Dear Dr. Babooner,
I admit I’m a gambler, and there are times when I get carried away. I feel kinda bad about that!
I used to go to the Showboat in Atlantic City, NJ. But now the place is closing! So is Revel, another hotel/resort that was opened just 2 years ago, and it was built at the cost of 2 billion dollars.
Talk about coming up a big loser on a risky bet!
In another few weeks, a third casino will close, leaving Atlantic City with only 8 gambling establishments compared with the 12 they had at the start of the year.
I wish I had made a wager on that back in January. Hindsight!
Some experts say it’s necessary for Atlantic City’s survival to reduce the number of casinos, because the traffic just can’t support all of them. Habitual gamblers, they say, will just go to one of the establishments that remains open, so little economic activity will be lost.
Maybe so, but over the years I’ve learned that misery does, in fact, love company. That’s why it grieves me that my favorite vice is not experiencing the kind of growth that can support 12 and even more fancy casinos in Atlantic City.
I mean, it’s bad enough to be stuck in a pattern of behavior that brings you feelings of deep regret, but when I realize it’s not even popular anymore, that leaves me feeling like an even bigger loser!
When I look around at all the different soul-crushing, life-wrecking things I could do, I see that drinking is still a big deal, though I’ve never had much interest in that. Even beer consumption is gaining traction as a bad behavior sub-group. Cocaine, Heroin and meth addiction all continue to bring growing levels of misery to many helpless people. What can I say? They’re not my thing. In the catalog of social ills, even accumulating student debt is getting more attention than problem gambling right now.
Dr. Babooner, up until now it has been an important part of my self-image that I engage in socially destructive behavior. But I feel like I’ve lost my edge. Should I abandon gambling for a more trendy vice?
Sincerely,
Lucky
I told “Lucky” to stop worrying about the popularity of one’s vices. Problem gambling is still plenty bad and it creates more than enough misery to lead any practitioner to feel that he or she is afflicted with something major that is worthy of alarm and attention. I doubt that it is in decline. The news that Atlantic City is closing casinos has more to do with another set of social ill – bad investment decisions and misguided marketing choices. Not to mention plain old hubris, which will always be with us.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?
Trail Baboon 
Good morning. Lucky, I am not the one to talk to about gambling. I almost never do any gambling. It doesn’t seem like much fun to me and I know, at least at the casinos, the house has the odds of winning stacked against us. My personal opinion is that you should stop gambling. On the other hand, if it is just something you do for recreation without risking too much money, I think that is okay. However, I think you probably are not in it as a harmless form of recreation.
I think Dale is right. You shouldn’t worry about gambling no longer being trendy. They way t looks to me, it is still unfortunately a very popular activity. That’s my opinion as one who doesn’t have much interest in gambling. As I already mentioned, I am not a person who you should consult on this topic. I have already said too much. Also, I don’t have any advice on finding a more trendy vice.
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l hit “Reply” and nothing happes?
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ROTFLOLAWM…and I hope that is not considered a self-destructive behavior.
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Pizzle rot. Ectopic post. Meant to be below Renee’s comment at the end of the reply series.
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Too funny!
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Yes, Jim. Fortunately, your hobby of “seed saving” does not qualify as a vice in today’s world. However, “seed snorting” would be a different type of activity and could become problematic and potentially quite alarming. Not that I have any experience in this area.
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Dale, perhaps I am somewhat addicted to seed saving. If my compulsion to save seeds leads me to consider seed snorting, I will try to remember your warning that this would be a bad thing.
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Also, and I believe Mr. Keillor reminded us of this for many years as part of the sign-off on his show, “don’t put beans up your nose.”
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Teehee
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My memory has it a little different, Dale; “Don’t put no beans up your nose.”
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So mathematically speaking, the “don’t” and the “no” should cancel each other out, resulting in “put beans up your nose”.
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yes but it works best if you grind them into a powder first. wow man pintos are far out.
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Snort.
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But not seeds or beans.
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How can you snort with beans up your nose?
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Rise and Shine Baboons:
Dear Lucky:
We all have a vice–some activity or thing out there that Sings Our Siren Song. Your letter is the first perception that I have ever encountered which views the activity through popularity colored glasses. This is puzzling. Usually compulsions are marked by an individual’s lack of ability to step away from it enough to have any kind of insight, such as “are other people entranced by this the way I am?” It is all the same process: drinking, hoarding, gambling, shopping, internet porn, sex, restricting food, bingeing food….endless list it is.
I must point out that you have the same name as my dog, but really the luck implied is different—she was Lucky to have been rescued and adopted by an animal rescue organization. You are lucky to have a compulsion? To be able to ask Dr. B. about your problem? Gambling luck?
