Page 22 - October 2004 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Don’t Overspend for Your Entertainment! by Bill Burton
Casinos are in the entertainment business, and like other forms of entertainment, we expect to pay a price for admission. Unlike a movie or theme park, the price of enter- tainment in the casino is not a xed expense. You can spend a little or you can spend
a lot. In some instances, you have a shot at being paid for your entertainment when you win at the games. e reality is that most players lose when they visit the casino. is is the price they pay to play the games, and the casinos are entitled to charge for supplying gaming tables, dealers and slot machines.
is fast. Dealers try to deal at lightning speed. Take a second to make sure you are playing your hand correctly at the tables.
♦ Don’t get greedy. One thing that turns winners into losers is the notion that once they win, they are playing with the casino’s money. Once you win, it’s your money. Don’t give it back! When you get ahead, take half of your winnings and put it in a di erent pocket. It’s easy to leave the casino when all your money is gone. It takes discipline to walk away when you are ahead. Discipline and control is what separates winners from losers
♦ Set your entertainment price before you go to the casino. Don’t take more than you can a ord to lose.
Always leave credit and atm cards at home.
Keep these tips in mind when you visit the casino and you will enjoy yourself without spending more than you had planned to. Keep in mind if you don’t learn how to handle your money in the casino, it will become the casino’s money!
Until next time, remember, “Luck comes and goes... knowledge stays forever!”
Bill Burton is the Casino Gambling Guide and columnist for the Internet portal About.com. He also writes for several national gambling publications. He is the author of Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em available for $15 postage paid. Send checks to Bill Burton, PO Box 310299, Newington, CT 06131-0299 or online at www.billburton.com. Bill Burton’s website is located at: http://casinogambling.about.com
machines? A nickel player probably feels pretty “high- rollerish” when he switches to quarters. Most people judge the status of other gamblers by their own level of play and label it accordingly.
Gamblers are often labeled according to the amount they put into their “psychological gambling bankroll” (i.e., how much you’re mentally prepared to lose) compared to their actual monetary bankroll. I know millionaires who, year after year, travel to casinos all over the country and happily play nothing higher than a quarter machine—although they certainly could
“a ord” to go up in denomination. And I know people of limited means who drain the last few hundred dollars from their savings account and blow it in a few minutes in a high-limit slot salon at their local riverboat casino. It’s hard to categorize gamblers.
But the main thing to remember is that what you label yourself, or what other people label you, isn’t the important issue. e question you should ask yourself is this: “Am I getting good value—monetary and/or entertainment value—from my gambling bankroll?”
And if the answer is yes, then whether you’re a low- roller or a high-roller, you’re truly frugal.
Jean Scott, the “Queen of Comps,” is the author of the best-selling book The Frugal Gambler, a casino guide for thrifty low rollers, plus the sequel, More Frugal Gambling, now available at www.FrugalGambler.biz. Featured on “Dateline NBC,” “48 Hours,” and The Travel Channel, she stresses sensible, responsible gambling and shows how to stretch out casino fun time whatever your gambling bankroll.
e casino is a place of glitz and glamour. e excitement of casino sights and sounds add up to a fantasy world. Many people get
caught up in the excitement. When
this happens it is easy to get carried away and gamble more than you should. Even the best of us can be caught o guard and lose control. Here are some things to keep in mind when you visit the casino.
♦ Always wear a watch and set a time limit for your gambling activities. ere are no clocks or windows in most casinos.
♦Be aware you are playing with your own real money. Casinos convert your cash into chips at the gaming tables. You look at the chips and see
red and green tokens. You lose the sense that this is really money! is can lead to over-betting. Remember chips are money.
Most new slot machines use bill receptors that convert your cash into machine credits. Once your dollars become credits they may seem to lose value. Many of the newer machines also use the ticket-out system. Some players have a tendency to play out a few credits rather than be bothered taking the slip to the cage. Put smaller denomination bills in the machine to start each
session.Ifyoulose,takeabreak.
♦ If you are playing slot machines, slow down the rate
you are hitting the spin button. e pace of casinos
Labels Aren’t Important!
Are You Getting Good Value From Your Gambling Bankroll?
Iby Jean Scott
o n c e w r o t e a n a r t i c l e a b o u t m y e x p e r i e n c e s p l a y i n g a F i f t y P l a y v i d e o p o k e r m a c h i n e . S u b s e q u e n t l y, I got some “raised-eyebrow” e-mails from people telling me that they didn’t think playing $62.50 a hand was very frugal. Many people seem to think that being frugal is synonymous with being
a low-roller. Not true. Frugal means getting value for your money—at any level of play.
Now, what is a low-roller? And at what point does a low-roller cross a line into high-roller-dom? at’s not easily answered. When we played only quarters, we considered ourselves low-rollers—no question. When we went to dollars, we did so because we’d won enough playing quarters to build up our bankroll for dollars, not because our base income rose. So we still considered ourselves low-rollers.
this level of play, we decided maybe we were getting a little closer to high-roller status, at least in attitude if not in altitude.
To further complicate matters, we now sometimes play $5 machines or even $1 Ten Play, risking up to $50 a hand. But we still play quarter machines at times. So are we low-rollers or high-rollers?
e answer is: ere is no one answer. When we play at a past- its-prime casino in downtown
Vegas, we feel like low-rollers— no matter what denomination we play. When we play at a swanky Vegas Strip resort, we always feel like high-rollers. People who brie y take a shot
at the $25 machines, although they really only have a long-term bankroll for $1 play—are they temporary high-rollers who turn back into low-rollers at the $1
However, as our gambling
bankroll grew, we could
jump from single-line dollar
machines to dollar Triple
Play (risking $15, rather than
$5, on each push of the Deal
button). en our feelings
started changing a little. We
still didn’t consider ourselves high rollers, but when we had days when we were losing $5,000–$7,000, although we realized that this was just the normal uctuation for
“The question you should ask yourself is this: ‘Am I getting good value—monetary and/or entertainment value—from my gambling bankroll?’ And if the answer is yes, then whether you’re a low-roller or a
high-roller, you’re truly frugal.”
Page 22 October 2004
Column: The Frugal Gambler Column: Bill Burton About Gambling