Gambling and emotions

Playing any casino game and just gambling in general stirs up many different emotions. During a typical gambling session you will probably experience euphoria, excitement, happiness but also anger, upset and disappointment. It is unique and should be embraced but you really need to keep any feelings in check.

It is common knowledge that casinos make their money by having a mathematical advantage over their customers so over a large enough sample size it is impossible to beat them. However, in the short term it is possible to win vast sums of money, which is what attracts people to these games.

One way to lower the house edge is to play perfectly, that is make very few or no mistakes at all. One such game where a basic strategy has been devised for is Blackjack, following it means the house only has around a 1% advantage over you. However, once you start deviating from this, you can actually dramatically increase the house’s edge.

One reason people deviate from playing perfectly is because they allow their emotions to take over them. Emotions are very powerful and can massively influence people in all walks of life, especially gamblers. Losing several hands in a row can lead to the player becoming disheartened and even angry and the most common response it that the player wants revenge on the casino and starts to make larger bets and plays their game in a more aggressive manner. You know yourself from past experiences that when you are angry or upset, you do not think logically and this is a recipe for disaster when playing casino games.

It is not only negative feelings that you need to be aware of because positive ones can also have a big effect on you. Going on a winning streak is a great feeling, as a gambler there is not better feeling, but it is also dangerous as you can either start to become too confident and start making bets that are too large or maybe start to make plays that stack the odds in the house’s favour.

Should you feel like your emotions are starting to take over your logical state of mind you are advised to literally walk away from the game you are playing, regain your composure and then go back to the game refreshed. This may take just a few minutes but for some people it can take several hours. Learn who you are and act accordingly.

Managing a bankroll

Gambling is fun and exciting for those taking part in it so I hate to put a dampener on things and say you need to gamble responsibly. Not only can betting recklessly start to become a problem it can actually bust you and leave you unable to play any games, which of course is a terrible scenario.

Like in most walks of life, it pays to be cautious with your gambling money, or bankroll as it is generally called. Your gambling bankroll should only be made up of money that you have put aside purely for the purposes of gambling. It should never include any money that you need to pay bills or money that is owed to people you know. Your gambling bankroll is to be used for gambling and no other purposes.

The idea of bankroll management is to bet an amount that will keep you in the game the longest. There is no point going to your local casino or downloading your favourite online casino, sitting with £200 worth of chips and then playing roulette at £50 per spin as you could potentially lose all of your money within five minutes. Instead you should be looking to bet much smaller amounts so that losing several consecutive bets, or a few bets in quick succession does not prevent you from continuing to play.

Should you want to bet 10 chips per spin and assuming the croupier spins once a minute, you would need 600 chips in order to go just one hour without winning. Obviously it would be extremely unlikely you would go an entire hour without winning a single bet, although it could be possible, but you need to plan for these freakish results and allow for extended periods when you do not lose.

You also need to be aware of the odds of the bet you are making and plan your bankroll around that figure. Staying with roulette as an example, if you are simply betting on the outside bets such as red or black and odd or even then you could have a much smaller bankroll as these bets will come in more often. However, if you play the inside bets, that offer much larger payouts, you need a more substantial bankroll to play as you will go on losing streaks for much longer periods of time betting on these.

Craps

Walk into any Las Vegas casino, or even any casino in the world that spreads the game and the most excitable crowd will be around the Craps table. Craps is a dice game that is extremely popular in the United States of America thanks in part to its fast action, the belief there is some skill involved and the very simple rules.

To start a new game of craps the player must place a bet on either the “pass” option or the “don’t pass” option. They then choose two dice from a selection of five from someone known as “the stickman” and roll them down the playing surface. This is called the “come out” phase of the game. If the total sum on the dice adds up to two, three or 12 then this is called craps or crapping out and all bets on the “pass” option lose and the house wins.

Should the player roll a seven or an 11 then this is called a natural and all bets on the “pass” option are immediately paid out in full. However, if the players rolls a four, five, six, eight, nine or ten then the “come out” phase of the round becomes what is known as “point.” Now the player has to roll the same number as what started the “point” phase before the roll a seven, because a seven means the game is over, all bets on the “pass” option lose and the game returns to the “come out” phase.

