My brother-in-law has a system. He says it works on a regular basis,Alternatives to losing at gambling Articles and it must do, because every time he comes to visit us, he goes into the local casino and comes out with some small amount of winnings. ‘Small’? Yes, that’s part of his system. “Most people are just too greedy,” he says. “They imagine they’ll win millions and end up losing everything they have.” If you’re not greedy, he says, you can count on winning small amounts regularly. That helps to pay the rent, it might even buy you a bottle of champagne, so isn’t that worth having? Well, no, not for most people. They buy Lottery tickets in order to win the million pound prize. If they got a letter saying they’d won three hundred thousand, they’d probably be disappointed. That’s part of the problem of gambling: it inspires a level of complete unreality. But that’s the point, isn’t it? The casinos in Las Vegas provide an adventure in a fantasy world. They’d don’t sell ‘reality’. If they did, people wouldn’t part with their money so easily. In fact, they’d win more often. Like my brother-in-law.
The second part of the system kicks in when he sits down. He plays Blackjack, starts slowly and relaxed, and looks round the table to see who else is in the game. He spots the losers, the high-rollers, the emotional types, and distances Jun88 himself from all of them. Because that’s another way to lose. If you get influenced by the other players, you can’t watch your own game. Of course, in the real world, it happens all the time. Why else did thousands of people invest in ‘dot com’ companies in the ’90s? They were copying other people. Why else have so many people in Britain invested in housing and renting homes, even though the market has peaked and is now slipping down? They’ve listened to other people, they’ve followed what everyone else is doing. You want to win at gambling? Look at your own hand first and consider the odds you’re facing. Then compare yourself to everyone else later, after you’ve got some idea what your chances are.
The next consideration is luck. Successful gamblers know it’s all about luck, but they work with it, play along with it, coax it and cajole it. They never, ever work against it. My brother-in-law says that Blackjack is a game where the cards seem to go in runs. For a while they might be with you and then they’ll turn against you. At that point you need to back off and wait for the good run to come round again. It always does, he says. So he plays with his luck, not against it. He’s placing small bets and if the cards seem to be going his way, he’ll slowly increase his bets, planning on building up winnings. If the hands are going against him, he’ll slow down, minimise the bets and conserve his stake. Why would that work for him? Because most people do the opposite, he says. If they see they’re losing, they’ll panic and increase their bets enormously, trying to win back all the chips they’ve lost. That’s crazy, he says. If the run is not going your way, you need to calm down and minimise, not maximise bets. Above all, don’t panic and wait for your luck to turn, as it always does. If you bet high while the cards are running against you, then all you’ll do is lose bigger. That’s his philosophy and it seems to work.