Guys like Henry Gribbohm here are probably one of the main reasons that the Ontario government is meeting so much resistance to its efforts to open casinos here in Kitchener and elsewhere.
In an attempt to win an Xbox Kinect at a carnival, this clown somehow managed to lose about $2600 on a ball toss game called Tubs of Fun in the space of a couple of hours.
Tubs of Fun? I think I used to know her.
Anyway, after dropping $300 in a matter of minutes even though he seems to have had a feeling the game was rigged, he did exactly what you’d expect a guy who just unloaded 300 bucks at a children’s game to do. He went home, grabbed the $2300 that made up his life savings…and promptly blew it on the same game in a futile attempt to win his money back.
When he complained, the game’s operator gave him back a few hundred bucks and tossed in a stuffed banana with Dreadlocks just because he’s cool like that, I guess. He couldn’t have thought that was going to smooth things over, though one wonders if smoothing things over is really his responsibility. His game was likely fixed so that nobody was winning that Xbox, and that’s wrong. But on the other hand, most of us would have figured this out 5 or 10 bucks in and headed off to try our luck at Skee Ball.
Gribbohm is considering a lawsuit, of course. In the meantime, Tubs of Fun has been pulled from the traveling carnival while an investigation is ongoing.
I am a person with an addictive personality. I love things like gambling and alcohol and cigarettes, but I’m extremely careful with my exposure to them because bad things might happen.
I have to admit that I have, on more than one occasion, spent what I and others deemed an inappropriate amount of money to win things from claw machines and carnival games. When I first read this article, even the first $300 shocked me a little. Then I sat back and thought about it. REALLY thought about it. I closed my eyes and remembered the feeling of putting my 50th or 60th quarter into that stupid claw machine. Suddenly I understood this guy spending the $300 he had with him.
But to take a break, go get thousands of dollars, and continue until THAT was gone, too? I can’t even imagine that.
That’s the one that gets me, too. He talks like he knew the game was fixed, yet $300 was somehow not enough. How did a cooler head not prevail? If he’s an addict, that’s a hell of an addiction and I hope that this might somehow be the opening for him to convince himself that it’s time to get the help he needs. But he never calls himself an addict, either that or nobody who’s reported on this has thought to bring it up. If he’s not one, I hope that that was his version of an event in my life I like to call Jack Tuesday. I became a much smarter drinker after that night…aside from the odd slip now and then.
And you’re right. It’s easy to get caught up in those games. I’ve done it more than once. They’re fun. I’m glad you’re careful. Knowing when to walk away is a good skill to possess. I know how easy it is for things to turn from fun to completely sideways. There’s nothing I could honestly say that I’m addicted to, but I grew up around alcoholics, so I get it. Generally that sort of thing makes me mindful of what I’m doing when I’m gambling/drinking/what have you, but nobody’s perfect.
But then I look at this again, and…$2600? With a break in the middle!
I thought that was tons of fun? … Or am I thinking of her sister?
Yup, sister. I heard somebody once had a fivesome with the two of them.