Here at Slots Play Casinos we know of three main games of skill that people paly at online sites: blackjack, video poker, and poker. People play the first two games at a casino online for real money and play poker at online poker rooms.
All of these games of skill can best be described, as we have, as games of decisions. A decision in video poker and a decision in regular poker may have different aspects to them, but here we will look at the things that all decisions have in common.
As such, we will delve into the science of making decisions.
Games of Chance are Not Games of Decisions
If there is any one parameter that distinguishes games of chance and games of skill, this is it. Sure, you decide which game to play, how long to play it, and so on, but these are relatively trivial decisions when we compare them to the decisions gamers have to make constantly in the games of skill.
On the one hand, no decision is trivial. If you can have one scoop of ice cream, what flavor will it be. Many of us know someone who is always disappointed with the choice they make and wishes that they had chosen a different flavor.
This indecisiveness, bordering on chronic disappointment, applies to every decision we make. Still, in this article, we will get into the science of decision making as it applies to games of skill at online casinos.
Do People Make Decisions by Force of Habit?
We make so many decisions every day that a large number of them are made by force of habit. Most of these are pretty trivial, such as which shoe do we put on first.
In games of skill, it is a mistake to make decisions by force of habit. That leads to mistakes, and mistakes are money.
By the way, the main theme of the amazing book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is about this kind of a priori decision-making process.
For our purposes, we want to get into the decision-making process in the games of skill that our reviewed and recommended casinos offer.
The Cortex Works Hard
The cortex is the part of the brain that processes information. It analyzes information and helps us decide how to proceed the next time we have a similar situation.
This is exactly the kind of information processing system that we use in the games of skill.
The Existential Importance of Making Good Decisions
Many decisions are connected to survival. Survival can be short-term term as when we are accosted by a thug. It can be long-term term as when we are tempted to eat a piece of cake. Survival is connected to emotional responses to real situations.
Robert Pirsig in “Zen” talks about how in the West we have made emotion seem irrational, and the purely rational has been elevated beyond its capacity to facilitate good decisions. This, he says, has been a mistake of historical proportions. In casino gaming, a lot of our decisions are made by how we feel at the moment.
This is especially true in poker, where we might have to decide if an opponent is bluffing or not. Rational analysis goes only so far. At some point, we have to give the rational side over to the emotional side to determine what the opponent is acting on.
All those YouTube clips with Phil Helmuth blowing a gasket demonstrate the mistake of not allowing your emotional side to help you make decisions. He makes a wrong decision, and then his emotional side erupts.
People Have Roadblocks to Good Decisions
Just as an aside, it is amazing that people have not evolved better decision-making mechanisms. But here we are. Here are a few of the mental roadblocks we have put in our own way to hinder rather than help good decision-making.
The Longer it Takes, the Harder it Is
This happens when we overanalyze a situation. The best example of not overanalyzing a decision is the famous Avis Car Rental ad campaign of the 1960s. The new president of Avis hired an ad company to come up with a new ad campaign for Avis which was the number two car rental company in the US at the time but far behind number one.
The president told the head of the ad campaign that he would use any campaign they recommended as long as they said that it was the best they could come up with.
When they presented the ad campaign idea, no one liked it. Even the head of the ad agency didn’t like it, and he offered to let Avis off their commitment to use it.
But the president of Avis never wavered, and the “We try harder” campaign turned out to be one of the best ad campaigns ever.
You’re So Vain
Vanity is a big detriment to good decision-making. It bypasses any analysis in favor of one’s belief in oneself beyond reason. This is more than overconfidence. Confidence is very good. Overconfidence may lead to poor decisions but vanity leads people astray because it prevents any real kind of decision process.
Vanity leads people to make decisions based on their intuition. In poker and blackjack terms, it means playing hunches or falling for the Gambler’s Fallacy that says that a specific outcome is “due”.
The other side of this coin is the rational decision maker. We have seen that emotions do play a part in good decision-making. So, a key to making good decisions is to balance in a synergistic way the intuitive emotional side of the process with the cold and calculating side of the process.
A Lot of Poor Decisions are Made when we are Tired
In the games of skill, when you feel yourself getting tired, that is the time to quit. At an online casino or poker room, you can always come back soon. That is not the case at land-based casinos or poker rooms so people tend to play on after they are too tired to make good decisions.
That is also why land-based casinos give vouchers for meals at the buffet. People tend to overeat at a buffet. Then they come back to the casino and get very tired as they struggle to digest all that food. Being tired leads to poor betting and playing decisions.
Is a Decision Good or Good Enough
A lot of poor decisions fall under the good enough category. Good decision making always seeks to make good decisions. Good enough decisions are rarely good enough.
Slots Play Casinos Helps Gamers Make Good Decisions
We have written many hundreds of articles, guides, game reviews, and casino reviews, all of which are our way of helping you make good decisions. We have recommended about 30 online casinos.
Slots Play Casinos feels that knowing how we make decisions and how we can improve our decision-making goes a long way to making online casino gaming fun, entertaining, and responsible.
We suggest that you read as many of our articles and guides as possible to better your decisions.
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