If a player walks up to the table, buys $1,000 in chips, plays the Pass Line, and half an hour later he’s broke, the so-called house edge of 1.14% didn’t wipe him out. Stupid playing was what did the damage; house advantage actually had very little to do with it.
If you were to make the same flat bet, over and over endlessly, the house edge will eventually grind you into dust. However, in short-term play, you can actually decide when to leave the table. During most sessions, there will be times when you are ahead. If you lock-up a portion of that profit and refuse to lose back any money protected under that win-plateau, then you are assured of at least a small win for that session. Numerous small wins add up over time.
In the real world, that little house-edge percentage won’t even pay for the free booze that is drunk by the players. If you are a Precision-Shooter who has achieved enough consistency to repeatedly throw 10 or 12 numbers per roll, then you have accomplished something truly remarkable. It is at that point that you should be able to begin augmenting your income with profits earned through craps. You’ll still need to keep your regular job, and you can’t order the Bentley Continental Green-Label motor-car, but you can enjoy the feeling of walking into a casino knowing that YOU are the one with the EDGE!
Just as in almost every other pursuit of excellence, the battle is not between you and the casino; it is between you and yourself!
Discipline, Attitude and Maturity are not usually mentioned in casino strategy books. That’s very unfortunate.
You can have the Knowledge of the game, by knowing the odds by rote. You can have a huge Bankroll and a workable Money Management plan. You can even have Precision-Shooting skills and know the correct Strategy & Methods to take full advantage of all those opportunities. But if you don’t have the Discipline, Attitude and Maturity to guide, temper, shape and modify your decisions, it won’t be the house edge that grinds you into Casino Dust, it will be your own actions that do it.
Those three attributes are things that you have to absorb into yourself, so that they become an integral part of you. Every fiber of your being has to use them to weave a bullet-proof, ego-proof fabric, that setbacks can’t tear, that nay-sayers can’t pierce, that “experts” can’t find holes in, and most importantly, a fabric that a lack of self-esteem can’t shrink.
If you are willing to accept and then do those things that you must do to win, then you have a chance. Understand that nearly all people can’t or won’t give up more than a single moment of casino “fun”, to increase their chances of winning.
People don’t become successful entirely by luck. Oh sure, they’ll tell you that they were in the right place at the right time. It’s true, and I’ll tell you the same thing about the overwhelming success I enjoyed in my previous career. Modesty mostly prevents people from saying, “I worked my ass off to get here. I worked harder, longer and smarter than everyone else. I educated myself on relevant issues; I learned from the best, and I surrounded myself with people much smarter and with much more brilliance, so that I might absorb some of their greatness.
I didn’t sit around and hope for good luck to make this business thrive. I relied on huge amounts of the best possible information; I looked “outside the box”, and decided that’s where the real accomplishments could be found. I continually learned as much as I could about the markets, the business, the entire world, and most importantly, I learned as much as I could about myself.
Oh, and by the way, I was in the right place at the right time with the right skill-set, attitude, discipline and maturity to take full advantage of the opportunities as they came along. Yeah, I guess you could say that I was pretty lucky!”
Yes, that’s quite a mouthful. So if someone of true greatness tells you that they were in the right place at the right time…there’s probably a little more to their success story than sincere modesty.
It’s the same way in casino craps. Unless you look outside of the “tried and true” Pass Line, and take-up Precision-Shooting, there’s a real chance that you too could be ground up into Casino Dust.
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
By: The Mad Professor
