When a Friend is Not a Friend

16 June 2020

By Frank Scoblete

Julius Caesar had a slight problem with his friends. They killed him. I know, this is not what you want from your friends, your assassination. That shows you what they really think of you as in they think that you are better off dead.

Casino players also have to be careful of the friends with whom they go to the casinos. Are they good for you? Bad for you? Will they ultimately help in creating economic woes for you should you follow their leads? Can you be assassinated by your friends in the temple of Lady Luck as Caesar was assassinated in the Roman senate?

There are some important factors to consider. Be honest with yourself now. Are your friends nutty gamblers? Do they drink to excess and play strategies that are poor or just plain awful? The higher they get, the dumber they get? Do they encourage you to do what they do? Do they egg you on to poor decisions? Do they play too long and keep digging into their pockets if things aren’t going well for them?

By now you must be thinking, “Such friends are not good friends at all – at least not in the casino environment where control and discipline are important ingredients for a player to have.”

Joshua had a problem with his friends. “They would start the evening off really cool and disciplined but as time went on they got crazier and crazier and louder and louder. Some of that I owe to the drinking; some of it was just as they really got into the games, they just lost sight of the fact that they were betting real money that they had earned by working.”

But for Joshua the above was not the worst of it. “As they got more rambunctious they wanted me to take part in their shenanigans but I didn’t want to. They loved to tease the cocktail waitresses and that made me uncomfortable. I finally avoided going to the casinos with them. Otherwise, outside the casino, they were regular guys but it was like they became werewolves in the casino.”

Melanie too had to jettison her casino friends. “I couldn’t take the complaining. Nothing was ever right for them. If they were losing they blamed the dealer for their losses and they would get on the dealers and it was so embarrassing to be with them. If they didn’t get the comps they thought they deserved everybody in the casino had to hear about because they were so loud in protesting how they were being treated. I couldn’t stand that. I wanted my casino visits to be fun, not filled with grief. I dumped them and I am happy I did so.”

Paul had someone he called the “nudge.” This guy was always getting on him to bet more money and make poor bets. “I wanted to bet my money my way and he was always hassling me. I don’t know, it was almost like he wanted me to lose my money and that was really so if he were having a bad night. How could he not have a bad night? The way he bet he was asking for it. But I wasn’t asking for it.”

So there is a simple lesson here. You want your casino friends to enhance your casino experiences; not wreck them.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from smile.Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, kindle, e-books and at bookstores.