5 Bad Habits That Make Gamblers Lose Money

Gambling is all about choices. You can choose to continue doing what you’re doing, which probably involves a lot of losing. Or you can figure out what bad gambling habits you have and replace them with good habits.

I’ve put together a list of the five worst habits losing gamblers have to help you get started identifying why you’re losing now. When you learn about these five terrible habits you can make the choice to correct the bad habits you have and replace them with better habits. The choice is yours. Make the right choice today for better gambling results tomorrow.

1 – Gambling for Fun

Gambling establishments like casinos want gambling to be fun. When you’re having fun, you’re not thinking about how much you’re gambling and how much you’re losing. This should tell you everything you need to know about gambling for fun.

Instead of gambling for fun, you need to have a plan and treat your gambling like you’d run a business. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun when you gamble, but you can’t let fun interfere with your plan.

Gambling for fun is playing the games that you like best. Gambling with a plan is knowing which games you should play and which ones you should avoid. And it also involves the discipline to avoid playing the games you know you need to avoid.

It’s fun to play a fancy new slot machine, but this machine is probably going to cost you more to play every hour than you make.

Is this worth it when there are so many other good options?

If you want to gamble for fun, get some friends and family over and play games for pennies. Have as much fun as you want. But when you go to the casino or other gambling establishment, get serious and leave the fun for the losing gamblers. You can’t afford to have as much fun, and lose as much, as most gamblers.

You know what’s the most fun for me? It’s winning more than I lose. I have fun walking out of the casino or poker room or sportsbook with more money than I had when I went in. This is more than enough to make up for any fun I might miss out on when I gamble like most gamblers.

2 – No Budget and No Limits

The first thing you need to do before you even go to a casino or long into a mobile or online casino is set a budget. A budget isn’t the same thing as your bankroll. Your bankroll is all of the money you have available for gambling; while a budget is the maximum amount you’re willing to lose in a playing session.

If you don’t have a bankroll for gambling you’re already making a mistake. You need to start separating your gambling funds from the rest of your money. Without a bankroll, it’s more difficult to track how much you lose or win when you gamble.

In addition to having a gambling budget every time you play, you can also use limits to do a couple of important things. A few different types of limits exist for gamblers, and you should be using both of them.

The two limits I’m referring to are stop-win limits and stop-loss limits:

• A stop-win limit is a limit that tells you when to stop gambling when you’re winning.
• A stop-loss limit is like a budget in many ways. In fact, is you use a budget, you don’t really need to use a stop-loss limit. If you use a stop-loss limit, you don’t really need to use a budget.
• Another type of limit that some gamblers use is a time limit. If you follow a strict time limit, you guarantee that you don’t forget about the time and gamble longer than you should.

Start using budgets and limits when you gamble. This helps you limit losses, and it helps you secure a winning session from time to time.

3 – Gambling for Free

When I say gambling for free, I don’t mean playing free casino games or free poker. What, I mean is gambling without getting anything from the casino for your play. If you’re going to gamble you need to do it at a casino that gives you something back for your patronage.

You can literally gamble in hundreds of gambling establishments. The real number is in the thousands, but you might have a difficult time traveling to all of them. But there are plenty of places to gamble within travel distance of where you live and online, you have many options. This means that you don’t have to gamble anywhere that doesn’t appreciate your play.

• Real money online casinos and mobile gambling apps are usually happy to give real money gamblers bonuses when they play. Some online and mobile casinos give players bonuses and also have a rewards program of some sort. I won’t play at a mobile or online casino that doesn’t offer at least a bonus when I make a deposit.
• Land-based casinos don’t give bonuses like mobile and online casinos, but many of them do have a player rewards program of some type. You get things like free meals, merchandise, and free hotel rooms or travel, depending on how much you gamble.

This is what I’m talking about when I say playing for free is a bad habit. If you’re not getting anything for your play, ask what you can get. If you don’t like the answer you get, find somewhere else to gamble. You have plenty of options, so find the best option and gamble there.

4 – Gambling on the Wrong Things

In the first section, I explained how dangerous it is to gamble for fun. You need to take this another step and learn about the gambling activities that you should avoid and the gambling activities that give you the best chance to win.

You need to do your own research about the best and worst gambling games, but here are a couple lists to help you get started.

If you’re looking for good gambling activities, investigate these:

• Blackjack
• Gambling on sports
• Betting on horses
• Poker
• Baccarat
• Craps
• Video poker machines with the best pay tables

If you’re looking for a list of gambling activities to avoid, these are the worst ones:

• Lottery games
• Keno
• Slot machines
• Roulette
• Table games
• Most video poker machines
• Bingo

5 – Gambling Instead of Looking for an Advantage

The term gambling usually means that you’re risking money on an unknown outcome, and it also usually means that you’re going to lose in the long run because you’re battling a casino or house edge. This is what most gamblers do.

On the other hand, most winning gamblers do everything they can to take the gamble out of the situation and try to find an advantage, or a number of advantages.

You need to stop gambling with your money and learn how to be an advantage gambler. Advantage gamblers know which games can offer them an advantage, and they know how to recognize potentially profitable opportunities.

They understand that these things aren’t easy to do, but they know they’re possible. And they usually specialize in one area so they have the best chance to gamble with an advantage.

Instead of looking at gambling as something to do for fun and hope to get lucky, they look at it as a way to try to find an advantage that they can exploit. If you don’t know anything about advantage gambling, it’s time to put on your student hat and start learning.

Conclusion

How many of the five bad habits listed in this article are you guilty of? Most gamblers are guilty of at least one or two of these bad habits. And some practice all five bad habits. The big first step is to identify your bad habits. The second step is to do something about your bad habits.

Do you gamble for fun or do you have a plan? Do you know which gambling activities offer the best chance to win, and are you taking advantage of these opportunities? Do you use budgets and limits? And most importantly, are you gambling or looking for an advantage?

It’s time to make a choice. Are you going to choose the path that leads to more gambling profits?