Over the last few posts I've laid out in light detail the various gambling options available both in Las Vegas, and at the increasingly popular locals casinos which are popping up in different States throughout the land.
But what does all of this mean?
How can gambling responsibly possibly have any connection to where you choose to gamble?
Short answer, it doesn't, AND it does.
It doesn't matter all that much because ultimately the key to responsible gaming lies with you, the player. If you're not practicing sound bankroll management if you're not practicing responsible drinking when you gamble and if you're not playing with some strategy then you're not going to succeed wherever you choose to play.
Does this mean that you have to go totally technical, be totally scientific on your gaming, stay 100% sober while playing (as some suggest)?
No, it doesn't. Because at the end of it all gambling is a form of entertainment, just like a movie or a sporting event or partaking in athletics yourself (i.e. skiing). The point here is that you are, maybe just, a human, and humans are emotional beings prone to mistakes. Obviously if you're in politics you're not a human, but we don't want y'all in our casinos anyway so I'm not addressing you, maybe some day in a future post, but certainly not now.
Who I am addressing are the rest of you. The people who like to go to casinos and play, and have fun, and drink, and see shows, and go to clubs and spend too much for dinner and buy too many things in the shops. Normal folk.
If you're a Millennial you might be thinking "yeah, but you've read the stories, WE don't gamble." to which I answer bunk. You bet you do, and I've gambled alongside many of you in casinos across the country.
But here's the thing: 1. You're not very good at it, learning to gamble properly takes time and patience which your generation has little of. and 2. You tend to do it more socially than my generation, so your habits are slightly different.
When you see someone from my generation (Gen X, God bless us) gambling it's more than likely they're doing it alone. Yes, we play craps and roulette and other social table games but we're more a black jack/slots/video poker group. If you see four Gen Xers gambling on slot machines there are usually four of us in a line, each playing our own games.
Contrast that with the Millennial group of four and a different scenario plays out. One person is probably sitting at the machine gambling while the other three are clustered around taking selfies, Snap-Chatting wins or other social activities.
For casinos this has wrongly been called "The Millennial Problem" and has been incorrectly construed as "Millennials don't gamble". But, and this is important, the facts are that you do gamble, and you need to get better at it as do we all.
Regardless of how much better we get the truth is that we're all playing negative expectation games. In old Vegas (real-truth: when the mob ran things) the idea was that you wanted some people to win, in order to spread the word) but understood that most people were going to lose so you'd make plenty of money for the skim.
In corporate (modern-day) Vegas the idea that a certain portion of gamblers need to win to make your casino attractive to the masses has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo. Fortunately, gamblers are responding in kind.
Despite gaming revenues being up across the State the big casino operators in Las Vegas (MGM, Caesars, Wynn, Sands) reported 2018 LOSSES in gaming profits because fewer people are choosing to put money into their machines. They've made them too tight, made winning too rare. Instead of realizing this their "solution" is to tighten odds even more, make it where even fewer people win. You can see where this is going.
When visiting Las Vegas I'm a firm believer that you should stay and play on the Strip, but you should only play enough to keep your offers alive and then take the bulk of your bankroll and move it to other parts of town. Spend a couple of days downtown (for now, unless Stripitis start effecting them too) go South or get a ride over the the Boulder Highway.
Spend the days in off-Strip casinos happily gaming into better odds, lower food prices and a different experience, while returning to the Strip at night. Part of being responsible is to choose to spend you money where the losses are expected to be less over time.
Finally, gamble within your means. I cannot say this enough. The rest of this series is going to be occasional, it's going to chronicle a year of me heading to casinos and practicing what I preach. I've already completed one gambling trip this year, and I'll address that one on the next post.
Good luck however you play.
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