my grandfather was a bookie,and gave the parlay cards to my dad to distribute out, so i started as a kid with them. cursed forever.of course its the only bad habbit i have?? when my grandfather died, we actually got flowers from"THE OFFICE", and they let 2 of his convicted gambling buddies out of jail to come to the funeral home,escorted by plain clothes cops!what a geat country!!!
So How Did You Get Started with Gambling
- Thread starter saint
- Start date
Blackman said:
man those were the days Blackman. One time we "strucka deal" w/ some mark by adding 15 points to the line in our favor BUT...we would give them 2-1. LOL.
. I guess i started when me and gamers inc, started making friendly wagers interesting in 7th grade. I remember taking the twins straight up vs. the braves in the world series (twins were proably +300 for all i knew). But i ended up winning $20 which was like winning 1,000 bucks back then.
Went to a Xmas party with my mom and dad at a cabinet shop we did business with when I was in junior high and they had made a crap table and had a pretty good game going. Obviously had no income at the time, but my dad gave me a twenty dollar bill and everybody said "let the kid roll the bones." Bad move for half the table. Hit about a dozen points in a row, and half the table was ready to carry me out on their shoulders and the other half were getting in an argument about who said the kid could roll. I pocketed about $140 and thought work was something I would never have to worry about.
Got into sports gambling my senior year in college. We had a bookie in our frat and we broke him in an unusual way. I had picked up a Street and Smiths college yearbook and I had seen these ads for all of these people who could pick winnahs ATS with amazing accuracy. I had no idea what this business was all about, but I called this one guy, his name was Dennis Ferster and he had a handicapping biz that went by Eagle Eye Sports. He gave me the first weekend free (sound familiar), and posted nothing but W's. I told some of my other gambling cronies, we split the $60 weekly fee six ways and this dude hit 21 out of 22 games the last half of the season. Of course, we were all fired up to have this kind of fun the next year and he hit at about a 35% clip after paying for the service up front at the beginning of the year. (sound familiar) :cursin: :cursin:
Got into sports gambling my senior year in college. We had a bookie in our frat and we broke him in an unusual way. I had picked up a Street and Smiths college yearbook and I had seen these ads for all of these people who could pick winnahs ATS with amazing accuracy. I had no idea what this business was all about, but I called this one guy, his name was Dennis Ferster and he had a handicapping biz that went by Eagle Eye Sports. He gave me the first weekend free (sound familiar), and posted nothing but W's. I told some of my other gambling cronies, we split the $60 weekly fee six ways and this dude hit 21 out of 22 games the last half of the season. Of course, we were all fired up to have this kind of fun the next year and he hit at about a 35% clip after paying for the service up front at the beginning of the year. (sound familiar) :cursin: :cursin:
I introduced my own self at age 7..........I bet a buddy a penny on the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the 1955 World Series. (Winner !) I just loved and lived sports as a kid......it kinda came natural. My whole family, father, uncles and aunts were bettors as we lived close to a harness racetrack and the family owned several horses. The whole town was a boring place, that was all many of them had to do. Either that or numbers. But I was oblivious to all of that, really. Like I mentioned, I introduced myself. And, yes, even tho my dad took a little book from his small store, he had a fit when he found out about my first wager. He made it impossible to enjoy the baseball card pack & stick of gum that it bought me....trust me.
I never really got hooked on horses, tho. I did for a few years right after high school, but I was smart and quit cold turkey after I left the track (Vernon Downs) broke one night after having a "sure big payout". I remember it like it was yesterday.
Scenerio: A muddy night, my favorite condition. 8 horse field and it is the 4th & last race of the double double(pick 4 winners). Folks, I have 6 live tickets left, all different. I covered the 7th nag with the last $8 I had left. MInimum payout posted on the board was $1700 and the highest payout was to be around $8000. Now, to put this in perspective, this was the late 60's........the $1700 would have bought me a brand new Volkwagon & a $4000 payoff would have got me the new loaded blue GTO that I cherished. The $8000 was close to 2 years pay!
