How to Become a Responsible Gambler
Posted by Harry Kane on Thursday, June 3, 2021
The term ‘problem gambling’ is often misunderstood and quoted erroneously, although there’s no doubt that this remains a significant issue in the UK marketplace.
This is borne out by the numbers, which show that nearly 2.7% of adults in Great Britain can be categorised as problem gamblers. This equates to a total of 1.4 million people, according to a YouGov survey that was commissioned by the GambleAware charity.
While there remains a strong focus on the role of operators and regulators in protecting this demographic, individual players can also take practical steps towards safeguarding themselves. We’ll discuss these in further detail below, while asking how you can still enjoy a fun and ultimately rewarding iGaming experience.
1. Never Gamble More Than You Can Afford to Lose
We’ll start with the single most fundamental principle of responsible gambling, which is that you should never gamble more than you can afford to lose.
However, the challenge here isn’t understanding this basic concept, but actually creating a scenario where you understand your existing financial means and are able to operate within these restrictions on a regular basis.
Of course, this issue extends beyond the world of iGaming and online sports betting, with a fundamental lack of financial literacy one of the biggest challenges facing Millennials and younger generations throughout the UK.
To put this into context, research from the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and University of Cambridge suggests that one-in-three adults in England and Northern Ireland cannot calculate the correct change from the average shopping trip.
Given this, it would be unreasonable to expect gamblers to effectively calculate and manage their bankroll, especially when exposed to the bright lights and immersive sounds of popular iGaming verticals such as slots.
So, the question that remains is how can you manage your bankroll and wider finances in a way that enables you to wager responsibly over time?
To begin with, you’ll need to develop a comprehensive budget for your personal finances, as you loom to create accurate records of your incomings and outgoings. You can budget your cash on a weekly or monthly basis depending on how you’re paid by your employer, with the key being to deal in pence rather than pounds and develop a detailed insight into your fiscal circumstances.
This should inform you of how much disposable income you have each month, allowing for any amount that you want to commit to your long-term savings.
Put simply, the term ‘disposable income’ refers to the amount of cash that is left after the deduction of outgoings and debt repayments from your total income, with this serving as freely accessible money that can be spent or saved as you desire.
Depending on your wider pastimes and circumstances, the sum of disposable income available to you each week or month is theoretically the maximum amount that you should look to wager online.
However, we’d also recommend committing just a portion of your disposable income to your casino and sports betting bankroll during the budgeting period, as this creates a fiscal contingency and a fixed bankroll value that should never be exceeded.
Make no mistake; this allows you to take control of your activity and iGaming spend, which in turn contributes to a more relaxed gameplay experience that can be enjoyed over an extended period of time.
Of course, sticking to the limits of your predetermined bankroll also requires discipline and a deeper understanding of financial literacy, but the mere process of budgeting is often enough to encourage far greater levels of fiscal responsibly and comprehension.
If you’re motivated to become a responsible gambler and want to get started as a keen budgeter, we’d also recommend utilising a dedicated app such as Mint. This is a comprehensive money management app that brings together all your balances and finances in a single interface, allowing for a holistic and synchronised approach that’s ideal for beginners.
2. Use a Viable and Responsible Payment Method
On a similar note, it’s important that you take actionable steps to implement your budget and manage your bankroll while wagering in real-time.
The best way to achieve this is to select just one or two secure payment methods, ideally those that are universally accepted by online casino brands and require you to wager using your own money (rather than fundamentally borrowed capital).
For example, the best payment method for responsible gambling is Visa debit card, as this is linked directly to your bank account and therefore creates immediate restrictions in terms of how much you can wager.
This provides an additional layer of protection in instances where you’re tempted to wager outside of your means, particularly in instances where you only have a small amount of disposable income in your account each month.
Alternatively, you can register for your chosen casino and deposit capital using PayPal. Although not all operators in the UK accept this as a viable payment method, PayPal is an inherently safe and secure platform, while it can also be linked directly to your bank account with your Visa debit card or unique account number.
On a similar note, there are certain types of payment method that you’ll need to avoid when looking to wager responsibly and adhere to a concrete and carefully conceived bankroll.
For example, some operators allow players to deposit funds using a method referred to as ‘pay by mobile phone bill’. In simple terms, this enables you to deposit funds in real-time while distributing the cost towards your monthly phone bill, with this to be settled separately at a later point in time.
While individual payments through this method are usually capped at a maximum of £30, you’re effectively wagering using borrowed funds that aren’t necessarily substantiated by your earnings. Therefore, it enables you to easily wager outside of your means, creating a scenario where you lose control of your funds.
At the same time, this can potentially jeopardise your ability to settle your monthly phone bill in the worst-case scenario. This is to be avoided at all costs, as another fundamental tenant of responsible gambling is that your activity doesn’t impinge on your ability to settle monthly bills and debt repayments.
