addicted to shopping, eating and now casinos....

MyLastFiver

there must be some people who have learnt how to set a limit, make a little extra cash and then leave?

Yes. If you really must gamble, and you want to win, then having the discipline to quit while you are ahead can give you a successful night. But you will lose your winnings the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that. The house advantage in an 8-deck Blackjack game is 0.65%, and this is providing if you stick rigidly to good basic strategy. However, most players don't use optimal strategy, either because they don't know it, or through making mistakes when tired or under pressure. This pumps the house advantage right up. You cannot and will not win consistently.

You may be thinking about things like a progressive betting strategy. But the more you play, the more likely you will have a long losing streak and bust your pot.

Take it from someone who's been there and learned the hard way :-)

dfitps

If it helps, don't think of it as money you've thrown away, think of it as money you spent - you didn't get absolutely nothing for that money: you got the experience of being in a casino and the valuable experience of seeing how quickly and easily it all goes to the house. In that sense, it's not at all wasted money. If that's all you ever lose in a casino in your life, then it was a lesson worth every penny you paid for it!

I think that's the only way to go into a casino if you're going to go in at all - with the mindset that you're spending money which will be gone by the end of the visit. In the same way that you spend money in a restaurant or cinema, you spend it in a casino. That's what they're for - they're set up so that punters come in and spend money and leave with emptier wallets than when they went in. It's their raison d'etre, and it's a business model that works very well for the owners.

The only way to make money out of games of chance is to BE the house i.e. run the casino.

davetrousers

Just remember that Las Vegas is a city built on losers.