I always knew that this is what lottery tickets and such were invented for. But tonight I found a new one. I was at the grocery store tonight and got to witness a group of four (2 guys and 2 girls) probably in the early 20s. Definitely falling on the hillbilly side of the tracks dump what looked to be about $50 into one of these machine trying to win a $.50 stuffed parrot.



The best part was for the last $20, they were actually moving the object and a few times the crane picked it up only to see it fall. The anguish was just funny to watch...one dude even fell on the floor at one time he was so upset

My wife only plays that when she sees one ripe for the grabbing. I got a prize in the one and only try I took at one in Millington, TN just a few weeks ago. $1 for a stuffed animal was okay by me. But yep, once you spend more than $2, you are just making a donation to a "for profit enterprise", which is dumb!

IMHO it's all dumb. I'm with Doggg on this one. Kinda like trying to win a $2 stuffed animal at the fair and it costs you $30 to win it because your first prize is a $.10 necklace. You have to work you way up from there and it costs a fortune. That's why they're in that business. Well, that and they also fall on the hillbilly side of the tracks.

I assume you guys never visit Las Vegas or Casinos?

I don't like these "machines" although the last time I dropped $.50 in one, I was able to grab some cool little ball/stringy thing that my 6 y/o sister was fond of.

Are these people more stupid than those who choose to gamble? Or is it the fact they're lower income simply makes the dumb? Just wondering.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Poor is a state of mind, not a state of financial status. I have been broke a few times im my life, but never poor.

If one is broke financially, its usually a temporary situation. If one feels themselves poor, there is little hope until they change their self-assessment of worth.

I am not trying to be funny here, but rather that your financial condition has somewhat to do with your self-esteem.

Sure, there are those that have a handicap or other life-limiting capability, and that would not apply.

Poor and stupid have a tendency to go together. Low intelligence is not stupid. You can be below average IQ and make a good living. Stupid is thinking you can beat a rigged system.

figuring out a simple solution to beating a rigged system is what a handful of students from MIT did to the blackjack tables in Vegas,
a couple of them are still today earning money from that venture, except now legally,
i wouldn't call them stupid, perhaps i'd call them the exception, but not stupid


D-Rod, learn to blend in more (mandatory to their success) and that could be your calling?
they were your age when they cleared their first several million

Thought this was going to be a powerball or lottery thread - "Its a tax on stupid people..."

Rodney Carrington is the skee ball champion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZFmkphqAm0

(not family friendly language)

Spend $1900 for a whistle.

In a previous job I used to collect the coins from our pool tables in all the surrounding bars. Whenever I saw someone dump about $5 in a crane and come up empty I'd go over, unlock it and get them to pick a prize.

Unfortunately even if you do win a prize with first try the crane owner still makes a profit.

We are all either carnies or rubes. Niether one is very flattering when you think about it.

TEG's comment about his previous job reminded me of one I had when I was in college in the 60's. I worked one summer for a company that ran a fleet of Roach Coaches and vending machines. I drove a roach coach for awhile but then got "promoted" to running a vending machine cafeteria at a large GM plant.

There were about 150-200 machines in the lunch room that I was responsible for. I had to count everything that went in (and the total value) and at the end of the week I had to turn in that much money.

It didn't take me long to get real friendly with the guys who worked there. If they lost a buck in a machine I'd quickly replace it 'cause I didn't want them to get pi$$ed off at the machines and break them or stop using them. Most of the time if they lost a quarter or $.50 they wouldn't even bother to tell me.

By week's end I'd often have $25-$50 above what I had to turn in. I asked my boss what I should do with that and he said "You turn in the exact amount of the food you sold...no more, no less." That was a lot of money back then when I was making about $2/hour and it was like pennies from heaven.

Rubes? Carnies? I guess I was a carnie at that point!

If you beat a rigged system, you take the risk of being made an example. Besides, for every person that can actually beat the system. there are hundreds that just think they can. I beat the system once. The NCO club in Yongsan, Korea, had slots. I had two dollars to spare. Enough for a meal and $0.50 to play nickel slots. I hit the jackpot and made $20. Those days, that was enough for a tour of a few night clubs and the company of a sweet girl for the night. Stupid would have been to continue to play after I won. I have my dumb moments but I try not to be stupid.

Not trying to get off subject, but there are some interesting things that you see in the military, overseas. Every morning, exactly at the same time, every working girl in the Yongsan club district, would have their customers out the door. It was so well organized that by the time they got to within a block of the gate, all the soldiers would instinctively form up like they were on a parade ground. Considering that more than a hundred men made it to the gate in formation, it was very impressive.

Why is it anymore stupid for someone to play slots for a few hours and drop $100.00 then it is for us to burn it in gas? Y'all are forgetting the enjoyment factor. You don't play slots to win, you play for enjoyment and if you win it's a bonus. People do all kinds of things that seem a silly form of entertainment but if it's what they enjoy, so what. We are all making others rich with our guilty pleasures.

