Atlassino Academy · First visit · Lesson 2 of 8
Decide the money before you go
Two numbers settled at the kitchen table — how much and how long — worked out against what an hour of roulette actually costs.
Before we start: when do you decide how much to spend?
- At home, before I leave.
- At the table, once I see how the evening is going.
- No need to decide — I will only play the cheap games.
Nothing is scored here. Notice which of the three answers is yours today; the answer to the question comes at the end of the lesson, after the check.
The short answer
Settle two numbers at home: how much money is ready to be spent tonight, and what time you will leave. Take that money in cash, leave the bank card and the credit card at home, and write both numbers down before you go.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
A plan for an evening is two numbers on one card: how much money, and until what time. I will fill in one card with you, for a friend called Sam, and then hand you the pen.
Maya fills in Sam’s card
Sam is an example, not one of the hosts. His amounts are there to show the arithmetic; they are not a suggested amount for you.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Sam is going out on Friday. The money and the hours go on the card first, and every other line — the leaving time, the halfway mark, the bet — follows from the money and the hours.
Tonight’s plan
The limit is a ceiling, not a target.
The alarm on Sam’s phone is set for 23:00 before he leaves the house, and 21:30 is the halfway mark, the moment to look up and see where the evening is. The bet on his card is an example bet of $10 a spin at a double-zero roulette wheel, and a bet at that wheel has a price that can be worked out at the kitchen table too, one step at a time.
- One spin$10on red or black; the wheel keeps 5.26% of every bet, on average
- One hour$2038 spins at that bet, on average
- The whole evening$603 hours of it, on average
- The limit$120the most that can go, decided at home
In 6 of 10 evenings like Sam’s the $120 is still in his pocket when the alarm goes at 23:00; in 4 of 10 evenings the money runs out before the alarm, and that ends the evening too.
Same evening, one change
Maya: Sam goes for $5 a spin instead of $10. The wheel is the same, so it still gets through 38 spins an hour and still keeps 5.26% of every bet; only the bet is half the size, so the hour costs $10 on average. I stop at the hour and leave the rest of the card to you. What do the 3 hours cost, and does the $120 last them?
Same evening, one change
Check your answer
The 3 hours cost $30 on average, and the $120 lasts the full 3 hours in 9 of 10 evenings. Halve the bet and you halve the price of the hour; the wheel does not notice the difference.
Your turn
Sam keeps the $120 and the 3 hours, but the table he sits down at will not take less than $25 a spin. What do the hours cost at that table, and what does that do to the plan?
Your turn: a dearer table
Maya’s answer
At $25 a spin the hour costs $50 on average and the evening costs $150, which is more than the whole $120. In 8 of 10 evenings the money is gone before the alarm goes at 23:00: the plan is asking for more than the limit holds.
Maya: There are two ways out, and both are decided at home: fewer hours at that table, or a table that takes a smaller bet. Adding money at the door is not a way out. Adding money at the door is a bigger limit, decided at the door instead of at home.
Two numbers, decided at home
Both numbers are easier to settle at your own kitchen table than at a table with a dealer waiting for your bet.
- How much moneyThe most that can leave your pocket tonightDecided at home, carried in cash, written down.
- How longThe time you leave, whatever the table is doingDecided at home, set as an alarm before you go, written down.
The money comes out of what the month already spends on going out — the same pot a dinner or a concert ticket comes from. Nobody plans on bringing a concert ticket home, and nobody should plan on bringing this money home either. Two other kinds of money look as if they could go into the limit, and cannot.
| The money | Tonight’s limit? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Going-out moneythe pot a dinner or a concert ticket comes from | Yes | Its job was already an evening out. Spend it here and nothing else in the month changes. |
| Rent, groceries, a bill that is due | No | That money already has a job, and a bad evening would turn a night out into a rent problem. |
| Money borrowed until payday | No | The evening ends; the debt does not. A loan is a second limit stacked on the first, and only one of the two has a leaving time. |
The money and the hours together are the limit (the money and the time you decide on before you go: a ceiling, not a target).
What an hour costs
Nobody hands you a bill for an hour at a table, but the hour has a price all the same. The price is built into the way the game pays out, and it has a name: the house edge (the share of every dollar bet the casino keeps on average, over many rounds).
$180 paid across the red pockets, $200 lost across the rest: $20 down over 38 spins.
