What's shittier, online gambling or pulling tips from some kid without pubes?

A Good Thing To Lose #7: Online Gambling & Dating Advice from a child
by Aidan Moffat

I intended to spend a tenner on my first attempt at cyber-gambling, but the rules at the William Hill Online Casino state that a minimum of three and a half times my planned budget is required. Fuck it, I thought, I’m feeling lucky so I might as well go for it. Needless to say, I am now thirty-five pounds poorer. Here’s how they get you: they take your £35 but add an additional, virtual bonus of £50, making you think you’ve got £85 to gamble with. Then the very friendly unseen croupier sends you a message to make you feel extremely welcome and let you know she’s there if you need help with anything at all, but you politely dismiss her because you just want to get straight into the game. My chosen game was blackjack. I was already fairly aware that the concept of playing pontoon with an artificially intelligent computer program is fundamentally ludicrous and was confident that it was unlikely to spawn victory, but I was astonished at just how crushingly boring the all too brief experience was. I felt not the slightest hint of the fabled gambler’s rush that some claim to be more addictive than crack; my game was distinctly free of even the vaguest hint of buzz. There was no winsome background music to stir my enthusiasm and none of the heady, rousing atmosphere you’d expect to find in a real casino, just cheap sound effects and a monotone robot dealer to inform me when I’d bust or very occasionally won.

Obviously, winning wasn’t a regular occurrence for me but once my £85 had reduced to around £20, I decided to quit while I was behind and just get some money back, having thought I’d spent only a little over the original £10 budget I had planned. But what hadn’t been made clear to me was that the first £35 I would lose would be the real, hard cash that they’d already removed from my bank account, and that the imaginary bonus of £50 was what I’d been playing with since. So when I requested my £20 refund, I was told that it wasn’t there because it was, of course, only virtual money and I could therefore claim back nothing at all.

In retrospect, it seems obvious now and I’m sure that many of you will read this and think I’m a bit of a moron, and you’d be absolutely right. That’s all I’ve learned from this abject little experience, that people who lose money through online gambling are idiots, and the more you lose, the bigger the idiot you are. And the biggest idiots are always the ones you’ll see on the news, saying they’ve been conned and duped and there ought to be tighter regulations on these sites because of course it’s William Hill’s fault they’ve lost their house and they’re forty thousand quid in debt. It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?

So, after joining the lower ranks of idiocy, I’m left with a little spare time. My son and his mother are having a Sunday afternoon nap, the flat is unusually serene and hushed, so I take the opportunity to read a little book I’ve been meaning to get round to. As part of my ongoing quest to broaden my mind with new experiences, I decided I’d try to read one of those self-help dating books that lonely people seem to enjoy. On my search, I came across How To Talk To Girls. Simple, straightforward title, I thought, so I looked it up to learn more. It turns out it was written by a nine-year-old boy (a nine-year-old-boy), who is apparently AMERICA’S MOST TALKED ABOUT DATING GURU. It’s the first I’ve heard of him – about a year too late, so forgive me if I’m a bit behind with this – but then I’m not American so the sticker on the cover may be indisputably accurate or total bollocks for all I know.

Now, I’m not the kind of arsehole to start attacking little boys who’ve had books published before they’ve reached puberty. Good luck to him. Really, well done. If this book encourages creative writing among children then it can only be a positive thing. But – and I’m sure you knew this was coming – the book itself is not only poor, but offensive too. Alec Greven, who was only eight years old when he wrote it, can’t be blamed for his rather narrow views on the opposite sex – he’s only a kid. But his parents and his publishers should know better than to print a book for children that only serves to exacerbate sexual inequality and gender stereotypes. I wouldn’t want my son to read this shit and think it’s true. For instance, he suggests that you should probably just forget about the pretty girls and go for a “regular” one, by which I can only presume he euphemistically means “ugly.” That’s the only two types of girl in Greven’s school, they’re either pretty – and pretty girls are also characteristically cold-hearted for some reason – or regular. And it’s easy to spot a pretty girl because they “have the big earrings, fancy dresses, and all the jewelery.” What kind of nonsense is that to teach kids? Beautiful girls are not only out of your league, but they’re usually rich too, so know your place and keep your ambition low. How romantic!

I doubt that there will be many prepubescent boys who read this, but just in case, let me impart some wisdom that will save your parents the £4.99 cover price of this stupid little book. I’ll tell you how to talk to girls for free, and it will blow your mind. Ready? Okay, here you go. This is how you should talk to girls: exactly the same way as you talk to everyone else. Girls aren’t some alien species to be conquered, they’re not enigmas to be unraveled. They’re just like you, so go over and talk to them, don’t be scared, and aim high.

So, a quiet Sunday was wasted and I’m just under forty quid lighter to boot. In the evening, I made my own pizza from scratch – including the base! – which I suppose kind of counts as a new experience because it was the first time I’ve tried it. I personally found it a little disappointing but my girlfriend said it was delicious, although I suspect she was just being nice. My son just threw it on the floor.