The only redeeming value of Bob Argentino is being a public case study of Malignant Narcissism. I'd like to provide some new insights into his mental illness.
Sam Vaknin has an excellent book out ... Malignant Self-Love ... that explains Bob's psychopathology in great detail. Excerpts, reviews etc are readily available with any search engine. I've also referenced other articles on MN in this forum that interested readers can review for background. Just do a search for my posts.
Dr. Vaknin has some insights that explain Bob's gambling addiction and his fascination with pursuit of a winning gambling system. Dr. V points out that malignant narcissists are much more gullible than the average person because they are FAKE. "Their self is false, their life a confabulation, their reality test gone. They live in a fantasy land all their own in which they are the center of the universe, admired, feared, held in awe, and respected."
Narcissists are prone to magical thinking and easily persuaded to assume unreasonable risks expecting miracles to happen. Thus, they often find themselves (as Bob did) on the receiving end of investment scams. And naturally they just don't have the temperament to be anything but suckers and losers at gambling.
The narcissist believes that he is destined to greatness or at least the easy life (one of Bob's favorite fantasies). So every morning Bob, the gambler-narcissist, wakes up fully ready for a fortuitous stroke of luck. "I've outsmarted the casinos with my system. It didn't work yesterday, but it will work big today."
Bob's a long-term loser at gambling (and other endeavors). With his system and temperament, that's a certainty. And it really sticks in his narcissistic craw that others (more intelligent and disciplined) have succeeded where he has failed. But hold on ... a malignant narcissist can simply fantasize his way out of painful reality. "All I have to do is say or write I won to make it real. And use my cunning to put up barriers when pressured to provide proof."
With his magical thinking, Bob just KNOWS his system is gold, and if he had enough money, it WOULD work. And that's as good as DOES to a narcissist. Bob is probably the biggest winner of all-time when it comes to "phantom bucks." LOL.
What's he up to these days? I suspect he is still tinkering with his system trying to find that elusive formula (more "special plays" etc) to win at VP ... as his net loss just grows and grows. Point out this reality to him and he just retreats deeper into fantasy ("Look, I won even more"). As for his denial of there being actual winning advantage players, he reasons: "If I (ME!) can't win, how in the world could anyone else win?" And "I lie about winning, therefore everyone else lies too."
So what's the point of confronting him? Now that everyone knows he is mentally ill and bogus, all he can do is try to bait responders into behaving as badly as he does. No positive EV in that.
One more point. His lame ghost (self) posts, such as "Richard", are perfectly in character for someone with a very tenuous grasp on reality. Again his thought process: "I'm sure I have thousands of admirers out there who would defend ME!, but for whatever reason they are silent, so I'll just make one up." FANTASY = REALITY.
The saying goes "you can't make this stuff up." But Bob Argentino can.