In my last article, I gave you the tell-tale signs of problem gambling. I also talked about setting limits for yourself. After reading this article, you will know a great deal about how to set limits for yourself when you’re going out to your local casino, or even if you’re staying at home and playing online.

Gambling can be an enjoyable pursuit, and provide a great deal of entertainment. Whether it’s a night out with your spouse or with the guys or with the girls, a trip to the casino can be exciting and fun. That’s where the key lies. Gambling, above all else, should be something that you do for fun, not because you need the money. There are numerous things that you can do to ensure that you don’t fall into the trap of problem gambling and make sure those trips to the casino remain enjoyable for you and everyone around you. Let’s take a look at some of those things.

1) Don’t think of gambling as a way to make money

Like any good business, a casino (whether land-based or online) is set up to take in more money than it gives out. Sure, when you get to the casino, you see pictures of people holding big cardboard checks with an obscene amount of money on it. What you don’t see are the dozens of people that lose a lot of money at the same casino so a big winner can hit every once in a while. A common trait among people that are problem gamblers is the steadfast belief that they will eventually be the ones holding the big cardboard check. Don’t let that happen to you. Gamble for fun, not as a means to an end.

2) Always gamble with money that you can afford to lose

I stressed this in my previous article, and I can’t possibly stress it enough, so here it is again. Gamble with money that you have set aside for fun and entertainment purposes. If you see a book or something about your game of choice that intrigues you, purchase it with that same money. Do not, under any circumstances, gamble with money that you would use to pay expenses like rent, utilities, insurance, or any other things of that nature.

3) Set a money limit

Decide ahead of time how much money you are going to spend. If you have played for a while and lost that money, stop playing. If you come out ahead, savor it. If you don’t feel that you can do this yourself, you can give your ATM card to a responsible friend, or simply withdraw your cash ahead of time and leave the card at home so you can’t take out any more cash.

4) Set a time limit

Setting a time limit can be just as important as setting a money limit. Don’t let gambling interfere with things you are required to do, such as work or school.

5) Never chase losses

When you lose what you were planning on spending, stop playing. Don’t go over your limits to try to hit the big score. It almost always leads to nothing except greater losses and more problems.

6) Don’t gamble when you are upset or depressed

It’s hard enough to make good decisions when you’re gambling. Feelings like anger or depression will only make those decisions that much harder to make.

7) Balance gambling with other activities

Go to the gym, hang out with your friends, go hiking, or do any number of other things. But don’t let your life center around gambling.

If you simply follow these rules, you can continue to have fun at the casino and not have to worry about incurring big losses. Like the old public service announcements used to say, the more you know, the better off you will be. Make your next trip to the casino an enjoyable one!

In my last article, “Gambling Systems” I talked about gambling systems that involved the actual physical aspects of the games such as the white ball in roulette and the dice in craps. Now I will deal with betting systems that can actually be used in any of the games, except poker.

With the advent of on-line casinos, a whole new world opened up that allowed anyone, anywhere, to gamble. With this phenomena also came a flood of on-line gambling systems. One of these is the very popular, “System Black Box” that capitalizes on the fact that some on-line casinos will offer free gambling “chips” to anyone that signs up with their casino for play. “System Black Box” is designed strictly for on-line casino play. While there are live casinos that have similar offers for free play, it is most often a “match-play” situation in which you must use some of your own money along with the free-play coupon. In other words the coupon is worth $1 if you also play a real dollar with it. Should you win that first bet, you then immediately bet the $2 that you just won, putting the newly acquired house money in play and taking back your $1 original bet. (The $1 coupon is taken, win or lose. It is only good for one play.) If you are considering gambling on-line with any of the games offered, I would encourage you to look into “System Black Box” as a possible tool.

Another very popular betting system is “Betting For Profit” and is also available on-line. The difference is that “Betting For Profit” can work with both on-line play and live play. This system is a bit more in depth and involves an increasing bet according to the last play you made. It is a very good system and also includes what the author calls his “Seven Cardinal Rules Of Gambling.” In “Betting For Profit” you learn how to treat gambling as a business, not as a recreational activity. It is a very realistic approach and can work if you follow the guidelines that are set forth in the method, which is what “Betting For Profit” is actually called. Both “System Black Box” and “Betting For Profit” are what I would call methods as opposed to systems as they both do not deal with the physical aspects of the games and concentrate on betting strategies. I have found, through my extensive experience that betting methods and strategies are really the only valid ways of creating a winning trend in casino gambling. I compare this type of method with playing the stock market, which is of course, just another type of gambling. With the stock market, when someone can double their money, it is a significant gain. With casino gambling, if you want to be successful, you must enter in to that kind of mentality. In “Betting For Profit” the author tells of ways to begin to treat gambling as a business and not as entertainment. This is how a professional gambler approaches gambling. To me, it is akin to guerrilla warfare and in fact must be followed if you are serious about winning. A professional gambler sees gambling as “going to work” instead of entertainment. To gamble professionally you must lose the kind of attitude that puts you at a casino game for fun. That is not to say that you cannot enjoy what you are doing. But you must remember that you are there to make money, not lose it while you are playing and entertaining yourself.

I short, I find that both “System Black Box” and even more so, “Betting For Profit” can actually work for the gambler. With “System Black Box” the player need not know a great deal about the game he or she is playing but must at least know the general rules of whatever game that might be. “Betting For Profit” assumes that the reader is aware of at least some good basic strategy for the chosen game. So the conclusion is that a betting method or procedure can be a valid tool to enable a player to win at casino gambling while the “system” type of play simply does not work and is not really valid. Let me repeat here that when I was working in the casino business, we used to laugh at system players and considered them no threat, while the smart, tough player that knew how to manage his or her money and was able to walk away a winner would more times than not, take a small bite every time that he or she played, and sometimes even a big bite! For more information you can refer back to my previous article, “Gambling Systems”.

When the issues on gambling are being raised, the issue on its legalization will never be silenced. There are loads of debates about it weighing which is of really weight: the advantages or the disadvantages of having gambling legal in countries.

Well, there are points to count on and these points come from both sides.

There are claims that when legalized, illegal gambling that lures people to be addicted and have miserable lives would be ignored. For those who believe in this thought, they think that legalizing gambling and whatever forms of it would lead to a more regulated system in a country. Another thing they want to raise is that if legal gambling is established, there would be government-owned gambling venues; this would pull people to support legal games than those that are not permitted by the government. The angle of incurring taxes from gambling would definitely be a help as believed by its proponents.

On the other hand, even though how these contentions try to become strong arguments, there are destroyers of these.

In other countries that do not believe on the benefits of legalizing gambling, they stand with the arguments that if the government opens the door to legalizing gambling, it would just be like teaching citizens to really be into gambling, no matter how legal or regulated it is, it would not lose the fact that it is still gambling, a means of asking people to venture on what they have and try their luck by betting their money or other possessions. This is also a means of luring people to gamble when normally they do not.

There are loads of loopholes pinpointed by those people who are against the existence of the so-called legal gambling. The biggest loophole is that legalizing gambling is like legalizing greed. A government that would allow this to happen would be a very irresponsible one. Instead of encouraging its citizens to be productive in such a way that they would realize what the dignity of work is.

There are portions of the world that embraces legal gambling, there are those which do not believe in the benefits it could give. The choice of being into gambling lies in you as a citizen, as an individual.