I'm not sure if this counts as an obsession or as an addiction. But I went through an interesting phase with gambling a few years back and thought that I would share the story. Apologies for it being a little long, I don't really know how to do brief stories if you haven't already guessed.
When I was posted (for work) in Slovenia a few years ago I had a colleague who had a serious gambling addiction. He won some, lost some - but mostly lost. He was an extremely intelligent fellow, high up in the 99th percentile for IQ I would estimate. He was Palestinian originally, good guy, charming, a bit of a womaniser, and a little too "blunt" at times in the way he spoke to people. He liked to play roulette, and any time we went out after work for drinks he would be sitting there twitching and obviously itching to hit the small local casino. I joined him a couple of times and blew relatively small amounts of money just for fun. One day he had blown all of his cash. I was slightly ahead, betting cautiously, and he was hovering near the table obviously wishing that he still had some money to spend. I had a decent stack of $2 chips. He said "number 21 is going to come up in the next 5 spins". So I put a chip on 21. It didn't come up. So I put 2 chips on 21 and so on. After the 4th spin, having bet 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 chips on 21 thus far, I said jokingly "well, the next one is a sure bet then, I'll go you halves if it comes up". And pushed the rest of my chips onto number 21. It came up and we won about $1000. I left the casino well ahead, he blew his $500 in about 3 minutes.
A few months later I was back in Sydney and a bit depressed about the way my long-distance relationship with my girlfriend was heading, and coincidentally living almost across the road from the casino in Sydney. I headed across and had a go at the $2 tables one night, intending only to blow about a couple of hours' salary. As it turned out that was the first of several good sessions after which I was about $1000 ahead.
Now over the course of these sessions I had noticed that, on some tables, the numbers would periodically appear to "group" in such a way that a bunch of numbers adjacent to each other on the wheel would score a series of hits. I would see the more serious punters with their charts, following these trends and betting accordingly. Of course, with my logical view of the world, I never considered these groupings to be more than random chance. BUT one of my obsessions/talents has always been seeing patterns in groups of numbers, and since I was well ahead I figured that maybe I could apply that to roulette and see what happened. I figured that, if there really was a "sticky" spot on the wheel, then the laws of fluid dynamics may apply. Since the ball was spun in alternate directions from one spin to the next, I figured that the ball was most likely to be carried by momentum slightly further than the "sweet spot". So I would bet on 2 or 3 numbers in that area. This was when things started to get a little crazy. I had a couple of good wins, several thousand dollars, and ended up betting only on the $20 tables, usually betting $100 or $150 a number. One night I won $10,000, and a few nights later I won $20,000, with several other good nights where I won $3,000+. Even allowing for a couple of slightly down nights in between I was $38,000 ahead of my starting position after only a few weeks. It had become a fully-blown addiction, I would be at the casino before work, after work, and sometimes I would duck down for an hour or 2 at lunch time. People who worked at the casino would whisper to me that I should go home, I was obviously sleep deprived and dishevelled.
Then I had 3 **very** bad days where I blew $15K. I was still $23K ahead but I knew that things were on a steep downward trend and that in fairly quick time I would blow that and then start throwing good money after bad. So I walked up to the information desk and asked if I could ban myself.
Now in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the law requires that a customer must be able to ban him/herself from any gambling establishment with no questions asked. I was given contact numbers and literature from various gambling addiction help centres and organizations, they took my photo, and then they escorted me out of the gambling area and told me that if I set foot across that line in future they were required by law to call the police and detain me. Here ends the story.
When I was posted (for work) in Slovenia a few years ago I had a colleague who had a serious gambling addiction. He won some, lost some - but mostly lost. He was an extremely intelligent fellow, high up in the 99th percentile for IQ I would estimate. He was Palestinian originally, good guy, charming, a bit of a womaniser, and a little too "blunt" at times in the way he spoke to people. He liked to play roulette, and any time we went out after work for drinks he would be sitting there twitching and obviously itching to hit the small local casino. I joined him a couple of times and blew relatively small amounts of money just for fun. One day he had blown all of his cash. I was slightly ahead, betting cautiously, and he was hovering near the table obviously wishing that he still had some money to spend. I had a decent stack of $2 chips. He said "number 21 is going to come up in the next 5 spins". So I put a chip on 21. It didn't come up. So I put 2 chips on 21 and so on. After the 4th spin, having bet 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 chips on 21 thus far, I said jokingly "well, the next one is a sure bet then, I'll go you halves if it comes up". And pushed the rest of my chips onto number 21. It came up and we won about $1000. I left the casino well ahead, he blew his $500 in about 3 minutes.
A few months later I was back in Sydney and a bit depressed about the way my long-distance relationship with my girlfriend was heading, and coincidentally living almost across the road from the casino in Sydney. I headed across and had a go at the $2 tables one night, intending only to blow about a couple of hours' salary. As it turned out that was the first of several good sessions after which I was about $1000 ahead.
Now over the course of these sessions I had noticed that, on some tables, the numbers would periodically appear to "group" in such a way that a bunch of numbers adjacent to each other on the wheel would score a series of hits. I would see the more serious punters with their charts, following these trends and betting accordingly. Of course, with my logical view of the world, I never considered these groupings to be more than random chance. BUT one of my obsessions/talents has always been seeing patterns in groups of numbers, and since I was well ahead I figured that maybe I could apply that to roulette and see what happened. I figured that, if there really was a "sticky" spot on the wheel, then the laws of fluid dynamics may apply. Since the ball was spun in alternate directions from one spin to the next, I figured that the ball was most likely to be carried by momentum slightly further than the "sweet spot". So I would bet on 2 or 3 numbers in that area. This was when things started to get a little crazy. I had a couple of good wins, several thousand dollars, and ended up betting only on the $20 tables, usually betting $100 or $150 a number. One night I won $10,000, and a few nights later I won $20,000, with several other good nights where I won $3,000+. Even allowing for a couple of slightly down nights in between I was $38,000 ahead of my starting position after only a few weeks. It had become a fully-blown addiction, I would be at the casino before work, after work, and sometimes I would duck down for an hour or 2 at lunch time. People who worked at the casino would whisper to me that I should go home, I was obviously sleep deprived and dishevelled.
Then I had 3 **very** bad days where I blew $15K. I was still $23K ahead but I knew that things were on a steep downward trend and that in fairly quick time I would blow that and then start throwing good money after bad. So I walked up to the information desk and asked if I could ban myself.
Now in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the law requires that a customer must be able to ban him/herself from any gambling establishment with no questions asked. I was given contact numbers and literature from various gambling addiction help centres and organizations, they took my photo, and then they escorted me out of the gambling area and told me that if I set foot across that line in future they were required by law to call the police and detain me. Here ends the story.
