Advanced Record Keeping for Casino Players

An Introduction to Casino Record Keeping

There’s a good rule in life when it comes to issues of money and things you enjoy. If you regularly do something that involves money, then you should track it. There are a variety of reasons why this is a good idea. However, we’re going to focus on just a few of them.

This includes how this type of tracking can help to avoid certain types of problem gambling behaviors.

While there is no substitute for professional help, tracking of this type can be a good preventative measure. On top of that, it offers a way to better track how much fun you have. Knowing where your big wins come from is also helpful for many players.

No matter why you do it, it’s generally a good thing to do. That’s why we’re going to show you how to do it as easily and efficiently as possible. With that said, we’ll still include advanced elements instead of focusing purely on the absolute basics.

For Those Not Caring to Do It

First, we want to address people who don’t care to do this at all. We completely understand. It’s much more tempting to just jump right into the games. If you truly don’t want to do it, we won’t be able to convince you.

However, we strongly recommend that you keep an open mind. Try this out for a week, and see how it suits you instead of writing it off completely. Chances are that you’ll find something about it that you really like. Even if you don’t, you haven’t lost much but a few minutes of your time.

But if you do find something you like, then that can be huge. It can drastically improve your level of enjoyment of your play. It can also help you to better understand yourself as a player, resulting in finding games you enjoy more than what you’re currently playing, and on top of that, it can create a situation where you feel much more in control of things financially.

So again, we recommend that you try it for a short period of time. If you don’t like it after that, then we completely understand. However, this is something that you won’t know until you put it into action.

Getting Started: Tools and Methods

We have two major topics to look at with how to get started with tracking your casino play. The first has to do with the tools involved. The second is about the actual methods of tracking, what to track and how to track it.

For both of these parts, we focus on one idea: keeping things as simple as possible. You don’t want your online casino play to become a chore. As a result, we keep things as straightforward and efficient as possible here. However, we still show you how to get a lot from even a minimal amount of tracking.

Quick and Easy Tracking Tools

A spreadsheet of some type is your best bet with this. Plain text editors can’t automatically do the calculations on the fly that you will need. While you can do those calculations by hand, it adds a lot of time to the process. Since we’re going for “quick and easy,” we can’t recommend the manual approach.

Some people are under the impression that spreadsheet programs must be costly. However, here are some free options with brief descriptions:

• Google Docs – This online app runs in your web browser. There are also apps for mobile devices.
• Libre Office – This is a complete downloadable Office-style suite that’s completely free. It’s available on Windows, Mac and Linux systems.
• Open Office – In the same family as Libre Office, Open Office is available on the same platforms with similar functionality. It is also free.
• Spread32 – This is a free but older program. It’s best suited for older Windows computers that do not run newer programs well.

No matter which option you use, you need to have a spreadsheet available for this type of tracking. You may already have some type of spreadsheet program like Excel on your computer. If you do, then feel free to use that.

It’s also worth noting that all of these four recommendations above have similar functionality. They can all do the same types of things needed for tracking online casino sessions.

What to Track

For the most part, there are two types of things to actually track with this approach. The first is the financial, money-based part. The second is how you feel about your sessions.

With the money aspect, this can be made really simple. Simply record your total account balance before and after each session at a given game. You can keep up with how long you played if you so desire. This will give you a running account of how you do at each game. You can go further and examine this data by game genre as well.

We suggest that you make columns for the date, starting time, ending time, game played, starting balance and ending balance for the financial side. From there, you can track other things that may be useful to you. Things like how much you enjoyed the game can be a good idea. Rating things from a scale of 1 to 10 is a good way to go.

How to Track It

Have your spreadsheet up as you start up your casino client. This will help to make sure that you don’t just decide to skip it. Before you start playing, check your spreadsheet. Take down any information you need as you get started.

From there, just take down the notes that you need each time you switch games. It only takes a moment, but you can look back at the data in the future. Seeing the trends and other details you can figure out with a long-range view is very helpful.

Interpreting the Data

Once you have some information in front of you, it’s time to interpret it. This is where you reap the rewards of patiently taking down the given data. However, the amount you get from it will be proportionate to the amount you put into it. That includes which pieces of data you record and how consistent you are about recording it.

One thing to look at is the games you feel the best about and feel the worst about. A lot of players put in a significant amount of times on games that aren’t the best for them. It is hard to look back over a period of time to remember what your experiences were like. However, objective measurements recorded over time can help you with that.

You should also consider where your biggest wins and losses are coming from. That is important information that can help you to better decide where to put your time. This is especially true if you’re losing at games you don’t even enjoy that much.

Overview

Keeping records of your sessions is a good way to learn about what you like and do not like. It’s also a good way to keep track of where your wins and losses are coming from. The information you get from it cannot be understated, and it’s one of the few things accessible to virtually everyone that is guaranteed to show you how to get more fun out of your sessions.