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| First we need to discuss the difference between subsistance gambling and recreational gambling . | |||
| Recreational gamblers go to Las Vegas, Reno, or some other gambling center for a vacation, hoping to keep their losses to a mnimum while having a good time. They, of course, hope to come home big winners but will usually consider the trip a success if they only lose the money that they budgeted for the trip. These are the backbone of the gambling industry, without them the casinos couldn't exist. They pay for all the inexpensive rooms, food, shows, the salaries of thousands of casino workers, and for all those light bulbs. If you fall into this category, keep reading! With a little study and discipline, you can learn to lose less, always come home with money in your pocket, and occasionally come home with a net profit after you have paid for the trip. | |||
| The subsistance gambler, on the other hand, is skilled enough and disciplined enough to make money consistently. He/she is willing to forego the pleasure of the game in order to ensure a profit. | |||
| Winning in a casino is hard, usually boring work. The first thing that we must understand is that there is no system that can turn a negative expectation into a positive one, and there is no bet in the casino that has a positive expectation for the player. Therefore, we must concentrate on only making bets that have the lowest odds against us, managing our stake in such a way that it is at the least risk and quiting when we are reasonably ahead. | |||
| Quitting while we are ahead, I know, sounds like the most simplistic advice that I could possibly give. Yet it's the most common downfall of the most educated gambler. Greed is the thing that turns good gamblers into plungers, and therefore losers. It's hard to walk away when you have already doubled your stake and you just "know" that you can keep doing it until you break the casino. When you are winning, you feel like you can do no wrong, you can go on winning forever, hell! you're a god! That's the time to leave, preferably to a place that the biggest game you can find is a nickel ante poker game. Failing that, mail the greater portion of your winnings home. Don't deposit them in a bank (you can get that back out), put them in in an envelope, address it to yourself and mail it home. In a few days when it's delivered, you'll thank me for this advise. | |||
| Ok, sermon over. Now we can start exploring the games, the bets and how to best profit from them. | |||
| Let me start out with a few conventions, so that we're all on the same page; whenever I speak of a casino, gambling operator, bookmaker or whatever, I'll refer to it as the house. I will refer to gambling locations as Vegas simply because that's my favorite, Don't get offended if you happen to prefer Reno, Atlantic City or any of the gambling spas in the Caribbean or Europe. I like Vegas simply because there are more major casinos to choose from, a greater spread between minimum and maximim bets, and the weather agrees with me, simple. I will refer to all gamblers as; you, they or he. This is not because I'm sexist, it's simply because it's easer to type than he/she. | |||
