The difference between winning and losing at casino table games isn't luck. It's all about discipline.

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You may not know it, but the casinos you love to frequent have a plan for you, and it goes like this:

You will...

• Go to the table with an inadequate bankroll.
• Bet within a very tight spread (probably not more than 1-5) so that even a relatively short negative trend will wipe you out.
• Respond to a downturn by dropping back to minimum bets and playing scared or pushing out ever-larger bets until your money's all gone.
• Gratefully accept "free" cocktails so that your play becomes increasingly reckless and self-destructive as your inhibitions are buzzed into oblivion.
• React to a run of luck by raising your bets, then stubbornly sticking to high wagers when luck deserts you (as it always will) until all your winnings are back in the dealer's tray.
• Go home a loser, convinced that it was not your fault that you made another "contribution" and
• Come back again for another drubbing because you never learn anything from being beaten.

Casino personnel are trained to have a very low opinion of their customers' common sense quotient and to steel their hearts when they see someone losing far more than they can afford (no one forced the fool to gamble, after all).

The house's fat bottom line depends primarily on the fact that the vast majority of gamblers have no idea of the negative odds they are challenging, and assume that whatever the numbers may be, they don't apply to them.

A consistent winner, on the other hand, will...

• Accept that luck is an irrelevance because it favors the house as much as the player and
• Recognize that the house advantage makes it inevitable that over time, the smartest punter will lose more bets than he wins.
• Be fully aware of the negative odds he faces, while knowing that the tiny edge the house enjoys is far less of a factor in player losses than poor money management.
• Know that winning requires a substantial bankroll (something the house knows, too) and that long-term profit without risk is a mathematical impossibility.
• Grasp enough math to understand that if he is going to lose more bets than he wins in the long run, then the only way he can make any money is to win more when he wins than he loses when he loses (an objective that sometimes requires balls, but never crystal ones!).
• Learn the best way to play any "house game" he chooses to venture and ignore side bets and sucker traps such as Royal Match at blackjack and Pair Plus at 3-card poker (which is itself only suited to players with too much money).
• Play consistently and cautiously, knowing that what many people assume is conservative betting actually increases the house's already favorable odds.
• Study win-loss patterns and see in them the simple truth that they key to winning is exploiting positive streaks in such a way that cumulative losses can be recovered in fewer bets than it took to get into trouble in the first place.
• Do everything possible to avoid attracting the attention of paranoid pit personnel who assume that anyone who wins "too often" must be cheating. Effective camouflage includes:
• Varying strategy rules without ever flouting the core principle that a mid-series win must always be followed by a loss to date plus target bet (LTD+).
• Never spreading bets so wide in one location that pit staff or other players notice the low-high gap.
• Bailing out of any prolonged negative trend, knowing that house "spikes" are not the norm (in blackjack and baccarat, at least!) and that betting against a losing streak can be more damaging than moving.
• Knowing that moving from one layout to another (or a different game or even a different casino) has no effect on probabilities, as long as the next bet (NB) and loss to date (LTD) values are maintained.
• Never playing when tired, bored or otherwise uncomfortable, because winning can always wait a while and the tables aren't going anywhere!
• Never taking losses personally, because they are almost always temporary.

An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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