Jun 18, 2013 7 Incredible Casino Stories. Posted on June 18, 2013. From this sale, Terry amassed a huge fortune that would later propel a drinking and gambling problem into astronomical losses at various Harrah's owned casinos. But one day, she inserted $16 into a Mega-Jackpot machine from the California Hotel and Casino and it hit the big. After 8 years and over $500k, thinking of hanging myself. With online gambling, I was spinning at $100 per spin and within 10 minutes, I would have lost $1000. Losing 20k a night was a frequent thing. To be fair, I had huge wins as well, I once pulled out 40k after a gambling marathon of 10 hours straight. There are several risk factors associated with gambling. Two of them stand out in my story - illusion of control over outcome and distorted thinking. I firmly believed I would win back the money I had lost. I firmly believed that if I kept playing the same machine, even though I had put in thousands of dollars, it would hit big.
The gambling escapades of Charles Barkley are not a secret. The former Suns star has been open about his habits and that continued when he joined Campus Insiders' Seth Davis for an interview.
Davis asked Barkley about his two-year break from gambling, and Barkley shed some light on just how bad it got. Barkley projected that he had lost a million dollars on 30 separate occasions.
'I went to Vegas a bunch of times and won a million dollars. Probably 10 times. But I've also went to Vegas and lost a million probably three times as much,' Barkley said.
Barkley did say that he was never worried about gambling addiction, though. Before he took the break from gambling, his goal was to win a million dollars on every trip to Vegas, which often led to big losses. But Barkley said that he has learned to stop gambling when he's ahead.
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He also is fine with stopping when he's down $200,000 and can still have a good time.
'You know, it's like anything, if you do it in moderation it's alright,' Barkley said. 'And now with my gambling, 'cause I love it. I love the action, I love the juice. But I just learned to do it in moderation.'
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That's a loose definition of moderation, but it's definitely an improvement on losing millions.
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