Using Credit Cards for Gambling: A Bad Idea

If you plan to go to a casino, it is wise to leave the credit cards, debit cards, or other plastic and virtual cash at home. The reason for this is fairly simple: credit cards make you lose sense of the value of your money.

It is easy to lose oneself when in a casino, with all the free drinks, glamorous periphery, and the exciting games. Because of this, one is always in danger of losing a huge sum of money. What is needed therefore is control over your cash, and this could only be achieved if one could keep track of how much one is already spending.

Through the use of chips and tokens, the casino masks the real value of your money. Credit cards and other forms of virtual cash amplify this illusion. The result is that you risk gambling more than what you can afford to lose.

Always bear in mind that the casino always has the house edge on almost all of the games. Chance-based games especially always have a negative expectation. This means that mathematically, the casino always gets more than what you could possibly win in the long run.

If you use a credit card for gambling, you could have the feeling that you have an unlimited bankroll. That means you have a chance of having a pretty huge bill coming your way after the session is over. What's more, when you use a credit card, you are literally gambling borrowed money.

Gambling with borrowed money is of course a really bad idea. When you use a credit card instead of hard cash in a casino, you do not gamble excess money or even money that you have earned, you are gambling money that you will NEED to earn. This would spell financial disaster.

The best approach would be to bring to the casino just enough money that you intend to gamble. By planning ahead how much money you will convert to chips, you already gained control.

Try to separate your gambling money from those that you will use to pay other expenses. If you plan to go on a series of casino visits, split the money into how many sessions you plan to take. In that way, you would be sure to have enough money for the whole series.

Always remember that winning with hard cash is always better than winning via a credit, since with the former you get to keep all of the earnings. Treat credit cards as if it would bring you to your gambling demise. And remember: the key to walking away from a casino as a winner is control, and for this you need to literally feel the money.