Lesson
Staying Safe While Gambling
Learn how to safeguard your play, and ensure you don’t experience unnecessary gambling harm.
Staying Safe While Gambling
Nobody wants to experience gambling harm, but gambling is an inherently risky activity. No matter what you do, there is no completely safe way to gamble. However, there are things you can do to gamble safer.
In this lesson, we’ll explore practical steps we can take to manage the risk of our gambling activity and what to do if things start to go wrong.
Effectively Managing Risk
Rock climbing in another risky activity that's also fun and exhilarating. In fact, the risk is part of what makes it fun and exhilarating. But you'd be a little crazy to climb without a rope and some knowledge of the face you're scaling (sorry, Alex Honnold!).
The first thing that comes to mind as "at risk" with gambling is money. However, gambling presents risk to your time, attention, mood, health and relationships as well.
With gambling, managing risk, in whatever way it presents, comes down to a combination of 3 strategies:
Reducing your exposure
Maintaining self-awareness
Having an escape plan
There are lots of different tools to help us accomplish these strategies. Let’s explore each category, and see how they work in action.
Reducing Your Exposure
This category of tools helps you limit how much financial risk you’re willing to expose yourself to. Think of it as different anchor points on the rock wall. If we slip, how far are we willing to fall before our safety equipment kicks in? Here are three "anchor points" to build a safety scaffold.
Basic Financial Management
This includes tracking wins and losses, setting win-loss limits, and monitoring overall spending.
Bank Limits
Set limits on how much money you can withdraw at ATMs for in-person gambling. You do this through your bank., and it can help avoid overspending when gambling in person.
Limits At Gambling Operators
If you’re gambling online, you can utilize responsible gaming features within most apps to accomplish this. If you have a hard time finding time or wager limits, alerts, and other tools, you can contact support and they will happily point you in the right direction.
Maintaining Self-Awareness
This category of tools helps you stay connected to your gambling behavior, and how it’s showing up in your life. The way we gamble can change, and can be influenced by other things we’re going through. By maintaining our awareness, we can be quick to respond to any negative outcomes of our gambling.
Tracking
Tracking your gambling activity gives you a baseline and something tangible to look back on to assess what's going on. You can do this in Evive.
Self-Reflection
We’ll also encourage you to keep a record of how you feel while gambling by asking questions along the way. This helps you track your emotions and triggers, leading to better self-awareness.
Check in on your Patterns
You can view your behavior patterns right in the app by checking the Progress tab. Make changes based on the patterns you see.
Having an Escape Plan
These are tools you can use if you find yourself struggling to control your gambling, or recognize signs of distress.
Walking Away
Before you start a gambling, set an amount for both maximum win and loss. Stop and walk away when you've hit that amount for a win, and when you hit that number loss.
Time-Outs
Online operators offer the ability to take breaks from gambling. During this time, you can't access your accounts or make bets, giving you a chance to cool off.
Community Support
Use the Evive Community to ask questions, share your experiences, and tips for building a healthier relationship with gambling. Peer support can be invaluable.
Friends & Family
Your friends and family can be effective in helping hold you accountable, or providing support when you’re struggling.
Professional Help
If you are struggling to control your gambling, or the stress of doing so is mounting, we encourage you to seek professional help. You can find different tools to connect with a professional in your Toolkit.
Let's Reflect
Are you using any tools to proactively prevent gambling harm today? If not, which tools do you feel may be most helpful to you?
Reflect on the people in your life whom you can turn to for support when facing challenges related to gambling. If you did start to experience harms, or felt like you were losing control, who would you turn to first?
Closing Thought
Even if you feel totally in control of your gambling today, remember that gambling behavior can change over time due to various factors, including shifts in personal circumstances, emotional states, and external influences.
Understanding how gambling behavior can change and being prepared to address these changes is crucial for maintaining a healthy relationship and minimizing the risk of developing gambling-related problems.