Gambling addiction touched forum users in a very sad way...

[virasisog]

I don't know this case, but maybe someone could make this clear, because I'm confused... You guys bought cold wallets from someone who made the keys for you, not thinking about whether he still holds the private keys for these wallets, then deposited bitcoin to these addresses and got them stolen?
It's like buying a used trezor or ledger and depositing to the existing addresses. Did the pandemic brainwash you or something?

This is not a gambling problem. This is a scammer exploiting an opportunity by simply picking up money some people sent his way!

Who wants to buy a wallet from me? I'll make you guys some nice addresses to use and they're going to be free! Any takers?

The person who created these collectibles was once a trusted member of this forum. He had a good reputation right before someone who owned his collectible noticed that his funds from those collectibles were swiped. As per the creator of this collectible, all of the files/keys from the collectibles he sells, he destroy immediately. But unfortunately, there is one collectible set to which he didn't delete all of the files which he then used to get money from and gamble it all away (as for owlcatz who came in contact with him).

I think this may not be a gambling discussion per se, but it's a textbook example of how gamblers can throw everything away just to get their fill of their gambling hunger. Mind you, his reputation is years in the making, but because of his gambling itch he just threw it all away.

Exactly.That is compulsive gambling,it can destroy anyone,including trusted members of this forum and not only,we have seen people doing much worse things than this.When a person becomes addicted to such levels the only thing who can help him is the professional help,the fact that he didn't show any sign that he wanted to recover says a lot about gambling addiction which distorts one person's reality and this person no matter who this is cannot think clearly or cold headed.Gamblers have thrown away their families,wives,jobs and this is just another such story unfortunately.

The uncontrollable urge is the reason why being a compulsive gambler can destroy your life. I met a lot of people online and physically that they cannot control their urge because their psychology is already not good. Many gamble fall and became a compulsive gambler because they treat gambling as their personal income, wherein they became dependent on it where their decisions have no convictions at all. A compulsive gamblers have always "What if?" in their mind wherein they keep thinking about how much money that they can make from it without having risk management and also without managing their expectations.

Compulsive gamblers don't think about the possible outcome and consequences of their actions regardless of how they will affect their reputation. What important to them is that they would have a souce of funds to gamble continuously despite the ruined trust of the people around them.
Risk is nothing to them as long as they could fulfill their urge to gamble and to satisfy their gambling needs that's why many people's lives get broken and miserable because of this practice.

[Slow death]

Past experience makes me think like this too, don't trust people on the internet 

even people in the real world are not to be trusted, you can test your friends, do a simple test, drop a lot of money in front of your friends and pretend you didn't see the money falling, then leave the place for a few minutes that you you will see that your friends will take the money, then return to where they are and that you dropped the money stay with them for hours, you will notice that none of them will tell you that you dropped money, that's because money runs people in the world today people no longer value love, honesty, all that matters to people is having a lot of money and humiliating the poor

[sunsilk]

even people in the real world are not to be trusted, you can test your friends, do a simple test, drop a lot of money in front of your friends and pretend you didn't see the money falling, then leave the place for a few minutes that you you will see that your friends will take the money, then return to where they are and that you dropped the money stay with them for hours, you will notice that none of them will tell you that you dropped money, that's because money runs people in the world today people no longer value love, honesty, all that matters to people is having a lot of money and humiliating the poor

I agree, based on my personal experience a relative of mine who's not even a gambler asked money to me years ago and have forgotten to pay me. Well, but being an addicted gambler is way too much.

When someone who does have the money of others and sees that it will make them satisfy to gamble with others fund, unusual things can really be done during their desperation moments.

It's disappointing that someone who has built his trust and reputation then will steal his customers money that has really trusted his product.

[Silberman]

Past experience makes me think like this too, don't trust people on the internet 

even people in the real world are not to be trusted, you can test your friends, do a simple test, drop a lot of money in front of your friends and pretend you didn't see the money falling, then leave the place for a few minutes that you you will see that your friends will take the money, then return to where they are and that you dropped the money stay with them for hours, you will notice that none of them will tell you that you dropped money, that's because money runs people in the world today people no longer value love, honesty, all that matters to people is having a lot of money and humiliating the poor

It is very depressing but this is the way things are, at a very early age kids learn that the most important thing on the world is money, if you have it then you have everything if you do not then you have nothing, with this kind of mentality it is then not rare to understand why the pursuit of money has become the one and only goal for some people, but this kind of mentality is incredibly dangerous and one of the best examples of this is SBF which did not cared about anything but how much money he could get out of people, even if he had to ruin them to get it.