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Nice summary of compulsions, Jacque. I suppose this comes up frequently in counseling.
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I’m afraid my personal vice is all too trendy.
The coffee shop industry seems to be doing just fine.
and unlike gambling and several other vices I can think of but will not name, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to log on and get a really satisfying cuppa joe.
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Dr. Babooner’s patients always seem obsessed with what others think of them. The first thing to say about that is that, contrary to the perceptions of such people, others just are NOT thinking of them, one way or the other. Now, let’s imagine that some mad scientist has invented a machine that has a bunch of electrodes attached to our brains. That’s the kind of thing mad scientists are always doing. Pushing different buttons on the control of this thing cause us to feel jolts of pain or pleasure. What are you going to do with this device? Hand it to strangers or relatives or associates to see what they do with it? Not me. I like to push my own buttons, so I’d keep this thing where only I could get at it. And that’s what I think about fretting about what other folks think about me.
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Good point, Steve. I think I have one of those things strapped to my head! Maybe it’s time to take this thing off.
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Speaking of gambling, l’m planning to go to Vegas at the end of this month to be with my daughter while she competes in a world-class natural bodybuilding contest. At nearly 50, she entered her first one a few months ago and won out of a group of 300 competitors. Ever since then promoters across the country have been urging her to compete in Miss Universe. She’s been in this sport for 32 years, even trained countless clients how to compete, yet until putting it on her own “bucket list before l turn 50” never competed herself.
All of this back story just to say: where in the hell can l find those “$99” dollar airfares???? They’re on TV all the time. My delusion has been that they entice people with dirt cheap air fares in order to get them there to gamble their life savings away. Wrong again! The hotels start at $400 a night per person on top of airfare. By the way, we won’t be gambling because after paying expenses, we won’t have any money with which to gamble.
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CB, I had wondered how that competition turned out. Maybe you told us before and I missed it, but CONGRATULATIONS to your daughter!
I’m afraid I know nothing about the airfares – I loathe trying to do that stuff online…
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Mary not one swept the field for the first show, she went on to win another one two weeks later! The pros say she’s unbeatable at this point. l’m thrilled for my daughter after rearing five kid, taking care of 93 horses, and now in nursing school.
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250 round trip is exceptional. wont find better. find a deal at the hotel end too. the golden nugget is cool and cheap but a ways away from the action. sometimes a vacation package with air and hotel.
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l just learned that the show promoters struck a deal with the hotel reducing the $400 room charge down to $79 🙂
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aoid spirit airlaines (they charge an extra 100 dollars if you need clothes with you on your tirp. fronteer is not great but its cheap. southwest is great but you have to go to chicago en route so it takes a while longer. delta may have a special taht will get you there within 50 bucks of the cheepies then its worth it
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which hotel. las vegas is the king of high hotels to lower to offer deals.
400 at the hard rock is regular. rooms go for 69. gold nugget is 49 every day day i like the flamingo but the biggies like cesars, bilagio or wynns never get down there.
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That’s a heckuva reduction in costs, Cb. That makes me wonder what happens to the poor schlubs who bought reservations at $400. Do they still pay that much?
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If you want to fly from Minneapolis to Duluth with a layover in Bemidji, the starting fares are $99.
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to me vices tell the world as much about you as the attributes everyone spouts off about all the time. i like gambling drugs sex hoarding smoking procrastinating and denail as much as the next guy but to cal them vices is to undermine their contributions to the big picture.
why are these hotels closing down. because atlantic city is a horrible place. who wants to visit an armpit of the universe when blowing their hard earned dough? vegas is disney land. atlantic city is hell. where do you want to sit and loose your savings? at a palm tree with a bikini clad babe or in the throws of crumbling boardwalk darkness with heavy bearded guys named guido smoking cigars and sporting chicks with big hair. its time for some things to go. atlantic city and the donald are over. move on and lets go to vices we like. heroine and obesity are no fun but some of the others are. lets work to make snorting seeds an acceptable transferance of coping. maybe if we try smoking seeds that would be ok? is medicinal addiction ok? this is the begining of a long conversation dr baboon.
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So you’ve been to Atlantic City, tim?
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I so wanted to find the original Sonny Landreth version of this song. But Webb Wilder will have to do.
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Evening all. I am too stingy to be a good gambler. I can’t buy a lottery ticket because I keep translating the amount of the ticket into how much milk it would buy.
Although I did have a girlfriend (did being the operative word) who thought that my flying to China to become a single parent was a big gamble. If it was, then I hit the jackpot. Big time.
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People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Guilty as charged.)
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