Best Way To Gamble At A Casino
Based on a study by Casino Org, the world gambling statistics showed that around 1.6 billion people worldwide gamble. In the United States, there are more than 1,000 listed active casinos.
Whenever I hear people ask about the best time to play in a casino, I usually question what they want from the experience. If you don’t want any distractions, then don’t hang around the casino at 9 PM on a Saturday night.
When you’re traveling abroad, the best thing you can do is hook up with someone who knows the area well. They’ll show you the best restaurants, parks, and streets. Sometimes, you may even meet the right people in a casino.
Best Time To Gamble Casino
Among my favorite tips for visiting casinos I’ve never been in before is to ask the employees which games they think people enjoy the most. It’s not like you’re asking for inside information on how to beat the slots.
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If for some reason they refuse to answer, there may be a few locals who spend more time than most in the casino. These are the folks who randomly comment to each other about “how heavy the crowd is tonight.”
These types of players tell you some of the most helpful things. You may look across a sea of slot machines and wonder which ones players prefer. The local patrons definitely know. They also know the best time to visit the casino.
Savvy travelers have been asking for advice on travel sites for several years. The trick is to know what you want from your experience.
Card Players Have Different Needs From Slot Gamers
Some of my friends play poker. In fact, I have one friend who used to play poker games every single weekend. He had favorite tables at different casinos. He knew when and where to go for a good game of poker.
The trick for him was to decide what mood he was in. Did he want a challenging game? Did he want a better chance of winning easy money?
Poker rooms may keep only one table open during the off-peak hours. You’re most likely to sit down with the local pros during those hours. If you want a challenging game, they’re the players most likely to oblige you.
If you want to go up against tourists who know less about the game than they think, their favorite times align with the crowd. You’ll have to grab your seat early and wait. You are the hunter, and they are your prey.
Blackjack tables are different. If I want a table to myself, I’ll visit in the mid-afternoon. While there are no guarantees, my chances of playing 1-on-1 against the dealer are better.
Timing the Crowd Is Important for Every Game
Each casino’s crowd moves in at a slightly different time. I think it has something to do with how far people need to drive to get there. One casino gets crowded at 8 PM on a Saturday night. Another casino draws a big crowd at 7:30 PM.
If you have a favorite table or game, you’ll definitely want to beat the crowd. That means arriving an hour or so earlier than you expect everyone else to show up.
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TIP:If you can’t get there early, then plan on visiting after 11 PM on a weekend. I usually don’t have to wait long for a spot when people start going home.
My wife has several favorite slot games and tries to be flexible because there are always certain games that draw a crowd. If a game she wants to play is like that, she’ll play another game somewhere else.
On the other hand, a friend of mine only plays blackjack when there’s a crowd. He wants to enjoy the environment and insists the casino feels fake when it’s empty.
The best time to gamble in casino is entirely dependent on what you’re looking for out of your gambling experience.
Call Ahead and Ask When the Restaurants Are Less Crowded
Timing the crowd is not always about when your favorite games or tables are available. Some large casinos have thousands of slots and a good selection of table games. They can usually accommodate most evening crowds.
But try getting a seat at a busy restaurant when you’re hungry and need a break from gameplay. If you can make a reservation, do so. Otherwise, plan your evening around your hunger.
We’ve found ourselves standing in line for a popular buffet for longer than 30 minutes. That’s a nice break from playing games and it’s relaxing. But if you’re really hungry, plan your meal ahead and anticipate crowds.
In the past, I’ve ordered takeout from a restaurant within the casino. The longest time I’ve ever had to wait was an hour. Because this has happened a handful of times, my wife brings a couple of candy bars in case we get hungry. Other times, I’ve dropped everything to grab a sandwich before the crowd grew too big.
Sometimes, the best time to gamble in a casino works in conjunction with popular mealtimes. And you can always play around with that schedule.
Ask When the Next Show Starts
An old-timer taught me this trick. We were standing around in a Vegas casino one night. The games we wanted were all full.
My wife said something about picking the wrong casino. At that moment, a couple of guys walking by stopped and told us to wait about 20 minutes. The crowd would thin out for the next show.
They had been coming to Vegas for years. They knew all the ins and outs. We never thought about waiting for people to go see a show.
While not every casino has a show, a lot of them do.
If you want to know whether the crowd will move into an auditorium or an event that’s scheduled for the night, call ahead and find out.
A lot of people go there for the shows, and they only game for a little while before the event.
Visit a Casino During Bad Weather
If there’s a raging tornado ripping up the landscape, get to your basement. If it’s raining outside or there’s an inch of snow on the ground, you could potentially have a good time at a local casino.
