Responsible Gaming

Entertainment is where online gaming ought to stay. Earning money, recovering losses and coping with stress are not jobs it can do. What follows deals with the limits worth having in place, the warning signs that deserve attention, and where to turn for help.

Decide your limits in advance

Work out the rules while you are level-headed, rather than halfway through a session. Writing them down is no bad thing.

• A money limit: a sum you would be content to lose entirely, viewed as what entertainment costs.
• A time limit: how far a session runs before you call it off, whichever way it is going.
• A frequency limit: the count of days in a given week on which you play at all.
• An unbending rule that not one of these limits gets lifted while a session is live.

Signals of trouble

What follows are the patterns most commonly described by people for whom gaming became a problem. On its own, one may signify nothing; a cluster of them is worth taking to heart.

• Wagering beyond what you planned, or beyond what you could lose without discomfort.
• Chasing after losses in the hope of recovering money that has already gone.
• Taking loans, selling belongings, or dipping into bill money so play can continue.
• Keeping the scale of your play hidden, or being dishonest about it with those close to you.
• Playing to get away from stress, boredom, anxiety or a flat mood.
• Losing your grip on work, study, sleep, friendships or hobbies.
• Turning restless or irritable the moment cutting back is attempted.

Controls that help

Account controls feature on the majority of regulated platforms. Wherever they are provided, put them to use early instead of holding them back for a crisis.

• Deposit limits capping whatever can be added across a day, a week or a month.
• Session reminders flagging up how long play has continued.
• Time-outs, a short cooling-off window that keeps the account locked.
• Self-exclusion, a longer block for those times a brief pause falls short.
• Account history, laying bare actual spending rather than the version memory offers.

Sensible habits

• Regard every rupee staked as gone the second it is staked.
• Steer clear of playing after a drink, while upset, or on inadequate sleep.
• Keep gaming money in a different place from anything set aside for bills.
• Pause at regular points, and leave altogether in the wake of a heavy win or a heavy loss.
• Set gaming alongside everything else you enjoy rather than letting it squeeze them out.
• Never picture gaming as earnings, and never take on debt to pay for it.

Shielding minors

Adults of 18 and above are the only intended audience for online gaming. Where a device is shared with children, enable device-level parental controls, leave the account signed out, and never store login details inside a shared browser. Content filtering software is able to block gambling sites on family devices.

Where to get help

If any part of this sounds familiar, speaking to somebody helps, and speaking to them sooner helps far more. Gamblers Anonymous holds free peer support groups in a great many countries, local meetings across India among them. Treatment for gambling addiction – a recognised condition with established treatment available – can be arranged through a doctor or a licensed counsellor. Where distress is immediate, get in touch with local emergency services or with a mental health helpline covering your area.

About the odds

Commercial gaming products are built, without exception, to return less over time than they collect. Sessions vary one to the next and wins genuinely happen, but across the long run the mathematics runs against the player. Any system, tip service or strategy claiming to overturn that warrants serious doubt.

For anything raised on this page, or to flag a concern about an account, write to [email protected].