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Spinning money up is the practice of taking a much smaller amount of money and then gambling with it and trying to turn it into something much larger. I have done this many times and my own personal record is to turn $100 into $8000 although I did do a poker bankroll challenge and turned $100 into $50,000 but that wasn’t quite the same thing. Spin ups usually are rapid and violent and involve risk. For example the $100 into $8000 I did within about two days or so.

However that was only one success story out of many that were failures. Part of the problem with spinning money up is it is often difficult to know when to stop. For example starting with $100 and making it $200 would be more than enough for most people. A quick $100 gain is not to be sneezed at but I do feel that the entire process is destructive long term.

It simply isn’t good gambling practice not to exercise strict bankroll management whatever field of gambling that you happen to be in. Sooner or later if you continue to be exercising poor bankroll control then variance will simply wipe you out. It really takes someone to be experiencing luck well into the third standard deviation or more to be able to make huge amounts of money spinning up. The rest of us on the other hand fall within normal boundaries and either win small amounts of do our money in.

Over the years then I have witnessed many bad tactics in blackjack and one such tactic is to play momentum. This may happen along the lines of the following. A player loses several hands on the trot and then places a larger bet. This strategy cannot possibly work unless you happen to know that the deck is favourable for the player. You cannot possibly know this unless you happen to be using a card counting system. Based on the fact that not many players who play the game will be using that then the chances of anyone playing in this fashion are slim at best. It simply cannot be done that you can bet blindly and get a long term edge at blackjack.

If you are increasing your bet blindly then you are simply placing more money onto the table when the count is unknown. So this means that the count will be unfavourable as often as it will be favourable…….almost like a coin flip. Based on the fact that you are as close to even more money as it is close to get in terms of the expectation of winning a particular hand then you will see why getting too excited about the prospects of winning the next hand simply because you have won or lost a certain number of previous hands is a rather poor strategy to try and execute. This is no different in principle to a player who bets red or black on roulette simply because there has been a previous sequence of red or black numbers.

It is amazing just how many really stupid ideas and notions I have seen in my days both dealing and playing blackjack. There are “myths” associated with all methods of casino gambling and blackjack is essentially no different. But you often in a live casino game find players who think that they are taking cards to “Bust the dealer”. If the player has say 12 and the dealer has a ten then they may make remarks like “let’s take a ten away from the dealer”. In fact I have even seen players have two boxes and one with say $30 on it and the other with a $2 minimum and they have used that $2 minimum box to “play against the dealer” and to “bust the dealer”.

This notion is nothing short of ludicrous of course and is a clear sign of an unsophisticated player at work. As a rule these players are so unsophisticated that they do not even know basic strategy. Of course you cannot “bust the dealer” when you simply do not know which cards are coming next. It is only when you have a pretty accurate representation of which ratio of cards are coming next that you can even begin to make a judgement like this.

In fact you would basically have to know with 100% proof that the next card was a ten or an ace to give the dealer a winning total. But the entire thing is hazy at best but whenever you hear a player make remarks like this then you can rest assured that they basically do not know the game at all and it is also very hard to educate people like this because they are so stuck in their own methods and unwilling to change.

If you gave someone a set of tools and asked them to calve a statue then the result would probably be horrendous. Tools without skills is of very little use and in fact using good tools without any skill reveals to us even more so that we do not have that skill and it also reveals to others around us that we do not have that skill as well. This applies to poker and tracking software perfectly. These tools help good players to be better players when playing online but the software also needs to be studied as well because it is too complex to use in a basic way.

Blackjack is exactly the same with software like Shuffle Trak and Count Analysers. They are great tools to have in your locker but they really only help good players. If you are a poor blackjack player then they will be of little use to you. The problem comes when many players who are poor blackjack players buy software like these and then expect themselves to suddenly catapult through the roof in terms of earnings.

This sometimes happens in rare instances but in most cases then it is the sheer presence of the software which installs false hope and confidence that then leads to the player losing money in areas that they previously would not have considered getting involved in. The number of skills that are required in order to make you a good poker player, blackjack player, electronic day trader etc are so varied that they require more than just the use of a piece of software to ensure success.

Do you want to know why casino games cannot be beaten? It is to do with one of the undisputable laws of betting and this is that in order to make money betting then you have to be in receipt of odds that are greater than the event actually happening. This is the pivotal skill behind betting but in casino games like roulette then everything is fixed and so making money is impossible by conventional means. We will see why that is by simply looking at basic odds. Let us say that you want to bet on number 17 and you place one chip on that number.

The odds against that happening are 36-1 in a 37 number wheel. However the casino only pays you 35-1 and so you are being paid odds that are less than the event actually happening and not greater than. If the casino were generous enough to pay you 37-1 instead of 35-1 then you could make money playing roulette as the odds would be greater than the event actually happening. Alas of course the casino isn’t a means of social security and is merely charging its players through the odds that it gives, a fee for them providing entertainment.

How much you pay for that entertainment is entirely up to you. The odds are easier to see in roulette than many other casino games and so the chances of winning are easier to figure out. In games like blackjack then it isn’t quite so straight forward where the advantage can shift depending on what cards have been dealt and what cards are left in the shoe. But even here the advantage is easier to calculate in certain instances like with automatic shufflers for example that reshuffle after every hand.

It is pretty hard to write a blog on casino betting without straying into the area of problem gambling and controlling problem gambling. I have never bought into the idea that casinos cause problem gambling. I think that the people who become addicted to gambling have some sort of compulsive behaviour disorder or a variation of it. I think it is similar to credit card debt and online casinos are more dangerous in that aspect because you can buy into them with credit cards. If you have a credit card with a £5000 limit and you max out on that gambling then you have started what could be a very serious problem.

