Others : Good Ideas, Bad Ideas and Nonsense

Since ever, people always had good ideas, bad ideas and also nonsense. In gambling, from the customers end, there is more nonsense than sense in what casino players believe. I don’t have a reason for this but ill try to take a look at a few of the nonsensical ideas and put them right.

Part of the reason that gamblers lose time and time again is only just partially because of the house edge. It is also partially due to nonsensical ideas that most casino gamblers have.

Some slot players suppose that if a machine is hot, meaning that you have won a few spins in a row you are likely to win more spins in a row. They support this silly idea saying that the slot machine has loss and win cycles and since a player just won a few rows the machine is than in a win cycle.

Actually, at all slot machines and at all times, you can expect to lose the next spin of the slot reels than you can expect to win it. Asking why? The answer is very simple, because the slot machines have hit frequencies in the 10 to 20 percent range, which means many, many more losing spins exist on a machine than winning spins.

Saying this, I’m not meaning that you will never have winning spins or even maybe a few in a row, only that in fact there are more rainy days than sunny days when playing slots. There are no magic moments that can bring you winning spins and to support this I will be happy to bet you that you are wrong.

Some say that "no one ever wins in the casinos." Many casino gamblers who go to casinos once or twice a month just for the fun of it, naturally, agree with this since most frequent gamblers are long-term losers. Actually, the idea is dead wrong. On any given night in the casinos, there are plenty of winning players.

For example, in games that hold a small edge, like craps when making the low house edge bets or like blackjack when basic strategy is used, in any casino in any night you will find a good number of winners. So, if none ever will win in a casino, obviously no one would ever come back. You will find that if all players in a casino played for about two hours, about 30 to 40 percent were ahead of the game in that two-hour period.

So why don't more players win in the long run? It's the wearing away factor. Because those small house edges build up over time, it is always easier to be ahead in the first hour of play than in the 20th hour of play. In blackjack, players win about 44 percent of the hands and they lose about 48 percent of the hands. The remaining hands are ties or pushes. You can see that in the short run, you can have nice winning streaks, but that over time, those losses will start to eat away at you.

In craps, on the Pass and Come bets, the casino wins 251 decisions for every 244 decisions won by players. Again, in the short run, the player can hit great streaks of wins but over time, the Pass and Come bets, the two best bets at craps, will wear away the bankroll.

On games with very high house edges, such as slots, there are fewer winners even in the short run. The higher the house edge, the harder it is to win, as simple as that!

Now, “loose” and “tight” machines and players who believe that if they find a “loose” one they have a winning guaranteed. In fact, loose and tight are merely relative terms. In some casinos, loose machines are paying back about 95 percent; in other casinos loose machines are paying back 90 percent. In the first casino tight machines are paying back about 90 percent and in the second casino tight machines are paying back 85 percent. Notice that in both casinos, both the loose and tight machines still have house edges. The loose machines are just paying back more relative to other machines.

You’ll find rare circumstances; no slot machines are programmed to return more than 100 percent of the money played in them. Even loose machines are money winners for the casinos. However, by playing loose machines, you lose less of your money in the long run.

Many players believe that there are betting systems that can overcome the house edge. If truth be told, unless you are actually doing something that changes the house edge, such as counting cards at blackjack, controlling the dice at craps, or playing video poker machines with 100 percent or more returns, you can't get the edge by manipulating your bets. All those bets are going up against the house edge and all those bets will ultimately see the casino extract its money from them.