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TO doesn’t want you gambling

You’re right. I should have stated that differently. I don’t have a problem with your gambling. My personal experience though involves several friends who lost everything due to gambling addictions. One committed suicide. Another drank himself to death after his wife left him. The third was able to quit and salvage his marriage and life. Not everybody has your intelligence and success when it comes to gambling.

My biggest issue is with slots and video gaming. They are designed to be addictive and there’s zero skill involved in playing them. I love to watch the ponies and lay a few bucks down on them. I don’t care if people bet on sports. I really don’t. I don’t think we need slot machines in every bar in town though.
Dude, he was celebrating. You are looking at it wrong.
 
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The difference is that guy coming out of the casino is drunk and has no working tail lights or headlights or some other malfunction that lends itself to an accident.

I get that you are a connoisseur of the fine art of all things gambling. I am not.

I agree that people should be able blow their money in any way they see fit as long as it's not hurting anyone else.

Just too many folks that cannot manage themselves (like any addiction) and then choose to complain about not being able to cover legitimate expenses because they are hitting the casino daily. I have a family member who drives on a constant low tire and can't afford to fix it - she has a $75K year job - and she spends 2-3 days a week at the casinos in Council Bluffs.

I drive right by it at least twice a day and more on the weekends. Yes, there are plenty of nice vehicles in there, but plenty of buckets parked in the VIP section - it's the same cars all the time. We have had numerous close calls with reckless drivers (not all are drunk, but my guess is at least 50%) leaving the parking lot. No headlights, speeding, wrong lane, etc...
If every casino within a day's drive closed down do you think your family member would all the sudden have a nice set of tires, an emergency fund, and a fat 401k? Be honest, they would just find something else to blow their money on.
 
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99% of all people that step foot in a casino never have an issue.
99% of people that a buy booze never have an issue.
99% of people that use (you know what I am talking about) never have an issue

Much higher percetage of people have issues with alcohol. New York times noted 29% of people who drink do in excess and 10% meet definition meet of alcoholic.

While I believe adults should have choice, alcohol and gambling have huge negative impacts to society for portion of folks that cannot moderate behavior.

I disagree with but fully understand people like Osborne that feel there should be more legislation in these areas.
 
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Much higher percetage of people have issues with alcohol. New York times noted 29% of people who drink do in excess and 10% meet definition meet of alcoholic.

While I believe adults should have choice, alcohol and gambling have huge negative impacts to society for portion of folks that cannot moderate behavior.

I disagree with but fully understand people like Osborne that feel there should be more legislation in these areas.
You can't legislate morality.
 
Much higher percetage of people have issues with alcohol. New York times noted 29% of people who drink do in excess and 10% meet definition meet of alcoholic.

While I believe adults should have choice, alcohol and gambling have huge negative impacts to society for portion of folks that cannot moderate behavior.

I disagree with but fully understand people like Osborne that feel there should be more legislation in these areas.
I like when they came up with the term "Functioning Alcoholic" to make women happy.

"So, your hubby works all day, never misses a day of work, provides, pays for everything, is a great dad and never misses kids events...but he drinks?"

"Hmmmm, well, we can't let him just be happy...we will figure out something."

TO is also against porn, which means he is against women making a lot of money.
 
If you you are in this thread and haven’t watched the movie Let It Ride, you need to.

A comedy classic that isn’t as far away from the truth as some might think.
Here's an underrated movie with a horseracing subplot: God's Pocket
 
"intelligence" and "success" have nothing to do with it

discipline and accountability do, though

if adults lack these two things, frankly, society has no use for them anyway
Dave Chappelle GIF
 
Ummmm, Hot to Trot might be the best horse racing movie ever.
Oh I'm not pitching God's Pocket as the best movie ever, but I enjoyed it. I think it might have been Philip Seymour Hoffman's last movie. After he died, it didn't get much publicity.

Spoiler alert: When the neighborhood chips in for your stepson's funeral expenses and you take it straight to the off-track betting site, life's not too good.
 
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Since I've enjoyed gambling for over half a century, trust me, most gamblers suck at what they try to do. It's been shown scientifically that an addicted gambler just has a chemical light up in their brain when they get into that environment. They can't help themselves. Those that fail to acknowledge that their behavior is fueld by the environment and continue to pursue it will ultimately wind up in ruin. I could name hundreds over the years, you can just look at their eyes and know they are under some type of a spell. I've been fortunate to always have been a controlled gambler, and not a degenerate.

