Gambling at a Casino. The House Has the Odds

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So at one point in my life, I did an experiment.  What if I tried to make $200 every day at the casino.  It shouldn't be hard right (given in the past, when I was playing for fun it was easy to leave the casino up)…

To make a long story short - this was a failed experiment.  The house always has the edge. 

You will hear stories of people making a lot of money on one night.  But what you don't hear or see is that the next night or the night before they lost twice or thrice that amount.  It is quite a vicious cycle and not something to fool around with.

Very few people actually turn a profit in the long run.  In this 10 month long experiment, I have only met one person out of hundreds who actually had a positive record (when you are there 6 to 8 hours a day, and 12 hours+ on the weekend, you see a lot of people).  I would dare to say the time I spent at a casino in these 10 months is probably more than a lot of folks in their lifetime.

It takes extreme discipline (which I keep hallucinating that I have), patience, concentration, skill, unclouded and calm emotions, and humility to actually make a successful night.  And even more to string them together.

Having said that, in this experiment I did learn a few lessons that I would eventually apply into the stock market.  More on that later.

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