Sports and horse betting, casino, and poker activities are intended as a source of entertainment, but are not without risk. Thus, each state that has legalized some form of online gambling has committed to providing ample resources for responsible gaming. If you think you may be a problem gambler, help is available. On this page our goal is to educate bettors on these responsible gaming tools and how to incorporate them into their gaming experience.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Behavioral | - Increasing time spent on gambling activities |
| Emotional | - Irritability or agitation when not gambling |
| Financial | - Accumulating significant debt due to gambling |
| Social | - Withdrawing from social activities and relationships |
| Health | - Neglecting personal health and hygiene |
What casino can do to help you?
The highest form of wisdom is to know when to play and when to stay away.
Age verification
Any underage player who has provided dishonest or inaccurate information regarding their true age may have all chips forfeited and could face criminal prosecution.
- Every person signing up for a new account must check a box that indicates that they are at least 18 years of age. This notifies everybody that we don’t accept players under 18.
- When a player creates an account, casino collect their name, address, and birth date to confirm that the player is at least 18 years old.
- Online casino do not target underage players with our marketing and advertising. It is neither good business nor consistent with most casino's personal and corporate values to attract underage players.
Self-exclusion
Online casinos provide you with the ability to exclude yourself from playing for a specific period of time. In order to do this please email specific casino Responsible Gaming department directly and they will start your exclusion as soon as possible. Please note that all exclusions are irreversible for the duration of the specified time. In addition, all exclusion periods are inclusive of all games. Your exclusion will apply to your Account, and to any product that requires your username to play.
Voluntary self-exclusion is a common program that has been adopted by many regions in North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and Asia. Self-exclusion is a commitment you make to yourself by voluntarily entering into an agreement with online or land-based operators not to gamble for a chosen time. It can be an important first step in helping to control your gambling.
When and why to self-exclude:
- You’re no longer having fun when you gamble
- Gambling is causing you financial, health, or relationship problems
- You feel you could benefit from taking a break
- Gambling is causing you, or the people around you, undue stress
- The urge to gamble is becoming uncontrollable and you are ready to change
- You feel your gambling has “taken over” all aspects of your life and is causing physical, emotional, or psychological harm
- Your focus is solely on winning back losses
Self-exclusion provides people who are struggling with their gambling habits an opportunity to step away from gambling and refocus their lives and finances. It can provide you with access to additional community support to address your gambling and may also provide the needed support if you’re unsure of how to manage next steps in recovery.
Find more links and info about self exclusion at responsiblegambling.org and begambleaware.org or try to google it, like gambling self exclusion. There is also tools for self exclusion, like Gamban.
What you can do to help yourself?
The only way to beat the odds is to be smart and disciplined.
Identify and reduce the risks
If you choose to play online, there are some general guidelines that can help make your playing experience safer, and reduce the risk that problems can occur:
- Don't play when you are upset, tired, or depressed. It is difficult to make good decisions when you are feeling down.
- Balance your playing with other activities. Find other forms of entertainment so playing does not become too big a part of your life.
If you believe that playing games might be a hindrance to your life rather than a form of entertainment, we want to help you. First, please review the following questions:
- Have you ever taken time from your major daily obligations because of playing?
- Has playing caused you to neglect your own welfare or that of your family?
- Have you ever sold anything or borrowed money to finance your playing?
- Have you often played until your last chip was gone?
- Have you ever played longer than you had planned?
- Have you ever considered self-destruction or suicide as a result of your playing?
If you answered “Yes” to several of these questions, we encourage you to visit Gamblers Anonymous.
Setting limits on your purchases and deposits
Deposit limits are a good way for regular users to allocate a budget towards their gambling activity. Similar to people creating a budget for their weekly groceries or monthly expenses, applying a deposit limit towards your gambling activity can be a nice way for users to put a cap to their gambling budget.
The way deposit limits work are pretty self-explanatory: depending on the betting platform you’re on, you can set a deposit limit daily, weekly or monthly and you will not be able to exceed that limit. This prevents gamblers who may be chasing their losses to dip their hand back in the well and play with money that they shouldn’t.
