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| Some people feel that gambling is just a form of entertainment. So how much is losing worth to you? |
Short of using a time machine to go back and tell yourself not to bet on that pair of aces or to get up and walk out of the casino before you spend another $1000 on the slot machines, is it really possible to include gambling in your entertainment budget without going broke? I have thought about this many time through the years because I have watched people take their rent money and lose it on slots and card tables. It's a sad situation and you feel really bad for those people, but you have to let them live with the consequences of their choices.
For me the hardest part about gambling is not losing my money but winning. When I lose my money I am done and I have to leave the casino. But if I don't lose, if I keep breaking even or just get ahead a little bit then I have to fight that feeling of hope that I will somehow get ahead. In reality it's a rare loser who wins big when gambling.
Gambling is all about collecting money. Whoever runs the game is going to get the most money. Sure, once in a while he will lose big but as long as he can cover the loss he will be okay. People will take hope from that big win and gamble more. That is what the casinos count on. You hear people winning all around you but you don't see their lives fall apart.
If you are going to gamble you should do it for entertainment. Don't assume you will be the next big thing in Vegas because you won't be. But you can spend a little of your monthly budget on gambling and still have a good time. You just have to be reasonable.
There are three ways to allocate your gambling budget:
- Just buy lottery tickets
- Just play slot machines
- Just play card games
Some people really are happy to just gamble on the lottery. It usually costs less because you don't get as caught up in the moment, but I swear I have seen elderly people put hundreds of dollars into those lottery ticket vending machines and walk away with nothing. I hope they were just losing their weekly entertainment allowance and nothing more.
If I buy lottery tickets I stick to the random drawings. I don't like scratch offs because I am completely at the mercy of random chance. With a drawing I am also completely at the mercy of random chance but getting to choose my own numbers (or to decide on a quick pick) gives me the feeling of having some control. That is an illusion but it's a fun illusion.
Slot machines suck you in with the illusion of control, too, especially when they give you bonus games where you get to move characters around the screen. The bonus games are kind of like bogus video games. They are really expensive forms of entertainment unless you just bet pennies per play, and then you have to put up with people rolling their eyes and making snide remarks about how you "wasted" a good bonus on pennies.
If you are just there for entertainment you should not have to listen to that kind of judgmental commentary. So I have lost my taste for pushing buttons on slot machines just to watch cute characters dance and sing across the screen.
That leaves card games. I am terrible at poker but I can sometimes do okay in Blackjack. And Blackjack is honestly the easiest game to win in a casino. It's the game with the best odds.
Now I have never played the craps tables or roulette but they do look like the games for hard-core gamblers. In fact they are not very good games to risk your money on at all. If you want to make the night last then just play penny slots and keep your bets to 25 cents. If you want the best chance of winning then learn to play Blackjack.
If you don't want to spend a lot of money on gambling then just buy a few lottery tickets each week and see what happens when they draw numbers. You can make a night of watching an old movie as you wait for the numbers to come up. Once the numbers are drawn everyone can count their losses and go home.
Anyway, that is how I feel about it.