As long as you can get there safely, gaming during inclement weather almost guarantees a smaller crowd. There will be other people like you who want to get out and do something.
The most ridiculous time my wife and I gambled during bad weather was in a big snowstorm in the northwest. We were staying at a hotel and walked into the casino without stepping outside. The evening was a bit drab because so few people were there but we were safe and had fun. We also got to eat at the restaurant when we wanted to.
While you can’t always plan ahead for these things, it’s a good idea to look at the weather if you’re planning a weekend trip. You may need to change your plans if you were going to do outdoor activities or drive around town.
Schedule Around Tournament Days
If you love tournaments, then check the casino’s website to see when they hold them. If you hate playing when a tournament is going on, then check the casino’s websites to make sure there isn’t one.
Tournaments draw crowds and they also draw better card players. The bigger, more well-known tournaments draw huge crowds and the best card players.
If you don’t know whether you like tournament days, plan a visit to a casino during one of its busiest tournaments. See for yourself if you like the experience. Just be prepared to wait for a seat at your favorite games, especially for casino poker tournaments!
Conclusion
Every casino has a personality. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. The crowd, the games, the layout, and the decor all contribute to that personality.
Just like you and I changing moods, the casino goes through different phases throughout the day. The busiest times can be the most exciting or most frustrating.
How do you find the best time to gamble at a casino? You’ll have to visit several times. You can ask people when they like to gamble but they all truly have their own preferences.
What do you like to do when you’re in a casino? Knowing what you want and when that is most likely available is the best way to choose the optimal time to gamble. Play on your schedule as much as you can, and you’ll definitely have more fun that way.
But it helps to be open to unexpected good times, too.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Every gambler wants to win profits. But this is very difficult to do when considering that the casino holds an edge in most games. Of course, you can use a combination of luck and skill to win more money. But banking on luck is a terrible way to earn long-term profits through gambling.
Therefore, you need to find games and advantage play techniques that give you an opportunity to win in the long run. I’m going to discuss the best games and advantage gambling methods that’ll help you accomplish this goal.
Poker has long been one of the top ways to make money with gambling. This reputation has only increased in recent times with the availability of online poker. The reason why poker offers such a great opportunity to earn money is because you’re competing against other players – not the house.
But I believe that any poker player can win with the right approach. The only question is what route you should take towards becoming a winner. Read the stories of any successful poker player – past or present – and you’ll see that there’s no single road to get there. But there are some universal steps you can take to becoming a stronger player.
Here are different methods you can use to improve your skills:
- Watching pros on Twitch streams.
- Watching training videos on YouTube.
- Joining a training site (usually $30 per month).
- Reading poker strategy books.
- Reading poker strategy articles.
- Hiring a poker coach.
- Reviewing your sessions afterward.
You also have to decide what poker variation and type you want to attack. After all, this game offers over a dozen variations along with different game types. Some of the poker variants include Texas holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Badugi, H.O.R.S.E., and Crazy Pineapple. The different types of poker include cash games, multi-table tournaments (MTTs) sit and go’s (SNGs), and lottery style games. You should throw out lottery style poker games right away if you’re a serious player. These games rely on too much luck in order to win anything significant.
This leaves you choosing between cash games, MTTs, and SNGs. Here are the pros and cons to each of these choices:
- Cash games – Pros: great for steady hourly profits, especially when multi-tabling online. Cons: your losses can accelerate greatly if you’re not skilled.
- MTTs – Pros: give you a chance at winning a huge payout for a small buy-in. Cons: bigger MTTs have lots of variance, meaning you won’t cash often.
- SNGs – Pros: you can make a steady profit from SNGs without assuming too much risk. Cons: you need to multi-table SNGs or play higher stakes in order to make serious profits.
The biggest thing to keep in mind about poker is that it’s not an easy way to win profits. This is especially the case in today’s poker climate, which features better players than ever before. But as long as you’re willing to take a long-term approach to the matter – rather than expecting quick winnings – then you can slowly grind up the stakes and make some money. Moreover, poker offers more opportunities to become a profitable gambler than anything else on this list. Despite modern poker’s increasing overall skill level, you’ll find lots of juicy cash games, MTTs, and SNGs.
Chances are that you’ve seen a daily fantasy sports (DFS) commercial or two. These commercials are often aimed at making sports fans think that they can easily win money. This couldn’t be further from the truth, though, because DFS is a skill-based form of gambling. The biggest winners are those who dedicate the most time to creating lineups, analyzing statistics, and learning other strategies. Much like poker, you’re competing against other DFS players to craft the best player lineups. This skill aspect gives you an opportunity to win on a consistent basis.
