Often, I’ve heard players tell a video poker story of a time when their score was positive on a given day, but then they “got greedy” and ended up with a negative result. The phrase is usually accompanied by some self-loathing. Perhaps, “Why did I let myself do that again. I know better!”
I almost never say that, although I’ve certainly had my share of experiences where my score went south after I was ahead for a while. Today I want to look at that term.
I’m not going Gordon Gekko on you and proclaiming, “Greed is good!” As I’m using it today, greed is a negative trait.
Let’s also accept in general that winning is good and losing is bad. Then losing intentionally would be a bad thing. One more premise we must accept is that gambling scores go up and down. We can all recount what happened over the last half hour. None of us can accurately predict what swings will happen in the next half hour.
To my mind then, so long as I am playing a game that exceeds 100% in theoretical return, and playing to the best of my ability, when I lose, it’s just a circumstance I cannot control. I know it’s going to happen sometimes. Frequently, even. I just don’t know if it is going to happen today or not.
If I hated myself after each loss, then I’d be in a psychologically unhealthy profession. Losing is just part of the game.
Most players, of course, aren’t playing games where they have the advantage. They either can’t find good games, don’t know how to play them well, or possibly are in the mood to play and don’t really care whether or not they have the advantage. For players like this, if they’re just thinking about the royal flush without accurately considering the cost to get it, then yes, perhaps that could be said to be “greedy.” But that’s not the way most players use the term.
As best as I can tell, some players who use the term simply mean they lost and aren’t happy about it. Perhaps they’re telling what poker players refer to as a bad beat story. If that’s the case, no big deal.
Others, perhaps, are justifying their loss by admitting to a “personality defect” (i.e., greed) which has the effect of saying that this is not really their fault. They are still good people who have occasional lapses.
But the fact is that they are going to be losing again and again and again — interspersed by wins sometimes. Every gambler goes through this. Even winning ones. It isn’t that you’re greedy. It’s that you’re playing a game with ups and downs.
Perhaps they use the term because they are poor losers. While nobody likes to lose, getting really, really upset about it probably suggests you should consider not gambling. Knowing you’re going to get upset over and over again because that’s the nature of the game isn’t the healthiest way to lead your life.
This article makes me think about how I play and why I play. For fun yes and profit at times!
The ‘pleasure center’ of our brain kicks in when a good hit/hand happens. Like with drugs, that high allows us to be deluded into thinking the machine or cards will turn again sooner or later, so we keep going. Like with drugs, we play more, put more back in, seeking that high.
The damned pleasure center is the downfall of many. Call it greed or physiological dependence, gambling, alcohol, drugs, etc. When the Internet first came on the scene it created a serious dependence in otherwise educated, professional people who couldn’t get off their monster…all those links taking them everywhere hour after hour. Now kids are addicted to video games. But I digress.
Apart from what terminology is used, I think the thing that happens that is relevant to this topic is something that comes in 2 forms. One form is the recommendation that I’ve heard from both lots of “experts” and lots of “non-experts”: “If you are winning, increase your bet.” The problem with that is that there is no factual basis to do that. The fact that you’ve been winning does not mean that if you continue to play, you will continue to win. To the contrary: unless you are playing a game with no house edge or whose EV is over 100%, you more likely will lose. “Past results don’t determine future results.” If you begin losing after you increase your bet, then your net result will be a loss. But all scenarios are predicated on the fact that you will continue playing. Why not consider stopping play, and walking away with a profit? Or, as an alternative, consider decreasing your bet after you’ve been winning, in which case you will be favored to show a net profit for the day even if you lose during the 2nd half of your play session. The other form is the feeling some people have that says, “Today is my day, I’m on a winning streak, so if I keep on playing, I’ll keep on winning.” A large number of people truly believe that. But in fact, most of the time, and some people would say all of the time, there wasn’t anything supernatural going on, but rather, it was just “luck”, or more sternly, just random results that happened to be favorable to the player. I think the problem is that people’s emotions get in the way of their reasoning and prudence.