What Should I Do?

3 December 2024

By Frank Scoblete

QUESTION from WILLIAM:

I am getting bored, make that annoyed, make that really annoyed, with playing the same old games. Let me explain.

I like blackjack, craps, and roulette in inverse order you might say. So that would be roulette, craps, and blackjack. Okay, why am I bored and annoyed?

Playing the games is fun, no doubt about that but I am tired of the other players. It is the same old conversations and complaints they have. Look, you are going to lose sometimes, maybe many times, and you just have to deal with it.

There are no magical elves that control your fate. There are no spirits floating above the table manipulating the games.

The games are random so grow up and understand that.

I know you don’t like this with your philosophy of playing at full tables to go up against fewer decisions which would be good for the players as more decisions means less money coming in for you. But I am almost ready to give up any wins and just play me against the dealer with as few other players are possible.

One on one. Blackjack

I find it hard to do that now at each and every game. The casinos are packed with players when I go to them, and that, right now, is not such a good thing. I look around and, to be honest, I don’t like them very much. The players, that is, the casinos are fine.

Roulette seems to have attracted so many pushy players who knock over other players’ chips and they don’t even apologize. And they just keep playing after knocking over other players’ chips. Weren’t they ever taught manners at home when they were kids?

And craps? Everyone seems to make the worst bets and then they moan and groan when they lose. Yeah, buddy, you lose all the time because you don’t know how to really play the game. Make the low house-edge bets I used to say to them and they’d ignore me as if I told them I could fly.

Blackjack always has someone who thinks he is an expert telling you how to play and getting annoyed when you play the proper basic strategy the way I do. Haven’t they ever read a book on the game?

I tell them that you play your hand and I will play my hand. That’s what I used to tell these experts. And I am not too friendly anymore either. Sometimes, actually many times, I now ignore them and pray that they go away.

And my wife? She has become a second guesser, I’m not kidding. She keeps telling me to take a break and do other things. Oh, sure. We’re here in the casino and you are sitting at a slot machine, eating candy and ice cream, and I am miserable.

She doesn’t even speed up like other slot players do. She just eats candies she buys in the gift shop and eats them slowly for hours! She’s gained a lot of weight too.

She just keeps telling me to “take a break, take a break, and do something else.”

What do you think of all of this?

-----William

FRANK RESPONDS:

Take a break.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries, and bookstores.