Seven Deadly Sins for Video Poker Players: Greed

4 January 2025

By Jerry Stickman

Preamble: While browsing through the offerings on television the other night I came across Se7en. It is a 1995 movie about detectives hunting a serial killer that uses the seven deadly sins as motivation for killing. While I am not much of a fan of the movie, lessons can be learned from it regarding video poker play and gambling in general.

This is the second in a series of seven articles that each cover one of the seven deadly sins – second article, second deadly sin – Greed.

Greed is a very commonly exhibited human behavior. Merriam-Webster defines greed as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money), than is needed.”
Greed is insidious. It can cause a normally stable person to lose all discipline in the pursuit of more, more and more money still.

Greed is extremely common among gamblers. It can ruin those who are normally in control of their actions. They play trying to hit the jackpot. Rather than keep to a previously planned point to stop playing, they continue to feed whatever they can come up with into the games in the hope of getting rich.

This can continue until there is nothing left to gamble – meaning, total bankruptcy.

Even when players get lucky and score some big wins, greed rears its ugly head and causes players to gamble away everything they have won. They then continue playing until they, too, have nothing left to play – again, total bankruptcy.

I watched a craps player buy in for $2,000, place some longshot bets and continue to win until he had more than $50,000. Rather than leaving with a (very) nice profit, greed caused him to continue to play until he lost the entire $50,000 plus an additional $20,000 – which was everything he had with him.

Be very careful when it comes to greed.

I am sure you have heard of winners of multi-million dollar lotteries that go bankrupt in short order. Greed will do that to a player.

Do not commit the second deadly sin of greed in your casino play.

As always, may all your wins be swift and large, and your losses be slow and small.

Jerry “Stickman”

Jerry “Stickman” is an expert in craps, blackjack and video poker and advantage slot machine play. He is a regular contributor to top gaming magazines and 888casino.com. He authored the video poker section of “Everything Casino Poker: Get the Edge at Video Poker, Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, and Pai Gow Poker!” You can contact Jerry “Stickman” at stickmanjerryg@gmail.com