Before you place a single bet, decide how much you are prepared to lose, and stop when that amount is gone. Every other habit on this page builds on that limit, because a figure fixed while you are calm is far more reliable than one chosen in the middle of a session.
Practical Habits
Treat the amount you set aside as already spent. If you think of it as the price of an evening's entertainment rather than as money you expect back, a loss stays within what you planned and a win is a surprise rather than a target.
Never chase a loss. Raising stakes to recover what is gone feels like a correction, but each bet carries the same odds as the last. Chasing only increases the amount at risk, usually at the moment your judgement is weakest.
Keep gambling out of borrowed money. Credit cards, loans or money meant for rent and bills turn a loss into debt that keeps costing you long after the session ends. If the money is not yours to lose, it is not money to gamble with.
Take regular breaks. Time passes quickly during play, and stepping away gives you a chance to check your spending against the limit you set and to notice whether you are still enjoying yourself.
Involve someone else early. When gambling stops being entertainment, tell a person you trust or contact an independent organisation before the problem grows. Waiting usually means the losses and the stress are larger when you finally ask. Independent help is linked from this page, as it is from every page of this site:
- BeGambleAware
- Gamble Aware
- Gambling Therapy
- G GamCare Gambling Support: Starts Here
- NCPG
These are the only outbound links on the site that are not commercial. Unlike the operator links, they carry no sponsored marking. They are set to nofollow and open in a separate tab on each organisation's own website. This site receives nothing when you follow one. The eighteen-and-over restriction is repeated throughout the site, including on the front page.
Site Limits
This site cannot act for a reader who wants to stop. It has no account, no form and no server-side application. Nothing published here can switch on, check or enforce any control over your play. Spending caps, loss caps, reality checks, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion are arrangements you make inside your own account at the destination, so look for them there.
Nobody's age is verified on this site, and no gambling takes place on it. Any check of that kind happens at the destination you choose to visit.
No advertising or behavioural profiling network is present in these pages, so nothing here is aimed at a reader because of how they have behaved. If you follow an outbound link, the site you arrive at keeps its own record of your visit, and this site has no control over what it does with that record.