Monica-Lewinsky-080514Monica Lewinsky

As Monica Lewinsky announces she’s finally ready to “bury the blue dress”, we bring you four valuable lessons that gamblers can learn from the former White House intern.

If you think people have long put the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal behind them, you are wrong. The old cigar and blue dress have surfaced recently, along with a much anticipated story written by none other than Monica Lewinsky herself.

After more than a decade of silence, a piece published in Vanity Fair brings the former White House intern back in the public eye. Lewinsky, now 40, is trying to prove that she is old and wise enough to make an elegant comeback.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether she succeeded or not, because we have more important things to share with you. Like these three valuable lessons that gamblers can learn from Monica Lewinsky:

Rule # 1: Don’t play a game you can’t win

If you want to become a professional gambler – or simply be good at whatever you’re playing and not end up losing all of your money at a mobile casino – you have to be very careful which game you choose. This is the first rule you must keep in mind if you want to gamble like a pro.

Always pick the right game and the right level, something you can easily handle. You don’t want to be overwhelmed with mathematical equations or complicated card counting systems, but you should choose a game where you have some control over the outcome. If you leave everything up to pure chance, then you might end up losing. You need a game that gives you the upper hand every once in a while.

The problem with Monica Lewinsky was that she got involved with someone very important. Too important, in fact. You simply cannot have a discrete affair with the President of the United States of America! So from this point of view she could not have picked a worse lover.

The result of this whole scandal was that, when it all got out, she was the one who took the most bullets. The bad reputation she gained while working in the Oval office followed her around for years. And will probably keep on following her around for the rest of her life.

Rule #2: Stay strong, even when you lose

Entitled “Shame and Survival”, Monica Lewinsky’s article in the Vanity Fair is the perfect example of how you can stay strong in the worst circumstances imaginable. She describes how her mother used to stay by her bed, looking after her daughter who had become suicidal.

“The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death,” she confessed. But proving she’s a strong woman, Monica Lewinsky turned her bad experience into an advantage.

As “possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet”, the details of her love affair with Bill Clinton could have brought her as much as $10 million, she says, but this “didn’t feel like the right thing to do”. She’s on a different, more admirable mission to “get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”

You might think this has nothing to do with gambling, but there is a very important lesson hidden in here: picking yourself up after a big loss, keeping your head up high and moving on. Losing should motivate you to learn from your mistakes, to study and master your game’s strategies. Make no mistake, it takes a lot of time, practice and patience to become a professional gambler.

Rule #3: Know when to stay silent and when to speak out

After the huge scandal that broke out in 1998, the former intern was so ashamed that she went silent for more than a decade. “So silent, in fact, that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off,” she wrote.

It wasn’t easy to stay quiet either, especially with so many people tempting her to reveal some dirty secrets. And for a lot of money, too! But after over a decade of silence, suffering and inner reflection the 40 year-old woman decided it was time to “stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past.”

She maintains that her affair was not a game of power: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”

This is a very good example of how a professional gambler should behave. Discretion is important, and you certainly won’t see true poker champions boasting about their fortune in any tabloids. A gambler’s philosophy is more about putting one’s money where their mouth is.

These tips might not be as important as your basic blackjack strategy, and we know that, but they will help you improve your general attitude about gambling. And a healthy attitude is the first step to becoming a professional gambler.