Gambling bankroll and how much you bet
I want to take a look at the gambling bankroll versus the game played versus the amount bet. See, there are various takes out there on determining the best games to play and the best bankroll and so on. But most of them seem to start by analyzing the odds and the games and the game strategies rather than starting with the bankroll. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me “how much money can I spend / gamble / invest / etc / starts with the question - how much money do I have. For gambling the starting point then shifts to - how much can I afford to lose. An even stricter starting point than if I want a new flat screen TV. To give someone the advice that the best game is blackjack and that they need a starting bankroll of $250 to play at the $5 table which is usually the lowest table is fairly useless advice if they’re walking into a casino with $20 in their pocket.
Really, as gamblers we sometimes need to back up and ask ourselves - what’s the best game to play with the amount of money I have available? Because that answer can be different than the answer you might determine if you just looked at odds. Odds wise, I’d go with blackjack. If I have $50 in my pocket, I’m heading to video poker. If I have $20 in my pocket, I’ll look for either a nickel video poker machine or a penny slot machine.
Let’s take a look at it this way. Say you’re at a casino and you only have $5 left to play. But you’re with a group of friends who just aren’t ready to leave yet. So, you head to a blackjack table because the odds are best there. True, but the odds are measured over time, not for one hand. You’ll need that whole $5 to play one hand and if you lose, you get to wander the casino waiting for your friends to finish playing. Or you could head to the penny slot machines. Yeah, these have some of the worst odds in the casino, but have you ever played one? Look, you’ve got $5 and you’re likely to lose it all no matter what you do. But you can play penny slots for ages on $5. Sometimes you’ll even win some money.
Sometimes you don’t figure your bankroll out based on the game, but the game based on the bankroll.