ME BAD
Saving Money For Slot Play
By Frank Scoblete
Don’t you hate it when you think something similar to the following thoughts?
“I really used up little Timmy’s college fund at the machines. Me bad.”
“I just got carried away at the machines and kept taking out lines of credit until I ran out of money. Me bad.”
“My wife is going to kill me. Me bad.”
“Lady Luck just killed me! She bad.”
I am sure many of our readers have experienced some form of the “me bad” syndrome in the course of their playing careers. Essentially the problem of “me bad” is using money that had been geared up for other things on the slot machines. Timmy’s college fund? Let Timmy work a part time job; those Blazing Sevens are calling to me. Next month’s mortgage payment? Why would the bank ever want to repossess my crummy little house? I know I can beat Wild Cherries.
Getting carried away at gambling is a normal occurrence for casino players and most players never really risk Little Timmy’s college fund or foreclosures on their houses. But hyperbole is often a good way to make a point which I’ve said at least a billion or more times.
Slot players need to fund their play with money that has nothing to do with real living but only has to do with reel living (and video living). They should set up what I have been calling since the dawn of time a 401G account. This account stands for a gambling account; thus the “G” at the end of the account’s name.
Think of this 401G as a gambling retirement account, something like the 401K. It allows the player to retire from worrying about using money that is needed for true living expenses such as shelter, food, clothing, taking care of the kids and grandkids and, of course, buying Frank Scoblete’s books.
When you play the machines against the money in your 401G, any losses should have little meaning. The money lost has been geared for slot play; it should have no negative emotional content attached to it. Wins too should have little meaning; such wins go right back into the account to be played again in the near or far future.
The account should be some type of money market checking account that draws interest (what little interest can be drawn nowadays). It should be the account that you establish casino credit with. It should be, in short, the “be-all and end-all” of your slot finances.
The big question you must ask yourself is how to establish such a 401G account. If you are extremely well off then you can take a bundle of money and directly deposit all you need into the account just play against that and every so often put some unneeded money into it -maybe hold off on buying that second yacht.
Sadly, most people are not so well off that they can just grab a bundle of money from their underground safes and dump it into the bank. If that is the case then you must make regularly scheduled deposits from your job or business.
Let us say you earn $1,000 a week. Perhaps you should take five percent of that ($50) and slip it into the 401G. In a dozen weeks you will have a nice bankroll of $600. Obviously if you decide to go to a casino with $600 behind your play you should not be playing anything other than a quarter machine and that for one quarter a decision. The machines you should play would be those that do not reward (or do not reward by much) maximum coin play.
It is doubtful that at a quarter a decision you would lose all $600 in a single day of play (unless you played endlessly and hit a horrendous cold slump).
If you are in relatively good shape financially, then you might want to put $100 a week in the bank based on $1,000 per week income. If your income is more or much more than $1,000 per week then obviously you can put in more and much more money into the account.
It is important to realize that your slot play must reflect what you have in the 401G account. You can’t go to five-dollar machines and expect to last very long on a $600 bankroll – unless you get quite lucky in your play.
Keep in mind that the deposits into the 401G do not stop. You just keep putting money into the account on a regular basis. Should you take a long time between casino visits, then your bankroll will increase dramatically. However, when in doubt always play low-denomination machines. Maybe make it $2,000 for every $1 a decision. You can decide that based on your assessment of how much risk you can handle.
Risk is another interesting factor. Most of us think we can handle risk much better than we actually can. I’ve seen this with investors. Their brokers ask them how much risk they can handle; the investor says a lot. Now the stocks in which he invested tank and the poor investor almost has a heart attack. Why? Because he conned himself into thinking that risk couldn’t get to him.
With a 401G account, gambling can become just a simple, enjoyable past time and not a do or die situation. Kicking yourself in the pants after you come home from the casino is no fun at all. The 401G can prevent you from having to do that.
Visit Frank’s web site at wwwfrankscoblete.com . Frank’s latest books are Confessions of a Wayward Catholic; I Am a Dice Controller:Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, and I Am a Card Counter:Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, e-books and at bookstores.
