| If you’re out to have fun, watch out for one-deck games where one or more players are making significant bets. You might find that the little edge you’ve been seeking out is a sharper edge than you’d thought--sharp enough to slice a hole in the bottom of your wallet. Let's look at the other side of the same coin. If your casino experiences are losing and negative, maybe you won't visit casinos as much. Maybe you'll spend more time with your kids, or exercising, or something else more constructive. Maybe you won't get in a traffic accident on the way to the casino. Maybe, maybe, maybe.... Get the idea? In the short run, it's very hard to look at a big losing casino trip as anything other than negative input from the Universe. But Mysterious Forces work in Mysterious Ways. Even if we do assume that the Universe is paying attention while we're sitting at our favorite slot machine (and that strikes me as a very big assumption), we can't be sure we understand what hitting the jackpot—-or failing to hit the jackpot—-really means in the Grand Design. Maybe the Universe likes you, or maybe it doesn't. Maybe the Universe loves everyone. Either way, you can't deduce anything about this from your gambling results. Pray if you want to, live a good and just life if that is the way you want to live, but don't expect a cause and effect relationship between your life and your casino experience--and if there IS a cause and effect relationship, don't expect to be able to understand it. As a result, while I think there are many good reasons to live that good and just life, I don't believe "improved gambling results" qualifies as one of the reasons. Don't doubt your worth because you lose, and don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back if you win. You want to win more often? Take the time to learn more about slots, craps, blackjack or whatever form of gambling you enjoy. I've heard a rumor that the Universe helps those who help themselves. The first lotto number is announced; Homer doesn't have it. "Dooh!" he cries, and starts to throw the tickets away. "No, wait, Homey, you can win something for having five out of six numbers," Marge explains. "Woo-hoo!" Homer shouts gleefully, and then the second number is announced. "Dooh!" If you want to keep your dough, instead of crying "Dooh," stay away from lotteries. The odds are horrible. If you must play, buy one ticket a week. That way, you're buying the right to dream about being a millionaire for $52 a year. Only buy one a week, though. After the first one, you're just making bad bets-so bad that Bart Simpson's fifty-cent guaranteed losing tickets are much better values. When I was 13 years old I was already 6'3", so I was able to play blackjack for a while in a Las Vegas casino on a family vacation. I lost $20, a lot of money for a 13-year-old in 1968. When we left, my mother gave me the $20 back, and my memory of getting knocked about was transformed into a highly fictional "well I guess I broke even." At a conscious level I knew I'd "broken even" only because my mother had given me a gift, but at a subconscious level, all the sting of my loss was gone, and I got very interested in gambling. Fortunately it turned out that I was a pretty good gambler whose seduction by the Dark Side was only temporary. If your own early gambling experience was neutral or positive, and things haven't been going so well lately, you might want to ask yourself some hard questions about whether you've been clinging to images and impressions that are no longer supported by the facts. If you can do that, or indeed any honest self-assessment about what you like about gambling, how much you spend on it, and how much fun you get out of it, you won't get hurt much in casinos, and you won't have to go to an Enlightened Casino to win. You, and your own personal enlightenment, will be a winner before you ever walk in the door. |
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