Retired Baseball Slugger Cecil Fielder ruined by gambling

[MicroBob]

An incredibly sad story.
Great Detroit Tigers home-run hitter and fan-favorite with multi-millions in retirement blows it all and is running from the law.


http://www.detnews.com/2004/tigers/0...a01-306142.htm

[WC64]

Wow that is a very sad story

[plj8624]

wow that is just awful. Serious gambling addiction:

On a February day in 1999, Cecil Fielder walked into the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City just before noon, and filled out an application for credit.

Under “Income/Assets,” he included: “Salary — $5 million.”

Under “Other Casinos,” he listed a $100,000 line of credit at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.

Trump extended Fielder a $25,000 line of credit. That money, plus whatever cash he had started with, lasted a day and a half.

Fielder requested, and was given, another $25,000 line of credit.

That was gone in two hours and 40 minutes.

The casino lent him $27,500 more.

That lasted less than 20 minutes.

The casino extended Fielder’s credit by another $50,000.

The minute-by-minute records stop there, but the file contains a total. By the time the binge was over, Fielder owed the Trump casino $580,000.

[miajag81]

I have very little sympathy for "compulsive gamblers" themselves, but I do feel sorry for his family.

[MicroBob]

It's very reminiscent of the story of Leonard Toes (think that is his name).

The former beloved owner of the Philadelphia Eagles who lost everything over the course of several drunken BJ nights in AC.

Saw the story on HBO's Real Sports in 2001 or 2002.
He owned an entire NFL football team and lost millions of dollars at the BJ tables.
He now is pretty much penny-less and lives in a smallish apartment that his former coach and friend Dick Vermeil pays for. His former butler or driver or employee (or something) continues to care for him and bring him groceries and looks after him just out of loyalty from his past employment with him.


Leonard was asked by the interviewer what he would do if he was given $250,000 right now (or something like that) and Leonard responded that he would probably gamble it in AC.


In the story, it was reported that Leonard was so drunk he could barely sit in his chair or handle his chips or sign his name for another line of credit...yet the casinos were depicted as practically falling over themselves to keep the credits and chips coming and to keep him playing.


I don't really know how truly accurate these stories are but I suspect there is a grain of truth in how the casinos are depicted and I have always scoffed at the Harrah's WSOP-commercials "we want our problem gamblers to be responsbile" type of spots that run during the WSOP.

Harrah's is a different company of course so it's not really fair of me to say anything bad about them specifically....I'm just scoffing at the general hypocricy within the industry.


When I dealt BJ at a casino for 8 months I saw a bunch of people lose money they clearly couldn't afford to lose. This was a low-roller joint....so it was the type of clientele where I suspected the $500 or $1k they were losing would seriously inhibit their chances of paying the rent (if they're wearing the shirt of the grocery-store that they work at what else am I supposed to think?).

We got the whole bit about how to supposedly identify 'problem-gamblers' and report them to your supervisor during orientation. But it was never enforced. The only gamblers who would ever get tossed would be low-rollers who were creating a negative atmosphere (generally abusive to other players....very loudly using the F-bomb repeatedly, etc).

Nobody ever gets tossed for 'losing too much' or out of general concern that 'the rich guy' is too drunk to be making responsible decisions regarding his money.

One dealer friend of mine facetiously told the floor on his way to break "ummm....I think I should report the problem-gambler at my table". He knew they were already aware of him. He was hammered and losing a ton and was their new favorite customer. They were licking their chops with this guy.
The floor picked up on the fact that it was just sarcasm and they laughed. EVERYONE within the casino KNOWS that players who lose loads of money are always welcome.


Again, these are just my general impressions.
Perhaps there are other casinos out there with a higher standard of ethics than my experiences would lead me to believe.

[4thstreetpete]

I learned a long time ago that a casino is a business just like anywhere else. I was young and naive then but I hated the politics that were involved there. I worked at a few places and most were generally enjoyable but I worked for one owner who was a total ass and would take dealer's tip money and would fire you on the spot if the dealer was losing money for the casino.

Nonetheless, players who dump a lot of money were ALWAYS welcome. But despite all this we actually had a few people there with lots of integrity.

I remember one time a high roller came in who was generally a nice guy. He gave lots of tips to the dealers and was just fun to be around. This day however he was drinking quite a bit and was losing a boatload. One of my pitboss (some young asian kid) heard what was going on and had the dealer stop dealing to him, helped him cashed out the rest of his chips that he had left and paid for his taxi to take him home to make sure he was ok.