A double-zero wheel has 38 pockets: the numbers, a green 0 and a green 00. Red covers 18 of the pockets; the other 20 — every black pocket and both green ones — take the bet. Spin the ball once into every pocket, which is about an hour of play at this wheel, with $10 on red each time. Each red pocket pays you one bet, and each of the other pockets takes one bet: more bets taken than paid, so the strip ends $20 down. Nothing unlucky happened along the way. Red is paid as though the wheel had 36 pockets, and the wheel has 38.
That is the price of an hour (bet, times rounds an hour, times the house edge: what an hour of a game costs on average), and it comes from three numbers multiplied together.
The bet, times the spins in an hour, times the house edge, makes the price of an hour.
Of the three numbers, only the bet is yours to set. The spins in an hour come from how fast the table runs, and the house edge is fixed by the wheel. Every table on the floor has the same three numbers: the bet (the money you put on one round), the rounds an hour (how many rounds a table gets through in an hour, which is what turns a bet into an hourly cost) and the house edge.
| Table | Rounds an hour | House edge | An hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Double-zero wheelred or black | 38 | 5.26% | $20 |
| Single-zero wheelred or black | 35 | 2.70% | $9.46 |
| BlackjackBCLC rules for B.C. casinos, every hand by the full basic-strategy chart | 70 | 0.53% | $3.68 |
Rounds an hour come from the Las Vegas Strip rating table, which casinos there use to rate players: a rating table, not a measurement of Canadian tables.
Those prices are averages over hundreds of hours. One Friday can land well above the average price of the hour, or well below it.
The money you bring is not the money you bet
Sam walks in with $120. Over 3 hours at $10 a spin the wheel takes 114 bets from him, and those bets add up to about $1,140 put on the felt — far more than the $120 in his pocket, because the same dollars keep coming back and going down again. That total is the turnover (all the money that goes over the table in an evening: the same dollars again and again).
Will the money last the hours?
A plan can ask for more than the limit holds. The bet is the one line of the card that moves the price of the hour.
| A bet | An hour costs | The $120 lasts all 3 hours in |
|---|---|---|
| $5 | $10 | 9 of 10 evenings |
| $10 | $20 | 6 of 10 evenings |
| $25 | $50 | 1 of every 6 evenings |
The shaded band is where eight evenings in ten end. The average evening sits inside the band, below even, and it moves further below even with every hour played.
The band runs from −$120 to +$80, and the average evening, at −$48, sits nowhere near either end of the band. The average evening also gets through only 91 of 114 spins: an evening whose money runs out early stops early, and stops spending.
The limit is a ceiling, not a target
The limit is the most you are ready to spend, not an amount to get through before you leave. Leaving with money still in your pocket is an ordinary end to an evening, and so is leaving early because the money is gone.
Being ahead does not make the next hour cheaper, and being behind does not make it dearer. Money paid to you is yours the moment it is paid, and it buys the same odds as the money you walked in with.
An hour in, the evening has gone well
$50 ahead
The next hour at $10 a spin still costs $20 on average
An hour in, the evening has gone badly
$50 down
The next hour at $10 a spin still costs $20 on average
Playing on to get a loss back adds to the cost instead of removing it, and that has a name: chasing losses (playing on to get back what the evening has cost, which raises the cost rather than returning it).
Take the limit in cash and leave both cards at home — the bank card as well as the credit card. At eleven at night you are not quite the person who made the plan, and if that person is tempted to take out more, the question to ask is what that extra money was already for.
Write both numbers down — on paper, in a phone note, or in Game plan — and set the alarm for the leaving time before you leave the house. A finishing time fixed in advance keeps the money in view as well as the clock.
Knowing the arithmetic is not the same as doing it, and what changed how people actually played was not the arithmetic.
- Teaching the arithmetic on its ownGamblers who were taught the mathematics of the games played no differently afterwards.
- A short lesson on keeping to a limitPeople who had set a limit for themselves, and were shown how to keep to it, went over that limit less often in the session that followed.
- A month laterSome of that effect had worn off. Set the alarm again before every visit, not only the first one.
Plan the evening
Two levels. Level 1 walks the six lines of Sam’s card in the order they go onto the card, one line at a time, and shows what each line does to the arithmetic; nothing in level 1 is scored, and level 2 begins once you have read all six lines. Level 2 is the hour before you leave home: ten moments, three answers each, and the figure behind every answer. Answers come back inside the plan or outside the plan rather than right or wrong — a decision about your own money either agrees with the plan you made or it does not, and there is no chart to be right against. Your own amounts are never asked for and never scored; the fields for your own amounts are in Game plan, which keeps nothing on a server.
