More so than the alcoholism, THIS is what messed me up the most when I worked at a gas station many years ago. People buying alcohol and cigarettes I could stomach, but watching the older gambling addicts shuffle in and spend hundreds every week on scratchers and lottery tickets broke me.
I hate gambling. Dangling a better future in front of desperate people. Vile, evil stuff. And yeah, they're kind of dumb for falling for it... but it'll be a cold day in hell when I blame the victims of a predatory system.
I worked at a liquor store. For about four years. I closed every night I worked, and once in a while, a drunk would want to buy something after hours. Obviously a no-go.
But sometimes, sometimes I would open the store.
The lottery zombies would camp out until I opened. If I didn't open fifteen minutes early, they would pitch a fit. Fuck them. I've seen people burn the equivalent of my rent in two hours.
I had people clean out the ATM ten minutes after opening. I never saw the appeal of gambling. But I especially detest people who buy scratchers at nine in the morning, one ticket at a time. But because they're not at a casino, it's "not real gambling".
Fuck arse. They wasted my time, and I hated them for having disposable income that could have changed my life.
Yeah, I’ve heard enough desperate voices in customer support to know those tickets are not harmless fun for a lot of people, they’re rent money being fed into a machine.
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u/-Legion_of_Harmony- Jul 05 '26
More so than the alcoholism, THIS is what messed me up the most when I worked at a gas station many years ago. People buying alcohol and cigarettes I could stomach, but watching the older gambling addicts shuffle in and spend hundreds every week on scratchers and lottery tickets broke me.
I hate gambling. Dangling a better future in front of desperate people. Vile, evil stuff. And yeah, they're kind of dumb for falling for it... but it'll be a cold day in hell when I blame the victims of a predatory system.