It’s always interesting to learn about the people who have hit it big and are known throughout the area. And in Australia, there are certainly many gamblers who are well known in the land-based casinos and whose names everyone knows. Finding out about these gamblers isn’t necessarily going to give you any ideas for gambling, but it will be entertaining and allows you to know about Australian gambling history and the people who have made it up. It’s fun to learn about them – and to see what is going on in Australia today.
Who Are the Gamblers?
So who are the best known gamblers? Here are a few of their stories to enjoy. Kerry Packer is one of them and he started out gambling after he inherited money from his family. Believe it or not, Packer’s father left $100 million to him when he died.Things didn’t go well for him in the beginning, and he managed to lose $28 million in the 1990s! But don’t worry about him too much, since he made $33 million in table games and slot games another time in one week at the MGM Grand Casino. When he died in 2005, he was worth $6.5billion and his son, James Packer, is still a casino owner and one of the richest ones in the world.
And then there were horses
Now, Zeljko Ranogajec loves horses and many think that he is the biggest racing gambler ever. His betting is supposed to bring in about $1 billion a year. He was from Croatia and immigrated to Australia with his family. During college, he could be found doing card counting in blackjack and he eventually left school to focus on his gambling. He’s actually been banned by many of the big casinos in Australia because he’s known to start with very little money and to walk away with a huge amount. He’s even been banned from casinos in the United States after he moved there! He was inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame in the year 2011.
Lloyd Williams is a big time horse racer and it’s worth taking a look at his bio and knowing more about him. He was connected to Kerry Packer and to many of the same casino locations and he has also been very big in horse racing in Australia. As of 2012, he was estimated to be worth $670 million according to Forbes Asia. Another gambling legend is Archie Karas. He is a Greek-American and has won and lost his fortune a number of times over. Between 1992 and 1995 he had a winning streak that really brought him to fame. He turned $50 into more than $40 million, if you can believe it. With this winning streak, he is thought to have the longest and largest winning streak that has ever been documented. Of course, you win some and you lose some, and he managed to lose that fortune soon after in 1995. He actually lives in Las Vegas today and his story is definitely one that is worth reading. Most people wouldn’t be able to stomach winning, and then losing, the way that he has, but that is definitely part of the game and part of what makes someone like him able to win so much.
These are a few of the examples of big gamblers in Australia who have really made a name for themselves. It’s entertaining to read about all of them, but it’s also an interesting psychological study to think about what it takes to be wiling to gamble it all. What does it take to put your fortune on the table and to know that you might win or lose all of it? You certainly have to have a certain type of personality to be willing to take these risks!
Differences in the Gambling Habits of Men and Women
Sure men and women are very different in many ways. There have been many books written about this, and most therapists will tell you that men and women think differently and act differently in many situations. So it would make sense that this carries over into their gambling habits. Now, there is no way to say anything is 100% true or that it always occurs. But what we’ve observed here and written about is the general rules that we’ve seen and differences that we have noticed between men and women and their gambling habits. In addition, many studies have been done in Australia about these issues, and the results have been incorporated into the thought process here.
How Men and Women Gamble
It is seen by most people as more socially acceptable for men to gamble than for women to do so. For this reason, researchers have long noticed that most women answer questions, when asked, that they gamble by themselves at home. They will typically gamble using an online or mobile device and will gamble by themselves. Men, on the other hand, are often seen going to the land-based casino together in pairs or larger groups and will be seen gambling in public locations together. They might even get together for online gambling entertainment, or for a poker round in their home. Women are far less likely to gamble in this way.
Female gamblers are more likely to enjoy scratch tickets, bingo, phone or SMS competitions and raffles or sweeps. Male gamblers, in contrast, in much of the researcher, like to enjoy informal betting, table games, horse or greyhound racing and sports betting. They are more likely to want to gamble against other people and to feel the competition, while women are more likely to enjoy the game of chance and to play games that don’t make them feel like they are really playing against other people. They are playing against chance, instead, and not necessarily making their own results happen.
Betting Amounts
It’s probably not a surprise that men bet more than women do in Australia. Most of the research found that gambling men work more hours and make more money than do gambling women. Perhaps this is part of the reason that they spend more. But it could also just be that men are more comfortable spending money and that many women have a more conservative idea about how much they want to spend and how much they are willing to risk.
Gambling Risks
While looking at the gambling differences in men and women, it’s also very interesting to look at the risks that both groups face. Addition is a very real problem and people get addicted to gambling all the time. Do men and women get addicted in the same way, and at the same pace? In a study conducted at the University of Adelaide, the Australian Gambling Research Centre and Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, they found the following. Both men and women display similar signs when they are out of control. They may lie to other people about how much they gamble, they may sneak gamble, they might spend more than they have, they could steal money, etc. But how do they display their out of control tendencies? Women handle the stress associated with addition by being emotional. They might cry or feel depressed when they keep losing or trying to win over and over again. Men, however, get angry and will strike out or even kick a gambling machine when they are losing. This was published in Springer’s Journal of Gambling Studies and is a very interesting field to take a look at and consider.
Certainly, these ideas aren’t true for all people at all times. But researchers who have examined large groups of men and large groups of women have found these basic divides in how men and women approach gambling and how they enjoy playing.
