Bankroll management is the key that determines who survives and who doesn’t in a casino. The very action of managing one’s bankroll may seem simple and obvious, but oftentimes it might not be immediately clear how to properly do it. Believe me. It makes all the difference in the world to be skilled at managing your money in the casino.

The first thing you need to understand is how online casinos, and all casinos, really operate. People think that casino games are a one on one relationship. You show up, you win or you lose. And if you lose, the casino takes your money. But the truth is a lot weirder than that. You see, casinos have a particular percentage of all money won that gets paid back. They call this a payback percentage. The difference is the casino’s edge, and where the casino actually earns its money. Say the casino has a payback percentage of 99%. What that means is that the casino will pay back 99 cents to every dollar, and keep one penny for itself as profit. Is the picture becoming clearer? Think of casinos as random Robin Hoods. They’re in the business of taking from the rich and poor and giving to the rich or poor. They redistribute wealth, in other words. But randomly. Check out how it works in real time by playing now at a safe casino, like Grand Reef Casino.

Everyone has heard the saying that “the house always wins.” This is actually true, but again, it is not a one on one relationship. The house always wins because it only gives back 99% (or whatever percentage) of what it takes in. It just always keeps a slice for itself. Win or lose, the people who win are winning the money that someone else (or lots of other people combined) lost. That money has to necessarily come from players, and if you’re not wise about how you manage your cash, you might be one of the losers.

In order to be a winner, you have to recognize that over time the odds keep getting worse for you. If you keep playing you will eventually come on your big loss. If you learn to manage your bankroll you will no necessarily win more. Instead, you will make sure that you will lose less. Everyone has a maximum limit that they can afford to lose. No matter how rich you are, you have that limit. If you show up with $1,000 and you end up with your last dollar, you have exceeded that limit of how many losses are acceptable.

Before you start gambling you need to be honest with yourself about how much money you can realistically stand to lose. In order to come up with a clear amount, you should have a good grasp of your personal finances and know how much money you actually have at your disposal. Being honest with oneself is not always easy, especially when one hopes to recoup losses by gambling. Figure out what portion of your income is disposable. That figure is your monthly budget. Now that you have a monthly budget, it is time to further break it up into a daily budget.

Do not play with money you cannot afford to lose. Don’t play with next month’s rent, hoping you’ll come out a winner. If you don’t, you won’t make rent. Getting destitute is a bad idea for long term winning. It will render you unable to continue playing because you’ll have bigger fish to fry. The key is not to aim for the big win off the bat. Go for small, steady wins.

When you have your daily budget, you can decide what to do with it. Will you play a bit every day? Will you save up each daily portion for a weekend of gambling? These are personal decisions, but the total amount of money you have to work with remains the same on a monthly level. Think of these sums as your daily limit. Once you hit your limit you pack it up and return the next day. What you don’t do is dip into the next day’s budget because you think a win is about to save you.

Of course, you won’t always be losing. You will often win. So what do you do with all the won cash? You’re over budget, so technically there shouldn’t be a problem if you keep playing. But what if you lose what you’ve won? The truth is that it’s probably not a smart idea to play with your winnings. In fact, you should practice a form of the ages old method of two pocket gambling. You keep your daily budget in one pocket and move what you won to the other and don’t touch it. At the end of the day, you will have either money left over, or you will be up. Either way, it’s a win-win. The way you would do this online, is by employing some good, old fashioned paper and pencil bookkeeping. You have to keep track of what you have.

When you play online and you see that you’re losing, it might look like a very simple fix to just buy more credits, especially when you are using an E-Wallet like PayPal in one of the PayPal casinos. This is the entire point of managing your bankroll. You have to exercise self control. The last thing you want to do is start doubling your bets as you lose. You might think you’ll recoup your losses on the next win. What always happens is that you will hit the table limit and end up broke. The martingale method, as it’s called, does not work. If you’re going to use a progressive gambling system, opt for the Fibonacci method instead, which is more conservative, but even then, use it judiciously.

In order to avoid getting to the point where you’re desperately trying to recoup losses, is to make small wagers that you can handle. Slow and steady wins the race, as they say. You need to be patient. You will not become rich overnight (you might, actually, but don’t base your strategy on it). If you see that you’re losing and you’re not likely to make your money back slowly, then you’ve identified the correct moment to stop playing. Take what you have left and amortize it back into your monthly budget. This way you slightly increase your daily limit, and give yourself a better chance the following day to make back your losses.

You have to be very observant of the small things. There is fine print governing all the games. Each one has its own pay schedule and house edge. The good news is that what they have done is calculate all the odds so that you don’t have to. All this information is freely available on the casino website, and it can be an invaluable tool for you to use when you form your gambling strategy. Play slowly. Play expertly. If you follow these tenets, you will extend your staying power for when it’s your turn to take home the big win.