The game of craps is believed to have stemmed from the old English game called “Hazard,” which has been around since the 14th Century. It is also believed that the game was introduced to the United States back in 1813 by a man called Bernard Xavier Phillipe de marigny de Mandeville when he visited New Orleans. The problem with his version of the game was that it was very easy to cheat at, as you could simply use loaded dice. The aptly named John H Winn realised this and added the “don’t pass” betting option, and the same game still stands today.

Gambler’s Fallacy

Humans are unique in that they notice patterns in all walks of life but they can also allow their pattern recognition influence and cloud their judgement in a negative way. Gamblers are frequently guilty of this, seeing potential patterns and failing to realise that each outcome, in terms of casino games, is completely independent of the previous.

If you look up the term Gambler’s Fallacy you will probably find something that says along the lines of it is the belief that deviations from what they would expect to happen can and will be evened out by opposite deviations in the future. Whilst this may seem long-winded and confusing it is actually quite simple and many of us have been guilty of it in the past.

Imagine you toss a coin and bet with a friend that each time it lands on heads you win double your bet but if it is tails then you lose your stake. You would expect to break even as there is a 50% chance that the coin will land on heads or tails. However, after six tosses you have lost money because on all six occasions it has landed on tails. What are the odds of it landing on heads this time, surely they have to be higher? No, in fact there is still a 50% chance it will land on tails for a seventh time.

As another example, if you had a 16-sided die and was told that you could roll the die a total of 16 times but you had to roll a ten to win. The probability, worked out with some rather complicated mathematics, of you rolling a ten before you are out of attempts is 64.39%. On your first try you roll an eight, which means the probability of rolling a ten in one of your next 15 allotted goes has dropped to 62.02% but the chances of you actually rolling a ten are still the same, 1/16 or 6.25%.

This is where gamblers go wrong. The start to change their betting patterns based on the previous outcomes of their games. For example, there have been more red numbers than black numbers coming out on a roulette wheel so they begin to bet on black despite the fact they have a 50/50 chance on the next spin.

As an extreme example you can turn to the recent Israeli national lottery where the exact same numbers came out within just a few weeks of each other. The odds of it happening were very long indeed, into the trillions, but on the lottery the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 are just as likely as 2,10,23,33,36,45 though most people’s choice of numbers would probably be more closely represented by the second set of numbers.

Punto Banco Baccarat

Punto Banco is the Rolls Royce of casino games, often played for vast sums of money in private rooms by multi-millionaires. It is not uncommon to find games being played for $100,000 per hand in some establishments but thanks to the internet, and online casinos in particular, everyone can enjoy this game, a game that has a very low house edge.

The game Punto Banco is one of three versions of the game, with the others being called Baccarat and Baccarat Chemi de fer. The latter two games involve the player making specific choices so there is some skill element to the game but Punto Banco, which is very popular in North America, Canada, Australia and the Scandinavian countries.

Punto Banco is very easy to play, which helps its popularity. Firstly, the cards numbered two to nine are given point values equal to their face value, whilst tens, jacks, queens and kings are all worth zero points. Aces are worth one point in Punto Banco. Once the initial deal is complete the player adds up the point totals of his or her cards, removes the ten from it and depending on what the new total is, various actions are then triggered. As an example, if the player is dealt a five and a nine then he would have 14 points initially but after removing ten from it his actual total would be four, where as a player who was dealt a king and a six would have a total of six.

If the player’s total is zero, this is called Baccarat. If the player’s total is between zero and five then they draw another card, if it is six or seven then they need to stand pat whilst eight or nine means they win immediately. The rules for the dealer are more complicated and are based around their own totals and the previous actions of the player, but whoever has the highest total when all the dealing is complete wins the hand.

Betting on the side of the player generally offers odds of 1:1 whilst betting on the dealer offers the same odds less a 5% premium. People can also bet on the result being a tie and if this is the case, bets are paid out at the rate of 8:1.As previously mentioned, Punto Banco is only second to Blackjack when it comes to the low house edge. If playing from an eight-deck shoe then betting on the player gives a house edge of just 1.36% and the banker 1.17% and the unpopular tie is 14.12%.