A Matter of Winning and Losing: Tips on Playing Blackjack

A Matter of Winning and Losing: Tips on Playing Blackjack

Today, blackjack seems to be one of the most popular card games. This is because playing blackjack is so easy to learn and play. Unlike poker, blackjack does not have any combinations to remember.

In blackjack, the object of the game is to get the sum of the two cards close to 21. When a person gets cards that are over 21, he or she loses the game.

Normally, a player receives two cards. After the players see their cards, they have to decide whether they would hit or stand. When a person says “stand,” this means the player thinks he or she is closer to 21 already. When a player says “hit,” this means that he or she still needs additional cards just to get close to 21.

Players can draw as many cards as they want until they feel they are close to 21 already. A player who is nearer to 21 wins.

However, there are people who have devised some tips and strategies to get an edge over the other players. There are times that these tips really can help some people win.

Here’s a list of some tips that players may choose to use them so as to win the game.

1. If a player gets 17 or higher, it is always better to stand, and if the player has any number from 13 to 16 and the dealer’s card is 6 or lower, it would be better to stand. But if the dealer has 7 or more, it would be better for a player to hit.

The theory here is that, if the dealer is showing a card of six or lower, the dealer may take a card, assuming that the dealer’s card facing down is a ten. The players, then, assume that the dealer is banking on a bust hand, so the other players have the tendency to maintain a lower card number.

The rule of thumb: players should always assume that the dealer’s down cards is 10.

2. If a player has aces or 8’s, it would be better to split them regardless of the dealer’s showing card.

3. A player should remember not to split 10’s. Chances are, they might end up getting busted.

4. If the dealer is showing 4, 5, or 6, it would be better for a player to stand on hard 12, or hit hard if the dealer is showing 2, 3, 7, or higher.

5. In order to win, players should always remember not to split fours, face cards, and fives.

Indeed, gambling is a game of chance, but with keen observation, winning is possible.

Compulsive Gambler: How to detect one?

A compulsive gambler is a person who is not able to resist the urge to gamble. The compulsiveness leads to severe personal and social consequences. The desire to gamble becomes so difficult to control that stress can only be calmed by gambling more.

1. Walks, Talks and Breathes Gambling.

The compulsive gambler preoccupies himself with gambling. He tells story of previous experiences. The compulsive gambler often discuss with anybody willing to listen, his new schemes or next winning strategy.

2. More, more and more.

The compulsive gambler finds himself gambling more and more money. In most cases he is not gambling for a bigger prize but for an increased thrill or excitement. The time he spends gambling usually lasts longer than planned.

3. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.

The compulsive has repeatedly been unable to curb his gambling. Worse, he becomes irritable and restless when attempting to cut back or stop altogether. Unfortunately, gambling is a way of escaping or relieving his problems.

4. Lies, lies and more lies.

The compulsive gambler starts lying to family and friends in order to hide his habit. But lies and brags about winnings. He denies having a problem when confronted. Often becomes angry if the issue is pursued. The lies start to become a way of life for the compulsive gambler.

5. Show me the money.

He starts depending on others to help in dire financial situations. He often borrows from family and friends to support his increasingly worsening problem. Mortgages and loans are refinanced. Life insurance is cashed in, as well as his 401k. The gambler may then start committing fraud and theft to finance gambling.

6. Self Destructing

Career is jeopardized or relationships with loved ones and friends are eroding. There is a tremendous amount of shame and remorse felt after gambling. Will consider or attempt suicide due to extreme helplessness of situation.

7. Losing control.

A shift in personality often happens to the compulsive gambler. He starts being manipulative, irritable, argumentative, critical, and controlling. The compulsive gambler starts losing interest in his regular activities and hobbies. Then makes poor excuses or evades questions of his whereabouts. Often withdraws from love ones and friends. Sees gambling as a way to cope and deal with his problems.

8. No Sense of time.

The compulsive gambler begins gambling to celebrate and in crisis. He starts spending his time gambling on holidays and special events.

Prevention is difficult and will not always be likely. Counseling may help people who are more susceptible to compulsive gambling. People who know of relatives that are compulsive gambler might be at risk and must be especially wary.

When Losing Really Matters

As they say, gambling is a game of chance. This means that nobody is sure when one will lose or win.

