Browse 78 quotes about Casino.
“Performing magic in the live show thrills me. Just get me a deck of cards and some attentive audience, and I have made my day and theirs too”
Source: Wealth of Words
“All the magicians have 52 mutual friends.”
Source: Wealth of Words
“For a professional magician, a stack of playing cards is as good as a stack of money.”
Source: Wealth of Words
“A magician may step out without a purse, but he should never step out without a pack of playing cards.”
Source: Wealth of Words
“There is no rhyme or reason for any of it. Life is just a casino—numbers, probabilities, and cigarette smoke—that is all we are. Life is like this. You walk into a casino. You walk over to the bar and the bartender gives you two shots of cheap whiskey. You walk in hungry, tired. Maybe you’re already a bit drunk. The whiskey goes straight to your head and you light a cigarette—you know, to calm the nerves. You walk over to a craps table. But with all of the smoke, with your eyes blurry from the alcohol, you can hardly tell what it is. Nonetheless, the dice are rolled. Nobody asks you any questions. They roll the dice and whatever the number is, that’s how long you have to play. That’s life. Just a numbers game.”
Source: Bodies: A Romantic Bloodbath
“It's hard to walk away from a winning streak, even harder to leave the table when you're on a losing one.”
Source: Cruise Quarters - a Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
“Ah, how much freer and fun the 70s must have been if the vibe in this casino is reflecting the mood of the 1970s. There it is, the so dangerous nostalgia for a time that I didn't even live through myself. Let's not fall into that trap, let’s get to gambling instead.”
Source: 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)
“Quem é o mercado? São os corretores algorítmicos que entram e saem das empresas a uma velocidade de milissegundos, transformando aquilo que foi já um veículo para investimento do capital na economia real num casino onde as regras estão sempre a favor da casa.”
Source: WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us
“Conventional wisdom nor scientific, mathematical prove of randomness in life could do nothing to deter human's curiosity for the unknown, however small the chance of a positive outcome maybe.”
Source: The White Man and the Pachinko Girl
“Everyone is equal before the flop.”
“The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, mommy and daddy dropped the house payments and Junior's college money on the poker slots.
In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played - today it's like checking into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday.
Today it's all gone.”
“From the rubble of their fallen predecessors, the mega-hotel/casinos rose up, towering higher and higher over either side of the boulevard - glittering amnesiacs with the memories of what had come before hidden deep within their foundations.”
Source: Accumulation
“The casino played a song of its own—slot machines dinging, chips clacking as the dealer passed them out to the players at the tables, and the chatter of people throwing down money with the hope of hitting it big. It was like a carnival for adults. A person could get lost for days in a place like this.”
Source: The Secret Diamond Sisters
“I wonder what inspires gamblers. Is it the adventure or the love of laziness?”
“Here is your four-step plan to stay alive:
1. Accept the fact that you might consider suicide after a bad relapse. Do that now.
2. In the minutes and hours after a relapse, give yourself permission to ignore the consequences of your relapse. Don't think about the lost money, or the consequences for family, work, or your own self-worth.
3. Wait four days before taking any direct action to address your gambling issues. Do not gamble during this time. Do not chase your losses. Do not "confess" to a significant other during this time. Do not rob a bank to cover your losses. Wait four days to make plans for recovery. Wait until your brain both is willing and able to help you make good decisions.
4. After four days, start to restore hope. Call the state helpline, get a recommendation for a therapist. In most cases the state will pay for therapy. Then go see the therapist. Find a GA meeting and start attending. Make thoughtful, careful plans about how to go about discussing your addiction with loved ones and how to deal with your financial problems.
