Gambling: Entertainment or addiction?

But if you’re not able to do this, you should at least engage in responsible gambling, which ensures everything is always under control. 

The dangers of irresponsible gambling and gambling addiction

Losing this control, whether that means losing more money than you should or more seriously still, suffering from gambling addiction, can have extremely serious consequences on all aspects of your life, including: 

•    Losing money you can’t afford to lose.
•    Gambling too much can affect your professional performance at work or lead you to neglect parts of your personal or family life, in favour of betting. 
•    Excessive gambling, especially in a losing cause, can lead to mood swings or irritability. 
•    Poor general health, both physical and mental, from spending too much time gambling rather than having a balanced lifestyle. 
•    Legal problems such as debt or even bankruptcy. 

Using Responsible Gambling tools 

The betting industry is very aware of the pitfalls of their customers not taking responsible gambling seriously and has worked hard to find a good balance between customers enjoying betting and not letting things get out of hand. One of the key areas has been encouraging betting sites to provide responsible gambling tools to all customers. These include… 

Time Limits

After you’ve played for a certain amount of time, you’ll be prevented from playing anymore for a specified period. 

Deposit and Loss Limits 

The first refers to how much money you’ve decided you want to deposit over a specific time period. Once you’ve reached it, you won’t be able to deposit more for the period selected. Loss limits mean that when you’ve lost a certain amount, you’ll automatically be logged out and won’t be allowed to play anymore for a predetermined period. 

Time Outs

This means asking the betting site to let you know when you’ve been playing for a certain number of minutes or hours, so you don’t lose track of time. It then depends whether you’re stopped from playing more or just made aware of how long you’ve been playing for. 

Self-exclusion

If customers decide they want, or need a break, then self-exclusion, though perhaps not a tool as such, could be the sensible option. It’s similar to a Time Out but the exclusion period is normally much longer, ranging from six months to a number of years. During self-exclusion, customers can request to withdraw their funds but won’t be able to do anything else such as depositing, accepting bonuses or placing bets.