Poker Articles

Managing Your Money and Bankroll, Part 4
By Lou Krieger and Arthur Reber

This is the fourth in our series on bankroll management. In this installment our concern is lengthening the life of your bankroll. Naturally, the games you play and how you play them have a lot to do with this issue.

A good poker player or a successful card counter in blackjack is going to be working with an elastic bankroll, while a slot junkie is going to be faced with the problem of trying to wear a cheap cotton T-shirt that was washed one too many times in hot water. Most of our advice is aimed at folks playing games with a long-term negative expectation -- where the odds tell us that you are going to lose more than you win.

What Do I Do With A Bankroll Now That I've Got One?

Once you cobble a bankroll together from extra cash and all that spare change you stash in a jar on the kitchen counter, try to handle it so that you lose as little as possible when things aren't going so well, and add as much to it as you can when you're winning. This sound's simple, but you must remember to keep your head about you at all times.

Best bankroll management practices require that you know the expectation for each game you play -- not only the casino's edge (which is expressed as a percent disadvantage to the player), but in absolute terms as well. In other words, based on the bets you make and the games you play, how much do you figure to win or lose each time you grab a seat in the poker room, roll the dice, or spin the wheel?

That Dreaded "House Edge"

There's a house edge for each bet in every game. All you have to do is multiply the house edge by the amount of money you plan to wager, and then multiply the result by the approximate number of wagers per hour. For example, the house edge on pass line bets, one of the most basic wagers available at the craps table, is only 1.41 percent. For every $100 you wager, the casino figures to retain a measly buck-forty. If you bet on "banker" at baccarat, the hose edge is only 1.17 percent, but it's a relatively whopping 5.26 percent on American roulette, the kind of wheel with the double zero on it, and the one you're most likely to find in local casinos.

Suppose you're wagering thirty dollars each time the roulette wheel is spun. You know the house edge is 5.26 percent, and you estimate that the wheel spins 20 times per hour. The cost per hour of that game is easily figured. Multiply 5.26 percent by thirty dollars by 20 spins per hour. After all, at 20 spins per hour, you are betting $600 per hour. If the house keeps 5.26 percent of all money wagered, you figure to lose about $31.56 per hour.

You could be playing roulette or a slot machine with an identical house edge, but the fact that you can set that slot machine in motion four or five times as often as the croupier spins the roulette wheel means you figure to lose four or five times more money per hour at the slots. If you wanted to wager thirty dollars per bet on a slot machine instead of roulette, and found one with the same house edge, your results are likely to be very different. Instead of twenty bets per hour, you might be able to spin a slot machine 100 times per hour. If that were the case, you'd be betting $3,000 per hour instead of $600, and the same house edge figures to cost you $157.80. This "churning" factor means that even a low roller can actually wager significant sums of money over a couple of days of gambling.

While you can easily determine the house edge in percentage terms, your experience at the tables is likely to be quite a bit different for any session -- or even for an entire vacation. Probability is predicated on results established over a very long time -- thousands of hours in most cases -- and the hour or two you spend gambling can bring about very different results. Huge variances can be found in most casino games, which is why players sometimes have incredible wins and horrendous losses. Your expectation is what you can anticipate happening in the long run, but the long run is usually a very long time in coming. Even so, this estimate is the best you can do with the facts at hand. If you want to play roulette and intend to wager thirty dollars a spin, your hourly loss should be somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-one dollars and change. Take it from us: The day-to-day variability can be astonishing. Some days you can feel invulnerable absolutely bulletproof -- but dark nights also await when you want to bury your head in your overcoat while you slink out of the casino with your bankroll on life support, if not flat-lining altogether.

Making Your Money Last As Long As You Do

Suppose you plan a typical four-day, three-night vacation. You're not going to spend every minute at the tables; there's too much else to do. You might want to play a round or two of golf, or some tennis, or lounge by the pool, shop, take in a show, and have one really nice, leisurely dinner. Perhaps you arrive Thursday night after a day at work. The hour is late and you know you shouldn't gamble when you're tired, so unpack, relax, and get something to eat. Tomorrow you can begin your assault on the casinos, refreshed, relaxed, bright-eyed, and rarin' to go.

Friday morning you awaken with $1,000 in gambling money and two-and-a-half days to play. So what do you do? You might divide your money into three separate mini-bankrolls of $400 for Friday and Saturday, and $200 to use on Sunday, before your flight home. Or you can forget about playing Sunday and divide it into two $500 mini-bankrolls that you can use today and tomorrow.

But regardless of how you decide go about it, you need some resolve to live within your means on each of those days. If you have a really bad run of luck today and blow your entire day's budget in record time, you need the discipline to implement Plan B. Plan B is simple: Your gambling money for the day is gone and you need to find something else to do. Whether that's golf, tennis, sunning yourself by the pool, or going shopping, isn't important. What is important is sticking to your budget, so your money isn't gone before your vacation ends.

With your daily gambling allotment in hand, decide which games you want to play. Remember that your money figures to last longer in games that are dealt more slowly than others. So find a game you like and start playing. If you go to the craps table you'll be in a game where the house edge is small, but you often have to risk a goodly chunk of change by taking full advantage of that low casino edge.

If you decide to play baccarat during the day, you can do so at a fairly leisurely pace, while still placing yourself in a game with a small house advantage. It's important to remember that it's your vacation, so enjoy yourself. Pick a game you like, make the most intelligent bets you can and have fun. But once your money for that day or that session is gone, that's it. Find something else to do.

Losing It All: Some Tools to Ease the Sting

OK, OK, you didn't heed our advice and your money ran out long before your vacation was over. What do you do now? You really ought to find something to do besides gambling, because you've already blown your entire gaming budget. But if you can afford it and are resolute, you may look for some way to replenish your stash. The answer is called casino credit, and since the casino wants your money, credit is easily come by. It may seem odd for us to suggest that you actually want to go out and ask for money from the casino. Yet this trick has a number of safeguards behind it that make it a lot better than hitting up the ATM or stretching your credit line. We'll explain why next time.