How Much Money Should You Bring to the Casino?

Have you ever thought about how much money you should bring to a casino? Some gamblers just go with whatever they have in their pocket, but many people are more comfortable with a more detailed plan and budget.

You should bring enough money to the casino to cover all of your expenses, including food, drinks, and travel, and the maximum amount you’re willing to lose. Don’t bring more than you’re willing to lose. You don’t want to be tempted to keep playing if you hit a losing streak.

Here’s an example:

You’re planning a trip to your closest casino and decide the most you’re willing to lose is $400. You’re going to take your car and you have close to a full tank of gas, but you want to fill up on the way back from the casino and think this is going to cost $20.

You plan to eat at the casino buffet, which costs $15, and you might have a snack, so you budget $5 for it. You’re not a big drinker, so you budget $20 for drinks.

Adding these together, you get a total of $460.

In this example, you should only take $460 to the casino. It’s probably safe to round this up to $500 so you have some extra money for an emergency, but you should still stick with your budget of $460 even if you take the extra $40 with you.

How Discipline Affects How Much Money You Should Bring to the Casino

I don’t know how disciplined you are, but I do know how casinos are designed. Casinos and casino games are set up to keep you playing as long as possible. They’re also designed to get you to risk as much money as possible.

Building discipline is the best thing you can do as a gambler. You need to have the discipline to make sure you never risk more money than you want. You need to use your discipline to what the casinos want you to do.

Casinos want you to forget about how long you’re gambling and forget about how much you’re risking. They make more money when you fall into their plans. This doesn’t mean you can’t go to the casino and it doesn’t mean you can’t gamble.

But you need to make sure you’re operating on your plan and not theirs.

Should You Bring Cash to the Casino or Just Use Credit and/or Debit Cards?

Always take cash to the casino for gambling and expenses. I have a few credit and debit cards, but I make it a rule to never use them when I’m gambling.

When you use a card to get money at an ATM, you have to pay fees.

But the real problem is that it’s too easy to access cash using a card. If you train yourself to never use a card to get cash for gambling, you won’t fall into the trap.

I used to travel to a casino with a poker room a couple hours away from where I live. One of the players that was usually there was a lawyer and a terrible poker player.

He would always go to the ATM and get $400 or $500 out and play poker.

When he busted out, he simply went back to the ATM and got more money. Many times I saw him go to the ATM three or four times during the night to buy back in. He could probably afford to do this, but he’s an example of why using your cards in the casino is a bad idea.

Learning How to Win Affects This Too

One of the best ways to deal with the question of how much money you need to take to the casino is learning how to win. When you learn how to play with a zero house edge, or gamble with a long term edge, the questions go from how much you are willing to lose to how much do you need to take to maximize your profit.

It’s not easy to gamble with an edge, but there are some opportunities. When you’re gambling with an edge over the house and/or your opponents, you don’t have to worry about limiting how much you take to the casino.

Here are 3 ways you can gamble with an edge:

1- Blackjack

Blackjack is unique when it comes to casino games because if you learn the right strategies and use your mind to alter the outcome you can get an edge over the casino. Most players still play against the house edge, but it’s not that hard to learn how to reverse the edge.

The first step is to learn everything you can about the rules. Some blackjack rules lower the house edge and some make it higher. You can find blackjack games with good rules that have a house edge of .4% or lower.

The next step is to learn how to use the best strategy for every hand you play. Each blackjack hand has a single best way that it should be played, and when you play every hand correctly it keeps the house edge low. When you play blackjack games with good rules and use the best strategy, you’re playing with a low house edge.

In order to flip the house edge to an edge for you requires learning how to count cards. Counting cards is easier than most people think. You don’t memorize all of the cards; you simply keep track of the ratio of high and low cards.

When the remaining shoe has more high cards than low cards, you have an edge. When you bet more when you have the edge, you can win enough to turn a long term profit.

2- Poker

When you play popular poker games like Texas holdem, you can play with an edge because you’re playing against other poker players and not against the house. Winning poker players decide how much to take to the casino or poker room based on how big their bankroll is and how much they need to buy into the games they want to play.

Winning poker players know that they’re winning in the long run, so the most important thing is to make sure they don’t go broke. The only way they go broke is playing above their bankroll.

To learn how to get an edge playing poker you have to learn as much about the best strategies as possible. Study books and articles about poker strategy. Then practice as much as you can to learn how to win more than you lose.

3- Betting on Sports

Most casino gamblers don’t think about betting on sports, but it’s one way that some gamblers play with an edge. It’s not as easy and straightforward as learning how to be a winning blackjack or poker player, but some gamblers know how to make money betting on sports.

When you learn how to make money betting on sports you stop worrying about how much money to take and start thinking about how much to bet based on the value the lines offer. Your bet sizing in relation to your total bankroll is more important than how much money you need to take with you.

If you want to learn how to be a winning sports bettor, learn more about how to handicap games. Start evaluating statistics and trends, and build your own sports betting model. Once you build a model you can start testing different things until you start winning.

How Much Money Should You Bring to the Casino – Final Thoughts

How much money should you bring to the casino is a fine question to answer.

But here’s another option:

Learn how to gamble with an advantage. When you learn how to gamble with an edge you start asking how much you need to take to the casino to maximize your profits.

If you’re playing most casino games the amount you take to the casino needs to be based on how much you’re willing to lose. Set a firm budget and stick with it no matter what happens. If you run out of money, simply stop playing.

Take cash with you to the casino and avoid the temptation to get some more money using a card at the ATM.

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