But most of all, understand that there is hope for you to live a life free of gambling. Thousands upon thousands have recovered. You can too.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The first step in that preparation begins now, well ahead of the relapse. Get out a three by six index card and write these thoughts on it:
- 1-800-273-8255 (National Suicide Prevention Hotline)
- This will pass
- My brain can’t be trusted right now
- I won’t kill myself today (I can always do it tomorrow)
- For now, I will IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE
- 1-800-273-8255”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Put these steering wheel cards and things somewhere in your car. Put your radio station of choice on one of your preset buttons. Do this now. Don’t wait. Then, if you relapse and when you get to the casino before you go in, take them out and put them on your seat or steering wheel. Set your radio to the station you have chosen, so that all you need to do is turn it on. Please don’t avoid doing this because you might be embarrassed or think it’s stupid. So what if it’s stupid? You are at the casino. You are already being stupid. Not to mention, these simple stupid actions just might save your life.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Immediately after you step through the exit of the casino and find yourself outside, stop. Then look at your hands for ten seconds. Examine them, turn them over, look at the lines, the freckles, the dirt under your fingernails or your chipped nail polish. Really focus, really study them, for ten full seconds. This is a surprisingly powerful mindfulness technique. It forces you to jump back into the present, thereby interrupting your thoughts about what just happened.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Several years ago, I knew a man, a friend of a friend who I would occasionally run into at the casino. He was clearly a heavy-duty compulsive slot machine player – maximum bets, completely focused, playing fast. He was also a family man, hardworking, very organized, a successful businessman. One night after losing a great deal of money, he came home and immediately (and impulsively) blurted out a confession to his wife (who did not know that he had a gambling problem). He confessed that he had lost all their savings and maxed out their credit cards – they were now completely broke. His wife reacted as expected. She was upset in the extreme. She packed her bag and left him to go spend some time with a relative. So then…after she had abruptly left him, at that point he knew he had lost all their money and perhaps lost his wife as well, and that his children and his family would now find out his dirty little secret. He was alone with his darkest thoughts. It was simply too much to bear. When he didn’t show up for work the next day a business associate found him in the garage, in his truck, with a hose from the exhaust stuck in a window. He was dead. It is clear to me that he didn’t kill himself because of that day’s gambling experience – the bad beat, the big losses. After all that had happened to him many, many times before. He killed himself as a result of his completely impulsive decision to confess to his wife!”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Figuring out how you can face your gambling problem is a complex issue. There are many choices. Recovery is not something you can will yourself to do in a day or two.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Most literature about suicide proposes the encouraging idea that if you can survive the first five minutes (or the first few hours, or the first twenty-four hours) of that moment when suicide seems like the only solution to your situation, then you probably will not kill yourself (at least for a while).”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms and treatment are well understood, but very little is discussed about gambling withdrawal. Here is a commonly quoted list of the symptoms of drug and alcohol withdrawal: nervousness or anxiety, insomnia, nausea, body discomfort, mood swings, poor sleep, lethargy, difficulty concentrating. Do these symptoms look familiar to you? After sitting hunched-over, eyes glued to that screen only inches away, pushing that button every three seconds and watching those complex configurations of colorful images flashing rhythmically, hypnotically, continuously, as fast as your mind can process, for hour upon hour upon hour, do you experience any of those symptoms the next day and the next several days? I know I do.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There are approximately twenty thousand detox facilities for drug and alcohol abusers nationwide. I understand that withdrawal from all forms of chemical dependency is a more dangerous and difficult process than gambling withdrawal and that it often requires medical assistance. But still – twenty thousand to zero? I believe this: The weeks following a major slot machine relapse episode are dangerous for the compulsive gambler. I'm certain that a significant number of suicides have happened to compulsive gamblers who faced this withdrawal period without any help, or without even any awareness of what was happening to them.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The morning, after I wrote the above paragraphs on gambling withdrawal, I was on my walk when, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, Mr. Addiction suddenly wedged his foot in the door of my brain. A minute later he burst through, opened his arms, smiled, and in his best Jack Nicholson voice announced: I'm Back! Let's go! It had been many months since I had gambled and at that moment my defenses were dormant. The guards were asleep. Without even offering a show of resistance, I immediately got in the car and drove south to where my favorite slot machine lived. I played for over eight hours at my usual furious pace until my available money was all gone and my brain was fried. I'm writing about this relapse story now, six days after that episode, having just gone through all of the ugly phases of a serious relapse, immediately after writing about it! Ironic, I guess. Kind of circular. I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not making this up. Though in retrospect, I've realized that I should have expected Mr. Addiction to show up and test me during this process.