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by
Frank Scoblete
You
may have heard various sayings in the gambling world such as
"Bet with your head, not over it" or "Never play
with scared money" or "Give me a swift kick in the
labanza with the big boots, Martha, because I just lost the money
for little Louella's braces!" If you listen to the first two
pieces of advice, you will not have to resort to the third.
To
truly enjoy the gambling experience, the bets you make must have
some monetary and emotional meaning. I am sure that most of you
would not go to a casino enamored by the idea that playing a penny
a hand at blackjack would be an exciting experience. Also, most of
you would probably have heart palpitations right on the spot if I
said that on the next roll of the dice I wanted you to bet your
house. The former bet is too small to get the juices flowing, the
latter bet is so big that you'd drown in those juices.
Somewhere
in the great in-between is the level of betting that will excite
you if you win, disappoint you if you lose, and cause no real
change or damage to your economic or emotional life either way.
That's betting "with your head." Find out what level of
betting gets you pumped but not apoplectic and stay at that level.
The
best way to avoid playing with "scared money" is to
create a bankroll that is used just for gambling. Most casino
players make the mistake of using "real" money to play
with. More often than not most casino gamblers lose some, much or
all of that real money and then fantasize what they would have
done with it had they kept it: "Gee, I could have gone to see
the movie Titanic another twenty-five times if I hadn't sunk it
all into that iceberg of a slot machine!" This is not the
best way to gamble. In fact, it's the worst. If you feel that the
money you spent in a casino would have been better spent elsewhere
then you should have spent it elsewhere and not gone to the
casino.
Creating
a gambling bankroll, money to be used strictly for gambling, is a
wise move. First, it will assure you that you won't faint
dead-away when you lose a session or two; nor will it necessitate
asking Martha to get out "them big boots, the one with the
pointy toes" when you start realizing your daughter will
never get a date for the prom unless you fix her teeth. The best
way to create a bankroll is to follow the budget plan that many
workers use to create a retirement nest egg. Take a little bit of
money from each of your paychecks, or put a little aside from each
week's receipts if you're in business for yourself, or for the
next few months work overtime or an extra job that is strictly for
gaming play purposes.
How
much should you set aside? That depends on how much and how often
you want to play. If you enjoy playing 25 cent machines at full
coin and you want to go the to the casino every week, you will
probably want to put aside a couple of thousand dollars. If you
want to be a $25-a-hand blackjack player, then you'll want to have
five or 10 thousand dollars in the bank. Don't be daunted by these
figures -- over time anyone can accumulate what they need to play
at the level that will thrill them but not kill them. A person
making $500 per week can certainly put aside $20 a week in a
gambling fund. In just a single year, that person will have $1,040
to play with.
Now,
figure you want to go to the casino once a month and play quarter
slots. Divide that $1,040 into five equal "session"
stakes of $208 each -- this will assure that your first five trips
can actually take place. Take only one of these session stakes to
the casino of your choice and then play a single quarter on your
favorite non-progressive slot machine. Put that $208 dollars
through the machine just once -- and slowly at that (that's a
healthy 832 spins!) -- and whatever you have left over, be it a
win, a loss or a draw, bring it home and put it right back into
your gambling account.
Even
as you play through that first bankroll, you will continue to put
that $20 per week into the kitty. Over time, playing cautiously as
I've outlined, you will find that you'll have more and more money
to play with. In my early gambling career I never separated my
"real" money from my gambling money and even though I
never played "over my head," every loss seemed magnified
by the fact that I could think of other things to do with that
money. Now I play against a gaming bankroll that I have
accumulated over the years and while I still hate to lose, I never
think that money could have been spent for something else.
Frankly
speaking, creating a gambling bankroll will allow you to get
Louella's braces and smile too!
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