Responsible Gambling
Of course this is extremely subjective and different types of players will have different ways of managing their online gambling budgets. Therefore please consider the below as a guideline or merely an advice or ‘one of the ways’ to manage your online gambling budget.
Content:
How to manage your online gambling budget
Basically the key is to ensure that you don’t overspend but manage to get a fair level of entertainment and to find a good balance of winning and losing. Since online casinos and online Poker rooms are extremely accessible, it makes it way trickier to walk away like you can at a land based casino. It’s especially difficult if you work from home or have long periods with little to do and you have access to a computer or mobile device. In that case, it can be very useful to set up some controls that help you limit your spendings.
The first thing that you should do is set up a free eWallet account. The next thing, and probably the most important, is to set up a second checking (current) account, WITHOUT Internet banking facilities and WITHOUT a Debit Card. Let’s call this your “secure account”. This account is the one that you should use for everyday life and it should have all your direct debits and bills paid from it. When you receive your salary paycheck, you should put it into your original bank account and then transfer everything except what you know you can afford to play with to your secure account. This leaves you with an “entertainment allowance” in your main bank account which you can access online or with your Debit Card. Once it’s finished, that’s how it stays until the next month.
In addition to this, you can decide to implement a maximum daily deposit limit on the online casino accounts that you use most regularly. You can contact their Support teams so that they implement a daily deposit limit for you on your Debit Card. The only way that you can gamble more than this on a given day is when you win, or if you have funds available in your eWallet account. Some online casinos will also allow you to set your own limits and once done so, you will be unable to increase them again for 7 days which gives you an extra layer of protection.
Another thing that is important to mention is that many online casinos have what is called a reverse withdrawal period which means that you can still access your money for a certain amount of hours after you cashout. This is very sneaky and simply there to entice you to lose your winnings once you run out of money. So you might want to consider to only play at online casinos which either do not have this implemented or at those which are prepared to remove the reverse withdrawal function altogether or for example to reduce it to one hour max. Any casino that will not do this for you, shouldn’t get your custom, it’s as simple as that.
To ensure that you get a good ongoing level of entertainment from the online casinos and don’t waste your entire gambling budget in one day on a bad streak, you could think about implementing a rolling cashout policy. Basically you can set targets as you play and cashout as soon as you hit that target. For example, you might want to start with €100 and set a target of €200. If / when you hit that, you can cash out €50 plus anything extra above the €200, leaving €150 to continue playing and the rest to come back for on another day.
If you are playing online Slot machines, it’s important to understand the concept of variance. The lower the variance, the lower the risk, but additionally you will hit less of the “big” wins and more of the smaller ones. You’ll need to set your cashout sights lower, perhaps at 50%. The more you increase the variance, the faster your money goes, but obviously you could hit bigger wins if you are lucky, because you are increasing the risk. If you want entertainment and are happy to aim at smaller profits, stick low. If you have more money to play with, aim higher! But you should stick with the other strategies explained earlier so you don’t get enticed to burn it all up too quickly.
Essentially, that’s it. Sometimes when you get a really good sized win, you could also consider setting a time limit on your session and try to make sure that you don’t increase your bets too much. Sticking to the rolling cashout method mentioned above prevents the need for this so you should follow this method when you can. You’ll get far more enjoyment out of your online gambling and you avoid having those nights where you regret ever playing an online casino!
Time management
Do you spend too much time playing online casino games? Or perhaps you do, but you haven’t realized it yet. In that case, some (warning) signs to look out for are for example mood swings when you’re not online playing or when you have a hard time concentrating on your work. Or maybe you notice that you are making up excuses to not hang out with your friends, because you prefer to hang out with your computer instead. You will most likely lie about how you spend your time when friends and family ask you about it. These might all sound like obvious red flags, but in reality it can take quite a while for someone to realize and admit to having a problem.
A first step to try to manage your time better, could be to download some time management tools that will enable you to limit the duration of your online casino game play, with a timer and alert once the limit has been reached. Because besides losing money, the loss of time can also highly affect your life. This part of the addiction sometimes gets underestimated. Even if you only gamble what you can afford, unconsciously, the time spent gambling online can affect your job, personal relationships and health often due to sleep deprivation.
After a while, time and money have disappeared and you even won’t really remember how it happened. Having your time properly managed, could mean a good start to enhance the quality of your life and by that, you could use only the spare time that you have to visit an online casino.