Responsible gambling is a movement that has represented the interests and desires of players, operators, and regulators to have a set of circumstances directly in the interest of safety and awareness.
The purpose is simple: realizing and accepting the realities behind gambling. We’re talking about financial risks, mental health issues, and the overall societal impact that this type of activity can have. Gambling isn’t inherently bad, dangerous, or overwhelming.
However, it’s something that can easily get out of hand, especially when there is an acute lack of awareness.
For this reason, the gambling industry, motivated by rising pressure for accountability and transparency, adopted the responsible gambling movement as a method of self-regulating itself and its product. Naturally, regulators and societal pressure have already made a conscious effort to create this reality, especially as a bargaining chip for the legalization and liberalization of the gambling industry.
Problem gambling is the issue that is at the core of this movement. It’s an addiction that has financial, behavioral, and health consequences that countless studies have addressed from various scientific points of view. It can affect individuals, families, and societies, which is why a balancing act between awareness, prevention, and treatment must always be available.
At OmegaTipsters, we are exceedingly educated about this matter. We have an immense level of gratitude for the movement of responsible gambling because it taught us the importance of safety and prevention, allowing us to go through our playing days relatively unscathed. We’ve never let the passion for gambling go to our heads and affect our lives.
This doesn’t mean that we’ve never empathized with problem gamblers. Since we know of so many cases, some very close to us, it has always felt exceedingly important to continue to push this initiative in order to help our fellows take care of their own well-being.
As the OmegaTipsters project has started to take shape, we’ve always felt that our visibility required accountability, and that the convenience of our platform required awareness.
Responsible gambling matters because it’s a realization before the fact, which can be instrumental in saving budgets, mental stability, and even lives. It matters because we’ve always realized that we have a duty to those who read our texts and cash in on the offers that we display.
In this sense, online gambling will always be something that we’re grateful for. It’s a united passion that brings us closer to like-minded individuals who believe in the poetic appeal of luck, or in the musical precision of numbers. However, acknowledging all the facets of this phenomenon is the only way of doing it justice, even if it’s something that proves less than flattering for people, society, and the world of entertainment.
With this principle in mind, we are bringing you the stance of OmegaTipsters when it comes to responsible gambling. We will discuss what you need to do in order to play responsibly, how to identify problem gambling, and where to go if you find yourself in a precarious situation.
At OmegaTipsters, you are in a place where player-to-player empathy is a core tenet of our mindset. You are at a place where you will always receive support and encouragement.
One of the most fascinating things that we’ve realized regarding responsible gambling is the fact that its structure is a combination of elements that feel like they’re both preventive and reactive. At the same time, they both feel like they’re as much principles as they care concrete measures.
Since the OmegaTipster style is all about making sure that you understand the depth of the advice that we provide, it’s crucial to present the responsible gambling initiative in a realistic and complementary light.
This section is where we will do our best to prove the trustworthiness, efficiency, and potential benefits of safer gaming, as proven by experience and positive results!
Let’s define what we’re talking about here.
These thresholds represent the limits that you can impose on your gaming sessions over periods like a day, week, or even a month. These are methods of hard-capping your involvement in this activity, be it financial or of other kinds.
Frugal gambling is both the accompanying principle and the result of setting up these limits. By making sure that you are playing at a reasonable rate in terms of time and money, you keep things decent by playing frugally, which certainly has merit in safeguarding your resources.
These gambling limits, which are the thresholds that you will find as built-in settings for your casino account, can be of various kinds. They include (but are not limited to) limiters on how much you spend over a time period, the total amount of your losses, time spent gambling, and a few more.
In general, the standard principle simply says that you should ‘set a budget and stick to it.’ Since this is always easier said than done, using these limiters will allow you to create a non-negotiable threshold once you set it up. Your budget and lack of exposure to gambling will thank you for it.
Expert’s Perspective: We are well aware of circumstances when the sign of gambling addiction is that you stop/refuse to set these up. If you’re worried about such a possibility in the future, we recommend speaking to customer support at the online casino you play, and ask them to set up such measures in perpetuity.
Awareness is so crucial when you’re dealing with the possible effects of gambling because it establishes a realistic diagnosis of your relationship with this activity. It’s also crucial because it can dictate what your next steps going forward ought to be.
We’d say that this is the most subjective principle at its core. You may be a person with an acute level of self-awareness, or just someone whose willpower and impulses overcome the realism required to navigate this possible issue.
Once you get a grip on what your relationship with gambling is, you can decide your next course of action, regardless of how serious or extreme it may feel. In the interest of this mission, you must always be sincere with yourself whenever you reflect or have a conversation about yourself and gambling.
