first of all, I appreciate all the resonses by people who had genuine words of advice or ideas on how to grind it back, and for that I sincerely thank you. unfortunately, a couple sites DO take credit cards (betonline is the one that comes up) and I also was buying phone cards to fund accounts (before both 5 dimes and betjamaica took down that option). Getting my credit card limit that high was too easy, as I just kept hitting "increase your credit card limit" online, and within minutes would get an increase of a couple of thousand dollars. I do not want to blame the local bookie that STILL has not paid me after over a month, but after being up over 13 grand on him, hitting him hard week after week, he refused to pay me. Instead of closing up shop until he DID pay, I tried to make him pay, and I came up losing bigtime. Now he owes me around 3500, which I still don't know if he'll pay me, and I am faced with a decision: try to grind back some of the money I lost by sticking TO ONLY STRAIGHT BETS on plays that have a good chance of hitting and only betting a small amount (say 75$ per play)....or take the money, put it towards the credit card debt, and start trying to find a 2nd job that I can perform while taking care of the rest of my responsibilities. All of you are right, I was freaking out in a good way when things FINALLY went my way the other day, and now when things don't go my way (tigers blow lead, dodgers lose to marlins, zona game goes over total in extras, seattle loses up 2-0 in 9th, etc etc.) I am down in the dumps...a clear sign that I was gambling WAYYY too much money and was not making rational, smart decisions. I understand that this is a long-term thing, that gambling is exactly what it sounds like, a gamble, yet I have recently lost site of that due to my financial situation. Not to go all storytelling on you all, but like most of you know, I started this betting a little bit, picking and choosing NBA, at a very high success rate. Eventually, after hitting a few parlays, I thought that this was the easiest thing in the world, picking games and sitting back and watching them happen. Now, just over 7 months after putting in my first bet, I have wagered between 10$ to 5,000 on 1 game (I lost the big one lol), have been up tens of thousands of dollars (which oddly enough gave me NO real joy), and am now down tens of thousands (which is giving me an early ulcer lol). If anything can be learned from this, I hope to inform people that gambling should NOT be something you put your rent money on. It can be fun, exciting, and perhaps make you a little extra beer money, but money management is the ABSOLUTE most important concept, something I unfortunately can preach but certainly did not practice myself. I don't know what I'm going to do from here on out, maybe wait a day or two to settle down and see what my options are....but I do respond everyone (and yes, that includes you TimetoPay) on the board, and sincerely wish everyone the best of luck in both their plays and in life. Take care, (and no, I REALLY did not mean to be this dramatic haha)
Miamiboy
