By Jim Mcleod 
Superstitions, Omens and Rituals Used by Gamblers
Gamblers cling to ritual, lucky charms and hidden signs to gain leverage over fate. Behind casino back rooms and silent computer sessions, superstition makes as many decisions as strategy.
Enter any casino and a certain electric mood prevails. There is a sound and smell of chance, gravity of ritual and thrill of risk hovering somewhere mid-air. To gamblers all over, ritual and superstition are as real as a spinning wheel or shuffled deck.
Ancient Origins of Betting Superstitions
These superstitions are neither fresh to chance games nor to other life situations. Players carried omens wherever they went, wore a particular color or chanted incantations to tip the odds in their favor.
Red has never lost its luckiness in Asia and represents prosperity and life itself. In some areas of Europe, dodging number thirteen is a culture fortified by an obdurate belief that it is a summons to doom. Ancient Egyptians equated dice rolls with divine volition and Romans foretold coin flips to decide fates before war.
Even there, Greeks believed gods intervened with outcomes, so gambling was a matter of fate and not chance itself. Everyone sees these customs still hold at casinos nowadays, where players base seating assignments, timing decisions and yes, throwing-the-dice decisions upon myths of yesteryear. For most people, ignoring these traditions is like breaking some sacred code, evidence that superstition endures as ferociously as math in chance games.
Modern Play, Old Beliefs
Even with sites facilitating betting via technology, customs never die. Some players tap wood while betting and others never cross their legs while playing, fearing it inhibits luck.
They would consider someone placing a token beside their screen while engaging in sessions online, thinking luck can travel through symbols as it can through expertise. It is at this personal level that superstition shows its persistence. As players at sites like Betway Ghana adhere to their customs while waiting for kick-off or spin, technology and culture entwine to form a new, modern ritual.
Lucky Charms and Cursed Things
For some players, a four-leaf clover, a rabbit foot or some particular coin is identical with the act of gambling itself. These trinkets are protection for bad luck and a success attraction.
Yet there is another side to superstition looming around it. There is a legend of a cursed item, dice always rolling low, cards with hidden power by a blessing or amulets bringing destruction, not wealth. Both are suspended amidst tension between being lucky and being damned. Here, there is eeriness to folklore regarding gambling, such that anything can carry greater importance than its literal shape.
Omens in the Gaming World
Gamblers do not merely bet upon things, but omens from the world. A black cat crossing in front while strolling to a casino can send you home immediately.
A particular melody playing as background can be interpreted to bet larger. Online players have their equivalents: sudden lag before spinning, a change in brightness of the display screen or even how outcomes come out can itself be interpreted as omens.
For some, ignoring them is out of the question because fear of tempting fate prevails over sensibility. Platforms like Betway Ghana, with double-fast-moving activities by players and wheels and cards being shuffled and spinning respectively to begin and continue the activities, become stages upon which such interpretations upon chance and omen are performed and observed back and forth in real time.
Rituals that Shape Outcomes
Some players perform complete routines before sitting down to play and swear ritualistically as a bringer of good fortune. These routines include washing, wearing identical clothes, and/or entering through a specific door.
Others need to touch the table a certain way, set chips in exact designs to pile upon one another or recite incantations they are certain hold power. These routines are bizarre to outsiders, yet to the player himself/herself, they calm the mind and infuse it with backbone.
Rituals, tiny things and huge sequences make players believe it is possible to hold back only a modicum from chance’s mercy. Lighting a cigarette at precisely the same time, taking a sip of a drink after each hand or even timing out for a certain number of seconds before a bet are all anchors to control.
They are trying to control the uncontrollable, deep inside the human mind, expressed through numberless manifestations of culture. Repetition is merely habit, yet it is a shield to uncertainty, a secret tongue of chance spoken in defiance to chance itself.
Superstitions, omens and rituals bring an interesting layer to gambling that crosses decades and cultures. A charm stashed in a pocket, a number with supposed magic to it, a ritual conducted before each bet, such customs are still present in present-day gaming. What’s appealing is less probability and more a connection to something larger and beyond odds and numbers. Before you place your next bet, remember fortune may rest less with numbers and more with signs you believe to follow.