My dad offered me a few hundred to split the tickets with him after I had the first two winners as I was on my way with a 12 or 15 to 1 shot as one winner. I then hit the 3rd race, too. The track offered early payouts after 3 races to cash in, which would have amounted to a bundle in itself. My Uncle Lou offered a tidy sum to buy me out. Uncle Pete offered me one of his horses, one that I really loved. There couldn't have been more than 8 or 10 live tickets left and I had 6 of them !!! So, I declined al offers. After all, I had 7 of the 8 nags covered, a sure winner, right ??
Needless to say, the one horse out of the 8 that I didn't cover came in. I was shocked, pissed , fuct, damned, drained,dismayed, delirious and devastated, you name it. Couldn't even buy grub or coffee on the cold rainy night ride home.
I went cold turkey after that night and never placed a serious bet at another track for the next 30 years, even tho my family, because they were owners, had privvy to "inside info". And, I subsequently worked at Gulfstream and Hialeah tracks for 10 years. Nowadays, I do go a few times per year, but it's mostly just to enjoy the beauty of it all and the most I will drop is a very affordable (for me) couple of hundred bucks live at Gulfstream or Breeder's Cup or the Derby. I really don't expect to come home rich, which is a solid attitude. It's very tough to beat the track with their 20-28% takeouts. At least with Foots & Bases etc., you have a 50% chance of pickin a winner........so I concentrated mostly on that & have been fairly successful over the years and can honestly say that "they don't owe me anything".
I guess I got off the "track" a bit for this thread, but it's a long time since I have told that story. Maybe it will make someone chuckle...........or if it will save one Madjacker from some financial misery, it was worth my few minutes of typing.
GL............THE HITMAN
I never really got hooked on horses, tho. I did for a few years right after high school, but I was smart and quit cold turkey after I left the track (Vernon Downs) broke one night after having a "sure big payout". I remember it like it was yesterday.
Scenerio: A muddy night, my favorite condition. 8 horse field and it is the 4th & last race of the double double(pick 4 winners). Folks, I have 6 live tickets left, all different. I covered the 7th nag with the last $8 I had left. MInimum payout posted on the board was $1700 and the highest payout was to be around $8000. Now, to put this in perspective, this was the late 60's........the $1700 would have bought me a brand new Volkwagon & a $4000 payoff would have got me the new loaded blue GTO that I cherished. The $8000 was close to 2 years pay!
My dad offered me a few hundred to split the tickets with him after I had the first two winners as I was on my way with a 12 or 15 to 1 shot as one winner. I then hit the 3rd race, too. The track offered early payouts after 3 races to cash in, which would have amounted to a bundle in itself. My Uncle Lou offered a tidy sum to buy me out. Uncle Pete offered me one of his horses, one that I really loved. There couldn't have been more than 8 or 10 live tickets left and I had 6 of them !!! So, I declined al offers. After all, I had 7 of the 8 nags covered, a sure winner, right ??
Needless to say, the one horse out of the 8 that I didn't cover came in. I was shocked, pissed , fuct, damned, drained,dismayed, delirious and devastated, you name it. Couldn't even buy grub or coffee on the cold rainy night ride home.
I went cold turkey after that night and never placed a serious bet at another track for the next 30 years, even tho my family, because they were owners, had privvy to "inside info". And, I subsequently worked at Gulfstream and Hialeah tracks for 10 years. Nowadays, I do go a few times per year, but it's mostly just to enjoy the beauty of it all and the most I will drop is a very affordable (for me) couple of hundred bucks live at Gulfstream or Breeder's Cup or the Derby. I really don't expect to come home rich, which is a solid attitude. It's very tough to beat the track with their 20-28% takeouts. At least with Foots & Bases etc., you have a 50% chance of pickin a winner........so I concentrated mostly on that & have been fairly successful over the years and can honestly say that "they don't owe me anything".
I guess I got off the "track" a bit for this thread, but it's a long time since I have told that story. Maybe it will make someone chuckle...........or if it will save one Madjacker from some financial misery, it was worth my few minutes of typing.
GL............THE HITMAN
bombercoops said:
Funny story, Cooper used to never beat me until one day when we got up on a Sunday morning and went to play a quick 18. Had him down til we hit the par 3 17th. This foreign fock Australian aced it on me and I have never beat him since. I still have the one up on him because his ancestors of Australia were really British prisoners, and I called his girl a fat b*tch.
:mj14:
"X, KATO'S DEAD!"
"NO!!"
