I'm thinking about quitting slots

[walrusbeard]

Before you get the wrong idea, I haven't ruined my life gambling... but I too easily could have.

This is gonna be my personal story of how I started gambling and how it went up until now, if you're not interested in that kinda thing, go somewhere else. I just feel like I need to tell this to somebody - not to tell you guys what a kewl customer I am and whatnot but to come clean on how things went and also to perhaps warn people of what can happen if you're not careful with online gambling.

I started online gambling pretty much exactly one year ago. I used to be bored all the time and just playing video games for the heck of it didn't do it for me anymore. I'm now at an age where I like to do things that have consequences on my real life and the success that it's hopefully going to be one day. So I tried to earn some money playing on Pokerstars, which turned out not to work at all. One day after a bad session I remember having a look over at the Casino sections of Pokerstars, where it presented me with a selection of slot machines. I gotta admit, I used to look down on slot machine players, on these pitiful people who know they're going to lose, who just push that one glowing button repeatedly until all of their money is gone. I still don't know why but on that day, I decided to give Genie Jackpots a go. It's a choice that I used to regret for the longest time.

Unexpectedly, playing slots turned out to be so much fun to me that I decided signing up to a couple online casinos. I got hooked pretty quickly and gambled away thousands of euros before I even really knew what I was doing. Wagering, RTP, long-term expectations, none of that stuff meant anything to me. I remember playing Casino Hold'Em and, coming off a winning streak worth about €3.000, truly believing that my (honestly not too special) poker skills would allow me to make a consistent profit on those kinda games. Only when I lost back those 3.000 and then some did I realize that the expected return stated in the games had some merit to it. I wasn't gonna make a profit playing casino games, but somehow I still tried anyway. Looking back and knowing what I know today, I can't believe how naive I was back then.

Fast forward about half a year ahead. In the meantime, I'd been playing every now and then and of course I'd just been losing most of the time. There were some ups and downs, like a 6k cashout on Casumo on one hand and a devastating Blackjack session that saw me lose over €4.000 on the other, but on average I would lose, just like everybody else. I used to just take advantage of bonus offers and the like and just kept playing, until at some point I noticed my bank account starting to run dry. All those small sessions of depositing 200 to 500 bucks and rarely getting a return finally caught up to me. I had lost around €10.000 up to that point and was down to my last €200. All the fun I had while playing cards and slots had finally become dead serious.

Now, this is usually the part where a compulsive gambler gets into serious trouble. The bank account is empty but you need to keep playing to keep your frankly ridiculous dream of making money gambling a reality. I don't actually know if that is the goal of people who can't stop playing, or if their brains just keep them stuck in this loop of hoping and losing and hoping and losing. Some people start loaning money from friends and from banks and just get stuck in this nightmare of losing more and more money. I am not exactly proud of it but at the same time I'm extremely happy to say that when I saw those remaining 200 Euros, I was able to stop the bleeding and just flat out banned myself from every last casino I played at. I didn't sign up to any other casinos either and just gave myself a break of around 2 months to think about what I had done and how I was going to proceed with casino gambling and my life as a whole.

Two months and two paydays later my bank account looked acceptable again and I started playing in online casinos again, albeit at very low stakes and only under certain circumstances. In the meantime, I had been doing some research into if there was a way at winning casino games, and of course there was. Blackjack had become my mainstay in casinos. I had taught myself how to count cards and trying it out in online casinos, I quickly found out that it worked well but at the same time was too slow to make any sort of noticeable profit with the kind of bankroll I had at my disposal. I know people usually keep this kinda stuff to themselves but if there's anything I'm proud of it's having learned to count cards, to play perfect Blackjack strategy and generally being able to identify favorable situations in gambling, whether it's Blackjack or Poker or any other game. To me it's a sign of learning from mistakes, of using your money in smarter ways. Don't get me wrong, gambling is still a terrible way to use your money, especially if you can't stop and have only limited access to more money.

Since online Blackjack wasn't profitable enough, I just went back to slots. I'm kind of past the point where slots are fun now, if there was no money involved, I wouldn't play anymore because in just this one year I've pretty much seen it all. All the good slots out there, from Starburst to Bonanza, I've seen what they're capable of, I've had my share of big hits on them or at least seen videos of what is possible and the magic is simply over. These days I only play when a casino offers me a notable deposit bonus and I'm well out of the financial danger zone. Now, on to the reason why I'm considering quitting slots.

I always told myself and everybody who would listen that if I could somehow regain those €10.000 I had lost, I would quit slots and just focus on profitable games or something else entirely. Of course, it's kind of a cliché thing to say, "if I just won all my money back, I'd quit", and most people ruin themselves on the way to "regaining" their money. As luck would have it, I've now earned back those 10k and then some. Today marks the end of my most profitable slots session to date, which started on Thursday and concluded a few hours ago. I'd been offered a 100% bonus up to €500, took full advantage of it and hit the biggest winning streak of my life. Playing mostly 5€ bets, I first hit a 4k spin on Reactoonz, followed by the most successful bonus hunt I ever had and eventually looping back to Reactoonz for some more big hits. No matter what slot I played, I just kept winning, it made absolutely no sense. At the end of wagering around 20k, I'm now looking at a balance of slightly over €10.000, basically all the money I ever lost on slots. The impossible actually happened and I am now faced with the quasi promise I made. It's been a heck of a ride and it's taught me a few valuable lessons, but I believe this might be it for me as far as slots go.

Ever since stopping myself from complete ruin after going down to €200, I liked to think of myself as someone who is not a compulsive gambler, as someone who could quit playing if he really needed to for the sake of his own good, and now might be the time to prove it to myself and everybody else once again. The problem is, I really kinda don't wanna stop right now. It's kinda funny and and the same time makes no sense at all. I don't know if it's the high of having won this much for once or something else I can't put my finger on right now, but I don't wanna quit slots and gambling just yet. It probably has something to do with the fact that I still consider casino gambling fun (even though I wrote above that slots have lost most of their "magic" to me) and I can now afford to spend some money on it, knowing what I'm doing, I'm just afraid I might rob myself of this happy ending and end up where I was before.

So yeah, this is my story up until this point basically and I'm now standing at the crossroads. The next few days are gonna decide which way I'm going to take. Thanks for reading.

[SpartaFC]

Cool story Bro

Remember you are at your weakest just after a big cashout

I'll just deposit another £100, what's the harm?

Before you  know it your down a grand then it can slide real fast.

So take a break, buy some shit and just decide if slots enhance or detract from your enjoyment of life.

[ryans_slots]

Seems like you just need a break, how about self excluding / cooling off period for 3 - 6 months, buy some nice things with your money mate.

if it gets any worse after that, get the gamban that doesn't let you access sites.