REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS? [1]

By Snake of Craps, LLP

www.littlejoecraps.com

I was in the casino the other day talking with a new student.  I asked the student, “How much they buy-in for at the craps table?”  They told me “$1000.00.”  My next question was, “What do you expect to win when you buy-in for $1000.00?”  Their answer to me was, “Between $500 to $800.”  I must say I was quite surprised by this answer. 

There are three IMPORTANT things that you should take away from this article.  The first thing is, YOU MUST have a WIN GOAL in mind BEFORE walking up to the craps table!  The second thing, is $500 to $800 a realistic win goal for a $1000.00 buy-in?  You are looking at a 50% to 80% win?  Is this realistic?  How often do YOU win 50% to 80% of your buy in?  Does this happen? YES, it does! But how often do YOU win 50% to 80% of you buy-in? 

I am sorry, but 10% to 20% is a much more realistic goal.  When I walk into a casino MY win goal is 10% to 20%.  So I buy-in for $500, my win goal is $100.  Which is 20%.  How often do I reach this goal?  I win about 80% of the time.  I do that is 8 sessions out of 10.  Now you are probably saying BS.  You can ask the boys I play craps with and they will confirm what I am saying.

Quite often I ask this question of my students, “If you were investing your money in the stock market, what kind of a return would you expect at the end of a year?”  Most respond, 8% to 10%.  Then why is $40 to $50 not a large enough win, if your buy-in is $500?  I do not care what your answer is.  If you do not understand this concept, YOU are in denial and YOU are just gambling. 

When I say only 1% to 2% of the people who play craps can do what I do, everyone thinks they are in that 1% to 2%.  Unless you can wrap yourself, your mind around the previous paragraph, YOU ARE NOT in that 1% to 2%!  YOU ARE NOT an advantage player!  YOU ARE a gambler!

What I tell my students, this is a MARATHON not a SPRINT.  Last weekend I played 5 sessions.  My sessions went as follows: $245, $46, $240, $335, and $175.  That totals $1041 for the weekend. That is more than I brought home from my REAL job last week. You may ask the question, why did you stay long enough to win $335 that is a 67% win?  I was throwing the dice and had a hand in the high thirties.  I was not going to walk away in the middle of my roll.  I did leave the table after that win.  The $175 win, I NEVER touched the dice.  I won that on 4 random rollers in about 15 minutes.  Why did I stop at $175, if I was doing that well?  Too many times I have lost my buy-in chasing the last $25 to complete my goal.  In game of craps, I believe that winning and losing pattern mirrors a mathematical sine/co-sine curve pattern.  I would rather get out of the craps game near the top of the curve than on the down side.  Why did I stop at only a $46 win?  The table was tough, and I decided it was not worth the fight.  I will save my bank-roll to fight another day.  The third and final thing that I am trying to impress here is STICK TO YOUR PLAN!  If you quickly reach your goal, stick with your plan and get out of the casino with the money!  You could say, “If I won $175 in twenty minutes, I can win $350 in forty minutes!”  That line of thinking WILL get you in trouble!  More than likely, you will lose you $175 that you won plus some or all of your original buy-in.  When you get greedy, you get burned.  Remember, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.   Be a pig and keep getting fat on the casino’s chips!

Let’s look at these numbers.  If you win only $100 a day playing craps.  You do that 5 days a week for 50 weeks a year, you would win $25,000 a year tax-free.  Let’s look at this another way.  If you are in the 28% tax bracket, you are taking home 72% of you income.  If you are taking home $25,000 your gross income is $34,722.22 ($25000.00 / .72 = $34,722.22) not a bad part time job.  If you bump that up to $200 that is $50,000 a year tax-free or your gross income would be $69,444.44.  In this economy that is a good job period.  Remember, you should be able to do this working only a couple of hours a day.

Now I DO NOT recommend you run out and quit your day job and take-up craps full time.  Playing craps does not come with medical benefits - so do not quit your day job.  But the extra money can and does make MY life nicer and easier. What can it do for YOU? Also remember there will be days when you will have a negative pay check - because you CANNOT win all of the time. There will be bad days with the good days, limiting your losses will be the keys to your success.

As my buddies Super Rick and Harley say…….that is just my opinion. 

What are your thoughts?

Snake