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Writing this book is an intense experience. I'm writing about an addiction that I suffer from, I'm doing the research, I'm reading about it for hours, writing about it for hours, I should have expected that that extreme daily exposure to my addiction would eventually lead to strong urges to gamble. I should have been prepared! But I wasn't.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I've been in treatment with people who have robbed banks, who have stolen disability checks from vulnerable relatives, who have embezzled large amounts of money, who have taken valuable items from their parents to pawn. At some point in their recovery, most gambling addicts will finally have to pay the price for their destructive actions.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Once you stop gambling, you can start to feel and think like a normal person (assuming there is such a thing). Your immediate financial situation will improve because you will no longer be stuffing $100 bills into those evil machines.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“The recovery process will take time, it will take sacrifices, it will take determination, and it will take very hard work. You can do it. Know that you can rebuild your life – many have.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“But why?" you ask, "Why should I see a therapist? Do they have the secret to curing my gambling addiction?" No, they don't. There is no secret, no magic pill that will overcome your addiction. But let me ask you this: Who are you able to talk to about your gambling? I already know the answer for 99% of you. The answer is no one. Am I right? Of course I'm right; gambling addiction is without any doubt the most secretive mental disorder that exists. Gamblers have so much shame and guilt that they cannot discuss their fears, the consequences, or even their suicidal thoughts with anyone. They are certain that no one they know will ever understand it, because they don't understand it themselves.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Not only do [gambling addicts] avoid letting anyone know about their addiction, they can also easily get away with this extreme secrecy. They don't pass out, they don't smell bad, there are no urine tests that show they have recently gambled and for the most part they don't miss work. They gamble alone.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Slot machine addiction is a solitary undertaking. It is not a social event like drinking or drug use. Slot machine addicts can gamble compulsively for years without family or friends even suspecting.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“In their solitude, the gambling addict lives a life completely alone with their fears, consequences, dark thoughts, and often, depression. They have no one to help, no one who will listen, no support at all. They are alone in this secret place - unless they seek help. I know. I've lived there for many years. This is why gambling addicts need to get into therapy. They desperately need someone to talk to, someone who will not judge them, someone who is trained to listen to them share their pain and confusion. The fundamental benefit of therapy for a compulsive gambler is simply that - someone to talk to.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Most gambling addicts have other addictions, or suffer from depression, or are dealing with PTSD, or something else that is causing them difficulty. This, of course, is another important reason to seek treatment. You may well have other problems that you need to deal with.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Many insurance policies do not cover therapy for gambling addiction, but they might cover alcohol treatment or treatment for depression. So, seek help for those problems (if you think you have them), get a therapist, and then open the discussion about your concerns with your gambling.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“That's a 40 to 1 ratio of substance abuse sufferers seeking treatment vs. gamblers seeking treatment. In other words, substance abusers are 40 times more likely than problem gamblers to seek treatment - i.e., to find a therapist, or an inpatient program, or to attend an AA meeting. It's likely that this ratio is also accurate (if not higher) for GA attendance vs. AA attendance.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“When was the last time you went 30 days without gambling? I'm guessing years, right? A thirty-day inpatient program at a facility dedicated to gambling addiction is worth a try simply for that experience alone. Thirty full days without gambling (and thirty days of not drinking, or drug use) will allow your brain to return to the normal state that nature intended. You will get to know "clear thinking" for the first time in years.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Our governments are complicit in gambling addiction. They make millions of dollars by supporting gambling (unlike drugs, for example), so they owe it to you to help you recover from your addiction.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There are just 59 beds for 5 million problem gamblers. In contrast, over 2 million people received inpatient treatment annually for substance abuse in over 15,000 facilities across the country.