Of course, not everything regarding DFS is about analyzing stats. You also need to develop simple strategies that’ll help you craft winning lineups. One of my favorite simple approaches involves looking for low-salary value players before filling out the rest my lineup. Focusing on the best value picks first helps me fill multiple positions on a roster before going for the high-salary players. Additionally, this allows me to see how much remaining money I have to go for the All-Stars at the end. DFS isn’t as lucrative as poker or sports betting for the average gambler. But you can certainly win some major money through this form of gambling.
Case in point: former poker pro Aaron Jones won $5 million through a DraftKings NFL contest in 2016. Plenty of other players have won large payouts since then. First things first though; in that you need to become a successful player before dreaming about a big win. I suggest starting with general strategy in low-stakes contests, before diving into advanced stats and programs that can truly make your winner.
Sports betting is similar to poker and DFS in that you can win long-term profits. But it also works differently from these two games in some ways. Poker and DFS involve competing against other players, with the house collecting a small amount of rake from the contest. Sports betting, on the other hand, revolves around trying to figure out which side of the line has more value. Therefore, you’re not competing directly against other bettors for winnings.
For example, you’d need to win 52.4% of point spread bets with 10% juice (comes from losing side) to be profitable. Winning over 52.4% of your wagers doesn’t sound extremely difficult. But keep in mind that even the best sports gamblers only win 53% to 55% of their point spread wagers. The rate at which you need to win moneyline bets depends upon the odds you’re taking. For example, you only need to win over 43.5% of the time on +130 moneyline bets to earn profits. But it’s not any easier to beat moneyline wagers than point spreads or any other type of bet.
The reason why sports wagering is difficult to profit from is because bookmakers are really good at setting lines. Their goal is to create equal action on each outcome in a wager, thus guaranteeing them a profit when the juice is taken into account. I mentioned earlier how you’re directly competing against other bettors. But you need to find favorable opportunities before most other gamblers, because lines shift when there’s too much action on one side.
Jumping on lines early is one of the best things to do as a sports bettor. This allows you to find value before any potential shift occurs to balance out the action. Handicapping is the main strategy for finding value in lines. This technique involves examining a variety of factors to see if the bookmaker’s odds lineup with your take.
Here’s an example:
- Atlanta Falcons +140
- Carolina Panthers -165
- You handicap this game.
- You think that the Falcons are undervalued at +140.
- You bet on the Falcons to win.
The factors that you look at when handicapping differ based on the sport. But basic elements that you should consider include injuries, player matchups, travel schedules, motivational factors, and statistics.
Stats are very important in sports gambling, because you can use them to spot trends that’ll give you an advantage over time. You can also use sports betting software to help you analyze advanced stats and make better bets. Of course, sports betting is like DFS in that you want to first learn the basics while concentrating on low stakes wagers. As you become more competent, you can graduate towards making bigger bets and using programs to help you out.
The esports industry has been rapidly increasing in popularity over the past few years. Esports betting, which has spawned from this growth, allows you to bet on the action. If you’re already a sports gambler, then you’ll appreciate the easy transition into esports betting. This form of gambling uses the same odds and types of bets that are featured in traditional sports gambling. You can also use many of the same handicapping skills to win esports wagers. The only difference is that you need to learn about the different games, leagues, and players involved.
Esports betting allows you to wager on over a dozen computer and console video games. Here are just some of the available games:
- Battlefield
- Call of Duty
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Dota 2
- Halo
- Hearthstone: Heroes of the Warcraft
- Heroes of the Storm
- League of Legends
- Overwatch
- Rocket League
- Smite
- Starcraft II
- Street Fighter
These games all have different leagues too, which gives you even more chances to specialize. But I strongly suggest that you only focus on one game and 1-2 leagues in the beginning until you master them. There’s no sense in wagering on a bunch of options and spreading yourself thin. Instead, truly get to know a single game before moving on.
5 – Card Counting
Card counting is an advantage play technique that you can use in blackjack to make profits. The goal is to keep track of aces and 10-value cards so that you know when you have a better chance to get natural blackjack (21 on first two cards). Casinos pay you either 3:2 or 6:5 on your original bet when you have a winning natural blackjack. Therefore, you can gain a temporary advantage by making larger bets when your chances of getting a natural increase.
The biggest benefit to card counting is that you don’t have to compete with other players to win. Instead, this is a matter of you learning how to count cards and avoid being caught by the casino. The latter is one of the biggest disadvantages to card counting. It doesn’t matter how good you are if the pit boss detects that you’re counting cards and has security escort you out the door.
