Why You Mad Son?

So while earning my pay at the Blackjack table I was entertained by a person who took a seat to my left. He started complaining straight away as he lost hands or won hands. Why? Because apparently he was playing the side bets. Apparently I had a couple of matches that he had noticed and asked me if I play the side bets. I told him I didn't because the odds are pretty bad. He said "but you got a few".

OK.

Well he "got a few" but played the main game so badly that he ended up losing his buy in. An example was his surrendering of a hard 18 against an Ace. I asked him why he did that and he said "oh fuck it."

Look if you're going to voluntarily hand your money to the casino when the odds don't call for it, why be mad when you lose money on side bets where the house edge is an order or magnitude higher than the main bet?

As I left I asked the player, who had left and returned, still complaining, whether he had ever been to the wizardofodds website. He had not. I told him, if he's serious about making money he should. I don't expect that he will but it couldn't hurt to give him a tip.

When I just want to entertain myself and don't care about losing, I'll throw money into a slot machine. I hit the button and don't expect much. If I find myself up a decent amount, I'm surprised, cash out and go, but I don't get mad at the losing because I know I'm playing a losing game. But Blackjack is beatable so I take that game seriously and I don't expose more of my bankroll than I have to in order to make ev (expected value) and that means staying off side bets that have a negative expectation.