Staying safe while betting is a critical part of the experience. It’s not all about betting and winning. Here at Go Spin, we’re avid players, but we also know when to say enough. In this article, we’ll share our top responsible gambling tips with you in a bid to ensure that your gambling experience is a fun and safe one.
Understand the Basic Concepts
Part of practising safe gambling habits is to follow a few basic concepts. Most of the following tips should be self-explanatory and common sense, but even so, it’s worth running through them. Our advice for following basic safe gambling concepts includes:
- Never bet when you’re upset or stressed. Furthermore, it’s never a good idea to gamble when drinking or inebriated.
- Take frequent breaks for gameplay. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a hot streak or not. Just schedule regular breaks every fifteen minutes so you don’t get too wrapped up. The longer you play at the tables or spin the reels of slots in succession, the more you’ll spend.
- Quit while you’re ahead. You don’t necessarily have to win a massive profit every time you play. Any profit is good news. If you’re in front and it’s time to stop playing, cash out your winnings.
- Stop playing immediately if you’re not having fun. If you’re unhappy, you’re more likely to chase losses and overspend.
Don’t Take Strategies to the Bank
Next, we want to talk about strategies. There are gambling strategies you can deploy that will help you break even, and there are definitely some that will aid in improving your skills. However, there’s no such thing as a strategy that guarantees a win every time you play. Don’t invest huge sums of money relying on gambling strategies. Use strategies to become a better player by all means, but don’t assume you’re supposed to win because a strategy says so. Gambling doesn’t work like that. If it did, we’d all win millions, and there’d be no casinos.
Take Advantage of Responsible Gambling Tips
Any trustworthy online casino won’t just expect you to do all the work yourself. They’ll also provide responsible gambling tools, and we recommend that you take advantage of these. Let’s introduce you to some of the key ones found at the best casinos promoting responsible gambling. They include:
- Deposit Caps: Arguably one of the most important responsible gambling tools, deposit caps let you put limits on how much you deposit. These may be daily, weekly or monthly. Once set, you cannot breach them until a predetermined time has passed. We encourage you to set deposit limits so you can’t overspend.
- Wager/Loss Limits: Practicing good bankroll management is also about knowing when to bet and when to walk away. Top sites may support wager and loss-limiting tools. These work like deposit caps, although these prevent you from betting if you’ve wagered or lost a specific amount (set by you) within a given time.
- Reality Checks/Timed Sessions: Reality checks prove useful in that they remind you of the time you’ve spent playing in a single session. Timed session limits are also useful as they go one further. They allow you to block any further wagers until you take a rest.
- Gambling History: Gambling histories allow you to check back on each of your bets. You can see how much you’ve bet, when, and the outcome of your bets. This is a great tool for gauging if you’ve spent too much recently.
- Self-Assessment Tests: Lastly, self-assessment tests can help you determine if you’re suffering from problem gambling issues. While they aren’t definitive, they can point you in the right direction.
Look for 5 Signs of Problem Gambling
Our next set of responsible gambling tips concerns problem gambling. It’s never too late to practice safe gameplay, which you can do by looking out for the following symptoms:
- #1 Growing frustrated when losing or feeling as though the casino owes you a big win
- #2 Constantly topping up your casino balance, especially when doing so several times in quick succession
- #3 Hiding your activities from friends and family or being exceptionally secretive about gambling
- #4 Telling people how much you’ve won if, deep down, you know you’ve lost far more than you’re letting on
- #5 Not meeting your financial commitments, such as playing with money earmarked for bills, groceries and other expenses
Self-Exclusion, Opting Out and Cool-Down Periods
If an online casino truly cares about its players, it will be affiliated with reliable problem gambling sources and offer you the tools to take action if things become rough. Cool-down tools should allow you to take breaks for a week, month, or longer from your casino. Opt-outs should enable you to refuse automatically-triggered bonuses.
Regarding self-exclusion, the most effective measures involve signing up for problem gambling programs affiliated with casinos, such as GamStop, GamCare, Gamblers Anonymous and others. Many of these won’t just block your account at your current casino but also every casino they are affiliated with, extending your ban to dozens, if not hundreds, of casinos. Because self-exclusion tools are irreversible, you may want to consider cool-down periods first.
Playing at Trustworthy Casino Sites
You should implement our final Go Spin tip before you begin gambling online in the first place. We encourage you to only play at trusted, respectable sites. By choosing casinos that support the best responsible gambling tips, support problem gambling programs, with adequate licenses, supporting bonuses with fair T&Cs, you can get off to the right start.
Choosing these types of casinos should help you relax, as you’ll know that every precaution you want to take is available to you, and there is help on hand if things take a turn for the worse. Follow these tips and recommendations, and we’re confident that your online casino experience will be a fun, safe and exciting one today.
