What basic winning strategy do almost all gamblers ignore — to their detriment?
Creating a clear-cut definition of what winning means to them.
Yes, this seems so simple it’s elementary, but the failure to perform this one small step before putting any of your money at risk is the root cause of great suffering.
If you don’t know when you’re winning, you also don’t know when you’re losing — which means you probably are.
Here’s a difference between winning and losing that is not often written about:
Your gambling should be consistent with the rest of your lifestyle.
A few years ago, the former Secretary of Education William Bennett has proven to be a high profile loser at gambling.
What makes William Bennett a loser is that he created a public persona as an advocate for virtue – he wrote THE BOOK OF VIRTUES.
Yes, he maintains that since his gambling didn’t hurt anyone, was legal etc that it is not a problem etc — the fact remains that most people perceive gambling as a “vice” and consider vices to be the opposite of virtues — and so now consider Mr. Bennett a hypocrite.
So gambling has cost him far more money than the bets he lost. Not to mention such intangibles as reputation, respect etc.
Jean Scott appears to be a terrific winning gambler. Why?
She greatly enjoys spending large amounts of time playing video poker and the Las Vegas lifestyle.
She knows how to leverage her playing time to obtain the maximum possible comp rewards, plus find and claim all desireable coupons and other special promotional offers.
She and her husband spend lots of time in Las Vegas and yet pay very little cash out of their pockets. Partly because they play so many video poker games that they qualify for lots of free hotel rooms, free meals and even free air trips.
Like Mr. Bennett, Jean Scott is also an author — of THE FRUGAL GAMBLER. I’m sure she hasn’t sold as many books as he has, but since the subject of her book is consistent with her lifestyle, she can’t be called a hypocrite.
I don’t know either of these people personally. I have every reason to believe that both are good, upstanding people.
The difference between the winner and the loser is simple. Jean Scott has fit gambling into her life and her life to gambling — and enjoys it all.
William Bennett kept his gambling part of his private life while his public life was to promote virtue. The gap now makes him seem a hypocrite to many people and over the years will cost him a lot in terms of reduced money for his books and speeches. It may have cost him the United States presidency, since he was considered a possible Republican candidate. That’s now out of the question.
So, what do you want out of your gambling?
c 2006 by Richard Stooker
Richard will teach you the only real ways to win when you gamble:
Take Charge Gambling for Winners.