The Art of Having The Right Altitude Towards Gambling

I start my article on a fact: that all casinos are built from losers. One doesn’t have to look far to see this. Take a look at the opulence in the hotels and casinos that is Macau. Although Casinos in Macau are taking a slight hit recently in the midst of the economic crisis, its growth has gone through the roof in the last few years since 2003. Where did the casinos get all the money to fund all these expansion? From the losers, of course! The next obvious example is the explosion of the online gaming industry in the last 4-5 years. There seems no end to the huge growth this industry is still generating.

Why is it that the general perception is that when people think of gamblers, they think of losers? This is probably where the Chinese idioms 十赌九输 (gamble ten times and you lose nine) and 逢赌必输 (always gamble, sure lose) came from.

If everyone loses, no one will gamble! There will be no casinos anymore.

This is the most basic rule. Casinos don’t make games that will result in sure wins for the house. If not, no one will play. Instead, casinos do have small house edges and rely on high turnovers and volume to make this house edge significant. What does that mean simply is that say for a game with a house edge of say 2%, the players will get back 98% of what they stake on the average, when you take into account all the players win/lose on the whole. There are losers and there will be winners. The trick without saying is how to be on the winning side.

Being in the gaming business for so long and having spoken to countless casino operators TheOddsKing can reveal that on a good night, some tables can register around 15-10% of the money betted on a table. This is a phenomenal amount given that house edge is only around few percent on majority of the games. Most of these operators reveal that gamblers seem to be willing to lose! Sounds absurd at first but I went through this phase before and learn things the hard way myself. It is not how much you win at the table, but how much you bring away from the table that really matters.


The Black Hole: The Gambler’s Mentality:

Imagine yourself in this situation, something I have been through a lot of times before. I play Sicbo and made $500 on a $10 table, which is not bad for 30minutes of work. However I am lured into what I was term it as the gambler’s mentality. I could have left but I stayed on hoping to double, triple it. In the end like most others, I lose it all back. The strange thing is no one forces players to play like that. There is no rule saying you cannot leave and casinos just don’t have to do anything. These players will behave the same way day in and out. If as if they gamble wanting to lose, not to win. This is a psychological black hole that I want to highlight here and want you to overcome.

The Principles All Good Players Adopt:

1) Patience

My site is devoted to winning strategies that you can pick up. To ensure victory, it is not that difficult but you cannot be impatient. You need to be a master in the games and there are plenty of articles in my site that will help you do that.

2) Money Management:

The scared rule here, I can’t emphasize enough is not to gamble with money you cannot to lose. No matter how lucky you feel or how good a player you are, you are asking for trouble if you gamble with money you cannot lose.
The next part is to know the concept of capitalization. Know your limits. What I mean is that if you want to play at $10 table and you only have $100, either you play at a table with lower limits or I rather you save up and come back another day. Being undercapitalized in a higher stake table will make you end up making risky bets in hope of increasing your bankroll or forgoing bets in favorable situations.

3) Self and Emotions Control:

The most valuable strategy here is to determine how much you will allow yourself to win before you may start to lose. When you ahead and winning, it is extremely important to know when to STOP. Winners all know how to control their emotions and keep greed, anxiety, impulse, impatience all in check. Many players know how to play the casino game perfectly but still ended up going home a loser simply because they don’t know how to quit at the right time. The casino knows that no matters how good a players it, they will still win in the long run, if they can get the player to continue playing. The casino is open 24/7 and has a unlimited bankroll, do you think that they will sweat on player who has an occasional win? In fact, casinos would love to have this kind of player who thinks they have developed a strategy to win for the first few times. They want GREED to kick in.
Win and walk. It takes discipline to be a winner at any casino games. Discipline and control will separate the winners from the losers, if you don’t learn how to manage your money; the casino will do it for you once it becomes theirs.
Remember this basic rule: Always Quit a Winner. Want to be as successful as TheOddsKing and the gurus? Follow this age old saying and you will never go wrong.

4) Play to Win & Leave A Winner

Every good player knows and has a “money management” system that works for them. Many players spend countless hours researching and practicing in hope of finding the one system that will beat the house. There are of course professionals, making a living using their own system or theory of betting.
No matter what system you use, you will need a good money management system. For TheOddsKing, the ultimate “Money Management” strategy is to bet more when you are winning and less when you are losing.
This is known as a progressive betting system. As opposed to a negative progression system (more famously known as the martingale system), you increase your bets when you lose in hope of getting back to even after a loss.

Strategy One

“You start with coming to the casino with $100 in hope of making $75. Initially you bet ten dollars per hand. If you win for the first round, stick to your initial bet of $10 in the second round. This time if you win again, great and you would have made profit of $20.
Next, increase your bet to $15 in the third betting round, if you win, you total profit now increased to $35 and your next bet is $20. But if you lose, you still have your sum of $5 as your profit and you should go back to your initial bet, $10. This carries on until you reach your target of $75, after which you would need to stop. Remember always leave the table as a winner with your targeted amount and not linger on and lose it all back again.

Strategy Two

Although it seems obvious, many players do not realize this until it’s too late. A good strategy in gambling is to set a budget on how much money you will spend prior to playing, just like budgeting all your other expenses (overseas trip, entertainment etc). In gambling terms, it’s all about learning how to manage your bankroll. Just like paying $100 for you a concert ticket which is within your budget range to see a Jay Chow concert. Then what you have to do next is sit back and enjoy the show. Treating your bankroll like an expense will change the attitude you approach the gaming table, let you play with confidence and a clear mind, as well as free you from all the pitfalls of emotion and self control that I mentioned earlier.