I spent a lot of time this week helping to “educate” a non-gambling local reporter who was working on a story about the One October shooter. I was happy to do this; so many media stories contained incomplete and bad information because reporters knew little or nothing about casino gambling in general much less high-level VP play.
However, being asked about not only the actual mechanics of skilled play but also the psychological aspects led me to some serious thinking. I have always tried to stay pretty positive when I write about casino gambling, my goal to shine a light on the path that leads to better financial results. I started wondering if I had painted this journey with colors that were a little too bold or bright.
True I have mentioned the negatives. I put the list of problem gambling danger signals in most all of my books. I have talked about the risks of playing above your bankroll. In my most recent book, The Frugal Gambler Casino Guide, I changed the emphasis from pure financial success to increased entertainment value.
But the change in the casino environment for the last few years has not been kind to skilled gamblers and many are having a hard time adjusting. I addressed this problem here in this blog over two years ago, with a 3-part series starting in my March 19, 2015 blog, continuing in Part 2 and Part 3. Although I gave many coping options for gamblers at all levels, I especially was seeing the danger that might lie ahead for players who were mixing in not-as-good plays with their former best plays.
The advantage player knows the math, that the more under-100% plays they do, the more their profits on the over-100% will be diluted. And they know that they will need a bigger and bigger financial bankroll as the non-advantage plays become a bigger percentage of their total play. There can also be a psychological bankroll problem. They may be used to short-term losses because they have always seen long-term success. But if the average of their various plays is now under 100%, they might not be able to bear the pain of short-term losses with no hope of long-term financial success.
With so few available facts, there can be only speculation about the motivation of the Vegas shooter to turn to such extremely violent action on One October. There might have been mental-health factors that had nothing to do with money issues. If financial downturn was a factor, it might have been caused by failing real estate deals and/or risky speculation in other investments.
And yes, it could have been wholly or partly because there was no longer the opportunity for skillful high-level casino gambling with the accompanying luxurious comp life that he had been enjoying for many years. Skillful gamblers can be addicted gamblers. Their problem might not have manifested itself during the golden age of advantage casino gambling, when serious, hard-working, and well-bankrolled players who knew the math and could use it to their advantage, would be able to scramble and find plays that would allow them to achieve financial success.
This golden-age opportunity has been fairly quickly disappearing the last couple of years, to the dismay of players on all levels. All of us have had to made major adjustments, as I described in the 3-part series I mentioned earlier, “When Casinos Cut VP Benefits.”
Violent actions following a person’s major financial loss is not unheard of. There were stories of men jumping from their penthouse offices when the Great Depression hit. Sadly too often the news has to cover stories of individuals who lost a good job and then returned to shoot co-workers and/or bosses they blame. Many relatives will talk about a suicide of a family member and how he or she was depressed over recent financial struggles.
Most reactions to financial downturns do not end up in violence, and certainly not mass shootings. However, many consequences of problem gambling do have serious effects – broken marriages, splintered families, and painful lives and wasted talents.
It behooves us all to not shut our mind to possible negative consequences of our gambling. In this rapidly changing casino environment we will need to constantly re-evaluate our actions and perhaps make adjustments that will make us feel less stressed out and give us more inner peace– and maybe will make life better for the ones we love.
Hi Jean hope you both are well. The numbers in the first two paragraphs were very unclear. Did you tell them you play about 700 hands an hour ? 700 xs 125 $$ a hand means Paddock could run about 85,000 $$ an hour through the machine ? The latest version of the story is that Paddock lost millions the past few years. How many millions ? What percent of his liquid net worth did he lose ? Was he cash broke ? We still don’t have the facts, imo. Take care, hc.
Yes, Mr Lewis, we all have regrets in our lives. But, we all have our positives also. Keep the faith….
The gist of this article is a well-intentioned one. For me, life is too short to worry about all the minutiae to become an extremely serious AP. I play the best games I can find and that also have the best players clubs and perks. Entertainment and fun are the main reasons I play, but always with an eye on the bottom line. If the bottom line doesn’t add up over the long run, I’ll quit.
That being said, I leave for Vegas in 10 hours….ha.
to my mind, a person doesn’t bring 20 something weapons on his trip, trek them all up to the suite, without a plan. he had thought this out in advance, BEFORE any gambling was done on this particular trip. unless evidence is shown to prove that he lost millions (or whatever) on previous trips, I doubt losing money was his motive.
to Kevin Lewis….it’s never too late to pen that novel!!! remember clara peller? she was ‘where’s the beef’ lady on the commercials. I believe she was in her 80’s when she got her first ‘big break’. some artist, whose name escapes me, started his work very later in life! it can be done!
I have a hard time believing that an Advantage Player was playing at MLife casinos or at the Wynn in 2017. I just don’t see how it’s possible. I haven’t been able to find any way to get positive play at any of those casinos. I believe he liked the way he was treated there by the level of his play, but I can’t believe he was finding positive play situations.
This is a splendid article and I agree with everything it touched on , however , I don’t believe that gambling , VP and financial issues and losses caused this fellow to break a window from his high roller suite and shoot into the many people down below killing 58 and injuring hundreds of others . Obviously he was still enjoying the High roller life . Mandalay Bay not only gave him a suite , but the very suite he requested . Sounds like they really tried to please this high roller . Believe he also just wired $ 100,000.- to his girlfriend in the Philippines , so money obviously wasn’t his problem . Just watching and listening to the many news channels on TV , we’re overrun by disturbed, irrational and deranged people . He just appears to be one of many for reasons we’ll probably never know and understand .
We still don’t know, however, two crucial things: whether Paddock had actually started to lose to the extent that it would have affected him psychologically/financially (and what those thresholds were for him), and whether his gambling was linked to his eventual murderous actions. If his actions were caused by huge losses, I would have expected him to target his actions at those who were “responsible” for those losses, not random concertgoers.
I have spent many, many hours of my life gambling–if that’s the word for it–playing as an advantage player in blackjack, poker, and VP (in roughly that order). For the last twenty-odd years, that’s been my major source of income. Yet, I really wish I had done almost anything else. I had NO personal growth of any kind while I was playing; my health–especially my back–suffered; it was a lonely and stressful existence; and perhaps worst of all, I can never get back all the thousands of hours that I might have used more productively. Society did not benefit from my presence all those years.
Many (, many) people have told me that I should have become a writer. Yet, while I could have been penning the Great American Novel, I was squinting at a video poker machine, trying to recall how many penalty cards could dance on the head of a pin so I could squeeze out an additional 0.01 percent. Everything we do has an opportunity cost. My feeling is that the money I’ve earned from advantage gambling, substantial though it has been, is dwarfed by the opportunity cost I’ve paid–the things I never did, said, saw, or wrote.