Wagering Limits
Wagering limits are also pretty self-explanatory. Wagering limits enable you to limit the amount of money that you are able to wager on a daily, weekly or monthly basis on your casino, poker and/or sportsbook account. Once you have reached your limit, you will not be able to continue wagering. Wagering limits are very beneficial for a few reasons. First, it can help bettors manage their bankroll in a more efficient way, valuing each bet. Second, wagering limits are a great way to help protect any winnings you may have made, and give you the time to withdraw your funds successfully.
Let’s go through an example, you’re playing a game of online poker – Texas Hold’em. You can slap wagering limits on your account so that the platform won’t let you sit at a cash game table with stakes over a certain amount, say $.50/$1. Or so that it won’t let you buy-in to tournaments over a certain amount. This guarantees that you play within your set bankroll.
When playing online casino games or slots, you can also cap the amount bet. It can be tempting to up the amount wagered on each spin. If you don’t want to risk more, set a wager limit and you won’t be able to raise it.
Loss Limits
Nobody likes to lose, gambling is certainly more fun when you win. But the reality is that everyone who frequents a casino, poker room, or sportsbook will eventually taste defeat. Loss limits are a good way to keep you from chasing your losses when things go south.
They help you limit the amount of money that you are able to lose on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. If you reach the specified limit that you have designated, you will not be permitted to continue wagering. As we discussed earlier, gambling is supposed to be fun and entertaining. It should not be treated as another form of income. Therefore, designating a loss limit is a good way to budget how much you are willing and can afford to lose while still having a fun time gambling.
Let’s say you enjoy playing small stakes blackjack, but don’t want to get too heavy into it. You can set yourself a weekly loss limit of $100. That way you can play as many hands as you like, but if your losses for the week exceed the $100 limit, you get logged out. Loss limits allow you to easily budget gambling into your normal expenses.
Time Out Sessions
Time out sessions can seem like a more drastic tool to take but sometimes, they’re a valuable resource to take a step away. Time out sessions give you the opportunity to suspend access to your betting account, ranging anywhere from a day to a month. Betting platforms will give the option to “cool off” and help customers control how they want to use their app. During cool off periods, you will not be able to log into your account or deposit funds into your account or play in the casino or make any sports wagers.
Depending on the platform you are playing on, you may be able to withdraw any winnings or funds during your cool off period. Any existing bets you made will be live but you will not be able to access your account and continue wagering.
For example, if you’ve got the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl as a pre-season futures bet, that ticket isn’t cancelled if you elect to cool off at some point during the season. However, if you wanted to log-in and place a new bet on them, that would not be allowed.
Session Limits
You ever find yourself scrolling on social media, you look at the time and you realize you’ve been scrolling for way too long? Have you ever jumped down a youtube rabbit hole constantly clicking on suggested videos? Or how about playing your favorite casino game for hours on end? This happens to all of us – smartphones have made it so easy to do this. The session limit is a nice tool to help control this urge.
What session limits do is it enables you to specify how long you would like to be able to be logged in for. Depending on the user, this limit can be a daily or weekly amount of time that you’d like to allocate. Once you are approaching your limit, you will receive a popup before reaching the end, informing you that your session limit will be wrapping up. Once time is up, that’s it. After the limits you’ve set have completed, you will be able to log back in again.
Need help, advice or counselling?
- GamCare (UK)
- Gamble Aware (Ireland)
- Adictel (France)
- GamblingTherapy (World Wide)
- JugarBIEN.es (Spain)
- Gambling Help On Line (Australia)
- Responsible Gaming Resource Ctr (Canada)
- Center for Ludomani (Denmark)
- Logout (Slovenia)
- Center for Addiction Treatment Nova Gorica (Slovenia)
- Stödlinjen (Sweden)
- Peluuri (Finland)
There are risk factors that can contribute to the development of gambling issues and make it more difficult to stop gambling. Players can be more at risk if they:
- Have easy access to their preferred form of gambling
- Have had a recent loss or change in their personal life, such as divorce, job loss, retirement, or death of a loved one
- Often feel bored or lonely, or have a history of risk-taking or impulsive behavior
- Have a history of mental health problems, particularly depression and anxiety
- Have a parent who also has (or has had) problems with gambling or other compulsive disorders
- Have (or have had) problems with alcohol or other drugs
The more factors that apply, the more likely a person is to develop a gambling problem.
If you are finding it hard to stop gambling, or if you’re already suffering from consequences related to your gambling behavior, it may be time to get help.