It's not the prize, but the thrill of the chase. Be it lotto, gambling in Vegas, or a stupid crane machine.

A little veer here... There is a pizza place called John's Incredible Pizza.. a buffet style place, with an arcade room. The typical stuff, drop tokens in a slot and try and knock a collection of tokens off people before you have have put in. Air hockey, skee ball, shooting gallery, etc. They all pay tickets. The more tickets you get, the 'bigger, better' the prize you buy. 4 tokens for a buck, or sometimes you can get a special where you get 35 bucks of tokes for 29 dollars. They give you a debit style card and choose how much you want at point of sale. Point of all this is... the admiral saw this RC battery Hummer she just had to have. 1700 tickets! That damned car cost us a good $100-150 for a toy they had in stock at K-mart for about $25! But is was a fun mother's day! Had the in-laws with us, and getting the car was just an added bonus.

Nu2, I lived in Riverside and Moreno Valley during the mid 80s and early 90s. We used to take the kids to Castle Park amusement park and they would save tickets all yr for some little toy or something. Is it still there?

It is not stupid to bet or try games of chance. It is, if you expect to beat the system without the skills to outwit the odds. And spending $100 on slots is fine if you have the money to spare, If that $100 is what is needed to feed your family for the next week, that is stupid. Some will argue that it could be an addiction. I disagree.

i have never been enticed by gambling, go to vegas a couple times a year but probably gamble maybe $50,
never bought lottery tics,

but,
once when i DIDN'T want to win at the table, well Lady Luck would just not leave me alone,

a dozen of my regular motorcycle riding buddies and I had ridden out to Parumph, a desert rockpile an hour past Vegas, and found a small Ma/Pa roadside three-room-motel, with Ma cooking burgers, pouring beers, running a single gas pump, and dealing cards,

we were the only business she had seen in a week, the place was way off the beaten path,
it looked liked something from a Humphrey Bogart movie, awesome

well she was so overworked by us, we were sleeping in all of her motel rooms, in the diner/gambing room,
having her serve beers for us all day, racing our bikes thru the desert and using her gas-pump, ...
finally she asked if we could help her out and maybe just do it all ourselves .. cook our own burgers in her kitchen and serve our own beers, pour our own gas, and leave a couple bucks in her register each time we did,
she was enjoying our presence and we were paying her good and she couldn't keep up to our pace

well a handful of us sat down when she opened up her little folding table card room and THE LAST thing i wanted to do was take this little lady's money when whe was being so kind to us,

and i could just not loose and finally i even started trying to,
i doubled down at ridiculous times, i started making aggressive bets,
and i won and won and won ...

i stuffed a few hundred back into her cash register right as we left to come back to SanDiego

I once drove up to an ATM, put in my card, told it to give me $30, got my card back, and drove away, leaving the $30 hanging out of the slot. That was dumb and stupid.

I had the opposite, drove and sombody had left their money hanging out, only 20 bucks though.

My wife and I enjoy gambling. I'm not big on slots, but like Craps, it's fun to win and lose money with a group of people. We don't gamble often, but maybe 3-4 times a year and we try to go to Vegas once a year.

We went to the boats this weekend. I lost $100 on the Craps table and won it back messing around with a slot machine waiting for my wife to finish her game. Had a few drinks and had a great time out for 80$ she lost plus a few drinks. Money well spent.

Entertainment.

If we like it, we'll pay for it.

I have a friend who can win on those skill cranes every time.

Andyk2, yup... Castle Park is still there... it's bigger with better rides, but I haven't been there in quite a few years!


I have to relate a story about craps... we're not big gamblers at all, maybe going to either Laughlin or Vegas once every 3-5 years.. just not our thing.
But one year, a company I worked at had a Christmas party at the Monte Carlo in Vegas. After the company Christmas Dinner on Saturday night, me, my wife, one of my co-workers, and her boyfriend went into the casino. We started playing craps. Now, I didn't know a thing about the game, but with the co-workers b/f teaching me as we went, I learned how to bet. Call it beginners luck, but we had a ball! Ever see a movie where people are gathered around the table? Everyone cheering? Drinks flowing? I swear to God, That was us. He and I were rolling in bet after bet after bet. The table got louder and louder with each winning roll. I think I started with $20 and ended up with $500.00! We were rocking the house! With every roll of the dice, we won, and the excitement carried over... more and more people joined in, and were winning!... then they changed pit bosses.... it ended the next roll.. If I remember right, we dropped 150 each in a heart beat! JUST LIKE THAT! Amazing. But it was a fun 1.5 hours (yes, 1 and a half hours betting and winning, on the same table!) That is the only time have EVER I walked out of a casino a winner....

Ah! It's a profit deal! Takes the pressure off! Get your weight guessed right here! Only a buck! Actual live weight guessing! Take a chance and win some cra*!