The misleading language of gambling

Some philosophers have stated that if you don't have a word for something then that something doesn't exist. This may or may not be true. But what about its corollary, having a word or words and expressions for something that doesn't exist? What if that non-existent something makes people do foolish things? Stupid things? Things that will hurt their supply of money? What if the expression is really an equivocation? It means one thing but the reader takes it to mean something else.

We can put aside questions of things which may or may not exist that we actually have words for, such as ghosts, angels, demons, flying saucers and aging actresses who don't get facelifts. That leaves us with words in gambling that are completely misleading and often totally meaningless, that players put their faith in. I made a list of such expressions in my new book Cutting Edge Craps: Advanced Strategies for Serious Players!

You will read or hear these types of expressions from casino players all the time:

• "The table is hot."
• "The table is cold."
• "He is having a hot hand."
• "Everyone is sevening out in a couple of rolls."
• "The number 12 [or pick a number or type of bet] is hitting a lot."
• "The number 2 [pick a number or type of bet] isn't hitting."
• "How is the table?"
• "The trend of this table is [choose whatever trend you want]."
• "This shooter is great."

You can translate these expressions for any casino game you wish, but I'll just stick to craps for this column. Many craps players base their gambling philosophies on the above sentence structures as if the structure is telling them something real about the table at this very moment in time. The belief in these sentence structures is fool's gold because there is no "is" in the game of craps. There is only a "was." I'll repeat: there is no "is" in gambling, there is only a "was."

By saying a table is hot or is cold, or that this or that number is hitting or is not hitting creates the illusion that these events are in a constant or steady state of existence at this present precise moment. In fact, none of the above sentences exist in the real world of a craps game or any random gambling game.

If you base your betting styles on such illusory sentences, you will bet money on future events based on past events. In a random game, these past events do not herald or predict what will happen on the next roll and they cannot predict what will happen "right now." They are completely meaningless.

Once again, there is no "is" in the random game of craps. Even some controlled shooters will fall into these language traps when they play at the tables with random rollers. They will actually believe that a random shooter who was hot in the last 10 minutes or half hour or hour will maintain such heat right now on this very throw -- that he is hot. Sadly for those who believe such a notion, that is not the case; that is merely the sentence structure of craps-talk confusing the real nature of the game.

All the good rolls this shooter had are not indicative of anything but past events. They have no relation to the "now" or the "upcoming." They are indeed stagnant events, just sitting in the past of memory.

What about controlled shooters, meaning those craps players who can control the dice? It is somewhat different for them. Since they are controlling the dice to some degree, which means either decreasing the appearance of the 7 or increasing the appearance of certain specific numbers, one can make a future statement based on the skill of the shooter such as "this shooter has the skill to continue to hit a number of 6s over the random probability." Thus, you could if you wish make a statement such as "he is skillful" since that skill does exist at this moment in time and the next moment as well.

The same applies to a card counter who knows the composition of the remaining cards. He can make predictions about the future in terms of what is more or less likely to happen. For example, if all the aces have come out of the deck, then the card counter can safely predict that there will be no more blackjacks until after the shuffle. There is no ace left.

It all comes down to using the proper verb tense. That will focus your mind on the truth of the game, not the illusion of the game. There is no present tense in a random game. If you understand that the sentence structures of the random game are misleading, you will not fall into the typical betting traps most players plunge into. Those of you who are truly skilled and serious players must knock the false "time-code" out of your minds. The word "is" is dead!

The language of craps is misleading -- it is misleading right now and I am guessing it will continue into the future to be misleading, to the detriment of the players. Change the concept of the normal structures, such as "the table is hot," to "the table was hot," and that will start you on your way to seeing clearly and not being confused by words and expressions that sound like they mean one thing when in reality they mean something else.