THINKING POSTIVELY ABOUT GAMBLING.

Hello again:

Thinking positively is not as simple as it sounds.   When it comes to gambling at a Casino, positive thinking would have you realize that the Casino is in business to separate you from as much money as they possibly can.

They do this by offering you games that always have a built-in mathematical advantage for the [house] Casino.  The following story illustrates this situation perfectly.  Some years ago a Casino in the Gulf coast area offered a game of Sic Bo [throwing three dice] where the pay-off for choosing the total 17 was calculated wrong.  That is, --- the odds favored the player.

After losing money at the table for a week or more to players who knew what the correct odds should be, the Casino shut the game down and called in one of their experts from upstairs to look at the layout of the game.  He realized that the pay-off for the 17 favored the player and after a few days they opened the table back up with the correct odds for the number 17.

The moral to be realized from this situation is rather simple.  If the player has an advantage they will shut the table down immediately.   But if the Casino has an advantage they will keep the game open 24 hours a day to allow you to lose as much money as you are willing to lose.

The free odds wager in the game of Craps is a perfect example of the deviousness of the Casino operators.  Free odds means that there is no advantage for anyone, not the player or the Casino.  So why does the Casino offer the wager??

First off, the free odds wager is offered at 10 times or more of your actual wager.  How many bettors realize that the laws of probability mean that you have to have about 100 times as much as your maximum wager in your possession.   If you had wagered $10. on the pass or don’t pass line, your free odds wager would be $100.    That means that you should have $10,000. in your possession when  you make this wager.

This situation arises because of standard deviation which can best be explained as follows:  When you flip a coin your expectation is that you will get a “head” 50% of the time and a “tail” 50% of the time.   But this only happens if you flip the coin a high number of times.

In the short term you can get a head 5 times and a tail 5 times or a head 6 times and a tail 4 times.  Or 7 and 3 or 8 and 2 or 9 and 1 or even 10 and 0.  The large amount of money that you need to make this wager is necessary because of the standard deviation that is mentioned above.

If you do not have enough money in your pocket to cover the standard deviation, then eventually you will lose and the Casino wins.  If the opposite happens and you win, the usual human response is to say that I am playing with the Casino’s money and you start to make other wagers that have a far greater advantage for the Casino.

Perhaps the greatest advantage for the Casino is to get you used to wagering higher amounts of money because that will make more money for the Casino.   In this regard then, it is of the utmost importance that a positive attitude will motivate you to increase your knowledge about the achievement that

you are trying to be successful at.  Obviously in a Casino that added knowledge means that you simply refuse to give your money away to them.

Of course you can always say that some people do win big at the Casino and why shouldn’t I be one of them.   This situation is best understood if we look at slot machine gambling.   The Casino gets to set the machines up to make sure that they make a profit.  In effect the game they offer you is simply this.  For every dollar that you put into a machine, they will give you back approximately ninety cents.

However, some machines are set up so that a person will win big time.  These pay-outs are the best advertisement for the Casino.  “If that clown can win that much money, so can I.”  But for every win such as that mentioned above, others must lose an inordinate amount of money to allow the Casino to win in the long run which is exactly what they are in business to do.

So if you really think positively, you will never spend any of your money at a Casino.  Something else must be happening to keep people playing and that conclusion is absolutely right.  The uncertainty of gambling activates the fear of failure response and brings more amounts of serotonin into your brain. 

It is this infusion of serotonin that mostly accounts for the "addictive behavior" that becomes difficult to shake.  The good characteristic of never giving up on an achievement that you might have embraced is not a positive attitude when the odds are stacked against you.  Once again, if you react correctly to this infusion of serotonin it will motivate you to increase your knowledge and ultimately you will decide not to gamble at a Casino.