5 Personal Mottos Every Great Casino Gambler Lives By

The funny thing about successful casino gamblers is just how diverse this exclusive community can be. There are senior citizens and college seniors, businesspeople and people who have never held a steady job, casual players and their compulsive counterparts. Simply put, folks from all walks of life can work their way into the gambling world’s winner’s circle.

But even in such an eclectic group, those who manage to consistently beat the house typically follow a similar set of personal credos. These words to live by originate from sources ranging from scripture to Shakespeare and can be traced back several centuries. But they still resonate with great gamblers to this day.

1 – “Patience Is a Virtue”

One of the most oft-stated quotes of all time, it’s usually delivered by parents to precocious preteen kids. This piece of advice applies to every avenue of life.

With that said, casino gambling enthusiasts have the most to gain from prizing patience as the ultimate virtue. After all, when you’re perpetually climbing uphill against the house’s inherent edge, patiently waiting to squeeze out a profit is the only way to proceed.

Take a game like blackjack as the perfect example of why patience should be your priority at the casino. Players who know their basic strategy charts can whittle the house’s edge down to just 0.50%, while card counters can actually flip the script to eke out a slight edge of their own.

Nonetheless, basic probability tells us that even the best blackjack players on the planet can expect to win 42.22% of all hands they see over the long run. Conversely, 49.10% of all hands will result in a lost wager, while the remaining 8.48% produce a push against the dealer.

When pushes are removed from the equation, sharp blackjack players can expect to win just 46.36% of the hands they play. In light of these cold, hard facts, the best blackjack players pride themselves on staying patient, dialing back their bet sizing, and riding out the losing streaks which are sure to arrive.

By doing so, these players preserve enough of their bankroll to capitalize with bigger bets the moment the deck construction turns in their favor.

Whether you play slots, table games, real money video poker, or the sportsbook, success in casino gambling is predicated on the remaining patient through thick and thin.

2 – “A Penny Saved Is a Penny Earned”

When you substitute the words “chip” or “credit” for “penny” in the enduring quote above, its relevance to casino gambling becomes crystal clear.

Remember, the first modern casinos shifted from coins and cash as their currency of choice— replacing them with tokens, chips, and scannable vouchers—for a good reason. When gamblers don’t equate their wagering instruments with real money, they’re that much more likely to bet above their head and chase wagers with the worst odds.

It’s easy enough to splash a pile of $100 chips on the roulette table felt, but if they were the $100 bills that bear Ben Franklin’s portrait instead, putting the precious dough at risk would be a different discussion entirely.

As a serious gambler, your bankroll is the foundation on which your financial future is built. And as such, every bet you win or lose is like a brick added or removed from the building. Take enough bricks out, and the whole thing comes tumbling down atop your head.

The most successful casino players out there know full well that avoiding a loss is just as valuable as chasing a win. They never dabble on those longshot side bets beckoning reckless players, and they always assess a game or wager’s relative value before committing their chips. And when negative variance rears its ugly head, these players have no compunction about cashing in their last few bets and saving them to fight another day.

3 – “The Better Part of Valour Is Discretion”

Although he wrote copiously on gambling games of his era, William Shakespeare’s famous quote above is attributed to his cowardly character Falstaff.

Even so, casino gamblers who consistently wind up in the black know, like Falstaff did, that caution is often the wisest course of action. Rather than hope against hope by betting on the biggest long shots and luck-based bets, smart players simply stick to the wagers with the best possible odds.

Thus, millions of tourists and locals alike line up each and every year to try their hand at Megabuck’s classic single pay line jackpot. But here’s the rub…

Landing the elusive “Megabucks” jackpot symbol on just one of the machine’s three reels requires beating odds of 1 in 368. You’ll need to hit it on all three reels to win the big bucks though, and the equation (1/368)3 comes to overall jackpot odds of 1 in 49,836,032.

Your odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are roughly 1 in 500,000, so winning the Megabucks top prize is somehow 100 times worse than that.

It may be tempting to take a shot at ultimate long shots like Megabucks, but the best gamblers know having the discretion to abstain will keep their bankroll alive – just like Falstaff did in the Bard’s timeless tale.

4 – “A Bird in the Hand Is Worth Two in the Bush”

Best known for testing two prospective mothers by directing them to cut a contested baby in two, King Solomon was widely known as the “Wisest King of Israel” during biblical times. And one of his words of wisdom has survived three millennia to give gamblers a lesson in bankroll management.

Solomon’s advice holds that having a bird in hand is worth hunting for two hiding in the bush. Put in casino parlance, preserving your winnings and locking up a profit is better than putting it back on the table in hopes of doubling up.

Of course, with a huge 35 to 1 payout on the line, it only takes a single fortunate bounce of the ball to turn a few bucks into a bundle.

Imagine you just turned a modest $10 bet on the Black 17 (my go to roulette number by the way) into a tidy $350 payout. You now have a bird in hand as Solomon would say, and a big bird at that.

Now, you have two choices… You can keep playing against those poor odds and almost microscopic win probability, hoping to get lucky again and bag another bird. Or you can follow Solomon’s sage advice and walk away from the table without any further risk to the bird you’ve already caged.

The wisest gamblers know to take their caged birds directly to the cashier’s cage and cash them in straightaway. When they don’t, grasping for that second bird can easily cause the first to slip away – leaving you with nothing at all.

5 – “Luck Is When Skill and Opportunity Come Together”

I’ve used the word “luck” here and there on this page, but when I do so, I’m referring to the colloquial phrase all gamblers use to describe short-term variance.

Players aren’t any luckier than one another, and machines can’t go from lucky to unlucky overnight. And as the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca once observed, what most of us deem to be “good luck” is nothing more than a combination of more tangible factors like skill and opportunity.

Put another way: We all make our own luck. Unless you remain willing to improve your strategic knowledge, expand your skill set, and study the underlying statistical data, you’ll forever be at the mercy of the short-term variance known as luck.

Conclusion

As you can see, relying on a motto to live by is hardly a modern invention. A thousand years before the advent of the modern calendar, wise men and women have sought to provide their people with words which might serve as guideposts along their personal journey.

Today, gamblers who ply their trade online or on the casino floor can still learn much from the maxims listed above. By heeding the advice found here, I hope your gambling results steadily improve, while the enjoyment you derive out of playing increases in kind.