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Tonight’s plan
The limit is a ceiling, not a target.
Fill in the card on paper, or in Game plan, which keeps nothing on a server. The ten moments of the practice table follow, each with its answer.
The limit is $120. What goes in the pocket?
- Cash for the limit only The ceiling then holds by itself: what is in the pocket is the whole of what can go.
- Cash plus the bank card, just in case The ceiling becomes $120 plus whatever the machine allows, and that second number was never decided at home.
- A card only, so the statement shows it A credit card is borrowed money before it is a record, and the record arrives after the evening it was meant to control.
Both PlaySmart and the Responsible Gambling Council give the same advice, and the Council names the bank card as well as the credit card.
The quotes are in “The limit is a ceiling, not a target” above.
The car park takes cards only. The bank card has to come. What now?
- Take it, and leave it in the car with the parking slip The card does the one job it is needed for and never reaches the floor. The limit in the pocket stays the whole of what can go.
- Take it in the wallet — it is only for parking The card is only for parking until the moment it is not. A card within reach is the usual way a limit gets rewritten.
- Skip the plan tonight: with a card there is no point The plan is what makes the cash a ceiling. A card nearby is a reason to be careful with it, not a reason to drop the number.
The rule is not “own no cards”, it is “no card within reach of the table”. Where a card is genuinely needed, it does its job somewhere else.
Which money goes into tonight’s limit?
The month
- The going-out money that is left It is already spent, in the sense that its job was an evening out. Nothing else in the month moves.
- Rent money — payday lands before the rent is due The Responsible Gambling Council names rent and food outright. Rent money as a limit also works only if the evening goes the way you assume, and that is the assumption a limit exists to remove.
- Money borrowed until payday Borrowed money is a second limit stacked on the first, and it outlives the evening.
Only money you already have, and only money nothing else is waiting on.
Responsible Gambling Council, Safer gambling tips — the quote is in “Two numbers, decided at home” above.
The going-out money is gone this month. A friend offers to lend the limit until payday. What is tonight’s limit?
At the door
- Nothing: go another month The limit is money you have. When there is none, the honest number is zero, and an evening out that costs nothing is still an evening out.
- $120, borrowed from the friend The evening can end and the debt not. That is a second limit stacked on the first, and only one of them has a leaving time.
- Half of it, borrowed — that is more careful A smaller loan is still a loan. The Council’s line is about where the money comes from, not how much of it there is.
Only gamble with money you have: the Council puts borrowing and money meant for necessities in the same sentence.
Responsible Gambling Council, Safer gambling tips — the quote is in “Two numbers, decided at home” above.
The plan says three hours. What makes that a real limit?
Before you leave
The alarm is not set yet.
- An alarm set for 23:00, now, before leaving Of the three ways to end an evening offered here — the alarm, the money running out, being ahead — the alarm is the only one decided by you rather than by the evening.
- Leaving when the money is gone Half of evenings like this still have money after about 3 h 25 min: that rule can run well past the three hours, or end them early.
- Leaving as soon as I am ahead The share of evenings that are ahead falls the longer you play: 31% after an hour, 23% after four, 0.06% after a hundred. Waiting to be ahead makes the evening as long as it takes.
PlaySmart’s reason for a set finishing time is that it keeps the money in view as well as the clock. Set it on the phone, not in a browser tab: a background tab may not fire on time.
OLG PlaySmart, 6 tips to keep your play fun — the quote is in “The limit is a ceiling, not a target” above.
Two hours tonight, and the alarm is set. Halfway through, the evening is going well. What does the plan say?
Before you leave
A two-hour evening this time.
- Nothing changes: the alarm still ends it The leaving time was set for the evening as a whole, and “going well” is exactly the state in which people move the leaving time.
- Add an hour — it is going well Each added hour costs $20 on average at this bet, and the reason to add it came from the last few spins rather than from anything decided at home.
- Stay until it stops going well That rule has no end in it at all: it can only stop once the evening has already turned.
A limit that moves when the evening is good is not a limit; it is a decision made by the last few rounds.
The table you wanted takes at least $15 a spin. Your plan was built on a smaller bet. What do you change?
The table you wanted
- Keep the limit: fewer hours, or a cheaper table At $15 the hour costs $30 and 3 hours cost $90 on average, so $120 lasts the full time in only 1 of every 3 evenings. Two hours at that table, or a table that takes less, both fit.
