Booze cruise

Most gambling writers will caution players not to drink or not to drink too much when they play casino games. This is good advice because if your judgment is impaired, there is a decided chance your bankroll will become even more impaired. Money tends to lose its power as the gods of alcohol possess one’s body, mind and spirit.

But there is a second way to look at drinking and casino gambling. I also think of drinking and casino playing as analogies to each other. Follow me on this:

The first drink a person takes is usually handled slowly; a little sip here, some moments later a little sip there. It takes a while to finish that first drink because the drinker is savoring it. Think of going to a wine tasting. You don’t grab the bottle and down it in one giant chug. You want to savor the taste, the experience.

Now when our drinker receives his second drink he tipples it a little faster. The third drink, well, now we are starting to see everything speed up as our drinker begins pouring the stuff down his throat, drink after drink after drink. His mind becomes increasingly slower as his drinks start to slide down with nary a stop for the guy to breathe. The guy’s whole being is now sotted.

The result of the above behavior can end in a long session hovering over and heaving into the toilet, or barfing on people as he staggers away, or passing out heaven knows where -- or all of these things. It is not a very pleasant ending to an evening that started off gently sipping one’s first drink.

Now, playing casino games -- especially slot machines -- can go the exact same way. At first one plays slowly, enjoying the spinning of the reels or the performance of the various videos. But as the seconds and then minutes tick-tock away, the player begins to speed up his play. Instead of playing five spins a minute, he is now doing seven. Time passes. He is now doing nine, then ten, then a dozen decisions a minute.

If our player is playing a multi-level game, he will dump in the max each and every time. He is on a tear. His enjoyment of each spin is far less than it was at the beginning of his play. He sipped his first play but now he is chugging down his latest. The casino edge has a much greater chance to wipe up the floor with him -- at least, it will over time, as he plays more and more and more of his hard-earned money.

Yes, if we take the booze and the playing rate and add them together the results can be horrendous. The next morning becomes an “I did what?” experience. It often becomes a “what happened to all my money?” experience as well.

There are few things worse in casino gambling then a hangover and not enough money left to buy a couple of aspirins.

Frank Scoblete’s new book is “I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps!”

This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net.