However, there is only one fact that remains. In gambling, there is bound to be a loser. In fact, most people contend that a game is not to be considered as gambling if it will not have losers. This goes to show that when people gamble, they are bound to lose than win.

Today, more and more people are getting hooked up with gambling. They see this kind of activity as an outlet of their problems, a place where to get unwind from a hard day’s work, or simply a form of recreation. What they don’t know that when somebody starts to get hooked up with gambling, chances are he or she is bound to lose great things in the end.

So, how does it feel to lose gambling? Is losing really a part of the game? There are so many questions, yet, just a few answers. This is because people are not aware of the probability of somebody’s chance in winning the game of chance.

Here are some facts about gambling and its losing characteristic:

1. If people gamble more, chances are, they will lose more.

This is one great way how to lose in gambling. People just have to continue gambling and they will continue to lose more.

2. Because gambling entails a lot of money, most people tends to think that gambling is more about winning. They just don’t realize that losing in gambling has more impact and has more probability of getting it.

3. People will never win in gambling.

Statistics show that most of the people, who play gambling, will never be able to win because of the little chances that they have.

For example, in a game of card, there are 52 cards in a deck of cards, thirteen of which are four suits. A person’s probability of drawing the card that will make them win the game is only 1 in every 52 chances, and the chance of having a perfect hand of cards is 1 in 635,013,559,599.

Other examples are the games that use dice. Normally, each dice has six sides. This goes to show that for every 6 attempts people will throw, they will get 1 chance to get the number that they want. Though, there’s only 1 in 216 if the person will be using three dice.

Indeed, gambling is really a game of chance, even if some people contend it uses skills. With gambling, people are really bound to lose.

The Famous People in Gambling

Gambling is a recreational activity prevalent in society today. Young and old alike, people are getting hooked to what today’s society calls as the game of the lucky ones.

Generally, gambling refers to any form of activities that involves taking the risk of betting the money or any kind of tangible items of value, which sometimes depend on chance or the skill of somebody to manipulate the game.

Since its inception, the profitability that gambling can offer to an individual is endless. That is why gambling had continuously dominated the world of chances.

However, even if gambling like blackjack, poker, and slot machines are so popular these days, people still don’t have any idea how it started and who started it.

Here’s a list of the people who, in some way or another, contributed to the development of gambling.

1. The first ever slot machine, known as the Liberty Bell, was invented by Charles Fey in 1985. Fey was a car mechanic in San Francisco when he thought of inventing the Liberty Bell.

The first form of slot machine was made of three spinning wheels that had three featured shapes: spades, diamonds, and hearts plus a “cracked” Liberty Bell drawn at each reel.

It was on 1907 when an arcade-like machine maker based in Chicago had thought of reproducing machines similar to that of Fey’s. The manufacturer was named Henry Stephen Mills. The machine was called Operator Bell.

It was from this point that the slot machines have evolved until today’s form.

2. In card games such as blackjack, nobody can ever tell how the game started and who started it. This is because nobody tried to record it for the purpose of history.

However, there were people who conceptualized the basic strategy for playing blackjack.

It was in 1958 when Cantey, McDermott, Maisel and Baldwin had devised a strategy that caused such commotion with both the statisticians and the gamblers themselves.

These four people have created the basic strategy in playing the game all using their hand calculators. After which, they created a book known as “Winning Blackjack,” which is now considered as one of the most valuable strategies in playing blackjack.

In turn, this gave birth to what modern gambling now calls as the “card counting techniques.”

These are the people who have made the gambling world truly a phenomenon. Though, there are people who do not accept them as great inventors because of the negative effects of gambling in the society today. Nevertheless, they have contributed a lot in gambling.

Facts about High-rollers Mindset

Gambling is such a lucrative activity where gains are manifested only to those who have access to it.

Generally, gambling is considered as a game of chance. Everybody would love to gamble because of the fact that it could provide them easy money without having to toil and wait longer.

Others contend that the reason why people love gambling is based on the fact that they consider it as a play, a game that gives them the kind of satisfaction that they need. They find it as an outlet that deviates from the usual life they have whenever they are at work or at home.

The Gambling People

In a typical casino environment, people who are seen playing poker, blackjack, roulettes, etc. usually come from different walks of life.

Normally, they would put a reasonable bet on something that they think would be enough to give them back their stakes plus a hefty amount of money if ever they win.