Nowadays, the best way to evaluate yourself and become truly aware of what stands between you and gambling is to take self-awareness tests. You’ll find an entry-level one on this page, on online casino platforms, and similar web establishments.
However, your best option will always be to take specialized tests. In the very last section of this page, we’ll refer you to solutions that can help you with self-assessment tools and therapeutic help. These are the best ways to engage with your real relationship with gambling.
This principle is a shorter one because it’s so straight to the point. Do you have any issues with gambling? The best course of action is to sit back, reevaluate its importance and impact on your life, be honest with yourself, and decide to step away from it.
This can adopt various kinds of intensity and intention. It can be a temporary measure that you implement via a so-called ‘time-out’ period. It can also be longer, using the self-exclusion service with its minimum 6-month periodization. The most important thing remains to simply take action.
Naturally, there is also a permanent measure, which is to block your own access to gambling altogether. If gambling creates harm, it’s best to cut it off in some capacity, pivot to what’s truly important in your life, and decide to take your fate in your own hands rather than playing another round because your psyche tells you to.
Entertainment is great and defines our lives. There is nothing wrong with that. However, we tend to call entertainment a great many things that involve risk, and this activity is one of the most memorable and significant examples.
There are various ways in which you can look at this.
Firstly, you want to remember that you shouldn’t stake your income and livelihood on winnings from gambling. You know how fickle luck can be, especially when you feel overconfident and start imagining imminent winnings.
Secondly, you want to keep gambling as entertainment because associating it with other things will leave it devoid of its true value, which is having fun. We’ll address this more in the following subsection.
Thirdly, it will allow you to detach from it much faster and return to your true priorities. Whether they’re those you care about, your daily activities, or your overall mental health, there is always something to place at the forefront in place of gambling. This is possible only when you treat this activity as an entertainment avenue and not a form of livelihood.
As we were saying above, there is a certain value in separating gambling activities from the rest of your life. It’s good to compartmentalize this activity from others if it helps you create a balance between your normal daily life and the rest of your activities going forward.
However, one thing to remember about this idea is to keep it integrated within your support system. Keeping it separate from the rest of your life can lead to a form of secrecy that can have detrimental effects on your life.
Another thing we’d like to point out is combining gambling with any psychoactive substances that you may take. It can start with alcohol, move to narcotics, but it can also be something like medication that has a direct bearing on your mental state and overall level of awareness.
Naturally, there should be no stigma in having either a need or an issue with those substances, but it can indicate a couple of things. One would be that you need to address other issues that you may have before gaining a new one with gambling. The other would be to consider not gambling at all.
Being under the influence chips at your level of self-awareness because it can aggravate you, numb you, or simply have you gamble while not being fully conscious. In any case, restraint and self-control are almost impossible in such instances, hence the need to keep away from gambling in these circumstances.
If you know where to look and are willing to accept it, there is always help available in the interest of addressing your relationship with gambling. As we’ve said, the first step is to acknowledge any possible issues by working on the self-awareness aspect. However, this is where the realization part begins, which is just the start of your healing process.
We will refer you to cost-free options in the final part of this text. Until then, you have to understand the upside of accessing these options. It’s your method of speaking to your intentions and needs. It’s also a method of understanding your inner strength.
The first step in this process is to realize that there is always a support system waiting to embrace you. Your family and friends ought to support you in this journey. If you have none, then you can speak to the specialized therapists that can provide costless support.
The second step is to be transparent, frank, and decisive whenever you speak about your issues. Bottling your feelings, impressions, and fears will not help you since you’re delaying an inevitability.
Recognize that you have options, understand their benefits, and embrace them.
As the psychological effects of gambling addiction suggest, there is a lot of anguish and instability that goes into getting to this point. This is why you ought to remember that neither the road to addiction nor the road to recovery is a linear path.
Personal circumstances always exist, which is why you should evaluate your own context before deciding on anything. The most important thing is to be open and decisive whenever you decide to take any step.
We are here to do our utmost to help you decide. For this reason, we’ll provide you with the standard 10-point list of gambling addiction signs. You can use these as a reference point, but the causes, symptoms, and effects of this phenomenon require much more study. We’ll do our best to explain them as easily digestible as possible.
Your gambling costs/expenditures are greater than your resources. This means that you are spending more time and money gambling than your budget and free time suggest. Consequently, it means that you’re depriving other parts of your life of these resources, which creates an imbalance.