3. Understand the Nature of Online Gambling and Virtual Slots
If you do wager online, we reckon that you’re likely to play virtual slots as a key feature of your everyday activity.
The reason for this is simple; as slots now account for more than two-thirds of the total online gross gaming yield (GGY) in the UK, while remaining the single most popular iGaming vertical for casual and recreational gamblers.
However, slots can also be one of the most challenging verticals for gamblers, thanks to relatively high betting limits, the immersive nature of gameplay and the way in which in-game visuals and audio combine to create an experience that’s capable of overwhelming the senses.
The latter point is particularly interesting, as it’s a well-known fact that slots are specifically designed to leverage sensory elements to influence the decisions of players. This has compelled the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) to prevent slots from displaying sounds or imagery which give the illusion of a win when the actual return is in fact equal to (or below) the amount staked.
From your own perspective, however, understanding this simple principle and the fundamental nature of slots can help to guide your experience and enable you to become far more savvy when wagering on such games.
A similar principle can be applied to each slots variance and the estimated return-to-player (RTP) rate, the latter of which refers to the average amount that you can expect to recoup for every £1 wagered.
This value can vary wildly depending on the variance of each slot, with high variance games typically delivering an RTP rate of around 90%. Conversely, low-variance and ‘certified’ slots often showcase an RTP of 97% and upwards, enabling casual gamblers to retain more of their bankroll without necessarily compromising on the overall gameplay experience.
Of course, your choice of slot will depend on your existing bankroll and the fundamental balance between risk and reward that you’d like to strike as a gambler.
However, it’s important to at least factor this into your choice, so that you can make an informed decision that protects your bankroll and enables you to wager as responsibly as possible over time.
4. Set Clearly Defined Time Limits
We’ve already touched on the immersive and themed nature of slots, although other online casino verticals also utilise pop-culture themes and audio-visual measures to retain the attention of players.
Aside from understanding these elements and the fundamental way in which iGaming verticals are operated, you can also safeguard your interests simply by setting clearly defined time limits in advance of wagering online.
Make no mistake; a fixed and manageable time limit should be implemented alongside a carefully managed budget and stringent financial restrictions, not least because this creates clearly defined time blocks that allow you to breakdown your bankroll into similarly manageable chunks over the course of each week or month.
The time limits that you set should also be governed by the other commitments in your personal and working lives, with a view to prioritising key tasks such as your day job, family commitments and other beneficial activities such as exercise and socialising.
This affords you a clear understanding of how much time you really have at your disposal during a typical working day, while also making allowances for additional recreational activities at the weekend.
As a result of this, you can ensure that your gambling activity doesn’t begin to infringe or distract from the variable roles that your play in life.
So, whether you’re the sole earner in a family or a dedicated father, you can create a gambling schedule that’s easily manageable and fits into your lifestyle without impacting on your overall quality of life.
5. Avoid Emotive Gambling at All Costs
There’s a surprising but inextricable link between gambling and investing, with these two seemingly separate activities bound by the desire to derive profit from an initial commitment of capital.
Similarly, some of the pitfalls and risks associated with investment are also relevant in the realm of online gambling, particularly when it comes to the dangers posed by acting out of emotion or pure instinct.
For example, let’s say that you’re wagering on your favourite slot game and are approaching the end of your schedule gaming session. Similarly, you’ve almost wagered all your designated bankroll for the period, at which point you increase your stake an incur a significant loss.
Even though this may exhaust your predetermined bankroll, you may be overcome by a sense of anger or frustration at having lost a large chunk of cash. This, in turn, can overwhelm your senses and compel you to instinctively chase your losses, rather than maintaining your discipline and recognising the element of chance that underpins all iGaming verticals.
This is commonly referred to as emotive gambling, where you make knee-jerk and ill-considered decisions based on feelings rather than observable fact, knowledge and a clear comprehension of self-imposed time and financial limits.
Of course, you can look to negate this in part by utilising the time and activity management tools on contemporary iGaming platforms, which also offer deposit limits to help players regulate their activity.
However, such tools aren’t currently intuitive, and don’t prevent you from altering your limits or simply registering with a new operator. So, it’s important to be aware of emotive gambling and its potential dangers, especially when practised instinctively over a period of time.
On a similar note, try to avoid falling for the typical gamblers’ fallacies that perpetuate individual losses and cause players to misunderstand verticals such as slots, table games and sports betting.
For example, all iGaming outcomes achieved through reputable and licensed casinos are completely random, meaning that there’s no unifying pattern that you can observe or capitalise on as a savvy player.
In practical terms, this means that a losing streak isn’t guaranteed to end after a certain period of time, which is why chasing losses remains such a damaging and costly pastime that’s central to the issue of problem gambling.