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Gambling's History
Society's fascination with gambling is rooted in the attempts of prehistoric people to foretell their fate by divining the intentions of the gods. Dice were tossed for this purpose long before they were thrown to gamble, and thousands of years later, many still cannot mentally separate fate from games of chance. Just as the ancients believed that success or failure in life depended on the whims of the deities, the typical gambler today believes that his wins or losses are determined to a large extent by some supernatural force. Experts have studied gambling and gamblers for over twenty years, and they have found very few players who did not cling to at least one archaic superstition that had been mathematically disproved as long as three hundred years ago.
Since the decisions in games of chance were originally believed to be controlled by the gods, the study of the mathematics involved was at first considered sacrilegious. But by the sixteenth century, a number of scientists and mathematicians in response to queries by gamblers, usually noblemen, began analyzing gambling games. Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576) wrote the first known book on mathematical expectations for games of chance; Galileo (1564-1642) was the first to publish an analysis of expectations for dice games, and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) made a study of various gambling problems that led directly to the development of modern probability theory, an accurate indication of long-term expectation when results depend upon chance.
These probability theories are used by economists, physicists, biologists, and any number of scientists who find statistics indispensable to their research. In recent years, these techniques have been applied in the fields of insurance, economics, genetics, and engineering, to name just a few. But ironically the very people for whom these theories were developed, the gamblers, rarely acknowledge, much less accept them. Few gamblers have a grasp of the fundamental expectations for the game they play, and even these players often combine their knowledge with fallacies that frequently nullify it.
Winning the Game
Gambling therefore becomes a question of formulating a winning strategy. How can a gambler best fortify himself with the will to win? Though there are as many answers to this question as there are successful gamblers, certain axioms do apply. First, there is the necessity of knowing everything about the game. This point cannot be stressed strongly enough. A player should understand the rules, the odds, the intricacies and tricks, or he shouldn't play. Ignorance is the number-one reason why gamblers lose.
The second important factor is realistic betting. Games such as baccarat, craps, blackjack, all have realistic wagers and sucker wagers. Anyone who stands at the crap table and fritters away his chips at hard-way bets deserves to go broke. He is a dumb gambler and dumb gamblers always lose. If a person wants to gamble seriously he must forget the slots, forget the carnival games, the keno, bingo, and rube amusements. He must go for the best-paying games and for the best bets in the best-paying games.
Third, a gambler should develop a positive attitude toward his technique, but this attitude should be tempered with common sense. It's perfectly right to believe in oneself, one would almost say that this is a prerequisite. At the same time, the type of optimism some gamblers have, whereby their luck is forever invulnerable, is a form of madness. Believe you are going to win. But when you are losing, believe that you can also lose, at least tonight and walk away.
Finally, learn from those who know. Read what is written on the subject of gambling and go with the advice of the wise ones. No one has ever beaten the law of averages. This is true. But some have done better at it than others, and a few have come out on top. Why not join the smart ones? You have nothing to lose.