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

Past experience makes me think like this too, don't trust people on the internet 

even people in the real world are not to be trusted, you can test your friends, do a simple test, drop a lot of money in front of your friends and pretend you didn't see the money falling, then leave the place for a few minutes that you you will see that your friends will take the money, then return to where they are and that you dropped the money stay with them for hours, you will notice that none of them will tell you that you dropped money, that's because money runs people in the world today people no longer value love, honesty, all that matters to people is having a lot of money and humiliating the poor

It is very depressing but this is the way things are, at a very early age kids learn that the most important thing on the world is money, if you have it then you have everything if you do not then you have nothing, with this kind of mentality it is then not rare to understand why the pursuit of money has become the one and only goal for some people, but this kind of mentality is incredibly dangerous and one of the best examples of this is SBF which did not cared about anything but how much money he could get out of people, even if he had to ruin them to get it.

Yes, if your read the whole context of this story how someone as reputable as him will suddenly go on and have a gambling problem and then victimized his customers in his community is depressing and sad. It's the addiction that literally killed the man's reputation and the project that there will be no recovering as he ruins himself and the project for the sake of money because he couldn't control his emotions and gambling habits. He will be remorseful for sure it everything sinks him to him, but no way he can get it back now.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Yes, if your read the whole context of this story how someone as reputable as him will suddenly go on and have a gambling problem and then victimized his customers in his community is depressing and sad. It's the addiction that literally killed the man's reputation and the project that there will be no recovering as he ruins himself and the project for the sake of money because he couldn't control his emotions and gambling habits. He will be remorseful for sure it everything sinks him to him, but no way he can get it back now.

Not suddenly. A gambling addiction problem does not appear overnight, and when it does it is often an expression of previous problems that someone close to the person and attentive could pick up on.

This person has probably already had observable behavioural problems in his or her daily behaviour, such as spending a large part or all of his or her paycheck on gambling on payday. Using credit cards or personal loans to continue gambling, etc.

The bad news is that he hasn't logged in the forum for a month, so there is little to fix for those who have been scammed by him, at least within the forum. Another thing is if they decide to take other measures.

[Kakmakr]

This is the reason why I will never invest in buying those Casascius coins... you just don't know if the creator of those coins has access to the Private key. They usually tell you that it is done electronically and that they have some kind of method that hides the Private key from the creator, but I think it is all bullshit. 

Just give the guy the jail time, even if he blames this all on gambling addiction.... because in the eye of the law, this is still theft. The victims of this crime are more important, than the criminal that done this. (If he can pay back the money, just give him a suspended sentence and give him a second chance) 

[Fredomago]

Past experience makes me think like this too, don't trust people on the internet 

even people in the real world are not to be trusted, you can test your friends, do a simple test, drop a lot of money in front of your friends and pretend you didn't see the money falling, then leave the place for a few minutes that you you will see that your friends will take the money, then return to where they are and that you dropped the money stay with them for hours, you will notice that none of them will tell you that you dropped money, that's because money runs people in the world today people no longer value love, honesty, all that matters to people is having a lot of money and humiliating the poor

It is very depressing but this is the way things are, at a very early age kids learn that the most important thing on the world is money, if you have it then you have everything if you do not then you have nothing, with this kind of mentality it is then not rare to understand why the pursuit of money has become the one and only goal for some people, but this kind of mentality is incredibly dangerous and one of the best examples of this is SBF which did not cared about anything but how much money he could get out of people, even if he had to ruin them to get it.

You need to learn how to work with this kind of situation, you as a human being have the capability to adjust, not everything or not everyone have that same sentiments, but most of the time it is really possible that you can see people to react like that, addiction to gambling as we know it can ruined people's life.

I do agree that changes are unavoidable. People who are got attached to this kind of addiction need to work hard to help themselves and find the best ways to solve this problem.

[maydna]

Yes, if your read the whole context of this story how someone as reputable as him will suddenly go on and have a gambling problem and then victimized his customers in his community is depressing and sad. It's the addiction that literally killed the man's reputation and the project that there will be no recovering as he ruins himself and the project for the sake of money because he couldn't control his emotions and gambling habits. He will be remorseful for sure it everything sinks him to him, but no way he can get it back now.

It is very sad if we know a person with a good reputation and then use it to abuse his reputation by taking something from someone else. Especially if this case really concerns the problem of gambling addiction, which made him lose everything he had. Gambling addiction is something that really has to be realized and cured somehow so that he doesn't make a mess, let alone destroy himself. He must be sorry he did it, and we are disappointed with what he did. Hopefully, there will be no more cases like this in the future so that no one will get hurt anymore.

[Mauser]

Cold Key owner retrieved private keys of all the sold 'cold wallets' he produced and as he was in need because of gambling he stole all the funds.