But there are people who place bets or stakes with large amount of money. These people are known as the high-rollers of the casino. These high rollers are those that usually deposit $1,000 or more.

The reason why high rollers exist in the casinos is based on the fact that there are special bonuses that are only designated to people who deposit large amounts of money. And most often than not, these high rollers are the ones that usually win and take the money from other bets.

No wonder why a particular thinking had evolved. This is known as the high-rollers mindset.

The high rollers mindset is a way of thinking of most casino players or gamblers that conceptualizes the idea that the higher the bet, the higher the chances of winning and getting bigger amount of money.

High-rollers mindset is usually employed by high-rollers or those who gamble a lot of money. They believe that by placing large amounts of money as their bets, they would be able to get the special bonuses being offered by the casino. Plus, they can even have more benefits that are only entitled to the high rollers if ever they get to win the game.

Having a high-roller mindset is not at all wrong, especially if a person has a lot of money to bet. The only drawback is that it tends to let a person gamble a lot of money just for the thought that he or she might win.

The bottom line: high rollers who gamble more have higher chances of losing more. After all, it’s still gambling where people are never sure if they will win or not.

Avoiding Online Gambling Scams Before they Happen

Gambling scams were never as recognized and as widespread as when it finally came in contact with cyber space. Online gambling, although beneficiary for those gambling aficionados, allowing them to gamble and avail of the enjoyment at home, also has some of its downsides more specifically the existence of online gambling scams.

Online scams usually include the refusal of a certain game company to “give you” your winnings. Some gambling scams may even go as far as totally refusing to let you win with absurd probabilities, and then refusing to let you cash out the remaining money you’ve got left.

One way to avoid these scams is to know what they are. Here are two most prevailing online gambling scams that you should be aware of, and should be able to detect easily.

Illegitimate Bonuses

Some gambling companies even go as far as inviting their former scammed customers under the ruse of “bonuses” telling them how sympathetic they are about you being scammed, and offering a bonus if you play with them instead. Just think, where did they get your contact details? Well they got it from that short form you filled out when you joined the first scam casino, and they’re actually looking to rip you off again.

What do they do? When it’s actually time for you to claim your bonus, they say that you are ineligible to receive the bonus.

To avoid being re-scammed, never fall for these types of offers. Even if you haven’t been scammed yet, they’d still send you a bonus offer then refuse to give it to you once you’ve deposited your money. A good rule of thumb with online gambling, if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

Piracy

One way to know a legitimate online casino is its affiliations and memberships; one such is the Interactive Gaming Council (ICG). However, logos provided by such organizations can easily be copied on the net, and what scammers do, is they imitate, sometimes, go as far as duplicating the design of a legitimate casino to pass off theirs. It is a good measure to look up the name of the online casino on the members list of the certain organization. ICG and others usually provide an easy to browse and search members list on their web sites.

To make sure that the casino you’re subscribing to is legit, type the company name and the word review in the search engine and read about them, you’ll more or less get an idea of how they work.

How to Deal with a Gambling Problem

A gambling problem usually occurs when a person over indulges in gambling, ending up being indebted and having dysfunctional relationships with loved ones.

First of all, Gambling is addictive. The risk and the winning can have a psychological effect on a person, making him unreasonable and irrational.

The first step to solving a gambling problem is acknowledging it. Gamblers Anonymous have the following set of questions to test if you indeed have gambling problems.

1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?

2. Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?

3. Did gambling affect your reputation?

4. Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?

5. Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?

6. Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?

7. After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?

8. After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?

9. Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?

10. Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?

11. Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?

12. Were you reluctant to use "gambling money" for normal expenditures?

13. Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?

14. Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?

15. Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?

16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?

17. Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?

18. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?

19. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of gambling?

20. Have you ever considered self destruction or suicide as a result of your gambling?

A problem Gambler would answer Yes to at least seven of these questions.

If you are indeed a problem gambler, the following tips should help you out of your gambling ditch:

* Never take credit cards or an ATM card with you when you gamble, just take the amount that you intend to spend that day.
* Limit the time you gamble.
* Remember, there are more chances of you losing than winning.
* When you win, keep the money and have an agreement with yourself not to use it.
* When you run out of money, give up, never borrow cash for gambling.
* Never hesitate to ask help from a buddy. Bring a gambling buddy who’s not addicted and ask him to keep you in check.