20 Assumptions You Should Never Make in a Casino!

Tell me honestly, whenever you say something like: "Well, I assumed blah, blah, blah," doesn't it annoy the heck out of you when some idiot then counters with: "Always remember, when you assume you make an ass of you and me! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

None of us want to be told our assumptions are false. Or illogical. Or dangerous. Or dumb.

Could you imagine what would happen if we discovered our individual assumptions about God, heaven and hell were completely wrong?

"Hey, are you God? Am I in heaven because I was a good __________?" (Fill in the blank with your particular religion.)

"Me? God? Ha! Ha! Ha! No, no. I am Gwando, the Mean, the ruler of the universe. The one true religion was Gabagaba. There were four people who believed in it. They are here in heaven with me. All the rest of you, all nine billion humans who lived and died, were wrong and are now in hell, freezing. Their teeth chattering from the vicious cold down there. You shouldn't have assumed you had the truth about heaven, hell or anything puny mortal, ha! ha! ha! because when you assume you make an ass of.... [he presses a button]."

"Aaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!"

Now, that would be disquieting, wouldn't it? To discover that our most cherished beliefs "paved the primrose way to the everlasting refrigerator" (to misquote Shakespeare) instead of to "hog heaven" (to quote craps player, Barry Dickerson).

And it will be almost as disquieting for many casino players to discover that some of their cherished gambling/casino assumptions, many handed down by tradition and authority, are indeed false, illogical, dangerous and dumb.

Here are 20 things players assume that can make an...I assume you can finish that line, can't you?

Assumption #16: Intelligent people don't play the slots.

I used to buy into this one big time. Then I started to do research into the slot machines for my book and found I was completely wrong. In fact, not only are many slot players intelligent, some are actually brilliant. Slot players are a representative cross section of America, not the bottom of the U.S. barrel. So why do they play the one-armed bandits when they know the games are impossible to beat in the long run and often carry house edges that are much greater than the table games? The usual answer is that slots are relaxing. You don't have any pressure to play a certain way at a certain speed. Often people with jobs that cause them to deal with the public will say: "I love to play the slots because I don't have to deal with people." Others state: "I play because it is the only chance you have for a big win with a small investment." Whatever the individual reason a person gives for playing the machines, one thing is certain across the country -- slots are king! From Vegas, where they represent almost 65 percent of the gross revenue to Mississippi where they represent over 85 percent, more people pull those handles and press those buttons than roll them bones at craps and tap for hits at blackjack.

Assumption #17: If you tip the dealers at blackjack, they'll give you better cards.

If you were a dealer and you could control what cards came out of a deck or shoe would you be hustling tips from the likes of you? Or would you tell your relatives and friends to come to the casino tonight to clean up! Of course, if you had larceny in your heart, every relative you have (that you liked) and every friend, would belly up to your table and bet the table max until they wiped out the casino, or until the casino fired you. Unfortunately (or fortunately), dealers can't control what happens to the cards. In the bad old days of bent-nosed casino owners and baseball-bat justice, some of the unscrupulous casinos hired card mechanics who could indeed control what came out the deck. Those days are done. Very few dealers today have an interest in cards per se. They are just doing their jobs. Luck controls the fall of the cards. Tips just control the possibility of a smile or a "thank you" from an appreciative dealer.

Assumption #18: Senior citizens are spending their social security money on gambling and not saving it.

This is not so, since most seniors have budgeted their money wisely. But if the assumption were correct, that seniors are taking some, part or all of their social security checks and blowing it in the casinos instead of saving it for their offsprings' inheritance ...so what? Aren't you tired of the busybodies in the government and the press telling us what to do with our money? I remember when Michael Jordan took a side trip to Atlantic City during the playoffs to play a little blackjack, the media were aghast at the amounts he bet. Listen, if I made 100 million a year and, after taking care of my family obligations, I decided to gamble the other 99 million -- that's my business. It's my money. We have begun to treat our senior citizens not as the generation that survived the Depression, not as the generation that defeated Hitler and Mussolini, not as the generation that faced down Communism, but as this melange of drooling idiots who shouldn't be allowed to make decisions for themselves.

Assumption #19: Most dealers are problem gamblers.

Most dealers don't gamble at all. The percentage that do usually do so only when friends or relatives come to town. The percentage of problem gamblers among dealers is probably what it is in the general population -- minuscule.

Assumption #20: Progressive jackpots are programmed to hit on weekends and not midweek.

More money is won, and lost, on slot machines during the weekend than during any similar time span during the week. In fact, more progressives, big and small, are probably hit during the weekend than at any time during the week. But it has nothing to do with the programming of the machines. It has more to do with a very simple fact: More people go to casinos during the weekends and more people in the casinos means more spins of those reels, and more spins equal more jackpot winners.