Guidelines For Online Casino Gambling - The Best Online Casino Guide Blog
Just recently, a friend of ours was bemoaning what he called his “Bad Luck” after a recent all night online gambling session. He was very upset about the fact that he had been up by several thousand dollars after a marathon blackjack session and then in a short time lost all his winnings. He ended the session down a few hundred dollars but what seemed to upset him the most was the fact that he became to tired to continue and had to go to sleep before he could get back his “winnings”.
Hopefully, most of you will understand right away, that there is something quite wrong with our friends way of thinking and acting. As his winnings began to increase, he lost sight of some very basic concepts that every online casino gambler would be well advised to remember. Setting limits in advance is the most important rule for every online gambler to follow. It is also important to know that setting limits does not just apply to winning and losing. One should also set limits on how long an online gambling session will last and on how often one gambles online. Gambling online until you are bleary eyed and exhausted is not only unhealthy but it is an indicator of a loss of self control. No one should be gambling seven days a week, till all hours of the night and the exclusion of other important activities.
The best way to maintain some sense of self control is to set limits in advance and stick to them. When your author gambles online, not only do we follow limits about losses but we set a limit of how much money we can win before we stop. While some of you may be shaking your heads and asking yourselves why anyone would stop while they were winning, there is a simple reply. Casinos are in business to make money and they make money because the odds are in favor of the house. That is why we primarily gamble for fun. If you stay in a game long enough, you will, in most instances, end up losing back all that you were ahead and then some. So by setting limits in advance on winnings as well as losses, we can occasionally log off from the online casino with a profit for our online gambling session.
This is your author’s simple set of limits. If we plan to play blackjack with a bankroll of $500, we will continue until we lose 350$. This is our limit for losses. On the other hand, we will stop if we are ahead by 1000$. This is our limit for winnings. In other words, if our original bankroll drops to $150, we stop and if our bankroll grows to 1500$, we stop. We stop if we lose approximately 2/3 of our bankroll and we stop if we win about 200% of our bankroll. This may seem conservative to some of you but since the primary reason your author gambles is for fun and relaxation, it is quite reasonable. We also never use money that is needed for daily life or household expenses. We use money that we save for recreational activities. Some people like to go to fancy restaurants and shop for fine clothing with their spare money. We like to gamble online with ours. The main point is we have clearly defined limits that are set in advance and we follow them at all times. We also keep our online gambling sessions under six hours and in our spare time. Work, our social life and family comes first.
Since online casino gambling is so convenient, there is a temptation to over do it. No longer do we have to take a taxi to the airport, then deal with airport security screenings before we are crammed into a narrow seat between two overlarge fellow passengers. We no longer have to suffer through a six hour, “No Frills” plane flight where they even charge for your carry on luggage. There is no more standing on a long check in line at your hotel and finally, aggravated and exhausted, drag yourself down to a smoky, crowded casino. Now we can simply turn on our computer in our own comfortable home and log in to our favorite online casino to gamble. When one can even sit in your own warm, comfortable bed with a laptop computer and gamble online till you doze off, it is very easy for the unwary to fall into bad habits.
Online casino gambling is a wonderful benefit of the computer age but without limits, it can turn our fun and relaxation into a potential nightmare. Most of us can and do set limits on our playtime and our winnings or losses. Most of us not only set limits but we follow them. Most of us gamble at online casinos because it is fun and convenient. However, if you are among that small percentage that finds that their control is slipping away and it is becoming harder and harder to stick to limits, it is time to take an honest look at the situation. If this is happening to you, go to one of the many good websites for problem gambling and do an evaluation of your online gambling habits. Just about every website for gambling issues will have a screening test you can take in private to see if your current online gambling practices fall in the area of problem gambling. If you find you are becoming a problem gambler, take a break from gambling and seek help. There is help available and these websites will have plenty of information to help you find it. Here are some links to a few of the websites:
1. http://www.gamcare.org.uk/
2. http://www.gamblingtherapy.org/
3. http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/
4. http://www.ncpgambling.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
We are in no way condemning or criticizing the online gambling industry as a whole. We feel very strongly that online casino gambling is a personal choice and a matter of individual liberty for free thinking adults. However, with freedom comes responsibility and as online casino gamblers, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to set limits on our gambling activities. We are responsible to ourselves and to our family, friends, employers, co-workers and society at large to gamble online for fun and relaxation and to function successfully in our daily lives. Most of us can do this and online casino gambling is, for the vast majority of us, a happy pastime. For those of us who develop problems with online gambling, there is help readily available and there is no reflection of failure on anyone who admits a problem and seeks help. The first step in solving a gambling problem is to acknowledge its existence.
