The temptation of gambling has existed throughout human history, but it has never covered millions of people as it is happening now when almost everyone has an opportunity to gamble. We are playing government-sponsored lotteries, visiting the land-based casinos all over the world, organizing junket tours, and finally gambling on the Internet (not only on PCs but also on smartphones). Moralists worry that the bulk of those who risk their money are people who can not afford to risk: the poor, the unemployed, and the low-paid workers. They believe that online gambling should be a pleasant pastime for those who can afford to lose a reasonable amount of money as payment for fun and safe adrenaline.
What is Gambling for Middle-class Players?
Gambling is a way to go out for the middle-class gamblers who bet when their favorite teams have a match, occasionally buy lottery tickets, and visit casinos once or twice a year. For them, gambling is just an opportunity to have fun and get a little bit of adrenaline, a brief moment of "brilliant" life in the routine of day-to-day hard work, career advancement, education of children, and their civic duties.
The fear of a potential victory, an opportunity to prove your own ability to beat opponents and take the leading place, a personal challenge that can increase your self-confidence if you win are factors that accompany gambling. To be sure, there are negative consequences, but they are insignificant for middle-class gamblers: for example, if they lose, their self-esteem decreases, and this applies not only to games but also to aspects of their real life.
Who Shouldn't Gamble?
There is also a category of gamblers who are addicted to the games of chance and can not afford to lose. They occupy the low-paid jobs. They lack education, skills, and entrepreneurial savvy. They can not ascend the social ladder with the help of their occupation. Therefore, they treat gambling as a chance to abandon their routine life and the victory will lift them up like a tsunami and make them millionaires at once. After all, lottery tickets, slot machines, or roulette wheel do not have favorites. The poor, the homeless, the unemployed compete with the rich and famous under equal conditions! So, they are "hooked", because gambling is their only chance to get everything they want from life.
When the successful businessman wins one million dollars, he gets a nice bonus: the opportunity to purchase a luxurious new car or other similar toys; the opportunity to expand his company; the opportunity to relax in an around-the-world cruise again. So, he receives something without which he can normally live and this does not particularly influence his life.
If one million dollars is won by a representative of the working class (janitor, gardener, security guard, cleaning lady), this event is able to radically change his way of life. It is an opportunity to buy a house or apartment, provide education for children, help the family, leave a hateful job, and finally live a real life. In other words, it becomes possible to radically change the way of life.
The problem is that these changes are not stable. The occasional victory that brought a huge amount of money might rarely lead to reasonable investments: in education, in training, in the opening of business, or improving business opportunities. People just do not master rational planning and want to get the immediate satisfaction of their emotional needs as soon it becomes possible, namely after the winning miraculously obtained.
Is it any wonder that many people who win the jackpot will become bankrupt in the next five years? They can hardly realize that this money can be used to move forward, change the habits, and improve the lifestyle. Over the short run they get a spectacular chance to overcome the difficult time in the life, but over the long run such a victory becomes worse than the loss: the dream has come true, at least for a moment and the return to the previous way of life becomes even more painful after becoming familiar with the taste of dolce vita.
The need to return this dream, hoping that this time it will be certainly possible to save this winning, makes people buy lottery tickets or make bets again and again. This makes gambling prosperous. The opportunity to make a dream come true seduces everyone.
Entertain or Gamble Reasonably?
Approximately 120 billion dollars was spent worldwide to purchase lottery tickets in 2014. Just think of it: one hundred twenty billion dollars was spent only on the lottery, not to mention dozens and hundreds of billions allocated on other gambling games!
Huge jackpots are looming in front of gamblers like a carrot in front of the donkey's nose. The opportunity to get a big winning overshadows the mind, and not many people can resist this temptation. However readers of the portal casinoz.me belong to the category of those gamblers who want to really understand all the intricacies of gambling and always look for pitfalls. So let's discuss the most dangerous features of gambling.
1. Odds are against gamblers
Traditional games of chance and lotteries win only when a gambler loses. They continue to generate large amounts of profits for gambling establishments, because the certain house edge is embedded in all of them, and chances of casinos are always higher than chances of gamblers. Therefore, if you are going to gamble, make at least a small research and determine which games offer you the best odds, and find out everything that you can about the opportunity to improve your chances of success.
