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Responsible Gambling
Legal online casinos are entertaining, but it's important to practice responsible gambling. Learn about all the tools and resources available to help you do just that.
When it comes to enjoying legal online casinos and sportsbooks in the United States, it's important to remember the importance of responsible gambling. As licensed operators and industry stakeholders continually emphasize, gambling is a form of entertainment rather than a reliable source of income.
Here, we will break down how you can practice responsible gaming while detailing a variety of tools and resources available to you via operators and state regulators.
What is responsible gambling?
Responsible gambling is about staying within your limits while understanding that gambling is about entertainment and not using it as a reliable source of income.
The goal of practicing responsible gambling, of course, is to maintain healthy habits and not let the act of gambling interfere with your everyday life. That includes setting constraints on how much you deposit and lose each day or how much time you spend gambling.
Simply put: Responsible gambling means taking breaks and only gambling with money you can afford to lose.
What is problem gambling?
The American Psychiatric Association defines problem gambling as an inability to control your gambling behavior and leads to significant distress in your personal life.
Gambling becomes compulsive, so much so that you begin betting with money you do not have and it begins interfering with your personal and work lives. As the Mayo Clinic describes it, problem gambling – which is also termed compulsive gambling or gambling disorder – is the "uncontrollable urge" to keep gambling despite the toll it takes on your life.
What are the signs of problem gambling?
Problem gambling can be difficult to diagnose. But some tell-tale signs could indicate you or someone you know is suffering from the condition. This section is solely dedicated to provide you with a checklist of behaviors – as detailed by the Mayo Clinic – with which you can compare the gambling habits of yourself or someone you know.
- Preoccupation with gambling: such as frequently planning gambling-related activities or brainstorming the best ways to pocket more money for gambling.
- Rise in wagering amounts: with the hopes of reaching the same level of desired experience.
- Unsuccessful attempts: to control, cut back or stop gambling.
- Restlessness or irritability: when you do try to cut down on gambling.
- Gambling to escape problems: trying to relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety or depression.
- Chasing: attempting to recover lost money by gambling more, otherwise known as "chasing losses."
- Lying: to family members, friends and others about the extent of your gambling habits.
- Personal losses: risking or losing relationships, jobs or other opportunities as a result of gambling.
- Loans: asking others to lend you money or assist financially because you gambled your money away.
Financial signals of problem gambling
As shown above, there is more to problem gambling than financial stress. As the National Council on Problem Gambling puts it, the amount of money won or lost does not determine when gambling becomes problematic.
That said, as you can see in the above list, some financial indicators can signal a potential disorder.
- Increasing debt: That can include maxing out credit cards or taking out loans to help fund your gambling habit.
- Unpaid bills: Unable to pay for essential items such as rent or utilities due to low funds as a result of gambling.
- Hiding financial problems: Secretive about your monetary issues – such as low bank account balances or dipping into your savings or retirement, or exhibiting unusual spending patterns from family and friends.
- Asking for loans: Borrowing money from friends, family or loan agencies to fund your gambling habit.
- Liquidating assets: Pawning personal items or facing property repossession or foreclosure as a result of financial strain caused by gambling.
- Increased wagers: Betting amounts rise in hopes of capturing the same thrill of gambling.
How to set limits on your gambling
Legal online casinos and sportsbooks across the United States offer various tools that allows players to set limits on their gambling.
These guardrails are used to perpetuate the practice of responsible gambling so as to keep legal online gambling an entertaining hobby rather than a source of income that can become problematic.
Any licensed online casino or sportsbook must adhere to state guidelines that require a focus on responsible gambling. As such, in any jurisdiction that features state-regulated online gambling, you should be able to find some variation of the following features with any iGaming operator.
- Deposit limits: Preset how much you prefer to place into your account per day, week or month.
- Loss limits: Set daily, weekly or monthly constraints on how much you can afford to lose.
- Wager limits: Set restraints on how much you are willing to wager each day, week or month.
- Time limits: Determine how much time you allow yourself to gamble each day, ranging from one to 23 hours.
- Cooling-off periods: Also known as "time-outs" with some operators, you can essentially block yourself from making deposits or wagers for a predetermined period of time that varies by operator. You cannot reverse the decision and must wait out the timeframe.
- Self-exclusion options: Each licensed online casino and sportsbook offers you the option to place yourself on a self-exclusion list, which you can access through your account. State gaming regulators also have exclusion options which would block you from all licensed operators in the state. Similar to cooling-off periods and time-outs, you must wait out the time period set forth in the self-exclusion before applying for reinstatement. While you are self-excluded, you are unable to participate in the gambling activity and will be blocked from using the website or application. Operators and states have processes for removing your self-imposed restrictions and you should review the relevant guidelines.
- Reality checks: Most operators implement this tool, which is essentially a pop-up alert that appears on the screen and lets you know how long you've been gambling.
- Account tracking: You can also look into the history of your gambling activity to see how long you've spent playing and how much money you've deposited and wagered. This can paint a picture of your gambling activity to determine if there is a potential problem brewing.
Accessing your gambling habits with the PGSI
One of the most cited self-assessments for gambling habits is the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).
The PGSI allows for clinicians to distinguish between non-problematic/recreational gamblers and those who may be at risk of developing – or who already suffer from – problem gambling.
You are taken through nine questions, each of which you must provide an answer accompanied by a preset number of points: Never (0), Sometimes (1), Most of the time (2) or Always (3).
When thinking about your gambling behavior over the past 12 months:
- Have you bet more than you could really afford to lose?
- Have you needed to gamble with larger amounts of money to get the same feeling of excitement?
- Have you gone back on another day to try to win back the money you lost?
- Have you borrowed money or sold anything to gamble?
- Have you felt that you might have a problem with gambling?
- Have people criticized your betting or told you that you had a gambling problem, whether or not you thought it was true?
- Have you felt guilty about the way you gamble or what happens when you gamble?
- Has gambling caused you any health problems, including stress or anxiety?
- Has your gambling caused any financial problems for you or your household?
PGSI Scoring Index
At the end of the questionnaire, you add up the points and compare the total with the designation:
- 0=No risk
- 1-4=Low risk
- 5-7=Moderate risk
- 8+=Problematic gambler
Resources to seek help for problem gambling
If you or someone you know has shown signs of problem gambling, understand that you are not alone. In fact, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling, more than 10 million adults in the United States meet the criteria for moderate and severe gambling problems.
Fortunately, there are plenty of resources that are at your disposal at no cost.
If you prefer the online live chat option, you can find three great options via the National Council on Problem Gambling, GamTalk and the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey. All three offer around-the-clock assistance via live chat.
