Do you know how casinos make so much money? It’s because they know that the majority of players will lose control and spend more than they intended to not long after they walk through the casino doors.
It’s so easy to lose control in a casino. The lights, the sounds, the seductive atmosphere, the fun you’re having, and the tendency to chase losses or get greedy when you’re winning all contribute to this destructive tendency.
However, self-control and discipline are essential in the casino. If you’re going to keep what you win or limit your losses, it’s the only thing you’ve got. Casinos will do everything they can to weaken your willpower, but you’ve got to summon your inner Chuck Norris and beat them at their own game.
In this article, we’ll show you how it’s done.
Do Not Mix Alcohol and Gambling
How many times in your life have you done something when you were drunk only to wake up and ask yourself WHY? We’ve all been there.
Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and helps you to relax, but it also alters your ability to judge risk and changes your mood. In a casino setting, neither of those is good.
After half a dozen beers, you won’t be thinking about the rent at the end of the month or the upcoming car payments. You’ll be thinking about doubling your pile of chips even when the odds are literally against you.
If you must drink in a casino, have one or two and call it quits. If you can’t do that, stick to the soda.
Leave Your ATM Card Elsewhere
This won’t help you to keep the chips you’ve won, but it will stop you from gambling more than you can afford to lose. Decide how much you can afford to gamble before you go to the casino and leave your ATM card in the hotel room or at home.
This is effective for two reasons. First, casinos strategically place ATMs in certain areas to tempt you to spend. Second, it forces you to leave the casino and take a break if you decide to keep gambling.
By the time you walk back to your room, you’ll probably have come back to your senses, and you might decide not to go back. Casinos are designed to cause you to lose your bearings. There are no windows or clocks, and you can temporarily forget that the outside world exists.
That five-minute walk or a short taxi ride back to where your ATM card is can mean the difference between having a great night of fun and blowing through money you can’t afford to lose.
Practice Self Discipline Daily
There’s an old saying that martial arts masters teach their students. It goes how you do anything is how you do everything.
If you live in an undisciplined way in other areas of your life, it has a spiral effect and will bleed over into your casino gaming. Sure, it’s OK to relax and let your hair down sometimes, but you need to live with discipline if you want to have it in a tempting environment like a casino.
Think of it as practice for a fight. If you constantly lay down and let your opponents beat you, how are you going to win when it matters? You won’t. You’ll once again overdo it and live to regret it the next time you visit a casino.
Start with small victories. Get up at a certain time, make changes to your diet, etc. Don’t overdo it. Self-discipline is a mental muscle that you need to build up over time.
Understand How Casino Games Work
Understanding how casinos work can help you muster the discipline needed to walk away when you’re ahead.
Here’s the blunt truth: every single game in the casino gives the house the upper hand. We don’t mean that you can’t win, but we do mean that the house has a certain mathematical advantage. Therefore, if you keep playing for long enough, you are going to lose.
This is not up for debate. In the best-case scenario, which is blackjack, the house edge is 1.5%-0.5% depending on how you play. In some other games, it is as high as 35%.
When you know this and remind yourself of it constantly, it’s easier to walk away. You understand that you are winning purely because of luck, or if you’re losing, it’s because of the math of the game.
Knowing this makes it less tempting to either push your luck or chase losses, and it makes it easier to walk away.
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