Before people realise it, substantial losses can have been experienced before people even become aware of areas like bankroll management. So credit cards and a lack of experience and knowledge is a fatal combination. A lack of ability to pay the debt at the end of the month leads to interest being added and this is how gambling debt can spiral out of control. In fact you wouldn’t even need to have a credit card with a $5000 limit as a $2000 limit would be pretty substantial for people with low incomes.

I have known people personally who have run up debts of tens of thousands from simple credit cards although none of these people were active in a gambling capacity. So your discipline needs to be like iron when you not only use credit cards but when you also use them to gamble online. If the credit card company does not allow you to buy-in directly to online casinos then you can usually circumvent this by using an online banking facility like Neteller or Paypal. So it is critical that you exercise strict financial control at all times as gambling losses can easily spiral out of control.

After reading various stories in the press this week concerning under age gambling then it once again highlights how gambling both online and live needs to be governed and policed very well. This takes me on to what is a very fascinating subject and that is one of addiction. I think it is very easy to become addicted on anything that you enjoy doing and gambling is no different. It is a natural human desire to want to repeat experiences that you enjoy doing. This is why we will watch television more than we should, eat more than we should, smoke, drink, gamble and so on.

The problem comes when doing more of something that you enjoy reaches a stage where you cannot do without it and your life and other peoples lives are affected by your pursuits. So it is very easy to veer away from what is the correct balance of actually doing something and the dividing line of doing something for enjoyment. Even winning poker players can said to be addicted and the addiction can come from making money which can be very addictive.

I have known people lose marriages and friends because they became addicted to making money. Some people may say that this is a very good addiction to have but in my experience there is no such thing as a good addiction. When you are addicted to something then not only are other areas of your life suffering but also the lives of other people around you who have to put up with your behaviour or you not being around for them simply because you are addicted to something and are doing that particular activity too much.

This may sound like a very strange thing to say but beating casino blackjack by whatever method requires dedication. Whether this is card counting or shuffle tracking or whatever method then it will require concentration. I think this represents trying to get success in any field to be honest. But as a card counter then you simply cannot turn up to a casino and make money. It requires concentration all the time and every single minute because you simply cannot afford to let your guard down even once.

I am not just talking about keeping the count here either; I am talking about being observant enough to know what is going on around you. The little looks on the faces of the managers or the pit bosses or even the dealer for that matter. What do these looks mean and why are they doing them? At the end of the day a card counter can only make money if they are allowed to make money and this means being able to play without hassle or hindrance.

There is simply no point in having all of the technical knowledge in the world if you are prevented from playing the game. To make matters worse the casino would certainly pass your information on to other casinos. In the UK then you would have a major problem because four companies basically own 90% of the casinos in the entire country. So there is simply no room for idle minds playing blackjack and this is something that the books simply do not teach.

Wherever you go in casinos then you will encounter the “expert”. The player who has seen it all and done it all! It is amazing to hear them because to uneducated ears, these people actually sound like they know what they are on about and they can talk a great game. They will advise everyone on the table that the end box can act as “goalkeeper” or bust the dealer and when the next card arrives that they tipped to arrive then a sort of self fulfilling prophecy can start up.

It is amazing to me how deluded these players are. They are not even aware of how much they lose at the game because they fail to keep profit and loss accounts. Deep down they would rather live in delusion about their “skill” and “expertise”. They love it when other players seek their advice. This feeds their ego even more and another trick that they perform is to scan the table and try to guess the next card.

This never ceases to amaze me but in a way, this is actually grounded in some warped logic. When an “expert” looks at the table and sees no low cards and he has a hand that can receive a ten value card, they often remark how there must be “high cards due”. There is a strange logic behind this because the cards do have memory in blackjack and high cards will come eventually. But to do this without card counting is never going to produce profits in a million years! It is amazing though how these so called “experts” are always thinking out loud. They want the entire table to know how good they are but yet what they never realise is that if they were that good then the casino would not let them continue to play.

The gambler’s fallacy simply comes from the fact that many people believe that if the same course of action appears nine out of ten times that the tenth time it is going to do the exact same.  In other words, the gambler’s fallacy simply means that previous actions will have an effect on the odds of a random experience.  However, this is simply not true.

Let’s take a coin – head and tails – as an example.  If you were to flip a coin for the first time the odds would be 50-50, right?  Because there is a chance that it will land on heads or tails.  So, let’s say that it lands on heads.  The next flip has the same odds as does the next and the next and so on.  The odds stay the same no matter how many times total or in a row that the coin lands on either heads or tails.  The coin can’t remember what it is doing.  And, this is how the gambler’s fallacy began…

When playing at a casino, the gambler’s fallacy seems to overtake one’s emotion and proper mindset.  Many gamblers look for game patterns when playing so that they can take the machine or game by storm.  For example, if these gamblers are playing Roulette and the wheel has landed on red the past seven times, you can bet that they will place their next bet on black.  Many also will double their bet after losing several consecutive spins believing that they have increased odds to win.  By doing this, especially in the short-term, you are simply asking for trouble, which is why you shouldn’t believe that improved odds are there after you’ve incurred several consecutive losses.

Previous trials do not affect future outcomes of casino games unless you want to look at the game of Blackjack where sometimes cards are not replaced immediately – then the statement may in fact be true; however, that’s where card counting comes in for you avid Blackjack players.