This makes it important that you don’t spread your bets too much when you have an advantage. Here are examples of an acceptable spread versus what’s not:
- Acceptable – Going from table minimum of $10 to $50 (1-5 spread).
- Unacceptable – Going from table minimum of $5 to $500 (1-100 spread).
- Acceptable – Going from table minimum of $5 to $75 (1-15 spread).
- Unacceptable – Going from table minimum of $10 to $5,000 (1-500 spread).
One other critical aspect involves researching casinos and finding out which ones are more tolerant of bet spreads. Some gambling establishments will become suspicious immediately when you use a 1-15 spread, while others won’t as long as you’re not obvious about your counting efforts.
Of course, you also have to thoroughly learn and master a card counting system. The actual process of learning a system isn’t overly difficult, especially if you use one like the OPP or Hi-Lo. The Hi-Lo is my favorite for beginners, because it’s simple and will still produce good results. You should be able to learn how to use the Hi-Lo within a matter of minutes.
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Also note that you’ll need a large bankroll so that you don’t risk busting out in your card counting endeavors. The average successful counter only has between a 0.5% and 1.5% edge, which makes for a lot of variance. You also have to account for how you’ll be placing big bets when you have a positive count. This increases the risk, which is why you want at least a few thousand dollars in your bankroll when starting out.
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Hole carding is another advantage play technique that you can employ in blackjack. This strategy revolves around trying to see the dealer’s face-down card (a.k.a. hole card) when they peek for a natural blackjack. As you may know, the dealer peeks for a blackjack when their upcard is either an ace or a 10-value card. The round ends if they have a natural, and anybody without a natural automatically loses.
Under optimal conditions with a dealer that consistently shows their hole card, you’ll have anywhere between an 11% and 13% advantage. The biggest obstacle to hole carding is that there aren’t many dealers who’ll actually reveal their value when checking for blackjack. Chances are that you’ll have to sit at 100 or more blackjack tables before you find a really bad dealer.
You also need to sit in the correct seat to spot the dealer’s hole card. First base (seat to croupier’s immediate left) is best when there’s a right-handed dealer, and third base (seat to croupier’s immediate right) is best when there’s a left-handed dealer.
Video poker is the only house-banked casino game that offers you a long-term advantage. Unlike hole carding and card counting, you can sit at a video poker game for as long as you want and take advantage of profits. The first step to being a video poker winner involves knowing which variations actually provide an advantage. Here are the three most-common variants that will deliver long-term profits:
- Deuces Wild = 100.76% return to player (RTP)
- Double Bonus = 100.17% RTP
- Double Double Bonus = 100.07% RTP
Note that you have to play the “full-pay” versions of these games in order to have an advantage. Full pay means the top pay table for any given video poker variation. The easiest way to find these games is by visiting a site called vpFREE2.com. This database allows you to look up various casino destinations and see what video poker variants they offer.
You may be disappointed to find out that there are no casinos outside of Nevada offering any video poker games with positive expected value (+EV). Moreover, the largest selection of beatable machines are found in Las Vegas. Assuming you have access to Nevada casinos – either through living in the area or visiting – then you want to practice for the games you’ll be playing. After all, you need to use correct strategy to take advantage of +EV situations.
Also note that being an advantage video poker player is a volatile pursuit. You’ll only get a royal flush on 1 out of 40,000 hands on average, meaning that you’ll need to play numerous hands before realizing +EV. But as I mentioned before, the great thing about video poker is that you can play games with over 100% RTP and not fear being kicked out of the casino.
None of the games and advantage play methods I’ve discussed is perfect. They all have their pros and cons with regard to the strategy and difficulty level. But the good news is that everything covered here are at least gives you the opportunity to make money through gambling. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a profitable gambler, then the opportunity is there for the taking.I prefer player-vs-player games, because they have the lowest barrier to entry. You won’t get booted from the casino, and you can readily find poker and DFS games online. Advantage play techniques are nice from the perspective that they offer you guaranteed profits when used correctly. You don’t have to worry about beating highly skilled players.
But one major drawback is that you can also get kicked out of the casino. Additionally, it’s hard to find perfect conditions for card counting or hole carding. Video poker is great from the perspective that you can win money without worrying about the casino staff breathing down your neck. The downsides, though, include that you only find +EV games in Nevada and you won’t win large profits with these games. In summary, winning in gambling is far from easy. But there are multiple ways for you to accomplish this if you’re motivated to do so.