I was listening to a gambling with an edge podcast where Richard Munchkin was talking about how he was on a team. He told a story in which the big player for their team was supposed to walk 100 feet to the neighboring property, which was 100 feet away, and he never showed up. He went straight to the airport and never came back with 20K. Munchkin also began to talk about some other unfortunate encounters and mentioned that people could make much more money if they were just honest.
I for one agree with Munchkin, from personal experience. When I was younger I use to play a game called 'Runescape" and gambling was big in that game. All of the 12, 13, 14 and 15 year olds would make gold in the game and they would lose it to the adults who gambled as a business and the adults would sell the gold for real money. Anyways, I remember the first time I ever gambled, it was on Runescape and I was 11 or 12 years old at the time. I worked really hard for the gold that I had and one day I came across one of the many "hosts" who was offering an awesome deal, better than usual odds (the industry standard was 5% house edge) so I gambled all of my gold! My heart thumping, the host hit the RNG button and I won! I was so happy, then he logged off...and I was devastated. I couldn't fathom why he would steal 1 million gold when he had an item on that was worth 100 million. The money he had stolen wasn't even worth 1% of his net worth. I got thinking, I'm always broke, those guys hosting that gambling game are rich and that guy stole from me, he's loaded so that must be the way to go so I hit the Runescape streets and started hosting. At first I would rip anyone off on the first bet, just log off. Then I realized after some time that it was a good idea to be legit and wait until they made a big bet then log off. Well, I did this for a long time and at the end of it all I ended up losing everything from a permanent ban. (Serves me right) Years of progress erased.
Fast forward a few years I begin to play a game World of Warcraft, with a similar currency system. I tried my old methods at first but the Blizzard staff wasn't having any of it. I was shut down quick. I had the gold I stole confiscated. From then on I started playing on the square and from then on I have been making the most gold I have ever made, and I have had no problems. I have regular customers and things are just going well grinding out that 5% edge.
At the end of the day, it took me a while but I realized that people who steal lose connections, they lose friends and they end up cheating themselves. If I stole 20k gold from someone then that's it, I'm done. They're gone and my name is ruined, that person is never coming back. If I just pay them the 20k, they're going to keep playing and they're going to lose the EV back to me (and the gold sooner or later) and they will be back. When that BP stole 20k from Munchkin and his team he stole 20k but he destroyed connections with everyone on that team, he's done with them and if he had just played on the square he probably would have generated more than 20k, and made a lot more money than that sooner or later and he would have connections, people he could work with and go back to to generate more value in the future so that person ended up cheating himself.
In my opinion, people who steal have something in their character that urges them to wrong someone else. I have an old childhood friend who doesn't have to worry about money very much, let's just say that but there's something in his personality, in him that just wants to steal. When I was younger he would steal my Yugioh cards and other things like that, even though he had plenty of his own. To loosely quote Munchkin, " You can trust some people with your money but not with your wife but you can trust people with your wife but not with your money."
I for one agree with Munchkin, from personal experience. When I was younger I use to play a game called 'Runescape" and gambling was big in that game. All of the 12, 13, 14 and 15 year olds would make gold in the game and they would lose it to the adults who gambled as a business and the adults would sell the gold for real money. Anyways, I remember the first time I ever gambled, it was on Runescape and I was 11 or 12 years old at the time. I worked really hard for the gold that I had and one day I came across one of the many "hosts" who was offering an awesome deal, better than usual odds (the industry standard was 5% house edge) so I gambled all of my gold! My heart thumping, the host hit the RNG button and I won! I was so happy, then he logged off...and I was devastated. I couldn't fathom why he would steal 1 million gold when he had an item on that was worth 100 million. The money he had stolen wasn't even worth 1% of his net worth. I got thinking, I'm always broke, those guys hosting that gambling game are rich and that guy stole from me, he's loaded so that must be the way to go so I hit the Runescape streets and started hosting. At first I would rip anyone off on the first bet, just log off. Then I realized after some time that it was a good idea to be legit and wait until they made a big bet then log off. Well, I did this for a long time and at the end of it all I ended up losing everything from a permanent ban. (Serves me right) Years of progress erased.
Fast forward a few years I begin to play a game World of Warcraft, with a similar currency system. I tried my old methods at first but the Blizzard staff wasn't having any of it. I was shut down quick. I had the gold I stole confiscated. From then on I started playing on the square and from then on I have been making the most gold I have ever made, and I have had no problems. I have regular customers and things are just going well grinding out that 5% edge.
At the end of the day, it took me a while but I realized that people who steal lose connections, they lose friends and they end up cheating themselves. If I stole 20k gold from someone then that's it, I'm done. They're gone and my name is ruined, that person is never coming back. If I just pay them the 20k, they're going to keep playing and they're going to lose the EV back to me (and the gold sooner or later) and they will be back. When that BP stole 20k from Munchkin and his team he stole 20k but he destroyed connections with everyone on that team, he's done with them and if he had just played on the square he probably would have generated more than 20k, and made a lot more money than that sooner or later and he would have connections, people he could work with and go back to to generate more value in the future so that person ended up cheating himself.
In my opinion, people who steal have something in their character that urges them to wrong someone else. I have an old childhood friend who doesn't have to worry about money very much, let's just say that but there's something in his personality, in him that just wants to steal. When I was younger he would steal my Yugioh cards and other things like that, even though he had plenty of his own. To loosely quote Munchkin, " You can trust some people with your money but not with your wife but you can trust people with your wife but not with your money."
