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indieangler49 karma

"The daycare would close at 2am and the children would be placed in the hallway. You'd see young children (5-9 year olds) taking care of even younger kids while their parent kept gambling."

I spent over 16 years working for the world's largest online poker room. Over time, through M&A, it transformed into one of the world's largest multi-vertical online gambling empires by moving into the casino and sportsbook industries. I have zero problem with recreational gambling, and I love taking an occasional trip to a live casino myself.

But that quote from your comment has broken me today.

Obviously, addiction is a problem for both B&M casinos and online operators. In my previous organization, responsible gaming was taken extremely seriously. It's not something that any operator wants to be associated with. From the outside looking in, you'd think they'd love gambling addicts but they really do not. At least not the severe cases. It's not something they want to be associated with, so there are an endless number of counter measures to try and help combat it. Despite all of those measures, it's still a major issue that you can never eradicate, and to some degree, outside of the severe cases, it's quietly what keeps people coming back.

But working for an online operator, you rarely or never see those types of disturbing scenes that you can witness first hand within a B&M operation. I hit 40 and decided I wanted to use my skills to do something more productive, and that gave more societal value than eGaming, but I still have no issue with recreational gambling.

However, if I ever witnessed something like the above with my own eyes and ears, I probably would have walked away much sooner. The thought of those poor kids is very grim.

indieangler48 karma

What was the bank robbery all about? I hope you're in a better place now, friend.