2. Attitude of gamblers towards the odds
Since in any game your chances to win are lower than the chances of casinos, psychological trigger switches on in your brain that makes you look for an opportunity to increase your chances of winning. This desire to search for more and more chances to win is a natural human reaction to the victory/loss situation. Of course, it is necessary to win! At any cost! This is a real dependence on the "victory." Why do we use quotation marks for the word "victory"? - Well, because victory can be worse than the loss. For example, people can wager one thousand dollars to win one hundred (the Martingale strategy). And after such a "victory" they will feel great because they have won something. They do not realize that they have actually lost money.
There is only one way to increase your chances of winning in traditional games. It is to spend more money. It is necessary to pay for each chance of winning in casino games. Therefore, before you start playing, you should at least study the casino games and find the ones that offer you the highest chances of winning in each bet. Get the best chances of winning, spending less money.
3. No information
Perhaps many people know a common joke: "Gambling is a tax on stupidity." Gambling or lottery is not "stupidity". It is just a kind of entertainment. However this is an entertainment for the rich and for the poor and the uneducated it can become a punishment.
If you do not read all the available information and find games that can provide the highest odds, you will most likely throw money away, instead of having fun. It can hardly be treated as an entertainment if you lose! It is important to note that if you do not know what to do with your payout, it is very likely that eventually you will find yourself in a worse financial position than it was when you started playing.
- Make sure that you know everything about the games, which you have chosen to gamble.
- Evaluate your chances to win the money prize.
- Besides, you need to control your personal budget and set a limit that you are ready to lose, chasing the opportunity to win.
What Should You Do with Your Winning to Become Bankrupt?
It has been reported that most winners of lotteries or other games of chance who have been lucky enough to hit the big jackpot become bankrupt within several years after the victory. Users can find a few stories below.
Callie Rogers.
She had a dream of all teenagers and this dream came true: in 2003, when Kelly was 16 years old, she was lucky enough to win the lottery and obtain 2 million euros. Having access to money, Kelly lost her head. She dropped out of school, left her parents, and began to live a fun life. She spent her money at a rate of 20 thousand per day! So, her entire fortune was spent on parties, drugs, cosmetic and plastic surgery, celebrations, and gifts. Six years later, only the debt of one hundred thousand dollars remained from her $2 million fortune: the lady could not stop.Evelyn Adams. Lady Luck smiled at this woman who was working as a clerk in a modest shop twice: she won the lottery and earned $3.9 million in October 1985, and four months later she won another $1.4 million. What else did she need? Live and enjoy! But Evelyn believed in her luck and went to Atlantic City in 1986 to gamble for high stakes. The outcome was obvious. Her $3 million fortune disappeared within three years, and Evelyn Adams became the unemployed who lived in a trailer.
Michael Carroll. In November 2002, at the age of 19 an unemployed Michael won the National Lottery and obtained $15.4 million. And then he began to spend it. At first, he just gave away $4 million to friends and relatives. Then he bought a house and a few racing cars. Millions were spent on cocaine and alcohol, gambling and prostitutes. For example, a year after his victory, he smoked crack for two thousand dollars per day and ordered a dozen whores per day. One million dollars was lost at the race track, and 2 million was spent on one single wager on his favorite football team Rangers F.C. He even became famous. British media called him "Lotto lout" and described the adventures of this remarkable character. Even a documentary film about this character called Michael Carroll: King of Chavs appeared on the screen. Michael was in prison twice. In 2004 he spent five months in jail, and in February 2006, he was sentenced to a nine-month jail term for a fight. As a result, Michael sold his mansion and luxury sports cars in 2008 to pay off his debts and became a binman with the wages of $5 per hour. He is currently working in biscuit factory for just 204 euros per week.
Andrew Jackson "Jack" Whittaker Jr. Jack Whittaker won nearly $315 million in 2002, hitting the jackpot in the Powerball lottery. Andrew was 55 years old, and he was not a poor man. He was a co-owner of Diversified Enterprises Construction. He was living in a big house with his wife, grandchildren, working in the company. In other words, he was living a simple American life. And then he suddenly won. Perhaps the most obvious illustration of what easy money can bring.
