I just completed a losing gambling trip. The video poker was not nice (I could not draw flies all weekend) and my timing was off on the slots. While this trip was especially bad in that nothing was hitting, it's not all that unusual for me to wind up a trip down a little.
In fact, that's my goal for every trip, just lose a little while gambling.
There are many out there who state that they are lifetime winners, especially on slots. If you understand slots that's a joke, because there is no strategy that you can play and no system you can put in place to make you a winner over time. Yes, there are a few people who have hit huge jackpots and are on the plus side of the ledger when it comes to slot play. People who hit MegaBucks, certain wide-area progressives and large jackpots on certain machines are probably up over the course of their lifetimes.
Everyone else?
No way.
In fact, there are some prominent Social Media personalities who claim to have a "slot-system" and claim to be "experts" on slot-play because of this and they claim that they are lifetime net positive.
I call bullshit.
Sports betting is the biggest home of liars though. VERY FEW sports bettors turn a profit on their actual bets. There are far more people who claim a profit but actually have losing records and make money off of suckers buying their losing picks from them. The most famous of these touts is Vegas Dave, but there are many, many more just like them. Of the few sports bettors that actually win for a living, you're very unlikely to see them touting picks. I can think of one or two, but that's it. A LOT of them are active on Twitter, but they're usually there to troll touts and maybe provide some basic gambling advice. Not sell picks.
Another lie that people tell regarding gambling is the existence of a winning system. Casinos love system bettors because they actually think they can win. While the best system might help you reduce the house edge, it will not tip it to your favor. The biggest example of this is strategy in blackjack. If you still think that strategy can help shift the house-edge to your favor ask yourself this: If strategy can become a winner why do casinos allow strategy cards at tables and, in many cases, sell them in their gift-shops? The answer? It won't.
A sub-group of blackjack players who might actually make money over time are card counters. If you want to judge their efficacy see just how quickly they get backed off and even eighty-sixed from a casino when playing their game. The fact is that casinos are not going to allow an advantage player to sit at their tables for too long. If the casino truly believes that you are gaining an advantage over them they are not going to let you play for long. This is especially true for blackjack card counters and advantage (or +EV) sports bettors at many books.
The lie of winning is only slightly less prevalent in poker than it is in blackjack. While I do know some winning poker players the majority of those out there claiming wins (and peddling a poker system) are nothing more than poker touts. They make their money selling you their "system" (which is usually just a rehashed model of something that they read in a poker book and repackaged as their own) rather than actually sitting at a table playing cards.
The final group of "winners" are the cheaters. While they may gain a win in the short-run the overwhelming probability in their lives is that the casino is going to catch them, and that they are going to jail for quite some time.
Remember that gambling is entertainment, and your bet is the price for that entertainment. The structure of the odds on all the games means that you are most probably going to lose in the long-run, but that in the short run anything can happen. The most important lesson to learn is that you are there to have fun.
So, do that.
Have fun, bet smart, win jackpots.
But if you don't, then don't chase your losses and get ready to have fun on your next try.
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