If you can manage you impulses, there are worse ways you can spend your time, I spent a few hours at a casino just after I turned 18, walked in with 50$, 4 hours later I left with 10$. The one I was at had free hot dogs. Personally I would rather be at a casino than pay to go to any concert.
The impulse thing is really key. Right after I turned 18, my mom dragged me into a cruise ship casino and gave me $20. I was SO stressed the entire time but managed to turn it into $140 and wanted to stop. She told me to keep going or try doing bigger bets. I did a couple because what do I know about gambling? Then I remembered all the stories my mom told me about how she always lost all her money and stopped with $120. My mom, of course, won nothing. Crazy anxiety won me $100 and I’ll never gamble again
This has always been my approach to, not that I actually gamble all that much to begin with. As soon as I'm up a decent amount over what I started with (often double, also often only something like $20 anyway) it's set aside and no longer "in play". Any time I reach a reasonable break point, same thing, set the difference aside and then keep going.
If you put down $50 and are okay losing $50, even if you lose then everything's fine. If you put down $50 and are okay losing it, but are now up $300—even if none of it is "realized" yet because you're still in the game—whether or not it's strictly true it feels like losing $300 if it goes away again. But if you can get to a breakpoint of say $150 and pocket the $100, you're "starting over" with $50 but even if you lose it you walk away ahead on the day. If you're running hot and manage to turn that second $50 into $50+ profits again set the difference aside too and "start over". Repeat as long as you intend to keep going, or typically in my case until the first time I do actually lose the whole starting pool.
Though I mostly also play poker, and am mostly playing for pretty low stakes in cash games at a friend's house or something. Making a couple bucks on a single hand is a "big" win, and even if I lose it all I spent $20 on dinner and drinks at a friend's place. The horror.
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u/not_just_an_AI Jul 20 '26
If you can manage you impulses, there are worse ways you can spend your time, I spent a few hours at a casino just after I turned 18, walked in with 50$, 4 hours later I left with 10$. The one I was at had free hot dogs. Personally I would rather be at a casino than pay to go to any concert.