I think we all have a family member that falls under that same type umbrella. I had a cousin, who's a friend also, that wanted to borrow money from me. I loan/give money to people all the time. This time I told him, if you're broke and need to borrow money for something worthwhile, why the **** do you have a $ 1,500.00 smartphone? Hell, I used, and loved my cheap ass flip phone for 15 years until they finally did away with the algorithm that allowed it to function. So, Instead of buying a new phone, I asked my wife for her $ 100.00 smart phone and split the price with her for a new phone for about $ 200.00 total. Just because a guy has money, doesn't mean he has to blow it. Right?

To the last point about the drunks, regardless of their vehicles condition. Im admittedly anal about drunks and drinking, cause it negatively affected my whole family growing up. So, it doesn't take much for me to address the topic of drunks. I've been married 48 years and never had a drop of alcohol in my home. Social drinking is awesome, my wife might have 15-20 beers a year, and I love that she enjoys it, at least I'm gonna be a sober designated driver. I've had several family members killed either by a drunk driver or when they were driving drunk, so its always a touchy subject for me. People don't need my approval to go out and get shitfaced, whatever consequences they face, they deserve.
**Edited to add**
First of all, I'm no connoisseur of all things gambling.... far from it.
I play horses. I enjoy playing slots. Last year I wagered on college football for the first time since 1983.
I won playing nothing but parlays which people say can't be done, but I proved that it could be done.

I've never bet on ANY other sports in my life.

With respect to many of the board members, they gamble on college and pro football, college and pro basketball, MLB baseball, hockey, golf, tennis, and maybe another sport or so. Those are your connoisseur's of all things gambling.
 
With respect to many of the board members, they gamble on college and pro football, college and pro basketball, MLB baseball, hockey, golf, tennis, and maybe another sport or so. Those are your degenerates
just having some fun with this quote

MLB and golf are my two best sports. but I gamble on everything. had a pretty good college football season and an awful ncaa tournament.

NBA playoffs, hockey playoffs quickly approaching. certainly some lucrative futures to be had in the latter, as always.
 
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just having some fun with this quote

MLB and golf are my two best sports. but I gamble on everything. had a pretty good college football season and an awful ncaa tournament.

NBA playoffs, hockey playoffs quickly approaching. certainly some lucrative futures to be had in the latter, as always.
This will likely be a TLDR type post for the majority of the members. Feel free to enjoy a different thread.

kong, we all do things differently, and that's a good thing.

In my world, its all about how I construct my wagers. If I were playing multiple sports as you do, I know I would designate %'s based on what I was the best at, versus what my least profitable sport(s) was.

Let's say you play college and pro football, college and pro football, hockey, golf and futures. My result spreadsheet would have told me where I need to be in terms of wagering on each type athletic event.

If I made 75% of my money wagering on college football, NBA playoffs and hockey playoffs, those three would each get @ 25% of whatever my bankroll was. Then the remaining 3-4 sports would get the remaining 25%, maybe 10%, 10%, 5%.

I've always had my results tell me where my money should be allocated. The difference is the sports you and others wager on have definite seasons of play, so naturally you will move from sport to sport even though 1-2-3 may all be going at the same time. In horseracing, its a year around thing, so I don't have to bounce from sport to sport to apply my skills.

Those of you who don't care about wagering on horses are free to leave now, as I'm gonna give kong a nickel view of how, over the LONG haul to be really successful in wagering. Not that I know it all, but its proven itself over 50 years.

I have what I consider to be a "Dream Team". That means, I play trainers that run from coast to coast year around.
Meets come and go, but the human element remains the same. I've identified the very best of the best in multiple categories.

There are multiple tracks that have both a spring meet and a fall meet. Some trainers do jack shit, by design, in the spring meet, but kill it in the fall. Others vice versa. I never force a trainer to be something that he's not. When he is always cold in the spring, I will give his horses cursory looks, but no cash. Will he occassionally fool me? Of course.

With 300 trainers, there are always going to be ample guys who are playing for real, regardless of the time of year. It took me 3 years, and a TON of hours to develop my methodology. I wanted to have LIVE trainers to bet year around so I never had dry spells. In other words, I never had to wait a month or two for a track to open because I had 2-3-4 other tracks I was playing.

Let me explain a simple reason why most horseplayers can't win consistently. They "think" they pay attention to details.....

If you look at the bottom of a horse's Past Performance, you see this trainer has won 11% of his 435 sprint races, okay, so that means he won 48 races. I look at ALL his sprint races, from 4F, 4 1/2F, 5F, 5 1/2F, 6F, 6 1/2F, 7F. 7 different distances in sprint races, and including dirt, turf and artificial surfaces.