You respond to losing at gambling by gambling even more. This is the vicious circle that begets issues with your attitude towards gambling. It’s normal to feel bad about having a losing streak. However, you never know when that streak will end, or whether any win will cover for that loss. Don’t fall into the pitfall of playing to recoup your losses. It’s time to actually cut these losses and stop betting.
You are dishonest about your gambling expenses. This is such a slippery slope because it takes you away from the awareness principle that we’ve explained. In this sense, any inclination and reflex to lie about how much time and money you spend on gaming is very dangerous. There should be no shame, even if it’s an uncomfortable conversation; it can happen to anyone.
You prioritize gambling over quality time with those around you. Presuming that you have friends and family, this isolation is a problem caused by the perception that gambling is all you have and all you are. Naturally, we also understand the loneliness aspect, especially if you don’t have much of a social life. In this case, you can compare your gambling time to other activities and passions that stop receiving the time they used to before you started to focus on gambling.
Gambling is all you think about. If this activity takes over your psyche to the point of obsession, you have a problem that you need to take in stride. A good way to address it would be to cut off gambling activities since they invite more thinking. The secondary step would be to try to focus on different things. The tertiary step would be to discuss your obsession with professionals who can give you a structural piece of advice about how to curb thinking about gambling.
You let gambling deplete your budget. Once you lose the notion of stopping, it means that you’ve lost control to such a degree that gambling has become compulsive. Naturally, running out of money has ramifications for your entire life, which is a slippery slope of its own.
The only excitement you get from gambling is by betting more money. Like most other types of addiction, you are dealing with a requirement of dopamine that continues to rise. Addiction always requires an increased dosage. This can mean playing for more time. However, most cases involve playing for more money by upping the stakes. The risk-reward dynamic that creates that instant gratification mechanism is what releases the dopamine. Higher risks mean higher reward, creating a need for bigger bets for the same level of dopamine.
You start borrowing money for gambling. This is where you realize that you’ve run out of money and are committing yourself to the risk of borrowing from others. The sliding scale is quite obvious since giving back the money depends on something as fickle as winning at gambling. This symptom can lead to damaged relationships with those you borrow from, not to mention the risks of borrowing from illicit moneylenders.
You resort to illegal activities to secure money for your gambling. This is where things start to devolve to such a degree that you feel like your need for gambling corners you into things that you may not have even considered in normal circumstances. The gravity of these issues does not matter – they are equally bad, requiring immediate action in the interest of curbing your addiction.
Your gambling activities cause mental anguish, such as anxiety, depression, or guilt. These are just some of the symptoms that you can get from a heavy conscience about where your relationship with gambling ended up. This type of mental corrosion can lead you to very dark places that we don’t even want to mention. This is why taking immediate action can save your life.
For us, the OmegaTipsters collective, referring you to options that can truly help you without strings attached is as important as coming with advice and theoretical information. As we’ve established multiple times throughout this article, we believe in decisiveness.
However, we have an even stronger belief in the idea of having hope. It may seem like gambling addiction has gotten you into a corner that you feel like it’s difficult to escape. This is hardly the case, especially if you’re ready to embark on a journey that will improve your life exponentially.
Expert’s Perspective: Please understand that these options are for English speakers since they’re international services. If you are looking for something that works in your native tongue, we strongly recommend seeking local options, such as lifelines and other measures. Efficient communication starts with understanding the conversation.
Let’s look into some options that can give you the start you need:
Gambling Therapy: This service, provided by Gordon Moody, is a completely free contact method that specializes in offering practical advice and providing emotional support. We find it to be a great source of guidance for in-depth explanations. It also serves as a hub that can refer you to support forums and organizations from around the world, allowing you to access the help that we mentioned in the note from above.
Gamblers Anonymous: While American-centric in its placement and hotline service, it also provides a great deal of resources. You can seek to attend meetings (in the USA, internationally, and, most importantly, virtual and telephonic meetings). You can also look into their contact channels to ask for express help. Their questionnaires, unity programs, and recovery programs are also excellent choices as starters.
GamCare: This is a British-based charity powered by GambleAware that provides telephone, WhatsApp, and live chat services, among other types of valuable assistance. If you’re speaking English, especially in writing, you can use the resources put forth by GamCare for valuable guidance.
Now that we’ve reached the conclusion of this article, we want to end our statement by saying that we are emphatically supporting you.
We have the necessary empathy, care, and understanding of what it means to keep a balance between gaming and compulsive behavior. In this sense, OmegaTipsters wants to invite you to gamble responsibly because it’s the only way to truly enjoy betting!