Sorry but this not really fair to say that he was "in need because of gambling" to steal all the funds. Nobody is in need to steal money, that is a criminal act and there is no excuse for it. Gambling addiction is a terrible thing that can ruin a whole family, but we can't use it as an excuse for someone to steal money. We are in control of our lives and he should have known better to not reach the point in life where we need to steal money to support our habits. Nobody is born as a gambling addict, it's same with alcohol, drugs or other things in life where people struggle with addictions. It's a gradual process that slowly lead to bad habits manifesting itself and become harder to control. For me there is really no excuse to exploit the goodwill of people and steal their money. I hope we would go one month without a scandal in the crypto world. All we can do now is to learn from this and not trust others with our our private keys

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Anyway, stories like the one present on this thread show us how gambling addiction can become a serious problem involving a lot of people besides the addicted gambler himself. Sometimes the person is blind by his addiction that he will do anything and everything to continue wagering. In this case the person stole funds, and in some more extreme situations the person can even kill!

I saw many people to sell their car, house, divorced their wife even abandoned their children and many bad ending of gamblers. I grew up in a place where young starts were addicted to weed, scamming, hijacking, killing each others, ending up jail. I knew exactly where I was going but it was no easy to control yourself unless family and people close to you support you. I was lucky.

Gambling is supposed to be a fun, an element of entertaining. But because there are money to lose and people don't like to lose money that they earned hard way, they starts chasing the lose. The chase never ends but at some stage they find that they lost everything. Some people thinks it's an way to make easy money. But it's not at all. A gambler always lose and the house wins always.

This is the reason why I will never invest in buying those Casascius coins... you just don't know if the creator of those coins has access to the Private key. They usually tell you that it is done electronically and that they have some kind of method that hides the Private key from the creator, but I think it is all bullshit.  

I never looked at how the whole collectible coins work. But it could be done better than loading the address by the creator.

[iv4n]

This is the reason why I will never invest in buying those Casascius coins... you just don't know if the creator of those coins has access to the Private key. They usually tell you that it is done electronically and that they have some kind of method that hides the Private key from the creator, but I think it is all bullshit.  

I never looked at how the whole collectible coins work. But it could be done better than loading the address by the creator.

Well, in this case, it was bullshit. If he kept all those private keys in some way, he was preparing for fraud from the very beginning.

We have all seen countless things about collectibles here on the forum, I guess it's interesting in some way but I never had a passion to buy one or to get more included in any way. Looks like it was a good choice...

And what will happen with collectibles now? One addicted gambler ruined the entire business!

[fullhdpixel]

For the ones who do not follow Collectibles forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5434506.0):
Cold Key owner retrieved private keys of all the sold 'cold wallets' he produced and as he was in need because of gambling he stole all the funds.

Which (apart of obvious sad event for card buyers/owners) is a very problematic for the whole "collectibles" market, any coin/card producer now will be asked twice "how may I trust you?".

In the wake of this incident, it is likely that buyers and collectors will be more cautious and sceptical of new coin or card producers, and will want to see evidence of robust security measures and a commitment to transparency before investing.

Furthermore, it's important to know that there are ways to mitigate the risks of similar incidents happening. For example, using smart contract on blockchain can bring transparency and security to the whole process. Additionally, using a decentralized platform can also bring more security to the process. Overall, it is important for the collectibles market to learn from this incident and take steps to improve security and transparency to regain the trust of buyers and collectors.

[famososMuertos]

First of all, what has happened is very sad, it may be that for those related to the topic of collectibles the situation is more difficult.

This is not a gambling problem. This is a scammer exploiting an opportunity by simply picking up money some people sent his way!

Who wants to buy a wallet from me? I'll make you guys some nice addresses to use and they're going to be free! Any takers?

It's not really that simple. Me personally I am not a victim of this as I did not buy anything from him, but the whole market is really huge. I think everyone heard of Casascius coins (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins) which value is now much much bigger than their denomination.
Aside of that, that small items are perfect gifts.

It is just a matter of trust. For years he was running a company which became quite famous and trusted, all was fine and just one day he ruined everything. I do not know which case is worst, the one where you plan everything and just have your 'poker face' because you know one day in the future you will steal everything, or if all runs fine and one day you feel you are in need and then you feel impulse to steal all the money from your customers.
And at the end, it seems like really a 'personal issue', because like someone counter what was stolen is even less that $50k, not like millions in serious scams.

@PawGo +1
Thank you for your vision of the situation, it is even very silly to think that because it is not in collectibles it should not affect us.

[Fatunad]

This is the reason why I will never invest in buying those Casascius coins... you just don't know if the creator of those coins has access to the Private key. They usually tell you that it is done electronically and that they have some kind of method that hides the Private key from the creator, but I think it is all bullshit.  

I never looked at how the whole collectible coins work. But it could be done better than loading the address by the creator.

