7 Common Gambling Superstitions and their Strange Origins
With so much luck involved in gaming, the prevalence of superstitions in casinos seems only natural. I've seen many an intelligent player fall victim to poor decision making as a result of their own quirky superstitions, so I've decided to clear up some of the most common ones in order to try to end, once and for all, gamblers reliance on these irrational beliefs. Of course just in case I'm wrong about this whole superstition thing, I've listed seven. No reason to tempt fate too much. Please feel free to share your own superstition stories!
In this gallery
Gambling at its most irrational. 
This is a really common superstition seen outside of the casino and it all has to do with witches. Okay maybe not entirely because of witches—the exact origin of crossing your fingers for good luck has been debated—but the popularity of the superstition has its roots with the fear of witches back in the times before the Enlightenment. Crossing ones fingers then was believed to ward off witches’ spell because you were making the Christian sign of the cross—ironically crossing your fingers might steam from an ancient pagan well-wishing belief, but whatever. Anyway, because of people’s irrational belief in witches we now have the irrational practice of crossing your fingers every time we want something to happen. Weird how stuff like that works out, huh? 
Okay, picture this: you’re all ready to have a really good night at the tables. You’ve read your strategy books, practiced for hours and calmed yourself into a perfect state of gambling Zen. You decided start your night of right with a burger from your favorite diner and then, disaster! You knock over the salt container, spilling its contents all over the table. All that planning is for naught you’ve cursed your night by spilling the salt. You laugh, but I’ve seen gamblers do this very thing. Bad luck from spilling the salt actually has nothing to do with unlucky gambling, however. It originates from ancient Rome, where salt was such a precious commodity that Roman soldiers were often paid in the mineral. Spilling the salt, therefore, was seen to be an affront to the spirits of fortune and ill-will would be visited upon you if you did not toss a pinch of salt over your left shoulder with your right hand. Throwing the probably still good priceless substance away might seem a bit dumb, but whatever, I’m sure nothing bad ever happened to the Romans or their untopplable empire. 
I’ll admit it; I don’t like 50 dollar bills. For some reason, whenever I’ve had a 50 dollar bill I’ve experienced some not-so-great luck and apparently I’m not alone. Most gamblers I’ve talked to won’t even play if a 50 or 2 dollar bill is present at the table. It’s so bad that I once heard the statement, “superstitions are for suckers, but everyone knows a 50 dollar bill is unlucky.” That being said, this superstition actually has a fairly easily understood origin. It all goes back to gamesmanship and bad taste, gamblers in the old days would give 50s or 2s out to the player they just busted to because many places didn’t accept either as legitimate currency—50s because they were usually too high to be broken in most places and 2s because they were so uncommon stores immediately believed them to be counterfeit. It’s a little stab at the person who just bested you and, unfortunately, it’s not all that uncommon of a practice. So don’t worry, if a player pays you off in 50s and 2s he’s not trying to wish you bad luck, instead he’s only trying to prevent you from being paid. 
Blowing air on dice or cards before action is an extremely common sight at the casino nowadays. If you don’t believe me, next time you find yourself at the craps table just count how many times a roller blows the dice before he throws, I bet you’ll be surprised at the high number. This superstition seems actually kind of docile in comparison to many of the other weird things people do at the table for luck, and most of the time people who are blowing on dice are doing it in jest. However, one possible origin of this superstition is not as innocent. It is believed that blowing on dice for luck may have gotten its start in the wilder days of gambling, where cheats would coat the side of the die that they wanted to land face down with a sticky substance that would be activated when it came in contact with warm, moist air. Of course some gambling historians think that this superstition may have also come from early street games, where players were just trying to knock of the dirt on a die before they threw, but why risk being called a cheat, just don’t do it!
Knocking on wood is one of the only superstitions that I’ve seen people actually perform because they refused to fall victim to other superstitions. I think of it as the “just in case” superstition, and we do it all the time, not just in the casino. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to tempt fate or because wood happens to be everywhere and, really, why not, but the root of this superstition can be found, interestingly enough, in roots, specifically those belonging to trees. The reason we knock wood, apparently, comes from the ancient pagan belief of tree spirits, where touching a tree meant you were acknowledging the power of the tree spirits in order to protect against bad luck. The same idea was adopted by the Catholic Church years later, only they stated the knock was paying homage to Jesus’ death on a wooden cross. This is a superstition I’m tempted not to tell you to stop following. After all, who wants an angry tree spirit after them?
Ah the lucky rabbit’s foot. Maybe the most senseless and disturbing of all the gambling superstitions, the idea that the left foot of a rabbit is lucky is so popular that more than 10 million sliced bunny limbs are sold each year in the United States alone. The reason for all the carnage? Historians believe that the rabbit’s foot tradition probably came to the United States from Africa, where the rabbit was traditionally seen in many tribes as being a symbol of fertility and good fortune. Since rabbits were so lucky apparently carrying a piece of them around with you was suppose to spread their luck to you—although when you think about it, a footless rabbit isn’t very lucky at all. So there you go, an ancient fertility belief is the reason you bought that purple dyed rabbit’s foot from a gas station’s gumball machine for 50 cents, happy? 
It’s maybe the most common superstition worldwide. For as lucky as the number seven is to gamblers everywhere, 13 is thought to be maybe ten times as unlucky. It’s actually a legitimate phobia, with thousands of cases of acute anxiety steaming from a fear of 13 being documented by medical science over the years. Triskaidekaphobia is so widespread, in fact, that its origin is actually kind of fuzzy. We know the earliest documented case of something that could be called triskaidekaphobia can be found by looking at the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest examples of a law codex, where the list of laws simply skips from number 12 to 14, seemingly without reason. Then again, while the Babylonians may have hated the number 13, many other civilizations, including early Christian cultures, thought the number was lucky. That all changed, however, on October 13, 1307—for all of you wondering out there, yes that was a Friday—when the ironically nicknamed King Philip the Fair of France ordered the mass arrest of the entire Knights Templar Christian Order, resulting in the deaths of hundreds. To this day we fear 13 and are especially frightened by Friday the 13th because some long dead French monarch was jealous of the Templers’s power. So don’t worry if you find yourself gambling away on Friday the 13th, there’s nothing to fear. Unless, of course, you’re a Templar Knight, in which case there’s a king in France looking for you.
7 Common Gambling Superstitions and their Strange Origins
Gambling at its most irrational.
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7 Comments
woodrackets said:
You forgot the superstition about the big man on the cloud, and the talking snake.
lildebweb said:
Leaving a hat on the bed is bad luck. Origin: it can transfer "demons" to your head - the kind that make you itch - lice!
Chasse Rehwinkel said:
I like that one, my favorite is actually dogs in the casino is unlucky.
Tory said:
Rabbit's feet may seem lucky to us, but not to the rabbit... http://www.bustedtees.com/unlucky
ChattyPatty said:
I enjoyed your article. It was well-researched and witty! One thing though, the phrase isn't "all for not" it's "all for NAUGHT" (which means 'nothing'). In the third panel, the one about spilt salt, you said "All that planning is for not.." it should be "All that planning is for naught." (Alternative spelling also acceptable is nought.)
Chasse Rehwinkel said:
Thanks Chatty, sometimes you lose track of stuff like that when you're writing. Nice catch.
AdrienneJay said:
Actual and online casino myths and superstitions might be based in true incidents but has been distorted as time goes by.
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