Gambling can be quite fun if you know what you are doing and enjoy your time spent gambling. When it turns into a lifestyle as opposed to a hobby, then you need to look at your gambling habits and ask yourself whether you are happy with the amount of money you are investing in gambling. Since the advent of online betting websites, gambling has become much more accessible and a greater number of people are getting involved. Here are a few tips to follow to ensure that you gamble responsibly and don’t let it control your life.

Remember that you started off gambling to enjoy yourself and maybe make a bit of money along the way, but primarily people gamble to make Saturday afternoons more interesting as they have a few pounds riding on a football match. As soon as gambling becomes predominantly a way to make money and you become dependent upon it to fund your lifestyle, you need to look at how much money you are investing and see whether the rewards are worth it.

Set strict limits on how much you are going to bet during each session. Obviously this will vary for different people, depending on how confident they are at winning it back. You can do this by looking at how much money you are willing to lose. It might be advisable to set a limit 10% lower than this, because if you get into the habit of gambling, you may be willing to bet a little bit more at the end, so you have this 10% to fall back on to if need be. If you have reached your limit and have made a loss, don’t be tempted to try and win back this loss by gambling more money – more often than not, it will not work.

One of the best bits of advice to take not of is this: quit while you’re ahead! If you’ve made a profit from your gambling then you’ve probably gotten more than you bargained for – so take advantage and stop gambling. The odds are stacked in favour of the bookmaker, so don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can hit a “winning streak”, because it is often down to luck of the draw.

By David Field