Lucky For Some - Gambling Superstitions Part 2

Gambling in online casinos doesn't make you immune from superstitions. These irrational beliefs are in evidence in UK casinos, and there's no reason to think that players in internet casinos are any less susceptible to them than their offline counterparts. Our new series looks at the weird and wonderful things that gamblers believe bring them luck.

Numbers And Patterns

Despite stories about the superstitions that prevail in UK casinos and even in online casinos, the fact is that while many gamblers are superstitious, most are not outlandishly so. Our series for online casino fans on gambler's superstitions continues with a look at common casino superstitions that almost seem logical, such as those involving numbers and patterns. Almost, but not quite.

Number Games

Not surprisingly, it is numbers that are the main sources of superstition for gamblers in UK casinos, internet casinos and elsewhere. This is particularly true of casino games such as roulette.

All roulette players have their favourite numbers that they will always bet on. They might have chosen these numbers for personal reasons - they may be the date of their birthday or the birthday of one of their children or a special anniversary, for example, or simply because they've won on the number before.

General numerological superstitions also hold sway in the gambling world. You won't find many 13th floors in Las Vegas casinos, for example.

The number four is considered very bad luck in Chinese culture because the word for "four" sounds like the word for death. To adapt to this, some casinos have removed the number four chair from the gaming tables and many casino hotels are dispensing with room and storey numbers with four in them. In one Las Vegas hotel, for example, the floor numbers go from 39 straight to 50.

Lucky Patterns

Casino gamblers are superstitious about where they play and who they play with. They often have dealers whom they consider to be lucky or unlucky - again, usually because they've won or lost with them on previous occasions, and they will be sure to seek the lucky ones out and steer clear of the unlucky ones. Sometimes the superstition involves not the dealer, but the table itself; again, the player will seek out his "lucky" table, or her "lucky" slot machine.

A lot of gambling superstition is based on what has gone before - the roulette number that come up trumps, the person you were out with last time you won big, the table you were at, the meal you ate, and so on.

From this sort of mild superstition it's a short step to attaching that elusive quality of "luckiness" to less obvious symbols, with more superstitious gamblers becoming convinced that an article of clothing is lucky or even that an action is lucky. There's a story about a gambler who once patted the head of a statue before entering a casino and having a big win. Of course, the gambler then felt the need to carry out this action every time he entered the casino. It was associated with his win, so had become "lucky".

Luck And Logic

Feelings of being lucky or unlucky - on a roll or on a losing streak - while playing a game are deeply ingrained, but alas, they don't have a logical basis. Nor does the idea that you are more likely to win because you've been losing, or that you should avoid a slot machine that has just paid out a jackpot because it's less likely to do the same thing again.

In all these situations, the probability of winning or losing stays the same, no matter how many times you've won and lost before. The majority of gambling games follow objective mathematical probabilities, and superstition can't influence the outcome one iota.

As famous Deauville dealer Nico Zographos said: "There is no such thing as luck. It is all mathematics."

Everyone who gambles knows this, but still people carry on believing.