I also remember stories when I was dealing and we had our regulars who come in. There was one lady who fell asleep on my table. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] some people just don't know when to quit. Saw her everyday grinding it out for a few dollars a day.

Anyways thank god I got out of there and went to work at some better establishments. Worked a few decent venues after that and generally had a lot of fun.

I guess I know first hand how gambling can ruin some people. I have a relative who owns a chain of restaurants in New Orleans and was basically a multimillionaire. His family came to our house one day and I remember opening the door and this stunning perfect 10 supermodel greeted us. Turned out it was his wife. They had a huge house, nice kids, a nice collection of vintage cars.

I just found out last year that apparantly his wife along with his mother amassed an insane amount of gambling debts and they lost everything. They would hit the casino everyday and it didn't take them all that long. Lost the house, the cars and are filled with debts from creditors, etc. She soon left him and the kids and now he has nothing left. He contemplated suicide for a while. It's a complete mess. It's stuff like this that makes my family so against any form of gambling whatsoever.

Lately I've been thinking about this a lot. Are we as poker players any more different than what these people are doing? Would you consider poker gambling? Sure you can say we're winning players and that we are not like 'them' because we're responsible with our money. But when it comes right down to it, aren't we still gambling. I'm sure lots of people are having their lives ruined by playing online poker.

A few years ago I would've never felt this way. Now I guess I've matured a bit and just did some soul searching. I mean, I think most if not all 2+2 players here are winning players, and I'm thinking of the money that I've won and it's a very big sum. All this money has to come from somewhere, and don't forget to mention the rake which is astronomical.
Basically there's too many people online who are losing their shirts. This is the first time that I've ever felt this way, that what I'm doing is bad for the soul.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
I have very little sympathy for "compulsive gamblers" themselves, but I do feel sorry for his family.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why no sympathy for the gamblers? It's a very serious disease. Although it's your choice. I expect you don't have any sympathy for alcoholics either. Either way it's understandable.

Justin A

[youtalkfunny]

Gambling gets a bad rap in that Cecil Fielder article.

The article details several gambling debts, close to a million dollars.

But he blew over 40 million! It lists several failed businesses he invested in.

But being a lousy businessman doesn't make for much of a story, I guess.

[icetonez]

Luckily for the family, their greatest financial asset, Prince will make much more than they were ever worth in their prime. And at this point maybe it's just the mother and sister he helps out.

[PokerPaul]

Thats the exact same thing i was thinking of, the eagles owner.

Some might question why one would gamble, when you already have everything money can buy, and some extra gambling $$ isnt going to make a difference.

A psychologist once told me that for many its not just about winning some $$$. When you win a big hand or session at poker, or BJ or whatever, it further gives you an emotional 'high', like a drug. The sense that you outplayed the casino, makes you feel special, and possibly even more so in poker, where you actually outsmart numerous other players to win pots.

When you further add to this that the casino staff and environment feeds into treating you like a VIP, with all the kind of attention and perks to make you feel special, all the while with you earning glances and jealous looks from other casino patrons in a very visible environment.

Most people can control their gambling, but i can see where some, particularly high rollers, can become suseptable to this.

I was at the palms last year, and i was playing some BJ, and the dealer told me there was some high roller there that weekend, and she dealt to him the previous day. Said he was a rude [censored], and that he was down about 800k since then.

A couple minutes later me and my friend went to grab a bite to eat, and we had to walk along the BL tables leading to the buffet area. Lo and behold, they had one of the BJ tables in the open area (not high roller pit), cordened off for this guy and he was playing. We just walked by the table and glanced over casually, and then noticed the guy was playing 2 hands, 20K each, and had good sized stacks in front of him.

It took a couple of seconds to sink in that he was likely the guy the dealer was talking about. Well as soon as we figured it out, he went into a tirade, and yelled at us to keep moving (we never stopped or said anything actually), and for us to mind our business. Then he started cursing a couple of times. My friend and i just looked at each other and raised our eyebrows thinking the same thing.

So anyways, we stopped about 50 ft further down the aisle as we were trying to decide where to eat. All of a sudden the guy starts screaming from his table for us to keep moving, waving his arms in a gesture to shoo us away, even though we were no longer paying him any attention.

Anyways, after we ate, we wandered back along the same path and he must have gone to the bathroom as his table was still there, but significantly fewer chips. Maybe he cashed out, i don't know, but i can't help but admitting i hoped he lost it all.

Anyways, we went straight to a cab and went to another casino, as we were customers too and felt we shouldnt have to endure that.

Either the guy was way in over his head and was going ballistic, or he's just an [censored] and likes to talk down to people. either way i guess the casino was all for this.