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Dear Mark,
If I buy in on a blackjack game for $100, I set a goal of winning $1,000 or more before quitting. I do not believe that this aim is all that greedy. Though I have never accomplished this feat and always end up a $100 loser, is my goal of turning $100 into $1,000 too high? Ralph H.
Your Godzilla goal, Ralph, of kicking keister and stacking numbers ($1,000 to be exact) is unreasonable in blackjack. The biggest advantage you have over the casino is the ability to quit while ahead. Though the casino is giving you an unlimited opportunity to take a shot at their money, you can still walk away at the right moment. That moment is not $1,000.
Let's take your hourly wage, with which you are probably more-or-less content, and consider that you, and many other gamblers like yourself, come smiling into the casino confidently expecting a raise to $1000 an hour, with no magic bottle and no genie. Reality check!
What is really happening to you, along the way to gaming immortality, is infection with a mild-to-moderate case of the greed virus. You want to look far beyond the possibility of a 100% profit, and escalate to 1000%.
No one makes that kind of return on his or her yearly stock portfolio. Not even Warren Buffett. Instead, always set loss limits and REASONABLE win goals. Discipline yourself, Ralph, to walk with $200-$300 in winnings, meager as that may seem in the paradise theory of winning. Don't have the attitude that once you sit at a blackjack table, you deserve the booty of Atlantis.
It is so very important never to allow the casino's biggest ally, greed, to dictate your gambling character. Greed will never allow you to quit when you are ahead. Winning $200, $300, or even a bit more is possible, but prudently walking with it is far more difficult.
Dear Mark,
Recently, I witnessed a pitboss who came up and overrode a settlement that the boxman made on a disputed payoff. Who actually has more power on a crap game, the boxman or the floorman? Daniel R.
Not in any particular order, but a boxman's job is to put money in a box, maintain some semblance of order on the game, tell lousy jokes, and make sure the payoffs are proper. His superior, the floorman, or pitboss, depending on the size of the casino, evaluates the quality of play on all the table games and has overriding say-so over a boxman's decision.
Dear Mark,
Do casinos still use shills on table games? Colleen P.
Shills are employees who gamble at the tables with the house's money to create an impression of activity. This type of action was to inflame the casino's appeal for gamblers walking past the pit area. But most casinos today have phased out the shill because of the expense.
Dear Mark,
My fellow workers tease the $50 I play weekly on our state lottery. I tell them: you will never win if you don't play. We will be posting your answer in the employee break room. Jim J.
Allow me to put the lotteries' odds in perspective for you, Jim. If you play 50 tickets a week, you will win the jackpot, on average, every 7000 years. I believe players who say you cannot win a lottery jackpot if you do not play are narrowly correct, but they come to a false conclusion. At those tall odds, I believe you cannot win if you do play.
Gambling thought of the week: "In the beginning, everything was even money."
Mike Caro, Mike Caro on Gambling (1984) For more gambling strategy tips by Mark, check out the Deal Me In index page
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Is turning $100 to $1,000 farfetched?