Long lost streaks of red - Doubling-down on crypto gambles

I am going to quote another post from Asher (abh12345), as I really like him getting Ginabot notifications from me so he feels popular and loved. The post was figures from a gambling application on Hive and I have to say, I was pretty shocked at some of the losses. While the names are hidden and I can't use HiveSQL or care to find out, the first two on the list are pretty interesting.

The highest loss was 53,000 HIVE which came from 3.2M in sends to the application. This means that they got about 3.15 back in winnings. That is about a 1.5% loss rate.

However, the second account has lost 44,000 HIVE but, that is on only 563,000 in sends. This means they got about 519K back in winnings - but the loss rate is a massive 7.5%

I am not sure how the game is played, but that is a 5x higher loss rate between the two accounts, which I assume is because of the "strategy" used, resulting in massive losses. I have no idea why anyone would so frequently play a game of chance that thy keep losing at, bleeding 7.5% out consistently, but addicts are addicts and since they only tend to remember the wins, they can keep pulling cards until they have nothing left.

If starting with a million dollars and losing 7.5% a month, it would take about 2.5 years to lose 90% of it and be left with about 100,000 dollars. Good game!! I would also suspect that as the decline become more painful, the bets would increase in size and risk to try and claw back, meaning that the losses will likely increase percentage-wise.

I understand the attraction of gambling, as there is the excitement of the uncertainty and risk, plus the adrenaline rush of the potential win and what not - but we are in crypto - the whole industry is a gamble at this point and depending on behavior, it isn't about losing, it is about how much gain one can make.

"Damn it! - I made 100% profit on blahblah token when I could have made 300!!"

Hive price has been pretty steady over the last however many months, but if we take a conservative price of 11 cents on the 44,000, that gives us a value of about 4800, though it is worth about 7000 today. Splitting that into 4 1200 dollar purchases of Bitcoin every two months on the first of each month would be.

DEC 1st - $1200 @ 19000 = 0.06 OCT 1st - $1200 @ 11000 = 0.11 AUG 1st - $1200 @ 11000 = 0.11 JUN 1st - $1200 @ 10000 = 0.12 That is 0.4 Bitcoin = 16,000 dollars.

That loss of 4800 dollars lost on Bitcoin instead, would have been a 300% win. And that is not looking at the charts to pick a dip or trading in any way along the line - just buying each month.

I wonder, if people enjoy the gambling so much that they can not only ignore the losses, but also ignore the opportunity cost of that same amount of loss put into some other kind of investment? In my experience, lost opportunity of money is far more costly than lost money itself, but we tend to focus on the immediacy of loss, not its ramifications on other factors of our life.

For example and just for reference, my account is worth about 32,000 dollars currently and if I had taken the same 44K and ended up with 16000, my account could be 50% larger now, which is about 100K HIVE more. I'm a gambler too, but I am yet to incur a loss.

I find it interesting though, that there are people that are so willing to seemingly "happily" lose consistently at something that costs them opportunity in so many areas of their life. Perhaps they are all wealthy and can afford the loss without blinking, but I suspect, that not all of them are in that category, if any. It seems to me that often, the people who are willing to lose the most gambling percentage-wise, are those who can't afford to lose.

We all make our decisions though and I know that I have made plenty of my own, but I still find obsessive behavior curious when the "reward" is a consistent loss. It is very much like a drug addict that is chasing the high, even though they know it is killing them.

I guess it is a "to each their own" thing and I hope that the only person impacted by the losses is the person gambling themselves, but in my anecdotal experience, it seems that gamblers tend to impact heavily on those around them, causing much more loss than just the purely financial. I know people who have lost houses and cars, but more importantly, they have lost family and friends, people who love them who have walked away because, they recognized that staying was enabling, while committing self-harm - they could no longer give up their own opportunities to cover the costs of another's losing habit.

Sometimes, a losing streak doesn't turn around, the losses just keep growing until there is nothing left at all.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]

I will add a 10% beneficiary to @abh12345 for inspiring this post.
I really like being able to build outward from the content of others.