Lets face it, video poker is a gambling game, and there is no way that you're going to get away with playing a gambling game without losing money at least part of the time, and for some people that might even be most of the time. The best way to look at video poker is as a form of entertainment, that you have to pay a certain price to enjoy each time you play. It's your responsibility to make sure that when you walk into a casino to play video poker, or any other gambling game for that matter, that you are aware that losing money is part of game. The worst thing that a player can do is go into a casino game and expect to win all the time. You have to learn to be realistic. If you are you'll have a better time, and you'll have more money left over at the end of the day to comeback again for some more fun.
Below is a few short general guidelines for predicting how much money you'll spend at video poker and being able to limit that amount.
The first thing any responsible video poker player should do before even leaving the house for a casino, or booting up the computer to play at an online casino, is figure out exactly how much time you want to spend playing. The amount of time you spend playing is directly related to the amount of money that you end up spending. And no matter how good your strategy is or the game odds, chances are the longer you play the more money you will lose in the end. So start off by deciding if you want to play either a long or short session. Depending on how long you will play, you will get a general idea of how much money you will need to take out before starting play.
Setting limits on how much you will spend is the most important part of money management, because after all, if you have run out of money to spend, you can't spend any more! The most sure fire way to ensure that you don't go over your limit for the session is by only taking out a certain amount of money before you go to the casino. Know how long you plan to play and only bring an appropriate amount of money to last for that time.
You should also set a maximum winning amount. When you reach this level of winnings you should be ready to stop your play.
Another good video poker money management tip is to keep a little notepad and piece of paper on hand. Start off by writing down how much money you have at the beginning and record how much money you either win or lose each hand of video poker. This way you are much more aware of how much money you are losing, and how much you are winning. You'll always have an idea of how much playing time you have left based on how much money you have left. This will enable you to budget your time more wisely while you play.
It's unnecessary to start a video poker session and play constantly, as if you were glued to the machine. A great thing for video poker players to do is to break up their sessions with pauses and breaks. This gives you a chance to relax and clear your head every once and a while during the game session. It's easy for a video poker player to fall into a kind of zone where they lose track of time by getting into the repetition of the game, but scheduling breaks prevents this from happening. In the long run stepping away from the machine every now and again will allow you to enjoy the game more and give you more chances to think about how much money you actually have left to play with.
Same as playing slots, one of the most common problems that video poker, and all kinds of gamers have is being able to say "enough is enough" when playing. This kind of attachment people develop for wanting to keep the game going is what causes the vast majority of financial problems as a result of gaming. If you want to make sure that you can continue to enjoy video poker for years to come, all you have to do is walk away from the machine. When you run out of money resist the urge to go to the machine and take out more money. When you run out of time resist the urge to call home and tell the family that you'll only be another 3 hours. Sometimes this can be difficult because a lot of players get into a spot where they believe that by playing a little more they'll get the winnings they're looking for. If they've lost money, people have a tendency to believe that they can win the money back by playing more. If you've won money the tendency is to believe that you can win more money by playing more. This is all false! The fact is that the longer you play, the greater your chances are of losing more money. Make the promise to yourself before hand that you WILL stop playing when you reach your limit of time or money. If you follow these steps you will stay a profitable player forever.