5 Ways to Improve Your Results Before Your Next Gambling Session

By Michael Stevens in Gambling Guides on June 15, 2020

5 Minute Read

Most gamblers belong to the hope and luck club. They hope they’re going to get better results the next time they gamble and they hope they get lucky. But the best gamblers don’t leave things to hope and luck. They take things in their own hands.

You can start taking things in your own hands by using these five ways to improve your gambling results before your next playing session.

1 – Get a Strategy Card

The best way to improve your gambling results is to play a game where you can use strategy to change the results. When you play games like slot machines, you can’t do anything to change the results. But when you play blackjack, video poker, or regular poker, you can use strategy to improve your chances to win.

Learning the best strategy for regular poker games like Texas holdem requires hours and hours of work. But you can quickly and easily learn how to use the best strategy for blackjack and video poker games.

All you have to do is get a strategy card for the game you’re playing. I recommend getting a blackjack strategy card and a card for Deuces Wild video poker and Jacks or Better video poker. With these three strategy cards, you can always be sure you have a game you can play using good strategy in any casino.

2 – Read a Book

It seems to me that reading is falling out of favor. As more people spend more time on online media platforms like YouTube and Facebook, they have less time to read. Everyone seems to want everything right now and wants it in a 30-second summarized clip or video. Hardly anyone wants to invest several hours in reading a book.

Many gamblers are like this. Instead of investing a little time into something that can improve their results for the rest of their life, they just keep doing the same thing and continue to lose every time they gamble.

Here’s What Most People Are Missing:

A term used in business is return on investment. The return on investment is pretty much what it sounds like. You make an investment and measure the return. Here’s what this has to do with improving your gambling results.

You have the choice of how to invest your time. Let’s say you have 10 hours available next week. If you spend 10 hours watching television, your gambling results aren’t going to improve. This is a zero return on investment.

On the other hand, what happens if you spend 10 hours reading the best gambling books you can find? More specifically, if you’re a blackjack player, you read one of the top books on the game like Blackbelt in Blackjack. You read it, study it, and practice everything it teaches you.

This improves your results because you know why strategy works and how it works, and you’re starting to learn how to count cards. Your results start improving immediately, and they continue improving. You can use your new knowledge and skills for the rest of your life. This is basically an unlimited return on investment.

How are you going to invest your free time next week? I suggest reading a book.

3 – Learn a New Game

It can get boring playing the same games every time you go to the casino. This is a good reason to learn a new game from time to time, but there’s an even better reason. Each game has unique odds and house edge. I cover these things more in the final section on this page, but here are some general things to think about.

If you play slot machines, have you considered learning how to play video poker? It’s still a machine-based game, but with the use of a strategy card like I covered in the first section, you can improve your results by several hundred percent. You might be able to go from losing $20 or $30 an hour or more to losing less than $10 an hour on average.

If you play roulette, you can cut your losses in half or more by learning how to play baccarat, craps, or blackjack using the best bets and strategies.

Take some time to learn about some new games before your next visit to the casino to see if you can find a game that offers you a better chance to win.

4 – Practice Online or on Your Phone

One of the best ways to improve in any area is to practice. I mentioned you should pick up strategy cards for blackjack and video poker in the first section and how you should consider learning a new game in the last section. The best way to master the use of strategy cards or learn a new game is to practice.

The good news is that you can practice almost any type of gambling for free on your computer or phone. You can sign up for a free casino account at an online or mobile casino or find free casino games on many free game sites. I recommend the free casino account method so you can play the actual games they offer for real money, but when you’re practicing, either method works.

Grab your blackjack strategy card and start playing for free online. On every hand, check your strategy card and make the play it recommends. Keep practicing for as long as it takes to feel comfortable using your card. Many players practice this way until they memorize all of the best plays.

Use the same method with your Jacks or Better strategy card or your Deuces Wild card. You can always use your strategy cards when you play for real money. But with a little bit of practice at the free money tables and machines, you’re going to feel more comfortable when you play for real money.

You should always play new games for free before you play for real money. When you play new games for free, you learn the rules and can afford to make mistakes. Only start playing new games for real money after learning all of the rules and game mechanics while playing for free.

5 – Learn the Odds

Every form of gambling has an underlying mathematical foundation. In some games, this is easy to see and understand, and in other games, it’s difficult or almost impossible to see. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see it or understand it; it’s always there.

Roulette is a gambling game where it’s fairly easy to see and understand the base math of the game. Slot machines are on the other end of the spectrum, because you don’t know how the manufacturers program the machines so you don’t know how good or bad the games are.

One way to improve your gambling results is to learn more about the math behind the games you play. In many cases, this involves odds. If you learn which games and bets offer the best odds, you can play these options instead of ones that have worse odds. This improves your results over time.

A common way to look at the odds offered by casino games is the house edge. The house edge is simply a way to look at odds in a different form. The house edge is usually expressed as a percentage.

When you consider the odds for roulette, you know the wheel has 37 or 38 spaces. A double zero wheel has 38 and a single zero wheel has 37. If you bet on red on a single zero wheel you know that there are 18 red spaces. So you’re going to win on average 18 out of 37 spins.

A bet on red pays 1 to 1, so for the bet to break even the odds need to be 1 to 1, or in this case 18 to 18. But the odds are 18 to 19. 18 spaces win and 19 spaces lose. This is close, so it’s not a terrible bet. You’re still going to lose in the long run, but there are worse bets in the casino.

How does this help you improve your gambling results?

When you look at the odds after they’re converted to the house edge you can see the games and bets that offer the best return. This is also the best way to compare two or more games or bets.

Here’s a list of the house edge for many popular casino games and bets:

Blackjack .25% to 2% depending on rules
Baccarat 06% to 1.24%
Craps 36% to 1.41% on best bets
Video Poker .25% to 5% depending on game and pay table
Slot Machines 2% to over 10%
Roulette 7% on singe zero wheel and 5.26% on double zero wheel

When you play real money blackjack or video poker, you have to use the best strategy to get a low house edge. On the other games listed above, you just have to make the correct wagers. The best bet in baccarat is the banker bet. The best bet in craps is the don’t pass line backed by full odds.

Conclusion

Stop leaving your gambling results to chance. Use these five strategies to improve your chances to win before your next gambling session.

Michael Stevens

Michael Stevens has been researching and writing topics involving the gambling industry for well over a decade now and is considered an expert on all things casino and sports betting. Michael has been writing for GamblingSites.org since early 2016. ...

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