticket just for the hell of it.
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I don’t want to spoil you night games of poker, buddy.
All those, yours truly, does not engage in.
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Huh. So are you saying praying to win the lottery isn’t smart? Sometimes God just doesn’t leave you with any other choice. 🙂
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Haha.
Now, that’s funny. Very funny
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I don’t know… my father regularly bet on the horses – two to three meetings per week which amounts to around thirty races. He never bet more than $2 on a race but apart from investng $5 into a gambling account back in the early 1950s he never invested another cent. Yet by the time he passed away a few years ago the account had a healthy balance and in the intervening years that gambling account had funded the purchase of nine cars, numerous home appliances, vacations for children and grandchildren, and a lot more besides.
My wife and I sometimes accompanied him to local meetings, and we’d budget $10 each to spenf on betting. Often that money would be gone before the end of the day, but occasionally we’d break even or make a tiny profit. Personally I think $10 for a day’s entertainment is very reasonable, and the excitement of urging your favourite horse on (whether or not you had placed a bet) gives you quite a rush.
As long as you don’t go into it with the intention of making a profit, a little bet can add some spice to the occasion.
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This is quite interesting.
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Like yourself, I am not a gambler or better. The very first day that the lottery was legal where I live, I bought one lottery ticket for exactly $1. I won $50. I figured that I was ahead of the game by a total of $49, so why ruin a “winning streak?”
You’re absolutely correct in comparing gambling to religion. Either you go to hell or you don’t. Same odds.
Much love and naked hugs!
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That was clever, very clever
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The honest truth! Now, had I not won anything, who knows how indebted I’d be today! LOL!
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You would still be trying to win. Haha
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You’re totally correct there! I can be that stubborn and foolish! 🙂
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An in-law relative of mine had inherited her parents’ stubborn expectations of fabulous winnings at roulette and poker tables in Punta del Este, Uruguay. They ended up losing first their cash resources and jewels, and finally a precious family estate.
Friends of ours used to go for a weekend to their flat in a seaside ressort. Since Olga loved gambling and Armando preferred fishing, they made the decent deal of spending the Saturday afternoons separately. In the spirit of shelldigger and Barry, Olga would say goodbye to her maximum 30-or-so dollars without any regret because she always enjoyed the entertainment thoroughly.
But also, every once in a while, Mrs Fortune would stand behind her and whisper the right numbers to place the chips on, thus compensating them for previous losses by paying for their weekend expenses.
Once we went to a casino with, among others, my recently married son and wife, Silvia. We agreed to just have fun, for a limited amount of money. Quite soon, Sylvia lost her bets and asked me for a 5 dollar loan. I said that I didn’t like gambling debts, and gave her the money as a gift. She resumed her guesses and started to win; she stopped playing just in time to buy us the seven required ice-creams…
.-
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Two interesting stories; one with a sad ending and another with a nice ending.
You are always the story teller
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Glad you like my stories, Mak. This encourages me to add a very short one, in more direct contrast to the sad tale:
The only sister of our unfortunate [pun intended] relative turned her back on the roulette, giving the same “excuse” as you did this morning. She further exploited that cleverness obtaining a (small) bank credit and converting her part of the family estate in a profitable field of citrus fruits. I like to call that the silver lining of the gambling clouds.
Cheers
.-
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Your stories are full of life. Always entertaining.
Cheers F.
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Mak, you wrote: … you could be unlucky to be born to Mormon parents or Scientologists or Muslim.
You must remember that to those who were born to these parents, it’s all good. It isn’t until (or if) they are exposed to the magnificent “Christian Way” that they come to realize how “unlucky” they were.
BTW, I always say I’m too poor to gamble. 😉
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Me excuse for not gambling is I am too clever to gamble 🙂
One hopes children don’t have to be fed the religions of their parents
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>>> “I don’t gamble. I don’t bet.”
You’re smart.
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Thank you, Bob, for the compliment
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I have no delusions but I have fantasies. I do buy lottery tickets fairly regularly, but I only buy one at a time and I have no expectations of winning. A minor form of fantasy, less harmful than some.
Mak: You forget to mention the most destructive gambling in the world today: The corrupt machinations of our Owning Class and their financial engineers’ endless airy castles in the air of debt. I am talking, of course, about the “financial services industry”. What, exactly, is a “derivative” and why should any private business
Of course, unlike cousins who lose their estate to the roulette wheel, our Masters of the Gambling Universe never really lose anything. The governments just print money and give it to them to spin away again (or to blow disruptive bubbles that do nothing but extract even more pelf from the rest of us.
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Which president was it who said to hell with the gold standard and just print the greenback to fund the war & made having debt a badge of honour?
Our masters are not bothered. We can go and hung, even it makes them money, it will not matter.
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Ach. Be careful there. Hard currencies (like gold standards) have their own nasty impacts.
Agree with your second sentence! Same as it always has been.
In the Good Ol’ Days, there was the concept of Jubilee, when debts were canceled. THAT makes some sense to me.
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On #1 I am inclined to agree with you. Someone can change the price of gold, hoard gold, under report the available gold and many more problems that I don’t know.
I think it makes sense to write off debts.
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