On the dirt, this trainer might be 0-8 in 4F races, 1-9 in 4 1/2F, etc etc. I find that ONE distance that this trainers wins his races in. Sometimes a trainer runs 6 1/2 F races and wins 17 of 22 times, or 77%. What sprint race among these distances do you think I concentrate on? Then, of those 22 races and 17 wins, how many did he use the same jockey, or for the same owner, or moving from 6F to 6 1/2 F? It tells the story of how this guy pays his bills, and likely gambles.

In other words, just like with a 3rd base coach, these trainers have "indicators." If 8 of those 17 races were won when the previous races were 7F, then 6F then the 6 1/2F race for the win, that's telling me this horse will run his eyeballs out. And they don't run their eyeballs out at 2/1, its more 20/1, 30/1, 40/1 and up.

In those other distances when that trainer is 0-8 or 1-9 I will let him beat me on occassion, because percentage wise, I'm generally gonna toss that horse, or play against him. I hope that makes sense to you. If he beats me 1 out of 17 times, so be it.

I don't rely on good luck, I just hope to avoid bad luck. Over the years, I've played a horse that I KNEW was gonna fire, and some longshot, out of the blue, would jump up and beat me. Did I get pissed? No. I told myself, okay what did that outsider do to get that piece of shit looking horse to run so great today? And presto, after diligent research, I had another really dangerous trainer added to my stable. If he had this horse good enough today, to beat a proven trainer who I knew was going for the win, has this new guy done this before? Almost always, the answer is yes.

Personally, I don't care how big or how successful any trainer is, they all have chinks in their armor at different distances, surfaces, jockeys and owners. That's when I play against them with confidence.

If you lasted this long, kudos.
 
just having some fun with this quote

MLB and golf are my two best sports. but I gamble on everything. had a pretty good college football season and an awful ncaa tournament.

NBA playoffs, hockey playoffs quickly approaching. certainly some lucrative futures to be had in the latter, as always.
The first step is to admit you have a problem😉
 
My dad worshipped at the altar of Osborne. My brother got his ears pierced back in the early 2000s and my dad's response/logic was by asking my brother "would Tom Osborne allow his son to get his ears pierced?"

We shook our heads at the time and still laugh about the cult-like reverence my dad had.
Warren Buffet get's the same kind of treatment in many people's eyes.. if only more people saw how he ran his businesses, they would understand how scrooge like his organization really is.
 
Warren Buffet get's the same kind of treatment in many people's eyes.. if only more people saw how he ran his businesses, they would understand how scrooge like his organization really is.
Buy companies and layoff people to make them more profitable to drive up stock price. Buffett is an unscrupulous POS
 
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Back in the day, I was a better looking man. I wasn't a do-gooder but I met a girl or two that claimed to be, and I cured them girls of those aspirations.
 
This will likely be a TLDR type post for the majority of the members. Feel free to enjoy a different thread.

kong, we all do things differently, and that's a good thing.

In my world, its all about how I construct my wagers. If I were playing multiple sports as you do, I know I would designate %'s based on what I was the best at, versus what my least profitable sport(s) was.

Let's say you play college and pro football, college and pro football, hockey, golf and futures. My result spreadsheet would have told me where I need to be in terms of wagering on each type athletic event.

If I made 75% of my money wagering on college football, NBA playoffs and hockey playoffs, those three would each get @ 25% of whatever my bankroll was. Then the remaining 3-4 sports would get the remaining 25%, maybe 10%, 10%, 5%.

I've always had my results tell me where my money should be allocated. The difference is the sports you and others wager on have definite seasons of play, so naturally you will move from sport to sport even though 1-2-3 may all be going at the same time. In horseracing, its a year around thing, so I don't have to bounce from sport to sport to apply my skills.

Those of you who don't care about wagering on horses are free to leave now, as I'm gonna give kong a nickel view of how, over the LONG haul to be really successful in wagering. Not that I know it all, but its proven itself over 50 years.

I have what I consider to be a "Dream Team". That means, I play trainers that run from coast to coast year around.
Meets come and go, but the human element remains the same. I've identified the very best of the best in multiple categories.

There are multiple tracks that have both a spring meet and a fall meet. Some trainers do jack shit, by design, in the spring meet, but kill it in the fall. Others vice versa. I never force a trainer to be something that he's not. When he is always cold in the spring, I will give his horses cursory looks, but no cash. Will he occassionally fool me? Of course.

