Quote from: slaman29 on January 28, 2020, 07:41:31 AM

Hi tyKi, thanks for sharing the story of this. I actually have only spoken in real life to professional esports players (very low level but they were still very knowledgeable) and I've always wanted to know how pro gamblers view their life and how they got into it!

Poker seems to me like the way to go to, but how do you play online when there are so many bots taking player places. Each game can last hours and hours, how do you keep all that while being sane?

I never was an ambitious poker player. I probably made some money with it, but not noteworthy. And I learned that poker just isnt my game. I never had problems with tilting when betting, but on the poker tables I get into a rage quite easily, because I often feel treated unfair and you have someone to blame instantly the donk that sucked you out. When you have AA and someone calls your all-in with 72o, your mind expects you to win this hand 100/100 times. But actually you only win that hand 87.4% of the time and this is a bit hard to grasp, because AA looks so superior. With poker your mindset has to be stronger than with betting imo.
So poker was always more annoying to me than actually being fun and I only play from time to time when I am bored nowadays (and quit after short time again, because of rage^^).

As to how I see my life. Well, I have a pretty normal life I think. I work full-time, but from home. I am kind of self-employed and responsible for what I am doing, without being held accountable for anything. But else than that, I am not having some kind of Jetset life, like maybe poker or esports pros have with travelling, staying in fancy hotels, attending parties with drugs, alcohol and whatever else. And I was never looking for that anyway. I dont get easily impressed with material things either and I am not the envious type of person. I just like to live my life the way I want and betting gives me the opportunity to do just that to a good extent.

I explained in an earlier post how this all unfolded. I could maybe add, that I was first introduced to betting by a friend of mine. We were on our way to the pub and he told me, he would win hundreds of Euros, if Barca, team X, team Y etc. win. He played some parlay with our german state bookie and it kind of got me excited, so I decided to have a look what this is all about.
And for the record: His parlay lost of course Cheesy

Quote from: maxreish on January 28, 2020, 03:09:36 PM

How do you manage to control gambling addiction?

You see, I started to feel that kind of attitude when I experienced to win huge at gambling and not contented with small profits. I have some reflections but it is hard for me to go back from being a small player which contented with small gains. How can you control yourself from greediness?

I am refraining from gambling slowly, which is not kinda effective.

I often asked myself the question, if am addicted to gambling. In the past I tended to say probably yes. But I never bothered with being addicted, since it was kind of good addiction to me I was making money with it and didnt feel like I ticked a lot of boxes that come with a gambling addiction.

Nowadays I can clearly say, that I am not addicted. I have no problem being without gambling for some time and I am not missing it in these times. I probably have already gambled too much in all those years, so there seems to be some saturation Grin

But I always get back to gambling, since I have to make some money as well of course.

Greediness is a bad thing, but all people suffer from it; not only gambling people. And I have no recipe to stop it tbh. Its just some natural human instinct I guess.
If you think gambling has a negative impact on your life and you are spending/losing too much money, I would just stop. This is of course easier said than done and I am no psychologist. But I would probably start with breaking my routines and look for other things to do during my spare time (sports, going for walks, going out, learn new things, read).
And if all that doesnt help, I would seek for professional help. There is no reason to be ashamed to look for help, if you are sick and gambling addiction is a sickness.