Professional Gambling Guide – Gambling Strategies

The design of the casinos – the colors, the lighting, the space, the chairs, the smells in the air, everything – is analyzed for maximum comfort and appeal. The operators figure that anything that can keep you playing just another five minutes each visit can add millions to their take.

Let’s take a critical look at some common casino practices.

Special promotions, for instance. Some are designed to get you into the place, others to keep you there just a little longer. The free or cheap meals – an all around winner for the casino – will bringsome people in for a bargain meal. How many will leave without dropping at least some money in the games? Most will end up paying dearly for that “cheap” meal, but will forget that the next time they want to go out for a nice, “cheap” meal. But there’s another aspect to it. If you are already at the games, a cheap meal conveniently available in the casino will keep you in the building at mealtime. You’ll be away from the games for a minimum length of time.

The fairly new bill acceptors on slot machines keep you at your play. When you are out of change, you don’t have to wait around or walk to the change booth for more coin. This adds to your playing time – your playing time is money – for the casinos.

Casinos operators carefully plan their lighting. You may have noticed that when you are in a casino it is difficult to determine whether it is day or night. This is deliberate. Remember, they like you (or your money) so much they want you to extend your visit. If they can get you to drop your usual time consciousness, you’ll stay longer.

Colors are chosen to trigger automatic responses. Slot machines are outfitted in colors that will attract and hold gamblers. Sophisticated color combinations are used to minimize the time you will spend slot hopping. Many casino operators add a scent to the air. Think that’s silly? In anexperimental test the scent was shown to increase substantially the number of coins customers dropped into the slots – very substantially, about 45 percent. Most of these techniques add greatly to your comfort as well as sometimes triggering an automatic psychological response. If your visit is pleasant, you will stay longer, play looser with your bankroll, and come back again.

Other techniques have little or nothing to do with your comfort and are simply exploitive. You are simply the “white rat” – the unsuspecting victim of psychological games. For instance, the payout system of the slots has had psychology applied to that. The system of paying tiny winnings often is that new psychology. How was it done before? Well if you won, you won a reasonable amount, but the payoffs were infrequent. What is the advantage of frequent small payoffs? It is the psychological “promise” of a big win. You will be enticed into staying longer and risking more money.

Putting in a few “hot” machines is also an application of psychology. Your search for the “hot” machine is motivated by the psychological “promise” of a lucky streak. Again, you’ll stay longer and risk more. Some casinos will give you small denominations as change for large bills or, at the tables, small denominations of chips. The reason? Because, as we all know, it is easier to spend a dollar than it is to spend a twenty. Psychological? Of course.

Ever notice how wins are played up? The real coin that’s dropped into metal slot pan when someone wins is deliberate. The noise excites you. The bells and whistles that attend a really big win are also deliberate attention-getters and exciting. The casinos make a big deal over wins but losing is pretty quiet. The excitement of the noise stirs you to try to win, but there is more. All the attention given to winning makes it seem like there is more winning going on than there really is.