In a message dated 1/28/2003 12:02:38 PM Pacific Standard Time,
vpFREE@yahoogroups.com writes:
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:08:34 -0000
From: "Brad <tarpon@sportsfishing.com>" <tarpon@sportsfishing.com>
Subject: Question...Would any of you folks care to share with the group how you started
gambling? What age were you at the time and what game you played or
ran?Me,I started out in Middle school pitching quarters, then playing
craps and 4-5-6. Moved on to playing table poker, and then on to Las
Vegas.I started playing video poker around 1980. Usually while waiting for
a seat at a poker table.
Until 1994, I didn't believe in gambling but would make infrequent trips to
Reno & Las Vegas (on the way to the Nat'l parks).
Then 2 events occurred in 1994 which led me to the dens of iniquity. My son
won a VP tournament at the hotel we were staying at (Santa Fe) and he got
dealt a royal flush at another hotel we were staying at (Silver Legacy). Both
times it was just an experiment but it led us to think that maybe gambling
wasn't so bad after all. I started playing on the game that he hit the royal
flush on -- double bonus & became fairly good at it (no strategy card)
getting quads about every 20 mins & then scored my first royal flush on a
6-coin quarter progressive at Circus Circus for $2600+. It was easy! Still no
strategy card.
Then we picked up the books by Stanford Wong, Lenny Frome, Dan Paymar at
Reno's Gambler's Bookstore (now out of business). Learned the strategy &
started losing & losing & losing. Then I hit a 6-team parlay on a sports bet &
hit a slot jackpot & quads came back to life again & faith was restored in
the system. (It was helped by skillful play as one night, I had quad A in DB
6 times, 4 times drawing to a single A.) Then we played a game called
Straight Flush Bonus where a straight flush pays as much as a royal & hit the
straight flush something like a dozen times. Then we got VP Tutor and learned
that SFB was a negative game but I still played it because I knew the winning
strategy.
Am proud to say that I'm 55 & getting the discounts. Still have a mental
block about pushing gambling to friends/relatives unless they're disposed
that way then I figure what the hell they're on their way anyway.
Observation, what sold me on gambling was that, on average, I never spend as
much on gambling trips as I did on trips elsewhere.
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