Need your input: Do you track your sessions, or just play for fun?

[Webzcas]

Now I know some of the old timers track their sessions when they play, or used to ( @KasinoKing ), especially when it comes to taking bonuses.

But I am genuinely interested in those of you that meticulously track each session they have on an online casino. Or like I dare say the majority of which I lump myself with, just play for fun?

I think if i had kept record of all my play sessions, looking back at it now would be a very depressing experience!

 

[conker]

I don't think tracking them in my head counts

 

[Nate]

I've always thought about doing it, but never got down to it.

As you mentioned, it would be very disappointing - it would probably keep me from playing again

 

[L&L-Jan]

Play

i'll see at the end of the month how much I've lost. Not looking good this year. Although last year with avg bet of 4 / 5 euro base game. I managed to end up 33k profit from slots.

Well I can say, that amount is certainly lost by now. But gambling is like EA sports: It's in the game.

 

[Rammasaur]

Now I know some of the old timers track their sessions when they play, or used to ( @KasinoKing ), especially when it comes to taking bonuses.

But I am genuinely interested in those of you that meticulously track each session they have on an online casino. Or like I dare say the majority of which I lump myself with, just play for fun?

I think if i had kept record of all my play sessions, looking back at it now would be a very depressing experience!

I'm rather tracking bonus TOS to not be surprised that i can get max 5x per cashout. I was always math guy, so tracking sessions it part of game

 

[geordiecolin]

When I first started playing I spread my deposits far and wide so I used to journal everything to keep track. Now I just play a handfull of casinos and only keep a record if I plan on playing then all in the same evening.

 

[09237653]

only on videoslots using their 'myrtp' page, too much hassle to keep track manually these days, it was a bit easier back when we had autoplay and you could calculate RTP based on batches of 100 spins.

 

[DreamRJ]

Why do we even need to track the sessions though?

This is not an MMO - so tracking is not really needed. You just depo and choose a slot or table game and bam have fun and then either lose or win and depo again or stop. Rinse repeat.......

 

[interlog]

Used to track deposits / withdrawals but stopped doing this when the numbers turned a little red.......

 

[satchnz]

Yep I track all of my play in an Excel workbook, and I also record my sessions.

I have a spreadsheet for each casino/crypto type. I capture the following info:

• Date
• Balance
• Game
• Stake
• Highest single win for that game in each session (plus calculated x win)

I record all of my play too, and generally keep any recordings of wins 250x or above, and wins 500x or above get posted here and to YouTube.

My girlfriend is a software engineer in the UK gambling industry and together we’re intending on replacing our spreadsheets with a web based database (although our spreadsheets have been going for five years now!)

This is totally OTT for most of you but I enjoy playing this way

P.S. if anyone wants a copy of my spreadsheet template, hit me up and I’ll gladly send you a copy!

 

[CongoGB]

My only tracking is when I hit my budget limit for the month and hit the "time out" button!

 

[Webzcas]

Interesting responses, thanks to all who have responded so far.

 

[sufferinsilence]

Used to track them when I was playing daily but since I stopped doing that I have also stopped tracking my P/L for slots. On top of not playing daily anymore I only use a digital wallet now for gambling so it's easy to keep track of them if I want to.

I do still keep track of sports bets but it has a bit of an analytical side to it. It's easier to search a specific team/player/... on a spreadsheet than going through past bets on the bookie sites

 

[Avernite]

I started tracking deposits/withdrawals 3 years ago. Helps keep me in check. I estimate it costs me about 1k a year to gamble online, with this year being an exception (up $500) after winning a 1.5k Videoslots Jackpot Chase prize from a free ticket.

Plan on taking next year off though

 

[Reelsoffun]

I tend to only track bonuses, as I already know what i win / lose based on how much of my budget is left each month.

I find it handy for games esp the ones I play a lot as after a while you get an idea of what the average bonus pays on each game which can help a little with expectations lol

 

[Jono777]

Used to but stopped as far back as 2017 I think.

Also used to do videos on YT and screenshots but don't bother with those either, not that there is anything worth recording or screen shotting these days

 

[satchnz]

So I religiously record all of my sessions using OBS on the odd chance I hit something big. Today I just won $935.00 on Holy Hand Grenade 2 with a $0.30 bet ($0.20 base). Check my recording and it didn’t work. Gutted. This is the downfall of recording everything.

I blame the Mac Mini I now use for slotting. Everything was solid on my previous Windows setup but MacOS isn’t so happy to keep things solid. Maybe I should use my winnings to buy a Windows machine again and get rid of this crappy Mac…

 

[DreamRJ]

So I religiously record all of my sessions using OBS on the odd chance I hit something big. Today I just won $935.00 on Holy Hand Grenade 2 with a $0.30 bet ($0.20 base). Check my recording and it didn’t work. Gutted. This is the downfall of recording everything.

I blame the Mac Mini I now use for slotting. Everything was solid on my previous Windows setup but MacOS isn’t so happy to keep things solid. Maybe I should use my winnings to buy a Windows machine again and get rid of this crappy Mac…

Congrats on that win

 

[Casinos Hate Winners]

I recorded all my play with bonuses, cashback, tournaments, progressive jackpots, and other promos.

I didn’t record regular deposits. But in reality it’s important to track your overall gambling expenses. There are studies showing that gamblers generally have no clear sense of how much they actually lose. They usually believe they’ve lost less than they really have.

And I really regret not using OBS for a long time; many big wins now exist only in my memory.

 

[M!ke]

I have a spreadsheet for logging bonuses over a certain amount and another for logging sessions. The session log is pretty ridiculous. Lots of metrics.

