Always bet on black...

Well, so much for a quiet weekend, which was the plan on Friday afternoon after a particularly busy week. Friday night was going to be a quiet drink and a chat with some friends, but ended up as a wine fuelled 'singstar' marathon until 2.30am!

I love that game and now realise that I missed my vocation in life - although I think I sound better through my ears than I do everyone elses. That aside I just couldn't get enough of it, ABBA, Queen, Scissor Sisters...I even knocked out a bit of Dizzee Rascal, Dance Wiv Me - classic!

So, after a heavy one, Saturday was sure to be a quiet affair, lay in, lazy day etc...ended up down the pub watching the footy followed by a trip to the casino! It was so much fun and I even won some money - not as I expected it to be, but I would definately go again.

It was a lot plusher than I had expected, as in previous weeks I had turned down an invitation to the casino thinking it would be full of seedy, dodgy old characters. To my surprise the venue was lovely, the toilets immaculate, the bar service swift and the cliental normal, well relatively! Although, there were a few disturbing sights; Asian men spending a lot of money on what seemed like a whim and a few desperate men spending more time at the cashpoint than at the table!

I stood back for the first half an hour and watched - looking for tricks or clues, patterns and tactics - there were none, just people thinking they had it sorted. Of course, there are no tactics with gambling as it is completely luck based, however, there did seem to be a need to have some sort of 'plan'. I went in with £20 and knew that was it - a few pounds to have some fun and once it had gone it had gone - no cash point visits for me!

So, roulette first - lots of fun and so random. The guy explained the rules and the odds and gave us each a little card with all the information on. I attempted to follow the trajectory of the ball as it spun, just like Derran Brown, but had no luck with this, as my James Bond skills are obviously not as honed as I thought!

£10 down, £10 left...onto Blackjack - well, this was a different story, as you could try and use a bit of common sense with the numbers in this game. This worked well for me and after twenty or thrity goes, I ended up with £30 - nice! It was then I decided to stop, as the urges from the little devil on my shoulder were starting to bother me...literally, after every bet I won, the little voice would say 'look how easy it was to win, do it again, you will win again, it is easy money, easy'. For a few brief moments I wanted to go along with it and could start to see why gambling is such a dangerous habit!

Everyone had fun and 2 of us left winners, 2 broke even and 2 lost - the odds speak for themselves really - gambling is a mugs game, but the odd visit to the casino with one £20 note for a few hours of fun is a good crack! Finally, just before we left, it was decided that the group would stump up £10 each and we would place a large bet on BLACK at the roulette wheel...as I won, I was 'lucky' apparently, so I had to place the bet!

Quids in, doubled our money and left with a large smile knowing dinner was paid for as to was the whole day given I went home with more money that I left home with that day...so, 'always bet on black' is a tactic I plan to follow next time round, not that I plan to make a habit of it!