Initially, Jack generously donated millions to charity, including $14 million spent on the creation of his own charitable organization called Jack Whittaker Foundation. On deciding that he had done enough good deeds, Jack plunged into dissipation: he spent his millions on alcohol, whores, and gambling. Andrew became addicted to horse racing and spent about three million dollars at the race track within one year. And later his dream turned into a nightmare: a briefcase with $545,000 in cash was stolen from the car that he had left unlocked near the strip club.
In 2004, this story repeated. About $200,000 in cash was stolen in cash from the same Jack's car near the same strip club. A friend of his granddaughter was found dead in Whittaker's home in 2004. The cause of death was a drug overdose. Three months later, his granddaughter died due to the same cause. It turned out that Andrew was the one to blame for their death: every week he gave $2,100 for her granddaughter, and she became addicted to heroin together with her boyfriend. In the same year the girl's mother - the Andrew's daughter - died.
Within two years, Jack was arrested twice for drunken-driving and drunken brawl. In January 2007, Whittaker claimed that thieves took all his money from bank accounts. All his millions turned to dust after five years. Andrew Whittaker had neither family nor job. He lost all his money.
This is very depressing statistics. Buy what will you do if you are lucky enough to win a couple of million? Is everything so hopeless?
The 10-20-70 Model
It turns out that everything is not so bad. There is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. It is a 10-20-70 model. The most interesting thing in this model is the fact that it can be used for both your winnings and any other amounts, which you can get. This is a standard system, which is used by the rich people to protect their financial future, so you should also enjoy it. You can try to practice on your salary, and after the victory you will know what to do.
So, let's discuss the 10-20-70 model. What is the meaning of these numbers?
1. 10% should be spent on charity.
Before you start spending the money, you should allocate 10% of your winning for charity. Maybe you think that it is stupid to give your money away without any reason. But everything is more complex. It has its own profound sense. You can donate money as gratitude. You can consider it to be a price to pay for your success. Finally, charity is the way of donating to the society in which you grew up.
In fact, you should learn how to do it from an early childhood, but it is never too late to start. Visit the places where people are really helpless, try to feel compassion for them. As soon as you understand and feel the misery of these people, you will have problems with giving a small part of your money away.
You should start practicing the "10% charity" rule with any additional income, because it is easy to do this with small amounts. It is fairly easy to give one tenth of one thousand. However it is much more difficult to give ten thousand out of one hundred thousand. You may say, "Oh, if I had one hundred thousand dollars, I would easily give ten thousand away." But this is not true, ten thousand dollars is a huge sum of money and it is much more difficult to give it away. Start practicing with small amounts and you can develop the habit before you will be able to earn big money.
2. 20% should be spent on investments.
With the help of the other 20% you should try to create your own wealth. How to do it? Well, there are many ways in which you can invest money profitably. Imagine what do you want, evaluate your skills, recall your hobbies, and think of the ways to convert this into a profitable business. Maybe you're a programmer and you can create your online store. Or are you a builder and you can purchase some property, improve it, and resell it. Or you are a financier and you know how to invest in stocks, making a profit.
Poor people spend their money and save up what's left. Rich people invest their money and spend what's left.
3. 70% should be spent on lifestyle.
When you are thinking of the ways to spend 70% of the amount, you must divide it between the needs and unnecessary things. First of all, you should get rid of all debts, pay off all the loans, purchase a flat or house. Be practical. As soon as you finish with the needs, you can do something for your pleasure. Make yourself happy. Do something that you've always dreamt of but could not afford.
There is a psychological reason for such an approach. Think of it. When you win money, you start thinking "Ooooh! Now I can do this and this, buy this and that!" This is a typical reaction. However what is waiting for you when you give money for charity, invest it partly, pay the bills, and make other necessary expenses? The euphoria of winning will disappear and you may notice that the available amount is much less than you used to think. And you will start spending money reasonably without wasting it.
In general, it is your right whether to go with the stream and join the majority after the victory by completely becoming bankrupt or getting in debt. Or you can protect your own future, avoid financial collapse, and begin to live better.
It is up to you to decide.