Has anyone taken the time to learn Caravan? And if so is it worth it??? If i take the time to learn can i generally beat my opponents and make caps or are they too good or is it kind of even? Wondering if it is worth my time to learn the game.

Seems like it also might be fun to hunt down the right cards to build a good deck but again, don;t want to waste my time if i cant make caps.

I amassed my first fortune via Caravan. It's an awesome game once you figure out what to do. The in-game help screen (Menu > Help) have much more details on what to do far back (Page 30-35-ish)

If I loose I just kill erm and take whats mine

sadly thats what always happens

The basic rules are not hard - and the current system can be abused heavily to tilt the odds in your favor so that you win after placing only 6 or 8 cards. It would be more fun if the opponent would place face cards on your cards instead of only on their side (the rules allow you to play face cards on both sides). So the current AI is extremely brain-dead and the rules during the opening of the game need to be tweaked to not allow unlimited discards without ending your turn.

Try this for a quick overview of a game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayb48b-4L5g
- Which covers the absolute basics.

I won't bet with any NPC that won't put at least 200 caps into the pot. Which seems to be controlled so they will bet up to 1/4 of the caps that they have available to purchase items in the merchant interface. So if I see a vendor with 2000+ caps, I will challenge them to a few games as a quick way of getting a few hundred caps. Since it's so easy to win (unless you don't abuse the opening and resist stacking the deck in entirely your favor), it's only moderately entertaining at first and a bit of a chore once you figure out how to destroy your opponent.