You would think that at some point someone gambling that is losing a lot of money would have some degree of common sense kick in and not allow themselves to lose more than they can afford to lose. Perhaps even determine along the lines of "Gee, maybe this just isn’t for me since I am so darned unlucky" but they don’t for some reason. Why does anyone completely go under financially due to gambling? I would guess that part of that reason is the lure of fast, easy money. The casinos broadcast this in their advertising and in their promotions and make it sound like cash is raining out of the sky on everyone in the casino! You see it in their billboards depicting a happy couple smiling and throwing handfuls of 100 dollar bills in the air or perhaps talking about the huge sums of cash that can be won in some promotional event. Does the person that is considered a "compulsive gambler" think along the lines of hitting that "big win" that will finally put them ahead or something? You have to wonder about what the psychological motivations are to gamble beyond your means at something that the risk outweighs any possible reward.

Allow me to talk of one isolated instance I witnessed some years ago. There I was in Caesars, sitting at a $25 minimum table and sitting out part of the time trying to be cheap and "wong it" a bit. A man strolls up to the table out of nowhere (in the middle of a shoe) and buys in for $5000 or so. He starts playing 2 hands at $1000 a hand. "You poor bastard", I was thinking, as I was sitting out with the count rather poor to say the least and the dealer pulling miraculous hands that were uncanny. If the dealer had a 15… they would cap that baby off with a 6—Consistently! It was scary. The more he lost, the more he bought in for and the crazier he bet! He would double down a 10 against the dealers 10, he was splitting 10′s against the dealer’s 10 upcard, etc. to "make up for lost time" I guess… he was playing like a mental patient! By this time I was ready to look for another table or go to another casino because I didn’t exactly have a "warm fuzzy feeling" about this table but I had to stick around to watch this spectacle even if I wasn’t playing any more at this table! He had it up to max bets on 2 spots of $2500 each hand and couldn’t win a single hand no matter what. In less than an hour I watched this guy lose roughly $50,000. I ended up playing a few more hands before I left finally seeing a reasonable count so was plunking down a few bets. The Wildman that was to my right scrounged out his last loose odd change and bought in for about $40 in chips and pushed it in. The dealer of course slammed out a blackjack and took him for his last dollar. He stumbled off with a glazed over expression on his face, like he was nearly comatose. I wondered if I would hear about him by next week that maybe he did a swan dive off the top of the parking garage.

Contradictory to the whole "$100 bills raining out of the sky on everyone that happens to stroll into our casino" come ons posted on those billboards driving into Atlantic City…uhm… those casinos are there to squeeze you for all they can and all it’s worth! They do not care if they ruin you financially, they do not care if you are some crazy person willing to gamble away your mortgage payment. They are greedy and want all they can out of everyone they can! They are so greedy that in the case of an advantage player that takes them down for a few thousand here and there, they will panic and be downright hostile toward them! They will spend ten times the money they would have lost to them in trying to stop them from being able to win one dime even.