Golden Touch CRAPS

I’ve heard them; you’ve heard them: "I played for 36 straight hours and I was so bleary eyed I couldn’t even tell if I won after awhile. I got home from Vegas [or Tunica or Atlantic City] and I had to sleep for two days to recover. I didn’t do anything but play those machines! I lost all the money I brought to play with."

Most of us might think, Wow! What a great vacation Sally must have had!

But did she really? Well, of course she might think so but, in fact, what did she really do? Not much. She stayed up all hours, became bleary-eyed, and, uh, that was it. She could have done that at home without losing any money.

The fact is that some casino players have been trained, or have trained themselves, or have been acculturated into a system that prizes mindlessness as some form of merit. Seriously, going to Las Vegas or any other casino town to just play slot machines and do nothing else? Ridiculous!

Now think of this. If you go to Las Vegas just wrap you mind around the fact that Vegas has some of the best restaurants on Planet Earth, some of the best shopping, many of the best shows, and some of the best sightseeing in the whole nation – both natural and man made. My word, the Strip itself at all hours of the day and night is a visual treat and a lesson in watching humanity from all over the world.

Take Tunica. Many of the same Vegas stars come here to entertain too.

Juxtapose that with sitting at a slot machine for 36 straight hours, bleary eyed, and then returning home to brag about your vacation and the fact that what you accomplished was losing your gambling money? Ridiculous!

Now I am not saying that you shouldn’t gamble when you go to a casino, after all but gambling is only one of so many things you can experience that to restrict yourself solely to this activity is, well, ridiculous. When you travel, when you vacation, when you leave the confines of your normal day-to-day existence, the joy should be in multiple experiences, not a singular, draining one.

At the end of your life’s days, when you are summing up your life and your memories, sitting on your butt for 36 hours is probably not going to be one of your most memorable experiences. In fact, it might not become a memory at all.

With all these shows, and sightseeing locales to experience in all the casino venues, you should time your slot play between these other fun activities. Life should be full of things; not just one thing. Slot playing is fun but it shouldn’t crowd out other experiences.

And one thing else I have learned from my own bitter experiences in my decades of casino play – keep your normal daily rhythm so you aren’t overwhelmed with fatigue and so you don’t screw up by playing foolishly. Get up at the same time, or close to the same time as you normally do every day and try to get to sleep close to your normal time. By doing this you won’t fall prey to the casinos 24/7 pounding rhythm. Keep your drinking moderate. Oh, okay, eat to your heart’s content!

There is so much to enjoy at the casinos that to miss out on it is – ridiculous.

Frank Scoblete, #1 best-selling gaming author, is director of Golden Touch advantage-play seminars in dice-control and blackjack. Websites: www.goldentouchcraps.com and www.scoblete.com.