By Josh Wardini,
Community Manager at Webmastersjury
The vices we have define us, and one of the worst vices for your financial health is gambling. Gambling is unpredictable in the amount it is going to cost you on a given night, and really plays to your emotions. The most overconfident and ego-driven people are the ones who are most likely to have a problem with gambling. This is because it becomes really hard to walk away once you’re losing, and the temptation is to believe you are one of the special ones who is going to earn it all back.
So knowing this, it makes sense there would be lots of celebrities with problems. What may be shocking is how badly some of these celebrities have lost. It seems as if the knowledge they are best in the world at one thing makes them believe they are going to be great at other things. This sort of dangerous mindset can be calamitous to their net worth and is exactly what the infographic below by CasinoSites.me.uk is focused on.
One of the worst examples is Allen Iverson who gambled literally all of his earnings from his very successful basketball career away. This is $200 million. Gone. How crazy is that? This sort of ego-driven gambling can ruin an entire life. It works much the same way as addiction, but affects your financial health more than your physical health.
But there are many more stories like that to come. For example, Michael Jordan lost $1 million in a single golf game after he bet $250,000 per put. That is a wild and crazy amount that is more than 5 times what the average citizen earns in a year.
One of the most infamous gamblers of all time, Charlie Sheen, has lost up to $2.5 million in three months. This is nothing compared to Tiger Woods gambling away $58.5 million over 7 years. Nobody in their right mind could continue down this path. There is no logic in involved and anyone can get hooked.
And let’s not forget that Ben Affleck is banned from the Hard Rock in Vegas for getting caught card-counting. He had mild success playing the game but eventually suffered the embarrassment of getting banned. There are many more examples in the infographic below, but the main idea is that nobody is immune to suffering from gambling problems, they just have them at a larger scale. By internalising this, you can see that gambling is a pastime that should best be avoided, or at least controlled. To do anything else is to invite ruin.
At Quids in!, we are dedicated to helping you pull yourself out of a dire financial situation and put you back on the right path. Understanding all the various problems you can have as you try to build up your wealth and reduce the stress in your life is important. That is why it is key to understand that even celebrities suffer from the same pitfalls as you. Gambling is definitely not for everyone and should only be approached with money you are completely willing to lose.