| | |  | | | | Casino Gambling Games
Las Vegas makes more than $6 billion a year in gambling revenue. Atlantic City earns nearly $3 billion. That's only in gambling. The gambling business in the U.S. earns more than $50 billion every year. Gambling commerce is measured in hundreds of billions and it all starts with a $5 blackjack wager.
Thomas Jefferson gambled and so did Harry Truman. Richard Nixon financed his first political campaign with poker winnings. Julius Caesar used a gambling metaphor ("the die is cast") before crossing the Rubicon and changing the history of the world. Our language is filled with gambling terms. Among them are common expressions like pressing your luck, odds on favorite, smart money, sure thing, going bust, sweeten the deal, fold under pressure, passing the buck, and the graceful luck of the draw.
Everyone is gambling. Unfortunately, many don't know what they're doing. It's not the players' fault. People haven't been allowed to practice casino gambling for almost a century. It would be nice to win when you bet but there is more to gambling than just rules. Casinos are happy to explain the rules but they're less keen to explain odds and strategies. In some cases the casinos don't even know the optimal strategies. Why should they?
Gamblers are on their own and it is clear when you realize most casino games are designed to earn between 1% and 10% of a player's money, yet players usually lose 20% or more of every dollar they take into a casino.
Much of the loss can be associated with to the habit of constantly risking the same money (pressing bets), but some of it is simply the result of playing poorly. It's astonishing, but millions of players lose billions of dollars every year because they make mistakes. They use flawed strategies and imperfect systems. They throw away the wrong cards, hit when they should stand, call when they should fold, bet when they should walk away, and otherwise stack the odds against them.
People could win more (or lose less), but they don't. This strange phenomenon is mirrored in the most recent generation of video poker games that have a proven advantage toward the player. Casinos actually promote these games. Guess what? Players still lose!
Some people don't even try. They believe that players can never win and when they do it's considered a strange abnormality, a stroke of odd luck. Hey, that's gambling right?
No, that's losing. Gambling is a series of challenges and it starts when you choose odds that are positive (or at least not too negative). The house has an advantage. Sometimes you win more times they win but strategy plays a role. This is true up to different levels for all casino gambling games, even slot machines.
No amount of knowledge or information can make anyone a guaranteed winner. That wouldn't be gambling, and it wouldn't be fun. Guaranteed money comes from having a job or managing investments. That's work. Gambling is entertainment. We pay for entertainment. The saying is "be prepared to lose it all" but we shouldn't be too willing. Let's play the games well, lose less, win more, and receive more entertainment for each dollar spent.
Yes there are machines that pay back more than you put in, but you've got to play them the right way. Table games include classics like blackjack, craps, roulette, baccarat and poker, but you'll also find newer games like Caribbean Stud Poker, Let It Ride, and Pai Gow poker. Keno and sports betting can be inexpensive and entertaining, or they can be equal to throwing money down the drain. It depends on how you play.
Remember, clutching a lucky rabbit's foot is fine, but using a good strategy is a better way to win. |
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