Subliminal Talk

My coworker (Tony) has a gambling problem. Specifically the Florida Pick 3 http://www.flalottery.com/pick3-howToPlay The prize for $1 Straight is $500 tax-free.

What got him addicted was another coworker (Brian) bought 20 tickets of the same number straight. He won 500 x 20 = $10,000 tax-free.

That was 6 months ago and Tony has been trying to duplicate what Brian has done.
Interestingly, Brian only plays when he feels "lucky".
Tony is spending $100 on the afternoon draw and $100 on the evening draw. What is worse is he beats himself up when he loses.

During the workshift as you walk around you can hear him telling people.
"Look, I had it. It was on my worksheet. I forgot to play it."
"798, 798, 798 over and over. I'm telling you!! Play it!! It's gonna play sometime this week!!"
"Watch, you can do this... This is how I pick my numbers."
If he doesn't have someone to talk to he is staring at the wall or at the ceiling in a very focused manner. (My guess is he is thinking about what numbers to play)

Tony recently said to me. "Man, my wife told me to slow it down with the gambling, she says she thinks I have a problem."
Then he said, "I know I have a problem, I just don't know how to stop."

I suggest you look to something like LTU, OF or E3+ for that until I can do something for addiction. I've been working on it for a long time, and I am planning to build a series of programs for helping with addiction, but that has to be in the future for a bit.

Or steer him towards the gambling help line. You can find that on the Flalottery.com site. That's probably the best bet for right now.

Another thing you might want to point out is that mathematically, every time he spends $100 and doesn't win $10,000, he is subtracting that value from what he wins if he ever does. The way the game works, the house will always win, and he will spend at least $10,000 to win that $10,000, meaning in the end he really didn't win anything at all...