Money Management
A hallmark of every good slot player is a money management system. Whether it is setting up session limits, Loss and Win limits or something as simple as keeping your winnings seperate. Lets look one such system that has been called the Plateau System.The Plateau System can be used in any game in the casino, especially slot machines. The system starts with determining two limits. The first is your Win Goal. This is an amount that you would like to reach during your session. When you reach this goal you have to decide whether you will keep playing or call it a day. The second limit is your Loss Limit. If you reach this limit you get up and go do something else until your next session.
After setting your limits, it is time to start playing. Lets say you are on a hot streak and quickly reach your Win Goal. Now it's time to decide if you are going to call it quits for the day or if you are going to adjust your Win Goal. Since your feeling lucky lets raise the Win Goal. When you do this you should also raise you loss limit. To illustrate this lets assume you start with $100. Your Win Goal is set at $150 and your Loss Limit at $60. You reach $150 so you reset your Win Goal to $200 and your Loss Limit to $100. Now no matter what happens you will be leaving the casino without loosing any money. You can increase your Win Goal as often as you want but never ever drop your Loss Limit. It is called a Loss Limit for a reason. This is how much you are willing to loose, not how much you can loose.
This system give you the flexability to be as aggressive or as conservative as you want when setting your goals. Perhaps after a good session you might feel a little more adventerous when setting your Loss Limit and your are willing to risk $75 of your $100. Your options are only limited by you.
Using this system can insulate you from major losses. Any losses you do suffer are strickly limited and there is no limit to your winnings. It is important to keep in mind that any money management system does not reduce the house edge. It mearly limits the amount of money you can lose when the odds turn against you.
To show how a good money management system can save you from loosing a lot of money a study was done compairing the Plateau System to a another inferior system. Each test was performed with a starting budget of $100. The Plateau system set the Win Goal at $120 and was increased by $20 each time it was met. The Loss Limit was set at $50 and increased with the Win Goal to be $50 less than the available credits. The second system was an Action System. Using this system you continue to play until you have played a certain amount of action. This system has no Loss Limit.
After 1 000 spins the Plateau system had wagered a total of $177 437 and lost $20 335. After the same 1 000 spins on the same simulated machine (with an 89% payback) the Action System had gone through $750 000 and lost $79 880. As you can see using the money management system limited the losses experience by limiting the exposure of your bankroll.
Using a money management system is the key to being a smart gambler. Money managers never lose their buffet money, they never gamble away their rent and they always enjoy their trips to the casino because they are always in control. Money managers know exactly when they will stop gambling even before they step into the casino.
