Maybe the teachings of my story do not apply to most readers, and many of them will not find an immediate relations to their gambling experience. However, I believe that in one way or another we can all think that something is true, while it is not.

I have been a successful casino player for a long time. I made a comfortable living playing traditional gambling games in the four Italian brick and mortar casinos. I did not become rich, nor did I really try to. I actually did my best to bring home reasonable money to live without material worries, buying a house and sending the kids to college without mortgages and loans.

How did I do it? Well, I will be candid with you: I was not so bad at counting cards, but I did not exceed in this controversial blackjack practice: I absolutely did not want casino management to notice me, so I kept it reasonable and made a point to play also other games other than blackjack. Maybe sometimes the most skilled dealers suspected something, but to my major relief I was never caught on the spot.

Year after year, the game changed and most players turned to the new online gambling casinos. Some of my best friends told me that playing at online games was just the same as in old-style casinos, with the advantages of bonus jackpots. I believed them and started to gamble online regularly at all the best online gaming websites, which I discovered at the London Affiliate Conference. Of course, I mostly played online blackjack, since I thought that my ancient tactics will prove even more successful on the Internet. But since I never told anybody my little secret, a big surprise was waiting for me...

Contrary to my optimistic expectations, my winning series did not continue as strongly as before. My counting just did not work and I was not able to keep an advantage towards the casino. This was very worrying. Thanks Heaven, I am a very meticulous guy and when I see that something does not work, I sit down and think. I finally discovered that online blackjack has a huge difference with regular blackjack, in that card sets are reshuffled at every hand, so that all my counting was completely irrelevant. What a fool was I doing of myself!

I stopped my faulty path well before any harm was done. Now, if I want to play online, I play other games, like craps online. I learned to check better the deals I get into, and always challenge the first appearance, especially when it seems too good to be true...