Playing luck-based games has always been a favorite pastime of mankind. Even in stone age caves, archeologists have found dice made out of bone that our primitive ancestors used to gamble. As technology progressed, these dice were made of more and more sophisticated materials, eventually getting their acrylic/resin form that we all know and love.
As of lately, however, even this dice form is getting replaced by RNG-based algorithms, as gambling migrates from old-school gambling dens and casinos to their online counterparts. With that in mind and without further ado, here are a couple of practical tips to help you win more in online casinos.
Play With a Cool Head
The worst thing you can do is go to the casino under stress or in a state of extreme euphoria. While the latter might have caught you by a surprise, the truth is that euphoria makes you more susceptible to positive bias. This is a state of mind where you’re likely to believe that a good thing is more likely to happen. Contrary to what new-age gurus are trying to teach you, your mindset doesn’t affect the casino odds.
Being distressed and believing that your luck has to change at any moment is a horrible idea and probably the first image that crossed your mind when we mentioned playing under stress. This is a classic behavior that gives casino goers a bad name and leads to unprecedented losses.
Sure, losing money is never pleasant and it’s hard to stay cool when you’ve just won three monthly salaries in 4 seconds. However, the only people who profit at a casino are those who can control their emotions while gambling.
Adopt a Strategy
Adopting a strategy can make your decision-making more dependable and systemic. Most importantly, it will keep your gains consistent and your losses minimal. Ideally, you would also set a gambling budget and have stop-gain and stop-loss orders in place.
Some of the most popular betting strategies are:
- Are martingale
- Labouchere
- Oscar’s Grind
Keep in mind that a strategy doesn’t guarantee a win, however, it does give more consistent results.
A strategy is there to keep your wins consistent but it also serves the purpose of keeping you leveled and… well… sane. Imagine playing roulette and placing your bets on 25 red every single time. Imagine losing, as it happens, dozens of rounds, and then, once you finally choose to switch to 8 black, the first following round, the ball lands on 25 red.
Just try to imagine your mental state at that very moment. We’re not just talking about the distress that you would feel but the state in which you would make subsequent decisions, as well. Sticking to a strategy can prevent this quite effectively.
Use Every Advantage
Another thing you need to keep in mind is the importance of using every single chance to play for free. Casino bonuses, bonus rounds, etc. are a chance to have a free spin. Playing for free means that you increase the number of rounds without making an investment, which is a direct financial gain on your part.
Still, to take full advantage of this concept, it’s important that you find an elaborate online casino bonus guide. Moreover, bonus spins and bonus credit are not the only bonus types that you’ll encounter. Even if they were, the math behind them is vastly different and this is something that you want to get familiar with as soon as possible.
While these were designed to attract and keep players, for a veteran online casino user, they can pose a difference and a chance to sway the odds slightly more in your favor. Speaking of the odds…
Understand the Odds
This will allow you to make data-based decisions, instead of just making a guess. Just imagine if, while making decisions in life, you could know the exact odds that you’ll fail. Well, while playing luck-based games you do have the odds available.
Every single game has three components to it. A chance that you’ll win, a chance that you’ll fail, and a house edge. What does this mean? Well, imagine a classic game of a coin toss. It can land as a head (thus resulting in your success) or land as a tail, thus failing. However, once every 6,000 tosses, it will land on a side. This is a house edge.
Now, house edge differs between different games and may even fluctuate within different variations of the same game. For instance, European Roulette has a 0 (zero) representing the house edge. This means that the house edge is approximately 2.7%. American Roulette, on the other hand, has both 0 (zero) and 00 (double zero) fields. This makes the house edge approximately 5.25% (which is almost double). For those who bet on odd vs. even numbers or red vs. black, this house edge is incredibly important.
Adopt the Right Mindset
First, you need to understand that you’re there to have fun – you’re not there to earn money. No, a win at a blackjack table is not going to refill your 401k, pay off your mortgage, and buy you a new car. In theory, there is a chance of this happening but in practice, things are not likely going to end up this way. Developing realistic expectations is a great first step toward playing more strategically.
Remember that gambling is a form of entertainment. It’s not a substitute for a second job or an investment opportunity.
Lastly, only invest money that you can afford to lose. This doesn’t mean that you’re expecting to lose from the start. This doesn’t mean that you’re a pessimist or anything like that. It simply means that you’ve accepted one possibility and that you are content with it.
Wrap Up
Lastly, all you can do is increase your odds, however, in an odds-based game, such a thing should be more than enough. Just try to keep your head cool, develop a strategy, and do some research to get familiar with your odds. This is a strategy that simply cannot backfire.
