Everyone who plays Vegas casino online games is familiar with losing streaks. When you’re on a losing streak, you experience one loss after another. It’s frustrating, but it’s all part of the gambling experience. It happens to everyone at some point.
Why do some gamers seem to cope better with losing streaks than others? Everything depends on your ability to cope with a losing streak. If you know how to cope, you’ll be better able to turn bad times into good. But if you can’t cope, it’s almost certain that you’ll never recover. Understanding the psychological impact of a losing streak and knowing how to change your mindset is the most important element in turning your losing streak back into wins.
How a Losing Streak Can Affect You
Regardless of whether you’re playing a luck-based game or a game that combines luck and skill, finding yourself on a losing streak can actually be a factor in the future results of your gambling efforts. This is especially true if the losing streak is prolonged or if it occurs in a high-stakes environment.
Finding yourself on a losing streak can erode your confidence in your abilities and create self-doubt as you begin to believe that success is unattainable. It can increase feelings of stress and anxiety which, in turn, may lead you to overthink and lose your focus.
You may become fearful of failing which could paralyze your decision-making processes which, in turn, may lead you to a subpar performance.
If you’re on a losing streak you could find that feelings of inadequacy are taking over your life and that feelings of hopelessness or exhaustion become more prominent in your overall outlook.
Because of the psychological toll that a losing streak can take on you, you need to develop strategies to cope with periods in which you experience losses so that you break the cycle and return to success.
Strategies
What can you do to break a losing streak?
Shift Your Focus
So much of your gaming successes depends on your state of mind. When you find yourself in a losing streak, you should start by considering what you can do to reverse the process. Analyze the mistakes that you may have made as objectively as possible so that you develop actionable strategies for improvement. When you reframe losses as learning experiences, you change your outlook from negativity to positivity!
Goals
Set small, achievable goals. Identify your objectives and break them down into manageable steps so that you regain your confidence and build momentum toward success.
Support
Don’t withdraw into yourself. Seek support and encouragement from others, whether it be from friends, social media contacts, or others. Talk to other gamers because, chances are, they will have similar experiences in their past and will be able to share words of encouragement.
Perspective
Keep your perspective. Losing streaks are temporary. They’re part of a broader gambling adventure. Casino games, even skill-based games like poker and blackjack, have an element of randomness in them which means that, at some point, things will swing in your favor once again.
Your Psyche
The most important element in moving past a losing streak is to develop the ability to look beyond the frustrations of the present so that you can achieve everything that you want to in the future. This is probably the most difficult thing to do because, in effect, you need to realign your thought process so that you can achieve the highest level of future success. If you have friends and family around to support you in this process, it’s helpful, but there are things that you can do on your own as well. They include:
Resilience
You need to train yourself to become resilient to the negative thoughts that accompany a losing streak. Mindfulness, meditation and relaxation techniques are especially helpful in supporting you as you push yourself to stay mentally strong. Try to write your experiences in a journal (even short, daily entries) which is a technique used by many pro-gamblers to help them process emotions and track progress.
Self-Compassion
Self-compassion doesn’t come easy to many people but it’s an important tool that can help you avoid the trap of negativity. Avoid harsh self-criticism and acknowledge your efforts. Remind yourself of past successes as you strive to repeat those experiences .
Healthcare professionals note that, if you pause your gambling activities, it will allow you to achieve more clarity. In addition, you’ll reduce the stresses of burn-out so you can return to your gaming entertainment with a fresh perspective.
Recovery
It’s not always easy to recover from a losing streak, especially if it was a long one. But if you remember that a losing streak doesn’t define your potential for future success, you’re already on your way to recovery!
Don’t forget to:
- Acknowledge the situation. Don’t deny or self-criticize. Accept that you’re going through a rough patch and remind yourself that losing streaks are a natural part of any competitive pursuit.
- Analyze what went wrong. Even if you’re playing a completely luck-based game like slots, there are things that you could have done to achieve more success. Did you play for too long? Long gambling periods make you more vulnerable to losing. Was your game a high- volatility game with fewer wins based on the hope of higher payouts? Try a low-volatility game for more wins with lower payouts. Was the Return to Player on the lower end of the spectrum? Try a higher RTP game, etc.
- Step back, clear your mind and regain your perspective. Don’t keep plodding away because you’ll burn out. Use some “down time” to reflect and recharge.
- Focus on the process, not the outcome. As you shift your focus from winning to improving your performance, you’ll be able to reduce pressure and regain your confidence. Concentrate on small, manageable goals, celebrate incremental progress and you’ll be able to use this process-oriented approach to rebuild your momentum over time.