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bet my dad $20 on the pitt-penn st game when i was about 9 yrs. old. I lost and had to cut the grass for free for a month. even at an earlier time, i gave him $2 on his way to the dog track and he brought me back a $20. Thanks Dad. I know you must be looking down with a smile on your face 
jpblack34 said:
They were actually scottish prisoners mate! LOL! That ace sure was nice and the $$ you pulled out of your wallet shortly after, even better!
Some pretty common replies in this thread....
Mine is about the same....started gambling making a few bucks playing pool when I was a kid....small stakes but at the time I had no income of any sort, so jogging four blocks home from the bar with 20 or 30 bucks in my pocket after a night of pool just all went towards feeling bulletproof and elated....monet WON is twice as sweet as money EARNED....
Did a few casinos when I was of age, didn't appeal that much......started watching football with a few friends and started placing bets through one of my friends.....found out I directly knew one of the bookies my friend had, so I cut out the middleman so to speak and stayed in close contact with the bookie....
Wasn't too long I took a chance and posted up some money with an offshore, and played by phone, calling in and getting a recorded message running me down on the lines....
Changed roommates and moved in with someone who had the internet, started surfing and found out there was a whole nother world out there in respect to sports gambling. Dropped my local guy and have stuck with a handful of solid offshores, mainly just playing via the 'net.....
Haven't set foot inside of a casino in about 6 or 7 years.....I just feel its too "chance" based, unless of course you're there to count cards, and then you're still at about break even odds....
Besides, I always figured I had better odds trying to win 52.35% in sports betting to break even than I could at any casino game. What casino game can you just walk into and start off only down about 2 and a half points?
Mine is about the same....started gambling making a few bucks playing pool when I was a kid....small stakes but at the time I had no income of any sort, so jogging four blocks home from the bar with 20 or 30 bucks in my pocket after a night of pool just all went towards feeling bulletproof and elated....monet WON is twice as sweet as money EARNED....
Did a few casinos when I was of age, didn't appeal that much......started watching football with a few friends and started placing bets through one of my friends.....found out I directly knew one of the bookies my friend had, so I cut out the middleman so to speak and stayed in close contact with the bookie....
Wasn't too long I took a chance and posted up some money with an offshore, and played by phone, calling in and getting a recorded message running me down on the lines....
Changed roommates and moved in with someone who had the internet, started surfing and found out there was a whole nother world out there in respect to sports gambling. Dropped my local guy and have stuck with a handful of solid offshores, mainly just playing via the 'net.....
Haven't set foot inside of a casino in about 6 or 7 years.....I just feel its too "chance" based, unless of course you're there to count cards, and then you're still at about break even odds....
Besides, I always figured I had better odds trying to win 52.35% in sports betting to break even than I could at any casino game. What casino game can you just walk into and start off only down about 2 and a half points?
Here's how I got started....
It looked like a fun thing to do in college because I liked sports. After I won $400-500 after my first two weeks of gambling football games I was hooked. The next 1-2 years I lost a lot more than I won. After that, I won a lot more than I lost. To top it off, there is no bigger rush than having $200-300 bets on NFL games and college games every week of the season. You win some and you lose some and the "entertainment" and "rush" I get out of it is awesome.
kneifl
It looked like a fun thing to do in college because I liked sports. After I won $400-500 after my first two weeks of gambling football games I was hooked. The next 1-2 years I lost a lot more than I won. After that, I won a lot more than I lost. To top it off, there is no bigger rush than having $200-300 bets on NFL games and college games every week of the season. You win some and you lose some and the "entertainment" and "rush" I get out of it is awesome.
kneifl
...what's all this talk about gambling?!!?!!? I've never placed a bet in my life.... :shocked:
Dammit! i must be in the wrong forum again.... :mj07:
:mj04:
:weed:
Dammit! i must be in the wrong forum again.... :mj07:
:mj04:
:weed:
Where did it all start? Hard to pin down. I have so many firsts, but none of them led to me being instantly hooked. However, over time they all seem to come together and I guess it became inevitable.