 

[Casinos Hate Winners]

I have a spreadsheet for logging bonuses over a certain amount and another for logging sessions. The session log is pretty ridiculous. Lots of metrics.

How many bonuses in total, and how many of them were successfully wagered, if it is not a secret?

 

[M!ke]

How many bonuses in total, and how many of them were successfully wagered, if it is not a secret?

I used to log every bonus, but I stopped logging ones that are under 50x a month or so ago. I have about 1800 entries in the spreadsheet. Probably around 1600 are bonus games and the others are notable base game wins. The sheet has columns for stake, win, factor, and notes.

 

[satchnz]

How many bonuses in total, and how many of them were successfully wagered, if it is not a secret?

I think he meant bonus rounds (e.g. free spin rounds) and not deposit type bonuses?

 

[Reelsoffun]

I used to log every bonus, but I stopped logging ones that are under 50x a month or so ago. I have about 1800 entries in the spreadsheet. Probably around 1600 are bonus games and the others are notable base game wins. The sheet has columns for stake, win, factor, and notes.

I do too, so I can get an average.

By not logging ones under 50x your not gonna be able to see the average, which is surely one of the reasons for logging in the first place?

I find it useful and interesting on games I play a lot eg bonanza, millionaire, extra chilli etc

 

[Reelsoffun]

Just imagine the sample size we would have as a community if we all did it here

We could effectively track each games average feature value, and have a bigger insight to if and when anything changes.

And with dazza’s @dunover sample of bonanza bonuses would be very interesting lol

 

[satchnz]

Just imagine the sample size we would have as a community if we all did it here

We could effectively track each games average feature value, and have a bigger insight to if and when anything changes.

And with dazza’s @dunover sample of bonanza bonuses would be very interesting lol

I’ve always rued the decision not to flag bonuses in my spreadsheet, but then how complicated do I want it? It’s a bitch anyway as I’m constantly losing data (this is solely to do with using Excel on iPad - Office apps are woeful on iPadOS/iOS).

My gf and I are about to put together a database to track our play, including adding a bunch of other detail that’s not so easy to capture in a spreadsheet. Could one day be opened up to the community to do exactly what you suggested. It’s a brilliant idea.

 

[dunover]

Just imagine the sample size we would have as a community if we all did it here

We could effectively track each games average feature value, and have a bigger insight to if and when anything changes.

And with dazza’s @dunover sample of bonanza bonuses would be very interesting lol

That's what Slottracker originally tried.

I think I can be 100% sure that my average Bonanza bonus would pan out at far less than 90x. I only got 10 or 11 1000x plus ones in 8-9 years but hundreds of sub-20x sh!tters.

 

[satchnz]

Slottracker was a browser plugin though that tried to track things automatically? That does sound like a bit of a faff.

 

[Reelsoffun]

I

That's what Slottracker originally tried.

I think I can be 100% sure that my average Bonanza bonus would pan out at far less than 90x. I only got 10 or 11 1000x plus ones in 8-9 years but hundreds of sub-20x sh!tters.

I honestly doubt that, you don’t need a lot of 1000x wins to keep it above 90.

You only need one 160x bonus to average out each 20x one for example, but would have been great had you tracked it yourself to know for sure, and not hard to do all you need to do was right each down lol

 

[Reelsoffun]

I’ve always rued the decision not to flag bonuses in my spreadsheet, but then how complicated do I want it? It’s a bitch anyway as I’m constantly losing data (this is solely to do with using Excel on iPad - Office apps are woeful on iPadOS/iOS).

My gf and I are about to put together a database to track our play, including adding a bunch of other detail that’s not so easy to capture in a spreadsheet. Could one day be opened up to the community to do exactly what you suggested. It’s a brilliant idea.

All I track is date, slot name, stake, bonus paid, notes ( eg 12 spins 1 retrigger or where there is options etc) the sheets can do all the rest eg calculate ave, show highest etc

Can’t think of what detail would be hard to capture in a sheet if I’m honest, so interested on what you meant there.

I, like a lot of players mainly play the same ones over and over so probably 80/90% of my sheet are the same games, eg 500 bonanza bonuses LOL

 

[Reelsoffun]

* accidental double post *

 

[Reelsoffun]

That's what Slottracker originally tried.

I think I can be 100% sure that my average Bonanza bonus would pan out at far less than 90x. I only got 10 or 11 1000x plus ones in 8-9 years but hundreds of sub-20x sh!tters.

Of course that could be because your average stake is higher than mine, something else you could also see if you track them long enough

This is because despite what people think slots can and do have different profiles for stakes.

So for all we know bonanza “could” have a slightly lower average feature return for higher stakes and the extra RTP from that is moved to base game.

But no I don’t know that for certain, I didn’t design it, and I doubt nik would tell us lol

 

[M!ke]

I do too, so I can get an average.

By not logging ones under 50x your not gonna be able to see the average, which is surely one of the reasons for logging in the first place?

I find it useful and interesting on games I play a lot eg bonanza, millionaire, extra chilli etc

With the amount of single digit x results I was seein, it got kinda ridiculous, but you have a good point. I figure the average is close to the buy in.

 

[M!ke]

I think he meant bonus rounds (e.g. free spin rounds) and not deposit type bonuses?

What I mentioned were all naturally triggered bonus rounds.

 

[satchnz]

Can’t think of what detail would be hard to capture in a sheet if I’m honest, so interested on what you meant there.

It’s more around what you can easily do and fit on an 11 inch iPad screen, balancing that with not wanting to spend half of my session navigating around spreadsheets to input data.

Plus we didn’t think about it when we started. Mostly this