Hidden dangers of gambling online

Gambling online can be fun. Sometimes I’ve seen myself wasting away an entire night playing fun casino’s where their slots have transported me to an alternative world of wonder and euphoria. It can also be a great way to meet people. A lot of casino’s have communities and with the wonders of the world wide web we can often find ourselves in friendships with other users of the casino, or casinos.

But there is a darker side to gambling, one that can absolutely destroy your life if you let it.

I’ll tell you a story.

On my wedding day my wife and I invited a couple that had been married for nearly 30 years. A lovely couple, my wife had known them since she was a little girl.

When they arrived, we noticed that something was off. After a good chat in the reception we found out that they were looking to get divorced. You see, her husband had found the wonderful world of online casino’s and had gambled everything away. Like, literally, everything. The bailiffs came in and took everything away. Left her sitting on the floor.

You see he had been gambling for quite some time. He had “just been trying to win what he had lost back” and before he knew it, he had gambled everything away. Their belongings, their house, everything.

But I understand it a little. How this could happen. With gambling online there’s no usher to kick you out because it’s closing time. There’s no-one to monitor your losses, or even mental health. Even the current precautions on the casino’s can be overridden by telling them that you don’t need any help with managing your finances – and they won’t push you because the online casino’s need to make their cut too.

It’s even worse too if you have a pre-disposition to addiction. People with addictive personalities generally tend to be vulnerable around high risk financial pursuits. There is a chance that winning may fire up those dopamine receptors in the brain and once they start lighting up like Christmas then that’s it – it’s hard to pull back.

Gambling has a negative stigma because of the rate that you can lose. You can essentially lose all that you own in a day if you wanted to. But the chance of winning a tremendous is amount is there. And often it can bring amazing highs when big wins are achieved, and of course that brings with it a feeling of elation.

Addiction is seeking that elation, that is all. Stimulating the dopamine receptors in your brain gives you that “high feeling.” I guess in Layman’s terms that would be thrill seeking. This is why there’s a lot of people that are addicted to gambling. The online world of gambling doesn’t do much to push back against addiction. And doing it from your home makes it a lot easier.

However, you can’t blame the tool (the Casino).

A mobile phone is a tool. You can use it to create life saving apps in the third world, or you can use it to detonate a bomb in a school. The choice is ultimately yours.

Gambling responsibly is a thing. You can set aside money that you are absolutely prepared to and willing to lose, that won’t create you any financial difficulties, and use that. Then that will safeguard you from doing anything silly. Give your partner your money so that you can’t use anymore, or perhaps even have a card that you only use to gamble with, and it has a limited amount in the bank associated with it.

Ultimately the choice is, and always will be, yours. Gambling is a form of entertainment, and we wish for nothing more then people to enjoy themselves. We would never want to see anyone gamble more then they can afford to lose, but sadly that does happen from time to time. But for our readers, please remember to enjoy yourself, and never play with more then you can afford to lose.