Tuesday, May 20, 2008

They Want to Kill Us

They want to kill us. The Florida Lottery wants to kill us.

Now the Cash-3 and the Play-4 are being drawn twice a day--at noon and then at night.

It is the end of the world for me, people. I feel the pull and I do not know if I can fight it anymore. Everyday I wake up and feel the pull, but I fight it. I don't know if I can fight it any longer. And this is how they help me--with a double shot of gambling games.

I need to gamble.

I need to gamble.

I need to gamble.

I need it like I need air.

I warned you several times in my blog that they (the state of Florida) would do this to us. When the state runs gambling and the state needs more money, where does the state get it from? The sick, helpless degenerates they call gamblers.

How does the state suck more money from the gambler? Create games that are more addictive but that pay less (see the new 10 million and 25 million Lottery add-on gimmick--see the new Fantasy-5 Instant Win add-on gimmick).

This is precisely why the state should not run a vice.

First, the state becomes dependent on the revenue generated from the vice.

Then, when the state needs more revenue, it creates more vice or expands the vice or improves the vice or attracts more victims to the vice.

In short, the state becomes its own arch criminal--its own worst pimp, its own worst pusher.

Thanks,

Preston

Charles Barkley to Quit Gambling

Barkley Says He Will Stop Gambling
AP
Posted: 2008-05-20 00:07:45
Charles Barkley said Monday he will stop gambling, at least for now, less than a week after acknowledging he owed a $400,000 debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino.

"I like to go into Vegas, it's a fun place, but you know what, I've got to stop gambling. That's the bottom line," Barkley said during TNT's pregame show before Game 7 between San Antonio and New Orleans. "I am not going to gamble anymore. For right now, the next year or two, I'm not going to gamble."

The Wynn Las Vegas resort alleged in a civil complaint filed Wednesday in a Nevada state court that Barkley failed to repay four $100,000 casino markers, or loans, received last Oct. 18 and 19. Clark County District Attorney David Roger said prosecutors would file a criminal complaint if Barkley did not pay the debt.

Barkley thanked fans for being supportive and reiterated he had no financial woes.

"I have no, no money problems whatsoever. Nobody's coming after me for money," he said. "I screwed up and didn't pay them. Could they have handled it differently? Yes. But it was my fault."

Barkley has talked openly about his gambling, estimating during a May 2006 interview with ESPN that he'd gambled away about $10 million over the years. He always defended it by saying he had the money to lose, but said Monday it was time for a break. He added he would try to do it on his own without seeking help.

"Just because I can afford to lose money doesn't mean I should do it," he said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-05-19 21:33:34

_____________________________

Hmmmm. That's a good one. Gambling is a bad habit . . . I'm going to quit . . . but I have no money poblems.

Let's see, now I am a sick degenerate gambler myself . . . I am having NO money problems . . . and I am going to decide to quit gambling just like that . . . no way in hell. Gambling addiction does not work like that, baby. We gamble until we CANNOT gamble anymore--and that usually means we no longer have the financial means to do it. That's when we seek help.

By the way, that $400,000 marker is just a sign of my absentmindedness, not a problem, not a problem at all.

Anyway, I'll wait for one more good Charles-Barkley-on-Gambling article before I make my sage comments on the issue, as the expert on gambling (and fellow sick degenerate) that I am.

In the meantime, get a copy of my bestselling book "All or Nothing" and get a sneak peek at where Charles Barkley is headed if he does not change his ways.

In fact, get a copy of my book "All or Nothing" and make me rich again, so that I can afford to gamble again.

Thanks,

Preston

Lipshitz 6

Lipshitz 6
Reading T Cooper for Christmas

Punk Blood

Punk Blood
Jay Marvin

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex
Reading Eric Garcia for Christmas

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill
Reading A. Manette Ansay for Christmas

Nicotine Dreams

Nicotine Dreams
Reading Katie Cunningham for Christmas

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner!!!

Edwige Danticat

Edwige Danticat
New Year's Reading

Greed

Greed
This Brother Is Scary Good

One More Chance

One More Chance
The genius Is At It Again/The Rapper CHIEF aka Sherwin Allen

Sandrine's Letter

Sandrine's Letter
Check out Sandrine's Letter To Tomorrow. You will like it, I insist.

All or Nothing

All or Nothing

Editorial Reviews of All or Nothing

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Florida Book Review--". . . Allen examines the flaming abyss compulsive gambling burns in its victims’ guts, self-esteem and bank accounts, the desperate, myopic immediacy it incites, the self-destructive need it feeds on, the families and relationships it destroys. For with gamblers, it really is all or nothing. Usually nothing. Take it from a reviewer who’s been there. Allen is right on the money here."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

At Books and Books

At Books and Books
Me And Vicki at Our Reading

Bio


Preston L. Allen is the recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction for his short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003). His works have appeared in numerous publications including The Seattle Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Asili, Drum Voices, and Gulfstream Magazine; and he has been anthologized in Here We Are: An Anthology of South Florida Writers, Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction, Miami Noir, and the forthcoming Las Vegas Noir. His fourth novel, All Or Nothing, chronicles the life of a small-time gambler who finally hits it big. Preston Allen teaches English and Creative Writing in Miami, Florida.