Although you might think long and hard over making your gambling choices, and often doing so is the right thing to do, there are times when it is simply better to go with your gut instinct, particularly when the system is highly complex.

First let us consider betting on a horse. Many of us who enjoy a punt on a horse will spend a considerable amount of time examining form, reading reviews, looking at the predictions of handicappers and tipsters, and generally gaining knowledge of how a particular horse might perform on a particular day in a particular race. Some of us even think that we are very good at it. However, statistics show that often we are no more successful than average punters who just rely on their gut instincts and bet on a horse because they feel it has a good chance of winning.

Now consider meeting someone for the first time. We actually form an impression of that person, and an impression that we are reluctant to surrender, in approximately one tenth of a second. How can it be that we can discover anything about anybody in a mere tenth of a second? Yet we do, and we will stick with it, despite strong evidence that our first impression is incorrect. And, in many circumstances, that first impression is the correct one. Poker is a good example of this, when players may be trying to bluff, double-bluff, triple-bluff and so on and so on.

The same instinct base thinking is true when buying a house. We make up our mind about the house within a second or so of seeing it or walking through the door. The same applies to making any expensive purchase; we may try to be analytical, but quite often we can become so overloaded with information that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the wood and the trees and so we go for our gut instinct anyway.

There are some aspects of casino gambling that should be approached from a rational viewpoint, in fact the most important of these is the management of your bankroll, but with many others it is better to just go with the flow, to bet where your heart takes you rather than agonising over your gambling decisions. Poker on the other hand, can be a different matter altogether, where practice and previous experience can help to form new ideals to situations, and how you deal with them.