Emotions

Gambling, what's it all about? Mr Google® has the following to say:

Many people gamble because it helps them escape other problems they have going on in their lives, or relieves boredom and gives them a buzz. Some gamble because they enjoy the challenge or competition and others just find it fun


Well, that's all well and good, but why do YOU gamble? To be able to win I think you need to understand what is going on in your head a little. Now, if you are a compulsive gambler then that's a different thing altogether and I guess I'm required to post a link for Gamblers Anonymous at this point. But for those of us I call recreational gamblers, I'm going to answer the question as follows:

The primary reason to gamble is excitement. If you were really in it for the money you would either play red or black on roulette, or play live poker, or maybe craps, or just possibly video poker machines. But you would never play slots for profit.

So, you're in it for the excitement, but you're deeply invested in this blog which means you really would like to win some money doing it. Section One has given you all the basics for making your expenditure at gambling go the distance, to get value for money, but that doesn't mean you will actually win any money. You will "invest" money in slot machine play, and "invest" time on MyVegas, and then actualize your investment to the point where your benefits outweigh your expense, so you are a NET winner. Good for you. I love that. The casino doesn't even mind either.

But I want you to actually win some money and that, my friends, is no easy feat.

For years I have gone to casino's with a HOPE that I would win, but NEVER with an expectation. If you think you can go to a casino and play slots and win money, click that link above! However, what I want to get you to do is adjust your inner mentality and go to the casino with the thought that IF I WIN I WILL KEEP THE MONEY. The objective here is that once you are UP you will not let the house get the winnings PLUS your money. They can take back some of their money, but not yours. Now, sometimes you will lose all the money you go in with, and sometimes you will win some money and then give it back, but sometimes you will win some money and leave with it. That is the key, and that, as I guess you probably already know, is no easy task.

Let me get straight to the point:  To win money isn't actually that difficult in a casino. Any fool can do it. That's how the machines are made. You click start and you win or you don't. There's very little in the way of choices or skill. Press the button. Pull the lever. Win or lose. There are indeed occasions when I go in with my $200, play for an hour and say I've had no luck at all, either didn't even get the feature or got the feature twice and it was tiny, and now my money's run out and I'm leaving pissed. Happens. I'm not talking about that visit. That is statistically bound to happen every so often. I'm talking about the visit where you walk in, start playing on the freeplay you get, got the feature, won $190, played that up to $480 and then, 4 or 5 hours later you leave, exhausted, having had a great deal of fun and that all important excitement, but you lost all your winnings, plus your allotted $200 and then another $200 you pulled from the ATM in anger at 1.30am because you were convinced you were going to get the feature again (or more likely you told yourself $100 of the $200 was for tomorrow for your wallet, but it never made it to tomorrow!)

We have to change the way we think. We have to change how we think when we are winning. We know generally how to lose with some dignity (or we would be clicking the link above), but we haven't quite mastered the winning bit just yet.

The secret starts by understanding your emotions. You LOVE excitement. You LOVE the thrill of slot machines. You love getting the feature (+smoking, drinking, chatting, screaming, whatever). Of course you do. And I doubt I could stop you. But can you try to be a winner? This is really different. It won't be an opportunity that happens every time you visit, so you'll have to recognize the moment when it happens. Instead of screaming with delight when the screen fills up with buffalo's, some small part of you had to appreciate that you are now a winner, and slot play in winner mode is slightly different from slot play in loser mode or just-for-fun mode.

Many years ago, as a young gambler, I spent a lot of time playing poker. Often with friends, often at a casino, often online (as I was in the UK where it is legal). Over a period of time I came to some kind of revelation - some internal self-reflection or self-audit maybe - that I was far better at online poker than I was at the casino or with friends. The reason was I felt guilty beating someone I could look at. I wanted to win, but somewhere inside me I didn't feel quite so comfortable knowing that the other person would lose. Online I felt no guilt. I didn't know the other players. I could handle the winning far better. I later came to realize I was far more controlled at tournaments than cash play, had the patience and staying power for larger tourneys, and got to the point where I was basically a winner. However, to abruptly end this story, I came to realize that this was eating in to my real life too much, and also that I just didn't have the time to commit to the game enough to make anything useful from it. So I said to myself, stop this for now, and one day, when the time is right, maybe re-visit this. And then I moved to the US where, until recently, and still in California, it is, for all intents and purposes, illegal. So I don't do it. Currently. But when in Vegas...

The point of that rather long story was this: I managed to understand my emotional attachment to the subject. I appreciated where my skills were, and were not, and I acted accordingly.

At the casino it is entirely possible for you to do the same thing.

Now, don't forget if you've read the rest of this blog you are already taking the house for more than you are spending, this is going for the icing on the cake. But it's not that easy. You'll need some tactics to assist you...