I am just wondering if anyone has ever tried to use stock market technical analysis to help guide them in their casino gaming?
Technical Analysis or TA is the study of price charts for stocks and commodities, and from the patterns of those charts, "technicians" can predict the future price movements of those stocks or commodities.
The proponents of TA say stock market charts are like EKG graphs of the heart and can also show the health of a stock.
I learned TA from one of the best -- Stan Weinstein who was the publisher of The Professional Tape Reader book and investment newsletter. Back in the 1980s when TA was very much in favor he was frequently quoted on the news and appeared on various stock market TV shows including PBS' Nightly Business Report.
Weinstein developed a TA theory that said stocks had four stages:
1. A base building stage
2. A growth stage
3. A topping off stage
4. A decline stage
He said if you looked at stock price charts you can sometimes detect these stages and the points at which a stock will "break out" to move higher, or a point where a stock will "break down" to decline.
What has this got to do with gambling?
Well, Stan Weinstein who I knew from my days as the business reporter at WTVJ in Miami told me that TA could be applied to anything. He said everything had these four stages: base building, growth, topping off, and decline.
Last night I went to Casino Morongo and I posted about the visit on the California Casinos forum. My short trip there perfectly matched Weinstein's four stages which made me ask if anyone else has used TA for casino gaming or if they see any resemblances to the markers or break out and break down points of TA?
Let me first go into detail with what happened with me. I was playing 7/5 $5 Bonus Poker and I started with $300 in the machine.
Stage 1: Base Building
With $300 in the machine I hit some small break even hands, and stayed in the range of $100 to $300.
Stage 2: Growth phase
After playing a short time with my original buy in, I hit quad 4s for $1,000 and this was the start of my growth phase. Just two hands after the 4444, I got quad tens for $625 which gave me a profit of about $1800. At this point I raised my "stop loss" to $1300 which would have locked in a profit of $1,000 on the session. But my growth phase wasn't over. I hit some small wins and break even hands, and some losers of course, and then 4444 a second time.
Stage 3: Topping Out
At my peak I had $2650 on the meter (remember, only a $300 buy-in) and I never surpassed that. I played for about ten minutes with the meter staying in the range of $2200 to $2550. Several times I would fall back to $2200 and then would recover but never surpassed $2550. $2550 because my "top" and then I dropped back to $2350 and pledged to myself that if I would get back to at least $2500 I would cash out. Well, I did get back to $2500 but not to $2550. Had I surpassed $2550 even once then TA would tell me that this was not a "top," but I never did get above $2550. So I cashed out at $2500.
Stage 4: The Decline
Of course I wasn't around to see if I really would have had an actual decline had I kept playing my $5 Bonus Poker. But I wasn't going to take the chance. For too long I was stuck in the range of $2200 to $2500 and in TA as stated by Weinstein that's a sign to get out.
So, that's how I applied stock market technical analysis to this particular video poker session. It opened my eyes to the possibility of it and in the future I will watch for similar trends.