A Guide to Hot & Cold Streaks - When to Walk Away

Put simply, cold and hot streaks are ways for gamblers to spot periods of gaming that are characterised by frequent wins and high payouts (hot streaks), and periods marked by repeated losses (cold streaks).

These periods of persistent losses or wins can apply to any online casino game, including pokies, blackjack, roulette, poker, or baccarat.

For example, if I play, say, 500 spins an hour on pokies and win about 50 spins, it would be a clear definition of a cold streak. Alternatively, if I win about 250 spins, or more than I’ve spent on the game in an hour, I would be on a hot streak.

Keeping an eye on your game streaks can be quite helpful. If you notice you’ve been losing more often than winning during a certain period, like an hour or two of gaming, it might feel like a cold streak, and you might think your luck has run out.

Many people see this as a sign to take a break from gambling, believing that continuing might just lead to more losses. But that’s not always the case.

Cold streaks are often more about mindset, especially with games of chance like pokies. Personally, I believe it’s best to stop playing whenever it stops being fun – whether that’s after 10 bets or 1000. If frustration starts to creep in, that’s a clear sign to step back and cool off.

Also, your budget can be a helpful guide. I often use my daily, weekly, or monthly limits to decide when to pause, even during periods of drought. Sometimes, after a streak of losses, a big payout can come out of the blue, so it’s good to stay patient and aware of your limits.

It is vital not to let panic set in if you notice a period of persistent losses. This can lead to frustration, and emotions often get the better of you, making you think you need to compensate for the lost money.

Never chase your losses. Make peace with the fact that you played and lost, and focus on your next move, or simply call it a day and walk away until your financial situation allows you to set aside a gambling budget again.

Also, if you stick to a budget that you can afford to spend on gambling, then you realise that losing comes with the territory. When I first made peace with this notion, all negative emotions related to my losses and losing streaks vanished.

Tip from Mike Waters: Don’t wait to squander all your budget before you decide to walk away from a cold streak. How long you proceed to play after repeated losses is your call, but I like to cut my losses as soon as possible and live to fight another day.

Winning (hot) streaks are the best ‘problem’ to have in online gambling.

Lately, I’ve started paying more attention to my own behaviour, as well as analysing that of other frequent players who find themselves hyped by hot streaks. We all play to win, but in the psychology of a random player, a hot streak can do more harm than good. Why?

Well, this is a common pattern among many players who experience periods where they win significantly more than they bet, encouraging them to keep playing and expect even more wins.

This can be a misleading and highly dangerous approach, because, from my experience, cold streaks teach a much more valuable lesson and give you a reality check about the nature of gambling.

Say you play the pokies and after an hour or two, you’ve won more than double your deposit. What’s the next correct thing to do? You can continue gambling, of course, because hey, luck is clearly smiling on you. But luck can be treacherous and turn for the worse in the blink of an eye.

And experiencing that first loss after a ‘hot’ streak is often a turning point. Eventually, you’ll lose again, and again, and disappointment and fear of losing your gains will soon set in. This can lead to either a gambler’s fallacy – believing that since your good luck will return again, even after a few bad hands – or to chasing losses.

Both can be absolutely harmful approaches.

In terms of losing or winning successive wagers, hot and cold streaks are as real as you and me, and if you play long enough, you will eventually experience both. However, you need some basic understanding of statistics and probability to get a better grasp of how hot and cold streaks work.

When you play pokies or other chance-based games, many players tend to believe that hot and cold streaks are real, and this can greatly affect their mindsets. What’s more, many tend to think that if the game pays out well until a certain point, it’s because of their good luck and will continue playing with high expectations of winning.

But this is a common fallacy.

Every single wager on pokies or crash games like Aviator is random and the product of an algorithmic outcome from the game’s software. Therefore, luck has nothing to do with it. In fact, Spin X and Spin Y are independent of each other.

As I researched for this guide, I came across fascinating information that busts the myth of cold and hot streaks.

Namely, research conducted by a Stanford University mathematician in the late 1970s on cold and hot numbers in roulette was just an illusory perception formed in the minds of gamblers who win or lose successive wagers. What the study concluded was that these ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ streaks were just imaginary patterns that can easily mislead players into thinking they are having a run of good or bad luck.

There’s nothing of the sort in games that generate completely random outcomes, such as pokies and roulette. In fact, this has more to do with variance than anything else.

On the other hand, with poker and blackjack, you can still employ some strategy to improve your hand or to decide your best course of action based on insight and tested tactics, which, while not set in stone, are not entirely dependent on chance.

Tip from Mike Waters: Here’s my two cents on the matter. If you win it, cash it out as soon as possible. If you lose, don’t chase it. Follow this principle and you should avoid any common pitfalls experienced by the majority of gamblers.