I always seemed to win things, mostly just lucky wins...squares at the Superbowl party, or class football pools run by one of the teachers in high school. The teacher actually collected cash and distributed the prizes, and even posted unlabeled "leader boards" on the bulletin board in his classroom disguised as test scores...just names and numbers but no indication of what it all meant (WE knew what it meant!)...all without the principal knowing. He'd pay you off in cash after class was over, with the door shut. Unreal now that I think about it...I doubt that would happen today. I think I won about 2/3's of the NFL and NHL playoff pools that I can remember him running. I had kids asking me who would win this game or that after a while. Never did any study, just had a feel for it. It also never occured to me at that time that I could ever make any money doing it in a gambling form.
Or it could be the backgammon & cards. I was always a good backgammon player as a kid. We'd play either backgammon or euchre at lunch...at first for fun...later for bigger stakes. Years later in Vancouver I got to playing backgammon in a legion hall and made some nice cash (or at least it was, at the time).
Went to Vegas in '93 for the one and only time. What an eye-opener, that you could actually bet on sports. We hit a baseball 4-teamer one night that was very memorable. Three of the four teams were fairly big longshots. The first 3 parts had hit in the afternoon, but at last view the A's were getting pounded at the White Sox in the evening game and I'd given up on it and gone to the casino. Mark McGwire hit a grand slam in the 9th to pull out the win. And I only found out the next day that we'd actually won. (Thank god I kept the ticket!). That was a rush like I'd never experienced before, I don't think I'll ever forget it. I remember leaving Vegas and thinking it was going to be hard to go back to a world where betting on sports didn't exist...I just loved it and it seemed so easy. (HA!)
Around '94 or so I started to really get into the NFL...started tracking stats on my own...first on my typewriter (no computer back then)...later on the computer. I started picking games with the spread and doing pretty well, but had no way to get actual money down on the games...didn't know anyone in Vancouver taking bets.
I also recall being on a local BBS system around then. Some site wanted someone to set basketball and football odds with the pointspread for their pools. I volunteered, and I set the lines...other users placed their "bets"... all for fun. I'd set lines that were off from the norm sometimes and see if I could sucker people into taking the team I wanted them to take...see if I could bust everybody. LOL I did a pretty decent job doing that.
When I moved back to Toronto I discovered an old friend of mine was playing NBA games for $75 a pop...sometimes 5 or 6 games a night. I was just floored. Having $500 or more at risk on any given night (and doing it pretty much every night)...that just seemed so dangerous and reckless. LOL Man how times change.
Within weeks I was betting with the same local...within a year or two I was betting offshore. The betting amounts have changed just a bit over time, too.
I always seemed to win things, mostly just lucky wins...squares at the Superbowl party, or class football pools run by one of the teachers in high school. The teacher actually collected cash and distributed the prizes, and even posted unlabeled "leader boards" on the bulletin board in his classroom disguised as test scores...just names and numbers but no indication of what it all meant (WE knew what it meant!)...all without the principal knowing. He'd pay you off in cash after class was over, with the door shut. Unreal now that I think about it...I doubt that would happen today. I think I won about 2/3's of the NFL and NHL playoff pools that I can remember him running. I had kids asking me who would win this game or that after a while. Never did any study, just had a feel for it. It also never occured to me at that time that I could ever make any money doing it in a gambling form.
Or it could be the backgammon & cards. I was always a good backgammon player as a kid. We'd play either backgammon or euchre at lunch...at first for fun...later for bigger stakes. Years later in Vancouver I got to playing backgammon in a legion hall and made some nice cash (or at least it was, at the time).
Went to Vegas in '93 for the one and only time. What an eye-opener, that you could actually bet on sports. We hit a baseball 4-teamer one night that was very memorable. Three of the four teams were fairly big longshots. The first 3 parts had hit in the afternoon, but at last view the A's were getting pounded at the White Sox in the evening game and I'd given up on it and gone to the casino. Mark McGwire hit a grand slam in the 9th to pull out the win. And I only found out the next day that we'd actually won. (Thank god I kept the ticket!). That was a rush like I'd never experienced before, I don't think I'll ever forget it. I remember leaving Vegas and thinking it was going to be hard to go back to a world where betting on sports didn't exist...I just loved it and it seemed so easy. (HA!)
Around '94 or so I started to really get into the NFL...started tracking stats on my own...first on my typewriter (no computer back then)...later on the computer. I started picking games with the spread and doing pretty well, but had no way to get actual money down on the games...didn't know anyone in Vancouver taking bets.