With 300 trainers, there are always going to be ample guys who are playing for real, regardless of the time of year. It took me 3 years, and a TON of hours to develop my methodology. I wanted to have LIVE trainers to bet year around so I never had dry spells. In other words, I never had to wait a month or two for a track to open because I had 2-3-4 other tracks I was playing.

Let me explain a simple reason why most horseplayers can't win consistently. They "think" they pay attention to details.....

If you look at the bottom of a horse's Past Performance, you see this trainer has won 11% of his 435 sprint races, okay, so that means he won 48 races. I look at ALL his sprint races, from 4F, 4 1/2F, 5F, 5 1/2F, 6F, 6 1/2F, 7F. 7 different distances in sprint races, and including dirt, turf and artificial surfaces.

On the dirt, this trainer might be 0-8 in 4F races, 1-9 in 4 1/2F, etc etc. I find that ONE distance that this trainers wins his races in. Sometimes a trainer runs 6 1/2 F races and wins 17 of 22 times, or 77%. What sprint race among these distances do you think I concentrate on? Then, of those 22 races and 17 wins, how many did he use the same jockey, or for the same owner, or moving from 6F to 6 1/2 F? It tells the story of how this guy pays his bills, and likely gambles.

In other words, just like with a 3rd base coach, these trainers have "indicators." If 8 of those 17 races were won when the previous races were 7F, then 6F then the 6 1/2F race for the win, that's telling me this horse will run his eyeballs out. And they don't run their eyeballs out at 2/1, its more 20/1, 30/1, 40/1 and up.

In those other distances when that trainer is 0-8 or 1-9 I will let him beat me on occassion, because percentage wise, I'm generally gonna toss that horse, or play against him. I hope that makes sense to you. If he beats me 1 out of 17 times, so be it.

I don't rely on good luck, I just hope to avoid bad luck. Over the years, I've played a horse that I KNEW was gonna fire, and some longshot, out of the blue, would jump up and beat me. Did I get pissed? No. I told myself, okay what did that outsider do to get that piece of shit looking horse to run so great today? And presto, after diligent research, I had another really dangerous trainer added to my stable. If he had this horse good enough today, to beat a proven trainer who I knew was going for the win, has this new guy done this before? Almost always, the answer is yes.

Personally, I don't care how big or how successful any trainer is, they all have chinks in their armor at different distances, surfaces, jockeys and owners. That's when I play against them with confidence.

If you lasted this long, kudos.
WTF… Do you know Cliff? And does he have notes?
 
WTF… Do you know Cliff? And does he have notes?
If it's that far over your head, I'm sorry, next time I'll dumb it down even further for you.

The 6th word of my post said "TLDR"... I said it was TLDR for those who are not interested, apparently you can't read or comprehend.

You had an issue with another thread I had awhile back, apparently you have a short attention span.

Go whine to the Moderator again.
 
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Warren Buffet get's the same kind of treatment in many people's eyes.. if only more people saw how he ran his businesses, they would understand how scrooge like his organization really is.
People love Buffett because he made them rich. Give me some details on how he runs his businesses. I'm genuinely curious as a long-time Brk-b holder.
 
I don't agree with TO's views, but he is an insanely nice man. I've met him a number of times as he went to Hastings with my grandfather. He used to stop (to my gparents) by for a few minutes on recruiting trips to my hometown. Just a fantastic man. I don't agree with some of his views, but that is fine. As 8990 said, we need more people in the world like him.
 
Buy companies and layoff people to make them more profitable to drive up stock price. Buffett is an unscrupulous POS
Some companies are inefficient in their systems and use of manpower. If a new owner wants to clean it up and views that as an area to help turn I don’t see the issue?
 
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I’m sure if you were “cleaned up,” you’d feel different. He’s not a good person
My feelings wouldn’t matter and yes it would suck. But if the organization is inefficient and a new owner comes in, I may be able to argue my contributions but I would understand. Unfortunately poor leadership causes companies to be fat and happy and new leadership is blamed for the sins of others. Businesses can’t make logical decisions solely on how everyone in the organization will feel about decisions.

I’ve had to “clean up” and it’s not fun and I do my best to accomplish this through natural attrition but there are times when you have to get more aggressive.

A side example. Many years ago I had friends that worked at Sprint. Sprint put “dark rooms” in the building with recliners so if the day became too stressful team members could use the rooms to have a bit of quiet and recharge for 10 mins or so. Well, some people would get hungover the night before and sleep in the nap rooms for the morning. If there was an overtake of sprint and new bosses questioned what that room was, would it be too insensitive to eliminate those and potentially let some folks go who no one notices are doing nothing for half the day?
 
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