5 Best Ways to Make Winning a Habit

It’s the goal of every gamer: to make winning their primary outcome.

It’s easy to find yourself in a spiral of loss, trying to chase the excitement or drag yourself out of a sticky situation. However, it’s one of the most dangerous things you can do—for your mental health and your wallet.

Luckily, there are ways you can influence your overall online gambling results, regardless of the games you play. Many gamblers say that it’s impossible to beat the odds and find yourself on a winning streak more than occasionally—we say they’re just not well-enough prepared. With a little research and work ahead of your playtime, you can keep gambling and gaming sustainable hobbies.

Taking control of your gambling hobby and making sure that you’re approaching it in not only a healthy way, but an efficient way is the best thing you can do for your experience. Let’s take a look at some of the tips and tricks you can use to find yourself winning more often than not—and letting the good times roll.

Find Games with Best Odds of Winning

The first way to go about your newfound winning streak is obvious: you need to choose games with the best odds of winning and at least keep them in your rotation, even if you don’t play them every time. It’s not necessarily about the newest exciting releases; it might be that your best chance comes from tried and true classics.

It’s most important to consider those that involve a mix of skill and strategy rather than just relying on luck. An example is Blackjack, which offers pretty good odds when played using a basic strategy, reducing the house edge to approximately 1% or less.

Craps is another choice, particularly when betting on the “ line” or “don’t line” and taking or laying odds. This can also lower the house edge to under 1%.

A third option is Baccarat: a straightforward card game, with decent odds, especially when betting on the banker’s hand. It comes with a typical house edge of about 1.06%.

Video Poker games like Jacks or Better or Deuces Wild also offer favorable odds. Using the best strategy you can, you’re able to reduce the house edge to 0.5% or lower.

Lastly, if you’re looking for another card game, Pai Gow Poker comes to mind. It isn’t quite as low as blackjack but it still has a relatively low house edge, around 2.5%, depending on how well you play.

Making sure that you’re playing these games as often as you can is a good start to your campaign of winning more often than you lose. It’s important that you go in with the right mindset and the correct preparation—bringing us to our second tip.

Create an Effective Strategy

You’re never going to manage to seriously up your winning percentages unless you figure out the best strategies possible and stick to them.

It’s absolutely vital that before you play, you research the rules and regulations—not to mention any tips and tricks about strategy that you can find. Make sure that your research comes from a reliable source and take in a variety of options. Keep in mind that some strategies work better in person and others are universal—online or at a traditional casino. Consider the venue in which you’re planning to play and incorporate that into your research.

Every moment you spend researching the game you’re going to play is an investment in your future success.

It’s not all about the games, either. You also need to choose strategies that are in line with how you think and play. Do some introspection: decide what kind of player you are and what you’re looking for. Do you prefer excitement akin to a live casino experience or a more steady pace? Are you willing to go head to head with other players, or do you prefer more solitary pursuits?

Combined with your newfound knowledge of which games have the lowest house edge, make sure that you’re choosing the right games for your style. It’s perfectly reasonable to walk into this hobby without an idea of what works best for you—but it’s not acceptable to start putting your cash on the table without a solid plan in place.

Find a Good Platform

Once you’ve spent your time properly researching the games you’re going to play, the strategies you’re going to implement—it’s time to put it all to the test. It’s playtime.

You have to find a platform that’s going to suit your needs and keep you safe at the same time. The first thing to do is to research which platforms are specifically best for the games you’re planning to play. After you’ve narrowed that down find the one on which you’re most comfortable.

It should be about more than aesthetics; it has to be about data security as well. Only play on legitimate sites. How can you tell if a gambling site is legitimate? Well, luckily, any legitimate site is bursting at the seams to prove its certification status. You should be able to find the online gambling licenses on the home page of the site, prominently displayed.

You should also take a look at the and conditions before you so much as enter your full name. Make sure that you’re comfortable with aspects such as data protection and storage, bank transfer policies, deposit and withdrawal rules, and bonus/free-spin use. Don’t be caught unawares by a rule you didn’t read through!

Your community is a great resource for this—gamblers are extremely vocal about their experiences and preferences. If anyone’s had a less-than-legit time on a certain site, they’re going to spread that information far and wide. Feel free to check out your local forums, make some friends, and collect their suggestions.

Practice Makes Perfect

Okay: you’ve got the games, you’ve got the strategy, you know where to play—you’re all set, right?

WRONG!

There’s still one more step that really shouldn’t just be a “before you begin playing,” step, but one that follows you through the entire timeline of your gaming ion: Practice.

Practice really does make perfect when it comes to online gambling and gaming—think of it as an extension of the research you’re already doing into strategy. You need to be able to get the proper feel of the games you’re planning to play if you’re going to have any hope of hitting frequent winning streaks.

A great way to accomplish this is by using free spins and game previews. A ton of casinos make agreements with developers to release a limited version of a game online to draw players in and help them decide if they’d like to play the full version. These limited versions are free—not only cash-free, but risk-free too. It’s a great way to figure out if it’s really the game for you or it’s time to move on.

There’s also going to be a learning curve to any new hobby you pick up. Online gambling certainly isn’t an exception. Keep in mind that your winning streak likely isn’t going to happen immediately—it’s going to take time to develop the skills you need to win that cash.

When you’re setting up your monthly entertainment budget to include online gambling, keep in mind that any money you put in that category should be considered “spent.” That way, if you win, you can keep playing longer—and if you lose, that was part of the plan anyway so it’s not a big deal.

The more you practice, the better your chances of hitting that winning streak and staying on it.

The Importance of Staying Cool and Calm

Last but not least, we need to touch on the importance of staying cool and calm under pressure—and what that’s going to do to accelerate your chances of winning.

Go into each play session with a realistic mindset. Understand that you won’t win from the very first time you play, and don’t allow yourself to get down to the point that you start feeling the urge to chase your losses.

Staying cool and calm under pressure isn’t just going to help you in the practical aspects of the game, such as when you’re playing poker—it’s also going to make sure that you keep your head during the stressful situations that all online gamblers encounter from time to time.

This also includes not letting yourself get carried away with drinking or other chemical methods of further relaxation during your gaming sessions. Keep a sober mind and stick to the plan. Don’t let yourself be distracted by flashing lights and intrusive thoughts.

You’ve done all the work you can, learned the rules and the strategies, practiced, researched—all signs point to you hitting your groove and starting your wins.