I’ve been writing about gambling, especially casino gambling, for the last 20 years. In this post, I want to offer you my opinions about the 7 most important things I’ve learned about gambling in that time.
1- The Casino Always Wins
It’s tempting to think you can come up with some magical plan to win at the casino. I went to Las Vegas with a buddy several times. He was absolutely convinced that he’d figured out several different betting systems that would help him beat roulette.
Of course, once you’ve spent a minimal amount of time studying how casino gambling works, you realize that the math behind the game of roulette makes it impossible to beat with any kind of reliability.
Yeah, sure… you can sometimes get lucky and book a winning trip.
But you don’t have any way to guarantee it. This is true even if you’re the rare advantage player who knows how to get an edge over the casino.
And real advantage players probably aren’t much interested in my post here anyway.
And even if you play the best possible slot machines, you’re facing math that can’t be beat.
2- Other Casino Gamblers Don’t Care What I’m Up To
This is an important lesson from casino gambling that you can apply to the rest of your life, too:
Unless it affects them — and it almost never does — other people don’t really care what you’re doing. I learned this in the casino, but it’s true in all other areas of your life, too.
Other casino gamblers might care if you get drunk and spill your whiskey on their blackjack hand during a game.
But they don’t really care how you play your hand.
Okay, there’s an exception:
Many blackjack players think that if you play your hand wrong, you injure everyone else at the table. Those players are incorrect, and you should ignore them.
Always play your blackjack hand using perfect basic strategy regardless of what anyone else at the table might say to you.
3- Poker Is So Much Better than Casino Games
The reason I say you can’t win at casino games is because the math is stacked against you.
Here’s the easiest example of why that’s so:
Roulette.
A standard roulette wheel in the United States has 38 numbers on it. Almost half of them (18) are black, and almost half (18) of them are red. But two of them are green.
If you’re the casino, you’re going to see thousands of roulette spins a day on your various tables, which means your numbers are going to come up close to what the probability says you should see.
If someone is betting on black, the casino is going to win 20 times out of 38, while the player is going to win 18 times out of 38.
Since the payout is even money on these bets, the casino is always going to come out ahead in the long run.
In the short run, you might get ahead on a run of luck. Each spin of the wheel is still an independent, random event.
But, over the long run, you’ll eventually lose all your money if you keep playing.
But, in poker, you get to decide whether or not to bet based on the strength of your hand. You don’t have to put money into action if you don’t think you have a positive expectation.
And that’s why poker — especially sit and go tournaments — are so much better than casino games.
4- If You Don’t Have Money to Burn, Maybe You Shouldn’t Be Gambling
This seems simple enough. In fact, the adage “don’t gamble with money you can’t afford to lose” has been repeated so often that it’s become trite.
But it’s so true.
I have a friend who’s never had his own place to live, and he’s 34 years old. He’s always lived with family members or girlfriends.
And I don’t think the measure of a man’s success has to do with the size of his wallet.
But I also think that someone who can’t afford to get on his own lease somewhere has no business putting money into slot machines, period.
I know a little about why he gambles, but only a little.
Don’t be that guy.
Conclusion
Gambling is a complicated subject, and I could write so much more about it here than I have. Maybe future posts will offer more and better insights from me, but I think those are the four most important things I’ve learned from my two decades of casino gambling experience.
