The Integrated Gambler: How to Enjoy the Total Casino Experience - Part 5

INCORPORATE YOUR PLAY INTO A REGULAR SCHEDULE

When my wife, the beautiful A.P., and I are on an extended casino trip - and we can be in casinos for a week to a month at a stretch - we make a point of keeping to a regular schedule. The Captain calls this "maintaining your rhythm" and it is essential if you wish to have fun.

We get up at the same time that we get up when we're home; we go for our morning walk, and we have a relaxing breakfast where we read the newspapers and stay current with the world's events. We integrate the real world into our casino world -- which is and should be a fantasy world, a dreamland of relaxation and pleasure. Then around eleven o'clock in the morning we'll play our first session of blackjack. This will last about an hour or so. After this, I'll wander around the casino and observe and talk to people, while A.P. will head to a nice spot where she can read a book. Then we'll have a relaxing lunch. After lunch we'll go swimming or to a movie or play another session of blackjack. (A.P. might even go to the library -- she's as strange as a dentist!) Then it's nap time. After our nap, I might play a session of blackjack, A.P. might find a shady spot outdoors and continue reading her book, and then we'll go to dinner.

To me dinner is an event, so we pick a good restaurant, perhaps invite some good friends to join us, and we take our time savoring the food and drink. After dinner, we might go to a show or play another session, perhaps of craps. By the end of a day, we have put in about four hours of play but we're relaxed, healthily tired, not overloaded, and ready for a good night's sleep. And, yes, we've had fun. We are not exhausted, not off, and we can keep this pace up for as many days or weeks as we're scheduled to be in the casinos. When I mention to acquaintances that I'll stay in Las Vegas for a month at a time, they invariably say: "I couldn't do that. I'm exhausted after four days!" Most of them are exhausted not because Las Vegas is an exhausting city per se (after all, a place is just a place) but because they exhaust themselves.

Even on day trips to your favorite casinos, spend some time doing nothing. Yes, just sit yourself down and people watch, or wander over to the high-limit tables and watch the spectacle of people betting more money in a few hands of this or that game than other people make in a year. A.P. and I have a fun little game we play when we watch mega-high rollers in action. It's called "guess what that person does for a living." It's relaxing. It's fun. It doesn't cost a penny to play.

If you are in a city such as Vegas or Atlantic City where it is easy to walk from casino to casino, make a point of visiting different casinos each day of your visit. Soak up the atmosphere, check out the incredible shopping malls and displays, note the various clientele. Or play a little here, and a little there. I once walked the length of the Boardwalk in Atlantic City making a single craps bet on a single shooter at each and every Boardwalk casino. It took four hours but I incorporated sight-seeing, gambling, and exercise all into one outing. It was fun.

Next time: So how should you gamble? Very, very carefully.