Managing your gambling bankroll

Like most everyone who’s gambled a lot, I’ve had to learn all my money management the hard way. And usually in doing so have ignored good advice from more experienced people, and ignoring my own rules and the voice inside me saying “don’t do it”. Here’s a list of some of the mistakes I’ve made. And more than once.

Casino gambling has to be viewed as a long term marathon, not a short sprint. The best thing a person can do is to set up a bank account specifically for gambling. And be religious about maintaining it properly. You’ll soon get a handle on how you’re doing and it may help you cut down on the money mismanagement mistakes listed below.

•�� �Gambling while extremely intoxicated. Frequently this can lead to spending money you didn’t want to. Not only does it hurt financially, it can turn something fun into something that is a burden. Solution: One way of keeping that in check is to put all of your credit cards and any other ways of obtaining cash someplace hard to get to. Only bring to the tables what you are prepared to lose. Or if that’s not possible, put your easily accessible cash/credit cards in your car to give you some breathing room before making the decision to withdraw more cash.

•�� �Spending winnings extravagantly. All things being equal lets say you won $1,000 Friday night and lost $1,000 Saturday. You’ve already beaten the house odds by breaking even, but the problem is on the night you won, you tipped a lot bringing your take home winnings down to $900, bought a few drinks for people, treated yourself to a big steak dinner, then bought a couple of luxury items you didn’t need, and what’s left over is $700. So at the end of the weekend you’re down $300 even though you’ve beaten the house overall. Solution: If you have a gambling bank account, when you deposit the $700 and see your account diminishing, it may keep you from treating your winnings like found money.

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•�� �Being greedy. Recently, I took $200 to the casino and through good fortune, some good playing and some guts, built it up to $5,500. No small change for an average working guy living from paycheck to paycheck. I went home with nothing. Lost it all including the $200 I took. A great night ruined by stupidity. I once saw a guy take $500 and make it into $17,000, only to give it all back that night. Solution: Have a friend or relative who will either come with you and take your chips, give you advice etc., or will come to the casino if needed. It will only work if you plan it in advance. I tell my business partner when I’m going to the casino. He then phones me every hour or so. If I’m up a good amount, he’s on his way there. The deal is he takes an amount from me that we both agree would constitute a good night, he cashes in and takes my money with him.

•�� �Chasing. There are two laws dealing with numbers that apply to casino gambling. The first is the law of averages, the second is the law of probability. They are contradictory. Take roulette for example. The law of averages says that if you are playing the middle 12 numbers, the odds of it hitting one of those 12 are about 1 in 3.25. In theory, one of them should hit 32 times in 100 spins. But the law of probability says that no matter how many times it hasn’t hit one of those numbers, it’s still only a 1 in 3.25 chance of hitting on the next spin. One night, the ticker board showed that the middle 12 numbers had not hit in the last 15 spins. After watching it miss another 5 times, I decided to start playing those 12 numbers. They didn’t hit another 20 times in a row, bankrupting my gambling bankroll. Solution: The right thing to do was to play those 12 numbers, that’s smart playing. It may be tough to do, but I’ve found that putting out the amount of cash you are prepared to lose at any one table is the only solution. Things are not meant to be if the money you plunk down is gone. If I’d have followed that advice I’d only have lost $300, not $3,000. [And of course I had to aggravate myself even further by watching it hit 5 times in a row immediately after running out of cash.

•�� �Bad tables. Sometimes it’s just not meant to be. Solution: Put down the amount of money you are prepared to lose right away. It’s a fools errand to pull out $100 when you are prepared to reach into your pocket if you lose that. Pull out what the most you are prepared to lose at that table. Many times, I’ve not realized just how much I’ve lost because I’ve kept reaching into my pocket for another $100 chip for a double down or split. What seemed to be $500, turned out to be $700 for example. Pull out what you are prepared to lose at that table. If losing $300 at one table would make you unhappy enough to leave that table, why not put it out so you know exactly where you stand?

Lets face it, we gamble for entertainment and a certain expense is part of doing business. But if it becomes a source of anger, regret or hardship, it’s no longer entertainment. Treat the money you win like it was hard earned wages and don’t get greedy. Winning a days wages and having some fun is a great night. Losing a weeks wages is no longer entertainment.