I also recall being on a local BBS system around then. Some site wanted someone to set basketball and football odds with the pointspread for their pools. I volunteered, and I set the lines...other users placed their "bets"... all for fun. I'd set lines that were off from the norm sometimes and see if I could sucker people into taking the team I wanted them to take...see if I could bust everybody. LOL I did a pretty decent job doing that.
When I moved back to Toronto I discovered an old friend of mine was playing NBA games for $75 a pop...sometimes 5 or 6 games a night. I was just floored. Having $500 or more at risk on any given night (and doing it pretty much every night)...that just seemed so dangerous and reckless. LOL Man how times change.
Within weeks I was betting with the same local...within a year or two I was betting offshore. The betting amounts have changed just a bit over time, too.
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I had the misfortune of working with NDNFans brother......he led me to the dark side. Started by going to Raceway Park in Toledo every other weekend for the Harness Races with them and their group of buddies......what a cast of characters (Mark S., Mark D., Chris D. Roger S., Brian S., Kevin S., Beachy and Pete D.....most are members of Madjacks). Me, Pete and Mark would play pool before we left and we would play for bets. One game would be worth a $2.00 win bet and so on......I'd be twenty bucks in the hole before we ever left Lima. The nice thing was you didn't have to play the bets, you could book them if you wanted to......probably got burned a time or two but nothing big.
If we weren't at the track we were playing cards or craps down on the pool table..........usually during football sundays so there was a lot of sports gambling going on also. A couple of us got married so we don't get together much anymore but I must admit those were probably the most entertaining years of my life.....I've never laughed so much as I did when I gambled with those guys.
NDNFans brother says they gambled from the time they were little kids.......He claims that they used to bet baseball cards when they were young and one day they had a contest.......They had to continually hit a tennis ball up in the air and they had to pay a card for every hit difference between the two. NDNFans' brother missed on like thirty hits and supposedly NDNFan went to like 1500. Chris owed him like 1470 baseball cards which was probably a pretty big deal when you're a pre-teen. Don't know if this story is true but I've heard it more than once.
If we weren't at the track we were playing cards or craps down on the pool table..........usually during football sundays so there was a lot of sports gambling going on also. A couple of us got married so we don't get together much anymore but I must admit those were probably the most entertaining years of my life.....I've never laughed so much as I did when I gambled with those guys.
NDNFans brother says they gambled from the time they were little kids.......He claims that they used to bet baseball cards when they were young and one day they had a contest.......They had to continually hit a tennis ball up in the air and they had to pay a card for every hit difference between the two. NDNFans' brother missed on like thirty hits and supposedly NDNFan went to like 1500. Chris owed him like 1470 baseball cards which was probably a pretty big deal when you're a pre-teen. Don't know if this story is true but I've heard it more than once.
I never mentioned it in my initial response to this thread.....
But what is the big deal about horse racing? What really separates one horse from another that leads someone to toss money down on a race with animals?
I see guys pouring over race forms and trying to formulate some sort of winner out of data...
I went to the track once with my friends and I never did understand what all the buzz was about. Takes like how long between races to start another one to get the action moving...maybe that's why a lot of tracks are closing....unless I'm getting some solid info from some jockey, which amounts to insider trading, it all looks like a lottery with horses to me....
But what is the big deal about horse racing? What really separates one horse from another that leads someone to toss money down on a race with animals?
I see guys pouring over race forms and trying to formulate some sort of winner out of data...
I went to the track once with my friends and I never did understand what all the buzz was about. Takes like how long between races to start another one to get the action moving...maybe that's why a lot of tracks are closing....unless I'm getting some solid info from some jockey, which amounts to insider trading, it all looks like a lottery with horses to me....
I had intellivision with a blackjack game before I was 4 or 5,, that is how I learned how to count. Watched football games that my dad bet on and picked football games when I was 5 years old. Played bingo with a family friend during my teenage years, in the smoke. Started going to casinos before I was of age and playing poker with friends in high school. Now I bet sports on the internet and go either to the gambling boats or vegas several times per year.
Same as many others-love of sports and competition. use to play all sports ,nothing special, but like all men liked to compete. Now I'm in a wheelchair and get my competition by sports gambling blackjack, and craps. play some poker & horses only as novice (action) ENJOY Madjacks with all the different personalities.
