Recently, Bonnie read to me a headline from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that said Las Vegas has some of the worst drivers in the country. According to a study done by Allstate Insurance, Las Vegas ranked 130th out of 195 cities with populations of at least 50,000.
This information was not a big surprise to me. According to my reasoning, many of the problems with Las Vegas drivers are attributable to the casinos. First of all, casinos give away lots of free alcohol — so a higher percentage of drivers are, to at least some degree, driving under the influence. Second, at any given time, many drivers in greater Las Vegas have likely lost way too much money and are letting this loss affect their driving. Third, perhaps the sun-in-the-eyes effect is stronger in the desert.
I’m proud of my ability to process (sometimes limited) information and figure stuff like this out. I expressed my reasoning to Bonnie and she was properly impressed.
Then I read the article.
It seemed Reno was number 6 on the list — as in, one of the safest cities in the country to drive. Like Las Vegas, Reno also has a lot of casinos. That shot down Reasons One and Two as to why Las Vegas has such lousy drivers. And Henderson (next door to Las Vegas) was ranked 59th in terms of driving safety. Henderson is just as much in the desert as is Las Vegas. That shot my third reason.
At that point, I was frustrated. Occasionally, my reasoning proves to be faulty, but I didn’t feel compelled to immediately share that information with Bonnie.
Although I may not have been correct this time, I suspect most of us are good at making up explanations as to why things happen. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes we’re wrong. Most of us probably don’t keep a record of the times that we are incorrect and certainly many of us overestimate our analytical abilities.
This whole subject came to mind recently when I was reading a post on vpFREE. A player did a good deed (specifically, he returned an abandoned slot ticket to its rightful owner) and, shortly thereafter, he hit a royal flush. The poster concluded that it was karma and this confirmed for him that doing good deeds leads to good things happening in his life.
I’ve been warned about getting into this subject, but . . . the idea that good deeds leads to good results in your life is a core part of many religions. Many people take their religious beliefs very seriously (as they should) and try to apply those beliefs to all aspects of life. But if you wish to be a successful advantage player, you’re going to have to divorce yourself from such “good karma” thinking. It is fine to be religious, but concluding that since A came before B then that means that A CAUSED B is fatal to the type of thinking you need to practice in order to win at gambling.
Without going into my personal religious beliefs (and certainly not trying to convince you to change your religious beliefs), in general I believe that the more “good deeds” I do, the better my life works. The more people in my community who perform random acts of kindness, the better the quality of life is for all of us. I believe this, practice this, and am not interested in arguing with you about it.
But I absolutely do NOT believe that my video poker results have anything to do with whether or not I helped a little old lady across the street earlier in the day. If I DID believe that, every day before I gambled I might seek out little old ladies and help them across the street, (perhaps whether they wanted to go or not!).
None of us is an expert on everything, but that shouldn’t stop us from fully participating in life. For example, I have a limited knowledge about the internal workings of cars, but I can drive reasonably safely and know enough to keep gas in my car and have maintenance regularly performed by people who DO understand such things.
Most of my readers aren’t video poker experts, but many know enough to choose appropriate games and follow a strategy accurately developed by a trusted person or computer program. This works well enough for most people. But adding strategies based on things like, “On my last trip, I won in the afternoon but not in the evening, so in the future I’m not going to be playing at all after dinner,” is simply nonsense.
Learning from what happens to us is important. But a surprising number of people learn the wrong lessons. If you wish to succeed in life (and gambling), you’re going to have to understand the difference between the order of a series of events and what caused those events.
And just because a random order of events happens twice doesn’t confirm that there’s any causation involved.