- Add more money at the door so it lasts Adding money does not make the hours cheaper — 3 hours at $15 still cost $90 on average. It only raises the ceiling, which is the one number that was decided at home.
- Bet the smaller amount anyway A bet under the table’s minimum is not accepted; that is a rule of the table, not a choice. Reading the sign before sitting is lesson 6 of this track.
Of the two numbers on the card, the hours are the one you can move at the door. The limit is not.
The only empty table takes at least $20 a spin. The plan is unchanged. What now?
The only empty table
- Wait, walk on, or shorten the evening At $20 the hour costs $40 and $120 lasts the 3 hours in only 1 of every 4 evenings. Shortening the evening keeps both numbers honest.
- Raise the limit to match the table Then the table set the limit. The average price of 3 hours at that bet is $120 either way — what changed is the most that can go.
- Sit anyway and make it back on a good run There is no mechanism behind “make it back”: each spin is independent of the ones before it, so playing on adds cost rather than removing it.
A table that costs more than the plan allows for is a reason to change the hours or the table, not the limit.
Game plan works out a line the card did not have: money an hour, $40. What is that line?
Tonight’s plan
The limit is a ceiling, not a target.
- The most that can go in an hour It is the limit divided by the hours: a ceiling for each hour, in the same sense as the limit is a ceiling for the evening.
- What I should spend each hour Read that way it becomes a target, and an evening that is under it starts to look unfinished. Leaving with money in your pocket is an ordinary end to an evening.
- What the game costs each hour That is a different number and it comes from the game, not from you: $20 an hour at $10 a spin. The gap between your ceiling for the hour and the price of the hour is the room the evening has to swing in.
Two numbers with the same units have two different jobs here: $40 is your ceiling for the hour, and $20 is the average price the wheel charges for that hour.
The same $120 over two hours makes the line $60. Did each hour get more expensive?
The same limit, fewer hours
The limit is a ceiling, not a target.
- No: the same money over fewer hours The wheel still charges $20 an hour on average at this bet. What changed is how much of your ceiling each hour is allowed to use.
- Yes: each hour now costs more The price of an hour comes from the bet, the 38 spins an hour and the 5.26% house edge. None of those three numbers moved.
- Yes: I now have to spend more each hour Only if the line is read as a target. It is a ceiling: nothing on the card says the money has to be used.
Money an hour is a decision about your own money; the price of an hour is a figure of the game. Shortening the evening moves the money an hour and leaves the price of an hour alone.
How the practice table works
One strip, no rounds. Every square on the strip is one moment of level 2, and all the squares are there from the start. The square shows your first answer on that moment: inside the plan, or outside the plan.
Level 1 is not scored. Level 1 is a reference in the shape of a moment: six steps, each with the figures behind it, and no score. Read the six steps through and level 2 begins by itself, with no button in between.
Practice. Each moment you answer outside the plan goes on your list. Practising deals those moments again; answering one of them inside the plan takes it off the list and changes its cross on the strip to “fixed in practice”. Practice does not change the count: only your first answer on each moment does.
No money on this table. There is no balance and nothing adds up from one moment to the next. The amounts are averages worked out by the same code as the figures above, for an example plan, and only your decisions are counted.
Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
And the question at the start of this lesson, when to decide how much to spend: the answer is “at home, before I leave”. “At the table, once I see how the evening is going” is the honest answer for most first visits, and the trouble with it is who does the deciding — at the table, the last few rounds decide. “I will only play the cheap games” forgets the hours: a cheap round still adds up over an evening.
Where this leads
Further reading
- Safer gambling tips · Responsible Gambling CouncilThe eight habits this lesson builds a plan around.
- Slots — how to play · OLG PlaySmart (Ontario)Where “decide in advance” and “leave the cards at home” come from.
- House edge and hands per hour · Michael Shackleford, Wizard of OddsThe table behind the rounds-an-hour figures on this page.
- Canada’s Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines · Canadian Centre on Substance Use and AddictionLimits by the month and the year, for anyone who wants a wider frame than one evening.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Decide it before you sit down: the money, the hours, and that the cards stay at home. Write the two numbers somewhere you will see them — a phone note does it — and set the alarm before you leave, not after you arrive. Game plan does all three in one page.
If the money on the table starts to feel like money you need, or if an evening has already gone further than the plan, the helplines below answer day and night. That is what the helplines are for.