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“AA was created in 1935; GA was started in 1957. I think I'm safe in asserting that we know orders of magnitude more about addiction now than we did back in the thirties and fifties. The AA methods, the dogmatic culture, and the written materials (especially true of GA) are stuck in a time before most of today's addicts were even born.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“There is no reason that you cannot attend both GA and Smart Recovery meetings. It's not like going to a Catholic mass early in the morning and a Baptist revival in the afternoon. Do both! They can both help you recover.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“To change that negative behavior (going to the casino), CBT asks you to go back and examine your thoughts. Why did you think those things? What other thoughts could you have had that wouldn't have resulted in going to the casino?”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“When we addicts finally reach the point where we know we have a problem, and when we know we want to stop, from that point on we need to come up with a strong and reasonable excuse of some kind to go use, or go gamble. We become masters at generating these seemingly legitimate excuses for our addictive behavior. This is perhaps the most critical skill that our addiction employs - creative excuse making. Your addiction always is hiding in your brain waiting for an opening.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Do this. Right now, while you are thinking clearly and can prepare positively (sound familiar?) make a list of all the excuses that you use to justify your gambling. You know them all too well. Keep the list handy, memorize it. Tell yourself that when your addiction is cramming any one of those excuses into your brain, that this is the trigger to get you to pause, go back, and figure out why this is happening. What were the emotions? What were the thoughts that caused the emotions? What thoughts would your better-self have had instead?”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Mindfulness will play a prominent role in learning how to derail your urge to go to the casino.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I want to address something here specifically about the intersection of mindfulness and slot machine addiction. Remember that mindfulness is a practice that helps you be in the present, that helps you shut off the guilt and shame of the past and shut out the thoughts of fear and anxiety about the future. Mindfulness asks us to live in the present because the present is the only thing we can control.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Compulsive slot machine playing, i.e., sitting on that ugly stool, pushing that stupid button for eight hours without a break, does the same thing as mindfulness! Mindfulness asks us to be acutely aware of our current surroundings, of the sights and sounds right in front of us. I can think of no activity, including mindful meditation, that has us slot machine addicts focused so intently on the sights and sounds in the present moment as when we compulsively play a slot machine. And while most people can meditate for several minutes (some even up to an hour or more), us slot machine addicts can push that button for many hours without a break, all the while very mindfully aware of the present sights and sounds. This is why the treatment professionals call slot machine addiction "escape gambling". This is why those evil machines have such a hold on us. When we sit down on that stool pushing that button, we know we will enter another world, a world outside of our day-to-day existence, outside of that day-to-day world that is too often full of confusing and painful thoughts. In the slot machine world, our focus becomes completely involved with the machine - the visuals, the sounds, the anticipation of a win. There is no room what-so-ever for any other thought to intrude into our consciousness. We are totally in the present (for however long it takes to lose all our money). Mindfulness by machine addiction.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“If you can eliminate the need for escaping from your negative thoughts, you can eliminate the need to gamble. Make that your quest.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Addicted gamblers carry a substantial burden of shame and guilt. Unlike most other addictions and disorders, gambling most often is done in secret; and in order to keep their addiction secret, gamblers will lie, deceive, and steal. Not only are they ashamed about gambling, and losing money, they are even more shamefully about all the lies and deceptions that they constantly need to employ with their family and friends.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“Unlike most other addictions and disorders, gambling most often is done in secret.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.
“I would assert, and I know this personally from years of living with it, that the shame of not being able to quit, of being too weak to stop, of being unable to do the right thing, unable to do the thing that everyone else that I know could easily do - that weakness, that level of shame changes your life. You can deal with the financial losses, and you can even deal with the lies (they have a short half-life, either you get away with it, or you apologize and say you won't do it again). But the shame, guilt, and loss of respect for yourself when you can't make yourself stop, that awful sinkhole of personal failure, never goes away.”
Source: Gambling Addiction: The complete guide to survival, treatment, and recovery from gambling addiction.