For anyone who has spent any amount of in an ultra-cold, windowless casino, breathing in pumped in recycled air, you know that the house wants you awake enough to keep putting money on the table. For me, an ex-full-time-ish poker deviant (and now just an occasional deviant dabbler), my go-to was always coffee; alcohol was for suckers looking to have a good time throwing money away. But I wasnโ€™t there for fun, I was there to win, so I needed my wits about me. At least six cups of free casino coffee should do the trick, no?

advert but first coffee cookbook now available

 

But according to Extra Crispy, a study shows consuming caffeine will actually make you worse at gambling.

Published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, the study is a joint effort between researchers at Cambridge and the University of Chicago. The researchers followed 60 โ€œproblem gamblersโ€ and tracked their caffeine consumption during their gambling sessions and found that those consuming caffeine โ€œexhibited a five percent greater likelihood of placing a bad bet.โ€

This dip in play may be caused by two things. From the article:

While we think of coffee and other energy-providing beverages as the opposite of brain-fogging alcohol, caffeine does in fact impact decision-making centers in the brain. Thereโ€™s also possibly a bit of a weird placebo effect: if we think a cup of coffee sharpens the mind, itโ€™s easier to be convinced that the betting strategies youโ€™re considering is the right one.

While a five percent dip seems nominal, gambling and poker are all about the numbers and knowing the odds. With even a one percent advantage, over a long enough period of time the house will bleed you dry. So drink coffee sparingly. When itโ€™s 2:15am and half the table are sitting on some big stacks and are trying to bribe the server into one last round of shots, a coffee may not be a bad idea. But remember, jacked on caffeine or not, โ€œbut they were suitedโ€ is always a bad rationalization for talking yourself into a hand.

Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.

New Rules of Coffee banner advertising an illustrated guide to the essential rules for enjoying coffee