If gambling has turned into debt. Credit Canada: 1-800-267-2272 — credit counselling at no charge, and in confidence.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
How it’s worked out
Numbers, sources and hosts
Before any game. You do not need to know a single game to use this page: everything on it is decided at your own kitchen table, before you leave. Getting in at the door is lesson 1 of this track, and either order works.
Numbers. Every figure on this page is worked out when the page is built, by the same code as our Price of an hour and How long will it last? tools. The price of an hour is the bet times the rounds an hour times the house edge. “How often it lasts” comes from the outcomes of the bet itself — 18 pockets paid, 20 not — run out over the whole evening, not from a simulation of a few thousand evenings. The rounds an hour come from the Las Vegas Strip rating table: it is what casinos there use to rate players, and it is an estimate, not a measurement of any Canadian table.
Sources. The money advice is Ontario’s PlaySmart and the Responsible Gambling Council; the wheel is Wizard of Odds; the two findings about limits are published studies. Every claim on this page carries one sentence quoted exactly as its publisher wrote it, with the page it came from and the day we read it; the buttons in the text open them. The practice table restates the same facts, and its explanations point back to the quote above rather than repeating it, because a moment of the practice table is built before the page is.
The example plan. $120, 3 hours and $10 are one worked example and nothing more. We do not suggest an amount for your own plan, and neither does Game plan.
Hosts. Maya is an illustrated character. Her backstory, a former floor supervisor, is written for the course: she is not a real person and does not speak for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from her experience.
No promise. Roulette and blackjack are played against the house. Nothing on this page lowers the house edge or tells you how an evening will end; a plan changes how much of your money is in the room, and for how long.
Which money to gamble with
Only gamble with money you have – never borrow money or use money intended for necessities, like rent or food
Which money to gamble with
Only gamble with money you have – never borrow money or use money intended for necessities, like rent or food
Teaching the mathematics on its own
The implication of this research is that enhanced mathematical knowledge on its own may be insufficient to change gambling behavior.
Europe PMC · Williams & Connolly 2006, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 20(1) · read
A short lesson on keeping to a limit
Compared to participants who watched the control video, those who watched the animation endorsed strategies to gamble within financial limits, reported greater behavioral intentions to use the strategies, and exceeded their pre-set limits less frequently during their subsequent gambling session.
Europe PMC · Wohl, Christie, Matheson & Anisman 2010, Journal of Gambling Studies 26(3) · read
A short lesson on keeping to a limit
Some effects waned over a 30-day period suggesting booster sessions may be required for long term sustainability.
Europe PMC · Wohl, Christie, Matheson & Anisman 2010, Journal of Gambling Studies 26(3) · read
A spin has no memory
Roulette balls and dice simply have no memory.
Every spin in roulette and every toss in craps is independent of all past events.
The house edge on a double-zero wheel
The house edge on all bets is 1/19, or 5.26%, except for the 0-00-1-2-3 combination, which carries a house edge of 7.89%.
Which money to gamble with
Only gamble with money you have – never borrow money or use money intended for necessities, like rent or food
Cash, and the cards stay at home
To make sure you only spend what you bring, use cash and leave the cards at home.
Stick to your budget by leaving your credit and debit cards at home
Deciding the amount in advance
Decide how much you want to spend in advance.
Treat slots as part of your entertainment budget: Money you’d spend on a night out, not expecting to bring it home.
The pockets on a double-zero wheel
A U.S. roulette wheel consists of 38 numbered slots: numbers 1 to 36, a zero, and a double zero.
The house edge on a double-zero wheel
The house edge on all bets is 1/19, or 5.26%, except for the 0-00-1-2-3 combination, which carries a house edge of 7.89%.
What “average” means here
The longer you play, the ratio of money lost to money bet will get closer to the expectation for that game.
A spin has no memory
Roulette balls and dice simply have no memory.
Every spin in roulette and every toss in craps is independent of all past events.
Getting a loss back
Don’t try to win back what you’ve lost
They don’t expect to win back money they’ve lost, nor do they think of gambling as a way to earn money.
Responsible Gambling Council · What is safer gambling · read
Cash, and the cards stay at home
To make sure you only spend what you bring, use cash and leave the cards at home.
Stick to your budget by leaving your credit and debit cards at home
If you are tempted to take out more
Bring an amount that you’re comfortable spending and if you’re tempted to take out more, ask yourself if it’s worth being short for other expenses.
Why a set finishing time
Having a set time period for your play session helps you keep track of time – as well as how much you’re spending.
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