Well, in this case, it was bullshit. If he kept all those private keys in some way, he was preparing for fraud from the very beginning.

We have all seen countless things about collectibles here on the forum, I guess it's interesting in some way but I never had a passion to buy one or to get more included in any way. Looks like it was a good choice...

And what will happen with collectibles now? One addicted gambler ruined the entire business!

Yes, it was intentional since from the beginning because if you dont really have the plans on committing fraud or hacking then you wont really be putting up into your mind on keeping or knowing those
private keys considering that lots of customers had been trusting up on you.You had just messed up your entire reputation because of that.This is why its really hard to believe that he dont have
any intents and blames out on gambling addiction but im not really seeing on that way because keeping keys and selling or giving it out on customers arent something
ethical way for you to done on.

[ultrloa]

Yeah, worst thing happen and sometimes those affected person will do crime just to have money to sustain there activities done in a casino. If this case is true and the said person is addicted to gambling then maybe this will be the eye opener for other newbie gambler that same thing might happen to them if they became a hardcore gambler so we should follow always the reminder that gambling in moderation to avoid unwanted things.

The danger of being a gambling addict is that he only thinks about how he can have money to gamble, and there is a possibility that they will commit crimes that will harm many people. And if that case is true, this is a lesson for us always to take good care of ourselves and avoid gambling addiction. We can easily become addicted to gambling because playing gambling is very exciting and can make us curious, happy, sad, and so on. And it will only trigger us to become addicted to gambling that we will not even realize.

Yes willingness to do crime is one of the complication since most of addicted gambler will do anything just to get money. All they care is to gamble and we see this for so many times happening so to avoid going unto this situation practicing self control is needed, once we attain this for sure we can enjoy the true essence of gambling.

[dunfida]

This is the reason why I will never invest in buying those Casascius coins... you just don't know if the creator of those coins has access to the Private key. They usually tell you that it is done electronically and that they have some kind of method that hides the Private key from the creator, but I think it is all bullshit.  

I never looked at how the whole collectible coins work. But it could be done better than loading the address by the creator.

Well, in this case, it was bullshit. If he kept all those private keys in some way, he was preparing for fraud from the very beginning.

We have all seen countless things about collectibles here on the forum, I guess it's interesting in some way but I never had a passion to buy one or to get more included in any way. Looks like it was a good choice...

And what will happen with collectibles now? One addicted gambler ruined the entire business!

Yes, it was intentional since from the beginning because if you dont really have the plans on committing fraud or hacking then you wont really be putting up into your mind on keeping or knowing those
private keys considering that lots of customers had been trusting up on you.You had just messed up your entire reputation because of that.This is why its really hard to believe that he dont have
any intents and blames out on gambling addiction but im not really seeing on that way because keeping keys and selling or giving it out on customers arent something
ethical way for you to done on.

You got a point!

I agree that keeping keys on something you do sell isn't ethical no matter what angle you would be seeing.This is why its really hard to trust up someone whose anonymous or completely you dont know personally.
No matter how established their name is but there's no way that you could prove out that on how long they would be keeping themselves honest and trustworthy? It is really that that hard to fight off
the temptation in speaking about huge money specially when gambling addiction hits you hard and you do end up with this kind of option.

[Ebede]

In such a way there's no how you can sue the provider to law for such risk and loss they have put many through, but to be sincere gambling is all about risk but not in taking this kind of risk that is associated to handling our funds, isn't it better to always safe up such amount needed to gamble with alone than having the entire funds at stake, once it's not your keys then the coins are confidently not yours as well.

I think the information you are purchasing is contract catering in my own understanding I was even trying to understand exactly they want you and Megan although I could not you get it all right so I want to tell you that you're like some you obviously meant to be understandable to your reader who is reading it I tried like severally to understand you but I could not get you right it is a personal decision on the personal agreement please don't take it on your heart

[STT]

The fact that he always kept data he should not have is just a con artist.   This is not something I'd connect to gambling, its deception and fraud based theft.    Sometimes this occurs with other items that can be bought and sold, people who buy online game accounts sometimes get the 'owner' take it back some time later.    BTC and crypto generally has to find a way outside of relying on one person like this, if it can go wrong unfortunately some will make sure it does go wrong for victims motivated by their own personal profit.    Some people are fake like that, most people arent but there'll always be somebody who ruins any trust extended by a community sadly.

[goinmerry]

Some people are fake like that, most people arent but there'll always be somebody who ruins any trust extended by a community sadly.

In other terms, shit happened, and can't be avoided as that was something that will happen surprisingly and instantly.

What matter here is, we should able now to think what's the best thing to do in the future in case we will be again in the same situation.

A bad experience though but that case should be served as another lesson for us.