You hit the nail on the head. If you simply play the pass-line and free-odds on craps, the house edge is extremely small. And yet, most people lose far more than predicted by the odds. The problem is exactly as you stated - people don't have a defined exit-strategy, and their implicit exit-strategy is to keep playing till they lose everything. Which is guaranteed to happen 100% of the time even if the house-edge was 0.
An approach that I've found to be useful, and have personally used in Vegas:
- Always start off each session with a fixed $X in chips, even if you're flush from previous winnings
- If at any point during the session, you get to $2X or $0 in chips, end the session immediately and cash out everything. Even if you're on a "hot streak"
- Bet large enough that you will get to $2X or $0 in a short/moderate period of time. The longer your session drags on, the lower the likelihood of getting to $2X
- Once a session has ended, have a cooling off period. Eg, no further gambling until after the next show/meal
If done right, gambling can actually be extremely cheap. With a house-edge of 0.5%, you can gamble $10,000 and only lose $50 on average. This makes it far cheaper (and more exciting) than eating out or going to shows.
The usual disclaimers still apply: only gamble what you can accept losing, no more
An approach that I've found to be useful, and have personally used in Vegas:
- Always start off each session with a fixed $X in chips, even if you're flush from previous winnings
- If at any point during the session, you get to $2X or $0 in chips, end the session immediately and cash out everything. Even if you're on a "hot streak"
- Bet large enough that you will get to $2X or $0 in a short/moderate period of time. The longer your session drags on, the lower the likelihood of getting to $2X
- Once a session has ended, have a cooling off period. Eg, no further gambling until after the next show/meal
If done right, gambling can actually be extremely cheap. With a house-edge of 0.5%, you can gamble $10,000 and only lose $50 on average. This makes it far cheaper (and more exciting) than eating out or going to shows.
The usual disclaimers still apply: only gamble what you can accept losing, no more